The Gray Zone - <AUTHOR> http://micheleincalifornia.blogspot.com/2014/03/the-gray-zone.html <comment><AUTHOR> The "gray zone" problem as stated here is that it is easy for two people who are unlikely to develop a romantic relationship (say, two heterosexual men) to form a close working relationship. But in order to tear down the glass ceiling heterosexual men and women will need to form close working relationships, and sometimes those are misinterpreted as more romantic than they actually are.

This is the most important paragraph:

"I think the path forward is finding a way to tolerate this gray zone and accommodate it without simply shutting women out professionally. So I really do not think these shit shows help women break into business. I think they just reinforce the current paradigm where the people in power -- mostly men -- have reason to err on the side of shutting women out in order to protect themselves from potential scandal or accusations or similar."

This is a very complicated issue, but I don't think we are well-served by slandering one another on social media rather than having a reasoned discussion. Unfortunately the claims made in the current debacle are not permitting a reasoned discussion, either by mistake or design, which is incredibly frustrating.

<comment><USER2> Where I am really surprised is that you have a lot of issues like that in the computer/programming world (see related issues in conferences) where, we do not have these problems in other engineering areas. I am is bio/chemical engineering, working with women in basically all the fields from very men dominated domains (oil and gas, auto industry) to mixed (pharma/food industry), the only case I know of issues was in the army provider area. This is where I am surprised, please note that my contacts are mainly in Europe.

Maybe another question could be why these issues are endemic to the computer/programming world? Is it because all the other industries are pretty conservative? We have families and kids when we go home and we are not supposed to kill our social life by working insane hours to "ship". I have no answers, but I am happy to be in a field where I can work with men and women without these sexism issues.

<comment><USER3> I'd say it's not even that common in the programming world either. But the internet collects cases from all over the world, and the programming sites blow them out of proportion (is there a Hacker News for bio chemical engineering?).

There are sites that try to list all such incidents. If you compare them to the number of people and companies in the field, you realize not that much is actually happening...

I think feminists have also set a special sight on programming. I suspect it is because it is one of the few engineering jobs that seem compatible with women. Sorry for the stereotypes - I don't speak for all women, but consider that with programming you don't get oil on your clothes, you don't have to walk through mud all day, etc. That's why feminists think women should have more part in programming (at least it's a theory...).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Michele raises a very good point. This is a problem.

The only successful way I've found to deal with it is rude honesty. "Sorry, I wasn't interested in writing a paper with you, I wanted to touch your boobies." "We can totally work together, but lets be realistic - under other circumstances we'd totally be doing it."

Now it's all out in the open, and can continue in the relationship under whatever circumstances are desired. Or perhaps not continue, in the case that I want to make out and she wants me to prove theorems. Everyone's feelings might be a little hurt ("she doesn't think I'm hot?", "he doesn't think I'm smart?") but that can be solved by growing a pair.

Unfortunately, in the hypersensitive PC world that feminists are pushing on the bigger players in the tech world, you simply can't do that. Too much of a power imbalance - the woman can ruin your reputation with a few tweets. Since there are so few women, the marginal cost to avoiding close relationships with women is also fairly low.

No amount of moral posturing will change the incentives.

<comment><USER5> I cannot determine if your comment is in earnest, or if it is an attempt to create a parody of a comment that a sexist asshole would post.

Honestly, I cannot tell.

Now I do believe that if society made it acceptable to just outright ask, with no hard feelings either way "hey, want to go out?" that everything would be better.

I guess my point is that I see the quotes you put forth as being ridiculously extreme examples of what would exist in the minds of only the most lowly of savage males.

<comment><USER6> The comment is earnest. The fact that people on HN make similar comments and believe what they say is proof that sexism is a problem.

It's also why people flag submissions like this - the comments are full of vile hateful idiocy.

<comment><USER4> What do you mean? What did I say that is either "vile and hateful" or "proves sexism is a problem"?

<comment><USER7> Because your proposed solution to possible working awkwardness is not 'growing a pair', it's making an already awkward moment even more awkward, or possibly scary. Now not only does she have to deal with your blustery bravado in the moment, she also has to worry about unwanted advances in future situations where you might be alone together.

What you seem to think is candid, useful communication is anything but.

If you are attracted to someone you're going to be working closely with, there is a time-honored approach for dealing with it. You flirt. If you're good at flirting, then it is non-serious and does not create a threatening atmosphere. It shows off your positive personality qualities and hides your negative ones.

Most importantly, it gives the lady in question an out if she doesn't want to go there with you, she simply doesn't respond. If she doesn't respond to your flirting, then she's not interested and the stand-up, manly thing to do is to _stop_ flirting, and carry on your working relationship in a completely professional manner.

<comment><USER8> I think you're on to something with the 'flirting' thing. Unfortunately, most of us probably don't know how to very well- especially when it comes to reading the other person's intent.

<comment><USER9> It is OK to get things wrong, too. I mean, ideally, you'll look for romantic partners outside the workplace, but if you must look at work, it can still be OK. If you flirt, you think the other person is flirting back, you ask them out, and they reject you, that is neither sexual harassment nor a grave offense.

Example approach (in our scenario, this is toward the end of a workday, which is when you would want to do anything like this): "Hey, I've been having a lot of fun working with you, would you want to get dinner together sometime?" "Oh, I'm sorry, I'm [not looking for a relationship right now|seeing someone else|not interested in you that way|...]." "Oh, shoot. Well, I'll see you tomorrow then." (Go home.)

It may be a little awkward, but if you do things respectfully, then it will probably not ruin the working relationship. And more importantly, you'll have flattered the person you're working with, not creeped them out or made their workplace environment hostile, not cemented yourself in their mind as a total asshole, and not put yourself at risk for getting fired for harassment.

Of course, you will never do this to one of your reports or their transitive reports unless you would like to lose your job. Only peers or members of another org.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> okay I don't really know how to say this, but in my limited and man-centric experience the sexism that I've seen has nothing to do with an ambiguous relationship or sexual tension and everything to do with toxic attitudes towards women. The guy who says "you should be making babies" to a woman engineer is not trying to avoid some kind of "gray zone" caused by getting too close to this woman and deciding between a professional or romantic relationship, he's just an asshole. The guy who says "I don't hire women" isn't doing this because he's afraid of falling in love with them, he's just an asshole.

I think that this idea gets dangerously close to an idea that men and women cannot be friends without romantic feelings spontaneously forming. I think that's crap. It might be true when you're a teenager, but when you grow up I don't think it's an excuse any more. I think that people use "women and men can't be friends" as a lead-in to "and that's why women should stay at home", and that's why it's super confusing to read about it from this perspective.

<comment><AUTHOR> The kind of sexism you describe in your first paragraph is incredibly easy to see. It's the kind of sexism you'd see in a movie, and it does happen. But I think we have come far enough to know that if someone said "you should be making babies" seriously to someone else, it wouldn't be tolerated. In short, I think your experience is definitely "limited and man-centric". Talk to your female friends more and see if they agree with your experience.

I'm not a woman, but intuitively I would bet that the awkward gray zone stuff is a much larger part of what makes women uncomfortable in an office setting. In fact, I have seen the gray zone affect my girlfriends and close friends who are women. It's a much bigger problem than the few true misogynists out there.

<comment><USER10> I'm not sure I agree totally with you. I've talked about this a lot with my women friends and in 2014 consistent complaints I hear are people using diminutive or sexist language towards women in professional contexts. It's just that blatant and it's totally tolerated, across government, academia and industry. It takes a lot of effort to stick your head up and say "I'm sorry, I don't want that to happen" and some friends of mine have just stopped trying and go with it because fighting it and working professionally is just too hard.

I'd be interested in seeing if the gray zone exists in an office that's absent toxic attitudes towards women but in ten years of working I haven't seen such an office. The women are uncomfortable because John leers at them when they walk past his office, or everyone keeps asking Mary to take notes at the meeting and fetch coffee, or Joe keeps talking about porn on his lunch break. You should read Nancy Hauge's "Consulting Adult" series about life working at Sun - it was depressing how little had changed in a corporate setting with regards to the treatment of women! In my experience at least...

<comment><USER11> im a guy and apparently im cute enough so that i sometimes get "sexy jokes" from women at my office. Everyone sees it as good fun. Even me. It's not that bad, and if anything I suppose I'm a little flattered - even if i've ZERO interest in the person and I'm in a work environment.

I'm not making any joke back to them tho. It's risky, and I don't want problems with anyone, anyway, I frankly think it's not worth my time.

I however see posts, tweets, blogs etc from coworkers who blame other men. Example: "we're going bro-coding tonight, anyone wanna join?"

To them that means "women not allowed". It says brothers. Some even threaten others of legal action and talk about it in public too, trying to shame people.

The disconnect is HUGE. To be blunt, I think they're fucking crazy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'll just say the only thing that occurs to me...

This is remarkably mature, and astute, and human. It touches at the reality of the situation when you assume most of the players have good intentions. It avoids sinking to the platitudes and trivialities that cloud this discussion.

It's enormously complex, beyond this. But this is a truth I haven't heard yet, and it's part of the kernel of the problem.

<comment><USER13> Perhaps the most unsettling part of Michele's observation is that it is not clear how to get around it. Calls for gender neutrality in the work place are a bit like asking for world peace. There is no neutral, so long as sex and instinct are involved.

When I am tasked to work one-on-one with an attractive female co-worker, shit gets cloudy really quickly. I'm a happily married man. I telecommute. There is no reason for these situations to be awkward. But yet, here we are. The gray zone certainly exists and it will be a very tough nut to crack.

