Why Genius may struggle to annotate the world - <AUTHOR> http://themassolit.wordpress.com/2014/08/19/why-genius-may-struggle-to-annotate-the-world/

<comment><USER2> The example it uses of a good annotation,

 _When Nas speaks about "sleep [being] the cousin of death", Genius tells me the line is 'perhaps inspired by the Talmud (which tells us that sleep is 1 /60th of death) or the Iliad (where Hypnos and Thanatos – i.e. "sleep" and "death" – are described as brothers)'._

is more like an example of a bad annotation. Really, we're supposed to believe that 19 year old Nas was referencing the Talmud? This is basically the stereotype of Rap Genius, that it contains a bunch of contrived ridiculous explanations for the meaning of lyrics that are very unlikely to be accurate.

Another problem on Rap Genius is that sometimes the annotations are more jokes than explanations. Judging by the downvotes people get here for posting Reddit-like jokes, I think we are all aware of the near-universal problem of jokes being upvoted over "real" content.

And one more comment...

 _Annotations work particularly well in two contexts; first, when explaining the meaning of a single word_

I don't know if that is true. It depends on what assumptions you make about the reader. Obviously it would be bad to annotate every single word with its definition, that would be overkill. But where do you draw the line? There's no universal answer. For example, I'm sure that many people have heard the word "ratchet" in rap songs without knowing what it means, but if you look up songs with that word on Rap Genius, the annotation is most likely not a definition. Probably either no annotation or a joke, since contributors to Rap Genius all already know what "ratchet" means.

<comment><USER3> Why couldn't 19 year old Nas reference the Talmud?

The goal of any critical reading isn't necessarily to reverse engineer the author's intended meaning, it's to examine the work in context:

\</comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>

[http://johngreenbooks.com/questions-about-the-fault-in- our-s...](http://johngreenbooks.com/questions-about-the-fault-in-our-stars- spoilers/)

Q. Isn't authorial intent important in terms of communication between reader and writer?

A. But it ISN'T a conversation between you and me if all you're doing is attempting to understand what I'm saying. That's just you LISTENING to me, which is kind of boring. Like, don't get me wrong, that act of listening to art/media can be pleasantly distracting and I don't think there's anything wrong with it. That's essentially what watching an episode of NCIS is, I'd argue: The show knows who killed the person and you don't and then at the end they tell you.

But I think what happens when you read a book—ideally, anyway—is much more complicated and beautiful and collaborative. My intent as an author matters some, but you as the reader get some agency, too. You get to discover meaning within the story, and sometimes the meaning you discover will be meaning I hoped you would discover, and sometimes it will be meaning I could never have imagined you discovering. But together, we get to build something that matters to you (hopefully), and that brings you pleasure and consolation and a feeling of unaloneness that you can never get from merely listening.

<comment><USER4> Authorial intent isn't privileged in a critical reading of a text, except when you use phrases like "perhaps inspired by the Talmud", at which point you're making comments _about_ authorial intent.

I'm going to have to go with the GP on this (though the article itself isn't very good). A very large percentage of Rap Genius annotations are just useless, and that's just out of the ones that are trying to be helpful instead of making a joke or providing information that's plain wrong.

Even forgiving for direct appeal to what the lyricist supposedly meant, annotations seem to jump to the very first connection the annotator thought of, and the number of annotations for the same line (and the number of votes weighing the alternative annotations) is so low that a signal isn't rising out of the noise.

Maybe that's just for the entries I end up looking at on there, but they aren't exactly obscure songs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Since the article takes a while to get to the point teased by the headline, I'll spoil it here: The author believes that most non-rap works spread their references and allusions across a wide body of words, which allegedly makes them too hard to annotate.

</comment><comment><USER6> I am the co-founder of Open Rev. (www.openrev.org), a platform where researchers can collaboratively annotate research publications and scientific books. I am a physicist and we designed our platform such that scientists can explain complex scientific contexts to each other (latex, markdown, image support).

I presume that there will be little "where is this reference from" but more "what does this word mean" (for example look at all these acronyms in biology and chemistry papers).

Third kind of annotations is simply posting links to good references. From tests in Physics classes it turns out this is what students did and liked a lot. Sometimes its just damn hard to find a good explanation or image of a physical concept.

That brings me to my last group of annotations: Explanations. That is the rephrasing of the scientific language that is sometimes written truly encrypted. We also anticipate people to improve the scientific content by suggestions new solutions, highlight flaws, post missing derivations, etc. This is likely the hardest annotation form, since it requires "academic rigour" as some of you have noted. And this is what we are shooting for.

</comment><comment><USER7> Most of their rap annotations are either inaccurate or complete bullshit. When it comes to "definitions" of slang, they're usually pretty good - for example, dun-ta-duns mention. When it comes to more subjective analysis of prose though it's pretty laughable how bad/ill-equipped the contributors tend to be at it - for example, "sleep is the cousin of death."

</comment><comment><USER8> It's a for-profit site that runs off unpaid/donated microlabor. It's gonna take some serious gamification to keep that model palatable to contributors if/when the cash start rolling in (or they get a big exit, etc).

<comment><USER9> What on Earth are you talking about? iFixit, Wikia, and many others make money based on people generating high-quality content for free.

This is hardly some daring new business model.

<comment><USER8> The shift of focus away from lyrics towards annotating texts that require more academic rigour (literature, historic documents, news) combined with the brash, public personalities of the owners make me think it will be a bigger problem for these guys than for others. Either way I think a collective "Wait a second..." is long overdue across the board, but that's the optimist in me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I agree somewhat, but I think the article underlines a problem with the Genius UI as it is now, rather than the concept.

