Statistics, we have a problem - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@kristianlum/statistics-we-have-a-problem-304638dc5de5 <comment><USER3> We changed the URL from [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-12-16/google- re...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-12-16/google-researcher- accused-of-sexual-harassment-roiling-ai-field). Some of the comments below make less sense as a result, which is bad. But the blog post is well-written, substantive, and brings considerable clarity as the original source—which is what the site guidelines ask for. People should probably read both articles since the Bloomberg one adds follow-up info.

While I have you: if you're commenting here, please keep this guideline in mind too: _Comments should get more civil and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive._

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

</comment><comment><USER4> I am not an academic and not in this field. I have dealt with harrassment issues in business though. I hear do much nonsense about 'grey areas' and 'men and women would never meet if we followed HR'.

I hereby advance my theory that it is rather simpler than that. 'If you are in a position of power over the other party, then you should keep some social distance'.

Don't smack their bum, don't message them about their holiday photos on FB. If they come to you tired and emotional, sit them down on the other side of your desk and ask them what is wrong. Tell them you are sorry they feel that way. Talk for hours if you need to...at work. Keep your trousers zipped up.

Is it that hard? If your team socialize, then by all means go with them. If you find there is only two of you left, then go home.

I think it is very easy for a decent human being to avoid.

<comment><USER5> > I hereby advance my theory that it is rather simpler than that. 'If you are > in a position of power over the other party, then you should keep some > social distance'.

> If you find there is only two of you left, then go home.

This seems dangerously close to the Pence view of not socializing alone with women.

Is your view actually stronger? That a person should not socialize alone with _anyone_ they have power over, rather than just women?

<comment><USER6> I'm not sure what Pence's view is. But as a married man, I absolutely believe the best policy for myself, and probably most married men, is to avoid situations that increase the odds of my infidelity. And yes, the includes not developing close friendships with anyone I find attractive.

<comment><USER7> > And yes, the includes not developing close friendships with anyone I find > attractive.

Which brings in all the problems with the Pence view. It reinforces the glass ceiling / old boys club, because friends talk about business on the golf course (or at the LAN party), and then women get excluded from that.

Worse, it's a policy adopted only by the self-conscious people who wouldn't otherwise have crossed the line anyway, and not the bastards going around groping people left and right, which _increases_ the proportion of interactions with the latter category.

The problem seems to be that there are obvious benefits to standing right on top of the line (increased probability of friendship/romance) but nobody wants anybody to cross it, and that can't happen. If you tell everybody to stand as close as they can to an invisible line that nobody can quite agree on the exact contours of, every time a moderate person actually draws their version of the line you'll find a whole slew of people standing on the wrong side of it, because it's everyone even slightly less moderate than that. Ask a conservative (i.e. puritan) person to draw the line and _everybody_ will be standing on the wrong side of it.

Rejection sucks. Nobody wants to get rejected, so nobody wants to be thrust into the position of the villain who has to reject someone. But the world where nobody ever has to reject someone is the completely sterile one.

The uncomfortable no is the price of the opportunity for yes. Nobody who internally knows that the answer is no wants that "opportunity" thrust on them, but how is the other party supposed to know that ahead of time?

And it's no help to point out the obvious cases. There are things that 99.99% of people agree are over the line. The problem is the things that 75% of people agree are over the line, because then 25% of people are doing them.

<comment><USER4> > It reinforces the glass ceiling / old boys club, because friends talk about > business on the golf course (or at the LAN party), and then women get > excluded from that.

Some might, I don't. Some crap people do crap things. I discuss work issues in work. Out of hours work discussions exclude all kinds of people, people with families, women (again in particular) with children and those who prefer work situations to social ones. I occasionally meet male and female colleagues one- to-one in coffee shops during work hours, to talk things through, but I don't drink alcohol with them.

I haven't studied Pence's view, but I am a married man and I rarely meet women socially one-on-one. I socialize very occasionally with my team . I have seen so many times where a manager socializes with his team, then they do a bit of texting, then one hits on hard times and needs a shoulder to cry on, then they fall out and the company has a sexual harassment case to deal with where maybe it is just a 'lovers quarrel'.

I agree with the other poster that said that having sex with close colleagues is wholly unprofessional. There are plenty of people on earth.

<comment><USER8> > Some might, I don't. Some crap people do crap things. I discuss work issues > in work.

What is so bad about talking business outside of work?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This doesn't seem to be minor one time thing...

 _Right before I ever attended my first conference, one of the women who was a year ahead of me in my program pulled me aside to warn about him. She told me to do my best to avoid him at the conference but "every woman has a story about him, so it's only a matter of time." Of course, she was right. Months before my defense, while at a poster session to present my dissertation work, he touched me on the leg and told me that my dress was "way too sexy for a poster session." I remember feeling deflated.

In the years since, he's sent me several inappropriate private Facebook messages. In the first, he responded to a Facebook post I had made asking for people's experiences with Lasik eye surgery with a message that some activities would become much better. Trying to deflect what I thought was going to be an awkward interaction, I responded that I was looking forward to better bird watching. He followed up with a private message that "the activity [he was] thinking about was sex, but bird watching would be better too ;)". I ignored him. On another occasion, I posted about some data visualizations using data from a medical journal that involved the relationship between age and pubic hair. He sent me a private message explaining how the data is corroborated by his own experiences watching a certain genre of porn. What his personal preferences regarding porn are is something I definitely did not want to know. Perhaps I shouldn't have posted about the data given the racy topic, but I thought it was in-bounds since it was a comment on data in a medical journal. I guess I was wrong. I responded but tried to end the conversation quickly. On another occasion, he sent me a private message out of the blue to let me know that there was another researcher with a name very similar to my own who published an article that "is even about sex, broadly defined (fecundity). You guys related?"_

...and it goes on.

<comment><USER10> >... he touched me on the leg and told me that my dress was "way too sexy for a poster session."

This seems to have been their first interaction. Touching her was plainly a dumb-ass move. Plus his consistent deafness to her repeated "I'm not interested" feedback.

But his comment about professional dress could have been made far more constructively. When I encounter provocatively-dressed women in professional contexts, I'm immediately suspicious. Are they stylishly clueless? Are they trying to manipulate others? Are they making a point about women being free to dress as they like?

I mean, I invite you to log about outfits worn by your male and female professional colleagues. Assess overall tightness, especially legs, butt and breasts. Estimate percentage of bare skin, especially cleavage.

For example, you may see women in tight sleavless tshirts aka wifebeaters, plus short skirts. How many men will be wearing tight wifebeaters with short pants and sandals? Not many, I bet.

<comment><USER11> > For example, you may see women in tight sleavless tshirts aka wifebeaters, > plus short skirts. How many men will be wearing tight wifebeaters with short > pants and sandals? Not many, I bet.

So . . . burqas for everyone, then?

Seriously, if you can't recognize that fashion norms for women and men are different, and can't tell the connotative difference between a sleeveless shirt on a woman and a tank top on a man, I cannot help you.

<comment><USER10> Yes, "fashion norms for women and men are different" in modern American culture. Of course. That's rather my point. But what's up with that?

Please say more about "the connotative difference between a sleeveless shirt on a woman and a tank top on a man". I don't see much substantive difference. They're both an assertion of physical power.

I actually do think that "burqas for everyone" might be a good fashion trend. For privacy, given that there are cameras everywhere. But in professional American culture, it's actually men who are more constrained to dress modestly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> For everyone who seems to be skeptical of this article or skeptical of overreaction, it's just a shitty article. Read the blog post it's reporting on. It's much more damning than 'he made off color jokes' or 'he flirted awkwardly' or anything like that: [https://medium.com/@kristianlum/statistics- we-have-a-problem...](https://medium.com/@kristianlum/statistics-we-have-a- problem-304638dc5de5)

<comment><USER13> This is an example of the "doesn't make sense" referred to by dang above[0] - the original pointed to the "shitty article" and now it points to the recommended blog post.

[0] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15938382](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15938382)

<comment><USER14> Hate to go further meta, but a number of the comments that "don't make sense" were made after the switch, and it's bothersome that these are still their takeaways.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This is getting crazy. Guilty until proven innocent. Seems overly sensitive to me.... there's a huge different between rape / assault and crude jokes or attempted flirting.

Maybe I just don't understand the other perspective enough.

<comment> aaron-lebo Isn't the other perspective having a stranger touch your thigh and send you unwanted messages during and after a professional conference?

Is that flirting or a joke? Would you want that?

He's not guilty by law, he's been accused, and it's very possible there is enough evidence behind the accusations to make it warranted. Most people don't want to go out of their way to pretend to be the victim (not great word, but nothing more appropriate) of sexual harassment or assault.

<comment><USER16> To me it seems like a witch hunt nowadays. You need just an _unverified_ comment to get fired and to wear a mark of blemish for life. When the mobs filled with "righteous hatred" are judge and jury of a non-existent trial we know that there is something scarily wrong with our society.

<comment><USER17> I hear these kinds of comments _every time_ there's some pushback against such behavior.

Despite your shrill protestations, there is no "mob filled with righteous hatred" going around. Where action is being taken, it is with a preponderance of evidence.

Only those who have actually indulged in such behavior need to worry.

<comment><USER16> Excuse me? How would you find "preponderance of evidence" for a leg touch? I'm genuinely curious. Once while I was stretching on my chair in the office I bumped inadvertently with one colleague that was passing behind me. Do you think that I should be fired and my career ended if she suddenly wrote in a blog post that I touched her?

<comment><USER3> The blog post now linked to above describes much more and much worse than a "leg touch".

