A barge is fairly heavy, and if it's being pulled with the current, there's a whole lot of energy behind it. The shuttle could act like the crumple zone on a car in a collision, essentially being crushed in the process of slowing or stopping the barge.
I was mainly referring to the half an hour that I have for lunch. If I want variety, and do not want to just eat a pre-prepared side salad every day, there are few options.
I think that they know that it tastes good. I think that when they drink more and more of it, they need more and more of it to feel that it tastes good, as opposed to tasting normal. They now simply expect to be able to have it at almost every meal, and that it's normal to drink it at every meal.
I was this way too. I'm trying to fight it by not buying anything during the day if I can avoid it, and by avoiding combo meals if I can. Food actually tastes different when you're not consuming it with soft drinks. I also have stopped drinking caffeinated soda after 3:00pm or thereabouts when I do have it, and since I don't get off work until later than that, this means most days I only have what I bring with me, which is a couple of 12oz cans.
I don't get the shakes anymore. I don't suffer from insomnia nearly so much as I used to. For a long time I would have been able to live on a planet with a 30 hour day, based on how I wanted to stay up and how to sleep. Now I can function much better with our 24 hour day.
I've also stopped buying HFCS soda entirely, in can form at least. Moutain Dew Throwback and Pepsi Throwback only. I don't find myself needing another one as soon as I finish drinking one, or lamenting that I don't have more.
I've switched over time from 128oz of Mountain Dew a day to a pair of 12oz Mountain Dew Throwback cans a day. I still end up occasionally bowing to the fountain soda in the combo meal at lunch time, but I've also started bringing my lunch four out of five days a week.
With no other changes, no increase in exercise, no major effort other than to bring to eat only what I want to carry around with me in a cooler, I've lost weight. When I have the wherewithal to keep to it (it's hard and I have to occasionally get lunches out when I get tired of cold cuts) it works well, saves me money, and helps me to live better.
We're addicted to food. Unlike most addictions, we can't simply stop eating though. We're surrounded by food that used to be special occasion food. Deserts, deep-fried foods loaded with spices, an overabundance of meats. How the hell are you supposed to eat right when there are almost no options to eat right?
I'd restrict the cup size. I wouldn't go 16oz, probably more like 24. I would ban free refills once one has left the premises. If you're in the restaurant you can continue to get your free refills like normal. If you're at a convenience store, either you bring your own cup to get more than 24oz, or if the store allows it, you drink your drink and refill on the spot.
A simple ban on fast food joints and convenience stores selling cups larger than a certain size will do a lot to curtail it, and won't restrict patrons from larger cups if they bring their own cup.
Doubtful on all observations. What I really see, is everyone trying to use cell phones like they would a computer. Roughly translated, that means that the business world will run to programmers to sort out their fuzzy-wuzzy-dohicky needs. Most people loath analytical thinking. I don't mean they aren't interested. They HATE it.
It's called "Bring Your Own Device" or "Bring Your Own Technology" depending on who you talk to.
Right now it's all the buzz in educational technology circles, as school districts think that it'll let them reduce their IT budgets while providing more access. The thing they fail to realize is that every major K12 educational software success story is backed by hundreds of failures because it's rare to find people that both know how to educate and know how to write good software. Programmers rarely actually know what the teacher and students truly need, and teachers write shit code and lack basic understanding of the client/server model. I've seen this with typing software, test scoring software, reading comprehension software, and all sorts of other packages that simply do not implement client/server where the user can log in at any workstation and do the task at hand. Hell, Accelerated Reader, one of the most widespread ed reading packages, ran on friggin' MacOS 9 boxes as a server well past the debut of OSX.
They want little johnny to be able to e-mail/sms/mms his answer to the electronic whiteboard so that the teacher can display his and everyone else's answers to talk about them. They fail to even grasp the possibility of little johnny e-mailing "suzie likes cocks!" to the board, or a semicompromising picture of the teacher when she had bent down to deal with some crap the students messed up, and not having good filtering. Sure, the kid can get into trouble for this kind of thing, but that doesn't stop the teacher from losing control of the class, permanently.
Cloud, BYOD, all crap. All marketing terms. All a bunch of HIPPOs who think they know best who refuse to speak with their actual IT staff when making decisions. They're going to spend a boatload of money to "save money" and in the end they're going to be back to buying more computers.
