Go's Declaration Syntax - <AUTHOR> http://blog.golang.org/2010/07/gos-declaration-syntax.html

<comment><USER2> The declaration syntax contradicts the commentary.

Functions do not read from left to right. The example of

      func main(argc int, argv *[]byte) int

is explained as "function main takes an int and a pointer to a slice of bytes and returns an int" but it should read "main is a function which takes an int and a pointer to a slice of bytes and returns an int" just like

      x int

means "x is an integer". Reading left to right the variable name should come first for functions as for other variables so the function syntax should be

      main func(argc int, argv *[]byte) int

But this can't be so because this appears to be the syntax that function variables use

      f func(func(int,int) int, int) int

which is explained as "Here's a declaration of a function variable (analogous to a function pointer in C)".

Also the article says "Pointers are the exception that proves the rule" because "For familiarity, Go's pointers use the * notation from C, but we could not bring ourselves to make a similar reversal for pointer types.".

Putting these two observations together I would say that Go's declaration syntax fails in its stated mission of simplicity and regularity.

EDIT: can't seem to work out how to code markup on HN, anyway I hope I've made what I'm trying to say clear enough.

UPDATE: two spaces at the start of a line seems to work

<comment><USER3> I hope this is the last time I see "the exception that proves the rule" in the context of programming languages. It's a wart. You know what would better prove the rule? No exceptional cases at all.

<comment><USER4> It is used correctly in the article. The meaning of the word 'prove' in that saying is anologous to 'test' or 'try'. As in 'proving grounds'.

<comment><USER2> Interesting. I never looked up the etymology of that expression. Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> As a crazy random thought, wouldn't '@' work well as an alternative to the asterisk to dereference pointers? It's available, it's ASCII, it's pronounced "at" which seems to jive with pointer semantics, and it's not used in C-like languages.

Just a very quick thought after reading Mr Pike's closing words that the use of the asterisk for pointers makes the syntax a bit clumsier than they would have wished.

<comment><USER6> That would invert the use in Pascal where

P := @X;

means assign the address of X to P. And

Y := P^;

means dereference P and assign the result to Y.

I think anyone who has written any Pascal/Delphi would prefer ^ for dereference.

<comment><USER7> Anyone who has done a lot of bit twiddling in C has other uses for ^. (I find it ironic that 4^5 has an obvious meaning outside of programming that it doesn't have in a large variety of widely used programming languages.)

<comment><USER6> I suppose they should be allocated based on frequency of use within the intended domain of the language, with the most frequent getting first choice. I guess pointer dereferencing would be more important than xor for most domains. Not that I am particularly advocating ^ for pointers, * is just as good, but I do think using @ for the opposite of its meaning in Pascal would be confusing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Includes a discussion of C's declaration syntax. Some stuff in there I didn't know.

</comment><comment><USER8> The more I use Go the more I realise how much thought has gone into every language decision and (just as importantly) how much restraint has gone into the design.

It's my first tool of choice for everything now.

</comment><comment><USER9> great explanation and advocacy, and also good to see Pike's name as the author, gives the language a cred boost in my eyes. maybe i'll add it to the same bucket I consider D to be in as a possible successor to C for certain niches.

</comment><comment><USER10> Could use a better title... it's the golang.org's _blog_ , and it's an explanation _of_ the syntax, which is not really implied by "Go's declaration syntax". With just the domain and title, I'd assumed this was just documentation (as sometimes gets posted on hn), not discussion, and skipped over it several times.

All in all interesting, and I definitely agree with the improvement with their "function-returning function which accepts a function as an argument" example. An interesting departure from C & languages influenced by C (ie: most).

<comment><USER11> > "function-returning function which accepts a function as an argument"

I write almost exclusively Go day to day and I've noticed I no longer shy away from function pointers like in C. It's not that the C version can't be mastered, it's just that I'd rather not occupy a significant chunk of my brain with it.

Another interesting observation is that I can now pretty easily switch between C and Go if I need to, the declaration syntax seems different enough that my brain can do the leap. Sadly less true for semicolons (Go omits most, C doesn't)

<comment><USER12> What are you doing in Go on a daily basis?

<comment><USER11> At work I'm writing internal infrastructure, at home I'm working on a CNC controller.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> You might compare the results with SPECS: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Significantly_Prettier_and_Easi...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Significantly_Prettier_and_Easier_C%2B%2B_Syntax) \-- an alternate syntax for C++. I find its productions clearer than those of Go's.

</comment><comment><USER14> We took what you're used to... and flipped it around! Did I just blow your mind??</comment>


Show HN: React webapp to showcase the stories of the New Zealand victims - <AUTHOR> https://knowtheirname.com/ <comment> crooked-v I appreciate the sentiment here, but there's something significantly laggy about the site on my fairly beefy machine.</comment>


How to Sell Elixir - <AUTHOR> https://speakerdeck.com/evadne/how-to-sell-elixir <comment><AUTHOR> Great talk for technical team leaders evaluating options for the business. The lessons apply to everything, not only Elixir IMO.</comment>


Ask HN: Do you take notes when learning a new programming language or framework? - <AUTHOR> I only take notes when learning something theoretical or to a similar degree something which is more difficult to grasp. Lately I've been asking myself if I should take notes when learning a new programming language or a new framework/library. Does anyone do it and is it beneficial? <comment><USER2> For things I use infrequently, having basic notes is helpful...if and only if those notes are in a place where I can find them and for that hand written on paper works best for _me_.

Other times, I find the process of taking notes helps me avoid glossing over text under the assumption that I understand it...even if I don't go back to the notes ever.

For programming, _I_ find the most useful technique is typing the code into the computer just like back in the 1980's when magazines were the rage. For _me_ it trumps every other method. It also leads me to dislike example code with external dependencies because it takes me out of the zone.

Good luck.

</comment><comment><USER3> I don't take notes, but i do comment, if i use something that I havent before (and want to remember for later)</comment>


What Clayton Christiansen Got Wrong - <AUTHOR> http://stratechery.com/2013/clayton-christensen-got-wrong/

<comment><USER2> Great piece. Unfortunately we don't have too much of a theory/model left to fall back on, but that's how life often is. Messy.

I wouldn't necessarily say that 'consumers aren't rational' but I definitely agree that many components and qualities that make a product valuable cannot be easily measured and quantified.

Perhaps Christiansen will come up with a new best seller. I mean an updated theory. Well both, hopefully</comment>


How Microsoft Made PHP Suck Less on Windows - <AUTHOR> http://www.itworld.com/development/73001/how-microsoft-made-php-suck-less-windows <comment><USER2> Microsoft: Trying to make things suck less since 1995

<comment><USER3> I'd contend that lately they've gone over the hump that divides "sucks less" and "much improved".

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Sometimes I run PHP on windoze, with Apache and MySql, no problems at all.

M$ from time to time tries to remove Apache from the startup services but that's a minor annoyance.

Who in his dubious sanity would run PHP on IIS and sql server?

What kind of twisted mind can do that?

M$ has done nothing as far as I know.</comment>


Synthetic DNA substitute gets its own enzymes, undergoes evolution - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2012/04/synthetic-dna-substitute-gets-its-own-enzymes-undergoes-evolution.ars <comment><USER2> One potential use for non-DNA/RNA-based life: a fail-safe for a useful but potentially-dangerous synthetic organism. If you have a synthetic organism that is useful in controlled circumstances but could cause a catastrophe if released the the outside world, you could make it use an XNA instead of DNA (and/or RNA), and ensure that it lacks the biosynthetic pathways needed to synthesize the building blocks. Then the organism will be utterly dependent on you providing it with the required XNA building blocks, and will be unable to survive if it is accidentally released.

<comment><USER3> I believe you, but if I was writing a scifi/horror movie, that's exactly what the scientist character would say in the first scene :)</comment></comment>


EBay broken, showing dev version? UPDATE: fixed - <AUTHOR> http://www.ebay.com/

<comment><USER2> The logo is linking to qa.ebay.com Probably quality assurance version pushed to main server.</comment>


Ask HN: What is the current state of the JavaScript ecosystem? - <AUTHOR>

	I want to know more about JavaScript and what's going in the JavaScript world, but I don't even know what the latest technologies are. So what technologies are there? What do they do well? What are they lacking? Why has JavaScript become so popular over the last couple of years and what changes can we expect to see going forward? In short, tell about the current state of the JavaScript ecosystem. <comment><USER2> JavaScript is going very strong these days, mostly because it's the language of the web. Every browser supports it natively, and the language has only gotten faster as client compilers get better.

Some tech to check out: \- jQuery for DOM manipulation (interacting with HTML quickly and effectively) \- Underscore.js for a nice toolkit of often-used utilities \- node.js for running a server, which means you can have JS on both the client and the server. \- Backbone.js/Angular.js/Ember.js (and others) are Javascript MV*s: that make large, single page apps like Pandora faster, more maintainable and easier to build.

Things to look forward to: ECMAcsript 6 and 7 are in the works and include tons of new features: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECMAScript>

ASM.js was recently created by Mozilla and it allows near-native speed using pure JS to run things like Unreal Engine inside the browser without the need for plugins: <http://ejohn.org/blog/asmjs-javascript-compile-target/>

Even more standardization. IE has finally become a fairly standards compliant browser, so JS in this browser is very likely to work in any modern browser. Coding standards are also more common and are held to more often.

