The dark side of open source conferences [about women being harassed] - <AUTHOR> http://lwn.net/SubscriberLink/417952/bf6a55b67170ff0e/ <comment><USER5> A few thoughts:

* This is one of the most factual, well written articles that I've encountered on the subject.

* It's just sad to see socially awkward people manifest their sexual frustration in this manner. And it's even sadder to see that the few women we have in our profession feel threatened at conferences. The overwhelming majority of good people need to intervene to interrupt any form of harassment towards anyone and above all report them to whoever appropriate.

* It's important to remember that sexual harassment is not simple unwanted attention from someone you find unattractive. magamiako deleted his comment, but he was right on the money when he said that certain actions will be interpreted as innocuous flirting if the person perpetuating it is attractive, and as harassment if their are not. It may not be PC to say this, but it's important to distinguish unpleasant, but fundamentally innocuos flirting from awkward people, from bona fide sexual harassment like groping or inappropriate touching. The latter must be eliminated from tech conferences.

* Sexism and unprofessionalism can be avoided without being prudish about the content of your presentation. This is a slide I used in one of my Italian presentations. The title reads "Eye candy is important": <http://grab.by/grabs/bd8b294c0aa850b4b577012a258979a3.png> (Actual slides here: [http://www.slideshare.net/antonio.cangiano/tu-vu-fa-lamerica...](http://www.slideshare.net/antonio.cangiano/tu-vu-fa-lamericano-startup-in-italia-e-nel-mondo-1428557)). This was just after the "CouchDB performs like a porn star" scandal, and several women at the conference complimented me for pulling it off without objectifying anyone.

<comment><USER6> "It may not be PC to say this, but it's important to distinguish unpleasant, but fundamentally innocuos flirting from awkward people, from bona fide sexual harassment like groping or inappropriate touching."

Sexual harassment includes the comments like the "how much for a sexual favor?" example. That constitutes bona fide harassment.

Here's my example from the last 2 years. I'm blanking on the conference now, but there was a live IRC session running on the overhead, and each time a question was asked by a woman, IRC would be filled with lude and aggressively sexual remarks. It was totally uncomfortable! I think this situation qualifies as bona fide sexual harassment.

Touching or groping someone in a sexual manner is assault (at least it can be in the US.) It's so far beyond mere harassment that it's not the point of the article...

EDIT: for clarity...

<comment><USER7> Are you perhaps thinking of Ian Bicking's "Topics of Interest" talk [0] from PyCon 2009? It definitely veered into the uncomfortable, but there was some reasonable handling of the situation during the talk, IIRC, and was definitely a catalyst in the PSF adopting a formal diversity statement [1] and trying to be encourage inclusivity in the community.

[0]: <http://us.pycon.org/2009/conference/schedule/event/76/>

[1]: <http://www.python.org/community/diversity/>

<comment><USER6> Yeah, that's the talk I was thinking about.

UPDATE - after watching it again, they handled it pretty well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Ah, yes.

I remember once casually joking at a get together, _Someone needs to tell ESR that he's not God's gift to women._ When everyone was done laughing, it turned out that both women present at the table had actually been propositioned by ESR. (And had turned him down.)

A small minority of men cause the vast majority of the problem. Unfortunately it doesn't take many to create a real problem.

<comment><USER9> _A small minority of men cause the vast majority of the problem. Unfortunately it doesn't take many to create a real problem._

This seems like the most important point. Moreover, it's critical that all men who see and hear of such things work to stomp them out. If individuals don't have the social skills on how to woo, it's a topic for personal discussion. Dating isn't hard if basic respect is the first item to be debugged.

It makes me think of pg's nerd essay and with having just found the fantastic TV show _Freaks and Geeks_. Sexual socialization ripens when we're most vulnerable. If those hurts are carried into adulthood by otherwise successful people, we need to work as a community to help our friends and colleagues along.

EDIT: For a more positive final note.

<comment><USER10> here a copy of an email I sent after reading that article. It's not only guys hitting girl, it can take may other forms. The problem is, being mostly outcasts, we lean to tolerate untolerable behaviour.

\--

Following an HN link, I read your article today on LWN <http://lwn.net/SubscriberLink/417952/bf6a55b67170ff0e/> and it rang a bell. There's an event I remember from a conference in LSM around 2002 IIRC in Bordeaux, France where I was part of the org team and giving a couple of conferences. It is way more social than most other conferences I attended at that time - in fact, it's now the only conference I keep attending. Everyone is housed on university dorms, the conferences are given in a university, and many social events occur during the conference.

There's a big "dinner night" which I can only compare to the dinners in Harry Potter - long lines of tables, everyone seated to eat but also demoing some technical stuff time to time.

Anyway, that year the dinner was preceded by a cocktail. We were all enjoying french wine and appetizers, when a guy grabbed a bottle from the table next to which we were standing and started running around with the bottle in his hands. I thought this was a playful way to show its running skills, and back then since I enjoyed running too, I started running after him, caught him and started laughting. When I asked him as a prize for my win, with a smile and in a non threatening way, to share the bottle with the rest of us, he suddently turned weird. There was 2 or 3 people around, and he started telling about us about growing in Illinois, having had bullet wounds, knowing how to defend himself, and finally threatening violence.

It was so weird. I didn't know what to do at that time. I let it slip over as the actions of some socially awkward guy. Now if something similar was ever to happen again, after reading your paper I would act very differently - including clearly stating that he should apologize, that such behaviour is not acceptable, and if he thought he could get away with it, as part of the organisation team I would do my best to have him expelled from the conference at once - not the next morning, but right now. And if that could not be made to work with the rest of the team, I would call the police and them deal with him.

It did strike me as odd, because I've been attending that conference since the beginning, 10 years ago, and never noticed something like that again. I went to the OSCON, Linux World and various others I can't remember ATM, in north and south america, but this is the only example I have.

Yet I'm sure the guy had the potential to scare away many other guests. I am forwarding this message to the organizers , along with a link to your original article to make sure a policy get enacted against unacceptable behaviour by guests.

<comment><USER11> You realise that your actions, as described, can be construed as rather creepy and that maybe _you_ should have apologised?

<comment><USER10> (Some details I forgot to say: the cocktail was in big garden. it was summer time. people where waiting around a table to have their glasses refilled)

Please enlighten me.

I have 2 scenarios - either he stole or he was playing tag. If he played tag, threatening is wrong.

If he stole, what exactly should I have apologised for ? \- letting him steal from an open bar ? \- letting him run away with what he stole ? \- daring to catch up with him ? \- smiling to him ? \- asking him to fill the empty glasses of the people around him with the full bottle he stole ?

For god sake, he was no hobo but a kernel hacker invited to a conference!

I believed it was a dare - like playing tag. Maybe he did believe otherwise - but why exactly would you take a full bottle from an open bar and run around laughting?? But when confronted I repeat _in a non threatening way_ , why try to escalate instead of going back to normal mode and sharing with the folks having empty glasses around?

I mean it's an open bar. You are not paying per drink, but that's not a reason to grab a bottle and run away or like come with a big back and fill it up as in a supermarket.

That's rude. Following up with threats of violence now crosses my line of "non acceptable behaviour".

<comment><USER12> How did you "catch" him? If you grabbed onto him a certain way it could have been a trigger for PTSD behavior from a similar thing someone did to him in a fight or something.

I encountered a person with very similar behavior at a party once. There was a bunch of horsing around in a mosh pit sort of thing and this other guy grabbed onto him from behind. He flips the other guy over his back and slams him onto the floor so hard the other guy's ankle literally breaks in two.

Be careful with doing things that may potentially be seen as aggressive to other people, your story could have turned out worse.

For the record, the guy with the broken ankle wasn't angry about it, and there's now a pretty cool photo of the broken ankle on the Internet (I mean it literally got broken in two - his foot was fully separated with the bones sticking out). I talked to the PTSD guy about it later. He was defensive and wanted to kick my ass at first, then he also told me about the rough things that happened to him, and then we shared some drinks. He was on ok guy otherwise.

In your case I'm not sure trying to get the guy kicked out would have been the right thing to do. It would have probably escalated a situation that he didn't intend on creating and wasn't consciously responsible for. Handling it so that the guy would have calmed down instead of threatening people would have been better for maintaining decorum and for helping the guy get over his PTSD.

<comment><USER10> Honestly I can't remember about how. I think I might have tapped twice on his shoulder but I'm not sure. Anyway it was during the following conversation that it happened - when I asked to share the wine and that I remember quite well.

The situation you describe looks like an honest mistake to me - being grabbed from behind is weird. I wouldn't blame him for reacting and hurting the grabber while he was simply slamming him onto the flow. Bad things happen.

But later on, the guy is still threatening you? To me, the honnest mistake apology is gone. PSTD my *ss - he's abusive. I wasn't there and can't say for sure but to me that's totally different.

<comment><USER12> Oh no, he was doing it totally indirectly - like, sizing me up while being defensive. I guess that's not being threatening, but only after the interaction I realized that he was really preparing a plan for how to kick my ass in case I did anything wrong, until I calmed him down. It was also pretty appropriate for the setting.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The gender imbalance at open source conferences means that the small proportion of men throughout society that harass women have a much smaller pool of targets to choose from.

The result - while open-source conferences might have the same amount of harassment per male attendee as any other conference, the percentage of female attendees affected by it is much higher.

This creates dramatically different perceptions. As a male, I haven't seen any more sexual harassment at tech conferences than I have at academic conferences on Russian history, so it doesn't feel like there's much of a problem. But from the female perspective, the situation looks like an epidemic.

