I get a surprising number of emails from career programmers who have spent some time in the profession and eventually decided it just isn't for them. Most recently this:

I finished a computer science degree last year, worked about a year in the Java EE stack. I liked requirements engineering and more 'management stuff' in university, but let's face it: you tend to be driven to be a programmer.

I enjoy programming itself. I'm not doing it that badly, I even do it better than some people. But it's too frustrating. Stupidly complex stuff (that people consider "standard" even if it's extremely complicated!), fighting against the computer, dumb errors, configuration, and stuff that people even worse than me implemented and I have to take care of. New stuff which is supposed to be incredibly easy, and it's just one more framework.

I think I realized I don't want to program because I landed at a company where people are quite good. And I honestly think I won't achieve that level, ever. And I don't enjoy programming as a hobby.

I'm sure that I'm good enough to be able to make a living continuing as I am … but I don't want to.

And this:

Since the first year of studying programming at university I have known in my heart that computer programming is not meant for me, but I was afraid to do anything about it and here I am now 12 years later programming with no passion. I am a career programmer and an average one at best.

I come to work every day with no passion I just do it to pay the bills. I have done some good projects but I am not at all into it.

It was always our hope that concrete, substantive programming career questions could be asked on Stack Overflow, and some early ad-hoc polling indicated that career questions might be accepted by the community, but if you look at later poll results, it's clear that the career questions came out juuuust under the cutoff point as determined by the Stack Overflow community.

Well, what about the rest of the Stack Exchange network? How about our sister site at programmers.stackexchange which is less about programming problems with source code and more about whiteboard style conceptual programming questions? Apparently, career questions are not welcome there either. But wait! Surely programmer career questions are a fit on a site that's explicitly about career related topics? The very same question was asked on workplace.stackexchange:

I'm graduating soon with a Bachelor's in Software Engineering, however during the course of getting my degree I decided I do not want to be a programmer.

I minored in Business Management and really enjoyed that, particularly the management side of psychology and the basics of the processes involved with restructuring a business, but don't really want to throw away my programming degree either.

Is there a field for someone with a Software Engineering degree who wants to get into business management instead of programming? I'd like to combine my knowledge of making software with some kind of business process oriented work. How should I go about changing to this field? Is this possible without going back to school?

Nope. Sorry. That was closed, too, either because it was seen as a 'recommend me a job' or because it's too specific to programming. Pick your interpretation.

I am sympathetic to this quandary because career questions, by their very nature, tend to be so narrow and opinionated that they are frequently only useful to the person who asked – which is completely counter to the goal of Stack Exchange. You know, endless permutations of things like "My boss Jeff is a total jerk, he constantly changes my code without asking and overrides me all the time with his BS arbitrary decisions, should I quit?"* I can understand deciding to outlaw the entire class of career questions because they're frequently soft, opinion-y, and highly specific to the person asking. It's easier to throw out the whole category rather than do the painful work of sifting through them all to reveal those few rare workable gems.

Stack Exchange wants questions that are as useful to as many people as possible, and actively closes (sorry, "puts on hold") the ones that are not. I will now reprint my favorite diagram, ever, which attempts to explain this:

The colored part in this target that says "All Programmers"? That's the goal at Stack Exchange. Well, maybe "all bicyclists", or "all cooks", but you get the general idea.

We try our best to teach you to ask questions that hit this sweet spot: answers that get you the information you so desperately need, yes, but also help your peers along the way without devolving into meaningless opinion honeypots. Overshoot and you get either "Too Broad" or "Too Localized". Hitting that target with our questions – or at least making a best faith effort to attempt to, anyway – is how we maximize the results of our collective efforts. Write once, read many.

But back to the topic: what career options are available to programmers who no longer want to program? I feel there is a way to answer this question that would be helpful to many other programmers, that is supported by facts and data and science.

Programming is indeed a field that does require some passion. If you've been programming for a few years and haven't developed a taste for it by now, it seems doubtful to me that anyone would suddenly develop one overnight. However, if you were able to stick with doing something you're not very enthusiastic about for a period of years, maybe there's still a kernel of something there to work with. Or perhaps you're just wearing golden handcuffs.