The current Genius UI of 'annotation' restricts the concept to highlighting words and phrases. This is limiting. But annotation thats both richer and looser would be more flexible: Allowing people to reference chapters or sections more generally, and potentially multiple sections simultaneously and cross reference annotations themselves. I could see utility in something that allowed the creation of CliffNotes style context alongside the real content. And that also falls under the umbrella of 'annotation' in my mind. There's also potential in the idea of real-time annotation, rather than the snapshot, more curated content they seem to have now.

Doing any of this in a way that isn't overly complex or cumbersome will be tricky, and I've no idea if it's a direction that the creators want (or can) develop it in.

Genius were a lyrics site with an interesting javascript UI and great SEO. They sold that JS UI as part of a bigger picture. But for the reasons the article mentions that JS UI isn't going to take them there. Hopefully they can use that 15 million to build something that will.

</comment><comment><USER11> Genius needs to differentiate between intra-textual annotation (i.e. what it currently does now, a variant on footnotes), inter-textual annotation (i.e. hyperlinks with accompanying comments, basically what hacker news or reddit does now), and meta-textual annotation (i.e. criticism and analysis).

</comment><comment><USER12> Related: videos & slides from April 2014 W3C annotation workshop, [http://www.w3.org/2014/04/annotation/](http://www.w3.org/2014/04/annotation/)

</comment><comment><USER13> Genius is in the concordance business. They need to be in the footnote business. Footnotes are vastly more useful because they reside near the location of the principal work.

</comment><comment><USER14> This makes sense - a line-by-line analysis has limited utility for certain texts. I think the entertainment factor will keep the non-musical annotations burgeoning, and perhaps over time due to increased exposure, quality analysis will surface.

</comment><comment><USER15> It would be great is the article could be annotated. [http://wordpress.org/plugins/livefyre- sidenotes/](http://wordpress.org/plugins/livefyre-sidenotes/)</comment>


More shell, less egg (2011, on McIlroy and Knuth) - <AUTHOR> http://www.leancrew.com/all-this/2011/12/more-shell-less-egg/

<comment><USER2> This is an old and interesting debate.

There is a difference in purpose that perhaps Knuth is seeking to tutorially expose a different way of thinking about the activity of programming. McIlroy is looking for a compact result. I am myself all for short programs, and reusing components, but there is something that is lost in doing so.

I am more aware of this in a security context. For example, consider qmail. It moves mail (some interesting fraction of all internet mail), which sounds like it could benefit from reuse of other components, like the standard library. However, DJB elected not to use the standard library, but to write secure substitutes for necessary functions. The record is clear.

The record is clear also on one of Knuth's major achievements, which is TeX, which has had very few bugs in its lifetime.

So tutorially, McIlroy's counterexample doesn't teach how to programmatically split lines into words without TR, and so on.

One thing that I work with programmers that want to be security folks is to be able to puncture through abstractions. If you understand the details of such abstractions by reading Knuth's approach, you will be further along the road.

So basically I disagree with _Knuth has shown us here how to program intelligibly, but not wisely._

<comment><USER3> McIlroy tried to show us that the best programming is none at all.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> The Unix way and the pipe was definitely McIlroy's genius.

But let's not forget that he also indirectly spawned ActiveX ;)

Here's he is in 1968 presenting his ideas on component based software at NATO

[http://www.knowledgerush.com/wiki_image/9/95/Software_compon...](http://www.knowledgerush.com/wiki_image/9/95/Software_components_lecture_large.jpg)

My favourite McIlroy quote : "The real hero of programming is the one who writes negative code"</comment>


Show HN: Jeo.py, a CLI for keeping score to Jeopardy written in Python - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/bi1yeu/jeopy <comment><USER2> Neat, I've got a webui one I use maybe I'll post it too

<comment><AUTHOR> Awesome -- yes please share! For a long time I'd been using a spreadsheet, roughly laid out like the Jeopardy board, with custom functions for scoring. Scoring while playing was sometimes difficult because I had to look down at the scoreboard. This little program is an attempt at improving the ability to keep score while playing.

<comment><USER2> I'll post Monday</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What are some alternative YC-like programs? - <AUTHOR>

Our start-up got an interview at Y-Combinator last week, but unfortunately did not get in :(
I would say there were three major reasons we were interested in YC; in order they are:
1) Getting to know other people who are working full time on their start-ups.
2) A great network of people who could introduce us to the right people for our project.
3) Really good advice from very experienced angels/entrepreneurs.
What are some alternatives to YC where we could find these things?  This info could be really helpful to us so thanks ahead of time!
-Ryan <comment><USER2> Wikipedia lists most of them here:

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

<comment><AUTHOR> Awesome that is really helpful! Does anyone know of anything that is not listed there?</comment></comment>


SPIM: A MIPS32 Simulator - <AUTHOR> http://spimsimulator.sourceforge.net/ <comment><USER2> This is a blast from the past. The assembly programming homework assignments in my undergrad computer architecture class had to be written to run in this simulator.

<comment><USER3> I tried the compilers course on Coursera a few years back and that was used there as well. Probably still is

<comment><USER4> The compilers source of Stanford university (on Coursera and now Lagunita) uses a fork of SPIM that seems not to care about subtle parts of MIPS such as the delay slot.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> How about CRAPS: a SPARC Simulator?

<comment><USER6> Nope. Nobody gives a CRAP anymore.

<comment><USER5> Its register windows have spilled out into the SCRAP heap of history.

But to its credit, the SPARCSTATION represents PANTISOCRACY with NO RACIST PAST. It ROASTS CATNIP for SATANIC SPORT with no PARTISAN COST. It can create a CAT SOPRANIST with a CASTRATO SNIP.

[https://new.wordsmith.org/anagram/anagram.cgi?anagram=sparcs...](https://new.wordsmith.org/anagram/anagram.cgi?anagram=sparcstation&language=english- obscure&t=0&d=&include=&exclude=&n=&m=&a=n&l=n&q=n&k=1)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Yup, I used this in my computer architectures class a long time ago. Good to see that it's still being updated, especially with the QtSpim version that's cross-platform.

