needacig

Jesus Christ.

This is an amazing chronicle of working arrangements. Thank you.

Yes, I wasn't trying to imply Internet access is essential, although it is such a powerful technology that lacking access to it generally sets you back a lot in the global rat race. Rather, I was trying to give a sense of how distribution of technologies progresses. It would have been helpful to have a few more data points but I couldn't think of good examples. (Especially in the higher ends -- what powerful technology do the rich have now that the rest don't? Maybe travel via airplane?)

Exactly.

Some more context:

61% lack Internet access [1]

35% lack basic sanitation (e.g., toilets) [4]

26% don't have plumbing (e.g., water they can get from pipes in their house or yard) [2]

23% don't have electricity [2]

14% lack access to clean water [2]

14% lack access to health care [2]

13% suffer from chronic undernourishment [5]

11% can't read [3]

14% is about one billion people. Maybe you look at that and think, hey, 86%, doing pretty good! But if this many people can't even get access to even the most basic of technologies today, what makes you think most people, even people in the developed world, will have access to whatever mythical mortality-defying technology people are speculating about here? It's all such speculation as to what they are doing, the question is practically not worth answering. But if extreme life-lengthening technologies are truly on the table, the potential for an Elysium-like scenario should be taken seriously.

(Also, point of clarification: what do you mean by "intrinsic reason"? Can you give an example of an intrinsic reason something would be limited to the elite?)

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Internet_usage

[2] http://www.globalissues.org/article/26/poverty-facts-and-sta...

[3] http://www.statisticbrain.com/number-of-american-adults-who-...

[4] http://www.unwater.org/statistics_san.html

[5] http://www.worldhunger.org/articles/Learn/world%20hunger%20f...

This is the third or so time this blog has been posted to HN and every time people ask where they got their data and every time there is no response. This time, some of their data doesn't look so good, at least with the boundaries on the map being all messed up. Also it's not clear if they adjust for inflation.

Clean water. Physical safety. Electricity. Maybe when you thought "pretty much everyone," you had the bay area in mind or something, but actually it includes a pretty large group of very poor people.

I think you should read this (about why we should take some comedy seriously): http://rajsivaraman.wordpress.com/2013/06/05/a-scientific-ca...

And importantly, also this (about one rape survivor's experience of this issue): http://seananmcguire.tumblr.com/post/60312620820/i-cant-go-b...

And then you might visit (for more recent history on this subject, so you have even more context): http://www.wired.com/underwire/2013/09/penny-arcade-expo-dic...

I agree these behaviors don't seem psychopathic, merely selfish, irritating, and useless. It sounds obvious from your account that he is not being truly productive. You should try to have a polite conversation with him about "prioritization" to get him to stop unnecessarily writing documentation and holding meetings (actually that is pretty weird behavior). If he is wasting his time socializing instead of truly getting work done, he'll be his own downfall. The managers might like talking to him but at the end of the day, employees who get real, important things done are most valued. Perhaps you should devise a way to make that clear to your managers, maybe by being very productive yourself and subtly putting that in contrast with his work. Also you should befriend the managers too.

I'm no Facebook fanboy, but to the criticism about what happens when your friends share incriminating posts, I exasperatedly say: quit complaining and learn to use your privacy and sharing settings.

The issue of bullying is a serious and valid criticism though. I'm glad social networks weren't a thing when I was a teenager.

I agree. Thanks for posting information about your systems! I might give them a try. I found RescueTime to have many small UI issues that frustrated me too much. I had to uninstall it.

> The problem is that "women in tech" presentation don't try to fix the root-cause of the issue by giving "men in tech" any reason to believe women should be treated as equals.

Why is your null hypothesis that women shouldn't be treated as equals?

If you look at the products on LEGO site, it looks like it is coming to "pink or ponies for girls" and "dark or soldiers for boys," sadly. I agree that everyone shouldn't have to have the exact same thing, but they could cut out the part where they slather the girl products in pink and characters with small skirts, and include some normal girl characters in the otherwise boy-oriented sets.

