Posts by ratfox

Yeah, it's rather that he said their brains make them prefer other jobs. To be clear, that's still controversial, and in my opinion deeply unconvincing, but still, a bit different.

At least the Edible Arrangements® Company is getting some publicity that way

I'm not sure they get anything from Google, but they certainly will become a bit more famous.

Re: Does Google really not get it?

The surprising thing is, Google only makes money when people click on ads... And Google makes a shitload of money. So yeah, somewhere, somehow, there must be a lot of people clicking on ads. I don't know who they are either.

As for why people are paying for ads... Well, maybe it's working for them. Or they're stupid. Who knows? In any case, Google is definitely getting it. The money, I mean.

Re: Such a pile of drivel

It should be a job for Congress... Unfortunately, Congress is so dysfunctional nowadays that it can barely manage to keep the lights on.

Re: Obviously the solution is....

Have you seen Wall-E?

Well realistically, there's not much governments can do, short of banning Facebook et al. They could maybe offer an ultimatum and a limit date, like starting from 2020, no private information is allowed to leave the continent, or your service is banned. But I'm not sure that if push came to shove, they would have the balls to actually go through with it.

Re: Oh how El Reg is fallen

It was well argued, moderate and does not contain any of the sentiments indicated in the El Reg article.

I could agree that it does not contain those sentiments, but I have to disagree with well-argued and moderate.

The thesis of the paper is that women make choices that are different from men, because they are on average biologically different from men. The conclusion is that Google should stop their diversity efforts, and not make their employees follow anti-bias training.

The paper does not claim that the biological differences are significant enough to explain all or even most of the difference in results between men and women. The paper does not give any argument that bias does not exist. The paper does not explain why the status quo is optimal and should be left as is. Without these arguments, all that's left of the paper is the conclusion that the author wanted to reach, and a single factoid that generally goes in the right direction.

This is in fact rather similar to what right-wing comments accuse the global warming argument from being: A single explanation (carbon pollution) is given for an effect (temperatures are going up); all other explanations are dismissed, and the conclusion is imposed.

Completely omitted: Diversity means racial diversity as well as gender diversity. It is well-documented that resumes wearing names that sound African-American are rejected more often than those wearing names that sound white. This is not only unfair, it reduces the pool of candidates to hire from, which means it is detrimental to businesses. Which is why businesses want their employees to follow anti-bias training. There is not a single word in the article that contradicts this; yet the article somehow concludes that Google should stop its efforts to raise diversity, and again that includes racial diversity just as much as gender diversity.

When I was 6, I received from the school an official reference textbook, whose very first illustration was full frontal nudity of a man and a woman.

Is UK generally more prude than the rest of Europe, or is it just a small fraction of vocal prudes pushing this through?

Re: Prefer authentication on the front of the phone

The iPhone sensor is a little bit too low for me to reach with my thumb (If I hold the phone by the bottom half, I always feel it's going to fall from my hand). So when I'm reaching for the phone in my pocket, I prefer the back sensor. But yeah, the front sensor is more convenient if the phone is lying on the table.

If the sensor can be under the screen, then they can put it in the middle of the screen, where it is easiest to reach. Or maybe they could put it on the side.

Re: Bitcoin fees

I refer @ratfox to previous posts on the subject, listing a long history of global gullibility, including black tulips, south sea bubbles, the Wall Street Crash and Welsh silver and lead mines.

For all of these, there was at least a claim that these things had intrinsic worth, or eventually were going to have one. The claim was wrong, but it existed.

To answer the incoming choir of voices about fiat money: Even for fiat money, there is an implicit assumption that the country issuing the money has an interest in having a semi-stable currency. For instance, the US government could technically pay their debts in one day by printing a single bill of $5 trillions and giving it to the Chinese. They're not doing it, because it would crash their economy into the stone age (along with most of the world). That's why people keep US instead of Zimbabwean dollars.

For Bitcoin, there is nothing of the sort. Under all the complex cryptography algorithm ensuring various interesting features, you are literally buying a number in a finite list. It is very much like fiat money, except that the country is only made of people who happen to be currently working with bitcoin, and any of them can leave that country at any time without losing anything. As long as everybody does not leave at once, Bitcoin keeps existing.