Basically, kudos to Michele for calling out the uselessness of public shame sessions, and advocating a new tack. Because the old one sure as hell wasn't going to get us across the finish line.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I'm sure most people are as tired of this issue as it sounds the author is. I finished the article and couldn't help feeling some sense of dread. Knowing full well what should be the most controversial and opinionated comment will likely become the most upvoted. Again the author will have to re-evaluate if she wants to continue reading HN and if she decides to leave, our community bias will continue to grow. This is one of the toughest issues that our industry faces. Their doesn't seem to be a clear answer and because of that it seems to be shunned. There's just so much momentum to overcome behind the culture of our species, add on to the fact that we can really only agree that it's "broken" with lots of opinions on how to improve it.

I don't have an answer and I'm not even going to try to offer one because I honestly feel like I'm still far too entrenched in my own biases to really offer something viable. My only wish is that more people would realize the same and be less prone to slandering someone because they tried to help.

<comment><USER15> I am sorry it fills you with dread. I am actually extremely encouraged by my recent experiences on HN and pleasantly surprised to see this piece discussed in earnest. I hope that, over time, I will be able to blog about some things that have been helpful to me personally in hopes of getting some solutions in place. Since some people here are taking my premise seriously, that looks a great deal more do-able to me than it ever has before.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I have found I often agree with Michele, but I think she makes some basic errors in this piece.

1) That most power is in the hands of a few people, who at this moment are primarily men, does not generalize to mean that most men have any power over most women. Most men, most women, at work are powerless. Bosses, leads, vps from other departments -- they have power and they are frequently women.

2) She frames the problem as one of active male behavior and passive female behavior. Women are acted upon. Men at work want sex or romance -- I guess women at work do not want sex or romance. It may very well be that at work she does not want sex or romance. And my guess is that at work most men do not want sex or romance. But there are some men, and there are some women that do.

That's not to say that her path out may not have some virtues.

I do think it would be good for everyone to turn the knob back down to 10, or 9, or perhaps even 3, and talk about the issues of sex and romance and sexism at work, while recognizing this isn't a problem of "Men" and isn't a problem of "Women" but is perhaps a problem of "homo sapiens in the 21st century".

</comment><comment><USER17> My comment may appear incredibly naive, I'm sorry about that.

But I wonder if this gray zone is not simply the symptom of massive loneliness.

I often say to friends that I'm surprised how much, when I'm in a relationship, I see all (other) women as men. Even when other women try to engage me into seduction play, it just makes me laugh or mocking them, just like I would with men (providing they know I'm with someone, of course, or else I try to be less rude).

This gray zone seems to me like people are incredibly lonely and craving for sexual activity, and I think we can spot that in our societies way beyond those "sexism at work" problems (the "dating" thing where you meet people you hardly know, "social" activities like facebook, etc).

It could be also a thing for people that are prone to cheat, but I can't think it's a majority of people.

<comment><USER18> Fair enough assessment. This problem applies mostly to people not in a relationship.

Is that helpful? Lots of people are not in a relationship. Most of them would like that not to be the case.

Also, you can't tell just when meeting people whether or not they're in a relationship, so it's a problem regardless.

<comment><USER19> > Also, you can't tell just when meeting people whether or not they're in a > relationship, so it's a problem regardless.

Well, you can if they're wearing a wedding ring.

<comment><USER20> Uh, that's not the same thing. Many (the majority?) of twenty something's who are in a relationship are not married.

<comment><USER19> Agreed, I was merely pointing out an edge case in the GP's generalization.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> This is the most thoughtful thing I've ever read on the topic, and it gives me some new insight into my own thoughts and feelings.

I'm a straight, happily married man, and count myself lucky to work with many gay and straight men and gay and straight women who I enjoy being around. Of those four groups, I have noticed that I'm the least at ease around straight women, and I think this article does a good job of explaining the reason for that.

With the other three groups there is far less risk of friendliness being mistaken as flirtatiousness.

</comment><comment><USER22> To be clear: I may be in the minority

I'm a young male. Maybe too young to matter, but I do not, and I can't stress enough, I literally give no merit to the gender of my coworkers.

I was I raised to treat everybody equal. In my family as well as in general society today, women are MORE highly educated on average than men. And that's a great thing!

Men can act weird toward women at times, and men will never understand what that feels like. But I AM a man. Trust me when I say that women will never understand what it feels like when a man talks to a man in the absence of women.

I know people can be dicks, they can be terrible, and that's across both genders, but there IS a 'straight man to straight man' dynamic that women will always be protected from that isn't terribly pleasant.

TL;DR: The old boys club isn't fun for all boys, it's still only fun for the ones on top and that doesn't represent most of us.

<comment><USER23> Which is why you shouldn't participate in it?

I realize there are serious societal pressures to conform and be part of that 'old boys club'. But that is exactly the problem, your support of it (even if mostly implicit by merely being present, is made explicit when you laugh along with the sexist jokes or nod in agreement) is what perpetuates your male privilege. I have a lot of privilege too, so I'm not talking from some theoretical moral high ground of being less privileged than you. But I try not to participate.

It's one of the hardest things to stand up to society and your peers. But next time, try walking away. It isn't as good as telling the others why they are being bigoted, but it's better than contributing.

And I realize that isn't always possible. But the next time you get a job, or promotion, and you get that 'old boys club' vibe. Realize that someone else might have gotten that if they had been male (or white, or straight, or Christian, or American, or ...).

<comment><USER24> > But that is exactly the problem, your support of it (even if mostly implicit > by merely being present, is made explicit when you laugh along with the > sexist jokes or nod in agreement) is what perpetuates your male privilege.

The choice, for me and him and maybe other people (men included) is very simple: we can either accept reality, conform to the "old boy's club" (you call that "supporting it"), and progress in our careers, or fight moral battles we cannot win and stagnate professionally or even be fired. It's easy to take the moral high ground from a position of power, but from a position of a young male, it's not very wise.

Personally, I find that all great employees I've worked with have also been great people, so I haven't had this problem myself. But I think that your position is not the most reasonable.

<comment><USER23> Did you not read what I said? Conforming is supporting it! It's a hard choice to not to, but it is still a choice to conform.

So it may hurt your career. Many people don't have careers to advance because of the assholes you are "conforming" with. And so you perpetuate it. Well done! So brave! And people wonder how people who aren't white or male (or straight, or christian) make less money.

<comment><USER24> > Did you not read what I said?

Have you?

> And people wonder how people who aren't white or male (or straight, or > christian) make less money.

And you're suggesting that therefore I, too, should make less money, even though my choice not to do so will make no difference in the world.

Sorry, but I don't think your demands are reasonable. I'd rather make the most money I can (without abusing others), and help others when I'm already in power.

Speaking of morality and supporting the evil status quo, how many loafs of bread did you throw away this year (while people in India are starving), how many Chinese T-shirts have you bought (while the child workers making them are worked to death), how many times did you not donate your hard-earned money (while the children in Africa are dying of malaria), how many times did you not protest while your government's agents were abroad, killing "terrorists" and their children without any judicial (or any other) oversight? Morality is a bitch.

<comment><USER23> > And you're suggesting that therefore I, too, should make less money, even > though my choice not to do so will make no difference in the world.

It's great that you may one day be powerful enough to help with equality. But in the meantime you are going to be fine with gaining that power by abusing your privilege? How's that equality coming along then?

Doing the right thing isn't a fucking cost/benefit analysis. What you (apparently) participate in is the fucking problem [0]. The next time you think, 'why aren't there more women in tech', go look in a fucking mirror.

> Morality is a bitch.

Yes but I at least protest those things. And I do volunteer, and donate. Apparently because the world is horrible we can all just be passive about the injustices we can fix. Go fuck yourself.

[0] [http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/319212/Why_Women_Quit...](http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/319212/Why_Women_Quit_Technology)

<comment><USER24> I'm going to ignore your insulting tone... :/

> But in the meantime you are going to be fine with gaining that power by > abusing your privilege?

What I had in mind (and I tried to communicate to you in the above post) is more that I will be _using_ my privilege, not _ab_ using it. If you find that objectionable, what else do you suggest? That I give my flat to the homeless guy, so that he will be forced to move out in a month because he won't afford the rent, just because I was lucky enough to learn programming while young and can make a good living now? That I move to India and use all my money to buy food for the poor and when it's gone starve along with them, just because I was lucky enough to be born in a first-world country?

Maybe I misunderstood you, and you're only suggesting that I don't perpetuate inequal, discriminatory treatment towards others. If so, I totally agree with that and always try to do my best. If, however, you're suggesting that I should put myself, my family and my future at a disadvantage just so that I can fight some class war against unspecified enemies for an unspecified gain, I'm not going to do that. And even if I would, I would dedicate my resources to more serious problems than sex inequality in tech.

<comment><USER23> There is a middle ground I would hope, and you do appear to be in it. Apologies about the tone, but getting screwed out of opportunities by (supremely obvious, to the point I suspect less obvious ones in other cases) 'old boy' connections is infuriating. Especially when I actually like the people benefiting from it, and none of them actually like participating in it. So I'm taking my anger out on anonymous people on the internet while I still have no empathy for them...

Perhaps it's a definition problem. When I say 'old boys club' I'm thinking of those groups of powerful people who scratch each others backs for jobs. People who promote based off of networking rather than qualifications, and who often discriminate against many other groups, often not promoting them in favour of under-qualified people who are part of the network.

I'm not saying tell them they are stupid or anything. But perhaps stop participating in their group?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I don't know, if the author's only experience of male coworkers is that they either don't want to work with her, or they want to get busy, then it basically sounds to me like she is surrounded by a bunch of arrested- development coworkers with poor boundaries.

