Google Santa Tracker Is Back 68
theodp writes: Google Santa Tracker is back, notes the Official Google Blog, and kids can brush up on their computer skills there with new coding games throughout the month. If they want to explore more Google coding projects, Santa Tracker advises kids to visit Made With Code, where they can learn how to "design a ZAC Zac Posen dress that turns heads and lights up a room." Made with Code, Google explains in its FAQS, is part of the company's $90M mission to creatively engage girls with code. Last year, Made With Code teamed with the National Park Service to make the lighting of the White House Christmas trees a girls-only coding project.
Girls only (Score:5, Insightful)
Boys graduate college at much lower rates than girls, get locked up at much higher rates (and for longer on average for the same crime), usually lose their kids and have to pay alimony and child support in a divorce (even if the women initiates and even in cases where she cuckolded him),
work longer hours (that's largely where the wage discrepancy comes from), and are still socially obligated to pay for things for their women
But yeah, girls need another advantage. Because girl power! And if you disagree with this you're sexist. And a rapist. And that's guilty until proven innocent on that rape charge, and even if it's proven innocent, your reputation is still tarnished. Girl power!
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It's less about giving an "advantage" and more about encouraging women into an industry that has become seen as a boys club for no good reason, go back 30 years and it wasn't quite the same. Look at the proportion of women in Computer Science degrees in the 21st Century - hell, I had more female professors than classmates 10 years ago.
There are plenty of code clubs for boys to attend, this doesn't take away anything from them, it simply makes for a more comfortable entry point for girls to experiment with c
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I have never in my life seen any coding course or "club" that banned women. I really doubt you have, either, because if anyone tried something like that, they'd get crucified.
Re: Girls only (Score:4, Insightful)
When challenged, absolutely NO ONE seems to be able to provide proof of a "brogrammer" culture that people seem to cite when they talk about the numbers of women in "tech".
I am a white male in his 30's, so I don't have to worry about any of this. But I see my female coworkers who cannot get a client to believe they are competent because they are women. I see their ideas attributed to the first man who publicly agrees with them (I have had to explicitly remind people in a meeting that an idea originated with a female coworker). I see similar cultural influences that tell African American men being smart isn't cool tell women that being nerdy isn't feminine. I also see women who have a hard time finding professionals they can identify within a workforce that is so heavily male dominated.
I could go on, but it doesn't matter. If you still don't see the inequality of opportunity in the IT field towards women after years of the industry starting to come to terms with it, you are willfully trying to ignore the problem.
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Agreed.
I see this mostly from manager-types. I've noted elsewhere that I've watched two women, both who are very bight, get chased out of tech. I've had clients refuse to work with customer service and insist on coming directly to me, and I can only figure it's the "I need to speak to a man" phenomenon. The few men in other departments where I work will come to me with a completely inane question about the system that their female colleagues could have easily answered--or even more irritating when it's a
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Yet clearly the dropping numbers of women entering tech show that it's an intimidating environment for young girls to get into.
Or it could show that the women who finish college don't want to bother with an industry that is being saturated with H1B's. Or it could show that more women realize that they can make more money applying the same talents elsewhere. Or it shows that women are as interested in coding as men are in being hairdressers. Look, coding isn't anything like cooking, for example, where it's up to the individual to find their passion for it. It takes a certain level of raw talent that even most people in the industry
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Or it could show that the women who finish college don't want to bother with an industry that is being saturated with H1B's.
So you're saying men are dumber than women when picking an industry?
Or it shows that women are as interested in coding as men are in being hairdressers.
It could be that men don't become hairdressers because there's inequality of opportunity in hairdressing; that is, it's dominated by women, so there's more women entering the field, as men are discouraged from entering it simply because they're men. But you know what? The inequality in that field is not something we care about addressing, because hairdressing isn't as important to a modern economy as STEM fields are.
even after your find that you have that talent, you must be willing to consign yourself to a job that pays far less than it is worth
You are being paid exa
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Equality of opportunity, not equality of outcome. The first is a worth goal, the second is just insanity, forcing people to do things they don't really want to do. And we already have the first, with only very slight inequalities remaining.
Whether or not we have equality of opportunity is what's in debate here. While you have a right to your opinion, treating it as fact is disingenuous. And in my opinion, someone would really need to have their head in the sand to believe there is equality of opportunity. Leaving things to market forces free of overt discrimination is not the same thing as equality of opportunity.
I am a white male in his 30's, so I don't have to worry about any of this. But I see my female coworkers who cannot get a client to
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It's also a fact that there is a lot of inequality between men and women in the tech industry, and really across STEM fields in general. Just because men are treated unequally in some areas and have their own issues that need to be addressed doesn't mean we can't also address the issues that face women. Many of the issues you discussed like rape, sentencing, alimony, child support, and child custody are failings of the legal system. Google isn't in a position to address those, but it doesn't mean that other
Re:Girls only (Score:4, Insightful)
The point about graduation rates is not percentages, it's that everyone who wants to has an opportunity to do so. It seems like boys could do with a little more encouragement in some areas, but then again so could girls in others. It's too complex a subject to be boiled down to a sentence.
If you feel socially obligated to pay for stuff, then why not push back? I don't subscribe to that and I don't have any trouble on dates (although I'm in a long term relationship now). Maybe it's because I'm an interesting person and am not just looking to get into the girl's pants by "paying" for sex with an expensive date.
You should push for better working conditions for men too. It's one reason why I'm a feminist - you could accurately describe this stuff as "men's rights", but that term has turned into such a shitstorm that it's better to just say you are a feminist because those are the actual values and philosophy you are following. I won't do long hours and discourage others from doing them, and will argue strongly against anything that rewards people for screwing up their work/life balance.
