Google Employee Alleges Discrimination Against Pregnant Women in Viral Memo - <AUTHOR> https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/59nmkx/google-employee-alleges-discrimination-against-pregnant-women-in-viral-memo <comment><USER2> I'm always amazed Google management tolerates things like internal message boards aimed at letting employees create Memes on company time.

On the "evil point haired boss" level it seems these types of things like their internal message boards cause a lot of trouble for the company.

On the less evil side it seems like employees waste a lot of time on these internal sites and all the internal social justice stuff.

Maybe Google just seems to get it's dirty laundry aired out. I've been working in this field for 20 years not including my internships in college and I've never worked any company that seemed to have as much of this weirdness as Google seems to.

Maybe it's an artifact of them having a money printing machine and then a ton of employees who seem to work on items other than the money printing machine which don't really matter to the company's bottom line.

From the outside it just seems like a never ending series of stories about ultra-toxic management.. all of which greatly exceed anything I've seen in my career.

<comment><USER3> I work for Google, can confirm many of the points you've made. While I haven't experienced any toxicity at Google, your analysis of the internal communication culture raises really good points.

On one side, the internal social justice campaigns are incredibly pervasive due to large usage of internal message boards. On the other side, Google is one of the few companies that allows this level of internal airing of dirty laundry. I've heard stories of similar incidences at Microsoft which were swiftly shut down.

The problem is that when you encourage internal dialogue and communication at a huge company like this, you'll never have people with different opinions pitching in. You'll mostly get people with the most 'acceptable' opinions, the others being silent as they value their jobs. It's a huge risk to be singled out as someone who thinks Damore was right or that Maven should've been continued. As a result, you'll get a constant stream of one-sided social justice campaigns which inevitably leak to the press.

Encouraging internal dialogue and communication but not understanding its limits at scale is one of the biggest mistakes Google has made. Google was built on principles of open company-wide communication and sharing of information, and while it clearly doesn't work as intended anymore, there's too much inertia to change the course.

<comment><USER2> Should have added, I worked one place we got acquired by a giant company that most here would say is really f*cking evil (TM) and even there I never detected any of the toxic stuff these Google stories talk about.

That place was actually Evil enough I quit within a year to go back to another small company but it was nothing like what you read about Google. A different axis of evil.

<comment><USER3> I should've been more explicit - I haven't experienced any toxicity at Google. However, due to its internal communication culture Google is far more prone to blowups of well-publicized scandals than other companies of similar size. I'll edit my post to make it clearer.

<comment><USER4> I'm curious how you reconcile the admission that you work at a place with bigoted witch hunts with the claim that you've never experienced any toxicity. What is your position on the war with Eastasia?

<comment><USER5> Google is a huge company, so why's that so hard to believe? In fact I'm curious how you'd so easily write off the whole company and everyone who works there from few pieces of bad press.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The memo, since it's not actually linked in this Vice article, for anyone who would rather read the source material than the editorializing:

[https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6240022-I-m-Not- Retu...](https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6240022-I-m-Not-Returning-to- Google-After-Maternity.html#document/p1)

<comment> phoe-krk It is linked there: literally the two first words of the article, "A memo", link to this URL.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I've spent most entire career at relatively small companies (25-100 employees). I've never seen these types of issues (I can't say they've never happened, I'm just not aware of any).

In fact, reading these stories is probably why I've never had the desire to apply to work at any of the large tech companies.

I can't say for certain what the differences are, but I think smaller companies tend of have less office politics, less ambition as there is less opportunity for promotion, more shared goals (everyone works on one product), fewer layers of management, and more personal interaction with management.

<comment><USER8> It happened to me at Tudor Investment in NYC, which only has about 200 employees. I tried to quit when my daughter was born as I had found a better job anyways.

If I didn't stay an extra 3 months, my manager threatened to fire me 'with cause' so they could enforce my non-compete without paying me in New York.

So there I was working through some of the most incompetent shit from my dismal colleagues while my wife was trying to take care of our newborn baby while she couldn't walk due to delivery complications.

A week before I was supposed to go he mailed me a 25 item list of tasks to do before he would 'allow' me to quit, so I terminated my employment. _After which_ , they claimed my non-compete was in force without pay.

Don't ever work for those fucking vultures at Tudor Investment.

<comment><USER9> Never tested but I've heard from colleagues that noncompetes without payments at the base salary level are not considered "reasonable" and would be not be enforceable in New York state. Of course that's the whole schtick with hedge funds and the like, keep the base salary lower and pay bonuses.

<comment><USER8> If you're terminated 'for cause', they are supposedly enforceable without pay in New York. Then you have to argue that their 'cause' was invalid, which takes time and lawyers.

<comment><USER10> Can one still be fired after already having quit (I suppose that might vary from state to state)?

<comment><USER8> No but that didn't stop their idiot HR lady from trying.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> _The only support I received as the victim of my manager's abuse was encouragement to take advantage of medical leave._

This statement is quite telling: first HR goes to lengths to deny that there's any seriously wrong. Then they pretty blatantly acknowledge that yes, things are so fucked up that you'll likely want to take medical leave.

<comment><USER12> From first-hand experience, I cannot stress this enough: HR's job is to protect management. Period. Full stop.

Having going through this type of situation (high-performer until on the wrong side of someone in management), I really didn't understand things until someone pointed something out. I was asked: who hired the manager? The purpose of a manager is to handle the details of the goals of hirer.

A musician hires a manager to handle the details book gigs, vet contracts, etc. If the musician doesn't like the work being done, the manager is fired. If the manager thinks he or she can get a better result from someone else, they fire the assistants, caterers, etc. The musician doesn't care, only that results are generated.

The senior execs hire managers for the exact same purpose: deal with the details to get projects completed for them. If you play ball, you'll get the rewards. Mess with that agenda, you'll get canned.

