303 thoughts on “Pixel Scroll 4/6/2016 I Saw A Scroll Drinking A Pina Colada At Trader Vic’s, His Pixel Was Perfect”

1. Eich resigned himself after a boycott started against Mozilla. Mozillas board wanted him to stay, but he himself thought it was impossible to do any kind of work during the circumstances.

   Lets remember that Eich sponsored an initiative that caused a delay of six years before gays were allowed to marry. That is a very long time to live with someone you love and have the state forbid you to express that love. And Eich refused to apologize for this.

   It is for this action, people reacted. Not for him being white and male. In fact, he was replaced by white, male, competent Chris Beard.

2. Not only was Eich not fired, but the “offense” for which he wasn’t fired was not being a straight white male. It wasn’t even the fact that he was a homophobe, which could, perhaps, have been overlooked. It was that he was an anti-gay activist, who donated his time and money to the oppression of gays. And the organization he’d been put in charge of was a non-profit which depends heavily on volunteers, many of whom are gay, and many more of whom simply do not want to support the oppression of gays.

3. Not on any specific topic, but hey books! Just finished Marie Brennan’s ‘A Natural History of Dragons’, which is utterly brilliant on the level of smack-your-forehead, how-come-I-never-thought-of-that premises. I devoured it, and I’ve ordered the next three books in the series because I never knew that what the fantasy world needed was Jane Austen meets Charles Darwin plus dragons.

   Until now.

4. @Cassy B:

   My niece is an airman. Doesn’t seem to bother her, and doesn’t bother me either.

   Clearly mileage varies, because it bothers me. A hell of a lot, actually.

   But as with the navy, the FAA has to [edit: revise] reprint all its publications regularly, whether it changes the term on not; should one day it finally join the 21st century and jettison “airman” for a more accurate and less prescriptive term, it won’t cost them a cent.

5. Michael D Stevens, master chief petty officer of the Navy (is that just a rank or an actual job title, like he’s the boss of all US Navy chief petty officers?

   Its a rank. The Master Chief Petty Office is the senior noncommissioned officer in the U.S. Navy. As far as the change “requiring an entire department”, that’s just bullshit Phantom has made up. From the Time article:

   “The Navy and the Marine Corps, Mr. Mabus said, had to come up with new names for the dozens of job titles that ended in “man,” like rifleman, mineman and assault man. “Man” can be replaced by “technician,” “specialist” or “professional,” so carrying out the order has been fairly straightforward.”

   Note “relatively straightforward”. The only title that has been giving them any trouble with coming up with an alternative is “yeoman”, and that’s likely to remain the same. So Phantom’s claims about how much this is costing are just bullshit he made up. Just like his bullshit claims about Valente and Eich. The next time Phantom posts something that isn’t complete bullshit will be the first.

6. Steve Wright on April 7, 2016 at 4:01 pm said:

   I just recently dug out my copy of The Beast Master while excavating in a box of books. Generally, I find Norton stands up to re-reading pretty well. (Mind you, another thing I found in that box was my collection of the first 22 “Perry Rhodan” novels, so maybe you shouldn’t rely too much on my literary discernment.)

   I won’t venture any opinions on your literary discernment, but I will say that years ago, when I was in my twenties, I went back and read some of my favorite juveniles by Heinlein and Norton, and found that the Norton stood up against the passage of time a whole lot better. At least for my tastes.

7. I can see a number of potential directions for the next trilogy (19-21) depending on how the crash in 18 plays out.

   Number 18 is at the publishers being scheduled – it’s Convergence. She’s working on Resurgence, the one after that.
   (It appears the plots are headed in a new direction.)

8. lurkertype : @lauowolf: No, no, if we say we think the DragonCon awards are a good idea, the Puppies will avoid them since we got SJW cooties on them.

   Ahem.

   “We are organizing to ensure the DragonCon awards reflect progressive social justice values. The Puppies simply won’t be able to stop us”.

   There – a big juicy bone for them to growl over.

9. Darren Garrison: Recalling a thread from a couple of days ago, looks like Rev. Bob may need to upgrade his storage media again

   As predicted by Lois McMaster Bujold in “Labyrinth” in 1989. Anyone recollect an SF author using this concept earlier than that? I shouldn’t be surprised if someone did.

