Google patents safety system that glues pedestrians to cars - <AUTHOR> http://www.gizmag.com/google-patent-glue-pedestrians-cars-accident/43438/ <comment><USER2> The patent application seems dubious.

Under WIPO guidelines "the invention must be disclosed in an application in a manner sufficiently clear and complete to enable it to be replicated by a person with an ordinary level of skill in the relevant technical field."

The European Patent Office has a similar rule requiring that it can be "reproducible without undue burden".

USPTO says that "the specification must be in clear, full, concise, and exact terms to enable any person skilled in the art or science to which the invention pertains to make and use the same."

But as the article says, Google don't actually know what to make the adhesive out of. The patent defines the properties it must have, but presumably no such adhesive exists or they'd know what to make it out of. So, the patent application seems invalid to me.

The article also says "of course like many patents, the technology might never materialize," which is entirely at odds with the purpose of patents. One shouldn't, per the rules, be able to get a patent until the technology _has_ materialized.

<comment><USER3> > Google don't actually know what to make the adhesive out of. The patent > defines the properties it must have, but presumably no such adhesive exists > or they'd know what to make it out of. So, the patent application seems > invalid to me.

Yeah, it sounds more like an RFP than a patent app.

Why hasn't anyone patented near light speed transportation yet?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Vehicular assault coupled with false imprisonment.

</comment><comment><USER5> Obviously macabre but probably would save lives. People are injured and killed by deer and other animals coming in through the windshield and subsequently kicking wildly in a panic. Humans are gravely injured by secondary impacts. If this system reduces those occurrences, it will save lives.

<comment><AUTHOR> It could also increase injuries in other instances... think car fires, car hitting walls, car falling down ravines, car flipping, etc...

<comment><USER6> Even seatbelts kill people, but we still wear them because it's more likely that you'll be killed by _not_ wearing one.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, if something saves lives doesn't mean that it doesn't cause more death then it saves... the other way around is also true of course...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I can't help imagining someone getting glued to the car and being paraded all around the city :-(

<comment><USER8> And it will likely happen. Drunk drivers won't care.

<comment><USER6> Implying that Google's cars will have a driver...

<comment><USER8> I might have missed that part. First I thought it'd be a solution for traditional vehicles.

<comment><USER7> Actually robots and drunk drivers share some traits, like lack of common sense.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Deer strikes are going to be ugly.

<comment><USER5> I think you mean tasty

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> If you can patent that, then I've got the solution to rubber necking. Who wants to invest? ~;)

</comment><comment><USER11> Car has an accident and catches fire - what happens to the pedestrian glued to the bonnet then?</comment>


Chemistry of Fireworks - <AUTHOR> https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/education/students/highschool/chemistryclubs/activities/fireworks.html <comment><USER2> Sparkler bombs are pretty interesting in this space. Potassium nitrate or potassium chlorate both have the potential for lots of power and dangerous outcomes.

</comment><comment><USER3> Loved the fireworks in a bottle and black snakes projects for my little ones. Thanks!</comment>


The Future of Hadoop Is Misty - <AUTHOR> https://haifengl.wordpress.com/2016/03/03/the-future-of-hadoop-is-misty/ <comment><USER2> It becomes even more of a challenge when you compare pure Hadoop against cloud native solutions such as Google Big Query. The costs of running your own Hadoop clusters on AWS, Azure or GCP is much higher than what using cloud native solutions will be in the future.</comment>


My letter to Jim Franklin about why I'm leaving SendGrid - <AUTHOR> http://snowedin.net/blog/2013/03/21/2349/

<comment><USER2> Not sure I can agree with this letter.

1.) From what I can gather she wasn't the direct target of abuse, so to frame that was is disingenuous. I understand that making "dongle" jokes at a conference is inappropriate, but its nothing more than inappropriate.

2.) How she handled it was completely wrong and unprofessional. Again like Amanda Blum[1] states, she has frequently sidestepped the right channels and has taken issues into her own hands. This has caused considerable trouble for PyCon, SendGrid and PlayHaven. SendGrid, should not be DDoS for several hours over a dick joke. People lost money. More than anything that is the take away here. I doubt Adria would have lost her job if she took it twitter _after_ coming to the conclusion that the men won't be apologetic _and_ PyCon wouldn't do anything about it.

[1]<https://amandablumwords.wordpress.com/2013/03/21/3/>

<comment><USER3> I don't see where the letter says or implies there was direct abuse. It just says abuse.

I interpret it as meaning that the author believes that indirect abuse, including hearing sexist jokes while in the workplace, should also be "absolutely unacceptable."

That is not a novel or even rare viewpoint. For examples that I easily found:

"Sexual abuse includes: Telling sexual jokes that make the victim uncomfortable" - <http://haventhedalles.org/sexual-abuse.html>

"Sexual abuse ... [can even take the form of] telling sexual jokes at the victim's expense." - [http://www.flaknelaw.com/minnesota-family-law/domestic- viole...](http://www.flaknelaw.com/minnesota-family-law/domestic-violence/are- you-a-victim/)

"[Patterns of] Sexual Abuse .. Makes sexual jokes about women" - <http://www.wcsafeharbors.com/domestic_violence_patterns.html>

This is why documents like <http://www3.uakron.edu/lawrev/robert1.html> include things like:

> Professor Catherine MacKinnon advises companies to warn employees against > posting suggestive photographs, telling sexual jokes or making innuendoes, > or romancing subordinates. ... Finally, she says that the company should > prohibit everyone in the company from retaliating against a worker who files > a sexual harassment complaint.

Do also note that this firing treads close to the anti-retaliation laws. Quoting from the EEOC at <http://www.eeoc.gov/laws/types/facts-retal.cfm> :

> An employer may not fire, demote, harass or otherwise "retaliate" against an > individual for filing a charge of discrimination, participating in a > discrimination proceeding, or otherwise opposing discrimination.

I am not saying that this firing is in violation of the law and EEOC rules, because I'm not a lawyer and I don't know the case history. But my naive reading of the EEOC Compliance manual, at <http://www.eeoc.gov/policy/docs/retal.html#IIpartB>:

> Public criticism of alleged discrimination may be a reasonable form of > opposition. Courts have protected an employee's right to inform an > employer's customers about the employer's alleged discrimination, as well as > the right to engage in peaceful picketing to oppose allegedly discriminatory > employment practices.

suggests that posting those pictures is likely a protected action. If so, then while you may think it's "unprofessional", it's not a valid reason for firing someone.

(The laws are made even more complicated by a balancing act between what a "reasonable person" would expect, the understanding that an employee don't know all of the details of the law, and more factors. Like, Richards's job requires going to conferences, hence PyCon is part of the workplace, but SendGrid doesn't have control over what happens at the conference, so discrimination claims filed to SendGrid are useless.)

I'm pretty sure you don't know how the EEOC would handle this case either, since your #2 does not reflect at least my limited understanding of the relevant laws. Protected opposition can include doing things that are "unprofessional" and things that cost others money (the EEOC's example is a production slow-down).

Also, you brought up an account of how "she has frequently sidestepped the right channels", but unless they were related to her job, I suspect that they cannot be used to fire someone. Specifically, Colorado law C.R.S 24-34-402.5 ("Unlawful prohibition of legal activities as a condition of employment")

        (1) It shall be a discriminatory or unfair employment practice for an employer to
        terminate the employment of any employee due to that employee's engaging in any
        lawful activity off the premises of the employer during nonworking hours unless
        such a restriction:

          (a) Relates to a bona fide occupational requirement or is reasonably and rationally
          related to the employment activities and responsibilities of a particular employee
          or a particular group of employees, rather than to all employees of the employer; or
          (b) Is necessary to avoid a conflict of interest with any responsibilities to the
          employer or the appearance of such a conflict of interest.

(SendGrid appears to be a Colorado company, but other states have similar laws. See also the note 'This section applies to lawful, off-duty conduct, even if it is work-related. Insofar as the section refers to "any lawful activity", it can be presumed that the general assembly meant all activity without limitation. Accordingly, damages could be awarded to person who was terminated for making a complaint off the premises of the employer during nonworking hours about the safety of a work site. Watson v. Pub. Serv. Co., 207 P.3d 860 (Colo. App. 2008).')

Thus, it really does read that if Richards is fired because of any of the reasons you gave in #2, then it's likely an unfair and illegal employment practice, and Richards can sue and win.

<comment><USER4> They were not sexual jokes at Adria's expense. They were not sexual jokes about women. They were not sexist jokes. They were jokes about dongles. Men make dick jokes. Women make dick jokes. They're usually in bad taste, but they are in no way sexist. This wasn't abuse, it was a publicity op that went south. Adria saw an opportunity for a spotlight and didn't foresee the consequences of that spotlight. Judging from her blog post, she's more of a sexist than the joker, because she makes the implicit assumption that other women can't be around sexual humor. Anyone who spends any time with women knows that that is not the case; most of my female friends make dirtier jokes than I ever would. The jokes were not discriminatory, they were not prejudicial, they were not sexist, and they were not abuse.

<comment><USER3> I don't understand your argument. Are you following up to my response to point #1 or #2?

In regards point #1, the law is pretty clear that a joke does not need to be sexist or even sexual for it to be part of a hostile workplace environment. And my reading of the letter is that the letter writer believes that any sexual joke at the workplace is a form of verbal abuse.

