Obviously, there are women in these fields, but not a great deal of us. Those of us that are here generally stay low profile. Why? Tons of reasons. Part of it is the fact that as soon as people discover that you are a female with a clue, there are two common responces (there are more, but these are the ones you get ALL the time).
One - You really don't have a clue, i can treat you like dirt and get away with it, because i'm male, and only males have a clue when it comes to computers.
Two - Ooooh! a female with a clue. She wants to go to bed with me. She really will be thrilled to be informed that i'm her best ambition in life, and heck, i get a new bed buddy out of the deal.
Those of us that survive that, because we love the toys, or have more important things to worry about, keep a very low profile. Just as self defence. Add to that, often we don't get a more intelligent responce by the other females (outside the industry) that we know. "What do you mean you work in computers? Don't you mean you're a technical writer (at best)? -Real- women don't use computers."
Now, don't get me wrong, i have some wonderful female and male friends who are completely savvy. And i do use *nix. I'm cozy w/many flavors. I just don't advertise. And as someone above put it, i do my time at the office. After 60 hours a week getting code and servers to do what i want, when i get home, my computer there is for games and communication w/friends only. I'd rather go to ballet, and out to coffee, than spend yet MORE time staring at that screen.
If you want to find lots of women w/a computer clue, find one. She knows more as friends, and almost with out a doubt, emails/trades stores/shares code/shares info with quite a few more. It's the proverbial underground network. In order to find us, you have to know us. *wry grin* Not the most welcomeing of things, but it's getting more public and better every year. When i started in the "professional" workforce, i knew less than 5 tech savvy women. Now i hear from over a 100 a day. That's just in 3 years. Give us time. As our network gets stronger, and the environments get less hostile, we will get more visible.
Yet another female that reads/. regularly. I have to point out a few things.
Scan through the comments above. Right in the top five, there is one from a male student at VA Tech (my alma mater, as a matter of fact) saying there were no females, and promptly getting rather throughly replied to by several of said 'non-existant' females. Not to mention the post from the lady who is bi. all of whom made it past my comments filter, so even that's not an excuse.
Another thing. There is NO self respecting female techie, or geek grrl or however we choose to style ourselves that would take a job we were totally unqualified for. Not to mention, to be rude, if your school was that good, it wouldn't HAVE to have quota's on gender. Who are you kidding? VA Tech is prolly one of the better schools in the country for CS. And i know for a fact that they don't have a quota. They won't take you unless you are qualified. Period. End of story.
And one last irritated point. You admit to the fact that you will coddle underqualified chicks because they fit YOUR definition of 'hottie'. If these chicks have a clue (and they prolly do, if you let them) they prolly resent the living daylights out of you and your attitude. And also prolly don't find it worth arguing. Simply because it's rather prevalent. I know that my personal attitude (and i'll admit it's rude) is that if you decide i'm stupid on first sight, because i'm 5'4", and ex dancer and blonde, then you deserve whatever you get. And trust me, that won't be sweetness light and drivel.
I will add my voice to the suggestions above, and say that YES, Mackies are a happy thing, as well as some of the Yamahas for what you are looking for. If you want to know where to go, besides places like e-Bay, and instument/music stores, look for high end consumer audio/video equipment stores.
I don't know what coast you are on, but if west coast, i'm talking like Chealsea audio,(two plus steps above Magnolia Hi-Fi) they do both quality audio and video, and although you won't see the boards on display the same as the amps and tv's, they prolly know/have access to the types of board you are interested in. And can give you real world help on what else you might need/want to add extra value for your buck in.
Ever read Red Mars, Blue Mars and Green Mars? Or watched The Babylon Project: Crusade? I think that this theme has been around and explored for a bit, and unfortunately too likely to become true for my taste....
Well, in truth, I have to pick the other side of that statement. I worked in theatre for a nice long time, both in educational settings, and professional environments. While i understand a lot of the frustration that unions can cause, let me turn it around. It guaranteed a minimum safety and intelligence level. When i was hanging upside down out of a truss, trying to focus a light, the last thing i wanted to have to worry about was whether the bonehead next to me knew what a light WAS! The only real experience i have with unions (in case you couldn't guess) is the I.A.T.S.E. (Internat'l Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees). It saved my hide i don't know how many times.