I may switch to LED bulbs at some point, but right now they are incompatible with the dual-brite fixtures outside (they'd basically never dim) and with the failures I've seen in supposedly-lifetime CFLs I'm waiting until there's some installed userbase history to know what to buy and what to avoid. They're SO expensive relative to incandescents that I can't justify the cost to purchase them until I know they'll last long enough to recoup the investment. Having been bitten by CFLs once, I'm not going to get bitten by LEDs.
As to your lights being left on, you might want to consider a motion sensor switch in rooms where it would work, as they'll just shut themselves off. There are two kinds- one which replaces the normal Decora light switch, and another that mounts to the ceiling or wall like how a security motion sensor does, and is another switch in-line. The latter kind is commonly found in public schools now, as people tend to leave lights on a lot there as well.
I installed timers on two of my bathroom fans- I can turn the fan on for five, ten, fifteen, or thirty minutes, and it automatically shuts off. Makes it a lot easier when the bathroom needs more ventilation after the occupant leaves. The switches were pricey (as they're Ivory, not Almond or White, so I had to pay the color tax) but work perfectly.
I have a meter as well; one thing to consider with replacement appliances is the reliability and longevity of the appliance.
I have a 33 year old Sub Zero built-in refrigerator in my new house. It's so old that it has only one knob for temperature adjustment, and the refrigerator compartment on top is slave to the freezer setting. I've removed the cover to the compressor and coils to clean them, and I've found some indication that a service or two have been performed over the years, but compared to a friend's brand new LG unit that's had to be serviced twice in eight months and had cost them $1600 to purchase, I'm happy to use this fridge for the moment. Plus, a new built-in refrigerator will cost between $4000 and $8000 depending on what brand and features are chosen. This unit can run for a very, very long time for $4000 worth of electricity.
As for TVs, one doesn't necessarily have to use the fancy, big TV all of the time either. For many years I had a projector screen that could roll down in front of the entertainment center, blocking the 27" TV in it, so I could use my projector when I wanted to watch something of substance. Now, I have the projector in a different room from the TV we watch the news on, and we only use it when we actually want to watch a movie or some other thing where surround sound and a big image matter. Obviously the roll-down method won't work with a fixed TV, but putting the fancy home theatre TV into a different room would.
My current PC (an old Dual-Xeon box) has a hardware sleep switch that ties into some pins on the motherboard, and when pressed the computer drops down to a low power state. When I'm done using it I just put it to sleep, and when I want to use it again it comes back in about three seconds. Works well, keeps all of my programs running fine, and saves power.
There are lots of techniques that can be used to save power, but the biggest hogs in the house (HVAC, hot water heater, refrigerator, oven/range/cooktop) don't hold a candle to the consumer devices that everyone always panics about. If you want the most bang for your buck, insulate your house. Change your windows. Plant some trees that increase shade on the structure. Turn your thermostat up a couple of degrees and install some high efficiency ceiling fans to keep the air moving a little. Sure, turn off the electronics you're not using, but don't assume that it'll be earth-shattering on your power bills just by doing that.
Yeah, that knowledge would have been handy about eighteen years ago. If I remember correctly, that modem still had a lot of socketed chips on it too. I doubt that I still have it anymore- at this point all of the ISA stuff on the shelf is industrial control stuff, which I should probably put on e-bay for some ridiculous price.
I see that it can carry about 130lb. I don't see anything about mechanized welding, or drilling, or any other kind of pipe fitting or other heavy work that would be useful in a damaged machine that one is trying to stabilize.
What is the real purpose of this robot? If it's to test the tech to see if they can produce it domestically instead of relying on American robots, then that's cool, but it's not exactly something earth-shattering when there have already been robots exploring the ruins and taking samples. If there's some greater purpose or more industrial use then I would like to know what that purpose is.
There's a lot more to IT work than programming though, and I would argue that most programming isn't IT work. When I think of IT work, I think of an IT department in a company and all of the employees of that department, or IT consulting companies. Yes, company IT departments often have programmers, and if the purpose of the company itself isn't IT-oriented, then it's quite possible that many of the company's programmers are in the IT department.
At my work, I'd say of about 10,000 employees with the vast majority not being in the IT department, there are about 60 of us in it, and there are about six programmers. The rest of us are either application/server people, networking, network infrastructure, helpdesk, desktop support, or core services server support. Of this nonprogrammers group, probably 5/6 do not have college degrees, let alone degrees in computer science. The programmers, which are split about 60/40 gender male heavy, all have college degrees.
