This sounds like my boyfriend and my typical weekend! Except perhaps that we may have landed on one of the keyboards during a romanitic interlude!
I love being a geek couple!
If your main hobby included technology - it is great to have a fellow geek. I am looking forward to when we get a house and set up the server room . For some people geeking at work is enough - it is not like we don't have external hobbies. I am thinking of relearning to skateboard - my skate has been resting since the 80's when I thought I was getting too old to skate.
--
Card - Faith - and Rambling.
on
Ender's Shadow
·
· Score: 2
I first read Orson Scott Card when I was about 10 years old. My mother who is also a science fistion fan had bought Omni magazine's yearly science fiction issue. I was in my basement bedroom, alone reading Deep Breathing Exercizes by the light of my beside lamp. I did not sleep well for nights. This story sent a chill through my bones and had set fear in my heart. A week later I read Fat Farm, which was the first time which I had read a story which involved and ironic twist in the end. Quietus and St. Amy where next, but neither of these stories matched the thrill I got from the first two. From that moment on Orson Scott Card was among my favorite Science Fiction writers.
Science Fiction's mythical worlds, and grand escapade of the gifted and the isolated drew me to the genre, imagination held me there. I would sit in bed imagining sequels, prequels, and the side stories of lessser characters.
Although I do find Orson Scott Card to be a touch preachy, (Ever notice the parallels between the myth of Joeseph Smith, and Alvin Maker?), I also enjoy his writing style. His characters may not be as fleshed out as in some literary works of art, he does tend to drag a story on longer than neccessary (occassionally) - Yet still his tales captivate and intrigue.
The best description of Card is in that Omni where I first found his writing, I do not remember the exact words and I can't go out to the farm and rummage through the bookshelves in search of the magazine, so I will paraphrase. As a child he never killed insects for enjoyment. He is an unassuming man, a devout mormon not the type who you would expect to write stories so filled with the dark elements of life and human nature, yet he does.
This devout mormon may insert his religion into his stories. Alvin Maker is the Mythical Joseph Smith; Is Jason in The Worthing Saga Jesus visiting his other sheep or is he the mormon missionary? Personally I am not judging his faith and the method in which it creeps into his fiction, simply I think it is good to be aware in the ways in which the Mythology one grew up with becomes a part of one's character. Other Science Fiction authors, even those who eskewed faith of all kind, have inserted Christian and Jewish mythology into thier fiction, Card is no different.
What shapes us, shapes our art. Card's faith is the colors he chooses. It does not make the art offensive to my eyes.
Side Note - if you haven't guessed - I am a second generation athiest, my use of the word mythology in reference to religion is intentional in all cases. For those I may have offended by the use of that word, one quote sums it up - You eskew all other gods but your own, I only believe in one less god than you do.
--
Microsoft GPL - You can't sue them either.
on
911 Calls Linux
·
· Score: 1
Another myth of the modern world. Because there is a propreitor - i.e. Microsoft, you can sue.
Untrue. How many people actually read the Microsoft licence?
Take a look at microsoft's copyright page, or read the licence that came with your shiny NT or windows software if you have any questions. http://www.microsoft.com/misc/cpyright.htm
If Microsoft could be sued everytime there was a loss of data, profits, or what not, do you think they would still be in business?
In actuallity, if I was not dating a fellow computer geek, an engineer or mathematician would be just as attractive to me. Maybe even a professor of philosophy - logic, of course.
I find Bertrand Russell's writing very - mmmmmm - stimulating.
I am joking again.
Although geekdom is only one aspect of my life, I am very devoted to my work, and I agree that another intellegent person, be they a programmer, or what ever, would be just as compatible, I am just doubting the man hunrgy women who are seeking the wealthy programmer will have much luck.
There is a certain class of women who work in offices, and consider themselves quite capable on computers although they call tech support to tell them the internet is broken when they get a javascript error on the page when trying to look at www.marthastewart.com - these are the women who I see in that little trip to Silicon Valley.
This type of woman may be physically attractive, or not. Perhaps for the truely superficial, she'd be an ideal trophy wife, some men want that.
