skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Voting a talk up or down is not the same as banning.

Voting is an indication that some subgroup of people have a specific view, either positive or negative, towards a talk. The selection committee can use that information to guide their selection. They may even go back to the person and point out that while the talk content is very appropriate, it's structured in such a way that incidental aspects (eg, a joke about "Hans Reiser killing women attendees" at a talk at linux.conf.au) will detract from the talk and blunt the actual content.

Or they may decide that the content is important enough to override the vote.

You are right, by the way. In the US context, being offended goes not give anyone rights. What gives people rights is the law. The law prohibits discrimination in the workplace based on sex, the laws says that sexual harassment is a form of discrimination based on sex, the law says that frequent and unwanted dirty jokes at the workplace can be a form of sexual harassment, and the law says that if someone doesn't like dirty jokes in the workplace then the first step is to file a complaint. And the law gives wide latitude to what the complaint can be, including making a complaint in public, and says that making a complaint gives extra protections against retaliation.

So no, being offended does not give people rights. Civil rights laws give people rights.

As to your examples, the law does not say that references to evolution, gay rights, etc. are in violation of the laws against discrimination in the workplace. However, if the only Young Earth Creationist in the company was always singled out as the person to write the "earth geology" transcripts, and there was no special business reason why that Y.E.C. should be singled out, then that Y.E.C may file a complaint for discrimination based on religious beliefs.

Because singling out someone in the workplace based on their religious belief is against the law.
What would your family say if you rang them up and said you'd joined the neo-Nazis? (Assuming you qualify to join for the purposes of the hypothetical.)
Sexism, Racism, etc. are characterized by the systematic and societal nature to the discrimination. It would not be sexist to have a women only list, because they do not systematically discriminate against men in society. A men only list would be, because there is systematic discrimination against women, even if the members of the list were themselves not being discriminatory.
Looks great! Just a small typo: "You can also you <em> to italicize your words."
I think that a lot of people hold very strongly the ethic "one should never treat someone differently based on their gender" extremely strongly even at the expense of other valuable ethics like "we should strive for a society where women are equal to men".

As a result, people frequently come to ask "how could a group that excludes men possibly be ok, especially as a solution to 'sexism'?" The answer is that ethics are not as simple as "X is always bad". Ethics conflict, and then you have to weigh which one it's better to relax in that situation.

Even if you don't agree in this case, I hope most people can acknowledge that a reasonable person who believes that gender should not dictate what one can and cannot do can weigh the pros and cons and determine that the harm of excluding men from certain spaces is outweighed by the good of giving women a safe space where they feel more comfortable speaking and connecting, which may have the power to help erode the gender inequality in our industry and society.

It's a case of competing ethics, both of which most people support, that reasonable people can come down on either side of.
>For example, just imagine how devastating it would be if one bit of GPLv3 software made its way onto iOS.

If that happens, I imagine Apple would simply commit copyright infringement on the GPLv3`ed code. The same way that they would commit copyright infringment if they include any code which they do not have the rights to.
Geez people, why can't we just take this as a moment of reflection. Read this story and say "damn, that's not cool someone feels that way, I wonder what I can do to make life better for the people around me?" It doesn't matter if you think she's over-reacting, or thin skinned, or any other judgement you've made of her after reading her post. Be a decent human being and realize that by being aware, you can make our industry a better place to be for all people. If you think she's just being "moody", there are plenty of guys who see and hate this behavior of our industry and would love for the environment t to improve. As someone who spent 8 years as a car salesman(a 95%+ male industry), the vitriol towards and objectification of women in tech is just about as bad. It's time to wake up.
That's quite a nasty and vindictive worldview you've got there.
I am not a travel agent, but I believe even non-EU citizens don't need a visa to travel within the EU - you may only need a visa to enter a EU country.
Linkbait headline. You probably shouldn't each 50 packs of artificial sweetener a day either, or 5 pounds of ice cream.
The biggest switching divide is between common law countries (broadly, everywhere the British were) and code/civil law countries (broadly, everywhere else). They're actually quite different systems of law, not just similar systems with different contents.
Seriously.

Situations are rarely black and white.

It is uncivilized to always assume that the person taking offense is automatically correct. We're all people, and people are capable of dishonestly taking advantage of the sympathies of the mob du jour.

It is always okay to discuss whether someone is actually guilty, and it is always okay to discuss whether someone is actually making false accusations.
after she drank a pitcher of tea made from at least 100 tea bags daily, for 17 years, researchers report.

Duh! Also 100 tea bags daily is a lot more than what people call "too much"!