All of the IT services companies that I've worked for had no programmers of any kind with college degrees. Most had no programmers at all. The jobs of those companies was to take care of existing systems or to install systems, like Novell, NT, POSIX, etc. They also had very few women.
One small business I worked for (about 30 people) had probably 30% women programmers that weren't part of IT, 25% women in quality assurance also not part of IT (the section I worked in, three of us men, one woman), and one IT employee, who was male.
I just do not see that many women turning screwdrivers or working with device drivers. This is not college-training work by and large, and it still lags significantly.
Expressing interest while otherwise remaining professional in the environment isn't the problem- limiting one's contact to expressing interest a majority of the time is. That's what I've observed in computer clubs, computer classes, and workplaces. I've observed women who aren't physically touched, aren't directly solicited for sexual acts, aren't threatened with demotion or termination for a lack of sexual acts, but instead aren't respected professionally and instead are simply hit on. Their technical opinions are not solicited, their technical experience is considered irrelevant. It doesn't matter how good at their jobs they are- coworkers can't see and will not acknowledge the work they can do. It's the attitude that those around them are only going to value them for their gender difference for making a pass, regardless of what they have to contribute in the particular field.
That's the worst kind of sexual harassment of all, in my opinion, as it's the most insidious and is what truly creates "glass ceiling" and fosters the environment where egregious personal violations happen.
To me, honestly, it's okay to flirt with a coworker. Just respect that coworker's abilities and relevancy to the job, as well as any desire on their part to be left alone in this way if they request it.
Yeah, I was thirteen and didn't know what those ways were. I also got a Cyrix 486 clone about a year later and the point became moot.
I used the computer for BBSing primarily, and the modem in the new 486, much more than the disk drive, changed how that all worked out. Of course, putting an 8250 UART on a 14.4 meant that it wasn't really a 14.4 as it never worked right and would only reliably work at 9600. Finally I got rid of the Gateway 2000 Telepath POS and got a Zoom 14.4 with a 16550 UART that actually worked. Stayed with Zoom a long time, as their 33.6 and 56K modems were still good, hardware modems.
Veterinary medicine for pets is a fairly new phenomenon, and if the books of James Herriot are to be believed, evolved from livestock veterinary practices. Livestock practices were extremely difficult, dirty, and outright disgusting at times, with veterinarians literally stripping nude to the waist to avoid destroying clothes or leaving clothes bits inside animals when they had to reach into digestive systems or reproductive systems to perform. Obviously for a long time, even men weren't generally socially acceptable while shirtless, and women have been even less-so, continuing to this day. This, plus the physical nature of working with very large, very strong animals that might violently resist the veterinarian would certainly cause problems for women in the industry.
Small animal care, on the other hand, does not favor strength or the ability to get one's upper body into a large animal's cavities. If anything, like your plumbing example, there are situations where surgeries and other medical operations would be better carried out by small hands and small fingers due to working on small creatures.
Back to IT, and your comments on women potentially being unfairly forced away from it, I feel that sexual harassment is a major, major problem with discouraging girls and women from being interested. Unfortunately when boys don't get a lot of interaction with girls, it's difficult to regulate their behavior so that they don't harass. In non-workplace environments it's extremely difficult to control sexual harassment. Schools, clubs, Internet discussions, etc, all very, very hard to prevent sexual harassment if those present choose to do it. Can't fire them, can't really discipline them, etc. So, they drive girls and women away.
Age and physical sexual maturity probably factors in, and perceptions about the maturity of those who do play with this stuff probably also factors in. If she sees boys who play with this stuff as undesirable, either intellectually finding them immature, or sexually finding them unappealing, then she might not want much to do with the hobby because of her perceptions about them, even more than her perceptions of the hobby.
Most boys who play with computers do not become appealing to females until college age if they go to college, and sometimes later if they're not in the college setting with equally intelligent females. At that point, they're not perceived as successful. Success isn't yet measured in income or in income potential- it's measured in social performance- sports, fine arts, even academic performance sometimes. The further from the artificial environment that school fosters, the less those constructs fostered by that environment matter. Unfortunately, by then many females are well out of where this hobby-turned-career track could take them.