<comment><USER18> Plus it's not like for this individual there is any shortage of women testifying publicly and privately to his behavior.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> _One night after the conference talks were over, a bunch of conference participants and I went for a swim in the ocean. While I was swimming around, S repeatedly grabbed me under the water, putting his hands on my torso, hips, and thighs. I tried to play it off and swim away. He picked me up and pulled me into his chest. He then started to carry me away from the rest of the group, presumably to have some sort of private moment with me that I had absolutely no interest in sharing with him. I struggled, gently at first and then more forcefully, and he let me go._

How is this not outright assault? Why are the police not involved and why is this guy not being charged with anything? Why is anyone concerned about protecting his privacy?

<comment><USER20> It is assault (and in Canada at least, would be sexual assault).

The trouble with both offenses is that 1. They are broad, 2. They are hard to prove criminally

Broad isn't a problem per se. What I mean is that the system is set up to make the offense as wide as possible, but not to prosecute every case.

This occurs with regular assault, not just sexual. For example, I'm sure most people reading this have had someone shove them at one point. I'm also sure that crime was not reported to the police. Even most cases of punching probably aren't reported.

Next, the proof. The problem with both types of assault is that generally there is no evidence other than the words of the victim. Convictions can happen, but it makes it hard to do so in the less serious cases, which leave no mark.

So apart from non-seriousness, that's why shoving isn't prosecuted. Whereas attacking someone and leaving cuts, bruises or broken bones provides definite evidence something happened. It both increases the gravity of the case _and_ the provability.

I've used examples from regular assault to show that low rates of prosecution/conviction aren't merely an issue of sexism. Assault/sexual assault are fundamentally hard offenses.

However, this absolutely has a disproportionate effect on women. Generally speaking, people don't go around assaulting people, and so low rates of prosecution for assault is not really a problem in most cases. (What I mean here is that not enough people commit unprovoked common assault for it to be a common experience on the receiving end. Domestic abuse is likely the biggest place our system has a gap in this regard.)

But, enough people sexually assault women that it is a common experience, especially for offenses which fit the category of: 1. Leaves no mark or lasting physical harm, 2. Has no outside evidence, 3. Is nonetheless psychologically traumatic.

I don't know what to do about this. I think the solution probably starts by recognizing the nature of the situation, which is why I've spelled it out.

<comment><USER7> > Generally speaking, people don't go around assaulting people, and so low > rates of prosecution for assault is not really a problem in most cases. But, > enough people sexually assault women that it is a common experience

That can't be the right distinction, because with that broad a definition of assault, people _do_ go around assaulting each other all the time.

<comment><USER20> Thanks, I updated my comment. I meant that due to the comparatively low number of aggressors, most people aren't on the receiving end of common assault. At least, not assaults serious enough to worry about. (Poking is also assault, if unwanted)

To clarify, in high crime jurisdictions, lack of prosecution for common assault or petty robbery actually _does_ become a societal problem. It's still not the case that most people commit crimes, but _enough_ do that all people worry about it.

In most parts of North America, crime has dropped enough that common assault and muggings aren't realistic worries for most people, most of the time. Sexual assault is still done by enough people that all women have to worry about it on a regular basis.

So I think the distinction depends on how many people commit the offense, which affects the percentage of the relevant population which is a victim of the offense or realistically has to worry about it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> It's interesting how the tenor of comments suddenly becomes "wait a moment" when it's hitting our own industry.

<comment><USER22> I don't agree with that take, but I'd like to hear of another industry which has taken a harder stance against SH than tech.

Even progressive Hollywood, as progressive as they are, have not even scratched the surface. I don't doubt there is a reason for the "casting couch" cliché/meme/stereotype. I'm sure there is a lot of housecleaning to be had that's yet to begin.

This is a new consciousness and it will take some time to work things out and figure out how we go forward without going overboard.

<comment><USER23> I wouldn't call Hollywood "progressive".

<comment><USER22> If Hollywood isn't composed of progressive people who like the Vision set forth by the Soros funded causes[1] and donate to progressive causes, etc., I don't know who is.

Maybe you're saying they only talk the talk... That might be fair to say.

[1][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_projects_supported_by_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_projects_supported_by_George_Soros)

<comment><USER24> Why does support for voting rights, civil liberties, human rights, government transparency, media fact-checking, public education, international cooperation and cultural exchange, campaign finance reform, etc. now constitute one man's capitalized "Vision"? In general those are fundamental western values supported by broad majorities of the American public since long before Soros.

Hollywood is somewhat unique in that (a) it is located in a region with center-left politics relative to the USA, and (b) it has a concentration of rich celebrities who come from an arty background rather than a business background, and therefore have different values and priorities, and use their personal public stature to promote those. That doesn't mean that it is politically monolithic, or that local businesses and other institutions are particularly "progressive".

<comment><USER22> Are you saying Hollywood is not in the 80th or 90th percentile of progressive jurisdictions in the US, cuz I'd stand corrected. All I'm saying is they and the industry composed of progressive types, but you seem to be telling me, they are not progressive. As if they are Biloxi MS.

My point about Soros is he's considered progressive or representative of it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> What depresses me the most about this is that most people, even ones with elite degrees in stats, are not actually _free_ people.

If this were a free woman, she would have raised her voice, made a scene, and possibly even delivered a well-deserved slap to professor creepy. Instead, there was "struggling", "humiliation", "embarrassment", etc. She didn't even name names in the Medium post!

As to why she is not free, I do not know. Escalation of commitment? Prestige? Financial insecurity?

What I do know is that this is a _terrible_ example for the ladies out there. Saving it for a cryptic blog post and waiting for some godless HR department to mete out justice is a shit plan, even if it did work this time. If this were a rougher crowd than a bunch of stats nerds, this could have ended very badly...

</comment><comment><USER26> I expected this to be the millionth blogpost about p-values.

It's pretty clear that any organization is gonna have some powerful men (people?) in it who sexually harassed people. I don't think any industry is free from it, though some industries may more conducive to it (hollywood and academia for example are industries with cults of personality, and a lot of people desperate to be involved in it).

</comment><comment><USER27> I initially laughed at Pence as described in this article: [https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the- fix/wp/2017/03/30/mi...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the- fix/wp/2017/03/30/mike-pence-doesnt-dine-alone-with-other-women-and-were-all- shocked/)

Now I think he might have been on to something. Is it really common to go _swimming_ at a conference with others attendees of a different sex? Crazy _parties_ with booze et al at a conference like NIPS? What is going on here? Why even have these non-professional outlets, distracting from the professionalism of the conferences themselves?

<comment><USER28> Or maybe he's not onto something and it's totally possible to not be an asshole and try to take advantage of the situation when left alone with a person of the other sex?

I don't see how Pence's comment makes any good sense. If you do what he says, you either:

\- Don't trust yourself (or don't care) to demonstrate appropriate behavior

\- Don't trust women to respect you if you respect them back.

<comment><USER29> If you don't see the "good sense" then maybe the problem is in you. Politicians should probably watch what they say, but they should definitely watch what they do. In the age of a random accusation ending people's careers (this year's events made this painfully obvious to anyone even outside of the college space, the #metoo overreaction and what happened to James Damore being prime examples), it makes perfect sense to watch who you're meeting with and under what circumstances. Don't "trust women"? What about just don't trust people. Blindly trusting women, as if they're a special case of a human, that's like something from a neo-marxist book of a social justice activist. Nonsense. Defending yourself from an accusation is infinitely easier when you can prove that you in fact weren't at the place at the time.

The other side of why this makes "good sense" is the temptation angle - <USER2> can't get tempted if you don't have an opportunity. Unlike what the lefties think, Christians are people too and they get tempted just like other people, especially when drunk. Men are like recovering addicts when it comes to mating (all heterosexual or homosexual men with regular levels of libido are like that, if you say this doesn't apply to you, you are a liar). Resisting a beautiful woman/man flirting with you is like being a heroin addict trying to not shoot up a dose in front of you. Of course you can resist, but it's hard, requires a lot of self control and most people are incapable of doing it without first experiencing the drawbacks. Is there another option? Don't put yourself into that situation in the first place... if you're married, there's no reason for you to be alone with likely sexual partners when alcohol is involved. All the cries about "sexism" of what Pence said are absolute nonsense and probably stem from the left's disrespect of traditional family values and marriage (they don't see having 50 partners in a year as a problem and an "open relationship" is almost a goal for them). There were multiple cases this year (not two, but like a dozen) of self-proclaimed male feminists who supposedly "trusted women" and "trusted themselves to demonstrate appropriate behavior" who should be the beacons of proper behavior when it comes to "respecting women" who ended up being sexual harassers, rapists or even murderers in one case. Does this prove anything? No, but it illustrates that "trusting yourself" is easy to say and hard to do even if your stated goal is exactly that.

Not that it matters, but since this accusation is very likely - no, I'm not a Christian... or a Republican... or an American.

<comment><USER30> " _In the age of a random accusation ending people 's careers (this year's events made this painfully obvious to anyone even outside of the college space, the #metoo overreaction and what happened to James Damore being prime examples),_"

Do you have any specific examples of "a random accusation ending people's careers"? As far as I know, all of the recent media activity has had confirmative evidence and Damore 1) was never accused of anything other than being none-too-bright, 2) is a significantly different case, and 3) was hardly a random accusation.

P.S. The sexism of Pence's statement probably has more to do with the part about requiring any aides that work late with him to be men. Rather limits the career of any female aide, no?

P.P.S. Don't forget that lefties don't have blood like normal humans; they have a thick, black tarry substance that smells of sulphur.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> > I felt that this was evidence that, like S, all of the other more senior men > who had showed interest in my research must actually have only been trying > to sleep with me.