I have no solution to this unfortunate situation. Perhaps open source conferences should ban alcohol, so everyone can stay properly inhibited. This hardly seems fair to those of us who enjoy having a beer and can do it without molesting others, but a minor inconvenience to the majority is usually acceptable when it prevents a devastating experience for a minority.

<comment><USER14> Or perhaps instead of banning beer they should adopt non-harassment policies which are enforced and make sure that they respond to complaints swiftly?

Beer doesn't make people creeps... Their personalities do.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> The thing that shocks me is that people seem to describe so many of these incidents, yet they just seem to have passed by with little fallout. At least none was described in the article.

In most circles of independent minded, proactive people (like those in the OSS scene) that I have moved in, such blatant acts of sexual assault would lead to a massive commotion, probably violence. How can you walk up behind a stranger in a public place full of your peers, grab them on the ass and proposition them for sex without getting something broken over your head, or at the very least being shouted and screamed at?

Sounds like people need to be more willing to stand up for themselves and their friends, to more clearly establish group norms of what is and isnt acceptable.

Articles like this are very depressing to me as a young idealistic developer who sees the open source world as a progressive and egalitarian model for how to live our lives.

<comment><USER16> "without getting something broken over your head"

What is the point of getting into a potentially life-threatening situation just to teach a jerk a lesson?

As for less drastic responses, I agree that the best way to enlighten people would probably be when caught in the act. It seems unlikely that "photograph upskirt guy" is reading this article and just now it dawns on him "maybe I shouldn't have been doing that".

<comment><USER15> I'm not advocating breaking things over peoples heads. I'm saying that I'm shocked that the heads of said upskirt photographers havent been used to break anything yet.

It shows a level of restraint that is certainly morally commendable, whether it has benefitted the community long term I am not so sure.

> What is the point of getting into a potentially life-threatening situation > just to teach a jerk a lesson?

What is the point of getting into a potentially life-threatening situation just to be on the other side of a street? Your question is tautological.

<comment><USER16> Cracking a bottle over someones head could escalate (and land you in jail anyway).

<comment><USER17> I know I'm at the risk of taking an offhand turn of phrase too literally here, but just in case anyone is ever tempted to break a bottle over someone's head like they do in the movies: don't. Glass bottles are surprisingly strong, and breaking one over a slightly springy surface like someone's head requires a very forceful blow which could cause serious injuries. And that's before we get to the broken-glass-going-everywhere problem.

If you _do_ ever need to deal appropriately with some pervert taking upskirt photos, I recommend putting him in a headlock and getting a couple of other guys to help you wrestle him to the ground, where they can hold him down while you lecture him on the subject of good manners and appropriate behaviour.

<comment><USER18> Breaking glass bottles over heads mostly happens in old westerns and that sort of thing. Is it possible glass bottles of the time were more fragile?

In other news, I love the image of a cordial lecture on good manners and being polite to women directed towards a guy in a headlock on the ground beneath me. Hopefully I'll have the guts to do it if needed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I couldn't get over how powerful the message was when presented in clear technical language. By articulating the problem in a simple factual manner and offering specific concrete solutions, some of which are already under way, she makes it impossible to dismiss her concerns.

The medium is the message I suppose.

I wonder if this style, applied to this issue, is powerful only for technical people, or it it would be equally compelling to other groups.

<comment><USER20> I found this SO much more helpful than other essays and blog posts on harassment I have seen lately (and I've been looking around a lot). I think we can relate to this better because we share some mental and social structures with the writer. Its a lot easier to relate to her though patterns, and the suggestions seem both desirable and realistic.

I doubt other groups would find this so compelling, because a lot of intelligent, engaged, perceptive people have been writing about this for a long time and I've never seen something like this from a non-technical writer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> What annoys me is that the article talks about a "problem of a sexualized environment", but the [post](<http://blog.nerdchic.net/archives/418/>) that is being refered to describes things like this:

> I lay across the bed, sat on laps, generally tried to squish in to any > available space and get time to talk to all the fabulous people thronging > the place. [...] I had a few drinks. I was wearing a skirt of such a length > that I had cycling shorts on under it to make me feel more comfortable > getting up on stage and dancing. I had been flirting with a couple of other > boys at the party.

Way to be professional...

<comment><USER22> Your comment blames the victim. Don't do this.

Whether it's a professional networking event or a fun, crazy, not-so- professional party, no one should be treated in this manner. No matter her (or his) behavior or the atmosphere. Period. Also, she mentioned "sitting on laps" because there was no room in the party, and people have a right to flirt without being, uh, sexually molested.

Finally, the linked article cites this as _one_ example. There are many others, like when the author

 _organized a group outing to a pub, only to have one of the invited workshop attendees grab my ass while I was having a completely normal conversation._

(EDIT) sp332 points out that GP is discussing the environment at these events, but we're operating in shades of gray here.

The author talks about how the attitude towards women at these events is "institutionalized sexism." That is, people hired strippers etc. for years, and that attitude still exists at conferences/events. Noira could've been out- of-bounds by sitting in someone's lap, but we don't have any information on whether she knows the person, has a relationship with them, etc.

Still, GP's comment implies that Noira's behavior fosters the "sexualized environment" the author is complaining about. My point is that there's a big leap from Noira's flirting to women being groped. (/edit)

<comment><USER20> Hang on, GP is addressing a different issue, not the groping. The article complains that "sexualized environments" are bad, but Noirin sought out - <USER2> actively participated in - a sexualized environment and had no problem with it (the groping was a separate thing). Obviously there is a distinction to be made, but it's not clear what the distinction is...

<comment><USER9> A party isn't a "sexualized environment". An orgy is. Let's be perfectly clear that there's a huge difference between the two. People go to parties for all sorts of reasons.

Look guys, women flirt to signal interest. You can never assume anything more than that is intended. It's not fair to them and you'll look foolish (or worse) if you go too fast.

<comment><USER23> In that case, the author of the article is also wrong. There are no public sex acts, so open source conferences are similarly not sexualized environments.

<comment><USER22> A party isn't a sexualized environment unless there's some overtly-sexual influence. Similarly, open-source conferences are completely tame until the organizers hire strippers. And strippers are as "sexualized" as it gets (well, except for orgies or prostitutes).

<comment><USER24> Strippers are of course ridiculous to have at a conference. I can't even begin to imagine how anyone could think that it's a good idea.

However, read the proposed policy: [http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/index.php?title=Conference_ant...](http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/index.php?title=Conference_anti- harassment_policy)

> We do not tolerate harassment of conference participants in any form. Sexual > language and imagery is not appropriate for any conference venue, including > talks. Conference participants violating these rules may be sanctioned or > expelled from the conference [without a refund] at the discretion of the > conference organizers.

Sexual language is forbidden. I think we can agree that this too, is ridiculous.

<comment><USER25> I agree it sounds ridiculous, but now I am having a hard time thinking of an appropriate example of sexual language at a tech conference. These rules set clearly defined boundaries that even the most tactless, socially inept people can understand and abide by.

<comment><USER24> A joke perhaps? It is ridiculous also because the punishment is far too severe.

<comment><USER25> A sexual joke would be appropriate? Not IMO.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> This happens in a lot of organizations.

One that I think is most relevant is CUSID( Canadian University Society for Intercollegiate Debate )

It was very much an organization which had a problem with women feeling pushed out, harassed, and uncomfortable. The result of that was that very few women were getting involved or staying involved.

In 2001 they decided to do something about it. They had a long discussion, and implemented a very strict policy about offensive conduct. You can see it here [http://www.cusid.ca/documents/official-documents/cusid- code-...](http://www.cusid.ca/documents/official-documents/cusid-code-of- conduct-by-law/)

The TL;DR; of it, is that every tournament is obligated to have an approachable "Equity Officer" as well as an anonymous way of submitting "Equity" complaints. These are comments on things that made someone uncomfortable, feel offended, or feel harassed. The equity officer then takes action, at their discretion, usually informing the offender that what they did was not cool, with no tangible punishment. Sometimes ignoring the complaint. Or in rare cases, taking drastic action against an individual.

Having been at the receiving end of two complaints, they take this policy very seriously. There is a very vocal group that believes that the policy is harmful, because it is too restrictive. There is another group that feels it is necessary and should get stronger. It is a political debate, and the two groups keep each other in check, at the current level.

The IMPORTANT result. In 2001, very few women were involved, particularly in upper levels of the community. This year, female involvement has risen to the point that fully half of the 32 finalists in the BP Nationals held two weeks ago, were female.

There are still issues, and a new discussion is being had on refinements to the policy. The point is that confronting the problem head on, did a lot of good. Particularly the point of having a formal way to complain and have the offensive parties made aware of the inappropriateness of their actions, and hold them accountable.

</comment><comment><USER27> I've [only] been to three tech conferences. The only "sexism" I observed was excessive delight: "Oh wow, a woman!" which I hardly consider harassing. No one meant disrespect; rather the opposite. Possibly offensive is the notion that it would be a surprise to find me there at all. I might say something similar to a man at a needlepoint conference.

Yes, I got sexual attention, but only in a social context, and nothing inappropriate. I've also gotten "Let's be friends!" attention from people, including other women. In other words, we are there to meet people who share our interests, on a social as well as professional level.

<comment><USER28> > The only "sexism" I observed was excessive delight: "Oh wow, a woman!" which > I hardly consider harassing.