I don't know that I was lucky- when I broke toys I didn't get new ones. After awhile, my parents stopped fixing them for me, and I had to fix them myself. The computer was the same way, when I messed up DOS I had to figure out how to reinstall it. When I wanted a modem, I had to learn what an ISA slot was (as I only had one serial port for the aftermarket mouse), what COM ports were, what IRQs were, etc. When I wanted a 3.5" floppy, I had to learn, the hard way, that the 8088 couldn't address more than a 720K disk, so the 1.44M disks had to be taped and reformatted 720K for me to use them until I finally got a better computer. All of this expansion was purchased with my allowance- I had to save up for many months for each component.
I know a company that is "woman-owned" because the owner put his wife on the board so he could get special privileges when bidding on government contracts.
Depending on how the contract that makes her co-owner is worded, she might actually have power if she ever chooses to wield it. That could be a double-edged sword if he's ever caught bringing his cute secretary into his office to "take dictation"...
"Self promotion" is promoting, in a commercial-type format, other shows on the same network or an affiliated network, rather than a product. Advertising "How I Met Your Mother" during "Big Bang Theory" is not an advertisement in the FCC's definition. Advertising razors, or the little blue pill, or some third-party product is advertising.
Small business owners who do not know how to do the work that their company does generally own companies that perform poorly. That doesn't mean that a small business owner needs to be able to do every single service or task that the company does, but doing none means that the owner himself or herself is a drag on the company rather than an asset, as now the working employees have to provide revenue for the salary for that owner in addition to their own, the rent for the business, the expenses for the business, and the like.
I've worked for at least three small businesses where the owners were essentially worthless like this. Those companies all folded. I have no expectation that a female owner who doesn't know the business would be any better than a male owner who doesn't, and given the good-old-boy network, might actually have greater disadvantages and they might not have the business connections through misogynistic social activities to have one's peers help.
Historically, boys, rather than girls, were encouraged to play with computers in the, "let's take it apart and upgrade it," sense. This encourages boys through their adolescent years to play with computers themselves as opposed to just using them. These boys grow into young men with knowledge and experience that fills though few slots above the average user, ie, the exact knowledge needed for entry-level service, like fixing PCs, setting up equipment, and other things that small service companies do for revenue.
On top of that, if those companies do field work, destinations are as varied as a nice, genteel home in a good part of town, to a dirty, grimy warehouse in a bad part of town, to a construction yard, and everywhere in between. These are those places that girls and young women are generally discouraged from visiting without an escort, which is something they're not going to have when working for a small IT shop.
Entry-level IT employees may become mid-level IT employees, and some, even without college, might become high-level IT employees or even IT managers. Thing is, probably only one in ten will be good enough to be mid-level, and probably one in a hundred will be good enough to be at the top or to be a manager or owner. While it's not essential for an owner to know the ins and outs of the IT business, I can tell you from at three experiences in my career when the boss is only a businessman and doesn't know anything about performing the duties the business provides, the business generally folds or is weak with an empty suit occupying an office.
When probably less than 20% of incoming entry-level IT workers are women, and distill that to the one in ten or one in a hundred to mid and high level jobs, and you can quickly see why there are few women owners, managers, or non-college tech workers in general. While women with college degrees are certainly better represented in IT-related jobs that benefit from college, a lot of IT still lets experience replace college, which means that men still dominate if they come up through the work-experience route.
Had women been more represented in IT work through my roughly sixteen year career my life probably would have turned out differently. The few women in IT were either so hounded or so damaged that real relationships with women who actually understood my work were essentially impossible. So many of the very few women that were in the business were sexually-harassed to the point that they didn't bother to remain in IT either, instead looking for other kinds of work. To me, the lack of women is very much not a surprise.
I had one too. A friend who works for a firm that has a suite at a sports venue, and apparently they didn't have any customers to entertain on a night when WNBA was playing. It was surprisingly entertaining and even better with the free soda and sandwiches...
Cry me a river. If they stopped violating the spirit of the rules that were meant to keep a certain amount of content in a given unit of time for a show by calling their ads for their other shows on the their networks content instead of ads, I might not be so upset. Right now there are so many ads that it seems like we get only fifteen minutes of actual programming in a half-hour show. If they will require the ads, I will simply cut back even further on my TV watching.
As for copyright, I don't see any copyright issue. The user is choosing to ignore the portion they do not wish to see, if the commercials are even considered part of the same program by copyright. Which, last I thought, were not.
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Low speed doesn't mean little damage necessarily.
A barge is fairly heavy, and if it's being pulled with the current, there's a whole lot of energy behind it. The shuttle could act like the crumple zone on a car in a collision, essentially being crushed in the process of slowing or stopping the barge.
