Fine. So maybe poor female sys admins are the result of a quota thing-- i don't support hiring inferior workers because of some stupid quota. but there are bad white male sys admins too--but there's no quota to use as an excuse there. By no means are all male sys admins bad, BTW-- i'm just saying that we can't name quotas as the be all and end all reason behind poor quality sys admins. Whatever. --anneke
Not really-- from the 5 or 6 sys admins I've dealt with, (not including myself, obviously,) quite a few fit the black-clad, suspicious-towards-users mentality. And however much I yell that female sys admins like myself (and yourself) exist, we still hold the vast minority. (Which in some ways, I suppose, can be pleasant)
I for one haven't achieved the rank of Supremely Bitter and Frightening SysAdmin yet, and hope I don't. I/like/ helping users, because I like making them happy, but I admit the extreme annoyance I feel when I have to deal with lusers who seem to have missed the path labeled "This Way to Common Courtesy" and stumbled upon "I don't get it, so why don't I act as if you're incompetent." But luckily I haven't dealt with many of those so far.
I digress-- basically, I think it's pretty accurate. And as for the $60k US-- I'm only going to be making half that (post-grad in May), but remember, we're also not working on Silicon Valley..and it's also dependent on experience. --Anneke
May just be my opinion, but major in whatever the heck you want-- I'm a/german/ major, for crying out loud, (cities minor), and I have a job waiting for me when I graduate in 6 weeks-- SysAdmin'ing, although unfortunately more NT than UNIX, and they don't understand why linux is SOOO cool, but I digress.
A lot of the other posters have it right-- It's all about experience. Sure, dabble in programming, it'll totally help you out-- but I know way way more about UNIX, linux, troubleshooting, being a webmaster and sysadminíng than any of my comp sci major friends (and I'm even at a women's college), because that's not what they teach you. 1- Read the O'Reilly books (like someone else recommended), 2- Read the redbook (System Administrator's Handbook, i think), 3- Take a couple/few programming courses on the side, 4- run Linux.
I'd say the last helped me more than anything else-- having an actual system running and playing around, especially if you (are allowed to) have other users on your box.
Personally, I've learned more job-relevant stuff by working in the computer center, having a linux box, and being a sysadmin/webmaster for our college student web server, as well as asst. admin for the college email server, than i have in classes (even math/comp sci ones).
Pardon my verbosity...cheers and best wishes! --Anneke
Again, I'll try to refrain from flaming, since I know you're a real person and not some random entitiy-- regardless of how many female sysadmins, myself included, you've just alienated.
Although men are the vast majority, I for one find it admirable that a/woman/ wrote the article, and that women are acknowledged as a part of the techie (and SysAdmin) world, no matter how small. We're out there. It seems somewhat closed-minded to reject our existence merely because we don't hold a majority. Three cheers for diversity. --Anneke
Ditto-- I'm another RedHat-using geek of the female persuation, and it sorta sounds like fun.
But frankly, I have to concur w/ a lot of the geek guys-- what's with this beach thing?? I'm surprised that RedHat (or any such techie-oriented company) would offer a dream vacation as a week at the beach. Although some might appreciate the prize, there are a lot of us out there who have no desire to go out (esp. redheads like me) and burn themselves to a crisp.
If I'm there to geek out, I'd rather have a T1 line, free reign of the most current hardware and software, and access to all the O'Reilly's I can get my hands. --Anneke
Personally, I enjoyed Doc Technical's review, although I admit that I didn't get beyond the beginning of Katz's review, so take my comments on this particular work with a grain of salt.
I tend to get somewhat frustrated by most of his writing, although there's sometimes enough merit to make it worth reading. However, from what I've seen of this review and his other works, Katz tends to take a very philosophically oriented, analytical approach. Although this actually works fairly well for analyzing a novel or prose, I believe the purpose of a book review should remain closer to the surface, paraphrasing the ideology and commenting on the writing style of the author rather than dealing with his personal motivation for writing. The latter style is instead appropriate for an author's own clarification (such as Katz himself) of the motivation behind his own works, or in a college paper using this more in-depth analysis, such as a college paper assessing the moral qualities in Viennese architecture (for a random example).