The biggest disappointment I had was how I was treated. They make you feel like it's _you_ letting them down. They dangle in front of you all the ways out: "we're inclusive, we want to you have a great work environment, we have these resources for you to grow". And, I was there for all of it: the manager who would tell you exactly how to handle things only to lie in a HR meeting the exact opposite.

The big hint should be the HR title: Human Resources. A resource is explored, extracted, and exhausted. HR's job is provide _for_ management, not the employees.

<comment><USER4> It's the human resource's department's job to protect the company from liability. If they're not protecting the company from renegade managers they're not doing a very good job.

<comment><USER12> What makes you think the managers are being renegades? They know the company details that you don't know: we have too many women claiming maternity benefits, we have too many people with skill X and not enough Y, etc. Again, HR's job is to handle the needs of senior management, and only until then will HR act against a manager.

<comment><USER13> Your hypothesis is extraordinarily unlikely. Google has continuously expanded benefits for men and women going on parental leave over these last years. It would make no sense whatsoever for them to also systematically harass pregnant women out of the workforce. If they were concerned about the costs of maternity, they could just have expanded those benefits more slowly. That would have had dramatically more impact, at less cost, than harassing a woman here or a woman there out.

<comment><USER14> Expanding benefits while simultaneously harassing those who take them gives the benefit of virtue signalling with less of the cost. Most people who receive harassment keep it to themselves as to be public about it is generally a career ender.

<comment><USER13> I'm not saying we can't concoct a series of words that makes it seem likely, if you suppose that all the evidence that you would otherwise expect is absent because of flimsy reasons. I'm saying that the balance of the evidence suggests that this is not part of any systematic policy, but rather an intermittent failure of a kind that one would expect given a sufficiently long timeline, even in an organization with the best of intentions.

To the extent that there systemic anti-maternity bias within Google, it is certainly below the background rate of society as a whole. That's not a very high bar to clear, so I'll go further to say that Google is actively supportive of parenting and maternity in a way that few other organizations in the United States are. I can say that as someone whose spouse has had two kids there, and as someone whose teammates have had dozens of kids between them during our time working together.

Even with that, failures like these occur, because that's just what people are like, and we have not designed perfect systems to counter this type of behavior. That's not to excuse -- if the story is accurate, figurative heads should roll. And our systems should be improved.

But positing a systematic policy of abuse like this is cynical and doesn't fit with the evidence. Doing so is less like extrapolating a line from a single data point and more like drawing an entire picture from that point.

<comment><USER14> There is no need for it to be a systematic policy, it can easily be an emergent behavior. Such behaviors are common when there are conflicting objectives. It's human nature. Good luck fighting that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Changing internal Google policies isn't enough. America needs stronger worker protection laws.

<comment><USER16> The United States, Suriname, Papua New Guinea, and a few island countries in the Pacific Ocean are the only countries in the United Nations that do not require employers to provide paid time off for new parents.[1]

Parental leave policies in the United Nations [2]

[1] [https://www.npr.org/2016/10/06/495839588/countries-around- th...](https://www.npr.org/2016/10/06/495839588/countries-around-the-world- beat-the-u-s-on-paid-parental-leave)

[2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parental_leave#Americas](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parental_leave#Americas)

<comment><USER17> > require employers to provide paid time off

This isn't phrased quite accurately; I know that in Canada maternity leave is guaranteed by law but it is not paid for at all by the employer (it is paid by government insurance schemes instead).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> noticeably that both managers were women. One would naively think that that would lead to deeper empathizing and more understandable accommodation due to better mutual understanding and shared experience. Well, better mutual understanding and shared experience seems to be a double edged sword. Can you imagine a male manager trying to oppose, or even just question the necessity of, something like that bedrest:

"She says that she and her baby had potentially life-threatening complications toward the end of her pregnancy, and that she would need to go on maternity leave earlier than expected.

"During one conversation with my new manager in which I reiterated an early leave and upcoming bedrest, she told me that she had just listened to an NPR segment that debunked the benefits of bedrest," she wrote. "She also shared that her doctor had ordered her to take bedrest, but that she ignored the order and worked up until the day before she delivered her son via cesarean section."

<comment><USER19> A lot of modern society is a bit stacked against women actually having children. Women managers have as much a vested interest in the system as anyone but, by virtue of being women, don't have the same kind of awkwardness and shame that a man would have.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I'm wondering, does anyone have any stories of involving HR in a situation like this (less-than-overt discrimination or harassment from a person more senior/important than you) and getting a positive outcome? At this point whenever I read that someone "reached out to HR to ask for help in navigating the situation" I assume that the main outcome will be to put the company on notice that they need to start working on their paper trail for when you inevitably quit or get fired. But I suppose I wouldn't hear the happy stories as often as the unhappy ones.

<comment><USER9> HR exists to protect the company, full stop. They are only interested in the workers insofar as they reveal potential legal liabilities for the company.

It is almost always better to first talk to outside legal representation to understand the landscape. If there are actual law violations, they will help properly document and possibly start preparing a case, and if not then you know you should prepare to leave the company.

EDIT: surprised at the downvotes here, this is common knowledge for workers in all industries, not just tech, and this has been discussed at length every time a similar issue arises.

<comment><USER21> > It is almost always better to first talk to outside legal representation to > understand the landscape. If there are actual law violations, they will help > properly document and possibly start preparing a case, and if not then you > know you should prepare to leave the company.

Assuming you have already agreed to legally binding arbitration as is pretty much standard in all employee contracts (although thankfully a recent law banned this practice in California for employees hired in 2019 or later), how useful is it to go to a lawyer? It just seems like the system is designed to work against you.

I have never actually gone through the binding arbitration process, so my knowledge of this is very limited.

<comment><USER9> In many states that permit binding arbitration agreements, whistleblower protections and criminal activity reports pierce the agreement. That's why the specific nature of the transgression is important, and why actually talking to a lawyer is better.

