Sailing dead downwind faster than the wind. Impossible, but they did it. - <AUTHOR> http://kimballlivingston.com/?p=3971 <comment><USER2> This is a really good explanation I saw a while back of the phenomenon. This debunker (a PhD @ Google) originally said it was impossible - and then realized he was wrong.

Initial claim of impossibility: [http://scienceblogs.com/goodmath/2008/12/windpowered_perpetu...](http://scienceblogs.com/goodmath/2008/12/windpowered_perpetual_motion.php)

Recognition of truth ;-): [http://scienceblogs.com/goodmath/2008/12/the_real_bozo_attem...](http://scienceblogs.com/goodmath/2008/12/the_real_bozo_attempts_to_aton.php)

<comment><USER3> I prefer Terry Tao's explanation ([http://terrytao.wordpress.com/2009/03/23/sailing-into-the- wi...](http://terrytao.wordpress.com/2009/03/23/sailing-into-the-wind-or- faster-than-the-wind/)), carry the result over to land by replacing the "keel" with gears.

<comment><USER4> As always, Tao's explanation is crystal clear, takes you from the absolute basic layman level to as deep as you want to go.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Several comments in this thread say something to the effect of "sailboats do this all the time" or "sailors have known this for years."

Sailboats do not sail faster than the wind when sailing dead downwind. High- performance sailboats absolutely do sail faster than the wind when sailing upwind or on a reach. This is a result of the apparent wind velocity (the velocity measured on the boat) increasing as the boat accelerates into the wind. This apparent wind is what powers the sails -- more apparent wind, higher boat speed. Terry Tao's explanation is excellent: [http://terrytao.wordpress.com/2009/03/23/sailing-into-the- wi...](http://terrytao.wordpress.com/2009/03/23/sailing-into-the-wind-or- faster-than-the-wind/)

A recent real-world example is the boat that won the America's Cup this time around, Oracle's 90-foot trimaran BOR 90. BOR 90 handily sails several times faster than the wind upwind. Watch chase boats try and keep in a mere 10 or 12 knots of wind as the boat is going 32 knots: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USA_17_(yacht)>

Downwind is a totally different story. As you approach dead-downwind you accelerate with the wind until your boat speed reaches the speed of the wind and your apparent wind approaches zero.

As for sailors knowing about the effect, I can assure you it is just as counter-intuitive to us as anyone else. Maybe more so since we spend a lot of time observing how boats behave downwind. I've raced in San Francisco for more than a decade and had this discussion with maybe a dozen racing sailors in the last few months. Things got heated every time. No intuition to be found.

[Edit: corrected sloppy about dead-downwind vs just downwind. As commenters have noted, sailboats will happily go faster than the wind at angles below 90 degrees, but not at 180 degrees.]

<comment><USER6> Nice links, thanks. I respectfully disagree with the upwind/downwind speeds though. In my experience the most force on the sailboat/windsurfer (and resulting speed of the boat) comes from sailing at a broad reach, roughly 45% downwind. Linked from your USA_17 article:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sailing_faster_than_the_wind>

They have a couple of vector diagrams here, which seem to indicate downwind as faster:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sailing_faster_than_the_wind#Ve...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sailing_faster_than_the_wind#Vector_diagrams_and_formulas)

If so, you'd increase speed as you went downwind up to a certain point, and then it would decrease again as you near dead downwind.

<comment><USER5> Very sloppy on my part. Corrected, thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> A brilliant video on this issue is _Under the ruler faster than the ruler_ : <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-trDF8Yldc>

(and its follow-up videos if you liked it)

<comment><USER8> This is excellent, I was very surprised at the result. It's made me rethink some basic assumptions. Thanks very much! :)

<comment><USER9> Which basic assumptions?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> [EDIT: I started typing this up before smanek's post. It's essentially the same argument, but I intentionally left out the formulae.]

 _Really_ cool. Here's my best explanation of how they achieve a stable speed faster than the wind; this isn't explained _that_ well in the article. (Disclaimer: I'm not exactly a trained physicist/aerodynamics expert.)

They've built a lightweight vehicle with a huge propeller directly linked to the drive shaft ("directly linked" is important here!) With the vehicle at rest, the propeller catches wind and begins driving the shaft; the car itself also catches some wind. Obviously, the car speeds up.

Once the whole contraption is at or near wind speed, the wind obviously stops driving the propeller. It's clear that the vehicle can maintain this speed just by using itself as a sail.

Now, note that the wheels, directly linked to the propeller, are now driving the propeller. Running through stationary air (since the vehicle runs at wind speed, the air is stationary relative to the propeller), the propeller begins accelerating the vehicle!

Of course, as the whole contraption accelerates beyond wind speed, air and ground friction increases, etc. But all of these effects are gradual, and since we have already seen that it can, in fact, accelerate while traveling at wind speed, it will continue accelerating for a while beyond that, eventually reaching some maximum speed above the actual wind speed. Apparently, this is ~2.8x the wind speed for this particular vehicle, which is an impressive engineering feat.

The article says that this offers opportunities for power generation, but I'm not seeing those. Still, very cool.

<comment><USER11> Are you sure that is correct, that the wheels are powering the propeller at some point? The article explained it completely differently. The article said that the effect is similar to when a sailboat tacks downwind sharply, they can briefly accelerate beyond wind speed. The propeller is essentially shaped as if each side is a sail continuously tacking, so the force from each of the two "sails" drives the propeller in a circular motion.

I don't believe the wheels are providing any energy into the process, but I could be wrong. I think it is the shape of the propeller that causes the effect. The article also said it could most likely work on water as well.

The wind energy applications of this propeller design are intriguing.

<comment><USER12> Yes, the wheels drive the propeller directly. Read the articles posted in the first comment. They will explain it. Very short summary: The prop creates an air cushion that acts as a virtual sail.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This seems really interesting but I found the article almost unbearable to read - it seems like the author's train of thought directly transcribed. The project's website is <http://www.fasterthanthewind.org/> though I'm still looking for a good explanation on how it actually works.

EDIT: do follow the link in smanek's comment. It's good. I _think_ I've understood it from that explanation.

<comment><USER14> [http://www.popsci.com/cars/article/2010-06/wind-powered- car-...](http://www.popsci.com/cars/article/2010-06/wind-powered-car-looks- odd-answers-tricky-physics-question)

The comments of this article have a great debate between skeptics who are particularly insulting/rude who then later admit being wrong.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Very cool.

It seems less paradoxical when you think in terms of energy instead of speed. In other words, thinking about it as (1) drawing energy from the wind and transforming this energy into forward physical motion instead of (2) the wind pushing something faster than itself.

<comment><USER16> Yes, this is why the concept of energy is given such a prominent position in physics. It is a great tool for predicting what might happen even when the detailed mechanism is unknown or seemingly impossible.

I haven't yet taken the time to understand the details of these explanations, but when I heard about this cart I immediately thought "hmm, the wind is blowing, there's energy all around, so some tricky person can probably figure out how to make use of that energy; hence, it's plausible".

Of course, the flip side of this principle is that physicists can be driven to spend years and years and years trying to extract energy that is obviously there, but that has no known mechanism for getting it out. The classic example is nuclear fusion. Everybody knows it's energetically favorable; nobody knows how to get over or under the activation barrier in any useful way, other than "build something the size of a star".

<comment><USER17> > build something the size of a star

It will even contract all by itself _and_ ignite.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> If you like that, you'll like this:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1877022>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1874846>

<comment><USER10> Do you have a filing system, or just a ridiculously good memory? This is hardly the first time you've provided a list of similar or identical submissions...

<comment><USER19> "I remember things like this and knew the search terms. Then <http://searchyc.com/> is your friend." -RiderOfGiraffes

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=940276>

<comment><USER18> Exactly. In this case just search for "sail" in the submission title:

<http://searchyc.com/submissions/sail?sort=by_date>

Doing this has often led me to articles of interest I would otherwise not have found, and I believe that cross-referencing like this is potentially of use, a little now, potentially more later.

However, with a karma of nearly 14k but an average of 2.29 it's clear that such cross-referencing rarely gets upvotes. A quick check of my comments shows that:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=RiderOfGiraffes>

Net result is that I'm probably mostly wasting my time. More than once I've considered stopping, more than once my mild obsessive/compulsive tendencies have caused me to carry on. I am again considering stopping and using HN differently. My "contributions" are rarely upvoted much, and that suggests my interests aren't that good a fit for the current population.

<comment><USER19> I occasionally find them useful, at a rate of about one per week. I didn't upvote them in the past, but I will now that I know you care.

"My 'contributions' are rarely upvoted much, and that suggests my interests aren't that good a fit for the current population."

For what it's worth, I have the hacker friends extension ([https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/mkdhfabjcebcgnpg...](https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/mkdhfabjcebcgnpgnhefebefiabhmbfn)) set to highlight all of your comments and submissions.

<comment><USER18> It's not that I care so much - I don't really care about the karma - it's just that it's a source of information about the community and my actions within it. Karma is intended to reinforce "good behavior" and discourage "bad behavior" and so I pay attention to it.

Not least, as I'm running a closed community I'm paying _very_ close attention to the effect, and to the discussions that occasionally pop up.

      > I have the hacker friends extension ... set
      > to highlight all of your comments and submissions.

Gosh. <blush> Thanks.

<comment><USER10> For better or worse, karma has little to do with good. <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1872693> was near the top, mixed snark and a (decent) reference, cost maybe 30 seconds to type, and earned 36 upvotes as of this post.

