I work in a cubicle whose one side is open to a pretty well-traveled corridor. What bothers me the most is the paranoia that someone could be standing right outside my cube and looking over my shoulder. It's not even that my boss could be watching me surf the web at work (hey, 95% of the time it's work-related research anyway). It's the fact that my thought processes, and their half-products that appear on my monitor are private. Maybe I'm paranoid, but I find it very stifling and uncomfortable writing code while someone is (or could be) watching me work.
I wouldn't mind a set-up where I'm facing the outside of my cube. I find it much easier to tune out the distractions that are right in front of me than those that are going on behind my back. Alas, the desk setup doesn't allow that...
I've always said that I will remove Windows from my computer the day that I can play Alpha Centauri and play DVD's in Linux (without too much pain involved). Well, halfway there!:)
But, now that I have both Alpha Centauri and the Alien Crossfire expansion pack for Windows, I don't think that I will shell out the money a second time for a Linux version (I assume that it won't be free). It would be nice to be able to get a port of a game you already own for free, or for a nominal fee.. like the cost of CD and shipping.
I wonder, is any company doing that, or has ever done this before? I don't buy (or play) games very often, so I'm kind of ignorant when it comes to those issues.
Ah, but starting next year (or is it this year?), even Modula 3 will be replaced with such atrocities as Java and C++ in first and second-year Waterloo CS courses! We cannot allow this carnage to continue!
now, how am I going to resell my Modula-3 text?!! (the eminent Harbison)
.. forty-odd bucks worth of fireplace fuel? even looking at it gives me hives... i know it's not as sexy as pascal, but.. hey, wanna buy it as erotica literature?;) come on, first 30 bucks takes it!
I showed some prospective Waterloo mathies around the 3rd floor on Campus Day
They were so disappointed when I told them that they would probably *not* be using the cute iMacs for their courses, and did not quite believe me that they'd switch over to Unix (!) in their second CS course and never look back...
"Unix?? Ack!" -- frightened look -- awww.. so cute.. so innocent.. just ripe for assimilation into the Mathie collective..;) (yeah, off topic, i know, i know)
Pi(e) day at U(Waterloo)
on
Happy Pi Day!
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· Score: 1
Here at the Math faculty of University of Waterloo, Ontario, we celebrated Pi Day with lots and lots of free pie (at 1:59pm of course!)
I think Nortel Networks sponsored the event. You know you're in a geek-heaven university when...
>> No. By HS, people have pretty much already >>formed who they will be in their adult life. The >>time to get girls interested in tech in very >>early 5th grade or earlier.
That's not necessarily true. Until age 12, I lived in a country where nobody I knew had a computer, so I was not exposed to computers as a "thing to do" until high school. Until then, I was not sure about what to do with my life.. I really liked math, but I had no idea how to make a career out of that, so I thought, maybe psychology or something? That's the kind of thing that my girlfriends were talking about doing.
Then, in Grade 10, I randomly decided to take an introductory computer course instead of Spanish. It was ho-hum until we got to the programming component of the course. The whole concept was new to me, but I instantly fell in love.:) In the meanwhile, I also met some (male) friends who introduced me to the world of IRC, the Internet and programming. By the time I was in grade 12, I was the only girl in a programming class. I was never discouraged from taking programming because I was a girl, but I felt like an oddity. The guys were rather cliquish, and would show off their "skillz" in front of each other.. but neither they, nor the teacher, ever really acknowledged me as one of them because I didn't like playing Doom, or participate in their discussions about sports and the joys of flatulation. It didn't matter that I blew all of them away at programming and was as much of a techie geek as the rest of them!
I'm not easily discouraged, or I wouldn't be in the midst of getting a degree in math and computer science at a prestigious Canadian university.:) But I can see how a lot of girls with love for computer science could be discouraged from becoming a techie because their talents are not being recognized by their high school teachers or by their peers. At that age, this matters a lot. So don't be afraid to say "nice hack!" or "wow, you should do this for living" to a girl... it might be just what she needs to make a decision about her future. (I shudder to think that I might have wound up as a psych major.. i would have *hated* it!)