While that is the considered opinion of the letter author, the law and courts do not agree that a single instance is sufficient to indicate workplace discrimination. But nemothekid is incorrect in saying that the letter author framed this in terms of direct abuse. The letter is actually best understood if "abuse" means "direct or indirect abuse" and is not restricted to "direct abuse." (After all, no one has made the claim that there was a direct abuse.)

In point #2, nemothekid attempts to justify the firing, but the arguments given (eg, "People lost money", "unprofessional"), when in the context of a discrimination report, may not legally be used to fire someone, based on my understanding of Title VII. I also pointed out that what she did in "public shaming" was legal. While it might have been against PyCon's code of conduct, no complaint was made.

Even if the company decided to fire her because of her previous actions, independent of this most recent event, a court will likely find that it is a pretext for an illegal action. Quoting from the EEOC, "Even if the respondent produces evidence of a legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason for the challenged action, a violation will still be found if this explanation is a pretext designed to hide the true retaliatory motive. ... Pretext can also be shown if the respondent subjected the charging party's work performance to heightened scrutiny after she engaged in protected activity"

I think the comment about "heightened scrutiny after she engaged in protected activity" is apropros, don't you? Do you honestly think she would have been fired had there been no heightened scrutiny?

Now as to your comments here, all of your objections ignore the point. Firing someone who made a legally protected and truthful complaint about possible workplace discrimination is illegal. (Everything I've read has said that the complaint was truthful.) Firing them for some other reason as a pretext for an illegal reason is also illegal.

The law does not require that the sexual jokes be at Richard's expense in order for her complaint to be protected, the law does not require that the sexual jokes be about women (or even about the complainant's own gender) in order for her complaint to be protected. The law doesn't require that the complainant have no ulterior motive, nor require that the complainant be without sin before casting the first stone.

In fact, to require any or all of these will greatly reduce the power of Title VII. It would mean that I can't complain in order to protect my Polish co- worker from a workplace hostile to foreign born workers (being neither the person attacked nor Polish), even though I as an American-born person am likely to face less reprisal for complaining. It would also mean my Polish co- worker couldn't file a complaint if for whatever reason he himself had ever told a Pollock, or a Russian joke. Do you really want the Civil Rights Act to be so constrained?

The law is quite clear. If someone make a truthful claim about sexual harassment, which is believable by at least one reasonable person, then that complaint is a protected action and may not be used to as the basis for firing the person who made the complaint. No matter if that complaint is made in private or public, no matter if that complaint may cause economic damage or embarrassment to the company, no matter if the incident occurred at the company's workplace or elsewhere, no matter if it was eventually found to be non-discriminatory.

(There are a few obvious restrictions, like the complaint cannot be in the form of sabotage, but do you really want me to quote more laws and legal decisions?)

Am I wrong? Feel free to show me how I've misunderstood the law. Otherwise I will continue to conclude that arguments like yours are meant to defend a personal belief which is opposed to the law.

Does your belief have any deeper moral basis or is it specific only to this single incident? Can you explain how you would like to change the law, in order to make a better future?

<comment><USER4> See my reply to you elsewhere in this comment tree re: law vs. culture.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> ...And so continues the chain of overreactions...

The emotional development of all involved, including these shallow protests, have the funk of adolescence and immaturity. I keep waiting for the principal to walk down the hall and break up the tantrum and shouting match.

Erik, grow up. Adira, grow up. Guys in the back, grow up.

Let me continue the High School metaphor for a moment:

      Guys in the back, you are two man-boys who never matured or learned any etiquette,
      and your dick joke was (unfortunately) overheard by the wrong person.

      Adira, you are the nosy busy-body that would rat out anyone who you perceive to
      break the rules.

      Erik your symbolic protest reminds me of the permanently "friend-zoned" guy who
      tries to show that not all men are pigs.

That is the level of drama here. Its playing out like a lost episode of Saved by the Bell. I keep waiting for Screech to bring some levity to the situation. Because that is not going to happen, I will leave you with this:

      Q. How many feminists does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
      A. One. AND THAT IS NOT FUNNY!

Edit: better word choice

<comment><USER6> Careful now, that joke might get you fired.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Stephen Fry: _It's now very common to hear people say 'I'm rather offended by that.' As if that gives them certain rights; it's actually nothing more...it's simply a whine. 'I find that offensive,' it has no meaning, it has no purpose, it has no reason to be respected as a phrase. 'I'm offended by that,' well so fucking what?_

Ricky Gervais: _Just because someone is offended doesn't mean they're right._

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't give a shit about people being offended. If the only thing happening is someone being "offended" then there's no harm, no foul. Go along with your day.

Now, in cases where people are being harmed, then I care. This is such a case.

<comment><USER8> What was the harm, exactly? She overheard a stupid joke far less crude than one might hear on any television show during prime time. It was no worse than the one she posted on her own Twitter.

<comment><AUTHOR> Women in our industry are forced to listen to constant jokes that range from the one she heard to far worse. This little joke would probably not be a problem if if were isolated. But because they happen all the time, from all directions, each little joke has the potential to be a harmful barb.

And the fact that she posted a joke to her Twitter doesn't change anything. There is massive pressure on women to be sexist too, to prove to men that they're cool and can be trusted, and to fit in. Women (also have to find ways to normalize sexist behavior so they don't go crazy. The fact that a women capitulates to this pressure on one day doesn't make her fair game for any and all sexist abuses on another.

<comment><USER9> Perhaps white knights like yourself are the real sexists here.

You buy into, along with Richards, the notion that all women are victorian prudes and can't deal with off-beat humor.

These men didn't direct their lowbrow humor at adria. In fact they didn't even direct it at women. They compared their dongles and joked about forking the 'male' speaker.

<comment><USER3> The issue has nothing to do with being a prude. The law says that certain workplace practices are illegal. The law clearly says that some forms of workplace humor, including sexist jokes, racist jokes, jokes about religion, and more, might be part of an workplace culture that is illegally discriminatory, and may be reported without fear of reprisal from the employer.

Yes, the law says that reporting potential cases of workplace harassment is a protected action, and cannot be used to fire someone.

The law does not require that sexist humor be directed towards the same gender as the person who reported the incident, just like it doesn't require that racist humor be about the same race as the person who reported the incident. The law doesn't even require that the person who reported the incident be the one who was subject to the harassment. The law even protects people who make a truthful report that is later determined to not be discriminatory.

The same laws do not apply to watching prime-time television shows, so the earlier comment of rsanders does not apply. One difference is that it's easy to turn the television off, while it's hard to quit a job and find a new one.

Someone on cable television can tell racist jokes until the cows come home. Telling racist jokes at work, no matter how funny the jokes are, can create a hostile work environment, in violation of the law. The same with sexist jokes. That's because the law has special protections for race, religion, sex, marital status, veteran status, and others.

You might think that details of laws are as useless as the White Knight's "anklets to guard his horse against shark bites", but the law is the law. Reporting possible cases of workplace harassment is protected under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act and may not be used as the basis for firing someone.

Your personal beliefs on who the sexists are may be entirely correct, though I doubt it. But your personal beliefs are almost diametrically opposite what the law says, while the events we're all talking about are definitely well-defined and protected in current law and legal practice.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Documenting a problem is completely different from public humiliation. This company did the right thing. You say Adria received abuse, but out of all I have read, including her own blog post, she was not abused. She was the aggressor. These men didn't even know she was offended. If she would have asked them to be more polite, I am confident they would have done the right thing. You, I must say, are causing an issue with a company in the right. So maybe they are better off without you, Heh?

<comment><USER11> Right on... She went to Twitter. She opened the can of worms instead of saying something directly to them. She should have expected what she got.

<comment><USER12> You can't seriously suggest that she deserved the misogynistic abuse heaped on after the fact, can you?

<comment><USER13> No, she didn't. The Internet hate machine went out of control as it has a tendency to do. The fact that gaooened afterwards, however, doesn't make her initial reaction to name and shame these guys more acceptable.

<comment><USER3> Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was put into place precisely because people in a discriminated group would speak out, only to be told that their manner of speaking out was not "acceptable." "Speaking out" under Title VII includes picketing, writing letters to customers about the discrimination, and engaging in work slow-downs. These are not acceptable actions to some, but they are legally protected actions and a company cannot fire an employee who carried out one of these actions.

Since what she wrote specifically refers to sexual harassment ("Sexual harassment is a form of sex discrimination that violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964". "[It] constitutes sexual harassment when submission to or rejection of this conduct explicitly or implicitly affects an individual's employment, unreasonably interferes with an individual's work performance or creates an intimidating, hostile or offensive work environment", "The harasser can be ... a non-employee." - EEOC's "Facts about Sexual Harassment"), it's almost certainly a protected action under Title VII.

If so, then while it may not be acceptable to you and various others, it's illegal for her company to fire her because of that action. Assuming I understand the law correctly.

To show I'm not just making this up, I'll quote from the judgement in Sumner v. United States Postal Service, 899 F.2d 203 (2d Cir. 1990): In addition to protecting the filing of formal charges of discrimination, Sec. 704(a)'s opposition clause protects as well informal protests of discriminatory employment practices, including making complaints to management, writing critical letters to customers, protesting against discrimination by industry or by society in general, and expressing support of co-workers who have filed formal charges. See Grant v. Hazelett Strip-Casting Corp., 880 F.2d 1564, 1569 (2d Cir.1989), and Schlei & Grossman, Employment Discrimination Law, 548-49 (1983)."

