Underwear would make more sense than a shirt, but it's a Kickstarter not NASA. No tax $$ involved.

I would like to report that I did change my underwear.

Amy, as teh intarwebz say: Pictures or it didn't happen. 😉

Either that's not an actual "tech reporter" or she's the worst one ever. I know loads of guys who stink and wear the same clothes over and over again. They're busy thinking about complex problems, not clothes which is partly why they're in the tech industry in the first place.

Her profile says:

Maya Kosoff
@mekosoff ain't no twitter in heaven. @vfhive @vanityfair tech reporter. views = mine. maya_kosoff@condenast.com

New York, NY
http://www.vanityfair.com/contributor/maya-kosoff
Joined October 2009

Hah, BlogDog.

I'm an engineer working on a device that will lead to better surgical outcomes for breast cancer patients. Working late into the night is the norm for me and my coworkers, so I'll take anything that saves me from having to do chores at home. I'd like to think that my desire to work on life saving technologies instead of vacuuming doesn't make me a "man-child."

My girlfriend the nurse and public health researcher has less free time than me and she encouraged me to hire a housekeeper to make our lives easier. I suppose this makes her a "woman-child."

Ms. Kosoff is apparently horrified at the idea that guys might wear the same shirt for more than one day.

It's stereotypical but true: women care what clothes people wear, men don't. I have some weekly events. I've been scolded for wearing the same shirt on the same weekday, because I show up at a weekly event dressed the same. Seriously? Women keep track of shit like that? Apparently they do.

Eventually, we man children grow up. That's when we stop caring what people like Ms. Kosoff think.

Ah "crick". Reminds me of growing up in Minnesota.

She has a bachelor's degree in journalism. These are the courses she has listed:

Multimedia Storytelling (COM 117)
Newswriting (NEW 205)
Reporting (NEW 305)
Race, Gender and Media (COM 346)
Introduction to Graphic Design (GRA 217/218)
Editorial, Ethics, and Business of Magazines (MAG 205)
Magazine Article Writing (MAG 406)
Social Media Theory & Practice (COM 400)
Magazine Editing (MAG 408)
Communications Law for Journalists (COM 505)
Web Journalism and Innovation (ICC 505)

You can decide for yourself if she is qualified as a tech reporter, but my answer is she is not, so she takes what she knows "race, gender & media", and snarky twitter pop culture and views tech and startups through that lens.

This seems to be quite common these days, I find science reporter after science reporter who sole degrees are in communications or journalism and apparently have never taken a college level STEM course.

They are all over, WIRED is filled with them and they just go and make the rounds.

That said she has a point, though it's not hers and its a very old point and she reduces it to trite.

There are a lot of kickstarters, startups, and tech companies ala google who *do* seem to view everything they do as solving the problems of a urban 20 something with too much money.

This shirt isn't necessarily part of that. And the need this shirt fills isn't new either. We've had all sorts of stain resistant, smell resistant, no ironing needed, wrinkle free, shirts for decades. Sometimes they are a gimmick. Sometimes for better or worse they make claims to being high tech products, either by using high tech fabrics or embedding nanotechnology.

Who knows?

I would expect a tech reporter to look into it and tell us what's what rather than just badmouth it.

Guarantee you though, if the shirts were directed towards women, she wouldn't be crying.

If a self cleaning fabric could be developed, it would save a lot of water and electricity. That would be a real environmental boon. It's counterintuitive because we are so so used to washing clothes after one use.

And there's "imagine if Silicon Valley spent as much time solving actual problems." Does this nitwit have any idea how much innovation happens in Silicon Valley every day? To take a trivial example, does she realize how many problems had to be solved so that she could tote around a smartphone?

One startup trying to make an extended-wear shirt is a drop in the ocean.

A feminist who's a misandrist bigot? What a yawner of a story. What next? A fish that swims? A klansman who doesn't like blacks?

"Imagine if Silicon Valley spent as much time solving actual problems ..."

Is it safe to assume that the criteria for determining "actual problems" lie with Maya Kosoff?

She probably has a quota of "blogs" to meet and is pissed at her SO.

To me (old white married guy) she is typical of the majority of the coastal younger generation (we will need a name for deese guys).

Read a "news" article yesterday explaining (not justifying but explaining) how important it was that H.S. students protest and that we listen to their concerns.

I will not ignore these protesters or the people explaining how important they are (keep your friends close and your enemies closer), HOWEVER the majority of the coastal 18 - 23 crowd has everything provided for them (shelter, food, clothes, spending money, etc.) so they have no skin in the game. (See ObamaCare 26 YO can stay on Mama's health plan.)