<comment><USER22> It is the reverse. The state must not "permit" so much as aggressively work around mandatory binding arbitration, as the judiciary viciously denies access to courts of law to victims of mandatory binding arbitration and invalidates state laws to protect their citizenry. The American Arbitration Act has been interpreted with maximal denial of the rule of law towards its victims.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> This is a pretty tough spot. You don't want to impede someone's career because of there reproductive choices but at the same time were the teams wrong in not wanting to introduce a new manager about to take a months long medical leave?

You can look at the suggested early medical leave as being pushed out (and it certainly could have been) but it also strikes me as a good option if you only want to work in a rock star position at a rock star pace.

<comment><USER24> I think those are different things. To start with, you can "discriminate" about a worker not being available to do their job. You're just not allowed to discriminate against someone for being pregnant specifically. The manager made comments "that the Googler was likely pregnant again and was overly emotional and hard to work with when pregnant." Secondly, there is FMLA leave which is supposed to guarantee that a person has their job when they get back, but I'm not sure if that was even relevant here or how it would affect the role changes that happened in the months prior to taking leave.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Years ago, I worked at a big aerospace company (that no longer exists). I was hiring a small team of software engineers. I was flat out told not to hire anyone who was, or wanted to be, pregnant. Why? Health care cost. We were self-insured, and a baby born with severe health problems could bankrupt our plan.

<comment><USER26> If a bad outcome of a single employee can "bankrupt your plan", I think the company should stop with the euphemism of they are "self-insured" and admit to the reality that they have no insurance. The entire purpose of insurance is to spread risk to a level that it becomes acceptable if there is 1 negative outcome, which obviously wasn't the case here.

As an aside, just another example of how our f'd up healthcare system causes all these additional negative follow on effects.

<comment><USER27> It also seems unlikely that even a multi-million dollar birth with complications would bankrupt the plan of a "big aerospace company", except for fairly small values of big.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> So the author was managing a small team and was hold by her manager to get rid of one of her reports because she was pregnant. Now we know why management consists of psychopaths, those who are not evil quit in disgust.

<comment><USER29> That's what the pregnant woman claims. The manager could have disliked her for other reasons or considered her unfit for leading people for other reasons.

<comment><USER30> Here's a thing - the current legal framework means that manager's dislike to a pregnant woman is basically irrelevant.

<comment><USER29> The legal framework could be wrong, though.

I thought this is about emotional upheaval and hating big corporations, not the law.

If it is about the law, why even discuss it, instead of waiting for the courts to sort it out?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Maybe they expect better from a company like Google, but people need to be reminded that HR protects the company, not its employees. While still risky, it's often safer to complain about someone's behaviour to their manager instead of HR.

<comment><USER6> Google's greatest PR move was convincing people that they're not a soulless billion dollar corporation like those _other_ soulless billion dollar corporations

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> I feel like "you should take medical leave" is Google HR's answer to everything. Is that normal?

</comment><comment><USER33> Not specifically about Google or this article, but how many people here have seen or experienced some sort of discrimination against parents in general?

Like outwardly complaining that a man is asking for paternity leave (or insinuating job consequences if they take more than a few days)? Or more subtle approaches like deliberately scheduling unimportant meetings at obscure times to interfere with parenting and childcare schedules?

<comment><USER34> Yes, there have been male parents being discriminated against because some companies don't feel that men could ever be considered a "primary" guardian -- that designation is reserved for women, only. Thus, men can't get the full allotted paternity leave time; only women can. Just recently did the courts decide this is unfair; both men and women can carry the title and deserve equal time off. [https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/30/business/fathers- parental...](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/30/business/fathers-parental- leave-jpmorgan-chase.html)

That said, I've seen cases where the opposite is true. Parents are treated well but other groups aren't. I know several friends working at a large, well- known, evil gaming studio. They've had controversy in the past surrounding how they pushed employees to work insane crunch. When it became public, they (moderately) changed. Project managers would never ask women to work late, nor ask an employee who is a parent. For parents, this is great... however, they pushed all that work to others.

If you're male, single, a PM asks you to work overtime (without pay) and you decline, it will be a detriment to your career. After all, you have no kids therefore no legitimate reasons to say no. Be prepared to receive negative, nebulous feedback on your quarterly reviews.

"It doesn't feel like this employee is a team player."

"I question their commitment to the project."

"This employee seems dispassionate about their job."

I've worked with a project manager who carried a similar sentiment. In a candid conversation, he said to my face that he'd never ask women to work overtime. However, if you're male and under the age of 35, you should, "know better." If you're getting into the tech industry, you should expect to work at least 10hrs/day.

I'm very happy I don't work with him anymore.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> It's always gamble to go to HR

</comment><comment><USER36> Wonder if people in HR go through the same empathy-draining process doctors go through. Beyond a point, people's troubles/accidents/burns/cuts become objective things to take care v/s pain that people are going through

</comment><comment><USER37> Can someone tell me what 'PA' stands for in the memo? Project Admin?

<comment><USER37> or perhaps 'Product Area'?

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> Worth mentioning TFA is wrong about the Damore memo... it wasn't suggesting that women are less disposed to be "good engineers" only that they are less disposed to seek out a career in engineering to begin with. Quality isn't a part of it. But that doesn't fit an SJW narrative.

<comment><USER39> Was going to mention this as well. Vice deliberately misrepresenting the point of his memo and explicitly mentioning that it's "unscientific". Well no sh __, it 's a memo. I wonder if there's an agenda there?

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> _> Exactly two years ago today, another, much different memo, went internally viral at Google. That one was written by the now infamous James Damore, an engineer who wrote a 10,000-word, unscientific memo attempting to argue that women are naturally less disposed to be good engineers compared to men. The purpose of that memo was to get Google to scale back its diversity efforts._

That's not what actually happened.

