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Comment Re:The problem is that landfills are too cheap (Score 1) 371

Plastic is quite easy to recycle nowadays. In Australia most supermarkets have contracts with soft plastic recyclers to recycle returned plastic bags. Any hard plastics are recyclable into many things. I've seen quite a few examples of easy-to-maintain faux wood products like railings etc. that are made from recycled hard plastic.

Comment Yes, but does it matter? (Score 1) 490

I know quite a few people who are in charities specifically dedicated to increasing the pipeline of women into STEM. I can say most of these people are excited whenever a "girl focused engineering toy" comes out as they can use it as a way to get girls engaged in workshops.

I'm not talking about Pink Legos or Pink Dump Trucks, but tools like Jewliebots that are "girly" things that are programmable or otherwise have some kind of STEM related focus. Getting girls to enjoy a fun workshop where they program robots or jewelry and then using this as a way to introduce them to the concept of engineering is a great way to teach them what engineering actually is.

This is the biggest problem these kinds of groups are trying to solve - girls in school often aren't told what engineering is.

Comment Basics (Score 1) 293

The basics of JavaScript you need to know are:

  • How to use arrays (push, pop, shift, unshift)
  • How type conversions work (i.e. if you do 1 + "2" vs "1" + 2 vs "1" + { valueOf: function(){ return 7; }})
  • When to use == and === and what if(variable) really means
  • What "this" means in all potential contexts (libraries help with this, e.g. JQuery and D3.js use 'this' as another method argument)

Then, you need to learn the basics of the libraries that are advertised in the job posting, which will likely be:

  • The basic raw DOM stuff (e.g. document.getElementByxxx)
  • Basic JQuery stuff (e.g. $(".foo") and operations on selections)
  • Other library stuff (e.g. if they use Angular, learn the difference between services and factories, between controllers and directives etc.)

Finally, you need to know how to look stuff up on Mozilla Developer Network, which is the only JavaScript documentation worth looking at anymore.

Comment Websites already hosted in Facebook's mobile (Score 3, Interesting) 51

Websites are already hosted in Facebook's mobile browser. They've done this to speed up the performance on phones, as swapping apps takes time. They also get to then track which links you click on further, which is great for their targeted advertising.

This is the next logical step: move towards hosting the entire internet inside Facebook.

Comment Re:A first: We should follow Germany's lead (Score 1) 700

Churches don't need to apply for 501(c)3. See specifically:

(1.) Churches are not required to file an application for recognition of tax-exempt status. .

(2.) Churches are not required to file an annual information return. . [i.e. Form 990]

(3.) Ministers of the gospel are able to receive a parsonage allowance.

(4.) Salaries of ministers of the gospel are exempted from income tax withholding and FICA taxes.

(5.) The IRS is required to follow specific procedures when examining a church

and the associated argument by the Athiest group in that case:

The Atheists argue that as a direct consequence of the IRS’s allegedly discriminatory policies, they are injured by being forced “to (1) submit an application for exemption, (2) file Form 1023, or (3) pay the 501(c)(3) application fee that is up to $850,” which establishes their injury is concrete and particularized, and far from conjectural or hypothetical.
