That's already an option with our electric utility. In exchange for a reduced summer time rate, we let them cycle our A/C. The don't do it through the thermostat. They have a box directly connected to the compressor. There are limits as to how much time it can be off. There's been times when it's been activated at our house but it's usually on again before there's been very much of an impact on the the temp of the home.
The utility company doesn't know when you go to bed at night, when you get up in the morning, when you leave for the day, and when you get back. The NEST does.
Further the NEST knows how long it takes to warm or cool your home to a given setting as it relates to weather conditions. The NEST knows how quickly your home loses heat in the winter and how fast it heats up in the summer.
With regard to Walmart that is very apparent when it comes to things like bikes and sporting goods. What you buy there might be fine for the kids (maybe) or if intended for just occasional use but other than that, it's best to stay away. As far as bikes go, there are some online sources for good bikes at prices lower than what you'd pay at a traditional shop. You're giving up service and test rides but it's a good option for some people.
And for those that are interested, you can get good prices on refurb Apple equipment from Apple's online store. I've bought a few things that way and really the only thing you give up is the fancy packaging and the ability to take it home from the store that day.
I had my son when I was 35 and my daughter when I was 39. My son is 14 now, a bit taller than me and he can beat me playing one on one. But I can still win too and probably would most of the time if I had much in the way of basketball skills. But I'm 5' 8" and I knew early on that it wasn't going to be my sport.
A few years ago he gave me crap about getting old so I challenged him to a race when he's 15 and I'm 50. That will be this coming FALL and he's a little worried. He's insisting on a 40 yard dash because he knows he'd lose any kind of endurance race. He'd better hope I slow down a lot in the next few months because the 40 will not be an easy one for him either.
Sadly enough many Americans in their 20's and 30's are in pretty crappy physical condition and it really doesn't take that much for a 50 year old to be in shape by comparison. Take care of yourself and you'll be fine in your 50's.
The other thing about teenagers that's important to remember is that they'd much rather be doing something with their friends than with you. That's not to say my son minds playing ball with his Dad, - but only if he's got nothing else going on.
I do wish that there was going to be a larger span of time between the time they finish college and the time I retire from work but honestly as far as active playing time goes, my kids got far more time from me that most kids get from their parents, - no matter what their age.
my biggest issue is that the article is predicated on the condescending notion that without this technology, women are forced to forego their careers and simply bare children instead. There are plenty of women who do not want children.
I didn't take it this way. I'm sure most people know that having kids is entirely optional. But there are folks who want both kids AND a career but wanted to focus on the career for awhile before starting a family.
That is one possibility and I do have some real concerns about it. There are all kinds of ways to misuse technology.
On the other hand, have you ever sat at a stoplight and waited... and waited, for the light to change when nobody is coming from any other direction? It not only wastes your time, it's a waste of our resources and contributes to our pollution problems. This is the kind of problem that having better communications between devices or devices and humans can solve.
I've got a rather dumpy house in a nice urban neighborhood. It's paid for and worth a bit over $200,000. Looking at long term trends and the increasing popularity of urban living, it will most likely appreciate a fair amount before I retire.
That alone will get me a good chunk of the way towards being a millionaire in terms of net worth.
Now add in the gobs of money that they recommend you save for retirement and by the time you do retire... well, you've got a lot of money. This assumes of course that you can navigate yourself past the agism that's also part of being a developer and remain a well paid part of the workforce until you retire.
We've actually deployed quite a few tablets in the field to replace laptops that never worked very well for the task. Can't really use them while walking around.
For servers, desktops, thin clients, and laptops we have a number of different combinations of processors and operations systems including Windows 7 and 8, Ubuntu, OS X, debian, and VMWare ESX/ESXi. We also have a PBX, access points, routers, switches, modems, printers, gateways, Raspberry Pis, Arduinos utilizing various processors and OSes (though lots are linux variants). Then there are the company supplied and supported smartphones.
We have about 80 employees. We're not exactly a tech firm but close.
My point is the computing world is much bigger than Wintel even for companies that still rely on that combination. The non Wintel part of the technology world is growing. Intel would be stupid to pin its continued success on the future of Windows.
More eyeballs usually do make bugs more shallow, but only if the eyes know what to look for.
