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How can the Web truly be “open” when only young white male geeks get to decide what the Web is? - http://dawnsplan.wordpress.com/2009...

January 31 from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like - Share

Nicole Simon, Billy Warhol, chrisofspades and 74 other people liked this

Dawn writes: "“Sexism” is a word I very seldom use and certainly do not brandish carelessly. Neither do I mean it on an individual basis. These days most men aren’t ignorant-based bigots against women. But Silicon Valley and the Web itself are extremely “institutionally sexist” given the fact that the vast majority of VCs, technologists, and tech reporters/bloggers are male. Even as women are now online in greater numbers than men, female ideas and wants and desires largely go unexecuted. " - Louis Gray from Bookmarklet

77 more comments

While there's definitely a serious gender disparity, anyone who thinks that Silicon Valley is run by 'only white people' hasn't been inside most of these companies. - Kevin Fox

I don't think that's true Louis -- I sure don't think of myself as young, and I think I help "decide what the web is." If someone wants to make the web do something new, thereby changing what it is, what exactly is in their way? This is a very offensive article in many many ways! - Dave Winer

I commented on the post, and shared this to get more discussion, which is happening. Kevin is right in terms of the diverse nationalities powering these companies - and the Valley itself. Dave is right in terms of the fact that he's out of his 20s and still coming up with great ideas. Dawn's take is that the majority of ideas, and funding are going to companies with these backgrounds. - Louis Gray

I say we execute 10,000,000 Caucasian American males! After all, everything is their fault! - Ed Shahzade /NextInstinct

Articles like this get written every year and nothing happens. Kevin and Dave's responses here are typical of the responses these articles generate, albeit a lot less crass than the same responses I've seen in the past. But the denials mean nothing. When I go to tech events and seemingly get ignored by everyone one does have to wonder. The females who get attention or either eye candy or have power, but they're almost always white (or Asian). - Admiral Anika

What's more, these same articles get written every year in political blog circle too and everyone is quick to point out that Markos (DailyKos guy) is Latino. All the excuses in the world aren't going to change what's really happening. There's a reason Digby didn't let anyone know she was a woman for years. If people had known, she would have put in some 2nd o 3rd tier political blogging circle. - Admiral Anika

I don't think it's sexist, cause there isn't someone stopping them doing this. My own industry (Network Administration) gets leveed with the "sexist" tag because there are very few women doing the job. The major reason why is because there are few women that want to do this job. How many women are interested in technology to the level that we love it? Male geeks are a minority, girl geeks are an even smaller minority than the male one! I think the problem isn't sexism but rather the way kids are brought up - alphaxion

Just look at how many parents get worried if their little girl shows more interest in cars than dolls. If more girls are exposed to technology from a young age then their interest in it will continue into adulthood. The phrase "sexist" is thrown around too easily in an attempt to explain away such a marked difference in demographics when there's more going on than males stopping women from getting into these positions. - alphaxion

How many parents get worried if their girl shows interest in cars? - Admiral Anika

The fact that there is even a name for this kinda behaviour (tomboy) shows you how ingrained the mindset is that girls should play with dolls and make believe kitchens instead of cool robots and science kits. Someone I know jokingly comments that his kid is "a lesbian for sure" because she adores dinosaurs (though he does encourage her to be interested in things like that). - alphaxion

there is a social stigma surrounding girls that like things that have somehow been deemed "boys toys", likewise the same is also said about boys that are interested in "girls toys". Here's a simple test you can do, ask some random people what they think about computers. The majority of people, male and female, will see them as tools. A very small percentage will say they're cool. I'm willing to bet that more males than females will answer this way. That's where the problem is, that's not sexism. - alphaxion

Problem #1 – Silicon Valley’s inability to judge if an idea is truly good or not...LOLOLOL NO COMMENTS!!!!!!!!! Here is my er... example LOL :))))) http://twitter.com/SexySEO... - Lora Lufark

Thank you very much for getting discussion going, Louis! The main point I'd like to make clear is that while Amazon HAD to be created by a tech guy, that's no longer the case. There are a lot of great Web companies that could be created if people with nontech experience and skills could get funding and direct the development - paying the people who actually execute the plans with cash... more... - Dawn