Environment plays a big part in any job, no matter how intrinsically amazing that job might be. Who do you work with? What are you working on? What kind of environment do you program in:

• A startup?
• A small business?
• A big business?
• A consultancy?
• Freelance?

The "programming" in each of these situations, and the other peer programmers you'll be working with, will be radically different. Consider if the environment and peers may be the problem. Have you tried changing those up, first, before conclusively deciding you need to leave the field forever?

Beyond that, there are lots of related fields where programming skills are advantageous, without having "sit down and write code all day" as part of the job description. So let's think. What jobs exist where …

1. Programming skills and a deep technical background are typically in the hiring requirements.
2. There is a documented record of ex-programmers moving into these positions and being successful.
3. There are a reasonable number of such jobs available worldwide.

Here's where I really wished I could have asked this on Stack Exchange, because I'd much rather crowdsource data to support the above three points, but the best I could come up with on my own is:

• Product/Program Manager
• Project Manager
• QA / Testing (good testers are worth their weight in gold)
• Build Engineering (this stuff is hard)
• System Administrator
• Technical Sales
• Technical Writer
• Business Analyst / Programming Analyst

In many of these roles, people that truly know the nuts and bolts of programming are quite rare. That's unfortunate, because a deep technical background lets you actually understand and explain what is going on, to customers, to business stakeholders, to peers on related teams. At the very least nobody can dazzle you with technical BS, because you're equipped to call their bluff.

I've seen less "adept" programmers self-select into related roles at previous jobs and do very well, both financially and professionally. There is a lot of stuff that goes on around programming that is not heads down code writing, where your programming skills are a competitive advantage.

Career questions are tough, because ultimately only you can decide what's right for you. But if you're a programmer who no longer likes to program, your technical background can at least open the door to a number of related professions.

* Yes, you should quit. Jeff is a total jerkface.

[advertisement] How are you showing off your awesome? Create a Stack Overflow Careers profile and show off all of your hard work from Stack Overflow, Github, and virtually every other coding site. Who knows, you might even get recruited for a great new position!

Turns out there's a lot of vulnerable systems out there:

Many of the two terabytes (2,000 gigabytes) worth of replies Moore received from 310 million IPs indicated that they came from devices vulnerable to well-known flaws, or configured in a way that could to let anyone take control of them.

On Tuesday, Moore published results on a particularly troubling segment of those vulnerable devices: ones that appear to be used for business and industrial systems. Over 114,000 of those control connections were logged as being on the Internet with known security flaws. Many could be accessed using default passwords and 13,000 offered direct access through a command prompt without a password at all.

[...]

The new work adds to other significant findings from Moore’s unusual hobby. Results he published in January showed that around 50 million printers, games consoles, routers, and networked storage drives are connected to the Internet and easily compromised due to known flaws in a protocol called Universal Plug and Play (UPnP). This protocol allows computers to automatically find printers, but is also built into some security devices, broadband routers, and data storage systems, and could be putting valuable data at risk.

Interesting research:

Helbing's publication illustrates how cascade effects and complex dynamics amplify the vulnerability of networked systems. For example, just a few long-distance connections can largely decrease our ability to mitigate the threats posed by global pandemics. Initially beneficial trends, such as globalization, increasing network densities, higher complexity, and an acceleration of institutional decision processes may ultimately push human-made or human-influenced systems towards systemic instability, Helbing finds. Systemic instability refers to a system, which will get out of control sooner or later, even if everybody involved is well skilled, highly motivated and behaving properly. Crowd disasters are shocking examples illustrating that many deaths may occur even when everybody tries hard not to hurt anyone.

Our government collects a lot of information about us. Tax records, legal records, license records, records of government services received-- it's all in databases that are increasingly linked and correlated. Still, there's a lot of personal information the government can't collect. Either they're prohibited by law from asking without probable cause and a judicial order, or they simply have no cost-effective way to collect it. But the government has figured out how to get around the laws, and collect personal data that has been historically denied to them: ask corporate America for it.

