Posts by Trevor_Pott 6991 publicly visible posts • joined 31 May 2010
I don't know about that. You make the rather large assumption that humans will make it out of the anthropocene. I see no reason to assume this.
Mass extinctions generally end up totally disrupting the ecosphere. Ecosystems suffer right down to the primary producers (and pollinators!) which ultimately ends up with the collapse of higher order food webs. We have no way of knowing if humans will survive that. At our current level of technology we would not. Will we develop the ability to survive without pollinators, let alone other primary and secondary producers?
If we can't survive, why would any of our dependent species do so? Even if we do survive, will there be enough scraps for the birds (or the bees?) That's before we start assessing the kind of damage currently occurring to the oceans. If the oceans go, we've had it.
So I think it's a crapshoot. We don't have enough data to know how it's all going to play out for our species, let alone any of the others. Hopefully some will make it. I'd like to think Earth has one more shot at sentient life before it moves too far our of the habitable zone. (500M years, give or take.)
A) Dinosaurs were not cold blooded
B) They didn't get wiped out. Avian dinosaurs survived. (Small ones, mostly).
C) Some large animals (crocodilians) survived.
Why did the dinosaurs die out? Size, mostly. But also that they needed to eat rather a lot, and on a regular basis. Crocodiles, for example, don't eat much and they can survive off carrion for a long, long time. That's why they survived. Small avian dinosaurs and small mammals probably survived for the same reason. A combination of being omnivorous, small and able to live off carrion. Wide global distribution helps too.
Most mammals (individuals) and mammal species, as well as avians and avian species probably died off. But there were so bloody many of them in so many diverse little niches that they basically could live off the dead and dying for generations. At least until plants started to grow again and the planet began the very long, slow, miserable path towards healing.
I wonder what major species groups will make it through the anthropocene?
Well, the Deccan traps were already acting up, but the Yucatan impact probably punched it into overdrive. What's more, the impact likely dislodged a few methane clathrates which lead to some additional oceanic die-off, and caused the climate to yo-yo around for some time, ringing like a bell until it stabilized. In all, the Yucatan impact event could hardly have happened at a worse time. There was such a convergence of miserable events, it's kind of amazing so many major strains survives.
Crocodilians, Amphibians, Lizards, Birds, Mammals and a lot of water-based life all made it through. But land and ocean fauna above a certain size didn't...and a lot of different types of plants were simply wiped out. The K-T event was huge. Not nearly as huge as the P-T extinction or the current anthopocene extinction, but still very much a major extinction event.
If we were around then, we would not have survived. Nothing our size would have. And that's worth pondering for those who believe space exploration is a waste of time.
"That's not your Grandfather's Microsoft. And that's no bad thing."
So the catch is elsewhere. You download the upgrade and then three months later men in black suits bankrupt you, kill your family and pets in front of you? I'd not put it past the bastards. They'd probably charge you a "per user" fee for each of your loved ones they killed while they're at it.
Microsoft doesn't do things that benefit others. Anything that looks like they might be turning over a new leaf is just one more attempt to suck you in so that they can PlaysForSure you or strangle you slowly with horrific VDA-like licensing. Trust them and they'll do the financial equivalent of stealing your kidneys and leave you to die in a bathtub full of ice.
Good technology - even great technology - isn't enough. Condescension for customers, developers, partners and staff is so fundamentally ingrained in that company that every seemingly beneficial development is a feint within a feint aimed at screwing all of us.
They'll probably create a UI that everyone likes and then change it something that required Microsoft-proprietary 3d glasses and can only be manipulated using Kinect. Just so they can laugh at the silly numpties who thought for a fraction of a second something nice had happened.
An no, I'm not bitter. This is me feeling generous today.
Amazon may have had a few outages - and frankly, Microsoft's uptime is worse - but outages are not related to nixing (or PlaysForSureing) customers. Microsoft is the one with the reputation for overt condescension towards customers, developers, partners and staff combined with a history of cutting every valuable program and reneging on ever important promise they've made.
Amazon has not - to my knowledge - screwed their customers in grandiose Redmondian fashion even once. Microsoft are not trustworthy. Amazong might be. And "might" is a hell of a lot better than you'll get from Microsoft. Microsoft will betray you, me and everyone else. It's only a matter of time.