FWIW some people would consider that unwelcoming/harassing--I think the term is "othering". i.e. what's treated as important is not the person or their skill but their gender.

And, yes, it can be annoying for guy in a "traditionally female" domain as well.

<comment><USER29> And this is where harder-core feminism can devolve into "everything men do is wrong". Notice that a woman is a woman and you're patronizing/harassing/"othering". Treat her as one of the guys and you're being deliberately exclusive and maintaining a boys club.

<comment><USER28> What you present is a false dichotomy.

Have you considered treating people as people?

See someone (whatever the gender) at a tech conference? Talk to them about tech. Simple.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I'm sure this will sound sexist as well, but the chivalrous guys far outnumber the jerks. If someone crosses the line, by all means call the cops but also consider making an immediate and loud protest, and you might get help from an ad hoc group of temporary big (or little) brothers. A black eye and split lip might be the quickest way to teach some of these guys the right way to act.

<comment><USER31> While emotionally appealing, the problem with that type of "chivalry" is that you may get to enjoy the sights and sounds of your local county jail. Unless there's a couple of very helpful witnesses to the catalyst behavior, you're going to get slapped with an assault charge, moreso if it was verbal sexual harassment you started a fight over, or just so the original assailant can save face regarding the situation.

I'm not advising that you never come to someone's aid, but be careful before you commit a misdemeanor crime based on someone's claim, especially when alcohol may be involved.

<comment><USER30> True. The black eye and split lip idea was wishful thinking. Perhaps a number of people showing up and glaring at the bully, or at least getting between him and the victim, would suffice.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I think this is a good article and a great reminder to us all about the underside to the world. I do want to say, though, that the 'men' (and they are only described as such due to their gender) in this story are a very small minority that you would find in any group of people.

I'm not so naive to say that sexism doesn't exist in our industry, because it clearly does, but I would say that the vast majority of people would neither encourage or stand for any sort of sexism, whether overt or not.

I think it is tempting to create a link between the stereotypical 'geek' - <USER3> is a guy that lives in his mom's basement and never meets women - and the sort of overt sexism and abuse as described in this article, but that is dangerous. That stereotype no longer exists, if it ever did, and there will always be men, from whatever industry or walk of life, who view women as objects and not equals. We need to work on this attitude in every walk of life, not just in the tech world.

<comment><USER33> Indeed. In fact that stereotypical geek has, I think, never been the one to pull of these sorts of overt sexual advances (so the link is/was an unfair one).

But because the industry is so female light a (relatively speaking) large proportion of the women in it _have_ been propositioned or assaulted by the more forward members of the group.

<comment><USER28> > In fact that stereotypical geek has, I think, never been the one to pull of > these sorts of overt sexual advances (so the link is/was an unfair one).

But if the people at these conferences aren't "stereotypical geeks" then who are they?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Wow, I'm truly shocked. I mean, it's 2010. Apparently there are minority of people how can't behave and ruin the reputation of the whole community.

> Later someone was caught taking up-skirt photos of my friend's partner.

Would be interesting to know if he was kicked out of the conference, and whether the harassment cases were reported to authorities / organizers.

<comment><USER35> Yeah I had the same reaction. Someone doing that should be reported to the police.That's just plain wrong.

<comment><USER20> (not rhetorical or trolling) What will the police do to help?

<comment><USER36> Hold him, have a talk with him, let him go. This usually shakes people up and is completely legal

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> While I'm pleased to see this article on HN, is it appropriate to use a "subscriber link" in a public forum like HN?

<comment><USER37> Yes, that is exactly the purpose of LWN's subscriber links. It lets subscribers share content with non-subscribers in a "controlled" manner, which I guess means LWN can track usage and so on. I think it's awesome; thanks for sharing, rythie.

See their FAQ: <http://lwn.net/op/FAQ.lwn#slinks>.

<comment><USER28> I guess I should have RTFF. :)

"Where is it appropriate to post a subscriber link? Almost anywhere. Private mail, messages to project mailing lists, and weblog entries are all appropriate. As long as people do not use subscriber links as a way to defeat our attempts to gain subscribers, we are happy to see them shared."

Thanks for pointing that out.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> There is an interesting part to some of those stories... kind of captured in some of those paragraphs. For example "If I go to CES in Vegas I go with the understanding that porn is part of the business of that conference". Many gamers' expos would have naked girls with game logos painted over them if they could get away with that.

Also, have you lately been to a students' club? In some places (and not even of the lowest quality) kissing and proposing sex to people you barely know is pretty much a normal behaviour. (this happens from both genders)

Now you have lots of people coming out of that environment and expect them to figure out by themselves that this is a different environment? Of course there will be someone who doesn't quite get it.

It also doesn't help when in some environments women are ok with as much attention as they can get. I've seen a couple of IRC channels of open-source projects where there's a regular female user appearing there. Strictly no- offtopic channels suddenly switch to 2h "what's new in your life in any details you want" discussions between her and 10 random guys that includes innuendos every once in a while. Again - do you expect those people to figure out themselves that it's not the same environment?

I really don't think this is a problem "of open source conferences". It might be something that manifests there more often than in other places.

</comment><comment><USER39> That reminds me, what happened with the Florian Leibert scandal? Any word from him since the event?

<comment><USER40> What happened is that she called the Atlanta police, who found no cause to charge him. End of story.

<comment><USER28> [Citation needed.]

<comment><USER40> <http://blog.nerdchic.net/archives/418/>

<comment><USER41> Yes, it says she went to the police. Where does it say the police didn't care?

<comment><USER40> I didn't say the police didn't care, I said they didn't file charges. The difference is instructive.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> As a general rule: Don't shit where you eat. Some of the incident she describe are legit sexual harassment and others are a male trying to pick up a lady. Don't do that ever where you work or have important business to attend[your technique maybe lacking].

I Genuinely think this is not really a Geek problem. There is statistically large number of people with sexual deviation. For instance, it is estimated that between 3-9% of the population are Pedophiles[1]. At a conference with about 100 people there maybe 3 persons there with a sexual deviation. But it only takes one of those guys to approach all the women in the conference and spoil the whole thing for all of us.

My suggestion is if ever you were to encounter a situation of sexual assault report it immediately to the police[not the conference organizer]. I don't want that guy who hits ladies on the bum to be walking around freely in society. He would not be operating at Conferences alone.

As a side note to how important it's to report these things:"nonincestuous pedophiles who molest boys had committed an average of 282 offenses against 150 victims"[1]. As I said previously, just one deviant can crash the party for a whole lot of people.

[1][http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedophilia#Prevalence_and_child...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedophilia#Prevalence_and_child_molestation)

<comment><USER43> None of the incidents described carry any hint of sexual deviancy. The worst of them are "just" cases of someone making unwanted sexual advances - <USER4> (way) too quick to go beyond flirting and too slow to back off.

This _can_ be due to a lack of respect for women in general, but also due to a mix of social ineptness and sheer desparation. And you can't tell me the latter is not statistically more likely to occur in geeks.

<comment><USER42> I think the my first paragraph pointed that out that there are two types of things happening here. One guys aren't aware that they over steps some bounds.

But putting your hand down a females underwear and hitting someone's bum unexpectedly. Normal people don't do that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> An interesting question would be if those men which did the wrong thing were regulars to these conferences or new to the scene? From similar things I have been to I just couldn't imagine a community in which the core regulars would have anyone doing these kinds of things.

<comment><USER41> I'm Mackenzie in the article. The guy who made the comment about why someone else was agreeing with me...he wasn't new. I don't know about the guy who grabbed/kissed me.

Going a little broader in the tech field... I know of some people in the hacking/security community who are...well, when you're new to the scene, you're warned about them. I can only think of one guy I was warned about, but he's well known. I can think of two others I was told new guys to the scene (particularly if fairly young) should be warned about, and those two are around-since-phreaking-days levels of established and well known. Being icky doesn't mean ostracism.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> >Cat says, "If I think an event organizer turns a blind eye to questionable behavior I'll pass on the event."

I'm surprised that conference organisers would ignore sexual assault particularly with the bad press it must bring - assuming that these women are reporting the sexual assaults (someone fondling your genitals against your express will is pretty clearly sexual assault IMO).

But then if the women assaulted choose not to report such things to the police (I think the onus lies with them as opposed to any witnesses) how can the conference organisers act? They can't assume an uncharged person is guilty, can they?

</comment><comment><USER46> I've always been saddened by some of the vitriol that has come up on hacker news when talking about women. But this seems like a pleasant conversation.

</comment><comment><USER47> My personal experience is that tech conferences tend to encourage cliquish and hierarchal (based on popularity and tech-sphere influence) behavior which feels dehumanizing.

I think there is a common thread with my observation to sexual harassment at conferences. When people relate to each other on a human (rather than hierarchal level), people tend to respect each other more.

 _edit_

Women also bring greater social cohesion to groups.

[http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/09/100930143339.ht...](http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/09/100930143339.htm?sms_ss=facebook&at_xt=4ca65e219f93ce34,0)

The fact that women are sexually harassed could be solved by having more women at conferences.

</comment><comment><USER48> I get tired of women complaining about sexism in the startup/tech field.

Yes, ladies, you will be hit on a lot at a conference filled with mostly guys. You are an attractive minority. Now, to the point:

\--- There is no excuse for physical assault. I can even _almost_ excuse a guy going in for a peck, but grab-ass and worse are not cool. If you're going to proposition a girl, do it with your wits and your words, not a firm, open palmed slap on the behind.

