Links - 13th September 2017 (2)

Sexism in tech: Why a startup founder had sex with an investor - "Even back then, I got how female commerce worked. I understood that letting a man lust after me was the price for entry. I knew being hot got me in the door and that after that I had to make that work for me. Culturally, we are taught as women that our main power is our looks and sexuality. Then it's a matter of what you do with it. Personally, I used the s--- out of it, and I was more successful than my male colleagues because of it... I gave him permission to act this way. My sleeping with him is actually part of the problem... It would also be so easy to jump on the "inappropriate investor" train here. Had I said no and left the bar offended and appalled, I could have easily overlooked how I created a business meeting in my head that had never existed for the other person. I could have come out accusing him of being inappropriate, using text messages to back it up. But I have to own my part in that, too. He never gave me any indication it was a professional meeting. That was my agenda, and one he clearly did not share. So who am I to call him out? It's complicated. Because in an ecosystem where socializing and happy hours are a big way to meet or get to know investors, there are no real clear lines about what is personal and what is professional. I think clarifying this up front has to become a big priority for both men and women. Real talk. I'm also not the first or only woman who has ever used being a woman to get time with a man. This is where we as women need to take more responsibility, too. I was saying to a friend about the stories coming out that these are not even the worst ones, because these women didn't sleep with these men. And men wouldn't keep behaving this way if it didn't work... it's really important that when we expose men, it's real and warranted and not a one-sided story open to interpretation. Once these stories are out, there is nothing a man can do to defend against falsehoods. I think we have a responsibility as women to be introspective and to be honest with ourselves... we can talk about changing men until we are blue in the face, but the only person who is ever truly responsible for my safety is me... I've done work with many teachers around this topic, and one of my favorite teachers is Lynne Forrest and her work with the "victim triangle." She teaches that while we may have been a victim of something, we can learn how to move out of "victim consciousness" (allowing your identity to crystallize around being a victim) to a more empowered place. For all I have been through, I don't identify as a victim, and I'm so grateful for that empowerment and freedom. "

Silicon Valley sexism backlash: 'Boys will be boys' - ""Should Dave McClure pay for his mistakes? Most likely yes. Should he have to step down into the shadows of the company he made? Hell no," said Petraeus, founder of a digital technology company, Corpus Caeleste. "I don't understand why a guy, who is an otherwise great businessman who helped over a thousand companies around the world, should have his professional life erased simply because he likes to sleep around"... Under intense public pressure, Caldbeck resigned, bringing his venture capital firm, Binary Capital, to the brink of collapse, after six women detailed his sexual advances as they met with him to discuss funding, jobs and advice... One prominent venture capitalist, Vinod Khosla, said this week that he does not believe sexual harassment is that common in venture capital. “It’s a reality because it’s perceived as a reality”... Concern is also growing in some quarters that the punishments being meted out don't fit the crime. There's a "witch hunt mentality," says Heidi Dangelmaier, who runs an all-female innovation firm, GirlApproved, in New York. Tatyana Kanzaveli, CEO of health-care start-up Open Health Network in Los Altos, Calif., says she's worried about a broad indictment of men. The globe-trotting McClure, who favored sandals and T-shirts and colorful language, had a reputation as someone who helped women, people of color and entrepreneurs in developing countries, says Sarah Cone, managing partner with Social Impact Capital. He "lacked all professionalism," Cone said, "but that's also what he built his reputation on. You don't hang around Dave for his buttoned-up nature.""

Why Britain banned mobile apps - "Apps are “very expensive to produce, and they’re very very expensive to maintain because you have to keep updating them when there are software changes”... How did the UK reach an increasingly mobile population? Responsive websites, he replies. “For government services that we were providing, the web is a far far better way… and still works on mobile.” Sites can adapt to any screen size, work on all devices, and are open to everyone to use regardless of their device. “If you believe in the open internet that will always win,” he says. And they’re much cheaper to maintain, he adds, because when an upgrade is required, only one platform needs recoding... Key to the GDS’ approach is designing for user needs, not organizational requirements... Most Ministers might want there to be sharing options on websites so that citizens can easily promote government on Facebook and Twitter. But the GDS tested this, and found that only 0.1% of citizens ever clicked on them. These stats allowed officials to remove them from the design, making the site simpler, cleaner and quicker to load. Secondly, the GDS has an approach that “Google is the homepage”. They don’t assume that citizens will visit the main government site; instead, they design for them to have come to a page after looking for a search engine... A third rule is to strip out all unnecessary questions and steps in a process. For example, he says, every service asked citizens their marital status, but it was only a legal requirement for one application. This approach allowed them to remove half of the 500 steps it required to get an allowance to care for an elderly relative or disabled loved one. Fourth, the design team removes all unnecessary design. For example, the pages on Gov.UK – the central portal – don’t have any pictures on them. This is because they distract from the information on the page, and user research showed that they reduced the clarity... How does Britain measure digital success? It isn’t necessarily the popularity of a digital service, Terrett says. “It’d be nice if they like it, don’t get me wrong, but liking is not really a useful metric.” Instead his team looked to see if users have completed an online transaction, or stopped halfway through. Equally, did they find the information they needed and leave a webpage, or did they have to search for more information?"
I'm glad I'm not the only one against the app fetish