Personally, the worst thing about JS in the browser is that you have to deal with the DOM. The DOM is a smelly old piece of crap that acts differently in different browsers.

<comment><AUTHOR> Based on the general consensus that the DOM sucks, do you think there will be any movement to make change to/replace it in the future? If not, why?

<comment><USER2> I sincerely doubt it, since it would require a massive overhaul of everything from browsers to JS itself most likely.

The trend has been to use less HTML and more CSS to style it. HTML5 is also an attempt to extend the DOM's capabilities and also make it more semantic.</comment></comment></comment>


Older Workers Challenge Firms' Aggressive Pursuit of the Young - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/older-workers-challenge-firms-aggressive-pursuit-of-the-young-1492340404 <comment><USER2> The big problem with hiring older workers is that they're better at knowing what they're actually worth. They also tend to avoid personal sacrifices (mainly time and health) that are of net benefit to the company but not to themselves.

<comment><USER3> As an employer I do not care how old you are or if you know your "true" worth or not. All I care about is how you are going to contribute to my bottom line with the minimum of fuss. If you can do this at 100 I will hire you.

My experience is older workers are much better (and more productive) than young workers if you can provide them a stable work environment. If the nature of your business is such that this is impossible, then most older workers will struggle and blame the boss for everything. This does not make for a fun time if you are the manager.

<comment><USER4> If only all people with hiring responsibility were devoted to the bottom line of the business, as opposed to the bottom line of their personal careers.

<comment><USER3> Well I have a massive advantage in being the sole owner as well as boss of my business. This does tend to change your perspective on what is important.

You do raise why most manager are not so devoted to the bottom line - it is not their business. Who do you hire - the older employee that will make the business a ton of money, or the young employee who will do as they are told and make the manager's life easy?

<comment><USER4> In my experience, not only is it not their business, many middle managers are actively hostile to anyone who is working in the the best interests of the business, as that interferes with their ability to extract value from the business and put it into their own pockets in various different ways.

<comment><USER3> Yes the principle-agent problem has yet to be solved [1]. I wish I had a solution other than keeping the company small and the shareholders involved as managers.

1\. [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principal–agent_problem](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principal–agent_problem)

<comment><USER5> Wouldn't having regular communications between workers and the manager's boss help here? If the manager's boss is only hearing from the managers directly below him, obviously he's going to get a skewed perspective.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I recently had an idea for a startup, related to the mis-use of the old.

I have been working with startups that are using a hybrid approach to data gathering, using both Natural Language Processing (NLP) and also humans. The NLP works best as a lead-generator for the humans, the NLP can pick out sentences that we are 95% sure have the information we need. Then we have humans read over the data to look for bits that should actually go in the database.

One evening I watched a fellow on the data team as he read through a dozen newspapers, looking for any clues that we might have missed. He is part of an 8 person team, and they are all in their 20s.

That weekend I went to visit my mom, who has been retired for more than 15 years. As is normal for her, she was reading over The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and a few business magazines. She majored in history, at Hunter College, back in the 1950s, then she did her masters degree in economics.

The week before last, Hunter College had its reunion for alumni. More than 2,000 women showed up. I met my mom outside as the event was ending. I saw the thousands of smart, retired women, and it occurred to me: why don't we use these women to read through all the data fetched by the NLP scripts? Why do we rely on people in their 20s? These women are smart, well trained, highly educated, many of them are looking for part-time work with flexible hours, something they could do from home. Most of them have the life long habit of looking through newspapers for interesting data. Most are willing to work very cheap. Most are eager to be in the workforce, most are sad about being out of the workforce.

There is, in fact, a whole category of startups that are opening in this area, using the hybrid approach of both NLP and also humans. And it would be an ideal place to use retired people. Only stupid bias keeps startups from pursuing this.

<comment><USER7> _" These women are smart, well trained, highly educated, many of them are looking for part-time work with flexible hours, something they could do from home. Most of them have the life long habit of looking through newspapers for interesting data. Most are willing to work very cheap. Most are eager to be in the workforce, most are sad about being out of the workforce."_

If they actually need the money to survive, why would they work very cheap if they're well trained and highly educated? There's freelance work out there that pays better than "very cheap", e.g., editing or translation. Retired professionals such as lawyers or CPAs can also probably find freelance work in their fields.

If they don't need the money (they have enough savings for retirement) and are just looking for something to do, they'd have the option of doing volunteer work for charitable organizations that are probably more fulfilling to work for than some random startup.

<comment><USER6> They don't need money to survive, but they don't want to do volunteer work. They want to be in the workforce. Being given money carries meaning for them that goes well beyond the value of the dollar. Just talk to them and this is a theme they repeat over and over again.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I think this is a perfect example to test the theory they bring up about the gender pay gap. If so much value is being left on the table ignoring older workers, gather them all up into a company and beat the market.

<comment><USER9> > _If so much value is being left on the table ignoring older workers, gather > them all up into a company and beat the market._

That's actually exactly my plan should my startup receive funding. I'd say of the first 30 people I'd hire, most are probably above the age of 30. Most have families. All are at the top of their fields. In the Bay Area, those factors probably translate to an average salary of at least $250k, which is roughly double what a typical startup pays in its early days.

<comment><USER3> I tried this. Older workers are great if you have a stable problem (better than young workers on average), but are terrible if the job requires a lot of context shifting. Startups and stable problems are rarely found in the same room.

<comment><USER10> Dan, what do you mean by ^context shifting?^ Switching from one problem in a different area to another problem?

<comment><USER3> Yes. As you get older this gets much harder (I know from personal experience). I wish it were otherwise, but like grey hair and wrinkles it seems just part of getting older.

<comment><USER11> Well I'm 50 and my job involves a lot of context shifting, solving sudden problems with systems I'm not an expert at (thus requiring research) and generally being a jack of all trades.

I find it easier to do now than I did when I was younger, I see it as just what the job is. When I was younger, a sudden demand to do something different would have me annoyed because it was distracting me from what I really wanted to be working on.

Now I know that everything will be different in 5 or 10 years, so it doesn't really matter what I'm working on as it will be irrelevant soon.

<comment><USER3> Do you find it easier than when you were young or are you just more accepting now that it is required?

My job requires a ton of rapid context switching, but I do find it much harder now than when I was younger (I am 46).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> After 33 years in my trade over 14 years at the most recent place I was let go. Not fired not laid off just quietly let go. I suspect it is due to my age I'm 48 and was told I wasn't being considered since I am " not the right fit".

<comment><USER13> > Not fired not laid off just quietly let go.

How does that work, logistically?

<comment><USER14> "Your last day will be X."

<comment><USER15> Isn't that getting fired?

<comment><USER14> Getting fired usually involves cause being shown.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I mean it is a pyramid scheme in that you have a few partners at the top and the bottom are the young PowerPoint analysts who grind out the work. Law is/was the same way. Software can be as well. Grad school as well. The whole thing is setup this way by design. Same with startups as well if you don't guard against it.

<comment><USER4> There are so many professions where you study/work extremely hard for say 10 to 15 years, and then just pump out the big bucks executing (aka "putting in time") on what you've learned.

Are there many professions other than software where you have to work so hard _continuously_ (because everything is always new and you are competing with people with a fifth your experience) to make a good income?

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Well, i couldn't read article because it's behind paywall, but PwC is surely a place for young people. It is a sweatshop where you get paid a pittance, worked till you drop, but learn fast and earn a good line in resume, as well as build industry contacts quickly. Great place to start but if you are stuck there for long, something is wrong. If you are over 40 and under the partner level, it makes no sense to stay there.

<comment><USER18> I think a lot of on-site consultant roles are for young recent graduates. My friend worked right out of college for Epic Software as a consultant managing their medical software integrations. He was supposed to fly home once a month for 3 days off (he had normal weekends off too, but stayed at the client's location in a hotel) but often deadlines would cause him to have to stay. He wound up drinking a lot, smoking way too much weed, and essentially had a nervous breakdown after a year of doing this.

To add insult to injury, because he didn't make it long enough to fulfill his contractual obligations, Epic made him pay back his signing bonus and moving costs they reimbursed him for.

He then moved back home with his parents, got his shit together, and a few months later got into IT project management at an eCommerce company. No travel, normal weekends, normal hours. He's back to himself again.

The consultant life just seems so brutal, you don't make close friendships, you're never home, difficult to have a romantic relationship, difficult to eat healthy and exercise. No thanks!

<comment><USER19> But: very good money, and a lifestyle that can be pretty glamorous at times (if you want it, of course).

I'm currently in the process of slowly moving away from it because of external forces, and to be honest I know I'll miss it. The first couple of years were as harsh as you describe, but then I learnt to pace myself (and VPNs got truly mainstream so traveling decreased dramatically). Is still a pretty good life, all considered; after all, any good career these days requires brutal hours and lots of flying.

<comment><USER20> A lot depends on the sort of consulting probably. There are some cannon fodder sort of jobs certainly. There are others, as you say, where you learn to create some semblance of balance even if you still live on planes. (Though I would dispute that all good careers require both brutal hours and lots of flying; some do some don't.)

Out of school I was supervising projects on-site and it was a really good out of school job. Would I have been wanting to spend weeks in shipyards at 40 or 50? No way.

I do a lot of flying these days but I'm in control of my schedule to at least a certain degree.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> [https://www.propublica.org/article/is-it-age- discrimination-...](https://www.propublica.org/article/is-it-age- discrimination-if-you-dont-know-youre-being-discriminated-against) covers the same set of discrimination lawsuits as this WSJ article without the paywall. It also goes into more depth about the legal precedents involved.

