Well, in response to a: I would say that we already do EVA's, and we have done them outside the earth's magnetic field. We could probably use the information gleaned from those experiences to make the EVA's on the way to mars more survivable. EVA's could also be performed so that the activity took place on the shade side of the ship, or when the ship was behind a planet. We already have professions that cause mild exposure to alpha- and beta-radiation and we've come up with novel abatement strategies. Also, one other strategy that I've seen discussed would be to shield the ship within its own ionized cocoon, much like earth. I don't know the feasibility of that.
B: As you said in a:, EVA's would be possible. The shuttle already carries materials needed to repair minor leaks- we already have that covered. The spacecraft would likely be constructed with en-route repairability in mind, much like submarine, so the marsnauts could take of things on their own.
C: My point with those examples was that they were all usually very far from help and at the same time they were in pretty dangerous situations. The submariners could always surface, except when they don't (thresher et al.) The trapper didn't have to deal with radiation, but he did have to deal with cold, disease, hostile natives, wars going on around him sometimes, etc. If he slipped on a rock and broke his hip, he would die. Period. And the south pole scientists actually can't leave during the winter. And from what I understand, the winter crew is sort of... special. So you're right about that part.
D: yeah, it would basically suck. Life sucks here on earth a lot, too. I just got done removing all the insulation from my house; it gets everywhere, including the lungs. My water lines were frozen solid this morning; I had to come to work to shave. I have to sleep in insulated coveralls. However, I accept this as a necessarily crappy part before the good part. I imagine that I could put up with slightly worse if the payoff would be so huge; and sending humans to live on another planet would be one of the biggest payoffs in all of human history. I and probably everyone I know will be forgotten 20 years after we die; going to mars would make you a part of one of history's great milestones. Highways, mountains, holidays, and maybe even countries, stars, and planets will be named after you. It may seem kind of hokey, but I've heard from many parents that having kids affords them a chance at living on after they die. This would be like having 6 billion kids who are actually *happy* with the way you did your job.
I really enjoy my life here on earth, but I also enjoy smoking, drinking, eating pizza, etc. Those are all things that I will have to give up soon for (my) greater good. I don't like being shot at, but I can sacrifice some of my 'safe' time if it's for the greater good. I am by no means a utilitarian, but if people like me volunteer for dangerous or painful experiences, they should not be held back by those who won't. There are bigger things than me; I believe the human race should have every opportunity to grow and mature. It would be a shame if human exploration was halted by religious, ethical, or political reasons.
We let people eat and drink themselves to death in this country and call it 'consumerism'. We need to take the next step and let people explore and science themselves to death if they want. Humanity can gain so much more than plus-sized coffins and reruns of sitcoms.
Your argument, although I can see how it is somewhat valid, could be applied in slightly different language to every risky human endeavor we've ever undertaken. It will always be the case that life is risky.
Military here, too- I'm proud of what I do. But I had to point out that if you *didn't* say the pledge, or even if you just changed a word or two (like leaving out 'god'), you were in for some major, humiliating tongue-lashing.
I'm not saying that teachers are all in on some conspiracy; the pledge is just something expected of the students, and the teachers make it happen. However, at that age a person doesn't have a choice about how they feel about it all. I think doug stanhope said it best- religion (and I'd say patriotism) should be introduced when a person turns 18. It's not fair to grow up believing something without knowing why.
I don't think I should have to look at 20 flags on my way to work. I know where I am.
I'm in the military. Stand back, people: I'll tell you what happened.
Colonel Fuckwit: Airman, we need a better picture of Gen Doodles for some newspaper crap. All I can find is this shitty ID card photo saved on the S:\ drive.
-next day-
Senior Airman Dropout: That's the only photo I could find, too. Gen Doodles is in Egypt/Iraq/Florida right now so I just kind of, you know, fixed this shitty photo and put in a new background. It'll work fine.
Col Fuckwit: Perfect. [walks down hall to Gen Tard's office]
Col Fuckwit: Here you go, Gen Tard- The photo you wanted. I worked all weekend on it.
Gen Tard: Whatever.
