Sadly, it's not just education that's suffers the "make-it-work with $0" mindset. This along the lines of "the beatings will continue until morale improves" except it's "the budget will not be funded until results are achieved." This is a management problem, not an IT problem. You need someone intelligent who speaks management to make it understood that they have to have realistic and definable IT goals which includes a willingness to fund them on your side.
I don't know much about your community but if you're lucky enough to have a grant-savvy PTO, you might be able to get them to write a grant application for the funding but, again, you need to be very clear about what the goals are and how the hardware/software you want will achieve them.
Also your local board of ed and board of finance may be interested in the dipping into the IT budget when pet project funds run low. They tend to frown on stuff like that.
I feel for you. I lived on campus at NJIT in the early 90s. At the time, our campus was adjacent to Central High which has since moved. Newark has a lot of problems that run together so much, it's hard to tell where to start. Christy hasn't been kind to public schools in general and especially punative towards struggling urban schools. This is short-sighted and not at all in keeping with the point of having a government which is to maintain a stable society.
I haven't been to Newark in a very long time, but I'd be surprised if things have changed a lot. There was a great deal of mistrust all the way around. Residents mistrusted officials because of so many broken promises ("life will be better" followed by status quo or corruption). The Newark Teacher Union was suspicious of help offered by the colleges because they thought it would be an opening to start firing teachers or reducing their benefits. The mostly white middle-class and non-US college students and staff kept to themselves while worrying about local crime (muggings and car theft occurred several times a month on campus alone) and stayed in the suburbs as much as they could.
It's hard to imagine that there was a time in the distant past (about 70 years ago) when Newark had so much more going for it but it did. For the most part, the residents of Newark that I met are good, hard-working people who deserve a lot better than snarky comments about their home.
Saying that someone should learn to code because we live in a digital age and use all sorts of information technology everyday is like saying we should all learn to compose and perform music because we all listen to it. Don't get me wrong. I gladly encourage anyone who finds coding interesting to pursue it. But not everyone finds it interesting or even intuitable. And there are definitely some people who should never, ever write code for a living (I've encountered some of their handiwork).
Back in the 80s, I attended National Computer Camp (please don't hold the web design against them) where I got my first real taste of coding. My daughter attended last summer and it is still an amazing environment run by its founder, Dr. Zabinski. Of course, they continue to update lessons to keep up with modern technology. They cater to all levels of programming so if that's your thing, you will definitely not be bored. There's a lot of time given to creative computing and gaming. They're pretty flexible about supporting campers various areas of interest. The food is good and there's a lot of freedom.
The only downside is that I'd say that you're probably on the older side of their campers. The mean age is probably about 12 with the majority between 11 to 13. But I know from first hand experience that they've had non-US campers before.
Been using this in our local Stop & Shop for the last year and it really does make the trip easier. You're allowed to use the express lane no matter how much you're buying if you use the hand-held scanner. The only pain is occassionally they do a random audit which requires a cashier to come over and scan 7 random items in your bags. The cool part is you can bag as you add to your cart and keep track of how much you're spending.
I used to work for McGraw-Hill Education. My office did web work and Flash/Director CD-ROMs to support the K-12 books for their divisions. It's been a long time since I've been with them but I very distinctly recall that Texas, Florida, and California hold huge sway over the content of the national editions. This happens because those three states do statewide purchasing of all of textbooks for public schools instead of setting requirements and letting local districts purchase books that meet the criteria like every other state. Large publishers don't like to develop separate editions for states. It's expensive. They mostly do social studies since there's usually an element of local history and culture required in that subject. Sometimes a state will make special arrangements with a publisher to get their own state edition in a particular book. This usually involves the state ensuring a certain amount of sales by requiring the book. But don't think large publishers are going to put out a special Texas edition of science if the same book will sell just as well in much of the rest of the country.
I wasn't always like this. And in fact, lest you mistake me for a turtle-suit-wearing WTO protester, I'm actually all in favor of free markets. It'd just be nice if we ever actually saw an actually free market in my lifetime. As my husband likes to say, there really isn't any such thing as a free market without educated consumers. A lot of consumers aren't sufficiently savvy enough to keep corporations in check. In many cases, corporations will use their position to promote ignorance in their consumer, all the while crying about how regulation will destroy the free-market. Hypocrites.
I'm glad she didn't go away. She has provided a valuable pre-test for Obama. If Obama can't take Clinton, he isn't ready to take McCain. The big test is for whoever gets the job of President. Herding cats doesn't even begin to cover what the President is going to have to do with our polarized Congress.