The tl;dr: the companies argue that the discrimination laws only apply to current employees and not applicants so it's OK for them to intentionally discriminate against older applicants.

</comment><comment><USER22> Serious question: Is any interesting software written in places like PWC?

<comment><USER23> Not really.

Mostly (when I was pimped out to them) they did almost exclusively "business constantly" work (read: outsourcing blame and repaying favours, greasing the revolving door, putting projects on a project code with an existing vendor instead of hiring staff who come out of the overall budget etc etc), they made tech stuff something to "throw in" as a bonus to some deals. Started out with reporting (remember crystal reports and oracle appex?) but that grows with kickbacks until they're subcontracting Fujitsu or CapGemini to manage desktops as part of a deal.

After a while the tech bit ended up being one of the biggest money makers they had, thanks to clever/corrupt SLA's which enabled them to have terrible staff who got paid nothing, and pocket the difference.

They had an nice/huge domino setup in the 2000's though(sol/sparc), and some of the excel macros the audit folks wrote and used allowed me to grow up from thinking that working ksh perl and c made me "better" than the windows folks.

They would share these 10mb+ packages of excel macros which were all compressed text, they extremely complicated and also controlled by various regulatory bodies, it was harder than most of the code we were writing for their backends...

Tl;dr -- nope, but if you ever see how some serious financial auditors code, you might stop dismissing the MS crowd so readily.

<comment><USER22> I never have dismissed the MS crowd, in fact I was part of it for years. Interestingly enough there's a lot of Excel-Macro wizardry in aerospace too.

Thanks for sharing your memories. Having known some people on the business side of PWC I'm not surprised, but I am amused.</comment></comment></comment>


This xkcd, in tandem with the 'who will command the robots?' article - <AUTHOR> http://xkcd.com/1761/ <comment><AUTHOR> the top-ranked robots talk was an excellent read, and then when i saw the latest xkcd cartoon i had to comment on the disparity of vision.</comment>


A new pricing model for building super fast, super cheap software MVPs - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/dusthq/a-new-pricing-model-for-building-super-fast-super-cheap-software-mvps-9bf8d04289af <comment><USER2> On the upside, at least when you're using this service you're saving money while pivoting over and over based on hastily-collected statistically underpowered A/B tests.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for inspiring this: [https://medium.com/dusthq/the-pivots-are- constant-f9b191d954...](https://medium.com/dusthq/the-pivots-are- constant-f9b191d95467)</comment></comment>


Alisa Shevchenko denies she aided election hackers - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jan/06/russian-hacker-putin-election-alisa-shevchenko <comment><USER2> _" A young female hacker and her helpless company seems like a perfect pick for that goal. I don't try to hide, I travel a lot, and am a friendly communicative person. And most importantly, I don't have any big money, power or connections behind me to shrug off the blame. So really, it could be anyone."_

Young, female and a hacker would be excellent cover for a foreign power to nudge to do their patriotic duty. Deniability even better.

 _"We have not only searched for bugs but exploited them, but only with the customer's sanction,"_

Taken out of context, but imagine if the customer is a nation state?

 _" Shevchenko specialises in finding so-called "zero-days""_

In Intel. circles, a deniable asset is called a ^Kite^.</comment>


Show HN: [Python] Evolve expressions to generate target number - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/jaybosamiya/Genetic-Expression-Generator <comment><AUTHOR> Author here. Got original idea for this from [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10358648](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10358648)</comment>


New startup that gives radio a little shove - <AUTHOR> http://durocast.com

<comment><USER2> Interesting, using this while I'm at work.</comment>


A different take on sexism in IT - <AUTHOR> http://antirez.com/post/different-take-sexism-it.html <comment><USER3> > As a proof in the United States where politically correctness and protection > of minority is a topic always over-discussed, the condition of women is > worse than in North Europe, where such an obsession does not exist.

I don't really know how hard you can say "correlation ≠ causation" without getting an aneurysm, but I'm scared to find out.

I mean, it's just so damn obvious. Let's suppose that sexism is more of a problem in the US than in country X. Wouldn't you _want_ to talk about it more?

Don't you think it suspicious that, say, people complain more about corrupt local police in countries that have corrupt local police?

Don't you find it bizarre that people complain about the heat in places where the temperature exceeds 35°C?

Isn't it fascinating that the people who complain the most about headaches are the most likely to suffer from migraines? Obviously they should stop complaining, it would make the headaches go away!

<comment><USER4> I think he is saying that PC doesn't help, not that things will be fixed if PC is removed.

<comment><USER5> Except that it does help.

<comment><USER4> I consider american PC towards women (or blacks etc) as a symptom. What makes you think it helps, other than overstating the problem (which in itself does not solve it)?

<comment><USER6> Political Correctness is great if you are a minority. It means you have similar rights to the powerful group. As a gay man, I know I can mention the gender of my spouse (male!) in a workplace environment without being worried about being fired (say). Straight people have always (more or less) been able to mention their spouse in the workplace without fear of repercussion. Now I can too! Political Correctness means I don't have to watch every word I say in the office! It's done wonders for my freedom of speech.

<comment><USER4> But PC is only the first step! The more accepting a society is, the less PC is needed, because people embrace each other without a need for self-censorship and no one is offended.

<comment><USER6> Yes that's the end game

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> _I think it is always an error to talk about sexism, even when the root cause is some asshole not respecting you because you are a woman._

This is backwards. The thing that we absolutely have to do--especially those of us who are white males--is point it out when other white males are abusing our privilege, and show that we won't tolerate a work environment where women are not treated as equals. This is the single best, most powerful thing that we can do to end this type of discrimination.

If a woman is expected to do something because she is a woman, if she is being subjected to sexual harassment or threats because she is a woman, everyone in the room has a moral obligation to point that out and nip it in the bud. And it is important, actually, to point out _explicitly_ that you won't tolerate it because you don't accept discrimination against women (or minorities, or what have you). In person, in front of people, so everyone knows who you are are and where you stand. This is called making the environment safe for people to do their jobs; also known as having balls to do what's right.

Unless, of course, you like working in a sexist/homophobic/racist environment, in which case let me know so I can make sure to avoid working with you in the future.

I'm relatively new to HN, but I already have seen these kinds of tone-deaf articles pop up over and over, and it's maddening, and absurd. Surely there is something you people writing these articles could be writing about which is more worthwhile than rehashing the right to be a sexist over and over.

<comment><USER5> > I'm relatively new to HN, but I already have seen these kinds of tone-deaf > articles pop up over and over, and it's maddening, and absurd.

You should read the comments, too. It will become painfully obvious why these articles keep popping up. (Also note that this one was submitted by its author.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I agree with the author that you don't want to "protect" women or other minorities, you need to make a general effort to make your work environment suitable for everyone.

That said, I can't think of an instance in the ~13 years I've been working professionally where I have observed a minority in a tech company receiving "special care or protection." This may happen in more traditional industries, but my experience is that _everyone_ works their asses off. (My experience is that minorities are often overachievers. I can't think of a single female engineer who was a slacker. I can think of quite a few white males and one or two South- and East- Asian male slackers. Ironically, when we start to see female slackers, then we know that we are creating the right environment. And can proceed to apply the same management tools that we apply to anyone not pulling their weight!)

Today, software developers are in extremely high demand. There is no reason to believe that women, african americans, or any other minority are fundamentally less capable of being excellent engineers. So the question is: what are we doing wrong as a society and as company creators that causes certain minorities to be underrepresented in our tech companies? South and East Asians appear to be well represented, so it is clearly not an impossible problem.

I welcome articles that help me better understand how to create a better environment for capable engineers. There is a clear shortage of female engineers, and there is an encouraging uptick of women speaking about the problems and issues that cause them. The more we learn, the better we will be at closing that gap.

</comment><comment><USER9> I'm starting to feel that this whole issue is being taken up by people who were born too late for some actual struggle against sexism and racism. 50s are over, women are not sent away by the bank teller and told to come back with a husband, people who aren't white are not barred from employment, and almost all that's left to "fight" against is unpleasantness and stupid jokes.

And so unpleasantness and stupid jokes are being fought, which makes it easy and risk-free so more people join. Not to disparage the authors of those but anyone can write a blog post and feel like they've done something.

ps. Your text requires some stylistic corrections, and it's not obvious what you mean by "too easy" in the beginning.

EDIT: Thank you, rmc (below), for providing examples. That's what I mean -- unpleasant words is largely the extent of sexism nowadays, or even just shortcomings of pop culture (like there's a shortage of those). And that is met with major outcries, not to mention actual discrimination which is met with million dollar lawsuits.

<comment><USER10> Half of Americans are women. Half are men. Give or take.

83% of Congress are men.

60% of college graduates are women.

91% of inmates are men.

84% of single parents are women.

If you think all that's left of ten thousand years of systemic discrimination is unpleasantness and stupid jokes, I just don't know what planet you live on.

<comment><USER11> I'm not sure these numbers show anything but that men are more violent (hormones and culture, maybe?) and women are more "attached" to their children (a side effect for carrying one on her belly for 9 months, perhaps?)

<comment><USER12> And thats why we don't have equality. Men are violent and bossy, women are nurturing and caring, let's parade tough on crime and the nuclear family.

