skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
PG can be correct that “hacker-founders” (what YC looks for, AIUI) who are female may not exist in sufficient numbers to be visible to the YC process—and still be in the wrong because there is a strong gender bias against the production of female hacker-founders in our society.

The question—as I read the articles surrounding this—was about the larger problem (of the continuing ultra-dominance of the tech industry by men) and what YC might be doing to improve the situation. (And the answer is…nothing?)

The bias here is the same thing that keeps female participation in OSS horribly low: the “meritocracy” involved is inherently biased toward young males because of the way that our society works as a whole. YC can't fix this, but there may be things that can and should be done to improve how it handles that existing bias.
women who could be recruited as founders _TODAY_. Not ever.

The second one says 1) solutions may exist and 2) they require lead time.

The first one says solutions don't exist.

The second one implies that it is or might be a solvable problem. The first one implies that it is an innate gender difference.
Yep. I do agree that you can get better results out of Latex if you really know your way around it, but that's always been the divider between word processing an desktop publishing software (which is terrible for composition but gives you great control over things like font kerning and other formatting minutiae).

What you see in your .tex file is not what you get as the output.

The thing is, we used to have a bunch of word processors that worked that way - Wordstar, word Perfect and so on. MS Word destroyed its competitors because it turns out that most people do want to see what they're going to get. Sure, text-only is less distracting for writing but as soon as you go beyond simple formatting needs or have a need to produce something nice-looking in a limited time frame, markup systems are an utter pain in the ass for anyone but professional users in the publishing industry.
Spark Summit 2013 videos
I don't mean to get in the way of your hyperbole, but the person above you seemed to have no objection to "respecting" pg, he was taking issue with this:

"pg's response is actually priceless: it is like a soft-spoken witness upending a bullying lawyer who had just viciously attacked him, leaving the attacker reeling for all to see."

Which you don't mention at all in your response...

"If you're under 40, I'm largely uninterested in your take on the world. That includes my own; I know I still have things to learn and I make a proactive effort to listen more than I talk. I don't always succeed."

Are you actually being serious? Your brain works in such a way that any person who has lived less than 14,610 days couldn't possibly add any value to your life? I don't mean to be harsh but this could be the dumbest thing I've ever heard in my life. Certainly worse than anything I've seen on Medium.

If I was pg and this was these were the type of people and defenses that were coming to my aid, I would be mortified.
It's egregious to edit a quote.

This is a bit of a naive sentiment. Quotes, unfortunately, aren't always provided in easily-digestible form. This is particularly the case in informal, spoken-word interviews -- which seems to be the situation here.

Most people, when faced with questions they don't know in advance, speak in very ungrammatical, broken sentences. They interrupt themselves, they use the wrong words because they don't have the time to pick better ones, and (as pg said) they sometimes stop talking when the interviewer understands what they're trying to say.

If you're listening to these interviews, they make sense because it's slower, and you can usually intuit their mood, watch their body language, and figure out the point they're driving at. Transcribed without edits, it'll probably need a few re-reads, and you'll question their ability to communicate. I'd bet a lot of spoken interviews would fail the Turing test.

For an example of this, listen to a few random interviews with people who aren't in the business of public speaking on a news network, or tune in to a game and listen to the sportscasters. Imagine you were reading it exactly as spoken, and imagine how difficult it would be to make sense of it.

Thus: editing. It's entirely reasonable for a journalist to make small transcription edits for clarity. Readers get confused or irritated or bored if they need to struggle to make sense of the interview. It's entirely ethical if the edits don't change the meaning of the quote. That's what happened here -- but do we know it was necessary unethical? (As opposed to being negligent?) Well, as with the quote itself, we need to look to the context.

It's uncertain to what degree the nature of the interview was made clear to pg. He says it was clearly communicated as one thing, and Jessica Lessin says it was clearly communicated as another. We can't really know without seeing the actual communication between them.