-two weeks later-
Gen Tard: Fuckwit, you're fired from your current job because of your role in this debacle. However, the only available job is a spot in the pentagon in the rank of Brigadier General. Congratulations. Airman Dropout, we're transferring you Yakima. You'll never work in this town again, shithead! And we'll make the new uniform mandatory yet only issue you a rain poncho! HA HA HA!*
[Bow, exit stage left]
-b
True story. Try getting cold-weather gear hear in MN. You'll get a rubberized poncho that cracks at under 10 degrees F...
a- Not a problem with a modest amount of HDPE shielding and strategically pointing the thickest parts of the ship (the main thrusters?) towards the sun.
b- What is with people and vacuums? The ship will be at something like.8-.9 atmospheres. Outside will be about 0 atmosphere. Take a submarine down 32 feet underwater and you've recreated the same pressure differential. A good post a month back or so figured out that a small hole in the ISS would take several weeks to drain all the air out (you have to account for the decreasing pressure difference).
c- If a bunch of 19-year-old submariners, 17th-century fur trappers, and overwintering south pole scientists can deal with it, so can you.
d- Your habitat upon landing will most likely be nicer than the ship. In all likelihood it will be the first long, hot shower in gravity that you've had for a long time. The comfort of walking on your feet. Looking at a sky. Oh, and your living modules would most likely be completely assembled and tested by the time you arrive.
Deathwish? Ask the hundreds of thousands (millions?) of soldiers still alive today who volunteered for combat duty. I deploy back to iraq in a week, and I was the first name on the sign-up roster. I don't know what the fuck is wrong with me, but it could very well go wrong with you, too, if only you worked on it a bit.
It is not politically correct to speak of the inhabitants of the new world in anything but the most glowing terms. Recant immediately!
Ignore the human sacrifice. Ignore the slavery, war, and genocide. Ignore the extinction of animals that no European has ever laid eyes on. Those are distractions from the real issue, which is that everything bad in the world was caused by the industrial revolution.
You're comparing one or two isolated incidents that were punished swiftly and harshly with total institutionalized use of rape as a force measure by an entire army?
>>Nevertheless fear of wasps is much more acceptable than fear of spiders, but only slightly more justifiable, and it's just as irrational.
Tell that to the 4 people I know who have to carry epi-pens around in case of bee stings.
-b
Re:nerd and geek vs wannabes
on
American Nerd
·
· Score: 1
Hm.
I would have thrown in, "If you define a social group narrowly enough to include you and only a few other people while simultaneously aggrandizing it, you might be a wannabe," but I didn't want to offend you.
>>If you care about what people think about you and what badges they put on you, you are a wannabe.
I would say, "If you care about what people think about other people and what badges they put on each other, you are a wannabe," but I didn't want to cause offense.
That's interesting. I've just recently begun to notice that I process language differently from the people I associate with- and by saying that I don't necessarily mean that my way is better.
Unlike you, my stream of consciousness is represented by fully-spelled words and fully articulated thoughts. Ideas are sorted out by their labels: If you tell me to think of an elephant, I will think of the word 'elephant' exactly as it appears in print. This has both benefits and drawbacks; I can write very well (especially if I actually put some effort into it), but on the other hand the abuse of language that I see all around me simply drives me up the wall.
Part of my irritation stems from affronts to my own accepted (somewhat arbitrary) style, I admit. However, vague/incoherent/illogical/tautological sentences truly do bother me because I like to be able to know for certain what a person wants to convey. My brain treats "they're" and "their" as discrete values just like numbers- I don't think anyone would ever say, "5 plus 6 is pretty much 8, unless you're 14-ish, then I suppose 11.5 is close." A word- let's pick 'exquisite'- ought to mean 'exquisite' and only mean 'exquisite'. It should not mean expensive. 'Unique' is a binary state, not a spectrum. An object cannot be "pretty unique." The same applies to 'original'. Why can't people use such fine words as innovative, novel, unusual, or unconventional? And yet I suppose I could dissect the slightly different denotations between 'novel' and 'innovative'. This would also probably help explain why I am single.
I see that I've gone off on a tangent. In summation, my point was that I was struck by how differently our brains process language. I'm sure there is some grant money to be made on the subject.
Sorry if you were offended or anything. Describing a number of discrete events numbering no more than 3 significant figures with a 4-significant-figure percentage just bugs me. It's like "more unique," "should of," "try and do x," etc.
Some people plant trees. I plant little anal-retentive seeds of wisdom. I nourish them with karma.
The problem is that the timeclock program is on the worker's computer, so they can't clock in until the computer has booted. That means that if they need to 'be working' by 9, they need to start booting as early as 8:30.