In many ways the Theatre Industry is a lot like the computer industry. There are deadlines that have to be met, and tons of clueless people to work around to meet said deadlines. Not to mention people that would be more than willing to run the local help into the ground because they could. Does this sound familiar?
I'll pick an example, where we, the IA workers for the day, showed up to unload a show. It didn't show up for 5 HOURS after the time it was scheduled. While we stood around waiting. Why? Because they'd gotten drunk (and other) the city before and hadn't left on time. They then proceeded to try and work everyone straight through to the out, and complained mightily about food breaks, rest breaks, et al. Turns out they even tried to not pay the union for the 5 hours we were standing around waiting for them. The union paid us for the time we waited, enforced meal breaks and rest breaks, and, consequently,ended up preventing several accidents. People that don't take a break become a danger. Even in computers. At a bare minimum level, they become less effective. Whle in an ideal world, everyone would take a break when they need it, i will not complain if someone enforces it. I also won't complain about a forced fair wage. Yeah, there are times it's inconvenient, and it's another level of beaurocracy, but this one is there to protect us. The worker. The show happened, and the audience had NO IDEA about the truama that went on backstage. That's the way it's supposed to work. In our world as well. As long as the Union is managed intelligently, it can save a lot of truama.
Well, i'll step up and give you my opinion that you'll be in luck. Basically, as he stated in the article itself, this will become the dominant for low end users, first time pc buyers, etc. Yes, it'll creep into the middle market - come on, realistically, companies like cheap, and that's what this'll offer. So most paper pushing people in an office will have an integrated board. But for the developers, the die hard gamers, the graphics sector, yes, modular will exist.
I tend to think it will be a lot like modems. Currently, you can buy an internal modem, but often you are getting a glorified pos. (That Blue Light Special v, 90 modem comes to mind...) When you buy an external modem, you have an amount of guarantee that it's a bit more reliable. They make the same pieces, but they have to up the quality, because they can't pass the buck if a component breaks. Same thing will happen for the types of computers our segment of the market buys. Same pieces more or less, but at the higher end of both the quality and price scale, to offset the 'expense' of being modular.
Re:Other Professionals Make the Same Trade Off
on
Home Sweet Sweatshop
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Also, there are some other factors that go into this. While almost unequivocally, i, like everyone else in the wide world would like a "better deal" i've had reality driven home to me recently. I graduated w/a technical theatre degree. (I love theatre, and computers. In an ideal, or just future, depending on which happens first... world i'll help integrate the two. ) I currently work in the computer industry (expensive things those student loans). I make an average amount for the industry (around 40+K/yr). This is over double what most of my contemporarys from college are currently making. Do i work any harder? I don't think i can say yes. Do i work less? again, i don't think i can agree. Differently, sure. Would we all like to work 40 hours a week and then go home? Certainly. But only 2 years out of college, that isn't an option if i wish to pay my bills. Same for all of my other friends who graduated the same time. Part of it is that there are always replacements. No matter how good you are, there is always someone better. You are not irreplacable. The world doesn't work like that. So, in order to make a big enough impression, you have to compete, and in this case that means the mega work weeks, the willingness to come in at any and all hours. For a while. And that's the trick. To realize that you are not required to do this the rest of your life. Promethian flaw demands that we play with fire, but common sense eventually teaches us that ovens can hurt.
Tied into that, there is the simple theory of Moore's law. Everyone expects it. In EVERY field now. You can no longer take the time to do it slowly and right, because the audience demands it NOW. It is a cultural thing. We are taught to be so self driven and in some ways that only re-inforces our tendencies to be self centered. Which only feeds the vicious circle. And those who are at the top survived, so now they feel that we ought to "do our time". We, as a species are caught up in how 'much' we accomplished. Quantity not quality. This has been reflected in our life styles by and large for years. Are we truly to be surprised when it becomes de facto standard for our work environments?