This is one of the intangible yet insidious impacts of harrassment that men really need to stop and take notice of. As a man, I've been fortunate enough never to have been put in a situation where I've had to doubt that interest in my work was merely a ploy to get me in bed. Think of the massive impact such a doubt can have on a young scholar, struggling to prove onesself, fighting self doubt and imposter syndrome. Then when senior colleagues pay attention to your work, and you find out that their interest was more salacious than professional, it must be hugely demoralizing. I'm sure this accounts for at least some of the gender disparity in technical fields, how many women simply vacated the field after people would only use their work as a pick-up line?

> We need to start holding prominent individuals accountable for how their > inappropriate behavior negatively impacts the careers of their junior > colleagues.

Holding them accountable is not enough, we need to _ruin_ them. Everyone in S's group at Google should submit their resignation, conferences should blacklist him, editors should reject his manuscripts, grant money should be withdrawn, and the entire field should shun him and his kind until the message is clear that science will not tolerate this behavior.

I don't care how good of a researcher he is, how much of a "Bayesian expert" he claims to be, I could never read a paper of his or hear him talk without feeling disgust that here's yet another ego-consumed hyper-nerd who exploits his talents to gain power that he can use as leverage to satisfy his lust. Screw you, S, and the Bayesian prior you rode in on.

<comment><USER32> Everyone in his group should lose their job? That seems like an awful lot of collateral damage.

<comment><USER31> I was suggesting they should _voluntarily_ resign, in the current market they will have no shortage of opportunity. It would send a strong message to Google (and others) that the behavior is not acceptable.

<comment><USER33> > I was suggesting they should voluntarily resign

No you were not. You are full in line with fascists when writing:

> Holding them accountable is not enough, we need to ruin them.

<comment><USER34> In that sentence, I am fairly confident that by "them", 'czep is referring to S and others like him. In the next sentence, 'czep is suggesting that the other members of S's group voluntarily resign to "ruin" S.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Two patterns emerge which can be found in many of the stories that one hears about these days.

1\. A certain type of man who has developed highly problematic habits in regards to repeated, if not very frequent inappropriate (sexual) harassment, and who essentially has been rewarded for this for a long time.

2\. A type of person (mostly women, but as far as my observation goes, this general trait is common regardless of gender) who has failed to speak up and push back, often for many many years - who only now that everyone does it, feels "comfortable" enough to speak up.

As a man I am frustrated about group 1) because they are a pain in the ass to women and fuck it up for all other men, and I am frustrated about persons from group 2) who selectively deny their personal ethical/moral responsibility as adults and their ability to use free will ("I was too feared to speak up")- which they of course in all other scenarios would insist in - when it suits them - but still now, that they finally tell their stories, ask for full retribution.

Fear of losing a job/allies/opportunities for not having spoken up over long amounts of time is not a valid excuse, in my eyes. It's more a sign of lack of integrity. And lack of integrity seems to be the big problem here anyway, for everyone involved.

How many of those misbehaving men could have been stopped from doing what they have done over decades if they'd have received clear, unambiguous feedback on the inappropriateness of their actions, instead of "rewards" for their bad actions? Many of these might be better men today (as long as you don't think they are born that way), and there would not be a need to publicly shame all those men (which will probably come at a cost to society in some form of backlash, making everybody worse off).

Julia Galef just did a podcast interview with Timur Kuran about "preference falsification" which touches on this topic . [http://rationallyspeakingpodcast.org/show/rs-198-timur- kuran...](http://rationallyspeakingpodcast.org/show/rs-198-timur-kuran-on- private-truths-and-public-lies.html)

I know men who have an extremely hard time to speak up when things happen that they disagree with, and I know women who are very good at clearly, ambiguously showing boundaries as soon as someone attempts to overstep them (note: I am writing here about these sexual harassment cases related professional environments, not about physical attempts of rape). So as far as I can tell, the root of this mess is not a gender-related problem, but a general problem of learned social behavior and compulsive conflict aversion.

<comment><USER36> I have to agree with the assertions that 2. is victim blaming. The group 1. needs to do everything in their power, which they control quite a bit, to stay away from the possibilities of a group 2. situation. People, mostly men, in power need to have the moral and virtuous fortitude to promote an environment for collaboration and camaraderie of work. It is incumbent of those in power to create a culture of cooperation. If that culture does not exist and bad behavior ensues than it is not incumbent of the victim to improve the culture. Especially if that victim is a junior professional.

I'm saddened that this topic even needs to be part of our discourse in our culture today. Perhaps this is a sad old story. Yet we see this all the time of people in power in the news. I hope that we can come to a collective realization that this is doing no one any good to behave irresponsibly.

<comment><USER35> Your assumption is that group 1. is (or at least has been until 2017) aware of the huge problem of their behavior. I think this is wrong, and this a prerequisite for my comment.

Imagine this: You are John Smith and since you were young, you have been taught that as a man, you have to get laid as much as possible, that women are sex objects, that your self-worth depends on your success as a sexual predator. Your friends happened to think the same (you maybe picked your friends even based on these value, subconsciously), and so, while you grew up, this is how you lived and acted. And it worked. You had sex with a lot of women, you received praise and acknowledgement from your peers, you felt like a real man and so on. And you gt comparatively little push back. Sure, there was something in you which might have told you that you over and over again hitting on the same girl must have been annoying for her - but as every human, you saw things from your perspective, and from that one - which you have learned and internalized over decades - this is what women wanted, and how it was supposed to be.

Couldn't this be how the men from group 1 became those who there are? And wouldn't this mean that what they in fact would have needed was to learn a different way of behavior, through feedback when they stepped over the lines?

Following your logic, decades of social conditioning would automatically disappear. You are using the word "need" multiple times. Of course. But what if they actually really didn't get the memo? Because this is more likely than these men sharing your value set (or mine, for that matter) but violating it constantly and deliberately.

Some would call this behavior "toxic masculinity". And it is. But exactly like the social conditioning that other groups were exposed to doesn't just fall off of people in a second, toxic masculinity does neither.

<comment><USER37> I like nuanced comments and you make cogent arguments. However, I believe that most people in group 1, are in fact aware of the problem of their behaviour and are willingly ignorant of it. This is because if they made any unwanted advances against women, even if the women didn't tell them to stop or publicly humiliate them, they surely ignored or tried to get away from the situation. At the very least the victim did not enjoy it and that is feedback enough. Anywhere in the course of history where there was a stronger party forcing themselves on a weaker party, the pain of the weaker party is visible in plain sight and ignored by the stronger party.

Now the question boils down to whether a perpetrator considers the victim to be a human with a standing equal to his/her own. The answer to that question has been a resounding no, whether it was slavery or war crimes or sexual assault.

To summarize, lack of feedback cannot be the reason, willful ignorance and dehumanization perhaps is and that is something the victim cannot be tasked with rectifying.

<comment><USER35> I still think you seem to lack the willingness to engage in exploring how these type of men think, which also means that your verdict about lack of feedback not being the reason doesn't appear too convincing to me. Otherwise you would be aware that "being ignored" is widely considered "playing hard to get" among men with this mindset. Emphasis on "play". If one has been exposed to a certain type of mindset and has internalized it, this person's viewpoint and their perception of reality might be absolutely different than yours (and mine).

This of course is a re-occuring theme of the past year(s). People not making the effort to understand why others act/behave/vote radically different. It seems to be unbelievably hard to acknowledge that what might be despicible from one's own viewpoint might appear completely reasonable from someone else's in their specific context. Which doesn't excuse their actions but explains why they have not been seeing/noticing the obvious damage of their behavioral patters.

In order to change that person's viewpoint requires work from the ground up.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> It's easy for companies to fire people at the lower levels or even top management who are for the most part replaceable.

The question will become more difficult when people who are essential to the success of a company or product become entangled in allegations (and perhaps eventual convictions). But let's forget the high bar of convictions, for a moment.

If we soon begin to embroil anyone and everyone who may have said something inappropriate or who had someone interpret something as inappropriate, we'll end up including people who are _essential_ to a company or companies.

When that time comes, I think companies and society will have to reach a consensus on how to deal with borderline cases (things uncouth but not illegal). Will society ostracize and black ball all cases, or pursue ways to rehabilitate people --like they rehabilitate drunk drivers, etc.

Else, a less discerning competitor could scoop up problematic talent.

<comment> aaron-lebo _The question will become more difficult when people who are essential to the success of a company or product become entangled in allegations (and perhaps eventual convictions). But let 's forget the high bar of convictions, for a moment._

You mean like Weinstein, Spacey, and Singer?

 _When that time comes, I think companies and society will have to reach a consensus on how to deal with borderline cases (things uncouth but not illegal). Will society ostracize and black ball all cases, or pursue ways to rehabilitate people --like they rehabilitate drunk drivers, etc._

I haven't seen people get fired for just saying the wrong thing. These cases are mostly way beyond that. Some people have gotten accused (Affleck) but they have been brushed off as either not having evidence or not being serious.

This isn't "oops I made a mistake" behavior, it's predatory behavior and predators are hard to rehabilitate.

<comment><USER22> Of course, Weinstein, Spacey are pretty clear-cut predatory [I think]. On the other hand someone who "hits on" or "chats up" colleagues because they are single or because they are cads, isn't necessarily predatory --however can become harassment, non-sexual as well as sexual, if boundaries are crossed.

My point isn't that this case isn't bad behavior, it's that we will get closer to a grey area or undefined area and will have to have a more nuanced response to those (mis)behaviors.

<comment><USER38> That's . . . not what happened in this article, though. The individual supposedly grabbed her around her waist, torso, and thighs without permission while in a swimming pool. This in addition to his other comments seems reasonably clear cut to me.

