I'm a young (second year of college) woman in the Bay Area. I've done two stints of summer tech-writing internships. The first summer, I actually got to work in the same cubicle-group as the engineers, and I feel as though I actually got some work done. The second summer, the company had grown bigger and more corporate, and I worked in a separate "tech writing" group where I had little contact with the engineering group, and my objectives kept changing and I felt bored. It was frustrating work and I left early.
Funny thing is, the department I worked int eh second summer had both men and women, of different races and everything; the engineering group was mostly male and mostly Indian (like me).
Was my experience typical? What's a good work environment for tech-writing-for-money? I enjoyed it that first summer, and I'd like to see why you think that might be.
The architecure of Slashdot promotes "open-source-style" communication. For example, Slashdot promotes meritocratic values, which is one reason why OS-ers like it -- its structures jibe with their beliefs. I wrote a paper a while back about whether/why Slashdot is a successful 'community' and talked a bit about this topic. Feel free to email me for it.
BTW, I'm talking about this paper on the UC Berkeley campus this weekend.
I'm writing a paper on that topic right now, for a class at UC Berkeley. I;m focusing on differences between a) face2face vs. telegraph and b) icq/other text chat vs email. Any ideas/email me?
I wrote a paper a while back about whether/why Slashdot is a successful 'community' and talked a bit about communication structures, kinda. Feel free to email me for it.
BTW, I'm talking about this paper on the UC Berkeley campus this weekend.
Stuyvesant in NYC, and I think Lowell in San Francisco (or, as we UCBerkeley students call it, "the City"). I think these, and others, are established selective public schools. I was always a little envious...
When I went to the national high school journalism competition in SanFran four years ago (was high school that long ago?) The kids from Lowell had a very kick-@$$ web page up documenting the proceedings. It was so cool. I wanted to go back with them instead of back to Lodi!
These days, some public schools are reinventing themselves, and new schools are being born, as 'selective' -- trying to appeal to the segment of the population that might otherwise send kids to private school. "Magnet schools" and "charter schools" and specialized academies choose students from a pool of applicants, which is almost always huge in a big city because regular public schools generally have a bad reputation. I'm not quite sure as to the criteria that selective public schools use -- probably potential for learning and low-income status and possibly sometimes ethnic diversity. Perhaps the beaconschool.org website might tell you.
I've had it in my wallet for a day or so and it hasn't broken, but then again, I don't always sit on my wallet (front pocket, back pocket switching). I think it'll be fine. My advice is to put it in between two other nonbending cards, e.g., credit cards or some such.
I find it surprising that a slashdotter would insist on an engineering degree as evidence of competence in the profession.
He does have, as you said, a good grasp of the properties of technology, and other disciplines, which he probably did learn from working at Pac Bell. But -- and he has written this himself -- he has no FORMAL engineering training.
My instinct is that he is more a watcher than a geek, an anthropologist of business culture rather than an ESR-type anthropologist of geeks, and that he is more of a businessman THAN ANYTHING ELSE. HE can imitate geekishness well, through observation. (Remember "Engineers in the Mist">)
I think that geekishness is not Adams's primary feature. A businessman, a humorist, a cartoonist (whose cartoons' funniness is decliing, IMO), but less geeky than any of those.
For those all-night hacks, pizza and microwaved burritos are big. Interestingly, though the mainstream culture has tended to think of hackers as incorrigible junk-food junkies, many have at least mildly health-foodist attitudes and are fairly discriminating about what they eat. This may be generational; anecdotal evidence suggests that the stereotype was more on the mark before the early 1980s. (Italics mine.)
Geeks' affinity for junk food is a stereotype that has its roots in reality but doesn't stretch its branches far enough to cover us all.
Adams has clearly stated that his first objective has always been to make money. He sounds like an Ayn Rand disciple if you read his interviews. He's never been in it just for the creative urge, so there's no way that this merchandising could be reasonably characterised as 'selling out.'
Remember, Adams has an MBA and has always worked in the business world, and HAS NO ENGINEERING EXPERIENCE. He's not a geek. I don't think he's ever claimed to be. He's looking to make money, and until his cost-benefit analyses tell him that he's overusing the Dilbert trademark and decreasing its appeal, he's continue to paste it on anything he can sell.