Microsoft can not be trusted. And they don't give a fuck about that, either. They have no intention of earning anyone's trust because they don't feel they need to do so.
Cloud vendors? Anyone But Microsoft, thanks. I've learned my lessons the hard way.
Citizen 1, you have not performed the required amount of cardiovascular exercise as per the computer specifications and you have eaten items that are not on the optimal list in quantities that differ from your schedule. Your insurance premiums are now $875 per day. To reduce your premiums you will follow the exact regimen laid out by the computer.
Citizen 2, the computer has determined that you have genetic predispositions towards three diseases considered expensive to treat. You are uninsurable and have been banned from receiving medical treatment, as society has determined that it will only spend its resources on individuals with a class 7 or lower risk category. As such the risk of employing you has risen to the point that now employer will employ you; they will not expend time and money training you when there are lower risk citizens that are easily acquired. Suicide booths are provided for your convenience.
NEXT!
No, you're actually an idiot. There's lots of stuff that could happen to the Earth that would wipe out any underground colonies. Especially if they didn't use a closed system. Plus, Earth is tectonically active; those colonies have extra risks there that they simply don't on Ceres or Vesta. (I never said the moon. The moon is a ridiculous place to colonize.)
Survivability of the species is about not having all your eggs in one basket. That means as many colonies as possible. Earth will eventually die. Period. Nothing we can do will stop that. It will be a lifeless ball of rock a billion years before the sun consumes it. Indeed, according to our best estimates there is less than a billion years left to this planet's ecosphere, probably less than half a billion during which it can support sentient life on the surface.
There is no good reason to stay on Earth except sentimentality. Earth is a great big gravity well where most of the really useful elements for high technology sank to the core long ago. Other than offering a magnetic feild and a trapped Oxygen/Nitrogen atmosphere it doesn't offer a hell of a lot we can't get elsewhere, and it has it's own problems to overcome.
What we need is to have colonies in small gravity wells. Ones where the cost of leaving the gravity well is negligible. We need colonies that can access resources like platinum group metals which make various flavors of high technology much easier. We need colonies that are not only self sufficient, they have enough resources to build colonies of their own.
You make the ridiculous statement that Earth having colony worlds decreases the chances of the human race surviving. You don't explain how that is possible. You just assert.
Would people on the colony world have increased risk compared to Earth? Yes. At first. Eventually, however, they'd adapt, the colony would grow and it would be as safe as Earth. Safer, actually, given that Earth seems to be filled with 7 billion humans all intent on wiping eachother out, while a colony would not only be a smaller and more homogenous population, they'd be focused on survival, not conquest.
And that - right there - is the biggest reason to leave Earth. Even if you have some sort of religious belief which prevents you from understanding that things like metor strikes can and will wipe out Earth-bound humans, the sad truth of it is that we will probably wipe ourselves out on this planet before long.
Humanity must spread to the stars in order to outrun it's own worst nature. It's as simple as that.
Adding colony worlds doesn't reduce the possibility of those on Earth surviving. It does make Earth irrelevant to humanity's survival in the long term.
The fact that you have such a fantastically poor understanding of science that you A) think we should live on the surface of a planet in a big gravity well as a colony world and B) think that a colony is particularly hard (as opposed to merely outrageously expensive) means you shouldn't be allowed to have this conversation at all.
We know how to survive in space. The #1 problem with space colonization isn't survival. It's that getting the materials needed to survive requires hauling them out of this accursed gravity well. Fortunately, that isn't a problem, long term.
We can send robots to Vesta and Ceres to refine the elements required for survival, construct structures, and prepare the way for colonists. We can - with enough money - assemble a ship that either has a massive fission-based power source which could generate a magnetic shield, or enough lead shielding to protect colonists on the journey.
That is all that we need. Once on Vesta or Ceres, with an army of mining robots at their command, the colonists will be able to create new ships and new colonies for a fraction the cost that could be accomplished on Earth. They will never want for space to expand, never have to murder eachother over ideology. If they want a place to practice their own vision of how things should be, they can just pack up and go. The entire universe will be waiting for them to do so.