<comment><USER6> It's funny how some "mass stereyotypes" (like "men violent, women nurturing") tend to take longer to die. Let's look at some other "mass stereyotypes" that are no longer so accepable to say in civil discource:

• Women can't do maths (like at all, their brains are tiny and incabable of abstract thought) It's in the nature!

• Men can't look after babies, they'd probably hold them by their heads or something! It's in their nature!

• Jews are only concerned with money, it's in their nature!

• Women lack the mental capabilites for politics and shouldn't be allowed to vote, it's in their nature.

• Women are very emotional, and hence are unsuitable for high pressure jobs (high level political leader, CEO, doctor, military commander), they'd just have some sort of emotional break down when the going gets tough, it's in their nature.

• etc. etc. (I haven't even touched on non-noble people, black people, LGBT people, catholics, prodestands, muslims, etc. etc.)

All of these things have been said about natural differences between various groups, mostly due to what we now realise as massive biases. When one says "men are naturally violent" or "women are naturally caring", the burden is on you to show how _this time_ it's different, rather than it being just another (false) statement born out of bias. All these claims had some sort of evidence behind them. The burden is on you to come up with a standard of evidence that supports your biased claim, but doesn't show that women are incable of high office (say).

<comment><USER11> The "mass stereotypes" you're mentioning here are respectively called "testosterone" and "oxytocin". It could be that, one day, someone is able to prove that there is more to it, but I'm certain that obtusely comparing a hormonal effect with "jews love money" won't help much...

<comment><USER4> Historically, a number of great cultures used Eunuchs, or people who weren't allowed to marry in high-ranking offices (the Chinese, Byzantine, Ottomans, and the Church). Apparently, good leadership is not tied to testosterone.

<comment><USER11> I don't think I made or implied any such connection... The link in question is that testosterone (both in males or females) greatly increases the propension to violence in individuals (although it's not NECESSARY that violent individuals have high levels of testosterone or that anyone with high levels of it is automatically the Incredible Hulk)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Again and again, people make the mistake of treating individual solutions as similar to institutional solutions.

Sexism is not a topic you bring up in an individual setting. You are absolutely correct about this. Women should live and die by their merit just as much as men do.

But at an institutional level, this isn't possible. To exaggerate a little, think of chattel slavery. Could you really say that chattel slavery would be obliterated simply by not talking to slaves about chattel slavery? Of course not; there are physical restraints driven by economic and political assumptions about what would happen. Note that I'm only talking about chattel slavery here, which today only exists in rare parts of the world; I am not talking about racism.

We talk about sexism in IT because this is what needs to happen: people in IT need to pause and think before making a sexist comment. They need to be able to review what they just said in their minds and understand why a comment or evaluation is sexist. They need to be able to do this especially when accused of sexism. They need to understand that some behavior can be offensive and that being civilized in part means that they make sure such behavior is kept in check rather than spewed around flippantly.

That's why we talk about it. It's the same reason we tell you to comment your code. You have to REMEMBER TO DO IT. Some of us are happy magical and already do it as a habit. Others need the reminder.

I encourage you to explore <http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Geek_Feminism_Wiki>

</comment><comment><USER13> The article's point is that we should stop thinking about things like systematic sexism/racism and simply treat individuals equally and with the respect that every individual deserves.

That's not wrong. Unfortunately, it's necessary but not _sufficient_ to combat the problem of inequality resulting from sexism.

Yes, we should lead by example, and absolutely treat our female coworkers with the respect they deserve simply because they're people, dammit. And if everybody else did the exact same thing, yes, the problem would disappear!

However, that's not the world we live in. Not everybody is going to follow our lead. And that's why each of us who is interested in ending this crappy state of affairs can't simply do our part and then bury our heads in the sand. We have to do MORE than our parts.

Not sexism-specific, but here's an example. I had a gay coworker a few years back. Of course I treated him with respect. His orientation was a total non- issue to me, not something I even thought about. But other coworkers said some insensitive things, tossing the word "gay" around as a synonym for "bad" and things like that. So I privately talked with a couple of them and, hey, let's not do that, let's make ____ feel at home here. Not putting my coworkers down; asking them to join me in doing something positive. And I made some progress that way -- progress that never would have happened if I'd simply treated him right and then buried my head in the sand.

(For the record, I'm not some wonder of workplace harmony. I screw up a lot. About a decade ago, I was in a similar situation except _I_ was the insensitive coworker. I learned from that situation. And frankly I wish I'd been steered in the right direction sooner, though I can't blame anybody else for my actions but myself.)

<comment><USER3> > That's not wrong.

It is wrong. Sexism isn't a conscious choice that we can avoid on an individual level. It's a collection of bad habits and systems of bad behavior in groups. If you "stop thinking about things like systematic sexism/racism" then they become invisible to you, and you will lack the power to do anything or even articulate an argument about discrimination.

For example, if you treat everyone equally but don't think about sexism, how do you stop someone else from doing stupid sexist things? How do you let them know that it's not acceptable?

As an analogy, it's obvious that murdering people to steal their TV is wrong, and we know that because we think about murder. If we never thought or talked about murder, how would we know it is wrong? How would we catch murderers? What should the punishment be?

It's not enough to _not murder_ people, we have to talk about murder, hire people who catch murderers and put them in boxes, and think about how we can prevent more people from getting murdered.

<comment><USER13> Wow. Really well-said, and thanks for that reply. I'm going to use that murder analogy.

Though I would hope that the rest of my post showed that my intent was not to ignore this stuff, despite my poorly-worded sentence that made it sound like I thought it was okay to stop thinking about it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> "It's silly to try to protect all the minorities because they are minorities"

Although I share OP's thought that people should be treated equally, that's just not what happens. We get examples every day, so trying to "solve the problem" by not talking about it will only make things stay the same (or get worse). It would be like pretending the elephant is not in the room as an attempt to make it disappear...

</comment><comment><USER11> "Another naive way to consider the problem is to think that sexism is a state of mind of men. Actually the problem is more complex than that, and a lot of women don't consider themselves or other women as capable as men."

Actually it's more complex than that: a lot of women consider themselves inferior because they have been trained to think like that. Sexism all the way, in a cycle that is very hard to break. I do think that "being nice to women" is a great first step to "break the ice" and guve those who want an opportunity to "become equal"...

</comment><comment><USER14> I disagree. If a bunch of people are facing the same problem a good way to solve it is for them to join together and fight it collectively. Insisting that women should play dumb when faced with sexism is just bad strategy.

</comment><comment><USER15> This works on big things. Not so much on little, cumulative ones.

Why did A make a tasteless joke about B's outfit? Because he was nervous and his dubious sense of humor got ahead of his judgment. But he didn't mean anything by it and said he's sorry B feels that way. Well everyone says stupid things sometimes. No actual harm done. B should lighten up, right?

That doesn't work.

<http://therealkatie.net/blog/2012/mar/21/lighten-up/>

Some things are problems only because they're part of a larger pattern. That's when we need to think outside of the individual domain.

</comment><comment><USER16> Morgan Freeman nails it. Stop talking about it: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3cGfrExozQ&feature=relat...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3cGfrExozQ&feature=related)

<comment><USER17> [http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/colorblind/201112/colorb...](http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/colorblind/201112/colorblind- ideology-is-form-racism)

<comment><USER18> Yep. General rule of thumb: If you're considering adopting a view that's held by Stephen Colbert (the character), it's probably a bad idea.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I see many comments in this post where sexism is referred as "bad jokes" or things like this. This is the smaller part, and the sole that you can address with a campaign.

My point of view is focused on the sexism that is NOT blatant and obvious like that. Examples:

1) The male boss promotes a male instead of a woman not based solely on merits but for prejudice about the capabilities of women.

2) The male boss promotes a prettier woman worker even if another woman deserved it more.

3) The female boss promotes a male because she feels (without possibly fully understanding it) in competition with the pretty woman even if she deserved it more.

There are a shitload of cases like this, and this is the _whole_ point, because the bad jokes can be addressed directly: they may be unpleasant, but there is an easy path to fight this behaviours. Instead the more subtle things that prevent a carrier from having the same chances of everybody else is where I would be more focused. And this stuff is not the one you can fight with being politically correct.

<comment><USER19> Okay, so you have given a few examples of sexism.

So why do you think we shouldn't talk about this? Don't you think that what you've just described, being more prevalent in the US, warrants the discussion? Don't you think it's irrelevant and destructive to play the quote at the end of your article telling us just to get back to work?

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> wow. way to go about ignoring and denying your privileges, mister straight white man!

why on earth is that bigoted drivel on the front page of HN?

<comment><USER21> what about the absurd institutionalized privileges of minorities are much larger in America?

<comment><USER22> They took errr jerbs? (hat tip, south park).

Are you talking about affirmative action or quota hires as an institutionalized privilege of minorities? If so, then what about institutionalized discrimination of minorities?(eg education of the average black student at an inner-city school way underfunded, relative to the majority).

Even most proponents of AA are ready to concede that it should be done differently, but its not fair to rail against the evils of "reverse discrimination" without at least acknowledging present-day, ordinary structural discrimination.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I'd really like antirez to explain his inclusion of a quote that implies his entire article and the topic at large aren't even worth discussion. Randi has been able to bravely endure incredibly cruel sexist treatment from various online communities, some of which undoubtedly stemmed from pursuing interests in male-dominated spaces. However, I don't think it's fair to say that every woman can or should suffer such experiences with the same aplomb.