Don't let Bwana see this! - Matthew DeVries

Lora, I think just like in the liberal blogosphere, sheeple want to know who says something, rather than committ to a position. So, there are times, that I or others have written entries, only to have people pooh-pooh them, then Markos or Jane Hamsher writes the same thing weeks or months later and then the sheeple baaa their way into agreement. I see that just looking at how people respond to Louis or Robert S. I've seen others here posit similar items, yet they get shot down, mocked and/or ignored. - Admiral Anika

Actually that is only true if you are in the US. I'm in China and it certainly is not the case. Maybe it's only white male geeks if you are in the US and read English? - Paul Denlinger

With Carol Bartz recently taking the helm at Yahoo! are we seeing a different trend? - MVB (Grinch of FF)

If are ready for diversity then we need to promote it, that simple my 2 cents - Dan Morrill AKA Techwag

btw, I started a room a month ago called "What Women Want" that's supposed to take a look at women's needs/desires vs. men's when it comes to the Web. We need more people! If you're at all interested, please look it up and give it a shot. Thanks! - Dawn

@anika I encounter that all the time, I'll say something and everyone ignores it. The same thing is then mentioned by someone like Chris Pirillo and suddenly "that's a great idea". I wonder if it's because people want this info to come from people who hold some form of authority in the realm they exist within. Until they say it, everything else is just some crackpot running their mouth. - alphaxion

FYI, here's what I wrote in the first post about the "What Women Want" room: This past month since I've started my "Dawn's Plan" blog, I've written a few posts about how I believe the Web needs more soft anthropology added to hard technology. I know I'm hitting a chord with women, because they keep writing to me and cheering me on! Clearly, women have some dissatisfactions with the WWW,... more... - Dawn

I once was told a story about a game called monopoly. A group of players had been at the monopoly table for three hours. They had amassed property and were acutely aware of the rules and how the game was best played to acquire property. Then comes along prospective players who wanted to sit at the table and play the game after standing and observing for some time. Finally, one of the group members offered a seat at the monopoly table to one of the observers. - bcultral

I've just joined the "what women want' room (http://friendfeed.com/rooms...) because, yes, I'm a woman (lots of people are surprised about that apparently). I've been using technology in work in one form or another for most of the last 20-odd years and there is still an assumption that technical stuff will be only done by men. But sexism is a tricky thing to even define. There appears to have been progress made and I would hope that a person's gender... - WorldofHiglet

Once seated at the table the observer realized with embarassment that with no money or property the game would be impossible to compete. Thus pressure was put on the Player who offered the seat to loan or give a start up stake to the new player......This is what I see in this thread....I think there is promise in this way of thinking concerning inclusion and openess, So, I would address racism as well as sexism as potential impediments for inclusion. ps Anika, I feel you @bcultral - bcultral

...or ethnicity, or orientation or any other characteristic does not determine their opportunities. I don't think this is the case yet but I also don't think it's a foolish dream. My daughters are familiar and comfortable using computers and have no worries about being seen as weird. Where there are problems like Patricia and Anika have outlined it is important to stand up and say it isn't right. No one should be sidelined because of prejudice. - WorldofHiglet

if you can ignore websites like nonsociety which just make women look worse..... - Terry O'Fee

But I was slightly confused by the article because it seemed to imply that all 'high-tech geeks' are men, and that just isn't the case. It might be that most high-tech geeks with power' are men, and that does appear to be true. Not all the ideas-people are women, not all the engineers are men. Enabling all people who have good ideas (but perhaps no technical knowledge on how to implement) to have a shot at seeing those ideas realised is an interesting idea. A side-effect of the credit crunch might... - WorldofHiglet

Robin: Great story; perfect illustration. The only thing I would add is that with the Web, it's not a zero sum game. Everybody will prosper more as great people show up who just need that seat at the table. "By lifting up others, we life up ourselves." WorldofHiglet: thanks for joining. - Dawn

...be better modeling that will allow non-technical people the freedom to explore and develop ideas. - WorldofHiglet