They are "important" to their parents and those that need warm bodies in the streets, but that does not mean their opinions are based on factual practical experience. (See Obama deporting 2 - 3 million and no one "important" knows/cares.)

Someone working two $15/hr. jobs because the economy is doing GREAT (Look at all these jobs being created!) will have a POV that is worth listening to even if I'm not initially on board.

This lady does not.

By the way, if you fund somebody's idea through Kickstarter, are you supposed to expect some kind of return on investment? I really don't know anything about how Kickstarter works.

@Old RPM: If you fund a project on kickstarter, you usually get the product (at a discount), if the project is successful. Depending on the project, they may offer some other incentive as well, but it's never about investment.

I just had a look at this kickstarter: $35 gets you one short sleeve shirt, and $170 gets you two short sleeve and two long sleeve shirts. There are some levels in between.

The trick in this case is that they want to integrate metallic silver into the fabric. Dunno if that really works to do what they hope, but it's at least plausible.

Women who aren't nice to guys they're with are idiots. Even though I turned in the book, I have a bibliography to create the asshole way -- by picking up 1,000 studies off my floor, finding the cites on Google scholar, and entering them in Mendeley and then fixing all the things (like journal names) that don't go in all the way. In addition to my regular work and trying to put my life back together -- all the stuff I dropped.

Gregg drove all the way downtown the other day to get me flowers. I have a practical tree of sunflowers and this huge vase of huge orange marigolds. Makes me happy every time I look at them. (These are what I call "happy flowers" and I prefer them to roses, which I think make my house smell like the ladies' bathroom.) This week, he also picked up my mail, brought me In 'N' Out, and groceries.

Find a good guy and be sweet to him and that's the sort of stuff that happens.

She's another woman who went into journalism because she hates and wants to destroy that on which she reports. It's how they build them these days.

It's a shame we don't have more manual labor jobs. As Fred Reed used to say, she's in the 90% that's only fit for farm or factory work. She's overeducated beyond her mental capacity.

@jerry

I had a guy working for me who wore the same shirt everyday, and it was falling apart. For Christmas, the company bought him a replacement. He was deeply touched.

I've had lots of junior and starting programmers who were absolutely poor at the start, and they continued to operate in that manner even as the money showed up, because they had no belief that it would last. These are the sorts of guys who calculate the calorie density of various local food joints to get the maximum calories per dollar.

Even in Silicon Valley, if you're making $75k, but you are saddled with a housing payment that's 50% or more of your money, and you have to pay for parking and every other thing that makes life unaffordable, you scrimp and save. Buying a $3500 laptop every two years is not a luxury - it's an essential investment in work tools - clothing is pretty low on the list.

"For Christmas, the company bought him a replacement."

Wow. Something right going on there.

Is it safe to assume that the criteria for determining "actual problems" lie with Maya Kosoff?

Kip's Law: Every advocate of central planning always — always — envisions himself as the central planner.

"As Fred Reed used to say, she's in the 90% that's only fit for farm or factory work"

Focusing only on the second part of that, factory work: I'm thinking she might not be all that successful as a toolmaker or a CNC programmer or an industrial engineer or a shift supervisor or a....

I used to work in convenient stores when I was first entering the work force, and they gave us work shirts to wear (which they charged us for). Usually, you'd get two shirts, or maybe three. Unless you're doing laundry every day, you were going to be wearing an unlaundered shirt on consecutive days.

More to the point, a shirt that can be worn on consecutive days is imminently practical. Laundering causes clothing to fade and wear out quicker. It's a great idea to have shirts that can be worn on consecutive days; it will last much longer.

In your place, I would have sent her something snarky that would stick in her feminist craw. "Sore, just because your quickly becoming obsolete as a housewife?"

Ms. Kosoff is apparently horrified at the idea that guys might wear the same shirt for more than one day. ~ a_random_guy at November 16, 2016 11:27 PM

I think she's horrified that scientists might work on anything that has profitable commercial applications. And s shirt that can be worn several times before laundering definitely has commercial applications, for both men and women.

If she had tech skills she'd be working in tech for more money. As it is she's a reporter and hates the tech field she covers.

@Patrick: Ka-Zing! That's a good one.

Well, if you're locked up in your house slaving over a book, you don't need to wear a shirt. Just sayin'.

And don't anyone try to tell me that women don't ever re-wear anything. I know better. I have a female acquaintance that I'm fairly close to, and I know she does laundry once a month "whether I need to or not!". Most women who have been willing to fess up about it will admit that bras in particular get worn several times. Which I can actually understand since the more complicated ones are a PITA to wash.

Well, the shirt may not stink, but the wearer might. That is unacceptable. And even if you've bathed and can't smell anything in the shirt you wore yesterday, others might. In some workplaces, that's OK. In workplaces where you have to meet clients face to face, it usually isn't.

