Top all-time · #2123
Valerie Aurora
Personal blog · blog.valerieaurora.orgculturecareer
Valerie Aurora's personal blog at blog.valerieaurora.org covers culture and career. Since 2011, 35 different Hacker News readers have linked it 42 times, most often “Why I won’t be attending Systems We Love”. No feed was found, so read it on the site itself.
Too few sampled comments (14) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link Valerie Aurora's posts on harassment and conduct in tech, such as 'The Al Capone Theory of Sexual Harassment', along with posts on suicide and society and on debugging silent corruption.
- Recommended for · 2 comments
- Called the post on suicide and society very well written; a good post by a kernel hacker on debugging silent corruption.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 14 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Most-linked posts?
- Why I won’t be attending Systems We Love4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2016-10-23
- Suicide and society: Where does responsibility for preventing suicide lie?3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2013-01-12
- /2018/07/01/bryan-cantrill-has-been-accused-of-verbal-abuse-by-at-least-seven-people/3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2019-02-14
- Valerie Aurora and Leigh Honeywell: The Al Capone Theory of Sexual Harassment3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2017-07-20
- Here’s my favorite operating systems war story, what’s yours?2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2013-12-17
- When Is Naming Abuse Itself Abusive?2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2016-10-25
- How to debug silent data corruption2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2021-03-15
What Hacker News says?
There's another aspect, which is that some people find his aggressively dismissive style personally abusive and distressing. I don't know enough to validate this perspective, but it's something for all of us to consider: https://blog.valerieaurora.org/2016/10/22/why-i-wont-be-atte...
Comment linking /2016/10/22/why-i-wont-be-attending-systems-we-love/
on “Larry Ellison allegedly tried to have a professor fired for benchmarking Oracle”Submitted Getting free of toxic tech culture as a story · 213 points
HN discussionMy summary: 1. They believe there will be a shift back to on-prem, due to cost, improved security & latency. 2. They can take commodity hardware designs ( Open Compute Project ) and add their own software for manageability. 3. They are big on values, because in the past Bryan got a bit of a rep for being a bit hard to work with. ( eg https://blog.valerieaurora.org/2016/10/22/why-i-wont-be-atte... ) 1. I'm seeing thi…
Comment linking /2016/10/22/why-i-wont-be-attending-systems-we-love/
on “Oxide Computer Company: Initial boot sequence”Submitted Here’s my favorite operating systems war story, what’s yours? as a story · 191 points
HN discussionPeople are never just ONE type of awful. It's almost always a package deal. See also https://blog.valerieaurora.org/2017/07/18/the-al-capone-theo... .
Comment linking /2017/07/18/the-al-capone-theory-of-sexual-harassment/
on “Open source chess developers warn about a commercial engine based on Stockfish”Submitted Tech worker resistance is crucial to preventing human rights abuses in the U.S as a story · 106 points
HN discussionMy first thought on hearing this news was the famous essay "The Al Capone Theory of Sexual Harassment." https://blog.valerieaurora.org/2017/07/18/the-al-capone-theo... Basically it states that for a long time, sexual harassers were given a blind eye with excuses like "he's good for our bottom line." But it turns out this isn't true. It turns out people who act unethically in one way often act unethically in other wa…
Comment linking /2017/07/18/the-al-capone-theory-of-sexual-harassment/
on “Former Uber executive charged with paying 'hush money' to conceal breach”Submitted How feminism helped me solve one of file systems’ oldest conundrums as a story · 67 points
HN discussionApparently this guy is a dick. https://blog.valerieaurora.org/2018/07/01/bryan-cantrill-has... Also, why does he deserve a Wikipedia page? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bryan_Cantrill
Comment linking /2018/07/01/bryan-cantrill-has-been-accused-of-verbal-abuse-by-at-least-seven-people/
on “Anti-Application video for YC120”Submitted Why I won’t be attending Systems We Love as a story · 49 points
HN discussion> I love Bryan Cantrill for being that classy bad-ass engineer with so much integrity. I have never worked with Bryan. What's the general opinion about Valerie's statements about working with him. https://blog.valerieaurora.org/2016/10/22/why-i-wont-be-atte... https://blog.valerieaurora.org/2018/07/01/bryan-cantrill-has...