Likewise at the end of the day, the computer needs to on in order to clock out. Only after exactly 5 or whenever can the worker shut down/log out.
>>I bring my workers doughnuts every friday out of my OWN POCKET
I personally don't like it when my boss buys stuff for us out of his own pocket, unless he's going in on a group purchase. I don't like feeling indebted to him; while it's unspoken, the message seems to be, "Well *I* did something nice, now you need to hold up your end of the bargain. Like working this weekend."
It is only a small issue for me, but I would much prefer it if he (or you) would use company money instead of personal. The other issue is that my boss makes at least twice what I get paid- an $8 box of doughnuts is hardly more than a token gesture to begin with.
They do, in a way- You can go into any clerical, medical, services, or financial business and be greeted by anywhere from 60 to 90+ percent women. I have worked in all-male shops, and I've worked in an office of hundreds of women and ten men. And in that mostly-female office, the IT people were all (young, underpaid) men. I don't get paid enough to explain that disparity. My shop right now is 100% male, and we've only had 2 or 3 female applicants over the last 6 years. Again, I don't get paid to explain why most college-aged women don't want to get into the industrial arts. I love it and I find it almost offensive that an entire gender would scoff at the idea of working with metal and composites, shaping raw materials into high tech tactical aircraft. Screw that. I'm proud of what I do- it takes skill, concentration, and dedication- and I don't even have time to care what gender my coworkers are. If you get a kick out of standing next to a general electric in full afterburner, then I welcome you to the fold. If you are too feeble or scared to pick up a rivet gun, then get the hell out. That's gender neutral.
I would like to add that all of the men I work with, even at their most jovial and light-hearted, would get fired, fined, and ostracized if they repeated 1% of what they say to male coworkers to a female coworker.
Women, it's time to face the fact that you just might not like working with men. It's ok, I won't be offended. Men are assholes to each other. It's how they bond. Maybe 300 years ago or in the ukraine things are different, but here in the U.S. if you combine
-men -more men -no women -8-12 hours a day together
you will experience the most obscene, blasphemous, disgusting behavior you have ever witnessed. And guys love it. Guys would love to share it with you, but if you walk into the room the smart ones shut up and the stupid ones hit on you. It is said that without all the stupid macho shenanigans in the male workplace, females would feel more welcome. But I say that without the stupid macho BS, it would be a female workplace. And then we find ourselves in the same exact spot, trying to make everyone equal and happy again. There are female nerds with a passion for CS, and there are females who can trade dick jokes with the best of them. They are vanishingly rare, however, and it is disingenuous to form an argument based on the one or two female nerds you know while ignoring the 20 guys who happily whiled away their adolescence talking on IRC and writing text-based fantasy games in BASIC for their friends. -b
That does not explain why the percentage is so skewed towards males in CS. You must still account for all the males who did not ditch CS during this outsourcing.
I think there's more to it than what you said. My loose group of friends is mostly women; the males are the exact 'loathsome' type, I think, that you refer to (unless you're implying that, like, they touch children or something... What DO you mean?) and everyone gets along. The thing I notice about my friends, though, is that unless you ask, you'll have NO IDEA what any of them did for a living. The reality is that the men all work in 'male' careers and the women work in retail and service jobs (even the ones with graduate degrees). Again, this is my personal unique situation.
The nerdiest girls I know (We're talking level 70 WoW characters, books on encryption, political science, botany buffs, etc) work as: -labware washer -english teacher -insurance claims data entry quality assurance -live-in home health aide -janitor
These are not the kind of women to take on arbitrary gender roles. There is something else happening here besides economics and smelly classmates.
Can I add to your insightful post that women's colleges are for some mysterious reason not supplying any recognizable portion of CS graduates? If the men in CS bother women so much, then why haven't women's colleges answered the call for more female programmers/scientists? Colleges (yes, even women's lib arts colleges) exist to make money- if there was a demand, it would be met.
In all other respects to this discussion I will keep quiet.
Let me toss in my 2-cent reply to your excellent post.
My generation (I'm 26) was taught from the very beginning that boys and girls were equals. My kindergarten teacher told the girls that they could be president some day; my teachers throughout school were pretty much 50/50 men/women... My impression growing up (in retrospect) was that women were riding the crest of the sexual revolution of the '70's and finally making a name for themselves in business, science, and art. And rightly so.