Earth is a cage, not a lifeboat. This big, fat gravity well is a prison. The goal is not - and never should be - to create new Earths. It is to move beyond the need for such an incubator, and to explore the stars without the requirement for one large ball of rock filled with billions of us that can't get along.
All we need is that first little push. Not the moon, or Mars...but to new resources within easy reach and whose acquisition won't trap us for millennia. Earth is just one planet. It's not relevant in the grand scheme of things. Try not to get too attached.
We don't want to go to another planet because it will be safer for the individual than being here. The individual doesn't matter any more than the planet does. We want to make colonies both because we want to explore and because those on a colony world are safe when something does eventually happen to Earth.
Are the colony worlds more likely to experience catastrophic problems than Earth? Yes. But enough of them ensures humanity's survival. Whereas staying on Earth alone ensures humanity's demise. Eventually, all planets - and all colonies - will die. Every single person, no matter where they are, will die. But our species might survive, if we spread far enough - and fast enough - to outrun not only nature's worst tantrums...but ourselves as well.
There are two great places to move to in relatively easy reach: Ceres and Vesta. You don't need an atmosphere or a magnetic shield. You build underground. What's awesome about Ceres and Vesta is that they have lots of important minerals that we'll need for construction, lots of water and low gravity.
If you put a half kilometer of rock between you and space then you have a lovely shield against all sorts of radiation. Underground, building sealed pressurized environments is easy. There's enough gravity that with some relatively unspecified equipment we can maintain bone density, but still low enough gravity to make getting in and out of the gravity well very inexpensive.
More to the point, both Ceres and Vesta are large enough that they can sustain sizable populations for quite some time...and they are in the middle of the main belt, so sending mining vessels out for additional volatiles or rare metals is cheap and easy.
I don't know why you think a colony has to sit on the surface of some rock with a big gravity well. That seems silly to me.
Based on that config, I suspect you have no management interfaces open to the net. I've seen stock home routers pwned in under an hour by placing them directly on a modem because they had management ports open to the net.
So with basic security you can get away with more stability. Without it - or where you have a production requirement for more risk - I suspect that security updates mean a lot more.
If you don't want to be tracked, don't turn it on.
If you want civil liberties, don't use any of the tools required to participate fully in modern society, hold a well paying job or even obtain such a job in the first place. Why stop there? Why don't you just tell people that if they don't like what governments and corporations do in their name they should kill themselves? Fascist.
"My point was, if we think that security researchers are just one slap in the face -- "free! T-shirt! Yay!" -- from becoming criminals, why are all programmers going to be pearly white?"
They aren't. That's why independent security testing is required.
Insider threats are something every company has to consider.
"This is a Board level issue. Someone saves you a $m+ hit from a hack a script kiddie could mount at any time and you want to hand them a f**king tee shirt? How about $100k instead?"
The answer is quite simply arrogance. Given the contempt that a lot of these companies have for their own customers, partners and staff, what makes anyone think that they'd have greater consideration for security researchers?
The size of the company doesn't matter either. Lots of SMBs - in my experience software developers are the worst for this - believe they simply know better than everyone else. Their vision is so pure, their execution so flawless and their designs so beyond reproach that anyone who questions them is not merely an affront to their genderhood, they are blashemers.
Consider, for example, Microsoft's approach to the Metro UI. Customers, partners, developers and staff who didn't like it were considered apostates and cast out. That same contemptuous arrogance resonates throughout the industry, ultimately resulting in a - to put things politely - "combative" relationship with security researchers.
It's also why in-house penetration testing and security research is so often left until repeated failures force the issue: the consideration is not merely one of money or "shareholder value". To accept that such things are required is an painful affront to the ego, self importance and exceptionalism of powerful alpha nerds that run the place.
It's easy to point to majors like Yahoo! and say "that t-shirt thing was board-level penny pinching", but even with a company that large it isn't that simple. The issue has to be raised with the board. Who is going to do that? The devs? For all the reasons above, that's unlikely. And once it is raised, what is the board going to do...probably talk to the devs and see if it is "really necessary".
This is why I think the BugCrowd guidelines are a great idea, and something sorely needed in our industry. They are an objective standard that you can present to a board. You can say "here is the best practice, regardless of what the alpha nerds say."