Conversely, <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1881992> took far too long (over an hour) to write, was far more informative, and earned 9 upvotes. At one point, <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1882453> had _more_ upvotes - I guess because of the pig?

I'm not ashamed of the first comment, but it saddens me to see that the second got so far fewer votes... and this seems to be the case for many other comment(s/ors) as well.

For what it's worth, I know your username and read your comments with interest.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Let C be a cylinder positioned at the center of the propeller with the same radius as the propeller and whose length = the velocity of the wind. Based on the density of the air and the volume of air contained in the cylinder and velocity of the wind we can calculate the total momentum available. There are theorems on how efficiently you can extract this energy - based on propeller theory. let this number be defined as "eta". if M * V * eta is the momentum available and the mass of the vehicle is less that M * eta where M * V * eta is the momentum extracted i.e. m < M * eta - then the velocity of the vehicle "v" must be greater than V the velocity of the wind. If you notice the size of the propeller in the picture - it is huge - so that the mass of the wind it intercepts > than the mass of the vehicle

</comment><comment><USER21> FWIIW, this is the same car as written up in Wired [http://www.wired.com/autopia/2010/06/downwind-faster-than- th...](http://www.wired.com/autopia/2010/06/downwind-faster-than-the-wind/) and discussed in YC <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1397954> (my explanation, which I like to think is correct - <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1398738>).

</comment><comment><USER22> Nice story,

The sailing against the wind is not an intuitive, mostly because there is no simple mathematical formula for the underlying physics. However one can do some convincing models. I have some matlab code which can, probably in the simplest way, demonstrate theoretically the principle. In short, if it is possible do sail down the wind faster the the wind than by having rotating sail (blades) DDWFTTW is possible. See: <http://goo.gl/TtEfM>

</comment><comment><USER23> I don't see why anyone would think this to be _impossible_. Neglecting friction, a vehicle can travel at an arbitrarily high speed without requiring energy input. Proof by gedanken construction: construct a vehicle with an arbitrarily large collapsible wind turbine. Generate and store electricity while at rest, for say 1 minute. Collapse & store wind turbine, and use stored electricity to drive at ludicrous speed for 9 minutes. QED.

</comment><comment><USER24> Like most people my gut reaction was "that's not possible" and in fact I believe that depending on how you define "sailing dead downwind" it may or may not be possible.

It is clear that the angle of attack of the sails is not at 90 degrees to the wind therefore strictly speaking perhaps this is not sailing dead downwind.

It is well known that sail driven vehicles can greatly exceed actual wind speed due to "apparent wind" effects among others.

<comment><USER25> It is not sailing in any conventional since. The purpose of the vehicle is to demonstrate whether _any_ wind powered vehicle is capable of traveling directly downwind faster than the wind. Many people believed, or still believe, that it's impossible.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> " _These loonies were pursuing a pointless goal, doomed to failure, but there was genuine merit in the myth and their enthusiasm._ "

</comment><comment><USER27> It's been long since the sailors out there know that fact. Ships create their own wind when close hauled. Check out <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydropt%C3%A8re> for a particularly striking evidence!

<comment><USER28> The point that made it counter-intuitive, here, is the "under the wind" part.

The (false) idea is, if a 20km/h wind pushes your back, once you're close to 20km/h, you've got almost zero relative wind, so you shouldn't be able to accelerate further.

Boats, including the hydroptere (which is special because of vertical lifting, but behaves as a normal sailboat in the horizontal plane), can go faster than the wind when then wind comes from the front, not when it comes from the back.

The essential difference is, boats use water resistance sideways, i.e. they tend to behave as if they were on railtracks. The demonstrator in the article exploits rolling resistance, which boats try to minimize.

<comment><USER29> > [Boats] can go faster than the wind when then wind comes from the front, not > when it comes from the back.

True, but it may be worth of mentioning that no regular sailboat (i.e. without underwater propulsion) can go directly to upwind (0 degrees). For modern sailboats, the maximum upwind direction is roughly 45 degrees, the sidewind (90 degrees) being the most optimal.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Why can't I get the word "deathtrap" out of my mind whenever I see a picture of this contraption?

</comment><comment><USER4> So, the trick is to utilize the three dimensions. Can this be generalized to _n_ dimensions? How fast can a four dimensional sailboat go upwind?

</comment><comment><USER31> Video: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5CcgmpBGSCI>

</comment><comment><USER32> LAND sailing. I don't think you could do this on water.

<comment><USER13> Apparently sailboats do this all the time. Who knew? I can only assume they somehow use tacking techniques to travel against the (relative) wind. Though it's not clear to me how they accelerate past the wind speed in the first place.

<comment><USER33> I've seen an explanation [1] that in water it depends on having _two_ aerofoils — one in the air and one in the water (they should be called fluidfoils. I guess the one in the water, the keel, is acting as a hydrofoil.) At any rate, in theory, with two fluidfoils and fluids with any different velocities you can go at any velocity (i.e. in any direction, at any speed.)

[1] [http://terrytao.wordpress.com/2009/03/23/sailing-into-the- wi...](http://terrytao.wordpress.com/2009/03/23/sailing-into-the-wind-or- faster-than-the-wind/)

<comment><USER27> Yes, check this out: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydropt%C3%A8re>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> I've noticed a nasty trend where people use the word "Impossible" as another word for difficult, time consuming or hard.

In order to prove something impossible you have to do two things, a) have a complete mastery over every property and tool that can exist and b) attempt to apply or implement every tool or property to the problem in every sequence.

<comment><USER35> In this case though, nobody was using it to mean "hard". There really were PhD Physicists arguing at length that it was physically impossible to do this.

That's why it's an interesting story.

<comment><USER36> No one ever argued that it was impossible to use wind energy to move faster than the wind. The real problem here was describing the effect as _sailing directly downwind_. The "sails" (on the prop) do not go directly downwind, and there's stuff going on that isn't best described as "sailing". But by describing it that way, people managed to extract blustery pronouncements and explanations of why it was impossible (which _sailing_ downwind faster than the wind _is_ ).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> It's obvious to me why this is possible.

It isn't about transferring "speed" from the wind, it's about transferring energy. Traditional methods, such as sails, didn't have a high enough wind capture/energy output ratio.

By using a propellor they are capturing and using the energy from the wind much more efficient than they would with a sail.

Obviously, that doesn't (and I can't) explain the finer detail, but I don't think it's hard to understand conceptually.

<comment><USER9> It's not about the efficiency, it's about the relative speeds: the blades of the propellor are moving relative to the vehicle whereas a sail is stationary.</comment></comment>


XKCD: Landing (Philae update) - <AUTHOR> http://xkcd.com/1446/

<comment><AUTHOR> There's a new frame in this long-running XKCD strip, relevant to today's news about Philae[1].

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9714497](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9714497)</comment>


Biases in grocery shopping - <AUTHOR> http://datacolada.org/2014/05/22/22-you-know-whats-on-our-shopping-list/

<comment><USER2> re: the last "wisdom of crowds" bit

Assuming a random sampling of customers, would you not get the same "highly accurate" result if you assigned 1 to those who bought the item and 0 to those who didn't and averaged the results?

\---

Though I suppose one thing you could say about it is that the positive and negative bias just about cancel each other out.</comment>


Ask HN: What website analytics do you use? - <AUTHOR>

I have 3-5 domains with fairly low traffic that I'm looking to put analytics on.<p>I've done some research of my own, and am playing with Google Analytics (which seems to be where everyone starts), but I'm curious about what everyone here uses, since I find news.yc to generally have good taste in technology. <comment><USER2> I have tried many of them on my blog, including MixPanel, Google Analytics, Clicky and Lijit. They all have their pros and cons, but they also require you to include a script on your pages, which can be slow at times.

I'm currently fairly happy with Google Analytics, but I'd move to a better server-based log analysis tool (AWStats on steroids, maybe?), if I found one.

</comment><comment><USER3> I personally prefer to use HTTP log analysis software. Gives more power to me and doesn't contribute to large companies tracking everything.

Unfortunately, though, finding a good log analysis tool is very hard. Finding one that can beat Google Analytics is even harder. I'm still using AWStats myself, but I can't say I'm really happy with it.

<comment><USER4> isn't that because there is inherently less data in http logs? Google Analytics use cookies and Javascript to track more data on users. There's no session data in http logs.

<comment><USER3> You're partially right. Log analysis will require some more tricks to get the relevant data, but there's still a _LOT_ more that a log analyzer can do than AWStats or similar projects do. I believe it's perfectly possible create a log analyzer that can compete with GA.

(Then there's also another trick used by some log analyzers: Putting a bit of Javascript code on each page to request an empty image or AJAX call that generates a log entry with tracking info. But I'm sure that there's a lot that can be figured out even without something like that.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> <http://haveamint.com> is great if all you need is a high-level overview of site activity (i.e. no drill-downs).

</comment><comment><USER6> I got a lifetime subscription to Mixpanel a couple years ago, although I'm just getting my first site together right now- so I haven't used it yet.

</comment><comment><USER7> I really love Woopra. I also use Google analytics.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I've looked at Google Analytics, Chartbeat, and Clicky so far.

</comment><comment><USER8> Google Analytics, and Reinvigorate for real-time info.

</comment><comment><USER9> Great question - would love to get more data on this..

</comment><comment><USER10> Google Analytics

</comment><comment><USER11> Google Analytics.

</comment><comment><USER12> Piwik offers as much as GA IMO and its your data.

<comment><USER13> It barely scratches the surface. There's no event tracking or visitor flow tracking, not any of the deeper analysis that Google does with its data.

