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Inter IKEA Systems BV called me

ikeahackers.net

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Re: Inter IKEA Systems BV called me

#31

Post by mhd »

glomph wrote: post #30
jeroen wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

girl, not guy.

It might be a bit tangential I guess but did guy always mean male person? My mum and quite a few people from her generation seem to often use it to mean both men and women. This is in the UK though.

The etymology of "guy" is worth looking up. Apparently derived from Guy Fawkes, who was burnt in effigy. And said effigies became a synonym for "grotesque person" which in turn became just "person". In view of that, male or female shouldn't really matter and, yes, I've heard it used for both genders. (Quite often in the "you guys" form, which is yet another way to compensate for a lack of appropriate grammar in English).

Re: Inter IKEA Systems BV called me

#32

Post by nawitus »

pdabbadabba wrote: post #23
nawitus wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the person who runs the site in all probability is a male if you don't know otherwise. It's a non-sexist probability assessment.

> Because the person who runs the site in all probability is a male if you don't know otherwise. I agreed with this at first glance, but on second glance: What makes you say this? If you are like me, then your antecedent probability assumption itself was based on sexism, and not evidence. And, in fact, some quick Googling suggests that at least half of bloggers are women. I suppose its debatable whether Ikeahackers i…

>I agreed with this at first glance, but on second glance: What makes you say this? If you are like me, then your antecedent probability assumption itself was based on sexism, and not evidence. And, in fact, some quick Googling suggests that at least half of bloggers are women.

You wrongly assume that the probability assessment was done solely on the fact that it's a blog. It's not. There are additional information that influences the probability. Mainly that there's hacking involved.

Re: Inter IKEA Systems BV called me

#33

Post by TazeTSchnitzel »

mhd wrote: post #31
glomph wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It might be a bit tangential I guess but did guy always mean male person? My mum and quite a few people from her generation seem to often use it to mean both men and women. This is in the UK though.

The etymology of "guy" is worth looking up. Apparently derived from Guy Fawkes, who was burnt in effigy. And said effigies became a synonym for "grotesque person" which in turn became just "person". In view of that, male or female shouldn't really matter and, yes, I've heard it used for both genders. (Quite often in the "you guys" form, which is yet another way to compensate for a lack of appropriate grammar in Engli…

English did have a plural you, which IIRC was the word "you" and "thou" was singular (might be wrong here).

Re: Inter IKEA Systems BV called me

#34

Post by TazeTSchnitzel »

ansimionescu wrote: post #9
jeroen wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

girl, not guy.

I'm as anti-sexism as the next rational human being, but I too catch myself doing this default-to-guy thing. Any idea why it happens?

If you mean defaulting to that word, it's because it's the best generic stand-in.

If you mean defaulting to assuming someone's male, it's because it's deeply ingrained in culture. Notice how female characters in cartoons often must be explicitly differentiated as such (pink ribbons, bows, clothes)?

Re: Inter IKEA Systems BV called me

#35

Post by gonzo »

mtVessel wrote: post #6

IANAL, but isn't it incumbent upon IKEA to issue a C&D, whether they want to or not, in order to show they are actively using their trademark? From what I've heard, if they didn't, someone else might have a case that their trademark is open to use.

Nominative use is allowed. (You can think of this as a trademark analog of "fair use" in Copyright.)

Re: Inter IKEA Systems BV called me

#36

Post by pdabbadabba »

nawitus wrote: post #32
pdabbadabba wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Because the person who runs the site in all probability is a male if you don't know otherwise. I agreed with this at first glance, but on second glance: What makes you say this? If you are like me, then your antecedent probability assumption itself was based on sexism, and not evidence. And, in fact, some quick Googling suggests that at least half of bloggers are women. I suppose its debatable whether Ikeahackers i…

>I agreed with this at first glance, but on second glance: What makes you say this? If you are like me, then your antecedent probability assumption itself was based on sexism, and not evidence. And, in fact, some quick Googling suggests that at least half of bloggers are women. You wrongly assume that the probability assessment was done solely on the fact that it's a blog. It's not. There are additional information t…

I think we're all still waiting to see the evidence -- as opposed to biases -- upon which you're basing these antecedent probabilities.

There's also another point worth making: even if it were true that you have a truly objective, rational reason for assuming that (e.g.) the author of the blog is a man, this doesn't resolve the question of whether you should speak as though you assume all unidentified hackers, bloggers, whatever are men. There is more at stake than whether you happen to be right or wrong in guessing the blogger's gender. The problem is that such patterns of language can and do easily harden into norms -- i.e., you may only use masculine nouns for probabilistic reasons, but this pattern of speaking, if sufficiently widespread, can give rise to the view it is abnormal (in the normative, not the merely descriptive sense) for women to hack or start hacker blogs. This is a bad thing because the social pressure that results can meaningfully restrict the freedom of future women.

Re: Inter IKEA Systems BV called me

#37

Post by thelinked »

TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #33
mhd wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The etymology of "guy" is worth looking up. Apparently derived from Guy Fawkes, who was burnt in effigy. And said effigies became a synonym for "grotesque person" which in turn became just "person". In view of that, male or female shouldn't really matter and, yes, I've heard it used for both genders. (Quite often in the "you guys" form, which is yet another way to compensate for a lack of appropriate grammar in Engli…

English did have a plural you, which IIRC was the word "you" and "thou" was singular (might be wrong here).

"you" was the formal form of "thou". In Ireland we use "ye" as the plural of you.

Re: Inter IKEA Systems BV called me

#38

Post by doktrin »

michaelhoffman wrote: post #12
mtVessel wrote: post #6

IANAL, but isn't it incumbent upon IKEA to issue a C&D, whether they want to or not, in order to show they are actively using their trademark? From what I've heard, if they didn't, someone else might have a case that their trademark is open to use.

It's incumbent on IKEA to police unauthorized use of their trademark somehow, but that doesn't have to mean that they must start by sending a nasty letter. When Jack Daniels thought their trademark was being infringed, they started by sending a nice letter simply asking the infringer to stop. http://abovethelaw.com/2012/07/cease-and-desist-letter-of-th... Another way to deal with unauthorized use of a trademark is to…

The Jack Daniels C&D letter should be a case study in public relations. While not universal, people really do respond quite well when faced with civility and respect.

Re: Inter IKEA Systems BV called me

#39

Post by SomeCallMeTim »

jeroen wrote: post #3
SomeCallMeTim wrote: post #2

Given the obvious benefits TO Ikea of ikeahackers.net, it seems likely that it was an overzealous legal department move to "protect" the trademark. It's easy to forget how many people there are in a company like Ikea, and the fact that not every trademark cease-and-desist gets vetted by the people who run the company. The thing is they should be able to protect it by simply "licensing" it to the guy who runs ikeahack…

girl, not guy.

I would get yelled at by my wife if I said "girl" and meant anyone over about 15.

As such, given I didn't know the gender (or age) of the person involved, I tend to default to "guy" as gender-neutral. As mentioned by another post, "you guys" can include both genders.

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