It's no secret that we're monitored continuously on the Internet. Some of the company names you know, such as Google and Facebook. Others hide in the background as you move about the Internet. There are browser plugins that show you who is tracking you. One Atlantic editor found 105 companies tracking him during one 36-hour period. Add data from your cell phone (who you talk to, your location), your credit cards (what you buy, from whom you buy it), and the dozens of other times you interact with a computer daily, we live in a surveillance state beyond the dreams of Orwell.

It's all corporate data, compiled and correlated, bought and sold. And increasingly, the government is doing the buying. Some of this is collected using National Security Letters (NSLs). These give the government the ability to demand an enormous amount of personal data about people for very speculative reasons, with neither probable cause nor judicial oversight. Data on these secretive orders is obviously scant, but we know that the FBI has issued hundreds of thousands of them in the past decade -- for reasons that go far beyond terrorism.

NSLs aren't the only way the government can get at corporate data. Sometimes they simply purchase it, just as any other company might. Sometimes they can get it for free, from corporations that want to stay on the government's good side.

CISPA, a bill currently wending its way through Congress, codifies this sort of practice even further. If signed into law, CISPA will allow the government to collect all sorts of personal data from corporations, without any oversight at all, and will protect corporations from lawsuits based on their handing over that data. Without hyperbole, it's been called the death of the 4th Amendment. Right now, it's mainly the FBI and the NSA who are getting this data, but -- all sorts of government agencies have administrative subpoena power.

Data on this scale has all sorts of applications. From finding tax cheaters by comparing data brokers' estimates of income and net worth with what's reported on tax returns, to compiling a list of gun owners from Web browsing habits, instant messaging conversations, and locations -- did you have your iPhone turned on when you visited a gun store? -- the possibilities are endless.

Government photograph databases form the basis of any police facial recognition system. They're not very good today, but they'll only get better. But the government no longer needs to collect photographs. Experiments demonstrate that the Facebook database of tagged photographs is surprisingly effective at identifying people. As more places follow Disney's lead in fingerprinting people at its theme parks, the government will be able to use that to identify people as well.

In a few years, the whole notion of a government-issued ID will seem quaint. Among facial recognition, the unique signature from your smart phone, the RFID chips in your clothing and other items you own, and whatever new technologies that will broadcast your identity, no one will have to ask to see ID. When you walk into a store, they'll already know who you are. When you interact with a policeman, she'll already have your personal information displayed on her Internet-enabled glasses.

Soon, governments won't have to bother collecting personal data. We're willingly giving it to a vast network of for-profit data collectors, and they're more than happy to pass it on to the government without our knowledge or consent.

This essay previously appeared on TheAtlantic.com.

Hello everyone!

This morning I have mixed feelings: I am happy that we have the possibility to bring our beloved The Old Reader to a new level, and I am sad that Google Reader soon will be completely over. It was a large part of my daily internet life. We even started making The Old Reader because no one could stand my whining anymore.

News came unexpected (mind you, we are living in GMT, so it was literally the middle of the night), but we are doing out best. We tripled our user base (and still counting), and our servers are not amused so far. We will be deploying more capacity shortly, so things should get better by the end of the day. Please, be patient with us.

(The Old Reader’s team before March 13, photo by repor.to/shuvayev)

This is overwhelming. When we started this as something for us and our friends to use, we never expected so many of you to join us in our journey. Thank you very much for your kind words and support, we appreciate this.

Seeing Google Reader go, many of you are asking whether The Old Reader is going to stick around. Also, quite a lot of people would like to donate to keep our project running. We have been discussing this quite a lot recently, and we decided that paid accounts (the freemium model) are the way to go. We want to keep making a great product for our users, not cater it for advertisers’ needs.

We are going to be honest, we have not even started coding this yet. However, we would like to get this news out as soon as possible for everyone to know the way we will be going. Paid accounts will have some additional features, but the basic free accounts will still be 100% usable. We are not in this game to make money, but we want to give something special back to the people who are going to be supporting us.

We have our daily jobs, so we can’t promise that new features will be ready tomorrow or next week. We have no investors or fancy business plans, but we are open about everything we do, and we want to do it the right way.

We reworked the plans according to the news today. Creating an API for mobile clients is the number one priority in our roadmap. We would love to collaborate with any developers who were making Google Reader clients. Please, spread the word about this if you can.