Restricting this to heterosexual dynamics, a bonding platonic interaction with the opposite gender very well might feel different than a bonding interaction with the same gender. But that doesn't by definition mean that it has to be distracting, with the participants wondering whether they're about to shag.

That's what having boundaries is all about. It's what professionalism is about. It's erring towards the professional interpretation rather than the suggestive interpretation.

If some other coworker sees you laughing together and gets all gossipy about if something is going on, then that is simply an immature reaction, and it is not professional. I just can't quite fathom simply "tolerating" a gray zone when it really sounds like people need to do a better job of shutting it down and being professional.

I see snippets of this conversation and it's hard to wrap my hands around it because it just seems like the entire conversation is stuck in a paradigm from a few decades ago. It sounds like people in this industry just need some more experiences with having positive, bonding professional experiences with compatibly-gendered coworkers, without it getting all weird and dramatic, before they'll start to accept that it is actually normal and expected, and that there's no reason to get all distracted by whether or not there's any subtext there. Maybe that's all it is, just something where the community needs more experience and socialization...

<comment><USER26> > * it basically sounds to me like she is surrounded by a bunch of arrested- > development coworkers with poor boundaries.*

That's extraordinarily common in the industry, especially in startups.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> This article is much more reasonable that the previous one i've read from you.

Yeah, women will be women and men will be men. There is always some kind of sexual attraction between the two, and there are always physical and even mental differences between the 2 genders. It's how we're made.

There will always be a divide - its about how we behave about it:

This seems to be much more of an issue in the US than anywhere else tho. The US default expectation seems to be to always over-exaggerate stuff, and always takes the over-defensive position.

It's seen as "good person". It's seen as OK for the minority to attack the majority and is considered legitimate regardless of the attack or argument being made (in this case, women using their gender as a weapon, so it's really just a minority within the minority).

Sometimes the same happens with black vs white, and so on, too.

In fact "think of the children" attacks are based on the _exact_ same concept. (remove internet neutrality, THINK OF THE CHILDREN!)

If anything, it deserves the ones who really get harassed IMO, because eventually those might not be defended when they really should be.

</comment><comment><USER27> Somehow I'd hope puting homosexuality more in the spotlight, with more realistic depiction in fiction would indirectly aleviate this problem. Even if it would still be statisticly low, making it that two men closely working together face the same gray zoning problem would move the problem from a gender problem to a generic human relation problem involving the majority of workers, and we could see effective solutions to it.

</comment><comment><USER28> > So I really do not think these shit shows help women break into business. I > think they just reinforce the current paradigm where the people in power -- > mostly men -- have reason to err on the side of shutting women out in order > to protect themselves from potential scandal or accusations or similar.

As a male, I approve. I'd like to talk more about my needs regarding this topic, but it's hard to do in a perfectly politically correct way.

</comment><comment><USER29> If I reply to this with constructive criticism, would that be sexist?

<comment><USER30> Why don't you try?

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Is she really, a "prominent" engineer?

But yes, this grey zone is valid, but people cannot pretend that these black- swan type gender scandals do not make men err on the side of caution when employing women; so they do not awaken the unconscious twitter opinion cartels one day unintentionally.

The fact that this unconcious opinion farming cartel will pick on the good guys(PG)[1], and not only the bad-guys show that they are indiscriminate in their wake, and these people don't give a shit before publishing on valley-wag or going to twitter.

[1]no scare-quotes, because they are good guys, IE Paul Graham)

</comment><comment><USER32> While I agree with the writer that sometimes mating behavior can be observed in office settings, that's not actually the main problem in the tech industry.

The problem in the tech industry is that there are a lot of misogynist assholes who are put into positions of power and encourage that behavior in their businesses.

The average techie is a male who has spent a lot more time interacting with his computer than he has interacting with women. He does not understand women, he fears women, and what he fears, he hates.

<comment><USER33> > The problem in the tech industry is that there are a lot of misogynist > assholes who are put into positions of power and encourage that behavior in > their businesses.

It's really, really weird that I keep reading this. Are you sure you want to single out _tech industry_ as having a lot of assholes? Because, I'm a person who's come to the tech industry after being in various different industries over the years -- particularly, I've worked alongside a lot of mechanical engineering folk, sales folk, and construction folk. And let me tell you, _far and away_ the tech industry folk have been the least misogynistic I have ever had to deal with. I can't even tell you the kind of things my fellow engineers used to tell me, how they depicted their relationships with women (invariably viewing them as just sex objects, etc.).

I'm not really sure why there isn't much public and vocal outrage about problems in those industries. I totally don't understand it.

<comment><USER20> Two potential explanations: the tech industry can't stop talking about itself on twitter and blogs. How many mechanical engineers do you know that spend a large % of their day procrastinating by surfing the web and participating in meta-talk about the industry. Our day-to-day tool for doing our jobs also _just so happens to be_ a worldwide communication device. Just like the media loves to report on themselves, the tech industry loves to post on the internet about the tech industry, so the effect of a single asshole's comment is magnified by a social network powered shitstorm, further entrenching the meme that tech is full of bigots and causing a flood of discussion and hyper- analysis of it.

The second explanation is that the tech industry is actually less mysogenistic than others, as you have noticed, but ironically due to the lack of widespread mysogeny like you see in areas like finance, when an "incident" occurs, a lively discussion happens _because_ there is a critical mass of non-sexist males, not due to a lack of them. Off course, this feeds into the meme which cements it more as accepted truth, despite any real data or study showing that tech has a above average rate of male mysogeny.

<comment><USER34> Another possibility is that the tech industry is currently a desirable place to work. People generally don't care if you exclude them from jobs that they wouldn't want anyway, but if other people are having a lot of fun, changing the world, and getting paid for it, it really sucks if you're excluded from that because you lack a Y chromosome. Hence when stories appear about "software eating the world" or Google engineers getting paid $300K/year with $6M retention bonuses or startups getting sold for $19B after 4 years of work, everybody wants a piece of that, and any hint that it may not be a perfect meritocracy is problematic.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> I think a lot of the problems regarding the gray zone come from not being clear, not understanding boundaries, and not knowing when to move on. These, of course, are things I've learnt the hard way ...

And anyway, is the gray zone itself really such a problem? Being close to someone and sometimes wondering whether there's something "else" there seems pretty normal. Maybe we should just be OK with a bit of ambiguity in some of our friendships. It won't kill you ...

I think a few principles, once applied, make navigating the gray zone almost trivial:

-First, if you think you might be interested, engage in light harmless flirting and gauge the response. If there is no/negative response, then move on. The flirting should truly be harmless. If you friend feels uncomfortable, unsafe, or demeaned, then you have flirted wrongly. Apologize and move on.

-If you've determined you're interested, decide whether it is worth acting on. Sometimes it isn't - for instance, if you're married, or you're just too busy or whatever. Just move on.

-If you're interested and it's worth acting on, promptly express interest in a way that is clear and firm, but not embarrassing or intimidating to your friend. Do _not_ express interest if you are not ready to take "no" for an answer. If you can't take "no" for an answer, just move on and try to figure out why. Where a lot of people go wrong here is instead of actually asking, they half-ask and half-demand. _That_ is going to frighten your friend, and you probably won't be friends any longer.

-If you're rejected, accept it and don't lash out. If you goofed and made things super-awkward and uncomfortable, then lighten the air with a silly joke or something (ie make it clear that you're not going to flip, and that you're cool). Lashing out is going to create a toxic environment for everyone, and it's going to suck. Instead, deal with your feelings on your own, and continue to treat your friend with respect. And, of course, move on.

It's maybe a little awkward to continue working next to stop who rejected you --or who you rejected--but in my experience, it really isn't that bad at all, and it goes away quickly. What's much worse is to ignore one of these steps, and then have things end in a massive immature blow-out. Just take responsibility and be clear, and don't have undue expectations.

And it's often not too late to save yourself. In one case I was a massive douche, but I owned up to my behavior, apologized, and said I hoped we could eventually put this behind us. We did eventually, and it was fun.

Basically, you just have to be considerate and know when to move the hell on.

</comment><comment><USER36> The problem isn't sexism. It's _corruption_ , and it's all throughout business. Most of "business" has nothing to do with discounted cash flows or customer needs or building new products, but about leveraging the emotional vulnerabilities and drives of corrupt humans with more power than they deserve. That's 95% of it. That's why more is learned in MBA school at the bar than in the courses.

Aside: the above also explains why being a non-drinker (like me, for health reasons) impedes your career. When you get sloshed, you see a much wider range of human behavior (some people hitting their worst) and you learn things that are otherwise impossible to learn about guarded, intelligent, 25+ year-old people with a lot to lose. You can read about that stuff (how to negotiate enormous deals with irrational humans) in books; or you can get hammered with 10 other people and _interact_ with it, on a smaller scale where the points (unless you get severely fucked up in a bar fight) mostly don't matter.

The problem is that most of the work isn't hard, and doesn't require talented people. If the work is legitimately hard (i.e. someone might fail) that's viewed as a management failure. This means that anyone can be "groomed" to appear as a leader and as a success, which means that the whole process is already (justifiably) under suspicion. Ergo, the promotion of a woman (even if she's the most talented, because it's impossible to tell in most cases) raises doubts. People assume she was mentored because she was female and pretty, and not because she had the most potential. It's wrong, but you can expect those kinds of attacks in a system where everyone already knows that corruption is the norm. People will use whatever they have to discredit someone who rose faster than they did: female and pretty, boss's son, "had something" (i.e. extorted his way into the sun). It doesn't have to be true.

