17-Year-Old Girl Wins Boston TV API Programming Contest

An anonymous reader writes "Jenny Lamere, a graduating high school senior from Nashua NH, was the youngest of 80 participants (and one of only four women) in the Hill Holiday TVnext hackathon held in Boston this past April, a programming contest sponsored by TV API providers. Her submission of 'Twivo,' an app that allows TV viewers to block spoiler tweets while watching a show and recover them later, won the contest's 'Sync to Broadcast' category (one of five), and was also named the event's 'Best in Show' (overall winner). At least one tech company has expressed interest in her app (a short demo and interview with the judges starts at 3:30 in the embedded YouTube clip). Lamere plans to enter the Rochester Institute of Technology in the fall, and will pursue a career in software development."

Comments

TiVo also expressed interest

[Anonymous Coward]

In suing her for trademark infringement.

Censorship

[tratraa]

Isn't it ironic that the winner of this competition made a censorship app? Way to go USA.

Re:Censorship

[EmagGeek]

Choosing not to listen to someone is not censorship.

Re:Censorship

[D1G1T]

Your 1st amendment right applies to spoilers as long as my 2nd amendment right applies to spoilers.

Re:Censorship

[Anonymous Coward]

It's only censorship as much as somebody choosing to read not read a book until sometime later. It's just setting up certain tweets to be read later instead of right away.

Re:Censorship

[Anonymous Coward]

So if the car next to me blares loud music and I roll up my windows, I'm supporting censorship too?

Re:Censorship

[Opportunist]

Censorship is when I keep you from saying it. You can still say it.

I just refuse to listen.

Re:Censorship

[bwhaley]

Where are my mod points when I need them?

Re:Censorship

[femtobyte]

In a sense it is: but you are applying the censorship only to what you see/hear. I think people should be permitted to self-censor. If I want to filter my view of the world to block out ********, then I should be able to do that. If I want to write a ********-filter plugin to help other people choose to avoid wasting their time on ******** too, then that's fine. The problem is when I impose censorship on others: if I'm the manager at the local telco monopoly, I shouldn't be installing network filters to keep ******** off my customers' computers (if they want to do so themselves, fine).

Re:Censorship

[Arancaytar]

If people choosing to not listen to you is censorship, then be prepared for a lifetime of 1984.

Re:Censorship

[Anonymous Coward]

While you are of course right, there's one interesting thought about this:

There can also be self-censorship. A concept better known as ignorance... especially in schizotypic illnesses (and in a very obvious way in multiple-personality disorders) including religiousness (where the other personality is "god/jesus/satan").

Which obviously is just as harmful and can be done in masses just as well.

Hence it is very popular with the political social engineers. People who are made to ignore things like that think it's their own free will, and would never complain about censorship nor fight it. Quite the opposite: They usually defend it the stronger, the less they know about it or why they think that way.

So every time we refuse to listen, we must all be very wary and ask ourselves: Are this information and my action actually useful or harmful for me?

Re:Censorship

[K. S. Kyosuke]

There can also be self-censorship. A concept better known as ignorance... especially in schizotypic illnesses

Ufff, what has *that* to do with schizotypy?

Re:Censorship

[Anonymous Coward]

Stop spreading my password, please!

Re:Censorship

[Anonymous Coward]

good gracious, what sort of twisted pervert would be using that for their password??

Re:Censorship

[Anonymous Coward]

No it isn't. Censorship is preventing someone from speaking. Ignoring someone is not remotely close. I ignore people all of the time, but I'm not preventing them from speaking their xenophobic racist bile. It's no different from moving away from the fat sweaty pig that has questionable personal hygiene issues, or the inconsiderate smoker wafting the pollution from their nicotine fix. I don't like either, I get up and move elsewhere. They can continue stinking everyone else out without being remotely bothered by my disgust.

Re:Censorship

[Anonymous Coward]

If you DO choose to listen, why not get it all out of the way?

Re:Censorship

[RussR42]

hunter2

Re:Censorship

[phantomfive]

There can also be self-censorship.

Self-censorship is when you refuse to say something, or hear something, because you are afraid what 'they' will think. If you are afraid of what your government, neighbors, police, etc, will think or do if you listen to something, then yeah, you're in trouble and should change.

This is a completely different scenario than ignoring someone who has the appearance of a paranoid nut cake.

Re:Censorship

[phantomfive]

It's not even censorship, it's time-delay for Twitter. You 'get' to read the tweets later on when you have time.

What's ironic is that you exercised self-censorship by failing to read the summary.....