<comment><USER34> "unscientific"

Technically, yes what he said is unscientific in the sense that he didn't conduct a long-term study. However, the guy has a degree in molecular biology so it's not as if he's pulling shit out of thin air to justify his stance -- that's grossly misleading.

While I don't agree with everything he said, there's a lot that I feel is very fair. It's sad the media wrote him off as a misogynist. Misogynist don't write pages of suggestions on ways to encourage women into STEM and into leadership positions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> It's interesting the internal memer used the "Unpopular Opinion Puffin". This meme image was banned from Reddit because it was frequently associated with racist ideas.

(See [https://www.reddit.com/r/OutOfTheLoop/comments/26m7uq/why_ha...](https://www.reddit.com/r/OutOfTheLoop/comments/26m7uq/why_has_unpopular_opinion_puffin_been_banned_from/) )

It almost seems like someone is trolling by using it. I wonder whose leg is being pulled here.

</comment><comment><USER42> I dunno, I couldn't read the entire memo (it just felt too long) and I'm uninterested in Vice's editorializing.

That said, I just don't love the way the original thing was handled. A manager made some comments, it was totally feasible to just ignore them, or to make a bit of a wisecrack or say directly "hey, that feels a little harsh, no?"

Instead you go to HR.

I don't know, people say dumb or insensitive things all the time. I would be loathe to make it a formal issue unless I really thought something harmful was going on.

Edit: obviously I wasn't there, and I possibly don't understand the nuances. It's just a gut reaction.

<comment><USER26> I can't downvote you enough. This is horrible advice. People tend to view going to HR as "the nuclear option", but this is not the case. Most companies put their managers through training about how they put the company at immediate (potentially large) liability if you are aware of harassment, even a "gray area", and you don't report it.

<comment><USER43> > I can't downvote you enough.

Why? The point of view seemed to be politely presented. You disagree. I tend to disagree with you (for the limited number (call it ~10) of large company HR departments I have seen). What are the downvotes for?

Now - to your second point - companies do train managers to report. Yes. I believe that this is a containment device. I am not marketing this here, so don't call me a shill, but I'm working on a better way for employees to get their individual complaints anonymously surfaced all the way to the board. The upside is: less layers of battle-hardened defence mechanism against employees. The downside is: loss of plausible deniability. We'll see how it works out.</comment></comment></comment>


Drastically improve your mobile app's performance by following these tips - <AUTHOR> https://www.simform.com/mobile-app-performance/ <comment><USER2> Why did you change the title, and furthermore to such a clickbaity one? The original title was better.</comment>


Ask YC: Should I use a framework or just write the code myself? - <AUTHOR> I'm about to start working on a new web application and have been looking into different frameworks (such as RoR, Django, symfony) to see if it makes sense for me to use one.   I have to say that every time I read about one I feel like I'd be constrained by the framework for not a lot of gain.<p>Do YCers here have experience with or without a framework?   What would you choose?

<comment><USER2> I worked on a large Python project before Django came out and ended up building my own framework. Recently, when I used Django, I realized that almost every feature it had was something I had ended up writing myself. Django had a lot more man hours going into the framework and was much cleaner and better tested than my implementation.

There are certain things you need for every project: -ways to handle configuration files for different environments -a pattern to map URL's to methods and templates -a basic ORM so you don't have to write SQL for every single CRUD operation -a test framework that simulates an actual web request -a way to handle SQL migrations -a way to get data to and from forms

Almost every production web site needs all of the above. Why spend time doing it yourself when people have solved these problems already? The only reason I can see for writing your own framework is as a pure learning experience.

</comment><comment><USER3> I started with a very light framework (web.py) and then switched to Pylons.

I'd say it's mostly based on personal preference. If you don't use a framework, you _will_ end up reinventing a lot of stuff that's in mainstream frameworks. OTOH, the stuff you spend reinventing really won't take you much longer than learning the framework, as long as you build off a decent set of libraries ( _don't_ try to reinvent your own templating-library/HTML- escaping/database-interface etc.) And if you do switch to a framework, you'll probably be better able to understand the reasoning behind why the framework did what it did.

One other consideration: frameworks make it much easier for somebody new to get up-to-speed with your code, and often tackle thorny deployment issues that you can spend a lot of time on otherwise. Keep that in mind when deciding - for a startup, the priority is to get something up on screen so you can see if you're on the right track, but you do eventually want to be able to grow and scale.

<comment><AUTHOR> web.py is on my list to consider. It's lightness and simplicity is really attractive.

One thing that bothers me in a lot of frameworks is the object wrapping of the database. I can't see much justification for this, it just seems to be adding a layer of complexity on top of a very clearly designed model. How much easier is it to use an object abstraction when you could just do SQL directly?

John.

<comment><USER4> I would take a serious look at Django. You can use it as scaffolding and get rid of pieces as you write you own, the first to go will be the use of the automated admin site, and I find myself writing a custom pieces across the board.

However, being able to rapidly deploy a prototype has been priceless time and time again, and they have the basics that you need down and well tested.

If you don't like ORM, or find yourself writing a lot of custom queries for performance, that is fine. I would still use an ORM now and customize some queries for performance later. The reason? Speed of building your app...I think not writing the DB code saves me about 20% of my time.

I used to be always against using frameworks since they were massive, crappy, and relied on so much magic you didn't know what was going on behind the scenes. I am really glad I went with Django, it saved me from writing almost the identical feature set.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's interesting that you mention Django. Of all the frameworks it's the one I most liked as I was investigating for one major reason: the community around Django seemed welcoming and open to ideas. This was very much in contrast to the RoR community which seemed to have a "we know better than you" attitude.

John.

<comment><USER4> The community is quite good overall.