The judge strongly suggested that Oracle take the paltry-ish sum when that came up in court.
... Why oh why didn't I take the BLUE pill?"
I'm also sure that they'll appeal, but they'll probably lose.
"I know what you're thinking, 'cause right now I'm thinking the same thing
I was mainly referring to the half an hour that I have for lunch. If I want variety, and do not want to just eat a pre-prepared side salad every day, there are few options.
At least the FDA ruled against the food lobby when they attempted to get HFCS renamed to "Corn Sugar".
I think that they know that it tastes good. I think that when they drink more and more of it, they need more and more of it to feel that it tastes good, as opposed to tasting normal. They now simply expect to be able to have it at almost every meal, and that it's normal to drink it at every meal.
I was this way too. I'm trying to fight it by not buying anything during the day if I can avoid it, and by avoiding combo meals if I can. Food actually tastes different when you're not consuming it with soft drinks. I also have stopped drinking caffeinated soda after 3:00pm or thereabouts when I do have it, and since I don't get off work until later than that, this means most days I only have what I bring with me, which is a couple of 12oz cans.
I don't get the shakes anymore. I don't suffer from insomnia nearly so much as I used to. For a long time I would have been able to live on a planet with a 30 hour day, based on how I wanted to stay up and how to sleep. Now I can function much better with our 24 hour day.
I've also stopped buying HFCS soda entirely, in can form at least. Moutain Dew Throwback and Pepsi Throwback only. I don't find myself needing another one as soon as I finish drinking one, or lamenting that I don't have more.
Except Leary actually quit smoking for quite some time, and didn't restart until it proved an easy habit to resume amidst personal tragedy.
Soda is not my religion.
It is my addiction though.
I've switched over time from 128oz of Mountain Dew a day to a pair of 12oz Mountain Dew Throwback cans a day. I still end up occasionally bowing to the fountain soda in the combo meal at lunch time, but I've also started bringing my lunch four out of five days a week.
With no other changes, no increase in exercise, no major effort other than to bring to eat only what I want to carry around with me in a cooler, I've lost weight. When I have the wherewithal to keep to it (it's hard and I have to occasionally get lunches out when I get tired of cold cuts) it works well, saves me money, and helps me to live better.
We're addicted to food. Unlike most addictions, we can't simply stop eating though. We're surrounded by food that used to be special occasion food. Deserts, deep-fried foods loaded with spices, an overabundance of meats. How the hell are you supposed to eat right when there are almost no options to eat right?
I'd restrict the cup size. I wouldn't go 16oz, probably more like 24. I would ban free refills once one has left the premises. If you're in the restaurant you can continue to get your free refills like normal. If you're at a convenience store, either you bring your own cup to get more than 24oz, or if the store allows it, you drink your drink and refill on the spot.
A simple ban on fast food joints and convenience stores selling cups larger than a certain size will do a lot to curtail it, and won't restrict patrons from larger cups if they bring their own cup.
It's called "Bring Your Own Device" or "Bring Your Own Technology" depending on who you talk to.
Right now it's all the buzz in educational technology circles, as school districts think that it'll let them reduce their IT budgets while providing more access. The thing they fail to realize is that every major K12 educational software success story is backed by hundreds of failures because it's rare to find people that both know how to educate and know how to write good software. Programmers rarely actually know what the teacher and students truly need, and teachers write shit code and lack basic understanding of the client/server model. I've seen this with typing software, test scoring software, reading comprehension software, and all sorts of other packages that simply do not implement client/server where the user can log in at any workstation and do the task at hand. Hell, Accelerated Reader, one of the most widespread ed reading packages, ran on friggin' MacOS 9 boxes as a server well past the debut of OSX.
They want little johnny to be able to e-mail/sms/mms his answer to the electronic whiteboard so that the teacher can display his and everyone else's answers to talk about them. They fail to even grasp the possibility of little johnny e-mailing "suzie likes cocks!" to the board, or a semicompromising picture of the teacher when she had bent down to deal with some crap the students messed up, and not having good filtering. Sure, the kid can get into trouble for this kind of thing, but that doesn't stop the teacher from losing control of the class, permanently.
Cloud, BYOD, all crap. All marketing terms. All a bunch of HIPPOs who think they know best who refuse to speak with their actual IT staff when making decisions. They're going to spend a boatload of money to "save money" and in the end they're going to be back to buying more computers.
I've seen it before, and I'll see it again.