The Tightwad Gazette once pointed out that if you're trying to save money by living in a very small apartment or house, it often makes sense to have fewer clothes and to wash them more frequently instead of having lots of clothes and washing only when you have a full load. (Of course, a tightwad would likely look for free clothes whenever possible, but again, there are advantages in not acquiring even free clothes.)

BTW, ever heard of the 1951 Alec Guinness movie "The Man in the White Suit"? It's funny and gets 7.4 out of 10 stars.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0044876/?ref_=nv_sr_1

"An altruistic chemist invents a fabric which resists wear and stain as a boon to humanity, but both big business and labor realize it must be suppressed for economic reasons."

Thanks, lenona -- hadn't heard of that, but the plot (though fictional) is not surprising.

The Man in the White Suit was one of Guiness' Ealing Studios movies. If you only know Guiness from Star Wars, Lawrence of Arabia, or The Bridge over the River Kwai, it's well worth checking out his early work for Ealing: The Ladykillers, The Lavender Hill Mob, Kind Hearts and Coronet, and the aforementioned White Suit are among the ones not to be missed. Be aware, they are early British movies and the budgets were pretty tight, so they're going to look dated.

Does anyone know if this Kosoff woman has ever done anything for another human being in her entire goddam life?

To condemn the Silicon Valley as unconcerned with "actual problems" is delusionally arrogant. No mortal creature has ever established an identity of angelic kindness authorizing such snark... No one. I doubt seriously that she's socially equipped to pass judgment on man-children, nor men, nor children.

Interesting that Jardin, whose vision of such things is pretty clouded as well, felt it was a perspective needing greater consideration.



These are women who want to tell the Silicon Valley what "problems to solve."

What do you suppose their personal financial investments are like?

And after all, it's The Valley. Why don't they call up some capital and do it themselves?

Why does she use the word "imagine"?

No need to imagine - they already do.

So she grasps onto one idea/project wraps it around with some low level sexism then blames a whole industry.

Then surprising part is some people here actually gave some good reasons on why the shirt might be beneficial albeit minimally to society.

Where is the outrage for the multitude of other silly/wasteful project out there. How about a toasters that can allow you to draw pictures on bread.

Would there be the same outrage if it was to be used to develop lets say a bra?

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/evolutionbra/8-in-1-evolution-bra-the-worlds-most-advanced-bra

I don't suppose Ms. Kosoff could appreciate that women might like to have a shirt or other garment that they could wear for multiple days. That way, they would have more money for more pairs of shoes.

" The trick in this case is that they want to integrate metallic silver into the fabric. Dunno if that really works to do what they hope, but it's at least plausible."

Colloidal silver is used a lot in water purifiers, which may be where the idea came from. We now have socks here with silver in them, but I haven't tried them. The reviews are good, though.

Metallic silver is antimicrobial. So is copper and gold but copper has oxidation, flexibility, as well as some health issues. Gold is much more expensive. The antimicrobial effects are mainly due to it's high conductivity. So other high conductivity materials should have similar effects.

First I'd like to point out that having a tech degree or two does not really qualify you to be a tech writer. Sure as shit not for vanity faire. I can spend hours discussing various tech things from FFT to g-code, to CAD\CAM. However it's the psych courses and the "fluffy stuff" that allows me to explain it in a way most people will actually. And even then I basically suck at it, so do most of us nerds. You'd probably be better off hiring a stooge like me to explain this carp to you once or a dozen times in different ways then you do the human perspective. Also Amy has no tech degree either but can write elaquantly on many advanced science topics. Why? Because she reads that's all that's required. Think I'm wrong? Try reading a tech manual written by an engineer. Tech degree makes you qualified to design and build the stuff. Pontificate on the perspective of the average user? NO and hell no.

Second point snark sells. Would Amy's book be as catchy if the tittle was "Good manners for people that say crud"? No? Kosoff doing her job hell we don't like her or her world view but we are talking about it yes?

Her comment is stupid not because of her snarkyness or her lack of tech degrees. It's stupid for the fact that her grasp of reality sucks. Not everyone can solve world hunger, aids or global fuel shortage. Someone has the keep the people doing that fed, clothed housed and not wiping their ass with leaves.

Walter, I thought the point was that Kosoff's sucky ignorant comments were typical of the field. Not that Kosoff is significant in and of herself.

Broblems.

I heart Frog and what you're doing. Dealing with that right now and there are no fun outcomes cosmetically when it happens. Godspeed your work, friend.

"Sore, just because your[sic] quickly becoming obsolete as a housewife?"

Did I do that one right?

lol