skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I would of posted this in her comment section, but the requirements for signing up are beyond the pale of acceptable.

"Thanks to my career, my daughter's Facebook friends list
includes Linux conference organizers, an ARM developer
and Linux kernel contributor, open source advocates, and
other tech journalists."

I, am so jealous right now.

"but I was unprepared for the harassment to start in
high school, in her programming class."

but her mother seems to have an interesting idea of what High School actually is.

"Did you not see her enthusiasm turn into a dark cloud
during the semester? Did you not notice when she quit
laughing with and helping her classmates, and instead
quickly finished her assignments and buried her nose in
a book? What exactly were you doing when you were
supposed to be supervising the class and teaching our
future programmers? "

That's hard to notice for a specific student when that's happening to 30% of the class, don't you think? That your god child should be spared, because she's female? I wasn't spared, why should yours be? She didn't get subjected to anything that I haven't gone through. At least from your description.

"I'm no teacher, so forgive me if you think I'm out of
place when it comes to telling you how to do your job.
But I am a mother, and I've spent years encouraging
girls and women in IT"

and he will have to forgive you, up to him though.

"Recruit students to take your class. Why was my
daughter the only girl in your class? According to her,
she only took the class because I encouraged it."

Because women are free to do what they want, and they're choosing not to. This discrepancy manifests everywhere. More deeply in countries with a focus on personal liberty. There are few male orderlies in hospitals.

"My daughter said she [didn't know] about the programming
class ... Have you considered hanging up signs ... asked
the school counselors to reach out ... spoken to other
classes, clubs, or fellow teachers ... asked the
journalism students to write a feature ... asked current
students to spread the word"

It was a full class. Wasn't it?

"Set the tone. On the first day of class, talk about the
low numbers of women and lack of diversity in IT"

You do not understand teenagers. Evidenced by that the teacher should single someone out to lessen harassment.

"Don't be boring and out-of-date. Visual Basic?
Seriously??"

You also might not understand schools. I can tell you four things that have a high probability of being true:

1. The professor doesn't have a choice.

2. The professor doesn't care.

3. This is all the professor knows.

4. There is no one to replace him.

"Check In ... Follow Up"

How many students? ~30? In one class? In the ~5 classes he teaches every day?

"my daughter learned why there are so few women in IT"

They choose not to be, and because they are so few, the ones that remain are singled out. There are few male orderlies in hospitals too, despite the fact that there's an "objective" demand for them (I was furious when I was confronted for the reason. It's to help lift patients, and help deal with patients experiencing an episode.
thanks! security and privacy are huge aspects of what Layer is doing. given the team's background we will invest heavily to ensure that the core infrastructure and client side SDK are locked down. my guess is we'll have more people on that aspect alone than most developers can afford to deploy on the full stack.
I don't think this applies to anywhere near the number of men the stereotype would apply it to. I've worked in very successful mixed teams in a variety of companies.

What's more I think the stereotype is harmful in itself. It provides an excuse for some men to act like assholes and it affects the perception of the rest by the outside world.

I have also seen misogyny and incredibly awful behaviour in the workplace. This was invariably carried out by men who thought they were good at what they did but were sadly mistaken.
Now it's 404 the site said:

The server can not find the requested page:

* /p/hermit (port 80)*
Please forward this error screen to pcaro.es's WebMaster.
It is about the student's experience reflected in the eyes of a mother. Parents are not known for their objectivity when it comes to children, but in this case the (rather far fetched) idea that the evil boys and their sandwich jokes made her daughter dislike programming found fertile ground in the whole "designated victim" narrative of women in online environments.

There is no violence and rape in this story, there's only a mom with an axe to grind and a daughter who might not be interested in programming.
>learns linux
>wants a macbook pro
I am sorry to say that I assumed the author was her father for most of the letter. Her arguments made much more sense to me after rereading it with that information, but I guess it's a statement in itself that with the discussion of her technical background and her strong assertive tone, I assumed her a man. Reality: checked.
>It's hard to imagine that any rape joke would be allowed to fly in our classrooms where students can hardly wield pencils anymore,

Zero tolerance tends to create situations in which schools/teachers/administrators do nothing since they don't want to get someone expelled. This creates an environment in which students say/do terrible things with little or consequence. Best case the teachers look the other way but often the teachers will harass students as well (I saw two teachers in my Junior High School sexually harass students). Occasionally the school will overreact and have someone arrested for using the word gun in an essay. The general rule is to expect them to do completely the wrong action, every time in every situation. At least that was my experience.
Engineers: Join HelloSign (YC W11) in its mission to make the world paperless
What 3500 playthroughs of our game tells us about gamer morality
> Rotary phones were quite elegant. As the dial returns to 0, it sends pulses down the line. The pulses actuate series of stepping switches to form the final phone circuit.