You will likely never convince the superprogramer owner/operator startups that this is required...but it should help convince companies like Yahoo in the future. Any company where the board isn't made up of alpha nerds with a personal investment in the code itself should be able to be convinced by something like the BugCrowd guidelines.
It's sad that we need stuff like this...but it is very human that we do.
As I understand it, Tyrannasaurids probably had feathers as juveniles, but lost them as they gained adulthood. (Much in the same way some birds go from down to feathers.) The idea being that the feathers provided insulation to juveniles, but that as adults their biggest issue was actually how to lose heat, not retain it.
"And generally, that copy is inferior to the original, so that while it may appear identical to human eyes or ears, it will be very different at the bit level..."
Did you drink a gallon of draino before posting? What does it matter if the copy is different if that copy happens to be identical to human eyes or ears? The media exists to be consumer by human eyes and ears. Nonhuman sentiences can make their own damned content.
"Why on earth are you offering a choice and doubling your support workload?"
Because I respect people as human beings and don't see them merely as offal. My users do not exist to do my bidding, I exist to ensure that they have the most efficient possible tools to accomplish their tasks.
A new UI is not more efficient simply because some developers say that this is so. If you've worked with a UI so long that all basic tasks are entirely autonomic then switching away from that UI is highly inefficient. Any supposed efficiencies of the new UI must be pretty damned impressive to be worth the switch.
I am also aware that not everyone is the same. Not everyone learns the same things at the same pace and not everyone has time to learn a new UI just because I feel like pushing it down.
It is my job to provide a stable and efficient working environment for the people I serve. In turn, I will only give my money to companies that provide tools that help me meet this goal. If several tools are available that can meet the goal, then I will choose the tools from the company which has most proven itself to respect choice, because providing that choice is an intrinsic part of meeting the diverse requirements of the very human people that I serve.
You, personally, might be as asshole alpha geek with a god complex, but I don't need to wave my phallus around and proclaim it mighty. In fact, I have nothing but contempt and loathing for those who do, be they sysadmin or developer.
Sysadmins serve users and vendors serve sysadmins. End of.
Edit: to answer your question about why should Mozilla/Microsoft/etc maintain two UIs the answer is simple: because they have absolutely no way of knowing which is better until it's been deployed to the mass market. They can run every study they want, every beta they want, but it's end user acceptance that is all that matters. Creating a new UI and saying "this is how it is Und Zou Vill Like Ut" is the height of arrogance. I don't tolerate arrogance in my vendors at all.
By all means, create a new UI. But make it optional. If it's better than the old UI then over time people will switch voluntarily. Eventually those using the old UI will be in a distinct minority. Then you can release the code for that old UI and let the community manage it, if there's interest.
That is a respectful and orderly way to transition from one UI to another. The Microsoft and Mozilla model is nothing but contempt manifested as code. Why the hell should I support any vendor who treats me with contempt?
By extension, why should any business or group of users put up with a sysadmin who treats them with contempt? We provide a service. We don't dictate terms.
See, the problem is that it doesn't take "just ten minutes" to get the UI back. You can get part of the way there in 10 minutes, but at best that's 80% of the functionality, and it still has an issue where things that used to be in the status tray end up to the right of search bar instead. Not good enough.
And yes, it is an issue to distribute the file, especially in an environment where users will log into a mixture of stateful and stateless VDI instances, and where I expect to be able to push out the file to my users so that they don't experience a change in UI, but where if they choose to change the UI, their choice is respected.
Funny that. Respecting choice.
And you're damned right I expect to have a choice regarding every single major UI change to every single piece of software I use. As the customer, why shouldn't I? It is a standard I enforce on any developer I pay for my software and if they don't feel like complying then fuck them.
It's not that hard a concept, really: offer customers choice. Let them decide if your new idea is better than your old idea. Don't Microsoft your customers and tell them "it's for their own good". That's bullshit.
The correct way to have handled this on Mozilla's part would have been to have a little dialogue box pop up when Firefox started that said "Hi there, we made a new UI. We think the benefits of this new UI are A, B, C and D. If you want to use the new UI hit this button. If you want to use the old UIs (both the truly classic UI and the one we now call classic) then hit this button. You can change at any time by going here and clicking this."