The North Korean Army is rusting away. So it's getting creative. - "Forced to make do without traditional weaponry, North Korea is expanding its "asymmetric" forces, including nuclear weapons, commandos, and hackers, the report concludes... Pyongyang is cultivating commando and cyber forces for isolated, coercive attacks meant to forcefully shape North Korea's external relations without resorting to full-blown war. For example, a pocket submarine like the one that sank the South Korean corvette Cheonan in 2010, enraging South Korea and underscoring the North's reputation for volatility, is more useful than a full-size conventional submarine that might survive a few hours during major combat."

Chinese, Korean, Japanese (genetic edition)
Chinese, Japanese and Koreans are genetically distinct

Unrequited Love…or Stalking? The Pitfalls of Dating in Korea - "In Korea, it is accepted practice for men to relentlessly pursue the objects of their heart’s desire, sometimes for many years, and despite if said objects clearly, repeatedly, and vehemently express their disinterest. Far from being viewed as stalking however, it is generally viewed as both a sweet and noble sign of one’s love and dedication. There’s even a proverb specifically for this: “열번찍어 안넘이 가는 나무 없다,” which roughly translates as “There is no tree that can withstand being chopped 10 times.”... many Korean women would surely exploit the practice, in a playing hard to get fashion (some more Korean that comes to mind is “희망고문하다,” literally to “hope-torture [someone],” or to repeatedly string someone along and then break their heart). But I think that the consensus of most Westerners is that if the woman says she’s not interested…then she’s not interested, and hence that the man’s behavior after being told is stalking, regardless of how sweet or noble his intentions"

Insider Perspective: Seven Reasons Why Korea Has the Worst Productivity in the OECD - "1. Rigid Structures and Hierarchy
2. Communication Issues
3. Mobile Phones and Online Communication
In a recent survey of 706 office workers by job search portal Career.co.kr, it found that over 61 percent of respondents said they have a resting place at work. Of these 61 percent, a quarter said that they would escape to the toilets, with just under 45 percent responding that they use their phone during this time for games, Internet, SMS, and phone calls. Go into any office building toilet in Seoul and you will hear mobile message tones or game sounds going off like firecrackers.
4. Hungover Workers Taking Excessive Breaks
5. Form Rules Over Substance
6. Poorly-equipped, Older Graduates
7. The Art of Looking Busy"

Are we too quick to cry 'bully'? - "Say the word in almost any school these days, and it will get a quick reaction. In many cases, advocates said, that's helpful. But sometimes, when it's not really bullying, kids miss out on a chance to learn to cope with minor conflicts on their own.
"The label 'bullying' is really incendiary," Englander said. "It ratchets everything up emotionally. It makes it hard to really address, rationally, what the best course of action is"... "Being deliberately isolated and laughed at cruelly every single day can be devastating socially and academically, because the target must both endure the present and constantly dread the future," Englander wrote in the book "Bullying and Cyberbulling," released this month. "It's this unrelenting cruelty and the callous nature of such an environment that is watered down when we include every social slight or quarrel under the bullying rubric." "If everyone's a victim," she wrote, "then no one's a victim"... Becki Cohn-Vargas, an educator for more than two decades, recalled how conflicts between students were never as black-and-white as they seemed at first. A child who bullied might express remorse, then relapse. A girl would complain of bullying by a child she'd once targeted. LGBT students in a school known for its kind atmosphere would quietly admit to daily torment. Religious students were targeted, and secular students, too. All over the playground and lunchroom, students might freeze out another child, demeaning him without saying a word. To identify a child as a bully or victim was difficult -- and dangerous."