If we assume that Lessin's account is accurate, and the discussion was intended to be used as an interview, then it's reasonable to assume those pieces would be polished up and pushed out at some point. It's also reasonable to assume the removal of "these" was an honest mistake, for the reason The Information gave; it referred to a group that pg didn't explicitly mention. It's also reasonable to think that the person making the edits thought it would be obvious pg was referring to female startup founders, since the question to which he was responding does explicitly mention it.

With this assumption, and since it was a different publication that raised the controversy, I can very easily see it as an honest mistake -- in other words, negligence. Lessin and The Information owe pg an apology for that.

Now, it's within the realm of possibility that the quote was altered intentionally, which would be highly unethical. But again, if they wanted to do that, they probably would have pointed it out themselves, rather than waiting for ValleyWag to do it.
> There is no such thing as being "too early" to market.

The history of the Newton disagrees with you.

It took quite a few years before someone built the product that the technology could support well (the PalmPilot).
That's not really relevant. The point was that Gruber stated that Google is presenting Glass as a finished product, which is something they have never done.
Because while intuitively it makes "sense", there is no evidence to show that the possible correlation is instead direct causation.
There will be a microsoft counterpart. There is a google counterpart. There is D. There is Parasail. There is Rust. There is Ada.

All will fight out.... C++ will thrive under the patronage of its father, C
Paul Graham Should Take a Stand on Sexism
The last 10 minutes blew my mind.
The rest is just profoundly infuriating.
I used to respect pg. Then I saw moderation here and how bigoted it is, and now, I respect none of you.
there's nothing that's laying fallow in an increasingly-desperate way while they work on Rust.

Oh, don't worry. There's plenty of activity in Perl and the CPAN that's not waiting on Rakudo.
Not really, no. Everyone is biased. The point isn't to eliminate them but to acknowledge them and understand how they affect you.

Sexism in tech is a very large problem, and like every other large problem, it's made up of many small problems. I think it's silly for pg to claim that there's nothing YC can do to get more women founders. No one's asking him to fix the whole thing — only to explore some ways that he could do his part to fix his small problem and get some more women founders through YC.
> The reason is that Paul Graham stepped into the conversation, even if accidentally. Now that he’s done so, inaction can be perceived as a statement in itself.

No, no, and no. Paul Graham does what he wants, when he wants, on his own time. Anything else is enslavement. Maybe now is a good opportunity for him to make a meaningful, impactful statement on sexism in tech. Maybe he will choose not to. You don't get to read anything into that.
I'd love to find a way to just be able to checkout a glass for N days.

Say - like for a week or two.

Further - it would be interesting to see glass used in this manner at various locations; say have glass as a navigation/resource location tool in a library, etc...

EDIT: I would love to see a public-service office REQUIRED to wear glass 100% of the time for a period; say a police department - where their every interaction is captured.

To me; this is the most effective immediate social value that these things could provide.
Before the 4.0 update, Musi had optional accounts. However, the conversation rate was basically zero. Now, I'm trying to promote inter-app sharing of music which requires accounts. For the utility that the app provides and the pricetag, a small sign up is quite appropriate in my opinion.
The recognition Snowden is receiving is for the revelations about the NSA programs, not the creation of said programs.

He isn't being lauded as a creator, but as a whistleblower.

Would it not be absurd to thank McNamara for the work of Ellsberg?
Well, the bit about having to start hacking at age 13 to have the right mindset to be a founder packs a number of assumptions into one bundle; and some of those assumptions are gendered.

There are girls who start programming at that age, but they learn to mask it because peer pressure runs against them. It also makes assumptions about the socio-economic status of the household; being able to afford even a cheap computer for a child takes some doing even today. It's not an opportunity that everyone gets, and it's a sad fact that in most human cultures scarce opportunities are handed preferentially to boys.