But then fast-forward this progressive young man to 2008. I have the cognitive dissonance of on the one hand: -what I was taught in grade school about how women can be presidents -what I was taught in middle school about how women can be doctors -what I was taught in high school about how women can be programmers -what I was taught in college about... actually I just remember learning a lot about female circumcision. weird.
and on the other hand: -no women in my computer/programming/networking classes in high school and college -no women in the kitchen at my job as a cook (almost all women waitresses, though)(and they made 5 times what the cooks made) -no women at my job in a steel foundry/machine shop -one women in my job at an ISP tech support (and she was a PHB) -no women in my shop right now (aircraft structural maintenance on f-16s) -3 or 4 women in the entire maintenance squadron of about 300 people -Finance is almost all women -Medical is almost all women -Personnel is almost all women -Supply is half women -our orderlies are ALL women (that's kind of like a secretary, but way more) -All positions are voluntary. No, really, they are.
So you can probably see a pattern in my education and employment vs what I was taught. I really don't know what to think. But I think many men on slashdot, having the same type of experience, would come to the conclusion that there must be *something* different about women that makes them not enjoy certain things. Hey, maybe it is simply cultural- does that really change anything? It's a circular logic- our culture dictates our gender roles and our gender roles dictate our culture.
So I while I don't want to apologize for other men, please understand that women's behavior (on a per capita level of granulation) is just as mystifying to men as the reverse is probably true for women. My mother who taught me respect for women and human rights in general is now a professor of early childhood education in a department of I believe 100% women faculty and similar percentages for students. I personally find a lack of media coverage of THAT disparity to be the really interesting thing compared to the CS issue.
And that reminds me: Let's face it people, CS is not business. It is not nursing. Etc. CS, or rather "people with CS degrees" make up a tiny, tiny percentage of the general population. Let's call it one half of one percent. I'm talking computer SCIENCE, not HP sales associates or apple geniuses. And we're past 1200 comments about a small percent of one half of one percent of an obscure career not having enough women? Please, everyone relax.
>>Medicine, for example, used to be almost entirely dominated by men. Now many medical schools have 50 percent or more women in their entering classes.
No, *doctors* were mostly men. Nurses, on the other hand, have always been and still are overwhelmingly female. Even with female med school students making up almost 50% of the student body, RN's are *over 92%* female.
So think about that. 92%. I think it's funny that we make such a big deal about women finally making up half of the med school population while the nursing programs are completely ignored.
>>If a CS degree becomes likely to result in a high-paying job, the women will come.
Like they flock to those high-paying insurance claims data input technician jobs? Or like they flock to those high-paying dental hygienist jobs? Or daycare provider jobs? The list of stereotypical women's jobs reads like a list of middle- to low-paying jobs.
I disagree with your claim. Women statistically make *less* than men in the workplace. I am not in a position to know all of the reasons behind that. But I think that if women chased money while men chased their passions, the statistics would be reversed. Or maybe it's just luck for male nerds that our passion happens to result in a healthy salary.
I think that your assertion may be correct for certain (very small) demographics (female, single/not married, no children, well-educated, *LIKES CS*) but most of the U.S. unfortunately does not fit that mold.
And what would be your own enlightened suggestion for defeating unreasonable and violent aggressors? Hug bombs?
Saying that we should abandon weapons research for the exclusive pursuit of diplomacy is like saying that we should ban seat belts in favor of better driving. There is the ideal, and then there is the real world. I'm gonna go ahead and assume that you've never actually dealt with an enemy (yes, enemy) combatant hell-bent on killing you. Maybe in the big picture your country caused some sort of aggression in the enemy; maybe rich capitalists funded a coup that deposed his favorite leader. Maybe all sorts of things. That all becomes really freaking irrelevant on the battlefield. Or maybe you forget that the military is not the legislative branch of the gov't and thus concerns themselves primarily with covering their own asses while wealthy, senile legislators decide who to bomb.
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Well, in response to a: I would say that we already do EVA's, and we have done them outside the earth's magnetic field. We could probably use the information gleaned from those experiences to make the EVA's on the way to mars more survivable. EVA's could also be performed so that the activity took place on the shade side of the ship, or when the ship was behind a planet.
We already have professions that cause mild exposure to alpha- and beta-radiation and we've come up with novel abatement strategies. Also, one other strategy that I've seen discussed would be to shield the ship within its own ionized cocoon, much like earth. I don't know the feasibility of that.