I may switch to LED bulbs at some point, but right now they are incompatible with the dual-brite fixtures outside (they'd basically never dim) and with the failures I've seen in supposedly-lifetime CFLs I'm waiting until there's some installed userbase history to know what to buy and what to avoid. They're SO expensive relative to incandescents that I can't justify the cost to purchase them until I know they'll last long enough to recoup the investment. Having been bitten by CFLs once, I'm not going to get bitten by LEDs.
As to your lights being left on, you might want to consider a motion sensor switch in rooms where it would work, as they'll just shut themselves off. There are two kinds- one which replaces the normal Decora light switch, and another that mounts to the ceiling or wall like how a security motion sensor does, and is another switch in-line. The latter kind is commonly found in public schools now, as people tend to leave lights on a lot there as well.
I installed timers on two of my bathroom fans- I can turn the fan on for five, ten, fifteen, or thirty minutes, and it automatically shuts off. Makes it a lot easier when the bathroom needs more ventilation after the occupant leaves. The switches were pricey (as they're Ivory, not Almond or White, so I had to pay the color tax) but work perfectly.
I have a meter as well; one thing to consider with replacement appliances is the reliability and longevity of the appliance.
I have a 33 year old Sub Zero built-in refrigerator in my new house. It's so old that it has only one knob for temperature adjustment, and the refrigerator compartment on top is slave to the freezer setting. I've removed the cover to the compressor and coils to clean them, and I've found some indication that a service or two have been performed over the years, but compared to a friend's brand new LG unit that's had to be serviced twice in eight months and had cost them $1600 to purchase, I'm happy to use this fridge for the moment. Plus, a new built-in refrigerator will cost between $4000 and $8000 depending on what brand and features are chosen. This unit can run for a very, very long time for $4000 worth of electricity.
As for TVs, one doesn't necessarily have to use the fancy, big TV all of the time either. For many years I had a projector screen that could roll down in front of the entertainment center, blocking the 27" TV in it, so I could use my projector when I wanted to watch something of substance. Now, I have the projector in a different room from the TV we watch the news on, and we only use it when we actually want to watch a movie or some other thing where surround sound and a big image matter. Obviously the roll-down method won't work with a fixed TV, but putting the fancy home theatre TV into a different room would.
My current PC (an old Dual-Xeon box) has a hardware sleep switch that ties into some pins on the motherboard, and when pressed the computer drops down to a low power state. When I'm done using it I just put it to sleep, and when I want to use it again it comes back in about three seconds. Works well, keeps all of my programs running fine, and saves power.
There are lots of techniques that can be used to save power, but the biggest hogs in the house (HVAC, hot water heater, refrigerator, oven/range/cooktop) don't hold a candle to the consumer devices that everyone always panics about. If you want the most bang for your buck, insulate your house. Change your windows. Plant some trees that increase shade on the structure. Turn your thermostat up a couple of degrees and install some high efficiency ceiling fans to keep the air moving a little. Sure, turn off the electronics you're not using, but don't assume that it'll be earth-shattering on your power bills just by doing that.
Yeah, that knowledge would have been handy about eighteen years ago. If I remember correctly, that modem still had a lot of socketed chips on it too. I doubt that I still have it anymore- at this point all of the ISA stuff on the shelf is industrial control stuff, which I should probably put on e-bay for some ridiculous price.
I see that it can carry about 130lb. I don't see anything about mechanized welding, or drilling, or any other kind of pipe fitting or other heavy work that would be useful in a damaged machine that one is trying to stabilize. What is the real purpose of this robot? If it's to test the tech to see if they can produce it domestically instead of relying on American robots, then that's cool, but it's not exactly something earth-shattering when there have already been robots exploring the ruins and taking samples. If there's some greater purpose or more industrial use then I would like to know what that purpose is.
There's a lot more to IT work than programming though, and I would argue that most programming isn't IT work. When I think of IT work, I think of an IT department in a company and all of the employees of that department, or IT consulting companies. Yes, company IT departments often have programmers, and if the purpose of the company itself isn't IT-oriented, then it's quite possible that many of the company's programmers are in the IT department.
At my work, I'd say of about 10,000 employees with the vast majority not being in the IT department, there are about 60 of us in it, and there are about six programmers. The rest of us are either application/server people, networking, network infrastructure, helpdesk, desktop support, or core services server support. Of this nonprogrammers group, probably 5/6 do not have college degrees, let alone degrees in computer science. The programmers, which are split about 60/40 gender male heavy, all have college degrees.