Too much water will also cause death http://www.smh.com.au/national/bushwalker-died-from-drinking...
Just a correction: Venezuelan citizens can travel as tourists to the United Kingdom without the need of a visa, it is only necessary to obtain a visa if you do not have a biometric passport. - http://www.doineedavisafor.com/visa/venezuelan-citizen/trave...
I find this Scalzi piece a useful point of reflection:

http://whatever.scalzi.com/2012/05/15/straight-white-male-th...
Well American only had pretenses to begin with.

Georgetown and then GWU had reputation, and UDC was a nice decently priced "local" school, like the one whose name escapes me (Suffolk?) in Mass where all the Mass politicians went.

American was always a tuition soak for rich wish-they-could-bes.
Retrominer: Bitcoin mining on a NES
I learned JavaScript first, and I think in many ways I'm actually better off for it.

Anyone who's serious about JS hears constantly about the problems of lexical scoping, type coercion, lack of modules, etc. When I moved on to learning PHP and Python, I largely knew what to expect - and found them both pretty easy (aside from PHP's standard library being ENORMOUS and impossible to memorize).

On the other hand, I've seen people coming from classic OOP languages really struggle with things like first class functions and prototypal inheritance.

I don't think the problem is that people are learning JavaScript as a first language. I think the problem is that a lot of people who write JS don't ever really learn it.
I would guess it has to do with both the way enough people have behaved in the past while drinking heavily, as well as the nearly unassailable excuse of "I didn't mean it, I was just a little tipsy."

Note that at a conference, even at the after hours events, you're still at a professional event, surrounded by peers and colleagues, not friends.

That said, I certainly enjoy partaking, just not heavily when in that environment.
Personally, I'd rather get a shot than have to eat nutritional yeast.
I'm not sure where to even begin finding numbers for people working without a degree in the same field as the typical graduate of a given major to make the comparison, but I am definitely interested in seeing the results. My hunch says that we'll find very little difference between those with degrees and those without.

Unless you mean against minimum wage, but I'm not sure how telling that is. Certainly those with CS degrees will appear to be faring rather well, but that ignores that people without any degrees at all are doing just as well in the industry, and therefore are actually doing significantly better once you factor in the aforementioned costs.
I hope you don't let your negative experiences push you away from working in (software) engineering. The field in general is already over-saturated with men and I could imagine it being an intimidating field to get into when you're the only female programmer in the office. (My office of about 150 people has only 2 or 3 female programmers, the other 5 or so women are payroll, receptionist, etc.)

It's easy for us as men to feel welcome and comfortable in a group composed almost entirely of men, and I suppose it ends up being sort of self-fulfilling at that point to "keep women out", even if we don't all intend for that to happen. I know that walking into an interview and sitting across from 3 women scares me a little bit, but I can't even imagine how I would feel in an office full of women; definitely out of place.

TL;DR: Please stick with it! The best way to help the female students and interns to be more comfortable in the field is to get as close to a 50:50 gender split as possible.
I'll second the author's recommendation of Effective JavaScript by David Herman. I've found it very helpful: http://effectivejs.com/
How about emigrating?

Check the conditions in different countries. Here often companies don't do background checks and to rent an apartment you only need to shake hands with the owner.
Foundation is already as flat as it gets... Is the red supposed to be orange and the green a teal color :S ?

The list bullets/numbers are too far left, out of alignment with the header. I really don't think the colors go together well, I hate to make such a subjective comment but I can't get over it...

Check out the Foundation docs, I don't really get what all is modified here beyond the colors: http://foundation.zurb.com/docs/components/alert-boxes.html I suppose there are a few places that there is an extra contrast color that adds a bit of dimension to the buttom/form elements that could go to match "Flat" better, but otherwise...
There are also some issues around job preferences not being solely based on pay. The kinds of low-ish pay jobs worked by degree holders aren't identical to the distribution of low-ish pay jobs worked by non-degree holders, and skew, I believe, more office/white-collar rather than manual labor. Some people implicitly attach a significant value to that, whether due to working conditions or status, enough that they're willing to take that route even if they knew up front that it's not a net-positive financial decision. E.g., if attending college means you effectively make $10k/yr less, taking all costs into consideration, but you have a 60% greater chance of it being at a desk in an air-conditioned office, that might be worth it to some people.

In other words, some data on job-type mix rather than solely median salaries would be interesting.
Mixed feeling, sometimes a phone call from them can open a lot of doors. But giving them 50-70% for that can be hard to get around.
But he's right, and this isn't sexism...and God I'm so tired of hearing about sexism in tech...this is life. If you are different, people probably won't understand and will react negatively towards it.

My wife isn't a math and science person, and she does not have the aptitude to be a programmer. Does that make me a sexist? Does that mean that all women are just like her?

The answer is no, it doesn't.