It is especially good about allowing random people to contribute pieces of code that are useful. I also like how their goal is to make everything as straightforward as possible, and eliminate the 'magic' that most frameworks have. If you have any questions about it, feel free to ask.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I've used frameworks and written my own. Obviously what works better depends a lot on how similar your problem is to what the makers of the framework intended to solve. The dilemma is that as you build your app your problems become more specific to that particular app and you tend to gain less and less from the framework. Eventually the framework gets in your way. Not because it forces you to do it in a particular fashion, but because you feel compelled not to stray from the framework's path in the interest of consistency and simplicity. Unfortunately, the same may be true of your own framework creations, just the consequences are different.

Frameworks are great if you do a series of similar, straightforward projects like many contractors would do. A framework allows people to get acquainted with your code more quickly, so it's good for companies with high staff turnover. It also has a name that HR can put in a job ad.

If you roll your own, try to do it as a collection of independent libraries, not as a don't-call-us-we-call-you type of framework. That's my conclusion after many attempts at framework writing. It has always been the case that some parts were good and others were crap. You can't throw the crap out if everything is interconnected. The code that connects everything needs to be either the smallest part of the framework or part of the application itself.

But anyway, as long as you stay away from CMS, you're going to be fine.

</comment><comment><USER6> Sorry for the double post, but I would also like to add that SQLAlchemy and Mako templates were more of a deciding factor than anything else for me to use pylons. Pick the things that you will absolutely not be reinventing (templates, orm, etc) and find where they play best together. Do you like your templates simple and with very little logic? do you like them in xml? do you like 'magic' orms? Also another thing is note how this app will be deployed. If it is purely for fun and learning, this isn't an issue. Otherwise, read up on how easily different frameworks play with apache mod_python, fcgi, scgi, etc. because limitations in that area aren't easily mended. I did have to wage a bloody war to get pylons running fcgi on my shared hosting server. Now the war is won the solution really isn't that hard/complicated or obscure. It was just lack of good documentation that needlessly killed hours and brain-cells. I'd recommend looking for as much documentation in these areas. If you can't find it fairly quickly, chances are you will be paying for it in the future.

</comment><comment><USER6> I started with this whole web framework thing writing my own crappy code in perl. I found python, loved it, and immediately started learning django (the 0.96 version.) I quickly became dissatisfied with the limitations of the framework as my apps grew in complexity. This was somewhat in part due to new additions like newforms that were not yet completed or fully integrated. Currently I'm using the pylons framework and I am absolutely loving it. It sounds like if you are even 'considering' writing all the code yourself, you should really pick a framework akin to pylons or web.py in your language of choice. Ruby, Perl, Python, it's really all the same...

</comment><comment><USER7> I had the very same question before, and even implemented many of the common things that my application needed. But I am now looking at Drupal.

In general whichever framework you would like to use, will have its own learning curve. Once you overcome that, it should be pretty easy and fast to start working. I think there are some obvious advantages in using a framework:

1- you don't have to reinvent a lot of the stuff

2- the solutions offered to you have passed all their tests as there are many people checking upon them, and many sites already using them

3- if you have a couple of ideas and are thinking of launching all, I think once you finish your first project you will see a huge advantage starting the other ones, and you will move a lot faster

at the end if you pick the right framework, that will satisfy your current needs (the features and options you like to offer) and future needs (such as scalability), you will feel like you are working with a huge group of developers on your site. Its kind of like you have hired other developers and formed a team for yourself.

Also make sure that the framework you pick will have a strong community as it will come handy.

You should make a list of your requirements and make a chart of the frameworks and which ones satisfy what. And in general I would take the following into consideration when choosing a framework (depending on your needs you could add to this list)

\- Ease to install \- Learning Curve \- User Control \- Session Control \- Extensibility \- Scalability \- Themability \- xHTML/CSS

</comment><comment><USER8> CodeIgniter It's lightweight, scales exceptionally well, designed in a language 95% of the web development community knows like the back of their hand, and powerful.

You'll keep yourself from reinventing the wheel, yet you won't limit yourself on capability by conforming to an obscure set of rules and development practices.

<comment><USER9> Ditto on CodeIgniter.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I feel like you - so far I have usually used frameworks, but there are always aspects that make me unhappy (not even RoR satisfied me). Now I wonder if the recent article about IDEs also applies to frameworks: if you insist on using a framework, you probably won't be able to use the latest, coolest programming languages, because there are no frameworks for them yet.

I am not sure how much work it is to create one's own framework, but I suspect it is less than one might think. The hardest part to me seems serious OR mapping+caching.

Personally, I would probably go the same route as Groovy on Grails and build on top of Spring+Hibernate (so leverage existing frameworks, but in my own style).

Also, I don't know any programmers who became famous for using other people's frameworks.

</comment><comment><USER11> I'm a caveman, trying to squeeze every bit of functionality and performance out of my app. I roll out everything myself. May take a little longer, but the OCD in me is happy.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=77136>

</comment><comment><USER12> Flip a coin.

It doesn't have to be a balanced coin: I like Ruby, so my coin was biased toward Rails. Ergo, I learned Rails, and will probably go on to play with Merb and Camping.

Meanwhile, very smart people assure me that Python is nice, and I hope to learn it before I die.

The important thing is to just get moving. Deciding between Rails and, say, Drupal is complicated, with lots of technical, marketing, and business factors in play. But RoR, Django, and the gang are so much alike that the decision comes down to that simple coin flip.

</comment><comment><USER13> If you can find one that gels with what you're trying to do, then by all means, save yourself the time and go with it.

</comment><comment><USER14> I think light frameworks are the best because they do not cause frameworkitis.

[http://uint32t.blogspot.com/2007/11/web-programming- framewor...](http://uint32t.blogspot.com/2007/11/web-programming- frameworks.html)

</comment><comment><USER15> I use RoR and am very happy with it. Instead of "reading and feeling", try coding your app and see how things go. Even if you switch, by coding, you'll have made a lot of progress.