<comment><USER22> You're right. This person did more then chat up and allegedly continued with unwanted physical sexual advances.

Never the less, I think we will come to a time when companies will have to come up with something beside "zero tolerance". It's not a forgone conclusion, but I think we will come to a more nuanced approach as more people get caught up in these scandals.

Certainly the likes of Weinstein and Spacey have very little redeemability (However, we see Polanski had some abroad if not at home) but there is another class of people who do act "ungentlemanly/unladily" whatever, but not all the way to sexual harassment. For example, if we take Dustin Hoffman at his word, yes, it's uncalled for, but is it beyond the pale, given the times it took place?

<comment><USER30> Have you got any specific examples of a "zero tolerance" response to something that wasn't "pretty clear-cut predatory"?

I think companies and society have always had a clear consensus on these issues; the recent events have merely been pointing out that 'ignore and suppress' isn't a very good response.

<comment><USER39> This is the closest to a zero tolerance response to something not clear-cut predatory that I've seen:

[https://www.facebook.com/Pinegroveband/posts/101557485055597...](https://www.facebook.com/Pinegroveband/posts/10155748505559774)

Musician cancels his band's tour because of non-public accusation of "sexual coercion" in a relationship. What were his other options when someone presented this claim to him, presumably with some probability of the claim going public?

<comment><USER38> Who is the party who is imposing zero-tolerance here? The band leader disclosed the problem and also decided the "punishment," such as it was. I understand that you're just one person and are not representing this finding as the maximally bad situation. But I would say that if this is the worst that can be found, it's clear to me that we're in no immediate danger of jump-the- gun, zero-tolerance situations becoming common.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> While men are often perpetrators, and may have predisposition to do so, I believe a large driver of sexual harassment is power relationships. This means men over women, but increasingly,also power relationships involving a female over male subordinates. Sure some male subordinates might receive it gladly, and women often think that offering themselves sexually is doing a male a favor, not all male subordinates will perceive it this way. Anyway, I just wanted to chime in about how central power relationships are to these things, and how they often lead to abuse, and also abnormal behaviors in people with power.

<comment><USER41> How can you say men have predisposition to be perpetrators? How come men aren't rallying and getting outraged? What if I said men are predisposed to be better at science and technical careers? Men are predisposed to being better leaders?

By using the word predisposition on sex, are you implying that men and women aren't equal?

<comment><USER40> I'm not sure if you are being sarcastic or not. Across many species, males exhibit forceful sex behaviors. Those behaviors increased fitness.

<comment><USER41> Science can be immoral at times. When science and morality are at odds, the right thing to do is to make the moral choice. One just needs to look at the holocaust to see the perils of placing science first.

What you state is a true scientific fact. However, it is immoral because it implies that men and women aren't equal. Thus because it is immoral, the fact cannot be true. Women are equal to men in both intelligence, aggression, height, size, strength, ability and penis length. To imply otherwise is to be sexist.

<comment><USER42> I'm not sure the holocaust did anything good for science.

<comment><USER41> [https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Nazi_human_experimentation](https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Nazi_human_experimentation)

Read the bottom.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> I think there are two orthogonal issues in the discussion which I would like to untangle. Some of the proposed solutions have been about maintaining a "social distance" ([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15939009](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15939009)) to "reduce the odds" of sexual attraction [Pencesque] ([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15940041](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15940041)) and consequently sexual harassment at the workplace. Another comment asked about whether pool parties at a conference make sense ([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15937938](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15937938))

The orthogonal issues are

1) Non-consensual unwanted advances

2) Curbing avenues for sexual attraction

I call them orthogonal because,

\- A person with enough avenues for sexual attraction at workplace or otherwise and choose not to do anything non-consentual and to recognize the people he/she feels attracted towards as equal humans even if they are his/her superiors or juniors.

\- A person with few avenues for sexual attraction can choose to be non- consentual and delegitimize the humanity of his/her victims despite the lack of abundance of opportunity.

Mixing up these issues ends up confusing infidelity and sexual harassment. A person who seeks and engages in consensual sex outside his/her marriage is guilty of infidelity but not guilty of sexual harassment. A person who makes unwanted advances towards a married partner is guilty of sexual harassment irrespective of the fact that the victim is a married partner.

Note that I would categorize anything that makes the other person uncomfortable as an unwanted sexual advance. If a person talks about his/her pornography fetishes, but the other isn't interested, it is unwanted. If a person grabs the other other by the waist, while the other does not like it and tries to wriggle free, it is unwanted. If a person asks a subordinate for drinks and the subordinate is unwilling but pressured into accompanying, it is unwanted. Being unwanted is a clear signal for a person to not engage in a certain activity in the future and the victim should not be expected to create a ruckus in order to reject unwanted advances.

</comment><comment><USER43> >> Since then, I have heard one professor who witnessed the incident openly lament that he'll have to find a way to delicately advise his female students on "how not to get raped by S" so as not to lose promising students.

I mean, that's a start, but maybe the most general solution in this case is to make sure S doesn't actually try to rape anyone?

</comment><comment><USER44> On the one hand, the behavior she describes is unambiguously sexual harassment, and no well-meaning person would behave like "S" did by accident.

On the other hand, I still remember Donglegate, so this trend towards more men being accused of sexual harassment makes me nervous.

</comment><comment><USER41> What about the instances when men are harassed by women? It must happen to men in equal amounts because for this not to happen would mean that men and women are unequal which is sexist and wrong.

</comment><comment><USER45> I don't use facebook so I'm wondering : isn't there a way to turn a private message into a public one, so that users think twice before sending an offensive one?

<comment><USER32> Well, you can screenshot it and share the screenshot, but that doesn't seem to stop people apparently.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> Nothing is wrong with statistics. This is just a sexual harasser. Why frame it as a new social issue in statistics when this is a very well known general problem in society?

</comment><comment><USER46> If there was any harassment on online media, the right course of action is to screenshot everything the mofo says and only then publicly shame them _with evidence_.

</comment><comment><USER47> It's as if his great work contribution warrant some kind of free pass for abhorrent and unacceptable behaviour.

</comment><comment><USER48> In the past, there was another extreme in societies when raped woman could be considered guilty for inappropriate seduction of a men. So those victims could be crucified by society and in some cases even sent to prison.

There were some important changes in societies which made women in many modern countries much more emancipated. This is no doubt was very positive change for economies (more educated workforce) and live in general (free love versus arranged marriage).

In recent decade or two, third wave-feminism took off and ballooned to the point when it became pretty ugly and full of systemic-hate towards males. What I mean by systemic-hate is that under the flag of gender equality, feminists try to explain _any disparity_ between men and women as systemic oppression and discrimination driven by men.

So now, we can see _overstretched definitions_ of rape and harassment and absurd claims that 25% of women experienced sexual assault etc (so called "rape culture", a bizzare term on its own). Just making sexual harassment _allegations_ is enough to consider a person _guilty_. So any woman can forever destroy carrier of any man just by making such allegations. I can easily imagine situation where socially awkward male tries to make awkward flirt with female and, in response, she will easily destroy his career and life.

I can imagine that sexual self-esteem of young males could be massively degraded in hostile environment created by third-wave feminists. I'm so glad I lived my 20ties in Russia and not being influenced by this bizarre new leftist culture.

As one friend of mine called - _horizontal totalitarianism_ : anyone who question third-wave feminism's _dogmas_ would be crucified/banned and fired for being sexist, supportive of rape (what an absurd!!!!), and against gender equality, considering women as inferior to men etc

When I lived in Russia, I romanticized western world based on movies and politics of 80s and 90s. I imagined western world as individualist and free- market paradise free from government's heavy hand. I imagined that people in the west are open minded and _I looked at feminism positively_. Now, I'm deeply disappointment by what I see...

<comment><USER12> I agree that there are some oversteps in the current atmosphere (e.g. equating asking someone out for drinks with harassment [0]), but this doesn't seem like that kind of case at all.

>One night after the conference talks were over, a bunch of conference participants and I went for a swim in the ocean. While I was swimming around, S repeatedly grabbed me under the water, putting his hands on my torso, hips, and thighs. I tried to play it off and swim away. He picked me up and pulled me into his chest. He then started to carry me away from the rest of the group, presumably to have some sort of private moment with me that I had absolutely no interest in sharing with him. I struggled, gently at first and then more forcefully, and he let me go.

Serious question, is that (a quote from OP) something you'd call overreach?

[0] [https://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2017/11/daily-...](https://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2017/11/daily- chart-14)

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> Misleading title.

</comment><comment><USER49> Given all the events happening in society regarding sexual assault, I think I need to point out something.

These men who abuse their positions are repugnant creatures.They are worthless animals incapable of controlling their instincts. Grown ass men, who haven't yet learned to control their mind. Somehow they achieved success without any significant strengthening of their mind. Pathetic.

But I don't think this portrayal of all women as innocent angels who these evil men are out to abuse isn't right. There are pathetic men, just as there are pathetic women. It might not be the case here, but women use these powerful men, give them sexual favors, so that they can accumulate power for themselves.

In the case of Weinstein, so many famous actress, kept quiet and let him do what he wanted, simply for the pursuit of fame, money etc, and now when it became safe to accuse him, after they acquired their fame, they did.

Of-course, these creeps are repugnant, but the women who keep quiet, use them and enable their behavior are pretty immoral too.

So kudos to this women for speaking out.

Some posters where saying, that any scientific progress he makes should be ignored, that is pretty stupid. I think the women should name him, so that their will be atleast a social cost for him, if not legal.

</comment><comment><USER50> when will these stop making news headlines? i look forward to it.

<comment><USER51> When powerful men stop abusing their power?

