Basically anyone who washes their hands frequently (ie all medical personnel, food handlers, etc.) or does manual work with ungloved hands (including home gardening) can later in life have fingerprints so abraded as to be unidentifiable. Using a lot of hand lotion, as anyone with dry hands might, also tends to flatten the ridges. Any requirement for fingerprints as a biometric can render systems inaccessible for entire classes of people - it's a growing problem in banking for the elderly, for example.
Not even later in life. I spent a couple of weeks working with concrete blocks at home and I was unable to get into my workplace via the fingerprint scanner. (My fingerprints restored themselves a couple of weeks later).
I feel compelled to point out that hand lotion and hand sanitizer are not the same thing. However excessive use of hand sanitizer might have a similar effect on our fingerprints, for all I know.
My father has this problem. The last time he went for a background check they tried time and time again with an electronic scanner but it just could not get a legible scan.
After far too many unsuccessful attempts they pulled out the old ink roller and fingerprint card and called it a day with the first crack at it. At least the authorities had this option, what will happen when/if electronically scanned fingerprints are set as a hard requirement?
I'm told (by tax specialists) that nowadays the situation is that you pay the taxes in whichever country has the higher taxation rate, but nothing in the other country. That will be fine - I'm ok with paying higher taxes when I'm getting better services, like a good public health system that works for everyone.
In 1999 I was earning $135k from a US-based job while I lived in Italy. Thanks to the tax treaty, I did not pay US income tax on the first $85k of that, but I paid Italy for it. I paid BOTH COUNTRIES on the remainder. Lost over 55% of my income to taxes that year. I was not thrilled that a lot of it was going to the Berlusconi government.
Ah, but the weather... yes, I know it doesn't rain as much as people think (I've been there at all times of year) but it is awfully dark for awfully many hours in the winter.
Both of us had good-to-great health insurance in the US thanks to our employers. But there's the rub: it's tied to employment, and if you lose your job for any reason, you either do without or pay (very expensive) COBRA. In Australia, everyone has Medicare (public health for all ages), and we currently also have supplemental insurance ("gap coverage") from my employer.
Sexist, homophobic, etc. speech or behavior is less and less tolerated in most serious office environments, not least because it opens up a company to harassment lawsuits. That being the case, I wonder what all the very big serious companies that sponsor the Linux Foundation think about the level of harassment that is apparently tolerated in the communities they sponsor.
Not sure why you are being down voted, I have often wondered this myself. Also, I just posted a link to HN about things preventing up streaming in embedded Linux, I'd say that there are some fairly bad issues preventing people from submitting patches.
I find it strange that Sarah Sharp makes accusations of sexist and homophobic jokes but provides no examples. The mailing list is public after all - should we just take her word for it?
Forcing adults who would automatically think "trucks for boys, dolls for girls" to think about their choices is, in itself, valuable. As a child I was given dolls because I was a girl. I had absolutely no interest in dolls. Nor in trucks. I wanted building toys, animals, and dinosaurs.
I don't think anyone is suggesting that educational toys should be in a specific gender category. On the other hand, the number of tween-age boys into American Girl dolls has to low. I don't think "forcing" your customer to do anything is a good idea. I don't see the problem with the gender filters for those who want them and find them useful. It isn't a toy can ONLY be in one category or the other. I believe they are doing this just to pander to a small group of activists.
If the child is too young to express a preference, you don't need to choose between (eg) dolls or trucks - baby toys need to be primarily something that can't hurt the baby. If the child is old enough to express a preference, you can ask the child or their parents.