Re:Censorship

[femtobyte]

Your simplistic definition of censorship ("not preventing others from speaking") doesn't hold up. Suppose a xenophobic bigot is speaking on a public corner. If a news reporter records him, and plays his speech on the evening news with some of the most vile racial slurs bleeped out, then they're censoring his speech --- without stopping him from speaking; in fact, giving him a bigger audience for the non-censored parts. Censorship is filtering out material according to one's own preferences. Preventing others from speaking is one (especially vile) form of censorship: shooting the bigot for speaking would indeed filter out his material. So would standing next to him on the corner and blasting an air horn to bleep out some of his words --- which might even count as protected free expression of your own. I think censorship is a more ethically complex and nuanced issue that you imply; and covers a range of behaviors which aren't all inimical to a free society (such as applying censorship to material you choose to view for yourself).

Re:Censorship

[Dogtanian]

hunter2

You can go hunter2 my hunter2-ing hunter2

Re:Censorship

[nospam007]

"It's not even censorship, it's time-delay for Twitter. "

17 year old girl fixes a problem only 17 year old girls have.

Re:Censorship

[jhoegl]

They have been censored.

Re:Censorship

[Gription]

Uhhh...
So exactly what part of bleeping out a word or phrase isn't "preventing others from speaking" that word or phrase?
I fail to see any argument where failing to censor all speech in anyway changes small selective censorship from being anything except for preventing the speech of that which was censored.

Or to put it in a more simplistic fashion...
In your given example the censorship begins exactly at the beginning of the beep. The censorship ends at the end of the beep. Anything that is outside of the duration of the beep has nothing to do with censorship.
By your argument if you had someone who was censored, you could argue that failing to stop them from speaking to the guy behind the counter at the 7-Eleven would mean that they hadn't been censored because you didn't stop all of their speech. It is a stupid argument.

Re:Censorship

[zenith1111]

I find the idea rather clever and a very good fit for that contest.

Just because you and me don't use twitter, that doesn't mean her generation won't when they are older :)

Re:Censorship

[femtobyte]

So exactly what part of bleeping out a word or phrase isn't "preventing others from speaking" that word or phrase?

If the reporter decided not to replay any of the bigot's speech at all on the evening news, would you say that they were censoring even more? Are they also censoring every other single person whose speech they don't replay? How do you separate "preventing others from speaking" from "not repeating what others are speaking," or "only repeating excerpts from what people are speaking, interspersed with monotonic musical interludes"? I think a concept of "censorship" in terms of "information filtering" is more generally applicable, and avoids all sorts of tricky ambiguities about what is and isn't "preventing others from speaking," especially where it's not clear they'd be able to speak in the first place (you might not assume that this bigot would, by default, get a speaking spot on the evening news).

By your argument if you had someone who was censored, you could argue that failing to stop them from speaking to the guy behind the counter at the 7-Eleven would mean that they hadn't been censored because you didn't stop all of their speech.

Yes, I would say that the intended/attempted censorship failed in the case of the words they managed to get across before being silenced. Similarly, if you shot at someone and missed (or gave them a little flesh wound), that would be *attempted* murder, not murder, and I wouldn't say the survivor of the attempt had been murdered.

Re:Censorship

[Anonymous Coward]

I wish I could do that with the "music" the coons round here kindly choose to share with everyone at 4 a.m.

Re:Censorship

[Hognoxious]

If you are afraid of what your government, neighbors, police, etc, will think or do if you listen to something, then yeah, you're in trouble and should change.

Are you being pragmatic, or are you assuming that that "they" are correct?

Re:Censorship

[jones_supa]

I have them all. Aahhaha, aahhhahhahhhaa! Aahhh... Wait a minute... Now I cannot use them either on this discussion as I posted...

Re:Censorship

[jones_supa]

You can go hunter2 my hunter2-ing hunter2

It's great how in the original IRC quote the guy is a bit confused but still goes on joking with that. :)

Re:Censorship

[phantomfive]

Not sure I understand the question. I'm saying, you're in trouble because you're censoring yourself and should stop it.

Re:Censorship

[KGIII]

I may well be wrong but I tend to think of censorship not as preventing someone from speaking but, rather, preventing someone from hearing.

Re:Censorship

[Anonymous Coward]

Or you could just stop reading twiter while watching a show. Only a 17 year old girl would need a technical solution to her twiter addiction. When she grow older, she will realise that putting the phone down fix ALL HER PROBLEM.

Re:Censorship

[hawkingradiation]

Good point... if you refuse to listen, how do you you know that which you refuse to listen to is valuable?

