Tichy

How would "egalitarism" be relevant? Does that imply that every profession should have 50:50 men and women?

If egalitarism were a significant motivator, then there would have to be the same push for garbage women as for IT women. Since there is no push for garbage women, egalitarism disqualifies as a reason.

I suspect there are two reasons why men would push for more women in IT:

- lower wages because of higher competition (the employer's incentive)

- more "attractive" workplace wink wink (the employee's perspective)

I know it's not politically correct to say that, but don't shoot the messenger.

I don't think men feel the need for more "female perspectives" in programming. Especially as they wouldn't even know what those would suppose to be.

Women (feminists) push for more women in tech because they have seen some people become rich via tech jobs and feel left out. They don't push for more garbage women and so on.

Mention some of those things, then.

I suppose programming Microcontrollers for appliances, but I have never seen job postings for that (although they must exist). Might be because I didn't look at C jobs, though.

What I meant is also that most apps these days can be coded as web apps, and it is difficult to justify not doing so.

Still, few moms are likely to be computer experts.

Just curious, what would have happened if you hadn't battled her to go to sleep?

It's cool and inspiring, but having clicked through some of the sites I think it is actually an arts project, rather than an attempt at learning coding. As an art installation it works very well, and Jennifer said she is an artist originally, so I suspect that is what is really behind it.

I'd reconsider learning coding that way, though, because too many sites seem to have little enduring value. I suspect by tackling a "deeper" project for 180 days one could learn coding just as well, but have more to show for. Unless you are an artist, in which case this result is great.

The most inspiring aspect for me is actually the sticking to a plan for 180 days.

It's getting difficult to justify coding anything else, though.

What exactly did they patent? Surely calculating the odds of inherited traits was not invented by 23andMe?

No rate limits?

Can't load the page. But I wonder, is it possible to grab all Facebook profile pictures (or at least the public ones), or were they given special access for research purposes?

Yeah but I think they said the shoes cost 79$ for non-members and 30$ for members (don't recall the exact prices). So you could wonder what they get out of membership to make up for that.

I think the law in Germany is very specific in how obvious it has to be what is being purchased and what it costs. Some mention somewhere in the fine print is certainly not enough. I've heard they even specify texts for the buttons, it has to be something like "buy now" to make it clear that the action will lead to costs.

I think it's a scam, however I'd like to point out that by virtue of being honest, it could be avoided. If you are honest, you'll think "this is too good to be true", and rather than thinking "ha ha, fools, they'll make a minus on this and I get cheap shoes" you'll look closely for a catch.

That's not an excuse for the company at all, of course.

That looks better, but doesn't mention that the membership comes with a monthly fee. Pretty sure it is illegal in Germany.

I think the law in Germany even states what kind of text is appropriate on the "buy now" button.

Are you kidding? Even though I knew what I was looking for in that image, it took me a long time to find the information that there will be a charge every month. It is at the very bottom of the page, in the fine print.

I believe you that you believe in the honesty of the company, and that you have the best intentions. Clearly this semi-scam works for you, but if you really want to feel good about yourself, I recommend stepping on that companies toes and make them present the information in an obvious way.

Also wondering about the law - I am pretty sure that here in Germany that kind of thing wouldn't fly, meaning customers wouldn't be obliged to pay up (although some probably would because they don't know that). Are there no customer protection laws in the US?

I was awake during colonoscopy, too, no issues. I also was awake during screening of the stomach, where you have to swallow the stomach probe (or whatever it is). Not sure I would opt for that again.

I was never under the impression that I could just buy any notebook that has an Ultrabook sticker and get the equivalent to an MBA. So I guess I don't really care about the brand - I care about getting a lightweight, powerful notebook.

So they can't stop Amazon from selling the book?

If they really want to make a good cut, they should sell the ebook on their own web site.

Are you sure they only use one domain? Perhaps for analytics, but there is also adsense, doubleclick and who knows what else.

If you don't use it, it's probably hard to understand.

I don't understand why people don't like Ultrabooks. They like MacBook Airs, so what's wrong about creating slim and lightweight notebooks in general?

That some vendors produce crap is irrelevant. But there are nice offerings out there.

I've seen a Samsung in the shop recently that looked and felt great. They only screwed it up in offering max 4GB RAM and their lineup is so confusing that I don't even know which one I would have to look at online. But that is not a general issue of "Ultrabooks".

Great picture, those machines remind me of the turrets from portal 2

Best to stay on Unbuntu's long term releases.

It would be so much easier if people could get the content in whatever way they see fit and pay the content creator directly.

True, I just thought of that and came back here to add that :-)

What the Bitcoin experiment taught me is that I am not a very good investor... The good part of mining was that I did it for fun, so there wasn't much to lose. The mining rig is now my new gaming computer. So even if I hadn't made any money at all, at least I would have gained a new gaming rig. In that sense it was a good speculation, for me personally (no real downsides but potential upsides).

I felt that by mining I also supported the idea of BitCoin, so it had ideological value for me, too.

Amusing how "we" can rationalize everything - love the "product is mature" line of reasoning. So if a company stops innovating, we can now say it is an indicator of maturity :-)

I did it for fun two years ago and made a plus.

Since the future price of Bitcoin is unknown, at the end of the day you can not really decide if mining is profitable with maths.

I stopped mining when I generated less money than I spent for electricity (the gear had already been paid off). However, back then the exchange rate was maybe 5$. If I had known that it would be 100$ two years later, perhaps I could have mined longer.

A cartoon comes to mind of somebody staring at a chart of the increasing smoke in their house while the fire starts to eat away their computer screen.

I'd like to have that on a dashboard, too - smoke levels in the building. Very comforting most of the time.

(Sorry for the humor - I am sure they have thought of some worthwhile use cases).

It saddens me a bit that the most exciting aspect of a new Apple product is it's color.

Being bought by Microsoft was already their ideal scenario when they took Elop on board.