On the flip side, yes, Doc Technical admits that he didn't read the entire book, so those of you who complain on that front probably have a point. But on the other hand, he presents a fair number of excerpts which even the publishers consider to be indicative of the essence of Gates' book, which seem to paraphrase the (inadequacy and) "concepts" Gates is trying to present in this second novel.
He was definitely sarcastic, and yes, it's another M$ bashing review, but frankly, this book/doesn't/ seem to have much, if any, new or enlightening material, and I believe Doc presents this (lack) well.
Some time in May, but our God o' Slashdot has in the past refused to devulge that info... *smirk* he doesn't want all the stupid cards, perhaps...? Methinks the Slashdot should therefore innundate Rob with birthday messages/all month/. Gotta make him feel loved, right? *grin*
Bryn mawr, another "tri-co" college (swarthmore, haverford, bryn mawr), hasn't yet formulated an official policy regarding students running linux/unix. Ironically, we have filesharing on the Macs (not PCs) but we can't run servers and do likewise on Linux (or a like OS). Admittedly, it's less secure. Regardless, as far as I know, I'm one of three (by my count) linux users on the campus, and i was asked to make my box inaccessible (no logins: i had 15+ off-campus users w/ accts on my system at the time.) to anyone off-console, "until they formulated a policy." No official policy yet. It's true that it's easier, when attempting to control clueless users and therefore dangerously insecure systems, to just deny such service to all, but it would be a bit more work and a lot more fair to announce a policy by which certain security measures must be implemented by the users (and instructions provided) if they want to have linux on their machines.
I completely disagree that we should passively stand by and let RMS be ignored by CNN (et. al.), purely because some consider him too much of a 'zealot' to be the leader of a movement-- here, free software. When debating these issues, try to keep a few things in mind. First, yes, Linus is responsible for the kernel, and I definitely agree that he makes a great figurehead,/and/ he does a lot of work with (GNU)Linux-- but remember that RMS is responsible for -- i believe the number quoted was 30% ?--of the base code, while the kernel is maybe 3%?
Second, remember the difference between the/Free/ Software movement, and the concept of OSS. RMS is responsible for the GPL, but (on the part most of us tend to forget) he advocates FREE over SUPERIOR-- in fact, Linux being a better OS is almost irrelevant. RMS is advocating the concept of free over/any/ proprietary software.
I have no problem with Linus being Finnish-- i hadn't even considered the idea that people might reject him as a leader of the movement simply because he's a foreigner: why is it that the US is automatically assumed to be the rightful 'owner' of the OS anyway? But face it, people: Linux is all/about/ the collaboration of many people to work on a (superior) product. That's part of the beauty of OSS. And the idea of collaboration can go hand-in-hand with our having/multiple/ leaders, possibly with somewhat different agendas, in both RMS and Linus.
RMS has a lot of perfectly vaid points. Just because he rubs a lot of us the wrong way, we tend to reject him. But although we may come out of reading an interview with RMS somewhat annoyed at his attitude, we (techies and the public/the masses alike) will probably come out of it knowing a bit more about his influence in the movement, not to mention leaving with a better understandment of the movement (OSS, free software, Linux, etc) itself.
no comment on the hottie-or-not thing, but i would have LOVED to come, if i wasn't on the wrong stinkin' coast./and/ i'm 22 too:). Part of the female 4% of Slashdot, --anneke:) "Real Women Use Linux"
okay okay-- geez, people, the only thing you can post in reply to what i have to say is to dis my code syntax? Like i said, i'm not a programmer.. i was using syntax vaguely similar to Perl, if you must know-- and therefore yes, i should have put parentheses around the if conditional statement-- i haven't looked at Perl in a couple of months, and i don't really code. anyway-- I basically meant that a previous poster was implying/saying that because Katz wasn't a programmer/writing code or documentation, he was considered an outsider. the use of the ampersand (sp?) "&" was only because i ran out of space in the subject line, and couldn't spell out the 'and.' Happy spamming. --anneke
Although Katz's writing style tends to grate on my nerves occasionally as another example of cliche' writing style, he does sometimes have interesting stuff to say. Otherwise, those posting reply upon reply about Katz's ineptitude should admit that they only read his stuff to savor The Joy of Flaming. He's not the best writer I've seen; he's also by/no/ means the worst. Slashdot may not be the most appropriate forum, precisely/because of/ the nerd-oriented and tech-saavy community to whom he's writing. But hey, he does this on a volunteer basis, and we should give him some credit for that; not to mention that we obviously keep reading his stuff, as the comments attest to.