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Sounds like you're hanging out with the wrong women if that's your genuine experience, mate
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The point about graduation rates is not percentages, it's that everyone who wants to has an opportunity to do so. It seems like boys could do with a little more encouragement in some areas, but then again so could girls in others.
It's also important to note that both sexes are graduating college at the highest rates EVER in the U.S. (See, for example, graphs here [tcf.org] and here [tcf.org], showing percentages of young people with bachelor's degrees over the past few decades.)
It's true that the growth in women's graduation rates has gone up faster than men's, and now women do graduate at greater rates than men. But men are still graduating at higher rates than EVER before.
So, we can debate what these numbers mean and whether they are a disturbi
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This topic again. I wasn't sure where I wanted to reply, but I'll put it here.
Here are my grievances:
1. My genitals were mutilated at birth, leaving me with horrific physical pain from puberty until I decided to take matters into my own hands. My GP at the time couldn't find any evidence of anything being physically wrong and believe that it could be I was experiencing the pain because of my female mind. Later, when I saw a psychologist, he decided that there was really no way to sort out my feelings abo
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vel-ex-tech, your experience sound horrible and hard to believe in the modern western world (not that I don't believe you). Mainstream feminist theory is very clearly opposed to many of the thing you describe, in particular mis-gendering people and forcing people to present as a gender they are not based on prejudice and ignorance. I'm sure there are many feminist groups who would be happy to help if you took your story to them.
Personally, I have mentored women before, and always help where I can. Fortunate
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Thanks for the reply. I thought about this through the afternoon. While there's isn't much one pseudo-anonymous person can do for another pseudo-anonymous person on the other side of the internet, I've been scratching my head trying to figure out where I'm going to relocate when the time comes.
I've done a few Googling sessions (the choice is still at least two years away, but it's a big choice). I haven't found much of use. Are there any reliable indicators or data available that could help me figure ou
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My suggestion would be to contact some trans support groups (especially transfeminist) in areas you are interested in moving to, and ask them. I'm afraid I'm not in the US so I'm not all that knowledgeable about where the best places are. It certainly sounds like some areas have some serious issues though.
What I would say is don't let a few bad apples spoil everything for you. It's possible you can find some support closer to home. You can't be the only person experiencing this in your area.
It really sucks
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Canada might work. I looked into it a few years ago, if I were looking at the right things all I'd need to do really is learn French and get an offer of employment to get enough points.
I've also considered Germany since I was nearly fluent in and shortly after high school, not so much any more, but I'm sure it'd come back to me. Actually, that would probably be the option if the "free tuition" I keep hearing about also includes room and board in a dorm and would be offered to somebody who went from straig
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See, but here's the thing about this Google Santa Tracker: Santa Claus isn't real. So the joke's on the stupid girls.
Girls only coding project? (Score:1, Troll)
Are these girls going to develop their own scripting language? Their own interpreter? Their own language and compiler for whatever language the interpreter is written in? Their own assembler? Their own CPU and object language?
Or are they just going to sign up girls up to use a huge stack of tools built by men?
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The first compiler was developed by a woman, Grace Hopper.
Thus spake Zarathustra. (Score:5, Insightful)
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"Made With Code teamed with the National Park Service to make the lighting of the White House Christmas trees a girls-only coding project."
That is untrue. The web site [madewithcode.com] does not require registration, let alone entry of gender, to use. Boys are welcome, as are those with other gender identities.
The summary lies. Nowhere in any of TFAs does it say "girls-only".
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Didn't they change the program to open it up to boys at some point? While it doesn't say "girls only," every other sentence in Google's announcement page says something that amounts to "this is a program for girls."
Earlier this year, we introduced a program called Made with Code to inspire millions of girls to try coding...
...girls can use the introductory programming language...
Still, even as coding becomes more important, less than 1% of high school girls say...
Aha!
http://developers.slashdot.org... [slashdot.org]
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As I pointed out back in the comments on that old story, it was manufactured bullshit because even then the programme was open to both genders. Sure, it was primarily advertised to girls and the teaching material was focused on how to help girls get into CS, but it was never exclusionary. Never. The school in question was always free to participate and run those courses, no "disobedience" required.
There is plenty of real sexism in the world, without anyone needed to manufacture some artificial outrage at no
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Oh teh noes! Girls were allowed to design Christmas tree lighting patterns last year. What a heinous act of revenge against men! Men have suffered terribly over the past year due to this horrible tragedy!
Except it wasn't girls only. The Made With Code website is part of an effort to introduce more girls to coding, but it's open to kids of all genders. There wasn't any filter that prevented boys from designing tree lighting patterns and submitting them.
The 'girls only' BS is due to a bunch of butt-hurt
Even Santa can't escape Google's cookie tracking (Score:5, Funny)
Um google... you do know that... (Score:2)
Chicks don't dig stalkers and creeps... Getting your wish will be your undoing.
i googled "where is santa"... (Score:2)
and i gotta say, the elves will not be pleased. [changingaging.org]
oy (Score:4, Interesting)
Bad News, Everyone! for Santa Deniers Everywhere (Score:2)
Now that the Pope has mounted his Encyclical that has made some scientists uncomfortable (because it disagrees with their views) and has made other scientists uncomfortable (because it agrees with their views) and yet others jubilant (because for them it was never about science, it was only about getting their way)... there will be a ribbon cutting ceremony at the Climate Summit in Paris this week as the final North Pole 'Cold War' barrier between science and religion is ceremoniously cut. Crews are standin
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Elephant in the room: (Score:5, Funny)
tf: Google is putting Santa in danger!!!!
I was going to joke about 'encouraging girls' (Score:1)