The thing is; and I think PG is aware of this, ycombinator is missing out on good opportunities because of false negatives in this particular area; and even more so because potential founders who happen to be female perceive that they aren't as welcome as they might be.

I think the best thing he could do would be to reach out to some of the people who are seen as his harshest critics ( specifically Shanley Kane and Ashe Dryden ) and open a dialogue with them.

The thing is that Paul Graham and YCombinator have accrued a level of influence and power that can be quite damaging if exercised blindly and he would I think understand the need to use that power responsibly. And in this case that means having some uncomfortable conversations and being challenged in ways that I'd guess he's becoming rather used to not being challenged.
> Perhaps something is going to drastically change but the vibe that I get is they are beta testing it so they are hammering out bugs and other rough edges not looking to drastically overhaul the hardware or software.

I remember listening to people discuss Glass on a couple of podcasts after it was released and this is the one thing that sticks in my mind from the reviews. While Google called it a beta, the reviewers said it felt more like an alpha or an engineering sample than a beta product.
Maybe this is naive of me, but I don't really look forward to a future where I walk around making sure people in my vicinity are glowing red (or green, for when I do something heroic).. I realize that having some indicator is a huge plus over having nothing but it just feels so sterile. Perhaps this is as much a reaction to always-on everything, but there's something especially off-putting about taking the concept of eye contact and making it a consumable, recordable activity. Technology thus far hasn't really encroached on or been able to imitate this face to face interaction..

> Alternatively, some kind of wifi/3g blocker or jammer, could be the answer.

I know that in much of the US these devices are illegal, wouldn't be surprised about other places.
I suspect banning guns wouldn't really help. Japan doesn't have many, but they have lots of suicides.
I'm extremely humble by nature, and the original title took a little bit of nerve to pull off, as did the paragraph. It attracts views though, which is what marketing is about.
Lost in a World of Data
The problem is that Linux distros are still use 2.7.x as default interpreter. As soon as they complete migration to 3.3.x everything will improve, and maintainers of the packages would be pressed to cope with reality.

At least mod_python already aware of existence of python 3.3.x ,)
This is a new incarnation and update of the app. Throughout 2013 Musi hit some small blogs, national (Canadian) television, and local news. Very slow buildup to the user base that it has now.
2013 In Review For Y Combinator
Rakudo was started around the same time as Rust

That's moving the goalposts a bit! What's currently called "Rakudo" is at least the sixth or seventh attempt at an implementation, not counting Pugs, viv, v6, or Niecza.
Public transit is definitely an option that a lot of people use and we endorse it!
If you have some sort of actual experience in Philosophy and enter an opinion on a subject relating to Philosophy, that is an intellectual argument. If you are an entrepreneur with no training in Philosophy and enter an opinion on a subject relating to Philosophy that is a pseudo-intellectual argument. Pretty simple really.

Note: I don't think that he actually is a pseudo-intellectual, just giving you the example you were asking for.
Thank you. We think it is sustainable because it is fair to both drivers and riders!
Isn't that lack of female hacker-founders exactly what pg was saying? I don't understand how pg could personally be in the wrong about that. And this is exactly my point, pg is now vilified for what? Not doing enough? It's ridiculous.
My FAT32 driver is knowingly flawed. If Windows makes short names and shit, it can fuck it up. I am commanding Microsoft to support RedSea filesystem, because I don't want FAT because it is not perfect. I will also remove ISO9660 when Microsoft supports RedSea on CDROM.

http://www.templeos.org/Wb/Doc/RedSea.html

http://www.templeos.org/Wb/Doc/Demands.html

God says...
depressing that's_all_folks daunting be_quiet_bird piety
envy I_can't_believe_it whatcha_talkin'_'bout
Spiegel source: http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/how-the-nsa-spies-...
Row, on the water, 10 to 14km, 3-5x per week.
Erg, 40 to 60m, 20-24spm, 3x per week.
The slide is dated in 2007 - i.e. either iOS 1.0 or some pre-release beta. Who knows what it does now with iOS 7? Also, its unclear what's needed - does one of those other ridiculous govt alphabet soup programs act as a trojan, or does Tom Cruise has to dangle from my ceiling with laser beams to plug in some wingding to do this?
Indeed. The non-scrub option simply should not exist. Are there use cases for non-scrub? Yes. Are the risks worth it? No, at least in my opinion.