10. NelC on April 7, 2016 at 4:03 pm said:

    The somewhat more comprehensive NY Times article that piece is cribbed from only mentions Michael D Stevens, master chief petty officer of the Navy (is that just a rank or an actual job title, like he’s the boss of all US Navy chief petty officers?)

    Yes. All of the armed forces have a most-senior noncom, unique within each service. There’s a Sergeant Major of the Army, for example.

    Although officially a non-com, apparently these senior non-coms are the “protocol equivalent” of a lieutenant general/vice admiral.

11. I know a bunch of current and ex-Mozilla folk, and the story isn’t what either side of the culture wars say: Eich didn’t resign because of the external pressure. He resigned because he’d lost the confidence of most of the Mozilla staff. According to my sources much of the senior leadership in the development and evangelism groups was about to hand in their notice…

    You can’t be CEO and not have the loyalty of your staff (and more importantly for an open source organisation like Mozilla) and your volunteers. As it is, the whole situation damaged much of the Mozilla organisation, with many key contributors going to both Microsoft and Google over the last couple of years.

12. @Kevin Standlee,

    Damn, you fixed it before I said anything.

13. Stoic Cynic on April 7, 2016 at 2:16 pm said: @The Phantom Dude, I’ve been a technology professional for decades. Your Software Engineer question is bogus. You imply the numbers are minimal.

    I asked you a question. You dodged it. This is a PC reflex, because you and I both know that Grace Hopper was the exception, not the rule. You can’t truthfully answer that question in a PC environment. I can’t ask it. Forbidden subject.

    That’s what makes PC environments suck, and it is what makes Matthew M. Foster full of it. It is irrelevant how many female programmers there are in the world compared to men. What’s relevant is I’m not allowed to ask the question and you’re not allowed to answer truthfully. And you know it.

    Personally I love asking radioactive questions in PC environments. The puffs of outraged propriety are delightful. The same people who go into paroxysms on the Interwebz are reduced to red-faced impotence in person, every time. PC environments are all about the backstabbing and innuendo, when you turn the lights on they all slink back to their little holes.

    NelC on April 7, 2016 at 4:03 pm said: Phantom — One reason it’s pointless for you to post links is because the links don’t say what you say they say.

    No, I think it’s more that it doesn’t matter what the link is, where it’s from or what it says, you’re determined that I’m eeeevile or something and you’ll grasp at any straw that presents itself.

    Hampus Eckerman on April 7, 2016 at 3:43 pm said: Instead, he was fired for being a liability. Which would more place him as incompetent, not realizing the implications of his actions.

    Mr. Eckerman, your ridiculous comment does not change the point I made at all. Eich was hounded from a job he was doing well, over a private matter, for political correctness. If the CEO of a company is spending time considering the political implications of his lawful and reasonable private donations, that man is living in a toxic and un-free environment. That is what political correctness is. Try to address the point instead of running off into the bleachers screaming.

    Bonnie McDaniel on April 7, 2016 at 2:59 pm said: @Phantom Thank you. Although it shouldn’t have been such an effing chore to provide your “evidence,” seeing as it’s your job to prove your assertion, not mine to disprove it.

    This is not a graduate seminar in mathematics madam. I am under no compulsion to prove, disprove or support anything. Generally I like to provide linkage for assertions that seem open to question, but henceforth I will not do so here. I will merely state the inarguable facts, and leave you to rage on about them at your convenience.

    That Cat Valente is a puppy kicker is inarguable. That Brendan Eich was hounded out over PC bullshit is inarguable. That Matthew M. Foster is so full of it his eyes are brown for writing that article is inarguable. And yet, here we are.

    The sun sets in the west, Bonnie. Go look out the window if you have a problem with it, and argue with God. Let us know how that goes, eh?

    Simon Bisson on April 7, 2016 at 4:57 pm said: I know a bunch of current and ex-Mozilla folk, and the story isn’t what either side of the culture wars say: Eich didn’t resign because of the external pressure. He resigned because he’d lost the confidence of most of the Mozilla staff. According to my sources much of the senior leadership in the development and evangelism groups was about to hand in their notice…

    … over PC bullshit. Indeed.