</comment><comment><USER8> Fond memories using this back in my computer architecture class. I think "spim -b" is forever ingrained in my mind.</comment>


Ghost Blog 1.0.0 has been released - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/TryGhost/Ghost/releases <comment><USER2> I'm ending up with "Security error" page when I click the zip file.

1.0.0 > Downloads > Ghost-1.0.0.zip

It says:

Deceptive site ahead

Attackers on github-production-release-asset-2e65be.s3.amazonaws.com may trick you into doing something dangerous like installing software or revealing your personal information (for example, passwords, phone numbers, or credit cards).

<comment><USER3> Isn't the intent to install software?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Sadly, they have broken things left and right :/ Migrating to this new version is a pain because they deprecated postgres. All user accounts are locked and must be reset. So much work. This is why I love wordpress</comment>


Show HN: Private Bitcoin and Blockchain tutoring - <AUTHOR> http://www.bitcointutoring.com/?hnews <comment><AUTHOR> Hi HN,

I've just launched this small website to offer professional tutoring services on Bitcoin and blockchain technology in general. My selling point is very high quality education. I am not doing evangelism.

The HN crowd might not be my target market, but maybe some of you know potential customers? I bought some LinkedIn advertisements today, which was my first ad experience ever.

Your comments are more than welcome. How does the site look? What could be done better? Is the pricing an issue?

Thank you!</comment>


The Data Science Handbook - <AUTHOR> http://www.thedatasciencehandbook.com/ <comment><USER2> I'm going to sound very aggressive, but I don't understand the point of this book. They say

> The material in this book is too valuable not to share.

and after reading the sample I feel their definition of valuable doesn't align with mine. It's a "handbook" but the chapters are interviews that don't go in depth into anything. Here's a sample "question"

> Compassion is also critical for designing beautiful and intuitive products, > by solving the pain of the user. Is that how you chose to work in product, > as the embodiment of data?

Really? This reads like an onion article about data science.

<comment><USER3> As a data scientist, I draw inspiration from the infinite depths of understanding. Life is merely the unfolding of a series of recursive recommendation engines, each one AB testing the local gradients of human emotion. You think you are just buying a pair of socks online. Foolish mortal. That transaction was a multi-armed map-reduce set into motion long before the internet existed. Data science is the internet of things, it is big data at the speed of entropy, quantum mechanics at the scale of desire.

In data we trust. All others bring EVEN. MORE. DATA.

<comment><USER4> Your comment is meaningless. I don't mean that negatively. I mean that it really is meaningless. It's buzzwords connected together with a lack of thought or direction.

<comment><USER5> It is clearly satire.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I am not a native english speaker and I am wondering why is a book, which is a collection of interviews called a 'handbook'?

The definition of a handbook according to wikipedia: "A handbook is a type of reference work, or other collection of instructions, that is intended to provide ready reference."

<comment><USER7> Agreed. I was definitely expecting a reference, and I was confused that the table of contents listed the authors & their positions before mentioning the title of the chapter.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I purchased the book. It is just a general series of interviews with high profile data scientists. Kudos to the author for getting some very busy and prominent people to agree to interviews.

I think it would be valuable to aspiring data scientists - students who are looking to break into the field. It has good general advice on what backgrounds companies look for and some inspiring and motivational stories.

It will not be useful for current data scientists looking for information on how the companies in the book do data science. There are very few technical details included.

</comment><comment><USER9> Flashy website, but a quick background check of the contributors reveals that they've barely been working at their respective positions for over a year.

In any event, kudos on providing an interesting narrative.

<comment><USER10> Mmph. Ja. Skimmed the first three chapters. Not guru material.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Love the business plan. Also love the format in terms of interviews. I have over the years learned more from interviews and just watching someone's workflow and them doing day to day "mundane" work than offical teaching sessions.

I am always surprised how experts in fields under value their own mundane work. If people would just share the studpid day to day stuff people would find great value in that even more than their more advanced work.

Experts are the one's true genious is the things that are easy for them and not neccesarily the advance stuff.

</comment><comment><USER12> I've been in "data science" since the early days (~1997), but I have heard of just 2 of these 25 people before: Hillary and Kunal. Am I that clueless?

</comment><comment><USER13> Sort of related, a couple of free decent books with interviews with data scientists

[http://www.datascienceweekly.org/pdf/DataScienceWeekly_DataS...](http://www.datascienceweekly.org/pdf/DataScienceWeekly_DataScientistInterviews- Vol2-Dec2014.pdf)

[http://www.datascienceweekly.org/pdf/DataScienceWeekly- DataS...](http://www.datascienceweekly.org/pdf/DataScienceWeekly- DataScientistInterviews-Vol1-April2014.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER14> In the past, when considering the term 'Data Science', I've assumed that this is roughly equivalent to the union of Probability Models, Statistics (with a view towards Decision Theory), CS, and Graphic/Web Design (perhaps throw in some knowledge of Heuristics and Biases too.) The number of individuals with sufficient experience in _all_ of these fields should be significantly smaller than those in any given field alone.

I am aware the the demand for Data Scientists is higher than Statisticians at the present, at least in the US. Assuming that there is a non-trivial amount of employed Data Scientists, one is led to the conclusion that there is fairly large portion of under-skilled Data Scientists.

My question is, assuming the above hypothesis, do Data Scientists, on average, under-deliver, or are job requirements lowballed to avoid failure? First thoughts would be to compare to Quants, or Actuaries.

I have a belief that Data Scientist jobs are created due to the following process: Startup founded => Data collection => Predictive Model Exists => Data Scientist => "Visually confirm" hypothesis and send to marketing department. Obviously, the current order of this chain is not correct. A priori, mere sampling does not simultaneously guarantee regularity and high Fisher information.