The sexism battle here is a minor one, really, in the much grander theater of corporate dysfunction. What's more obvious is that the corporate world is _not_ a meritocracy. Most people are forced to work 3 levels below their ability and become deeply resentful, and anyone who gets promoted on potential is immediately thrown into suspicion.

The sad thing is that the companies that were coming closest to fixing this are the ones prominently using open allocation: Valve and Github, the latter now under attack. (To make it clear, I'm not taking sides because it's pretty clear that almost none of us have _any_ real information at this point.) With managerial power being a major source of corruption in the past, it seems wise to get rid of it. But it's also clear that getting rid of _all_ management functions is a non-starter. Even if you do everything right in a no-management company, people will distrust you (was HR asleep on this? you mean there _was_ no HR?) as soon anything goes wrong.</comment>


Startup Quote: Jim Collins, author, Good To Great - <AUTHOR> http://startupquote.com/post/2196958242

<comment><AUTHOR> If you have more than three priorities, then you don't have any.

\- Jim Collins

<http://startupquote.com/post/2196958242></comment>


Ask HN:☢Toxic apps. Can one app put off customers downloading your other apps?☢ - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> Yes. I find it no different then any other product i.e.: Cars, Software, Kitchenware, furniture, restaurants. If I have a sufficiently bad experience with your product I will actively avoid you to prevent that from happening again.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, I certainly try to offer quality apps/games. As always the decision is the customers, I'm perhaps overly concerned/ sensitive. Want to to hear if any of you guys have had to pull an app because its effecting sales of other apps.</comment></comment>


Use OpenPGP to send secure messages - <AUTHOR> Email is prone to disclosure of information. Most emails are currently transmitted in the plaintext (not encrypted). By means of some available tools, persons other than the designated recipients can read the email  contents. Email encryption has been used by journalists and regular users to protect privacy. <comment><AUTHOR> [https://javacardos.com/wiki/secure-email](https://javacardos.com/wiki/secure- email)</comment>


Ask HN: Can there be an open source homeschooling curriculum? - <AUTHOR> My wife and I have been reviewing homeschool curriculum for my daughter's upcoming 4th grade year. Here in Utah the laws are very relaxed around homeschooling: you can pretty much do whatever you want as long as you tell the state you are homeschooling. I'm not sure I love that, but it does allow for flexibility.
What we've been finding is that nearly all the high-rated courses are non-secular and we've decided we want to keep our kids in a secular curriculum. We've evaluated trying to edit the courses or pick-and-choose but it seems like in many of the offerings religion is so deeply-rooted in the work that it would be a very difficult undertaking.
My wife feels like the prospect of designing her own courses is very daunting and so it made me wonder if there has been any kind of effort to open source homeschool. Now more than ever it seems like a great time to have something like this available (we don't want our kids in a classroom while COVID is a concern). So far I've found mentions of open source schooling but nothing concrete or usable.
What I don't know is: what challenges might there be to creating such a thing? In Utah it seems very usable, but I'm sure each state has their own homeschooling requirements that maybe make this idea unlikely to take hold. <comment><USER2> I'm an atheist and secular homeschooler, and I'd like to encourage you not to worry about working with religious homeschoolers. They can give you good answers to your questions, and if you get some religious content in your readings, it shouldn't be a problem. I compromised and combined some homeschooling and some state schooling and often preferred the theistic religion of some the former to the nontheistic religion that permeates the latter.

I think you should put aside the quest for "open source" curriculum and choose the best items you can find a la carte. The point of homeschooling for me, as a secular homeschooler, was to create a customized educational experience tailored (meaning adapted on the fly) to what each child seemed to need and what seemed to work. That meant not looking for comprehensive curricula but trying different things for different subjects. Keep working with other homeschoolers, online and off, to find materials to try. It's very difficult to predict what will work before you try it, because kids are so different. Reviews and recommendations help, but steel yourself to the hard fact that doing the best job will mean expensive trial and error.

</comment><comment><USER3> Bootstrap is open source [https://www.bootstrapworld.org](https://www.bootstrapworld.org) as in you can print off the work books or use pyret which runs in a browser with no install. Functional style programming of math for kids they successfully run in many state schools. You can even email Shriram if you wanted to ask him questions about the curriculum he will probably answer. He specializes in education [https://cs.brown.edu/~sk/Publications/Papers/Published/](https://cs.brown.edu/~sk/Publications/Papers/Published/)

Wildberger has elementary and grade 9 Australian math curriculum too in his channel [https://m.youtube.com/user/njwildberger/playlists?view=50&so...](https://m.youtube.com/user/njwildberger/playlists?view=50&sort=dd&shelf_id=8) but with some advanced math thrown in sometimes. Needs someone to teach it though, like hiring a local grad student or yourself. Foreign countries like Australia or Canada may have open curriculums for elementary [http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/curriculum/elementary/grade4.ht...](http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/curriculum/elementary/grade4.html)

</comment><comment><USER4> I was homeschooled in Oregon from 5th grade until I went to university. There's a pretty big community of homeschoolers here, so that helped. Especially for the younger ages, you'll find that you can be _vastly_ more efficient with your time than school, so try not to worry too much about hours spent "in class".

As far as the religious part is concerned, a significant portion of people who choose to home-educate their kids are strongly religious, and finding a community of people who are not can be quite hard (I'm atheist, so I totally understand). I know of some resources in Oregon that might help.

For curricula, it's important to realise that home education is about creating a good learning environment at home for your child, it's not about replicating the school environment at home. If you want a good list of milestones for various subjects, look into what other countries with good education systems have in terms of their key goals. Singapore and the U.K. have very well structured national curricula. Pick and choose what you want. I used Oak meadow as a vague guideline early on and that was alright. Just do what works. Focus on things they find interesting. Talk to your kids about their interests, about your jobs, let them play. Homeschooling is fun. As they get older, they can do courses at community college or online specialised classes. I personally was able to get into university in the U.K. by focusing on getting very good exam scores in SAT subject tests (which are pretty easy), and by following the curricula for GCSEs and A-levels, but this focus came later.

In terms of government oversight, my experience is that there is none (at least in Oregon, and from what you're describing, also in Utah). This is a blessing and a curse. On one hand there's nobody breathing down your neck micromanaging your curricula. On the other hand there's no external barometer for if you're doing okay. If you do choose to follow this path, know that it can be a lot of work for you and your wife, but it can be incredibly rewarding to see your kid learn and grow the way you do when you're homeschooling, and if you do it right, your kid will really enjoy the experience. It's not the right fit for all kids though, and some learners really need the structure of school. I hope you do well, and if you have any questions, ask.

</comment><comment><USER5> > so it made me wonder if there has been any kind of effort to open source > homeschool.

Yes, many; see, e.g., [https://openeducationsource.weebly.com/full- curricula.html](https://openeducationsource.weebly.com/full-curricula.html)

But you probably want both open source curriculum and open source supporting materials, which is harder to find, because while _selecting_ high quality educational materials and assembling a curriculum is a lot of work to do without expectation for recompense, it's dwarfed by the work of actually _creating_ the materials.

There's some out there, of varying quality. > What I don't know is: what challenges might there be to creating such a thing?

</comment><comment><USER6> You may want to look into open educational resources (oer), as well as the obvious like khan academy.

The enemy of improving experiences, if there is one are the textbook companies committed to keeping education in the physical past to maintain their billion dollar industry at the cost of better immersive learning experiences.

Ultimately, new ways are emerging and you can be part of the improvement by creating and contributing OER.

I have a background in creating and delivering K-12, post-secondary and industry regulatory training, and would be happy to chat more offline.

</comment><comment><USER7> I feel it's not impossible, more like it just hasn't been initiated. It requires synthesizing parts off of common core, and then parents being effective at not just dishing information but capturing the essence of techniques of delivery and engagement itself. Heh, sorry for the non-answer. I guess what i'm saying is it's a trailblazing/pioneering project for whoever commits to that endeavor in a non-secular and modernized way.

<comment><AUTHOR> It feels like a big challenge. In particular having to be compliant with common core for states that don't allow you to simply "wing it." That said, it feels like a big enough market that it would be a perfect candidate for crowd- sourcing courses.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Try [https://www.k12.com/online-public- schools/homeschool.html](https://www.k12.com/online-public- schools/homeschool.html) and [https://www.oakmeadowbookstore.com/k-8-curriculum/fourth- gra...](https://www.oakmeadowbookstore.com/k-8-curriculum/fourth-grade/)

<comment><AUTHOR> I haven't seen Oak Meadow (I'll check with my wife... she has looked at a lot more). K12 seems to have a lot of negative reviews (primarily for their online offering, but also their homeschool courses). While I'm sure it ends up being sufficient I'd really like to see someone of the quality that I see in the non-secular courses.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> There is plenty of neutral material out there. You can always supplement that with secular material. Think reading comprehension etc. For printed workbooks, I really like Evan-Moor. I bought a bunch of them for my daughter for the Summer.

Saxon Publishers use to be the gold standard for homeschool kits, but they switched up the material. You hear many complaints about it over the years since the change. I was fortunate to get a used kit for math before my daughter turned 5.

There are other sites like ixl.com that are good if you want adaptive problems on a computer. They cover the complete common core.

If I were going to put together something for home use, I would seek out the very best videos on YouTube and I would embed them in html. You can minimize the auto suggestions and other videos they try to push on you being on the main youtube site.

</comment><comment><USER10> I'm not sure if this is the sort of thing you're asking about, and I didn't do this myself but there is a thing called the "International Baccalaureate", it's a sort of education plan that regardless of where you are, if you follow it you would be prepared for higher education/work basically anywhere in the world (so if you were in Costa Rica, like I am, and got it, when you are 18, you could go to the US, Canada, the UK, or the EU for university, with minimal or no classes to "catch up")

<comment><AUTHOR> Interesting! From their website it looks like you must become a "school" (about $4000 USD) and that gives you access to the material? I guess theoretically you can be a school of one for teaching a single child.