Re:Censorship

[drinkypoo]

Not sure I understand the question. I'm saying, you're in trouble because you're censoring yourself and should stop it.

Unless, of course, you're right. Then you're in a different kind of trouble. (And several other kinds as well.)

Being a woman at RIT

[tidepool]

She'll share a very similar Male/Female ratio when she attends RIT as well, at least as of 15 years ago or so...

Re:Being a woman at RIT

[wonkey_monkey]

at least as of 15 years ago or so...

When, as we all know so well, the world was exactly the same as it is now.

Also, in other news, men and women are different and a gender imbalance somewhere doesn't automatically mean something is horribly wrong and must be fixed.

And here's some actual statistics - the ratio last year was 67:33, a bit closer to 50:50 than 76:4.

Re:Being a woman at RIT

[Seumas]

As long as nothing is unfairly barring the opportunity, I don't see that anything else matters.

94.2% of nurses are women, but I neither see any need to shift that to 46% (because women are 54% of society) nor anything in nursing preventing men who do want to be nurses from doing so.

source: http://www.minoritynurse.com/minority-nursing-statistics

Re:Being a woman at RIT

[duckgod]

at least as of 15 years ago or so...

When, as we all know so well, the world was exactly the same as it is now.

Also, in other news, men and women are different and a gender imbalance somewhere doesn't automatically mean something is horribly wrong and must be fixed.

And here's some actual statistics - the ratio last year was 67:33, a bit closer to 50:50 than 76:4.

The current male to female ratio at RIT Computer Science program is 68:1. RIT also has a fruitfall Arts program which brings in a lot of females. This is where you get the 67:33. I never took a computer science class with a female while there. In fact outside of a few liberal arts classes I was free from the distraction. However, every once in a while I would see one of those mythical creatures from a window on the 3rd floor of GCCIS. That always made for an exciting day...

Re:Being a woman at RIT

[stalky14]

Ha. I was an RIT student in the 90's too. It was a total sausage fest. I went back for a visit in 2005 because I was in the area and noticed a lot more women there. I don't know what the per-major balance was, but it was at least better overall.

Re:Being a woman at RIT

[Anonymous Coward]

The photography program at RIT was great. Apparently being photogenic was a prerequisite for PJ and fine art majors. You just got to weed out the future cat ladies.

Re:Being a woman at RIT

[Anonymous Coward]

As long as nothing is unfairly barring the opportunity, I don't see that anything else matters.

94.2% of nurses are women, but I neither see any need to shift that to 46% (because women are 54% of society) nor anything in nursing preventing men who do want to be nurses from doing so.

Feminism taught me that if more women end up being nurse because PATRIARCHY is barring them from being doctor. I can't disagree with that flawless logic. I am not a misogynist pig.

Re:Being a woman at RIT

[AdamHaun]

I started at RIT in 2000 and graduated in 2006 and even by that point the ratio was a lot better. There were mixed-gender groups of freshmen walking around the dorm side, and they actually looked... happy?

Not sure it would be my first choice for college if I were a girl, but yay for her raising the value of our diplomas in any case.

Re:Being a woman at RIT

[AmiMoJo]

Also, in other news, men and women are different and a gender imbalance somewhere doesn't automatically mean something is horribly wrong and must be fixed.

I agree, but can you suggest why women would be inherently less interested in computer science than men? I know there have been some studies in apes but they seem to be mostly bunk (why would a male ape want to play with a car when he clearly has no idea what a car is?) On the other hand girls consistently perform better at school, seeming to be more academically inclined at that age.

Re:Being a woman at RIT

[antdude]

During my college days from 1994-1998, it was 3 (females) to 1 (males). And yet, I still didn't get a girlfriend, married, and am still a virgin today. :P

Negative Attention

[Anonymous Coward]

I wish people would stop focusing on age and gender.

Re:Negative Attention

[femtobyte]

So no one will notice systematic discrimination, which allows sexism to be a deeply rooted controlling factor for real-world systems so long as it's not too blatantly stated in writing?

Re:Negative Attention

[Anonymous Coward]

Someone Wins Boston TV API Programming Contest

"Jenny Lamere, a graduating high school senior from Nashua NH, was one of 80 participants in the Hill Holiday TVnext hackathon held in Boston this past April, a programming contest sponsored by TV API providers. Her submission of 'Twivo,' an app that allows TV viewers to block spoiler tweets while watching a show and recover them later, won the contest's 'Sync to Broadcast' category (one of five), and was also named the event's 'Best in Show' (overall winner). At least one tech company has expressed interest in her app (a short demo and interview with the judges starts at 3:30 in the embedded YouTube clip). Lamere plans to enter the Rochester Institute of Technology in the fall, and will pursue a career in software development."

