How we hit our 90k ARR milestone - <AUTHOR> https://hypefury.com/blog/how-we-hit-our-90k-arr-milestone/ <comment><AUTHOR> If you have any questions about how to grow your project / startup: shoot!</comment>


What's The Safest Seat On An Airplane? - <AUTHOR> http://altgate.typepad.com/blog/2008/07/whats-the-safes.html <comment><USER2> Funny how airplane safety is discussed all the time whereas I see no similar posts for automobile safety.

40,000 people die each year in car accidents in US alone, which is a heck of a lot more than in airplanes. Unlike air safety, individual road safety can be increased by any individual; even the safest dirvers can improve thier chance of survival by expending extra effort.

Yet somehow it's a lot more exciting to worry about things you can't control and hardly know anything about. Humans are fascinating. One day I'll figure out what makes them tick.

<comment><USER3> > _Unlike air safety, individual road safety can be increased by any > individual..._

I think that's a big part of the reason. I know I'd feel a lot safer (if I was qualified) flying an airplane than having someone else do it. Having a large measure of control over a potentially dangerous situation is reassuring.

The other thing is that airplane crashes are very often catastrophic. A whole lot more people survive car accidents than die in them.

<comment><USER2>
      The other thing is that airplane crashes are very often
      catastrophic. A whole lot more people survive car
      accidents than die in them.

I'm speechless. You think that's something positive? Another way to phrase the same thing: not only cars kill a lot more people than planes, they also multilate and injure even more. Only 4 people died last year in air accident in US (<http://www.planecrashinfo.com/2007/2007.htm>), which makes it 10,000 more likely to die in a car accident.

You're right in your other point - it seems people don't mind dying so long as they have illusion they could have prevented it. Only when people feel powerless they become afraid.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> _The odds of being killed on a single trip in an airliner accident is 52.6 million to 1._

[http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_are_the_chances_of_dying_in_a...](http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_are_the_chances_of_dying_in_a_plane_crash)

I think I'll take my chances sitting in the front.

<comment><USER5> This low probability of an accident actually happening suggests that the condition probabilities presented in the article have huge standard errors. This may make the differences between sections of the plane insignificant. Then again, there aren't standard errors per se because we should have the population of all accidents rather than a sample. Interesting....

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> First of all, the proper link to the original source:

[http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/air_space/4219452.ht...](http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/air_space/4219452.html)

I do not agree with the conclusion. They used a small sample size (20) and they did not correct for any differences in plane type, accident type, phase of flight, etc. You simply cannot draw any conclusions with their data set and methodology.

The probability of death is going to be overwhelmingly driven by the speed and orientation of the aircraft at impact, which is going to be determined by the cause of the accident, the skill of the pilot(s), and just plain luck.

You'll be much better off just picking the seat that you will be most comfortable in.

<comment><USER7> _You'll be much better off just picking the seat that you will be most comfortable in._

I would not be at all surprised to find that more people die as a result of deep vein thrombosis caused by sitting poorly on long flights than die in air crashes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I would think the middle would be safer, since I would guess the fuselage is reinforced to account for the plane wings.

<comment><USER9> Assuming all the fuel in the wings doesn't explode.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> This link to the actual article goes to a flicker photo. Is this strange link- bait?

<comment><USER11> Woops, sorry folks, that was my bad...got distracted mid-copy/paste. It's fixed now...

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'd prefer to sit on the part of the plane that is quietest, most comfortable, and has the most free/cheap food/drinks.

</comment><comment><USER13> An exit row?</comment>


Why Agile is not Successful in some Companies - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/tech-lead-talks/why-agile-is-not-successful-in-some-companies-e25262d09106#.f7g8d4oak <comment><USER2> I work for a so called big MNC, and I see "the agile problem" everyday. This typically happens because someone higher up decided to bring in a hot buzzword into the company with utter disregard to the impact it would cause to the company

The company is a heavily process oriented company, and it takes a minimum of 3 days to complete the process aspect of a software release!! That's how much process the company follows, add to that meetings and issues and bug fixes and the typical developer and everyone on the team is stretched to the limits - with some sacrificing their personal time and working for the company for free.

Add to this, everyone is scared to speak up. Personally, I have decided to move on as I see no hope in this company.

Bad practices sap the energy out of good people for doing great things.

I wish people didn't miss something as simple as this. This is a problem u can associate with a big MNC with a lot of inertia. A bad decision (like moving to agile even though they have too many processes to follow) could cost the company a huge loss in terms of people and money!</comment>


How Emotional Labor is Dragging Down Gender Equality - <AUTHOR> http://www.harpersbazaar.com/culture/features/a12063822/emotional-labor-gender-equality/ <comment><USER3> This is a topic where the more I learned about it the more I opened my eyes to it and saw it happening on my own life.

I'm very easy going and there isn't much I get too worked up about. My wife, on the other hand, is a meticulous planner. I could see her getting stressed out making decisions for a vacation. I realized that by not caring, I wasn't helping and offloading the burden to her. Now I truly didn't care if we went to restaurant A or restaurant B, so she always had to make the decision. Since realizing this I've relieved her more from all the decision making, even if I really don't care about the outcome. Why should I do this? Well, because she's my wife and while I may not care which restaurant we go to, I care about her.

TL;DR It's real and I decided to do take up more of this emotional labor in life.

<comment><USER4> That resonates with me. But I struggle a lot. I feel like my wife's irrationality on some subjects forces us to both spend some of our very limited time here feeling anxious and negative. It's frustrating and feels very one sided. Why can't she meet me half way and stop being so anxious on half the events? Well.. because irrationality doesn't work that way; I get that.

I think that true zen for me is finding a way to just relax and be okay with emotional inefficiency. Not sure how to do that.

<comment><USER5> Conflict in relationship, especially intimate relationships, is rarely about the content.

It's typically that the context of the situation brings up an emotion that is taboo / off limits, one that the person has spent a life time avoiding.

This avoidance is typically do to previous developmental or shock trauma.

You can actually learn to use your conflicts as a psychedelic of sorts to do deep transformational work, if you have the right context, language and tools.

From my view, this inability to transform conflict is why most relationships end and why most people in relationships aren't happy (despite relationships being the single greatest predictor of health and life satisfaction.)

<comment><USER6> YES!

That's exactly how I view conflicts. It's the surfacing of something much deeper that is normally completely hidden, either suppressed or managed at the cost of Emotional Reserve.

When something flares up, I try to not let it go to waste and start digging. Instead, it's an opportunity. Either my wife or me (usually both) will then gain some insight about ourselves. We can then apologize for the content wich caused it and then move to the context.

We've been doing this since we were engaged and this has allowed us to grow a lot in terms of emotional stability, and build some strong reserves. Of course the flip side is that with deeper reserves, it can take a lot longer for conflicts to surface, so we now look at frustrations as the opportunities to introspect.

<comment><USER5> Are you in NYC by chance? I'd love to invite you and your partner to join us for a Psychedlic Love Workshop aka The Love Dojo (as our guest).

My partner and I curate a group of couples doing this work (and singles looking to find a relationship with this context), and practice some really cutting edge tools.

For example, we've pioneered a version of breathwork to be used in times of conflict with your partner that can transform long standing conflict patterns.

<comment><USER6> No, in ATL. But I've led groups in similar ways, though more from a Catholic contemplative angle.

Keep it up though, that's awesome!

<comment><USER5> Mathew 7:5 alludes to the power of relationship as a mirror / path. I'd love if more people practiced this on a deep level.

The somatic approach is an excellent addition to this work, if you have a chance to try it out, you won't be disappointed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> "If I were to point out random emotional labor duties I carry out—reminding him of his family's birthdays, carrying in my head the entire school handbook and dietary guidelines for lunches, updating the calendar to include everyone's schedules, asking his mother to babysit the kids when we go out, keeping track of what food and household items we are running low on, tidying everyone's strewn about belongings, the unending hell that is laundry—..."

That all sounds like household management with some relationship management thrown in. What does it have to do with labouring over _emotions_? It sounds like this person needs a partner who shares more household responsibilities and has an organization and cleanliness habit that is more in line with their own.

EDIT: I just did a quick search of this term "emotional labor" and this comes up from wikipedia:

"Emotional labor is the process of managing feelings and expressions to fulfill the emotional requirements of a job. More specifically, workers are expected to regulate their emotions during interactions with customers, co- workers and superiors."

That seems a lot more reasonable definition for emotional labour. Actual emotion management. The author of the featured article seems to want to attach this term to just about every kind of task that occurs in a household.

<comment><USER8> I think that one of the things I'm continuously disappointed in is that comments like this tend to get more exposure and agreement than the concept that the author is trying to bring to light. I get so excited to see discussion about these concepts, but then the idea gets ignored because the author isn't using exactly the right words. It really makes me feel even more isolated and unheard.

Yes, communication is a very important part of discussing concepts, but its a bit like being interrupted by a grammar nazi while you're trying to indicate that you're drowning.

For what its worth, I agree with you. I don't like the term emotional labor for this type of situation. But that's the term that's commonly applied to it and correcting what its called isn't fixing the issue. And I don't think that boiling it down to "Sorry, you should have thought of this before you married the guy." is helping anyone.

<comment><USER9> Well delivery can be just as important as the message. It sounds like she alienated male-audiences by implying it's a problem with a whole gender instead of implying it's a gender-neutral trait.