The US (that includes liberals, conservatives, neo-conservatives, evangelicals, liberatarians, green party, et al) is in sore need of someone who can start us on a path toward reconcilation. The polization that's been going on over the last few decades is not helping anyone except the opportunists who use it to shore up their own power.
I'm not naive enough to believe that this reconcilation is something that can happen within a single or even two terms of a president, but you have to start somewhere. While not a sure thing, Obama strikes me as having the best chance of being able to start that process.
I think you're missing the point. One of the big misconceptions about Amercian colleges is that they are in the business of teaching. By and large, they are more in the business of certifying and teaching is a necessary evil to that end. College reputations are built on the quality of the students they turn out. They need to accurately assess whether their students are doing the work themselves. Homework is a tool that can be used to spot check how the student is coming along. If students are copying answers, it undermines the credibility of that assessment, thus undermining the college's credibility.
I don't know exactly what was being discussed in that Facebook group, aside from the invitation mentioned in the article. If it was an online analog to the list of homework answers that several frats at my univeristy used to keep before the days of the web, I can see the university's case. If it was more like the usual random students that float through Usenet group who post something like "I need to figure out how to..." and replies include general examples and explanations of relevant concepts, then the university is out of line. I would hope after all of this time that the university has someone with enough of a clue to be able to tell the difference.
I actually read about this in my local paper Hartford Courant this morning. I don't think the CNN article really does a good job indicating the "hostile" in this hostile takeover. Note the part where Laurer directed UTC not to have further contact with board members.
My impression is that UTC has been getting more heavily into security over the last several years and they are probably more interested the ATM/check machine aspect of Diebold, in spite of Diebold's entanglements with voting machines.
> I don't wholly disagree with most of what you said, but I think 'everyone has to buy health insurance' is a better starting point than what we have now. If the > problem with that solution is that it leaves Peace Corps workers out in the cold because they couldn't afford to buy health insurance on their crappy wages, > and we feel like the Peace Corps is generally a good thing for everyone, then let's decide that our tax dollars will cover the health insurance for specific cases like that.
You mean like we do with the US military? I can tell you as the child of a veteran that if that's how you want to do it, there will be so many cut-backs, hoops to jump through, and loopholes that no one except a very small elite will end up with anything like basic care. It's disgusting how the military medical infrastructure has been gutted. This has been going on for a very long time now. I remember my parents having to re-figure what to do about our medical check ups, vaccinations, etc. decades ago because the military kept reducing coverage and service.
This demonstrates to me that if you're going to do something serious about basic healthcare, you've got to socialize basic care. There will be arguments over what is basic care, but I'd hope a serious effort would at least cover preventative check ups and emergency triage which is where a lot of people who have insurance tend to use it. Those who don't have insurance often end up with higher costs because they didn't get preventative care and have to endure more disability and incur greater expense to fix more serious conditions that could have been fixed or prevented if caught early. It's not a panacea, but it would likely be cost-effective in the long term for the society as a whole.
All candidates that actually have a chance at winning are, by necessity of the system that has evolved, macheovelean. Of course, it's lousy. The trick for the consciencious voter is to do research into the underreported times and places when the candidate wasn't making an appearance to run for a political seat.
Clinton is very cognizant of the fact that politicians are always under the microscope, so it's a lot harder to catch her being candid than many candidates. That actually impresses me as much as it unsettles me because it tells me she is aware enough and smart enough to know that you don't have a prayer at getting things done if you don't win the office.
The system sucks, but I don't think the way a candidate plays the system is necessarily a good indicator of whether or not they would make a good president.
Btw, my problem with Clinton is that I believe she would continue to maintain the ideological wedge that has developed in this country. I don't think that she did anything to create it, nor do I think she would actively encourage it. But the neo-cons did a fanastic job at painting her as a Satan incarnate to their base. We need a leader who can encourage compromise and find common ground. That isn't going to happen when a noticable segment of the population has such strong negative feelings about their leader.
Btw, to the moderator, I don't think it was fair to mod the parent as troll. It was a valid opinion.
I'll state my bias upfront in order to try to head off any misunderstandings. I am a registered Democrat, I will be voting tomorrow, and I don't have any strong inclinations towards any of the current candidates since my prefered candidate, Bill Richardson, dropped out of the race.
I'm not especially impressed by either Clinton or Obama, but it's unfair to call her a lunatic, especially after our experience with the current administration. Unfortunately, it's been difficult to get to the real qualities of any of these candidates through all of the hype and spin. Clinton strikes me as intelligent and willing to listen to others, especially those with whom she disagrees. Those are qualities that have been lacking in our leadership for quite some time. Certainly, she is not the only one to possess them, but it does at least make her more credible to me.