>Also the real reason for the Apple/ MS rivalvry was because Jobs snubbed Gates once at a convention. >
Well, they did add a bit more to Gates' character than that. They reference how little he likes loosing, and mention quite a few yelling rants that Jobs had at Gates. Insert #disclaimer: Now, i personally don't think gates is either a saint or a devil (misguided but really d@mn good salesman perhaps), but you have to admit, if you were yelled at repeatedly by someone w/delusions of godhood (in this PARTICULAR case, Jobs), whether you had same delusions or not, you'd be inclined to take some out of their hide. For revenge if nothing else. They also show Gates w/similar delusions of godhood. So you have to add that neither character was stable, and both wanted to be king, in a world that debunks heroes, to the reasons they didn't play nicely. They aren't fully 3D people, but there was at least a passing attempt to keep them believable. While they don't make the characters 'men off the street', they do make them more or less emotionally accessable and logical. Which kind of means that it's hard to say that the only reason MS didn't play well w/Apple was because of being snubbed. That was just one in a plethora of reasons, and not even the most important even as portrayed in the movie. Besides, turn it around, why was Apple so bound and determined that they (in particular, the Mac group) were the only 'artists' in the world? That didn't exactly go over well with the rest of the world at the time, and adds yet another reason for MS to want to take them down a peg. For good or ill, it is a rather understandable, human responce.
Actually, when you think about it, that's a common occurance... Most people may not be encyclopedic (although my friends tease that i'm that way), but how many times have you been asked a question, had a major blank in the brian, and if you just waited a few seconds, and didn't tense up, *poof* the answer appeared. I don't know that much about how it works, but a bit more speculation can't hurt. What if the brain not only does an associative path, but does a few layers of abstraction beyond that? So that the recall i was talking about above is generated by a mind basically doing a reference check...Eg: "what's Sarah's pH#?" sets off images of phones and Sarah, then does a cross search for all memories that include both those, (*grin* regardless of capitalization) then tries to arrange by date, and importance....So while you are waiting for the phone number to occur to you, you remember that you have a Birthday gift you've never sent her, and that you have to pay the phone bill....(first relations) and those thoughts lead to a few other associations, while the original search is still being processed, of other bills, other people(all of which are then added to the calculation of where that memory is), and suddenly halfway through a thought on whether you did your laundry, you remember that there is a 64 in her number, and *poof* the rest of the memory is downloaded....because you've been, i don't know if this is the right phrase, but homing in on the co-ordinates of the memory....It's just a thought!
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Obviously, there are women in these fields, but not a great deal of us. Those of us that are here generally stay low profile. Why? Tons of reasons. Part of it is the fact that as soon as people discover that you are a female with a clue, there are two common responces (there are more, but these are the ones you get ALL the time).
One - You really don't have a clue, i can treat you like dirt and get away with it, because i'm male, and only males have a clue when it comes to computers.
Two - Ooooh! a female with a clue. She wants to go to bed with me. She really will be thrilled to be informed that i'm her best ambition in life, and heck, i get a new bed buddy out of the deal.
Those of us that survive that, because we love the toys, or have more important things to worry about, keep a very low profile. Just as self defence. Add to that, often we don't get a more intelligent responce by the other females (outside the industry) that we know. "What do you mean you work in computers? Don't you mean you're a technical writer (at best)? -Real- women don't use computers."
Now, don't get me wrong, i have some wonderful female and male friends who are completely savvy. And i do use *nix. I'm cozy w/many flavors. I just don't advertise. And as someone above put it, i do my time at the office. After 60 hours a week getting code and servers to do what i want, when i get home, my computer there is for games and communication w/friends only. I'd rather go to ballet, and out to coffee, than spend yet MORE time staring at that screen.
If you want to find lots of women w/a computer clue, find one. She knows more as friends, and almost with out a doubt, emails/trades stores/shares code/shares info with quite a few more. It's the proverbial underground network. In order to find us, you have to know us. *wry grin* Not the most welcomeing of things, but it's getting more public and better every year. When i started in the "professional" workforce, i knew less than 5 tech savvy women. Now i hear from over a 100 a day. That's just in 3 years. Give us time. As our network gets stronger, and the environments get less hostile, we will get more visible.
Yet another female that reads /. regularly. I have to point out a few things.
Scan through the comments above. Right in the top five, there is one from a male student at VA Tech (my alma mater, as a matter of fact) saying there were no females, and promptly getting rather throughly replied to by several of said 'non-existant' females. Not to mention the post from the lady who is bi. all of whom made it past my comments filter, so even that's not an excuse.