After all, how does she know who does the cleaning, planning, keeping track of birthdays in my relationship?

And I don't think it's fair to dismiss her gender-targeting delivery as a trivial detail such as grammar, she's clearly a professional writer and it's hard to imagine it's accidental.

I wonder if she's playing on her audience's pent-up emotions and intentionally stirring controversy to get more-internet attention? (not quite trolling, but a gentler form)

<comment><USER10> > "Well delivery can be just as important as the message."

Only if the delivery is offensive, otherwise the message is more important.

To give an example, I'm a native English speaker, and when I speak with some non-native English speakers they can make some quirky decisions on how they deliver their message. However, if I've understood the underlying message, I'll look past it, and address what they meant.

To bring it back to the topic at hand, meta discussions like the one we're having now often start out as a form of deflection. Regardless of the term 'emotional work' (I prefer 'hidden work', you may have a different preference), do you agree that the underlying message of the article is broadly correct? It's not so much about who takes on the 'hidden work', but rather it's about the toll it takes.

<comment><USER11> No, because I don't know what the underlying message is - you didn't spell it out, neither did parent, or anyone in this chain.

If you unentangle the first example the author gives, she wants to give a task to the man, without explaining how to do it, and then complains that they don't do it properly. But it's not even just that, it's her wrapping this task into a "Mother's Day gift", i.e. forcing the man to do emotional labor to figure out what the woman really wants and how exactly to do it. This is a counter-example to her overall argument, both in her literal words(about emotional labor), and (I'm guessing here) in the underlying meaning of "men should do more of the hidden work"(how do you expect them to do the "hidden work" if you never explain to them that you're doing it, you want to share the responsibility, etc?).

If there's a deeper underlying message that I'm missing here, please, I'm interested in knowing about it. But every time I read an article like this, all I can think of is "dysfunctional relationship" and "unreasonable expectations".

<comment><USER10> > "If you unentangle the first example the author gives, she wants to give a > task to the man, without explaining how to do it, and then complains that > they don't do it properly."

This is where you're wrong. The wife makes it very clear to the husband how she wants the job done. This is clear because the husband reluctantly acquiesces to her request before deciding to go with a different approach. Once you accept that the wife's instructions were clear, the rest of your argument falls down.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> >That's the point," I said, now in tears, "I don't want to have to ask."

>Walking that fine line to keep the peace and not upset your partner is something women are taught to accept as their duty from an early age.

>My husband is a good man, and a good feminist ally.

>However, it's not as easy as telling him that. My husband, despite his good nature and admirable intentions, still responds to criticism in a very patriarchal way.

>Yet I find myself worrying about how the mental load bore almost exclusively by women translates into a deep gender inequality that is hard to shake on the personal level.

>It is difficult to model an egalitarian household for my children when it is clear that I am the household manager, tasked with delegating any and all household responsibilities, or taking on the full load myself.

This sounds like a very dysfunctional marriage. I have been observing what I consider are good marriages that have stood the test of time. Marriages where they have been married 30, 40, 50 years and are still crazy about each other. Here are some things that I have found.

1\. Good communication. Never expect the other partner to read your mind.

2\. Compromise. If what I want hurts or causes pain to the other person, it is not worth it.

3\. Loyalty. My spouse is more important to me than any ideology or person.

4\. Individual love. My spouse is their own person. They are not some avatar of a family, ethnicity, or gender.

5\. Selflessness. I choose to do what it takes to make my spouse happy without expecting anything in return.

These thing should be done by both husband and wife. The author, goes against everyone of them. She expects the husband to read her mind. The whole article feels like some primal cry for appreciation and notice. She criticizes her husband publicly in an article that will be read by millions. She views her husband and son as avatars for men. Her first loyalty seems to be to feminism, and not to her family.

Many times I have seen dysfunctional marriages where the husband justifies his selfishness by using societal gender roles or religion - "The Bible says I am the head of this house". That is wrong. In this article, the author justifies her selfishness using feminism. That is also wrong.

<comment><USER13> >My husband is a good man, and a good feminist ally.

I'm not sure I needed to read anymore than that. It is a sexist view, by someone who I would suspect would argue they aren't sexist. Based purely on my personal experiences, I've found people who hold such a view tend to have a very fundamental incompatibility in world view from myself.

<comment><USER14> Please don't take HN threads in ideologically inflammatory directions? That's flamebait if not trolling, and the HN guidelines ask you not to.

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

<comment><USER13> I'll edit it to remove any references to the latter group I mentioned since they aren't a topic for the article.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I'm not sure I buy this. In my experience at least, it all comes down to standards — it sounds like this woman has higher standards for what constitutes a "running household", and gets frustrated when her husband doesn't share those standards. It sounds like he would be content with boxes on the floor, dirty bathrooms, etc. When she asks him to raise the house to her standard, she is asking him to adopt her perspective of what is acceptable and what is not, which is not trivial. He needs to be asked to tidy up because he genuinely does not see a problem with things being messy.

Why isn't the solution for the woman to compromise on her expectations, finding a middle ground for cleanliness and organization? Why must the man fully adopt her perspective?

<comment><USER16> I was a homemaker for a couple of decades. So, I spent a great deal more time physically at home than my husband and the house was where most of my work occurred. When my husband left his dirty clothes on the floor, I could either live with the clutter and step over it or pick up after him. Either choice was still an imposition on me that lowered my quality of life.

Furthermore, since doing laundry was one of my responsibilities, him not putting his clothes in the hamper just made my job harder. And, no, it wasn't really acceptable to just not wash his clothes because they weren't in the hamper. We were financially dependent on his job. He had to be presentable. Plus, leaving dirty clothes laying around is a hygiene issue and I have health problems.

It would be a little bit like if I went to his office and dumped my laundry on his desk and he would either have to deal with that or work around it -- all day, every single day. We were married about 16 years before he grasped that and stopped leaving his dirty clothes on the floor.

When you are in a partnership, the actions of your partner are going to impact you. If they aren't considerate, they will impact you negatively. That is simply reality. Acting like it is not is crazy talk.

<comment><USER15> I think it comes down to communication. If my wife said "put your clothes in the hamper because I want you to, and that's where they belong", I might fail to put them there. If she said "put your clothes in the hamper because leaving them on the floor makes my life a lot harder, and also I might get sick", I would never fail to put them there.

By framing the issue as something I care about (my wife's health and happiness) and not something I don't care about (whether or not clothes are on the floor), effective communication saves the day.

I think the issue with the article is that it demonizes this very communication as a form of unfair, sexist "emotional labor", and therefore (at least to my mind) makes it less likely to occur.

EDIT: I'm not trying to imply that your personal situation went one way or the other, or that it was a failing on your part to communicate effectively. I'm just citing my own personal anecdote, because that's all I have.

<comment><USER16> And the author of the article states that communication is not happening effectively in her marriage in part due to gender norms influencing mental models and expectations. And I am telling you that effective communication in my marriage on that one detail took 16 years to finally achieve.

Most of the comments here are pretty dismissive and attacking of the article and its author, while acting like she is just an unreasonable bitch. Most participants here are male. The author is female.

Women tend to just not get listened to. Getting heard is a huge uphill battle. The effort involved in trying to find some means to get there gets us accused of being nags, etc.

That is, in fact, the entire point of the article.

<comment><USER17> I find altering environment to be much (like, _much_ ) more effective than altering behavior. Clothes chronically on the floor somewhere[1]? That spot needs a hamper. Toddlers' toys all over the place and spouse vetoes throwing out like 80% of that junk? Bins, in child-locked cabinets. Time spent cleaning massive toy messes immediately down by well over half, for a one-time cost of a few dollars, time spent policing how much crap the kids are spreading around the room (a hopeless task anyway) dropped to nearly zero. Notice you're (both) not managing to get the kids' clothes sorted and to their dressers/closets? Kid- and clothing-type-labeled pull-out bins (god I love bins) on shelves _in the laundry room_ , basically eliminating any actual _need_ to cart the clothes from room to room (it just makes for more work later) and putting the output location closer to the input. Problem reduced from "OMG this is really becoming a problem" to "it's not perfect, but WOW is this better". Etc., etc.

Altering behavior's rarely worked for me. My own, sometimes, my spouse's... well, pretty much never. So if it's the _effect_ you want gone, it's often possible to make it go away really fast and with little fuss (often praise!) through a change in your environment. I'm sure lots of people of both sexes put this into practice, but I can say with certainty that it just never, ever occurs to some, and they'll put up with and complain about the issue indefinitely if someone else doesn't spend a few bucks and a few minutes making it permanently disappear.

[1] just taking your example, not implying that the solution was appropriate in your case or that it wasn't attempted and failed—to be clear, this approach definitely can't solve _every_ problem.

<comment><USER16> I'm a big fan of that approach. I recommend it often. But, at the end of the day, if your spouse is simply monstrously inconsiderate, you going out of your way to find environmental solutions is just more work on you to minimize problems that will never really go away without taking the bull by the horns and confronting your spouse about their bad habits. (Or, you know, divorce. That is the other way to stop getting crapped on by a consistently inconsiderate spouse.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> This article is flamebait. The title is "Women Aren't Nags", below a big middle finger to the reader, so it's not like it tries to hide it. And much of the article is saying that men are emotionally immature or worse.

