That's a lot of ignoring to do. In the last feminism related thread I can think of (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5432277), the majority of people were, to put it mildly, not exactly progressive. That includes two mainstays of the HN community, with 15k+ karma.
The last one before that got flagged off the front page after one commenter declared that he was flagging it because programs that help women are sexist (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5353136). The story was highly upvoted, but it only takes a handful of flags to relegate a story to oblivion. Pg commented that it was an abuse of flagging, and it was restored, but pg usually doesn't show up, and most of these stories get buried, even when they're upvoted.
This story is a perfect example. With "19 points, 3 hours ago", it is ranked 151, right next two stories with "3 points, 14 hours ago".
You don't need to be a member of the tech community to see that. All you need to do is read the comments at any of the sites listed in the article. Yes, that includes HN.
Really? So you can ascribe sentiments like "Entire Community X Hates Community/Idea Y" based on comments in a forum?
Try this one on; "Feminism Hates Technology".
Sounds dumb, doesn't it? Because it's not a useful rhetorical approach to having a constructive debate - which, I am guessing by the hue of your comment, we would both strongly agree needs to happen. We need feminism in tech, for a lot of reasons - but not this "sensationalism at the cost of progress" flavor of it.
That's fair. I shouldn't judge the entire community based on its loudest online members.
In any case, the sentiment in the article resonates with me, because it matches my anecdotal experience outside of online communities. I haven't seen the converse in the feminist community, but that's also anecdotal.
austinee, sir or madam; I propose the following format for the remainder of this thread:
We post awesome women engineers and developers for people to follow and be aware of. Let the rest of the internet wallow in its poisonous vat of sensationalist vitriol. Here, in our little corner of the internet, we will move the chain forward a few inches by enumerating incredible women in tech, the rest of the web be damned. Maybe no one will see it or care. But maybe - just maybe, some young lady will stumble across it and think "Hey, that could be me, too." and in that small chance will our entire effort henceforth be vindicated.
Allow me to begin: (others feel free to contribute as well).
Rebecca Murphey ( @rmurphey / http://rmurphey.com/ ) : I owe her so much for writing her infamous Jquery/Javascript training guide. She is certainly one of the most pivotal figures in the Javascript renaissance. Her writing hits the sweet-spot of technical depth and approchability. I firmly believe that she is the kind of innovator that whatever she is doing now, the rest of us will be doing in 5 yrs.
If you don't know who this is, you are already being left behind in the new landscape of physical computing. Easily one of the top 5 most infulential people in the "New Hardware" movement.
I had the opposite thought: a PhD might be worthwhile if you really love research, but it's hard to imagine making up the opportunity cost.
What's the normal time to PhD? 5-7 years? Five years out of school, my base salary was barely below the range, and salary + bonus was just a bit above the top end of the range. Seven years out of school (without a PhD), my base salary is in the range, and my salary + bonus is substantially above the range. In the meantime, I've been making a six figure salary instead of a grad student stipend.
I sometimes regret not doing a PhD, but it's definitely not because of the money.
I certainly agree that you’re more likely to get the things you mention at a startup, but it’s possible to get those elsewhere (I have them now, with the exception of inexperience). Since I only need one job, I care more about the upper bound than the expected value.
Everyone has a different definition of ‘interesting’, but, IMO, Microsoft Research has more interesting work than pretty much any startup out there. Since I don’t have a PhD, there’s no way I’d get hired there; I’m just using them to illustrate a point.
As nostrademons points out, Google’s also full of interesting projects. Their process is notoriously slow, so I can’t tell if my resume was thrown into a black hole, or if it’s actually being considered, but that’s at least within the realm of possibility. Even IBM, which is known for not being a great place to work, has teams that are doing really cool stuff. Here in Austin, I’ve heard very good things about their Linux group, and, of course, IBM Research has lots of groups working on fun problems.
The last one before that got flagged off the front page after one commenter declared that he was flagging it because programs that help women are sexist (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5353136). The story was highly upvoted, but it only takes a handful of flags to relegate a story to oblivion. Pg commented that it was an abuse of flagging, and it was restored, but pg usually doesn't show up, and most of these stories get buried, even when they're upvoted.
This story is a perfect example. With "19 points, 3 hours ago", it is ranked 151, right next two stories with "3 points, 14 hours ago".