Bam. Problem solved. Users have choice. They can shift from old to new at their leisure, or not at all. There's no plugin. There's no cursing at the fucking thing because it gets part of the way towards the old UI but never quite all the way. You are asked if you want the new UI, and if not, you are given the old UI with zero fucking around.
That's the experience I strive to give my users, and I consider anyone - developer or fanboy sycophant - who seeks to deny me (or anyone else) that choice to be an outright soulless bastard. Fuck all such people. With a tractor. Sideways.
Maybe with enough work I could make the UI into what it was before, and thus how I want it to be. "Distributing" it to my users then would be another challenge, as the corporate management capabilities of Firefox are quite shit, so I get to come up with new scripting methods. And of course, after all that effort, assuming that it actually recreates the old UI - which I am not convinced of - there's zero guarantee they won't just decide to screw me again.
Alternately, I can take my custom elsewhere, cease all my donations to Mozilla and tell them to go fuck themselves. They decided to force an unwelcome change upon me in a very Microsoft manner with the justification that if I did whole bunch of extra work I could sort of have things somewhat like the way they were. For now.
Nope. Fuck that, fuck the developers and fuck anyone and everyone who thinks that's an acceptable way to do things. You don't pull the rug out from under people then tell them it's their fault because they aren't willing to do the hard work of sewing a new rug to stand on.
If there is a change that you as the developer want to see occur then it's your job to convince me as the user that I should embrace it. If I don't want to embrace it then you should give me the choice of sticking with what I like and know. If not, I go elsewhere, and take my money with me. I have no moral obligation to continue supporting any company that refuses to meet my needs.
@fibbles
No home button. I only see a back button, not a back and a forward. No "star" button for enabling bookmarks. Buttons for common apps like lastpass, ghostery and refcontrol aren't visible, so I am unsure if you just don't have them installed, or you UI doesn't show them.
There doesn't appear to be a bottom status bar, so I'm unsure how integration of things like TrackMeNot works, and it gives the impression that it will be one of those ADD nightmare "appears when it wants to, disappears when it wants to" sort of things. No idea where NoScript shows up in your config.
Your config may look superficially like a usable browser, but it's missing a lot of the critical elements.
"It looks exactly like the previous version here." probably because you used the default UI for the previous version and not the truly "classic" UI that was obtained by enabling the menus. You know, the actually usable UI? The one without the stupid single "Firefox" pull-down button/menu thing?
"Alternatively, install the Classic Theme Restorer extension. It reverts the fucking awful new interface to a usable one."
No it doesn't. Not without a LOT of fucking around. Even then, you can't get something that's exactly like the true classic theme. You know, the theme you got when you enabled menus on the previous version? You just sort of end up with an awkward abomination. Worst of all, there's no way to create a configuration that's "mostly usable" and then push it out to all users. You have to set it up manually for each user/system you install on.
Awesome.
Oh, I don't. But unlike certain anonymous cowards, I don't drop my pants and cream for England every time I think of the Beast of Redmond. Microsoft is not doing particularly well. They've kept their EPS relatively flat, but only with sacrifice. They've had to murder everything good about the company and have put concerted effort into pissing off customers, partners, developers and staff.
Being "second in the cloud space" means fuck all. They are a distant second, when compared to AWS, and that cloud revenue is still fractional compared to what Microsoft was making on it's traditional markets. Markets that it is busy ceding to Apple and Google, I might add.
So let me be perfectly clear, Anonymous Coward, what I think about you and the fact that you perpetually fellate Microsoft using lies, damned lies, twisted facts and outright fabrications: I think you truly are a coward. I think you're the lowest kind of scum on earth because you won't even put your name to your comments, and yet you actively try to hoodwink and bamboozle good people on a regular basis. I think you're a vile, despicable, horrible person and I hope a lot of very, very horrible things happen to you. Anonymously. Over and over.
If you are going to lie repeatedly at people, put your fucking name to it so that we can choke you with proof of the fallacy of your words. Sitting in the shadows whispering sweet nothings about your corporate crush makes you worse than a marketing shill. I work with marking shill every day, and they at least tell you their goddamned name.
Now get the hell off my internet, you honourless bastard.