I see more men wanting a partner, a mate they can talk to, share ideas, ideals, dreams, and much more.
Perhaps a couple will capture themselves a geek man who likes talking about interior decorating, and does not mind that his girlfriend doesn't understand computers. Even I like to escape from computers completely from time to time.
I just see the vast majority prefering a woman who has more to talk about than dried flowers, rag rolling walls, and dinner at the neighbour's place, and boy didn't their living room look fabulous.
These dependant little sucklings will be decending upon the geek world like vultures, seeking a man to care for them.
As a geek girl, who has and is dating a geek man, I have but to as what do they think they have to offer the attractive geek man?
Sure they may have looks - maybe - and they may be women, perhaps for some lonely man that may be enough, but what is a geek man looking for?
And what about the language barrier, she speaks Martha Stewart, he speaks in C, C++, Perl, VB, and Java.
I know exactly what a geek man wants because as I geek girl I want the same thing. A bit of understanding when he works 18 hours straight on debugging on little bit of code, and is at his wits end. He smells of sweat, and is still in the same clothes he put on a couple of days ago. He is wrestling with Gollith, he is strong, he does not have time for that little cocktail party, or to anwer whether or not mustard yellow would be a nice color for the bathroom. He wants to know that you understand, and care about him, and you think he is intellegent even if he can't find the logical error in that nasty bit of code.
What happens if the cute couple's aniversary comes in the same week that a project is due. The project is more important - a non geek woman may not understand that.
Perhaps these girls should prep themselves with a few programming classes, I recomend C. Men find C very sexy. C is just so versitile, with a bit of training in C, you can figure out Perl and C++, and once you have c++, you can figure out java with ease, and perhaps then they can understand a bit more of what the geek man is saying.
He's so cute when he's implementing a hash table!
He's so sexy when he uses a stack, just look at that smile on his face when he pops and item off of the stack, he's like a kid in a candy store!
I digress.
Just my opinion, but after a long, and I mean long day, don't you think the geek man would like a girlfriend who understands what her boyfriend is saying, instead of a girlfriend who stare blankly and then proceeds to ask if she should rag roll the living room walls.
Perhaps not all geek men want a geek girl, but I am sure almost every geek man would prefer an intellegent woman, who understand computers and is not afraid of them, or worse yet ignorant of them. It is also very important the prospective mate understand that work is involved, and sometimes to leave work is to leave a train of thought behind at risk of losing it. A geek man may not be around much, but not to worry, the computer is not your competition, you could never compete with the computer.
I found myself a geek man, and although he's a network guy, and I am a programmer, we speak the same language.
I have read so many things about how women aren't encouraged to go into computer science. How women are not wired for computer science, how women just don't have the hacker gene, what not.
To tell the truth I get kind of tired of it all. I am yet another geek girl, and I know I am not the only one. My first experience with a computer was with a Commadore PET in about 1980. You can click here to see the picture if you like.
Since then I have not been without a computer. My father has a degree in computer science and through his job was able to bring home loaners from all periods of the history of the pc. I had a Vic 20, Commadore 64, an Atari 600 (I think), One of the first Macs, a Monroe Litton, IBM PC, Zenith AT, a 286, a 386, a 486, and a pentium.
I taught myself Basic, when I was 12, Pascal at 13, and C at 14. The year I taught myself C, was the same year I was in Grade 10, and I had my first computer class in school where I was "learning" Basic. I came out of that class with a perfect mark, and managed to start looking at assembly language by myself.
I saw high school computer classes as a waste of time and did not take another one, that didn't keep me from teaching myself new principles.
My dad first got me an internet account in 1992 because I was on BBSes all the time anyhow. So I went on the net, and learned Unix so I could make the most of my internet account.
I have the geek gene, it definately is neither a male or female thing. I am stubborn enough to want to keep working on things till they work, I am curious enough to keep learning about new technolgies, and I just plain love computers. Past Boyfriends have pointed to the monitor and accused it of stealing all the attention they wanted.
