HN Theater @HNTheaterMonth

Sans is overused. Please do not use (or carefully consider before using) sans fonts for long blocks of text you expect people to read.[1]

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=soYKFWqVVzg#t=34m53s

"I disagree, I like sans [for long prose] better" comments miss the point; this is not an anecdata competition, it's about how many people prefer each one (and also it would be worth considering how strongly they hold that preference, since mildly pissing off even a slight majority of your readers/customers is better than really pissing off a smaller percentage). Even if you're skeptical of the studies Mayer looked at, Google (literata) and Amazon (bookerly) seem to be in the serif camp. Do you think Amazon made a mistake, too?

⬐ quickthrower2

Funny enough Medium uses a serif font, and I enjoy reading it more, and it inspired me to do the same on my site. But I use Georgia so I don't need any fancy web fonts or wat not.

⬐ GoblinSlayer

Web sites should really use the user's preference and not override with either serif or sans serif (size too). HTML has a presentation freedom for a reason.

⬐ sdinsn

I personally disagree. I find it easier to read sans fonts.

⬐ JshWright

That's a pretty disgusting video description...

⬐ cududa

The fact that you’re getting downvoted ... god the people in this industry..

One thing that in hindsight may be related that's not on the timeline is the DoJ losing its lawsuit against Google in January 2006.

"Google Resists U.S. Subpoena of Search Data" (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/20/technology/20google.html?p...)

"Judge tells DoJ 'No' on search queries" (http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2006/03/judge-tells-doj-no-on...)

According to the slides (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Prism_slide_5.jpg), the PRISM timeline begins the next year on 9/11/2007, and Google is added on January 14, 2009, almost 3 years to the day after the the DoJ ruling and only a few days before Obama takes office.

In a Q&A after a talk at Stanford in 2006, Marissa Mayer is asked, "How much information does Google share with the Federal Government?"

Here is her answer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=soYKFWqVVzg#t=1819

⬐ fsckin

~30:15 for those with devices that dont skip to the linked time.

⬐ devx

Where does she mention it in the video? You should've linked directly to that part.

⬐ espeed

I thought I linked to it, but evidently I put an "&t=29:00" instead of "#t=29:00".

Here's the direct link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=soYKFWqVVzg#t=1819

⬐ espeed

This talk is from 2006, a year before PRISM bagan according to the slides (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Prism_slide_5.jpg)

It's interesting that the PRISM timeline begins in 2007 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Prism_slide_5.jpg), one year after the DOJ lost its suit against Google to obtain private user data without a warrant (http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2006/03/judge-tells-doj-no-on...).

⬐ jwillgoesfast

Enjoyed the video, disappointed there's no actual discussion to be had about it here :(

⬐ joejayanth

Check 41... why Google desperately tried buzz, wave and now G+

⬐ howeman

Interesting question at 30:00

⬐ hyperbovine

What a bizarrely sexist description:

"Intelligence has never been this adorable: Marissa Mayer, the sexy, hyperactive, geeky Vice-President of Search Product and User Experience at Google. Her Googliness was at Stanford University, giving her insightful take on creativity, followed by the usual Q&A. She's really the girl of the millenium."

⬐ kyberias

I think you don't really know what sexist means. There is zero prejudice or discrimination involved here. Merely describing a woman or man sexy is not sexist. I wasn't really surprised that this is the first (and only?) issue people discuss here.

⬐ saraid216

> There is zero prejudice or discrimination involved here.

That's the elementary school explanation of sexism. It's useful as a shorthand for explaining the concept in a sentence, such as saying "the ground is down", but it misses all the larger nuance, such as the concept of an inertial frame and the arbitrariness of coordinate systems.

With sexism, reducing the concept down to "prejudice or discrimination" misses its more essential points about psychology and sociology. It doesn't explain what objectification is nor how gender imbalances are arbitrary, even if we have some idea of how they came about.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaze

⬐ anologwintermut

It is sexist. Mayer's appearance has nothing to do with the context of the video and focusing on it perpetuates the double standards about what we expect of men in terms of appearance, effort towards it, dress, etc and what we expect of women in the same. Mentioning it implies it's something worth mentioning. It isn't, for either men or women.

The trick is it's self evident that mentioning it for men would be irrelevant. For some reason, however, people take issue with someone pointing out that it ought to be irrelevant for women.

⬐ goggles99

Lets be honest here, If Marissa was not "adorable" and "sexy", this video and discussion would never have appeared on Hacker News.