B: As you said in a:, EVA's would be possible. The shuttle already carries materials needed to repair minor leaks- we already have that covered. The spacecraft would likely be constructed with en-route repairability in mind, much like submarine, so the marsnauts could take of things on their own.
C: My point with those examples was that they were all usually very far from help and at the same time they were in pretty dangerous situations. The submariners could always surface, except when they don't (thresher et al.) The trapper didn't have to deal with radiation, but he did have to deal with cold, disease, hostile natives, wars going on around him sometimes, etc. If he slipped on a rock and broke his hip, he would die. Period. And the south pole scientists actually can't leave during the winter. And from what I understand, the winter crew is sort of... special. So you're right about that part.
D: yeah, it would basically suck. Life sucks here on earth a lot, too. I just got done removing all the insulation from my house; it gets everywhere, including the lungs. My water lines were frozen solid this morning; I had to come to work to shave. I have to sleep in insulated coveralls. However, I accept this as a necessarily crappy part before the good part. I imagine that I could put up with slightly worse if the payoff would be so huge; and sending humans to live on another planet would be one of the biggest payoffs in all of human history. I and probably everyone I know will be forgotten 20 years after we die; going to mars would make you a part of one of history's great milestones. Highways, mountains, holidays, and maybe even countries, stars, and planets will be named after you. It may seem kind of hokey, but I've heard from many parents that having kids affords them a chance at living on after they die. This would be like having 6 billion kids who are actually *happy* with the way you did your job.
I really enjoy my life here on earth, but I also enjoy smoking, drinking, eating pizza, etc. Those are all things that I will have to give up soon for (my) greater good. I don't like being shot at, but I can sacrifice some of my 'safe' time if it's for the greater good. I am by no means a utilitarian, but if people like me volunteer for dangerous or painful experiences, they should not be held back by those who won't. There are bigger things than me; I believe the human race should have every opportunity to grow and mature. It would be a shame if human exploration was halted by religious, ethical, or political reasons.
We let people eat and drink themselves to death in this country and call it 'consumerism'. We need to take the next step and let people explore and science themselves to death if they want. Humanity can gain so much more than plus-sized coffins and reruns of sitcoms.
Your argument, although I can see how it is somewhat valid, could be applied in slightly different language to every risky human endeavor we've ever undertaken. It will always be the case that life is risky.
-b
As part of a new DoD directive, all flags in photographs will be replaced by walkie-talkies.
Carry on.
-b
Military here, too- I'm proud of what I do. But I had to point out that if you *didn't* say the pledge, or even if you just changed a word or two (like leaving out 'god'), you were in for some major, humiliating tongue-lashing.
I'm not saying that teachers are all in on some conspiracy; the pledge is just something expected of the students, and the teachers make it happen. However, at that age a person doesn't have a choice about how they feel about it all. I think doug stanhope said it best- religion (and I'd say patriotism) should be introduced when a person turns 18. It's not fair to grow up believing something without knowing why.
I don't think I should have to look at 20 flags on my way to work. I know where I am.
-b
I'm in the military. Stand back, people: I'll tell you what happened.
Colonel Fuckwit: Airman, we need a better picture of Gen Doodles for some newspaper crap. All I can find is this shitty ID card photo saved on the S:\ drive.
-next day-
Senior Airman Dropout: That's the only photo I could find, too. Gen Doodles is in Egypt/Iraq/Florida right now so I just kind of, you know, fixed this shitty photo and put in a new background. It'll work fine.
Col Fuckwit: Perfect. [walks down hall to Gen Tard's office]
Col Fuckwit: Here you go, Gen Tard- The photo you wanted. I worked all weekend on it.
Gen Tard: Whatever.
-two weeks later-
Gen Tard: Fuckwit, you're fired from your current job because of your role in this debacle. However, the only available job is a spot in the pentagon in the rank of Brigadier General. Congratulations. Airman Dropout, we're transferring you Yakima. You'll never work in this town again, shithead! And we'll make the new uniform mandatory yet only issue you a rain poncho! HA HA HA!*
[Bow, exit stage left]
-b
True story. Try getting cold-weather gear hear in MN. You'll get a rubberized poncho that cracks at under 10 degrees F...
a- Not a problem with a modest amount of HDPE shielding and strategically pointing the thickest parts of the ship (the main thrusters?) towards the sun.
b- What is with people and vacuums? The ship will be at something like .8-.9 atmospheres. Outside will be about 0 atmosphere. Take a submarine down 32 feet underwater and you've recreated the same pressure differential. A good post a month back or so figured out that a small hole in the ISS would take several weeks to drain all the air out (you have to account for the decreasing pressure difference).
c- If a bunch of 19-year-old submariners, 17th-century fur trappers, and overwintering south pole scientists can deal with it, so can you.
d- Your habitat upon landing will most likely be nicer than the ship. In all likelihood it will be the first long, hot shower in gravity that you've had for a long time. The comfort of walking on your feet. Looking at a sky. Oh, and your living modules would most likely be completely assembled and tested by the time you arrive.
