The Computer Museum History Center, located at Moffett Field in Mountain View, is presenting a talk entitled "Beowulf-Class PC Clusters: An Historical Perspective" given by Thomas Sterling, leader of the NASA team that created the first Beowulf cluster and co-author of How to Build a Beowulf. The talk will take place in the evening of April 13. RSVP by April 10. All of the Computer Museum History Center events that I've been to have been very good.
I hope I'm not breaking some unwritten rule by actually providing data, but here goes...
Based on the information in Tables 3.2 and 3.3 in NSF Report Women, Minorities, and Persons with Disabilities in Science and Engineering (1998) covering the years 1967-1995, the percentage of bachelor's degrees in "mathematical/computer sciences" going to women peaked at 39.5% in 1985. In nine of the next ten years, the percentage of such degrees going to women decreased slightly, with 35.1% going to women in 1995.
There was once a programmer who was attached to the court of the warlord of Wu. The warlord asked the programmer: "Which is easier to design: an accounting package or an operating system?"
"An operating system," replied the programmer.
The warlord uttered an exclamation of disbelief. "Surely an accounting package is trivial next to the complexity of an operating system," he said.
"Not so," said the programmer, "when designing an accounting package, the programmer operates as a mediator between people having different ideas: how it must operate, how its reports must appear, and how it must conform to the tax laws. By contrast, an operating system is not limited by outside appearances. When designing an operating system, the programmer seeks the simplest harmony between machine and ideas. This is why an operating system is easier to design."
The warlord of Wu nodded and smiled. "That is all good and well, but which is easier to debug?"
The only possible choice is Jésus (pronounced "hay-soose"). Not only does its second syllable have the right sound (similar to SuSe) but, for much of the world's population, it implies that it's a savior. They could even make the case that RedHat is the devil! (I hope that any karma I acquire in this world doesn't count against me in the next.)
Lenny Foner wrote an interesting and entertaining paper back in 1993 about Michael Mauldin's Julia bot, which lived on MUDs and managed to fool some guy named Barry who kept hitting on "her". As Foner comments, though, it's not clear whether Julia passed the Turing Test or Barry failed it.
Many people have listed their favorite SF books of all time. Here is a subset that I believe would be of interest to a 13-year-old girl new to SF. (Having once been in that category, I feel qualified to make recommendations.)
The White Mountains by John Chrisopher: Great children's SF with adolescent characters dealing with adolescent issues in addition to space aliens
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
The Diamond Age, by Neal Stephenson: The reading level is for older people, but the book's central character is an intelligent girl
A Wrinkle in Time, by Madeleine L'Engle: Great kids' SF with a female protagonist
Ender's Game, by Orson Scott Card: Great SF, child characters, easy reading
The Phantom Tollbooth by Norman Juster: An intelligent classic children's book
Short stories by Issac Asimov, especially "The Bicentennial Man"
Robert Heinlen's juveniles, especially Citizen of the Galaxy, The Door into Summer, Podkayne of Mars, and Between Planets
We have all heard a lot of talk about whether shopping on the internet is safe. The fact is that this year on-line shoppers will spend over $5.7 billion dollars according to International Data Corp. The main concern of on-line shoppers is that their credit card information will somehow end up in the wrong hands. We use Netscape's Secure Commerce Server technology, which encrypts your order information, keeping it private and protected. It's a Netscape technology called "SSL" (Secure Sockets Layer) and it's used by us and all the other major commercial shopping sites, including: The Wall Street Journal, Barnes & Noble Books, FTD Flowers, Microsoft, and Netscape itself. It is actually safer to transmit your credit card info over the Internet than it is to use your credit card around town.
CD Universe has successfully processed over one hundred thousand credit-card transactions, without a single credit card number being compromised. In February 1997 we were named one of the 10 best commerce sites in the world by PC Week magazine.
Very few of the comments have been about the articles in the news letter. Here are some pointers to the articles that I think would be of most interest to slashdotters. (Disclosure: I was a co-editor of the newsletter.)
You two are right. I was wrong to make a dichotomy between empowered programmers and disempowered users. One could even argue for the reverse dichotomy: that coders are drones and application users enjoy the fruits of their labor.