On behalf of all young, healthy, mate-seeking males, I apologize for the few who make us all out to be classless jerks.

\--- Of course, it can be argued that you shouldn't be looking to hook up at a FOSS conference, but really... when ISN'T a single guy looking for a woman with similar interests (inside and outside the bedroom)? This isn't a 'geek' problem, it's a 'human' problem.

<comment><USER49> It's interesting that you agree with the points, but put your tiredness down to the complaints of the affected women. Of the things on offer, that's an odd thing to put your frustration down to. I think it would be better to be tired of the guys who act like jerks and ruin things for everyone else.

<comment><USER48> I was commenting as much on the recent deluge of 'sexism in tech is rampant' threads on HN as I was commenting on the article. I was emphasizing that even as someone now jaded by such complaints, I find this to be a valid article.

I also comment on how inappropriate groping a woman is; I would consider my entire 3rd and 4th lines to be expressing frustration at immature male actions.

I consider all sides of an argument, and for that, I will not apologize.

<comment><USER49> In your original post you said it was a human problem. Among social animals, humans are unusually effective at avoiding being pushed around by selfish males, probably due to communication.

So I think it's good to talk about it. If more people recognise the problem then they're more likely to intervene next time they see it happen, and to marginalise troublemakers. They're good outcomes.

<comment><USER50> _probably due to communication_

This is key at all times, not just in a post hoc analysis. If a guy and girl are flirting and one takes it too far some of the responsibility does fall on the other to immediately let them know. When this communication is ignored is when there is a problem.

For example, I was out with friends one time at a club and was talking/flirting with a couple different girls. At one point in the night one girl simply grabbed my crotch. She was obviously intoxicated, but once I told her that wasn't very cool she apologized and went on her way. We had been flirting for most of the night, but any girl who does that and wants to hook up the first night I meet them isn't a girl I want to hang out with.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> A lot of complaints about sexism in FLOSS conference mainly refer to sexual references, or (semi-)pornography. If you want to have a professional conference, then yes you should have a 'no sex' policy.

However, are women really that anti-sex?

<comment><USER28> In short, no.

You might be interested in reading: <http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Sex_is_beautiful>

Also, don't assume that it's only women who object to sexual content in technical contexts.

<comment><USER51> I read that article. It seems quite biased against the 'sex is beautiful' idea.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> I guess the 180-degree alternative to "women being harrassed" is the the Drupal community, in which a small, but very vocal, women run around and use 'women being harrassed' as a sledgehammer to intimidate and enforce their own standards of values/behavior on anyone and everyone.

No one seems to mourn that kind of harassment. Until they do, I remain suspect when I read titles like this. Based on experience I believe that as often as not someone just needs to call the wahmbulance and/or quit using their gender as a weapon of control.

I will add as a side note, and I have no idea if it pertains to this particular article or not, but many (even most) of the women I have seen complaining about 'being harassed' in the Drupal community are openly lesbian. I could care less about someone's personal sexual choices in the bedroom, but it does raise more questions about what is going on with many of these 'harassment' complaints, at least in my mind. There is something dishonest to me about those who have sworn their life to not-include men, also simultaneously want to tell all the men exactly how they are _allowed_ to act/speak/think.

UPDATE: For the record I _do_ acknowledge the very real possibly/problem of actual harassment. I do not wish my comments to diminish the seriousness of those cases. Just sharing my experience of seeing 'harassment' complaints being weaponized, and calling for some balance/sanity.

<comment><USER53> Wait, so, because they're lesbians (so you say) it's not possible for them to be sexually harassed by men? I don't follow your train of thought.

<comment><USER52> It's about any women (lesbians and non-lesbians alike) not actually being harassed, but rather just running around trying to enforce their own agenda on the world. My bottom line is this - if I say something to someone and did not mean any offense/harassment, did not consider it to be offensive/harassing - and someone else still wants to cry about it, then f-*ck them.

I guess in the particular case of the particular lesbians I mentioned above - they seem to be looking/seeking to find something, anything, that they can hold up as harassment and persecute the shit out of someone. That's bullying in my book plain and simple.

UPDATE: Maybe I'm ascribing too many personal motivations for their behavior - all I can say that many/most of loudest voices in the Drupal community regarding all things 'harassement' are lesbians. At the very least they have a hair trigger response and get set-off by comments that their straight counterparts do not.

<comment><USER54> I've dealt with my share of reverse-chauvinism-disguised-as-feminism, so I know where you're coming from, but consider what you just said:

"if I say something to someone and did not mean any offense/harassment, did not consider it to be offensive/harassing - and someone else still wants to cry about it, then f-*ck them"

You are the only one who gets to decide whether your actions are considered offensive? Really?

I bet that the conference organizer who hired strippers didn't consider it offensive, nor the presenters who show slides of bikini babes "to get everyone's attention". That doesn't make those actions not offensive.

<comment><USER52> Yes, actually - we all, at some point, get to be the final arbiters of deciding whether what what we said was offensive or not. (which I suppose also means that everyone else gets to decided to the final arbiter of whether they're offended or not - a right some have proven time again that they're not giving up)

So again - I guess my bottom line is, if I didn't mean to offend a person, and they want to get offended and make a big damn deal out of it - they can go right ahead. I'm not changing what I do just to keep up with the most offended person in the room. :-)

<comment><USER55> I'd like to give you a mantra that I try my best to live by. "Judge others by their intentions and yourself by your actions". That is to say that other people can and will interpret your actions in ways other than how you intended.

<comment><USER52> I do actually live by that myself, but there's also people who just can't give anyone a break ever and want others to defer, defer, defer to their whining and complaining. I allow myself to draw a line too. For every time there is a season. :)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Comparing Git Workflows - <AUTHOR> https://www.atlassian.com/git/tutorials/comparing-workflows <comment><USER2> One of the things I hate about the traditional git workflows describe there is that there is no squashing and the history is basically unusable. We have developers where I work that use our repo as a backup, then when things are merged to master, the history is littered with utter garbage commits like the following: "commit this before I get on the plane" "whoops, make this compile" "WTF?"

These add no benefit to history, and actually provide an impediment to bisecting (since a lot of these intermediate revisions will not even compile).

At my previous job, we used gerrit. The nice thing about gerrit from my perspective is that it kind of "hid" all of the intermediary stages in the gerrit review. So you could push all you wanted to your gerrit review fake- branch thing, and when you finally pushed to master, there would just be a nice, clean atomic change for your feature. If you needed more detailed history of the steps during review, it was there in gerrit. But master was clean, and bisectable.

Is there any git other git tool or workflow which both allows people to back things up to the central git repo AND which allows squashing changes down to meaningful bits, AND which does not loose the history of review iterations?

<comment><USER3> > the history is littered with utter garbage commits like the following: > "commit this before I get on the plane" "whoops, make this compile" "WTF?"

You have a problem with commits here, not the lack of squashing. A messy history is only messy if you make it so.

> These add no benefit to history, and actually provide an impediment to > bisecting (since a lot of these intermediate revisions will not even > compile).

This is also a problem---every commit should compile, even if only for precisely the reason of bisecting.

Squashing commits is avoiding the problem; instead, perhaps educate the others on proper practices for committing, and enforce those practices.

<comment><USER4> _> \--every commit should compile,_

No, that advice is wrong and not relevant to a git _private_ branch. That _strict & disciplined_ attitude about commits was relevant for older centralized source control tools with lock/checkout/checkin/unlock such as CVS and SVN. In that previous scenario, your colleagues depended on the shared repo to properly compile and therefore, you shouldn't "break the build" and derail the team.

 _> educate the others on proper practices for committing, _

On a private branch, people should commit _whenever they want_ on any whim of a reason. This will result in many commits that don't compile/build. That's ok. That's what the later step of "squash" into "logical" commits is for.

To repeat a previous comment about it:

The confusion is that the same "git commit" command is used for 2 very different semantic purposes:

(1) git commit -m "fixed bug #23984" \--> as Logical-Unit-Work and worthy of bisect

(2) git commit -m "wip" \--> as meaningless backup/savepoint like Ctrl+S save

The type (2) was for the programmer's internal purposes of safety backups, cleaning up whitespace, typos in comments, reflexive muscle memory of saving often, etc. Type (2) commits can have deliberate broken syntax and they're not meant to be built or be bisected.

Type (2) commits should never be discouraged because saving work often (including broken midstream work) is a good habit but from an outsiders perspective of the reviewers upstream, they are way too noisy. The spurious commits could be less than 30 seconds apart with no compile/build step in between.

 _> Squashing commits is avoiding the problem_

I hope it's now clear that "squashing" is the _correct tool_ for Type 2 commits.

<comment><USER5> But if I commit on a whim, e.g. before jumping on the plane, how can I then patch to separate some changes in two commits?

<comment> jon-wood I'll often use WIP commits at the end of the day, or when context switching to something else, then when I'm ready to carry on I reset back to the previous commit and it's like nothing happened.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This article has actually been around for a while. Explains it really great. But one advice from me is that try to choose only what is sufficient to your project and team. No benefit in being overequipped for a simple job.

<comment><USER7> This, over complicating the git workflow will make people not using it. In my experience the feature branch works for 80% of the projects, gitflow works for bit projects and I guess (no experience there) that the forking will work for open source projects or HUGE code bases.

<comment><USER8> even reasonably large open source projects don't need anything beyond feature branches and one long-lived master branch.

and if you're going to back port to historical releases and hotfix and or patch them, its better to fork off master and then cherry-pick back, and then eventually end those branches.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> You can also evolve, basically, to each model in the order that they appear in the article.