IMO, Piwik is something akin to what you could build for your own site with an internal team.</comment></comment>


Everything is fine. Don't worry about the drive Q - <AUTHOR> http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/office/forum/officeversion_other-office_install/microsoft-office-click-to-run-2010-protected-q/e16d1452-fed1-473f-a788-82683d1a0cdd

<comment><USER2> I always hate these self-serve product forums. The replies from enthusiasts can be very patronising. I understand it for something you're not paying for (i.e. Google Product Forums, ug) but for Office there should be some MS-paid person involved.

</comment><comment><USER3> Right click Q: > Disconnect

I wonder if this works here</comment>


Why did Twitter invest in a headphone company? - <AUTHOR> http://www.engadget.com/2016/01/14/why-did-twitter-invest-in-a-headphone-company/ <comment><USER2> Because they're Twitter and apt to invest in a panoply of diverse products to cater to different styles of learning.

Not that Twitter especially cares for learning, although it is _no secret_ we tend to come back to products that we learn from. (Learning being an ingrained human trait that has not gone away)</comment>


New Intel Core Processor Combines High-Performance CPU with Custom GPU from AMD - <AUTHOR> https://newsroom.intel.com/editorials/new-intel-core-processor-combine-high-performance-cpu-discrete-graphics-sleek-thin-devices/ <comment><USER2> Wow ! Now you can tell me that it snowed for the first time in Hell, I wouldn't be more surprised than that ! :-)</comment>


Why Everyone Is Pissed Off About Google Chrome's Sound Security - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/08/chrome-password-manager/?mbid=social10572094

<comment><USER2> Nice to see Wired rewriting HN submissions about blog posts.</comment>


Shenanigans with Hash Tables - <AUTHOR> http://thume.ca/2019/07/29/shenanigans-with-hash-tables/ <comment><USER2> if you know the structure beforehand, why not generate a perfect hash?</comment>


Analyse Asia Episode 21: MaGIC and Malaysia with Cheryl Yeoh - <AUTHOR> http://analyse.asia/2015/03/14/episode-21-magic-malaysia-with-cheryl-yeoh/ <comment><AUTHOR> Episode Synopsis: Cheryl Yeoh (@cherylyeoh) the CEO of Malaysian Global Innovation & Creativity Centre (MaGIC) joins us to discuss her current project to support, enhance and accelerate the startups in Malaysia and scale them regionally towards the Southeast Asia market. She also discuss her background, dating back from her life as an entrepreneur with her startup ReClip.it that was subsequently acquired by Walmart. She also gave us an interesting scoop in the podcast on a new collaboration between MaGIC and 500 Startups in Malaysia and also discuss the most interesting startups in the Malaysian ecosystem.</comment>


Jonathan Edwards' Chorus Is HyperCard for Mobile - <AUTHOR> https://vimeo.com/179904952 <comment><USER2> Looks powerful, especially the automatic social, tasks, and live schema features.

Though I'd love to see mobile+touchscreen programming for experts that _somehow_ was as effective as pc+programming.</comment>


"Battleheart" developer quits Android - <AUTHOR> http://mikamobile.blogspot.com/2012/03/our-future-with-android.html?m=1

<comment><USER2> Not my insight, but one of the more informative comments I saw in the article Slashdot linked to on this topic ([http://www.electronista.com/articles/12/03/10/mika.mobile.sa...](http://www.electronista.com/articles/12/03/10/mika.mobile.says.android.money.losing.platform/)):

 _I completely support your decision to drop Android like a hot potato.

In the two weeks since starting as a senior graphics engineer at a middleware company who shall remain nameless, I have learned from coworkers about, or personally experienced:

\- Drivers that crash if you try to actually use all of the texture formats they claim to support \- Drivers that crash if you try to actually use certain ARBs that they report as supported \- Drivers that report supporting 128 shader uniforms but crash if you try to access anything past the first 64 \- Drivers that report supporting various OpenGL ARBs but actually have a software path

in fact, I don't believe there has been a single Android device that has come out so far that is _actually _point-for-point compliant with the requirements for OpenGL ES 2.0, yet they have no problems claiming to support it nowadays.

GPU support on Android is utterly atrocious, and I've managed to learn this in all of two weeks at my new job._

As someone that's on the verge of porting some 3D code to OpenGL ES 2.0, this is awfully depressing. :(

<comment><USER3> With all respects, why is that comment either a) at all credible, or b) informative? It is by an anonymous person at some nebulous "middleware" company (not a description I would ascribe to someone concerned with Android GPUs...).

The problem with this discussion -- it is ostensibly an iOS versus Android discussion, as if developers have the luxury of just developing for iOS and the market will follow (hint: ha! Android made most of its gains when there little to no apps for it. Apps like Netflix and others followed but didn't lead. Now you could fill your day trying out new games and apps) -- is that there are a lot of very, very strongly biased individuals and parties, and the discussion gets completely crowded out by what often ends up being bullshit (though it takes a lot of legwork and endless excluding to actually discern that). What I like to see are _specifics_ , but they are shockingly hard to come by. Lots of vagaries and second-hand accounts of profound all- encompassing difficulties, but never specifics that could be vetted, if only to offer a fix or different approach.

In this case of the linked story the vendors used Unity 3D -- why they were even writing specific shaders (double shocking given that their top-down sprite graphics, if I am understanding their apps right, are the most bog standard shaders going) is a mystery.

<comment><USER2> This reply hit so very many of my buttons - it's either a brilliant trolling, or incredibly unfortunate. But either way, my (entirely too detailed) response:

 _> why is that comment either a) at all credible_

First off - rather than address the content of the original commenter I quoted, the first thing you do is go after his credibility. An ad hominem attack, right off the bat?

I don't know the poster. I don't know you either - initially, you're both equally credible to him. But he at least talked the talk - _all_ the things he said made complete sense in the context of someone working cross-device with GL. They dove-tail _in a technical manner_ with the more abstract high-level picture being painted.

Could he be bullshitting? Of course. But the only folks who benefit from pseudo-anonymously posting bullshit are griefers and fanboys. And since the level of technical discussion exceeds what most griefers and fanboys are capable of, I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt.

Do I want to believe him? Hell no. But do I believe him? Yes.

 _> or b) informative_

What? He EXPLICITLY STATES some of the very specific technical problems he's encountered. Problems that a 3rd party can verify for themselves to trivially determine the veracity of his statements. The issues he mentions, assuming they're real, are major technical hurdles for multi-device development. And now I know to look for them if-and-when I start hitting issues. Drivers and APIs lying are a huge deal. And, unfortunately, entirely too common when doing graphics work.

So I have to ask - what, exactly, is the criteria you're using to judge "informative"?

 _> The problem with this discussion -- it is ostensibly an iOS versus Android discussion_

Like fuck it is. I generally try to keep a civil tongue, but that sort of platform apologism is an insult to every Android developer. Framing it as iOS vs Android debate? iOS is a red-herring. IF iOS DIDN'T EXIST, THIS PROBLEM DOESN'T GO AWAY - developers would still be hitting these pain points.

It looks like Android has a problem, and acknowledging it is the first step in correcting it. Pissy GL drivers exist - as anyone who touched a linux box in the Bad Old Days is probably entirely too aware.

 _> as if developers have the luxury of just developing for iOS and the market will follow (hint: ha! Android made most of its gains when there little to no apps for it. Apps like Netflix and others followed but didn't lead. Now you could fill your day trying out new games and apps) _

WTH? How is this even related to the comment I quoted? But I'll bite - Battleheart's developer confirms that they has the luxury of just developing for iOS. And by making this cut, they're signalling they no longer care if the Android market follows him. Just like anyone can author a game in DirectX that just targets Windows can comfortably ignore OS X and still be profitable. It's sad, but a developer has to be pragmatic if they want the to survive long enough to release the next product.

And if you really want to be pedantic - the iPhone made all it's initial gain when there were _no_ apps for it. Remember, on release the iPhone did _not_ have a native market. Developers and users had to cajole Apple into it. But hey, now iPhone users can "fill [their] day trying out new games and apps". I'm not sure what the hell this has to do with _anything_ , though.

 _> there are a lot of very, very strongly biased individuals and parties, and the discussion gets completely crowded out by what often ends up being bullshit (though it takes a lot of legwork and endless excluding to actually discern that). What I like to see are specifics, but they are shockingly hard to come by. _

HOLY FUCK. This quote calls out BROKEN APIS YOU CAN EXPERIMENT WITH RIGHT NOW. The base discussion itself flows out of a developer expressing _why_ he's leaving the platform, with specific reasons stated. There is _NOTHING_ here that can't be verified. And I don't know where the fuck you get off characterizing a studio that's spending time and money desperately trying to support a platform to share their work with as many people as they can (which is why most indie game devs I know do this) as "strongly biased individuals and parties" against Android.

 _> In this case of the linked story the vendors used Unity 3D -- why they were even writing specific shaders (double shocking given that their top-down sprite graphics, if I am understanding their apps right, are the most bog standard shaders going) is a mystery._

And now you're attacking the developer's competence. :/ Let me twist your statement around - only an incompetent developer _wouldn't_ use fragment shaders. They're a great way of providing compelling visual effects without incurring a substantial performance hit. By using more than just "bog standard shaders", the creators of Battleheart are demonstrating they're trying incredibly hard to create a satisfying experience for their end user - a step up from your cookie-cutter game developers.

