I think that, if we give it a few years, there will be many many more women out there in technical fields. We've been in the mathematical and scientific realms for a while now, and have slowly but surely begun to infiltrate the computer area. I think some of what kept women out for so long was the idea of computer and IT stuff as a bunch of socially impaired guys playing dumb computer games, but as the guys and games have changed, women have become more interested (this probably applies to me more than anyone else.)
My computer science class is half female and has been all year, with the girls doing as well as the guys, but it is a first year class. Def Con 7 saw lots of women, and I can tell you that few of them were bored girlfriends.
I keep up on the technology scene more than the world news one, my guy friends enjoy that they can talk to me about what they're interested in and know that I understand. And there are a lot more ladies out there like me. I say, give it a few years, then when we're all trained, there'll be a flood.
I enjoy the humor the best (my two favorite episodes were 3.1 and 2), perhaps followed by the news. Special guests are okay but they aren't always very good and sometimes come off as sounding kinda...blah. Again, sometimes the voices get drowned out by the various prodution noises. And it amuses me to listen to you all get way off topic, going off about random things until someone says something that goes too far. It reinforces my belief that people are the same universally:)
I went to DefCon 7 with my two best friends, and while wandering around the show room, one of them was wearing his red fedora from RedHat and carrying his panasonic ruggidized lap top. We were all expecting people to comment on the hat, which was very noticable, but no one said a thing about it. Conversely, six people walked up to us wanting to touch, feel, and drool on his laptop, which he had been carrying at his side, not paying much attention to. It was the weirdest thing I'd ever seen. But those laptops are worth it, I swear. This particular one once saved my friend from someone who wanted to see just how tough the case was and threw a screwdriver at him without warning. There's a tiny little nick in the case where the sharp end of the screwdriver made impact at high speeds. My instinct would NOT have been to defend myself with an expensive piece of equipment, but it was lucky for him that his was.
As with the teachers and administraters across the country, the adults at my school who are payed to teach and take care of us are taking things too far. At my high school there is no question of "could it happen here" because a kid brought a gun and knife to school last month planning to kill a girl who refused to go out with him. The situation was diffused and played down at the time, the student body was informed, but there weren't any changes in policy. Now however, the principal and the deans have taken things to extremes. The school paper had an article in it about death, which was unfortunate but not planned because it went to press before the murders, however our principal doesn't understand that, flipped out in front of the faculty, and has been throwing away all the papers he can find. All this does is show us students that he's irrational. Another boy had been distriubting a magazine he'd made of questionable taste with numerous drug references and even a picture of a naked woman, but did he get in trouble for those things, of course not! The deans threatened to expell him because there were two lines in it that were violent. And now we students are not allowed to stay after school and do work, the administrators are worried that something could happen with all of us not under constant supervision--maybe we'll run around the school and do bad things. This isn't sending the right message to the students, it makes for an environment where there is no trust and a lot of fear. How do they expect us to learn in a place like that?
I'm probably being a stick in the mud, but I've got to wonder what they'll do about minors who qualify and are even possibly selected. Most kids would jump at the change to get out of school, making that a bit of a motivator for the contest. I can see how that wouldn't be much of a problem with say a 16 or 17 year old guy, because I understand that chances are (or at least logic and statistics dictate) that most if not all of the particapants will be male, but what happens if it's a 16 or 17 year old girl (young girls use linux, trust me). I just see it as being a potentially bad thing in a number of ways. I checked the rules and there was no mention of age restraints. What if some whiz-kid 8 year old gets selected? Do they just assume the parents won't care?
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My computer science class is half female and has been all year, with the girls doing as well as the guys, but it is a first year class. Def Con 7 saw lots of women, and I can tell you that few of them were bored girlfriends.
I keep up on the technology scene more than the world news one, my guy friends enjoy that they can talk to me about what they're interested in and know that I understand. And there are a lot more ladies out there like me. I say, give it a few years, then when we're all trained, there'll be a flood.
I enjoy the humor the best (my two favorite episodes were 3.1 and 2), perhaps followed by the news. Special guests are okay but they aren't always very good and sometimes come off as sounding kinda...blah. Again, sometimes the voices get drowned out by the various prodution noises. And it amuses me to listen to you all get way off topic, going off about random things until someone says something that goes too far. It reinforces my belief that people are the same universally :)
I went to DefCon 7 with my two best friends, and while wandering around the show room, one of them was wearing his red fedora from RedHat and carrying his panasonic ruggidized lap top. We were all expecting people to comment on the hat, which was very noticable, but no one said a thing about it. Conversely, six people walked up to us wanting to touch, feel, and drool on his laptop, which he had been carrying at his side, not paying much attention to. It was the weirdest thing I'd ever seen. But those laptops are worth it, I swear. This particular one once saved my friend from someone who wanted to see just how tough the case was and threw a screwdriver at him without warning. There's a tiny little nick in the case where the sharp end of the screwdriver made impact at high speeds. My instinct would NOT have been to defend myself with an expensive piece of equipment, but it was lucky for him that his was.
As with the teachers and administraters across the country, the adults at my school who are payed to teach and take care of us are taking things too far. At my high school there is no question of "could it happen here" because a kid brought a gun and knife to school last month planning to kill a girl who refused to go out with him. The situation was diffused and played down at the time, the student body was informed, but there weren't any changes in policy. Now however, the principal and the deans have taken things to extremes. The school paper had an article in it about death, which was unfortunate but not planned because it went to press before the murders, however our principal doesn't understand that, flipped out in front of the faculty, and has been throwing away all the papers he can find. All this does is show us students that he's irrational. Another boy had been distriubting a magazine he'd made of questionable taste with numerous drug references and even a picture of a naked woman, but did he get in trouble for those things, of course not! The deans threatened to expell him because there were two lines in it that were violent. And now we students are not allowed to stay after school and do work, the administrators are worried that something could happen with all of us not under constant supervision--maybe we'll run around the school and do bad things. This isn't sending the right message to the students, it makes for an environment where there is no trust and a lot of fear. How do they expect us to learn in a place like that?
I'm probably being a stick in the mud, but I've got to wonder what they'll do about minors who qualify and are even possibly selected. Most kids would jump at the change to get out of school, making that a bit of a motivator for the contest. I can see how that wouldn't be much of a problem with say a 16 or 17 year old guy, because I understand that chances are (or at least logic and statistics dictate) that most if not all of the particapants will be male, but what happens if it's a 16 or 17 year old girl (young girls use linux, trust me). I just see it as being a potentially bad thing in a number of ways. I checked the rules and there was no mention of age restraints. What if some whiz-kid 8 year old gets selected? Do they just assume the parents won't care?