EDIT: The more I think about this:

> "Equal before the law" and "equal member of society" does not mean "the same in every way", and trying to enforce the last of these can be harmful rather than helpful.

the more this frustrates me. No one is saying everyone should have to be the same. Did you even look at the LEGO products? What parents are reacting to is the reservation of action, space, science, adventure, technology, etc. for one gender and homemaking, baking, beauty, and animals for the other gender by putting very distinct gender-specific markings on them to make it clear which belongs to which. I'm extremely skeptical that girls just genetically prefer pink things and dresses. This is about forcing people into cultural categories which limit their options for individual expression, not some silly attempt to make everyone do the same things.

As critics have noted, the split isn't just interior versus exterior. Many sets marketed to boys have as many interior spaces as exterior. The difference is that sets marketed to girls are distinctly pink and emphasize homemaking, beauty, cute animals, mini-dresses and other traditionally female-appropriate things (things a sexist world might call frivolous and stupid) whereas sets marketed to boys emphasize science and adventure. If children statistically prefer one to the other its because we teach them which things are for boys and which things are for girls. AND (this part is really important), through astute powers of observation, kids are also learn early on that people are often severely socially punished for disobeying gender norms (see: how cross-dressing is often thought to be freakish and wrong, how many people hate butch lesbians, how calling a male a girl or a pussy is one of the worst insults you can give him). If it were just a matter of interior versus exterior, why not market them as focused on interior versus exterior rather than for girls versus for boys? To the extent that the sets marketed to girls limit girls' exposure to non-traditional tasks, LEGO is reinforcing traditional gender norms and many progressive people reject that precisely because it is so limiting.

Wikipedia, for better or worse, serves an indispensable role for millions of people. So even if you disagree with its leadership and its editors with biased agendas and would like to see its demise, a more realistic solution seems, to me, to be to put on your writing cap and become an editor yourself. In this case, it is actually very possible to live according to the saying, "Become the change you wish to see in the world." A bunch of new contributors focused on fixing things might help.

Although I do remember reading stories at one point about new contributors' edits getting frequently rolled back by Wikipedians with more permissions. That could be a barrier to entry, but it's unclear to me how much of a problem this really is.

But what about the cats?! Cats care about fitness just as much as dogs do. When can I order a feline version?

"What they illustrate is that men might actually be better at handling women’s issues than women."

This is a ridiculous statement. Women face a different set of pressures and stereotypes around working and parenting than men. Those pressures are starting to become the same for both men and women, but they're not the same yet, and until then, it's not possible for a man to be better at handling women's issues without also being a woman and being better at it.

The last edit to this article is very satisfying.

This is interesting commentary on a certain genre of blogging:

"Because blogging isn’t reporting, nor is it subject to much editing (let alone peer review), posts like Fisher’s are particularly vulnerable to their author’s blind spots and risk endogenizing, instead of detecting and flushing out, the bullshit in their source material. What is presented as education is very likely to turn out, in reality, obfuscation.

This is an endemic problem across the massive middlebrow 'Ideas' industry that has overwhelmed the Internet, taking over from more expensive activities like research and reporting."

It does seem like everyone has to have a blog to increase their "thought leader" status these days.

I agree that filling your time with non-technical professional obligations and meetings can really destroy your productivity. However, the author seems to think that Tao's greatness is in large part attributable to his working schedule. I'm not really convinced of that. I imagine there are a lot of other things that make Tao really good at what he does. Moreover, I also would guess that for many academic (and probably industrial) careers, non-technical professional obligations, like serving on committees, can be good for increasing your visibility and the size of your network. As with anything, prioritization and moderation are key.

It's not so much that he looks like a dork, but that he looks like an asshole. The article hints at this when it says, "There’s a reason that Saturday Night Live put a Bluetooth headset on Jason Sudeikis in its recurring 'Two A-Holes' sketches." Dorks are cool now. Assholes, not so much.

Good for her!

If the gender is not apparent, then there is no way to discriminate. I'm not sure what this has to do with the main article though. Many people like to connect their online accounts to their real identity (and thus gender), especially their GitHub accounts. Some don't. Is the suggestion that if women don't want to be discriminated against, they should hide their identities?

Why does that matter?

EDIT: Oh, do you mean that women should hide the fact that they are women online when contributing to OSS? I imagine many do.

To those saying, "Why is this necessary? This isn't fair!", Well, here's your answer: http://xkcd.com/385/ (XKCD nailed it, as usual.)