William of Occam

Silicon Valley Discriminates Against Women, Even If They’re Better — PBS NewsHour

An academic says that Silicon Valley is “not a meritocracy.”

He doesn’t offer any evidence to support that. He just looked around and noticed more men than women in the high-tech workforce.

The fact that there are more members of Group A doing X than there are members of Group B doing X is not evidence that members of Group B are being discriminated against in their efforts to do X.

In particular, he says that only 3 percent of tech firms in the Valley were founded by women, as though founding a tech firm is a fun thing that everyone should want to do.

Founding a startup is an ultra-high-risk activity that requires insane amounts of time and sacrifice. Do you want to have friends? A social life? Do you have a family? Do you want to have a family? Do you want to see them sometimes?

The fact that more men than women are founding startups is not evidence that women are being discriminated against. The simplest explanation is that women just don’t want to do it as much as men do.

Best-educated moms are also more likely to ‘opt out,’ research finds

— Life Inc.

Opt out of what?

It turns out “opt out” means opt out of the workforce. How is a mom staying home and raising her kids considered “opting out”?

Via Steven Landsburg:

China has one of the highest male-female sex ratios in the world. That means women can afford to be picky.

Here are the requirements listed by a female graduate student seeking a mate on the Chinese equivalent of match.com:

• Never married
• Masters degree or more
• Not from Wuhan
• No rural I.D. card
• No only children
• No smokers
• No alcoholics
• No gamblers
• Taller than one hundred and seventy-two centimeters
• More than a year of dating before marriage
• Sporty
• Parents who are still together
• Annual salary over fifty thousand yuan
• Between twenty-six and thirty-two years of age
• Willing to guarantee eating at least four dinners at home per week
• At least two ex-girlfriends but no more than four
• No Virgos, no Capricorns

Satan

[See You in Hell is a feature by our guest blogger, Satan -- PE]

Yahoo confirmed Monday that CEO Marissa Mayer gave birth to a boy on Sunday night, only about three months after taking the helm at the struggling company.

The 37-year-old Mayer will work from home and continues to lead the company and “is involved in all critical decisions [sic] making,” a Yahoo spokeswoman told Reuters on Monday.

“She will be working remotely and is planning to return to the office as soon as possible (likely in 1-2 weeks),” Yahoo said in an emailed comment to the news agency.

— NBCNews.com

I applaud young Marissa Mayer for this courageous decision!

She is a role model for all the little girls out there who want to grow up and neglect their children.

Working moms, my precious darlings –

Don’t let anyone tell you that a woman is a better mom if she’s actually home with her kids.

Don’t let anyone tell you that you can’t have it all. You can have it all. Everyone else is doing it. Don’t be left out!

Kids don’t need a lot of attention. They basically raise themselves!

We have a double standard in our society: If you are poor and you abandon your kids you are a bad parent. But if you are rich and you abandon them to run a company, you are profiled in Fortune magazine.

– Penelope Trunk

God bless America! Your children are being raised by strangers and nobody cares.

See you all in Hell!

Randy Newman has a new song and video out — “I’m Dreaming” — about a voter who casts his ballot solely based on skin color.

I listened to it . . . it’s great, like every other Newman song I can think of, but didn’t this train leave the station in 2008? We already have a black president. (Yes, his mother was white, but “mixed-race” doesn’t get you 12 percent of the electorate.)

Will some people not vote for Obama because he’s black? Yes.

Will some people only vote for Obama because he’s black? Yes.

As Geraldine Ferraro said in 2008, “If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position. And if he was a woman of any color, he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is.”

Naturally, she was denounced as a racist by the Obama campaign.

Let’s move on already . . .

Here’s a headline from NBC News coverage of the RNC:

Women share their reasons for being at the Republican National Convention

NBC does a lot of editorializing in their “news” coverage.

I propose the following headline for next week’s DNC:

Taxpayers share their reasons for being at the Democratic National Convention

There’s a bunch of Cub Scouts here at the Taco Bell in Bakersfield. I don’t know . . . aren’t you supposed to take Cub Scouts to the woods so they can cook things over a campfire?

I think I could score some hot chicks in Bakersfield. I’m sizing up my competition here — nothing but fat guys with enormous heads.

Unfortunately, there don’t seem to be any hot chicks in Bakersfield — just fat guys, fat women and fat, dopey Cub Scouts.