14. “Mr. Eckerman, your ridiculous comment does not change the point I made at all. Eich was hounded from a job he was doing well, over a private matter, for political correctness.”

    Mr. The Phantom. As we have alreay established, you are an idiot. You claimed Eich was fired because he was male, white and competent. You were wrong and are now trying to move the goal posts.

    Go play somewhere else.

15. Eich was hounded from a job he was doing well, over a private matter, for political correctness.

    A CEO who has lost the confidence of his staff is not “doing well”. He is failing at one of the most critical elements of his job. Then again, given your track record, you should be used to failure.

16. Warprize and Warsworn, Elizabeth Vaughan

    Trufax:

    We were discussing here, a bit ago, about fanfic with the serial numbers filed off and repurposed as original fiction. I am casually acquainted with Elizabeth Vaughan through a mutual friend — who shared with me the extremely Alternate Universe Sentinel fanfic that eventually became the basis of Warprize and Warsworn. It was Jim/Blair slashfic that ended up with one of the participants being genderflipped for publication. ^_^

17. @The Phantom

    But I very directly answered your question, with numbers derived from long experience, along with noting, while a significant enough percentage in itself, it is still lower than it should be due to significant negative cultural issues in tech fields.

    Then you try to hand wave that the number doesn’t really matter anyways. I suspect because you know I answered but reality didn’t conform to your assumptions.

    You are either deeply dishonest or suffer a serious disability effecting your comprehension of simple words. If the latter, I pity what must be a hard life bouncing from the incomprehensible to the incomprehensible in dark fog.

18. Kevin

    Not all countries have systems where there is a single NCO in charge of the whole country’s men and NCOS; there are quite a few who don’t. In England, for example, the RAF Station Warrant Officer runs the base, they are careful not to make that blindingly obvious to the Commanding Officer, but it doesn’t go above station level.

    Which is why, when my father retired, they had to send an Air Vice Marshall to do the honouring bit; the nature of my father’s service, in both the Battle of Britain, and as a slave on the Death Railway required it.

    And he was very, very good at convincing armed nuclear weapons to stop being silly and get out of that plane at once, unless they wanted to get grounded…

19. @Phantom:

    I will merely state the inarguable facts, and leave you to rage on about them at your convenience.

    “Inarguable”? Only in your own mind.

    That Cat Valente is a puppy kicker is inarguable. That Brendan Eich was hounded out over PC bullshit is inarguable. That Matthew M. Foster is so full of it his eyes are brown for writing that article is inarguable.

    Nope, nope and nope.

    (Come to think of it, I see what you did there. The word “extraordinaire” is now conveniently absent. Talk about “inarguable”….)

    Obviously you’ve given up on logic and facts, and are regressing to the “Nu-uh!” which passes for argument among five-year-olds. Well, so be it. From here on in, the pointing and laughing shall commence.

    (Which goes back to the question you’ve never answered: Why are you wasting so much of your time here? Don’t you have a job, dude?)

20. You are either deeply dishonest or suffer a serious disability effecting your comprehension of simple words.

    I think it has been pretty much established over the course of his posting here that Phantom is a serial liar who throws a snit fit when he is called out for his lies. There’s really nothing more to him than that.

21. @Nate Harada

    Thanks for that background (although I don’t read fanfic and have no idea who Jim/Blair is…)

22. @Stoic Cynic

    You are either deeply dishonest or suffer a serious disability effecting your comprehension of simple words.

    This is true, but he also gets his jollies by stirring shyte. There’s nothing deeper to him than that.

23. So books 🙂

    Favorite Andre Norton: Star Rangers.

24. I’m amused that Phantom seems to think that “PC Culture” is the cause of big companies hiring yes-men and yes-women. I listen to a lot of old time radio, and I’ve heard quite a few programs from as early as the late ’30s where yes-man-ism is made fun of, as an existing and widespread problem. Nobody has to explain it or anything.
    In those same years, women were often fired for getting married. It’s even a plot point in some shows: a married couple hiding their marriage so the wife can keep working. Darn that “PC Culture” of the 30s and 40s which forced corporations to hire yes-men….
    Or, you know, bosses will hire yes-people because bosses don’t want to hear “no”, whether or not his boogeyman “PC Culture” is even a factor.