Now, getting back to the _actual_ topic - what are some short-term solutions to this problem? The only thing I can think of is a bunch of developers banding together and creating a "reference application" that thoroughly exercises the API on a device (sort of an android-esque Futuremark). And if a device fails to pass "certification", developers right-off supporting that hardware. It'd be great if a company with clout like Rovio pushed this, for example.

A longer term fix would be if Android started incorporating something akin to the Windows Experience Index. As the platform grows, I fully suspect Android will have to include something like this to help developers sanely handle the growing performance gap between devices.

Does anyone know if Google does any driver certification?

And a completely unrelated question - huggyface, may I ask who you are? You've got a karma that doesn't match your listed contributions (A 60-day-old account with 12 comments, no submissions, and over 420 karma), which has me terribly curious.

<comment><USER3> _This reply hit so very many of my buttons - it's either a brilliant trolling, or incredibly unfortunate_

What a glorious way to lead into an equally valuable comment.

 _First off - rather than address the content of the original commenter I quoted, the first thing you do is go after his credibility._

Unsupported, undetailed, unsubstantiated claims by an unknown person working doing who knows what at an unknown company. HEY EVERYBODY WE'VE GOT AN EXPERT HERE! See if someone says "a product claims that it has 128 shader uniforms but it really only supports 64", name and shame it! Why are these details always so astonishingly vague?

 _Battleheart's developer confirms that they has the luxury of just developing for iOS. And by making this cut, they're signalling they no longer care if the Android market follows him._

They strangely have yet to either withdraw their products from the Android market (which ultimately they should be forced to), or even make a comment to prospective buyers. But they have very loudly pandered to the Apple audience (this story has appeared on every single Apple blog and news site), eliciting sales in the Apple sphere by essentially going after the illusory foe.

 _This quote calls out BROKEN APIS YOU CAN EXPERIMENT WITH RIGHT NOW._

Where? What?

<comment><USER4> <i>Where? What?</i>

Come on. Now you're just pretending to be willfully ignorant.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> There seems to be a market for some kind of game framework for Android. Game developers shouldn't have to spend effort on specializing in Android hardware support.

 _"We spent about 20% of our total man-hours last year dealing with Android in one way or another - porting, platform specific bug fixes, customer service, etc. I would have preferred spending that time on more content for you, but instead I was thanklessly modifying shaders and texture formats to work on different GPUs, or pushing out patches to support new devices without crashing, or walking someone through how to fix an installation that wouldn't go through. We spent thousands on various test hardware."_

I think we could get an economy of scale if someone who enjoyed this kind of work would supply a useful platform for game devs.

<comment><USER6> The thing is, Mika Mobile already uses Unity, arguably one of the better cross platform development tools. If they are having this problem, imagine what a dev using his own libraries and porting tools is dealing with.

<comment><USER5> Yikes!

Yeah, in my opinion this is where Google would want to step in and provide a little grease to get things moving. In the form of some kind of library I think. It was Google's choice to allow diversity, and I can see how it would require some gardening and / or curation on their part.

Still, Unity is cross-platform and maybe don't yet see themselves going this deep in one platform - so it's an indication that a middleware layer could be successful on Android.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm always surprised when blog authors are talking about a product and they don't include any links at all to that product.

I'm not asking for huge banners or marquee scrolling, just a plain simple text link on first mention.

<comment><AUTHOR> I get it from blog mikamobile.blogspot.com to reach mikamobile.com. Zombieville by them is also popular in iOS. They use a 3D Unity engine to built their 2D games.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Previously discussed here: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3685542>

</comment><comment><USER9> One of the main reasons i haven't really gotten into Android development is i really don't know what i am targeting.

I think if there was some sort of standardised tier system for categorizing hardware capabilities (e.g. tier 1 = basic, tier 2 = supports 3d, tier 3 = quad core powerhouse), it would help immensely.

</comment><comment><USER10> To be fair, for every reason a dev wants to quit on Android, there is another dev that wants to quit on iOS dev.

<comment><USER11> The dev didn't even mention apple, ios, iphone or anything related. Please, don't make this another iOS vs Android thing.

<comment><USER12> Why? As the only alternative IOS is relevant on each discussion of Android and vice versa.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I think the most notable part of this story is the...notability....of it. There are literally tens of thousands of developers on the Android market -- including many long time denizens -- but one (purportedly) quits and it gets spread far and wide: I've now seen this linked on a number of blogs, news sites, and social news lists.

Why? I would argue that it speaks to an audience's bias.

I think the most interesting thing about this company is that their games are, by most respects, quite successful on the Android market. A $3.00 game selling more than 50,000 copies. Another selling 100,000+. Another selling 100,000+. Perhaps they got all of their sales during a sale, but their base metrics seem quite good.

I can't speak to their situation or frustration, but will make a couple of remarks for prospective Android devs-

a) Cut out the crap: Don't desperately try to reach 100% of the Android base because that just sets you up for a world of pain, which I suspect is their core issue. Cut out low-end handsets, with the basest filter being Gingerbread+ at this point.

b) There are actually only a handful of GPUs in use across all of the different devices (Adreno, PowerVR, Tegra2/3, Mali). Understand the GPUs, not the handsets.

c) If you can't handle the work, which apparently this company couldn't, _subcontract_. They apparently had a successful product but they couldn't tolerate the work involved. I guarantee that if they offered it out for profit sharing to a contractor they would have many well-rated prospects.

<comment><USER13> You make interesting points here. What are we supposed to generalize from this dev's experience? That Android is doomed?

It does say something about what some mobile devs have come to expect from a development experience. While IOS is never mentioned once in the post, the comparison is implied in every paragraph. While this is far from damning for Android, it's worth keeping in mind as competition for developer mindshare escalates.

<comment><USER14> > _You make interesting points here. What are we supposed to generalize from > this dev's experience? That Android is doomed?_

I think the general case has already been made: there have been various complaints about supporting Android (varied hardware platform making testing/support more cumbersome, unreliable hardware/firmware causing problems the developer has to work around (and worse gets blamed for), the number of low quality devices available (which feeds into that previous point), and that is before considering problems some devs have had with the marketplace away from hardware/firmware concerns).

A lot of people have written this off as just grumbling and suggesting the people either cope with it or move on. While this story can't be taken as a general case, it is an indication that the problems might be as bad as some say: i.e. bad enough to make the platform not commercially viable to support for some. If this is not a one-off, and the issue can not be addressed quickly, it could mean significant trouble for Android long-term as after- market apps is a significant driver for sales.</comment></comment></comment>


STFU About What Women Want - <AUTHOR> http://usersknow.blogspot.com/2011/12/stfu-about-what-women-want.html <comment><USER3> There's a group in Toronto called Ladies Learning Code <http://ladieslearningcode.com/>. The group holds events for learning how to program and constantly sells out. Once while I was in Toronto, I walked into the event and it was so jammed pack that you couldn't walk from one side of the room to the other. The women were diverse and evenly distributed in age and ethnic background.

What interested me most is that the group session was held at 8 am on a Saturday. A couple of speculative thoughts later and it seemed to make sense to me. A lot of traditional developer events are held on weeknights and evenings and involve drinking at bars. If you're a woman with a family, it's probably preferable to carve out a Saturday morning, let your partner (hopefully, if you have one) take care of the kids and come home (not sloshed) to your family than it is to head down to the bar after work to have a couple of pints. It's just a lot more feasible.

<comment><USER4> It is incredibly ironic that the top comment on an article blasting stereotypes is itself full of stereotypes.

<comment><USER5> Agreed. And would a man be welcome at such an event? Why name the event/group/org based off of a gender? Why not name it "learning code", and have marketing based towards women. Why exclude an entire gender, even if it is potentially already dominating the given market.

I personally am not a believer in excluding, to argue for including. It seems counter productive.

<comment><USER6> Hi there! I'm Heather, the founder of Ladies Learning Code. Men are welcome at our events, and we have had a few men attend each workshop. The name was designed to be a specific invitation to women, but we don't exclude men. (That being said, I personally support the idea of separate men's groups and women's groups in general, so I encourage someone to start "Men Learning Code" if they are so inclined.

<comment><USER7> Let's try this in reverse:

"Women are welcome at our events, and we have had a few women attend each workshop. The name was designed to be a specific invitation to men, but we don't exclude women. (That being said, I personally support the idea of separate women's groups and men's groups in general, so I encourage someone to start "Women Learning Code" if they are so inclined."

I'd just like to point out, without opinion one way or the other, that I believe the above paragraph would cause major outrage and claims of sexism and separatism, along with "this is why there are so few women in software".

<comment><USER8> Ok, now make it a nursing seminar, or an education seminar directed toward men. No outcry of sexism. See how that works?

<comment><USER7> I actually hadn't thought of this. So it's okay to do this because of the idea that most men are not interested in nursing, and most women are not interested in programming?

<comment><USER9> I think it's more along the lines of:

It's ok to discriminate when you're trying to target/encourage a specific minority (i.e. women in software), but it's not ok when you're targetting a majority, because it looks like you're trying to encourage the majority while discouraging the minority

Whether or not people say this out loud, or think it consciously is a different question.

"Ladies Learning Code" is discriminatory towards men, but it's less of an issue because it is in the furtherance of encouraging a minority (women) into the field. On the other hand, "Men Learning Code" seemingly discourages women, who are already in the minority.

<comment><USER10> This is very close to my feeling too. The "principled irate male" demographic tends to get upset over the double standard. But it's all a big case of a bad optimization metric.

The point to organiations like this isn't to eliminate "discrimination" in the abstract. It's to eliminate the inequality of opportunity. There is a very large practical and moral difference between being excluded from a single meeting of techincal people and being excluded from (or have limited access to) an entire career path. Spending a few "discrimination" points on the former to reduce the cases of the latter seems like a good idea to me.