As an example: I've been working on a new spike for the past 2 weeks with one other developer. Maybe 10 times a day we'll need something that the other person has committed, so we work against one branch (master). The workflow suits this extremely rapid iteration.

One repo has now matured to the point where developer branches make sense. We created "develop" on it as well as our own branches off that. We're not close to a v0.1 yet - but we'll be evolving to git flow the minute we want to ship.

Eventually as more devs join, we'll need the full-blown PR workflow, that also naturally stems from its predecessor.

There's a "meta-workflow" here, which implies which workflow to use.

<comment><USER10> developer branches never make sense

<comment><USER9> Excluding the possibility of a laptop getting lost or stolen.

<comment><USER11> git is not [necessarily] a backup.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> It amazes me how the entire software industry seems to be adapting its workflows around the necessity of making Git usable. While there are certainly other positive attributes about some of these workflows, the main reason people use them in my experience is because "if you don't use workflow X you get undesirable problem Y with Git". Most of these problems simply didn't exist or were not nearly as severe with previous revision control systems, so we never needed these elaborate workflows. Now suddenly Git is considered a defacto tool, and downstream effects of using it are transforming the entire software development process.

<comment><USER13> "Most of these problems simply didn't exist or were not nearly as severe with previous revision control systems"

Are you kidding? :)

CVS, Subversion, Perforce, and some propriety revisioning systems were HUGE PITA. People used to lock files, so noone else could change them when they were working with them. Merging different feature branches was like locking whole repository with huge lock, so noone else could touch anything at the time.

Any time I had to work with legacy revisioning systems I wanted to kill myself. Git workflows are conventions to help improve small issues with staff that wasn't even possible befor (before Distributed VCS). And a lot of these problems are superficial ("oh those merge commit are annoying in `git log`").

It reminds me: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFsOUbZ0Lr0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFsOUbZ0Lr0)

<comment><USER14> In Subversion you'd need to explicitly lock the file, it doesn't _require_ it. Merge the is also not as bad as you're describing. I actually had more headaches with merges in Git than in Subversion.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> The article completely mischaracterizes Subversion workflows, making the mistake of treating a Subversion repo just like developers typically use git repos ... one-repo-per-project.

Subversion instead is a tree with projects as nodes toward the leaves, each project with its own trunk, branch, tags. It's each of these projects that corresponds to a git repo. Teams I worked on always treated each project as its own "repo" ... so the central single Subversion tree became like our 'github' or 'bitbucket' ... and one could do all the lockless branching within each project, no problem. YOU COULD BE AS NON-LINEAR IN THIS APPROACH AS YOU NEED TO BE, with full support for branching, tagging, merging, etc.

Where Subversion was much better was in supporting consolidated views of multi-project build / release environments, or in mixing sub-project code in parent-project code. Using svn:external it was each to put "that subproject in this place in my own project". Using git submodules and other approaches is a pain. You end up having to check out a bunch of git repos and managing your own glue.

</comment><comment><USER16> It'd be nice to see someone collate more git workflows, and what the advantages and disadvantages of these are.

Over time, my workflow has become simpler and simpler. I've worked with some weird and wacky workflows before, which have been born from a given requirement, such as quick deployment to a number of different environments, or two separate teams working on separate parts of one codebase while maintaining separate CI workflows. Some of these workflows have seemed absolutely mental, but I've seen them several times over in different places, so there must be some kind of logic to the madness.

Different dev teams have wildly different practices, so it'd be good to acknowledge the "typical" way of doing things, and embracing the workflows that work if you need to do something out of the ordinary.

</comment><comment><USER17> Kudos to atlassian for bringing some much needed clarity to a confusing topic. So many people that claim mastery of git only know particular workflows and, when attempting to mentor others, just mansplain whatever they know without consideration that there are alternative valid ways of doing things.

Without a firm grasp of one's intent(workflow) learning git commands is pointless and leads to people desperately flailing out commands.

</comment><comment><USER18> I think the ideal workflow depends on the complexity you need. I've tried to write about what kind of requirements cause what kind of workflow in [http://docs.gitlab.com/ee/workflow/gitlab_flow.html](http://docs.gitlab.com/ee/workflow/gitlab_flow.html)

What do you think?

</comment><comment><USER19> Or you could actually practice _continuous integration_ and let everyone work on master.

Much simpler, opens the door for feature toggles, continuous delivery and more without any merge headaches.

</comment><comment><USER20> Those are general development models and not specific to git.

</comment><comment><USER21> Was this updated recently? This has been up for awhile.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, the article has been up for a while

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> What was the workflow in mind when Git was designed?</comment>


The Nature of Thomas Edison's Genius - <AUTHOR> https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/10/28/the-real-nature-of-thomas-edisons-genius <comment><USER2> Edison is more of a solution modifier than a solution finder.</comment>


Seed investment via wepay donation page  - <AUTHOR>

Our startup believes we can crowd fund our seed investment... help us proof we aren't stupid! (and we also wanted to test the new wepay.com features): https://www.wepay.com/donate/192908 <comment><USER2> cool idea! just to be clear though, this is a no-strings-attached donation and not an investment correct? due to SEC rules, we can't permit securities transactions through our service. :)

<comment><AUTHOR> correct! This is a simple donation not an investment opportunity.</comment></comment>


Embrace and Evangelize Zen Coding - <AUTHOR> https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/embrace-evangelize-zen-coding-karthik-sirasanagandla/ <comment><AUTHOR> The issues cited in this post is something that I get to witness even today..</comment>


Ask HN: What is your AWS backup strategy?  - <AUTHOR>

The latest AWS outages made it apparent that we need some backup strategy for AWS services. So how is your AWS backup strategy? Do you maintain a different stack on a different hoster? Is there a way to boot Amazon Machine Images somewhere else? <comment><USER2> Generally you should always make sure to have backup plans but sometimes it's not worth it. Do you really need to maintain a backup strategy which requires a lot of resources for less than 12 hours of downtime per year ?

<comment><USER3> Perhaps there is a strategy that doesn't require a lot of resources. If there is, I'd be interested to hear about it. Something akin to whipping up a linode box with a pre-made script.

<comment><AUTHOR> +1 Too bad this didn't made it to the front page.</comment></comment></comment>


The Worst C.E.O.'s of 2011 - <AUTHOR> http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2011/12/27/the-worst-c-e-o-s-of-2011/

<comment><USER2> What about Leo Apotheker (HP), Carol Bartz (Yahoo), and Jim Balsillie/Michael Lazaridis (RIM)? I would take Reed Hastings over all of them any day.

<comment><USER3> Don't forget Stephen Elop. Although the full extent of the damage will only become obvious on 2012, it's fairly certain he doomed Nokia.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Reed Hastings' inclusion in the list is surprising, but the exclusion of Aptheker is shocking. That man didn't just destroy shareholder value, he jeopardized HP's consumer business. Other leaders who probably deserved a spot in the list are Ariana Huffington and Carol Bartz.

</comment><comment><USER5> I wonder if I should stream Netflix on my Blackberry while taking Tylenol?</comment>


Dojo 1.2 and Django 1.0 on Google App Engine 1.1.3 - <AUTHOR> http://adamfisk.wordpress.com/2008/09/17/dojo-12-and-django-10-on-google-app-engine-113/

<comment><USER2> Cool!

But I still that in order for Google App engine to hit critical mass it needs to add support for Ruby on Rails and PHP.

<comment><USER3> It would certainly help, no question. I'm sure they'll support it soon. Django's honestly tough to beat, though, and GAE's tools for updating your app and viewing your logs and traffic are pretty sweet.

Google's mostly a Java and Python shop, so I'd guess they'll support Java before RoR and PHP.</comment></comment>


A Curious Course on Coroutines and Concurrency (2009) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://dabeaz.com/coroutines/Coroutines.pdf <comment><USER2> An oldie but goodie. Beazley did a follow-up to this at PyCon 2014, a 3-hour tutorial on generators. Very much worth a watch! It's called "Generators: The Final Frontier".

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-qadlG7tWo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-qadlG7tWo)

<comment> vive-la-liberte Don't think I've seen a talk that long held at any conference before.

<comment><USER3> Pycon tutorials are held before the main conference at an extra charge for topics that are better suited to be taught over a longer period of time than will fit in a regular 30-45 minute talk session.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Nice course, but only if your platform supports the underlying concepts.

For instance, does Python still have the Global Interpreter Lock (GIL) issue? It is the reason Python was (at least once) unsuited for concurrent programming.

It was still better than NodeJS which has no intra-process threading; and generators (coroutines) are also not fully supported (no yielding allowed within functions called from a generator).

<comment> qu4z-2 As a non-Python user (well, I've dabbled)... Is the GIL an issue for concurrency as well as parallelism? I would've thought that for things like coroutines the GIL wouldn't be a problem, but I could be wrong.

<comment><USER5> >but I could be wrong

You aren't. Concurrency is a code-design/code-meaning issue. It has nothing to do with runtime execution. For example nice concurrency primitives lets you avoid callback hell.</comment></comment></comment>


EFF on Apple's iPhone Developer Program Agreement - <AUTHOR> http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2010/03/iphone-developer-program-license-agreement-all

<comment><USER2> I'm not trying to be snarky, but has the EFF given the same treatment to the PS3 and Nintendo Wii agreements? Xbox 360?