Back when I was poor and didn't have a place to live, I would go into a hotel lobby where they had a phone for guests to receive, but not make, calls -- the phone didn't have a dial. I would pick up the handset, wait for a dial tone, then press one of the buttons beneath the handset, ten time really fast. Then I would say, "Hello, operator? I'm handicapped, can you dial a number for me?"
Business Insider's CTO Is Your New Tech Bro Nightmare
Just because their app consumes their API doesn't mean that the app and it's endusers are subject to the same terms as the API.
Unless you are a minority in the field in which case your success apparently requires tolerating disproportionate abuse from your socially inept peers. Hardly the meritocratic environment we like to imagine here.
I wanted to see Chrome[1] running in a Real Terminal[2]. I mean… lynx just isn't good at Javascript.

[1] http://www.google.com/chrome/
[2] http://terminals.classiccmp.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page
There is a large aquifer in the valley so wells do pretty well but the water rights are tight. A residential well permit is for interior water use only. With 35 acres you get the right to irrigate one acre. You aren't supposed to recapture grey water or rain. There's a lot of potato farming in the valley and the old farmers have most of the good water rights, the rest of the water is owed to new Mexico and Texas and has to be left to flow downstream. Rainfall is very minimal, sub-9 inches per year IIRC. Weather easily hits double digit negatives in the winter but is mild in the summer. Some land has Limited road access and public service are minimal with few sheriffs to cover a large amount of land. Some of the land was sold to hopeful retirees sight unseen in the past and has been let go extra cheap once they realize it is a tougher living than expected. All of those things said, I personally think it is worth the money and will probably purchase a small parcel just as a getaway and play space.
Restricting SSH to "known-good" IP addresses is less flexible and less secure than public key authentication.

(Restricting mysql access to localhost and using an SSH tunnel is fine practice, AFAIK.)
We could make that argument a decade ago. A decade ago, geeks were just weird, and prone to incompetent and awkward social advances that could scare a young lady. A group that's incapable of making her feel comfortable.

And in a sense, you can't really blame them much for that. Social clumsiness and normal loneliness and desire aren't exactly crimes.

But what the author describes isn't like that. He described an actively hostile and misogynistic classroom.

Maybe I missed it (and I could've missed it since I'm a dude), but the modern culture of full-out misogyny that's infected young programmers wasn't present when I was a student, and it scares the willies out of me.
Why? On paper I can describe those lecture in glowing terms, if necessary. Just rewriting spamizbad's comment with the right buzzwords, and leaving out the student dissatisfaction.
> Minority entities will be teased practically any time they exist, regardless of sector or age, and they need to be taught to handle it well.

Yeah? So this high school programming class isn't so much a programming class as a crash course in coping mechanisms for gender-based harassment?

Please. It's the educator's job to create a safe space for, you know, education--for every student in the class, not just the privileged majority. It's their job to track their students' education and interest level, and make adjustments if either starts dropping. It's not their job to facilitate a hostile environment and let minority students flounder in the interests of 'real world training'. It's not their job to decide that since it's hard for women in tech in real life, it should be hard in their class. Education isn't about maintaining the world we already live in, it's about shaping the world our kids will live in.

You want real world training? Show me an HR department in a software company that's fine with comments like "get in the kitchen and make me sandwich". Which real world are you advocating this high school programming class introduce to a 16-year-old girl?
The system doesn't work if everyone reserves a table, it really grinds my gears when people do that in fast food joints etc. You don't need the table at that moment, people don't take long to eat there, you're bringing down the efficiency of the place by doing that.

(sorry, pet hate...)
I would pay to know if that teacher read it and what his answer would have been.
Does it have plumbing? That wasn't clear to me from the article. Electrical might make it a bit problematic, but maybe you could have one of those RV-style electrical hookup posts?
Why isn't this clause used, assuming people who go bankrupt actually tried to prevent that from happening ?
True, but hiding them will only make it worse.
> A device useful for firing up small caliber pendants?

Did you mean pedants by chance?

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/pedant : "a person who makes an excessive or inappropriate display of learning."

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/pendant?s=t : "a hanging ornament, as an earring or the main piece suspended from a necklace."
Not to mention, there were a lot of arguments he made about not being concerned about being offended, then he got offended and started getting abusive. Ironic.
I have no horses in this race, but I really respect that you're willing to take Q&A and say "Yes, there are issues"

(Also Herb Sutter and the 2 other MS people in /r/cpp)

http://www.reddit.com/r/cpp/comments/1h9uq7/c1114_stl_featur...
Name one company that's gone out of business because of a security problem, or even had their business significantly impacted. I can't. I'm sure if you dig you could find one, but I'm not aware of one off the top of my head.