See the part about "protesting against discrimination by industry"? Doesn't that describe this situation almost exactly?

Now, if she broke a law, or violated some employee policy in a way that has nothing to do with Title VII nor is some other illegal practice (eg, it's illegal to suddenly fire her for doing personal blogging during company time if her supervisors had long known about that practice and had never given a caution or warning that it was a fireable offense) then that's a different issue. But no one has suggested anything of this sort.

So, while you might be offended by what she did, that doesn't mean she "should have expected what she got" if that includes that she got fired from her job.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> > Richards should be absolutely commended for what she did, documenting and > publicizing the abuse against her. It's extremely hard to do, and it's > incredibly valuable to the community.

From what I understand, she wasn't subject to abuse until after the tweet went live. She overheard some slightly lewd jokes not directed at her and decided to use a public forum to shame the jokers instead of more appropriate means.

<comment><AUTHOR> In the context of a professional environment with fairly constant misogyny, I think it does constitute abuse. She's just trying to attend a conference and she's forced to stop focusing on the tech, stop focusing on doing her job, and instead focus on the people behind her and whether she's safe in the space.

The hypervigilance that pervasive sexism in the tech community demands from women is extremely harmful. It makes these spaces very unpleasant for most women. And so all women are excluded except the handful with very thick skin who think these things are "no big deal".

<comment><USER15> > she's forced to stop focusing on the tech, stop focusing on doing her job, > and instead focus on the people behind her

Assuming that this was true - she was so overwhelmed by jokes about a dongle that she could not concentrate on the conference - she could have easily turned around and told them that the conversation made her uncomfortable. She did not have to, and should not have, publicly shamed them for a private joke.

> whether she's safe in the space

Where does this come from? It was a joke about a dongle. Anatomy. Even if it was sexual, which is questionable, she was not threatened. They never threatened her. They never gave her lewd looks. They were never a threat to her or other people at the conference.

<comment><AUTHOR> > She did not have to, and should not have, publicly shamed them for a private > joke

Why shouldn't she have? It's harmful to the community. Until we, as a group, create a culture of publicly standing up to these things, and supporting those who do, they won't change.

> she was not threatened

Sexist jokes come in a wide range of shapes and sizes. In our culture, women are usually blamed for violence against them. They are held responsible for the company they keep, and the situations they get themselves into.

But the truth is, there is NO reliable way to tell whether a man, or a situation is truly safe for you. Friends, people you're dating, colleagues, private parties, worksplaces all can go from "seems save" to "violent" in the blink of an eye.

As such, women are forced to develop a set of vague signals that they must be constantly vigilant of. One of those signals is how men use and respond to sexist jokes. By telling sexist jokes, you are engaging many womens' Safety Detection System.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> This whole situation has been a clusterfuck, with overreactions by almost everyone involved.

This strikes me as yet another overreaction.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's cool, you're entitled to your opinion. But you writing that adds nothing to the conversation.

I think the fact that the vast majority of women are not comfortable going to tech conferences and working at many tech companies is actually a big deal, and the rare cases where someone actually DOES something in response to it is actually a pretty landmark event that deserves significant attention.

If you feel differently, at least try to articulate why.

<comment><USER17> I'm not disagreeing with you but where do you get this stuff about the vast majority of women being uncomfortable going to tech conferences? Is that anecdotal? Is there a study you can cite?

Also, just because someone is offended doesn't give them the right to respond however they want. They still need to be responsible.

<comment><AUTHOR> Tech conferences are overwhelmingly male. Just look around.

<comment><USER17> Yes. That is obvious. But how does that translate to the claim you made that the vast majority of women are uncomfortable going to tech conferences?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I fail to see how she was "abused" at Pycon.

<comment><USER3> Do you think abuse is limited to physical abuse?

Verbal abuse is still a type of abuse. Though as Wikipedia points out, "[d]espite being the most common form of abuse, verbal abuse is generally not taken as seriously as other types, because there is no visible proof..."

I believe the logic is pretty straight-forward. Sexist opinions in the tech industry (and/or culture in general) have lead to a hostile workplace for a woman whose job includes going to many tech conferences and who often hears sexist jokes and other (unstated) sexist statements. These are a form of verbal sexual harassment, which is a type of verbal abuse.

To continue from the same Wikipedia citation for "Verbal abuse", "In reality, however, verbal abuse can be more detrimental to a person's health than physical abuse."

<comment><USER4> The jokes were not sexist. I've had to type that sentence so many times the keys are starting to wear in. The jokes were not sexist. They were not about women, directed towards women, or discriminatory towards women. They didn't have anything to do with women at all. Calling a dongle joke sexist is extremely detrimental because it distracts from real instances of sexism that do occur within this community. We need to talk about the real issues, and this incident is not one of them.

<comment><USER3> Jokes do not need to be directed towards women in order to be sexist. Sexist jokes directed towards men can also be sexist and contribute towards a hostile workplace. Nor do the jokes need to be directed towards the person or even the gender of the person making the complaint. That's well established by the courts.

Quoting from the EEOC:

> Sexual harassment can occur in a variety of circumstances, including but not > limited to the following:

* The victim as well as the harasser may be a woman or a man. The victim does not have to be of the opposite sex.

* The harasser can be the victim's supervisor, an agent of the employer, a supervisor in another area, a co-worker, or a non-employee.

* The victim does not have to be the person harassed but could be anyone affected by the offensive conduct.

* Unlawful sexual harassment may occur without economic injury to or discharge of the victim.

* The harasser's conduct must be unwelcome.

You may say that going after this situation is "extremely detrimental" to the overall cause, but you've switched different topic. escaped_hn asked where the abuse claim came from, not if the abuse claim was justifiable.

Let's see how this an organization's Harassment policy might handle this. I quote now from <http://www.maine.gov/ag/about/harrassment_policy.html> :

> Further examples of sexual harassment include: behavior that is verbal and > sexual in nature - such as comments about a person's looks, personal > inquiries, sexual jokes, use of derogatory sexual stereotypes, uttering > sexually suggestive sounds, writing sexual notes, use of State computer > equipment to send, receive and/or download material of a sexual nature; non- > verbal sexual behavior- such as looking someone up and down, staring or > leering at someone's body, deliberate blocking of a person's path, > displaying sexual visuals, making sexual gestures; or physical - such as > pinching, grabbing, sexual assault or any physical contact of a sexual > nature.

> As a matter of State policy, any behavior of a sexual nature in the > workplace is considered unprofessional regardless of whether it constitutes > illegal sexual harassment. ... As part of their supervisory > responsibilities, supervisors are required to actively prevent or stop > inappropriate, unprofessional conduct in the workplace regardless of whether > the conduct rises to the level of illegal harassment. If they become aware > of any such conduct occurring through personal observation or information > from another party, they must consult with the Office's EEO Coordinator and > take immediate and appropriate corrective action, including discipline, to > end the conduct. Corrective action is required regardless of whether a > complaint is made or the conduct appears to be unwelcome. Even if the person > providing information requests that no action be taken, the supervisor must > contact the EEO Coordinator. Managers and supervisors who fail to fulfill > their obligations under this policy will be subject to disciplinary action, > up to and including discharge.

This unambiguously says that a supervisor at the Maine AG's office must report any joke of a sexual nature, even if there's no complaint, no indication of if it's unwelcome, no indication that it's discriminatory, no thought that it's sexist, and even if there's a request that no action be taken.

So even if you don't think this is a sexist joke, the undeniable fact that it is a joke of a sexual nature means that it is and unprofessional and reportable behavior for some workplaces.

<comment><USER4> Consistently throughout this thread you go off into a legal discussion when that's not what anyone is trying to talk about. We're talking about sexism. The question is whether or not the joke was sexist. The answer is that it was not. Jokes of sexual nature are inappropriate and unprofessional. That is obvious, and everyone agrees. They are not, however, inherently sexist.

<comment><USER3> You're absolutely right that I'm talking about the law, and that I'm not talking about if the joke is sexist or not. That's what this discussion should be about, shouldn't it?

The law defines what discrimination means, with many cases brought to the courts to flesh out the details, including a Supreme Court case that establishes that sexual harassment is part of Title VII restrictions on sexual discrimination in the workforce. It's much easier to reference these laws and these legal cases, with reasoned judgments which are directly relevant to the topic, then to suppose that my personal beliefs are the way of the world.

As such, my comments are not about the topic of whether the joke was sexist. My comments are about the topic of if jokes like these contribute to a hostile workplace. The Supreme Court in Harris v. Forklift Systems, Inc says

> This is not, and by its nature cannot be, a mathematically precise test. We > need not answer today all the potential questions it raises, nor > specifically address the EEOC's new regulations on this subject, see 58 Fed. > Reg. 51266 (1993) (proposed 29 CFR §§ 1609.1 1609.2); see also 29 CFR § > 1604.11 (1993). But we can say that whether an environment is "hostile" or > "abusive" can be determined only by looking at all the circumstances. These > may include the frequency of the discriminatory conduct; its severity; > whether it is physically threatening or humiliating, or a mere offensive > utterance; and whether it unreasonably interferes with an employee's work > performance. The effect on the employee's psychological well being is, of > course, relevant to determining whether the plaintiff actually found the > environment abusive. But while psychological harm, like any other relevant > factor, may be taken into account, no single factor is required.