25. @The Phantom: well Brendan Eich resigned for reasons many others have already told you.

    Your proof of Cat Valente’s puppy kicker ways are a single blog post dated a year ago. It clocks in at 2.4k words. My essay on the sexual politics of Dracula is longer, and I am by no means an expert on that subject.

    You keep making these bizarre assertions about companies you know very little about (like HP’s mythic PC police) with no proof. Innovation is hard, dude. Being PC has little to do with it.

26. Guys, of course Cat Valente is a Puppy-Kicker Extraordinaire. Remember, to a pup, *any* criticisms is enough to make them whine about Teh Oppression.

    Also, I re-iterate – In a corporate environment being an arse will result in $CONSEQUENCES. Don’t like it? Then make sure you don’t sign any Code of Conduct document, or work where one is mandatory.

    Also, guess what? Having poor people skills will also result in $CONSEQUENCES, whether you’re a CEO, or a sysadmin. Don’t like it? Work somewhere where you never have to interact with people.

    tl;dr – @Phantom, your victim complex is showing

27. Norton’s another author I need to explore in greater depth someday. I remember reading a bunch of her juvenile stuff (some of the Magic books) back in the day, and at least a few of her adult books; Forerunner Foray was particularly memorable.

    Also need to revisit Witch World one of these years.

28. re: Norton

    I really like the Crystal Gryphon series (The Crystal Gryphon, Gryphon In Glory, Gryphon’s Eyrie, Songsmith) and the Yiktor series (Moon of Three Rings, Exiles of the Stars, Flight in Yiktor). Regarding the latter, barsks are awesome!

29. If you followed the links about the Master Chief Petty Office of the Navy, you probably reached my favorite part: the decision to partially crowd-source the whole project. While the MCPON plans to bring in 10 others (8 master chiefs and 2 ratings) for a “whirlwind mission” to make final decisions on updating language (for archaic and outmoded terms as well as gendered ones), he also called for all ratings in the Navy to send in their suggestions. Doesn’t sound like they’re spending much time or $ on this project to me.

30. Quickly….heh….changing the name on a rate is a non-trivial activity. New forms have to be printed. Old forms have to be replaced in personnel jackets, training syllabi, and other records. That process will consume lots of hours.

    I don’t think the total will be enough to cover a new destroyer, but it isn’t negligible either.

    Mr. Foster’s piece appears to make the common error of adopting a person of hay “climate denier”. The reality is that there are scientists that do acknowledge that the climate has warmed and that human activity is at least partially responsible, but that also disagree on several facets of the issue. Judith Curry is a pretty mainstream scientist that dropped the knee-jerk response to criticism, engaged critics of the theory, and has since modified her stance based on a fuller discussion of the science involved.

    —
    Regards,
    Dann

31. @Darren Garrison: “Pet peeve of mine: saying “respect” when you mean something like “courtesy.” Courtesy is something that can be given freely. Respect is something that has to be earned.”

    By default, every human being is entitled to a certain degree of basic respect, which is why they should be able to expect to be treated with a level of courtesy that corresponds to basic human dignity. It is certainly possible to “unearn” that default level – say, by acting like a jerk – but nobody should have to take positive action to simply be respected as a person.

    @The Phantom: “PC creates an environment where you have to carefully watch what you say.”

    (gasp) The horror! Oh, the humanity! However will we survive the terrible threat of having previously-marginalized people become able to call assholes out for being assholes?

    Such an environment is abusive, toxic, and most of all, unproductive.

    And yet, it’s still less of all those things than the non-PC “be a jerk without facing any consequences” environment you advocate. Imagine that.

    Oh, since you mention Brendan Eich – he wasn’t canned for being straight, competent, white, or male. He acted in a way that exposed him as an asshole, which splashed back on his company’s reputation and therefore made him a liability as a CEO. In short, his freedom of expression led to wholly-predictable consequences in the free market. I know that doesn’t fit into your preferred narrative, but facts are stubborn that way…

    Now, if you want an example of people being fired simply for their sexual orientation, race, or sex, check out Cracker Barrel. It’s a restaurant chain that marched its employees into the office one by one, asked if they were gay, and if they answered that they were, they got fired – regardless of their competence. And it was perfectly legal. You wanna tell me that’s not “conservative PC” in action?