And only if a significant number of sophisticated and knowledgeable eyes have the time and interest to dig through lines and lines of code looking for vulnerabilities.
The reality is that the majority of eyeballs looking at code are the ones that have other reasons to be looking at it. They aren't necessarily looking for vulnerabilities but maybe they spot something.
The eyes that might be interested in scouring code looking for vulnerabilities could be the ones wanting to exploit them rather than fix them.
Note: Over time as innovation in both smartphone/tablet hardware and software slows, and businesses come to rely on software that may not work with the latest IOS/Android update, there may be increasingly stronger calls for Apple and others to offer patches to older versions of their table/phone OSes rather than forcing users to upgrade.
With a different purpose and traditionally a different market than desktop computers.
Some of this has changed and will continue to change over time, but your typical IOS device is purchased by an individual rather than a business and replaced a couple of year later. While home users still purchase PCs they do it far less often than they used to. Businesses purchase far more than home users.
Further IOS updates are free and typically upgrading is simple and uneventful (typically). Most software is still compatible and those titles that aren't are usually updated quickly as well. New versions cost little or nothing.
So on the IOS side you typically have newer hardware and ease of updates. Plus most users are chomping at the bit to upgrade. There are exceptions. On the PC side it's different. Lost of home users have older hardware that may not support the update. Or they're worried the update will break something. Or they don't want to pay for it.
Businesses may have custom software that simply won't run under the new OS and would be expensive to rewrite. Large businesses tend to be slow to roll updates out to their employees even if they want to.
I'm not offended by your position at all nor do I see you or really anyone else as "the enemy".
I am curious though. You don't seem to be convinced that global warming is occurring yet you are insulted that I implied that you're taking no action. So what actions are you taking in that regard and why are you doing so?
And if you're not parroting a narrative and don't trust climate scientists, nor climate change skeptics, why would you claim that the climate has been cooling for 15 years? It would seem to me that if you truly doubt both sides, you could come to no conclusion at all about whether the climate has been cooling or warming.
You claim to to believe neither side, yet you repeat the (false) claims of the climate change skeptics. You basically admit you're choosing to ignore anyone who could reasonably claim to be an authority of the subject on the basis that they've likely been corrupted by grant money and because of contradictions you and others have exaggerated.
Maybe we should just stop all research that requires money. Surely nothing accurate can come from it.
I agree that not taking a stand either way is pretty convenient. You can disassociate yourself from the worst of the skeptics and chicken littles while at the same time not taking any action.
Has it occurred to you that that is maybe the plan of some of these folks? Create just enough doubt to keep any real change from occurring? Who are the ones really fighting against the idea of AGW? Aren't they the ones living the aristocratic lifestyles?
If your opinions are based on "real science" rather than whatever happens to fit your world view, then how is it you could so easily come to a conclusion about my age that is so completely wrong.
Trust me. By the mid 70's I was much more than a "gleam" and I remember the ice age predictions. Perhaps you should go back and see what was being written in SCIENTIFIC publications and the National Academy of Sciences about climate at the time rather than was was being condensed into Time and Newsweek. I have. You might be surprised.
Regardless. The point of my original post is that people like you have made up your mind and it doesn't matter what the science really says. You're going to choose to believe whatever it is you wish. On the bright side, I'm apparently a much younger person in your world.
I'm afraid I'm doing what I told myself I wouldn't, -wasting my time arguing with closed minds.
Oh Yes. I know, - since 1998. Like I said above, - that's a popular myth among climate changes skeptics but a myth nonetheless.
Ask yourself this question: What would it take for you to believe in AGW?
No. Really. What would it take? Is it even possible? Does it even matter what the science says as long as you can find a few credible sounding people that disagree?
My guess it doesn't matter how much consensus there is amongst the scientists who study these things. You've closed your mind.
Check the math. There's been no warming since 98. If you had facts on your side you wouldn't need to use rhetoric like "denier".
This is not the holocaust.
Also, this wasn't "a few days of bad weather" this was two years of awful winters, cold springs and 100 year record cold in some places because of five polar vortexes in a winter that a) began a month early and b) ened late and c) was predicted in 2007 by a method the IPCC claimed had nothing to do with it.
Excuse me but you're on the wrong side of the prediction credibility gap here. And all the rhetoric in the world won't fix that. You may lie, but the numbers do not.