The majority of you men who watched any part of this vid and are calling the description sexist are hypocrites. You at least partly watched it for these same reasons. Just because you won't say it out loud does not make you an less sexist inside.

⬐ hyperbovine

> Lets be honest here, If Marissa was not "adorable" and "sexy", this video and discussion would never have appeared on Hacker News.

I believe that is exactly my point.

⬐ siegeofacre

Oh please. Get over yourself.

⬐ foobarbazqux

Projection; ad hominem: tu quoque.

⬐ saraid216

Even those of us who are gay? I mean, I realize you have a global mindreader to rival PRISM, but do you have to be so heteronormative?

⬐ goggles99

The majority of you men...

⬐ dominotw

> What a bizarrely sexist description

Calling it sexist is sexist. I don't see what is so wrong with calling someone adorable and sexy.

⬐ foobarbazqux

Just listen how ridiculous it sounds when it's a man:

"Intelligence has never been this hunky: Paul Graham, the handsome, hyperrich, nerdy Chief Architect of Hacker News at Y-Combinator (among other things). His Y-Ness was blogging on his website, giving his insightful take on founding a startup, followed by the usual round of HN comments. He's really the boy of the millenium."

⬐ lobotryas

As a guy, I would be happy to be described in such a manner (even replacing hunky with sexy).

"Different strokes" and all that, right?

Oh, who am I kidding? "Political correctness uber alles"! :)

⬐ retr0h

Sexy Bill Gates is pretty sexy!

http://farm1.staticflickr.com/56/125277887_e1f20c8d6b.jpg

⬐ adventured

Not that ridiculous in this era. Women openly drool over hunky men. From Jon Hamm to Beiber to Brad Pitt to Clooney and on and on it goes depending on your taste. They're obviously traditional celebrities.

The only thing unusual about it is the fact that Mayer is in tech where I think the cultural stereotype would be that there are less sexy people because most jobs don't benefit from it or require it. However I've seen guys like Kevin Rose, Jack Dorsey, Elon Musk and Dennis Crowley regarded for various degrees of sex appeal.

Or take a negative example of this: Bill Gates for the entirety of his Microsoft career, was frequently regarded as looking nerdy, dressing badly (early days), looking unkempt, not combing his hair, all sorts of negative descriptives have been applied to him from the founding days forward. Do you think that was detrimental to his career? His start-up efforts? Do you think it kept him awake at night? Did it crush his self-esteem? Did it harm him as a professional? You could hardly read an article about him without them first describing him based on his nerd'ish looks. Gates was regarded as a 'boy wonder' for about the first 15 years of his career, thanks to his young appearance (despite being in his 30's).

The reality is, guys don't get upset when they're ogled for being sexy. It's a compliment. There's an intense double standard derived from the notion that women are not given equal opportunity and are treated in a sexist manner across the board.

On average men and women take sexual advances completely differently, and they take compliments about appearance very differently as well. If you compliment Elon Musk for being good looking, he's not going to think that detracts from his abilities, and nobody is going to care. If you do the same thing to Mayer, you'll create a firestorm; suddenly it's sexist and not being fair to her. Thus a double standard.

Take a bar poll some time about how men and women react to having their ass slapped by the opposite sex, see how those numbers roll out, and that'll tell you most of what you need to know about the difference between the sexes on this topic. Point being, men and women generally react very differently to the same input.

⬐ rmrfrmrf

Why does it feel like the only knowledge that men on HN have with women comes from watching one episode of Sex and the City 10 years ago?

⬐ ahk

Feel free to enlighten us. Men everywhere await with bated breaths.

⬐ None

None

⬐ hfern

> Women openly drool over hunky men.

That should tell you all you need to know about the rest of his comment. I actually find his comment quite ironic.

⬐ saraid216

> If you compliment Elon Musk for being good looking, he's not going to think that detracts from his abilities, and nobody is going to care. If you do the same thing to Mayer, you'll create a firestorm; suddenly it's sexist and not being fair to her.

I like that Musk will "not ... think that detracts", but Mayer is just figurehead for feminism. It's almost a textbook example of objectification.

Here's the thing: as a feminist, I fully agree that it is okay to "openly drool over" sexy people. It's important to recognize that the overwhelming majority of us are sexual beings and that sexuality is a significant factor in how we look at people.

The problem is when C-style languages are so pervasive that it's practically impossible to get a LISP in the door because all people see are the parentheses and not the actual value that the language adds on its own merits. That's changing these days, and people like Mayer can be acknowledged proudly on their capabilities as human beings. After all, C is just naturally closer to the operating system, and languages built on top of C are obviously faster. That will tell you all you need to know about the difference between the two language paradigms.