For those of you who are posting feedback and creating new feature requests - please, double-check for existing items in Uservoice. We hate answering the same questions multiple times and removing duplicate requests.

Most asked questions are:
- “When will OPML import be working again?” As soon as we launch more capacity to handle this. Hopefully, later today.
- “Why are you asking for access to my Google contacts when I log in via Google account?” We don’t anymore.
- “When will you make an iOS app? How about Android?” We will start with API as soon as we can and see how it goes.
- “Why is there no way to login without Google or Facebook accounts?” We cover that one in our knowledge base, but we plan to implement own login code. The demand is high.
- “How do I rename a feed?”. Just browse the Tour page, please? 
- “Shut up and take my money!”. Will work on that, stay tuned.

We have lots of things to do, and it will probably take us several days to reply to all emails and tickets. Also, Twitter keeps reminding us about daily tweet limits, so there might be delays as well.

Some other news: last week our developer (on the left) turned 21, and we have implemented PubSubHubbub support. Many of you asked us to make feed updates faster, and PubSubHubbub makes compatible feeds refresh almost instantly. Yay!

Thank you very much for your support. We will do our best during next three months to prepare for the day Google Reader will no longer be around.

MARINA DA GLÓRIA – Em cerimônia paralela realizada ontem para celebrar as grandes produções da economia nacional, as empresas de Eike Batista foram agraciadas com um Oscar nas categorias Melhor Efeito Especial e Melhor Maquiagem. "Já era hora de premiar o empreendedorismo de Eike Batista, um homem capaz de criar estupendas cortinas de fumaça. Ninguém como ele é capaz de vender petróleo onde só há água salgada. Poucos são tão hábeis em fazer desaparecer o valor de uma carteira de ações. E desafio qualquer cidadão a criar tanto valor, onde não há nenhum, com uma simples visita ao BNDES”, discursou, emocionado, Sérgio Cabral.

MOOCA - Atento aos acalorados debates na sociedade paulistana acerca da redução da maioridade penal, José Serra apresentou uma solução à cúpula do PSDB. "Chega de trololó! A única maneira de resolver os problemas de segurança desse país é aumentar a menoridade presidencial para 65 anos. Somente um homem experiente, sexagenário, de cabelos brancos, notívago e carismático, pode estabelecer uma governança prafrentex", elaborou. Ao ser informado de que não tinha mais cabelos brancos, Serra ficou surpreso: "Ué, caiu?".

BRASÍLIA - À beira de um ataque de pelanca para mostrar a relevância da "cura gay", Marco Feliciano prometeu se empenhar, com graça e glitter, para a aprovação da proposta. "Vou me submeter a esse tratamento. Serei uma cobaia chiquerérrima. Pelo povo brasileiro, abro até mão da minha chapinha, dos meus sais de banho e dos esfoliantes", desabafou, enquanto jogava, magoado, seus cílios postiços sobre a mesa diretora. "Minha santa protetora das causas enrustidas, orai por nós", completou, com as mãos espalmadas para o céu.

Aqui em BH, a prefeitura fez uma coisa muito legal que foi dar uma força aos carroceiros, cadastrando-os aos URPVs, que são centros espalhados pela cidade para descarte de lixo que não pode ser recolhido pelo tradicional caminhão de lixo. Sofás, eletrodomésticos, etc.

Louvável, mas fiquei impressionado como a SLU está completamente despreparada para atender o cidadão neste aspecto. Espero que este post de alguma forma ajude-os a melhorar o serviço, caso seja do interesse real deles. Me desculpem o trocadalho, mas o site e o serviço de vocês foi um lixo.

Eu tinha uma máquina de lavar de 12 anos que já estava no segundo conserto. Minha empregada, que geralmente leva tudo o que é trocado de móvel e eletro daqui de casa, recusou a máquina. Então vamos lá descartar.

Problema #1 - site

Digitando no google slu e bh, você vai para o FAQ de como descartar o lixo.

Na seção "entulho", não puseram os links. Em lugar nenhum.

"O entulho resultante de uma pequena obra pode ser levado para uma Unidade de Recebimento de Pequenos Volumes (URPV). Confira aqui os endereços (link para Página URPV)."