Re:Negative Attention

[DNS-and-BIND]

Yaknow, feminists go on and on about how women should be equal, they shouldn't be the recipients of special attention, etc. etc. etc. And then something like this happens - and it wouldn't even be a story other than the person who won it just happened to have a vagina. It sort of makes feminists look like a bunch of hypocrites.

Re:Negative Attention

[femtobyte]

Yaknow, centuries of deeply entrenched stereotypes don't magically vanish away overnight. Lifting up counter-examples to the stereotype that women just aren't mentally cut out for logical/intellectual work is important to eradicating such views. Other young women should get the chance to see female role models praised in the media for accomplishments besides being Miss Teen America 2013. While an ultimate goal is reaching a society where it's nothing special for a woman to be a programmer, to *get there* from our present sexist world, one needs to actively push back against entrenched misogyny.

Re:Negative Attention

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you just made their point. Your feminist argument is 'men and women should be equal except women should be superior'.

And, frankly, most guys who started programming in their teens or earlier are thinking 'WTF' when you suggest that a 'delay messages from twitter' app is somehow an example of amazing programming that should be lauded in the media. Had a guy done this, no-one would have cared.

Re:Negative Attention

[femtobyte]

Your feminist argument is 'men and women should be equal except women should be superior'.

And how did your amazing critical reading skills reach that conclusion, which has nothing to do with what I said?

You seem to have missed a big part of my argument, which is that *situations change with time,* so *particular things that wouldn't be necessary in the ideal future case of equality might be necessary while reacting to existing inequality.*

Suppose you see a dozen people locked up in chains. You think "in an ideal world, no one would be locked up in chains --- ergo, there would be no need to free anyone from chains". Are you a hypocrite for expending effort to cut through their chains (and even calling on others to help), because you said that in an ideal world no one would need to be freed from chains?

Re:Negative Attention

[Anonymous Coward]

I wish people would stop focusing on age and gender.

It's simply an understandable and necessary thing to do as programming is still dominated by young males.

Re:Negative Attention

[noobermin]

It is a reality that women are are poorly represented in IT. In fact, if you're one of those types who believe "reverse discrimination" is an issue, you should be upholding her as an example that women can and do succeed in computing and thus need no special attention.

I'm happy because she can be a role model for her peers, both male and female.

Re:Negative Attention

[Anonymous Coward]

Other young women should get the chance to see female role models praised in the media for accomplishments besides being Miss Teen America 2013.

Other young man should get the chance to see male role models praised in the media for accomplishment beside being featured in Jackass.

You are just a bigoted feminazi cunt. Male are depicted in the media in a much worst manner then female. Male always depicted as violent looser, good for nothing and dumb like a plant while female are praised for doing any mundane things that is effortlessly done by any man.

We are already 'there'; There is nothing special for a women to be a programmer. As long as the code is of quality nobody care except for the feminist that need to celebrate anything a women do in order to maintain their sexist world fantasy. The feminist attitude toward women accomplished is very similar to the attention a child get for shitting in the training potty for the first time. I find that degrading to women.

Re:Negative Attention

[femtobyte]

As a male, I guess I should be proud to have achieved cunt status. If people like you vigorously hate me, I must be doing something right to piss off the scumbags in this world.
Anyway, part of not being a fucking bigot is listening to women's voices on issues of discrimination. No matter how many angry men insist to me that women have reached full equality, it's really not a convincing argument compared to the dissenting accounts I hear from *women* I know. Guess what: your exclusively male view of the world may not be the final word on correctness. Rather than discount women's voices in assessing the state of gender equality, I'm willing to give them a lot more credibility than the room full of males insisting they'd never be sexist (unless the "bigoted feminazi cunt" deserved it).

Re:Negative Attention

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry I posted anonymously for this but... Can we go out for pizza some time? [/ducks from fireball sized lazer beam]

Re:Negative Attention

[femtobyte]

You're that into fat beardly dudes? Sorry to let you down, AC, but I'm pretty sure I swing for the other team.
Yeah, I really wasn't thinking about the potential gender implications of my username (it's a lame joke based on SI prefixes that I tossed out on the spur of the moment when signing up for a Slashdot account). I am rarely mistaken for female in real life --- but it has been educational to see what sort of slimeballs a gender-ambiguous internet identity will lure out of the woodwork.

Re:Negative Attention

[Swampash]

Yeah, we need to focus on things more important than that a female won a programming contest.

Like, why was there a dev workstation in the kitchen?