<comment><USER52> When powerful _people_ stop abusing their power.

A large majority of harassing is probably done by men, but it's not 100% men.

<comment><USER53> Part of the problem here is the culture of toxic masculinity and the acceptance of harassing behavior by men as being normal, even expected.

Even though it's not 100% about men, it still being _almost entirely_ about men and the culture among men which equates sexual aggression with status and power still makes the discussion worth framing in those terms.

<comment><USER52> > it still being _almost entirely_ about men

We cannot know that. It has not been researched, and the victims don't talk about it.

There was a time, in Finland, when everyone assumed that domestic violence is "almost entirely about men", research proposals were ridiculed and not funded. When they eventually studied the topic, 20% of the perpetrators turned out to be women, and in aggravated assaults 50%.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> This is why, jurisdiction providing, you always record everything at work these days. Don't leave it to chance. Whether you need to make an accusation, or you need to defend against one, records clear things up spectacularly fast.

P.S. I recognize that California generally requires two-party consent for recording.

<comment><USER55> I have been recording the vast majority of my conversations with people for about a year now.

Doing so has saved me not once, not twice, but three times from blatantly false allegations regarding my speech/behavior.

I HATE living my life this way...but what choice do I have?

<comment><USER56> Well, you could _not_ do it, like most people.

..after I wrote that, I remembered I do know something about that. A few years ago, I was arrested and lost my relationship and was made homeless etc when the police believed false allegations about my behaviour, made by my partner's 11-yr old daughter. (Nothing sexual or too terrible, just that I'd done overly threatening things one night, enough to make her feel afraid.) But I still wouldnt record everything. Sometimes in disagreements with my current partner we wish we had recorded the whole argument; _that_ would be very useful.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> I'm not totally okay with blackballing brilliant people for touching someone's thigh.

<comment><USER58> I'm not okay with letting brilliant people be harassed. Even from a purely cost/benefit standpoint, allowing a toxic environment will drive out more talent than we'd lose by eliminating the harassers.

<comment><USER59> Agreed, but at the same time I think this matter shouldn't be broadcast publicly until the investigation finishes. If he did do what he said, then the investigation should confirm it, and then he should get blackballed for harassment because it's not ok.

But first step should be proving it, not blackballing someone because of allegations. I think we can all agree that removing someone who harassed is a good thing, while removing someone who is only alleged to have harassed is a bad thing. And that distinction probably needs to be made by someone qualified, not an activist or the general public.

<comment><USER51> > Agreed, but at the same time I think this matter shouldn't be broadcast > publicly until the investigation finishes.

As we've seen over and over, very often there's no investigation unless the matter is broadcast publicly. So much easier to sweep things under the rug.

<comment><USER59> Good point.

Still, maybe we should publicize that allegations have occurred without specifying against who? And making it public if an organisation refuses to investigate. That should give the same public result without the need to attack someone who is only alleged.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER60> I'm glad that people are beginning to stand up to this type of behavior. It is completely unacceptable and has no place in our society, let alone the workplace.

That said, I do fear we may take it too far. Unwanted touching is _never_ OK, and abusive/hurtful language is not OK either. However, I saw a poll the other day where a significant number of respondents said that asking someone on a date was sexual harassment.

There have also been a lot of cases where sex was consensual, but later on one of the parties had regrets, and now it was considered rape (even though it was consensual at the time it was happening). This sort of thing is what happened with Louis C.K. What he did was sick and weird IMHO, but the women actually consented to watching him pet his monkey, but then later after the fact had regret, and what in the moment was fine suddenly became a heinous act. If this is the standard, I think we're all screwed, because we have all undoubtedly "raped" or at least "sexually harassed" somebody.

<comment><USER51> > There have also been a lot of cases where sex was consensual, but later on > one of the parties had regrets, and now it was considered rape

Sure, "a lot". But it is a very small percentage of all rape reports (obviously not counting the millions of rapes that are never reported).

> This sort of thing is what happened with Louis C.K

No it's not. Not in the least.

> the women actually consented to watching him pet his monkey

No they did not.

<comment><USER60> > Sure, "a lot". But it is a very small percentage of all rape reports > (obviously not counting the millions of rapes that are never reported).

Fair enough, "a lot" is most likely not accurate. It's probably a small percentage of all rape reports.

> No it's not. Not in the least. > No they did not.

Yes, they did. His mea culpa was essentially a statement that he believed that his asking for and receiving consent wasn't valid because he didn't realize that the women's respect and admiration for him would cause them to feel pressured to consent. I don't fully disagree with his analysis there, but if the standard is that anybody who has respect for you cannot consent, we are in some trouble.

<comment><USER61> The standard is more closely "anybody that works for you cannot consent, especially when you make the first advances" which makes more sense, because it's not always possible to tell if "I want you to have sex with me" includes the subtext "Have sex with me or I'll fire you"</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Images of Math - <AUTHOR> http://images-of-math.tumblr.com <comment><USER2> Suggestion: allow us to use left/right button to navigate.

</comment><comment><USER3> The formula: (x² − y³)² = z³(x + y²)

Made me dig up this old guy: [https://www.google.com/search?q=5+%2B+(-sqrt(1-x%5E2-(y-abs(...](https://www.google.com/search?q=5+%2B+\(-sqrt\(1-x%5E2-\(y-abs\(x\)\)%5E2\)\)*cos\(30*\(\(1-x%5E2-\(y-abs\(x\)\)%5E2\)\)\)%2C+x+is+from+-1+to+1%2C+y+is+from+-1+to+1.5%2C+z+is+from+1+to+6&aq=f&oq=5+%2B+\(-sqrt\(1-x%5E2-\(y-abs\(x\)\)%5E2\)\)*cos\(30*\(\(1-x%5E2-\(y-abs\(x\)\)%5E2\)\)\)%2C+x+is+from+-1+to+1%2C+y+is+from+-1+to+1.5%2C+z+is+from+1+to+6&aqs=chrome.0.57j62.602j0&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8)

</comment><comment><USER4> I like how it only goes article by article, it brings more focus and attention to these short posts and leaves more space for the mind to wander.

<comment><USER5> Agreed. Here's the short attention span version though, [http://images-of- math.tumblr.com/archive](http://images-of-math.tumblr.com/archive)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6>
       You never need more than four colors to color every country
       on a map a different color from its neighbours. This was
       proved in the 20th century — but nobody knows why it is true.

Heh. I suppose we've proved it, but this author doesn't accept this proof as an explanation for why it's true.

<comment><USER7> The "proof" you're most likely talking about doesn't show _why_ this is true. Merely shows that it is true.

Exhaustion doesn't qualify as a real argument, in my opinion.

<comment><USER8> Personally, I think it's totally valid. (PhD mathematician here).

<comment><USER9> > Personally, I think it's totally valid.

To be fair, though it's a bit ambiguous, I read sebastialonso's post [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8799362](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8799362) as indicating that he or she believes _that_ the result is true—i.e., does not necessarily reject the _validity_ of proof by exhaustion as a style of argumentation—but does not feel that the proof by exhaustion is an _explanation_.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> D&Ders take note: [http://images-of-math.tumblr.com/page/8](http://images-of- math.tumblr.com/page/8)

Y'all did not invent a d20!

This is just a really nifty site. Much deeper than I know how to express. One image per page, but it's really good. ("Bookmarked", so to speak.)

</comment><comment><USER11> [http://images-of-math.tumblr.com/post/105433933328/the- goal-...](http://images-of-math.tumblr.com/post/105433933328/the-goal-of- this-19th-century-board-game-the#notes)

This is a game? It takes maybe 2 seconds to find a solution on this thing.

<comment><USER12> Yes, it was a commercially sold game which William Rowan Hamilton attempted to popularize, and yes, it was a flop in part because it was so very easy to find a solution by random messing around.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Missed "Aryabhata" , [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aryabhata](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aryabhata)</comment>


Can you ethically invest in unethical companies? - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2010/10/22/can-you-ethically-invest-in-unethical-companies/

<comment><USER2> No, you can't ethically invest in an unethical company. However, you still need to answer the question: what is ethical? Next, if you have an answer, how do you know it? Don't forget to follow Mrs. Rand's immortal adage: _check your premises._

<comment><USER3> Also, you need to answer the question, "what if I don't really exist?"

<comment><USER2> You cannot answer that question with "I don't" or even "I don't know" because existence is axiomatic. Any answer you give to this question (or any other) subsumes existence, consciousness and identity. So the only answer is "I exist, I know that I do, and all things are what they are, so I am what I am."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Tldr: according to the article, the answer is a resounding "no".

</comment><comment><USER5> While accompanying my father to his financial advisor, I had the opportunity to decide what to do with some funds I had inherited. The advisor had given me several prospectuses to look over, and I had ruled out some funds because they had Altria (the former Philip Morris) as one of their largest ten holdings. I told him of my choices, and he laughed, saying that there was no way to get away from such companies.

Quite sad, but that's reality.

<comment><USER6> Everyone else doing it doesn't make it right.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> A bit part of the problem is that you don't get to vote the shares held by your mutual funds. The fund manager gets those votes and he/she is obligated to vote solely on the basis of profit motive. And because of 401(k) and 403(b), the vast majority of the workforce is at least partially invested in mutual funds. Most employer-based retirement plans do not offer the option to invest in individual stocks.

<comment><USER8> Here in Australia employers have to offer several choices of investment plans for superannuation, and ethical mutual funds have sprung up as a result. You can pretty much invest ethically if you want. You're still stuck with the problem that you don't get to define what "ethical" means though, you usually have to accept the mutual fund manager's definition.