Comment linking /2018/07/01/bryan-cantrill-has-been-accused-of-verbal-abuse-by-at-least-seven-people/
on “Anti-Application video for YC120”Submitted No More Rock Stars: How to Stop Abuse in Tech Communities (2016) as a story · 21 points
HN discussionStuff like this: https://blog.valerieaurora.org/2018/07/01/bryan-cantrill-has... I don't know him personally. I've only seen him speak via YouTube videos. My point isn't to damage his reputation further, just add evidence that there may be an egocentric aspect to what is going on with the team heavy focus of the initial marketing push for the company. There are arguments being made in these few threads today that su…
Comment linking /2018/07/01/bryan-cantrill-has-been-accused-of-verbal-abuse-by-at-least-seven-people/
on “The soul of a new computer company”Submitted Why I won’t be attending 'Systems We Love' as a story · 13 points
HN discussionSure you can take part in them, but if you go to an invitation-only private party at 2 AM held at a separate hotel that less than 1% of the conference can actually get into and is thrown for the sole purpose of getting people drunk and doing inappropriate things, you shouldn't be surprised if there is some random inappropriate behavior, that's kind of the point. And just to be clear, this is not gender specific hara…
Comment linking /2008/07/27/what-is-the-val-up-to/
on “DEFCON: Why conference harassment matters”Submitted Starting your own feminist backchannel as a story · 9 points
HN discussionHere are some very well written thoughts on suicide by a very talented software engineer (and a depression sufferer): http://blog.valerieaurora.org/2013/01/12/suicide-and-society...
Comment linking /2013/01/12/suicide-and-society-where-does-responsibility-for-preventing-suicide-lie/
on “Jeff Atwood Goes Off The Rails”Submitted Here’s my favorite operating systems war story, what’s yours? as a story · 8 points
HN discussionHere’s a good post by a kernel hacker that suggests how a tool like this can aid in debugging subtle corruption: https://blog.valerieaurora.org/2008/02/17/howto-debug-silent...
Comment linking /2008/02/17/howto-debug-silent-data-corruption/
on “Memzoom: Less, designed for binary data with live updates”Submitted How to avoid supporting sexual predators as a story · 7 points
HN discussion> I can't remember exactly if it was the GNOME Women Outreach program that was shut down recently, but I remember there being a lengthy author about the president of the organization's decision to step down and close the program (because no one else would step up to the chair, among other problems). That was the Ada Initiative; see http://blog.valerieaurora.org/2015/08/05/the-ada-initiative-... . Outreachy is alive…
Comment linking /2015/08/05/the-ada-initiative-is-ending-but-our-work-continues-on/
on “#FFFFFF Diversity”Submitted Valerie Aurora and Leigh Honeywell: The Al Capone Theory of Sexual Harassment as a story · 4 points
HN discussionOK, I think I understand something major now. The Code of Merit, ZeroMQ's C4.1 "must accept" process, etc. are all designed around the goal of, how do we accept pull requests/patches that are good. The Contributor Covenant and similar CoCs are designed around the goal of, how do we produce a vibrant community. These are different goals, and the former is sufficient if you don't necessarily want a community (e.g. it'…
Comment linking /2014/10/03/operating-systems-war-story-how-feminism-helped-me-solve-one-of-file-systems-oldest-conundrums/
on “Code of Merit: A meritocratic approach to project management (2016)”Submitted When Is Naming Abuse Itself Abusive? as a story · 4 points
HN discussionVal Aurora (and Matthew Garrett) are also involved in some kind of Shun Project against Ted T'so, as best as I can tell it's because of the savage crime on his part of saying that it's possible that some forms of sexual assault and rape are worse than others (e.g. being touched while drunk vs. being violently gang-raped in a bus). One of Ted's actual examples was that of two extremely drunk individuals, where he ask…
Comment linking /2012/10/29/the-linux-community-cant-remain-silent-while-leaders-make-anti-woman-comments/
on “All This Over a Dongle?”Submitted Ban boring mike-based Q&A sessions and use index cards instead as a story · 4 points
HN discussionThis one applies to every O'Reilly conference: http://conferences.oreillynet.com/code-of-conduct.csp There's also a project to make one others can use: http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/index.php?title=Conference_ant... Also, it's not "just Ruby people" who need to be reminded to act properly - that's just a group random cynics on Hacker News like to take pot shots on for some reason. The biggest stories of harassment a…
Comment linking /2010/11/08/its-not-just-noirin/
on “Harassment Free Conference: Is this for just marketing?”Submitted On the necessity of assholes as a story · 4 points
HN discussionSubmitted Getting free of toxic tech culture as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted How to debug silent data corruption as a story · 2 points
HN discussion