For example, she asks her husband to get the house clean for mother's day. He assumes she meant what she asked for, and does a deep clean of the bathrooms himself. But

> What I wanted was for him to ask friends on Facebook for a recommendation, > call four or five more services, do the emotional labor I would have done if > the job had fallen to me.

But for a single cleaning, just doing it himself was more direct and effective, so what he did isn't unreasonable. But it didn't go through the specific process she didn't mention but was really what she secretly wanted. So there has been a failure of communication here.

Other examples also show similar problems with understanding and communication:

> It was obvious that the box was in the way, that it needed to be put back. > It would have been easy for him to just reach up and put it away, but > instead he had stepped around it, willfully ignoring it for two days.

One person's "willful ignorance" may be another's blind spot. Some people just don't notice some types of mess. An extreme form of this is sometimes called "clutter blindness" (itself a minor form of hoarding), but it exists in moderate forms too, leading to disagreements like this one. Neither the author nor her husband is in the wrong here, but they both need to do more to understand the other.

And about "emotional labor":

> If I were to point out random emotional labor duties I carry out—reminding > him of his family's birthdays [etc.]

Some people care more about those things than others. Unless he asked her to do that for him, it would probably be fine if she didn't - after all, what would happen if they weren't married? I'd recommend she stop doing it - not as "see how you get along without me!" to spite him, but as an honest experiment that both she and her husband might learn from. It's possible she'd see how his life works just fine without those reminders, or that he'd see how those things are important and start to do them himself.

<comment><USER19> > What I wanted was for him to ask friends on Facebook for a recommendation, > call four or five more services, do the emotional labor I would have done if > the job had fallen to me.

This one really jumped out at me, because even if I had stuck to the letter of her request (hiring a service rather than doing it myself), I would have fallen far, far short of her expectation.

Calling four or five services? Embarrassing myself by spamming my friends on social media for a maid-service recommendation? You have got to be kidding me.

How about just hiring one at random, try them out for a few months, and then decide if you like their service? Or maybe spend 30 seconds on Yelp?

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Here's some advice for people of all genders:

Learn to make decisions immediately and quickly.

By laboring over a decision for hours or days, you can unintentionally turn a trivial task into a heavy one. By making decisions quickly you save yourself all the extra emotional and mental labor.

Sure you will make mistakes, especially as you are learning to do this. But you will get better at it with practice. It is a skill worth pursuing.

I understand there are some decisions that should not be made quickly. Learn to recognize those decisions and create a system for yourself for processing those in a reasonable amount of time. For me, choosing which housecleaning service to hire is not a decision that should be labored over.

<comment><USER21> > not a decision that should be labored over.

Getting the right service is obviously important to her. But that doesn't mean the decision should be labored over -- the cost of a wrong decision isn't high; if you don't like the one you hired, just try another one.

<comment><USER22> Paradoxically, sometimes the only way you can get enough information to make the "right" choice is to make _a_ choice in the first place. If it isn't a one-time choice, the downside is generally minimal.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> "...That's why I asked my husband to do it as a gift."

What kind of "gift" is "asked" for and when not received it is aired in public and shame the man for not living up to the expectations she "didn't feel the need to communicate".

This is frankly disgusting and speaks volumes about the author's solipsism and inconsideration of her husbands story. One sided and exceptionally ignorant. Under the guise of "Equality".

I am a man and enjoy this "emotional labor" managing my house and investment properties. I also make a great income as a software consultant and enjoy calling suppliers and service professionals and is pretty easy. Pick up the phone, talk to people, schedule appointments.

This speaks more to her choice of mate and her communication abilities and the kind of contempt she has for her husband. For the whole world to see. He would be wise to re-evaluate her commitment and his commitment to the relationship.

This a kind of emotional blackmail and will serve to control him in the future since he knows that she will air their dirty laundry to be on the internet forever.

</comment><comment><USER24> Describing cleaning as emotional labour is weird to me. I'm fully on board with the "many women do lots of emotional labour that goes unnoticed" logic but to me cleaning is labour and that's that. It's a job, and it should be talked about as hard labour, not some mysterious emotional nebula that men avoid because of gendered conditioning.

I think the danger here is that by conflating emotional labour and cleaning, we obfuscate the true depth of what emotional labour is. Emotional labour what goes into having a mentally ill spouse, a child dying of cancer, a colleague or friend fighting through divorce or depression, the strain of a job that expects a positive mood when you're all wore out inside.

Cleaning is fixed by labour. Having a husband who doesn't clean, gets defensive, can't communicate, can't remember his fucking kids birthdays, etc. is fixed by emotional labour (or divorce). To me that sounds like the author married a person who's not accountable, doesn't share her standards about how labour should be divided, harbors gendered conceptions of how a household should be run, doesn't share her standards of cleanliness, doesn't share her standards for communication skills, etc.

So my response, in a nutshell, is that while this woman is right to push back against gendered standards of who does household work, it has nothing to do with emotional labor, per se. It has everything to do with the fact that she apparently picked a husband who is really hard to live with, or at least hard enough to live with that she's forced to write a tangential thinkpiece about it

<comment><USER8> I think you might be missing the point. The gift that she wanted was the house cleaning service. She had already been planning/considering hiring someone anyway. The gift was that she would not have to do the work to find, vet, make the calls, research, arrange payment, schedule, etc. for this task. The gift was supposed to be him taking over that work.

> The gift, for me, was not so much in the cleaning itself but the fact that > for once I would not be in charge of the household office work. I would not > have to make the calls, get multiple quotes, research and vet each service, > arrange payment and schedule the appointment. The real gift I wanted was to > be relieved of the emotional labor of a single task that had been nagging at > the back of my mind. The clean house would simply be a bonus.

also

> I had wanted to hire out deep cleaning for a while, especially since my > freelance work had picked up considerably. The reason I hadn't done it yet > was part guilt over not doing my housework, and an even larger part of not > wanting to deal with the work of hiring a service. I knew exactly how > exhausting it was going to be. That's why I asked my husband to do it as a > gift.

<comment><USER24> My response, then, is "Oh poor you! You have to call the proletarian house cleaners, rub shoulders with the 'help'! How difficult it must be."

Leftist cynicism aside: I'm talking more about the "socks on the floor, chair in the way, keeping the house in order mentally" side of things

<comment><USER25> It's not about "talking to the proletarians". It's about the emotional work involved with talking to a bunch of people, organizing those discussions, comparing the results, etc.

As a generally introverted person, just thinking about discussing the details with 3 or more people makes me feel exhausted. And that doesn't even count the planning, review, time off of work, etc.

<comment><USER26> Nomenclature question, why are we calling the work involved securing a vendor emotional labor? In any office this would just be called labor.

<comment><USER16> Basically, the term _emotional labor_ gets used a lot to mean "women's work" and especially to refer to the largely invisible parts of what women are expected to do.

I don't like that usage, but I usually don't bother to nitpick it. I do understand why this is kind of a hot topic and why the term _emotional labor_ gets applied to it.

I don't have a better solution. It seems like there simply isn't a good way to talk about these issues.

(FWIW: I'm a woman.)

<comment><USER27> It does seem kind of confusing. The first time I encountered the term "emotional labor" it referred to aspects of customer service work (like responding politely to abusive customers, being performatively cheerful, etc) and it was intuitive to me what it meant. Using the term to mean unpaid, typically female labor seems less intuitive.

<comment><USER16> Emotional labor is a real thing and a large part of what women are expected to do is rooted in catering to the feelings of other people. But, yeah, it gets used kind of sloppily. Just about anything women want to complain about gets lumped in with it and the writing frequently fails to make it crystal clear how x, y and z actually relate to or are rooted in the expectation that women cater to everyone's feelings.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I love working 10+ hours a day to pay for 100% of me and my fiancé's expenses, coming home, cooking dinner, and cleaning up everything while she studies for med school; going to bed early so I can do some shopping before work; and then being told I'm a useless man by some nobody with a shitty marriage on a website that's supposed to be about technology.

<comment><USER29> > on a website that's supposed to be about technology

This is what irks me most. I come to Hacker News for the tech, and yet... This is here?

What is this article doing on HN?

<comment><USER10> > "What is this article doing on HN?"

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

"On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.

Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Ideological or political battle or talking points. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic."

This article is in line with "anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I think this current trend where we assign responsibility for our emotions to everyone else is highly toxic and ultimately self-defeating.

You can learn to control your own emotions or you can walk around waiting for everyone else to make sure you're happy and comfortable. Only one of these strategies is going to have any chance of success.

<comment><USER5> I'd offer a third option which is taking responsibility for your pain / emotions, but not trying to "control" them.

Instead, welcoming and allowing all of them and creating space to engage and explore them.

This can lead to much deeper connection with your self and others, and increased health.

When you do this, you will also be more available to help others feel their emotions and to help them take responsibility for feeling them fully.

I quibble over the term "control" because I see much of our cultures problems as an avoidance -- either making it others people's job, or turning to drugs / addictions / psychiatry / etc. to avoid feeling.

<comment><USER30> You're right, control is the wrong word. It's more "don't let them control you". With practice I find I can feel an emotion, recognize it as an emotional response, then either find some productive action to address what's causing it or if none are available, let it go.

Not that I'm always perfect at doing this, but I find it's more helpful than just being annoyed/sad/angry and waiting for some external change in circumstances to make me feel better.