My favorite expert on UI is Bruce Tognazzini. His site at http://www.asktog.com/ has been quite useful to me. I don't agree with everything he says, but it's always gets me thinking, always challenging me to approach development from a human perspective.
I think you've hit upon an important thing. The culture needs to change, but I think it's a mistake to say that men or male hormones are to blame for that culture. There is a tendency in the tech community at large to treat anyone who isn't white/suburban-upbringing/male/gaming/jeans-wearing/i-know-more-obscure-tech-minutia-than-you/etc as a bit of an outsider. The further a person's background deviates from that experience, the more of an outsider they are. Kind of ironic since so many of my peers who do fit that mold were regarded as social outsiders growing up.
For the record, I fit the above mold pretty well except that I'm female. My experience has been that 99% of my work collegues have been very professional towards me. A slightly lesser percentage have been very professional towards other peers who don't fit the mold as well. Before I began working professionally, I experienced this attitude much more frequently which makes me think it's more of a maturity issue.
Of course, I've also run into the occassional problem co-worker or manager, but you get that in all fields. They're idiots and you don't need to be female to get grief from them.
Something a bit similiar to this happened at my college, NJIT. The campus, located in Newark, NJ, has a very diverse student population. There is a large number of students from outside the US, as well as a number of students from the suburbs and the local cities. While the diversity can be enlightening, it also creates a challenging environment for harmony.
During one semester, when the atmosphere had become particularly tense, a friend of mine had an opinion piece published in the October edition of our school paper. The letter was about the religious background of Halloween and showing tolerance towards people who have different beliefs. I was lucky enough to get a copy of this edition untouched, but before noon, every copy of the paper left the bins had the letter cut out of it. Naturally, it was thought that someone had taken offense to something in this letter and there was a lot of grumbling about censureship. That evening, I saw my friend and asked him about it and he started to laugh. He explained that his roommates were the ones who had taken all of the papers, cut his letter out of each, and returned them to their bins. They had taken the copies of the letters to wallpaper his dorm room with them. Every last square inch.
There's a company, Vertex, that makes some very expensive, but very comprehesive tax software. A former employer of mine uses it and I've worked with the eQuantum API. A co-worker and I were wondering when someone would start a service company based on Vertex's software (with their blessing, of course).
I'm shocked every time I hear this crap. Role model? Who the fuck needs a role model? I can't do homework because I don't have a role model?
Of course you don't need to have a role model to do homework. Maybe role model was a bad choice of words. The point is, girls are often given the impression that if they go into science, they'll end up as humorless, ugly, old maids.
Through college I was always harassed by idiots who couldn't do their work. The guys pretended like we were friends, the girls flirted. Were you capable of doing the work by yourself?
Yes, I was and I still am. I don't like to take help from anyone. Probably a personality flaw. But I really hate being patronized. I'm willing to give people the benefit of the doubt when they offer help, but sometimes, it's very obvious that they think you just can't do it. I don't know. Maybe it's just a sad attempt at a pick up.
Worst anecdote I can think of happened to my sister. She had a high school physics teacher who used to routinely tell the girls that he didn't expect them to be able to do the work.
I've literally had situations where I put forth an idea, it's dismissed without discussion, and a guy involved in the discussion within a minute puts forth the exact same idea, sometimes using the exact same words, and he gets the credit. It sucks, but that's life.
Most women who call themselves assertive are bitches. Most men who call themselves assertive are assholes. I've met plenty of assertive men and women who were fine, but as soon as some one calls them self assertive they're probably making excuses.
I tend to regard myself as passive most of the time, yet I've been called a bitch just for voicing an opinion in turn in an open forum.
Possibly, but I doubt you read their minds or they told you this.
No, but I've overheard conversations that weren't meant for my ears. It happens.
Married men tend to make more than single men and are hired more quickly, wheres the public outcry from single men? I'd think slashdot would be a good place for it to start.
I would guess that married men also tend to be older and more likely to have more work experience. I have no statistics so I don't know if that is a reasonable explanation or if you were comparing men of similar ages.
You aren't terribly special, if you could become a coder other woman could to. Given enough time, if there are a significant number of women who struggle through and become coders things will get easier. If there aren't many women who struggle to become coders, I'd say there's some sort of predisposition involved.
While I don't regard myself as better, I am apparently unusual or we wouldn't be having this discussion. I'm where I am because I've never done well at fitting in and I'm too stubborn to walk away from something I enjoy so much. I wasn't looking for sympathy. I was simply pointing out that a career in science has some real disincentives to women. Until those factors become much less significant, it's impossible to draw any rational conclusions about whether there is a genetic component to it.