The idea that there's been no warming since 98 is a popular myth amongst climate skeptics but it's still a myth. But it doesn't really matter, does it? I could cite 20 reputable sources saying so but you'd either not read them or just refuse to believe them.
I could again stress that local weather and global climate are not the same thing and also point out while this winter may have been cold in the Eastern half of the US it was very warm in parts of the West and ridiculously warm in Alaska. I could take it further and say that some people predicted that disappearing sea ice in the Arctic would cause this phenomena.
If I provided a link like this to a site that debunks David Archibald's predictions, what would you do?
People have made up their minds unfortunately. Changes in climate can easily be brushed off as natural variation. A few days of locally cold weather is enough to re-enforce a denier's belief that global warming is a farce.
Over time the consequences will become increasingly hard to ignore and people will suffer. As is typical, the poor will suffer the worse. Ironically, many otherwise conservative organizations such as insurance companies will be willing accept global warming as fact because it gives them an excuse to raise their rates in coastal areas.
The energy industry is moving away from coal because it's a dirty source of power and for now natural gas is cheap and plentiful. Coal power plants are being converted to burn natural gas instead.
This isn't just an issue with coal. All kinds of well paying jobs for unskilled labor are disappearing. Technology is actually part of the problem.
Well, this is the heart of the problem. Some of the jobs you mention require training too, - and aptitude. You can't just decide you're a plumber and go out and get a job. There's training. There's a certification process. Same with welding. Low paying welding jobs don't take a lot of training, but high paying positions can take a few years of training and apprenticeship.
Manual laborers in the landscaping industry don't make squat plus it's seasonal work in most of the country. Same with agriculture. You can be a low wage seasonal field worker without a lot of training, but you're not going to earn a living. Same with carpentry or construction. Some of those jobs pay well, but they are the ones that require skills and experience.
There used to be a lot of union jobs that paid well for low skill workers in mining and manufacturing but those jobs are disappearing.
Just curious. Are you a software developer? What languages and tools were part of your most recent work experience? I'm not talking about what you may have picked up on the side.
I'm just wondering how often it is that older coders find themselves out of work because they themselves are old vs their skills being out of date.
Well, the problem is seeing sick people in the hospital and thinking the doctors are making people sick. Correlation is not causation. Girls have equal opportunity and are making the choice not to be in CS and IT, that doesn't mean there's sexism or any reason to try to fix it.
There's overt sexism and there's subtle sexism.
My son is about to enter high school and where I live we have a number of choices. The high schools try to attract students and most of them have an open house at some point during the year for current 7th and 8th graders. One of these schools set up tables in their gym for all of their extra-curricular activities. Along with all the sports and things like the chess club and drama club was the robotics club.
I was talking to one of the parents of a girl in my son's class afterward. Even though their daughter wanted to talk to the people at the robotics club table, she refused to do so, - until all the boys from her class had left the open house. The topic of the conversation changed before I got a clear answer as to why she was worried about the boys seeing her, but clearly she was. The fact is that as a society we subtly and sometimes not so subtly encourage and discourage girls and boys from engaging in certain activities based on gender. This can be a real problem if it leaves men or women out of lucrative fields or causes worker shortages. And this is what's happening.
And the thing is that it's gotten worse. Back in the late 80's when I got my degree about 30% of CS students were women. Now it's about 12%. The last time I tried to hire a developer I had zero women applicants.
I won't address the discrimination aspects of this. Obviously it is. The question is this sort of discrimination OK given the fact that there is a possibly a less overt form of discrimination keeping women out of some technical fields.
Here's what I know. When I completed my computer science degree in the late 80's over 30% of the graduates were women. Now it's about 12%. Why? What has changed? Why was it so low in the first place? The first software developer I ever hired (this was back in the 90's) was a woman. The last time I tried to hire a developer I had zero women applicants. Not one.
Here is something else I found interesting. My son is in the 8th grade and for the last year or so we've being going to high school open houses to help select a high school. One of them had tables set up in the gym where you could talk to coaches and other people involved in their extra-curricular activities like sports, chess club, and robotics. I was talking to the parents of one of the girls in his class recently and found out that their daughter wanted to visit the robotics club table but refused to do so until all the boys from her class had left. She didn't want them to see her there. Again - why? I didn't get a clear answer from the parents before I had to leave but apparently even girls who have interests in these fields are at some level being discouraged from pursuing them.
