Disqus - Latest Comments for maciakl

Re: Little Pork Chop coming back

Luke — Thu, 16 Feb 2017 09:53:34 -0000

This tool looks amazing. Could I be added to a white list? http://twitter.com/LukeMaciak

Re: Yoda’s syntax in foreign dubs/subtitles in Star...

Luke — Thu, 12 Feb 2015 00:58:44 -0000

S: Subject
O: Object
V: Verb

English is SVO language: we put verbs in between the subject and object. For example: "He (S) is (V) a Jedi Master (O)".

Yoda's speech pattern is OSV which means he usually puts verbs at the end of his sentences. It makes it sound unusual and peculiar to English speakers when he says "Jedi Master (O) he (S) is (V)".

Re: My brother made a scale mail shoulder pad for his...

Luke — Fri, 14 Feb 2014 11:15:37 -0000

LOL, yes.

Re: Why aren't there more women programmers?

Luke — Mon, 19 Aug 2013 20:48:06 -0000

Exactly. So you can see how the word evolved from originally meaning "speech impaired" to "lacking intelligence" and more recently to "everything that I don't like". I'm sure you can see the implications here - the way the way the word has changed its meaning over time provides apt social commentary.

Traits society deems undesirable or aberrant become slurs. Slurs enter common language and through repeated are lose their negative cannotations in the eyes of the privileged classes (though they typically still remain disrespectful and hurtful to the groups they discriminated against). Thus they become internalized to the point majority no longer considers them inappropriate. And that's how you end up with communites that have internalized prejudices and rampant systemic abuse that are almost entirely invisible to the privileged majority.

Re: Why aren't there more women programmers?

Luke — Mon, 19 Aug 2013 19:43:23 -0000

Thank you. That's exactly my point. :)

Re: Why aren't there more women programmers?

Luke — Mon, 19 Aug 2013 19:42:45 -0000

I could kind of maybe see being offended with retarded as that at least makes mention of a specific class of mental disability, but to find offense with dumb is just... well... dumb.

Dumb: (adjective) Unable to speak, most typically because of congenital deafness.

Now think about the negative canotations of this word and what that implies about common language use of this term. But the word in itself is not really the problem in and of itself. I agree that you could be much more offensive than this. All I'm saying that it is slightly ablist and we ought to be mindful of that. But as with all language, usage is relative.

The issue with the "dumb blonde" joke is the premise itself which is usually: woman fails to grasp a very single concept + pun or word play + some bonus gender policing and/or objectification. That's the problematic part.

As for the more on topic point about the "public face of the cummunity" I'm afraid there's very little you can do about it

Whelp, that's genuinely depressing then. I mean, if it is merely a vocal minority we should be able just to drown them out, shouldn't we? If we all get off our asses and make a collective effort to improve out public image by making a lot of positive noise, the opinions of the sexist-jerk minority will be just that - an irrelevant minority opinion. So why are we allowing that insignificant fraction of our community to shape our public image and dictate the tone of online discourse.

I suspect it is because these opinions are actually held by a very large segment of our community. Saying that dudebros on the internet will be dudebros and nothing can be done about it does not help. It does the opposite - it helps to perpetuate the problem.

Re: Why aren't there more women programmers?

Luke — Mon, 19 Aug 2013 18:30:04 -0000

I was arguing that there is a vocal minority of mostly non-professionals
on the internet that present a skewed view of the community.

And yet this is the public face of the community we present to outsiders. How are high schoolers or college kids just getting into programming to know that this is merely a vocal minority and not representative of the industry as a whole? This in itself is a problem that needs fixing. If vocal minority is able to skew the public image of our field in such a negative way, we should be working to correct this.

How about idiotic blond jokes? Which term do you prefer for morons?

Uhhh... These are all quite offensive to be honest. How come none of the above is not an option? I mean, how exactly do "dumb blond" jokes fit in with a professional setting and/or programming discussion.

This sort of idiocy is why the politically correct crowd isn't taken seriously by anyone, they take things to such silly extremes that they find offense in virtually anything anyone says.

Honestly, I really don't think treating fellow human beings with respect is really such an extreme idea. IMHO it is just common courtesy and human decency. You talk about political correctness as if it was a bad thing. :(

See this is kinda part of the problem. I mentioned that some words or phrases may be offensive to specific groups of people and they should be avoided in order to be polite and considerate towards them and you immediately got upset. :(

Re: Why aren't there more women programmers?