Remember, in one strip several years ago, Dogbert tried to get a date for Dilbert by putting a phone number on a billboard (in the strip). Scott Adams made the mistake of using his own personal fax number for that purpose, and women were calling for days, if not weeks. Adams consequently wrote an essay about Dilbert being the new archetypal stud, since he understands technology and that's what men will need in the Info Age. A woman will be attracted to a man who can survive in the new Darwinism, etc. I think it was published in the New Yorker or something.
So there IS a demand for Dilberts.
Still, one would hope that the accessory would NOT be Dildog...
Good point. I seem to see a common theme in some of these posts; while he is a webmaster, which is Acceptable, Ben has committed the fatal mistake of working for/in the Political System, and even worse, for a Politician! Oh, no, he is perpetuating our horrible two-party, hopelessly outdated obsolete flawed system and therefore he has -- he MUST have -- imbibed and absorbed the fatal flaws of politics, evasiveness, compromise.
Yeah, I wish he'd given a straight answer to that last question, too. But you can always email him to prod him about it.
I wrote an essay about what makes Slashdot popular, and I'm willing to send it to you (plain text, of course). Just email me and ask me about "Slashdot's Edge."
Er, my name's not really Tatiana, but I *am* in Slavic 1 -- Intro to Russian -- right now (should be studying for a test tomorrow). I'd be happy to help out, except for the fact that every time I try to speak I feel like a Bond villian.
I'm not sure how many natural-born US citizens actually realize the extent of what we would call corruption in Asian countries. It's a fact of life, a custom, a cost of doing business. If you want a phone or cable line hooked up, if you want a permit to do ANYTHING, if you want to get into a school, if you want anything, there's always baksheesh (the Indian term). There's always gotta be something to lubricate the palms. Here (northern California, to be exact), such a thing would result in investigation, 60 Minutes interviews, outrage, scandal, firings, etc. But who will investigate someone for only doing the same thing the investigator does?
Bureaucrats' wages are low; it's accepted and expected that they will compensate for those low wages via bribes. And, for anyone who's studied political science, remember that this is less a rational-legal relationship than a traditional one (in the Weberian sense) -- there are patron-client dyads everywhere, which are diffuse relationships, not limited ones.
Be glad that VSNL's monopoly on the ISP biz got broken. The prices are SO much lower now, from what I know.
My cousin in Bangalore can chat with my Dad in California, USA, instead of paying out the nose for telecom rates. The only reason it's cheaper, AFAIK, is because there are now MULTIPLE ISPs in the country!
Geez, one ISP servicing an area the size of half the US, and not nearly as well-wired (i.e., quality of wiring)....think how the characters on UserFriendly would do....(-;
What do you call someone who knows 3 languages? Trilingual. What do you call someone who knows 2 languages? Bilingual. What do you call someone who knows 1 language? American.
My parents are from India and they each speak about 5-7 languages with varying degrees of fluency. They are very fluent in English, Hindi, Kannada (the native language of their state/region), and Sanskrit, with some Farsi, Punjabi, Urdu, Tamil, etc. Then again, my parents are VERY highly educated.
Indians who are highly educated already know English. Witness the Bangalore Boom, the SiliValley of India -- they already know enough English to get by in the Anglic world of modern software. (By the way, my parents are from Karnataka, the state which contains Bangalore. Visit sometime, if you can.)
Somewhat educated people know at least a smattering of English, if nothing else for terms for which their native languages don't have words. "Refrigerator," "globalization," etc. (for example).
BUT, somewhat educated people almost ALWAYS know, if not English, Hindi! Hindi and English are the lingua francas (?) of India. At least translating some stuff into Hindi -- comments, etc. -- would make it SO much easier for somewhat educated people to make Linux their own.
Of course, maybe the next step will be for people to translate from Hindi into their 14 individual native tongues. I'm just saying that any attempt to translate Linux docs/source into Indian languages should start with either Kannada or Hindi. Kannada has its advantages, too, since most Indian computer programmers already speak Kannada (they're in Bangalore).
Slashdot Mirror
Funny thing is, the department I worked int eh second summer had both men and women, of different races and everything; the engineering group was mostly male and mostly Indian (like me).
Was my experience typical? What's a good work environment for tech-writing-for-money? I enjoyed it that first summer, and I'd like to see why you think that might be.