And as a parent of a daughter I can see that there are cultural norms pushing them towards certain types of activities and discouraging them others. It happens with boys too. I even catch myself doing it. I have to consciously remember to do things that will help spark my daughter's interest in science where with my son I just seem to do it automatically. And it's not because my son is any more interested than my daughter.
Doesn't change the fact that Saturn was the "I don't believe in cars as a status symbol" car before, and Acura is the new brand that sends the same signal.
You could make the same argument for lots of automobile brands, not just Acura or Saturn. So why doesn't Acura even show up on the list of most popular brands past Saturn owners decided to buy?
Besides, we got the Acura to replace a Mazda, not another Saturn. At the time we weren't even looking for another vehicle and if we were an MDX wouldn't have even been on the radar. A friend of my wife's wanted to get something smaller and gave us an incredible deal on it.
A Prius, a SmartCar, Mazda Miata, or just a plain old pickup could all be in our future. We'd have reasons for choosing one over the other at any given time. And those reasons would reflect our values and our circumstances. But you wouldn't be able to tell just from the vehicle what those reasons and values were. I'd be the same person no matter which I was driving and likely very much different from another person driving the same thing.
I suppose if you can make stuff up about people based on the car they drive and assume them to be true, it's easy to make up other stuff to fit your world view as well.
However, if you want facts, here's what a study from an automobile marketing and data company found:
Based on data from January through August 2009, nearly three-quarters of the defectors (74.7 percent) purchased an import car or truck, while 25.3 percent bought a Ford or Chrysler. Top non-GM models purchased by former Saturn owners so far this year are the Toyota Corolla (716 units), Honda Accord (631 units), Honda CR-V (608) and the Toyota Camry (605). The top-selling domestic vehicles to defected Saturn owners are the Ford Fusion (510), the Ford Escape (472) and the Ford Focus (472).
2009 was the year Saturn was discontinued if I remember right
Slashdot Mirror
That's already an option with our electric utility. In exchange for a reduced summer time rate, we let them cycle our A/C. The don't do it through the thermostat. They have a box directly connected to the compressor. There are limits as to how much time it can be off. There's been times when it's been activated at our house but it's usually on again before there's been very much of an impact on the the temp of the home.
The utility company doesn't know when you go to bed at night, when you get up in the morning, when you leave for the day, and when you get back. The NEST does.
Further the NEST knows how long it takes to warm or cool your home to a given setting as it relates to weather conditions. The NEST knows how quickly your home loses heat in the winter and how fast it heats up in the summer.
;)
Walmart is all about price and Apple isn't.
With regard to Walmart that is very apparent when it comes to things like bikes and sporting goods. What you buy there might be fine for the kids (maybe) or if intended for just occasional use but other than that, it's best to stay away. As far as bikes go, there are some online sources for good bikes at prices lower than what you'd pay at a traditional shop. You're giving up service and test rides but it's a good option for some people.
And for those that are interested, you can get good prices on refurb Apple equipment from Apple's online store. I've bought a few things that way and really the only thing you give up is the fancy packaging and the ability to take it home from the store that day.
I had my son when I was 35 and my daughter when I was 39. My son is 14 now, a bit taller than me and he can beat me playing one on one. But I can still win too and probably would most of the time if I had much in the way of basketball skills. But I'm 5' 8" and I knew early on that it wasn't going to be my sport.
A few years ago he gave me crap about getting old so I challenged him to a race when he's 15 and I'm 50. That will be this coming FALL and he's a little worried. He's insisting on a 40 yard dash because he knows he'd lose any kind of endurance race. He'd better hope I slow down a lot in the next few months because the 40 will not be an easy one for him either.
Sadly enough many Americans in their 20's and 30's are in pretty crappy physical condition and it really doesn't take that much for a 50 year old to be in shape by comparison. Take care of yourself and you'll be fine in your 50's.
The other thing about teenagers that's important to remember is that they'd much rather be doing something with their friends than with you. That's not to say my son minds playing ball with his Dad, - but only if he's got nothing else going on.