Edit: I have discussed this a bit with Randi, and there is indeed some context missing that makes me understand where she was coming from in the original quote.

</comment><comment><USER24> You are seriously telling me that what made your female coworkers "deeply upset" was the idea that asking to be respected as women and not things like getting significantly less pay, sexual harassment and fewer career options? Either you are not telling the truth or this is the most ridiculous case of selective bias I've read on HN in a long time. Ask these female coworkers of yours what bothers them the most, the fight for gender equality in the workplace or getting paid less because they are women.

\-----

 _As a woman you want respect because you are capable and smart. Not because you are a woman._

This is an really old and equally flawed argument that doesn't consider the fact that men discriminate women based on their gender not their individuality.

\-----

 _In the course of my life I started to develop an higher and higher intolerance for topics like politically correctness and protection of minorities unless this was clearly put in general terms._

Political correctness is a weasel word designed to avoid meaningful discussions. By using it you've already made it clear that you have made up your mind on a topic that you're ignorant about.

\-----

 _If you are an human being you need to be respected because you deserve respect like any other. I don't care if you are black, white, yellow or woman, you are an individual._

And yet you fail to see that individuals cannot fight centuries and millenia of stereotypes, biases and general ignorance.

\-----

 _Similarly, I will not care who you are if you do something silly at work. Nothing is more offensive for you than me being too easy with you because you are part of some minority. This is, basically, a masked form of reverse- sexism, and is deeply offensive._

No one is asking you to subsidize minority stupidity, so I have no idea why you are bringing this up. Also, is this really a problem? People's work, regardless if they belong to a minority or not, are held to a certain standard and if they don't perform accordingly there are ways of remedying the problem.

\-----

 _In general if there is a problem at the work place between individual A and B, I think it is always an error to talk about sexism, even when the root cause is some asshole not respecting you because you are a woman._

This is a very convenient way of avoiding to deal with sexism and other related issues. Imagine the guy who claims that he doesn't have issues with woman despite countless cases of harassing his female coworkers, that he just happens to have problem with individuals that always happen to be women.

\-----

 _Trying to protect women in tech since they are women is like moving a cultural problem (the sexism) into an individual domain._

It's quite the opposite. You are so desperate to focus on individuals that you refuse to acknowledge that minority and gender issues can only be solved on higher level, i.e. group, company and society level. This is how we've managed to get things like equal political rights; centuries of organizing and fighting on higher social levels.

\-----

 _A woman in tech has nothing less than a male in tech, as such does not need special care or protection. She needs to be respected as everybody else._

What does "less" mean? Woman are clearly more often harassed in the workplace, they get less pay, etc, so obviously something isn't working. I'm not sure that they need "special care" (nice pejorative term there) or protection by manly men, but they need to be treated equally and currently that's not the case.

\-----

 _Another naive way to consider the problem is to think that sexism is a state of mind of men. Actually the problem is more complex than that, and a lot of women don't consider themselves or other women as capable as men._

You don't explain the complexity of the situation but you're implying that woman can be sexists too. Yes, that's obvious but doesn't change the fact that men are far more likely to be sexists and woman far more likely to be discriminated against.

<comment><USER25> "Political correctness"

I actually love political correctness, and people ranting about it always appear to me as deliberately obtuse and trying to avoid responsibility for behaving in certain ways.

Here's the thing: political correctness is not the same thing as Orwell's newspeak. It's about being recognizing that certain expressions are hurtful, and remaining conscious not only about what you want to say, but also what will be heard when you say it. It's also about the idea that the original author almost got, but not really: that maybe the divisive attributes shouldn't be mentioned when they're irrelevant (though the author is certainly wrong about gender's relevance. Yeah, it should be -- but it's not, and making gender activists shut up won't make it irrelevant). It's about recognizing that language actually shapes the social reality and the perception if certain ideas (both desirable and not) are something acceptable (there's some neat studies on how people choose their ideologies based on whether they perceive them as socially accepted).

It's really sad that the concept ended up becoming a weasel word used by bullies to say "this person just complained about me being a bully, and that makes me feel uncomfortable".

<comment><USER26> I'm not an American, so I might not be familiar of all the ways one ought to be politically correct, but let's focus on the one example that I do know: _fat_ vs. _overweight_ or _horizontally-challenged_ or _[silence]_.

My main objection with the idea that saying that someone is fat will _hurt their feelings_ or _make them feel bad_ is that no, it will NOT make them feel _bad_ \- rather, it will make them feel _worse_ , because they must already feel bad. If someone is fat and they are ok with it, they wouldn't be hurt if I was pointing it out. It's just like I wouldn't be offended if someone called me a _man_ , or _European_ , or _short/not tall_ , or _geek_ , because I'm ok with all of those.

Therefore, based on personal reflection, I believe that people that get offended by saying they are fat are people that don't like being fat. But in that case, they _should_ be _shamed_ , in other words _encouraged_ to do something about it, to make a positive change in their lives! I find the idea that I should limit my own freedom of speech just so that other people can continue living in ignorance, ridiculous.

<comment><USER25> Well, lets start with the fact that your personal reflection is bunk, and I'm not an american as well, but culturally aware enough to know that the european stereotype of Americans being really politically correct is actually present in an american "Europeans are politically correct" version. Also, "horizontally-challenged" is not something that really happens. Actual political correctness is either saying "overweight" when it's relevant, or keeping it to your own damn self when it's not.

Now, to the personal reflection — people might rationally know that it's no- one's business how much they weight, but still be aware of the societal perception of their looks. They might be still healthy people, and they would be happy with their looks, but the reaction of society to their looks makes them feel bad anyway, and one of such reactions is using expressions such as "fat".

As for "shaming" == "encouraging," it's just not true, to avoid harsher statements. In fact shaming is extremely discouraging to people, is mostly done without awareness if the person being shamed can or wants to actually change the state that caused shaming, and is just done to boost egos of people doing the shaming. It's only use is in discouraging extremely unwanted behaviors – such as, for example, shaming people whose looks don't conform to your particular standards of beauty. Oh, and "positive change" might be actually a load of bunk as well.

And, finally, as to the "keeping in ignorance" remark, it's an extremely ignorant remark. For one, the "if irrelevant" is important here. My doctor can still tell me that the recently acquired extra load on my joints is probably contributing to my knee issues, interestingly enough without using the expression "fat slob", and people can talk about oppression of people of color in general or blacks, or immigrants in general or Mexicans in specific, depending on how specific the issues in question are. The words become "incorrect" when either used for no reason (why did you need to mention the race of a person doing that annoyed you on the street, for example?), or using the words that are racial slurs used specifically to offend.

<comment><USER26> I'm not running around calling overweight people fat and offending them... It's rather neutral, really. Simply, when describing people, I might say blond, if the person is blond, or I might say fat, if the person is fat.

Maybe if we all start saying what we think, either fat or overweight (I prefer fat because it's shorter), and stop putting so much pressure on the issue, the society would be a much better place to live. For fat people and others that live "unconventional" lifestyles.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> The Keep:

<http://raganwald.posterous.com/the-keep>

<comment><USER28> Your original, short comment seems much clearer about the point you're trying to get across: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4597584>

<comment><USER27> I agree! The trouble is, once i started telling the story as a parable, I got emotionally involved in telling the town's story instead of using it as a secondary device for making a primary point.

Thanks for the excellent feedback.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Is it wrong for me to assume that the author is a white man just by what he wrote?

</comment><comment><USER4> "It's silly to try to protect all the minorities because they are minorities"

That is silly. Societies are not made in heaven and are full of prejudices against minorities molded through centuries of white male domination.

</comment><comment><USER30> To the ardent feminists, a simple question -- do you believe the world would be a morally superior place if there was no biological distinction between men and women -- i.e. there was only one gender?

<comment><USER31> I think ardent feminists are focused on making realistic changes to reality, i.e. working with the reality that we have a great diversity of sexual identities, gender identities, and gender roles, rather than try to fight against it. Fair treatment of women and minorities does not entail erasing all differences until we are a uniform grey.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> [http://m.netmagazine.com/features/primer-sexism-tech- industr...](http://m.netmagazine.com/features/primer-sexism-tech-industry)

</comment><comment><USER32> There is a lot of weird cognitive dissonance in this article. "Special protection" is one of those vague phrases that can (and appears to be here) used in a few different ways.[1] In some senses it is taken to mean "elevating one group to have a higher privilege set and stronger boundary enforcement than the norm". In other senses it is used as "stripping unfair privilege from one group by a combination of positively asserting the rights for the protected group and punishment for those who deny those rights or assert a privilege for their group".[2]

This fuzzy, conflicting set of understandings leads to a lot of cases of people talking past each other, and not really accomplishing anything. We really need to stop using such terms in discussion and be a bit more specific. There are good and bad examples of both meanings, and there needs to be frank and open discussion, without reduction to overloaded and emotionally loaded terms.

Similarly there is the problem of privilege blindness. Even if _I_ treat everyone the same, or think I do, I may not be. This is a real thing - <USER2> have notions of the right way to treat someone and they don't even notice that it is absurd or privilege enforcing. For example: In college and for a short time after, I worked at a bar as a bartender. My boss was a black man, the owner of the business. I am a white guy, 10 years younger. People would come in during closed hours with deliveries or job applications or sales pitches and come to me first. I honestly didn't notice or think anything of it most of the time, even when it was obvious when he was in charge (e.g. i was mopping and he was counting out drawers). I would write it off as "oh they just don't want to interrupt the boss" or other reasonable sounding explanations.