Also, there is a bit of showmanship on the EFF's part here by going the FOIA route. You have to be able to read the contract before agreeing to it. Anyone (legally) can walk down the path of signing up for the developer account, and then bail when they get to the developer agreement. The reason that "public copies are scarce" is that anyone can go to Apple's website and go through the signup process and decide for themselves if the agreement is to their liking or not.

<comment><USER3> I'm only trying to be a little snarky, but if Apple had limited themselves to producing a hand-held gaming console, I suspect folks would be a little less upset. There's a moral difference between locking down a purely entertainment gadget and one that's intended to store and manage most or all of my personal information.

And yes, to the extent that consoles are moving out of the "purely entertainment" category, their SDK restrictions are becoming equally troublesome. I think a good argument can be made that this is one of the reasons they're having trouble getting beyond the gaming market, in fact.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> developers live and die by the app store, they won't ever affect anything. nerds yell really loud but they are comparatively a very small bunch.

what's going to positively affect change is android eating apple's lunch. charging 30% for in-app purchases and restricting content is going to seem completely out of line when a better majority of people have phones that are wide open and are doing some super cool stuff because google just doesn't care.

time will tell, but only when the public realizes what they're missing out on and starts to yell about it will things swing back in the developers' favor

<comment><USER5> _developers live and die by the app store, they won't ever affect anything. nerds yell really loud but they are comparatively a very small bunch._

Those petty FSF nerds started free software in the 80's and well, we still have it.

I compile native ARM binaries for the latest Android mobile platform with gcc — a compiler that was first released sometime in the latter half of 1980. Ironically, Apple uses gcc themselves, but they're keen on locking more and more stuff.

I bet a lot that in 2030's nobody remembers iPhone or any of the iPhone applications. You possibly can't even run them in an emulator if you wished as is the case with 80's and 90's games.

It may be really loud yelling from a minority but it's a philanthropic minority that doesn't think in terms of coming years but coming decades. Paul Graham wrote so aptly in some of his essays that nerds sense restrictions on the essential hacking freedoms the same way as animals sense an earthquake or a tsunami. (Or something like that.)

<comment><USER6> People were writing free software long before the FSF existed.

<comment><USER5> I've understood that basically before FSF was founded, there was no need for "free software" as software was generally considered a side-product by computer manufacturers. IIRC it wasn't until early 80's when companies started routinely charging for and licensing software, thus propelling the founding of a counter-movement such as FSF.

RMS and folks just wanted the old way back. Please correct me if I'm wrong on details, I'd very much like to know better.

<comment><USER7> Not exactly.

Prior to the 1980s, most computing was on highly proprietary mainframes. The industry was dominated by IBM. Consumers (companies, not individuals) could not _own_ their software. It was all licensed product by IBM and the big vendors. Many vendors did not sell, but instead licensed, their machines, as well. It was very closed, and innovation cost the inventor dearly, and made the vendor a fortune.

The 1980s saw the maturation of the mid-size market, the revolution of the new PC world, an opening up of the hardware and software world, and a hugely exploding new user base. The entire paradigm for the computer market changed. Note, though, the tendency of vendors (ahem, Apple) to return to this world.

Anyone who wants the old days has not been studying history.

<comment><USER5> Thanks for contributing. One more question:

I've understood that those who bought the early mainframes still did get the sources and were allowed to modify and recompile stuff — possibly at their own risk but anyway. That I believe is what FSF wanted back when software started coming up in closed form. Was it like that?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Dear EFF, "If you've got a better way to make ice..."

If you have a way to design, produce and maintain a device and platform that is as interesting and compelling to both developers and customers as what Apple has done, and you can do it without any restrictions on what third-party developers do with it, by all means, go for it.

The "smartphone" and similar devices have been around for at least a decade. Apple didn't come up with some magic chip or something to suddenly make them viable, it is their system that is the difference.

Is there a cost to developers? Certainly, but nothing stops you from writing code for more than one platform and if you think you have a killer app but need more freedom than Apple allows, release it somewhere else.

I think what most people miss is that there is a relationship between the control Apple exhibits and the quality of their results; if you don't believe this is true then there are other options for you out there.

I'm tired of hearing about how Apple is "abusing" developers, unlike shared global resources like the Internet and clean air, there's nothing compulsory about using or coding for the iPhone.

<comment><USER9> The EFF is about electronic freedom. The iPhone takes away the freedom of users and developers. They are merely enumerating how that happens, so that developers who are unaware of the strict contract they signed understand what freedom they gave away just to put an app in the app store.

 _I'm tired of hearing about how Apple is "abusing" developers, unlike shared global resources like the Internet and clean air, there's nothing compulsory about using or coding for the iPhone._

Because people really care what you're tired of hearing. (I'm tired of hearing about what you're tired of hearing about. And you're probably tired of hearing that I'm tired of hearing what you're tired of hearing about. Do you see where this leads?)

Anyway, that's not what this article is about; it's just a list of strange conditions that you agreed to when you signed up for the iPhone SDK. You can only sue Apple for $50, you can't talk about the SDK, you can never exercise your legal right to reverse-engineer any Apple product ever again, etc. Pretty strange, and not something a reasonable person would expect to find in this sort of agreement. That is all the article is saying.

<comment><USER10>
      The EFF is about electronic freedom

Maybe they should do something about GPL then. I find it limiting my freedom.

<comment><USER9> The ability to take away other people's freedom is not freedom.

<comment><USER11> The GPL takes away other people's freedom.

<comment><USER9> If you consider taking away other people's freedom to be a freedom, which we already decided we don't.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> _In short, no competition among app stores means no competition for the license terms that apply to iPhone developers._

What is impacting developers is the lack of competition between the iPhone and other mobile devices. Apple's app store is winning because iPhone is winning. This will not always be the case.

<comment> loup-vaillant Why do you assume that a phone should have no more than one app store?

<comment> loup-vaillant OK, someone here apparently thinks that having 2 or more app stores for a smart-phone is obviously silly.

A smart-phone is a computer. A damn _computer_. Would you want to have only one app store for your desktop? Like, you have to get Microsoft's seal of approval before you can publish any program at all? Would you like to be unable to run Open Office? GNU/Linux?

The "only one app store" thing is good old "Trusted Computing" (I should say "treacherous", by the way). Now, anyone, please prove me that the _size_ of a computer is significant enough to warrant lock-down in some cases, and not in others.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> If I were to agree to such draconian terms there would have to be a _huge_ incentive. This is not the case: [http://www.stromcode.com/2009/05/24/the- incredible-app-store...](http://www.stromcode.com/2009/05/24/the-incredible- app-store-hype/)

Entering such an unfavorable contract for mere hope of raking 20 bucks a day? Count me out.

<comment><USER11> 1) Don't underprice your app.

2) It's a plate, not an IV - you still have to make something people want to eat, and then convince them to eat it.

This guy has 20 apps floating around the store... how much analysis and marketing can he really be doing? Then he justifies this by saying it might only take him from "$20 to $30" a day. If you are a company, it is your job to experiment with acquiring customers and determining the ROI on marketing.

The AppStore just attracts a lot of armchair entrepreneurs. Some of them hit gold, some didn't. I'm tired of hearing about all of them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Yeah, but the lists spring back when you hit the end! And there is no ugly battery door!

<comment><USER14> I know you're being sarcastic but the springiness of the iPhone controls is one thing I miss when using any Android device. If nothing else it let's you know all your input is being recognized, which is very important. But yes, I'd much rather have an open device without a restrictive dev contract than springy scrolling.

<comment><USER15> I am sure the android devs would love to implement that, but there were a few patents in the way...

<comment><USER11> I understand that everyone is on a tirade against software patents right now, and a patent on a springy list control would seem pretty silly.

Buuuuut... honestly, the UI guys at Apple actually invented that, and its awesome. Maybe the REST OF THE MARKET could maybe bring something to the table? I'm almost to the point of being with Jobs on this one: Apple made a solely multi-touch UI work, and now that everyone wants one it doesn't seem fair to allow competitors to just Do What Apple Did and be successful.

<comment><USER15> Tell that to Wil Shipley. Oh I forgot, he can't afford to patent and have lawyers to protect the patent, so it's all right. [http://techcrunch.com/2010/01/27/think-ibooks-looks- familiar...](http://techcrunch.com/2010/01/27/think-ibooks-looks-familiar- youre-not-the-only-one/)

<comment><USER16> You can't patent a look. Or copyright it. Or trademark it.

<comment><USER15> I believe the original Apple vs. Microsoft patent spat was for 'Look & Feel' as is part of the current 'Apple vs. Nokia' and 'Apple vs. HTC' patent duels. However my point was that Apple definitely builds on the ideas of others, oftentimes pretty blatantly. So no moral high ground there. What the legal system enables and what is 'right' are two different things.

<comment><USER16> "Look & Feel" suit was a copyright suit. At least in theory. It established that you can't copyright "Look & Feel", like I said.

 _What the legal system enables and what is 'right' are two different things._

You were wrongly conflating the two.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> _Section 14 states that, no matter what, Apple will never be liable to any developer for more than $50 in damages._

I dislike what Apple is doing with the app store as much as the next guy, but to be fair don't most contracts try to include some clause limiting liability like this, that in reality is almost never enforceable? Is this really so strange? (Honest question, so would love some real answers.)

<comment><USER18> Deal with PayPal or read the agreements from Microsoft and no - you will not find it unique to Apple.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> What's funny is how anyone is surprised. This isn't some new manifestation of Apple -- it's the Apple Computer I grew up resenting through the first 10 years of my career. Prior to OS X, Apple was always about being closed, proprietary, and all-controlling. That they ever ventured away from that must have been viewed by their leadership as a 'necessary evil', to be done for only a limited period.