Don't let my poor phrasing in the introduction deter you from the articles in the newsletter, only one of which was written by me.:-)
How about making an award to a group that has to defend itself from an unfair lawsuit or other persecution, such as Etoy. (Unfortunately, there's no shortage of nominees for this category.)
Actually, a true geek should refer to it as Y2K-48. I liked the geektoon about this so much that I included it as a question on my computer architecture final.
One aspect of this issue that nobody seems to have remarked on is that these problems are due to humungous class sizes. We don't have problems like this at Mills because of its small class sizes. All of the classes I have taught have had fewer than 20 students; some have had fewer than 10. I give out copies of my slides and additional handouts every class session. If a student missed class and wanted copies of my notes, she would ask me for them. Actually, if a student is absent, I save a set of handouts for her and give them to her next time. (I use "she" and "her" deliberately because Mills is a women's college.)
Because the class size at Mills is so small, it would be obvious to me if a student didn't attend class and learned only from the written material and other students. I actually think that doing so is fine and don't require class attendance. Despite this, students show up for class. I like to think it is because they get something from my lectures and discussions. It says a lot about the quality of the classes at some larger schools or the motivation of the students that so many students find classes not worth attending that there is a market for notes.
Consider taking courses at a community college. They're inexpensive, and you can often transfer credits to a 4-year college. My understanding is that they are also more geared toward skills, giving you a quick pay-off in the job market.
New York, NY, Jan 13 -- People for the Ethical Treatment of Software (PETS) announced today that seven more software companies have been added to the group's "watch list" of companies that regularly practice software testing.
"There is no need for software to be mistreated in this way so that companies like these can market new products," said Ken Granola, spokesperson for PETS. "Alternative methods of testing these products are available."
According to PETS, these companies force software to undergo lengthy and arduous tests, often without rest for hours or days at a time. Employees are assigned to "break" the software by any means necessary, and inside sources report that they often joke about "torturing" the software.
"It's no joke," said Granola. "Innocent programs, from the day they are compiled, are cooped up in tiny rooms and 'crashed' for hours on end. They spend their whole lives on dirty, ill-maintained computers, and are unceremoniously deleted when they're not needed anymore."
Granola said the software is kept in unsanitary conditions and is infested with bugs. "We know alternatives to this horror exist," he said, citing industry giant Microsoft Corp. as a company that has become extremely successful without resorting to software testing.
[I don't know who wrote this. I wish I had. -- ES]
Wow, sounds like things are different in your neck of the woods than in mine. As I said, most of the best he-nerds I know were married or otherwise partnered by age 30. I can't think of any ugly female CS majors in my class, although a few of the men were funny-looking (but did all right in the dating game if they had other strengths). Perhaps at your school, the CS majors of both sexes were ugly and the jerks were more successful, in which case, congratulations!
It is untrue that male geeks don't stand a chance of finding geek girlfriends. I speak from experience, having spent 10+ years in computer science departments (mostly MIT).
Almost all of the high-quality men I went to school with are married or partnered. One he-nerd I know has had women fighting over him for years. He's average looking, but he's very sweet and intelligent. From my observations, jerks have a higher success rate as undergrads, but good guys do better thereafter. (I know a number of she-nerds who dated jerks as undergrads, but they didn't marry them and went on to date nice guys.)
Egon provides a textbook illustration of the type of guy who claims that it's impossible to find a geek woman to date. For starters, he insults the women, by saying that none or few of them are good-looking. I can't believe how many men tell nerd women to their face that nerd women aren't attractive. None of the guys I've heard say this have been model material themselves. Second, if it's impossible to find a geek girlfriend, how have other men managed to do so? Perhaps they treat women better than you do. Be a good engineer. Don't say that something's impossible if you can't do it, particularly if other people manage to do it.
This rant is not aimed at Egon. He's no worse than zillions of other guys I've met or heard of, and he didn't actually say it is impossible.
(For the record, I am now married to one of the many he-nerds I dated and am working in one of the few computer science departments with more women then men. (See my home page for details.))
Come on, Philip. The reason you're not an MIT professor isn't just that you're an ArsDigita officer. You've pissed off too many people at MIT (mostly intentionally). I say that with the greatest respect.