Until this sort of thing matters to users, nothing will change.
Yes, none of the teams you've worked on have needed any explicit bans on behavior that's considered unacceptable in society. That's because you've worked on teams with adult humans (maybe assuming here), who don't need to be told the rules. High school kids still need some reminders that there is a normal way of interacting with others, like not suggesting that the only girl in the class be relegated to the kitchen. A bit of extra regulation is absolutely called for among teenagers.

That being said, your general point is good -- absolutist policies like zero-tolerance rarely work well, simply because human behavior is complicated and difficult for the policy maker to predict in advance.
The money probably has something to do with it. In the distant past (80s, 90s, earlier I'm sure) there perhaps wasn't quite the connection between computer programming and money in the eyes of the general population. Of course there were the Jobs-types and such, but the whole thing really moved into the public consciousness in the early 2000s I think. This has, perhaps (this whole comment should be read as speculation that seems reasonable to me) driven up the level of competition and general testosterone and brought in people who are less likely to see themselves as underdogs and more likely to look on their "competitors" (classmates) with disdain.
I think this post is a reaction on that other type post because Anonymous Pro is few years old.
I think JavaScript fits the bill.

I never took programming in high school, so maybe I'm setting my sights low...but even with a well developed curriculum, it's hard to imagine that the class gets very far.

Whereas with JavaScript, they can literally start executing code as soon as they open their browsers. I think that makes up, at least a little, of the time lost in not having as mature of a curriculum.

But I think the big win with JS is opportunity. Whatever crappy program they might come up with, they can immediately show it to their classmates and also to any friends or family with a simple link...it's not quite as easy to distribute a VB or other compiled executable. This kind of sharing makes programming...I would think...much more dynamic and lively.

And in addition to that, they get some web development experience...which is handy now and likely to be useful in 5 years. Whereas with VB, and most other programming languages...it's possible to learn them without gaining any hands-on experience with the Web.
Yeah that's a really good point!

I've heard plenty of people talk about working their way through school by having a summer job to pay for room and board and tuition and that it was possible to do it that way, even if it was uncomfortable. That really sounds great but maybe a little bit too great: it's a good narrative about how things were better back in the olden days when things were still good and not fucked up. I WANT to believe it but I'm not sure that I should. And it's all anecdote, no data.

I did some searching for pricing and I found this: http://www.collegeview.com/admit/?p=1858 It looks like a decent summary. In 1960 the minimum wage was $1.00/hr and the cheapest tuition I'm seeing is $960 for the University of Texas. If you made minimum wage for three months of summer that's a total of 40 * 4 * 3 * $1 = $480 pre-tax. So definitely not enough to pay for a whole year of school from just the summer job. At an Ivy League school you're at about 1/4 of your yearly total.

Today if you work a minimum wage job for a whole summer you'd get 40 * 4 * 3 * $7.25 = $3480 (pre-tax of course) which wouldn't even pay for your tuition (nevermind room and board and other expenses, that's another $5k per year at least) at the University of Florida, arguably the best deal in college tuition in the last decade. Comparing it to an Ivy League these days, it's not the 25% it used to be but rather about 10% if you go to one of the cheaper schools.
Thank you. If we accept discrimination of minorities as inevitable, then it will be.
Thanks, we do as well. However, we'll remain very focused on ads initially to bring it to the masses.
Then she should have kept the criticism relevant to that and not attacking the teacher's technical judgement:

"Visual Basic? Seriously?? Yes, I know I said I'm not writing to complain about your choice of programming languages, even though I'm still scratching my head on this one"

That only moves the focus from the real problem and creates a dispute that is not even relevant and necessary.
Has the Atlantic ever heard of the Amish?
So, high school sucks in general. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't care.
According to the author she did nothing about the problem at the time ie did not talk to the teacher, but is now more than happy to create drama by the track.

The author's qualifications in teaching appears to be zero, and her qualifications in programming seem to be that she is a tech journalist and author of a work of fiction. Why should the teacher have any notice of her?

The extent of the problem is that some people said things like "go make me a sammich" etc to her daughter. I would suggest that this is actually not a huge problem. I recall my days in high school, when I was beaten up on a regular basis for the sin of being good at Math and Science. I mean hard punches to the head and body, possessions destroyed, etc. I spite of my complaints to parents and teachers alike, nothing was done until I managed to create some bad publicity for the school. But it seems it only hatters if it happens to a girl (TM).

Bear in mind also that the salary of the teacher is probably around 60% of the salary that a production programmer can earn. So unless the teacher is a very idealistic soul, it is likely the teacher is struggling and knows little about programming. Which makes the teacher's job all the more difficult.