All of the IT services companies that I've worked for had no programmers of any kind with college degrees. Most had no programmers at all. The jobs of those companies was to take care of existing systems or to install systems, like Novell, NT, POSIX, etc. They also had very few women.
One small business I worked for (about 30 people) had probably 30% women programmers that weren't part of IT, 25% women in quality assurance also not part of IT (the section I worked in, three of us men, one woman), and one IT employee, who was male.
I just do not see that many women turning screwdrivers or working with device drivers. This is not college-training work by and large, and it still lags significantly.
Expressing interest while otherwise remaining professional in the environment isn't the problem- limiting one's contact to expressing interest a majority of the time is. That's what I've observed in computer clubs, computer classes, and workplaces. I've observed women who aren't physically touched, aren't directly solicited for sexual acts, aren't threatened with demotion or termination for a lack of sexual acts, but instead aren't respected professionally and instead are simply hit on. Their technical opinions are not solicited, their technical experience is considered irrelevant. It doesn't matter how good at their jobs they are- coworkers can't see and will not acknowledge the work they can do. It's the attitude that those around them are only going to value them for their gender difference for making a pass, regardless of what they have to contribute in the particular field.
That's the worst kind of sexual harassment of all, in my opinion, as it's the most insidious and is what truly creates "glass ceiling" and fosters the environment where egregious personal violations happen.
To me, honestly, it's okay to flirt with a coworker. Just respect that coworker's abilities and relevancy to the job, as well as any desire on their part to be left alone in this way if they request it.
Yeah, I was thirteen and didn't know what those ways were. I also got a Cyrix 486 clone about a year later and the point became moot.
I used the computer for BBSing primarily, and the modem in the new 486, much more than the disk drive, changed how that all worked out. Of course, putting an 8250 UART on a 14.4 meant that it wasn't really a 14.4 as it never worked right and would only reliably work at 9600. Finally I got rid of the Gateway 2000 Telepath POS and got a Zoom 14.4 with a 16550 UART that actually worked. Stayed with Zoom a long time, as their 33.6 and 56K modems were still good, hardware modems.
Veterinary medicine for pets is a fairly new phenomenon, and if the books of James Herriot are to be believed, evolved from livestock veterinary practices. Livestock practices were extremely difficult, dirty, and outright disgusting at times, with veterinarians literally stripping nude to the waist to avoid destroying clothes or leaving clothes bits inside animals when they had to reach into digestive systems or reproductive systems to perform. Obviously for a long time, even men weren't generally socially acceptable while shirtless, and women have been even less-so, continuing to this day. This, plus the physical nature of working with very large, very strong animals that might violently resist the veterinarian would certainly cause problems for women in the industry.
Small animal care, on the other hand, does not favor strength or the ability to get one's upper body into a large animal's cavities. If anything, like your plumbing example, there are situations where surgeries and other medical operations would be better carried out by small hands and small fingers due to working on small creatures.
Back to IT, and your comments on women potentially being unfairly forced away from it, I feel that sexual harassment is a major, major problem with discouraging girls and women from being interested. Unfortunately when boys don't get a lot of interaction with girls, it's difficult to regulate their behavior so that they don't harass. In non-workplace environments it's extremely difficult to control sexual harassment. Schools, clubs, Internet discussions, etc, all very, very hard to prevent sexual harassment if those present choose to do it. Can't fire them, can't really discipline them, etc. So, they drive girls and women away.
Age and physical sexual maturity probably factors in, and perceptions about the maturity of those who do play with this stuff probably also factors in. If she sees boys who play with this stuff as undesirable, either intellectually finding them immature, or sexually finding them unappealing, then she might not want much to do with the hobby because of her perceptions about them, even more than her perceptions of the hobby.
Most boys who play with computers do not become appealing to females until college age if they go to college, and sometimes later if they're not in the college setting with equally intelligent females. At that point, they're not perceived as successful. Success isn't yet measured in income or in income potential- it's measured in social performance- sports, fine arts, even academic performance sometimes. The further from the artificial environment that school fosters, the less those constructs fostered by that environment matter. Unfortunately, by then many females are well out of where this hobby-turned-career track could take them.