This agreement, which I rejected and thus did not become an iPhony developer, is not at all a surprise. It's as warm and familiar as Apple pie. I'll have cake, instead.</comment>


Using Mind Mapping Data To Drive Your Software Application - <AUTHOR> http://evolvingworker.com/2008/2/28/using-mind-mapping-data-to-drive-your-software-application

<comment><USER2> This reminds me of an in-house parser of graphing software files that we use to populate physical route information for warehouse control systems. We also used certain naming and icon conventions to express particular semantics that the parser would then convert to the base physical routing maps for a routing engine.</comment>


Apple backs down: Macs will stay EPEAT certified - <AUTHOR> http://gigaom.com/apple/apple-backs-down-all-macs-will-stay-epeat-certified/

<comment><AUTHOR> Om writes, "Not all Macs Apple currently makes have EPEAT certification, including the latest MacBook Pro with Retina display introduced last month."

This is contradicted by HN comments on the Apple announcement itself: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4240841>

Other than background that HN is mostly familiar with, I think the only thing Om adds is that Mansfield is retiring from his position at some point in the near future.</comment>


Steering Behaviors for Autonomous Characters (1999) - <AUTHOR> http://www.red3d.com/cwr/papers/1999/gdc99steer.html

<comment><USER2> Here's another great paper on long range / short range steering: [http://ijssst.info/Vol-05/No-1&2/TOMLINSON.pdf](http://ijssst.info/Vol-05/No-1&2/TOMLINSON.pdf).

The paper has excellent illustrations and it really helped me gain intuition for how pathfinding/steering algorithms can come together as a whole.</comment>


Boeing 747s still get critical updates via floppy disks - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2020/8/11/21363122/boeing-747s-floppy-disc-updates-critical-software <comment><USER2> Discussion from a few days ago:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24109565](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24109565)</comment>


Ask HN: Where did you learn about security/attacks? - <AUTHOR>

I have noticed quite a few HN users are well versed in security and various attacks (recently mentioned is the "cleaning lady" attack by cperciva (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=895411)). I consider myself well versed in basic web attacks (SQL injection, CSRF, etc.), but I would love to learn more about the algorithms themselves and I'm wondering where you guys/gals learned about encryption algorithms in general and the various attacks on them.  Same thing with the general security issues (like the one discovered by dfranke on hacking arc).<p>Are there any resources you could recommend to those (like me) who want to learn more? <comment><USER2> Ross Anderson's _Security Engineering_ is an excellent introductory book. Highly readable, and broad but not very deep. The first edition is free online (and is still a perfectly resource; the second edition has a few added chapters):

<http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/book.html>

</comment><comment><USER3> Pentesting/security analysis has been my hobby in high school/early college and I ended up getting BS and MS degrees in CS, with concentration in security. It's also my day job.

It's unclear what exactly you want to concentrate on. Do you want to learn about encryption algorithm details and want to understand the design decisions behind them or do you just want to effectively use them? Do you want to learn about proper architecture and general principles?

edit: feel free to contact me if you have any specific questions, I'll try my best to weigh in on specific issues.

<comment><AUTHOR> Certainly more the former, but I think that the latter will come as a natural result. I would love to learn both the algorithm details/design as you mentioned and at the same time, some of the attacks available on them (my assumption here is of course that there are a set number of attacks that people would try on a new algorithm; it's entirely possible that is not the case :) ).

<comment><USER3> Well, I don't know if it's that clear. Knowing the math behind differential analysis or the reasons behind the values of AES s-boxes won't make you any better at assessing the standing of a web service or a daemon.

If it's not too technical, try finding some articles in phrack(.org) magazine. They usually outline the details of attacks and will let you see what vulnerabilities attackers take advantage of. If you want to stay technical, I'd look for exploits online and try to understand how they work. If you start at the defensive end, it might not be exactly clear why some counter-measures are in place and might be more dry than playing with something you can actually break.

Get a very old Linux install, disable ASLR, PaX, W^R and anything that might stand in your way and create write your first buffer overflow attack. Then try a a heap exploit. Then move on to more interesting things. Try to follow security conferences and the papers presented there. Attend security-related meet ups in your area. Idle in irc channels, etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Metasploit is an open-source penetration / auditing framework written in ruby. I also liked this book: [http://www.amazon.com/Hacking-Art-Exploitation-Jon- Erickson/...](http://www.amazon.com/Hacking-Art-Exploitation-Jon- Erickson/dp/1593270070)</comment>


Don't Use REST for Your Micro-Services - <AUTHOR> https://blog.moodio.co.uk/dont-use-rest-for-microservices/ <comment> chupa-chups IMHO if you deem REST to expensive for your microservice, your microservice shouldn't be a microservice.

A microservice should be a self-contained, understandable and on-its-own usable component.

For example, a service which resolves zip codes to cities is a microservice by this definition.

Another example: a service which generates PDFs from URLs by rendering them in a browser like chrome-headless.

Another example: a service which gathers statistics from a git repository.

A microservice, from my POV, is _not_ :

\- something you use in tight loops

\- something which provides only an abstract value, like for example a aggregation of min/max/avg/median values of a list

\- something which either doesn't deliver a value of non-trivial complexity nor is useful to the general public on its own

In other words, if the choice of protocol (in this case REST) matters in terms of speed, you shouldn't talk about a microservice but more of a component. This may be a component communicating using TCP, or whatever protocol you choose. But I'd call something like that not a microservice, but a _component_. In most languages you'd use a "library", a "jar" or something of this scale.

Terminology matters (at least to me in this regard :) )

<comment><AUTHOR> I think the issue is the definition of a microservice isn't really set, while those are good candidates for microservices, you can even design them for core functionalities, such as for example in some challenger banks, i've seen the architecture of one or two who would have a service for different functionalities,such as one for card transactions, one for dealing with the account balances, etc.

But in my experience atleast, one of the biggest issues with microservices is the speed impact. Even a difference of 100ms on a consumer facing application can be an issue. 200ms is a noticable delay, and if something is 1 second slower users will actually get pretty frustrated. As for speed, the difference in speed can be massive, and JSON serialization/deserialization (the way it is commonly implemented atleast) is very compute heavy especially if it relies on reflection. So the speed difference can sometimes be 5-10x and in microservices is a bigger concern then network latency. When you're dealing with larger dataset this becomes even more obvious.

Using gRPC for example, instead of JSON, the difference can be a couple of hundred milliseconds, which changes the conversation entirely on whether or not splitting it into a microservice is worth while and if the end user will notice the impact.

<comment> chupa-chups I agree, but gRPC has its own set of issues.

It all boils down to the boring, but real dilemma of finding the least bad solution ;-)

See also: [https://www.google.com/search?rls=en&q=cap%27n+proto+vs+grpc...](https://www.google.com/search?rls=en&q=cap%27n+proto+vs+grpc&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8)</comment></comment></comment>


A New Side Project - Send2Cloud - <AUTHOR> http://jeffjia.github.com/Send2Cloud/

<comment><USER2> I would recommend that you rethink/refactor your authentication choices.

From a usability perspective it is kind of a pain to be required to login with two separate accounts to use a service.

I recommend that instead of using google accounts at all, you just use the oauth authentication api from DropBox: [https://www.dropbox.com/developers/start/authentication#pyth...](https://www.dropbox.com/developers/start/authentication#python)

You should be able to achieve the same thing you're doing now with google+dropbox with just dropbox.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, jakedahn. I really appreciate your suggestion. I would try only using Dropbox for authentication in the next version.</comment></comment>


Trying to work in Haiku, the BeOS successor - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/07/ars-spends-too-much-time-trying-to-work-in-haiku-the-beos-successor/ <comment><USER2> Another garbage article brought to you by Ars Technica. People seem to have this habit of complaining about projects that are gratis, have few developers and little to no funding. People should be grateful that these projects exist or work at all. All of these drive-by hit pieces are getting really pathetic and Ars Technica is not the only "tech news" tabloid doing this.

I personally support the work of the Haiku project and have not had as many issues as the writer of this article. Maybe if so many sites were not bloated with garbage, the web browser would not have fallen over. Sites should have a fallback mode in case of situations where js is not turned on or the browser is not HTML5 compliant. As for the email client falling over, I think there is more at play than the author is letting on.

<comment><USER3> Another (occasional) Haiku user and supporter here. This article isn't even a review of the OS, it's just a web-browser grumbling session. In any OS I hardly ever use the browser for work-related tasks.

<comment><USER4> What job field are you in? I think I've been in web development too long, because this is not my experience.

<comment><USER3> I'm the CEO of the family firm. Formerly I was the CFO. I'm not involved in IT despite my history and prior experience.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I found the article bit disappointing. Basically the author focused almost exclusively on the failings of the browser. Of course I suppose that reflects on authors profession (being a writer for a web publication), but I would have hoped to see attempt at bit more diverse tasks.

<comment><USER6> >Of course I suppose that reflects on authors profession (being a writer for a web publication)

Far too much of this navel gazing when reviewing products from the tech press these days. Like the iPad being championed as a work device just because you can write up a blog post and a tweet on it and a complete disregard for any profession that isn't accomplished only via tweets and blog posts.

Hilarious a tech blog site being held up as a basic challenge for a web browser. IIRC the early WebKit team had extensive hacks and work arounds to make sure the abysmal code of major sites like this and newspapers actually rendered "correctly".