Luke — Mon, 19 Aug 2013 17:29:57 -0000

Honestly, I think it is pretty clear where that line is. We are a community of professionals and we should behave in a professional manner everywhere. Be it on the internet, at the work place or at professional events. IMHO it is better to err on the side of caution than to risk offending anyone.

Also, "dumb blonde" jokes are not only insensitive towards women (and let's not play semantics - these jokes are traditionally told about blond women specifically, and it is still the context in which most people choose to interpret them) but also towards people with cognitive disabilities. Dumb is an ablist slur.

And yes - the internet anonymity often brings out the worst in people. But in a way I find that the things people post anonymously in forums are probably a pretty good indication of what they actually think in private, but would never dare to say in person due to possible repercussions.

Re: Why aren't there more women programmers?

Luke — Mon, 19 Aug 2013 17:12:15 -0000

The reason people are reacting this way is because men are not supposed to have opinions on gender questions, or if we have them, we're not supposed to express them.

It's important to realize that when we talk about gender issues we speak from position of privilege. I think it is a little disingenuous to say that we as men don't have our say on gender issues because the exact opposite is true. Male opinions on gender roles and gender relations are more or less the default status quo.

In fact we're the only ones who can do anything about it, if there is anything to be done.

I whole heartedly agree. We definitely can take steps to fix it. I think the place to start is to raise awareness of the social issues and inequality in our field. Which I guess is what this thread is helping to do. :)

May the force be with you (I"m sure you hear that all the time.

LOL, you don't even know! :P

Re: Why aren't there more women programmers?

Luke — Mon, 19 Aug 2013 16:41:56 -0000

You are right in that the problem is not limited to the programmer community. It is a wider social problem. But the problem is very evident in the technology field.

Also, I don't agree with your assessment of the field. I think the sexism issues are very visible in our community. You actually don't have to search very far for evidence: just visit any programming message board, forums or reddit community - they are rife with it. Whenever there is a video featuring female presenter you can expect her to be "appraised" by the community with respect to her appearance and attire at length and in much detail for example.

I also constantly read about incidents happening at conferences (like the PyCon thing that happened earlier this year, or Defcon presenters making rape jokes and having strippers on stage).

Huge part of the problem is our male-dominated community as a whole has an annoying tendency to shrug all of it off as "harmless fun" or "blowing things out of proportion" and moving on, without even acknowledging these problems. It is not that individual programmers consciously set out to oppress women. The problem is that we fail to notice that our culture is rather unwelcoming and often discriminatory in nature because we are looking at it from a vantage of male privilege.

Re: Why aren't there more women programmers?

Luke — Mon, 19 Aug 2013 15:27:46 -0000

Sorry. I can now see you did not mean for your statements to be inflammatory. However the fact that a lot of people are misreading them or taking offense to them is probably a good indicator that your phrasing of the problem was slightly problematic.

The gender imbalance in our field is a very complex social issue. There is no simple answer here, but at the root of the problem are preconceived notions about gender roles, deeply internalized sexism which are not unique to our field, but have a very pronounced effect on it.

Part of the problem is that these issues are virtually invisible if you happen to be a male programmer. It is extremely easy to shrug off or dismiss legitimate grievances or issues as inconsequential or off-topic, but that's just privilege induced blindness. The fact people miss-read what you said is absolutely crucial to understand the problem. The words we use to describe the issue sets the tone for the discussion, and makes it all easy to shut out valid points by arguing semantics.

Anyways, I applaud the attempt to start the discussion.

Re: Why aren't there more women programmers?

Luke — Mon, 19 Aug 2013 15:01:16 -0000

I think that what OP is trying to explain is that the barrier to entry for women is much higher than for men. There is a "boys club" effect in our industry which pressures women to constantly have to "prove themselves" and a lot of internalized sexism and preconceived notions about gender roles. Combined with the wage gap and glass ceiling effect that makes it harder for women to advance it makes the tech field less attractive and less welcoming for women than it is for men.

In other words it is a social problem. And the first step to solve it is to get away from the idea that there is something about the act of programming that repels women from the field. It's not programming in itself - it's the programmer community that is the problem.

Re: Why aren't there more women programmers?

Luke — Mon, 19 Aug 2013 14:33:47 -0000

But I also think there's something about programming that makes many women not want to do it. (...) Programming is a very modal activity. To be any good at it you have to focus. And be very patient.

Wow... Really?