Actually, Microsoft is making a profit. But they're doing so by taking a page from the HP book; murdering everything good about the company and tactically doing away with products, services and staff with little-to-no regard for the strategic implications. They treat their customers, staff, partners and developers with overt contempt because the only thing that matters to Microsoft's brass right now is quarterly profits.
There is no strategy at play because the board has vetoed any such thing. the closest they can come is a massive gamble on "the cloud" and "mobile", but that's a sucker's game because you don't win at either of those by alienating your entire customer base and ecosystem. Both require trust, and "mobile" requires some semblance of "cool". Microsoft can't accomplish either while grasping at quarterly numbers with blatant desperation.
Compare to HP which has just come through that particular looking glass and is now desperately trying to invest in R&D, only to have a huge problem hiring decent talent; it seems nobody wants to work for HP anymore because their name is "mud" amongst the bright and shiny engineers of the world.
Yahoo! is viciously cutting the deadweight in a desperate attempt to stem the bleeding, but thye have no discernible long-term strategy at all.
Amazon, OTOH, makes losses for tax purposes. They are investing in massive, massive growth at the expense of profits because their play is "utter market dominance." The goal is to be the only name in the various games they play, so that when the others are beaten back they can turn the knobs, Oracle style, and extract as much revenue as they want.
Google is doing fine, thankyouverymuch, on the quarterly numbers and so is massively investing in R&D. They plan to become the world's first true megacorp, an American chabol with overtones of Weyland Yutani. They're patient and willing to put the money and research into it.
Apple have everything they want and seem to have found a balance between researching new products and markets and simply raking in the cash. They have created an aura of customer, partner and staff trust and that allows them to absolutely dominate the consumer market.
Dell have realised that Wall Street is interested only in slitting it's throat in the quest for quarterly gains and has gone private. The goal here is to reinvest massively in research and completely change the basis of the company. It's a long-term strategic play - and a huge gamble - but if I had spare dollars, I'd bet on Dell. They seem to know what needs to be done and are slowly, but surely setting about doing it.
IBM is in a bad place. Wall Street is baying for blood and IBM is having to sell itself off a piece at a time to keep them happy. Their R&D occupies a larger and larger % of revenue as they sell off their various tentacles but is demonstrating a fairly flat return. The only hope they have for survival is R&D, but they are unlikely to be allowed to keep it.
Lenovo looks at all the Americans and shrugs. They'll let the yanks bear the R&D costs, deal with Wall Street. They don't have the concerns the other do and so they have decided to do one thing, and do it well: sell as many widgets as possible as cheaply as possible. Since everyone else is abandoning the "selling commodity tangible widgets" game, Lenovo just sits on top of a pile of money grinning like a Chesire cat. The mass market belongs to them and they know it. Given this, they are investing in acquisitions and starting up proper R&D in order to plan for the future. Eventually, someone will make widgets cheaper than they can. They intend to be ready.
So none of these companies really directly compare to one another. They are all trapped with different problems and have different approaches and hurdles to overcome.
Well, I think the issue here is the question "were they grossly incompetent with their security"? My understanding is that yes, in fact, they were downright lax about security. After the compromise they doubled down on douchebaggery by proceeding to lie and cover up until they we provably caught out.
The settlement bit is them attempting desperately to dodge a full blown trail that would prove the above beyond a doubt. Which brings me to me "skewer the fuckers so that I can enjoy their mewling cries of agony, and leave them there until the insects strip the flesh from their bones and the sun bleaches those bones to the purest of white."
Millions of people smoke pot. Yet the cops still bang up people in jail for possession of minor quantities. Does the fact that so many individuals indulge in this harmless pastime change the fact of it's illegality?
"He did it too" is never an excuse. At best, if enough people "do it too" you can make enforcement of that law impractical. But it's still breaking the law.
And no, it isn't fair. What is fair is that the people who run the company get in the same sort of shit as would happen if an individual were to do transgress upon others in an equal fashion. Corporations should not get off lighter because they are corporations. They should be hurt just as hard as we hurt individuals. If we would ruin an individual for an infraction of this scale then we should ruin a corporation for the same thing. Then - and only then - will we see any fucks given whatsoever towards concepts like security.