</comment><comment><USER15> Based on my interest in this field I am willing to pay around $5 for the book. However I agree that it is not a fair price. What should I do? Note that it is not a matter of money. I could afford the suggested price or even more but I am not that interested in the topic.

Downloading for free is not morally acceptable for me, I would like to support this business plan.

<comment><USER16> Sounds like you pay $5. If you don't buy it the authors will be worse off since they won't have any money.

<comment><USER15> Yeah, although I am not a big fan of "the ends justify the means" saying :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Is there a sample chapter? It's hard to know if I want to purchase it without knowing anything about how the book is written or whether it tried to achieve its purpose.

<comment><USER18> Can't you download it for free, look through it and then "re-purchase" it for a price you feel is fair ?

<comment><USER19> That's what I did, do it pretty often with music as well (man I love bandcamp), if I wind up using it a few times I go pay the asking price.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> this is the most useless book posted on HN.

</comment><comment><USER21> Their website is down, here's a direct link to the page where you can purchase the book: [https://gumroad.com/l/rdHh?wanted=true](https://gumroad.com/l/rdHh?wanted=true)

</comment><comment><USER22> Here is a sample chapter. [http://wzchen.com/s/the_data_science_handbook_three_free_sam...](http://wzchen.com/s/the_data_science_handbook_three_free_sample_chapters.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER23> Thank you for this! I love the interview format as well. One bit of feedback so far as I haven't actually started reading yet, it would be helpful to have bookmarks in the PDF to be able to jump around. Thanks again!

</comment><comment><USER24> >> Typically, books like this cost between $20 to $30

>> ... too valuable not to share

>> ... generosity

>> ... share

>> ... minimum contribution of FREE

>> ... suggested contribution of $19

This is too weird. Is this some kind of social experiment on price framing ?

</comment><comment><USER25> if the author is reading this, I'd pay $40 for the audio. I'm assuming you recorded each interview so it could be transcribed. I've got 3 kids and audiobooks/podcasts during my commute is the only realistic time I can consume bulk content.

<comment><USER26> Thanks for the feedback, Viggity! - we will think about that (we have all the audio, but there is some processing involved...)

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I'd love to read a sample chapter or at least a few pages before buying the complete book.

<comment><USER28> Can you not download it for free, and essentially do that?

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> The requested URL "/", is invalid, apparently

<comment><USER29> nevermind, looks healthier now ...

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Max (et. al) - way to go & congrats on publishing!

</comment><comment><USER31> Cool work, I know Max and he is passionate & loves interviewing people. This is totally worth the read!

<comment><USER32> I just met Max and we had the opportunity to discuss a lot this weekend. The book looks very promising. Just buy it guys.</comment></comment>


Sketching with Math and Quasi Physics - <AUTHOR> https://kynd.github.io/p5sketches/index.html <comment><USER2> Check out Daniel Shiffman's "The Nature of Code" [1]. You can read it online for free (and play around with the web-based examples!). The book uses Processing but there's a p5.js port of the book available on Dan's Github [2].

__

[1]: [http://natureofcode.com/](http://natureofcode.com/)

[2]: [https://github.com/shiffman/The-Nature-of-Code- Examples-p5.j...](https://github.com/shiffman/The-Nature-of-Code- Examples-p5.js)

<comment><USER3> His youtube channel [1]

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/user/shiffman](https://www.youtube.com/user/shiffman)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> A little while ago I wrote an article about a slightly more literal interpretation of 'sketching' with (quasi) physics, if you're interested you can check it out here

[https://martijnbrekelmans.com/generative- art/wind/wind.html](https://martijnbrekelmans.com/generative- art/wind/wind.html)

You can play with the software as well

[https://martijnbrekelmans.com/generative- art/wind/program/in...](https://martijnbrekelmans.com/generative- art/wind/program/index.html)</comment>


Fuck me: iOS' Notes app censors handwritten swears - <AUTHOR> https://thenextweb.com/apple/2019/08/12/fk-me-ios-notes-app-censors-handwritten-swears/ <comment><USER2> Misleading headline. It's only censoring the suggested title of the note, not any actual content. Similar to how autocorrect does not suggest swear words either. Imagine the outrage from a false positive swear suggestion when a child is writing a note about _ducking_.

<comment><USER3> Why is it bad for a child to see a swear word? Shouldn't they know what that swear word is and why they shouldn't use it?

<comment> kube-system They probably wouldn't know what it is or why they shouldn't use it if they're being introduced to the word via the Notes app.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> US continuous to amaze me. Guns can be bought in supermarkets, but swear words are censored, and nudity until recent years was not displayed in movies. Now this; what's next, censoring swears when typed?

<comment> kube-system Because of age appropriateness.

Guns are only sold to adults, and the only media censored in the US is that which is broadcast publicly to audiences of all ages. Nudity has been in US movies for 50+ years.

Many platforms for children do already censor swears that are typed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Apple Notes can be shared [0].

But I doubt if the trade off is worth it to trouble the user even when it's not shared to anyone.

[0] [https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT206987](https://support.apple.com/en- us/HT206987)

<comment><USER6> You can share literally any file you have in iCloud. Are they going to censor every file I have?

<comment><USER7> duck yeah

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I doubt it's them being puritan, it seems more likely to me that they don't want to cause offense by misreading something as a swear word. Note that iOS's predictive text thing will never suggest swear words.</comment>


How to Break Out of the 'Female Entrepreneur' Trap - <AUTHOR> http://www.inc.com/shelley-prevost/break-out-of-the-female-entrepreneur-trap.html <comment><USER2> Shelley Prevost has never been a startup operator. Her background is in psychological counseling, and she serves that role (in what looks like a team- coach or leadership-coach kind of role) at an incubator.

That doesn't disqualify her from having opinions about how women should handle gender-based bias, team dynamic, and motivational challenges in startups. But it doesn't automatically qualify her, either.