<comment><USER5> I've been living my entire adult life after having been diagnosed schizophrenic at 18 (and bipolar at 31).

Choosing to live without medication, this practice of feeling emotions fully and letting them teach me whatever they are meant to, has allowed me to transcend that diagnosis.

I've found that within hard to experience emotions are often anchient patterns or old traumas waiting to be released - everything from my father cheating on my mom, to my step dad abusing us, to being circumscized, to being terrified by Catholic propaganda.

I find that when I surrender to the emotions as sacred teachers (sometime using altered states like Breathwork to get closer / amplify them), that I end up with more clarity, compassion and confidence.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> If the goal of this article is to validate frustrated wives, maybe it has succeeded. But if conversely, it was aiming at making a compelling case to men I don't think it has.

I for one feel stereotyped and vilified (and I also feel at risk of being criticized for even admitting my own feelings).

What I'd recommend the author do is-

1\. Reflect on her feelings. What does she really want, what is it really about / a symbol for (cleaning/initiative = caring?) ? Also understand any accumulated frustrations that may be coloring things.

2\. Try to understand her husband's feelings, as well as any of his accumulated frustrations.

3\. Ask him and make sure you understand his feelings. To do this, you need to be able to listen without judging what he has to say, even if it's hurtful. Once he feels understood, you'll be half-way there.

4\. Talk to him about your feelings (does he not notice, not care, or something else). If he's uncomfortable talking about this, that's another thing you can't ignore and steamroll over, but should investigate gently. Hopefully he can understand your feelings without judging either.

5\. All 4 steps above depend crucially on sincerity, good-fath, a sense of humor, and tact.

As an aside, I'd never consider publishing a criticism of my relationship online (nor would I use an anecdote as the basis for a gender-criticism), unless I had talked it over with my partner first and they read the whole thing. Of course everybody is free to share their experience, but wouldn't people naturally be hesitant to date somebody who uses intimate challenges as career-fuel?

<comment><USER10> > "I for one feel stereotyped and vilified (and I also feel at risk of being > criticized for even admitting my own feelings)."

If I can ask you a question without you feeling criticised... why do you think you've taken this article personally?

It's interesting to me as I don't see anything remotely controversial in the article. It becomes an article for a news site not because it's a novel occurrence, but because it's commonplace and frequently overlooked. Even if it's not an issue in your relationship, can you accept that it happens in other relationships?

<comment><USER9> If you don't see the subheadding as remotely controversial, I have to wonder if your agenda is advancement of women or advancement of equality. If this piece didn't want to be sexist it could have removed gender entirely from the piece.

Why do you think it didn't do that?

<comment><USER10> > "If this piece didn't want to be sexist it could have removed gender > entirely from the piece."

Reference to a cultural phenomenon backed up with statistical evidence is not inherently sexist. If you don't think the issues described are statistically more likely to be experienced by women, even though there's strong evidence to the contrary, what message do you think that sends out?

<comment><USER9> What statistical evidence? I think a wide-ranging study on this topic would be interesting.

However, I also don't know what the point would be of breaking it down by gender (any more than you'd break it down by race).

Wouldn't you be better served to have instead spent that time figuring out how to fix the problem (how do you explain it effectively) rather than whom to blame?

<comment><USER10> > "What statistical evidence? I think a wide-ranging study on this topic would > be interesting."

Here's one study, there are others available online too...

[https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/09/170926105448.h...](https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/09/170926105448.htm)

<comment><USER9> Dude, I can't anymore. I thought this had nothing to do with chores but only "emotionally draining" things.

I don't know if I buy the premise there's a difference in which sex is drained more, I don't think you can extend an argument to a whole gender based on a % difference in averages, I don't know if it matters who is drained more, I don't know if the cause is cultural, I don't know the answer is blog posts rather than spouses just telling each other how they feel, I don't buy that this is a pressing problem worthy of my focus (as compared to say, pesticides).

I guess I don't know why I engaged with this article anymore, lol. But no worries, you tried to explain it and that sincerity counts for something.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> This reminds me of my ex. I would make the bed because she never did it.

She would complain that I didn't make the top sheet tight enough.

My response was if you want the sheets tighter, make the bed yourself.

It's childish to expect someone else to care about something as much as you do.

Did the author make her expectations clear or was she expecting her husband to read her mind?

It sounds like she was expecting her husband to care about the same things she did.

<comment><USER32> The author sounds like someone with an undiagnosed personality disorder. Normalizing behavior like this is ridiculous.

<comment><USER33> I was married to a woman who (after marriage) was diagnosed with a personality disorder. Reading this article was like a look back into my marriage.

I was always being told about everything I did that failed to meet her standards, or failed to do at all, and how it was because I didn't care about her enough to do it the way she wanted it done.

Then, when I'd try to do things in anticipation of her ever changing priorities, or to offload things from her plate I'd be read the riot act. Clearly it wasn't because I was trying to be considerate and meet her ever changing standards. I was obviously because I was criticizing her in some kind of chauvinistic way, or undermining her position in the household.

I'm very happy to be out of that situation, and I completely agree that normalizing this type of behavior is ridiculous.

<comment><USER32> That's awful, and I'm sorry to hear it. Every time I see stuff like this show up on FB or HN or Reddit, I find it personally distressing, because it's enabling for people with Cluster B traits. They feel justified and empowered in continuing to emotionally abuse their friends and partners. Meanwhile, the victims of abuse are led to believe that they're the ones who are in the wrong.

it's also enabling for misogynists who are more than happy to claim that this is normal behavior for an entire gender (it's not). This submission has already been flagged, which is nice, but I can't help but feel that it's being flagged for the wrong reasons. Funnily enough, I bet the flags are coming from people with all sorts of conflicting political views.

For those of you in a relationship with someone similar to the author of the article, it doesn't have to be like this. There are plenty of women out there (the vast majority) who won't expect you to read their minds, who won't gaslight you, who will let you disagree with them without fear of extreme consequences, and who will take your needs and struggles into account, instead of just making everything about themselves.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> It is interesting to read the comments here and compare them to my own experience. I've been married for more than a couple of decades and recognized both the author's complaint and the responses of the people in the article. I have also participated with my wife in very similar discussions.

Three things that I now believe, having lived through this, are that my wife and I see value and obligation differently (and pretty much always have), the "emotional" part is important because there are other emotions at play below the surface, and that the roles and issues your own parents had in this space will color the perceptions of you and your spouse.

I can thoroughly recommend that you clip or save this article into your archive of things and re-read it every few years for the next couple of decades and reflect back on the disagreements you and your spouse have had :-)

<comment><USER35> Yes, the comments here assume that life outside of working for a paycheck is "preference". I expect most commenters are unmarried, don't have children, and think that money by itself solves problems. It seems like I was there not so long ago...

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I found this comic on the topic also insightful:

"You should've asked"

[https://english.emmaclit.com/2017/05/20/you-shouldve- asked/](https://english.emmaclit.com/2017/05/20/you-shouldve-asked/)

<comment><USER36> Two things I don't understand.

First, are the women depicted in this comic stay at home moms? If so then yes, I would expect them to take care of the house. Regardless of gender. If they both have jobs, then the workload should be shared. It's not about gender. It's about distributing the work. If he goes to work 8 hours a day, she can work 8 hours a day. Staying at home and not doing anything is nothing short of disrespectful.

Second, the "mental load" of having to remember all those things isn't a herculean task. A calendar, a TODO list, a shopping list on the fridge are simple solutions which greatly reduce the load.

<comment><USER10> > "First, are the women depicted in this comic stay at home moms?"

Did you even read the comic? In the first line...

"Back when I was in my first job, a colleague invited me over for dinner."

What do you think that tells you about their working background? Do they sound like stay at home mums?

<comment><USER36> > Did you even read the comic?

I confess to skimming the introduction, thank you for the clarification.

> What do you think that tells you about their working background? Do they > sound like stay at home mums?

This is just flogging a dead horse. They aren't stay at home moms and I wholeheartedly agree the burdens should be shared equally, as I wrote in my original comment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> This sounds a lot more like the story of an unhappy marriage and poor communication, than about emotional labour. The narrative of a bumbling but hard working ox of a husband and a whip smart, but overworked wife is tired and unhelpful to both parties.

</comment><comment><USER38> This is a highly charged, and - frankly sexist - article about how people have expectations that are unfulfilled because they _simply don 't communicate with each other_.

There isn't a single example of this "emotional labor" in the article, where a consideration is given to "the man" about how much labor it takes, emotionally, to keep up with someone who has high expectations for their environment, but _does not communicate those expectations in a way that forms consensus_ \- instead, opting to 'shame the man' for not having the same standards.

However, in spite of the blatant sexism, the true value of this article is that, when people fail to properly communicate, much much un-necessary work develops, and this gets in the way of having a great life. Yup. Perhaps we as a society should stop forwarding the ideal that "people should just know what expectations they have to meet", and rather promote the idea that "its always good to work things out about who does what and how clean things have to be, before you get married, or you know .. move in with each other"... The fact that the author hasn't cottoned on to this, frankly, belies a serious immaturity on her part.

<comment><USER39> In my experience communication happens again and again and again over a period of years until the woman gives up in exasperation and just seethes silently. It's hard to get someone to engage in emotional labor (or as I like to call it, 'giving a fuck') when they simply don't give a fuck, no matter how much you communicate.