IDIOTS, It is the CPU I love.
Point at the case and you may have a relevant point.:)
One boyfriend called the computer my other boyfriend. My boyfriend now, he's a geek too, and he knows that if I am coding, that I am in the zone, and that he comes second. He doesn't mind, I have more computer knowlege and experience than he does, and when I am done, I'll be ready to show off what I have done, and explain it to him. A few of his friends, fellow techies - know I am more geeky than them too, and they are used to it now.
I made the mistake of not going directly to university out of high school, but I went back to school a few years ago to start my computer science degree (I am not finished it yet - I am on a break while I try to recoup financially). I encountered my first experiences with stereotyping at a university level. I would never be assumed to be in computer science by strangers, after all, I am female, I must be in Social Work, or Psychology. I didn't encounter any stereotyping from my classmates in computer science or any of my instructors. I was in the top 10% of my class and I quite enjoyed working with people who appreciated my mind and my technical abilities instead of (or perhaps as well as) my looks.
Girl geeks get stereotyped by society, yes, as shy introverted socially awkward plain janes. Male geeks are stereotyped too. Unattractive socially awkward dumpy short and wearing glasses. I am sure the male geeks appreciate the stereotypes just as much as the girls. I am an attractive woman, and I know attractive men in computer science as well.
Having a brain does not disfigure the body!
I think more women should go into computer science, so I can have more women friends to chat with who will understand when I am having a problem debugging a program at 4 am. So I can talk about a concept I thought up for setting up my server in a new more secure manner. I want female friends I can talk about the things that excite me, and their eyes will not glaze over.
The problem is not female role models, or sexist stereotypes.
Women, girls, check out MECCA and join the Syster's mailing list, or if you are a student, the Syster Student mailing list ( be prepared for tons of mail from Syster's). Their url is http://www.systers.org/
That is almost enough of a ramble for me, I have decided not to include in this such things as a long ramble on Ada Lovelace, Grace Hopper, or any of the women who programmed the ENIAC, because if you knew anything about computer history - these are givens.
Turing was one of the great pioneers of computing, just as if it were not for Ritchie, Knuth, Charles Babbage, Ada Lovelace, Grace Hooper and even Linus Torvalds, my computer would not be the same.
Without Turing it is highly unlikely linux users would be able to be able to type ls -l *.txt or windows users can click and point to sort by file name.
Okay I am over stating things, but regular expressions and sorting is a dervitive of Turing's contribution to computer science, how else do you think the messy german encoded information was unencoded via a machine.
Regular Expressions
How do you think you computer searches and replaces text in you word processing programs
Regular Expressions
I am not saying that Turing was the inventor of the regular expression, or even the first to implement them, I am saying that he was one of the great contributers to those regular expressions.
If you are in computer science and have never heard of Turing, or perhaps even heard about regular expressions, then I don't want you writing any software for me to use. I would like to see your magical methods of parsing, and searching and replacing irregular strings.
On to the NT flaming, and Linux flaming. This is highly off topic for an article on Turing, but I must add a few words, whether you have an NT system or Linux box or are running Mac OS, I betcha your computer implements Regular Expressions, and I am glad my operating system is not in German, I can thank Turing for that too.
Next subject that is off topic, about those pdf files, didn't Adobe, the ones who created that format get their start writing software for Macs? I may not be old enough to remember clearly, but for some reason, I remember quite a few companies that made graphic and vector graphic programs all were originally making software only for Macs.
And how do you think compilers work so that all of our programs wheather wrote for Linux, Macs, or a Windows varients all turn into bit streams that the computer understands so we can look at that pdf file?
Regular Expressions!
So in honor of Turing I think I will search the internet, and list the files in my home directory, maybe I'll even get around to writing some code.
Slashdot Mirror
This sounds like my boyfriend and my typical weekend! Except perhaps that we may have landed on one of the keyboards during a romanitic interlude!
I love being a geek couple!
If your main hobby included technology - it is great to have a fellow geek. I am looking forward to when we get a house and set up the server room .