Meanwhile, I read this piece twice and it seems like it's full of platitudes. Maybe women leading startups face problems that are not best addressed by "Find other ways to get support, then keep moving" and "not living in the sting" and "amplifying your problems".

<comment><USER3> "Saying that an author lacks the authority to write about a topic is a variant of ad hominem—and a particularly useless sort, because good ideas often come from outsiders. The question is whether the author is correct or not. If his lack of authority caused him to make mistakes, point those out. And if it didn't, it's not a problem."[1]

[1] <http://www.paulgraham.com/disagree.html>

<comment><USER2> First: That is not what I asserted. What I said was subtly but importantly different: that her piece was full of platitudes and thus her prescriptions rely on her authority, which is worth examining. My point was substantive.

Second: There is no less compelling argument to make on HN than a citation to that post, particularly when the argument involves the word "ad hominem", which for some reason seems to be a particularly difficult concept for message board nerds like us to grok.

<comment><USER3> >Shelley Prevost has never been a startup operator. Her background is in psychological counseling, and she serves that role (in what looks like a team- coach or leadership-coach kind of role) at an incubator.

> That doesn't disqualify her from having opinions about how women should > handle gender-based bias, team dynamic, and motivational challenges in > startups. But it doesn't automatically qualify her, either.

These two paragraphs do exactly that. The third paragraph could have stood on its own. I was not arguing against you, I was simply pointing out that most of what you wrote was to dismiss what the author wrote without reason. If your point was indeed not so, then why not leave out the first two paragraphs? What do they add?

<comment><USER2> I feel like I'm repeating myself. My point was that she wrote a piece that effectively relies on the authority of the author, and that authority was dubious.

Think of it this way: if she was a reporter or science writer writing a sourced, reported piece --- or even if she was an essayist constructing a series of arguments for why women shouldn't be talking about their challenges publicly or attending symposia --- her authority would in fact probably be out of bounds. But this piece is neither of those two things.

<comment><USER3> >her authority would in fact probably be out of bounds.

This is exactly the question, why does her authority matter at all?

<comment><USER4> The point is that, in tptacek's estimation, she provides no _evidence_ for her assertions, relying on us, the audience, to trust in her purported experience and authority.

Another way to look at it is that she's committing an appeal to (her own) authority fallacy. Pointing out fallacies is not ad hominem.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This sounds alarmingly close to the dangerous "women can only succeed in _business_ by acting like men" attitude that is prevalent in much of more traditional businesses and particularly in more conservative cultures around the world.

There are real biases and subconscious prejudices against female entrepreneurs, female engineers, and female professionals in many industries in general that will most likely perpetuate if ignored (which imo is what this article suggests). While ignoring the possibility of potential pitfalls _might_ work, it definitely doesn't seem like an elixir that will cure all ills.

<comment><USER6> Your post seems to imply that solving problems and focusing on goals are male- specific patterns of action. That's a rather more dangerous meme.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Let me be frank: I received a 1 page resume of a female computer scientist, where the word "women" was mentioned 8 times (organizations, etc). We did not interview that person, since frankly we were _scared_.

<comment><USER8> Women are scary to computer nerds.

<comment><USER9> More precisely, it's the way women can wind other computer nerds around their finger. The sword of attention cuts both ways.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Being a woman entrepreneur, and having been part of an incubator for startups (ImagineK12), I have to agree with what she is saying in this article. Even though we were the ONLY women founder team in an incubator with more then 30 men, I never saw myself as different from my male co-founder peers.

Its important to focus on results. Driving product, customers, team, company requires similar skills whether you are a woman, man, white, black, gay, straight. Using your contraint as an excuse will not let you see your full potential.

I personally dont have anything against women organizations, but I try to not partake in them often because I dont feel the need to. I am happy to help other women succeed, but I am happy to help other men succeed too. If you stop looking at the world as 'us against them', there is a whole lot of new opportunity you will open up for yourself.

</comment><comment><USER11> Title of article: "How to Break Out of the 'Female Entrepreneur' Trap"

First line of article: "As the lone female founder of a bustling incubator..." - or is that whooshing sound the joke going over my head?

</comment><comment><USER12> Ignoring reality does not make it go away.

[http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2013/02/05/171196714/the- jobs...](http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2013/02/05/171196714/the-jobs-with- the-biggest-and-smallest-pay-gaps-between-men-and-women)

<comment><USER13> It has been mostly debunked - and is attributed to choices people make:

Here is Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich, explaining that the portion of the gender wage gap due to bias and prejudice is about 25% of the total gap. That is 75% of the gap is due to various career choices and career preferences that differ between men and women, and the remaining 25% is due to bias and prejudice. So if the wage gap is 24 cents on the dollar, the wage gap due to bias and prejudice is 6 cents. Still something to think about and work on, but a whole lot less inflammatory than 24 cents.

[http://www.freakonomics.com/2008/05/01/robert-reich- answers-...](http://www.freakonomics.com/2008/05/01/robert-reich-answers-your- labor-questions/)

"Q: I'd be interested to know your thoughts on the feminisation of poverty and the male-female wage differential. How much of that is due to career choice?

A: Rough estimate: About 50 percent of the differential has to do with different career choices made by women and men. Twenty-five percent involves greater time women spend on care-taking of children and elderly relatives. The other 25 percent is due to bias and prejudice in the labor market."

(citation - this comment: [http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/philg/2012/12/17/profit- opportu...](http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/philg/2012/12/17/profit-opportunity- if-women-earn-less-than-men/#comment-194717))

<comment><USER14> > Here is Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich, explaining that the portion of > the gender wage gap due to bias and prejudice is about 25% of the total gap. > That is 75% of the gap is due to various career choices and career > preferences that differ between men and women, and the remaining 25% is due > to bias and prejudice. So if the wage gap is 24 cents on the dollar, the > wage gap due to bias and prejudice is 6 cents. Still something to think > about and work on, but a whole lot less inflammatory than 24 cents.