Quéde o link? Esqueceram.

No menu tem o link para a página do projeto, que tem o mesmo problema. Procure no menu vertical à esquerda por "projeto carroceiros". Não tem link nem telefone.

Problema #2 - contato pelo site

Aí lá vou eu preencher o enorme formulário prá pedir prá consertarem os links. Não funciona no firefox. E se eu estivesse no linux? Que hora que o botão "prosseguir" fica habilitado?

E a cereja do bolo. No rodapé da página, leia

"©2008 Governo do Estado da Bahia - Ouvidoria Geral©2008 Governo do Estado da Bahia - Ouvidoria Geral©2008 Governo do Estado da Bahia - Ouvidoria Geral"

Problema #3 - contato por telefone

As opções do telefone parecem seguir os itens mais populares e não uma divisão por assuntos, talvez por serem muitos assuntos. Caio na ligação com a atendente, que com muita boa vontade, me informa que o sistema está lento e que os telefones não aparecem direito no mapa dela e me passa o telefone de duas URPVs completamente distantes (Boa Vista e São Bernardo) de onde moro. À esta altura, eu já estava pesquisando no google pelas URPVs eu mesmo e já tinha os nomes e os endereços, mas não tinha os telefones.

Aí eu explico prá moça quais são as URPVs mais próximas da minha casa para que ela me dê os telefones. Ou seja, pelo jeito, eu estou mais bem preparado que a funcionária da SLU. Descubro depois que vários sites listam os nomes e os telefones das URPVs, mas depois de muito ajudar a moça tanto a localizar qual a regional mais próxima do meu bairro e quais URPVs mais próximas da minha casa, ela me fornece 2 telefones e me informa que a terceira URPV não tem telefone.

Como assim um estabelecimento da prefeitura sem telefone? Esse povo se comunica como?

Problema #4 - os carroceiros dão conta?

Ligo para a primeira URPV, ninguém atende. Ligo para a segunda, atende uma moça que finalmente é alguém que sabe o que está falando e me passa o celular de 3 carroceiros que podem me atender e dois telefones fixos de URPVs mais próximas. Um carroceiro não atende, o outro, ao saber que é uma máquina de lavar, me pergunta se eu posso ajudar. Explico que não, e pergunto se ele tem como arrumar um ajudante. Ele diz que não e, bem, com ele não vai dar. (seria o carroceiro a melhor opção para o tal descarte de entulho então?).

Mas a história tem um final feliz. O terceiro atende e se mostra muito solícito e combino com ele dele vir pegar aqui em casa. Explico que tem elevador e que isso vai facilitar as coisas. Quando pergunto da necessidade de um ajudante, ele me diz que "dá um jeito na hora" (de fato, ele deu e muito facilmente). Paguei o acordado com ele (metade do que eu tinha orçado com um carreteiro) e expliquei que a máquina funcionava parcialmente. Quem sabe alguém não poderia ajudá-lo a colocá-la de novo em funcionamento?

Então, vou fazer um segundo favor ao carroceiro que me atendeu. Se você mora perto da regional Nordeste de Belo Horizonte e precisa descartar um resíduo que satisfaça estas condições

"As URPVs recebem materiais como entulho, resíduos de poda, pneus, colchões, eletrodomésticos e móveis velhos, até o limite diário de 2m³. A população pode entregar o material gratuitamente nesses locais ou contratar um carroceiro para buscá-lo.

As URPVs não recebem lixo doméstico, lixo de sacolão, resíduos industriais ou de serviços de saúde, nem animais mortos."

Ligue para o Valeriano no 9156 3619. Não pechinche, pague o que ele pedir, que ele resolve o seu descarte.

E aliás, se é prá SLU manter esse site todo desarrumado, é mais fácil você usar o google e acessar as informações de URPV disponibilizadas pela TV Alterosa, que é mais jogo.

Aqui, de repente, a SLU facilitaria a nossa vida simplesmente disponibilizando os telefones dos carroceiros por bairro no site. Não é muito mais fácil assim?