While more than nine in 10 Americans would vote for a presidential candidate who is black, a woman, Catholic, Hispanic, or Jewish, significantly smaller percentages would vote for one who is an atheist (54%) or Muslim (58%). Americans’ willingness to vote for a Mormon (80%) or gay or lesbian (68%) candidate falls between these two extremes.

— Atheists, Muslims See Most Bias as Presidential Candidates

I fear that I won’t live to see a gay atheist in the Oval Office.

In other findings, far more Americans are open to voting for a black presidential candidate (96%) than for a Mormon (80%). Blacks also poll higher than women (95%), Catholics (94%) and Jews (91%), although those percentages are within the margin of sampling error.

I keep hearing that there aren’t enough women in technology, like this is a problem. The most obvious explanation is that women don’t want to work in technology. If they want to work in other fields, fine. If they want to raise their kids, even better.

I did some tutoring for a girl taking AP Computer Science. She’s a junior in high school and wants to be a veterinarian. Afterwards, she told her dad, “If I decide not to be a veterinarian, maybe I’ll be a programmer.”

Don’t let it be said that I’m not doing my part to address the shortage of women in technology, even though I think it’s baloney . . .

Thus spoke The Programmer.

Image via Wikipedia

There’s no one behind the customer service counter at Barnes and Noble but there is a woman doing something with the books in front of the counter . . .

“Do you work here?” I ask.

“Yes,” she says, but not in a friendly way . . . more like yes, I work here but I regret it.

‘I’m looking for The Book of Holiday Awesome,” I say.

“I’ve never heard of that,” she says.

I don’t care if she’s heard of it. I just want to know if they have a copy of it on hand.

“Do you know the author?” she asks.

“No.”

She types a couple of things into the computer. “Nothing is coming up,” she says.

It’s a popular book so something should be coming up, even if it’s just to say they don’t have it in stock.

I lean over the counter to see what she’s typed in the search box. Here it is: the book of holiday awsum.

I wonder what elf girls taste like? Peppermint? Gingerbread?

A new study says that men are funnier than women — but just barely.

— latimes.com

Men are a lot funnier on average, a few women are very funny, and women who have a reputation of being funny, like Lucille Ball or Carol Burnett, are usually not funny at all.

UPLAND, Pa. (AP) — Two pregnant women were allegedly involved in a fight in which one slashed two other people inside a Philadelphia-area hospital room.

Upland police say the pregnant women, ages 21 and 22, were fighting with a woman and a teenage girl inside a room at Crozer-Chester Medical Center on Tuesday afternoon.

Upland police Chief John Easton says the women were all visiting a male patient who is recovering from a gunshot wound.

— Police: Pregnant Woman Slashes 2 Inside Crozer-Chester Medical Center « CBS Philly

Rep. Weiner of New York — one of the 13 original colonies — has been sending photos of his penis to women in Texas, Washington and other points west.

When I was president, Texas and Washington weren’t even part of the country, and if I wanted to show a woman my dick, she had to be right there in the room with me.¹

And still there are some misfits who insist that there is no such thing as progress.

1. Yes, I could have made a sketch and sent it through the mail but that could take weeks.

POLICE: Louisville woman pulls sword at Pizza Hut

— FOX41.com

• RT @yoyoha: Every woman has a tiny ball of hatred in her heart that is fed by the actions of everyone around them. #
• RT @capricecrane: Is there a “Your Kid Looks The Same As Yesterday” button on Facebook? #
• RT @yoyoha: I’m currently eating graham crackers in the shape of little bunnies. This can’t be helping my street cred. #

The most promiscuous women are those who have been punched, believe homosexuality is not wrong, and spend time in bars. The least promiscuous women are those who are patriotic and spend time in church.

— Steven Landsburg

Pregnant women I’ve never heard of

General rule: If you’re pregnant and I’m not the father, I don’t need to be informed. Couldn’t care less.

Melissa Rycroft? Lily Allen? Who the hell are these people?

HER: Don’t hate me because I’m beautiful.

HIM: I hate you because you’re a bitch.

• RT @capricecrane: MSNBC: "Up to 80 percent of women admit faking it." That is a good headline. So good. SOOO GOOOD. YES! #
• RT @eddiepepitone: Small town america is nice- a lot of obesity but everybody waves. #