Re:Negative Attention

[jamesh]

I wish people would stop focusing on age and gender.

It's a double edged sword that one... On the one hand there's a danger of people focusing on her age and gender at the expense of her entry and tech skills, which is bad for all the obvious reasons. On the other hand this might open the eyes of other young girls who just assumed such things were out of their reach - an easy assumption to make when they look around and see a playing field dominated by males.

I watched the start of the vid... they made a bit of a big deal about it at the start and made some comments that were a bit silly and unnecessary, and which might be a bit intimidating , but then moved on to talk about the app and didn't mention the gender issue again... unless I missed something (my download speed has been all over the place lately so it was a bit stop/start watching it)

Re:Negative Attention

[jamesh]

I think you just made their point. Your feminist argument is 'men and women should be equal except women should be superior'.

No I think you have it upside down. I read the argument as 'all people should have equal opportunities but they don't right now so to set that right we are going to have to give the minorities a bit of special attention to show others that it's possible to succeed'. I can see why it might suck for you if they go and give attention to a girls achievements instead of yours, but it's for the greater good so get over yourself.

And, frankly, most guys who started programming in their teens or earlier are thinking 'WTF' when you suggest that a 'delay messages from twitter' app is somehow an example of amazing programming that should be lauded in the media. Had a guy done this, no-one would have cared.

And here's your problem. A 17yo girl invents a product that may just appeal mainly to 17yo girls, and you rubbish it on that basis. Got any other opinions that the marketplace doesn't care about?

Re:Negative Attention

[Anonymous Coward]

The "greater good" (an excuse used to commit many injustices) can go fuck itself.

Re:Negative Attention

[LordLucless]

It's also a reality that they're poorly represented in the plumbing and electrician trades, and that men are poorly represented in nursing, the beauty industry, and education. Why are there no complaints and attempts at artificially twiddling the ratios in those fields? It can't even be a money thing - I know plumbers and electricians who earn about the same as me.

Re:Negative Attention

[Anonymous Coward]

Women are also poorly represented in the homeless bum trade.

Re:Negative Attention

[Anonymous Coward]

As a male,

No need to specify. Everyone know there is nothing but male on slashdot.

If people like you vigorously hate me, I must be doing something right to piss off the scumbags in this world.

Nobody hate you and there is noting to be proud about being a cunt. You should be ashamed and feel bad about it. On the other hand, getting recognised for being a 'scumbag in this world' is a gratifying achievement.

Have you check your privileges today? Enjoy your hypocrisy and double standard while you still can.

Re:Negative Attention

[femtobyte]

Don't worry, that's getting fixed faster than many other disparities. With families (far more often with a single mother than single father) being the fastest growing homeless demographic, followed by single women, gender parity is well on its way. Additionally, one of the largest homelessness creators --- the US military, which discards huge numbers of veterans onto the streets after they are no longer useful canon fodder --- has seen major strides towards gender equality over the last few decades.

No surprises there...

[Anonymous Coward]

After all, nobody would have watched if an adult male programmer won it, would they? Not that TV producers ever fake results to court an audience, of course; such a thing would be unethical. No, just like all the other instances of similar wins, it's just proving once again that all little girls are cleverer than anybody else. Yeah.

Re:No surprises there...

[interval1066]

After all, nobody would have watched if an adult male programmer won it...

A friend of mine whom I respect and admire as a programmer very much might have a lot to say about this. Men receive accolades for being great programmers all the time, the industry is completely dominated by men. Everytime my friend has gotten a new job (she's on her second one in S.V., she's from the east coast and a Carnigie-Mellon grad, very accomplished) she gets hit on by the men in the staff, and knowing she's a lesbian doesn't seem to phaze them. She's gotten held back on other jobs because the admin and IT staff were chauvinistic, gotten practically raped by cabbies, and treated like shit professionally becuase she's attractive. Its absurd and it needs to stop. When we have a truly blind-to-gender society you can call out the feminists. Until then you're full of shit. I can't have respect of my male friends when their bias shows simply becuase a fellow engineer has a vagina between her legs. Its ridiculous.

Re:No surprises there...

[Anonymous Coward]

When we have a truly blind-to-gender society you can call out the feminists.

No. I can call them out RIGHT NOW because what they're proposing is NOT a blind-to-gender society.

Re:No surprises there...

[interval1066]

No. I can call them out RIGHT NOW because what they're proposing is NOT a blind-to-gender society.

I don't support them either, and if you believe I do you mis-read me. They have lost the way. Watching a woman get dressed down because she's a woman, that's a life changing event. I see I got modded down for expressing my opinion. Right is right. 70's feminism was misguided. Equality for everyone; that's right.