One day right before we started accepting a round of applications, he mentioned this to me and I was a bit resistant to the idea that it was racial. I offered the reasonable sounding thoughts and explanations. So we did an experiment. Half the days I would do grunt work and he would do boss work, the other half the days I would do boss work and he would do grunt work. In both cases, a significant portion of the applicants came to me first[3]. Surprisingly, all groups of applicants (divided by gender, race,etc) displayed this behavior. This is a case of privilege that is really difficult to see if you think everyone is treated equally or think you do too. I seriously doubt the applicants were racist (well most of them weren't), and I presume they truly believed in equality and that they actively wanted to treat everyone the same (evidence: how embarrassed they were when I pointed out who the actual boss was). The privilege I had here, by being white, was that the default assumption is that I was in charge.[3]

The point here is that sometimes, despite the best intentions, there are societal/cultural assumptions that are ingrained to the point of invisibility for those who are the norm. It is important to point these out and discuss them, so that people can actively stop doing participating. I believe most people don't want to be (. _)ist, but also that the just don't know when their actions are conforming to it unintentionally.

I think that one thing this article is great for, is highlighting that. The author obviously cares that everyone is treated well and equally. It would be insulting to point out to him any of his actions as sexist, because he really isn't.[4] Instead the better approach is to have discussions, which are inherently uncomfortable, in the light of "here's a privilege or default assumption that exists, here is evidence", and get the people with the privilege to see it as existing at all. Once that happens, they will stop asserting it on their own, because the don't want to be unfair or unequal or whatever.

</unintentionally ranty post>

[1] Please note, that my definitions after this footnote are my understanding of the scenario, if this is inaccurate please link me to sources with good explanations!

[2] There is another commonly used understanding of this term, which is as a code word for "I am about to say something that really is about protecting my privileges", however I don't think the author meant this here.

[3] Later, after learning about various equality issues in a more formal way, there were even more things that pointed out the privilege in this situation... my boss was someone who could "pass" as white, I'm a guy who dresses down and is generally scruffy, and so on. There is also a related bit of privilege in this situation from when I was hired. My friend who hooked me up with the lead and a good recommendation made sure to casually point out that the owner was a black man. This priming was something that at the time I thought nothing of, it was a bit of conversation about the environment, but in retrospect, I probably would have made the mistake I described above without that priming. No one ever casually mentions that the boss is white when describing a job to a prospect.

[4] (._)ism implies the person actively wants to keep the targeted group in a state of lower privilege. It is insulting to be called that when you actually want the opposite.

<comment><USER33> Privilege is essentially a shaming tactic. It's proponents believe that they can create a reverse social hierarchy by convincing those supposedly at the top (straight while males) that every aspect of their lives benefits from a social advantage they don't know they have. Thus straight white males are encouraged to live in a constant state of paranoia and shame essentially for being born. For those who accept this belief system, the only way to achieve harmony with those around you is to actively "give away your privilege" which is to say sabotage and undermine your own potential and achievements so that other, less privileged persons may somehow benefit. How this should be done is typically left unclear. As with most "social justice" belief systems the point is to spread guilt and shame. Ultimately, this belief system just further stigmatizes those that it seeks to help by not only classifying people by race, class and gender but by states of privilege as well.

<comment><USER32> No. Actually it is things that shouldn't happen in the first place. It is not OK that everyone went to the white guy assuming he was the boss, no matter if he was dressed like a bum and holding a mop or if he was counting out money drawers while the black guy was holding the mop.

It is the cops showing up at the bar when it's mostly white people and being polite and trying to figure out who the fighters were, but the same bar on a different, calmer, night when its mostly black people just dropping tear gas canisters on the crowd, and grabbing me, the one white guy and saying 'stay over here out it's safer'.

It's me dressed like a bum with a mountain man beard being allowed into the club, but my black buddy with a suit being told he was too dressed dressed down for the dress code.

It the time the gas station cashier asked me to stay for a minute because some black people were out in the lot filling their lexus.

It's the innumerable times I've been told to "level with me, $female_dev just isn't that good is she", despite having written the entire codebase they were complimenting me for.

It's the fact that I've never been stopped by the cops for looking suspicious or being in the wrong neighborhood no matter what I am wearing or doing, and no matter how illegal the contents of my pockets were.

Talking about privilege is not talking about undermining anything. It's not about being shaming anyone. It is about real occurrences that happen daily, in an era when people claim there is "no difference between anyone", yet anecdotally and statistically it just isn't true.

I don't want to give away my privilege. I want the standards that apply to me to apply to everyone. This is different. I don't want, nor think anyone should start being hassled and denied more, I think that those who are hassled and denied more for stupid reasons to not experience that. Period.

I don't want a reverse social hierarchy, I just don't want a social hierarchy base on anything _other than actual accomplishment_. If getting there means cutting some slack to someone who did a damn good job despite constant unwarranted criticism, or an environment that pushes them to the outside, I'll do it. It is a bigger accomplishment to do well when there are people actively acting against you, than to do great when everyone is trying to help you.</comment></comment></comment>


GitHub: About This Week's Availability - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/blog/1036-about-this-week-s-availability <comment><USER2> I remember reading a comment a long time ago -- maybe here or Quora, I think -- talking about how people don't usually realize how much trouble organized crime gives small and midsize businesses. You'll start getting DDOSed and then an email appears a day later: pay us and we'll stop bringing down your site. I have no idea if extortion is what's happening here versus simple lulzseekers or a grudge someone holds against them, but I wouldn't be surprised.

<comment><USER3> "Organized crime" or just regular crime?

<comment><USER4> In some countries that are absolutely poor, it is entirely common to have the local mob recruiter look for young talented kids that they can bring into their organization. They make them an offer when the kids are out begging for change or something like "we'll take care of your mom and make sure she doesn't break her legs if you come and get an _education_ in our _school_ , we might even _pay_ you."

The youngster ends up in basically a run-down warehouse full of other kids each taught how to look for basic exploits like mysql injection or use root kits, and they sit around and do this all day.

This is why some countries are typically COEs for hacking, such as Russia with crimeware kits, and until recently Brazil for bank hacking.

This is also why you need coordinated efforts of special agents armed with assault rifles to clean out some spam-mills sometimes (they're taking them away from some mob).

What I've described is a bit outmoded, typically this behavior is turning into other things such as this: [http://abh-news.com/cybercrime-china-hackers- training-camp-c...](http://abh-news.com/cybercrime-china-hackers-training- camp-closed-866.html) as well as the makers of exploit scripts are just getting better and recruiting these kids doesn't make sense any more... you can intelligently scan for millions of sites using phpmyadmin and automatically run your exploit with it.

As with any crime you find the trends all over the map: not all robberies are mob related, not all of them aren't, some of them are more elaborate than others, etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Are there any good guides on how to combat a DDOS? I'm curious how a team of good technical people without past experience in the area could react.

<comment><USER6> Fighting a DDOS is very hard if you do not have the resources to purchase more bandwidth. The DDOS attacks I've dealt with have been almost exclusively UDP- floods in the 500-2000 mbit range. No amount of server-side configuration will fix that unfortunately. If the attack is some more creative form, but with less bandwidth (SYN flood etc.) a cisco router can help out a lot.

Your best bet is to move to a protected hosting provider (dragonara or ddoshostingsolutions are quite good for Europe / US). Failing that you can purchase a bunch of VPS servers, round-robin DNS to them and reverse proxy to your actual server (and keep that IP off the DNS system entirely). This way only the proxy servers will go down if you are attacked.

Edit: If they are not spoofing they sender address, you can achieve some success by mailing the hosting provider of the IP performing the attack. In 90% of cases the server has been hijacked and they will shut it down, this only works for US / European companies though since Chinese / Russian hosting providers never ever reply in my experience. For maximum success you can attach a tcpdump of the attack traffic.

<comment><USER7> I was poking around a botnet today and saw that the particular one I was looking at was just DDOSing DNS (port 53). Could you just use an /etc/hosts file and turn off UDP entirely? My understanding is that part of the problem is that the reason 53 is so vulnerable is because the OS sits there waiting for any UDP replies from DNS on it.

<comment><USER6> If your server is running slow because of the load, and not because of the bandwidth of the attack that might be a viable route. It is trivial to use iptables to block all UDP traffic except from your configured DNS server.

Most of the cases though it's as simple as attack is 200 mbit and connection is 100mbit -> no amount of dropping packets once they reach the server will do anything, as the connection is entirely saturated.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Who would DDOS GitHub and for that matter, why?

<comment><USER9> extortionists.

There's a growing band of pirates (the web kind) who hold sites to ransom via their massive botnets, in exchange for payment -- 'protection money'.

<comment><USER10> But why Github? Wouldn't a less tech-savvy business be much more likely to cave in, and have a better cash flow? (e.g., porn and gambling sites?)

<comment><USER11> Uptime is very valuable to github. For example, I can't easily deploy to my site when githubs down. I suspect many others have bought into its availability too.

<comment><USER12> I had a very slow deploy earlier this week; if it had gotten canceled in the middle of it that would have been pretty bad. Maybe the deployment script should copy the repo head to one of my own servers and continue from there? What do people do?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> If I were a DDoS attacker, I wouldn't want to make enemies with the sort of people that rely on github.

Though it's easy to imagine that those guys think differently than I do.

