A friend in college was accused of something worse, luckily witnesses (her friends) and a video camera proved otherwise and she finally admitted the truth to the police two months later. No jail time for her lying, but this guys whole life was on the verge of destruction - jail time, registered sex offender for life, everyone in your social circle would think you are a monster, all friends in your hometown, your parents, their friends, any future employers that could Google, etc.

I'm certainly not saying that in this case, but this type of thing is completely your word versus theirs and an ounce of caution should be taken in the rush to judgement until all the facts come out.

My brain stalled for about 20 minutes just trying to get some thought around all of the implications of this. Then it was gradually replaced by a the sinking feeling one gets when watching tremendous opportunity lost.

Her husband, Doug, drums up business. “We deliver food, flowers, whatever anybody needs,” she says. “We charge $5 for delivery in town.” Money is tight. Each time they get ahead, there’s a financially draining trip to Vancouver.

What!?

Some of the greatest leaps in understanding about how our brains work, not to mention untold wonders in technological advancement might be presented to us on a platter via this once in a multi-generation opportunity and they're housed in some crap rental trying to deliver flowers to make ends meet??? This family should immediately be declared a national treasure and have the full support of the Canadian government.

Expensive? Morally nebulous? Look, we yanks will build a multi-100-million dollar prison and get over the moral gray-ness of water-boarding just to find a few bombs. Helping out what might turn out to be a simple disabled pair of twins in exchange for knowledge that may improve humanity forever shouldn't be that much of a stretch.

I know this might be an unpopular opinion and attract downvotes, but I just got a +70 for what I though was a throwaway one-liner. If that's how the karma flows, then bring it.

She has tweeted a link to a working copy of the article: http://blog.nerdchic.net/archives/418/

The tweet quotes the line: "It is not my job to avoid getting assaulted. It is everyone else's job to avoid assaulting me."

I think that statement is wrongheaded. Not the second part - it is indeed everyone else's job to avoid assaulting people. The responsibility for the crime lies entirely with the perpetrator.

Unfortunately, because of this, making any statement as to the victim's behavior is always seen as "blaming the victim".

The problem is, in this world, we only reliably control the actions of one person: ourselves. We can take principled stands that "it's everyone else's job to not assault me", and that's so true, but in the end, being right isn't a suitable stand-in for being safe.

That is why I don't like the statement, "It is not my job to avoid getting assaulted". Because regardless of where the responsibility should lie, in reality, we are ALWAYS the stewards of our own personal safety. We have to be, because we're the only person in the world who will treat the job with the gravity it deserves.

If I walk down a bad alley, it is not my fault if I get shot. The person pulling the trigger is 100% at fault. But, I was not being a good steward of my own safety.

Towards the end of the post, she says, "I’m tired of people who think I should avoid having a beer in case my vigilance lapses for a moment." You have a right to be tired. I've lived in a couple of unsafe places where I grew tired of the fact that I had to be vigilant just to go about my daily life. It is draining and it is frustrating to have to alter your behavior because of the threat posed by others. But we only have one life, and safety must take priority over principle.

It is right to say that the perpetrator is the one at fault. It is right to call them out and make them account for their actions. Innocent people shouldn't have to alter their behavior to avoid danger. But the reality is that they have to anyway.

EDIT: Allow me to clarify a couple of points. Some people are taking me as saying, "you have to do everything possible to protect yourself, and if something happens, then you didn't protect yourself enough."

This is false. Sometimes, stuff happens even if you do everything right. The point was simply that you have a responsibility to your own personal well-being to do everything right, even though you can't guarantee 100% safety.

Also, I have avoided applying my comments to her specific sequence of events. Some people have taken me as lecturing her in failing. Folks, she was largely successful in doing what I'm saying. Her attacker was clearly intending to do more and was foiled. This may not have been the case if, say, she had been too drunk, or in a place where she was not able to make the escape she did, etc.

What her attacker did was the sexual assault equivalent of a sucker punch. He found the ever-so-slightest opening and exploited it. She successfully shook off the initial attack and defended herself from any further assault. We're talking about a situation that could have ended much worse, and didn't because she was able to take ownership of her safety. And she had to do so because there was no one else to do the job.

Which is why I found the comments in her blog/tweet that I replied to a little puzzling, and made this post to address them.

She said no, he groped her. What do you propose she should have done to be a "steward of her personal safety"? Live as though every male could attempt to sexually assault her? Is that how you want your wife/girlfriend/daughter going through life? Do you think that's how they want to go through life? Is that how we want female members of the tech community feeling at these types of gatherings?

Look, I appreciate the fact you're trying to make a reasoned, pragmatic argument on an emotional issue. But the fact of the matter is this is a situation that we can change and do something about. Anyone should feel comfortable participating in our community without fearing for their personal safety; we have the ability to support victims and make clear to those who would commit these crimes that it's not something they can get away with, which is not the current status quo.

Sorry, but if you're comparing open source contributions, Google wins by any metric. Consider Chromium, V8, Android, WebM, GWT, Protocol buffers, the Closure Javascript library+compiler+linter, and jillions of other projects (http://code.google.com/hosting/search?q=label:google), not to mention the tremendous support they've given Mozilla over the years, their work in defining and promoting open standards like HTML5, plus indirect contributions via the Google Summer of Code program.

Long term capital gains tax cuts sunset after 2010, right? My back of the envelope math is that if he waits one nanosecond after midnight on December 31st he gets to pay Uncle Sam an extra $65 million. I can think of things that I'd rather do with the money -- I'm guessing he can, too.

Incentives change behavior.

The article seems to be down, so I can't read it right now. But I went to DefCon when I was 17, and it was the most sexually threatened I've ever felt. Some things were benign, a lot of strange looks and stupid things like guys dropping stuff and asking me to pick it up. Someone followed me in a parking lot and then ducked out of sight twice. Someone grabbed my ass on the way out of a talk.

I otherwise had a great time there, but I didn't go back for 10 years. I had none of the same issues later, but I'm not sure if the crowd has changed or if they're just less interested in 27 year olds.