<comment><USER7> some points about RoR, (I checked it a few months back so they might have changed!)

\- It _does not_ offer an out of box solution to allow authenticated users to create content forming pages as part of a Web site. It offers you a web app framework and you could build upon it your custom CMS from scratch (and it will take you longer to do so)

\- but there is a nice binding to the database through the framework

\- at the time stability was a bit of an issue!

with all that said there are great applications built upon it such as 37Signals Base Camp

<comment><USER5> Do you know of any great applications built on top of CMS? I don't.

<comment><USER7> I am not sure what kind of applications you are looking for, but in general there are thousands of successful and big sites out there... for instance look at the sugar network, its based on Drupal

also if you mean built on CMS out of the box, I don't either, and you will have to customize it in order to make something useful, but the point is that with RoR you have to pretty much build from scratch whereas with other CMS like Drupal you already have many functionalities included in the core and you don't have to really reinvent many things, you just customize or add the ones you want

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> True hackers code their Web apps in x86 assembly.</comment>


Doctor advises only using soap on your hands and nowhere else - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2020/jul/28/soap-dodger-meet-the-doctor-who-says-we-have-been-showering-wrong <comment><USER2> I have eczema, and at one point it got so severe from taking (too-)hot showers, that I could hardly sleep for weeks because of the discomfort. Out of desperation I gave up showering altogether so that I could heal. I eventually realized that I didn't really smell. After my skin healed I didn't resume showering. That was about four years ago. I've never had anyone (including my partner whom I live with) tell me I smell under normal circumstances (in fact I asked my partner directly), nor that my skin looks or feels oily or abnormal in any way. Same with my hair. I do smell for a few hours right after vigorous exercise or something, but it's nothing a little deodorant and a fresh shirt can't fix.

I don't know if everybody is this way - I'm sure it varies a lot by body chemistry - but for me at least there have been no downsides. In addition to saving time, I have to think I've saved an enormous amount of water. From the article, it sounds like I may be healthier for it too.

<comment><USER3> Are you saying you haven't showered for four years and don't smell?

I am sorry, but I do not believe you. What the author is saying is not to use soap, not to avoid showering.

<comment><USER4> Yeah people are notoriously bad at noticing odours they are acclimatized to (anyone who's given up smoking, been to a convention, or talked to someone living in a smelly area can attest to that).

That's not to say they couldn't smell fine without daily showers but a smell will certainly build up over time. Some might be lucky and it won't smell particularly objectionable but you will smell and will smell stronger over time.

They need to check with someone they don't live with(so they're not used to it) and that someone will need to be willing to be blunt with them.

<comment><USER2> I've asked my parents too, who I only see 3-4 times a years, and they said there's no smell. And I trust they wouldn't lie to me about something like this. For obvious reasons I haven't brought up the question with people I'm not as close to, like coworkers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Having had some problems with eczema a few years ago, I did start using soap on only the smelliest parts of the body a few years back, and it helped a great deal compared to the "lather up entire body in shower every day" strategy before that. I don't know that I'd agree with "hands and nowhere else", but I do think we have too little information on our skin microbiome and how it works (or malfunctions) to say we know what we're doing in regards to soap. All of which goes double for soap with antibiotic added.

<comment><USER6> I also have some eczema/dry skin problems and one thing that I've found helps is not showering every single day. I used to shower once (or sometimes twice) a day, and it made the skin on my elbows and knees extremely tight, dry, and itchy. I now shower every other day (I still use deodorant and change my clothes) and haven't had nearly as many issues. That being said, I am fortunate because I don't have a lot of body odor and I don't sweat very much, so I can reasonably get away with not having a daily shower.

<comment><USER2> Other factors that I've experienced (with eczema):

\- Water temperature has a huge effect; consider taking lukewarm or even cold showers, if you can get used to it

\- Using a wash rag is _much_ harsher than just using soap in your hand. The coarse surface really used to tear up the outer layer of my skin.

\- When drying off with a towel, pat instead of rub

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The problem with humans is that we like to take things to the extremes when we find out new information. Microbes are bad? Let's use anti-bacterial soap everywhere. Microbes are good? Let's not use soap anymore. The best advice is to live life in moderation, use some soap if you have a dirty job and don't use soap just because you're bored. Play in the sand and eat a variety of things and you'll be fine.

<comment><USER8> An old favorite quote: "Everything in moderation, including moderation."

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is certainly an interesting perspective. I have a friend that refuses to wear sunscreen because he feels like the risk to his health from rubbing all the "unknown chemicals" into his skin outweigh the health risk of skin cancer. While I still use sunscreen, his perspective did get me thinking about all the unknowns I've introduced into my body through the skin.

Logically, it makes sense that our skin can adapt to be less oily and odorous with taking a break from using a lot of soap. I've been only using shampoo to wash my hair every other time I shower and I've noticed that my hair now seems to take longer to get oily. It's basically the same concept as using soap on the rest of our skin.

<comment><USER10> Don't know if you saw this recently: [https://www.wsj.com/articles/sunscreen- chemicals-accumulate-...](https://www.wsj.com/articles/sunscreen-chemicals- accumulate-in-body-at-high-levels-11594978201) ([http://archive.is/nvBBT](http://archive.is/nvBBT)).

"For the second time in less than a year, a study of common sunscreen ingredients has established that the chemicals are absorbed into the bloodstream at concentrations far greater than the Food and Drug Administration's safety threshold."