Deathwish? Ask the hundreds of thousands (millions?) of soldiers still alive today who volunteered for combat duty. I deploy back to iraq in a week, and I was the first name on the sign-up roster. I don't know what the fuck is wrong with me, but it could very well go wrong with you, too, if only you worked on it a bit.
-b
It is not politically correct to speak of the inhabitants of the new world in anything but the most glowing terms. Recant immediately!
Ignore the human sacrifice. Ignore the slavery, war, and genocide. Ignore the extinction of animals that no European has ever laid eyes on. Those are distractions from the real issue, which is that everything bad in the world was caused by the industrial revolution.
-b
You're comparing one or two isolated incidents that were punished swiftly and harshly with total institutionalized use of rape as a force measure by an entire army?
gtfo.
-b
I would imagine that it simultaneously suffer death from a number of factors-
-asphyxiation. Spiders don't last long without oxygen; if they can drown easily, I'd imagine they need a constant supply of oxygen
-cook in the sun
-freeze solid in the shade
-crushed by passing toolbag
-overwhelming homesickness
-b
>>Nevertheless fear of wasps is much more acceptable than fear of spiders, but only slightly more justifiable, and it's just as irrational.
Tell that to the 4 people I know who have to carry epi-pens around in case of bee stings.
-b
Hm.
I would have thrown in, "If you define a social group narrowly enough to include you and only a few other people while simultaneously aggrandizing it, you might be a wannabe," but I didn't want to offend you.
>>If you care about what people think about you and what badges they put on you, you are a wannabe.
I would say, "If you care about what people think about other people and what badges they put on each other, you are a wannabe," but I didn't want to cause offense.
-b
That's interesting. I've just recently begun to notice that I process language differently from the people I associate with- and by saying that I don't necessarily mean that my way is better.
Unlike you, my stream of consciousness is represented by fully-spelled words and fully articulated thoughts. Ideas are sorted out by their labels: If you tell me to think of an elephant, I will think of the word 'elephant' exactly as it appears in print. This has both benefits and drawbacks; I can write very well (especially if I actually put some effort into it), but on the other hand the abuse of language that I see all around me simply drives me up the wall.
Part of my irritation stems from affronts to my own accepted (somewhat arbitrary) style, I admit. However, vague/incoherent/illogical/tautological sentences truly do bother me because I like to be able to know for certain what a person wants to convey. My brain treats "they're" and "their" as discrete values just like numbers- I don't think anyone would ever say, "5 plus 6 is pretty much 8, unless you're 14-ish, then I suppose 11.5 is close." A word- let's pick 'exquisite'- ought to mean 'exquisite' and only mean 'exquisite'. It should not mean expensive. 'Unique' is a binary state, not a spectrum. An object cannot be "pretty unique." The same applies to 'original'. Why can't people use such fine words as innovative, novel, unusual, or unconventional? And yet I suppose I could dissect the slightly different denotations between 'novel' and 'innovative'. This would also probably help explain why I am single.
I see that I've gone off on a tangent. In summation, my point was that I was struck by how differently our brains process language. I'm sure there is some grant money to be made on the subject.
-b
Sorry if you were offended or anything. Describing a number of discrete events numbering no more than 3 significant figures with a 4-significant-figure percentage just bugs me. It's like "more unique," "should of," "try and do x," etc.
Some people plant trees. I plant little anal-retentive seeds of wisdom. I nourish them with karma.
-b
>>99.99% of space-walks are tethered
You either greatly overestimated how many spacewalks have taken place or you you are planning for the future:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_spacewalks_and_moonwalks
We've done 7 untethered spacewalks, so your percentage should probably use 2 or fewer significant digits.