Obligatory personal information: I'm an MIT^3 (SB, SM, PhD) she-nerd married to a he-nerd I met while we were at the same school. The male-female ratio was simultaneously the biggest bug and the biggest feature of being a female computer science student. Now I teach at a women's college, where the opposite ratio holds. (We have a few male students in our graduate and special programs.)
The situation is much worse than the summary implied. Advertisements would occur not just at boot time. According to the ZDnet article, "an Internet Service Provider like AOL could theoretically put its sign up icon directly on the desktop of any PC that uses the Phoenix start-up software." In other words, the message would not just be at boot-up. While Linux users would presumably not get such an icon, the situation for MS users is scarier than other posters have realized. I've already sent a complaint to Phoenix and praise to AMI.
Slashdot Mirror
The Computer Museum History Center, located at Moffett Field in Mountain View, is presenting a talk entitled "Beowulf-Class PC Clusters: An Historical Perspective" given by Thomas Sterling, leader of the NASA team that created the first Beowulf cluster and co-author of How to Build a Beowulf. The talk will take place in the evening of April 13. RSVP by April 10. All of the Computer Museum History Center events that I've been to have been very good.
I believe that the term for deliberately crippling a chip by removing part of its cache is called "cache-tration".
I hope I'm not breaking some unwritten rule by actually providing data, but here goes...
Based on the information in Tables 3.2 and 3.3 in NSF Report Women, Minorities, and Persons with Disabilities in Science and Engineering (1998) covering the years 1967-1995, the percentage of bachelor's degrees in "mathematical/computer sciences" going to women peaked at 39.5% in 1985. In nine of the next ten years, the percentage of such degrees going to women decreased slightly, with 35.1% going to women in 1995.
Anybody have any data for outside of the U.S.?
From The Tao of Programming by Geoffrey James:
The only possible choice is Jésus (pronounced "hay-soose"). Not only does its second syllable have the right sound (similar to SuSe) but, for much of the world's population, it implies that it's a savior. They could even make the case that RedHat is the devil! (I hope that any karma I acquire in this world doesn't count against me in the next.)
Lenny Foner wrote an interesting and entertaining paper back in 1993 about Michael Mauldin's Julia bot, which lived on MUDs and managed to fool some guy named Barry who kept hitting on "her". As Foner comments, though, it's not clear whether Julia passed the Turing Test or Barry failed it.
Many people have listed their favorite SF books of all time. Here is a subset that I believe would be of interest to a 13-year-old girl new to SF. (Having once been in that category, I feel qualified to make recommendations.)
Very few of the comments have been about the articles in the news letter. Here are some pointers to the articles that I think would be of most interest to slashdotters. (Disclosure: I was a co-editor of the newsletter.)
You two are right. I was wrong to make a dichotomy between empowered programmers and disempowered users. One could even argue for the reverse dichotomy: that coders are drones and application users enjoy the fruits of their labor.
Don't let my poor phrasing in the introduction deter you from the articles in the newsletter, only one of which was written by me. :-)
How about making an award to a group that has to defend itself from an unfair lawsuit or other persecution, such as Etoy. (Unfortunately, there's no shortage of nominees for this category.)
Actually, a true geek should refer to it as Y2K-48. I liked the geektoon about this so much that I included it as a question on my computer architecture final.
Microsoft Patents Ones, Zeroes is one of my favorite Onion articles. Every year, I give a copy to the students in my computer architecture class.
FWIW, I teach computer science at Mills College.
One aspect of this issue that nobody seems to have remarked on is that these problems are due to humungous class sizes. We don't have problems like this at Mills because of its small class sizes. All of the classes I have taught have had fewer than 20 students; some have had fewer than 10. I give out copies of my slides and additional handouts every class session. If a student missed class and wanted copies of my notes, she would ask me for them. Actually, if a student is absent, I save a set of handouts for her and give them to her next time. (I use "she" and "her" deliberately because Mills is a women's college.)
Because the class size at Mills is so small, it would be obvious to me if a student didn't attend class and learned only from the written material and other students. I actually think that doing so is fine and don't require class attendance. Despite this, students show up for class. I like to think it is because they get something from my lectures and discussions. It says a lot about the quality of the classes at some larger schools or the motivation of the students that so many students find classes not worth attending that there is a market for notes.