Quite likely an employer would get in trouble if the asked that question directly. Possibly from they experience that is a real risk..
It is a risk that any young worker may not be dependable due to family commitments. When a woman has a child, obviously she will absolutely need to take a minimum of several weeks off to recuperate and focus on her newborn, but that tends to be a relatively short-term problem for the company. I think it's stupid to assume that once she is back at work, she's not going to be able to perform her duties as well as she had been able to before unless she's been allowing the job to consume all parts of her life which is unreasonable of any employer to expect of any employee.
I've seen too many co-workers and wives of co-workers layed off just as they are about to take (or during) materinty leave. A lot of times, these women aren't interested in a court battle at that point in their lives because they need to focus their energy and money on the family.
As a woman who codes and went to an engineering university, I can testify that to that there are social factors that do dissuade girls and young women from going into technical fields. For one thing, there are few scientifically-inclined female role models. I don't know about you, but when I think of a female scientist stereotype, I have this vision of a cold, austere looking woman, which doesn't even remotely describe me or any of my female peers.
While growing up, I had adults and peers alike (not all of them, of course) treat me as if I'm some sort of freak for showing an interest in computers. Others would treat me like I was some sort of idiot who was incapable of doing the assigned work myself. When you're trying to fit in, it's easier to find a new interest than to endure those attitudes. It took several tries with my guidance councelor to get her to put together my records to submit to the college I went to because she kept questioning if I really wanted to do this. Not exactly a morale booster.
When I got to college, the male to female ratio was 6 : 1. Not only was there the minority of guys who hit on every girl they came into contact with (a few strayed over into sexual harassment), but there were very few girls who could sympathize with you.
If you are assertive, you're labeled a bitch. When you go for jobs, there are people who think, "Well, she's going to want to start a family soon, so I'd better not go with her; she's going to be undependable", without having any evidence of her dependability.
No, can't see why any young woman would have a problem going into a science field with those conditions. Any attempt to make science seem "girl-friendly" is doomed as long as the situtations that I mention are common enough. It's a cheap marketing ploy at best.
Having said all of that, I am a strong believer of matching the person to the position. I don't care if your advantage comes from your natural talent, physical build, education, experience, personality, etc. but, it had better be an honest match. You lose a lot when you confuse your assumptions with reality.
I personally find it hard to trust a company that's supposedly created a full G4 emulator capable of running Mac OS 10.3 but still hasn't figured out the difference in computer land between Mac and MAC.
I eventually convinced myself that when folks wrote MAC when referring to a Macintosh that they were using an acronym for Machine from Apple Computer. Or maybe they're shouting. It was Usenet after all.
But I do feel very bad tonight for people depending on the money in that account. They're in a lot of trouble tonight.
While I find it unfortunate for those who are getting burned by this situation, we are talking about (supposedly) mature adults who are responsible for reading the fine print. If one has substantial money tied up in PayPal, it was an imprudent move. PayPal isn't a bank. It is subject to neither federal oversight nor FDIC protection. My hope is that those affected are hurt enough to learn the lesson, but not crippled by the experience.
I understand that the feds have been keeping a close eye on PayPal for riding so close to the line. I wonder if this broad failure will be enough to cause the feds act.
Republicans now more than ever seem to be under the belief that they could throw any dissenting american in to prison and blow up anyone voicing their dissent outside the US and are on a collission course with the stark reality that while we may never die from a terrorist attack, we will surely feel the ever tightening grip of a police state.
It's neo-conservatives who have co-opted the GOP who are making the big power plays. Please do not blame Republicans as a whole for what's going on. I have a great deal of respect for true mainstream conservatives, even though I often disagree with their positions.
The second thing that came to mind is that the original passage of the PATRIOT Act is not the best example of the power grab that these folks have made. The act was passed as a knee-jerk reaction, literally in a moment of passion and fear. There was very little dissent on that bill from our representatives. I don't know how much of that support was from the need to do something about what was going on and how much was from fear of the consequences of dissenting, but I think the extraordinary circumstances under which it came into existance should be considered. It should be interesting to see what happens next year before some of the act expires at the end of 2005.
It's always been a thorn in my side, that (here in Canada, and no doubt elswhere) tax money pays for government agencies to collect map and aerial photography data (and land records), and do not make it properly accessible to the public.
