The idea is interesting indeed - and easily doable as well: Entry.all gives you all the links on the front page, you'd just have fetch the main page between regular intervals of time (say, once every hour) and then save the entry information to a database.
Could you elaborate on this? If you can provide better "specifications" I'll implement this and add it to the library.
This is to make a permanent copy of the site and its discussions locally, so you'll have the knowledge of the articles and discussion forever.
Either download the linked site itself, or just the link, folowed by comments. Automatically grab comment updates once a day for a week, or whenever discussion statistically tapers off.
In other words, here are the options:
-Submission titles, dates, and links to HN page
This is to provide a searchable database for HN links, and perhaps (if this were done on a separate website) you could implement a "favorites" system for people to login and bookmark those topics of discussion they liked most, ala Server Fault.
Downside: I don't know how long HN articles persist. If they disappear, this is largely useless.
-Linked sites themselves, URL to HN page, and comments
Much more permanent; a complete mirror of source sites and HN discussions, searchable. Similar login/favorites iface could be put in place.
Downside: More information is cached, more complicated scraping (source sites and HN).
This is really sexist, and the very fact that she can get away with it (and even get lots of praise) should make us all reflect on how fucked up social conventions and politically correctness are.
I've written about the topic here -> http://usingimho.wordpress.com/2010/04/06/men-and-women-on-r... and i've been smiten to death in the comments because i dared to state the fact that only around 1% of the opensource projects on rubygems are made by women and that we all should reflect on that.
Here's a passage of her article:
I believe it is these tangential code-cowboy qualities women are unable or unwilling to emulate, and not their skill or capacity for abstraction, problem solving, creative thinking, or communication — All of which actually make them better developers
Think about if a man dared to write the following:
I believe it is this inability to go straight to the point that men are unable or unwilling to emulate, and not their ability to understand other's needs and to understand how social situations work — All of which actually make them better marketers
Please, clueless journalists, stop using "hacker" as a synonym for "cracker". And also: when posting an article on HN which title contains the word "hacker" it would be nice if you put quotes around it if it's not intended as it should, like:
Steven Levy On The Hacker Spirit (no quotes, hacker is used correctly)
No "Hacker" Left Behind (quotes because hacker is intended as cracker)
Thank you for this comment. Now, instead of wasting our time considering the article, in which the founder of the SANS Institute is lobbying the government to set up semi-official capture-the-flag contests (which he'll presumably get paid for), we can engage in the much more purely intellectual debate of whether people are using one word the way we want them to.
Thank you for this comment. Now, instead of wasting our time considering the article, in which the founder of the SANS Institute is lobbying the government to set up semi-official capture-the-flag contests (which he'll presumably get paid for) which I couldn't care a flying f*ck about and I had to read until half before realizing that.
I'm all in favor of our version of "hacker", but is the word "cracker" really used? Does anyone self-identify as a "cracker"? (I don't move in those circles.) Or is it just an artificial concoction, presumably trying to wrest the word "hacker" away from that meaning?
(Also, the earliest recorded use of "hacker", unfortunately for our cause, did refer to breaking into a system, so this ambiguity is not just a big misunderstanding.)
It's common for words to get assigned different definitions even within a general topic. It doesn't do any good to cry "foul", unless you are in editorial control of some very influential content outlet. For instance sometimes journalistic associations or the government will issue decrees on usage of controversial words.
I don't think the NY Times or the US government is going to follow your suggested guideline anytime soon. Do a "define: hacker" lookup in Google, and you will see the article uses the term "hacker" correctly according to today's parlance. And the same author and publication could also use "hacker" in terms of your preferred definition in an article on a different subject and still be widely understood.
I couldn't care less about changing what hacker means to the general public. I'd just like to be able to recognize if a topic is about either hacking or security at first glance.
"... when posting an article on HN which title contains the word "hacker" it would be nice if you put quotes around it if it's not intended as it should, like: ..."
True, but I try to keep the original headings. Changing them often causes confusion (editorialising) if I misplace emphasis. Besides I'm pretty sure most here know the distinction b/w "hackers" & "crackers".
Changing them often causes confusion (editorialising) if I misplace emphasis
You're right.
Besides I'm pretty sure most here know the distinction b/w "hackers" & "crackers".
I think that's not the problem: what annoys me is that, as it was for this article, I am expecting something very different from what I find. It took me 1/3 of the article to understand they were not talking about hackers at all. Yes, stupid me, but that's what happened :)
I detest whimsical crap like this - especially when its shoved into your face like that insufferable paperclip guy.
The ribbon may be a happy happy joy joy thing for fluffy folks, but I just see a crappy toolbar with half a dozen fonts and no clear way to search for the randomly-distributed features. I detest it.
Give me Excel 2003. That was the most usable version for me. (Actually I was the most productive by far in Lotus 1-2-3. The reason I believe was the lack of a mouse.)
I've collected and studied data from rubygems a while ago and I came to the exact same conclusion. (you can find the post here -> http://usingimho.wordpress.com/2010/04/06/men-and-women-on-r... )
While at the time I wasn't so sure about my thoughts, since the amount of lynching i received in the comments, not I'm totally sure that this issue needs serious and unbiased scientific studies.