Dawn zero sum game it is not: India to launch a $10 laptop, - bcultral

+1 to WorldofHiglet for that last sentence. Perfect! - Dawn

Patricia, I'd love to!! Your place or mine? ;) - Dawn

@dawn, lol. email me! it's on my site - www.dailypatricia.com - Patricia

I should take my case as a point. I presented at a VC gathering at the Hatchery.vc last week. I was one of two persons of color at the event. I was actually set up to fail in the presentation setting and delivery of my startup. I am the founder of SpokenWord.Tv and have designed a software I believe will shift the paradigm of communications and social networking and media. This idea seems to frighten and offend in that it is too simple. Anyway, I maintain the audacity of hope. - bcultral

Patricia, Thank You for the offer of assistance...which email address?@bcultral. - bcultral

It rather annoys me when people just pooh-pooh women off and claim we just aren't interested in tech, and that's why we aren't visible. I know darned sure I'm not the only tech-loving female out there. Hopefully the "you don't exist" voices will be silenced before too long. - MiniMage TKDteacher of FF

Msg sent. Thank you Patricia I apologize for requesting you disclose your email rather than finding it on your website :) @bcultral - bcultral

alphaxion, instead of talking in generalities & abstracts, lets focus on the fact that articles like this are written all the time and women who are in tech, look at it and say, "damn skippy". What your random friend does with his kid, has nothing to do with having to read articles like this every year for the past 15 years and the impact this has the lives of these actual adult women. - Admiral Anika

I was having a similar discussion the other night with Sheryl Sandberg, Mike Arrington, and Arianna Huffington. Sheryl pointed out that many of the top executives at Google are women. She is no. 2 exec at Facebook now. On the other hand the sexism in this industry is pretty deep. Arrington told us about all the sexist comments they have to delete from TechCrunch when women reporters work for them. He had one reporter quit after two weeks because of the comments. - Robert Scoble

But a lot of females aren't helping the situation any. - Mona Nomura

I find that Dawn's use of me is pretty inaccurate. I have flown 150,000 miles in past year to get outside of Silicon Valley. I am writing to you from Davos. Here sexism is far deeper. The politicians, media, and finance companies are mostly run by old white males. I find far more diversity inside EVERY Silicon Valley company. Second, she misquotes me on number of followers. One reason I don't like Dawn is I find she just does not treat other people very well and she is often inaccurate in her writings. - Robert Scoble

(I blocked Dawn during political season because I found she was very uninformed and she was inaccurate and abusive back then, too, something I find is leaking out again in this post). - Robert Scoble

Mona: this problem is deep and is not going to get solved easily. Back in 1994 during my first computer programming conference I helped plan (Visual Basic Insiders Technical Summit) 425 males showed up and two women did. Today conferences are about 20% women. My wife talked with Sandberg about how women often are tougher for other women to work for. She said this is a problem and one that is overcome with good coaching -- she says she is noticing that changing in the valley, though. - Robert Scoble

By the way, Huffington got funded and she is not a geek. - Robert Scoble

Robert - I agree, that things are slowly starting to change in the Valley and hopefully it will start changing in the blogosphere as well. :) BTW I would love to meet Maryam one of these days. I've only heard really great things about her and she sounds so sharp and insightful. You are a lucky, lucky, man! - Mona Nomura

Mona you are welcome at our house anytime. I am lucky, agreed! - Robert Scoble

Mona it should start changing due to Arianna Huffington, although even Arrington is hiring women (just hired another one two weeks ago). She has $25 million in funding. I am sure she will hire some great writers over the next few years. - Robert Scoble

I think offering up Huffington is unfair. Her background of high-powered exes and syndicated columns puts her in a different category. To go back to politics, it's like Jane Hamsher. Everyone says she's smart, but the reason the "A-list" liberal bloggers started touting her is because she's movie-industry famous. There are lots of other female political writers who are more intelligent & and less "bigoted" than Hamsher, but they get ignored because they didn't produce Natural Born Killers. - Admiral Anika

Thanks Robert :) I am a huge Milan fan, as well! And great Huffington post tidbit, thanks for sharing. :) - Mona Nomura