    @NelC: “That’s why we have laws that say you can’t fire someone for their race or their gender or their sexual orientation”

    Unless you live in North Carolina, or other places which have made it legal to fire someone for their sexual orientation or gender presentation. Neither of those is protected at the federal level, which means it’s entirely possible for a gay person to get married on Saturday and fired on Monday. That needs to get fixed.

32. Stevie on April 7, 2016 at 5:54 pm said:

    Kevin: Not all countries have systems where there is a single NCO in charge of the whole country’s men and NCOS….

    My apologies; I left out “US” in the sentence. I did only intend to write “All of the US armed forces….”

33. Also, she was “chief” puppy-kicker extraordinaire, and anybody who didn’t agree was totally in a different world, because there was SO MUCH PROOF.

    So much, you guys. So very much. Apart from a single blogpost a year ago. More than that. Lots more. That he can’t be bothered to look up because…um…reasons.

    That, or hey, maybe “chief puppy-kicker extraordinaire” is like the lowest rank of puppy kicker. It’s like “private” or “subcenturion.” The next rank up is Super-Mega Foremost Puppy-Smasher First Class, followed by Super-Mega Foremost Puppy-Smasher Even More First Class, followed by Supreme Leader of All Puppy Destroying Activities Esquire, followed by Bob who does paperwork followed by The Greatest And Most Diabolical of Anti-Puppy Fulminators (they also tweet about it) followed by George RR Martin followed by The Glyer Who Blogs At The Heart Of The Roiling Primordial Chaos followed by Master of Anti-Pup Operations Extra-Special Sugar-Free Extraordinaire No Really We Mean It This Time followed by Scalzi.

34. “Puppy Smashers of the Pixel Rangers”

35. That, or hey, maybe “chief puppy-kicker extraordinaire” is like the lowest rank of puppy kicker. It’s like “private” or “subcenturion.” The next rank up is Super-Mega Foremost Puppy-Smasher First Class, followed by Super-Mega Foremost Puppy-Smasher Even More First Class, followed by Supreme Leader of All Puppy Destroying Activities Esquire, followed by Bob who does paperwork followed by The Greatest And Most Diabolical of Anti-Puppy Fulminators (they also tweet about it) followed by George RR Martin followed by The Glyer Who Blogs At The Heart Of The Roiling Primordial Chaos followed by Master of Anti-Pup Operations Extra-Special Sugar-Free Extraordinaire No Really We Mean It This Time followed by Scalzi.

    We will have to form a committee to ensure that all those titles are completely gender neutral.

36. We will have to form a committee to ensure that all those titles are completely gender neutral.

    But surely that will cost as much as seven aircraft carriers?

37. @lurkertype: “I don’t think there’s enough PNR/UF fans to outvote the boys,”

    You say that as if there’s no overlap between those sets. I disagree.

    Also, my local KFC has sprouted a Long John Silver’s.

    @Darren: (storage media)

    Hush, you. 😉

    I actually just got my new wifi-enabled stick set up, verified that it works on both of my Windows machines, and sent the two older-model units back. (The company was decent enough to replace my 64gb and 32gb units with one 128gb.) I don’t like that the memory in it is embedded rather than removable, or that it uses a separate cap instead of a sliding mechanism, but otherwise it seems to be at least as good for the key tasks.

    If it continues to perform well, I may keep my eye out for a good deal on a lower-capacity one as a dedicated unit – the big one for development, and the small one for deployment. Meanwhile, I still have a 128gb microSDXC stick that I can use as a near-effortless backup unit.

    @dann665: “New forms have to be printed. Old forms have to be replaced in personnel jackets, training syllabi, and other records. That process will consume lots of hours.”

    Unless they take the sane approach of updating the forms, using the old ones until they run out, and printing new ones as the next batch. Basically, taking a gradual “fix it when it comes up” approach takes longer to erase all vestiges of the old data, but is much less costly in terms of time and money.

    But then, I deal with errata regularly. That’s really what this amounts to. It’s not such a huge undertaking.