Since not caring enough to do the basic gruntwork associated with a decent relationship is almost always a male problem in our society, I'm also gobsmacked that you'd call it sexist. It's about as sexist as calling gun violence or any other widely gendered thing a male problem - there's exceptions out there, but it's not worth being pedantic about.

<comment><USER15> I think you're arbitrarily privileging "giving a fuck" over "not giving a fuck". Try this:

Alice wants Task X to be done. Bob does not care whether Task X is done.

Let us stipulate that, if Task X is not done, nobody will be materially, objectively harmed.

Alice says: because I want Task X, you will do Task X. Alice does not ask Bob's opinion on Task X, but rather assumes that Task X is inherently necessary, and therefore Bob's opinion is not worth considering. In fact, Alice is annoyed that Bob hasn't taken the initiative to recognize the inherent necessity of Task X, and complete it on his own without being asked.

Bob does not believe Task X to be inherently necessary.

Option 1: Bob may complete Task X because it makes Alice happy. That's nice of Bob. Unfortunately, Alice is seething that she had to ask Bob in the first place. That's kind of mean of Alice.

Option 2: Bob fails to accomplish Task X, because it isn't his personal priority. That's kind of thoughtless of Bob, but Bob is a human and sometimes we let low-priority items drop off our radar. Alice will do Task X herself, furious that Bob did not do it.

Option 3: Bob fails to accomplish Task X, because it isn't his personal priority. Alice lets go of Task X, leaving it undone, because it's just Task X, and her relationship with Bob matters more to her than Task X. That's nice of Alice.

In a "fair" scenario, Option 3 should be on the table at least half the time. But it never is. Why can Alice not let go of Task X? Why MUST it be done? Why is Alice's perspective on the necessity of Task X to be privileged over that of Bob?

<comment><USER39> It's usually because not doing the task has very real negative consequences and due to the sexist nature of modern society the consequences fall most heavily on Alice, not on Bob. Don't buy the nephews birthday cards? The relatives think badly of Alice, not Bob. Take your son out in mismatched or slightly too small clothes? People pass judgement on Alice, not Bob.

When Bob doesn't think something is necessary and Alice does, Bob needs to step back and think about why she does, because there's generally a good reason. Going immediately to game theory isn't helpful when you've got imperfect information due to your own lack of introspection.

<comment><USER40> > Take your son out in mismatched or slightly too small clothes? People pass > judgement on Alice, not Bob.

Or they'll just laugh it off with "I see daddy dressed you today". Meanwhile if Bob dresses his son impeccably, Alice will get all the credit.

If Bob keeps house instead of working overtime, Alice will get all the housekeeping credit _and_ Bob will be judged for not being an effective breadwinner.

It's almost like societal gender roles can screw over both sexes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This sounds like someone with an anxious attachment style that is terrified of expressing her needs and who has grown resentful of a lifetime of suppressing her feelings for the approval of others.

Notice how she resents that her husband wants appreciation for the things he does, and yet she doesn't feel appreciated?

This is a dynamic they co-created and one they could work on together.

Healing the underlying stuff that is driving this resent would lead to a happier more connected experience for her (and in the process, I imagine he would become more of what she wants).

It's not her fault, he appears to not know what really drives conflict, so no matter how much he does, it will never be enough -- until he makes an effort to learn how to make his woman feel seen and understood and safe with all of her emotions.

Most people lack these skills as they never had them modeled.

</comment><comment><USER41> "What I wanted was for him to ask friends on Facebook for a recommendation, call four or five more services, do the emotional labor I would have done if the job had fallen to me... I knew exactly how exhausting it was going to be. That's why I asked my husband to do it as a gift."

It's ironic that the author complains about her husband's low emotional intelligence yet she doesn't seem to understand that other people may have a different approach to a given problem.

</comment><comment><USER39> Judging by the remarks on this thread, not many of you are interested - <USER2> those of you who are may find this compiled PDF of a Metafilter thread valuable:

[https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0UUYL6kaNeBTDBRbkJkeUtabEk...](https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0UUYL6kaNeBTDBRbkJkeUtabEk/view?pref=2&pli=1)

I can say without hesitation that learning more about emotional labor (and reading that PDF in particular) has helped me be a better husband and father.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's interesting to me, thanks for sharing!

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> In the 1950s, society inflicted these expectations on women about how they should maintain their families. Homes should be immaculate, children should be participating in all sorts of activities, etc. Now, we're embracing the idea that men should carry their share of the domestic labor, but haven't quite rejected old ideals about what a home should be run like. So we're in a weird transition state where we're trying to get men to do work that nobody really needs or wants to do.

</comment><comment><USER43> There was an extended discussion on topic of emotional labour on Metafilter as well - [http://www.metafilter.com/151267/Wheres-My-Cut-On-Unpaid- Emo...](http://www.metafilter.com/151267/Wheres-My-Cut-On-Unpaid-Emotional- Labor)

It's intersting due to start contrast in HN and MeFi communities and what commenters have to say about it.

</comment><comment><USER44> As a thought exercise I wonder what would people's advice be if the author was in a same sex relationship and the pair was having disagreements over cleaning and relational priorities. I am guessing most of the advice would be about how to communicate better with your partner. Now that maybe slightly easier with a same sex partner but I think the point is still a valid one. Peal back some of the feminist rhetoric and you have a couple who need to work on their communication skills.

</comment><comment><USER45> > It is difficult to model an egalitarian household for my children when it is > clear that I am the household manager, tasked with delegating any and all > household responsibilities, or taking on the full load myself. I can feel my > sons and daughter watching our dynamic all the time, gleaning the roles for > themselves as they grow older.

This part struck a chord with me.

</comment><comment><USER46> It's so bad for me... I read the whole article and I cannot figure out what 'emotional labor' is.

The scenes described play out constantly in my home. There are these major gaffs in both directions: For me, I cannot infer how to set the table from what's on the stove, and my wife is therefore convinced that I have a learning disability.

For her, she is incapable of using the Maps app on her smart phone to help me when our destination changes after departing the house. And I am therefore convinced she has a learning disability.

Let's accept that things are structurally different upstairs and therefore inputs are not processed the same way and therefore the actual problem is not in the wiring, but in our expectations.

</comment><comment><USER47> I think the correct term (instead of emotional labor) would be "ownership". It's the very thing my mother has complained of (well, the lack of it actually) about my father. He didn't care about most things because he gets easily stressed about owning or being responsible for tasks, so he only initiates and rallies for tasks that he likes doing. Luckily they divorced some years ago.

Alas, I have adapted some of my father's behavior, but as I'm truly growing up, it's getting better. Ownership is empowering, and it must not be connected with guilt. For me (and probably my father), ownership always led to perfectionism and guilt when something did not work out; but screw guilt, and nobody's perfect. BTW in German, the terms ownership and responsibility are somewhat conflated into "Verantwortung", which is easily interpreted as being held accountable.

I'm sure there are a lot of reasons that can lead to passivity or the lack of ownership in a relationship. IMO it's one of the most toxic things that can exist. It can ruin precious years of your life, and turn family life into hell. Take ownership if you don't already.

</comment><comment><USER48> I dislike this term, and I'm dismayed by its recent leakage into the mainstream. I have yet to see an explanation for what it means, that is distinguishable from "being a person." The people who use the term usually seem exceptionally entitled and self-centered. The assumption that women do more of whatever it's supposed to entail is sexist, and I see little evidence for it. It seems like an academic-sounding way to say that women are better people, plus they don't get rewarded for being better people, so life is unfair to women and men need to do something about this.

<comment><USER49> It's a good term that is being appropriated. Emotional labor described some aspects of jobs such as customer service, nurse, etc., where the work actually requires feeling certain emotions so that your client can feel empathized with. What the author is talking about is simply domestic labor.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> This is housekeeper neurosis. She cares a lot about the house, he doesn't hence conflict, plus the fact that she essentially want's her husband to be able to read her mind.

They should consider doing some psychotherapy.

The article has a few interesting points about gender, but she stretches them almost to the breaking point. The call for budgets I get that as emotional labor goes, but the "he should know better and read my mind and satisfy all my emotional desires as my idealized husband would" crap I don't buy.

That's just plain old neurosis and an underhanded slap on the wrist for her husband.

<comment><USER51> What appealed to me about this article was precisely the fact that it stuck close to experience and whenever it went 'broader' provided caveats. Your comment somehow strikes me as the opposite of all those qualities.

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> This is a very good piece that makes a kind of labor visible that often goes unseen.

The article quotes a few sociologists; the concept of "emotional labor" comes from another that isn't cited in the piece, Arlie Russel Hochschild. Hochschild also coined the term "the second shift" to refer to the wildly uneven gendered division of labor.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arlie_Russell_Hochschild#Work_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arlie_Russell_Hochschild#Work_and_family)

</comment><comment><USER53> I simplify can't imagine bearing the emotional burden of having to call someone to "deep clean" my bathroom. These are the woe-is-me thoughts of the top tier of society.

Anyways this is a classic example of expecting someone to be able to read your mind simply because they love you. One person is uptight about micromanaging their environment, the other more laid back. You talk about that and find an equilibrium. I would be very hurt as her husband to find she had communicated that to the world without communicating it to him.

</comment><comment><USER54> Talking with a Boston cop, he tells me he's married to a nurse. I asked "Who has the most stressful job?". His response: "Her, she actually has to care about the people she works with."