This analysis is incomplete and doesn't really debunk anything.

First of all, career choices and preferences don't exist in a vacuum. They are partially the result of familial and cultural influence. Women are expected to behave a certain way and like certain things - this undoubtedly has an influence on which career they chose. Second, the way wages are set for a particular career is not always a rational process. Certainly the market influences how much someone is paid to some extent, but cultural and historical factors play a role here too.

All this quote basically says is 25% of the wage gap is due to overt discrimination, 25% is due to child rearing, and 50% is due to unknown factors - including traditional gender roles and other more "covert" forms of discrimination as well as personal choices.

Maybe studies that cover that last 50% exist, I don't know I'm not a sociologist, but saying that you can just throw 50% of the disparity away because it's "personal choice" is completely neglecting parts of the issue.

<comment><USER13> You realize that to claim a gender gap, you have to compare apples to apples - same job, education level, hours worked between genders? And when all of this is tabulated, there is no gender gap.

[http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505125_162-28246928/the- gender-p...](http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505125_162-28246928/the-gender-pay- gap-is-a-complete-myth/)

"Why the Gender Pay Gap is a Complete Myth

Men are far more likely to choose careers that are more dangerous, so they naturally pay more. Top 10 most dangerous jobs (from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics): Fishers, loggers, aircraft pilots, farmers and ranchers, roofers, iron and steel workers, refuse and recyclable material collectors, industrial machinery installation and repair, truck drivers, construction laborers. They're all male-dominated jobs.

Men are far more likely to work in higher-paying fields and occupations (by choice). According to the White House report, "In 2009, only 7 percent of female professionals were employed in the relatively high paying computer and engineering fields, compared with 38 percent of male professionals." Professional women, on the other hand, are far more prevalent "in the relatively low-paying education and health care occupations."

Men are far more likely to take work in uncomfortable, isolated, and undesirable locations that pay more.Men work longer hours than women do. The average fulltime working man works 6 hours per week or 15 percent longer than the average fulltime working woman.

Men are more likely to take jobs that require work on weekends and evenings and therefore pay more.

Even within the same career category, men are more likely to pursue high- stress and higher-paid areas of specialization. For example, within the medical profession, men gravitate to relatively high-stress and high-paying areas of specialization, like surgery, while women are more likely to pursue relatively lower-paid areas of specialization like pediatrician or dentist.

Despite all of the above, unmarried women who've never had a child actually earn more than unmarried men, according to Nemko and data compiled from the Census Bureau.

Women business owners make less than half of what male business owners make, which, since they have no boss, means it's independent of discrimination. The reason for the disparity, according to a Rochester Institute of Technology study, is that money is the primary motivator for 76% of men versus only 29% of women. Women place a higher premium on shorter work weeks, proximity to home, fulfillment, autonomy, and safety, according to Nemko."

<comment><USER14> I'm afraid none of this addresses my point and the question I implicitly raise - namely _why_ do women choose the work they do?

I'm not saying that biology is not a factor - physically demanding jobs may always be the domain of men - but there's little apparent reason for so few women choosing computer and engineering fields besides socialization.

As for the business owner angle, I think another poster here had it right, women tend to be bad at negotiating but even that has confounding factors, e.g.: [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp- dyn/content/article/2007/07...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp- dyn/content/article/2007/07/29/AR2007072900827.html)

"Both men and women were more likely to subtly penalize women who asked for more -- the perception was that women who asked for more were "less nice".

"What we found across all the studies is men were always less willing to work with a woman who had attempted to negotiate than with a woman who did not," Bowles said. "They always preferred to work with a woman who stayed mum. But it made no difference to the men whether a guy had chosen to negotiate or not.""

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> holla!

</comment><comment><USER16> I very much agree with the premise but she's not a very clear writer. I think she assumes the reader already knows what the problem is.

My take is that the more people focus on identity ("female" "founder" "hacker" "HNer" whatever), the less they focus on results. Everything that happens in their lives gets viewed through this lens of identity. Unfortunately, that colors things in an unrealistic way:

"This guy trolled me because I am female" vs "this guy trolled me, and he trolls a lot of other people with penises too, because he's a dick".

It leaves you ridiculously vulnerable to identity attacks:

"Top 10 Traits of Entrepreneurs" "Are you entrepreneur enough?" "Hacker News is a wasteland" "Designers Suck At X"

Identity-involvement not only reduces your ability to see reality (you look for the first fit explanation to any occurrence, and identity is always with you), it also means you are really easy to troll and manipulate. Either by insulting or questioning YOUR identity, or massaging it and propping it up ("I have the traits of an entrepreneur! Yay!") ("Hackers will inherit the earth"), or attacking your lack of support for their identities ("Why doesn't your conference have 50% women?").

Finally, identity-involvement leads to a narrowing of experience -- "Do female founders do this? Can they? Will I be fulfilling a stereotype? Will I be letting people down?" "I'm a designer… designers don't x" "I'm a hacker, and hackers care about the hottest technologies…"

It becomes about grooming, enforcing, and defending an image, rather than results.

I see this a lot. It's a shame. I used to fall prey to it myself, wishing I wasn't a woman because of people thought "woman" meant -- something I had no interest in (hair, makeup, purses, women's magazines, women's meetups etc) -- and those other women "made me look bad".

But then I realized what an ego trip that was. "Woman," too, is just a label, and by denying it, I was implicitly buying into its legitimacy.

Now I just do whatever the fuck "Amy" does, which is my stereotyped identity sample size 1.

A friend of mine was concerned that her girly clothes and love of makeup make _her_ less credible as a spokesperson for women's issues. One of these seems like a concern about sexism… but both hers and my worries are actually about the same issue (identity). Like me, my friend also has learned to simply embrace _who she is_ and not worry that she's "letting other women down" by simply doing what she loves.