The other problem with ethical investing in a constrained universe of stocks is whether you are inadvertently increasing risk (i.e. price variance to benchmark) by the selection constraint. I'm not up with the latest research, but by the early 2000s there were sufficient ethical funds in the U.S. to pretty much ameliorate that risk and I'd be surprised if it was a real factor today for the U.S. (I don't have the latest data for Australia.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> There is one situation when you can ethically invest in an unethical company - to use your investor power to change their behavior.

Most probably that's not easy unless you happen to have a couple billions lying around (or a particularly undervalued unethical company at hand).

</comment><comment><USER10> If you can find a copy of Murray Kempton's _Rebellions, Perversities, and Main Events_, there is an essay "The Confusions of Conscience" about just this. (I mention this mainly because the book is well worth having--the man had a way with a sentence.)

</comment><comment><USER11> Interesting follow up question that I have no particular answer to: If you accept that it is unethical to invest in companies that are behaving in a manner you believe is unethical, is it ethical to _short_ them?

</comment><comment><USER12> I won't in a company I don't want to succeed. I don't want to have conflicted motives about wanting to see an organization succeed or fail.

But that's pragmatism more than ethics - I don't want to be in a position where, say, advocating publicly that smoking is bad makes me lose money on tobacco shares.

</comment><comment><USER13> Yeah, unemployment and zero services. That's the way to make the world a better place.

Mz, who owns no stocks at all because nothing is good enough for my picky ethical standards. Has nothing to do with lack of funds. I swear! It's solely because of my Lawful Awful alignment 1 orientation.

(oops, I have nearly $50 in a retirement account invested in stocks -- need to divest myself of that)</comment>


Rate My Startup: Catalog.Do - <AUTHOR> http://catalog.do

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi all,

I am currently working on a platform that helps people to buy better products.

Today there are more and more products and it's hard to find the right fit.

Currently I focus on Smartphones with friends reviews.

The site is built mainly with AngularJS (I love it!) and some RoR server side. I am using some design elements from bootstrap and made some cool UI things to make the website cool.

Thank you.</comment>


Imgur Raises $40 Million From Andreessen Horowitz and Reddit - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2014/04/03/after-five-years-of-bootstrapping-imgur-raises-40-million-from-andreessen-reddit/?ncid=rss <comment><USER2> I've subscribed to the Imgur feed for years, this is good news.</comment>


Show HN: Reflection for C++ made easy - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/m4nu3lf/eXtendedMirror

<comment><USER2> Nice. Got any benchmarks as compared to other libraries? Especially in terms of compile times, executable sizes

eg. Example benchmarks of another reflection libary: [http://www.gamedev.net/page/resources/_/technical/general- pr...](http://www.gamedev.net/page/resources/_/technical/general- programming/implementing-a-meta-system-in-c-r3905)

<comment><AUTHOR> I was unable to build that benchmark, however I did some tests for reflected vs non-reflected code. I've Implemented 40 classes each with one property and 3 methods. Every method was almost empty, just doing some computation like an addition and returning the value. The getter and setter for the property were standard. Here are the results: Compilation time increased by a factor of 7.5. Executable size increased by a factor of 19. Function call time increased by a factor of 25 (from non virtual). It may seem really really bad (aside for the function call time)... but, the classes were nearly empty. In the first two cases (increase in memory and compilation time) we should consider the increase per class/method/property, not the ratio on the previous measure, because the penalty only depends on the number of classes/methods/properties. So I can say that with 40 classes and 5x40 methods (3 + 1 getter and 1 setter per class) I got a penalty of: 3.18 seconds on compilation time. 2.17 Mega bytes on the executable size. I think that in a more realistic project the ratios would be much less. At least I am optimistic.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> You might want to look at Boost.Hana.</comment>


Ask HN: Why GitHub is downgrading its GitHub Pages? - <AUTHOR> Github recently upgraded Jekyll version to 3.0, but along with that, many features were removed. Github is now fighting with users to adhere to their new standards, even at the cost of breaking existing websites. <comment><USER2> You need to change your markdown to "kramdown" instead: [https://github.com/rohit01/rohit01.github.io/blob/master/_co...](https://github.com/rohit01/rohit01.github.io/blob/master/_config.yml#L11-L14)

Did you update to the Jekyll 3 gem? I do not see a Gemfile.lock to verify. But you should move to the v3 of the gem to make sure. "bundle update jekyll"

</comment><comment><USER3> Er, can you give examples of broken functionality?

<comment><AUTHOR> [https://www.rohit.io/](https://www.rohit.io/)

The CSS of the complete website is broken with hardly any change.</comment></comment>


Headhunter: simple script to pull all GitHub projects from a specific location - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/adamierymenko/headhunter

<comment><USER2> Forget AngelList, this gets you direct access to some of the best most passionate open source devs in any area! Way cool.</comment>


Show HN: Tweet Bombs to Make Fantasy Football More Fun - <AUTHOR> https://tweetbombs.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> Hey HN, maker of the site here.

I'm a huge fantasy football fan and wanted a way to spice up one of the best parts of Fantasy Football: The Banter.

So with a little help from Adam Schefter and a no-code tool called Bubble, I built Tweet Bombs. It was incredible to see how quickly I could go from idea to finished product and I am an even bigger fan of Bubble after building this.

In terms of what's next for the site, two updates I want to make are: 1) the ability to edit the "Tweeter" 2) dark mode tweets (because I like dark mode a lot)

Lastly, if you're interested in learning more, I did a more in-depth write-up on why and how I built the app here: [https://medium.com/@arjunmahadevan/how- to-make-fantasy-footb...](https://medium.com/@arjunmahadevan/how-to-make- fantasy-football-even-more-fun-2ad94914a615)</comment>


GANs Are Broken in More Than One Way: The Numerics of GANs - <AUTHOR> http://www.inference.vc/my-notes-on-the-numerics-of-gans/amp/ <comment><AUTHOR> [http://www.inference.vc/my-notes-on-the-numerics-of- gans/](http://www.inference.vc/my-notes-on-the-numerics-of-gans/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Non amp version, sorry about that

</comment></comment><comment><USER2> Link goes to the AMP version of the page, which doesn't render the latex math?</comment>


Facebook unveils its Like feature - <AUTHOR> http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10160112-93.html

<comment><AUTHOR> Or, "How Facebook could kill FriendFeed overnight".</comment>


Intellectual Property is Garbage (editorial) - <AUTHOR> https://tailpuff.net/intellectual-property-is-garbage/ <comment><USER2> Pretty much the only non-logically-tortured argument you can make about "Intellectual Property".

Nobody will believe this entity because (a) he/she is a furry, (b) he/she is not a corporate spoxperson, (c) it goes against the prevailing corporate ethos.</comment>


A guy searching for job and girl of his dream. - <AUTHOR> http://www.employadam.com/

<comment><USER2> This is an obnoxious page because the front page autoplays a video. This is an unpleasant surprise for someone like me who opens many links in new tabs before looking at them.</comment>


Hundreds evacuated as World War II live bomb uncovered in London - <AUTHOR> http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/uk/Hundreds-evacuated-as-World-War-II-live-bomb-uncovered-near-national-stadium-in-London/articleshow/47389814.cms <comment><USER2> This is an unfortunately all too common occurrence in Europe. Several times per year.</comment>


Simpo Raises $4.5M from Redpoint Ventures to Make Enterprise Software Simple - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2019/06/12/simpo-raises-4-5m-seed-to-help-install-software-faster-and-more-efficiently/ <comment><AUTHOR> Hey everyone, I'm Yuvi - the CEO of Simpo. We started Simpo two years ago with the mission of Enterprise making software as simple as consumer apps.

To do that, we give product managers a way to introduce new features and increase adoption by using automation. Would love to answer questions about how it works and geek out together.</comment>


Quantum Resistant Ledger, Altcoin Resistant to Quantum Computer Attacks [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/theQRL/QRL/blob/master/QRL_whitepaper.pdf <comment><AUTHOR> Is this technology good enough to prevent quantum computing attacks on blockchain?

Disclaimer: I have bought a couple of QRL over the past couple of days. My intent is to understand whether the tech is good enough.</comment>


How to Land on Mars - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/11/25/science/insight-how-to-land-on-mars.html <comment><USER2> This reminds me of when Curiosity landed years ago. It was a really cool event and I remember watching it on my Xbox. I think there was a special app to use to watch the event at NASA live. It was one of the tensest things I'd ever seen. I hope kids of all ages over the world get to experience something like this if you're interested in science.

<comment><USER3> I vividly remember a sense of total awe watching it, thinking here we are, watching a broadcast from inside the JPL - as it happens! - of a craft in a totally new, complex method of landing after travelling and being guided millions of kilometres.

What struck me in particular was the sense of wonder at being able to see that first image of the wheel - transmitted across the globe live as they received it.

Such a privilege and accomplishment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGD_YF64Nwk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGD_YF64Nwk) \- live coverage of InSight landing on the NASA JPL channel, started November 26, 2018 at 19:00 UTC, touchdown at around 20:00 UTC

<comment><USER5> When I was a kid I remember watching on PBS as they covered pictures of Jupiter getting transmitted from Voyager 1 as it flew by. It was really exciting. The pictures didn't come that quickly but it felt really exciting to watch a TV program with the scientists from NASA.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Successful touchdown confirmed!

</comment><comment><USER7> Final approach: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGD_YF64Nwk&t=54m10s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGD_YF64Nwk&t=54m10s)

</comment><comment><USER8> So smooth, hardly noticed we were landing... I guess 95% of the HN population came along for the ride: [https://mars.nasa.gov/participate/send-your- name/insight/](https://mars.nasa.gov/participate/send-your-name/insight/)

</comment><comment><USER9> I wanted to know a little more detail about why the broad equatorial plain Elysium Planitia was chosen as the landing place. Found this article but just curious if there is any more detail about the location or selection process?