</comment><comment><USER55> It's not emotional labor. It's that she tends to worry and obsess over routine decisions, and he can't be cared to put in effort on things that aren't important to him directly. Even if he changed, she would still nag and belittle his choices because she still worries and obsesses; even if she changed, he would half-ass and still be lazy. They both have to change, and they don't need to make it into this grand narrative of emotional labor.

She should not expect him to ask five friends on facebook to find a cleaning service. He should realize that it is important to her to have one and just get one instead of complaining to her about it. Both failed, and it had little to do with any grand feminist narrative.

</comment><comment><USER56> This article is terrible. She sounds extremely self-centered. Does she think about the "emotional labor" that her husband goes through? She only appears to care about the hysterics that she creates from her own insecurities, and then wants her husband to share in those. Does she spend the time to document the emotional labor that he has to go through every day? Nope.

</comment><comment><USER57> Anecdote related to the part about ignoring the box:

My wife pointed out to me recently that I don't put away things if she leaves them in strange spots (out-of-place scissors, maybe). After some discussion, we both came to the conclusion that this is a side-effect of growing up with my mother.

In my childhood home, if you put something away in the _wrong_ place, that was far worse that not having touched it at all. So I grew up conditioned to ignore mess that I didn't know how to fix.

</comment><comment><USER58> I understand the husband was naive for expecting that it would be easy to find an inexpensive and convenient house cleaning service. He wanted "something he could one-click order on Amazon", and housecleaning services are not like that.

But why is that the case? Why can't there be an Uber* for housecleaning? Even better, why can't they pay an actual maid to clean the house all the time? Every hour she is cleaning the house (or researching to hire a one-time cleaning service) is an hour she could be working, so unless her labor is less valuable than a maid's, she would actually be saving money by not cleaning the house herself.

I understand that in the US this sort of thing is not that simple because in developed nations labor costs are so high (in the third world more families have maids than washing machines and dishwashers), but even so, there is still inequality. Her labor should be more expensive than a maid's labor. Why can't they take advantage of that, reap benefits of trade?

*ETA: I now believe "Uber for housecleaning" is a terrible idea. The correct thing would be "Upwork for housecleaning". Something more focused on long-term professional relationships.

<comment><USER59> They've already accepted that as true. The point is that even with an "uber of housecleaning", you're still inviting a stranger into your house to be around your children, and you still have to make it work with your schedule. That's the work. The human aspect won't go away union as housekeeping robot is invented.

<comment><USER58> The human aspect is precisely what they should be leveraging, but it looks like they choose not to.

Hiring the right maid can be annoying, but you only need to do it once. But instead of hiring an actual person and forming a long-lasting relationship, they chose to hire a faceless housecleaning company for a one-time job. They will have to pay huge transactional costs (with associated emotional labor) all over again next time their bathroom gets dirty.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER60> What bullshit. Gender equality is basically becoming code for "man really should act more like women". Well fuck that.

</comment><comment><USER61> I come here for the interesting tech news, not gender politics.

<comment><USER62> This.

I see this kind of non-tech related "culture wars" prone article creeping into hn. Can we keep on reddit or some other non-tech forum where it belongs?

<comment><USER63> I think the articles on philosophy and even crit theory are ok when they have an intellectual bent. Otherwise there's little sense in admitting Seth Godin but excluding Michel Foucault, both fine bald men.

I feel (and it's not just me) that there's a powerful, useful core to "continental theory" \-- see Shimon Naveh, Elie Ayache, etc. Techies should be more well-rounded.

I agree that articles that _apply_ philosophy and theory to politics are off- topic. We should be discussing (in addition to HN's core matter of startups) capital I ideas, not petty stuff.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER64> This article focuses on one kind of labor needed for a family to operate, but doesn't really talk about the others, such as the kind that bring in money. Equal share of labor is very important, but I don't think it's wise to expect a 50/50 split on every individual kind of labor. Theres been a lot of push back in society against the dynamic where one spouse goes to a paying job, and the other takes care of household matters, but how is that not an equal split of family labor? If both spouses work paying jobs, then it makes sense to start dividing household matters more.

That being said, I think parent-child interaction is something that needs to always be a 50/50 split, because it's good for the child.

</comment><comment><USER21> I spent about 5 years trying to convince my wife to let me hire a housekeeping service. I had several in, and none met her standards. I finally found one she loves. Me, I would have been happy with the first one that I had in.

</comment><comment><USER65> This article confuses and conflates 3 things.

1\. Chaos muppet theory. In this article, the wife is the order muppet, and the husband is the chaos muppet. Is this gendered? I don't know. My sister and I are both order muppets and our spouses are chaos muppets. That means in my household, the man (me) takes on what the author calls 'emotional labor' but is more like 'management labor'. There are a large number of household things I take on because I feel like I _must_. This is not about my wife, it's about my own neuroses and desire for order. And it's not about division of labor, because we have a very ad-hoc system of who makes dinner, does the dishes, etc etc. That kind of stuff is more about who is busier and who has more free time. If I have to study for a test I try my best not to feel bad about just walking out after eating dinner and leaving the dishes, and just as often I start cleaning up while she reads an interesting article. I'm sure if you asked my wife and I separately, we would both say we take care of 60% of the work and the other does 40% :)

2\. Responsibility for emotions. Is this gendered? The author makes a good argument for the expectations society has put on women to not be a burden or a nag, to manage emotions and expectations, and so on. I'm sure some men take this on more than their female partners, but I find it very plausible or likely that the author is correct that it's more frequently women doing this work. It's not the same about who is more _emotional_ ; it's entirely possible the man could be much more of an emotional person yet not take on the responsibility of managing _others_ emotions (in fact, that might be what's happening in the article if the woman feels she needs to tip-toe around his feeling so much).

3\. Actual household work. Flat out work. Child care, cooking, cleaning, picking up the dry cleaning, whatever. I'm sure many tomes have been written about the gendered roles and expectations and how these have changed over time and the work that remains to be done if one's desire is to equally partition these tasks.

[1] [http://www.slate.com/articles/life/low_concept/2012/06/what_...](http://www.slate.com/articles/life/low_concept/2012/06/what_kind_of_muppet_are_you_chaos_or_order_.html)

</comment><comment><USER66> A while ago I came across this great annotated archive of a Metafilter thread about emotional labor. Provides a lot of examples to make it easier to grasp the idea.

[https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0UUYL6kaNeBTDBRbkJkeUtabEk...](https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0UUYL6kaNeBTDBRbkJkeUtabEk/view?pref=2&pli=1)

</comment><comment><USER63> I feel as if the article pays nominal lip service to third-wave feminist by quoting critiques of gender essentialism but otherwise puts people in two buckets anyway.

Sure, she's only talking about her story, but it's not because it's extraordinary; rather, the implied rant is that 'tis the same for all.

</comment><comment><USER67> This is an interesting article on expectations of thoughtfulness, that are valid.

In addition to emotional labour, a person who is out-giving is dedicating a fixed amount of their limited attention to keep things in mind that could go elsewhere.

Using the example of the article, if two people living together on their own were to live on their own, they would likely be more thoughtful and aware.

Co-habiting has an strange effect, you start doing things you didn't do before, and stop doing things you used to. Some of it is based around preferences and habits - and some feel if you think something should happen badly enough (if someone always leaves the lights on), maybe you should do it.

Emotional intelligence, thoughtfulness, and pro-actively thinking of needs instead of being asked to do things is something anyone values when they are relied upon in an ongoing manner.

</comment><comment><USER68> Interesting thought. I have a friend who has a job like that. She's the executive assistant to a startup CEO. He comes up with grand, vague ideas, and she turns them into a list of 14 things that need to be done and gets them done.

</comment><comment><USER69> Tinges of things like this (along with an Italian matriarch) always made me assume women were just naturally in charge of households growing up.

Though in my household my Dad never really did the things the article mentions (it was more so me and my brother who did), so much as it was that he was often working long hours and couldn't have done a lot of the "activities management" type stuff if he'd tried.

But when he was home it was "Who left this sock in the hallway? Who didn't do dishes?"(prepare to die, he'd have murder in his eye). And he often spent his weekends doing home projects (new sink, new floor, new tile, etc.).

</comment><comment><USER70> I'm a male, but I have this traditionally female role in my relationship. While the author's relationship may or may not be disfunctional, this is a real thing. An equitable relationship balances out this contribution.

The error here is confusing equality for sameness. We should celebrate and capitalize on our different strengths, preferences, and (since I'm heterosexual) genders.

We are not - and shouldn't be - the same. But we can equally contribute to our relationships in a way that befits ourselves.

</comment><comment><USER71> > Disappointed by my unwavering desire, the day before Mother's Day he called > a single service, decided they were too expensive, and vowed to clean the > bathrooms himself.

and then...

> However, it's not as easy as telling him that. My husband, despite his good > nature and admirable intentions, still responds to criticism in a very > patriarchal way. Forcing him to see emotional labor for the work it is feels > like a personal attack on his character. If I were to point out random > emotional labor duties I carry out—reminding him of his family's birthdays, > carrying in my head the entire school handbook and dietary guidelines for > lunches, updating the calendar to include everyone's schedules, asking his > mother to babysit the kids when we go out, keeping track of what food and > household items we are running low on, tidying everyone's strewn about > belongings, the unending hell that is laundry—he would take it as me saying, > "Look at everything I'm doing that you're not. You're a bad person for > ignoring me and not pulling your weight."

