Hacker News Reader

PlugTuninon Why Brilliant Girls Tend to Favor Non-STEM Careers

1. 70 percent more girls than boys had strong math and verbal skills;

2. Boys were more than twice as likely as girls to have strong math skills but not strong verbal skills.

No surprise on the 1st; I recognize that women can do/be anything they want in this world. But I wonder if the 2nd stat is explained mostly by the fact that MORE men are strong at math (not being a chauvinist pig; just running with stereotype)...or are the two genders equally represented among Math Elite and girls twice as likely to have strong verbal skills?

PlugTuninon The Grim Biology of Being Poor

The psychology behind empathy is really interesting.

I try to avoid inserting politics into any discussion, but this NYT's article suggests that one's values are a determinant of their capacity to empathize...or more specifically, whether a person has individualizing or binding social values. Where one stands on this correlates to whether they are progressive or conservative in their thinking -- and by extension, in their political views. I guess if it was easy to talk about the socio without the political, there wouldn't be a word that combines the two: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/26/opinion/sunday/who-blames...

PlugTuninon SNAP households spent 9.3 percent of their grocery budgets on soft drinks

"Heavy workloads, job insecurity or living in poverty are circumstances that can result in chronically increased stress, which in turn can lead to chronic psychological disorders such as depression."

(Read the above in an article published two days ago. Yeah, poverty sucks -- not to dispute your anecdotal evidence to the contrary. Laughing at people who've never had any financial problems. Must be nice!)

http://www.bbc.com/news/health-38584975

PlugTuninon Lecture on Creativity (1991)

Small world. 30 minutes ago I paused Kahnemann's "Thinking Fast And Slow" Google Talk, browsed HN, and this article caught my eye.

PlugTuninon IQ is only a minor factor in success

Pedantry, not pendantry.

PlugTuninon Stevie Wonder’s “classic period”

Even Stevie Wonder is looking at you funny.

PlugTuninon Harassment at Apple: A personal perspective

I apologize. I read the article, but overlooked that. It's an odd comment for her to make -- and one I'd be curious to know her explanation for.

PlugTuninon Harassment at Apple: A personal perspective

It wasn't sexist for a man to jump to her defense. Sometimes people defend other people, irrespective of gender. Had it been a woman who'd come to her defense, that too could be criticized. Her department likely has more men. Blame statistics.

Edit: Actually, OP characterizes gesture by the dude defending her as "sexist".(Above opinion stands.)

PlugTuninon Harassment at Apple: A personal perspective

Agreed. Pity that being an asshole can't be determined through some sort of pre-employment screening process. Unfortunately, assholes are often quite adept at using their superficial charm to conceal their true identity.

PlugTuninon Harassment at Apple: A personal perspective

She's stating her opinion -- which is worth respecting -- of how the situation has impacted her life. Be careful reading into her motivation for doing so.

PlugTuninon A neural link between affective understanding and interpersonal attraction [pdf]

Indeed, unpredictable people/situations, are less attractive.

PlugTuninon A neural link between affective understanding and interpersonal attraction [pdf]

Fair to speculate that the other person was the problem. They didn't say it was a certain thing. Some people have blind spots that prevent them from realizing that their actions may not fly with the other person. I can't speak to how objective this poster's self-evaluation was, but I guess they felt they were better able to predict the reactions of the other person, and accordingly, were better able to avoid doing things to irritate others.

To be fair, I do see how you could misinterpret this as blaming the other person; but an alternate take is that the person is brainstorming, after reading the article, that the other person was simply less adept at predicting behavior.

PlugTuninon A neural link between affective understanding and interpersonal attraction [pdf]

Astute observation that he was the common denominator -- as opposed to his experiences being based on a history of relationships that didn't involve him. I guess anytime a person has multiple bad experiences, it must be their fault, right? (I have family members that think that way. I no longer visit them during the holidays.)

PlugTuninon A neural link between affective understanding and interpersonal attraction [pdf]

Yeah, I consider the above behavior as being pro-active. He/she didn't allege this issue to be the case in every relationship, nor -- as the other comment correctly suggests -- anyone's fault.

It's human to use our register of past experiences to foresee problems in the future. I'd rather put out a warning than waste time with someone who later hits the eject button based on something that was evident from the jump. In relationships of any sort, really, including business, it's reasonable to say "hey, just so there aren't any misunderstandings down the road, let's be clear on x,y,and z; otherwise, we're wasting our time and this probably isn't going to work."

PlugTuninon On Getting Older in Tech

STFU.

PlugTuninon On Getting Older in Tech

Your response couldn't sound any less sympathetic.

PlugTuninon Ron Glass has died

I think it's specifically who died in the early part of the year, along with the unexpectedness of it, that helped further this idea that 2016 has been exceptional. Similarly, when Steve Jobs and Dennis Ritchie died within a week of one another in 2011, it wasn't necessarily statistically improbable, but it was still quite a double whammy.

PlugTuninon Show HN: Publish a Markdown website in 5 minutes

Current usability aside, like another poster said, thank you for sharing that, James.

PlugTuninon Show HN: Publish a Markdown website in 5 minutes

While Jottit is great and representative of yet another cool thing Aaron contributed to the world, it occasionally goes down for days, or even weeks at a time.

PlugTuninon Autism and Evolution

FACT: Asperger's runs in families. Nuff said.

PlugTuninon Autism and Evolution

If I'm understanding your comment correctly, it sounds like you're insinuating that it's a fake disorder. No offense, but you're grossly misinformed.

PlugTuninon De La Soul’s Legacy Is Trapped in Digital Limbo

According to the below article, in the late 80s, De La opened for Bob Dylan in Amherst, MA (Pretty sure the date is wrong and it's referring to the show you speak of, as I have trouble believing DLS opened for Dylan as early as '89). Anyway, the article suggests the reason they were a no show was because they had some, ahem, car troubles along the way. It's possible this story isn't true; if it was, I guess you would have known at the time:

http://every-day-i-write-the-blog.blogspot.com/2011/05/bob-d...