<comment><USER4> You can also work with specific institutions that will allow your kid to take the IB tests if you're in a jurisdiction that doesn't require you to legally be a school if you're home-educating (as you've said, Utah does not).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Khan Academy khanacademy.org is a free online learning site. It has a complete math curriculum, and is branching out into other topics.

<comment><AUTHOR> Khan is awesome. And if we end up building our own curriculum we will likely be using it for math. It doesn't seem like the one-stop shop we would like though.

<comment><USER2> At the elementary level, and in English, I've never seen anything that came close to the original Singapore Math [1]. _There 's_ your one-stop shop.

(US Edition since you're in Utah. US Ed converts spelling to US and some of the units to non-metric, so students practice with _both_ metric and non- metric units instead of metric only. Standards Ed is just as good as US. It is same content as US Ed but reordered somewhat to match pre-Common Core CA system. I'm guessing Common Core is another re-ordering of the same "Primary Mathematics" content. If so, it should be equally good. They no longer use this in Singapore for reasons that relate to integration with their non-math curriculum, but that is not relevant to someone using this as a purely math curriculum.)

[1] [https://www.singaporemath.com/primary-mathematics- shop/](https://www.singaporemath.com/primary-mathematics-shop/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Just out of curiosity, do you see this as being different from open source curriculum and materials for teachers/schools/anyone?

I don't have a good recommendation there either, but I was wondering if it is necessary to restrict yourself to "homeschooling" curriculum in particular?</comment>


Discrete Arctan in 6502 - <AUTHOR> http://www.dustmop.io/blog/2015/07/22/discrete-arctan-in-6502/

<comment><USER2> This is very clever. I remember first coming across this problem a long time ago when improvising my first "vector"-based program on the 286, which I programmed in Pascal at the time. My "solution" was to pre-calculate the values and throw them into a lookup table - which in hindsight was pretty clumsy compared to this.

<comment><USER3> If you have the memory, a lookup table is a perfectly reasonable solution.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Isn't this exactly the kind of situation you'd use a CORDIC for?</comment>


Vine founder launches TikTok competitor - <AUTHOR> http://Byte.co <comment><USER3> TikTok has succeeded not because it has unique features. It simply started its strategy to take on the world with the freshest possible generation of users, children aged 11-14.

Look at the beginnings, it was disgusting, but they were there patiently spending money to convince the generation that now with 18-21 already believes that Instagram is just a stronghold of retirees and no community.

They now feel part of something unique because getting on Instagram meant competing against those who were already established. Every social network must be focused in this way. Today TikTok attracted all the big stars, and the Instagram generation is really asking themselves, what is going on? (same question snapchat users did back then), the truth is TikTok is eating Instagram at some big pace and it will take it over completely soon.

Do you want to create a new social network? Aim for the 11-15 year old population and in 3-4 years you will have the strongest, most faithful and active community.

<comment><USER4> This is nonsense, Tik Tok has succeeded because it is a fantastic digital product.

It presents an entirely different vibe than the other services you mention and is useful for different kinds of interaction and discovery. It's simply really engaging and enjoyable for people to use.

Also the reference to "attracted big stars" seems confusing to me. The genius of the platform so far has been that it's genuinely possible to participate as a normal person and a lot of the other content is created by actual peers of most users. As the stars and celebrity phenomenon grows there I think we'll see the platform start to deteriorate.

<comment><USER5> "It's the product not the people"

Sorry, but social networks are made of people, without the people you don't have a product. He's trying to say that because important people create the community then that's the most important thing to the product in this case. Trying to say that the product creates the people makes no sense.

<comment><USER4> But that's the part that confused me. Has everyone commenting actually spent time using the product?

The whole notable thing about Tik Tok is that "important" people didn't create the culture. It was created mostly by high school age kids sharing music and dance videos.

I guess the premise is that since Tik Tok deliberately sought that market... the success doesn't count somehow... or something?

I mean like the entire planet is trying to market to that demographic. Nearly everyone fails. The distinguishing feature of Tik Tok here is that it's a great well designed social product that's fun to use and viral.

<comment><USER3> I've used it. Again, the UX/UI isn't strikingly enough to say, imho, "ok, this is a new concept". In fact, when they started the app looked differently, again, look at their first year or two and you will realise why they have success. It's not the UX, Snapchat had the worst UX/UI ever but their success was related to the mass of people they've appealed to.

<comment><USER6> The UX is optimized for insanely efficient mindless consumption.

Open, and you're immediately fed content with no interaction required. Not happy with what you see? Swipe.

<comment><USER3> Then if you think that, why don't you copy it and have the same effect? Because you can't and you will not get the same since isn't about UX but more about appealing to a certain sector of the population in the best moment.

<comment><USER4> For the same reason I can't create a stream of 140 character messages or write Stairway to Heaven again. Because someone already did the novel thing and captured the initial audience attracted by that novelty.

<comment><USER3> No, you've claimed the UX was part of the reason they've triumph. And that is not the point, again, is not about the song (most of the songs use the same notes), it's about appealing to a certain group of people in the right time and taken it over. They've started with videos, like Vine, then they moved on to musical.ly style for youngers, and they merged. That's how they started and gained traction until 2018 where they took it off

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> As someone not very familiar with either: Why is TikTok succeeding while Vine failed?

And why did Vine shutdown? How do you fail at user-generated content that you can sell ads and more on?

I ask because I still run blogs that are < 5% of the size they used to be, but still make me $50/month with zero effort in static mode. So why would I stop?

<comment><USER8> My son of 10 and almost all of his classmates use tiktok.

The real killer is the dances on the music. They don't have to invent a new topic every time. They just see a music video they like, and imitate it. Together with all the effects it's very easy to create a crazy video with basically nothing.

<comment><USER9> To be fair there have been videos like that on basically every video platform since the dawn of the internet

<comment><USER10> TikTok does a very good job of removing friction in creating and publishing that content however.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Unfun fact, Colin Kroll, one of the founders of Vine and HQ Trivia died of a heroin overdose a while ago. He was an interesting guy. [https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/16/nyregion/hq-trivia- overdo...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/16/nyregion/hq-trivia-overdose- colin-kroll.html?auth=login-google)

<comment><USER12> The very first time you open the app, it does say "in loving memory of X", though I can't remember now if that name was Colin Kroll or someone else.

<comment><USER13> It was Jacob Marttinen. He was an engineer on Byte.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Opens with an obituary and then only provides Google as a sign in option - <USER2> really sure how I feel about the on boarding so far

<comment><USER15> Obituary?

<comment><USER16> As someone else pointed out:

> Unfun fact, Colin Kroll, one of the founders of Vine and HQ Trivia died of a > heroin overdose a while ago.

<comment> frosted-flakes No, it was Jacob Marttinen, one of Byte's engineers. He was killed last June (hit by a car).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Really wish they went with 8 seconds instead of 6 for the videos.

I mean 1 byte = 8 bits after all.

Missed opportunity.

<comment><USER18> > Really wish they went with 8 seconds instead of 6 for the videos. I mean 1 > byte = 8 bits after all.

Actually, a byte could and did have a variety of bits as they were generally hardware dependent. Generally, a byte is the smallest number of bits that a hardware can process. The most popular bytes early on were 4 bits and especially 6-bit bytes.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byte#6_bit](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byte#6_bit)

Octets ( 8 bit bytes ) became widely adopted after IBM went with octets in the 1960s and the industry basically followed and octets became so ubiquitous that byte and octet became synonyms. It's similar to how google became a synonym for internet search ( "you can just google it" ) or how coke became a synonym for soda in parts of the world.

So while it is widely accepted that a byte is 8 bits, but technically, it isn't true. Octets are 8 bits and most/all bytes in the world are octets. But it doesn't necessarily have to be so. Octets always have to be 8-bits, but a byte doesn't.

<comment><USER19> This is exactly the type of response that keeps me reading HN daily. I love it.

Apologies for the unsubstantive comment of my own here. I felt like an upvote wasn't enough to show my appreciation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> From what I can tell its only advantages over TikTok right now are "made by the person who had the idea first" and "isn't Chinese spyware". I doubt either of those really matter to TikTok's core audience. Byte will have to do better than that, I think.

</comment><comment><USER21> I don't think it's a good approach to pitch yourself as a "X" competitor. It immediately draws the comparison. Folks that are already happy with X will most likely stick with X and folks that haven't tried X yet are now drawn to split their attention between your app or service and X as they decide which to invest their time and energy into, assuming they get what X is all about in the first place.

<comment><USER22> For a fuller analysis of this, see 'Jeff Bezos, Jack Ma, and the Quest to Kill eBay' \- [https://medium.com/s/story/jeff-bezos-jack-ma-and-the- quest-...](https://medium.com/s/story/jeff-bezos-jack-ma-and-the-quest-to- kill-ebay-bb4992dc5020)

<comment><USER21> Great essay thank you for sharing!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> It's a shame that they don't offer a web version. I was interested enough in order to go to the webpage, but I don't want to download the app and make an account

<comment><USER12> Yep, if not even for logging in, at the very least for sharing videos. None of my friends have TikTok but being able to easily send them links to funny ones goes a long way.

<comment><USER24> You can share links from the app

<comment><USER12> In byte? How?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> What I really want to learn from these guys is how they go out and raise money so easily. I could do so much if it was that easy to get funding.

<comment><USER26> Pitch: "I founded and sold the original TikTok. Now I want to make another one."