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I have a very fond memory of BeOS, I had a BeBox way back in the second half of the nineties. It was my first multi-processor (now "multicore") system and I've never looked back since. The system, the philosophy, and the OS were ahead of their time by leaps and bounds. That said, at the time it was a solution in search of a problem.

I've been trying out Haiku for several years. I have to say that it brings back very fond memories and is astoundingly feature-complete, but the limitations of its architecture is beginning to show: the system has no in- built notion of security and lacks even the most basic primitives for such purposes insofar as it isn't multi-user and has no notion of access privileges. The architecture is POSIX-complete but without users it is surprisingly limited.

Of course there is no real chance of extending the architecture to 64 bits or of porting it to non-x86 architectures.

Haiku is a great effort, but it's a requiem for what BeOS could have been.

EDIT: it seems that there is a 64-bit version I was unaware of.

</comment><comment><USER7> Based on what I've seen from the Haiku OS website and mailing lists, I believe the first beta of Haiku R1 is due to be released relatively soon (in the next 6 months, at the latest). Seems a shame this article had to be written before then, but I suppose at least a few more people might be made aware of its existence.

The main thing that was holding back the next release was the infrastructure around the package manager, but most of the development hurdles with this seem to be sorted. There's some ongoing work to build packages before the beta release, but I can't see that taking the rest of the year.

<comment><USER8> Honestly, not having a steady semiannual or annual release cadence—even if each release is a small increment over the last—has probably held Haiku back more than anything else.

Many people don't want to even try nightly builds, so they try the last many- yeas-old release, see issues many of which are already fixed, and write it off.

Were I them, I'd only block a new release on the ability to do manual and automatic updates from the UI. From there everything else is gravy.

<comment><USER7> Releases are a double edged sword though. Regular releases can drive more interest, but that also means more time spent answering queries and a faster accumulation of technical debt.

By iterating on ideas away from user demands, you can more quickly make progress with less concern about breaking changes. However, this period is only really useful whilst the fundamental parts of the software are getting implemented. Some would argue that package management is a fundamental part of an OS, others would not.

In other words, I'd expect that you'll see more regular releases after the first beta is out.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Basically my experience as well. I check it out every couple of years for nostalgia sake. It really is fairly feature complete for a BeOS clone. The problem is (besides the lack of a modern web browser for it) is that what was amazing about BeOS 20+ years ago is pretty much what is expected by any OS these days.

<comment><USER10> Except the part where you could run the whole OS, and a browser, off a 1.44mb floppy.

<comment><USER11> If that matters to you, Menuet OS[1] will still run off a floppy.

The bigger problem, these days, is finding a floppy drive that still works, and a floppy disk. I had to install MS DOS 6.22 on two computers about two years ago, and finding three floppy disks for the installation media was rather challenging. ;-)

[1] [http://menuetos.net/download.htm](http://menuetos.net/download.htm)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I too used Be-os in the late 90's. Our application was a stand alone internet browsing device. Lots of potential in the OS that was never realized, maybe if Apple had bought it over Next.

Today, I don't think we need another under-developed desktop OS; if anything, pouring more resources into Linux to get something that's actually competitive with MacOS and Windows instead of just semi-competitive would be a better use of time. Alas, after 20 years of waiting, I feel like that's unlikely to happen either.

<comment><USER13> JL Gassee took the risk of asking the high price, Apple refused... we know the rest.

Rewatching late 90s BeOs demos made me really emotional. The actual performance, the mindset, the aesthetics so much was right. Felt better than my latest linux on a 2007 dual core.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I remember porting gcc 3 and GDB to BeOS. Reading this article, it doesn't look like the 32 bit version ever progressed past that :)

<comment><USER15> AFAIK the problem lies with GCC breaking the ABI. Haiku tries to solve the issue by building the userspace APIs with multiple GCC versions to preserve the ABI for older apps. I do not think this is a good idea in long term though since you need to keep older GCC versions around to provide backwards compatibility _and_ make sure your C++ code compiles with all GCC versions from 2 to whatever is the latest one.

A better solution would be for GCC to provide means for working with binaries and libraries produced with older versions of the C++ compiler, ideally including 2.

Perhaps a more realistic solution would be to create "proxy" libraries for the previous GCC versions that all they do is to redirect the calls to the latest version.

<comment><USER16> OpenBeOS started just after Be folded. Binary compatibility was a priority, and remained so for a long time. I think especially still having an office suite (Gobe Production) was important, but it is my impression that this concern has faded.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I used BeOS back in the day too. Doesn't look like Haiku is making much headway. Are there any alternate operating systems that are?

<comment><USER18> I'm not sure about headway, but the last ReactOS release took me from "blue screens constantly, unusable" to "actually able to run the Windows apps I make". It's possible I could actually get some work done and compile my software using it.

Problem is, when I actually _need_ to get work done, it's easier to just use Windows 10.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I did love my Bebox as it was the first multi core I've owned. The LEDs were amazing. Sadly it didn't have a brighter future.

<comment><USER3> Do you still have it? My dual-603e is still in working condition, but I preferred the colour scheme of the original dual-603.</comment></comment>


Uber goes into reverse as first day stock price disappoints - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/may/10/uber-goes-into-reverse-as-first-day-stock-price-disappoints <comment><USER2> It's going to be a wild ride. While (*most) people seem to like using Uber, headlines about how the unit economics don't work, how drivers can't make a living, how their working conditions aren't tenable keep popping up. How does Uber intend to address this?

In addition, I have questions about the service's ability to grow significant multipliers. It really feels like they've reached the majority of their markets three years ago, and have been tweaking things since. Why would you invest in this? Is there a clear value proposition for future growth?

<comment><USER3> The whole thing is bizarre, who is buying these stocks?

<comment><USER4> not the index funds, unlike what the sibling comments are suggesting.

IPOs aren't even added to the indexes until it's been some months since their IPO.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> So I'm kinda dumb when it comes to the stock market. Can someone explain how this happens?

Who buys stock at $45 and then the very next day sells it under that?

<comment><USER6> > Who buys stock at $45 and then the very next day sells it under that?

Data-based traders (including bots) who dont suffer from the sunk cost fallacy.

Also, who says the people selling were IPO buyers? Other people (including some that would not be impacted by insider windows) had stock before the IPO but had less ability to trade it when it wasn't public.

<comment><USER5> Ah interesting. I didn't think anyone who owned stock before IPO could sell it that soon.

Yeah I could see myself bailing out if I had knowledge of what Uber was like from the inside.

<comment><USER7> They can't. There's a 90 day lockup period

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This can't be a surprise to anyone. Given Lyfts performance, after it's IPO, the fact that UBER is not profitable and really doesn't have a near term plan to be. The stock will continue to struggle.

They could follow the Amazon model to profits, get big enough to dominate the niche, but they at least need a profit engine, that would give them cash flow. It would let the company grow without having to continuously have to raise money and keep the stock price stable.

Look for the company to continuously raise money or to reduce service. None is good for the stock's future price.

<comment><USER9> Can Uber count on being the incumbent the way Amazon did? Amazon built up physical logistics infrastructure and a subscription service that serve as a barrier to entry for competitors. Uber's only real market foothold is a network of drivers, the turnover rate of which is high. To most users, ride shares are a commodity. Savvy user's already check available services prior to booking.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Facebook's IPO was also off to a rather rough start[1], so I am not putting much stock into what happens in a single day.

I have not purchased or plan to purchase any Uber stock, I just think it's important to have perspective on this event.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Initial_public_offering_of_Fac...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Initial_public_offering_of_Facebook#Subsequent_days)

<comment><USER11> As was Google's.</comment></comment>


Stripe Push Notifications - <AUTHOR> http://blog.alexmaccaw.com/stripe-push

<comment><USER2> Very cool.

I get email notifications so this doesn't help me much.

I really wish there were iPhone/Android apps for Stripe. It could be as simple as receiving push notifications, looking up customers and issuing refunds. Doesn't need anything else.

<comment><USER3> There is Pay Pad by Billy Coover (<https://www.pay-pad.com/alerts>), which offers an iOS dashboard and push notifications.

<comment><USER2> Thanks. Call me old fashioned but I don't feel comfortable giving a 3rd party access to my Stripe account.

1) Is it open source? or

2) Does Stripe have an API which grants read only access?

Either of those would make it worth checking out for me.

<comment><USER4> In regards to #2: It's possible for people to create Connect applications that are read-only:

<https://stripe.com/docs/connect/reference> see the `scope` under request parameters.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Anyone have a linux version? I'd love this.

</comment><comment><USER6> Awesome! I really appreciate this development. We've just recently switched over to stripe.

Also going to check out pay-pad.

</comment><comment><USER7> Can't copy and paste into the password field... sad panda :(

</comment><comment><USER8> Somewhat off-topic, but that Kudos thingy is pretty cool.

<comment><USER9> I think it's a pretty bad paradigm; I did it by accident and there was no way to undo it just to see what it was.

<comment><USER2> That's a horrible UI. I just tried it...since when does a mouse over indicate an "action"?

Oh well, I like Stripe so it's not entirely wasted.

<comment><USER10> Not everything has to be an overthought, standard UI element. It adds a bit of Fun, and is harmless in its consequences.

It would be nice to be able to undo though.

<comment><USER2> This is the worst kind of UI element of all. It's both overthought and not standard.

It's different. I don't understand how it's fun or useful.

Different strokes for different folks, I guess.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>