Most agencies do make it available to the public. This is Greenwich being Greenwich. What is especially stupid about this is that much of the information is available at the Department of Enviromental Protection's web site. I used to work for the CT DOT doing GIS for them. At that time (6 years ago), we were trying to coordinate efforts with the DEP and University of Connecituct, who also had some good data including ariel photography. While the TIGER maps at the DEP may not have the accuracy that USGS survey maps have, they have all of the important information and they're close enough for many applications.
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Sadly, it's not just education that's suffers the "make-it-work with $0" mindset. This along the lines of "the beatings will continue until morale improves" except it's "the budget will not be funded until results are achieved." This is a management problem, not an IT problem. You need someone intelligent who speaks management to make it understood that they have to have realistic and definable IT goals which includes a willingness to fund them on your side.
I don't know much about your community but if you're lucky enough to have a grant-savvy PTO, you might be able to get them to write a grant application for the funding but, again, you need to be very clear about what the goals are and how the hardware/software you want will achieve them.
Also your local board of ed and board of finance may be interested in the dipping into the IT budget when pet project funds run low. They tend to frown on stuff like that.
I feel for you. I lived on campus at NJIT in the early 90s. At the time, our campus was adjacent to Central High which has since moved. Newark has a lot of problems that run together so much, it's hard to tell where to start. Christy hasn't been kind to public schools in general and especially punative towards struggling urban schools. This is short-sighted and not at all in keeping with the point of having a government which is to maintain a stable society.
I haven't been to Newark in a very long time, but I'd be surprised if things have changed a lot. There was a great deal of mistrust all the way around. Residents mistrusted officials because of so many broken promises ("life will be better" followed by status quo or corruption). The Newark Teacher Union was suspicious of help offered by the colleges because they thought it would be an opening to start firing teachers or reducing their benefits. The mostly white middle-class and non-US college students and staff kept to themselves while worrying about local crime (muggings and car theft occurred several times a month on campus alone) and stayed in the suburbs as much as they could.
It's hard to imagine that there was a time in the distant past (about 70 years ago) when Newark had so much more going for it but it did. For the most part, the residents of Newark that I met are good, hard-working people who deserve a lot better than snarky comments about their home.
Saying that someone should learn to code because we live in a digital age and use all sorts of information technology everyday is like saying we should all learn to compose and perform music because we all listen to it. Don't get me wrong. I gladly encourage anyone who finds coding interesting to pursue it. But not everyone finds it interesting or even intuitable. And there are definitely some people who should never, ever write code for a living (I've encountered some of their handiwork).
Back in the 80s, I attended National Computer Camp (please don't hold the web design against them) where I got my first real taste of coding. My daughter attended last summer and it is still an amazing environment run by its founder, Dr. Zabinski. Of course, they continue to update lessons to keep up with modern technology. They cater to all levels of programming so if that's your thing, you will definitely not be bored. There's a lot of time given to creative computing and gaming. They're pretty flexible about supporting campers various areas of interest. The food is good and there's a lot of freedom.
The only downside is that I'd say that you're probably on the older side of their campers. The mean age is probably about 12 with the majority between 11 to 13. But I know from first hand experience that they've had non-US campers before.
Been using this in our local Stop & Shop for the last year and it really does make the trip easier. You're allowed to use the express lane no matter how much you're buying if you use the hand-held scanner. The only pain is occassionally they do a random audit which requires a cashier to come over and scan 7 random items in your bags. The cool part is you can bag as you add to your cart and keep track of how much you're spending.
I used to work for McGraw-Hill Education. My office did web work and Flash/Director CD-ROMs to support the K-12 books for their divisions. It's been a long time since I've been with them but I very distinctly recall that Texas, Florida, and California hold huge sway over the content of the national editions. This happens because those three states do statewide purchasing of all of textbooks for public schools instead of setting requirements and letting local districts purchase books that meet the criteria like every other state. Large publishers don't like to develop separate editions for states. It's expensive. They mostly do social studies since there's usually an element of local history and culture required in that subject. Sometimes a state will make special arrangements with a publisher to get their own state edition in a particular book. This usually involves the state ensuring a certain amount of sales by requiring the book. But don't think large publishers are going to put out a special Texas edition of science if the same book will sell just as well in much of the rest of the country.
Don't forget Systems Analyst. Requires being able to communicate clearly with both technical and non-technical people to do this well.
I'm glad she didn't go away. She has provided a valuable pre-test for Obama. If Obama can't take Clinton, he isn't ready to take McCain. The big test is for whoever gets the job of President. Herding cats doesn't even begin to cover what the President is going to have to do with our polarized Congress.
The US (that includes liberals, conservatives, neo-conservatives, evangelicals, liberatarians, green party, et al) is in sore need of someone who can start us on a path toward reconcilation. The polization that's been going on over the last few decades is not helping anyone except the opportunists who use it to shore up their own power.