I do wish that there was going to be a larger span of time between the time they finish college and the time I retire from work but honestly as far as active playing time goes, my kids got far more time from me that most kids get from their parents, - no matter what their age.
my biggest issue is that the article is predicated on the condescending notion that without this technology, women are forced to forego their careers and simply bare children instead. There are plenty of women who do not want children.
I didn't take it this way. I'm sure most people know that having kids is entirely optional. But there are folks who want both kids AND a career but wanted to focus on the career for awhile before starting a family.
That is one possibility and I do have some real concerns about it. There are all kinds of ways to misuse technology.
On the other hand, have you ever sat at a stoplight and waited... and waited, for the light to change when nobody is coming from any other direction? It not only wastes your time, it's a waste of our resources and contributes to our pollution problems. This is the kind of problem that having better communications between devices or devices and humans can solve.
I've got a rather dumpy house in a nice urban neighborhood. It's paid for and worth a bit over $200,000. Looking at long term trends and the increasing popularity of urban living, it will most likely appreciate a fair amount before I retire.
That alone will get me a good chunk of the way towards being a millionaire in terms of net worth.
Now add in the gobs of money that they recommend you save for retirement and by the time you do retire... well, you've got a lot of money. This assumes of course that you can navigate yourself past the agism that's also part of being a developer and remain a well paid part of the workforce until you retire.
We've actually deployed quite a few tablets in the field to replace laptops that never worked very well for the task. Can't really use them while walking around.
For servers, desktops, thin clients, and laptops we have a number of different combinations of processors and operations systems including Windows 7 and 8, Ubuntu, OS X, debian, and VMWare ESX/ESXi. We also have a PBX, access points, routers, switches, modems, printers, gateways, Raspberry Pis, Arduinos utilizing various processors and OSes (though lots are linux variants). Then there are the company supplied and supported smartphones.
We have about 80 employees. We're not exactly a tech firm but close.
My point is the computing world is much bigger than Wintel even for companies that still rely on that combination. The non Wintel part of the technology world is growing. Intel would be stupid to pin its continued success on the future of Windows.
Fair enough. I can respect that.
More eyeballs usually do make bugs more shallow, but only if the eyes know what to look for.
And only if a significant number of sophisticated and knowledgeable eyes have the time and interest to dig through lines and lines of code looking for vulnerabilities.
The reality is that the majority of eyeballs looking at code are the ones that have other reasons to be looking at it. They aren't necessarily looking for vulnerabilities but maybe they spot something.
The eyes that might be interested in scouring code looking for vulnerabilities could be the ones wanting to exploit them rather than fix them.
Note: Over time as innovation in both smartphone/tablet hardware and software slows, and businesses come to rely on software that may not work with the latest IOS/Android update, there may be increasingly stronger calls for Apple and others to offer patches to older versions of their table/phone OSes rather than forcing users to upgrade.
With a different purpose and traditionally a different market than desktop computers.
Some of this has changed and will continue to change over time, but your typical IOS device is purchased by an individual rather than a business and replaced a couple of year later. While home users still purchase PCs they do it far less often than they used to. Businesses purchase far more than home users.
Further IOS updates are free and typically upgrading is simple and uneventful (typically). Most software is still compatible and those titles that aren't are usually updated quickly as well. New versions cost little or nothing.
So on the IOS side you typically have newer hardware and ease of updates. Plus most users are chomping at the bit to upgrade. There are exceptions. On the PC side it's different. Lost of home users have older hardware that may not support the update. Or they're worried the update will break something. Or they don't want to pay for it.
Businesses may have custom software that simply won't run under the new OS and would be expensive to rewrite. Large businesses tend to be slow to roll updates out to their employees even if they want to.
I'm not offended by your position at all nor do I see you or really anyone else as "the enemy".
I am curious though. You don't seem to be convinced that global warming is occurring yet you are insulted that I implied that you're taking no action. So what actions are you taking in that regard and why are you doing so?
And if you're not parroting a narrative and don't trust climate scientists, nor climate change skeptics, why would you claim that the climate has been cooling for 15 years? It would seem to me that if you truly doubt both sides, you could come to no conclusion at all about whether the climate has been cooling or warming.