VCs: "Where do we wire the money?"

<comment><USER27> Elon: I have this next great idea.

VC: Please take our money.

<comment><USER28> more like:

Elon: I have this next great idea. *pandemonium results in 4 deaths as VCs get crushed by the crowds

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Can these videos be directly linked like via a byte.co url? Or is it all trapped in an app? I explored it a bit on Android but couldn't figure out how to just share a link, not download and encode the thing.

<comment><USER12> There's no link / web version. You can only export mp4.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> There are two things happening in social media world right now.

First, when it comes to messaging friends and connecting with people most college kids uses Snapchat. I am in a big college and everyone at my university uses Snapchat for messaging. I believe that it is smart for Snapchat to default on camera when opening the app this way it keeps the distraction away and you can focus on whatever you were planning to do like reading a message plus it is a good privacy oriented platform.

Second, when it comes to being silly and occupy boredom, kids are using tiktok. TilTok has a great recommendation algorithm. Sometime, if I don't pay attention I can spends hours on the app. TikTok became a safe space for younger generation, where they don't need filters and photoshop to be part of a community.

Here is a great article in WSJ about TikTok

[https://www.wsj.com/articles/help-im-trapped-inside- tiktok-a...](https://www.wsj.com/articles/help-im-trapped-inside-tiktok-and-i- cant-get- out-11579801844?emailToken=8e85c02fb4d9dc4b0e375fa5db89ed4e3hd8TxvvM+aHAqbpVWR903IET2V1TwBFG0f3neQ3UVqAqo6tMVHeSETNnC4ZrlNA0nWu7FD/OB93I2AIJnbNxNMq5WbViEx4BZVo5UrwDpw%3D&reflink=article_copyURL_share)

<comment><USER31> Snapchat = in the US Same as how so many young people in the US don't have Whatsapp. AFAICT Instagram is king in Europe (for now).

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> TikTok hit the global culture and became part of the youngsters minds. People evolved from text to video due to mobile and connectivity. When people identify product/ service name with action is already too late for any other competition. It's the social media of 2020.. the new like or retweet

</comment><comment><USER33> Hope they overtake TikTok, we don't want a totalitarian government poisoning our children.

<comment><USER34> They fucked up by taking what felt like a decade to launch.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> [https://instagram.com/stories/bytesnews/2229048657293209599?...](https://instagram.com/stories/bytesnews/2229048657293209599?igshid=dqfn3wx7brd3)

</comment><comment><USER36> Literally NOTVINE joke coming true :D))) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hGDJkqESz0k](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hGDJkqESz0k)

</comment><comment><USER37> Did I just miss something here?

Out of all names, they chose Byte?

And TikTok is made by ByteDance.

</comment><comment><USER38> Amazing branding.

Edit: if this thing blows up, I predict Facebook will buy it.

<comment><USER39> What do you find so amazing about the branding?

<comment><USER38> It's very nostalgic, that's the only way I can put it.

Something that just resonates with me. The UI is very nice too, big and bold.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> What would you do if founder of Friendster is now starting a Facebook competitor? It would not work.

</comment><comment><USER41> They named the competitor to Bytedance's TikTok..... Byte?

</comment><comment><USER42> Finally super short videos, without censorship.

<comment><USER43> Nobody is going to let teens share uncensored videos; child porn is one of the few things against which the internet unites.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> This guy is the real deal. Wish him the best.

</comment><comment><USER45> So cloning is cool when we Americans do it. Great...

How many times will we reiterate the same core ideas?

Is a new way to share videos, pictures, and text innovation?

We can so so much more.

<comment><USER46> I don't think you fully know the whole story about Vine/TikTok/Byte.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> I _love_ this website

</comment><comment><USER48> China clones America's successful tech companies, and now America clones China's.

<comment><USER49> To be fair, I think TikTok was to some extent a Vine clone.

<comment><USER50> In convinced tiktok is the chinese face recognition DB for the CCP

<comment><USER51> if it's a Chinese controlled company then company db == government db. They just passed legislation entitling the gov to access all encryption keys didn't they?

<comment><USER52> As did the USA, see the 2018 CLOUD Act.

<comment><USER51> why does there always have to be a deflecting "what about"-ism with literally everything any one says here?

<comment><USER52> I can speak for anyone else, but for me its becuase double standards are infinitely worse than what-aboutery.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> Too little too late

</comment><comment><USER54> Fun Fact: paywall.</comment>


Google music only for windows and mac? - <AUTHOR> http://music.google.com/ You have to be kiddin me! you have the best profesionals in the world and you can not do a port for linux ?! come on..... <comment><USER2> More like only for the US... pfft.

This is 2011 - no excuse for restrictions like this.

<comment><AUTHOR> don't worry it does not worth the hassel....</comment></comment>


HN should increase the downvote-ability threshold as a function of time - <AUTHOR>

The title is fairly self-explanatory but here's my reasoning:
Given the current system (a static threshold of 500), as the community grows and time progresses, an ever-increasing number of users will no doubt be able to downvote.  And from my own experience in gaming the HN system, it took me relatively very little time to reach the 500 mark.
Of course I feel like I personally should have the right to downvote (as I don't abuse it and am adamant about only downvoting comments of which provide no substance)... and I'm sure 99.999999% of everyone else does too.  But the sad reality of the matter is that no... not everyone should have the ability to downvote because it's clear that a number of those who do so are motivated by differences in opinions rather than lack of intellectual stimulation.
I do realize that the administrators of HN most will likely adjust the threshold over time as they see fit (as they've done previously) but the threshold would be much better suited as a function of time... possibly relative to join date and/or combined with average karma per post (a pretty good indicator of individual worthy contribution)... and maybe even take into (small) account how many upvotes users gives.
To prevent decline of these boards - i.e., a "hivemind" formed by general disagreements regardless of intellectual substance - I think a dynamic function for the downvoting ability should be in place.  Each user's karma threshold should vary and should be a semi-logarithmic (not quite as steep - maybe cut it in half) function, roughly based on a combination of the following:
- (45%) those with the most karma
- (20%) those with the highest average
- (10%) time since his/her account creation
- (10%) number of active users
- (5%) upvotes given
- (5%) number of submissions <comment><USER2> AFAIK this is already the case.

EDIT: Quoting the unofficial Hacker News FAQ:

"You can only downvote comments once you have sufficient karma. The required level rises over time to account for the karma inflation caused by an increasing userbase.

If you do have enough karma to downvote then the reason might be that you are looking at a response to a comment of your own, or the comment may be older than 24 hours."

<comment><AUTHOR> The required level is static but increases manually via moderator/administrator intervention. It is currently set at 500. I can downvote pretty much anything.

The quote you've provided is somewhat misleading, as the required level is not truly dynamic/automatic. It may "rise over time" but it is solely dependent on administrators/moderators manually raising the threshold.

As I said in the original post, the threshold should vary from user to user... not be a static, arbitrary number (currently 500) adjusted over time by administrators/moderators. Admins/mods should however tweak the algorithm that determines the threshold. And this threshold should change by the day, maybe even hour... even if only by a fraction of 1 karma point.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I'm going to guess that you won't see this implemented anytime soon. My reasoning is that pg is very busy, and that there isn't enough evidence of this being an actual problem to justify his taking the time to do this. Maybe if somebody coded it up and sent him a patch he'd consider it? Or not? Who knows?

Are excessive downvotes really a problem here? Maybe it's just the stories I pick to read, but I haven't really seen it, or even seen people complaining about it on any mass level.

<comment><AUTHOR> For vote-centric message board systems, intuition tells me it's best to nip something like this in the bud before it all goes downhill, regardless of current status.

It's hard to deny that we've all (those who've been reading for a while) noticed even the slightest decline in quality and an increase in unbiased contributions.

Decline is inevitable but minimizing the rate thereof is not.

<comment><USER3> I'm not disagreeing with your sentiment, I'm just saying that I don't expect a complicated solution to be implemented anytime soon. I'm basing this on what I've noticed of pg's posts on the topic, and what the man himself has said about his perception of the quality of HN.

Of course I can't read minds, and for all I know pg is already halfway through coding something exactly like what you described. :-)</comment></comment></comment>


How the Gap in the Resume of Many Working Mothers Affects Their Career - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/better-programming/how-the-gap-in-the-resume-of-many-working-mothers-affects-their-career-3402ba0b3a84 <comment><USER2> I have read that even in Sweden where long parental leaves (think a year) are acceptable both for men and women, women still suffer from that in the long term.

The problem being not explaining the gaps, but the fact of taking it.

<comment><USER3> In Romania you can choose a maternal/paternal leave of up to 2 years, during which you are still employed by the same employer -- you are payed by the state a percentage of your previous income, but you are still employed.

No need to explain any gap, because there won't be a gap in your resume, and it is nobody's business asking question about maternal/paternal leaves(I'm pretty sure it would be illegal to ask such private information anyway).

<comment><AUTHOR> Well I live in Switzerland, but the stories I mentioned in the articles are real woman from several cities in Europe. I have friends from Romania and they mentioned that paternal and materal leave are more equal there.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> the change for resumes I would like to see, is to remove all dates and only document duration. a resume should only be the contract of what you're comfortable justifying in experience during an interview.

<comment><AUTHOR> That could be a game change.</comment></comment>


Wc off by one error - <AUTHOR> http://britishgeneralist.com/2015/04/03/wc-off-by-one-error/

<comment><USER2> From `man wc`:

        A line is defined as a string of characters delimited by a <newline> character. Characters beyond the final <newline> character will not be included in the line count.