Finally, there is no proof any of this actually happened. Given past feminist false claims, it is quite on the cards that it didn't happen or is exaggerated... particularly given the acknowledgement that she did nothing about the problem when it counted.
Well same is true for any class right? haha. the question is, why would we want someone no experience with programming to teach programming class to our kids?
This is a learning moment for you, Mr stefantalpalaru. What you've just said, although I know you meant it sanely and sensibly, has been interpreted as lacking in compassion. This is not your fault; what happened is you have made a comment from a position of unrecognised privilege. For your own good, and the good of any women you may have any kind of relationship with now and into the future, it would be a very good idea for you to read up on the concept of privilege, with an open mind. You will find it uncomfortable, and you will probably prefer to fight back rather than acknowledge a flaw in yourself, but in the long run it will prove to be the best thing to do, and you'll be glad you did.

Best wishes, and good luck!
Agreed it was a clever comment, but it's a mom/daughter thing (not dad/daughter).
I agree. While gender-related issues in the software industry are important and worth talking about, this article seems to have pretty little justification.

I was in high school a few years ago. Put that many teenagers in a room and of course they're going to fuck with each other.

I've heard sandwich jokes made in liberal arts classes, biology classes, even a badminton class--which also had only one girl in it. The takeaway is not that the badminton industry is misogynistic or that the Phys Ed teacher is failing womankind; the takeaway is that high schoolers are dicks.
This is retarded (pardon my french). Assets are only relevant with respect to security interest held by the lender. Slavery is illegal, and it is not legal to attach security interests to peoples lives. Of course, by making the discharge of debt itself illegal, the lenders have placed their security interests in a default position aking to the states right to tax all future income. Which is a hillarious (although not funny) abdication of government authority in a democracy (as its unaccountable, not to mention opaque and non-transparent).
> dad/daughter humor inserted.

Not to be a dick, but you may be guilty of a little benign sexism yourself there... the author is a woman.
She - the writer is a woman.
You were bullied viciously in high school, and the perverse result appears to be that you've become in adulthood a defender of bullying.
I agree with the thrust of your comment. But as a member of the "privileged majority" who did not have a safe learning environment for most of my school years, I'm tired of getting dumped on online and being told my experience is not valuable or valid in these discussions.

School sucks for nerdy white boys, too. Yes, I'd like to see a safe and healthy learning environment for everyone.
What kind of relationship do you have with your kid that she has to tell you important information like this via email? Does she have a dad? I am guessing NO? Honestly, just the fact that the OP is writing the letter after the class is over, rather then confronting the teacher during the class does not sound right to me at all.
It's no problem for the bank of they can't accurately measure your risk of defaulting, as long as they can assess a group risk. So, say 4% of students fail to repay, the bank would use that number.

Just like car insurance when you first start driving. They don't know (or care) if you're a good driver so they just average beginner drivers and base the price around that average.
Sure: Now they're funding the loan program directly. At the moment it's profitable, but if there are ever losses they'll come directly from the taxpayers' pockets.

And there are indirect losses, too: Imagine the government started running a program to pay people $20K+/year (think grants + loans) not to work for four years, provided they paid some of it back at low, capped interest rates. Surely a lot of people would take the government up on that offer, and instead of being productive taxpayers, contributing to the economy and to the treasury, they'll sit around playing XBox. Maybe it turns out that the average college degree program is a better investment than this, even accounting for the lost GDP and tax revenue. But there's no way to be sure, since there's no market at work.
This is a high-school, so pubescent boys making disparaging remarks and teachers unable to control class are both expected and completely mundane. Certainly they wouldn't make it into a USENIX blog post, and I don't think anybody would infer from these events that "tech is sexist".

So the curriculum was the best reason I could figure why this is on USENIX.

(I certainly don't want to excuse the shortcomings of this particular teacher, and there are many, but I think the system is setup for failure)
Class Is Seen Dividing Harvard Business School
There were no rape jokes in the classroom. The article mentions the author had comments in reply to another article she wrote.
Because it's that, or nothing? It's not like high schools are rolling in money. Even if they could afford to hire an extra teacher just to teach programming, what programmer would want to teach for $20k when he can make (at least according to HN) $120k in the industry?
Very nice, congratulations on the work :)
Johnny, you did great in my class. You did well in the assignments and were heading for a nice B. But you know what? I'm knocking that down to a C for one simple reason -- you acted like a sexist fool towards Susan and created a hostile environment. You're not the only one. Karl and Larry and getting downgraded too. This isn't on your permanent record...yet. Don't do it again. Grow up. What made you think this behavior was acceptable?
Dick Costolo Warns Against Trying To Be Liked
Does NYC/NYS have certifications for programming/CS? It appears the only NYS certification for technology is a content specific one called "technology education" which I doubt has much of a focus on programming and probably more of a general "how to use computers" focus.
You must have had one horrific childhood if your bar for "nothing wrong at school" is "no violence or rape". If you ever have kids, I hope you aim a little higher for them.