I'm not naive enough to believe that this reconcilation is something that can happen within a single or even two terms of a president, but you have to start somewhere. While not a sure thing, Obama strikes me as having the best chance of being able to start that process.
I think you're missing the point. One of the big misconceptions about Amercian colleges is that they are in the business of teaching. By and large, they are more in the business of certifying and teaching is a necessary evil to that end. College reputations are built on the quality of the students they turn out. They need to accurately assess whether their students are doing the work themselves. Homework is a tool that can be used to spot check how the student is coming along. If students are copying answers, it undermines the credibility of that assessment, thus undermining the college's credibility.
I don't know exactly what was being discussed in that Facebook group, aside from the invitation mentioned in the article. If it was an online analog to the list of homework answers that several frats at my univeristy used to keep before the days of the web, I can see the university's case. If it was more like the usual random students that float through Usenet group who post something like "I need to figure out how to..." and replies include general examples and explanations of relevant concepts, then the university is out of line. I would hope after all of this time that the university has someone with enough of a clue to be able to tell the difference.
I actually read about this in my local paper Hartford Courant this morning. I don't think the CNN article really does a good job indicating the "hostile" in this hostile takeover. Note the part where Laurer directed UTC not to have further contact with board members.
My impression is that UTC has been getting more heavily into security over the last several years and they are probably more interested the ATM/check machine aspect of Diebold, in spite of Diebold's entanglements with voting machines.
> I don't wholly disagree with most of what you said, but I think 'everyone has to buy health insurance' is a better starting point than what we have now. If the
> problem with that solution is that it leaves Peace Corps workers out in the cold because they couldn't afford to buy health insurance on their crappy wages,
> and we feel like the Peace Corps is generally a good thing for everyone, then let's decide that our tax dollars will cover the health insurance for specific cases like that.
You mean like we do with the US military? I can tell you as the child of a veteran that if that's how you want to do it, there will be so many cut-backs, hoops to jump through, and loopholes that no one except a very small elite will end up with anything like basic care. It's disgusting how the military medical infrastructure has been gutted. This has been going on for a very long time now. I remember my parents having to re-figure what to do about our medical check ups, vaccinations, etc. decades ago because the military kept reducing coverage and service.
This demonstrates to me that if you're going to do something serious about basic healthcare, you've got to socialize basic care. There will be arguments over what is basic care, but I'd hope a serious effort would at least cover preventative check ups and emergency triage which is where a lot of people who have insurance tend to use it. Those who don't have insurance often end up with higher costs because they didn't get preventative care and have to endure more disability and incur greater expense to fix more serious conditions that could have been fixed or prevented if caught early. It's not a panacea, but it would likely be cost-effective in the long term for the society as a whole.
All candidates that actually have a chance at winning are, by necessity of the system that has evolved, macheovelean. Of course, it's lousy. The trick for the consciencious voter is to do research into the underreported times and places when the candidate wasn't making an appearance to run for a political seat.
Clinton is very cognizant of the fact that politicians are always under the microscope, so it's a lot harder to catch her being candid than many candidates. That actually impresses me as much as it unsettles me because it tells me she is aware enough and smart enough to know that you don't have a prayer at getting things done if you don't win the office.
The system sucks, but I don't think the way a candidate plays the system is necessarily a good indicator of whether or not they would make a good president.
Btw, my problem with Clinton is that I believe she would continue to maintain the ideological wedge that has developed in this country. I don't think that she did anything to create it, nor do I think she would actively encourage it. But the neo-cons did a fanastic job at painting her as a Satan incarnate to their base. We need a leader who can encourage compromise and find common ground. That isn't going to happen when a noticable segment of the population has such strong negative feelings about their leader.
Btw, to the moderator, I don't think it was fair to mod the parent as troll. It was a valid opinion.
I'll state my bias upfront in order to try to head off any misunderstandings. I am a registered Democrat, I will be voting tomorrow, and I don't have any strong inclinations towards any of the current candidates since my prefered candidate, Bill Richardson, dropped out of the race.
I'm not especially impressed by either Clinton or Obama, but it's unfair to call her a lunatic, especially after our experience with the current administration. Unfortunately, it's been difficult to get to the real qualities of any of these candidates through all of the hype and spin. Clinton strikes me as intelligent and willing to listen to others, especially those with whom she disagrees. Those are qualities that have been lacking in our leadership for quite some time. Certainly, she is not the only one to possess them, but it does at least make her more credible to me.