People focus on what they want to hear in order to validate their opinions. Who among us that is ambitious hasn't grown up with the pain that is going against the grain?

It sucks to be different, but that's the way it goes.

Edit: Here is an example of what I mean.

"For those of us who aren’t, it’s a regular signal that we’re not considered, that maybe we don’t belong."

Absolutely not true. It's just a speaker trying to build rapport with their audience by talking about something they understand.

"The heavy drinking makes some of us feel unsafe."

So only guys drink heavy? First of all, if you don't want to watch heavy drinking, don't go to an after party at a bar? Second, I've seen just as many wasted females as males at conference parties.

"A paper cut for every conference."

I've been to maybe a dozen conferences in the past 2-3 years and I haven't seen any of this. Maybe I've missed it, or I'm not looking, who knows.
I am disgusted that they chose to measure tea in bags.

/teasnob
At least in undergraduate programs there is variability in what is taught, the classes you take, the quality and type of instruction. There is almost none of that in law school.
Why can't they leave the EU?
My feelings about drunk people at conferences parties varies depending on a lot of factors. Am I there alone or am I there with friends? Do I know some of the people in attendance or am I isolated? Is it in a dark or well-lit location? How easy is it for me to leave? How drunk are people getting? What's the ratio of men to women in attendance? etc. etc.

As these questions hint, my feelings vary on how safe I evaluate the situation to be for myself. I'm not likely to have a fun if I feel unsafe. Why do I evaluate a situation as unsafe sometimes? It's because alcohol lowers inhibitions and can lead to people saying and doing things they might not otherwise. When I'm in a space with people I know, people I can trust to be cool and reasonable even after a few drinks, I feel safe and I can have a drink or two.

In other occasions, I don't feel safe. I can't see the future, and I don't know how strangers will behave when drunk. History tells me that sometimes they'll act badly and sometimes they won't. It's not fun for me to gamble on a hope bad things won't happen this time, so I tend to skip parties with drinking on these occasions.

TLDR: Sometimes drunk people do stupid things. I don't like gambling that this won't be one of them.
Overdramatic paranoia. Get over yourself.
It's also not Mac only though. (Yeah, yeah, I'm a heretic.)
Kindleberry Wireless: A Portable Outdoor Hackstation
The "oh, you're a white male, life must be easy for you" statement is a generalization and it's almost always offensive to directly attribute a generalization to a specific person. Nobody should go to any particular person and say "you have/are this because you belong to this general demographic". That's ignorant and in most circles would be considered rude. I think you have all the right in the world to loathe that kind of comment.

But in the big picture, there are established privileges for the majority. Not everybody benefits all the time. But there are subtle benefits that often go unnoticed.

I'm not an expert, but from what I've seen minority groups usually want to be treated equally but aren't, given the current pervasive environment. So they create their own environments in the meantime. All the while trying to change the primary environment so that eventually the segregated environments won't be necessary. Personally I'd prefer no segregated environments for any minorities, because I fear they reinforce the idea of segregation ,amplify difference, and encourage resentment. But I understand how it might be nice to have somewhere to get away from the primary environment from time to time.
Serves the same purpose as http://www.visahq.com/, but it would nice to see a better presentation.
Interesting. I'm a citizen of The Netherlands, so assuming a faulty system I searched at 'T' and 'N', but I found it at the correct place, 'Dutch'.
I didn't mean to suggest that good works would pay well, but I guess I implied that.
It's the same way a woman might feel uncomfortable at a bar or party full of drunk guys with no or few other women present. It doesn't mean she has a problem with or is intimated by any particular man there, or alcohol, or men in general. The combination of a stark gender imbalance and the de-inhibiting effects of alcohol can create a testosterone charged atmosphere, especially if many of the men are young and single, and it simply isn't pleasant for someone outside that mold to be part of.
I was thinking of going abroad to study, though I don't know if they are as accepting over in Asia of Anglos as we are of Asians.
Some states allow legal apprentices (paralegals) to sit for the bar without going to law school, if their mentor approves.
We just published habit data & insights from successful meditators on Lift, our goal-tracking app (http://lift.do/). The research includes answers to your questions (and really cool graphs).

http://bit.ly/meditationhabits
- time of day, position, styles & session length

http://bit.ly/marchmeditationtips
- likelihood of continuing meditation, frequency, session length, apps

What we learned:

There doesn't seem to be a correlation between time of day & whether you see benefits. 48% of people on Lift meditate upon waking or in the morning. 2/3 of all survey respondents started feeling benefits within a week regardless of when they meditated.

45% sit on the floor, 30% a chair, one person said they meditate while swimming.

Mediation gets easier after 11 days of daily practice. 90% of people with an 11 day streak went on to have a 12 day streak & that trend continued for 60 days (we didn't look after that). To compare, it takes 14 days to see that trend in the Eat Breakfast habit.