Notice how there's nothing in there about being sexist? It's all about discriminatory conduct.

So even if every reasonable person agrees that there is no sexism in the joke, it could still be part of a hostile workplace. That's why I'm focused only on the latter.

Now, as Oncale v. Sundowner Offshore Serv., Inc. points out, Title VII is not a civility code:

> Title VII does not prohibit all verbal or physical harassment in the > workplace; it is directed only at " discriminat[ion] . . . because of . . . > sex." We have never held that workplace harassment, even harassment between > men and women, is automatically discrimination because of sex merely because > the words used have sexual content or connotations.

> We have emphasized, moreover, that the objective severity of harassment > should be judged from the perspective of a reasonable person in the > plaintiff's position, considering "all the circumstances." ... The real > social impact of workplace behavior often depends on a constellation of > surrounding circumstances, expectations, and relation ships which are not > fully captured by a simple recitation of the words used or the physical acts > performed. Common sense, and an appropriate sensitivity to social context, > will enable courts and juries to distinguish between simple teasing or > roughhousing among members of the same sex, and conduct which a reasonable > person in the plaintiff's position would find severely hostile or abusive.

Part of the "constellation" might include the severity or pervasiveness of the offensive acts acts. Part of it might include if there was an attempt to effect change. Part of it might be the reaction of people when there is an attempt to change things.

But none of it says that we can only look to see if a joke is sexist in order to help identify if it might be part of a hostile workplace.

So I don't care what people are talking about, if they are only concerned about if the joke is sexist or not. I care about if this was contributory towards a hostile workplace environment, and I care about what mechanisms we as the tech industry (and since I am a PSF member, what we as PyCon organizers) should have in place in order to reduce hostility in the workplace -- and yes, a conference is part of many people's workplace.

If your only interest is in if the joke is sexist, then you're spending all your focus on the easy issue, and ignoring the more important and thornier issues.

<comment><USER4> > You're absolutely right that I'm talking about the law, and that I'm not > talking about if the joke is sexist or not. That's what this discussion > should be about, shouldn't it?

No. Absolutely not. The law defines things for the legal system, not for our society and not for our culture. The concern here is a cultural one, not a legal one. The laws on the books are barely relevant to the real discussion here.

> If your only interest is in if the joke is sexist, then you're spending all > your focus on the easy issue, and ignoring the more important and thornier > issues.

My interest is in whether the joke is sexist because of its relevance to whether the culture is sexist. Many people are using the incident as evidence of a pattern of sexism in the tech community. I'm arguing against that conclusion, because the joke was not sexist.

The legalities are not more important. Thornier, sure, because the law is almost always thornier. Not more important. Culture is more important than law, every single time. If the culture of the tech community is positive and welcoming, it won't matter what the law says because nobody will care to file suits. If the culture of the tech community is negative and discriminatory, it won't matter what the law says because women will simply avoid the tech community. Either way, the culture matters and the law does not.

<comment><USER3> ... Wow.

I propose that we shouldn't have a hostile workplace and you only want there to not be a sexist workplace. (Title VII protections include race, color, religion, sex or national origin, pregnancy, age, and disability discrimination, all by the same language. You only want to focus on sex discrimination?)

I propose that non-sexist jokes can still be a form of sexual discrimination. You require that a joke be sexist before it is seen as discriminatory ("The question is whether or not the joke was sexist.") even though the law doesn't have that requirement. So you actually think that the current laws are too broad?

If the men only tell non-sexist and tasteless poop jokes to women in the workplace but tell each other non-sexist and hilarious poop jokes, might that indicate a sexist workplace culture? I think it can. But it seems that you would say it cannot be, because the jokes themselves are not sexist. Is there ever a case where non-sexual jokes can be part of a workplace which discriminates on sex? If so, might this incident be another such example? Why or why not?

I propose looking to the law as a place where these issues have been well discussed and fleshed out. You say to ignore laws and, I assume, ignore all of the relevant and diverse case history? There's some wonderfully interesting cases. Can a man sue other men for sexual harassment, even if none of them are homosexual? Is sexual desire a critical requirement before sexual discrimination can take place? Should there be provisions to prevent retaliation for claiming discrimination, and if so, what constitutes retaliation? Are anti-retaliation restrictions limited to financial considerations, like being fired, demoted, denied a promotion, or denied wages, or can a reassignment of duties "constitute retaliatory discrimination where both the former and present duties fall within the same job description"? (For example, can you assign the men to the worst locations and the women to the nicest, even though both are doing the same job?)

Even if you disagree with the court's conclusions, the questions discussed therein should be part of your repertoire.

I propose that laws are part of our culture. You say the law is barely relevant. I assume you think that changing the laws won't help improve our culture? How do you resolve the disagreements that will inevitably arise, when someone claims sexual discrimination but another says it isn't?

Or do you think the laws we have now are good enough, and we just need to change the culture to match the laws? I can agree with that. What is it that you want to change, and how would that change have affected this incident?

<comment><USER4> Yeah, you're entirely missing the point. I haven't rendered any opinions regarding current laws other than to say that they are not relevant in this particular issue. I'm saying that the concern is the culture, not the law. The reason I'm talking about sexism as opposed to discrimination regarding race, color, religion, national origin, et cetera is that the jokes in question were clearly not discriminatory in those areas. Nobody has claimed that the joke was racist. That would be ridiculous. Many people have claimed that the joke was sexist, and that is the claim that I am taking issue with.

I'm talking about ignoring the law because culture is more important than law. Yes, there is plenty of interesting case law, and that case law is interesting when discussing the issue in a legal context. I'm saying that the cultural context is more important than the legal context, and therefore the case law is a complete non sequitur.

I would strongly assert that laws do not influence culture, and that rather the exact opposite is true. Laws reflect culture. Laws enforce the norms of the culture in which they are written. When the culture changes, the laws change. The reverse is not true.

I have not been arguing for change. I do think that some changes to tech culture should happen, because though the actual incident was not discriminatory, the internet reaction clearly was. That is a much broader issue, because internet reactions are always disproportionate and discriminatory. That is a standing issue that must be solved. What I'm asserting is that the joke was not discriminatory, and that the conference was not a discriminatory environment. Though I was not there, from everything I have heard from people who were, the conference was a very positive environment. This is good, and I take issue with people who would cast aspersions on the conference and the community as a whole because of a 'discriminatory' joke that was not in fact discriminatory at all.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Cant agree with this letter. It is stupid to call the dongle jokes cracked between two friends as "abuse". This seems to be an over reaction.

Stop fighting the strawman err strawperson guys.

</comment><comment><USER11> Stupid...</comment>


The Myth of the Genius Programmer - <AUTHOR> http://code.google.com/events/io/sessions/MythGeniusProgrammer.html <comment><USER2> This is a bit of a diversion from Fitzpatrick and Collins-Sussman's talk, but I run into this belief a lot, and want to make a point.

I see little evidence here that Collins-Sussman has finally understood DVCS as a social entity, although he certainly seems to have the technical details down. The strongest argument for DVCS--any DVCS--that I have found is the periodic fights over "committer access" or project direction generally for projects like NetBSD, XEmacs, gcc/EGCS, or glibc/eglibc disappear.

I've seen more times than I can conveniently remember a _perception_ of a cabal of committers who communicate exclusively with each other. This looks a lot like the structure of some sort of conspiracy, even though that is rarely the purpose. Even when it is, it's usually trying to work around some productive but extremely difficult person like Ulrich Drepper or Theo de Raadt.

DVCSes have the critically important property that there is no longer any inherent _technical_ center of development but that the _social_ center of development is retained (usually). So while there is a technical hierarchy of git repositories that goes to Linus, if you think he's an idiot and want to take it a different direction, it's easy to do that--and if he decides you have a good idea in the end, he can merge with you without huge amounts of effort.

Collins-Sussman has been concerned, publically, that there's some splintering process that DVCSes enable and that SVN prevents. But this perception is one you can only arrive at if you are in control of the SVN repository--if you are trying to submit patches to somebody doing this, and you don't have write access on the SVN server for branches or whatever (which imposes a nontrivial amount of effort), you more or less have to do this splintering on your own, without any tool support. In my experience DVCSes don't make this any more common than it was once; it's just that now these private splinters are visible, and can be integrated.

Another secondary thing that's very convenient for me is that I can make many small changes and push them all at once when I'm happy with them--because they're small they're easier to review. But this is a workflow issue, it's not that one couldn't do this with SVN.

<comment><USER3> _DVCSes have the critically important property that there is no longer any inherent technical center of development but that the social center of development is retained (usually)._

This is a really good point. It allows the social structure of the project to grow and change in a very natural way which makes it not only easier to adapt as committers come and go, but effortless.

<comment><USER4> The social center is also decided by a kind of marketplace.

With central control of a repository, you can have what amounts to an "irrigation rights empire" -- a totalitarian regime (perhaps with some democratic window dressing) based on one party's control over some sort of infrastructure.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> These guys look like being advocates of mediocrity. I haven't seen such radical egalitarianism promotion even from junior managers.