-b
The problem is that the timeclock program is on the worker's computer, so they can't clock in until the computer has booted. That means that if they need to 'be working' by 9, they need to start booting as early as 8:30.
Likewise at the end of the day, the computer needs to on in order to clock out. Only after exactly 5 or whenever can the worker shut down/log out.
-b
>>I bring my workers doughnuts every friday out of my OWN POCKET
I personally don't like it when my boss buys stuff for us out of his own pocket, unless he's going in on a group purchase. I don't like feeling indebted to him; while it's unspoken, the message seems to be, "Well *I* did something nice, now you need to hold up your end of the bargain. Like working this weekend."
It is only a small issue for me, but I would much prefer it if he (or you) would use company money instead of personal. The other issue is that my boss makes at least twice what I get paid- an $8 box of doughnuts is hardly more than a token gesture to begin with.
-b
>>I wonder why women don't simply work with women
They do, in a way- You can go into any clerical, medical, services, or financial business and be greeted by anywhere from 60 to 90+ percent women. I have worked in all-male shops, and I've worked in an office of hundreds of women and ten men. And in that mostly-female office, the IT people were all (young, underpaid) men. I don't get paid enough to explain that disparity. My shop right now is 100% male, and we've only had 2 or 3 female applicants over the last 6 years. Again, I don't get paid to explain why most college-aged women don't want to get into the industrial arts. I love it and I find it almost offensive that an entire gender would scoff at the idea of working with metal and composites, shaping raw materials into high tech tactical aircraft. Screw that. I'm proud of what I do- it takes skill, concentration, and dedication- and I don't even have time to care what gender my coworkers are. If you get a kick out of standing next to a general electric in full afterburner, then I welcome you to the fold. If you are too feeble or scared to pick up a rivet gun, then get the hell out. That's gender neutral.
-b
I would like to add that all of the men I work with, even at their most jovial and light-hearted, would get fired, fined, and ostracized if they repeated 1% of what they say to male coworkers to a female coworker.
Women, it's time to face the fact that you just might not like working with men. It's ok, I won't be offended. Men are assholes to each other. It's how they bond. Maybe 300 years ago or in the ukraine things are different, but here in the U.S. if you combine
-men
-more men
-no women
-8-12 hours a day together
you will experience the most obscene, blasphemous, disgusting behavior you have ever witnessed. And guys love it. Guys would love to share it with you, but if you walk into the room the smart ones shut up and the stupid ones hit on you. It is said that without all the stupid macho shenanigans in the male workplace, females would feel more welcome. But I say that without the stupid macho BS, it would be a female workplace. And then we find ourselves in the same exact spot, trying to make everyone equal and happy again. There are female nerds with a passion for CS, and there are females who can trade dick jokes with the best of them. They are vanishingly rare, however, and it is disingenuous to form an argument based on the one or two female nerds you know while ignoring the 20 guys who happily whiled away their adolescence talking on IRC and writing text-based fantasy games in BASIC for their friends.
-b
That does not explain why the percentage is so skewed towards males in CS. You must still account for all the males who did not ditch CS during this outsourcing.
-b
I think there's more to it than what you said. My loose group of friends is mostly women; the males are the exact 'loathsome' type, I think, that you refer to (unless you're implying that, like, they touch children or something... What DO you mean?) and everyone gets along. The thing I notice about my friends, though, is that unless you ask, you'll have NO IDEA what any of them did for a living. The reality is that the men all work in 'male' careers and the women work in retail and service jobs (even the ones with graduate degrees). Again, this is my personal unique situation.
The nerdiest girls I know (We're talking level 70 WoW characters, books on encryption, political science, botany buffs, etc) work as:
-labware washer
-english teacher
-insurance claims data entry quality assurance
-live-in home health aide
-janitor
These are not the kind of women to take on arbitrary gender roles. There is something else happening here besides economics and smelly classmates.
-b
Can I add to your insightful post that women's colleges are for some mysterious reason not supplying any recognizable portion of CS graduates? If the men in CS bother women so much, then why haven't women's colleges answered the call for more female programmers/scientists? Colleges (yes, even women's lib arts colleges) exist to make money- if there was a demand, it would be met.
In all other respects to this discussion I will keep quiet.
-b
Let me toss in my 2-cent reply to your excellent post.
My generation (I'm 26) was taught from the very beginning that boys and girls were equals. My kindergarten teacher told the girls that they could be president some day; my teachers throughout school were pretty much 50/50 men/women... My impression growing up (in retrospect) was that women were riding the crest of the sexual revolution of the '70's and finally making a name for themselves in business, science, and art. And rightly so.