You claim to to believe neither side, yet you repeat the (false) claims of the climate change skeptics. You basically admit you're choosing to ignore anyone who could reasonably claim to be an authority of the subject on the basis that they've likely been corrupted by grant money and because of contradictions you and others have exaggerated.
Maybe we should just stop all research that requires money. Surely nothing accurate can come from it.
I agree that not taking a stand either way is pretty convenient. You can disassociate yourself from the worst of the skeptics and chicken littles while at the same time not taking any action.
Has it occurred to you that that is maybe the plan of some of these folks? Create just enough doubt to keep any real change from occurring? Who are the ones really fighting against the idea of AGW? Aren't they the ones living the aristocratic lifestyles?
If your opinions are based on "real science" rather than whatever happens to fit your world view, then how is it you could so easily come to a conclusion about my age that is so completely wrong.
Trust me. By the mid 70's I was much more than a "gleam" and I remember the ice age predictions. Perhaps you should go back and see what was being written in SCIENTIFIC publications and the National Academy of Sciences about climate at the time rather than was was being condensed into Time and Newsweek. I have. You might be surprised.
Regardless. The point of my original post is that people like you have made up your mind and it doesn't matter what the science really says. You're going to choose to believe whatever it is you wish. On the bright side, I'm apparently a much younger person in your world.
I'm afraid I'm doing what I told myself I wouldn't, -wasting my time arguing with closed minds.
Oh Yes. I know, - since 1998. Like I said above, - that's a popular myth among climate changes skeptics but a myth nonetheless.
Ask yourself this question: What would it take for you to believe in AGW?
No. Really. What would it take? Is it even possible? Does it even matter what the science says as long as you can find a few credible sounding people that disagree?
My guess it doesn't matter how much consensus there is amongst the scientists who study these things. You've closed your mind.
Check the math. There's been no warming since 98. If you had facts on your side you wouldn't need to use rhetoric like "denier".
This is not the holocaust.
Also, this wasn't "a few days of bad weather" this was two years of awful winters, cold springs and 100 year record cold in some places because of five polar vortexes in a winter that a) began a month early and b) ened late and c) was predicted in 2007 by a method the IPCC claimed had nothing to do with it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...
Excuse me but you're on the wrong side of the prediction credibility gap here. And all the rhetoric in the world won't fix that. You may lie, but the numbers do not.
The idea that there's been no warming since 98 is a popular myth amongst climate skeptics but it's still a myth. But it doesn't really matter, does it? I could cite 20 reputable sources saying so but you'd either not read them or just refuse to believe them.
I could again stress that local weather and global climate are not the same thing and also point out while this winter may have been cold in the Eastern half of the US it was very warm in parts of the West and ridiculously warm in Alaska. I could take it further and say that some people predicted that disappearing sea ice in the Arctic would cause this phenomena.
If I provided a link like this to a site that debunks David Archibald's predictions, what would you do?
Surprise me.
People have made up their minds unfortunately. Changes in climate can easily be brushed off as natural variation. A few days of locally cold weather is enough to re-enforce a denier's belief that global warming is a farce.
Over time the consequences will become increasingly hard to ignore and people will suffer. As is typical, the poor will suffer the worse. Ironically, many otherwise conservative organizations such as insurance companies will be willing accept global warming as fact because it gives them an excuse to raise their rates in coastal areas.
The energy industry is moving away from coal because it's a dirty source of power and for now natural gas is cheap and plentiful. Coal power plants are being converted to burn natural gas instead.
This isn't just an issue with coal. All kinds of well paying jobs for unskilled labor are disappearing. Technology is actually part of the problem.
Well, this is the heart of the problem. Some of the jobs you mention require training too, - and aptitude. You can't just decide you're a plumber and go out and get a job. There's training. There's a certification process. Same with welding. Low paying welding jobs don't take a lot of training, but high paying positions can take a few years of training and apprenticeship.
Manual laborers in the landscaping industry don't make squat plus it's seasonal work in most of the country. Same with agriculture. You can be a low wage seasonal field worker without a lot of training, but you're not going to earn a living. Same with carpentry or construction. Some of those jobs pay well, but they are the ones that require skills and experience.
There used to be a lot of union jobs that paid well for low skill workers in mining and manufacturing but those jobs are disappearing.
Just curious. Are you a software developer? What languages and tools were part of your most recent work experience? I'm not talking about what you may have picked up on the side.