I especially disliked the moment when they interrupted the criticizer who was talking that there are a lot of evidences of geniuses existence and highly productive programmers in particular.

And rather than advising to learn from the best programmers, they are advising to learn from ephemeral "community" and trimming ones ego and ambitions.

<comment><USER6> You seem to be making the same effort to miss the point as the man that ran through a litany of objections starting at 45:18.

I don't like the "there are no geniuses" phrase, especially since they then have to back down and say, "Well, it isn't that there are no geniuses -- just that they're extremely rare," which just obscures the point further. The point I think they're trying to make, though, is that the myth of the hero programmer who writes a perfect program and releases it to a world full of unhelpful clods is counterproductive.

If you want to dispute their point, then answer their question: What successful, widely-used project was created entirely by one lone genius?

<comment><USER7> Git and Linux started out as creations of Linus.

<comment><USER8> And they only took off because Linus is not a total dick, and he published his code very early so that collaborators could hack on it. Those two things were important in Linux and Git's success.

Thats all the talk is about. And the only reason anyone is arguing with it is the very insecurity the talk seeks to address.

<comment><USER9> > And they only took off because Linus is not a total dick

Have you ever seen Linus on usenet? I'd argue that his Real Programmer protective stance towards Linux was more helpful to it taking off than being a really Nice Guy.

<comment><USER4> >> And they only took off because Linus is not a total dick

> Have you ever seen Linus on usenet?

"Not a total dick" in Internet terms is something like "A little to the left of Mao." However, Linus is also very astute and capable. People will tolerate "does not suffer fools gladly" if they are not a fool, or if they like the person's work.

Every programmer with an ego should ask themselves, "Am I an unjustified asshole?" Consider:

        - Do a lot of people mostly like your work?
        - Does the cost/benefit of alienating people vs.
          shutting down the fools generally work out positively?
          (For the community not just for your personal
          gratification.)
        - Do people complain about you profusely, but for
          some reason still grudgingly respect you?

Answer yes 3 times? Congrats: you are _not_ an unjustified asshole!

Are you a delusional asshole?

        - Do only a select few understand your work, and do you
          think even they are all inferiors?
        - Are you *always* right?
        - Do the people who are trying to do something valuable
          generally try to ignore you?

Answer yes 3 times? Well, don't worry about it, you're probably one of the few who are genuinely ahead of their time and misunderstood. ;-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> While I don't have the time to watch a 50 minute video at the moment, a common theme I see in the PDF is that people are reluctant to share source code until it's reasonably "done". A lot of things that seem impressive as completed works have spent most of their development messy and (by definition!) incomplete. When coupled with potentially endless anonymous criticism via the internet* , this can be pretty intimidating.

I get where they're coming from. I have several projects that I really need to polish up and upload, and I want them to feel presentable; I don't really understand how people get used to working in public (on github, for example). I also do a fair amount of maintenance programming, and ... I want to make sure my code is better than that. Just because I change my mind, make mistakes, etc., it doesn't mean I need to publish sloppy code.

* Look at the comments in any discussion on Reddit. About anything. People get nasty, often just because they can.

<comment><USER11> _I don't really understand how people get used to working in public_

It's easy. Until your code is good, no one gives a damn about it. Even if it's good, you'll still have to shove it down people's throats before they care. So don't worry that "someone might see your bad code". They won't. Nobody cares.

<comment><USER12> Successful projects are not determined by the quality of the code, but the utility of it. It's quite possible to have a very successful project, that a lot of people use, made up of embarrassingly bad code.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Love this: "The failures tend to get smaller over time, and successes get larger. That's a trend you'll see, especially if you're learning, over time"

<comment><USER14> Wouldn't this be true only if you're doing the same thing over and over?

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> From my point of view the video is basically saying collaboration is most important as a programmer. Unlike athletes, programmers have to work together to achieve something great. Anything that is really impressive/great will come from the contribution of many programmers (eg linux). The question is: what is the most effective way to collaborate? Is there something about the ego that makes us ineffective? It would be really interesting if they had elaborated more on what makes a "healthy ego". Personally, as one of the critics has said, "people have egos no matter how humble they appear to be." It is simply human nature. Perhaps sometime it is more important to not to dumb down our own egos (or other people's) but to be more empathetic and reasonable working together.

<comment><USER16> In all fields, there are soloists and there are teams. There are team sports and individual sports. Michael Phelps is a soloist. S. Wolfram is a soloist... he has a backup band though...

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Don't have time to watch the video, but I read through the PDF (which, btw, consists of very brief notes, so it's not really worth reading. However I think I got their basic thesis.)

I find it an interesting point of view, since I'm a total noob when it comes to programming - first year CS student, only done a few tiny VB projects before that. However, I really enjoy programming, work on a few projects in my spare time, and plan to get some decent languages (a scripting language (Perl/Python/Ruby), and maybe a functional language (Clojure?) under my belt soon. I've used OO in class projects, but I want to figure out how to use it in my own projects. I want to learn software engineering practices. I want to learn graphics programming. That's just over the next couple of years! In 10, 20 years time, who knows?

The appeal to me is that I can never peak in programming, their will always be new stuff to learn. Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, my point was that I'm a noob now, I'm very willing to be modest and learn from others, but the hope of becoming a genius programmer I find very motivating.

</comment><comment><USER4> Ward Cunningham is a great role model. He's super-smart, darn clever, and just a really soothing sort of laid-back guy. He doesn't have to struggle with the alienate/suffer fools conundrum because he's aware enough to be learning something from the majority of his interactions with other people. If you can achieve that, you can conserve all the energy you'd waste swatting at fools.

</comment><comment><USER2> There's a flaw in the video around 27:55 that is obnoxious, but it seems to just be local corruption.

</comment><comment><USER18> When you finally reach enlightenment or a state of "genius" you won't be thinking about what other people think of you.

</comment><comment><USER19> Looking at the handout too...,

I am a bit disappoint this talk was not an effort to address the old cliche that some programmers are ten times as productive as other programmers and similar things.

I already hate kind of thinking but I would like to have hard figures to use in arguments against the kind of people who believe this bolox. I agree with statements like "lose the ego" but I don't think that would fly in arguments with my manager.

<comment><USER20> It may be an "old cliche", but also happens to be true. Maybe you can quibble over whether it's a 10X, 100X, or merely a 5X difference, but some programmers are clearly much more productive than others.

<comment><USER4> It's also true that some programmers are more productive collaborators than others. (In fact, some are effectively anti-collaborators -- less work gets done when they pitch into a project.) If you are in a collaborative enterprise, this might be something to consider.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> No way I'm watching a 50-minute video I'm not even sure will be worthwhile. I didn't find a transcript. I had a look at the PDF and there's nothing groundbreaking in there IMHO...</comment>


Continuum, Android-Style – The Galaxy S8 and Next Mobile Workspace? - <AUTHOR> http://allaboutwindowsphone.com/flow/item/21930_Continuum_Android-style-the_Ga.php <comment><USER2> Desktop size android apps don't sound very appealing to me</comment>


Thanks to Yahoo, Facebook is King of Identity - <AUTHOR> http://gigaom.com/2009/12/02/thanks-to-yahoo-facebook-is-king-of-identity/ <comment><USER2> _And then this deal with Yahoo! Facebook Connect is a simple way to use Facebook ID and connect to other non-Facebook websites, and then if you want, send those interactions back to your Facebook page. For instance, if you logged into GigaOM and left a comment using Facebook Connect, you can tell your friends that you did so._

While a single point to get identity/authentication from is nice, and Facebook is poised to pull it off (despite that I'd personally prefer something more open, portable and federated) more so that previous big contenders in this area (MS Passport comes to mind), I think the jury is still out on if this -- tell your friends you did something, like posted a comment -- is a valid use case, no matter how many people keep bringing that up as one of the possible _future_ powers of Facebook.

While my Facebook network is relatively small and is composed mainly of people I've met in real life and have a relationship with that is not solely on-line, the actual interaction I get on Facebook for my "internet actions" (all imported via Facebook/Friendfeed integration), and the interaction I see other people get on Facebook for things they've posted (mostly directly posted, since few people use Friendfeed and the Friendfeed Facebook app), is extremely minimal. Admittedly, this could be because my network is, in general, boring. I think there are two core reasons the interaction is minimal.

First, the _majority_ of anyone's network is not going to actually cares that someone made a comment on GigaOM. If they did, they'd be on GigaOM, not on Facebook. And if they're on/frequent GigaOM because they are interested in the content there, there's no reason to do their GigaOM-centric interaction anywhere else.

Secondly, Facebook being a proxy for reporting on all internet (or real-life) activity adds a layer of indirection but doesn't add significant value. There's no incentive to move a conversation that already exists on GigaOM to a Facebook comment thread. I've been disappointed that a lot of Facebook interaction (for what I've observed) has been of the "me too" variety. The ability to click through and view the original source of the content is too easy: the Internet itself is already federated (AOL and Compuserve tried that with their own walled gardens).

So Facebook can be a clearing house for activity, but I think it'll end up being a jumping off point, which in itself has significant value from the standpoint of aggregation (this is the main use of Friendfeed, in fact). But there a lot of other players in the aggregated content market that focus more on the user generating the content than on the consumers (tumblr, posterous), which are even easer to access than Facebook, since you don't _need_ an account on a single site to consume them and the _entire_ content is available on the original site. This very comment will get truncated once imported to Facebook (through backtype and Friendfeed).