H.P. Lovecraft Audiobooks Collection - 7 Unabridged Books
Language: English | 7 Audiobooks in Mp3 32/64/96 kb/s | ISBN: Various | 2.31 GB
Genre: Horror, Fantasy, Sci-Fi

Fables #71-90 (2008-2010)
English | CBR | 20 Issues | HD | 798.96 MB
When the Adversary conquered the lands of legends, the inhabitants were forced into exile. They form a secret society, a hidden enclave in modern-day New York. Bill Willingham's award-winning fractured-fairy-tale series explores the world of these beloved fables...one that exists within our own.

Philly.com

UPDATE 1-Suicide rate rose sharply among middle-aged Americans, CDC finds Reuters Fri May 3, 2013 1:32am IST. (Adds statistics comparing U.S. to EU, quotes CDC researcher). By Atossa Araxia Abrahamian. NEW YORK May 2 (Reuters) - The suicide rate among Americans aged 35 to 64 rose sharply between 1999 and 2010, a trend that ... Suicides among middle-aged Americans jump by nearly one-thirdCBS News Suicide Rates Rise Sharply in USNew York Times Economic downturn cited as suicide rate jumps for those between 35 and 64New York Daily News Los Angeles Times -RT all 144 news articles »

1. A new database on educational quality.

2. On the unreliability of early New Zealand gdp figures.

3. Claims about the economics of Game of Thrones.

4. Status competition among religions, as designed by the homeless.

5. There is now a journal for porn studies.

6. China gives Algeria an opera house.

7. Edward Hugh: what kind of test case will Japan prove to be?

Thank God it’s Frida

photo via Zhang Wei for Imagechina via South China Morning Post

The new headquarters for Chinese newspaper the People’s Daily is under construction, and currently the building looks a lot like a giant penis. As noted by many across popular Chinese social networks like Sina Weibo, the scaffolding around the top makes the building appear phallic when viewed from the right angle. Photos of the 500-foot-tall building have since been censored, and according to the South China Morning Post searches for “People’s Daily Building” return the message “According to relevant laws, regulations and policies, search results cannot be displayed.”

image via Xie Qing

via South China Morning Post, MSN, Nerdcore

Everyone arrives late to parties. This is not universally true, but it is close enough that it is common practice to invite people to arrive to a party at 8pm that you actually intend to start at 9pm. 

This norm of tardiness can be ascribed to culture, as partygoers are much more punctual in Germany than in, say, Brazil. But we think game theory - the same framework behind the prisoner’s dilemma - does a much better job explaining why people persistently arrive late. Partygoers arrive late because they face a dilemma in which arriving late tends to maximize their enjoyment of the party.

An illustration of the dilemma faced by two prisoners who committed a crime together. If they remain silent while being interrogated, the case against them will be weaker, resulting in a short sentence. A prisoner could reduce his sentence by ratting out his fellow prisoner, but if they both confess, then they will both receive longer sentences. Since the prisoners cannot be sure of what the other will do, the rational choice is to confess.

Here is an example. For simplicity, let’s imagine a three person party hosted by Joe. Joe invites his two friends, Frank and George, to his house. The three are good friends, but they haven’t seen very much of each other lately and would like to spend as much time as possible together at the “party.” Joe is not the most entertaining host, however, so the party won’t be very fun until all three of them get to Joe’s house.

This is what happens based on whether George and Frank each arrive on time:

Here are the same results described with numbers representing their enjoyment of the party from 6 (least enjoyment) to 10 (most enjoyment):

The best outcome is for Frank and George to both arrive on time so that everyone spends the most possible time together enjoying the party. However, both Frank and George want to avoid the awkwardness of arriving before the other friend arrives. Given that they can’t predict what the other will do, here is what their options look like for deciding whether to arrive late or on time:

George’s options if Frank is on time. If Frank is on time, George should arrive on time as well to maximize his enjoyment of the party.

George’s options if Frank is late. If Frank is late, then George should arrive late as well.

As we can see, there is no single right decision for George to make. Depending on what Frank does, the utility maximizing decision could be coming on time or arriving late. Frank faces the same dilemma. 

So what happens? Absent any wildcards - like Frank having a history of always showing up late - our money is on both George and Frank showing up on time. Since the party only consists of 3 close friends, the level of trust and accountability between the friends is high. Arriving late would feel disrespectful to the other friends.

