<PSA> The Internet is a great tool. But grownups are often too old to understand its dangers. Children, educate your parents about the Internet. Discuss appropriate and inappropriate online behavior. Set reasonable limits on their Internet time. Most importantly, talk to your parents about the Internet. Communication is the most important thing. You have the power to protect your parents from the dangers of the Internet. </PSA>
Yet another example of Why the Recording Industry Doesn't Get It.
Music as music has been around for thousands and thousands of years, but music as a bunch of salable mass-produced physical artifacts is less than a century old. If your business model is failing, it doesn't mean the Big Bad Pirates are stealing from you. It's not an attack on Music Itself. Make no mistake: they are not defending artists, which they treat as indentured servants. They're defending their threatened business model.
Axiom: Men and Women are identical mentally. Query: Why are they different with regard to engineering?
Problem: Axiom is insane. No rational conclusion can be drawn from insane first premises.
Straw man. Many people agree that there are psychological differences between men and women. That doesn't mean that observed gender inequality must be purely due to innate biological differences. Put your way:
Axiom: There are psychological differences between men and women. Unwarranted Conclusion: Observed gender imbalance must be purely due to these psychological differences (and not, say, cultural preconceptions, subtle prejudice, or the presence of real-life Comic Book Guys with Beavis-and-Butt-head-grade interpersonal skills). Further Unwarranted Conclusion: In regards to gender imbalance in engineering, the status quo is just fine.
Conclusion: As long as political correctness pervades our universities, any science they produce in these areas is warped.
I dunno. History shows it's devilishly easy to rationalize our preconceived notions. Politically correct != wrong. Politically incorrect != right.
Before claiming the engineering gender gap is 100% biological, if you're a man, ask yourself: am I interested in the nursing profession? After all, it's a good job. The world needs more male nurses. Why not? How can we explain the lack of men in nursing?
Is it because:
(a) since you're a man, you brain just isn't wired correctly to be a good nurse? (Really? Considering the number of male doctors?)
Or is it more likely that
(b) our culture says nursing is a traditionally female profession, and so you were never encouraged to go into nursing?
Unless you think gender bias completely disappeared the day Oprah got a TV show, I wouldn't be so quick to hang it all on biological differences. Just because there are obvious psychological differences between men and women doesn't mean there's no such thing as cultural bias. Culture matters. Women don't want to be engineers--that's the whole point. That doesn't mean we should throw up our hands and let 51% of the smart people get away.
All I'm saying is, anyone who doesn't think geek culture is male-dominated has obviously never read the jokes on Slashdot.:-)
Sure, except that just because a girl likes playing with Barbie dolls doesn't mean she's not a math genius. What part of doll-throwing behavior makes you a good engineer?
I'm amazed at the leap of logic from "There are obvious psychological differences between men and women" (true) to "the lack of women in engineering is only because women's brains just aren't wired for it." (Whaaaa?)
What really astonishes me, though, is that I came up with four basic personality types in my research, and these same four types have been described by Plato, Aristotle, Carl Jung, Myers-Briggs.
No way! Her assumptions were the very same ones passed down by our culture? Astonishing!
They have a Jem story in which, for some reason, Eric Raymond is a character. I'm not kidding. They're traumatizing our childhood memories. It's outrageous. Truly, truly, truly outrageous.
Watch out for new DoS attacks involving high-pitched noises. Just think: script kiddies teaming up with operatic sopranos. The thought is almost too horrifying to contemplate.
The Camel Book is (IMHO) not only the best technical reference book I know of; it's a masterpiece in a unique genre of literature. What goals did you have in mind when you wrote it? What's important in a really good technical book? ("You" refers to the other authors as well.)
Slashdot Mirror
<PSA>
The Internet is a great tool. But grownups are often too old to understand its dangers. Children, educate your parents about the Internet. Discuss appropriate and inappropriate online behavior. Set reasonable limits on their Internet time. Most importantly, talk to your parents about the Internet. Communication is the most important thing. You have the power to protect your parents from the dangers of the Internet.
</PSA>
Yet another example of Why the Recording Industry Doesn't Get It.