</comment><comment><USER3> There are some places I don't want Facebook, and email is one of them.

<comment><USER4> Search is another. Call it a total lack of trust on my part.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I've rarely been letting other sites access my Facebook data ... because I don't really trust them (they sell my data to companies who then use it to trick me with phhotos of my friends). When given the choice it seems easiest and safest (least revealing) to use my twitter login.

<comment><USER6> _"... I've rarely been letting other sites access my Facebook data ... because I don't really trust them ..."_

Here's why figital is cautious, _"Dark Stalking on Facebook"_ ~ <http://pjf.id.au/blog/?position=590> (author <http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=pjf>)

<comment><USER7> Facebook just announced updated privacy controls, etc. How does that article evaluate _after_ these are place?

<comment><USER6> _"... How does that article evaluate after these are place? ..."_

Ask pjf yourself is one way to find out. If I get the chance I'll ask.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> So any bets on when Facebook might buy out Yahoo!?

<comment><USER9> Once upon a time Yahoo was trying to buy out Facebook. How times have changed!

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> If you can't beat 'em (or buy 'em), join 'em!

</comment><comment><USER11> Facebook was already the king of identity. The best thing about facebook is that it is not anonymous and represents in virtual form my true identity.

This is just yet another logical extension of that identity into other domains. I'm a big fan of what they're doing with Facebook connect.

</comment><comment><USER12> Is it just me or did anyone else have a lot of trouble reading that press release excerpt because of all the exclamation points. I know that the trademark name "Yahoo!" includes the bang but I found it really annoying.</comment>


Show HN: Dev Skills + MovingWorlds = Travel and Change the World - <AUTHOR> https://movingworlds.org/

<comment><USER2> This sounds like a great opportunity! Do you guys have any case stories of people doing this? Would love to hear about the impact experteers were able to have.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks!

A few highlights here on our "Experteering Stories" page... including a UX Designer from Amazon.com. [https://movingworlds.org/experteering- stories](https://movingworlds.org/experteering-stories)

Outside of the published stories, we've also placed technologists into innovation hubs to support startups, with social enterprises, universities, and also into nonprofits (including the Red Cross in Kenya) for roles from database management to devops to full stack web development.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Contribute your skills, travel the world, get a different perspective and make an impact. I think this is a great recipe for personal growth and fulfillment

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Geekwire story on the launch here: www.geekwire.com/2014/movingworlds-opens- platform-help/

</comment><comment><USER4> This space need to be filled. Best of luck MovingWorlds!</comment>


It wasn't the Account Balance - <AUTHOR> http://mystartuphas30daystolive.tumblr.com/post/54016592578/it-wasnt-the-account-balance

<comment><USER2> Without context of what startup / company this actually is, it's getting rather boring to read this.

You can't have sympathy for something just based on words; you need context. This could be any # of startup's right now; why do we care about you without knowing what you have contributed to this world?</comment>


JS++ – JavaScript Classes, Modules, Type Checking and More - <AUTHOR> https://www.onux.com/jspp/ <comment><USER2> TypeScript guarantees forward-compatibility with ES20xx standards, has multiple huge companies behind it, and has mature tooling. What are some reasons I would give all those things up to use JS++?</comment>


Digg v4: They can't go back - <AUTHOR> http://atomized.org/2010/08/they-can%E2%80%99t-go-back/

<comment><USER2> True</comment>


Redmine - Excellent alternative to Trac - <AUTHOR> http://www.redmine.org/

<comment><USER2> No Git support. No sale. Next?

<comment><USER3> Actually, as of 0.7.0 RC1, Redmine does support Git (see <http://www.redmine.org/wiki/redmine/Changelog>). It took a couple of patches, but Git support was added to the Subversion trunk and is available in the latest stable release. I haven't personally used Redmine with Git, though.</comment></comment>


Faking It (The Undereducation of an Overachiever) - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/24/books/review/Miller-t.html

<comment><USER2> "We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be." -- Kurt Vonnegut

</comment><comment><USER3> Wow, sounds like me, only more pathological.

I spent almost my entire school career seeing how much I could get away with, writing fake personal essays, falsifying scientific "evidence" (as if 7th grade science fairs matter), manufacturing fake "drafts" which were really my first and final version but deliberately messed up, doing my homework as the teacher came around to collect it. Manufacturing saccharine, bullshit, fake answers that teachers always swallowed. Reusing essays from freshman year of HS for university English class. (Haha.)

I rebelled against being forced to do so many stupid things, that it became a game. Nobody ever noticed, so I realized that I couldn't respect or listen to people I could fool and conquer so easily.

You can do it in non-liberal arts. It's still easy.

The trick is, you have to be smart enough to do the real work to fake it. You don't necessarily have to know the given facts, though.

<comment><USER4> Sounds more like someone who needs to be special.

I was the same way in highschool. ;)

<comment><USER3> Honestly, I wanted somebody to catch me so I could find someone I could trust and respect. I needed somebody like that in my life.

But it never happened. Go figure.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I don't get why this is on HN.

We have methods to kill Paula Beans in their tracks. Liberal arts does not.

Is this anything new?

<comment><USER6> Well, I'd never read it before, so it was new to me. And it was an interesting story, and I expect there to be conversation about the value of metrics when any metric can be faked. The first thought I had after reading this was "What matters at all statistically speaking if none of the facts can be trusted?" How do we know that pagerank or daily hits means anything when they can be as effectively bullshitted?

The liberal arts are just as good at stopping bullshit from coming through. That they rarely choose to do so demonstrates how cowed many people in the liberal arts are, and that's an entirely separate discussion. But there's a simple test in the liberal arts wherein when somebody doesn't make sense, you ask them to clarify, and repeat the process until they make sense or admit they were faking.

<comment><USER7> > The liberal arts are just as good at stopping bullshit from coming through. > That they rarely choose to do so demonstrates how cowed many people in the > liberal arts are, and that's an entirely separate discussion.

Actually, the "physical arts" have another test - it either works or it doesn't.

> But there's a simple test in the liberal arts wherein when somebody doesn't > make sense, you ask them to clarify, and repeat the process until they make > sense or admit they were faking.

Nope - they call you racist, Republican, fascist, etc., and you lose.

<comment><USER6> I'm of the mindset that you never lose when the other person resorts to calling you names. If somebody's called out for their bullshit, then they've lost.

<comment><USER7> That's nice, but it's not how liberal arts, or politics for that matter, work.

<comment><USER6> But it _is_ how they work. Each person is able to choose their own idols. Disagreement is expected. You have aesthetic extremists who will tell you T. S. Eliot is a terrible poet, or that E. E. Cummings is modernist garbage. I personally think that Dickinson is overrated; I know a literary enthusiast who doesn't really think Shakespeare is particularly brilliant. That's all acceptable.

The idea of the liberal arts is that they're not rankable collectively. While there's an objective bad to be found, good is to some degree subjective, and each person can decide what they value. So you're allowed to value deconstructionism if you'd like, or state that meaninglessness is the point of art, and I'm allowed to disagree with you and call your work bullshit.

Where did politics come in? Are you legitimately trying to make a point, or are you just trying to blindly spew your dislike of the liberal arts? If so, tell me so I can directly address that instead of making tangential arguments.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


The HP-35: Consumer Electronics, an Origin Story - <AUTHOR> http://codex99.com/design/the-hp35.html <comment><USER2> An anecdote about the HP-35, from the HP Museum ([http://www.hpmuseum.org/hp35.htm](http://www.hpmuseum.org/hp35.htm)):

> The HP-35 had numerical algorithms that exceeded the precision of most > mainframe computers at the time. [...] This forced time-consuming manual > comparisons of results to mathematical tables. A few bugs got through this > process. For example: 2.02 ln e^x resulted in 2 rather than 2.02. When the > bug was discovered, HP had already sold 25,000 units which was a huge volume > for the company. In a meeting, Dave Packard asked what they were going to do > about the units already in the field and someone in the crowd said "Don't > tell?" At this Packard's pencil snapped and he said: "Who said that? We're > going to tell everyone and offer them, a replacement. It would be better to > never make a dime of profit than to have a product out there with a > problem". It turns out that less than a quarter of the units were returned. > Most people preferred to keep their buggy calculator and the notice from HP > offering the replacement.

And here is a scan of that recall notice: [https://imgur.com/K1k0cSQ](https://imgur.com/K1k0cSQ) (original source: [http://www.hpmuseum.org/forum/thread-2821.html](http://www.hpmuseum.org/forum/thread-2821.html))

<comment><USER3> That letter should be required reading and the anecdote further cements the 'fish rots from the head' proverb as accurate. After all, without ethics at the top there is no corrective action against such relatively minor nudges in the wrong direction and over time that will accumulate until you get a completely different version of the company. One that will never ever have the kind of stature that HP enjoyed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Unfortunately, consumer electronics are not the same as the days of Braun. 70's was the golden era.

I was extremely pleased with my DM42 from SwissMicros. All of their models either have a Titanium or Steel case. The heft and quality is just absolutely beautiful.

I spoke to Michael Steinmann and he seems to be a great guy passionate about what he does. I enjoyed our conversation about old school electronics.