When I was a kid, I remember getting frustrated one day when after I decided-- for whatever reason-- that I wanted to "trade licks" with my older, bigger brother. (I.e., I could hit his arm as hard as I could with the understanding he would then be able to do the same to me.)

I distinctly remember both my brother and father-- who were watching this-- both smiling and taking about 30 seconds to carefully (and repeatedly) explain to me exactly what would happen to my arm if I entered into this contract (plus the lack of retribution for the suffering described). Needless to say I decided not to go through with it.

That's all to say-- there is some obvious miscommunication going on here. The author wanted a gift of "cleaning plus", and the husband tells her that a "cleaning basic" quote was too expensive. That is the moment to carefully explain the "plus" part, and how the true cost is at least equal to the cost of "cleaning basic" plus hiring a life-coach for the full duration of the gift to explicitly enumerate each "cleaning plus" task as it happens.

Plus-- since these are adults-- the contingency that if the husband is still so oblivious that he's convinced he can just wing his way through "cleaning plus," to refuse that gift and instead accept something off of Amazon.

</comment><comment><USER72> Women don't believe that men does any emotional labor since we don't cry when we hold back our frustration. I mean, this is a stay at home mom spending around 10 hours a week on her passion to write earning very little money (according to her blog) and she still dares to literally cry about her husband not doing most of the household chores?

</comment><comment><USER73> When you have been married decades, for me, this article has "historical" relevance. As in our past.

I would not say it's a gender thing though

Everything became clear to us once "we were at the head of the table." when both sets of parents died.

Our greater understanding of each other gained clarity when we were parentless.

</comment><comment><USER45> I'd encourage everyone here to show this to their wives, moms, or any woman and get their feedback.

<comment><USER32> My gf thinks it's ridiculous and agrees that the author comes off as someone in need of therapy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER74> This might be part of it.

A bigger part is the political opportunism that practically guarantees that about half the population will oppose the other half, effectively neutralizing progress.

An example: If you ask anyone (of any political affiliation) if they favor more beneficial time off for birth-related activities, you will probably get a positive response. But if you accuse someone of being sexist because they vote the 'wrong' way, then you're demonizing half the country and putting them on the other side of the playing field.

The same thing happens with racism. When the word is exploited for political purposes, it dilutes the effectiveness of the term and artificially sets people opposite each other.

It's high time we define certain standards for what should be political and what should be universally agreed upon. Gender equality and racial equality should be in the latter category.

</comment><comment><USER75> Why was the title editorialized? This HN title isn't the real one. It's not even the subtitle! It's an editorialized version of the subtitle. And that's not ok.

</comment><comment><USER76> I think that I'll probably clean a bit before I forward this one to my wife.

</comment><comment><USER77> this is the demogaphics page from the Harper's Bazaar media kit

[http://www.harpersbazaarmediakit.com/hotdata/publishers/harp...](http://www.harpersbazaarmediakit.com/hotdata/publishers/harpersba2643014/advertiser/2649380/296499/BAZAAR_2015_MediaKit_MRI.pdf)

they push heavily that their target audience is affluent, college-educated women. they therefore want to run content that appeals to this demographic. the editors of this magazine believe that that demographic finds articles like this one appealing.

these are the primary advertisers purchasing spots in Harper's Bazaar

[http://www.harpersbazaarmediakit.com/hotdata/publishers/harp...](http://www.harpersbazaarmediakit.com/hotdata/publishers/harpersba2643014/advertiser/2648742/296491/BAZAAR%20Media%20Kit_2017_Prestige.pdf)

[http://www.harpersbazaarmediakit.com/hotdata/publishers/harp...](http://www.harpersbazaarmediakit.com/hotdata/publishers/harpersba2643014/advertiser/2648742/296488/BAZAAR%20Media%20Kit_2017_Fashion%20Retail.pdf)

[http://www.harpersbazaarmediakit.com/hotdata/publishers/harp...](http://www.harpersbazaarmediakit.com/hotdata/publishers/harpersba2643014/advertiser/2648742/264709/BAZAAR%20Media%20Kit_2017_Beauty%20Fragrance.pdf)

[http://www.harpersbazaarmediakit.com/hotdata/publishers/harp...](http://www.harpersbazaarmediakit.com/hotdata/publishers/harpersba2643014/advertiser/2648742/264712/BAZAAR%20Media%20Kit_2017_Jewelry%20Watch.pdf)

the products that Harper's Bazaar advertisers want to sell to their audience of affluent, college educated women is primarily very expensive luxury/prestige brand names in the high fashion industry.

\</comment><comment>--

these are a few other recent articles written by the author, Gemma Hartley

[http://www.ravishly.com/depression-dirty- secret](http://www.ravishly.com/depression-dirty-secret)

[http://www.ravishly.com/im-not-mother-when-i-travel- alone?pl...](http://www.ravishly.com/im-not-mother-when-i-travel- alone?platform=hootsuite)

[http://www.ravishly.com/why-i-wont-make-my-daughter-play- nic...](http://www.ravishly.com/why-i-wont-make-my-daughter-play- nice?platform=hootsuite)

[http://amendo.com/8-essential-podcasts-will-help-master- life...](http://amendo.com/8-essential-podcasts-will-help-master- life/#.WZSduibUUWU.twitter)

\</comment><comment>--

finally, here are several other recent articles on this topic. they are similar in tone and content.

[https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/nov/08/women- gender-r...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/nov/08/women-gender-roles- sexism-emotional-labor-feminism)

[http://jezebel.com/is-it-even-worthwhile-to-teach-men-to- val...](http://jezebel.com/is-it-even-worthwhile-to-teach-men-to-value- emotional-l-1742222786)

[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/psyched-in-san- francisco/why-w...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/psyched-in-san- francisco/why-women-are-tired-the-p_b_9619732.html)

</comment><comment><USER78> Based on its content, I'm surprised this made the #6 spot on the front page of HN, but now it seems to have disappeared altogether. I had to search to find it.

<comment><USER14> Users flagged it, presumably because HN threads have a track record of not being able to stay civil and substantive when this sort of topic is invoked.

There's also the baity title, which looks neutral on the article page because of the whopper it's paired with, but amounts to a Molotov cocktail here. Internet forums—or at least this internet forum—does not do well with gender generalizations in titles. So in accordance with the HN guidelines ("please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait"), we'll s/men/some people/.

However, the current thread is fine so far, so we'll try turning off the flags.

Edit: in response to a reasonable complaint about my 'some people' edit, I changed the title to the least baity substring of the HTML doc title. That's what I'd have used if I had seen it sooner anyhow; we always prefer to use language from the article itself, down to the word where possible.

<comment><USER79> Speaking for myself: the article, the original title, the subtitle, and the hero image are all blatant flamebait.

There are a few, small, nuggets of truth here. What I mostly see is a dysfunctional relationship, grossly mis-matched expectations, and more than a slight possiblility of some deep-seated psychological issues. Even is you see all of these points _without_ subscribing to any anti-feminist viewpoints (and I don't), it's pretty flagrantly obvious that those will appear in spades in a discussion (and have, and have, mostly, been rightfully flagged).

The third-party version of this might make for an interesting case study, and might even have carry-over to various workplace and inter-personal dynamics. As written and presented -- blame applying to the author _and_ Harper's Bazaar -- this is poisoned.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER80> I saw the headline on HN and knew right away someone had rewritten it. Too obvious guys.

</comment><comment><USER78> Long ago, I heard someone remark, "some women will marry a man, and immediately try to change him into something that he is not and never was. It never works, and they both end up frustrated and miserable."

In the ensuing decades, I've watched that scenario play out many times, with both genders in both directions. (But mostly it was the woman trying to change the man.)

</comment><comment><USER62> > It was obvious that the box was in the way, that it needed to be put back. > It would have been easy for him to just reach up and put it away, but > instead he had stepped around it, willfully ignoring it for two days. It was > up to me to tell him that he should put away something he got out in the > first place.

> "That's the point," I said, now in tears, "I don't want to have to ask."

This kind of irrational thinking ended a relationship for me.

> why don't you care about me? Why aren't you able to anticipate exactly how I > want you to behave at every moment?

> because I'm not in your head, you damn stupid b __ _

<comment><USER81> Please try to be more civil and thoughtful when you comment here and leave out parts that clearly violate the guidelines.

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER82> This type of feminism and denying gender roles exist is just making people unhappy.

</comment><comment><USER83> Edit: Personally, i find it a bit ridiculous the fact that people always find ways to blame other people for their own problems - in _this_ case, someone is THINKING too much, and that somehow is someone else's fault?

If you want help, ASK FOR HELP. Otherwise, we're being chauvinistic if we even offer. This is what society has devolved to.

Does "Emotional Labor" exist? sure. But people need to manage their own mental stress levels. friends and family should help when they can, but they shouldn't be blamed necessarily be blamed for it.

I don't want you to clean the dishes. I want you to _WANT_ to clean the dishes.