</comment><comment><USER14> Very nice. Just one thing: I already know I'm awesome and I don't need my source revision control provider to boost my self confidence (I'm referring to the line "...you, our awesome GitHub users"). OTOH, it's clear that it's GitHub's employees, rather than its users that need constant reassurance of their coolness. GitHub is a nice company that provides a good, solid and necessary service - hosted SCM. Then why is it that their _company_ blog focuses on their drinking habits?

Dear GitHub,

Although your product may sound boring to laymen, you provide a good service to a very important industry. Your "boring" day job reflects nothing on your personal and very exciting lives. Your customers, however, like you for what you provide them with, not for your companionship, and I'm sure your friends like you for the opposite reasons, as they very well should. In fact, everybody loves you for many reasons, and you are all very lovable. So please, keep your extra-curricular activities to your friends, and your work activities to your customers. You can call your friends "awesome" if that's your kind of thing, but for various reasons it is better to treat your customers with proper decorum. If you're unable to keep the two separate, you're in for some bitter disappointment later in life.

Love, everyone.

</comment><comment><USER15> I've used Github frequently all week,personally and professionally, and if they temporarily lost a nine or three, I haven't noticed.

</comment><comment><USER16> Couldn't they just keep adding IP's to some blacklist (not htaccess, but something more efficient), and the attackers will eventually run out of IPs to attack from? There's only a finite # of computers you can really have control of. So you end up blocking some innocents, but you take care of that after the attack is over.

<comment><USER17> Maybe a whitelist could work. My IP has visited in the past week / I have a legit session cookie, now gimme bandwidth.

<comment> brown9-2 This only works if you decide you want to never accept a new customer again.

<comment><USER18> Not necessarily, though it depends on the complexity you want to throw at the problem.

If you have known (and proven) legitimate traffic, give it a high QoS.

For never-been-seen IPs, provide a limited initial rate, with training based on experience.

Use tools such as the ASN Routeviews project to identify contiguous blocks of IP space (or any other source of BGP routing data, but the RV data are queryable via DNS and downloadable as zonefiles).

ID bad actors and either block or severely limit them.

Train up or down other traffic as appropriate.

This leaves you tracking large amounts of IP space. Doable in IPv4, somewhat more difficult under IPv6, though you're still probably going to be able to do something reasonable.

I'd like to see more of this pushed into the routing/networking layer, automatically, based on application-layer-based feedback. Maybe someday.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I wonder if something like <http://www.cloudflare.com> could help.

</comment><comment><USER20> I think if you build your app properly the only problem with DDoS is traffic. Github partnerships with Rackspace so their cloud traffic can't be expensive. Correct me if I'm wrong.

<comment><USER21> I suspect you may be oversimplifying the solution or undersimplifying the nature of these kinds of attacks. What would constitute a 'properly' infallible defense to you?

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Github is really great, but I'm a cynic.

Indeed, why _would_ anyone want to DDoS github? How can we believe Github that the outages were due to a DDoS? They're smart people, aren't they using solid load balancesrs that can mitigate DDoS attacks? Why haven't they issued an actual statement describing the supposed attacks in better detail?

<comment><USER23> Load balancers generally don't offer as much mitigation against DDoS as you think. The load balancer will probably fall over if the backend servers don't do so first. The sheer volume of seemingly valid traffic is what kills you.

Which is why effective anti-DDoS means working with your upstream provider to figure out how to differentiate between real traffic and fake traffic. The best solution to a DDoS is the phone # of a tech that can implement firewall rules upstream and a good traffic analyzer to tell them exactly how to filter it.

<comment><USER24> Often you can't pick apart the good traffic from the bad.

Fortunately bots are usually pretty stupid. If you can outrun them on bandwidth, then change /victimpage.html to 302 to /victimpage-new.html. The web server or load balancer can send those redirects really fast and it doesn't take much bandwidth either. I have never seen a bot chase that redirect.

After a particularly nasty DDOS attack (where our upstream provider just shrugged their shoulders) I wrote an F5 iRule:

1\. Check for the IAMNOTABOT cookie 2\. If not there, redirect to /cookie- me?oldpage=the_page_you_were_trying_to_access 3\. Set IAMNOTABOT=true cookie 4\. Redirect to the old page

<comment><USER25> Another, similar, technique is checking for a NOBOT cookie and if it doesn't exist, serve up a page that uses javascript to set the cookie, then reloads.

This requires the bot to interpret javascript, and it can easily be configured in nginx and other load balancers.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Feed your need to know - <AUTHOR> https://www.blog.google/products/search/feed-your-need-know/ <comment><USER2> Er. Can we turn this feature on and off?</comment>


Woman hatches ducks from Waitrose eggs - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-52838747 <comment><USER2> It's a little misleading to call them "Waitrose eggs". This brand is for sale in Tesco and Morrison's as well, for starters. Someone else did the same stunt of incubating and hatching this brand of duck egg bought from Sainsbury in July of this year.

* [http://diazhub.com/australia/animal-lover-takes-home-2-60-bo...](http://diazhub.com/australia/animal-lover-takes-home-2-60-box-of-eggs-from-sainsburys-and-hatches-two-ducks-in-the-kitchen/)

And there was a teenage boy from Sutton Coldfield who did the same stunt back in February 2019.

* [https://metro.co.uk/2019/02/19/teenage-boy-hatches-duck-egg-...](https://metro.co.uk/2019/02/19/teenage-boy-hatches-duck-egg-bought-waitrose-8669641/amp/)

<comment><USER3> If you find that headline misleading, know that if this had happened in the USA, it could have read "Woman hatches ducks from Giant Eagle eggs"

<comment><USER2> If you are in the USA you are possibly missing some of the subtle context here. Waitrose has been a hot topic in the news this summer in the U.K., as it has just finished a divorce from its erstwhile on-line delivery company Ocado. This has resulted in a lot of "Waitrose" news. It has also resulted in things such as quite close to attack advertisements running on Classic FM, reported to me by a relative, both a shock to hear on the rather tame Classic FM and quite close to the boundaries of the Advertising Standards Authority broadcast code of practice.

* [https://bbc.co.uk/news/business-53971834](https://bbc.co.uk/news/business-53971834)

* [https://marketingweek.com/waitrose-marketing-campaign-ocado/](https://marketingweek.com/waitrose-marketing-campaign-ocado/)

* [https://asa.org.uk/type/broadcast/code_section/03.html](https://asa.org.uk/type/broadcast/code_section/03.html)

This was another not really "Waitrose" story. The brand here, common to all of the stories, is Clarence Court, and it is sold in multiple supermarkets. Notice that the story about Francesca Anker from Kenilworth didn't bother quoting the supermarket _at all_ , unlike the BBC, and quoted M. Anker (who had something to say on the subject of keeping drakes around in a free-range farm, that would have informed commentary in this very discussion) and "a Clarence Court spokesman". The _Daily Mail_ did a better job of reporting this than the BBC.

* [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Per...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Perennial_sources#Daily_Mail)

Yes, that _Daily Mail_.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> People hatch quail eggs, duck eggs, and chicken eggs from markets in every state I've lived in, for fun or farm. Asian markets tend to be the best source for fertilized, viable, eggs (eg 99 Ranch Market, H-mart, etc).

<comment><USER5> I'm no expert in chicken rearing but isn't it quite likely that the more "free range" your eggs are raised the more chance of accidental having a fertalized egg? Seems much less likely in caged hens (at significant harm to the chicken of course).

<comment><USER6> You should check the stamp on the egg. The first number is how the chicken was raised. See [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egg_marking#Producer_code](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egg_marking#Producer_code)

Free range is not necessarily what a person would expect of free range. The farm can pack 9 hens per square meter with some outdoor space available at times.

<comment><USER7> > Free range is definitely not what a person would think of free range.

Yup, it's a scam. Deceptive marketing.

What people think of as free range they'll find if they buy "pastured eggs" (in Australia at least).

<comment><USER6> I've edited my message, the European standard is not that bad actually, 4 square meter per hen of external space.

Australian regulations seem to be a joke though.

<comment><USER8> It's still misleading in Sweden, even though we're in the EU. Here it's called "frigående" (free-walking, or free-range) which for hens just means that they are not kept in small cages. The free-range version with access to the outdoor is called "ecological" (16% of the hens).

When people buy eggs in Sweden from "free-walking" hens, they expect them to be outdoors in the sun, but instead they are kept indoors with a maximum of 9 hens per square meter and up to 10.000 hens in a barn.

It's not easy to find an English description of this, so here are some Swedish articles:

Wikipedia:

[https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frig%C3%A5ende_djur](https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frig%C3%A5ende_djur)

Swedish Egg, an organization from the egg industry:

[https://www.svenskaagg.se/?p=19891&m=3959](https://www.svenskaagg.se/?p=19891&m=3959)

Djurens Rätt, an animal rights group:

[https://www.djurensratt.se/djur-i- livsmedelsindustrin/honor-...](https://www.djurensratt.se/djur-i- livsmedelsindustrin/honor-och-tuppar)

<comment><USER9> This is interesting. The EU regulations include a table with what each grade can be called in different languages (p 24 of [https://eur- lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CONSL...](https://eur- lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CONSLEG:1991R1274:20020101:EN:PDF)). The grade called 'barn' in English can be called 'frigående inne' (free indoors) in Swedish. The English term 'free range' officially corresponds to 'frigående ute'.

