If acceptance decisions were made based on gender, that would be discrimination.
The article doesn't say that.
"To keep the selection process fair, Courtney chose applicants based on their pitches only, without looking at the speaker’s identity or gender. The result was a 50/50 split between male and female speakers, which she counted as a success."
It baffles me how you can consider men an "excluded demographic" in this scenario.
Thank you so much, I needed this so badly. I've been at home with the flu all week and haven't been able to get out to buy groceries. I just placed my order. I can have food now!
" it is not unusual for all natural remedies (Neem leaves to soothe burns) to be classified as "Homeopathic"."
That's unfortunate that in this day and age, there are people who can't distinguish between scientifically proven natural remedies and homeopathy. Natural remedies work because they contain chemicals that have an effect on the body. For example, willow bark contains salicylic acid. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_aspirin
Great article, though misleading title. Some but not all customers will care if you're sincerely sorry, but probably all don't care how your system is limiting you. If we could solve all problems perfectly with a predefined system, we wouldn't need human customer service. We need people to recognize when the solution lies outside the usual routine.
I think Chatter is closer to your description of Yammer than Twitter. It really revolves around groups and updates on objects, and it has private messaging now.
I take issue with the specific wording in your comment, "...but why wouldn't you just say..." It makes it sound like discrimination is not a big deal, because if you were just "taught to be assertive," you could handle it.
There is nothing she could have done to prevent the discrimination other than being a man. The entire article is set up to emphasize the way that anyone should be able to tell she's a gamer from the way she holds her hands on the keyboard, and yet they still treated her like someone who does not belong in the industry.
The point of the article is to increase awareness of discrimination among the "large anonymous audience." It is offensive to suggest that victims of discrimination should just act differently to prevent it.
I hate stories like this. They set unrealistic expectations for managers of developers: "Well, if you won't, we can find someone who would love to do this for free."
Went to the About page for context, found none. So ... this is an app to keep track of my failures? Why should I keep track of things I don't want to do?
IIRC, it's more effective to enforce a new behavior by phrasing it in the positive, like, "Stay quiet" instead of "Don't talk." Am I wrong? You should convince me on the About page.
Self-confidence issue? Yeah, that's the point of the article. She's saying, "I doubt myself in this area, but I am confident about these other things, and it's not just me, so I think I'll be okay."
I'm a Vassar CS student as well, and our sysadmin's setup is as awesome as it looks. The first time I met him, I was a little intimidated by how plugged in he is. And yeah, it really is hard to tell when he's using it sometimes. He'll walk through the lab, you'll tell him there's a problem with your account, he'll look into the distance for a second, and he'll tell you he's fixed it.
Others have commented on this already, but this reminds me a lot of the charts I'd make for the first couple weeks of high school when I had new classes and couldn't remember my schedule. I think this is more suited for that kind of scheduling than something more corporate. It's just enough space to help you remember that English is at 10:45.
This would also be a good template for convention-goers to use to plan which events they'd like to go to. I can easily imagine this being a rip-out page in a convention pamphlet.
The article doesn't say that.
"To keep the selection process fair, Courtney chose applicants based on their pitches only, without looking at the speaker’s identity or gender. The result was a 50/50 split between male and female speakers, which she counted as a success."
It baffles me how you can consider men an "excluded demographic" in this scenario.