Re:No surprises there...

[Anonymous Coward]

When I stop having women who report to me say things like "I'm having issues getting project work out of Fred, even though my work is up on the priority list. I feel like I can't compete because I don't flirt with him." We can stop talking about the importance of gender in the workplace.

Speaking as a male, she's right. Other female project leads who flirt with the technical team member in question get their requests queued first.

There's so many things wrong with that it makes my blood boil. So YES it needs talking about.

ACing because I'm discussing a work situation and ethics require me to eliminate any possibility of it coming back to the individual who reports to me.

Re:No surprises there...

[femtobyte]

what they're proposing is NOT a blind-to-gender society.

What many feminists are proposing is a not blind to existing gender inequalities and their sources society. Anti-feminists like to spread intentional confusion between wanting a gender-blind society and being blind to gender discrimination --- "you can't call out anyone for being misogynistic, because that proves you can still tell which victims of discrimination are female!"

Re:No surprises there...

[godrik]

a fellow engineer has a vagina between her legs.

Picture or it did not happen!

Re:No surprises there...

[serviscope_minor]

who modded this shit insightful?

It's basically dismissing all female achievement as manufactured because the achievers are female. The only thing it offers insight into is the mind of angry anoymous bigots.

I would comment...

[Anonymous Coward]

...but with all the hullabaloo around the treatment of women in computer science lately I'm not even sure what to say anymore. Did she win because she's a girl? Did she win despite being a girl? Clearly being a girl matters, or you wouldn't have mentioned that only four girls participated. Do we wish her luck with her career choice or do we warn her off because she's going to be ogled by her predominantly male colleagues if she pursues this career? Would she prefer that we not talk about her chromosomes and focus instead on the blatantly derivative choice of the "Twivo" name for her app?

Re:I would comment...

[Anonymous Coward]

As the AC submitter, after reading through most of these comments, I expect that if Jenny finds this thread she'll go to work on a new app that filters out forum posts from graceless software developers (which would be most of them in this case).

The reaction here is disappointing.

Re:I would comment...

[Anonymous Coward]

You were the person who made a point of there only being four female participants, weren't you? Couldn't leave an opportunity to make it into a gender story unused, could you? I used to welcome more women in computer science, for the diversity and different perspective, but quite frankly I'm not sure that I want women in CS and IT anymore. With all the attention the gender topic is getting, their presence has become a problem. You have to be on your toes when women are around. At last year's Chaos Communication Congress, someone got reprimanded when he held a door open for a woman. I mean, if that is how normal human interaction is "rewarded", then who expects a sane person not to come to the conclusion that interacting with women in the workplace is an unnecessary risk? You sure as hell can't flirt with them, let alone get any more serious, but now you can't even extend common courtesy. Basically treating them like unlikeable strangers is all that's left if you want to be on the safe side, lest a smile or friendly gesture might be construed as a move. And if that's how it's going to be, then I ask any woman reading this: Please become a teacher, a nurse or something else where the majority of your colleagues will be other women, because nothing you can bring to CS or IT makes up for the trouble your presence will cause. Predatory assholes will continue unfazed by this gender crap, btw., so you will still get hit on, but considerate men will avoid you like the plague.

To you, AC submitter: If you're disappointed by people reacting to a gender story with gender comments, perhaps you need to reevaluate your expectations.

Re:I would comment...

[serviscope_minor]

It it notable because it is rare, and it is rare because of the astonishing gender imbalance.

This will probably cue the whining about how men and women are different, but not explain how in the very, very early days the gender imbalance did not used to exist in the same way.

Re:I would comment...

[BobSutan]

Very good questions. If Jenny was a Jeremy would this have received the attention and accolades it did? Given how prone to bending over backwards academia is to women in tech and heaping praise on women because of their gender, my gut says probably not.

Sexism

[loufoque]

She was probably selected because she's a girl.

Re:Sexism

[Arancaytar]

Indeed, there is a wide-spread institutional bias that stereotypes women as having superior computer skills.

That's why so few men become programmers.

Re:Sexism

[Anonymous Coward]

Is she black? How about Lesbian? Because, that would be the trifecta of affirmative action and race/gender/SO discrimination.

Re:Sexism

[Anonymous Coward]

Which is not what he was saying.

He was saying that she got selected with the primary motivation that she happened to be a girl. This isn't about who is "better". The app itself didn't actually have to be superior, if they had a hidden set of criteria in judging. If they were trying to "fight bias", the fact that there was a bias against her actually works in her favor in the subjective judging when those who don't like the bias decide to overcompensate and select her because she was a girl.