<comment><USER11> Thank you, ajross and pyre, for clearly and reasonably explaining why this sort of targeted marketing is not also discrimination (the bad kind).

(Yes, upvotes say this too, but now that votes are not public, I wanted there to be a visible commendation. These sorts of things set the tone of the thread.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I always find it weird when people say "what women want". As a man, I find it easiest to illustrate the problem to other men by simply asking them to substitute 'man' for 'woman'.

Who can say "what men want". Sure, if you listen to comedians, all men want is sex sex sex and maybe some cars and sports.

But even before you look at what individuals are like, if you just look at male archetypes, there are clear and common contradictions. The 98-pound weakling versus the musclebound beach bum. The hot stuff young programmer and the technically clueless grayhair. The expensively dressed high finance wizard and the smelly protesting hippy. The sex-mad pickup artist and the asexual man who simply isn't interested. The sports-mad bloke who hates literature and the literature-mad bloke who hates sports. The deadbeat dad versus the father who lives solely for his children.

And these are just archetypes, not actual individuals. They all have different wants, needs, skills, and desires. How stupid it is to say "what men want", to lump half the race into one generalisation. If you're a man, you should feel viscerally just how bad this kind of generalisation is; why should women feel any different when the same is applied to them?

<comment><USER13> I don't think the archetypes correspond to 'what people want'. The 98-pound weakling may be playing world of warcraft all day telling everyone he is a muscle bound beach head for example. People often want what they are not, "The grass is always greener".

There is an artificial idealization of a 'Man' and an idealization of a 'Woman' in almost all societies around the world. The closeness of the individual to the idealization doesn't always change their want for the idealization. This is how we get media that often portrays the 'ideals' in various forms. People live vicariously through that which they want to be but aren't willing to work to be.

<comment><USER14> This might be accurate with some people, but it can't be applied to everyone. I am working towards everything I want, and honestly I think the journey is much more desirable then the end result. A big part of Zen is killing your ego, and I think this is a very powerful mentality to have.

<comment><USER13> I certainly wasn't intending this post to apply to 'everyone', that is a silly claim to make. However generalizations about a group are often valuable. In the NH context there are articles about A:B testing a UI all the time which gives you generalization of your target users. Just like years of show testing has provided TV channels generalization of their audience. I probably read at least 3-5 'interesting statistics' posts a week on HN that are all about generalizing a group. Why? because this is in fact valuable information, especially for the target audience of HN. Understanding what a populous 'generally' wants and does is a huge first step to providing a solution to a problem.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Second this, on behalf of my wife, who is a theoretical physicist. Most women also don't want to do physics, because they'd rather have babies, or so she's always been told. And got passed over for a grant because she had a husband and therefore didn't need the money. I'm still pissed, not least because she's naive enough to believe it's right for her to be treated this way.

<comment><USER16> My grandmother was a theoretical physicist (G. R. Caughlin, co-author of the FCZ papers on element formation in stars). She found it difficult to succeed as a woman in physics. She also raised four kids (without child care). She taught at Montana State University, Caltech, and others, and worked with Willie Fowler, Fred Hoyle, and other great minds of her day.

However, having talked to women in academic sciences today, she had it easy. No long post-doc programs, tenure was an easier process, and so forth. I hear over and over from such women that they have to choose between having the family life they want and a tenure track. This is an indication of an institutional barrier to women in the field (as is your wife being passed up for the grant).

These are the sort of things that need to be fixed. I am afraid simply asking how we encourage interest among women will make the problem worse because it will make the positions more competitive and hence lead to longer post-doc programs and more family sacrifices in order to achieve tenure.

This gets back to my point. Focus on _institutional_ issues only and stop worrying about outreach.

<comment><USER17> > choose between having the family life they want and a tenure track

This is probably true to some extent for men too. Ultimately, the only biological difference is that men can delay family life longer with less risk of infertility (provided they have a younger partner).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Both Klein and Trunk seem to be missing the point that just because women are choosing do X instead of Y doesn't mean there's no sexism in the Y.

Anyway, to me the arguments here about babies and startups are eerily reminiscent of the arguments against women becoming professors. Stuff like: women want to have babies, how will they advise their students when they're pregnant? They can't bring in grant money for a whole two years! Blah blah blah. Think of our academic standards.

Fortunately that argument has been thoroughly debunked by the large number of successful female professors who are also mothers. Frankly, I don't buy the argument that having a pregnant co-founder hurts a startup. If women can get tenure at a top-10 university while raising a kid, I'm pretty sure they can also keep your startup going while raising a kid.

EDIT: Heh, I've been downvoted. Why am I not surprised?

<comment><USER19> _"Fortunately that argument has been thoroughly debunked by the large number of successful female professors who are also mothers."_

The argument hasn't been debunked. I don't have the facts to back this up, but I'd guess that on average, men work more hours per year than women with the same jobs, because women tend to give birth and take care of children more than men. The reason there are so many successful female professors is because we've decided as a society that optimizing for hours worked per year is a bad idea with detrimental effects on our lives.

If someone were choosing between a man and a woman of equal skill to work at a startup, wanted to maximize hours worked per year, and didn't care about the law or the effects of their decision on society, they'd pick the man. Fortunately, there are far better indicators than gender of how prone an individual is to take extended leave.

<comment><USER20> _I'd guess that on average, men work more hours per year than women with the same jobs, because women tend to give birth and take care of children more than men._

I can't help but wonder if this is significantly influenced by an imbalance in compensation.

When my daughter was born, my wife and I decided that one of us would stay home, and income was certainly a large factor in determining that she would be the one to stay home. If our incomes had been reversed, then I would have become a stay-at-home dad.

<comment><USER21> The way you frame it is a catch-22 but data shows that when matched for age, marital status, and children single women with no children make more money than their male counterpart.

As soon as a man becomes married this switches. A man is more likely to take on extra hours/responsibilities and a woman is more likely to work part-time at this point. It's the over-time and hazard pay that is associated with the wage gap. A person working 80 hours per week should not have the same hourly- wage as someone working 30 hours per week regardless of gender.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> What you think women want is clearly not what women want, because you're only one woman, and women are complex and varied, and want different things.

Also, I want a different thing to what you want, and lots of women want what I want. So you are twice as wrong! Not only for assuming other women want what you want, but also that you want what other women want!

Ahem. Now that "want" and "women" have started sounding less like words and more like an arbitrary sequence of sounds, is anyone willing to contribute actual science to the discussion? People yelling at each other "women are like me!" "no, women are like me!" has, I fear, outlived its usefulness.

Are there any studies covering, say, startup success by founder gender? Any documentation on attrition rates from school -> university -> startup? Has anyone even been bothered to go out and survey the attitudes of women towards startups rather than just projecting out their own?

Rather than shutting up about what women want, I think a better idea would be to actually find out what women want. Gender balance is clearly an issue in the startup community, and not talking about it isn't likely to help. Are there few women because women don't want startups, or because startups don't want women?

I don't know, but there comes a point where more opinions are not useful.

<comment><USER23> Women do have startups - they have run businesses for generations.

Women _leave_ technology because of overt and subtle sexism and harassment; [http://rachelappel.com/stats-data-and-answers-as-to-why- ther...](http://rachelappel.com/stats-data-and-answers-as-to-why-there-are-so- few-women-in-technology-fields)

And there are plenty that get cut off in the "university" step of your funnel because they aren't equal there either: [http://web.mit.edu/fnl/women/women.html#What%20the%20Committ...](http://web.mit.edu/fnl/women/women.html#What%20the%20Committee%20Learned)

That being said, the trend is moving towards women running both the business and the home, solo if need be: [http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/print/2010/07/the-end- of...](http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/print/2010/07/the-end-of-men/8135/)

Do those help?

<comment><USER22> Yes!

Wow, that's fantastic. Did you see the numbers change in the 2011 MIT report[1]? And that LPFI report[2] is just mindblowing.

"The vast majority of men in startups believed their companies spent an adequate amount of time addressing diversity (82%). Almost 40% of women, however, believed not enough time was devoted to addressing company diversity. Additionally, women in startups were much more likely to endorse companywide practices to increase diversity than their male counterparts in startups (65% versus 41%)."

"Female status and underrepresented racial/ethnic status were both significant predictors of negative workplace experiences suggesting that negative workplace experiences increase with membership in both demographic groups (F(1,555)=15.4, p<.00, and F(1,555)=7.47, p<.01; B=.68, SE=.18, p<.01 and B=.73, SE=.29, p<.05; Appendix 2)"

Now that's the way to shoot down a "there's no problem here it's just that women don't want to do startups" argument.

Thanks, I had no idea the numbers were so compelling. I wish there was more of what you're posting on the front page.

\--

[1] <http://web.mit.edu/faculty/reports/pdf/women_faculty.pdf>

[2] [http://www.lpfi.org/sites/default/files/tilted_playing_field...](http://www.lpfi.org/sites/default/files/tilted_playing_field_lpfi_9_29_11.pdf)

<comment><USER23> Here's one more to add to the mix: [http://io9.com/5867401/there-really-is-no- difference-between...](http://io9.com/5867401/there-really-is-no-difference- between-men-and-womens-math-abilities)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> > So, when a publication like TechCrunch spews some nonsense about what women > want, it means that the next time I go into an interview with a male founder > (and they are overwhelmingly male for some reason that I'm not going to > address here, but that Penelope assures us has nothing to do with bias) who > has read that nonsense, he may be thinking, consciously or subconsciously, > "she doesn't really want to work at this startup because she wants to have a > baby."