In most of these languages, the term for barn eggs (hens indoors without cages) seems to refer to ground, soil, or scratching. Swedish seems to be an outlier in applying a word like 'free' to this grade.

<comment><USER10> I assume that "free indoors" is like keeping them in a massive warehouse where they can walk around, but with a other 9,999 animals around them. Technically they can walk around, realistically they can't make half a step before bumping to 10 other animals, and they poop all over, thus the needs for antibiotics. The "out in the open" is not happening for most farms.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> There is a video on youtube, where a farm threw away expired eggs and they hatched in the dumpster.

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

<comment><USER12> > [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGFq- > qpkvbA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGFq-qpkvbA)

wild predators definitely had a good meal that week!

<comment><USER13> Well, chickens will eat anything. So, the first few probably died of starvation.

The last ones though, could have become pretty fat. ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> How can you demonstrate better that a product is in a healty and natural condition?

<comment><USER15> It's more like they were raised in farms with one common space for the birds, still extremely cramped with probably no grass or natural light but maybe slightly better than battery cages.

<comment><USER16> They'd like you to believe that the 130 farms they collect eggs from resemble the one they videoed - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9MZdfAUlXs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9MZdfAUlXs) \- but it's hard to evidence objectively.

<comment><USER17> Clarence Court's eggs are pretty expensive compared to other brands -- obviously that's nothing to do with conditions but I can say all the ones I've bought so far have been really, consistently good quality.

I'll be very disappointed if I find they're battery-farming too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> > Our farmers work hard to ensure ducks and drakes are separated correctly. As > a result of this difficulty in sexing, a male white-feathered duck may very > occasionally be left with a group of females, although, these instances are > extremely rare.

I assumed that the issue was with the scale of duck farming; small independent farmers do not have the scale to separate the male(s). If true, a rogue drake is a more interesting scenario that can be considered an unintentional experiment in (un)natural selection.

</comment><comment><USER19> I know someone who went around with their kids, buying half a dozen eggs from various different farm shops and stalls and supermarkets.

They wrote the date and shop on each egg and put them under their own chickens as an experiment.

It surprised me just how many actually hatched!

A really fun project if you have your own chickens.

<comment><USER20> I'm really surprised. I'm not a farm person in any way, and from what I learned the male chickens are close to useless and most hens have never been close to a male their entire life. It seems the separation is not that strict though.

<comment><USER19> You don't need a rooster to make hens lay eggs. A normal hen lays an egg most days, even without a rooster.

You do need a rooster if you want fertile eggs, though.

A normal backyard flock needs a rooster to get fertile eggs to raise to perpetuate the flock. This is why backyard and small farm flocks usually have one.

I can't think of anyone keeping chickens and not having a rooster, although I live in the countryside where their cock-a-doodle-do is tolerated or even loved. I'm guessing if you keep hens in suburbia you'd have to buy chicks somewhere rather than have a rooster.

Big battery farms though? I have no idea if they have some barns with roosters to perpetuate the flock or if they buy in chicks from specialized rooster farms or something?...

<comment><USER20> Most people that I know who keep chickens don't have a rooster, but share one with others from time to time... or just don't bother. (these are people keeping ~5 hens).

And yes, I realise how eggs work :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> How is this news? The title made me think maybe the egg should have been of something other than a duck hence the upset but no. DUCK EGG HATCHES DUCK ain't nature wild?....

</comment><comment><USER22> I am reminded of what an uncle of mine who raised chickens said, "It only takes time and patience to feed a family of four on one egg."

Raising ducks though can be pretty challenging, especially if they imprint on you and follow you around everywhere.

<comment><USER23> >It only takes time and patience to feed a family of four on one egg.

... and enough feed for a family of four

</comment></comment><comment> globular-toast > "There may also be instances when a wild duck encounters farmed drakes, but > again, this is rare," he said.

Wait... drakes are the males. Surely he means a wild drake encountering farmed ducks? Odd that a spokesman would get this wrong.

<comment><USER24> It works both ways, you can sometimes see weird colored ducks in flock of wild ducks. These are most probably crossbreeds with domestic animals.

<comment> globular-toast Yeah but those eggs aren't going to end up in a supermarket carton, are they?

I actually saw what I believe was a cross-bred duck the other week. It had the green head of a mallard drake, but the body was black and white which I've never seen before.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Wa_P- tDNlE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Wa_P-tDNlE)

</comment><comment><USER26> Eggs. How do they work?

</comment><comment><USER27> Nature finds a way...

</comment><comment><USER28> For those that don't know, you can tell a fertilized egg from a unfertilized egg by looking closely at the yolk after breaking it open. A fertilized egg has a red dot, while an unfertilized egg has a white dot.

Edit: after googling a bit looking for evidence. I discovered this is a popular myth that I've known since childhood.

<comment><USER29> This is a common myth, but it is false. The "red dot" is just a blood spot that sometimes occurs as part of the egg formation process, not an indicator of fertilisation!

[https://qz.com/431136/heres-why-your-brown-eggs-have-more- bl...](https://qz.com/431136/heres-why-your-brown-eggs-have-more-blood-spots- than-white-ones/)

It's pretty much impossible for a commercially-produced hens egg to be fertilised. Duck eggs are a bit different because they tend to be produced on smaller farms, where they can come in to contact with wild ducks.

Edit: It's also apparently much more difficult to tell male ducks apart from female ones, compared to chickens. One article says the most reliable method is to "listen to the sound of their quacks"!

<comment><USER30> It is _usually_ very easy to tell drakes and ducks apart due to the very colorful plumage of males in many species of duck.

The problem being that drakes shed feathers a few times a year, and the drakes wear the same feathers as the ducks for at least some of the year. However, this is usually outside the mating season, and shouldn't really be a problem.

<comment><USER31> The ducks in the photo belong to a entirely white breed. Those are much difficult to sex with only a solid difference in morphology: the curly feathers over the tail are exclusive of the male.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I don't know much about eggs or birds, but I've always been told birds are meant to keep their eggs warm. Seems like trying to hatch eggs that have been in on a shelf for an unknown amount of time could carry a real risk of some tragically deformed pets.

<comment><USER33> Ducks have a system for this -- they lay an egg a day but won't start incubating them until they have laid their full clutch. The eggs won't start developing until the bird starts incubating them, and they can remain in this state for quite a while especially if kept cold.

<comment><USER34> Yup. Worked on a turkey egg (for hatching) farm. The eggs were kept cold until they reach the hatchery for the same reason.</comment></comment></comment>


Why Apple Won't Disrupt the Textbook Industry Anytime Soon - <AUTHOR> http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/why_apple_wont_disrupt_the_textbook_industry_anyti.php#.TxhmNqEi7us.hackernews <comment><USER2> Prior to forming my startup, I worked with an educational book publisher (low level books; K-8) for about 10 years. I continue to meet and consult with their marketing director/production manager on occasion, because I enjoy their business so much. I can tell you, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that the factors listed in this article will have little to do with whether Apple disrupts the textbook industry.

The purchasing process in education is unlike any other I've seen. The evaluative process is run by educators, not technology people. Many in the process really don't have any clue about what they're buying. They've already spent millions of dollars on very expensive "closed" systems. Further more, there aren't a lot of open systems even available. That's not the way education vendors work. Look at SMART (makers of the SMARTBoard). They have a lockdown end-to-end on everything from tools to content, they're crazy expensive, and completely proprietary.

Even with my experience selling to schools & libraries, I couldn't tell you if Apple will be successful disrupting the textbook industry. School buyers deal with a large number of stakeholders, and the decisions are made based on what's hot now. Apple has tremendous awareness, and there are certainly buyers for whom that will play a factor, but predicting success in the education market is far from easy.

</comment><comment><USER3> " but if it really wants its textbook initiative to truly take off, it will have to develop apps for other platforms"

I don't think so... from some (very) preliminary experiments this morning, the .iBooks file is just a zip file containing a bunch of XHTML, XML, SVG, and JPG files (along with a few files I don't yet understand, but not many of those). There doesn't appear to be any encryption/DRM/other nastiness involved. If such is used, they must be applying it at the store level. I don't know whether this is pure ePub 3 or not, but in any case I doubt if it's going to be hard to convert these to other platforms or develop apps to run them directly.

If you want to have a look for yourself, use the command line zip rather than the Archive Utility that runs when you double-click the file in the finder. It gets confused for some reason.

<comment><USER3> Also some CSS files. Forgot that one.

<comment><USER3> Update: the output does validate as ePub, with a couple of exceptions. 1) The validator doesn't like the MIME type (application/x-ibooks+zip rather than application/epub+zip). 2) There are some Apple-specific object tags in there. These appear to be associated with layout flow.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think his Point #1 & #4 are the main drawbacks. In the consumer market it's great to have a closed ecosystem where everything just works. But in a school environment cross platform is a must-have.

The irony is Apple's success with the iPad is the biggest reason for this. I anticipate a lot of people are going to buy the much cheaper Kindle Fire, find it isn't sufficient, and then bite the bullet and spring for an iPad. When they do I suspect a lot of them will donate the fire to their local school.

That's why schools have to be cross platform. Because you never know what is going to come in the door as a donation. If Samsung shows up wanting to give each student a free Galaxy Tab you don't want to turn them down.

Also, and this is a little off topic, but as someone who has tested these devices in a school I've found Apple's adherence to a single form factor to be a problem. The iPad is too big to be comfortably used for long periods of time by Elementary level kids. The 7" form factor works a lot better.</comment>