    @RedWombat: “followed by Bob who does paperwork”

    Is this me, the guy who isn’t me, or one of the grunts on Cutthroat Kitchen? 😉

38. @RedWombat

    *snort* 😀 😀 😀

    You forgot Chief Puppy-Kicking Officer of the Order of Sirius and the Line of Cruella DeVil, First Star!

39. Eich spent more than I get in a year to, among other things, dissolve lawfully enacted marriages, including two involving friends of mine. That’s as not-just-private-opinion as it gets; it’s not like any of us here are, for instance, trying to forcibly separate Lamplighter from her husband. But Eich really did help fund push to compel annulments because others disliked something about the celebrants. And it’s not all he did to lose the confidence of foundation participants.

40. Whenever I see someone like Phantom frothing at the mouth about political-correctness, this quote always comes to mind:

    I started imagining a world in which we replaced the phrase “politically correct” wherever we could with “treating other people with respect”, and it made me smile.

41. The Phantom: you and I both know that Grace Hopper was the exception, not the rule

    Actually, she’s not. Over the years, I’ve worked with dozens of women who are highly-competent software developers and engineers. I’ve also worked with a few who weren’t highly-competent. I’ve also worked with shitloads of male developers and engineers, lots of whom were highly-competent, lots who were merely competent, and lots who were absolutely worthless.

    My estimation of the percentages of those I’ve worked with is Male: 50% highly-competent to competent, 50% not highly-competent; Females: 90% highly-competent to competent, 10% not highly-competent. (And I’ve worked for several Fortune 500 companies.)

    I think Stoic Cynic is right; the women who do manage to get into and stay in the business are those who are highly-competent and tough; the men in the business run the full range from brilliant geniuses to worthless morons. In other words, I’ve worked with a lot of straight white males who are incompetent but have still managed to keep their jobs. I have a pretty good guess as to why.

42. Grace Hopper wasn’t even the exception in the 1930s and 1940s. Women were heavily involved in programming back then. Men were more interested in building the hardware and programming was viewed as less interesting/important.

    When I was studying computer programming, a LOT of the better students were female-and that was a while back.

    http://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2014/10/06/345799830/the-forgotten-female-programmers-who-created-modern-tech

43. You forgot Chief Puppy-Kicking Officer of the Order of Sirius and the Line of Cruella DeVil, First Star!

    Brb, getting business cards printed.

44. Is anyone else bothered by the fact that today’s post title obviously has “Pixel” and “Scroll” in the wrong spots? They should clearly be reversed.

    I can’t help it, people; I have a condition. I am a slave to rhythm and meter.

45. @Phantom – Eich was hounded from a job he was doing well, over a private matter, for political correctness. If the CEO of a company is spending time considering the political implications of his lawful and reasonable private donations, that man is living in a toxic and un-free environment. 

    Er. No. Prior to Eich’s official appointment, three members of Mozilla’s board resigned, because they believed an outsider would be a far better choice, not because of Eich’s political views but because of what they viewed as his operational limitations. Also, eleven days is insufficient to determine someone’s competence at a job, so you’re doubly incorrect on your first point.

    On point the second, I have never been a CEO, but I have been a semi-public figure and I promise that it requires a certain level of awareness of the implications of pretty much every decision. That Eich bet wrong on where history would land on the issue of same sex marriage does not absolve him of the responsibility of considering the implications of his very public support for a hateful cause. That very lack of robust thinking all by itself is probably enough to make him a poor choice for chief executive.

    The ability to make any choice you wish to make does not insulate you from consequences. Smart people know that without being told.

46. Jim Henley: Is anyone else bothered by the fact that today’s post title obviously has “Pixel” and “Scroll” in the wrong spots? They should clearly be reversed.

    THANK YOU for saying that. It’s been bothering OCD me every time I get an e-mail notification.

47. “Judith Curry is a pretty mainstream scientist that dropped the knee-jerk response to criticism, engaged critics of the theory, and has since modified her stance based on a fuller discussion of the science involved.”

    Or to put it another way: Curry has started to forward refuted claims by climate deniers, claims she haven’t been able to substantiate. Even defending reports she hasn’t even read.

    Every group will have a contrarian, a person that will argue against just because. Seems to be Curry.

48. Little old lady got nominated late last night…

49. Scrolls fall apart; the pixels cannot hold…

50. Puppies of WorldCon again…

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