Hmmm I just read the piece and disagree with a majority of points. In this day and age a good idea is a good idea, sharp individuals are sharp individuals, regardless of race, sex, and stature. It is great to celebrate the differences between female and males, but shedding more light to the separation by labeling may be hindering towards progression of being treated as "equals". Shouldn't it be a group/room to discuss opposing views open to anyone as opposed to *just* females? - Mona Nomura

Anika - but it's a start and that's what's important. As more aggregating services become widely used, the tight knit blogging community will no longer be a small circle, due to exposure of the 'less known'. What's important and should be the focus is not dwelling on the past, but how and what we (the 'little people') choose to say and how we present ourselves, to gain the same interest and following as those currently in "A-list" status. - Mona Nomura

Anika: this is life. Deal with it. Danl Lewin, co-founder of NeXT, told me that Steve Jobs talked IBM out of $500 million without even having a prototype. I could not do that. He got it done based on his past experience. Arianna did the same. Good for her! Shows this is not a women thing, but rather a human thing. How do we get a broader range of people to be successful? This is a tough, tough, issue. - Robert Scoble

I have experienced more gender bias in some places than in others. The gender bias against female programmers I experienced in the UK was enough to make me walk away from the profession for three years. - Lisha Sterling from twhirl

Somebody told me that Robert is once again spreading hateful things about me, so I read this thread on another browser that doesn't have me logged into FF. He stated: "One reason I don't like Dawn is I find she just does not treat other people very well and she is often inaccurate in her writings." I'd like for him to show even one example of me treating somebody poorly. And as for... more... - Dawn

...was for many years, which I am not and never was and never would be. I'm a mainstream Catholic and proud of it. I defended myself against Robert's anti-Christian bigotry and will continue to defend myself as he makes these ridiculous accusations against me. Not treating people nicely? Robert knows that in the past few years my husband died just three days before our 25th wedding... more... - Dawn

@alphaxion but it *is* sexism when you raise your children like that and label kids who like the "opposite genders' toys" to be gay or abnormal. Sexism isn't just what happens at the very last moment leading up to a job. It's also sexist that male-dominated interests and professions are both higher paying and more highly valued, and that studies show that when women begin to dominate a... more... - Lisha Sterling from twhirl

Dukeswharf, I have no hard feelings against Robert, as I wrote when he blocked me: http://friendfeed.com/e... That he did that actually surprised me (it took me a while to figure out what happened) and, frankly, it hurt my feelings, because I had thought we were friends and he often said he *liked* being... more... - Dawn

...and to my future prospects. It's not true what he said. I don't deserve this. - Dawn

I'm not saying the labelling of people when they're brought up isn't sexist, I'm pointing at that being a massive contributer to the current situation. I've been a network admin for 10 years and I've never stopped a woman joining my department, the problem is that no women have ever applied to the job openings (we've had a couple in the desktop support in that time). The lack of women in an industry isn't always because of active sexism from the people in that department. That's what I'm saying. - alphaxion

I think the problem stems from how we bring up children and pidgeon hole them early - that is certainly sexism. But blaming an industry for being "sexist" purely based on the lack of women isn't looking at the real cause and is jumping to conclusions. As I said, in my 10 years of netadmin I have never seen a woman apply for the openings in our department. Am I then sexist for having never employed one in my team? - alphaxion

Hey, Dukeswharf, didn't you read above what I said, that I'm *Catholic.* I know all about forgiveness. Ha! Okay, I'll officially say it for your benefit. I forgive, Robert. I apologized to him on my blog and I'll never mention him again in any of my blog posts so he won't feel compelled to beat me up anymore and I won't have to forgive him again later. ;) - Dawn

bearing in mind that I actively encouraged and then financed my GF to go through uni on a video game design degree - she is one of only 2 or 3 girls in her year (she's in the final one now). Video Games is also a very heavily male dominated industry too. I do find it disgusting that women get paid less than men for the same job, but then I'm currently paid about £6k less than my market average so I think it is also partially down to the individual company as well as attitudes of the managers. - alphaxion

Alphaxion: I specifically said in this article that I am talking about *institutional sexism* which is not the same as individual sexism. No, you are not sexist for never employing a woman on your team. - Dawn