I don't think this is true at all. As the original TC article pointed out, the VC community bends over backwards to get as many women as they can working for and speaking about startups. And frankly, regardless of whether someone has told me or whether I believe that "most women want to have babies", when a woman walks into an interview for a startup position, I'm going to assume that she wants that position and probably doesn't want babies. That makes sense since she probably wouldn't be there otherwise.

</comment><comment><USER16> I agree. It seems a reinforcement rather than a critique of the TechCrunch piece though.

The point abut the Tech Crunch piece was exactly this. Stop saying "we want women to..." and simply stand back and let women do what they want.

<comment><USER25> I hope that wasn't the point I was making. The point I was trying to make was that telling people that, "most women want x" isn't helpful, regardless of whether it's true right at this moment in history. More to the point, it makes life harder for women who DO want to work at startups (whether or not they want to have babies), because it reinforces the stereotype that we don't want to work full time.

I don't want an investor thinking that's true when I walk into a meeting to ask for money. I don't want a CEO thinking that's true when I'm looking for a job. I don't want them thinking it's true about all women, because it's not true about the woman who matters most to me - ME.

It's about more than letting women do what they want. It's about believing women can do the things they want to do - in this case work at startups. It's about believing that many women do, in fact, want to work at startups and that more will want to work at startups if we talk about how awesome it is. It's about the fact that what we do want changes based on a lot of things that have nothing to do with biology or nature, and that sometimes changing what we want is a really good thing for everybody.

Thanks for reading and commenting. I appreciate the feedback.

<comment><USER16> I do work in an area where women are extremely underrepresented--- open source software development. By some estimates, 1.5% of open source software developers are women (in contrast nearly 1/3rd of software developers with jobs are women).

I have noticed a few things. The first is that women tend to report being hit on fairly frequently just because the gender ratios are skewed. This isn't the end of the world and workplace/professional society romances and sexual encounters are are not that uncommon so it's going to happen unless we decide sex isn't part of the human condition (which isn't going to work).

The second is that the single most consistent annoyance mentioned to me is everyone asking "how do we get more women involved in open source?" This drives women _away._

The third is hard to quantify but my sense is that of the women who come to open source, the vast majority come to it through employment. They have a job, and this is a means to get that job done. You see a lot more men who are independent consultants and hobbyists, and these make up the bulk of most projects. I would say the ratio of hobbyists/consultants of men to women in open source is probably 100:1.

If men get a job in open source it is more often through open source work, in other words participation is usually a career investment while for women it is more often something to do for a job.

There are exceptions of course. And one shouldn't underestimate their importance--- my grandmother was programming computers in Fortran, as she was an astrophysics professor. However at some point I think it is important to realize that asking the question, "how do we get more women involved" misses the point, and in fact drives women away. It's a counterproductive strategy. Simply saying "you are welcome at the table" is IMO a far more helpful way to proceed.

<comment><USER26> This. "How do we get more women in OSS?" is the same as saying "How do we get more male nurses"? If men want to become nurses, then they will become nurses, if women want to become open source software developers they will become OSS developers.

<comment><USER16> I'd agree with this.

The only exception really is to look at institutional (not cultural) barriers IMO. "Are we doing something that keeps people from being willing to have a seat at the table?"

Cultural barriers are beyond our immediate control where they extend beyond an immediate institution. If nursing is seen as unmanly, then there's not a lot one can do about that. And very often well-meaning attempts to "fix" cultural problems ends up re-inforcing them. Culture is a very resilient, homeostatic thing, and indeed, the idea that "we know what's better for women than they do" is pretty obviously sexist, but it is the same thing that comes up when saying "how do we get more women involved in X."

In general the only culture you can change is that of your own institutions, including your business and your family. That's it.

Edit: Downvotes are a bit amusing. Guess someone finds the idea challenging?

<comment><USER27> Because you're talking rubbish.

Are you an anthropologist, to be able to say how resilient culture is to change? Can you produce some studies to back up this claim?

How do you explain the anti-slaving and civil rights movements? They didn't take 1000's of years, yet the idea black people were inferior was pretty deeply ingrained in the white culture's psyche.

Saying "we can't change the bad things in our culture" is self-defeating and destructive.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> The problem with this article is that you're basically telling a stupid person to stop saying stupid things because other stupid people will listen to it. Also the post could be shortened to: "please don't make sweeping generalizations because the assumptions they create breeds stereotypes and hurts others' credibility."

<comment><USER29> I'm not seeing a problem there. TechCrunch is still somehow widely read. Pointing out stupidity there is a public service.

<comment><USER30> The only problem is that stupid people don't stop being stupid just because you ask them.

I agree with you that it's still important to point out that they're being stupid - if nothing else it lets isolated people know that there are people who don't agree with the stupid ones.

<comment><USER29> Hmmm... I don't know about that. I've definitely stopped being stupid about some things because people have pointed out my idiocy to me. And I've certainly seen stupid people stop being quite so loudly stupid after feedback. Perhaps even Techcrunch can learn.

<comment><USER28> We all sometimes say and do stupid things, sometimes without knowing it. We're flawed creatures and that's fine. But there's a point where some people just can't be helped. If a single editorial article in a tech blog will change how an individual thinks towards an entire gender, that person is so stupid that they will probably believe anything (or at least anything that confirms their already existing personal beliefs) and a response like the OP's will do little to help this person become less stupid. But that's just my stupid opinion.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> There seems to be an assumption that people (specifically women but same logic applies to men) can either be entrepreneurs or take care of young children, but not both.

I believe that startups can provide the flexible environment that bigger corporations really struggle with. Focus on results not attendence, telecommuting, flexible hours, etc. Maybe some VCs would struggle with the concept, but I know it can work because I've seen it done.

<comment><USER32> Would you know of resources that help share practical information on _how_ to make that work? Often, simply don't know how and making some sweeping statement that "it can be done" is typically insufficient to help spread the practice.

(I know from first-hand experience as my attempts to tell people "X can be done" often fail to fill them in adequately on the how and this gets me lots of ire. I struggle with that. I am often shocked at what other people do not know that I take for granted they "should" know. I continue to try to work on that.)

Thanks.

<comment><USER31> There is tons of HR documents that I researched, but in the end I found that the most important way to be genuinely flexible and family-friendly is to listen to your team and then think creatively about finding ways to fit with their needs but also of course be part of a dynamic business. I think its more about attitude and approach than the specific way you do things.

Our business won two awards for our flexible practices and I believe that the reason we were ahead of the competition was that when the judges visited I was able to point to real results not just reams of HR policies and documents.

Founders and early staff really understand that they need to get a lot done and they should also be highly motivated to contribute to the business success. If the business takes the view that it can give people some flexibility in return then this can work out really well.

Some of the people who 'need' the flexibility should be founders or part of the key management team. In a startup you have tremendous control over the way your systems and business practices are set up - think about your family needs when doing this. Allow people to find what works for them. One of my cofounders found that she worked best after your children went to sleep and so we got a huge amount done between 9pm and midnight. We built all our systems so people could work from home and told our team that if their kids were sick they could work from home to look after them. That safety net makes a big difference.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> (offtopic) Genuinely wondering: I once said "fuck" in an HN comments and got 10 downvotes. Used some other form of very slight rudeness (often considered humour where I'm from), downvotes again. Assumed it was an American thing, tried to adapt.

Now here's an article full of profanity, and an _excellent_ read also because of that, and nobody complains. Don't get me wrong: I love it. I wish everyone on the internet would get their heart out so well. I'm just surprised HN digs it so much. Anything cultural I'm missing?

<comment><USER28> Though using curses or any kind of emotional outburst is generally frowned upon intellectually, this is ignored if the person doing the outburst is seen to be fighting bigotry. 'Fuck Node.js' is not an acceptable use of cursing, but 'Fuck Sexism' is.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> I strongly agree to the issue at hand where we our patriarchal culture tends to drive women into choosing between career and babies.

I also abhore the fact that our patriarchal culture makes it very very easy for men to have very little participation in taking care of our own children, therefore agravating the issue.

I would suggest that 'maternity-leave' be exchanged for 'family-leave'. Why don't we allow fathers to participate in the care of a newborn baby, or rather, why don't we _enforce_ it.

Not only the care of the child is made a burden on women only, also they have to shoulder the career burden as well.

Maybe then the whole thing would be less of a career problem and turn into a career fact, where it'd just acceptable that anyone employee might at sometime in the future need a leave to care for their respective babies and it would be just normal to do so.

<comment><USER35> _I would suggest that 'maternity-leave' be exchanged for 'family-leave'. Why don't we allow fathers to participate in the care of a newborn baby, or rather, why don't we enforce it._

I believe that this is the case in many places in Northern Europe. From memory, in Sweden parental leave is 6 months and can be divided between the parents as desired. I believe there may also be a minimum for each of them.

Edit: Wikipedia says it's actually 16 months, with 2 months minimum for the "minority" parent, usually the father.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> "Twenty percent of women in their 40s do not have children" - <http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/13/us/13generations.html?_r=1>

</comment><comment><USER37> I might be old fashioned, but I prefer science and statistics over anecdotes and political correctness.

I don't have the numbers, but I think women wanting to have children is still a pretty likely thing.

More women studying law could also happen for any number of reasons.

</comment><comment><USER38> This is an appropriate argument basically _any_ time somebody claims that [insert group here] [insert behavior of an individual here]. Groups of people do not behave uniformly; when they behave in statistically significant ways, it is not for uniform reasons.