Another thing. There is NO self respecting female techie, or geek grrl or however we choose to style ourselves that would take a job we were totally unqualified for. Not to mention, to be rude, if your school was that good, it wouldn't HAVE to have quota's on gender. Who are you kidding? VA Tech is prolly one of the better schools in the country for CS. And i know for a fact that they don't have a quota. They won't take you unless you are qualified. Period. End of story.
And one last irritated point. You admit to the fact that you will coddle underqualified chicks because they fit YOUR definition of 'hottie'. If these chicks have a clue (and they prolly do, if you let them) they prolly resent the living daylights out of you and your attitude. And also prolly don't find it worth arguing. Simply because it's rather prevalent. I know that my personal attitude (and i'll admit it's rude) is that if you decide i'm stupid on first sight, because i'm 5'4", and ex dancer and blonde, then you deserve whatever you get. And trust me, that won't be sweetness light and drivel.
I will add my voice to the suggestions above, and say that YES, Mackies are a happy thing, as well as some of the Yamahas for what you are looking for. If you want to know where to go, besides places like e-Bay, and instument/music stores, look for high end consumer audio/video equipment stores.
I don't know what coast you are on, but if west coast, i'm talking like Chealsea audio,(two plus steps above Magnolia Hi-Fi) they do both quality audio and video, and although you won't see the boards on display the same as the amps and tv's, they prolly know/have access to the types of board you are interested in. And can give you real world help on what else you might need/want to add extra value for your buck in.
hmm...
Ever read Red Mars, Blue Mars and Green Mars? Or watched The Babylon Project: Crusade? I think that this theme has been around and explored for a bit, and unfortunately too likely to become true for my taste....
Well, in truth, I have to pick the other side of that statement. I worked in theatre for a nice long time, both in educational settings, and professional environments. While i understand a lot of the frustration that unions can cause, let me turn it around. It guaranteed a minimum safety and intelligence level. When i was hanging upside down out of a truss, trying to focus a light, the last thing i wanted to have to worry about was whether the bonehead next to me knew what a light WAS! The only real experience i have with unions (in case you couldn't guess) is the I.A.T.S.E. (Internat'l Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees). It saved my hide i don't know how many times.
In many ways the Theatre Industry is a lot like the computer industry. There are deadlines that have to be met, and tons of clueless people to work around to meet said deadlines. Not to mention people that would be more than willing to run the local help into the ground because they could. Does this sound familiar?
I'll pick an example, where we, the IA workers for the day, showed up to unload a show. It didn't show up for 5 HOURS after the time it was scheduled. While we stood around waiting. Why? Because they'd gotten drunk (and other) the city before and hadn't left on time. They then proceeded to try and work everyone straight through to the out, and complained mightily about food breaks, rest breaks, et al. Turns out they even tried to not pay the union for the 5 hours we were standing around waiting for them. The union paid us for the time we waited, enforced meal breaks and rest breaks, and, consequently,ended up preventing several accidents. People that don't take a break become a danger. Even in computers. At a bare minimum level, they become less effective. Whle in an ideal world, everyone would take a break when they need it, i will not complain if someone enforces it. I also won't complain about a forced fair wage. Yeah, there are times it's inconvenient, and it's another level of beaurocracy, but this one is there to protect us. The worker. The show happened, and the audience had NO IDEA about the truama that went on backstage. That's the way it's supposed to work. In our world as well. As long as the Union is managed intelligently, it can save a lot of truama.
If you are curious about the IA, try going here: History of the 100 years of the Union
Well, i'll step up and give you my opinion that you'll be in luck. Basically, as he stated in the article itself, this will become the dominant for low end users, first time pc buyers, etc. Yes, it'll creep into the middle market - come on, realistically, companies like cheap, and that's what this'll offer. So most paper pushing people in an office will have an integrated board. But for the developers, the die hard gamers, the graphics sector, yes, modular will exist.
I tend to think it will be a lot like modems. Currently, you can buy an internal modem, but often you are getting a glorified pos. (That Blue Light Special v, 90 modem comes to mind...) When you buy an external modem, you have an amount of guarantee that it's a bit more reliable. They make the same pieces, but they have to up the quality, because they can't pass the buck if a component breaks. Same thing will happen for the types of computers our segment of the market buys. Same pieces more or less, but at the higher end of both the quality and price scale, to offset the 'expense' of being modular.