Forget to check that box? Oh well, better hope the next droplet doesn't go and read your data.

Moderately competent developer doesn't realize the implications of not checking that box? Oh well, better hope that developer didn't have too much sensitive data on the droplet.

Etc etc. Security is the big area where the default should be to err on the side of caution - often removing choices that are simply too dangerous (when, for example, the tradeoff is a tiny amount of performance gain).

I say this all as someone who likes and is a customer of DO. I am disappointed.
Its an exceptionally ambitiously project which they are in no hurry in finishing. And that is for a good reason.

Way back in the early days, the goal was to release a usable 6.0 in a couple of years. The "there's no hurry" line is a post hoc justification from around 2006 or so.
How does this correlate to the general, non-YC population of female founders? More, less, or same as average? That's an important data calibrator. Without that, it's hard to judge if YC is better than, worse than, or average, good intentions or not. Without having any real data, I'm guessing maybe marginally better than average given that it's probably in the single digits on average?
2.6.4... sigh... I do use Python and Maya/Motionbuilder.

It would be great if Autodesk ever did upgrade python to 3.3, but I suppose A LOT of stuff would break in the process.

But since A LOT of stuff already breaks from each yearly version it wouldn't matter much... :P

I would bet they will only upgrade it when many new features in PySide supports only 3.x and up, or if they ever drop support for 2.6.x.
I wear Prescription Glasses. I can't wait to get Google Glass that work well with Prescription Glasses. To me it is seamless since I already wear glasses anyway.

Google by ignoring Prescription Glass users initially lost a chance to have people use it 24x7.
I think it's silly that you think pg is claiming there is absolutely nothing he can do.

The problem is now that many many people are now reading as much as possible into everything that he saying. If he has an opinion, you don't know exactly what it is. But you'll analyze every word, every phrasing, and make up your own assumptions. That is all that is happening here.
Nothing matters unless that shit works
Exactly. The data are useless without a proper control pool to compare against.
Thanks, always wanted my email to be a todo list
What is Livestreamer?
More surprising to me is that a stable third of Democrats and independents don't believe in evolution, either.
Most of this is just bluster and argument from authority. The only substantive critique I see you making here is that pg's suggestion about decoupling wealth and power won't work because wealth is power. But your definition of "power" is "increased ability to do something", whereas pg's implicit definition of "power" was "the ability to corrupt important social processes that are supposed to treat everyone fairly".

So I don't see the force of your critique: pg and you can both be right. Wealthy people can have more ability to do things even if there are systems in place to prevent them from corrupting particular processes that are considered worthy of such protection.
Well, you could, but there are ebbs and flows. And right now the party of money seems to be riding roughshod over the party of the people.
Well, I don't know the full situation, but I'd like to echo part of what NAFV_P said, with a focus on the talk:

If it were me, I'd probably try grabbing a coffee/tea/beer with him outside of the office, if possible (or, if you have your own private office, then that'd work too), and just talking with him about the situation, peer to peer, and try and understand what's causing this behaviour.

Just try to be tactful about it. Even broaching the subject may be a bit awkward, but if you can figure out a way to discuss this with him in an amicable way, it may be worthwhile.

It kind of sounds as though he's in a very stressful position. Maybe it's just the stress?

It could be something simple. Maybe it's something you're doing or not doing that irks him somehow. It's also possible that it could be something completely outside of you and the company, and he's just taking it out on you inadvertently.