It's difficult to reason abstractly about groups as they actually are, so we abstract that group into a uniform body - that way we can make abstract claims about their behavior _without_ the benefit of an education in applied statistics and research methodology. It's a useful tool for intuiting behavior, but try to avoid making non-statistical claims about the members of a group of people; you will almost never be correct.

<comment><USER21> I agree with you but in how many other cases are stats so clear? It's not like we're talking about slight margins of significants. ~80% of women have children and most of them do in what would peak years of career development.

It doesn't explain why the female involvement for CS is so pathetically low compared to other traditionally male careers but I think it explains the values with which many woman are making lifestyle decisions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> <Quote>...who has read that nonsense, he may be thinking, consciously or subconsciously, "she doesn't really want to work at this startup because she wants to have a baby." </Quote>

Based on the above quote, looks like the author is more concerned about her interviewers being prejudiced against her(since she is a woman) rather than actually delving into the veracity of Tech Cruch's article!

Stereotypes exist. Women like this. Men like that. Men are more good at that, Women are better at something else etc. As an interviewer if he is prejudiced, its not your fault. I would not think that it is right to control his prejudices by censorship of inconvenient truths!

<comment><USER40> > _Stereotypes exist. Women like this._

The specific problem she is addressing is that when a _woman_ promulgates a stereotype about women, that makes it more believable (and acceptable) to men and, therefore, makes her life worse.

<comment><USER39> True... are we not taught to NOT judge based on prejudices? There are so many stereotypes not just about women and men that is. There are also stereotypes about Black, Latino, Asian communities etc. Sometimes they are spread by the people of these communities itself. However, its unprofessional or wrong(? for the lack of a better word) on anybody to judge them based on these stereotypes however tempting it might be, and that is what I think our education should teach us? I must admit they do make good late night comedies and hopefully nothing more!

<comment><USER16> The thing is, though, we think in patterns. Patterns mean prejudices. I.e. This person like this treated me like that. This other person is also like this so he will probably treat me similarly. When you look at how people in oral cultures think (see "Orality and Literacy" by Walter Ong and "Myth and Reality" by Mircea Eliade), it is entirely in this pattern-centric approach. This means I meet you and I assess you based on how you conform to everyone else I have ever met. Maybe that's not the same as judging you, but if it isn't the difference is quite narrow.

I don't think there is an easy way out of this, nor do I think that would be productive. Instead I think the correct approach is to be aware of limitations and simply allow people room to break out of one's pre-conceived assessments (prejudices).

I don't think you can wave away hundreds of thousands of years of human development just because for a few centuries here and there we've had widespread literacy with a largely phonetic writing system (note that excludes Arabic and Hebrew from consideration because of a lack of vowels in how the languages are usually written).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Well, I agree to how you pointed things out but look closer to the article in TC, she says: "People are pretty good at making choices for themselves. Men can stay home. Women can do startups. The thing is, most don't want to. And that's okay." And there is the word 'most' in her phrase.

She's expressed her opinion pretty clearly. And believe me, most of the time you, me and all of us runs on generalization. So this is no exception, except you just freaked out because you just didn't fit in this generalization. And frankly, you are just as an exception to that.

Now really, tell me how many of womens really think as you do?

</comment><comment><USER42> The whole question seems to come from the fact that once there were a number of things women _weren't allowed_ to do and it was deemed a good thing to work on making the playfield equal for both sexes. Turns out, when the gates were opened for one particular activity, many women did indeed want to engage in it and over the decades the gender distribution converged towards 50-50.

However, from that, some people extrapolate that if the gender distribution in some field is too far from 50-50, then there must be something in place that is horrible and sexist and blocking women from that field. Even if technically women can apply and graduate, they conclude that the field still has some implied male chauvinist bias against women. Whenever it gets to that level, it's simply not an option that _women might not want it_ that much.

Other professions took maybe decades before women started to want them, even if they were already allowed to work as such. We can conclude that women today don't want programming badly enough. Those who do are already enrolled or working in the field. They are few in number but merely because they all had no alternative they could themselves live with.

The situation today is that it's not mainstream for women to want to be programmers. _It's not wrong, people just aren't sure yet._

This is a very different statement that women aren't explicitly or implicitly allowed to become programmers in the contemporary society. Barring a few ploughers, people often don't know what they can want unless they see a supporting example many enough times. If you're a young woman and you don't know what you want to do, you could become a nurse. Many nurses started like that, regardless of whether they actually like their job or not.

It might be a few decades forward when enough women get into programming, that the field also begins to appeal to women. It may also never happen, or it might happen to an extent. Maybe roughly 1% of women would like to do programming where as roughly 2% of men want to do it. If so, then eventually roughly one programmer out of three will be women some day, in the average.

Thanks for the article writer to voice a loud counterexample that hopefully reset people into confusion about the true state of matters.

<comment><USER43> It's thinking like yours that makes it harder to get into fields where women are "under" represented.

I battled sexual harassment and derogatory comments about my ability to work in tech (specifically about being female) to stay in the industry.

If I'd have bowed out years ago, it wouldn't have been because I "don't want programming badly enough" - it was because I had better things to do than prove my vagina makes absolutely no difference to my ability to code.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> Just because the writer or a few women decided to do a startup or decided not to have children doesn't mean that most women are doing the same thing.

I'm not a fan of tech crunch but their article was more of a general fact based on statistics and biology/nature, it should not be taken as an insult, starting a blog post with STFU won't make your point any more valid.

</comment><comment><USER45> I heard people telling women to have babies and quit learning (let alone starting their own companies) more than what Penelope has portrayed. Matter of fact, NO ONE has ever told me to join a startup or start one. This is not a first time Ms. Trunk has lectured us about what women think and want. Please, you don't present every female and all this talk should stop. Just do your job or whatever you want.

</comment><comment><USER46> If everyone STFU about what others want or don't want and just focus more on they want out of their lives, world would be a far better place.

<comment><USER27> Would the world have been a better place if the civil rights movement didn't have support from non-blacks?

Positive change requires social awareness and participation in that change, not just from the disenfranchised.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> Good read that pretty much matches my thoughts on this issue. Thanks.

</comment><comment><USER48> maybe it's just me but I can't see how either the original article nor the response is in any way significant. If I want to work in a startup wearing heels, then I'll do that. I don't need TC's permission for that. And, being in a startup, neither will I have the time to get upset about someone's opinion.

<comment><USER49> I think the same way. If I want to do X and someone says "You shouldn't do that" or "that's weird" or "you don't have the skills" or whatever, I usually reply with a "OK", then go and do what I want to do.

I certainly don't waste my energy trying to make sure that everyone else agrees with my choices in life.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> Favorite Line: "I want to wear heals, and write jQuery, sometimes at the same time."

</comment><comment><USER51> no one says ALL women. but MOST women DO want to dedicate time to families. just like many good drivers suffer high insurance premiums because of statistical truths about gender, age, car color, # of doors, etc. how about custody of children during divorce? there are many biases that also favor women because of statistics.

we all have to deal with unfairness every day because we don't fit some stereotype. that's life, it's not fair.

</comment><comment><USER52> What if I never Opened TFU?

</comment><comment><USER53> Almost all discussions involving women with respect to stereotypes or gender oppression will devolve into the same pedantic, non-productive patterns of fuzzy thinking and inability to discern causation from correlation. It's a topic where cherry-picked beliefs are so strong (on multiple sides) that it pulls you in like a black hole, and nothing truly useful, not even light, can escape. Just noise. I've learned to try to ignore it when I can. Especially here on HN, where the "college" demographic is particularly strong, and particularly susceptible to it.

The takeaway I wish everyone would have, instead, would be something like, in short: _that women and men are actually different. Get over it. Individuals vary. No shit! Unfair things happen. Get over it. Men get shit too. Not all things you don't like are because of your gender. Get over it. And there are plenty worse things, by orders of magnitude. Get over it._

<comment><USER54> People (still) want to discuss complex issues that effect their career and everyday life. Get over it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> I'm getting a bit tired of this fake modern-thinking. I don't think anyone is disregarding women right to self determination by making an observation that is obvious.

There are jobs and social roles that are clearly perused mostly by men and some mostly by women. That's because man and women are different. There's nothing wrong with that, do we need to pretend that men and women are equal to grant equal rights to both?

So this woman is an exception, minority if you prefer, but so what? I feel that is rather frustrating that people doesn't accept simple facts because they are not fashionable in today's ethics or are not politically correct.

Everytime someone touches a sensitive subject concerning a group, there comes the sh*tstorm "you're stupid, I am the proof of the contrary". This is particularly sad among circles were one would expect to hear opinions of wise people. I guess even wise people have a hard time getting rid of taboos.

<comment><USER29> Making an observation isn't in itself problematic. It's all the bullshit that people tack on after that. To wit:

 _There are jobs and social roles that are clearly perused mostly by men and some mostly by women. That's because man and women are different._

This is either tautological or fatuous. You've gone from a simple observation (in 2011, some jobs are held at different rates by men and women) and suggested that it's somehow a natural feature of the universe, like the gravitational constant. There are a lot of possible explanations for the different occupational frequencies, and you seized on one of them with no proof and no apparent thought about alternatives.

200 years ago, women (and, say, black people) weren't doctors. People argued then, as you do now, that the current situation was just the outcome of natural differences. They said that not because it was true (it wasn't) or because they had any real evidence (they didn't). They said it because it was convenient for them to believe that.