@dawn what I'm trying to point out is that the problem is, people will jump to conclusions of institutional sexism when there isn't such an artificial barrier to entry. There may be a different cause that results in a lack of female participation - be it sexism during their upbringing or just that it is such a niche thing that it's minorities of both genders that get interested enought to choose it as a career in the first place. - alphaxion

I know plenty of female CSE's. And NOBODY gets to decide "what the Web is", because it is what's on it, and anybody can put anything they want on it. - Will Higgins™

However, don't think I'm suggesting that all is equal because it certainly isn't, I agree that lower wages is a sign of institutional sexism, so too is how children are brought up. It's not always in the workplace as to where the sexism originated. Ask any male geek whether they'd like to see more women in their particular avenue of interest/career and the majority will say they would love to. But ask women what industry they would love to work in and I can bet you that not many of them will suggest tech. - alphaxion

Alphaxion: Sure, I think men will always dominate tech, and that's fine with me. What my bigger issue is that tech shouldn't keep so much power and control to itself alone. Nontech people should ideally be able to direct techies to develop things that the techies wouldn't necessarily create themselves. Take FF for example. If it had been a team of women doing the initial design, it... more... - Dawn

of course.. diveristy is the spice of life :) If one thing working in IT has taught me is that so few people are interested in tech enough to suggest ideas like that. They see tech as part of their job and as a tool, not as part of their social life. This is changing tho, especially since the likes of facebook et al have certainly shown many that tech can be a part of their social life. This will, in turn feed into tech as they begin to realise what we techies have been telling them for the past 2decades! - alphaxion

the photo meetups that I go to typically have a lot more females than the tech meetups that I go to. - Thomas Hawk

American culture is built on the concept of the lowest common denominator. Mass marketing itself with campaigns and launch dates and all the agon of competition is a war to spread stereotypes and present a popular culture that is built on coarse and common concepts. Geeks are stereotyped, men and women are stereotyped, all of us are lumped in one pile or another when we are all. in fact, individual and subtle. More women media and tech leadership would transform it. We are missing 50% of our talent. - Phil Boiarski

i work in the tech industry, more gaming side of it and there's one female pokie tech who works for the big company that is australia wide. - Terry O'Fee

isms as impediments... - bcultral

This thread proves why we need threaded conversations here. I can't follow anything any more! - Admiral Anika

Interesting how the title of this post inferred exclusion but immediately directed the focus to Sexism. I mention isms as impediments to broaden the subject to the systemic dynamics which create exclusion. For me personally, exclusion invokes thoughts and feelings of structural and personal racism. Unfortunately, many do not understand just how racism works structurally. Because racism is systemic, individuals have difficulty identifying the role they play in perpetuating racism. . - bcultral

Tech holds on to stuff so tightly because when it doesn't it gets screwed. This has been proven time and time again. - Kevin

Robin: I agree with you and I think it's a great point. I did intend for the post to speak to all exclusions, but being a white woman, when it comes to sharing details and examples, I'd feel awkward and maybe even disingenuous trying to speak for racial minorities. Again, I think you're point is well taken. A lot of people reacted to this post as a personal attack, as me accusing them... more... - Dawn

Kevin: What do you mean? I'm interested to hear more. - Dawn

It is True that a lot of the Main A-Lister Web2.0 Tech Voices are White Males thankfully there are also great Female Voices like Emily from eHub + Susan Mernit of Yahoo! + some other less Visual Minorities being heard* but there's no doubt the Old White Boys Club rules the VC Roost in Silicon Valley* - Billy Warhol

FriendFeed Feedback: Waldir

would it be too much to ask for having the facebook app show the icons of the services instead of always the FF icon? :)

February 1 - Comment - Like - Share

Tyson Key, Kol Tregaskes, Mihai Secasiu and sime0n liked this

Unfortunately the icon is per-app, meaning that we can't set different icons for different entries. This is a limitation of the Facebook platform. - Paul Buchheit

too bad... thanks for the quick reply! :) - Waldir from IM

Waldir/Paul, I wouldn't want it to be the separate services anything. I think it's more down to Facebook to support those other services rather than FriendFeed changing the icons. - Kol Tregaskes

Paul Buchheit

Autonomous Robots Invade Retail Warehouses | Wired Science from Wired.com - http://blog.wired.com/wiredsc...