For some people geeking at work is enough - it is not like we don't have external hobbies. I am thinking of relearning to skateboard - my skate has been resting since the 80's when I thought I was getting too old to skate.
--
I first read Orson Scott Card when I was about 10 years old. My mother who is also a science fistion fan had bought Omni magazine's yearly science fiction issue. I was in my basement bedroom, alone reading Deep Breathing Exercizes by the light of my beside lamp. I did not sleep well for nights. This story sent a chill through my bones and had set fear in my heart. A week later I read Fat Farm, which was the first time which I had read a story which involved and ironic twist in the end. Quietus and St. Amy where next, but neither of these stories matched the thrill I got from the first two. From that moment on Orson Scott Card was among my favorite Science Fiction writers.
Science Fiction's mythical worlds, and grand escapade of the gifted and the isolated drew me to the genre, imagination held me there. I would sit in bed imagining sequels, prequels, and the side stories of lessser characters.
Although I do find Orson Scott Card to be a touch preachy, (Ever notice the parallels between the myth of Joeseph Smith, and Alvin Maker?), I also enjoy his writing style. His characters may not be as fleshed out as in some literary works of art, he does tend to drag a story on longer than neccessary (occassionally) - Yet still his tales captivate and intrigue.
The best description of Card is in that Omni where I first found his writing, I do not remember the exact words and I can't go out to the farm and rummage through the bookshelves in search of the magazine, so I will paraphrase.
As a child he never killed insects for enjoyment. He is an unassuming man, a devout mormon not the type who you would expect to write stories so filled with the dark elements of life and human nature, yet he does.
This devout mormon may insert his religion into his stories. Alvin Maker is the Mythical Joseph Smith; Is Jason in The Worthing Saga Jesus visiting his other sheep or is he the mormon missionary? Personally I am not judging his faith and the method in which it creeps into his fiction, simply I think it is good to be aware in the ways in which the Mythology one grew up with becomes a part of one's character. Other Science Fiction authors, even those who eskewed faith of all kind, have inserted Christian and Jewish mythology into thier fiction, Card is no different.
What shapes us, shapes our art. Card's faith is the colors he chooses. It does not make the art offensive to my eyes.
Side Note - if you haven't guessed - I am a second generation athiest, my use of the word mythology in reference to religion is intentional in all cases. For those I may have offended by the use of that word, one quote sums it up -
You eskew all other gods but your own, I only believe in one less god than you do.
--
Another myth of the modern world. Because there is a propreitor - i.e. Microsoft, you can sue.
Untrue. How many people actually read the Microsoft licence?
Take a look at microsoft's copyright page, or read the licence that came with your shiny NT or windows software if you have any questions.
http://www.microsoft.com/misc/cpyright.htm
If Microsoft could be sued everytime there was a loss of data, profits, or what not, do you think they would still be in business?
I was generalizing, of course. :)
In actuallity, if I was not dating a fellow computer geek, an engineer or mathematician would be just as attractive to me. Maybe even a professor of philosophy - logic, of course.
I find Bertrand Russell's writing very - mmmmmm - stimulating.
I am joking again.
Although geekdom is only one aspect of my life, I am very devoted to my work, and I agree that another intellegent person, be they a programmer, or what ever, would be just as compatible, I am just doubting the man hunrgy women who are seeking the wealthy programmer will have much luck.
There is a certain class of women who work in offices, and consider themselves quite capable on computers although they call tech support to tell them the internet is broken when they get a javascript error on the page when trying to look at www.marthastewart.com - these are the women who I see in that little trip to Silicon Valley.
This type of woman may be physically attractive, or not. Perhaps for the truely superficial, she'd be an ideal trophy wife, some men want that.
I see more men wanting a partner, a mate they can talk to, share ideas, ideals, dreams, and much more.
Perhaps a couple will capture themselves a geek man who likes talking about interior decorating, and does not mind that his girlfriend doesn't understand computers. Even I like to escape from computers completely from time to time.
I just see the vast majority prefering a woman who has more to talk about than dried flowers, rag rolling walls, and dinner at the neighbour's place, and boy didn't their living room look fabulous.