It's all true. The effectiveness of the approach is amazing, I lost every single bit of respect in the female gender in the process of trying it out myself.
Now I'm searching for someone on which this stuff doesn't work. I'm afraid i'll end up alone.
Then he launched into his canned opener: Did they think reality shows were “really real”? Sure, two groups of females on whom Bashev tried that line rolled their eyes and smirked, but three bars (and the same routine) later, he was relaxing in a lounge chair reading a shapely brunette’s palm... Within minutes, Bashev had not only number-closed but gotten a date for the following Wednesday.
If, by "it's all true," you mean - if you try the same dumb thing on 6-10 women over the course of three bars in one night, you might be successful with one, I'm very sad about your little faith in the entire female population.
If I as a woman did the reverse - approached groups of men throughout the course of a night and tried the same type of "canned opener" or "pickup artist" moves - how quickly do you think I'd lose every single bit of respect in the male gender? Probably faster than you lost yours.
Nope. This terrible things work because they leverage some very powerful mechanism that is deeply and unavoidably bound into women's brain. It's not just _statistically_ valid, it's _theoretically_ valid.
If you try it ten times and works only once that means you've messed up nine times: if you do it right, it works.
Bullshit. At least half of pick-up artistry is seeking out the kind of trashy girl who is receptive to it. There are a lot of women who don't fall for it, including pretty much everyone one would want in a long-term relationship.
I'm not talking about pick up artists: they explicitly target those kind of girls, and they've developed techniques tailored for that. I don't even know about that stuff, honestly, all I know comes from The Game.
I understand your disbelief: I didn't believe it myself before trying it first hand. I know very well that going out alone hitting on strangers requires a lot of motivation but, if you ever feel like that, I can only recommend the experience. After that you will judge by yourself.
No. There are a lot of really great women out there who don't respond to silly displays of dominance and who won't leave you if they discover someone more "alpha". It's not even that hard to find a great girl; it just takes a lot of time and patience.
If you want to consider basic social skills to be "game" then, yes, everyone is receptive to it, but that's not what I mean. Some bits and pieces of "game" are general social skills that everyone would benefit to know (and 85% of people have already learned) but the worldview itself is a self-perpetuating mess.
The only genuine benefit of studying game is to develop social skills; it's just important to stop there before you start believing all that horseshit (most "evo-psych" is the 21st-century analogue of the four humors). There's no harm in reading it and being aware of the ideas, but letting this culture of runaway hypersexuality poison your view of human nature is a bad idea.
Good: developing basic social skills, making friends, and developing the confidence to pursue women you like.
Bad: Tailoring your personality to the lowest-common-denominator type of person who seeks sex in a bar or nightclub. If you let that filth into your mind, the enemy has won.
It's really as you said, social skills and no more: it's just about trial and error - knowing a lot of different situations and mindsets and learning how to 'work' with them.
I don't really know about all the esoteric stuff that these guys often talk about: I think they've been created so that someone can make a living out of it. But if they give the guys that are buying enough confidence to actually give it a try I guess it's okay.
I was bored and babysitting the other night, and "tested" the text used for the Forer experiment (the text is in the Wikipedia entry) on a phone chatline.
I took random lines from the text verbatim and added some minor flourish to introduce it and claimed to have an "intuition" on them based on their voice or their profile.
Of ca. 30 women, only one called me out on it (a registered mental health nurse...), and I got a steady stream of "OMG!" and "how did you know that about me?!?" and "wow, it's so accurate!", and demands I'd tell them more. Some even started asking sexual questions after exchanging a couple of messages with more bland statements from the Forer experiment for no particular reason.
It's downright scary how low the barrier is.
Then again, I should've been prepared for it, as 15 years or so I was seriously discussing with a friend whether to write a chat bot to pick up women after we observed you could get numbers from a reasonably high percentage (we're talking 20%-30%, though I'm sure that must've dropped by now that people are more used to being lied to online) by quite strictly following a very simple script and not deviating from it with next to no adaptation based on context.
I think the main reason people mind so much that dirty tricks work on women (and forget that even simpler tricks work on men as well) is this idealization we culturally have of women as far-away difficult perfect prize-worthy things.
If you look at women as people you stop being surprised by these things (like that story I saw on reddit a few months ago about a research on "why women have sex"). I find it sad how sexist the whole pick-up scene is in this smug superiority they seem to teach people to approach the whole business.
The "smug superiority" is a necessary part of the pick-up scene - it is what makes a pickup artist successful. People don't like the "dirty tricks" (read: faking narcissism/arrogance) because they reveal truths which people like to deny.
Simpler tricks (e.g., a pushup bra) do work on men. But since no one denies that men are superficial and like big boobs, revealing this fact doesn't make anyone angry.
This is because men are supposed to be seduced easily. People who see double standards everywhere are accurate in one sense, but might benefit from revising their perspective. It's not a very good game if the sides aren't opposing.