Considering that the articles written for this site are free, we could probably cut him/CmdrTaco et. al. at break for posting a book excerpthere-- why not grant him the press. I agree, however, that in general he's writing on a different level than a fair number of Slashdotters (or that they/we can appreciate.)
I find it fairly annoying to see, time and again, people rejecting Katz or other non-coders off-hand because they haven't physically contributed to Linux, in the form of documentation, code or the like. There are probably more than enough Anonymous Cowards out there to tell me that that's what it's all about, and that I'm only bitter because/I'm/ not doing it either.
Not so.
Slashdot is not just about Linux-- it's about/all/ "News for Nerds," and I love Linux to death as much as the next Slashdotter. But there's more to being "an insider" (although I was skeptical when i read that as well) than writing code. Katz/may/ be able to increase the visibility of the Linux (and additional OSS) OS, and he's helping in that way; and those of us who love the functionality of Linux and/use/ it can be just as suppportive via word-of-mouth explanation and the willingness to help newbies get started as those who code up a storm and submit patches. He may be a different sort of insider, but we don't reject Rob and Jeff as outsiders, do we? The entire concept of Slashdot is on community participation, just like OSS, and such members/leaders are just insiders on a different level.
Geek girls are out there; but previous posters are right-- we're few and far between in comparison to most of Geekdom. But i agree w/ those of you who condone finding a fellow geek as a significant other-- be you straight/gay, male/female. I'm not saying hold your breath, but personally, i for one am/far/ more interested in and impressed by the computer-saavy than those who fear the tech world.
Besides-- just because they can appreciate or even match your love of geek-stuffs, (and you don't have to code open source to be a geek, ya'know,) doesn't mean female geeks don't have other interests outside of this stuff as well: just as, one would hope, male geeks do as well. The Real World is a scary place;), but it's out there and sometimes we gotta face it. I spent tens of hours on my computer every week, but i/do/ have other interests as well (graduating, german, architecture and singing being the main ones).
Best of luck to everyone out there-- i'd join the pen-pal thing myself, but i/already/ (try to) keep up with 20-40 people via email...i can't handle any more. Neat idea though:).
As much as I am all for keep Katz on Slashdot as a competent writer, I was disappointed by this article. I'm also beginning to agree with all of you out there who said Katz (as a feature author on Slashdot) needs to know more about linux/unix tech-related issues. This article was pretty cheesy, and I'm not generally one to flame. Frankly, I wouldn't mind an article on his descent into Linux, as it were, if it/were/ on this topic; unfortunately, as someone else posted, the majority of this article has nothing whatsoever to do with the Linux OS. And/hello!!/, why didn't he just return the trashed machine when it arrived so battered and bruised?? I lost a bit of respect for Katz's "I am a geek" mentality if this is the way he is approaching technology & computing. Not to mention his love of Macs (userfriendly, maybe-- a CS prof here calls it a "fake" OS-- how often does it reboot?? Even windows is better.) It seems melodramatic to say "Linux has nothing to with software or technology. It's a test of the human spirit.". Sure, it's a struggle to learn, but it's about a love of technology, a feeling of achievement when you learn something new or fix a problem. Linux is cool. He seems to be trying to find out why. I wish him all the luck in the world -- and would love to read the article that really talks about his experiences. UPS mistakes aside.