January 30 from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like - Share

lilla, Jesper Lind, Ian and 62 other people liked this

"All the robots are told is where products are located and where they need to go. From there, the robots, which look like massive orange Roombas, figure out the rest. They locate the stack of shelves with the needed product on it, slide beneath the stack to pick it up and then find their own routes from the stacks of stuff to human operators. And they manage to find just the right time to get themselves recharged for five minutes out of every hour." - Paul Buchheit from Bookmarklet

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Paul you have some of the coolest shares on FriendFeed. It's a joy to follow you. - Jesse Stay

I, for one, welcome our new autonomous robot overlords! - Jemm

Ain't that the truth - even cooler than Scoble. - Roberto Bonini

and how much are they paid? - Betsy

"The Zappos guys claim that from the moment you put your order in and it is submitted to the time the box is on the dock and ready to be put on a truck is 12 minutes." - bob

No layoffs, no sick days, no coffee or potty breaks. This will help unemployment. - Phil Boiarski

I think the end of the article is almost the most interesting part for me: "At many sites, workers have begun to name their robots, complete with "Hello, My Name Is" name tags. From there, it's only a short step to playing fetch with your robot. "One of our customers calls those name tags tattoos, and the robots are adopted by employees," said Mitch Rosenberg, Kiva Systems' VP of... more... - Scott of Two Countries

I think what we need are more robots that make jobs. You could have these mechanical workers that break down all the time and require two or three people to keep them going. Have GM build them! - Colin Wright

the small step for orange robot... the giant leap for getting superiority on Earth')) absolutely amazing!! - kroll.globemaster

Robert Scoble

My computing shrine:

January 19, 2009 from email - Comment - Like - Share

Nicholas James, MicahBear78, Daniele Di Gregorio and 64 other people liked this

I spent a lot of time over the past week organizing my office and getting everything neat in preparation for building a live studio. It isn't quite as cool yet as Laporte's or Pirillo's but it is getting there. What does your office look like? - Robert Scoble from email

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Office looks great! ^__^ - Nia

Those laptops are just in the right height for the little guy in the picture :) - Jemm

Oh, my office is so not ready for the public. I have papers everywhere. I'll just go with a description. I have two massive corner desks, each with computers. Wedged between them is a drafting desk. Before the wall of desks is my 6ft worktable, and behind that various odds and ends I've never organized. - xero

Reworking the workspace was one of my holiday projects that kind of went belly-up in a sea of laziness. Hoping to revisit that soon. It's too variable right now. - Jared Smith

You don't want to see my office. Looks like a bomb went off. My camera is safe inside a Pelican case and I'm not worried unless a bear attacks it, a shark bites it, or a child under 5 touches it. - Anthony Thompson

My office: a Dell widescreen laptop and a pot of coffee. And a lamp. - Will Conley

wait..are there not child labor laws> How much are you paying your admin in this photo? - Kevin Murray

@RealtyMan's "Command Central" looks like this http://twitpic.com/ttlo - Gerry Realtyman Bourgeois

Looks like serious carbon footprint :-) - Majento

WoW!! something to aspire.. - Prakash

The geek room in the basement of my office is going to be my studio, but I need to dig out the functional silicon based life forms that inhabit that space. - Greg Birch

Gerry: I like yours better! - Robert Scoble

like you can use more than three of those computers at the same time for something useful, tha'ts not video encoding rendering or clustering (for the latter laptop don't make sense at all, by the way, they have screens drawing unused power) - Dorian Muthig

That looks like an ADD nightmare. - Dean Clark

I usually only usetso computers at any one time. Some of these are for testing stuff out. The Sonos and Samsung are on loan. Gotta give those back in February. - Robert Scoble

Agree with Dean - way too many screens. I have two 21" widescreens, and it's just right. - Lawrence Liu

No TV's in there? I wonder how you have your gameroom set up. - Amani

all you really need is a 12" Thinkpad X61s - think environment, guys! - Migger

I have the same screen-count but one of them is an old Atari ST :-) - Frank Rennemann

Eunuchs waiting on you and everything!!! But wait till you see mine... - sofarsoShawn

Ok I give in. Will buy this http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/emperor... - Migger