<comment><USER14> Could you please not use uppercase for emphasis? That's internet yelling, and violates the HN guidelines: [https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html).</comment></comment>


The era of easily faked, AI-generated photos is quickly emerging - rising-sky https://qz.com/1115353/new-research-from-nvidia-shows-that-the-era-of-easily-faked-ai-generated-photos-is-quickly-emerging/ <comment><AUTHOR> As the images generated by GANs keep improving, I wonder if we will see a new wave of captcha - "select the real images". Though if the image are too good then the difficulty may end up being too high.

<comment><USER2> Pretty insane to think about, especially since most people responding to captchas are really just training a model. Perhaps by now the model is pretty close to optimized as good as it can wit the current inputs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> The point is, you don't actually need a believable image in many cases. In the same way that a poor fake ID gets you in to a bar, a poorly generated low- resolution photo justifies the fake news written next to it. Just look at the history of bigfoot and UFO sightings! Now those would be mischievous to generate...</comment>


'I felt like Morse tapping his first code' – the man who invented the podcast - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2016/nov/03/christopher-lydon-podcast-inventor-open-source-mp3-files-interview <comment><USER2> >Part of the reason podcasting seems so open, says Lydon, is that, to some extent, it is more anonymous than television and less rigid than print media.

This is also my reason I like podcasting. I don't care about talking heads, but also don't usually have the time or concentration to read long articles, especially when the majority is full of fluff anyway. The last years I experienced more new ideas and views by listening to podcasts while commuting than scrolling the several news feeds full of clickbait.

>I would hate to see it become a capitalist tool.

I fear the day someone is going to "disrupt" podcasting.</comment>


Ask HN: Email Marketing - <AUTHOR>

Does anyone here has any experience with sending bulk mails to acquire new users. I believe, if targeted appropriately it offers best ROI and in very short time...
Should a startup engage in bulk mails to buildup user base or is it an abuse of the system and must be avoided (at the cost of growth)..
If yes, to what level before it is considered SPAM?
-----
PS: Assume I have a very targeted list and I am offering product/service that they are really looking for..
My question is - How many can I send before I am being labeled as a spammer by the anti-spam filters on mail server?:-)
I plan 500 mails daily.. is it too much/too little? <comment><USER2> To me as a consumer - If I haven't given _you_ my email address - then it's spam. (Even if I've left a box ticked saying that "partners can email through special offers', then I still see it as spam).

However - I'm likely not your target audience.

</comment><comment><USER3> The sort of emails I clarify as spam are selling viagra, fake watches and all sorts of pills. They're sent in mass, multiple copies per day, every day to the same email and are in no way targeted.

A targeted one off email, to a business that you honestly think will benefit from your product or services is OK, surely? If it is spam, its not quite in the same camp as the above.

<comment><AUTHOR> My question is - How many can I send before I am being labeled as a spammer :-)

I plan 500 mails daily.. is it too much/too little?

<comment><USER3> If you send a single email to each person on your list and don't email them again unless they request more information or signup to your news list, then I don't think it matters how big your list is, the only question that comes to mind is if your list is too big, it reduces the odds that its well targeted?

I guess it depends who the target market are, and how big it is. In my business id probably hand pick the companies on my list.

<comment><AUTHOR> Its not to businesses but consumers...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I almost never give in to direct email marketing (and these emails almost always get marked as spam, so lot of prospective candidates also do not recv it) - but I do trust my friends tell me to join a site, and I do. May be it works differently for diff people, but I think spreading thru a social networking platform may work better. My 2¢

</comment><comment><USER5> When you say, "My question is - How many can I send before I am being labeled as a spammer :-)"

Do you mean:

a) How many can I send before I am being labeled as a spammer _by the people who are receiving the emails_?

OR

b) How many can I send before I am being labeled as a spammer _by the anti- spam filters on mail server_?

Most responses so far are to (a), but I'm guessing you might mean (b)..?

<comment><AUTHOR> I mean (b) ;-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> where are you intending on getting your list of users to email from?

<comment><AUTHOR> I got a very targeted list of users who I know are looking for product/service I offer..

<comment><USER7> For most if not all ISPs, using a purchased email list is against the TOS. It doesn't matter how targeted it is. You have not stated that you have a purchased list, but I'm assuming it is from your wording.

You should contact your ISPs data security department(not tech support) and ask them to advise you on mail limits. Typically these are based on mails per hour. Im not suggesting you send the mails, because I think it's a bit tacky for a quality product, but they will best be able to answer your questions. Also be aware that the number of emails is not the only way you will be labeled a spammer by an ISP. The amount of email just triggers a port filter and equally or more important is the nature of your mail, the source of the addresses and the response of the people receiving it.

When I was doing data security and TOS work for an ISP, spam complaints meant us cutting your service off. People hate unsolicited email. Find another way.</comment></comment></comment>


Colorful programs for Mac OS X, Linux and Windows - <AUTHOR> http://shoooes.net/

<comment><USER2> This is really fantastic stuff, I'm a big fan of _why's work.

I really love the principle behind this: [http://whytheluckystiff.net/articles/theLittleCodersPredicam...](http://whytheluckystiff.net/articles/theLittleCodersPredicament.html)

I hope that this can help make programming as fun and accessible as it was on the C64. I grew up learning QBasic, taking for granted that I could draw some stuff to the screen and play music in a handful lines of code.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, I hadn't read that article.

For me, this is part of the magic of the Facebook platform. There would be "How do I..." posts on the platform forums, from people who clearly had no web development experience at all (and probably no programming experience in general). They made me realize that the Facebook platform, in its own way, captured some of the magic of writing a game in QBasic (or, before that, Z80/Commodore/whatever) and passing it along to your friends. All your friends use Facebook, none of you are hackers, but you make something neat on Facebook and they get to use it, and they know YOU made it... because of the intimacy, it's much more magical than just making a website or a desktop program.

Of course, it's a lot more complicated than it used to be. You can't just get a simple Basic program and start messing with it. You need to find hosting, with PHP, maybe MySQL, get the API client, figure out how to get it all working together, upload it... it's far from newbie friendly.

But still, I wouldn't be surprised if there are hundreds of kids today who first got into programming by asking the question "How do I make a Facebook app?"

I definitely agree with _why that we need more of this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Mad props to _why.

I'm a huge fan of the idea of shoes. I tried an earlier version and found it just a bit lacking in features for things I wanted to do (networking, I think). Obviously this is the idea -- everybody wants a language that is nothing but exactly the features they want/need, but all of my sample application ideas were things that were going to need some kind of networking (network tic-tac-toe), and it didn't look like I could do what I wanted with it.

The last time I talked to a kid about computer programming, I asked what they'd want to write, and they said "a game", and drilling down I came to the conclusion that what they really wanted was a level editor for an otherwise complete game engine.

Obviously this is aimed at someone subtly different, but I think it this idea extended to have some graphics/network/game oriented gimmies would be _really_ popular.

<comment><USER4> Why should a GUI toolkit have networking features?

<comment><USER5> _points to x11 and squeak smalltalk_

that's why... GUI objects that have intrinsic knowledge of networking are actually really powerful and useful.

<comment><USER6> Really?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> oh my god the docs: <http://hackety.org/press/nks.html>

it reads right to left (click on the left hand page of the spread to advance).

Brilliant zine-like design aesthetic.

<comment><USER8> I highly recommend the paper version. Very reasonably priced.

Ironically, I haven't found the time to actually read it, but I page through it now and then just to admire the thing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> You see, I was about to make a snide little "too much jazz and hip styling and not enough, well, stuff I haven't seen before" comment, but when they put the "we need 21st century BASIC" wrapper around it, it sounds nice as a toy / prototype library.

I made an attempt a few years ago at making a python library that would try to achieve the same sorts of things (more of just a wrapper around pygame, really), but never really had the motivation to keep running with it. With some extra ease-of-use wrapping around cocos2d, I think the goal would be met.

</comment><comment><USER10> I got excited when I saw this. Unfortunately, Shoes' text is not displaying right off the bat on MBP running Leopard. I like the idea and especially some of the graphic demos(good-follow).

</comment><comment><USER11> My 13 year old son have never programmed a single line of code, but spends hours watching anime on youtube. I'll try to see if I can teach him to program ruby.

       >print MCMLXVII + 41
       2008

A language that you can hack to be able to process expressions like this, must be the most pleasent langauge there is right now.

</comment><comment><USER12> It actually seems very similar to TkInter, though simpler.

<comment><USER13> The amusing thing about Shoes is that it is something that existed (with more capability) in the Tcl/Tk community 10 years ago, and it's only gotten better since then. If people wanted to develop the short of applications that Shoes enables then they could have been, and indeed, would already be.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Why doesn't _shoes_ still have a wiki page. Great work _why. Downloading the pdf now, this weekend will be awesome.

</comment><comment><USER15> Shoes is a really impressive exercise in simplicity. I've found it great for prototyping tasks.

</comment><comment><USER16> This man is pure creative genius...

</comment><comment><USER17> That looks damn neat.</comment>


I have an API that despite recent efforts still exploits the visited link bug. - <AUTHOR>

The API itself it`s very simple, you send us via the client in javascript an HTTP request containing an url and we respond with a scrambled javascript, that will determine if the user visited the link and provide you that information. Is there any market interest in such an API ?
I would be glad to build a service around this. <comment><USER2> Why would I want to do this to my visitors?

<comment><AUTHOR> To provide customized experience, such as links, ads, or the similars, just an example. It is not meant to be used for evil purposes.</comment></comment>