I first noticed this a few years ago when I tried to count results of some command, for example:

        # echo foo | grep bar | wc -l
        0
        # wc -l <<<"$(echo foo | grep bar)"
        1

_(Yes I 'm aware of grep -c)_</comment>


Utopian ideas on climate change will get us precisely nowhere - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/jan/22/utopian-ideas-climate-change-flying-electric-cars <comment><USER2> I once heard the back-to-nature approach deftly savaged as "abstinence-only decarbonization."

There is some low-hanging fruit to be plucked in terms of reducing consumption but the vast majority of the decarbonization effort should be focused on different modes of _production_. There are solid _quantitative_ reasons to focus on cleaning up production instead of decreasing consumption, as well as the obvious political advantages. In 2014 the IPCC estimated that coal power had a median CO2-equivalent emissions intensity of 820 grams per kilowatt hour and that rooftop photovoltaic generation had a median intensity of 41 grams per kWh, 95% lower. So you could ask people to turn off their air conditioners in the summer, and if you convinced half of households to endure that discomfort it would actually reduce emissions _much less_ than if everyone air-conditioned like before but via solar power instead of fossil power. Imposing austerity on energy services is a painful and not even particularly effective way to cut emissions.

</comment><comment><USER3> Spot on! And Tesla demonstrated that.</comment>


Arc Challenge: Create an AI that can solve reasoning tasks it hasn't seen before - <AUTHOR> https://www.kaggle.com/c/abstraction-and-reasoning-challenge/ <comment><AUTHOR> Based on "On the Measure of Intelligence" [https://arxiv.org/abs/1911.01547](https://arxiv.org/abs/1911.01547)</comment>


Who's Actually Buying iPods These Days? - <AUTHOR> http://www.birchtree.me/blog/who-buys-ipods <comment><USER2> The best iPod was discontinued immediately. It's square with a screen on it, this one:

[http://www.zdnet.com/i/story/61/18/017591/zdnet-ipod-nano- si...](http://www.zdnet.com/i/story/61/18/017591/zdnet-ipod-nano-sixth- generation.jpg)

Giant clip dominates the back, just large enough of a screen to choose or control music, and just enough space to store way more than I need.

I travel a lot, it's great to have a separate music device. I can listen to music and not have to worry where my phone is. I can clip it onto my clothes while I'm falling asleep in a hostel or whatever. Actually I clip it to my clothes all the time.

I don't understand why it wasn't more popular. I still use it.

I also don't understand why anyone wants to use their phone as a music player. The idea of that sounds needlessly awkward and they'll fill their device's HD up with largely useless music.

<comment><USER3> You're wrong :) the best one was the nano iPod with the clickwheel [https://www.apple.com/support/assets/images/products/iPodnan...](https://www.apple.com/support/assets/images/products/iPodnano/hero- nano-3rdgen.png)

No weird wideescreen design and you could control it through your clothes.

<comment><USER4> Yes! That's the one I had, until I gave it to my now-ex-wife, and it still beats any phone I've ever had as a music player.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> No mention of the iPod classic. I guess not many people bought them.

I absolutely love my classic. It has every song instantly accessible wherever I am. I use it every single day.

It's a shame there's no standout replacement. Sure, you need to spend longer curating your music collection, but the reward is a far more permanent collection of music and playlists which acts almost as a time capsule for your emotions. Plus it always lets you access all your music, regardless of reception, data, record company politics or what you remembered to sync to your phone that week.

Anyone know a replacement?

<comment><USER6> > It's a shame there's no standout replacement. Sure, you need to spend longer > curating your music collection,

There's not even that much curating needed with modern storage capacity. SD cards are cheap, large, and so the only limit is how long I wait for FLACs to transcode down to AACs.

> Plus it always lets you access all your music, regardless of reception, > data, record company politics

Exactly. I can't fathom why people are so in love with relying on so many unreliable parts to listen to music.

<comment><USER7> >SD cards are cheap, large

Getting a smartphone with an SD card slot these days requires some compromise. The iPhone has never had one. Galaxy S6 and Nexus 6 are arguably the current Android flagships setting the standard for quality, and neither of them have SD expansion.

There are people with more than 64GB of music at CD quality who don't want to transcode it down.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Main reasons I use a separate device for music:

1) Battery life. I'm a rather heavy user and my phone tends to only barely last the entire workday and commute before running out (if it lasts at all). Having a separate device for music means I don't need to feel guilty about wasting phone battery when listening to music.

2) Storage. I tend to use very little storage on my phone, mostly due to the fact that I keep my 40+ GB music collection on a separate device. This means I can usually go for the model with the lowest storage for any phone I'm interested in, and not have to limit myself to phones with expandable storage (that seems to be on the way out as a trend).

3) Sound quality. I'm not talking about the placebo-heavy issues that audiophiles concern themselves with. Rather, I use very sensitive IEMs and when listening to music on my phone I can always hear intermittent background noise (I believe this could be interference from the cell radios). I've never had this issue with dedicated players.

</comment><comment><USER9> I do because I far prefer the Android experience for a "daily driver" but having access to iOS is valuable as a "tech" person. Plus, iOS is streets ahead for podcasts. The author said they "never saw that in practice" so just wanted to be a single data point here.. maybe this is far less likely outside of a tech/fomo audience.

<comment><USER10> I appreciate your use of the term "streets ahead", I wish it were more popular in the States.

</comment></comment><comment> J0-onas Why don't people get it? They are ipods. Besides the ipod touch, they are bought to play music.

If I would use my phone to play music the battery would be dead by noon.

If it rains while im on a run, I only risk 120€ not 500-900€.

Not to mention that an ipod is WAY lighter (12.5-31g) compared to a smartphone (130g). Which makes it less iritating when you carry it in your pocket.

<comment><USER11> Rain shouldn't really affect your smartphone, unless it's poorly built. My Nexus 7 fell into a _stream of water_ , getting completely submerged while turned on, and it didn't even shut off. Opening it up revealed it was completely dry, despite the case being snapped on.

Friends have had similar experiences with their Moto G, a Wiko and a cheap non-branded tablet.

<comment><USER12> Yeah it's surprising how well built are phones nowadays. I was running/cycling with a Nexus phone which I exchanged yearly and there never were any issues. Then when I got a Garmin FR110, I went for a Sandisk Clip MP3 player, who was dead in one month due humidity/wet conditions. Bought a cheapo Android phone who will stay on Kitkat forever and sticking with that instead.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I recently bought the nano 7g, I have a smartphone and a tablet. It's great for swimming, running and commuting, but the main thing is that I sometimes want something smart and light with me that's not connected to the internet. The nano fulfills these requirmenets; my steps and speed are monitored, I can do a workout with my Jabra sports, listen to ebooks, podcasts, music, watch boardgame or esperanto instruction video's, view pictures for meditation etc and even read little booklets on it as I convert text to pictures and errants, todo or 'scheduled' lists from org-mode. Theoretically I can use an external microphone with it to record notes or thoughts during the day. In essence it is potentially an ideal accessible and wrist wearable computing device, so I am experimenting with the usability of this in practice. It now is mounted on two 1cm wide velco straps on my left wrist, wirelessly connected with bluetooth headphones. Internet is overrated anyway, less is more and small is beautiful.

<comment><USER14> This is exactly why I love my Nano, and I was surprised to see him say he's never sold one to somebody under 50.

The nano is perfect for exercising as it's light and fits in the tiny little pockets on my exercise clothes. I'd much rather use that than put my phone in a big armband.

However, I will say that I wish it had streaming music.

<comment><USER13> Yes I was surprised too. I've got a Samsung phablet thing, but it's a bit tedious to strap to my arm or thigh... even though I do use it for Zombies Run when working out. Regarding the lack of streaming music, perhaps subscribe to your favorite musical genre podcasts? For example I have Classic FM, A State of Trance and haven't even looked further as my old school mp3 playlist collection is good enough. And then there is FM reception, old school streaming...

<comment><USER14> I had no idea there were just straight music podcasts. Thanks for the tip!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Some older relatives bought me a Shuffle for my birthday a couple of years ago. It actually turned out to be a good gift, because I was always afraid of losing my 100GB MP3 player when exercising or travelling.

<comment><USER16> Yeah I'm surprised the Shuffle doesn't sell well among younger joggers/runners. I can't imagine running with a 6+ strapped to my arm.

<comment><USER12> Lack of storage.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I have a few iTouches here for testing, kept at various iOS versions. Much cheaper than buying iPhones. Will probably pick up a new 6G soon, since the 5Gs are getting a bit long in the tooth, and no telling what iOS 9 will do to it.

I'm glad (and actually somewhat surprised) that Apple updated the line, rather than axing it. iPod Touch sales must be minuscule compared to iPhones.

<comment><USER18> > I'm glad (and actually somewhat surprised) that Apple updated the line, > rather than axing it. iPod Touch sales must be minuscule compared to > iPhones.

It's possible they're in part a way to use surplus parts from the older iPhone lines. They usually lag a generation behind in their look and specs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> >> 10 year olds don't have MP3 collections like I did when I was a kid

I felt old at first but then I realized mp3's started getting really popular 15 years ago, then I felt old for sure.

</comment><comment><USER7> In the days of CDs, there were units that would hold ~100 CDs vertically on a turntable, rotate the correct CD into position, grab it with a robotic arm to lay it on a traditional CD reader, and play it. [1]

My grandfather had ~5 of these 100-disc CD changers, fully loaded, in various rooms around the house. Plus wall-to-wall bookshelves, many of them packed with CD cases.