My favorite expert on UI is Bruce Tognazzini. His site at http://www.asktog.com/ has been quite useful to me. I don't agree with everything he says, but it's always gets me thinking, always challenging me to approach development from a human perspective.
I think you've hit upon an important thing. The culture needs to change, but I think it's a mistake to say that men or male hormones are to blame for that culture. There is a tendency in the tech community at large to treat anyone who isn't white/suburban-upbringing/male/gaming/jeans-wearing/i-know-more-obscure-tech-minutia-than-you/etc as a bit of an outsider. The further a person's background deviates from that experience, the more of an outsider they are. Kind of ironic since so many of my peers who do fit that mold were regarded as social outsiders growing up.
For the record, I fit the above mold pretty well except that I'm female. My experience has been that 99% of my work collegues have been very professional towards me. A slightly lesser percentage have been very professional towards other peers who don't fit the mold as well. Before I began working professionally, I experienced this attitude much more frequently which makes me think it's more of a maturity issue.
Of course, I've also run into the occassional problem co-worker or manager, but you get that in all fields. They're idiots and you don't need to be female to get grief from them.
Something a bit similiar to this happened at my college, NJIT. The campus, located in Newark, NJ, has a very diverse student population. There is a large number of students from outside the US, as well as a number of students from the suburbs and the local cities. While the diversity can be enlightening, it also creates a challenging environment for harmony.
During one semester, when the atmosphere had become particularly tense, a friend of mine had an opinion piece published in the October edition of our school paper. The letter was about the religious background of Halloween and showing tolerance towards people who have different beliefs. I was lucky enough to get a copy of this edition untouched, but before noon, every copy of the paper left the bins had the letter cut out of it. Naturally, it was thought that someone had taken offense to something in this letter and there was a lot of grumbling about censureship. That evening, I saw my friend and asked him about it and he started to laugh. He explained that his roommates were the ones who had taken all of the papers, cut his letter out of each, and returned them to their bins. They had taken the copies of the letters to wallpaper his dorm room with them. Every last square inch.
There's a company, Vertex, that makes some very expensive, but very comprehesive tax software. A former employer of mine uses it and I've worked with the eQuantum API. A co-worker and I were wondering when someone would start a service company based on Vertex's software (with their blessing, of course).
I'm shocked every time I hear this crap. Role model? Who the fuck needs a role model? I can't do homework because I don't have a role model?
Of course you don't need to have a role model to do homework. Maybe role model was a bad choice of words. The point is, girls are often given the impression that if they go into science, they'll end up as humorless, ugly, old maids.
Through college I was always harassed by idiots who couldn't do their work. The guys pretended like we were friends, the girls flirted. Were you capable of doing the work by yourself?
Yes, I was and I still am. I don't like to take help from anyone. Probably a personality flaw. But I really hate being patronized. I'm willing to give people the benefit of the doubt when they offer help, but sometimes, it's very obvious that they think you just can't do it. I don't know. Maybe it's just a sad attempt at a pick up.
Worst anecdote I can think of happened to my sister. She had a high school physics teacher who used to routinely tell the girls that he didn't expect them to be able to do the work.
I've literally had situations where I put forth an idea, it's dismissed without discussion, and a guy involved in the discussion within a minute puts forth the exact same idea, sometimes using the exact same words, and he gets the credit. It sucks, but that's life.
Most women who call themselves assertive are bitches. Most men who call themselves assertive are assholes. I've met plenty of assertive men and women who were fine, but as soon as some one calls them self assertive they're probably making excuses.
I tend to regard myself as passive most of the time, yet I've been called a bitch just for voicing an opinion in turn in an open forum.
Possibly, but I doubt you read their minds or they told you this.
No, but I've overheard conversations that weren't meant for my ears. It happens.
Married men tend to make more than single men and are hired more quickly, wheres the public outcry from single men? I'd think slashdot would be a good place for it to start.
I would guess that married men also tend to be older and more likely to have more work experience. I have no statistics so I don't know if that is a reasonable explanation or if you were comparing men of similar ages.
You aren't terribly special, if you could become a coder other woman could to. Given enough time, if there are a significant number of women who struggle through and become coders things will get easier. If there aren't many women who struggle to become coders, I'd say there's some sort of predisposition involved.
While I don't regard myself as better, I am apparently unusual or we wouldn't be having this discussion. I'm where I am because I've never done well at fitting in and I'm too stubborn to walk away from something I enjoy so much. I wasn't looking for sympathy. I was simply pointing out that a career in science has some real disincentives to women. Until those factors become much less significant, it's impossible to draw any rational conclusions about whether there is a genetic component to it.