I'm just wondering how often it is that older coders find themselves out of work because they themselves are old vs their skills being out of date.
Well, the problem is seeing sick people in the hospital and thinking the doctors are making people sick. Correlation is not causation. Girls have equal opportunity and are making the choice not to be in CS and IT, that doesn't mean there's sexism or any reason to try to fix it.
There's overt sexism and there's subtle sexism.
My son is about to enter high school and where I live we have a number of choices. The high schools try to attract students and most of them have an open house at some point during the year for current 7th and 8th graders. One of these schools set up tables in their gym for all of their extra-curricular activities. Along with all the sports and things like the chess club and drama club was the robotics club.
I was talking to one of the parents of a girl in my son's class afterward. Even though their daughter wanted to talk to the people at the robotics club table, she refused to do so, - until all the boys from her class had left the open house. The topic of the conversation changed before I got a clear answer as to why she was worried about the boys seeing her, but clearly she was. The fact is that as a society we subtly and sometimes not so subtly encourage and discourage girls and boys from engaging in certain activities based on gender. This can be a real problem if it leaves men or women out of lucrative fields or causes worker shortages. And this is what's happening.
And the thing is that it's gotten worse. Back in the late 80's when I got my degree about 30% of CS students were women. Now it's about 12%. The last time I tried to hire a developer I had zero women applicants.
I won't address the discrimination aspects of this. Obviously it is. The question is this sort of discrimination OK given the fact that there is a possibly a less overt form of discrimination keeping women out of some technical fields.
Here's what I know. When I completed my computer science degree in the late 80's over 30% of the graduates were women. Now it's about 12%. Why? What has changed? Why was it so low in the first place? The first software developer I ever hired (this was back in the 90's) was a woman. The last time I tried to hire a developer I had zero women applicants. Not one.
Here is something else I found interesting. My son is in the 8th grade and for the last year or so we've being going to high school open houses to help select a high school. One of them had tables set up in the gym where you could talk to coaches and other people involved in their extra-curricular activities like sports, chess club, and robotics. I was talking to the parents of one of the girls in his class recently and found out that their daughter wanted to visit the robotics club table but refused to do so until all the boys from her class had left. She didn't want them to see her there. Again - why? I didn't get a clear answer from the parents before I had to leave but apparently even girls who have interests in these fields are at some level being discouraged from pursuing them.
And as a parent of a daughter I can see that there are cultural norms pushing them towards certain types of activities and discouraging them others. It happens with boys too. I even catch myself doing it. I have to consciously remember to do things that will help spark my daughter's interest in science where with my son I just seem to do it automatically. And it's not because my son is any more interested than my daughter.
Doesn't change the fact that Saturn was the "I don't believe in cars as a status symbol" car before, and Acura is the new brand that sends the same signal.
You could make the same argument for lots of automobile brands, not just Acura or Saturn. So why doesn't Acura even show up on the list of most popular brands past Saturn owners decided to buy?
Besides, we got the Acura to replace a Mazda, not another Saturn. At the time we weren't even looking for another vehicle and if we were an MDX wouldn't have even been on the radar. A friend of my wife's wanted to get something smaller and gave us an incredible deal on it.
A Prius, a SmartCar, Mazda Miata, or just a plain old pickup could all be in our future. We'd have reasons for choosing one over the other at any given time. And those reasons would reflect our values and our circumstances. But you wouldn't be able to tell just from the vehicle what those reasons and values were. I'd be the same person no matter which I was driving and likely very much different from another person driving the same thing.
I suppose if you can make stuff up about people based on the car they drive and assume them to be true, it's easy to make up other stuff to fit your world view as well.
However, if you want facts, here's what a study from an automobile marketing and data company found:
Based on data from January through August 2009, nearly three-quarters of the defectors (74.7 percent) purchased an import car or truck, while 25.3 percent bought a Ford or Chrysler. Top non-GM models purchased by former Saturn owners so far this year are the Toyota Corolla (716 units), Honda Accord (631 units), Honda CR-V (608) and the Toyota Camry (605). The top-selling domestic vehicles to defected Saturn owners are the Ford Fusion (510), the Ford Escape (472) and the Ford Focus (472).
2009 was the year Saturn was discontinued if I remember right