A CD is 700MB of audio. Let's estimate, conservatively, that he owned 800 CDs. That's 70 gigs of audio. He wasn't exceptional in terms of music library size. That's who buys iPod Classic: people with more than 32GB (or recently 64GB) of music who want it all in one player.

iPod Classic also lives basically indefinitely (mine is at least 6 at this point, still works perfectly and the battery life is measured in weeks) and can be operated entirely by feel. Nothing ruins music while falling asleep like having to look at a bright backlit LCD screen to change the song and getting sidetracked into Facebook.

[1] [http://www.amazon.com/Pioneer-PD-F908-CD-Changer- Discontinue...](http://www.amazon.com/Pioneer-PD-F908-CD-Changer-Discontinued- Manufacturer/dp/B00000K31K/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1437289141&sr=8-2&keywords=100-disc+CD+changer&pebp=1437289147111&perid=04RQEYSVZRZ6YMNZREXV)

</comment><comment><USER20> I am actually a proud owner of an iPod Shuffle! It is perfect for long trips! It has no screen thus the battery lasts for 12~15 hours! Even after 2 years and it charges pretty fast (~2 hours).

It only stores 2Gb but since I've concluded that I can't hear the difference between 320 kbps and 128 kbps songs, it can hold a substantial number of songs.

<comment><USER21> _whistles_ I'm surprised, and almost jealous. I produce music for a living and 128 is actually painful to my hears.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I have an iPod shuffle, and I bought it myself :) But also bought one more as a gift. I use it when going for a run, or when I have to travel a lot. I like it for being simple, very well crafted (like to play with my fingers along its perfectly smooth edges). One drawback is the memory though, only 2GB, or max 4GB for older versions.

</comment><comment><USER23> I use iPod Touch-es for a corporate app, and have just begun rolling out the first few trial installations.

In May/June we noticed a shortage of iPods, which was kind of scary since we are eventually going to need several hundreds for our users. It is a relief to see that Apple is continuing the iPod Touch product line.

</comment><comment><USER24> I love my iPod classic, I had my first one for six years before it died and I immediately went out and bought another. I really hope this one lasts. The main reason I don't like streaming is because a) I have to use my phone storage instead of a dedicated music device and b) we have really shitty data plans in Australia, with exhorbitant prices for minimal GBs. I don't want to use up my entire plan just from streaming music when I have a perfectly good music player that does one job and does it well.

</comment><comment><USER25> Kids whose parents will not buy them an iPhone + data plan. Next.

<comment><USER26> I would have expected that there were so many old off-contract iPhones floating around these days that they would have pretty much have destroyed the market for new iPods for the kids. I personally have two of them (plus an ancient 40GB iPod pre-classic). One I actually use for various purposes but the other would be a fine kid's iPod. Still, I guess there is enough demand for the scenario you describe.

<comment><USER18> I bought two iPod touches for my kids. I don't _want_ my kids having an old iPhone. For starters, a new device comes with a warranty and reasonable assurance it hasn't been beat to hell internally. I also don't want my kids inadvertently dialing 911 - they don't need a cell connection (even without a plan) as first graders.

<comment><USER26> Understand. I was mostly referring to many families having lots of hand-me- downs at this point.

>I also don't want my kids inadvertently dialing 911 - they don't need a cell connection (even without a plan) as first graders.

Genuinely curious. I certainly managed to get to adulthood without a cell phone but I guess I assumed most parents gave their kids some sort of cell phone these days. When do parents think that kids should have at least very basic feature phones these days?

<comment><USER18> > When do parents think that kids should have at least very basic feature > phones these days?

I'd say when they start going out on their own. Letting first graders wander around town unsupervised is unfortunately a good way to get the police to arrest you, and if they're supervised they don't need a phone.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> It's nice to have a dedicated music device for:

        1. travel
        2. commute
        3. outdoors
        4. running
        5. gym

Any other use cases?

</comment><comment><USER28> Am I the only one who's bugged that the favicon for a site called "birch tree" is an evergreen/spruce/fir tree?

</comment><comment><USER29> I have an iPod touch and its not very good for audio. Often it doesn't remember where you stopped. You have to take it out and look at the screen to pause it. Despite there being a big redundant button on the front. It requires some proprietary software to load audio onto it, which is difficult to figure out and has some strange quirks.

I miss my old generic MP3 player.

<comment><USER30> My BlackBerry Classic (like most BlackBerrys) has a dedicated play/pause button between the volume buttons. It's one of the things I love about it :) I can pause my music without turning on the screen.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> I was at an entrepreneur meetup group just this week and we got discussing the iPod. Seeing a lot of teenagers with them and couldn't understand why. Guest from Chicago who does a lot of travelling verified that it wasn't just our local area but nationwide. Guess they've become retro hip again.

<comment><USER32> > Seeing a lot of teenagers with them…

Could this perhaps be explained by a teenager's relative (price, legal?) difficulty entering into a cell contract?

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> The 240/320gb iPod Classics were insanely popular with DJs and other music folks until Apple cancelled them and still have a strong resale market.

While that may not constitute a viable commercial niche, it does suggest a use case among a tech savvy community.

<comment><USER34> I wish that the iPod were ever available in those storage capacities, but 160GB was as large as they got. Of course, thanks to this [1] fellow, the sky's the limit..

[1] [http://www.tarkan.info](http://www.tarkan.info)

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> You can put Rockbox on iPods (and many other devices). [http://www.rockbox.org/](http://www.rockbox.org/)

</comment><comment><USER36> I use an iPod nano on the gym, is small enough, lightweight, and doesn't ring with a call when I dont want to be disturbed.</comment>


Show HN: Olivia, a distributed, in-memory, Key-value store in Go - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/GrappigPanda/Olivia <comment><AUTHOR> Hey all, this was mostly a learning project, but was overall really enjoyable. There's still a TON of more things which I want to add to it and improve (mostly switching to a consensus protocol and improve node discoverability). If there's any questions, feel free to ask!</comment>


Garage48 Johannesburg winner MediMinder created an app for African healthcare - <AUTHOR> http://garage48.org/blogger/garage48-johannesburg-2011-projects-launched Garage48 is an event to build new web and mobile service working prototypes in one single weekend – in 48 hours. 6 teams presented their services on Sunday Demo night on 4th of December at Vodacom World centre, Johannesburg, capital of South Africa. International jury announced Garage48 this year last event winner as Mediminder, that is building mobile platform for African healthcare. <comment><USER2> Congratulations Paul, I think you guys have picked a really important niche in public healthcare and I wish you all the best.

For those who're unacquainted with the problems of public healthcare in developing countries, one of the biggest challenges when treating long-term illnesses like tuberculosis and HIV-AIDS is that it's difficult to ensure that patients comply with the demanding medicine regimen that often has to continue for months or years. It's especially tricky in rural areas where patients return home and can not easily be monitored by healthcare workers.

If patients don't comply not only are their chances of successful treatment dramatically reduced but they increase the risk of drug-resistant disease strains like XDR-TB of emerging.

So something like Mediminder, if widely adopted, has the potential to save many lives and in one small but important way help developing countries get a handle on some of their most devastating diseases.

<comment><USER3> Thanks DJO :) I take it from your history and submissions you are in SA? Email me on email@example.com , keen to get connected.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Hi Guys - I'm Paul from MediMinder

Shout if you have any questions. Our site is still very rough, so be gentle.

Twitter: @MediminderZA Facebook: <https://www.facebook.com/pages/MediMinder/212125382196510> MediMinder.co

<comment><USER3> Clickable Link - <http://www.mediminder.co></comment></comment>


Does gender matter? (2006) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://www.nature.com/scitable/content/ne0000/ne0000/ne0000/ne0000/10602856/B_Barres13-July-1996.pdf <comment><USER2> As long as a person can do their job and avoid being mean to others, it does not matter what gender etc they are.</comment>


The Software Contractors Guild - <AUTHOR> I am considering starting an organization for a technical writing class at my university. Please weigh in if you guys think this would be useful.
The Software Contractors Guild Is a network of experienced professionals who help software contractors meet, learn, organize, and succeed in business. SCG can help contractors hone their project skills with presentations and discussions on structuring projects, proven  development methodologies, industry trends, and new technologies.  SFG will also be a resource for conveniently providing vetted technical documents that go hand in hand with different development methodologies. SCG can also be a resource for companies who are looking for people to help with manpower on larger contracts.
Because nobody can be experts on everything, small teams, freelancers, and even larger firms will always need help in some areas.  To help people make the right decisions and cover all the bases SFG will include experts from a broad range of domains including contracts, devops, network administration, project management, design/UX,  and programming.  This can help contractors fill the experience gaps in their projects with both advice and even people to actively help out and bill on projects when necessary.
Beyond the standard local networking, meet ups, and presentations. I think the most valuable thing SCG could provide is solid contractual documents. Things like vetted contracts, Software Requirement Specification  templates, and spreadsheets to help with estimation. People who are starting out in the industry always lack these tools. Having a set of them ready to go along with project lifecycle milestones helps keep the project on track and prevents miscommunication.
What do you guys think? <comment><AUTHOR> By the way, I have been a professional contractor for around 10 years building webapps for both tiny organizations and the Federal Government. Whenever I've done any freelancing I've had a hard time on the contractual side of things because it is generally out of my wheelhouse. Once, this led to me to getting royally screwed over by a client and a poor designer. In retrospect, having a resource like the SCG would have gone a long way to preventing that negative experience.

This is the last course I need to complete my Computer Science degree and I figured it would be a good project that would mesh well with my job. Thanks for the upvotes and comments!</comment>


Using Dart with Sublime Text 2 - <AUTHOR> http://news.dartlang.org/2013/02/using-dart-with-sublime-text.html

<comment><USER2> It's nice to see more tool support for dart, hopefully lowering the bar of entry for developers.</comment>