I think we hate the dirty tricks men pull to get laid the same reason we hate the dirty tricks women pull to get love-struck men hanging on to them: in some sense we have an easy time feeling but a hard time defining, it's breaking the rules of the game. Faking confidence, lying, telling stupid stories, using parlor tricks, &c. to pick up girls is breaking all kinds of social rules, but modern society is ill-equipped to stop them. In the book "The Game", Mystery states explicitly that taking advantage of the modern society/social rules impedance mismatch is what he does (though not in those words).
OK, but if you're a girl, you'd be using "an approach" as well, except you wouldn't call it that. You'd just call it "wearing a push-up bra". It's a complete fallacy to think that manipulating the opposite sex by presenting an idealized version of yourself is anything new, or anything exclusive to males.
Losing respect for women is not problem. A real tragedy would be if you lost your lust for them. If it makes you happy, women who know how to manipulate men say the same about us.
You don't respect any women at all because some of them like to have sex, and can sometimes be convinced to have sex with men who flirt well? And there are no other reasons to respect any women? I can't imagine writing off an entire gender.
I started with 'The Game' from Neil Strauss, that gave me the idea. From then it was all downhill, you just have to go out and try. I never used canned openings and that kind of stuff, i also never read any kind of specific 'technical' material like the Mystery method.
I think that the really important things are to grasp the concept, learn to use the feedback that you receive from them effectively and (most importantly) get over the fear of rejection that goes with the approach. Once you lose the fear everything becomes easy.
Don't bother with The Game if you want to learn about the techniques in a practical way, though it's fascinating reading and well worth reading for the story (it's more of a "history of game").
Especially don't take The Game as a manual. Much of what it describes is perhaps the worst aspects of "old style" game, full of manipulation and scripted material. A lot of newer stuff is far more palatable for most people, and much more "human".
Check out fastseduction.com or rsdnation.com - both are huge free resources.
fastseduction.com has archives of most of the posts referenced in The Game, as well as assorted guides and a step by step guide with references to reading material etc. for people who are new.
Move to a city with a substantial immigrant population and date women who were born outside the US. My girlfriend is Filipina and she's not like the Roissy/SatC stereotype at all. She has actually said that Sex and the City set feminism back 20 years, and I agree.
I'm 26 and have had a pretty solid dating life, but I've never dated an American white woman.
It takes a lot of time to meet good women, though. You have to be extroverted and make a lot of friends, who will introduce you to their friends. Don't expect results for at least a year. Even in Manhattan, I know some beautiful 22+ women who've never had a one-night stand.
Also, some advice: take a 3-to-6-month hard-line break from dating. You need to purge yourself of the misogyny that combat dating creates. I took a total break after I found myself, to my horror, behaving like an asshole to perfectly nice women. After that shock, I stopped dating entirely for 3 months, and met my current girlfriend after that.
(Mind that this is my experience only, so I don't pretend to be right: don't get me wrong on this one)
I've been travelling quite a lot and I've been hitting on pretty much any kind of woman and the scary thing is the consistency of the response, regardless of looks, ethnicity, social and relationship status.
I've discussed the matter with other guys and there are some arguing that if the woman's married/engaged it's even easier, because of the novelty factor involved.
My thoughts come from the reality i've known and experienced, if you wanna call it mysogyny i guess it's fine by me.
There are a lot of trashy women of all ethnicities and social classes (and, likewise, men). There are also a lot of married creeps (again, both men and women) who remain "on the market". This is nothing new, and it's not very surprising.
I know I repeat myself but the thing that scares me to death is that this is not about j.random college slut or the housewife looking for adventure. Or about any specific group of belonging.
What you have to accept is that there's no shortcut. There's no social class or group of women in which the trashy ones disappear, and there's no stereotype that can substitute for an intelligent and sober judgment of her character, which takes time.
Having sex with someone you met in a bar, simply because he or she used a few canned lines and techniques, is trashy. This is true regardless of social class, ethnicity, education, gender, et al.
As I said: That leaves you with pretty much nobody.
If you'd constrained it to, say, those who will agree to sex the same night, the numbers would look different, or to the ones who'd explicitly agree to something they know would end up as a one night stand.
But even then, most likely most of the girls you believe to be "classy" and/or "innocent" have at one time or another fallen for game, whether natural or learned - though they may not admit to it. Girls lie through their teeth about these things if put in situations where they're worried about being labeled.
And if you think game these days is constrained to "a few canned lines and techniques", you have no idea.
Agreed. But: I don’t really know exactly what these guys are looking for, still I’m pretty sure (because of the ads) they’re having an hard time finding it. I won’t say programming as a profession is special, because it’s not, but from my experience even finding just a good coding “cog” is a huge win from the employer’s perspective.
What I think it happened is that those guys went looking for somebody “ready for industry” into the university, and they hit the wall. I know a lot of very, very smart guys that are studying CS: I’m sure one day they will be awesome hackers but they will need a lot of experience under their belt before they can provide real value to a “real world” project.
To be fair to CS programs, though, that's true of most areas that have significant practical components. A straight-out-of-college chemical engineer is not going to be able to provide immediate valuable work on a Dow Chemical plant; they need to learn all sorts of things first. One difference might be that Dow expects this more than companies hiring programmers do.
Could you elaborate on this? If you can provide better "specifications" I'll implement this and add it to the library.