<comment><USER9> Thanks for the link! I'm going to make the switch to physical sunscreens. I don't think I can justify not using sunscreen here at high altitudes in Colorado.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> If anyone wants a 'fuller' treatment on the topic I would recommend the book _Beyond Soap_ by Dr. Sandy Skotnicki; bona fides:

> _Dr. SANDY SKOTNICKI is the founder of Toronto's Bay Dermatology Centre and > an Assistant Professor in the Department of Medicine, divisions of > Dermatology and Occupational and Environmental Health at the University of > Toronto. She is a consultant dermatologist at Toronto's St. Michael's > Hospital._ […]

* [https://drsandyskotnicki.com](https://drsandyskotnicki.com)

Interview with her on TVO, the province of Ontario's public broadcast network:

* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGl19JJnaK0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGl19JJnaK0)

It's not that soap is "bad", it's just that we're overemphasizing cleanliness to the point that a lot of the cleaning chemicals we (over-)use are damaging our skin.

Also, one certainly wants some cleanliness, but many products are excessively harsh for what they accomplish, and so she recommends certain products that she's found helped her patients:

* [https://www.producteliminationdiet.com](https://www.producteliminationdiet.com)

</comment><comment><USER12> I don't use as little soap as the article suggests, but I use less than many people do. I don't want to smell bad, and I know it's harder to judge your own smells. But there's one piece of trivia that gave me the confidence to try it.

Humans have two types of sweat glands: eccrine and apocrine. Eccrine sweat glands are found all over the body. Apocrine glands are found in armpits (and a few other areas), and they only activate at puberty. The smell is related to bacterial activity in the "apocrine sweat". Armpits don't smell because they sweat more; they smell because it's a different kind of sweat.

So I use soap for my armpits. If I don't, I'll notice the smell easily in a day or two. But for most of my skin, I can go pretty much indefinitely with just water. I don't notice any bad smells, and I have asked some close friends, and they don't smell anything either.

<comment><AUTHOR> You're right about the two different types of sweat glands.

And just to finesse what you're saying here:

> The smell is related to bacterial activity in the "apocrine sweat". Armpits > don't smell because they sweat more; they smell because it's a different > kind of sweat.

Even the sweat from the apocrine glands doesn't smell when it's produced. But because it is much richer in nutrients than the sweat produced from the eccrine glands (which is 99% water and the last 1% mainly being salts), it is a fertile feeding ground for bacteria. And it's _the waste_ excreted by the bacteria feeding on your appocrine sweat that smells bad, not the sweat itself.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> As I got older the situation with my scalp kept getting worse and worse to the point I was using anti-fungus shampoo and still had fungus. So I just gave up. After an oily month or so everything was great. So I stopped using soap in the shower entirely. So far so good and it has been at least 5 years.

</comment><comment><USER14> If you have any kind of serious health issue, it's worth looking at your usual routine -- aka anything you do habitually, basically -- and wondering if that's a variable worth varying instead of considering something like soap all over to be sacrosanct.

We have a shockingly poor understanding of the _processes_ behind most diseases. We generally do a poor job of even thinking of the body in terms of processes and throughputs, much less factoring in elements like "I wonder how this is impacting my microbiome? And what that does to my overall health?"

Tips for self experimentation:

1\. Keep a journal.

2\. Make one and only one change at a time and space them at least a week apart, longer if possible.

<comment><USER15> Questioning my daily routine led to me noticing significant improvements to my hair health. My lightbulb moment happened on a scuba trip (diving 4-5 times a day for week) where I wasn't showering like I usually do, but just rinsing off the salt at the end of the day. My hair was incredibly healthy by the end of the week — no excessive oils, discomfort, dandruff, itchy scalp — just healthy hair. I had suffered on and off with those before.

I started using shampoo only once or twice a week (I do shower daily) and just using hot water the rest of the days. My hair is immensely happier now! I also switched to using a "fancy" shampoo with salt granules in it, since the ocean seems to make my hair nice, and that helped as well. Even though the shampoo is more expensive than the cheap stuff I used before, I use way less of it and it's cheaper overall.

I've tested my theory in a couple ways, and it's all been positive. After a Pre-COVID haircut, I had them use whatever shampoo they use for a wash. My scalp was itchy, dry, and uncomfortable for at least 24 hours after that, and my hair was totally flat for a few days as well. I also tried not using shampoo for a long time (3 weeks) and just using hot water, but I got dandruff again and I could feel I was getting dry skin and oil residue building up on my scalp. I'm back to my normal routine now, and have never been happier.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I'm a naturopathy by certification, I don't practice because I prefer to work in my trade. Four years studying in a formal capacity, Western Herbal Medicine, Clinical Nutrition (diet and supplements), and enough anatomy & physiology and pathophysiology to be able to converse with experts in the field and keep up, and the resulting life-long passion to seek out and critically analyse new information relating to chemistry, biochemistry, neurology, immunology, etc etc etc.

I have fond memories of one lecturer always saying "don't put anything on your skin you wouldn't put in your mouth _and swallow_ ".

Your skin is _permeable_ , the fats and oils the skin exude are part of it's protective systems, and, as the article points out, the regular surface of the skin is a veritable smorgasbord of _commensal_ organisms.

We should probably stop treating out bodies as fundamentally broken. They've gotten us this far, and, more generally, you don't see other animals obsessed with hygiene. Although I did recently see a video of a rat soaping itself up for a shower, so there's that I guess.

<comment><USER17> Animals don't wear clothing, so already we're starting with a default that's different from nature. It's much easier to trap in sweat, oils, and other byproducts if you're rubbing up against fabrics all day.

<comment><USER18> Also few animals sweat like humans do.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Doctors are required to get a doctorate for their career. This has two major consequences. For one, research standards are lower because many doctors are only doing it because it's mandatory, and there's a lot more people doing simple medical research than in most other areas of inquiry. This causes a lot of underqualified opinions to surface for prestigious-sounding doctors.

As always, be skeptical of claims that go against consensus. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

<comment><USER20> _Is_ there a medical consensus on this? The closest I've heard to anything on the subject is that a dermatologist once advised me to try not using soap on my face as a possible acne treatment.