It sounds to me that this is what the author is getting at, she just doesn't lay it out that clearly. That's why she says things about women's symposiums, talking about femaleness, etc., stressing about / regretting (instead of using) the fact that you're the sole female in a thing[1], because those are identity involvements. These points of hers, I agree with.

To those who will say that she is saying "act like a man" -- she doesn't.

To those who will say "this is glossing over very real sexism" -- please see my example above about the troll. Often people assume that if something is (OR APPEARS to be) sexually related, it's sexism. They look at the first possible answer ("she's being trolled… she's a woman… it must be because she's a woman!"). But 9 times out of 10, the guy who insults a speaker for being a woman, insults another speaker for using JavaScript or being fat or wearing a suit, or looking like a hipster. That's not sexism, that's an equal opportunity dick, who simply seizes on the most vulnerable part of his victim's identity. Yes, identity.

Is there real sexism? Absolutely. But is there any proof that women's conferences and angry blog posts help?

Sure, it's annoying for some dude at a meetup to assume you're there with somebody else. It's also annoying for some woman on Twitter to loop me into "sexist technology" rants because I have breasts and therefore she expects I agree with her. But that's just life. You can't control what people think, not even of you. And the annoying people in both examples are just pattern matching, which usually works, and not making a value judgment about your person (aka sexism).

[1] (Aside: stressing about being "the only x" in an environment is often even more about identity-confirmation -- _I need other people Who Look/Think/Act Like Me to validate my choices are okay_ \-- as it is about exclusion. This is the same reason some people _love_ being "the only x" -- it confirms their identity as a renegade. Also, "the only x" is often not about physical facts (sex) but also about viewpoints.)

<comment><USER2> I think the angry blog posts help. I think most of HN is not aware of how pervasive sexism and gender privilege assumptions are in Startuplandia. We're commenting on Hacker News, a site run by someone who's most famous essay says outright that he wouldn't want to work at an early-stage startup with a woman with small children. In other words, I think even the people pushing gender privilege aren't fully aware that they're doing it. The angry posts keep the conversation alive, and that's the only way the culture is going to change.

Women's conferences, no idea. I think the idea sounds silly, but then, I'm a guy.

My wife, also a developer, also a startup person, is probably more on your side than on my side. Ironically, we started out with the opposite conflict: I didn't buy that male privilege was a real issue, and trusted on meritocracy to sort all this shit out. Now that's become her spiel, and mine the opposite.

(Look, here's her disagreeing with me on this very thread: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5287829>)

<comment><USER16> What we think and what there's evidence for are diff things. Obviously everybody's entitled to their opinions.

There is research that suggests, however…

* priming people to remind them that they belong to a stereotyped group actually causes people to perform worse (stereotypically) -- this is called stereotype threat, lots available if you googles

* guilting people about their culture's bad behavior / their personal bad behavior actually causes them to dig in their heels, not to feel bad and then change (because feeling bad is an identity threat (irony)) -- the study I'm thinking of for this one took young Germans and primed them to think about the abuses perpetrated by nazis (before they were ever born) and then polled them on attitudes towards Jews and found that the people who were exposed to the priming were less sympathetic, not more; the researchers had reason to believe this was due to the emotional knee-jerk reaction to guilt

And on and on. The _research_ suggests that the furor is probably paradoxically counter-productive.

Furthermore, people who speak about "women in x" presume to speak for everyone, but they sure don't speak for me or most of my female friends. But they are painting us with the same brush because we've got the same genitals. Bothersome.

As for pg's opinions about startup-women-with-young-kids, it fits well with his other writing (programmers aren't just programmers, they're hackers; hackers are artists; nerds are unpopular in high school because they're way too awesome, etc) which is all about reinforcing identity. And of course he runs a business which depends on extraordinary (I would say over-)involvement with, and (over-)commitment to work. He also says he won't work with people who won't or can't move, too -- a non-gendered but identical outcome based on "devotion," not body parts or reproductive status.

<comment><USER2> The people who consciously choose to believe that women are inferior to men in software development, either due to misguided beliefs about genetics or intractable upbringing issues, aren't going to be persuaded by angry blog posts or anything else. They're already dug in to their positions.

The people who benefit from alertness to privilege, culture, and bias issues are the ones running or helping influence the operation of development shop who don't understand the problem. They're the ones who think "avoid hiring women with small children in early startups" is an innocent enough statement --- after all, they won't have enough time to put in. They're the ones who ask women at interviews how they're going to handle picking up their children after school. They're the ones who think if you spend 8-10 of your 14-16 working hours a day at work, it's only natural that you'd try to find dating partners at work.

I believe you when you say that stereotype threat is a real problem with "angry blog posts". Personally, I think the overt bias problem is so bad right now that we can probably set stereotype threat aside until we cut back the active prejudice a bit. But it's also worth pointing out that the mitigation strategies for stereotype threat aren't "pretend the stereotype isn't a problem".

<comment><USER16> > Personally, I think the overt bias problem is so bad right now

See, that's where we disagree. I have watched many more men get torn down in violent fashion, neglected, and excluded, than women. I think the overall tech culture sucks period, I don't think it's got nearly so much to do with sexism as you do. Like my example about the guy who mocks women speakers for being women -- and turns around and mocks another speaker for writing Java. That's a sex-related expression of general douchenuggetry.

Remember that time Yehuda Katz interrupted a speaker at a meetup, said everything the speaker said was bullshit, and took over his talk? Yeah… nobody else does either. Cuz it was a man who was done wrong.

My husband actually is on the receiving end of way more vitriol than me even though I'm at least 300% as visible. And I _know_ I've sometimes received extra consideration and protection because I'm a woman.

I'm not saying "Somebody pity the poor men." I'm also not saying women haven't suffered. Please don't think I am saying that. I'm questioning the root of the bad behavior, not how it feels to be on the receiving end.