<comment><USER56> _200 years ago, women (and, say, black people) weren't doctors. People argued then, as you do now, that the current situation was just the outcome of natural differences. They said that not because it was true (it wasn't) or because they had any real evidence (they didn't). They said it because it was convenient for them to believe that._

That people in the past argued that something was due to natural differences doesn't necessarily mean that natural differences don't exist, and that they had no evidence then doesn't mean that we have none now. Men and women differ genetically by about the same amount that humans and chimpanzees do, so to discount the possibility that there just might be some real differences in the way we are prone to behave is just as ridiculous as to suggest that those genes account for the entire difference.

There are very solid biological reasons to believe that men should always be more genetically inclined to seek out reproductive risk than women (male reproductive success is more variable than female success by a good margin). It's not a very big stretch from there to conjecture that perhaps nature achieved that by cranking up the overall risk tolerance knob in men, since that would probably require fewer bit-flips than hard coding a condition for reproductive risk - in fact, to a large extent, we know that testosterone does exactly what this would require. That would explain a lot about why men are more likely than women to go in for high-risk high-reward ventures like startups...

I'm not saying that social factors are not in play, too, but quite frankly, these social factors are far less oppressive than they were 50 years ago, yet we've seen relatively little progress in terms of gender ratios. This makes me suspect that there are probably some other causes in effect, and the genetic one is an obvious suspect that I don't think has been properly debunked, excepting attempts to do so by overreaching appeals to equality that are, IMO, not justified by the relevant biology.

<comment><USER29> I have never suggested natural differences don't exist.

I'm suggesting that a) using the idea of them without evidence to justify apparently unfair outcomes is bullshit, b) historically people making those arguments have often been spectacularly wrong, and c) people who make that argument when it's personally convenient are perhaps fooling themselves.

You're also rampantly committing the naturalistic fallacy. What's natural tells us nothing about what's right. Even if we have made a perfectly fair society (which we certainly haven't) and discover that there is some difference in outcomes that is explainable by genetic differences, that doesn't mean we should accept the result.

If some people are genetically likely to be less good at math, should we cancel their math classes? Or should we give them better ones? I say the latter: as a society we want people to understand and appreciate math.

If some group of people is more prone to a disease, do we go with what's natural? Or do we work against it? Consider heart disease for African Americans, or skin cancer for white people. As one of the naturally pale, I appreciate having sunblock available, and cultural reminders to put it on or cover up. And if I do get skin cancer, I'd rather be treated instead of being told it's "natural" for me to die of it.

I've also heard it argued that psychopaths make "natural" CEOs, and that we should therefore accept their various depredations. That ignores that CEO isn't some sort of ecological niche; it's an artificial, societally- constructed position. We may have reason to want CEOs to be more responsible than average rather than less, no matter what's "natural" in this context. And we may have reason to want startups being created by a broader collection of people than those who might "naturally" most incline (after a lifetime of unnatural conditioning) to play the entirely artificial game we've set up for them.

<comment><USER56> _You're also rampantly committing the naturalistic fallacy. What's natural tells us nothing about what's right. Even if we have made a perfectly fair society (which we certainly haven't) and discover that there is some difference in outcomes that is explainable by genetic differences, that doesn't mean we should accept the result._

This is what's frustrating about these conversations, the worst is always assumed. Given that I absolutely do not believe that "natural" implies "right", I'm annoyed at the accusation, which comes up with some regularity even though I (like most others in the "not-only-nurture" camp) specifically disclaim such a view and never said a single thing about what is right or not.

 _If some people are genetically likely to be less good at math, should we cancel their math classes? Or should we give them better ones? I say the latter: as a society we want people to understand and appreciate math._

First, let me be clear: I think that the evidence that women are genetically worse at math is shoddy, at best. I think the evidence that their performance is less variable is very robust, but that's a very different claim.

Second, if either one is provably the case, then no, I very strongly don't think we should just throw our hands up. I think we should try to look at what causes the difference in statistical distribution of talent and figure out how to exploit/correct it - it's evolutionarily inconceivable that math talent is directly hard-coded genetically, so it's got to be emerging as a second or third order effect of genes, perhaps related to stress response (learning math is a process of experiencing micro-stresses over and over, and dealing with them in a way that makes you learn rather than get frustrated or angry - <USER2> "mathy" emotional state is a very delicate balance, even in people that are good at math). This is true even if the male/female gap is not genetic, since it's pretty clear that there is some sort of heritable component to math ability. Figuring out how this sort of thing affects performance could be very helpful, because even though it's partially innate (and somewhat based on brain chemistry), it can often be directly trained.

But if we declare by fiat that performance in math is primarily guided by factors outside the student's head (which is implicit in the "sexism keeps girls out of field X" argument), then we'll never figure out what's really going on, and we'll never discover how to help people that aren't predisposed to be good at math get better.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> I thought the point of the original TC article was that we should stop pandering to women and it's jus a fact of life that a majority don't want to do startups. That's fine and it's not knocking women. I can see how the thing about babies could have confused people into missing that point though.

I really think you don't see many women doing it because there aren't a whole lot trying to. When you've got an applicant pool that's already a minority and you know that a good portion of any applicant pool won't get a particular job then it's not at all surprising to see that not many women get into startups. If there aren't many trying to start and a good portion won't make it to the finish line then this isn't surprising. I think it's more wrong to try to find minority candidates for the sake of finding minority candidates. Let the cream rise and if it doesn't consist of minorities then it's not our fault.

</comment><comment><USER58> Umad? Stop whining and go make something.

</comment><comment><USER59> The writer of this article haven't read, or understood, the article it's arguing against...

</comment><comment><USER60> "I'll be a wife and mother first, then First Lady". Jackie Kennedy

Class, pure class.

<comment><USER16> _Class, pure class._

And increasingly, limited to the _upper class._

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> It does not matter what women want if the government is going to helpfully step in and make it impossible to function. Consider the federal law in regards to descrimination of women:

[i]Sex Discrimination

Title VII's broad prohibitions against sex discrimination specifically cover:

        Sexual Harassment - This includes practices ranging from direct requests for sexual favors to workplace conditions that create a hostile environment for persons of either gender, including same sex harassment. (The "hostile environment" standard also applies to harassment on the bases of race, color, national origin, religion, age, and disability.)
        Pregnancy Based Discrimination - Pregnancy, childbirth, and related medical conditions must be treated in the same way as other temporary illnesses or conditions.[/i]

Ok so you can't as an employer treat your [women] employees having babies as a life-changing [and work-productivity reducing] event? WTF that might work at wal-mart or a retail-bank or even possibly a law firm, but that will not work at a startup where you have to give it 100% for >8hrs/day. What will actually happen is that the woman will be passed over for a man who has none of the associated liabilities. Then the VCs and unhappy bloggers will be scratching their heads as to why there are so few women in startups. Some of those VCs will also seek out women founders in some sort of PC guilt trip. <http://www.eeoc.gov/facts/qanda.html>

What needs to happen to fix this and ensure equality for women who do not want children is to get rid of the workplace discrimination laws regarding women. Then you can have a woman sign a contract that she will not have babies for x amount of time. Otherwise we will just have the current under-the-radar discrimination.

<comment><USER61> Or you could sue the startups? Also have maternity leave for mothers and fathers like in other countries?

<comment><USER13> While I'd love to look at the world with rosy colored glasses I think this is simply unrealistic. While the parent post wasn't worded all that well (sorry). Its just a fact that it isn't realistic to expect a startup or even an early stage company to go without a critical member for several months, regardless of the cause of the absence. Male, Female, Trans-gender, pregnancy, bar fight, rehab, base jumping, whatever. The cause doesn't really matter, the effect is extremely destructive to the company and I feel it's reasonable to expect those in critical positions to protect themselves against such absences. Just to be clear, not singling out women here, there are many things everyone can do to avoid issues that could result in such an absence.

<comment><USER14> I find it ironic that you would say this about a type of business that is usually praised for it's ability to be flexible with work hours, granted that the employees finish what they are expected to finish.

This obviously varies with position to position, but flexibility shouldn't be thrown out of a window because it might be an inconvenience. It's important to treat your employees well!

<comment><USER13> There is a large difference between flexible work and under going a life changing event during the development of the business.

Given a situation where you were picking between two individuals for a co- founder or other critical role, equally qualified, one telling you they are free and clear, no outstanding obligations for the foreseeable future and the other saying "well, there is a good chance I'll be heavily engaged in an outside issue for a couple months next summer", which would you choose? Disregard all gender / cause for the issue.

<comment><USER14> I totally agree, picking someone as a cofounder that will be taking leave for their newborn baby is insane, but I had 'lower' positions in mind when I was talking about flexibility.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER62> Sigh. Another useless fucking article is #1 after 1 hour. It is the same tired discussion repeated ad nausea.

<comment><USER45> This is actually necessary because of the first nauseating article. If you correctly remember, another Techcrunch post also made the round before jwz set the record straight.

</comment></comment><comment><USER63> Okay, now all we need is a "STFU women" post and we'll be back to regular HN interesting stuff :D

<comment><USER64> Durr hurr yeah cuz women complain all the time about stupid shit amirite fellas?

You are the problem.

</comment></comment><comment><USER65> Conjecture is common and there's an irrefutable buzz in the air: Big Brother Bingo is about to drop anchor! Bingo pundits come in all shapes and sizes. We've got the small old ladies, the hip, hop and happening trendsetters, the carefree youth and even the up-and-coming professionals all turning to bingo. Is there something these folks know to the rest of us don't? Learn more please go to-<http://www.bigbrother-bingo.com></comment>