\--

Elysium Planitia, a flat-smooth plain just north of the equator makes for the perfect location from which to study the deep Martian interior.

Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport, or InSight, is designed to study the deep interior of Mars. The mission seeks the fingerprints of the processes that formed the rocky planets of the solar system.

Its landing site, Elysium Planitia, was picked from 22 candidates, and is centered at about 4.5 degrees north latitude and 135.9 degrees east longitude; about 373 miles (600 kilometers) from Curiosity's landing site, Gale Crater. The locations of other Mars landers and rovers are labeled.

InSight's scientific success and safe landing depends on landing in a relatively flat area, with an elevation low enough to have sufficient atmosphere above the site for a safe landing. It also depends on landing in an area where rocks are few in number. Elysium Planitia has just the right surface for the instruments to be able to probe the deep interior, and its proximity to the equator ensures that the solar-powered lander is exposed to plenty of sunlight.

\--

[https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/jpl/pia22232/insight-s- la...](https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/jpl/pia22232/insight-s-landing-site- elysium-planitia)

<comment><USER10> Here's the paper they published about landing site selection (7.5MB PDF): [https://spiral.imperial.ac.uk:8443/bitstream/10044/1/48751/2...](https://spiral.imperial.ac.uk:8443/bitstream/10044/1/48751/2/SPAC321_Author.pdf)

Table 3 on page 20 of the PDF is a good summary; their main constraints were latitude, elevation, slope (flatness) and rock abundance.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Interesting link at the end of the article about a mini helicopter NASA's sending along with the Mars 2020 mission - [https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/11/science/mars- helicopter-n...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/11/science/mars-helicopter- nasa.html)

</comment><comment><USER12> In July 1997, I was temporarily unemployed and in the unemployed doldrums. I remember watching the day by day updates on Mars Pathfinder. Matt Golombek was the Pathfinder lead and face on TV (CSPAN?). He's a bit presuming but he quickly became my geek hero. Good to see that he's a lead on InSight, twenty years later.

</comment><comment><USER13> I have not been following space exploration in depth so forgive my ignorance on the subject:

1\. How long did the trip take ?

2\. How many times have "we" (the world) tried and failed?

3\. How many times have "we" successfully landed ?

4\. Is this "ship" able to return to earth.

Thanks!

<comment><USER14> 1\. Six months.

2\. This is the fifth success, out of thirteen attempts, over sixty years.

3\. There have been five successful landings.

4\. No.

<comment><USER15> There have been more successful landings on Mars:

Viking 1

Viking 2

Mars Pathfinder

Spirit

Opportunity

Phoenix

Curiosity

InSight

<comment><USER16> And all of the above are JPL projects! The only thing you left off the list is the USSR's Mars landers: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_program](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_program) (Proud JPLer here, although I haven't worked on any Mars stuff.)

<comment><USER17> Do you still do any occult ceremonies before launching stuff?

<comment><USER18> Peanuts. (Wait, that's for EDL, not for launch.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> After Curiosity's "helicopter drop but on Mars" style landing normal landings like this seem boring by comparison. I can't believe that was 6yr ago.

<comment><USER20> I wonder why the helicopter drop was necessary then but not now?

<comment><USER21> The sky crane maneuver (as JPL called it) was necessary because if they descended propulsively to the surface, it could kick up a huge dust cloud. That dust could land on the rover and damage the instruments. See this awesome video: [https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/video/details.php?id=1090](https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/video/details.php?id=1090)

<comment><USER22> I was standing next to one of the engineers who wrote the software for the landing while we were watching on the big screen at Twitter. A few moments after it landed he announced that his code worked and was being deleted to make room for surface operations code.

<comment><USER23> That's one of those cool things that never gets thought about outside the people directly involved. "Why keep the code required for landing readily available permanently, since it'll never ever need it again." That's one of the aspects that I enjoy about programming Arduino devices. I'm so spoiled to essentially unlimited memory on desktop/laptops (in comparison) that writing code to fit into extremely limited finite amounts of memory becomes challenging in a fun way.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Extraordinary claims...

<comment><USER17> Surfaces visited by Humankind (or by robotic ambassadors) 2018 - [https://imgur.com/a/v9Pc5Qz](https://imgur.com/a/v9Pc5Qz)

<comment><USER23> This is a pretty interesting poster. It shows just how similar the surface of these alien worlds look. The image of Earth is the obvious "one of these things is not like the others".

<comment><USER17> Venus, Mars and Titan look a bit more hospitable than the rest. The Mars one looks like somewhere you could actually encounter on Earth.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Drug Dealers Are Offering Black Friday Deals on the Dark Web - <AUTHOR> https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/black-friday-2019-deals-dark-web-drugs-criminals-a9212356.html <comment><USER2> Has anyone commenting ever actually bought or sold drugs before? Every single dealer or customer I've ever met has been through someone else, or someone I knew. There's relationships and trust vouching, just like any business. Credit is extended, and paid back. Transactions generally occur in homes or cars.

The comments here are acting like all real world drug market transactions occur between strangers, which is so far removed from the truth we might as well be talking about something else.

A good way to describe selling weed is 'the only MLM where people actually want what you're selling'

<comment><USER3> Where I live (big city) there are numbers you can text and it's a different guy every time. It's like ordering pizza except you get in their car for the transaction. You are usually waiting 20min at most. The whole operation is eerily professional. Back in my home town it was a guy you knew who may or may not be around or that other guy your friend knew who's house you could swing by. For weed in particular you tend to get more of the small town style dealers even in big cities just cos it's nice and people are used to it but for hard drugs people don't care, they want their drugs in the most convenient way possible.

<comment><USER4> The first time I heard of this kind of system it was for black tar heroin distribution in the US from a specific Mexican town that basically franchised the drug trade. [1]

Super interesting stuff. Google Xalisco or pick up the book Dreamland for more.

[1] [https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2010-feb-16-la-me- bl...](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2010-feb-16-la-me- blacktar16-2010feb16-story.html?_amp=true)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I guess it is a good time to ship a bunch of packages thru post offices that are already going to be at max capacity. Seems like it would lower the chance of them getting picked up.

<comment><USER6> Counterpoint: There is also a higher chance of Post Offices losing your package, routing it to an incorrect address, or other holiday errors that would increase your risk.

And just from the minimal Dark Web browsing I've done, it seems like post offices are really only searching packages when they already have some reason to be suspicious, like contact from law enforcement. Truly random checks seem like an extremely rare occurrence.

<comment><USER7> Can a post office generally open random packages under the guise of intercepting drugs?

I would very much hope not.

<comment><USER8> In general, first class letters that don't cross a national border and don't look like they contain something other than letter are safe from warrentless interception. Certainly packages have no such protections.

FISA (post 9/11 "national security" authorizing legislation) adds some exceptions

> Third, provisions in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 > ("FISA"), as amended, 50 U.S.C. § 1801 et seq., specifically authorize the > Attorney General to conduct physical searches of mall without prior judicial > authorization in certain circumstances. Section 304(e) of FISA, 50 U.S.C. § > 1824(e), provides that ___the Attorney General, under certain circumstances, > may approve the execution of an emergency physical search of property, > including property that "is in transit to or from an agent of a foreign > power or a foreign power,"_ __id. § 1824(a)(3)(B), so long as the Attorney > General subsequently obtains an order from the Foreign Intelligence > Surveillance Court authorizing the search...

[https://www.rstreet.org/2014/11/19/yes-the-government-can- op...](https://www.rstreet.org/2014/11/19/yes-the-government-can-open-your- mail-without-a-warrant/)

<comment><USER9> A lot of packages I receive from overseas are stamped with words to the effect of "Package may be opened and inspected" which is probably directly related to this clause, and also negating the need to get permission from the foreign courts. I'm guessing that is to speed things up in case they do want to inspect it.

Likewise, I've received one package that was opened and inspected. It came in a clear plastic bag along with a very short note stating that it had been inspected in accordance to <whatever laws they were>.

Senders probably don't usually stamp that on illegal shipments, and the post surely doesn't drop in a polite notification if they discover something illegal in there.

<comment><USER8> The Constitution in general protects much less when the borders are involved. I meant to say that the US government can open any mail it feels like if that mail isn't a first class letter, without needing permission from a judge. Additionally, even first class letters aren't protected if they cross the border; the government can inspect anything it feels like that crosses a border without needing permission from any judge.

Unless someone forged the notice (unlikely, as you point out) some government opened it (it could also have been the government of the sender or any transit country). All those notices are the government voluntarily letting you know because someone in the government thought it would be better; if the FBI wanted to open a package because they vaguely suspected terrorism they could do it without needing to stamp the package or give any notice if they wanted.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Is this actually newsworthy?

If you're going to buy drugs the darkweb is almost surely safer (as in more likely to be getting what you ask for) than buying it from some random person in your neighborhood.

<comment><USER11> How exactly? This makes no sense to me.

<comment><USER12> At the very least, buying drugs in person comes with the risk of getting punched in the face in exchange for your money.

In all honesty, when I was young buying street drugs was appealing for the hustle, risk, excitement, and mischief. Often I'd simply resell it for double the thrill. Perhaps with that element gone it might actually be less appealing for some.

<comment><USER13> No drug dealer punches you in the face for money... drug dealers make money by you coming back for more. Only a crackhead would punch you for money

<comment><USER14> There seems to be a lot of misconceptions about drug buying in this thread in general. You're right, and I'll add that they also make money by word of mouth -- not just you coming back, but bringing a friend, extending a network of trust, etc. Punching someone in the face doesn't exactly engender that kind of thing for one's business.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Drug dealers have always had holiday specials.