But then fast-forward this progressive young man to 2008. I have the cognitive dissonance of on the one hand:
-what I was taught in grade school about how women can be presidents
-what I was taught in middle school about how women can be doctors
-what I was taught in high school about how women can be programmers
-what I was taught in college about... actually I just remember learning a lot about female circumcision. weird.
and on the other hand:
-no women in my computer/programming/networking classes in high school and college
-no women in the kitchen at my job as a cook (almost all women waitresses, though)(and they made 5 times what the cooks made)
-no women at my job in a steel foundry/machine shop
-one women in my job at an ISP tech support (and she was a PHB)
-no women in my shop right now (aircraft structural maintenance on f-16s)
-3 or 4 women in the entire maintenance squadron of about 300 people
-Finance is almost all women
-Medical is almost all women
-Personnel is almost all women
-Supply is half women
-our orderlies are ALL women (that's kind of like a secretary, but way more)
-All positions are voluntary. No, really, they are.
So you can probably see a pattern in my education and employment vs what I was taught. I really don't know what to think. But I think many men on slashdot, having the same type of experience, would come to the conclusion that there must be *something* different about women that makes them not enjoy certain things. Hey, maybe it is simply cultural- does that really change anything? It's a circular logic- our culture dictates our gender roles and our gender roles dictate our culture.
So I while I don't want to apologize for other men, please understand that women's behavior (on a per capita level of granulation) is just as mystifying to men as the reverse is probably true for women. My mother who taught me respect for women and human rights in general is now a professor of early childhood education in a department of I believe 100% women faculty and similar percentages for students. I personally find a lack of media coverage of THAT disparity to be the really interesting thing compared to the CS issue.
And that reminds me:
Let's face it people, CS is not business. It is not nursing. Etc. CS, or rather "people with CS degrees" make up a tiny, tiny percentage of the general population. Let's call it one half of one percent. I'm talking computer SCIENCE, not HP sales associates or apple geniuses. And we're past 1200 comments about a small percent of one half of one percent of an obscure career not having enough women? Please, everyone relax.
-b
>>Medicine, for example, used to be almost entirely dominated by men. Now many medical schools have 50 percent or more women in their entering classes.
No, *doctors* were mostly men. Nurses, on the other hand, have always been and still are overwhelmingly female. Even with female med school students making up almost 50% of the student body, RN's are *over 92%* female.
So think about that. 92%. I think it's funny that we make such a big deal about women finally making up half of the med school population while the nursing programs are completely ignored.
source:
http://www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/category/12913.html
http://www.dol.gov/wb/factsheets/Qf-nursing-05.htm
-b
>>If a CS degree becomes likely to result in a high-paying job, the women will come.
Like they flock to those high-paying insurance claims data input technician jobs? Or like they flock to those high-paying dental hygienist jobs? Or daycare provider jobs? The list of stereotypical women's jobs reads like a list of middle- to low-paying jobs.
I disagree with your claim. Women statistically make *less* than men in the workplace. I am not in a position to know all of the reasons behind that. But I think that if women chased money while men chased their passions, the statistics would be reversed. Or maybe it's just luck for male nerds that our passion happens to result in a healthy salary.
I think that your assertion may be correct for certain (very small) demographics (female, single/not married, no children, well-educated, *LIKES CS*) but most of the U.S. unfortunately does not fit that mold.
-b
And what would be your own enlightened suggestion for defeating unreasonable and violent aggressors? Hug bombs?
Saying that we should abandon weapons research for the exclusive pursuit of diplomacy is like saying that we should ban seat belts in favor of better driving. There is the ideal, and then there is the real world. I'm gonna go ahead and assume that you've never actually dealt with an enemy (yes, enemy) combatant hell-bent on killing you. Maybe in the big picture your country caused some sort of aggression in the enemy; maybe rich capitalists funded a coup that deposed his favorite leader. Maybe all sorts of things. That all becomes really freaking irrelevant on the battlefield. Or maybe you forget that the military is not the legislative branch of the gov't and thus concerns themselves primarily with covering their own asses while wealthy, senile legislators decide who to bomb.
Thank you and good night.
-angry soldier
I can't believe you didn't make a reference to 'human horn' in your post. For shame!
-b