It's true that stereotypes can fail to completely prevent someone from succeeding if they're ambitious enough and determined enough. But that doesn't mean that Gates didn't take licks for it. Maybe he really didn't care. Maybe he did. Short of him actually coming out and saying so, it's hard to know. Maybe he lost a deal because he seemed too nerdy and the other person didn't tell him and there was no social infrastructure to help put the possibility under consideration. Maybe he had subordinates who couldn't stand to take orders from a nerd and ended up walking off when he could have used their help.

We can't tell, because there hasn't been enough scrutiny on the subject, and the amount of data available out of one person's career is meaningless. How many entrepreneurs make a pitch to VCs and get laughed out more because they didn't dress up than because their idea was terrible? It's hard to get that exact estimate. And of course it matters whether or not they dressed up. But why does it matter, and is the fact that it matters okay? Maybe that's a social justice fight we'll have to have in fifty years or five hundred years.

⬐ foobarbazqux

Don't take this the wrong way, but I got severely confused by your C / Lisp analogy.

⬐ saraid216

Try transposing the second sentence with the third and fourth. I didn't really do a good job there.

⬐ None

None

⬐ hfern

The issue is that her appearance should have no relation to what she said.

Imagine if you were her. You just spent some time preparing this and then spending an hour giving a speech to Stanford students. Meanwhile, all someone states about you is

> Intelligence has never been this adorable: Marissa Mayer, the sexy, hyperactive, geeky Vice-President of Search Product and User Experience at Google. Her Googliness was at Stanford University, giving her insightful take on creativity, followed by the usual Q&A. She's really the girl of the millenium.

The description is whole focused on her appearance and doesn't even go into the subject matter of her speech. Her entire speech that she devoted time into is summarily dismissed and turned into "Intelligence has never been this adorable."

⬐ ahk

Marissa Mayer is apparently famous for not being a feminist and for wearing Oscar De La Renta outfits in the midst of nerds. The subject of your defense disagrees with you. Pointless effort.

⬐ cimorene12

She's famous for not calling herself a feminist. http://www.makers.com/marissa-mayer/moments/distance-feminis...

But she describes herself as blind to gender (what is known as gender neutral) and believes in equality between men and women, which is actually the definition of feminism.

⬐ ahk

So a woman who is not a feminist is actually a feminist. Have fun with your redefinitions. Time for me to step out of this while I still can with my sanity.

⬐ saraid216

> I don't see what is so wrong with calling someone adorable and sexy.

Have you considered looking, or have you made up your mind?

⬐ vkou

It's sexist, because the first and foremost descriptor it applies to of one of the most influential women in tech is... A quantification of how attractive she is.

⬐ dominotw

As somoone said below. I've seen many magazines call Elon Musk sexy in many magazines ( He even got a hair transplant). Noone ever said anything about it being sexist. We only seems to take offense when a woman is being called sexy, which by definition is sexist.

If someone in position of power can look sexy more power to them.

⬐ TallGuyShort

Saying that calling it sexist is sexist is sexist.

⬐ foobarbazqux

Saying that saying that calling it sexist is sexist is sexist is calling it sexist.

⬐ jerf

"adorable" and "girl" both diminish a woman's potency in this context. I also wouldn't expect to see "sexy" used to describe any man who is not an actor or something very similar.

I don't feel like I'm diving into anything very PC here. This is a straightforward reading of very normal connotations of the words in question. Calling middle-aged women "girls" is generally belittling.

Contrast with "hyperactive" and "geeky" which are often used to describe males in similar positions.

⬐ foobarbazqux

The comments below are better.

⬐ chaddeshon

Honest question. Why does the comment feature on YouTube still exist?

⬐ yeukhon

Because people want to have fun with comments? Why does the comment feature on HN still exist after this silly "is sexist" discussion? Oh right, having fun.

⬐ hayksaakian

The same reason 4chan has /b/

If you don't keep the crap in a pot, it spills all over the place.

⬐ chaddeshon

YouTube would be a better site if they just removed the feature. Let it spill somewhere else. Why should I have to read comments like that on a video that has done nothing to invite them?

⬐ foobarbazqux

Google probably has a financial incentive to keep YouTube comments around. You don't have to read them at any rate. And the video did invite the comments because it featured a woman.

⬐ glesica

Write a Greasemonkey or Userstyles script to hide them. Problem solved. I do that kind of stuff all the time to fix busted "modern" web interfaces (low contrast text, insane amounts of padding, important interface elements that only display on rollover) for web sites I use regularly.