Yep, sure, corporations are people. When they do wrong and affect the lives of thousands of people they get away with a slap on the wrist. A person who managed to inconvenience thousands of people - or cost hundreds/thousands of people thousands of dollars - would end up in jail, or faced with a fine that would bankrupt them.
Yep. Everything is fair and on the level. Move on, nothing to see here...
The way you phrased it A) would lock out all those of us who don't have a degree...and there's more of us than just make an "edge case". B) it sounded like you wanted to compare to the number of individuals graduating from the tech programs that year. I.E. that this year's graduates would somehow be representative of the industry...not remotely the case in IT.
@localzuk
Ultimately, in the fullness of time, the industry would ideally have a makeup that looks very much like the general population. To get there, we need to make IT seem open and friendly to individuals of all races and genders. I think, quite frankly, that should be the goal of all industries.
That said, if we are to judge the equality of hiring practices of a company, I believe we should judge the company based upon the gender/race composition of the available talent pool.
Judging a company based upon the gender/race composition of graduates will be dramatically out of step with the actual practicing talent pool in IT for the simple reason that the practicing talent pool - especially the older, more experienced individuals - is almost exclusively white and male.
By the same token, judging a company based upon the gender/race composition of the general population is outright bonkers because the available talent pool for our industry doesn't reflect the general populiaton at all.
Should we be putting effort into encouraging more diversity in individuals entering the feild? Absolutely. Should we punish, berate or chastise companies because they can't meet an arbitrary diversity standard when the talent pool they have to select from is so dramatically universe? Absolutely not.
If we go after Twitter/Google/etc and say "you need to have a diversity in your workforce that is roughly equal to the general population" or, worse, "you need to have a diversity in which all races are represented equally" we are crippling those companies. We are basically telling them "you must select only from amongst the youngest, most experienced graduated, and you must throw out white male applications, even if they are massively more qualified."
That has two very nasty effects. First, it dramatically depresses wages for white males, as they become persona non grata that only very small companies or those who flat out don't care about their public image will hire.
Second, it means a lot of very talented individuals who just happen to be white males can never contribute to the "big boys" because of the colour of their skin or because they posses a penis. This means that those smaller companies which pay less for their talent potentially get top quality labour, enough to drive the big guys out of business. This results in fewer jobs available for everyone, but also kills off the companies that were deeply invested in what I can only term "irrationally disproportionate false equality."
Unless there are a much higher % of really smart, talented people amongst non white males, the above seem inevitable to me. Mediocrity is okay under radically disproportionate false equality because the demand for bodies amongst a tiny potential pool of individuals will vastly outstrip any natural excellence-based selection pressures.
So what then? If you turn the Finger Of Shame towards these smaller, but now incredibly successful companies that are composed of cheap "reject" white male labour do you honestly think they're going to suddenly start having bad feels about the whole thing and slit their own throats they way they just watched their competition do? Or do you think they'll say "fuck it", stick their middle finger in the air and keep the "evil" white males on staff who made them successful?
So what then happens to those minorities? They go elsewhere, seek employment...but will they now face a stigma? A question around "are you getting the job because of diversity requirements, or because you're good at it? The last place you were at imploded!"
No. I think the best path forward is to work on encouraging diversity amongst those entering the feild and to leave those employing individuals the fuck alone. They have a hard enough time finding people who excel as it is without attempting to artificially limit the pool of talent from which they should be selecting. We need to accept that IT is radically UNdiverse as an industry, and that it will be for decades to come.
We shouldn't be punishing people for this. Using the stick is going to help noone. But careful application of the carrot will solve the problem in due time.
"I would point out that, while that's true, the graduate population is a much easier statistic to get and probably reflects the total population of appropriately qualified applicants. "
Except that's full of shit. The IT industry has a much higher % of white males as extant practitioners than graduates. New graduates are simply more diverse, and it is irrational to hold the whole industry to that standard. To do so would be to say to every white male "we're sorry, but because this industry existed for 30 years as overwhelmingly white and male we're going to massively limit your options for getting a job. Sorry you don't have any say in how you were born."
In an industry that has already largely achieved artificial equality then basing it off of graduate %s may be rational. For IT, however, it's not. People older than 25 don't just die off, you know. We keep working in the industry into our 70s.
Zocalo means "great marketplace". Someone at Amazon is a Babylon 5 fan.
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