BTW, I'm talking about this paper on the UC Berkeley campus this weekend.
I wrote a paper a while back about whether/why Slashdot is a successful 'community' and talked a bit about communication structures, kinda. Feel free to email me for it.
BTW, I'm talking about this paper on the UC Berkeley campus this weekend.
BTW, I'm talking about this paper on the UC Berkeley campus this weekend.
When I went to the national high school journalism competition in SanFran four years ago (was high school that long ago?) The kids from Lowell had a very kick-@$$ web page up documenting the proceedings. It was so cool. I wanted to go back with them instead of back to Lodi!
I find it surprising that a slashdotter would insist on an engineering degree as evidence of competence in the profession.
He does have, as you said, a good grasp of the properties of technology, and other disciplines, which he probably did learn from working at Pac Bell. But -- and he has written this himself -- he has no FORMAL engineering training.
My instinct is that he is more a watcher than a geek, an anthropologist of business culture rather than an ESR-type anthropologist of geeks, and that he is more of a businessman THAN ANYTHING ELSE. HE can imitate geekishness well, through observation. (Remember "Engineers in the Mist">)
I think that geekishness is not Adams's primary feature. A businessman, a humorist, a cartoonist (whose cartoons' funniness is decliing, IMO), but less geeky than any of those.
For those all-night hacks, pizza and microwaved burritos are big. Interestingly, though the mainstream culture has tended to think of hackers as incorrigible junk-food junkies, many have at least mildly health-foodist attitudes and are fairly discriminating about what they eat. This may be generational; anecdotal evidence suggests that the stereotype was more on the mark before the early 1980s. (Italics mine.)
Geeks' affinity for junk food is a stereotype that has its roots in reality but doesn't stretch its branches far enough to cover us all.
Remember, Adams has an MBA and has always worked in the business world, and HAS NO ENGINEERING EXPERIENCE. He's not a geek. I don't think he's ever claimed to be. He's looking to make money, and until his cost-benefit analyses tell him that he's overusing the Dilbert trademark and decreasing its appeal, he's continue to paste it on anything he can sell.
So there IS a demand for Dilberts.
Still, one would hope that the accessory would NOT be Dildog...
Yeah, I wish he'd given a straight answer to that last question, too. But you can always email him to prod him about it.
It's cool to get lots of requests from actual people into my in-box!
That's why I can't/don't "post it on a web page for all to see."
Er, my name's not really Tatiana, but I *am* in Slavic 1 -- Intro to Russian -- right now (should be studying for a test tomorrow). I'd be happy to help out, except for the fact that every time I try to speak I feel like a Bond villian.
Bureaucrats' wages are low; it's accepted and expected that they will compensate for those low wages via bribes. And, for anyone who's studied political science, remember that this is less a rational-legal relationship than a traditional one (in the Weberian sense) -- there are patron-client dyads everywhere, which are diffuse relationships, not limited ones.
My cousin in Bangalore can chat with my Dad in California, USA, instead of paying out the nose for telecom rates. The only reason it's cheaper, AFAIK, is because there are now MULTIPLE ISPs in the country!
Geez, one ISP servicing an area the size of half the US, and not nearly as well-wired (i.e., quality of wiring)....think how the characters on UserFriendly would do....(-;
Trilingual.
What do you call someone who knows 2 languages?
Bilingual.
What do you call someone who knows 1 language?
American.
Indians who are highly educated already know English. Witness the Bangalore Boom, the SiliValley of India -- they already know enough English to get by in the Anglic world of modern software. (By the way, my parents are from Karnataka, the state which contains Bangalore. Visit sometime, if you can.)
Somewhat educated people know at least a smattering of English, if nothing else for terms for which their native languages don't have words. "Refrigerator," "globalization," etc. (for example).
BUT, somewhat educated people almost ALWAYS know, if not English, Hindi! Hindi and English are the lingua francas (?) of India. At least translating some stuff into Hindi -- comments, etc. -- would make it SO much easier for somewhat educated people to make Linux their own.
Of course, maybe the next step will be for people to translate from Hindi into their 14 individual native tongues. I'm just saying that any attempt to translate Linux docs/source into Indian languages should start with either Kannada or Hindi. Kannada has its advantages, too, since most Indian computer programmers already speak Kannada (they're in Bangalore).