Slashdot Mirror
in answer to your question-- Slashdot is 4% female, according to the poll they ran a month or two ago.
-- Anneke
Fine. So maybe poor female sys admins are the result of a quota thing-- i don't support hiring inferior workers because of some stupid quota. but there are bad white male sys admins too--but there's no quota to use as an excuse there.
By no means are all male sys admins bad, BTW-- i'm just saying that we can't name quotas as the be all and end all reason behind poor quality sys admins.
Whatever.
--anneke
Not really-- from the 5 or 6 sys admins I've dealt with, (not including myself, obviously,) quite a few fit the black-clad, suspicious-towards-users mentality. And however much I yell that female sys admins like myself (and yourself) exist, we still hold the vast minority. (Which in some ways, I suppose, can be pleasant)
/like/ helping users, because I like making them happy, but I admit the extreme annoyance I feel when I have to deal with lusers who seem to have missed the path labeled "This Way to Common Courtesy" and stumbled upon "I don't get it, so why don't I act as if you're incompetent." But luckily I haven't dealt with many of those so far.
I for one haven't achieved the rank of Supremely Bitter and Frightening SysAdmin yet, and hope I don't. I
I digress-- basically, I think it's pretty accurate. And as for the $60k US-- I'm only going to be making half that (post-grad in May), but remember, we're also not working on Silicon Valley..and it's also dependent on experience.
--Anneke
May just be my opinion, but major in whatever the heck you want-- I'm a /german/ major, for crying out loud, (cities minor), and I have a job waiting for me when I graduate in 6 weeks-- SysAdmin'ing, although unfortunately more NT than UNIX, and they don't understand why linux is SOOO cool, but I digress.
A lot of the other posters have it right-- It's all about experience. Sure, dabble in programming, it'll totally help you out-- but I know way way more about UNIX, linux, troubleshooting, being a webmaster and sysadminíng than any of my comp sci major friends (and I'm even at a women's college), because that's not what they teach you. 1- Read the O'Reilly books (like someone else recommended), 2- Read the redbook (System Administrator's Handbook, i think), 3- Take a couple/few programming courses on the side, 4- run Linux.
I'd say the last helped me more than anything else-- having an actual system running and playing around, especially if you (are allowed to) have other users on your box.
Personally, I've learned more job-relevant stuff by working in the computer center, having a linux box, and being a sysadmin/webmaster for our college student web server, as well as asst. admin for the college email server, than i have in classes (even math/comp sci ones).
Pardon my verbosity...cheers and best wishes!
--Anneke
Again, I'll try to refrain from flaming, since I know you're a real person and not some random entitiy-- regardless of how many female sysadmins, myself included, you've just alienated.
/woman/ wrote the article, and that women are acknowledged as a part of the techie (and SysAdmin) world, no matter how small. We're out there. It seems somewhat closed-minded to reject our existence merely because we don't hold a majority. Three cheers for diversity.
Although men are the vast majority, I for one find it admirable that a
--Anneke
Ditto-- I'm another RedHat-using geek of the female persuation, and it sorta sounds like fun.
But frankly, I have to concur w/ a lot of the geek guys-- what's with this beach thing?? I'm surprised that RedHat (or any such techie-oriented company) would offer a dream vacation as a week at the beach. Although some might appreciate the prize, there are a lot of us out there who have no desire to go out (esp. redheads like me) and burn themselves to a crisp.
If I'm there to geek out, I'd rather have a T1 line, free reign of the most current hardware and software, and access to all the O'Reilly's I can get my hands.
--Anneke
Personally, I enjoyed Doc Technical's review, although I admit that I didn't get beyond the beginning of Katz's review, so take my comments on this particular work with a grain of salt.
/doesn't/ seem to have much, if any, new or enlightening material, and I believe Doc presents this (lack) well.