That's what he was saying anyway.

Re:Sexism

[DingerX]

Well, Ms. Lemere, congratulations on your achievement. Like every other achievement in your life where you beat a bunch of boys, you will immediately hear that you only got where you are because you're a girl. After all, the odds are only 1-in-80 that you'll get mentioned for such a competition, and when, roughly 1.25% of the time, you do it mentioned, it will be purely on the basis of discrimination that you are a girl. Heaven forfend that you get an award 1 out of every 15 times. Then, people won't point to the fact that four out of every five of your four sisters were discouraged from competing and so only the most insanely dedicated remained, but rather to your lack of award-appropriate genitalia.

May you continue to enjoy, in every aspect of your life, such blatant and obvious discrimination in your favor.
Wouldn't that be nice for a change?

Re:Sexism

[Anonymous Coward]

Question: Would we even heard about this contest if the winner didn't happen to be a girl?

The point being that we get some random ass contest that some girl won, and we are now expected to cheer because she won it, even though those of us who are nowhere near Boston could have cared less about it.

Feels to me like we're supposed to be taking girls seriously, but we're treating them like they just won the Special Olympics. Which is to say, "good job for winning at a contest that we only care about because it makes you feel better."

I suppose it is good to encourage and show that girls do win coding contests, but I wonder if this is actually the way to encourage them to become interested in CS.

Or even if we should be trying to interest them in CS unless they start out that way.

You have no proof, but..

[OrangeTide]

It certainly wouldn't have been newsworthy if they selected a male 20s-something developer.

Re:You have no proof, but..

[Ardyvee]

Who knows. Maybe it would have. I honestly don't know where the newsworthiness comes in this case: the fact that it's a Boston TV API programming contest, or that a girl won. I'd bet the former, but in today's context the latter may have helped a bit.

Re:You have no proof, but..

[Seumas]

It doesn't really need justification on Slashdot, because Slashdot editorial has established stories like "nine year old indian girl sets up a web server" and "twelve year old child of extremely successful and accomplished parents excels in doing something in the same field as the parents with the parents contacts/assistances/advice/guidance" over the years.

Re:You have no proof, but..

[OrangeTide]

I never heard of the Boston TV API programming contest until it was won by a young woman... so maybe it's just me, but I don't think so.

Re:You have no proof, but..

[K. S. Kyosuke]

When I was in the national round of the Physics Olympiad, there were about three or four girls stacked against forty-five or so guys (yours truly included). One of the girls ended up second (probably only because the winner was a (metaphorically) insane guy who *aced* the national PO *and* Math Olympiad two years in a row, with the first time competing against people one year senior to him). I believe she also ended up second in MO (runner-up to the same guy). Nobody gave a damn. It was somehow considered a fact of everyday life that there are smart girls who can deliver. It still is.

Re:You have no proof, but..

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes. But Physics isn't Software development, so there may be a different view on the phenomena go gender ratios, even if our two exmples are similar.
  I go to work everyday, knowing that our engineering department is significantly over 90% male. This is a large and considered a relatively "hip" consumer electronics company. And I've seen this repeated at other companies in silicon valley as well. And I assume it is the same outside of silicon valley.
We also believe that there are smart women who can deliver. But we also see very few applying for the job. Other departments at this tech company have the opposite ratio of engineering.

I don't generally dwell on it too much, since I don't think there is anything I can do to change it. But I strongly suspect that we are missing something and that women may have a different approach to problem solving that we, as a team, could benefit.

you fail! it

[Anonymous Coward]

?one or the other Vitality. Its corpse turned over

You should be careful with this

[Anonymous Coward]

It may turn out to be just another scam because apparently the best way to get investors is being female.

Best hack needs no API.

[Seumas]

I've found the best broadcast television hack of the past decade has been not to watch it.

*shrug*

Twits tweet on t.v.

[Anonymous Coward]

What kind of idiot has tweets enabled on the t.v.?

Fat, stupid, lazy America....

Oh the humanity!

[Anonymous Coward]

And that's what our best minds are working on: TV/social/apps. What about wasting their time on _really_ useful stuff, like getting us out of healthcare or social security doomsday?

Re:Oh the humanity!

[Anonymous Coward]

don't worry your marxist, cia puppet, master will help you with your "universal" healthcare and your "social security" issues. these spoiled, sellout chumps with their mac books can continue programming ways to more efficiently spew his controllers' propaganda.

Spoiler tweets!?