Check out [https://SwissMicros.com](https://SwissMicros.com)

<comment><USER5> Talking about Braun, I've been disassembling all kind of devices for a few monthes, and you can appreciate differences betweens brands a bit. Braun and a few brands, do have better materials, better internals. I guess 90% of consumers can't give a damn about that but it registered in my head. To the point that I would even start a website about that, some sort of ifixit for everything but phones.

<comment><USER6> You should. Teardowns on ordinary things is appealing and informative.

I suspect more people than you think would find all that compelling.

<comment><USER5> Youtube is already filled with that, but it's random in quality.. maybe

<comment><USER6> Really, I was speaking to quality. If it's good, informative, then heck yeah. I like that stuff.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> How can you not love this:

> HP typically priced their equipment at the cost of the material list × π (or > in an especially competitive market, list × e)

<comment><USER8> The founders of HP were just so much cooler than the business school goons like Fiorina who practically drove it into the ground.

That pricing formula is so playful, as is "well I want one and so do my engineers".

Chapeau Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard.

<comment><USER9> Ha ha, practically? She did. Keysight is what's left of the original HP.

HP is now known for garbage computers and shitty printers.

<comment><USER10> I feel that they're getting their legs back under their consumer division, although I agree their laptops have been really mediocre.

However I have enjoyed using their enterprise workstations for the last 10 years are so (various models of Z4xx's) and haven't had any complaints.

<comment><USER11> I've had good experiences with their EliteBook lines. Solid machines, if you are closer to the rugged notebook vs thin trophy book on the scale of laptop thickness.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> It really is hard to over state the impact that scientific calculators had on industry. My great uncle who was an engineer at the Panama Canal company had log tables, these were tables of logarithmic values given a number, and the inverse. He needed the heavy tome because he couldn't get enough digits of precision out of his slide rule. He was one of those people who immediately bought an HP-35 when it came out and was thrilled.

My parents bought me the TI SR-52 when it came out and it was the coolest thing I could imagine. I wore the numbers off the keycaps on that thing.

<comment><USER13> I have my dad's slide rule, and his HP-35. He's a retired industrial research scientist.

At my dad's workplace, every scientist had a Friden 55. The managers compared the price of the HP to the annual service contract on the Friden, and bought an HP to try out. They were going to let each scientist have it for a week, then pass it on to the next person. Instead, after just a couple weeks, the Fridens were all in the dumpster.

<comment><USER14> Awesome.

It's proving a little tricky to find a picture and/or more info about the Friden 55. All I'm getting is other models. Was it mechanical?

(Hopefully some of them ended up in attics, they sound mildly interesting even if just from a historical-interest retrospective standpoint)

<comment><USER13> Aha, I found more hits when I entered "Friden STW." I don't know where I got the "55" from.

[http://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/search/object/nmah...](http://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/search/object/nmah_690862)

It's fully mechanical and can do addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. I saw one of these things work, and it was quite an experience. There's a YouTube here:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKm9eM2BuM0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKm9eM2BuM0)

And a few people have published images of the service manual.

My dad said that while the Friden was accurate, it was not portable or quick, and he usually used his slide rule, notebook, and graph paper. For a chemist, slide rule accuracy was usually sufficient.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I really really like HP calculators. The only one I have now is the HP-35s, a new version of HP-35.

Once you go RPN, you can never go back! I have PCalc (another piece of amazing software) on my phone for RPN.

It feels really stupid for others to see that I can't operate a normal calculator.

<comment><USER16> As someone who switched away from RPN (well RPL) I disagree. I was an HP48/50 series fanboy since about 1995 and before that RPN on a HP41. I was the weird kid at school who didn't have a normal calculator and the teachers couldn't help me.

However I bought a Casio FX991EX recently after using my daughter's unit which has a modern entry system, solver, engineering units, conversions and dual power. It's pretty much perfect. Anything else more complicated, I roll out python, scipy, sympy etc.

<comment><USER17> Yea, it's much easier to enter a matrix on a modern Casio than the HP calcs and requires fewer keystrokes I believe. I guess navigation of the indices takes up time on the Casio, but it is so intuitive.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Some of these comments are "my first HP".

I bought an HP-28C in when I graduated from high school using my own money. It was $235 which was a lot of money for me. My parents thought I was crazy. I later upgraded to the 28S followed by the 48sx.

At college, I would enter and win the "Calculator Olympics". They would give you these super complicated algebraic expressions to evaluate. The TI people would lose track of all the parentheses and the older HPs would exceed the 4-level stack.

I was amused a couple years ago to discover many of my old programs are still preserved on the internet: [https://www.hpcalc.org/authors/166](https://www.hpcalc.org/authors/166) POLY was hugely popular at the time. I just wrote it to simplify my classwork.

<comment><USER19> My father worked at HP in the 70s in Tool&Die, and made some of the molds for plastic pieces of the HP 35. He bought an HP 21 in '76\. It's now my son's.

It still works perfectly, except the battery is lost so we run a wire into the battery compartment.

It's the most intuitive calculator I've ever used.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> While I am definitely fond of the HP-35 in a nostalgic sense, my real-life working calculator was the HP-48GX when I became a land surveyor. I added a COGO card that would calculate pavement design, storm water pipe modelling, and the area of a polygon after the coordinates of each point were given. And away I went. There wasn't much I couldn't do with that, graphing or calc-wise. Made my job so much easier in the field.

When they killed the HP-48GX, and replaced it with inferior models, it was a dark day in land surveying.

<comment><USER21> The HP-48G/GX was also my calculator of choice and I really disliked the later HP49. However, I then tried the HP50G, and was instantly hooked. Once you get over the differences in key layout, it's like a HP-48GX loaded with tons of useful software, in a slightly better form factor. I now have a HP50G and a HP-48G, but I never use the older model.

On iOS, I use the Emu50G app, which works, but could really use some improvements and optimizations. It's a fork of emu48.

Incidentally, I think the HP-50G is the last good engineering calculator. I'm puzzled as to how people get around without one these days: don't tell me about python, scipy and other similar shells: there is nothing else out there that can do so much, so efficiently.

<comment><USER22> Have you tried Calc? It's loosely modelled after the HP-calculators and it's my first choice of calculator when I have a full blown computer at my hands.

[https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_mono/calc.htm...](https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_mono/calc.html#What- is-Calc)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I bought a HP-42S in West Germany in 1989, my first trip to the West when I was 14 (I was Hungarian at the time, now that's fixed, I am Canadian). Oh the memories.

Later, 1995, I got a HP 48G via Usenet (eBay opened the month when it arrived from the USA so it's not like I could've bought it there). A friend of mine have soldered four 128K SRAMs in there, stacked, with most legs just ran together vertically with the few data legs separated. Dave Arnett himself told us it's possible to change a G into a GX... [https://groups.google.com/d/msg/comp.sys.hp48/CS0lTpKkBHw/vn...](https://groups.google.com/d/msg/comp.sys.hp48/CS0lTpKkBHw/vnJh61RXJpoJ)

I still have it although I do not use it, it's one of the very few things I carried over when I immigrated.

Ps. Isn't the Internet fantastic? The easy communication with people you'd never be able to connect with otherwise and the astonishing archives allowing me to dig this 23 year old conversation up with ease.

<comment><USER24> I'm a proud 42S owner as well. I keep it safe in a drawer and use the Free42 build on iOS in my pocket:

[http://thomasokken.nl/free42/](http://thomasokken.nl/free42/)

<comment><USER25> I've a SKB case filled with HP calculators. It is your android FREE 42s I pack in the kit. Other than 3-D just-so HP's haptic double-injected keys, it's fantastic! Thank you Thomas for your phenomenal RPN gift to humankind!

<comment><USER23> You are not replying to Thomas Okken, just FYI.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> A neighbor gave us one when he moved up to an HP-25 (lower number, but a later and better calculator). I used it in college. I remember running across campus on my way to a chemistry test, playing catch with my calculator (in the padded case) as I ran. I had confidence that, even if I dropped it, _it would still work_.

<comment><USER27> I accidentally sat on my HP-15C in college and broke the LCD. I wrote to HP to see where I could get the LCD replaced. I was a college student and the thing was like $125 1986 dollars, I wanted to fix it, not buy a new one.

They just sent me a new calculator for free. I was so amazed! Heh.

I repeated almost the same accident with an early kindle and Amazon did the same free replacement. I don't think they do today.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Amazing. I got a HP30s in 2003 as it was the only calculator approved by the university. Everybody I knew hated every single aspect of it. The arrow button was soft and imprecise, leading to long calculations being deleted by accident. The display was too short for longer expressions (compared to the competition). The display scratched easily. The buttons were round and didn't give good tactical feedback. My jaw dropped when I started working in industry and people would guard jealously their ancient HP calculators with nice clicky buttons and crisp display.

HP has come a long way - down.

</comment><comment><USER29> I'm in the age group that spans the end of the slide rule with the beginnings of calculators and personal computers. As a high school senior, trigonometry was the highest math class and we learned to use the slide rule in it. I still have the one my dad bought me for my birthday that year. In college freshman calculus, I remember one guy brought his HP-35 to class and everyone else being awed and amazed by it, including the professor. It was too expensive for me but I was able to buy a TI-50 the next year. Functional but it wasn't an HP.