At a large house party, however, we would expect the exact opposite. Since the level of trust and accountability is lower among a bigger group, the partygoers will have less faith in everyone else arriving on time and feel less guilty about being late. Humans have a bias toward risk aversion, so people will tend toward arriving late to avoid the awkwardness of being the lone, on-time arrival. 

Being “fashionably late” to a party isn’t about appearing popular. It’s a utility-maximizing decision predicted by game theory.

This post was written by Alex Mayyasi. Follow him on Twitter here or Google Plus.

This will make you feel better about life in general.

The guy who picked the wrong chair to kick.

Source: imgur.com

The girl who should probably rethink her life choices.

Source: buzzlol.com

The burglar who underestimated his target.

Source: imgur.com

The guy who got as much as he gave.

Source: imgur.com

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Archive

Apologies to those who are offended by this rather crass Star Wars cartoon, but I doodled it as I was drifting off to sleep one night and it made me laugh. So there.

"Enquadramento" é a estratégia retórica de tentar controlar a forma com que uma questão em debate é vista pelo público em geral. Um enquadramento eficaz funciona como uma espécie de funil conceitual, dirigindo a discussão para uma conclusão preconcebida. Por exemplo, a frase "o governo pode punir você pelo que está no seu sangue" soa sinistra, com até alguns tons de eugenia e fascismo no meio, mas alguém poderia dizer que esse é, basicamente, o princípio por trás da proibição de se dirigir alcoolizado.

Claro que, no caso da Lei Seca, o governo na verdade pune as pessoas por colocar a vida dos outros em perigo: o conteúdo do sangue é avaliado por ser um fator determinante, na circunstância específica. Mas é assim que o enquadramento funciona: como num filme, o quadro mostra parte da cena diante das câmeras, e omite o resto. Num enquadramento ruim (ou desonesto), o omitido acaba sendo mais importante que o mostrado.

No aparentemente interminável debate legislativo sobre se certos psicólogos deveriam ter a prerrogativa -- negada por norma do Conselho Federal de Psicologia -- de oferecer uma "cura gay" ou, para ser menos vulgar, "terapias de reorientação sexual", há uma operação de enquadramento em curso, que busca apresentar a questão como um problema de direitos individuais: nessa perspectiva, a "ditadura gayzista" estaria agindo para aprisionar, na homossexualidade, pessoas que prefeririam mudar de orientação.

Esse enquadramento, ao menos à primeira vista, contorna o ponto mais reforçado pelos defensores da proibição da oferta do "serviço": o de que a homossexualidade não é uma doença e, portanto, não requer "cura". Afinal, uma série de outras condições -- da calvície à celulite e aos pés-de-galinha -- também não são precisamente patologias, mas os membros das profissões médicas não são impedidos de oferecer tratamentos. Se há clientes em potencial, por que não haveria de haver oferta?

Mas, se formos adotar o quadro "liberdade pessoal/relação comercial", temos de levar um outro fator em consideração: a eficácia. Mesmo a mais anarco-capitalista das éticas deve condenar a quebra de contrato, o comerciante que vende e não entrega, ou que pratica o bait-and-switch -- a fraude que consiste em fazer publicidade de um produto mas, no fim, apresentar outro, de qualidade inferior, ao cliente.

E o que sabemos sobre a eficácia dos tratamentos de reorientação sexual? Bem, em 2008 foi publicado, no periódico Journal of Marital and Family Therapy um artigo com o título A Systematic Review of the Research Base on Sexual Reorientation Therapies, que analisou estudos sobre os efeitos desse tipo de tratamento realizados a partir de 1956 e até a década passada. A conclusão? "Homens e mulheres que buscam mudar comportamentos sexuais (...) devem ser informados de que a eficácia dessas terapias não foi provada, que a pesquisa sobre essas terapias é metodologicamente falha. Além disso, a teoria e a prática dessas terapias viola princípios de dignidade, competência e (...) responsabilidade social".

A questão da "responsabilidade social" merece elaboração: porque a promoção de uma "cura gay" não é como, digamos, a promoção da astrologia -- outra prática sem nenhuma base científica, mas geralmente tolerada, por ser vista como uma relação privada entre astrólogo e consulente.