Also, there are some other factors that go into this. While almost unequivocally, i, like everyone else in the wide world would like a "better deal" i've had reality driven home to me recently. I graduated w/a technical theatre degree. (I love theatre, and computers. In an ideal, or just future, depending on which happens first... world i'll help integrate the two. ) I currently work in the computer industry (expensive things those student loans). I make an average amount for the industry (around 40+K/yr). This is over double what most of my contemporarys from college are currently making. Do i work any harder? I don't think i can say yes. Do i work less? again, i don't think i can agree. Differently, sure. Would we all like to work 40 hours a week and then go home? Certainly. But only 2 years out of college, that isn't an option if i wish to pay my bills. Same for all of my other friends who graduated the same time. Part of it is that there are always replacements. No matter how good you are, there is always someone better. You are not irreplacable. The world doesn't work like that. So, in order to make a big enough impression, you have to compete, and in this case that means the mega work weeks, the willingness to come in at any and all hours. For a while. And that's the trick. To realize that you are not required to do this the rest of your life. Promethian flaw demands that we play with fire, but common sense eventually teaches us that ovens can hurt.
Tied into that, there is the simple theory of Moore's law. Everyone expects it. In EVERY field now. You can no longer take the time to do it slowly and right, because the audience demands it NOW. It is a cultural thing. We are taught to be so self driven and in some ways that only re-inforces our tendencies to be self centered. Which only feeds the vicious circle. And those who are at the top survived, so now they feel that we ought to "do our time". We, as a species are caught up in how 'much' we accomplished. Quantity not quality. This has been reflected in our life styles by and large for years. Are we truly to be surprised when it becomes de facto standard for our work environments?
Actually,
there is one that's been set up, that you can find from UserFriendly, called Geek Finder.
It could certainly use more jobs, (i'm hoping to relo to the east coast myself) but it does exist, so might see if they'd like to combine....
>Also the real reason for the Apple/ MS rivalvry was because Jobs snubbed Gates once at a convention.
>
Well, they did add a bit more to Gates' character than that. They reference how little he likes loosing, and mention quite a few yelling rants that Jobs had at Gates. Insert #disclaimer: Now, i personally don't think gates is either a saint or a devil (misguided but really d@mn good salesman perhaps), but you have to admit, if you were yelled at repeatedly by someone w/delusions of godhood (in this PARTICULAR case, Jobs), whether you had same delusions or not, you'd be inclined to take some out of their hide. For revenge if nothing else. They also show Gates w/similar delusions of godhood. So you have to add that neither character was stable, and both wanted to be king, in a world that debunks heroes, to the reasons they didn't play nicely. They aren't fully 3D people, but there was at least a passing attempt to keep them believable. While they don't make the characters 'men off the street', they do make them more or less emotionally accessable and logical. Which kind of means that it's hard to say that the only reason MS didn't play well w/Apple was because of being snubbed. That was just one in a plethora of reasons, and not even the most important even as portrayed in the movie. Besides, turn it around, why was Apple so bound and determined that they (in particular, the Mac group) were the only 'artists' in the world? That didn't exactly go over well with the rest of the world at the time, and adds yet another reason for MS to want to take them down a peg. For good or ill, it is a rather understandable, human responce.
Actually, when you think about it, that's a common occurance... Most people may not be encyclopedic (although my friends tease that i'm that way), but how many times have you been asked a question, had a major blank in the brian, and if you just waited a few seconds, and didn't tense up, *poof* the answer appeared. I don't know that much about how it works, but a bit more speculation can't hurt. What if the brain not only does an associative path, but does a few layers of abstraction beyond that? So that the recall i was talking about above is generated by a mind basically doing a reference check...Eg: "what's Sarah's pH#?" sets off images of phones and Sarah, then does a cross search for all memories that include both those, (*grin* regardless of capitalization) then tries to arrange by date, and importance....So while you are waiting for the phone number to occur to you, you remember that you have a Birthday gift you've never sent her, and that you have to pay the phone bill....(first relations) and those thoughts lead to a few other associations, while the original search is still being processed, of other bills, other people(all of which are then added to the calculation of where that memory is), and suddenly halfway through a thought on whether you did your laundry, you remember that there is a 64 in her number, and *poof* the rest of the memory is downloaded....because you've been, i don't know if this is the right phrase, but homing in on the co-ordinates of the memory....It's just a thought!