Or so I've heard.

</comment><comment><USER16> Is this a narco-submarine article?

[http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narco- submarine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narco-submarine)

</comment><comment><USER17> Thought the darknet was in abit of chaos at the moment?

<comment><USER18> Why do you think that?

<comment><USER17> Thought some of the popular markets are down, dread is down

<comment><USER18> Oh wow, I wasn't aware dread is down.

<comment><USER19> It's very much a target of certain nation states for ddos, which is apparently ok when the police do it, the ones with the eyes have a strange hypocrisy about drugs given the evidence of vastly improved safety from the darknet vendors. Then again they always have.

<comment><USER20> Governments tend to indulge in hypocrisy as standard operating practice. They also reserve the right to kill people and confiscate property because, as much as the average person might find comfort in order, legislation and institutions, the reality of the world is you can do whatever you want unless someone can stop you, and there are not a lot of people or organisations that can stop a government.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> TLDR: people who do things you don't approve still share the same culture you do, live in the same world, and celebrate like you do.

Because they are human too

</comment><comment><USER22> This has been happening for years. The deals some vendors offer on weed leading up to 4/20 have always been jaw dropping.

</comment><comment><USER23> Shouldn't this be Cyber Monday? Or are these bricks and mortar dealers?

</comment><comment><USER24> Fun story but this isn't really news. Sales is sales. All sales tricks are a bit, well, tricky; marketers are trying to convince us to buy things we might not. At least with drugs people already want them.</comment>


Crossover to support DirectX 11 on Mac and Linux "in the coming months" - <AUTHOR> https://www.codeweavers.com/about/blogs/jramey/2015/06/18/it-s-all-about-the-team-at-e3-the-super-bowl-of-computer-gaming

<comment><USER2> There is a Google Summer of Code project for D3DRM: [https://www.google- melange.com/gsoc/project/details/google/g...](https://www.google- melange.com/gsoc/project/details/google/gsoc2015/jam/5750085036015616)

There is a lot of recent D3D changes in the wine source: [http://source.winehq.org/git/wine.git/shortlog](http://source.winehq.org/git/wine.git/shortlog)

</comment><comment><USER3> How does this affect wine?

<comment><USER4> Wine should benefit from it since they share essentially the same codebase. We will see...</comment></comment>


All that's great about CoffeeScript in 40 characters - <AUTHOR> http://blog.mackerron.com/2014/10/29/great-coffeescript/

<comment><USER2> OP's example in coffeescript:

      Array::compact = -> x for x in @ when x?

In es6:

      Array.prototype.compact = function() {
        return this.filter(x => x !== null);
      }

I find it easier to read than OP's example, but I would like to see non- lexically bound this function shorthand in es6/7\. I see a mention of it at the bottom of this spec[1], but not sure what they mean by "Initializer opt". Maybe like this:

      Array.prototype.compact = this => this.filter(x => x !== null)

[1] [http://tc39wiki.calculist.org/es6/arrow- functions/](http://tc39wiki.calculist.org/es6/arrow-functions/)

<comment><USER3> Or even in ES5...

[].filter(function(item) { return item != null; });

It's not patched on the prototype, but I'm not sure why something that simple needs to be.

<comment><AUTHOR> Those ES5 and ES6 examples are nice, but I believe even ES5 is for IE9+, and not everyone has the luxury of targeting that high yet.

<comment><USER2> ES6/5 compiles down just like Coffeescript, with the added benefit that one day you don't need to compile it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Sure, that is a nice one liner, but the reason that JavaScript code is so ugly is because it's what the CoffeeScript function compiled to.

<comment><AUTHOR> Well, it has a few more underscores, but it's otherwise pretty much identical to the JS I'd have written by hand.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Array.prototype.compact = function( list) { for ( var i = list.length; i >= 0; i--) { if ( list[ i ] == null) results.splice( i, 1); }

<comment><AUTHOR> That _is_ nice, but you'd need to first copy this (or 'list') to results to make it do the same as the CoffeeScript example.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Ah yes the argument by neat one-liner.

Now let's move on to the truly relevant and constructive activity: comparing which language has best-looking toy quicksort implementation

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey, I didn't set out to write an essay on the joys of CoffeeScript. I was just writing some code, as you do, and was struck by this one-liner as a good example of why I like CoffeeScript so much.</comment></comment>


Atomic Pi: A Raspberry-Pi alternative with an Intel processor, less than US$35 - <AUTHOR> https://www.notebookcheck.net/Atomic-Pi-A-Raspberry-Pi-alternative-with-an-Intel-processor-that-costs-less-than-US-35.419686.0.html <comment><USER2> > At the time of writing, it is only possible to buy the device directly from > Digital Loggers, which only ship to the US.

And they show a $59 price. (*edit: However, the amazon link does show it available at $34)

in the meantime, Adafruit will sell you a $35 Rpi4 1 and 2gb right now:

[https://www.adafruit.com/product/4292](https://www.adafruit.com/product/4292)

[https://www.adafruit.com/product/4295](https://www.adafruit.com/product/4295)

Which I have to suggest almost everyone should do.

<comment><USER3> You might be looking at the price that includes the breakout board.

[https://dlidirect.com/products/atomic- pi?variant=21555036979...](https://dlidirect.com/products/atomic- pi?variant=21555036979305)

The device by itself is showing $35.88

[https://dlidirect.com/products/atomic- pi?variant=21343701794...](https://dlidirect.com/products/atomic- pi?variant=21343701794921)

<comment><USER4> The top two items in the drop down menu should probably be swapped to make more sense - first the board, and THEN the board-plus.

I didn't even realize why there were so many unrelated images until I saw your reply here.

EDIT: Having said that, I just went through the other items in the dropdown and discovered you can get one for _cheaper_ than RPi if you don't need the missing bits.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: My first iOS game released - <AUTHOR>

My first iOS game is released. It took me 2 weekends to develop and 9 day approval time.
Here are a few promo codes. If you take a promo code, can you please also leave a review?
Happy to answer any questions. An update is already being prepared for iPhone support as well as a more major update that adds difficulty adjustments and a "dreaded" twist :-)
The Game: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/pop-corn/id905859076?mt=8&ign-mpt=uo%3D4
Promo Codes:
F79LRP4JNWT4
X94XXNNW77E3
PEWJ77FHTME7
9PHN99RLLE6W <comment><USER2> The game was interesting, but I have a few critiques:

1) The first thing I checked was to see if it was multitouch, and I was disappointed. I should be able to tap kernels with as many fingers as I have (or 11, whichever is smaller).

2) It is not obvious when a round will end. One lasted 41 seconds. Another lasted 44. There are not instructions, and I can't tell after playing a few rounds.

3) I would recommend giving your contact info either in the app description or on your webpage. If I can't find contact info then I am likely to complain about bugs via an app review because that is the only method you gave me.

4) Please give some visual feedback for which kernel is about to pop. Some are different colors, but there is no apparent reason as they are all the same type.

5) You only see the opening menu the first time you play the game. There is no way to get back to the menu after a round only a exit button which exited the whole app. That is possibly a bug and it just crashed.

6) After one of the rounds I didn't get any menu and had to force quit the app to play again.

7) If you exit the game (ie. with the home button) it does not stop the clock, and then it shows a large time when you resume and finish the round.

8) The splash screen flashes up for a fraction of a second. The recommended method is to have a splash screen that looks mostly like the menu screen, but maybe without the buttons, so that the launch looks smoother.

<comment><AUTHOR> Could you tell me which model IPad you have?

Thank you for the feedback! I'll go over each of these with a fine tooth comb. I have a 1.1 version that addresses a few of these concerns already.

1\. Good idea on multitouch

2\. The round ends when you have 125+ kernels on the screen

3\. I'll update both today

4\. The time each kernel pops is generated at random. I think you are right, feedback is important.

5\. Its not a bug. I did it on purpose :-) Well my logic behind it was you either want to replay or quit. Getting back to the main menu right now felt weird since the only options are Play and About.

6\. I'll look into this.

7\. You are right, I have this fixed in the next build.

8\. I'll look into this. I used other games I was playing as an example and they all seemed to have a different launch image and main menu, etc.

<comment><USER2> Its a 4th generation iPad.

1) depending on how you wrote this, it could be easy to implement. The easiest way would be to have each kernel be its own view, and then a touch makes it disappear. Then each view handles one touch each, but the result is a better experience.

5) This is the only app I have seen with an exit button. I did not even know that there was code to do this since there is a nice hardware button that does the same thing.

8) The splash screen makes more sense if there is a longer loading time. One option would be to have another view that is the same image and then hold it for 1-2 seconds. I have seen some apps do this.

<comment><AUTHOR> 1\. Each corn kernel has its own event listeners on it. I'll debug this. I actually (as well as my wife and son) tended to play it with 1 finger. Thanks for demonstrating another method of play.

8\. Good idea.

<comment><USER2> It is interesting to find out how other people play your games. I had one where I knew to just touch and hold, but when other people swiped repeatedly it showed a problem that I would have never seen on my own.

<comment><AUTHOR> Just FYI There is a 1.1 update waiting for approval and I am submitting a 1.1.1 that utilizes full multi-touch. What a difference it makes in the game play....

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> As far as I remember, customers who used a Promotion Code to buy something from the (Mac) App store are not able to leave a review for the app.

<comment><USER2> I used the first promo code, and I can confirm that you can't leave a review if you use a code.

<comment><AUTHOR> I had no idea this was the case. Thanks for trying to leave feedback though.</comment></comment></comment>