Consider empathizing with him and try to figure out what's going on. Odds are there's actually a reason. Once you figure out what the root of the problem is, you're more likely to be able to figure out how to make things better.

If it's something you can do to help, you can try and resolve the issue. If not, just try to come to an understanding that there's no hard feelings; that you'd like to at least remain cordial, and even friendly, if possible...

In my humble opinion, getting HR or your/his boss involved as mentioned below/above may work on the surface, but you'd likely just be forcing him to suppress whatever it is that's upsetting him... not sure how well that'd go in the long run. At this stage, I'd go for the "talk with him" route. But maybe that's just me.

If you talk with him and it doesn't help the situation, then at least you truly tried getting to the root of the matter.

I dunno, just a thought for your consideration. I hope this helps somehow.

Disclaimer: I've never been in this situation before... this is just my two cents on the matter.
Check out Ken Wilber as well.
I don't get all the fuss. I fly often and it takes no more than 20 minutes in SFO to get through, even when there are long lines because they add more agents (thread pool!) - same in Boston, even when there's a major storm and the whole state are trying to leave at the same time, it's still really efficient. I don't really care about taking off my shoes and belt, I certainly don't find it humiliating. It's like when I hear people talk of the humiliation getting a physical. American's are the biggest consumers of porn and at the same time, the biggest prudes about ridiculous stuff. If I had to drop my shorts at the airport I might remember not to wear Spongebob ones to the airport, but short of that, it's hardly a big deal or worth blogging about.

I'd rather take my shoes off and have 2+ jet engines than get in an 8-seater commuter plane.
They have donations, but nobody has ever "funded" the project. Google's thrown a few $k their way ($5k this year) but I can't recall any other big name.

The mission has always been to reimplement BeOS R5 as open-source with some modernization.
Yeah, most people dont know about ER taxes because they dont have to pay them until they are self employed.
> You haven't stated whether you have talked to Jerry directly about this, if you haven't I suggest this would be a first step.

The only time we've discussed these things is during the post-mortem/apology phase, and it has always been the same reason, stress. I could inquire about it after during a time when Jerry is more professional, I have not tried that.

> One idea I would suggest is to bow down to all his requests, no matter how silly

I have considered this, but since I have learned attempts to resolve this on my own are at best futile or at worst provoke further attacks, I now immediately raise this to my boss's attention, who spends time to calm him down, and at the same time repeals the demands.

I honestly think right now, my best course of action is to prepare for interviews and spend some time lining up something to switch over to. If it happens again between then and now, that will just accelerate my plans.
You clearly aren't running extensive production systems with little administrative resources. Code is written 15 years ago, and it's still running. Any changes that break something are major headache, usually leading rolling things back to working version. Nobody knows or cares to fix those things to achieve compatibility with new version. This leads to situation where nothing at all is ever updated. And even known bugs and exploits aren't getting fixed. Oh well, that's business as usual.

But when I'm writing new code, I'm of course using Python 3.
All the phones are exploited. I doubt it matters.
Exploring Dependency Injection in Javascript
I made many full fledged website scripts this year. Which are very unique.

http://www.mememakerscript.com
http://www.customqrscript.com
http://demo.pinscriptpro.com

have a look
So you would use a pre-1.0 version with no guarantees of backward compatibility to implement something real? Something that a business depends on, not just something you can toss up on your GitHub page to look cool? I would fire you as soon as we tried to update to a new version and had to spend weeks fixing your now broken code.
Home Electricity Use In US Falling To 2001 Levels
That's because until well into the development of Ruby 1.9, Ruby was still using the odd (dev)/even (release) approach. 1.9 introduced things that were different, and it wasn't stable enough for production use until 1.9.2, at which point work on 2.0 started.
Don't underestimate the ability of allegedly smart people to fool themselves in the service of a pet cause.

Humans are designed to think tribally. Not fooling yourself for your cause makes you an outlier.
Cant expect more transparency. Thanks for reasoning out.