Uma cartilha publicada pela Academia de Pediatria dos Estados Unidos, e endossada por mais de dez outras entidades profissionais (incluindo a Associação de Psicólogos) deixa bem claro que "tanto a heterossexualidade quanto a homossexualidade são expressões normais da sexualidade humana", e que esforços terapêuticos para mudar a orientação sexual humana "têm grave potencial de dano para a juventude, porque apresentam a visão de que  a orientação sexual de jovens gays, lésbicas e bissexuais é uma doença ou distúrbio mental, e frequentemente tratam a incapacidade de mudar de orientação sexual como uma falha pessoal de caráter".

A Associação de Psiquiatria dos EUA, por sua vez, afirma que "os riscos potenciais da terapia reparativa são grandes, incluindo depressão, ansiedade e comportamento autodestrutivo, já que o alinhamento do terapeuta com os preconceitos sociais contra a homossexualidade pode reforçar o ódio a si mesmo já sentido pelo paciente". 

Um estudo publicado em 2002 indicava que, quando o "bullying" e a perseguição por parte dos colegas era controlado,  a taxa de suicídio e de outros comportamentos antissociais entre adolescentes gays caía ao nível do da população heterossexual da mesma idade.

Enfim: o consenso científico é de que, se os gays precisam de psicoterapia, é para aprender a lidar com a própria identidade sexual em meio a um ambiente hostil, e não para mudar de identidade -- mesmo porque essa segunda opção não existe cientificamente, e buscá-la traz um potencial real de dano, tanto físico quanto psicológico.

Não causar dano é um princípio norteador não só da ética médica, mas de todas as profissões que lidam com saúde. Impô-lo é, ou deveria ser, uma das razões de existir dos órgãos de classe, como os conselhos de psicologia que proíbem seus filiados de anunciar por aí que sabem como "curar" gays.

This comic is factual, but it requires a couple clarifications: Wallace Stevens was an executive at an insurance company, not your average insurance salesman. And there's no evidence that Emily Dickinson liked cats, but her sister Lavinia was cat-obsessed. So Emily must have been forced to cat-sit occasionally.

You can order a poster here.

Submitted by: postninegagcom
Posted at: 2013-04-13 01:06:24
See full post and comment: http://9gag.com/gag/7081699

Submitted by: aarontaylor613
Posted at: 2013-04-12 14:22:13
See full post and comment: http://9gag.com/gag/7076853

Submitted by: postninegagcom
Posted at: 2013-04-13 01:10:29
See full post and comment: http://9gag.com/gag/7081727

I’ve been putting off buying RJ45 plugs for Ethernet cables because it looked like they all suck, and I’m not as young as I used to be, so cutting the wires exactly to fit might be a problem (even though I terminated hundreds of cables in my early networking career).

But recently I needed to help a neighbor who ran cables to relocate his wireless router. On a recommendation I picked up a box of the Platinum Tools EZ-RJ45 plugs and strain reliefs. The video below shows how you attach them to a cable by sliding the wires through and out the front.

I just installed them yesterday and had not a single failure (other than forgetting to slide the strain relief into the plug before crimping on the first one).

The are about one dollar each vs. a few cents for the Chinese & big box versions, but my hair is worth the money.

Platinum sells a special crimp tool that cuts the wires when it crimps. I wasn’t the mood to spring for another $50 for the the tool for my occasional needs so I used a regular crimp tool instead. I cut the wires after crimping with diagonal cutters and tidied up with a utility knife. Certainly if I was doing a lot of cable builds or for a business I’d buy the pro tool.

I bought a few of the Platinum Tools modular jacks, too, but I haven’t wired one up yet. You’ll see in the video that they look like a godsend, too, especially since you can reuse them with ease.

Platinum Tool EZ-RJ45 plugs are highly recommended!

-- Mike Andrews

EZ-RJ45 CAT 5/5e Connectors
$15 / 15 pack

Available from Amazon

Manufactured by Platinum Tools

Submitted by: nathalieangies
Posted at: 2013-04-13 12:07:51
See full post and comment: http://9gag.com/gag/7084940