Consider taking courses at a community college. They're inexpensive, and you can often transfer credits to a 4-year college. My understanding is that they are also more geared toward skills, giving you a quick pay-off in the job market.
New York, NY, Jan 13 -- People for the Ethical Treatment of Software (PETS) announced today that seven more software companies have been added to the group's "watch list" of companies that regularly practice software testing.
"There is no need for software to be mistreated in this way so that companies like these can market new products," said Ken Granola, spokesperson for PETS. "Alternative methods of testing these products are available."
According to PETS, these companies force software to undergo lengthy and arduous tests, often without rest for hours or days at a time. Employees are assigned to "break" the software by any means necessary, and inside sources report that they often joke about "torturing" the software.
"It's no joke," said Granola. "Innocent programs, from the day they are compiled, are cooped up in tiny rooms and 'crashed' for hours on end. They spend their whole lives on dirty, ill-maintained computers, and are unceremoniously deleted when they're not needed anymore."
Granola said the software is kept in unsanitary conditions and is infested with bugs. "We know alternatives to this horror exist," he said, citing industry giant Microsoft Corp. as a company that has become extremely successful without resorting to software testing.
[I don't know who wrote this. I wish I had. -- ES]http://w ww.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Bridge/1086/School/ barcodehome.html
Wow, sounds like things are different in your neck of the woods than in mine. As I said, most of the best he-nerds I know were married or otherwise partnered by age 30. I can't think of any ugly female CS majors in my class, although a few of the men were funny-looking (but did all right in the dating game if they had other strengths). Perhaps at your school, the CS majors of both sexes were ugly and the jerks were more successful, in which case, congratulations!
It is untrue that male geeks don't stand a chance of finding geek girlfriends. I speak from experience, having spent 10+ years in computer science departments (mostly MIT).
Almost all of the high-quality men I went to school with are married or partnered. One he-nerd I know has had women fighting over him for years. He's average looking, but he's very sweet and intelligent. From my observations, jerks have a higher success rate as undergrads, but good guys do better thereafter. (I know a number of she-nerds who dated jerks as undergrads, but they didn't marry them and went on to date nice guys.)
Egon provides a textbook illustration of the type of guy who claims that it's impossible to find a geek woman to date. For starters, he insults the women, by saying that none or few of them are good-looking. I can't believe how many men tell nerd women to their face that nerd women aren't attractive. None of the guys I've heard say this have been model material themselves. Second, if it's impossible to find a geek girlfriend, how have other men managed to do so? Perhaps they treat women better than you do. Be a good engineer. Don't say that something's impossible if you can't do it, particularly if other people manage to do it.
This rant is not aimed at Egon. He's no worse than zillions of other guys I've met or heard of, and he didn't actually say it is impossible.
(For the record, I am now married to one of the many he-nerds I dated and am working in one of the few computer science departments with more women then men. (See my home page for details.))
Flame off.
For an amusing take on the dating scene, see The Game (but don't take it too seriously).
You can find a write-up of last year's contest in issue 10 of the Perl Journal.
"Astroturf" is a great term. It means artificial grassroots.
Come on, Philip. The reason you're not an MIT professor isn't just that you're an ArsDigita officer. You've pissed off too many people at MIT (mostly intentionally). I say that with the greatest respect.
For more on this topic, see The Ada Project.
Obligatory personal information: I'm an MIT^3 (SB, SM, PhD) she-nerd married to a he-nerd I met while we were at the same school. The male-female ratio was simultaneously the biggest bug and the biggest feature of being a female computer science student. Now I teach at a women's college, where the opposite ratio holds. (We have a few male students in our graduate and special programs.)
The situation is much worse than the summary implied. Advertisements would occur not just at boot time. According to the ZDnet article, "an Internet Service Provider like AOL could theoretically put its sign up icon directly on the desktop of any PC that uses the Phoenix start-up software." In other words, the message would not just be at boot-up. While Linux users would presumably not get such an icon, the situation for MS users is scarier than other posters have realized. I've already sent a complaint to Phoenix and praise to AMI.