I tend to get somewhat frustrated by most of his writing, although there's sometimes enough merit to make it worth reading. However, from what I've seen of this review and his other works, Katz tends to take a very philosophically oriented, analytical approach. Although this actually works fairly well for analyzing a novel or prose, I believe the purpose of a book review should remain closer to the surface, paraphrasing the ideology and commenting on the writing style of the author rather than dealing with his personal motivation for writing. The latter style is instead appropriate for an author's own clarification (such as Katz himself) of the motivation behind his own works, or in a college paper using this more in-depth analysis, such as a college paper assessing the moral qualities in Viennese architecture (for a random example).
On the flip side, yes, Doc Technical admits that he didn't read the entire book, so those of you who complain on that front probably have a point. But on the other hand, he presents a fair number of excerpts which even the publishers consider to be indicative of the essence of Gates' book, which seem to paraphrase the (inadequacy and) "concepts" Gates is trying to present in this second novel.
He was definitely sarcastic, and yes, it's another M$ bashing review, but frankly, this book
Happy Slashdotting,
--Anneke
Some time in May, but our God o' Slashdot has in the past refused to devulge that info... *smirk* he doesn't want all the stupid cards, perhaps...? Methinks the Slashdot should therefore innundate Rob with birthday messages /all month/. Gotta make him feel loved, right? *grin*
--Anneke
Bryn mawr, another "tri-co" college (swarthmore, haverford, bryn mawr), hasn't yet formulated an official policy regarding students running linux/unix. Ironically, we have filesharing on the Macs (not PCs) but we can't run servers and do likewise on Linux (or a like OS). Admittedly, it's less secure. Regardless, as far as I know, I'm one of three (by my count) linux users on the campus, and i was asked to make my box inaccessible (no logins: i had 15+ off-campus users w/ accts on my system at the time.) to anyone off-console, "until they formulated a policy." No official policy yet.
It's true that it's easier, when attempting to control clueless users and therefore dangerously insecure systems, to just deny such service to all, but it would be a bit more work and a lot more fair to announce a policy by which certain security measures must be implemented by the users (and instructions provided) if they want to have linux on their machines.
--Anneke
I completely disagree that we should passively stand by and let RMS be ignored by CNN (et. al.), purely because some consider him too much of a 'zealot' to be the leader of a movement-- here, free software. /and/ he does a lot of work with (GNU)Linux-- but remember that RMS is responsible for -- i believe the number quoted was 30% ?--of the base code, while the kernel is maybe 3%?
/Free/ Software movement, and the concept of OSS. RMS is responsible for the GPL, but (on the part most of us tend to forget) he advocates FREE over SUPERIOR-- in fact, Linux being a better OS is almost irrelevant. RMS is advocating the concept of free over /any/ proprietary software.
/about/ the collaboration of many people to work on a (superior) product. That's part of the beauty of OSS. And the idea of collaboration can go hand-in-hand with our having /multiple/ leaders, possibly with somewhat different agendas, in both RMS and Linus.
When debating these issues, try to keep a few things in mind.
First, yes, Linus is responsible for the kernel, and I definitely agree that he makes a great figurehead,
Second, remember the difference between the
I have no problem with Linus being Finnish-- i hadn't even considered the idea that people might reject him as a leader of the movement simply because he's a foreigner: why is it that the US is automatically assumed to be the rightful 'owner' of the OS anyway? But face it, people: Linux is all
RMS has a lot of perfectly vaid points. Just because he rubs a lot of us the wrong way, we tend to reject him. But although we may come out of reading an interview with RMS somewhat annoyed at his attitude, we (techies and the public/the masses alike) will probably come out of it knowing a bit more about his influence in the movement, not to mention leaving with a better understandment of the movement (OSS, free software, Linux, etc) itself.
--Anneke
actually, yeah, he did. He posted about it ("Rob Finishes College") when he graduated a few months ago, in December.
-- Anneke
A plethora of kudos and congratulatory well-wishes to Rob, Jeff, Nate & the rest of BSI/the Slashdot-posting crew. You guys are awesome... good job!!
:)'s,
Anneke
"Real Women Use Linux"
no comment on the hottie-or-not thing, but i would have LOVED to come, if i wasn't on the wrong stinkin' coast. /and/ i'm 22 too :). :)
Part of the female 4% of Slashdot,
--anneke
"Real Women Use Linux"
okay okay-- geez, people, the only thing you can post in reply to what i have to say is to dis my code syntax?