Since bias is all in the interpretation of data, I'd love it if there was some hard data we could compare. I don't believe there is, though.

> after all, they won't have enough time to put in

The best way to solve this problem isn't by writing blog posts about how women with small kids can swim with the fishes, but by killing the culture of overwork. By starving it, of men and women, by showing them that A) it's harmful to them, and B) that it's unnecessary for their goals.

Laws would be nice, too.

I'd bet you any amount of money that this indirect approach is better, because nobody gets their hackles up OR STEREOTYPED if you tell them, "You can achieve what you want with 40 hours a week. Here's how." Instead of attacking bad behavior, you support good behavior. Instead of attacking identity and trying to change people, you show people who are already motivated (they want something) how to achieve their dreams. Nobody likes being lectured, but everybody wants to achieve something.

And, bonus, it's totally non-gendered… you help both men and women with the same stroke.

(The downside is it's not as sensationalistic. But I consider that an upside.)

If you've ever read my blog, you know that I practice what I preach here. I don't attack VCs or startups -- even though they richly "deserve" it -- I don't ever address anything to them, hoping they'll change. I go for their supply, the grist for their mill. Where I can actually hurt them… in the economics.

This is deliberate, not accidental. I've been doing the same thing since I started teaching marginalized visual thinkers how to code. Based on the emails I've received over the years, I probably helped more women get into Rails than any Rails For Women endeavor, not to mention non-neckbeard-types who were male, simply by delivering information in a way that supported a different learning style.

I don't think "shrink it and pink it" is a good way to sell products, and equally I don't believe that making general issues a women's issue is an effective way to create change.

EDIT: If you find the above approach interesting, consider reading Obliquity by John Kay. Here's an essay that sums up the book (the book is still worth reading): <http://www.johnkay.com/2004/01/17/obliquity>

<comment><USER8> Is tearing people down at work an American thing?

I worked in Japan, and there was a culture of overwork, but it wasn't anything like Glengarry Glen Ross.

<comment><USER16> No, it's not an American thing, it's an ego thing, and America has lots of great people and also a lot of huge egos and not a lot of cultural taboos to reign them in. Some call this the "rockstar" or "brogrammer" problem, but you'll find it in any industry where people think they're hot shit.

No doubt many people in Japan have large egos, but Japan also has institutionalized politeness.

<comment><USER17> > but Japan also has institutionalized politeness.

Careful. They also have an institutionalized social hierarchy, baked into the language and pretty much everywhere. It's expected that when you start at a new school or a new company that you will be treated like dirt by your 'superiors' on an ongoing basis.

There's a _much_ higher tolerance for hazing and bullying in general. This leaves me skeptical that Japanese culture fosters an environment where people are nicer to each other than anywhere else.

Foreigners tend to get a free pass by being 'out of the system', unless their Japanese(ness) passes a certain threshold of fluency.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Cool new tech: built in webcam + eye-tracking SW = screen only you can read - <AUTHOR> http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/news/technology/2009/06/protecting_your_computer_scree.html

<comment><USER2> Or... just add a privacy filter to the display. <http://www.google.com/search?q=privacy+filter+display> No need for webcams, special software that needs to run on all possible OS'es etc.

</comment><comment><USER3> Sounds like really "fun" technology, but I wonder: is peeking-over-the- shoulder really enough of a pain point to justify the cost of this software? I suppose it would be ideal for surfing porn at work, provided that it blurs effectively enough.

<comment><USER4> Probably not for most people. Might be useful for receptionists in a public area. Useful if you can make it a requirement for eg. nurses stations in a hospital.

A version built in to ATMs would be good.</comment></comment>


Explaining White Privilege to a Broke White Person - <AUTHOR> http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gina-crosleycorcoran/explaining-white-privilege-to-a-broke-white-person_b_5269255.html <comment><USER2> Sorry, but I'm really not going to explain intersectional cisgender privilege (or whatever) to the guy panhandling on the street.

</comment><comment><USER3> Huffington Compost should be marked as spam...</comment>


Does anybody use ExtJS? If not (or if so), what for and why? - <AUTHOR>

I'm trying to understand if people do not use ExtJS because of its licensing model or for technical reasons and I'm also looking forward to use cases. <comment><USER2> The company I work at is using it for a CMS.

Drawbacks of it seem to be large initial download (Total initial download for the CMS's files is 1.1Mb, of which almost 900Kb is JS), and some stability problems after leaving it running for a day.

As for the community "problem", in addition to pay-for support, there's a also lively forum and IRC channel.

Not too big a fan of it, imho the benefit of using extJS seems to be a large download, and dropshadow'd floaty DHTML-windows. Meh.

</comment><comment><USER3> I use ExtJS for an application that I created. While I find it's licensing model an annoyance I have also found that, for the facilities it provides, it's unmatched in terms of quality and breadth of offering. I know there are a number of other potential alternatives out there but I have found that I like the way the components look, it's strong in the cross browser support arena and believe theres a coherence to the API that simplifies learning how to use it too.

<comment><AUTHOR> My concern is that it does not really foster a community around it so with the odd licensing model and without the community itself it can slow behind other alternatives.

<comment><USER3> I can't argue with that but I suppose the way that they are looking at this is that, as it's least partially a commercial venture, there are people being paid to keep it concurrent. Only time will tell whether this is how it actual works out however.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I don't understand where you are coming from.

TANSTAAFL!

We bought a licence and use it to write our product. It works great!

And "community"? There's a huge, active and enthusiastic community!

</comment><comment><USER5> The problem is not the license per se, but the bait-and-switch they did. <http://www.jroller.com/sjivan/date/20080425>

</comment><comment><USER6> I'm using it with AIR to create client-side apps.

I've enjoyed it so far, it seems very elegant, but can be a bit tricky to learn.</comment>