[Anonymous Coward]

So it's like an app to block an app that shouldn't have been there in the first place? Someone please enlighten us, because at first glance it only seems to benefit the few that would allow tweets in their viewing, wtf kind of ADD do our forever-online misshaped generation folk up to...

I'm like that guy that agrees, 'News ticker on TV? But that's why I bought the TV, so I wouldn't have to read!'

please mod parent and gp down

[Anonymous Coward]

i'm tired of this meme. it's not funny. i thought nerds were smart and creative. guess not as they have to reuse other people's old jokes...

Re:please mod parent and gp down

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks for being a wet blanket. Also, don't tell the moderators what to do, they are able to think for themselves. Go elsewhere to QQ about how you don't like every single thing on the internet.

Not Censorship

[Gription]

No. What you are describing is discrimination.

Re:Not Censorship

[Anonymous Coward]

Discrimination perhaps in the form of filtering audio input, the technical definintion, not the sociopolitical version. After all, not everyone wants to hear the world's greatest disco hits as played by the Highland Pride All-Bagpipe Band.

Re:Not Censorship

[Anonymous Coward]

Now, are you trolling for the social definition of "discrimination" or saying there's a discriminating taste/ sense?

You pedantic troll.

Low hanging fruit?

[RogueWarrior65]

So let me get this straight: This project won an award yet set-top-box delivery UI's still suck the big one. (Here's a big hint: prevent all the channels I don't ever want to see again from being seen e.g. the 36 friggin' shopping/infomercial channels) Makes you wonder what problems the other entrants attempted to solve.

Re:Low hanging fruit?

[Hognoxious]

Makes you wonder what problems the other entrants attempted to solve.

I'm guessing something that scans titles to find shows that may have boobies in them, something that scans reviews to find which shows might have boobies in them, something that scans titles and reviews to find shows that may have boobies in them...

Re:Low hanging fruit?

[AmiMoJo]

A favourite channels list and the ability to block certain channels (e.g. adult channels) is a fairly standard feature on set-top boxes and TVs in the UK. Perhaps the US is different.

Re:Low hanging fruit?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it is the same here in the states. He just needs to RTFM.

Re:Low hanging fruit?

[RogueWarrior65]

I'm not talking about blocking. I want to eliminate those channels from the guide completely never to be seen again. Furthermore, surfing is impractical because the refresh rates are so slow.

Re:Low hanging fruit?

[AmiMoJo]

That's what I'm talking about. Once you add those channels to the blacklist they are not merely blocked, they simply don't appear in the channel list. IIRC it was a requirement of the UK digital terrestrial TV standard because they knew people would object to some of the adult channel names.

Aaaand...

[Anonymous Coward]

she had to be ugly. I swear, if everybody in this world was pretty/handsome, no science would ever get done. No cars, no computers, nothing at all. The world would be a much happier place, tho.

Seriously: Congratulations, Jenny

[Anonymous Coward]

Ignore the sexist vitriol. You've made a really cool thing.

As you can see, many adult men feel threatened by just about everything. Particularly women. They are so miserable, they feel the need to put down the notable accomplishment of a high-school student.

Be proud.

Well....

[Anonymous Coward]

While applaud the ability to do this....Wouldn't it be easier just not to start tweeting while your watching something? I like multitasking as much as the next person but if an app like this is really needed then maybe that is why so much of whats on sucks, because people aren't really watching so they don't noticed the crap quality of the shows on.

What could possibly go wrong?

[Anonymous Coward]

From TFA:

Twivo, a plug-in for Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox browsers that will be available to everyone in a few weeks, blocks tweets if it detects keywords that may reveal important details about a show users may want to watch.

After installing Twivo, users activate the plugin whenever one of their shows is going to come on. They also designate keywords, or tags, to tell Twivo which tweets to block. For example, a user could decide to block tweets that include a show's name, characters' names or even the names of the actors.

Uhu. Now what happens if someone tweets a typo (accidentally or on purpose)? Never underestimate the ingenuity of malicious people. Griefers will find a way.

p.s. "Snaep kills Dumebldoro."

How About

[Anonymous Coward]

How about an app the completely eliminates all tweets, ads(especially animated one), logos, and anything else from the lower third of the screen?

A filter?

[crossmr]

So all she developed was a filter plugin? Really? Like these don't exist already?
I find it extremely hard to believe that no one has developed a plugin like this yet for removing tweets based on hashtags or keywords.

Re:A filter?

[crossmr]

It took me all of 5 seconds to find this one after I submitted that comment:
http://larryfilter.com/

it's been around a year..
#fraud

Funny, I thought this article was about coding...

[ReallyShortNameLengt]

Maybe people should self-censor their OT rants?