It is a risk that any young worker may not be dependable due to family commitments. When a woman has a child, obviously she will absolutely need to take a minimum of several weeks off to recuperate and focus on her newborn, but that tends to be a relatively short-term problem for the company. I think it's stupid to assume that once she is back at work, she's not going to be able to perform her duties as well as she had been able to before unless she's been allowing the job to consume all parts of her life which is unreasonable of any employer to expect of any employee.
I've seen too many co-workers and wives of co-workers layed off just as they are about to take (or during) materinty leave. A lot of times, these women aren't interested in a court battle at that point in their lives because they need to focus their energy and money on the family.
As a woman who codes and went to an engineering university, I can testify that to that there are social factors that do dissuade girls and young women from going into technical fields. For one thing, there are few scientifically-inclined female role models. I don't know about you, but when I think of a female scientist stereotype, I have this vision of a cold, austere looking woman, which doesn't even remotely describe me or any of my female peers.
While growing up, I had adults and peers alike (not all of them, of course) treat me as if I'm some sort of freak for showing an interest in computers. Others would treat me like I was some sort of idiot who was incapable of doing the assigned work myself. When you're trying to fit in, it's easier to find a new interest than to endure those attitudes. It took several tries with my guidance councelor to get her to put together my records to submit to the college I went to because she kept questioning if I really wanted to do this. Not exactly a morale booster.
When I got to college, the male to female ratio was 6 : 1. Not only was there the minority of guys who hit on every girl they came into contact with (a few strayed over into sexual harassment), but there were very few girls who could sympathize with you.
If you are assertive, you're labeled a bitch. When you go for jobs, there are people who think, "Well, she's going to want to start a family soon, so I'd better not go with her; she's going to be undependable", without having any evidence of her dependability.
No, can't see why any young woman would have a problem going into a science field with those conditions. Any attempt to make science seem "girl-friendly" is doomed as long as the situtations that I mention are common enough. It's a cheap marketing ploy at best.
Having said all of that, I am a strong believer of matching the person to the position. I don't care if your advantage comes from your natural talent, physical build, education, experience, personality, etc. but, it had better be an honest match. You lose a lot when you confuse your assumptions with reality.
I personally find it hard to trust a company that's supposedly created a full G4 emulator capable of running Mac OS 10.3 but still hasn't figured out the difference in computer land between Mac and MAC.
I eventually convinced myself that when folks wrote MAC when referring to a Macintosh that they were using an acronym for Machine from Apple Computer. Or maybe they're shouting. It was Usenet after all.
But I do feel very bad tonight for people depending on the money in that account. They're in a lot of trouble tonight.
While I find it unfortunate for those who are getting burned by this situation, we are talking about (supposedly) mature adults who are responsible for reading the fine print. If one has substantial money tied up in PayPal, it was an imprudent move. PayPal isn't a bank. It is subject to neither federal oversight nor FDIC protection. My hope is that those affected are hurt enough to learn the lesson, but not crippled by the experience.
I understand that the feds have been keeping a close eye on PayPal for riding so close to the line. I wonder if this broad failure will be enough to cause the feds act.
Republicans now more than ever seem to be under the belief that they could throw any dissenting american in to prison and blow up anyone voicing their dissent outside the US and are on a collission course with the stark reality that while we may never die from a terrorist attack, we will surely feel the ever tightening grip of a police state.
It's neo-conservatives who have co-opted the GOP who are making the big power plays. Please do not blame Republicans as a whole for what's going on. I have a great deal of respect for true mainstream conservatives, even though I often disagree with their positions.
The second thing that came to mind is that the original passage of the PATRIOT Act is not the best example of the power grab that these folks have made. The act was passed as a knee-jerk reaction, literally in a moment of passion and fear. There was very little dissent on that bill from our representatives. I don't know how much of that support was from the need to do something about what was going on and how much was from fear of the consequences of dissenting, but I think the extraordinary circumstances under which it came into existance should be considered. It should be interesting to see what happens next year before some of the act expires at the end of 2005.
It's always been a thorn in my side, that (here in Canada, and no doubt elswhere) tax money pays for government agencies to collect map and aerial photography data (and land records), and do not make it properly accessible to the public.
Most agencies do make it available to the public. This is Greenwich being Greenwich. What is especially stupid about this is that much of the information is available at the Department of Enviromental Protection's web site. I used to work for the CT DOT doing GIS for them. At that time (6 years ago), we were trying to coordinate efforts with the DEP and University of Connecituct, who also had some good data including ariel photography. While the TIGER maps at the DEP may not have the accuracy that USGS survey maps have, they have all of the important information and they're close enough for many applications.