Most people started with 3-5 minutes per session. Average session length we see on Lift is 16.8 minutes.

62% of people who meditated more than 3 days a week used an app compared to 50% of people who meditated 3 days a week or less.

Data comes from Lift data + surveys to Lifters in the Meditate habit. We're running a Meditation Challenge this month & we're learning a lot about this habit a lot of people say is their most important one. You can ping me at @liftapp with more questions.
Title VII protections for the workplace give protection against retaliation to people who make a complaint about sexual harassment. Even if it causes negative impact on the company. Even if the complaint was made in public. Even if it was in a workplace which was not under control of the company.

She cannot legally be fired because of what happened. Since she was fired, this means that she could take her case to court, and the courts will almost certainly find in her favor.

While I can and have talked about this elsewhere, it's best that you read what a lawyer says about this topic:

http://www.rmlawyers.com/blog/2013/03/sendgrids-unlawful-and...
What Julie is doing is not attacking your way of, but rather showing her point of view on various things that occur within the tech community that has stood in her way.

That being said, when people are drinking heavily they are more likely to act in an irrational manner. This could lead to situations that would, in fact, be unsafe.
Would you consider it sexist if someone started a developer list only for people that identify as male?

It really depends on the context. If the list was started just to encourage juvenile behavior, than yes. If it was started to address real issues that were specific to male developers (perhaps paternity leave/care issues), than no.

There are mens groups in a number of occupations where men are underrepresented (primary school and nursing being the most prominent).
One source of these "paper cuts" is that we live immersed in a highly sexual culture. "Booth babes" are provided for men to oggle at tech conferences, but the idealized female body is also used to sell beer, cars, and hamburgers to us on TV. Cleavage shots are common on highway billboards. "Dongle" jokes are on Family Guy, the Daily Show, HBO, CBS, NBC, and even PG movies (I remember a penis joke in "Shrek"). When guys make sexual comments, they are simply participating in the culture that they live in.

While tech has some attitudes that are undeniably sexist, comments that would happen in any industry are perceived as more threatening because the gender ratio is so out of whack. If females felt safer in tech, then they wouldn't notice as much the background noise of cultural hyper-sexuality.

It feels unfair or unreasonable to many men to check their American culture at the door in order to make females feel comfortable in tech, which is the source of the recent shitshow over PyCon. Most men are willing to fight blatantly sexist shit - the groping and nasty comments reported from tech conferences over the last few years. I am 100% on PyCon's side with the code of conduct and support resources for women.

But males in tech simply don't know how to have a conversation without "that's what she said". That's what they hear at night on "How I met your mother".

We have a sexually libertine culture. That is viewed as "progress" by some, including many feminists, but it is not without costs. And there is no easy way to silence it.
If you're interested I can confirm that a passport is all you need to get into Macao as a U.S. citizen.
The problem is when it gets institutionalized. What's more likely, that your wife just happens to be someone who's not good at math and science, or someone who didn't receive enough encouragement to think she could do well in those subjects? Honestly, I have no idea, since I have no idea who your wife is. But the question cannot be dismissed outright.

Studies that find things such as "Women perform better in math when tested without men"[1] are an indication that something is very wrong at a very fundamental level.

[1] http://brown.edu/Administration/News_Bureau/2000-01/00-023.h...
Licenses are not contracts. Although it is not nessasary for the GPL to make that point explicitly clear, it does:

You may not propagate or modify a covered work except as expressly provided under this License. Any attempt otherwise to propagate or modify it is void, and will automatically terminate your rights under this License (including any patent licenses granted under the third paragraph of section 11).

In other words, if they violate the anti-tivoing clause, then they loose the rights granted to them by the GPL, so they no longer have the right to use the software in their produce. In other words, the worst a license agreement can do is make you break copyright law.
> The thing is, I've never heard a woman speaker make a similar joke about her husband/boyfriend or a non-heterosexual speaker make a similar comment about their partner.

Well, taking for granted the fact that there are more men than women in computer science and engineering / IT, presumably a higher percentage of women (and homosexual men) in tech have had success finding a significant other who shares their primary interests than vice-versa.

(Assuming you're the author of this blog) obviously much of what you mentioned in this post is flat-out sexism and needs to be addressed. But if I joke or complain that my $SIGNIFICANT_OTHER doesn't get my interests, and that $SIGNIFICANT_OTHER happens to be female makes you feel alienated... really, that's your problem. The fact that you have experienced actual sexism in some contexts is not mutually exclusive with the possibility that you are being oversensitive about this.
Men, take notice: I bet most of these factors are things you've rarely considered when thinking about your safety when going to a bar.