Like i said, i'm not a programmer.. i was using syntax vaguely similar to Perl, if you must know-- and therefore yes, i should have put parentheses around the if conditional statement-- i haven't looked at Perl in a couple of months, and i don't really code. anyway--
I basically meant that a previous poster was implying/saying that because Katz wasn't a programmer/writing code or documentation, he was considered an outsider. the use of the ampersand (sp?) "&" was only because i ran out of space in the subject line, and couldn't spell out the 'and.'
Happy spamming.
--anneke
Although Katz's writing style tends to grate on my nerves occasionally as another example of cliche' writing style, he does sometimes have interesting stuff to say. Otherwise, those posting reply upon reply about Katz's ineptitude should admit that they only read his stuff to savor The Joy of Flaming. He's not the best writer I've seen; he's also by /no/ means the worst. Slashdot may not be the most appropriate forum, precisely /because of/ the nerd-oriented and tech-saavy community to whom he's writing. But hey, he does this on a volunteer basis, and we should give him some credit for that; not to mention that we obviously keep reading his stuff, as the comments attest to.
/I'm/ not doing it either.
/all/ "News for Nerds," and I love Linux to death as much as the next Slashdotter. But there's more to being "an insider" (although I was skeptical when i read that as well) than writing code. Katz /may/ be able to increase the visibility of the Linux (and additional OSS) OS, and he's helping in that way; and those of us who love the functionality of Linux and /use/ it can be just as suppportive via word-of-mouth explanation and the willingness to help newbies get started as those who code up a storm and submit patches. He may be a different sort of insider, but we don't reject Rob and Jeff as outsiders, do we? The entire concept of Slashdot is on community participation, just like OSS, and such members/leaders are just insiders on a different level.
Considering that the articles written for this site are free, we could probably cut him/CmdrTaco et. al. at break for posting a book excerpthere-- why not grant him the press. I agree, however, that in general he's writing on a different level than a fair number of Slashdotters (or that they/we can appreciate.)
I find it fairly annoying to see, time and again, people rejecting Katz or other non-coders off-hand because they haven't physically contributed to
Linux, in the form of documentation, code or the like. There are probably more than enough Anonymous Cowards out there to tell me that that's what it's all about, and that I'm only bitter because
Not so.
Slashdot is not just about Linux-- it's about
--Anneke
"Real women use Linux"
Besides-- just because they can appreciate or even match your love of geek-stuffs, (and you don't have to code open source to be a geek, ya'know,) doesn't mean female geeks don't have other interests outside of this stuff as well: just as, one would hope, male geeks do as well. The Real World is a scary place
Best of luck to everyone out there-- i'd join the pen-pal thing myself, but i
-- anneke
As much as I am all for keep Katz on Slashdot as a competent writer, I was disappointed by this article. I'm also beginning to agree with all of you out there who said Katz (as a feature author on Slashdot) needs to know more about linux/unix tech-related issues. This article was pretty cheesy, and I'm not generally one to flame. Frankly, I wouldn't mind an article on his descent into Linux, as it were, if it /were/ on this topic; unfortunately, as someone else posted, the majority of this article has nothing whatsoever to do with the Linux OS. And /hello!!/, why didn't he just return the trashed machine when it arrived so battered and bruised?? I lost a bit of respect for Katz's "I am a geek" mentality if this is the way he is approaching technology & computing. Not to mention his love of Macs (userfriendly, maybe-- a CS prof here calls it a "fake" OS-- how often does it reboot?? Even windows is better.) It seems melodramatic to say "Linux has nothing to with software or technology. It's a test of the human spirit.". Sure, it's a struggle to learn, but it's about a love of technology, a feeling of achievement when you learn something new or fix a problem.
Linux is cool. He seems to be trying to find out why. I wish him all the luck in the world -- and would love to read the article that really talks about his experiences. UPS mistakes aside.
anneke