I don't know that I was lucky- when I broke toys I didn't get new ones. After awhile, my parents stopped fixing them for me, and I had to fix them myself. The computer was the same way, when I messed up DOS I had to figure out how to reinstall it. When I wanted a modem, I had to learn what an ISA slot was (as I only had one serial port for the aftermarket mouse), what COM ports were, what IRQs were, etc. When I wanted a 3.5" floppy, I had to learn, the hard way, that the 8088 couldn't address more than a 720K disk, so the 1.44M disks had to be taped and reformatted 720K for me to use them until I finally got a better computer. All of this expansion was purchased with my allowance- I had to save up for many months for each component.
My parents encouraged me to play to learn.
Depending on how the contract that makes her co-owner is worded, she might actually have power if she ever chooses to wield it. That could be a double-edged sword if he's ever caught bringing his cute secretary into his office to "take dictation"...
"Self promotion" is promoting, in a commercial-type format, other shows on the same network or an affiliated network, rather than a product. Advertising "How I Met Your Mother" during "Big Bang Theory" is not an advertisement in the FCC's definition. Advertising razors, or the little blue pill, or some third-party product is advertising.
Small business owners who do not know how to do the work that their company does generally own companies that perform poorly. That doesn't mean that a small business owner needs to be able to do every single service or task that the company does, but doing none means that the owner himself or herself is a drag on the company rather than an asset, as now the working employees have to provide revenue for the salary for that owner in addition to their own, the rent for the business, the expenses for the business, and the like.
I've worked for at least three small businesses where the owners were essentially worthless like this. Those companies all folded. I have no expectation that a female owner who doesn't know the business would be any better than a male owner who doesn't, and given the good-old-boy network, might actually have greater disadvantages and they might not have the business connections through misogynistic social activities to have one's peers help.
Historically, boys, rather than girls, were encouraged to play with computers in the, "let's take it apart and upgrade it," sense. This encourages boys through their adolescent years to play with computers themselves as opposed to just using them. These boys grow into young men with knowledge and experience that fills though few slots above the average user, ie, the exact knowledge needed for entry-level service, like fixing PCs, setting up equipment, and other things that small service companies do for revenue.
On top of that, if those companies do field work, destinations are as varied as a nice, genteel home in a good part of town, to a dirty, grimy warehouse in a bad part of town, to a construction yard, and everywhere in between. These are those places that girls and young women are generally discouraged from visiting without an escort, which is something they're not going to have when working for a small IT shop.
Entry-level IT employees may become mid-level IT employees, and some, even without college, might become high-level IT employees or even IT managers. Thing is, probably only one in ten will be good enough to be mid-level, and probably one in a hundred will be good enough to be at the top or to be a manager or owner. While it's not essential for an owner to know the ins and outs of the IT business, I can tell you from at three experiences in my career when the boss is only a businessman and doesn't know anything about performing the duties the business provides, the business generally folds or is weak with an empty suit occupying an office.
When probably less than 20% of incoming entry-level IT workers are women, and distill that to the one in ten or one in a hundred to mid and high level jobs, and you can quickly see why there are few women owners, managers, or non-college tech workers in general. While women with college degrees are certainly better represented in IT-related jobs that benefit from college, a lot of IT still lets experience replace college, which means that men still dominate if they come up through the work-experience route.
Had women been more represented in IT work through my roughly sixteen year career my life probably would have turned out differently. The few women in IT were either so hounded or so damaged that real relationships with women who actually understood my work were essentially impossible. So many of the very few women that were in the business were sexually-harassed to the point that they didn't bother to remain in IT either, instead looking for other kinds of work. To me, the lack of women is very much not a surprise.
Self-promotion isn't considered advertising though, which is part of the problem, and I'm certain cuts into your 21-22 minutes number.
I had one too. A friend who works for a firm that has a suite at a sports venue, and apparently they didn't have any customers to entertain on a night when WNBA was playing. It was surprisingly entertaining and even better with the free soda and sandwiches...
blah blah blah ... social contracts ... blah blah blah ... violating copyright ... blah blah blah
Cry me a river. If they stopped violating the spirit of the rules that were meant to keep a certain amount of content in a given unit of time for a show by calling their ads for their other shows on the their networks content instead of ads, I might not be so upset. Right now there are so many ads that it seems like we get only fifteen minutes of actual programming in a half-hour show. If they will require the ads, I will simply cut back even further on my TV watching.
As for copyright, I don't see any copyright issue. The user is choosing to ignore the portion they do not wish to see, if the commercials are even considered part of the same program by copyright. Which, last I thought, were not.