<comment><USER21> Should you wash your face with antibacterial soap?

No, because the microbiome (helpful bacteria) around the eyes prevents conjunctivitis. And killing off those beneficial bacteria clears the way for far more undesireable bacteria.

Yes, germs are bad.

<comment><USER20> In the USA, is antibacterial soap even a live issue, since the FDA banned basically all the chemicals used to make it about 5 years back? I would assume that at this point the ingredients they're using don't actually work (except perhaps in test tubes and at extreme concentrations) and it's largely just a hollow marketing term.

<comment><USER21> Triclosan > Policy describes the policy situation in regards to consumer antimicrobial agents like triclosan: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triclosan#Policy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triclosan#Policy)

We generally credit Lister with saving many lives by inventing sterile surgical procedures; so, how do germs in open wounds and germs on the skin differ in their effects on survival, health, and appearance? [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Lister](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Lister)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Fun fact, in Ancient Rome people used olive oil as soap, and scraped off the excess using a...metal thing. Sometimes they put perfumed olive oil into their bathtubs. This is for richer folk, regular people used crude soaps.

[https://hubpages.com/education/The-Many-Uses-of-Olive-Oil- in...](https://hubpages.com/education/The-Many-Uses-of-Olive-Oil-in-Ancient- Rome)

<comment><USER23> Strigil. that's what it was called.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> On the other hand, I used to get clogged pores when I went an extended period without body gel (after being allergic to a body gel I used). I've since resumed with a different brand. So this advice is very ymmv.

</comment><comment><USER25> "It's one of the few remaining things for which we feel fine telling someone that they're gross"

Nice variation on the old _the last acceptable prejudice..._ rhetoric.

</comment><comment><USER26> A wet loofah will exfoliate just fine without soap. You don't give your colon a soap enema every day, why do that to your skin microbiome?

</comment><comment><USER27> Does this really pass the smell test?

</comment><comment><USER28> Sorry for folks with eczema, but maybe it's about the soap you're using versus not using soap. I've had the misfortune of working with people who thought showering was optional and it's not pleasant. So unless you want to offend others and be referred to as the stinky co-worker please wash.

<comment><USER20> You've conflated "not using soap to clean oneself" with "not cleaning oneself".

I have several friends who _do_ shower, but don't use soap except for hands or when they're actually dirty. None of them get funky, except when we're camping and nobody's been able to take a shower for a while.

<comment><USER28> Just water or is there some soap proxy?

<comment><USER20> Just water. Just like what TFA is suggesting.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> This "doctor" has never been in the same room with a 15 year old who hasn't showered for a week. The "body odor" of that magnitude should be prohibited under the Geneva Convention.

<comment><USER10> The article does not say that we should not shower. Water (especially _warm_ water) by itself does a _lot_. Also, he is not a "doctor"; he is a doctor.</comment></comment>


An Introduction to Solitons [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://www.tfai.vu.lt/files/shnir/Lecture1.pdf <comment><USER2> It sometimes surprises me what can be found here.

Solitons are interesting, I have always been curious if anyone has done any sort of genetic search for solitons for more general wave equations. There are only a couple of known analytic solutions to a few different wave equations, but finding approximate non-analytic solutions with something like a genetic algorithm might be interesting.

<comment><USER3> > It sometimes surprises me what can be found here.

:-)

> Solitons are interesting, I have always been curious if anyone has done any > sort of genetic search for solitons for more general wave equations. There > are only a couple of known analytic solutions to a few different wave > equations, but finding approximate non-analytic solutions with something > like a genetic algorithm might be interesting.

My understanding of solitons is based on (classical/quantum) field theory. They correspond to "saddle points" of the underlying path integral (probability distribution, for practical purposes) which interpolate between different vacua (local minima, for practical purposes). For this reason, one cannot simply run an optimization algorithm on the log-likelihood distribution (i.e. action/Hamiltonian, etc) since we're not searching for minima!

I would expect this intuition to apply to the extent that the differential equations which we're trying to solve can be derived from an underlying action principle.

<comment><USER2> Framed in that way, it is likely that running some sort of optimization algorithm is going to be tricky...

Framed the way solitons are usually framed, as a waveform that doesn't change shape when propagated, it seems one could frame a genetic algorithm with such a fitness function (how much the wavefunction changes).

In another sense, a saddle point is a minimum on one axis and a maximum on another... maybe optimization could be done in that way... though I'm not sure that is practical.</comment></comment></comment>


No, Entrepreneurs Like Steve Jobs Do Not "Create Jobs" - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/no-steve-jobs-did-not-create-jobs-by-inventing-the-iphone-2011-12

<comment><USER2> Where do the customers get money to pay for products and services? Yup, that's right-- from jobs created by entrepreneurs and investors.

The Socialist mindset is what's destroying America.

<comment><USER3> You mean those socialist nazi communist atheists right.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Make HTML5 editable - without any hassle - <AUTHOR> http://selectorapp.net/hn

<comment><USER2> That's truly great! Add versioning and ajax support to it and it's perfect!</comment>


46-927 Introduction to AI (1997) - <AUTHOR> https://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs.cmu.edu/academic/class/46927-f97/cfp.html <comment><USER2> Look at that: no learning at all.

For those who aren't aware, the idea that AI systems should learn was controversial for a long time. That was considered "mere" machine learning for a long time. Now of course, almost everyone considers that AI must consider include learning.

<comment><USER3> At Carnegie Mellon, the learning AI crowd was with James McClelland in the psychology department, not the CS department. The shadow of Minsky and Papert over machine learning with neural networks was quite long.

<comment><USER2> _The shadow of Minsky and Papert over machine learning with neural networks was quite long._

Indeed. And occasionally you still see some echoes - interesting how long it took MIT to get on the Deep Learning bandwagon.</comment></comment></comment>