Can I ask why do you think that patience and ability to focus on a modal task are exclusively male traits? Are women incapable of this? Do you have any evidence to support this? Or is that just a conjecture based on traditionalist views of gender roles in the society?

There is specialization in our species.

Nope. There is no biological cognitive specialization with respect to gender. Evolutionary psychology is not science but merely a collection of mostly unsupported and wonky theories that typically aim to backsplain cultural biases and the like.

I'm sure there is sexism, probably a lot of sexism.

Yep. That and a whole slew of other cultural baggage, double standards and gender role policing that starts from a very young age. Along with a whole variety of other factors. This is not something that can be reduced to a simple "women are like this, and men are like that" generalization.

Re: Travel Tips for Geeks: Preventing Theft ...

Luke — Fri, 19 Jul 2013 09:25:32 -0000

My dad used to drive a cab in Warsaw when he was younger and he has seen a fair share of pick pockets doing their thing in tourist spots. He always said that statistically the safest place for a man to keep his wallet is the left front pocket of his pants.

The logic goes like this:

- A lot of men carry their wallets in their back packets - they are the safe, low hanging fruit and if you keep your wallet elsewhere chances are the local thieves will just pass you over and go for easier targets.

- Statistically more thieves are right handed - which means that the front right pocket is typically easier to access for most. All they need to do is to approach from behind and slip their hand in as they bump into you. With left pocket they will need to twist their arm to get in, or use their non-dominant hand which increases difficulty.

Of course this does not guarantee your wallet is safe as experienced thieves will be comfortable extracting wallets from any pocket.

Re: /dev/random

Luke — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 16:46:16 -0000

TIL about Fart Control in scandinavian countries. :)

Re: An Emacs Pastebin « null program

Luke — Sun, 30 Dec 2012 16:23:19 -0000

Thanks for the link. The series ain't over yet though. There are at least two more parts to it. I just took a break as not to inundate people with PHP. :)

Btw, I never cease to be amazed at the flexibility of Emacs. I think Steve Yegge once described it as an ELisp interpreter which coincidentally also happens to be pretty good at editing text. :P

Re: JavaScript Strings as Arrays « null program

Luke — Sat, 24 Nov 2012 21:28:46 -0000

Heh, I was about to say you could "inject" these methods into the String prototype, but yes - it is something that will make future maintainers cranky. :)

Re: http://random.terminally-incoherent.com/post/26906153812

Luke — Mon, 23 Jul 2012 17:26:01 -0000

No, he had a BSOD on his computer, so he took a picture of it with his phone. Then he took the phone to the copy machine, put it on the glass and made a copy. Then he took that copy and fed it to the fax machine sending it to the IT department.

Because attaching a photo to an email on an internet enabled company smartphone configured with company email was way too much work.

Re: Safely Reboot Ubuntu When "Freezes"

Luke — Fri, 20 Jul 2012 15:12:28 -0000

I always remember it as REI Ayanami eating a SUBway sandwich :P.

Re: Rumor Simulation « null program

Luke — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 21:36:53 -0000

Are you allowing for repeated meetings, or are pairs that already met exuded from the next selection.

It would also be interesting to try to re-factor this problem as cellular automata. I vaguely remember the fish and sharks model in which you had cells randomly moving on the grid that could be adopted to this. After all spatial factors play a huge part in rumor spreading.

Re: Kvetch about WordPress

Luke — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 23:58:56 -0000

This is the first one that showed up for me:

"Posting youtube embed code in the rich text editor is broken. I would
love to see a better or more extensible way to handle the wysiwyg.”

My first thought was "People actually use the WYSIWYG mode?" That's the first thing I disable when I do a fresh Wordpress installation.

Re: http://random.terminally-incoherent.com/post/14167979735

Luke — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 11:20:06 -0000

Heh, good point. I'm not sure if you could actually charge anything with this. I found it on reddit.

Re: How to break your own heart

Luke — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 21:52:26 -0000

My reaction: http://nooooooooooooooo.com/

Seriously, this is my greatest fear!

Please tell me this is not an old 4 and not a brand new 4S, and that you will be able to upgrade to a new phone without having to sell your firstborn child to pay for it.

Re: http://random.terminally-incoherent.com/post/13457285962

Luke — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 13:47:24 -0000

Heh, I realize that. The above was meant as a joke. I'm almost entirely certain that the car in the picture is not an actual police vehicle. :P

Re: Kindle Fire and everyone being an expert when it comes to my gadget purchases

Luke — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 13:18:23 -0000

So you are saying you are meta-h8ting?