... and btw, a girl won't think you any less of a man if you admit that she is possibly better at computers than you are...;)
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I work in a cubicle whose one side is open to a pretty well-traveled corridor. What bothers me the most is the paranoia that someone could be standing right outside my cube and looking over my shoulder. It's not even that my boss could be watching me surf the web at work (hey, 95% of the time it's work-related research anyway). It's the fact that my thought processes, and their half-products that appear on my monitor are private. Maybe I'm paranoid, but I find it very stifling and uncomfortable writing code while someone is (or could be) watching me work.
I wouldn't mind a set-up where I'm facing the outside of my cube. I find it much easier to tune out the distractions that are right in front of me than those that are going on behind my back. Alas, the desk setup doesn't allow that...
But, now that I have both Alpha Centauri and the Alien Crossfire expansion pack for Windows, I don't think that I will shell out the money a second time for a Linux version (I assume that it won't be free). It would be nice to be able to get a port of a game you already own for free, or for a nominal fee.. like the cost of CD and shipping.
I wonder, is any company doing that, or has ever done this before? I don't buy (or play) games very often, so I'm kind of ignorant when it comes to those issues.
Ah, but starting next year (or is it this year?), even Modula 3 will be replaced with such atrocities as Java and C++ in first and second-year Waterloo CS courses! We cannot allow this carnage to continue!
;) come on, first 30 bucks takes it!
now, how am I going to resell my Modula-3 text?!! (the eminent Harbison)
.. forty-odd bucks worth of fireplace fuel? even looking at it gives me hives... i know it's not as sexy as pascal, but.. hey, wanna buy it as erotica literature?
I showed some prospective Waterloo mathies around the 3rd floor on Campus Day
;)
They were so disappointed when I told them that they would probably *not* be using the cute iMacs for their courses, and did not quite believe me that they'd switch over to Unix (!) in their second CS course and never look back...
"Unix?? Ack!" -- frightened look --
awww.. so cute.. so innocent.. just ripe for assimilation into the Mathie collective..
(yeah, off topic, i know, i know)
Here at the Math faculty of University of Waterloo, Ontario, we celebrated Pi Day with lots and lots of free pie (at 1:59pm of course!)
:D
I think Nortel Networks sponsored the event. You know you're in a geek-heaven university when...
mmmm... bumbleberry pie... yum!
>> No. By HS, people have pretty much already >>formed who they will be in their adult life. The >>time to get girls interested in tech in very >>early 5th grade or earlier.
:)
:) But I can see how a lot of girls with love for computer science could be discouraged from becoming a techie because their talents are not being recognized by their high school teachers or by their peers. At that age, this matters a lot. So don't be afraid to say "nice hack!" or "wow, you should do this for living" to a girl... it might be just what she needs to make a decision about her future. (I shudder to think that I might have wound up as a psych major.. i would have *hated* it!)
;)
That's not necessarily true.
Until age 12, I lived in a country where nobody I knew had a computer, so I was not exposed to computers as a "thing to do" until high school. Until then, I was not sure about what to do with my life.. I really liked math, but I had no idea how to make a career out of that, so I thought, maybe psychology or something? That's the kind of thing that my girlfriends were talking about doing.
Then, in Grade 10, I randomly decided to take an introductory computer course instead of Spanish. It was ho-hum until we got to the programming component of the course. The whole concept was new to me, but I instantly fell in love.
In the meanwhile, I also met some (male) friends who introduced me to the world of IRC, the Internet and programming. By the time I was in grade 12, I was the only girl in a programming class. I was never discouraged from taking programming because I was a girl, but I felt like an oddity. The guys were rather cliquish, and would show off their "skillz" in front of each other.. but neither they, nor the teacher, ever really acknowledged me as one of them because I didn't like playing Doom, or participate in their discussions about sports and the joys of flatulation. It didn't matter that I blew all of them away at programming and was as much of a techie geek as the rest of them!
I'm not easily discouraged, or I wouldn't be in the midst of getting a degree in math and computer science at a prestigious Canadian university.
... and btw, a girl won't think you any less of a man if you admit that she is possibly better at computers than you are...