You can't really be using *all* of those laptops...? - Charles Bihis

Nah, actually right now I'm using the Dell and the Mac Mini. - Robert Scoble

Looks like a real TweetDeck central. ;-) - Rutger Blom

My project over the summer as well. No shelves-messy desks - lots of cumputers.. - Roberto Bonini

Nice setup you have there - Onur Gündüz

Ever determine what this does to your power bill, Robert? - David Bisset (sn)

Robert, I don't think you have enough computers there. - Steven Perez

Wish I had the space... I have that many and more in half of that. - Ian D. Nock from twhirl

What? No Commodore 64? :P - Johnny Worthington

Here is my techy corner in my appartment: http://i.friendfeed.com/370e18f... - Qbat

Like it. Gotta do a little straightening up, then I'll post my studio area. - Dave Curlee

Paul Buchheit

Weak Password Brings 'Happiness' to Twitter Hacker - http://blog.wired.com/27bstro...

January 7, 2009 from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like - Share

Susan Beebe, Nick Jones, Igor Poltavskiy and 15 other people liked this

"The hacker, who goes by the handle GMZ, told Threat Level on Tuesday he gained entry to Twitter's administrative control panel by pointing an automated password-guesser at a popular user's account. The user turned out to be a member of Twitter's support staff, who'd chosen the weak password "happiness." ... He said he'd never even heard of Twitter until he saw someone mention it on YouTube." - Paul Buchheit from Bookmarklet

6 more comments

Why does everyone (i.e. "the press") always call people that guess passwords via dictionary attacks "hackers", anyhow? - Alex Power

I'm still trying to accept the fact that the press has hijacked the word "hacker" to always mean something nefarious. - Victor Ganata

'cause a stupid brute force attack doesn't fit the narrative. they clearly uploaded a virus, using a pringles cantennae to the "W.H.O.P.P.E.R." deep in norad, copied it to a little reflective disc, and then put it in a floppy drive, typed: GIVE ME THE PASSWORD in a giant font and after a few beeps and boops they were IN! - mikepk

Victor, exactly! I talk about "cool hacks" or "clever hacks" and my family sometimes asks me "you're not doing anything illegal are you" O_o - mikepk

+1 Victor. Damn 'em - Yuvi

I knew it! I suggested before Twitter mentioned it that someone probably just used a dictionary attack. I didn't realize it would be one of Twitter's own employees accounts! - Jesse Stay

wow. - edythe

iAdramelk

Scientists extract images directly from brain - http://www.boingboing.net/2008...

December 11, 2008 from Google Reader - Comment - Like - Share

Банал Когнитивной Науки, Двадцать, brain and 4 other people liked this

Pink Tentacle reports that researchers at Japan’s ATR Computational Neuroscience Laboratories have developed a system that can "reconstruct the images inside a person’s mind and display them on a computer monitor." - iAdramelk

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Наконец-то. Я мечтал об этом лет с десяти, если не раньше. - Universal Mind[who?] from IM

получается-то хоть похоже? - 9000

Ну если в статье картинки настоящие, то до какой-то степени да. - iAdramelk

кстати, я так понял, что "запись снов" не прокатит, это они цепи дешифровки изображения с глаза просекли, а не цепи обработки картинки, на которые, как я понимаю, работают сны и т.п. - 9000

вообще картинки, снятые с глаз кошки, я видел в середине 90-х. но там было хирургическое включение в visual cortex. - 9000

Когда мы видим сны, в голове не строится двумерное или трехмерное изображение (кто ж на него смотреть будет, внутренний гомункулус своими глазами? а в его головке что? рекурсия.) Там не изображение, а другие процессы. - Двадцать

Mac Justice

The Big Picture of the Big Bailout Failure - http://slog.thestranger.com/slog...

December 11, 2008 from Google Reader - Comment - Like - Share

sime0n liked this

This depresses me, because it's the truth. Even the people at my job who didn't get laid off are still extremely anxious about this, and it rubs off on me. I play it off because I'm young and it's a cycle and things will come back and all of that, but I'm not always so sure. People are getting angry, though. Our company made a profit this year, but it wasn't a big enough profit. So people were laid off. Where's the sense in that? - Mac Justice

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