The NDAA is the National Defense Appropriation Act, IIRC. It had one very bad provision. I wasn't following what was going on, but not signing it meant that the Department of Defense would be unfunded unless something else could be hammered out. I'm thoroughly unimpressed by Obama's ability to shape legislation in Congress, so I tend not to blame problems in bills passed on him.

The IRS was trying to screen political groups who applied for tax-exempt status, and there's a fine line between tax-exempt and taxable there. I've still not seen good evidence that the IRS was deliberately picking on right-wing groups, or that there's been any deliberate interference with gathering evidence.

Some of that is just distracting from getting the code done. Writing my own test plans and cases for a testing group seems like cheating, and I feel a bit guilty when I have to do it.

FWIW, that's not my experience. We left the code arguably in better shape than we found it.

Requirements change. The most common reason is that the requirements are normally simply not known until the project is underway. There are exceptions; my wife liked working for accountants because they knew what they wanted ahead of time. However, most people don't know what they need until they see enough things they don't need. Good requirements analysis can help (and I have daydreamed of getting mob enforcers to do it - "Is ya gonna tell me what data you need here or is I gonna break your kneecap?"), but it almost never works all the way. Another reason is that the situation changes, whether by reorganization or new laws. I've also seen requirements people meet with the managers of the workers who are going to use the project, but that's simply bad requirements analysis. I've also been on a very successful scrum project where our hardware engineer was still doing basic design work while we were getting the preparations done. We did know the overall system very well, and so we had a good idea where we were going to have to make changes. I wouldn't recommend that process for everything, but it saved time getting a new process ready for customers.

Doing visible accounting of the cost of change requests is useful, and on a large project you really do want a change control board. You usually have to be prepared for large changes anyway.

I'm not sure it's as bad as you make it out to be. If you're on a limited devkit list, then the platform maintainer is likely to have some sort of interest in your company, whereas by comparison Microsoft really doesn't care about me. Moreover, you have less competition in your limited area, and hence greater opportunity to make money easier. It is a long-term risk, but it has strategic pluses and minuses.

I have played some MMORGs, driven in busy city traffic with my window open, and ridden on buses frequently. To repeat, I've never received a rape threat or many death threats, and those weren't in the situations you describe. I've heard and seen people use language I wouldn't, but I didn't receive hate email from them.

She's complaining neither about office nor game/forum stuff. She's complaining about people who go the extra mile to grief effectively and personally. Things like personal emails that sometimes show that the sender has done research useful in committing the crimes he threatens. I am mostly unfamiliar with trash talk in gaming; do the assholes typically get personal, detailed, and specific while sending hate mail to personal email accounts and websites to men?

A woman's body, right, and choice are not a man's responsibility, so I hope you're happy with the progress in the world.

These complaints aren't of random griefing on forums. These complaints are of people who aren't content with just insulting people, but who track them down. Wu got insulting email and a threat backed by research on how to execute it. Nina had people track down her website and post hate mail on it. Nicole I don't know enough to judge. Elise writes about being physically restrained at a gaming event, and being sent chapters of pornographic fanfic anonymously. Carolyn seems to be dealing with the abuse.

This seems to me to be largely different from being insulted and threatened on a gaming channel.

Overall, in field X that discourages group Y, members of Y in field X got there because of determination, and are very likely better on the average than not-Ys. I'd expect a female programmer to be slightly better than a male programmer on the average, and a male nurse to be slightly better than a female nurse on the average.

There's lots of things I have a great deal of difficulty understanding. Prejudice against women. Prejudice against minorities. Prejudice against GLBT people. Prejudice against the poor. What my Ukrainian neighbor went through in the 1930s and 1940s. It may be that I lack empathy, but I just don't get much prejudice against me for belonging to a group.

Therefore, I try to take complaints from people in less favored social groups seriously. I don't understand. I'm not sure I really can.

We seem to live on different planets. I see men and women who think they deserve special treatment, and I haven't noticed a real numbers difference. I observe approximately no harassment, so I can't really tell how people would react to it.

There is a difference between "Your code is crappy. How did you ever get a job as a programmer?" and "Your code is crappy. I'm going to show up at your house sometime and commit a very serious violent felony on you.". Insult my code all you want. I'll either figure you're full of BS, or I'll improve my code. I'd rather not get threats of violence.

You seem to be missing the point. The claim in TFA is that a sufficient number of real assholes exist to make women's lives miserable, and that most men don't take it seriously or do anything to help. That is entirely consistent.

Okay, suppose a woman sexually assaults me by grabbing my ass. In almost all cases, I don't have to take an unarmed woman seriously as a physical threat. I'm not a good fighter, but I'm a lot bigger than most women, and size counts here.

Now, suppose I sexually assault a woman by grabbing her ass. In general, she does have to take that as a serious threat, since I am probably capable of overpowering an unarmed woman*. (It's also easier to sexually assault a woman with a grab, as grabbing her boobs counts and grabbing my chest doesn't.)

There is a disparity here that we need to take into account.

*Probability is estimate only, not based on data, like 68.3% of all statistics quoted on the Net.