</comment><comment><USER30> I love this:

HP typically priced their equipment at the cost of the material list × π (or in an especially competitive market, list × e)...

</comment><comment><USER31> What an interesting story. My dad had an HP-35 that he used as a grad student at Stanford in the 70s, and he handed it down to me decades later for me to use in my high school math classes.

</comment><comment><USER32> > HP's own LEDs [...] the calculator needed 15 of them

> Osborne was able to get the price down to a dollar each

> HP typically priced their equipment at the cost of the material list × π > [...] the LED display around 20 dollars

uh?

<comment><USER33> Probably:

1 Display = 15 LEDs + X additional parts

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> When I was growing up in the early 80s, my engineer father had an HP-35 that he adored. He ultimately added an HP-12c, too, and when I was in middle school I was gifted an HP-32sii. I was the only weirdo using RPN. :) I upgraded to an HP-48g in high school when everyone else was using Ti-82.

I can't really think of any other company or product line I've had such a longstanding relationship with. FWIW, I still have both of my HP calculators and they work great!

</comment><comment><USER35> Oh, how I love old HP calculators. My HP 28s is 30 years old and still working great. - I learned programming in a Forth like language (stack based) with it. And it inspired me to learn Scheme and the Mathematica language. Love it. Although these days I rather use a version for my iPhone (HCalc)

</comment><comment><USER36> wow... what an amazing article. Few interesting bits...

\- HP was offering so many products that it took a four-pound, nearly 600-page catalog to describe them all.

\- In what has to be one of the most famous design briefs in electronics history, Bill Hewlett asked Osborne and Cochran to shrink the 9100. "I want it to be a tenth of the volume, ten times as fast and cost a tenth as much."

\- At the time it seemed like an impossible request, but Hewlett didn't let the idea go. Cochran, who for a time lived across the street from Hewlett, would occasionally give him a ride to work.

\- It soon became clear that the entire project was going to cost around a million dollars.

\- Stanford Research Institute did market survey and their conclusion was clear: "we don't recommend that you go ahead with this."

\- Hewlett, despite the SRI report, decided he wanted one and thought his engineers should have one as well.

\- For the log and exponential functions they used pseudo division and multiplication algorithms from Briggs' 1624 Arithmetica Logarithmica. For the transcendental functions they used Volder's CORDIC algorithm, originally developed for B-58 navigation.

\- It took them more than a little finessing to fit everything into the 5140 bits (or 0.6 K).

\- First industrial design featuring angled the display, a textured case, rubber feet serve as battery compartment latches.

\- The entire project took 14 months, half of HP's typical design cycle.

\- Hewlett said the name would be the HP-35, after the device's 35 keys. HP's computerized inventory system only recognized four-digit names

\- HP typically priced their equipment at the cost of the material list × π (or in an especially competitive market, list × e)

\- "We [had to worry about] sales per square foot on the first floor of Macy's, vs. the second floor."

\- HP-35 "[was] something only fictional heroes like James Bond, Walter Mitty or Dick Tracy are supposed to own," a device that Captain Kirk of Star Trek was supposed to own.

\- climbers carried to the top of Everest to do altitude calculations; Apollo astronauts used it in space to calculate re-entry coordinates

\- In all, 100,000 HP-35's (or more than 10× their estimate) were sold in the first year—accounting for more than half of the company's total profits

It's amazing the similarity between HP and Apple's success stories. And then the fact that Steve Jobs bought the property that summer and the site is now part of Apple's new Pentagon-sized spaceship headquarters.

I think pretty much every thing you need to know why companies succeed and fail is in this story.

</comment><comment><USER37> Oh yea. Those were the days those were.

HP 21, 29C, 41CX. Great introduction to computing.

</comment><comment><USER32> > battery for 3 hours

Wow. How often people would replace batteries on this?

<comment><USER38> It uses a pack of rechargable AAs, I have an HP-45 (the immediate successor, with the same battery pack) and replaced the original NiCD cells with NiMH. When I got it the batteries were clearly already a few decades old. AAs NiCDs were pretty common back then, I have an old TI and Soviet-made Electronika calculator that also use them.

<comment><USER39> Right. It mostly wasn't a problem so long as you remembered to charge them before exams, etc. In college, I'd still bring a slide rule to final exams as backup just in case something happened although I never had a problem.

I started college just as scientific calculators were appearing on the scene. I had a TO for a couple of years because the HPs were still so expensive but I was able to pickup an HP-55 after a bit for a relatively affordable price (still probably talking about high 3 digits in today's dollars). That's what I used until I bought an HP-41CV when I went back to school and needed a more programmable calculator.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> 100K units in the first year, vs your king of consumer electronics today: the iPhone, which pre-sells and ships 100K units in what, several minutes?

I understand not everyone buys calculators, but that's sort of the point of the article that this was marketed as a 'consumer' electronics product rather than scientific equipment.

Also there's much less friction and much more marketing today, but it's wild to imagine how _millions_ of iPhones 'move' in a single weekend, every year for nearly the last decade and what is required to keep supply in pace with demand.

<comment><USER3> That's Moore's law in action over the longer term. A device like the iPad back when the HP-35 was introduced would have been (1) impossible to make and (2) would have cost millions of $ given the number of transistors in the device (besides the fact that the internet is what makes an iPad useful).

You really can't compare those numbers, yes, the HP was a consumer device, but the manufacturer of _any_ consumer device back then would have been happy to sell in those numbers.

The good news is now it can be yours for under $2 if you already have an iPhone:

[https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/rpn-35-sd/id956224485?mt=8](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/rpn-35-sd/id956224485?mt=8)</comment></comment>


Egypt comes back online after government backs down - <AUTHOR> http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/onepercent/2011/02/nearly-a-week-after-the.html

<comment><USER2> Not so much backing down as switching tactics. The demonstrators in Cairo's Tahrir square are now under assault from what the news is describing as "pro- government demonstrators", who are throwing stones. They're marching with slogans like "thirty years of stability, nine days of anarchy", but things only turned violent when they showed up. There are multiple reports of these people being found to be bearing police IDs.

Perhaps Mubarak's idea is to say, "it's me or this chaos." But it may very well be his police (otherwise invisible over the past few days) that are creating the chaos...

EDIT: U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon seems to think that's what's going on; he was just on al-J English saying that violence against peaceful demonstrators is unacceptable...

<comment><USER3> hopefully the Military backs the people against the pro-government secret police force

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> A Egyptian friend of mine had this to say about the current events:

"My guess is that it was something planned by the government. You have four things that happened pretty concurrently:

1\. Speech yesterday, concessions made

2\. Army backs out of the square, supposedly doing crowd control, but just let these people walk

3\. Internet is back up

4\. A pro-Mubarak rally

Seems like somebody wanted this to happen and wanted as many people to hear about it as possible."

<comment><USER5> it's equally possible to come up with other non causal correlations. Sometimes things just progress and are utterly unrelated. Seeing patterns where there aren't any is a human survival characteristic.

<comment><USER6> This is politics, not spots on the wall that look like faces.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Latest crazy development: anti-mubarak protesters using laser beams as defense to blind pro-mubarak supporters trying to throw molotov cocktails. This just gets more and more insane/interesting...</comment>


Why You'll Never Be Able to Block a Presidential Alert - <AUTHOR> http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/why-youll-never-be-able-to-block-a-presidential-alert <comment><USER2> "Such a presidential alert has never been sent, but since 2006, they've been unblockable by law"</comment>


Philly Bike Map - <AUTHOR> http://flibbertigibbet.github.io/philly-bikemap/ <comment> at-fates-hands Love the idea of putting where the bike racks are. Too many times I'm riding downtown and have to adjust where I'm going to lock up my ride with where I'm going.

Nicely done.</comment>


Ask HN: What WAF to Protect Against SQL Injection (SQLi), XSS, etc. Attacks - <AUTHOR> Assuming good coding practices are followed for a defence-in-depth approach, how do people protect at the request level - i.e. with a WAF?  For example solutions with the commercial Nginx WAF and/or naxsi with managaged rule sets, or a CDN provider with a managed WAF rule set.  What is the minimum maintenance overhead one can expect? <comment><USER2> if you are using a cloud provider, you can use Fortinet's top 10 WAF rules..

its plug and play but comes with its own disadvantages..</comment>


Happy Hacking Linux - <AUTHOR> http://kodfabrik.com/happy-hacking-linux/ <comment><USER2> ⌥ + P for paste is an awful default. If you are catering to Mac users (as the extensive use of ⌘ and ⌥ suggests), ⌘C and ⌘V are no-brainers.</comment>


3D CSS image carousel animation(requires Safari or iphone) - <AUTHOR> http://www.ferretarmy.com/files/css-animation/3DCarousel/index.html

<comment><USER2> Doesn't work in Firefox (3.5.3)?

Hmm, or IE8.

Still, all those Chrome users will be loving it, I'm sure.</comment>


Synthetic supermicrobe will be resistant to all known viruses - <AUTHOR> https://www.newscientist.com/article/2101657-synthetic-supermicrobe-will-be-resistant-to-all-known-viruses/ <comment><AUTHOR> > But the recoded E. coli will be unable to grow unless fed one of those > artificial amino acids, so it shouldn't spread in the wild. "Biocontainment > is our number one priority," says Church.

Clever, but still sounds a bit dangerous. What about mutations?</comment>