Could Your Child Have Too Much Self-Esteem? - "We have long believed that low self-esteem is to blame for many of society’s ills, from academic failure to high-risk behaviors such as substance abuse and unprotected sex. But the past two decades of research suggest that low self-esteem many not be as destructive as we once thought, and high self-esteem can be equally problematic. In fact, our modern emphasis on praise may be contributing to a generation of self-obsessed, irresponsible and unmotivated kids. Roy Baumeister, a professor of social psychology at Florida State University, found that criminals and drug abusers actually have higher self-esteem than the general population"

Don't call students 'genius' because word is associated with men, Cambridge lecturers told - "Cambridge University examiners are told to avoid using words like “flair”, “brilliance” and “genius” when assessing students’ work because they are associated with men, an academic has revealed. Lucy Delap, a lecturer in British history at Cambridge University, said that History tutors are discouraged from using these terms because they “carry assumptions of gender inequality”... Dr Delap, who specialises in gender history, said that one of the reasons why men get more first class degrees at Oxford and Cambridge than women is because female students struggle with the “male dominated environment”."

Marc Jacobs: Backlash 'erodes freedom of speech' - ""It's gotten to the point that the more I express my opinion, the more problematic it becomes, but the hypocrisy feels absurd to me. The people who attack me in effect, are saying one thing but acting completely the opposite way. In other words, they are saying 'you can't say or do what you want, but we can.'"

80 Per Cent Of Swedish Police Consider Quitting Due To Danger - "Sweden may be descending into a crisis as a new report suggests 80 per cent of police officers are considering switching careers due to the danger they face in the field. The criminal situation in Sweden may be heading for an even worse turn as a new report has shown that the vast majority of the Swedish police force is so unhappy they are looking into other careers. Sweden has been rocked by increasing levels of criminality from sex attacks at music festivals, hand grenade attacks and violence toward the police in areas populated mostly by migrants. The report states that up to three Swedish police quit every day as they feel the government isn’t giving them the tools to tackle the epidemic of criminality"

Yip Pin Xiu should not get $1m (nor $2m) - "A good teacher once asked me whether it was uplifting or condescending to measure a disabled person by a different standard and not hold them to the standards required of able-bodied people. I still don’t have the answer to that question... If we’re all about equality, how about we cut Schooling’s prize money to match Yip’s? That would make it equal, wouldn’t it? And it would cost a heck of a lot less money, which can be used for talent development of other athletes. This should appease the agents of equality. But this kind of equality strikes us all as innately unfair. A Paralympic medal is not an Olympic medal. It is not less than an Olympic medal, but neither is it more. I mean that in the same way that a disabled person like Yip is not less than an able-bodied person, and she is also not more. And they are certainly not exactly equal. That’s why the Paralympics exist."

Yann LeCun - Berkeley will take down its freely available video... - "Berkeley will take down its freely available video courses because the Justice Department says they violate the American with Disabilities Act."
Comments: " As a result, the disabled still can't access the courses, but it's more "equal" now because no one can access. What a strange thing."
"Unfortunately, there are lawyers who make their living extorting people using the ADA."
"Let's ban books because some people can't read."
" Look, I love how Americans are always trying to find and put right all the world's injustices. It is a very noble goal. But often it turns into a Superman cartoon. I don't feel like it's an injustice that I don't see well, much the same way as I have long accepted that I am unlikely to become a famous ballerina, or the crown prince of Monaco. That's just how the cookie crumbles... And, by the way, ADA itself is discriminatory as it only applies to Americans. Personally, I'd prefer less grandstanding and superman'ing and more real sensible actions."
Ahh equality!
This is why we can't have nice things
This is like the SJWs who blockaded a staircase because it didn't have a wheelchair ramp, so no one could use it

Free Education Runs Afoul Of The Bureaucrats - "“If you are going to sin, sin against God, not the bureaucracy,” quipped World War II Navy Admiral Hyman Rickover. “God will forgive you, but the bureaucracy won’t.” The University of California-Berkeley might have considered this warning before it committed the heinous crime of uploading some YouTube videos... When regulations aimed at increasing access to a product instead force an entity to stop offering the product in question entirely, something has gone wrong. A rule intended to protect the disabled has made online educational content inaccessible for all virtual students – including disabled ones"

The dangers of Trudeau’s ‘postnational’ Canada - "a case can be made that the housing affordability crises in Metro Vancouver and Toronto is a result of a “postnational” mindset. Canada’s politicians are failing to put serious effort into protecting residents of Vancouver or Toronto from transnational financial forces... As G.K. Chesterton once said, condemning nationalism because it can lead to war is like condemning love because it can lead to murder... “Patriotism is what makes us behave unselfishly. It is why we pay taxes to support strangers, why we accept election results when we voted for the loser, why we obey laws with which we disagree,” writes Daniel Hannan, author of Inventing Freedom. “A functioning state requires broad consensus on what constitutes the first-person plural. Take that sense away, you get Syria or Iraq or Ukraine or – well, pretty much any war zone you can name.”... it’s not normally nationalism that foments catastrophic division – it’s religion, race or tribalism."