Music as music has been around for thousands and thousands of years, but music as a bunch of salable mass-produced physical artifacts is less than a century old. If your business model is failing, it doesn't mean the Big Bad Pirates are stealing from you. It's not an attack on Music Itself. Make no mistake: they are not defending artists, which they treat as indentured servants. They're defending their threatened business model.
I guess it's true what they say..."the Bush administration is extremely incompetent."
Axiom: Men and Women are identical mentally.
Query: Why are they different with regard to engineering?
Problem: Axiom is insane. No rational conclusion can be drawn from insane first premises.
Straw man. Many people agree that there are psychological differences between men and women. That doesn't mean that observed gender inequality must be purely due to innate biological differences. Put your way:
Axiom: There are psychological differences between men and women.
Unwarranted Conclusion: Observed gender imbalance must be purely due to these psychological differences (and not, say, cultural preconceptions, subtle prejudice, or the presence of real-life Comic Book Guys with Beavis-and-Butt-head-grade interpersonal skills).
Further Unwarranted Conclusion: In regards to gender imbalance in engineering, the status quo is just fine.
Conclusion: As long as political correctness pervades our universities, any science they produce in these areas is warped.
I dunno. History shows it's devilishly easy to rationalize our preconceived notions. Politically correct != wrong. Politically incorrect != right.
Before claiming the engineering gender gap is 100% biological, if you're a man, ask yourself: am I interested in the nursing profession? After all, it's a good job. The world needs more male nurses. Why not? How can we explain the lack of men in nursing?
:-)
Is it because:
(a) since you're a man, you brain just isn't wired correctly to be a good nurse? (Really? Considering the number of male doctors?)
Or is it more likely that
(b) our culture says nursing is a traditionally female profession, and so you were never encouraged to go into nursing?
Unless you think gender bias completely disappeared the day Oprah got a TV show, I wouldn't be so quick to hang it all on biological differences. Just because there are obvious psychological differences between men and women doesn't mean there's no such thing as cultural bias. Culture matters. Women don't want to be engineers--that's the whole point. That doesn't mean we should throw up our hands and let 51% of the smart people get away.
All I'm saying is, anyone who doesn't think geek culture is male-dominated has obviously never read the jokes on Slashdot.
Sure, except that just because a girl likes playing with Barbie dolls doesn't mean she's not a math genius. What part of doll-throwing behavior makes you a good engineer?
I'm amazed at the leap of logic from "There are obvious psychological differences between men and women" (true) to "the lack of women in engineering is only because women's brains just aren't wired for it." (Whaaaa?)
90% of the replies to this story will amount to "I believe I'm too cool for MySpace."
What really astonishes me, though, is that I came up with four basic personality types in my research, and these same four types have been described by Plato, Aristotle, Carl Jung, Myers-Briggs.
No way! Her assumptions were the very same ones passed down by our culture? Astonishing!
That's fascinating. So what is it a picture of?
You know you're reading "News for Nerds" when the most exciting aspect of a photo is the number of pixels.
I think you mean "Maestro Roboto."
They have a Jem story in which, for some reason, Eric Raymond is a character. I'm not kidding. They're traumatizing our childhood memories. It's outrageous. Truly, truly, truly outrageous.
Is there a reason no posts are showing up?
It's Free Software, right? Can I make a request?
FREEBIRD!!!!
When I checked, Googlebot had won 18 games. I found that amusing. How embarrassing must it be to play Connect Four against Googlebot and lose?
The thing to do is to put two identical robots in a hallway--and see if they go into an infinite loop trying to politely get out of each other's way.
Now we can tell spammers: "All your Bayes are belong to us."
They were screaming:
"Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers!"
Watch out for new DoS attacks involving high-pitched noises.
Just think: script kiddies teaming up with operatic sopranos. The thought is almost too horrifying to contemplate.
"The Fake Monkey Automatons" would be a terrific name for a rock band.
Yawn. If the girl had hit the meteorite, that would have been news.
The Camel Book is (IMHO) not only the best technical reference book I know of; it's a masterpiece in a unique genre of literature. What goals did you have in mind when you wrote it? What's important in a really good technical book? ("You" refers to the other authors as well.)
...the Enron anthem had a surprise ending?
I don't know, but I think it had a deceptive cadence.
(rimshot)
(Obscure music geek joke. If just one person actually gets it, I'll jump for joy.)