These dependant little sucklings will be decending upon the geek world like vultures, seeking a man to care for them.
Are you ready?
As a geek girl, who has and is dating a geek man, I have but to as what do they think they have to offer the attractive geek man?
Sure they may have looks - maybe - and they may be women, perhaps for some lonely man that may be enough, but what is a geek man looking for?
And what about the language barrier, she speaks Martha Stewart, he speaks in C, C++, Perl, VB, and Java.
I know exactly what a geek man wants because as I geek girl I want the same thing.
A bit of understanding when he works 18 hours straight on debugging on little bit of code, and is at his wits end. He smells of sweat, and is still in the same clothes he put on a couple of days ago. He is wrestling with Gollith, he is strong, he does not have time for that little cocktail party, or to anwer whether or not mustard yellow would be a nice color for the bathroom. He wants to know that you understand, and care about him, and you think he is intellegent even if he can't find the logical error in that nasty bit of code.
What happens if the cute couple's aniversary comes in the same week that a project is due. The project is more important - a non geek woman may not understand that.
Perhaps these girls should prep themselves with a few programming classes, I recomend C.
Men find C very sexy.
C is just so versitile, with a bit of training in C, you can figure out Perl and C++, and once you have c++, you can figure out java with ease, and perhaps then they can understand a bit more of what the geek man is saying.
He's so cute when he's implementing a hash table!
He's so sexy when he uses a stack, just look at that smile on his face when he pops and item off of the stack, he's like a kid in a candy store!
I digress.
Just my opinion, but after a long, and I mean long day, don't you think the geek man would like a girlfriend who understands what her boyfriend is saying, instead of a girlfriend who stare blankly and then proceeds to ask if she should rag roll the living room walls.
Perhaps not all geek men want a geek girl, but I am sure almost every geek man would prefer an intellegent woman, who understand computers and is not afraid of them, or worse yet ignorant of them.
It is also very important the prospective mate understand that work is involved, and sometimes to leave work is to leave a train of thought behind at risk of losing it. A geek man may not be around much, but not to worry, the computer is not your competition, you could never compete with the computer.
I found myself a geek man, and although he's a network guy, and I am a programmer, we speak the same language.
I have read so many things about how women aren't encouraged to go into computer science. How women are not wired for computer science, how women just don't have the hacker gene, what not.
:)
To tell the truth I get kind of tired of it all. I am yet another geek girl, and I know I am not the only one. My first experience with a computer was with a Commadore PET in about 1980. You can click here to see the picture if you like.
PET pic
Since then I have not been without a computer. My father has a degree in computer science and through his job was able to bring home loaners from all periods of the history of the pc. I had a Vic 20, Commadore 64, an Atari 600 (I think), One of the first Macs, a Monroe Litton, IBM PC, Zenith AT, a 286, a 386, a 486, and a pentium.
I taught myself Basic, when I was 12, Pascal at 13, and C at 14. The year I taught myself C, was the same year I was in Grade 10, and I had my first computer class in school where I was "learning" Basic. I came out of that class with a perfect mark, and managed to start looking at assembly language by myself.
I saw high school computer classes as a waste of time and did not take another one, that didn't keep me from teaching myself new principles.
My dad first got me an internet account in 1992 because I was on BBSes all the time anyhow. So I went on the net, and learned Unix so I could make the most of my internet account.
I have the geek gene, it definately is neither a male or female thing. I am stubborn enough to want to keep working on things till they work, I am curious enough to keep learning about new technolgies, and I just plain love computers. Past Boyfriends have pointed to the monitor and accused it of stealing all the attention they wanted.
IDIOTS, It is the CPU I love.
Point at the case and you may have a relevant point.
One boyfriend called the computer my other boyfriend. My boyfriend now, he's a geek too, and he knows that if I am coding, that I am in the zone, and that he comes second. He doesn't mind, I have more computer knowlege and experience than he does, and when I am done, I'll be ready to show off what I have done, and explain it to him. A few of his friends, fellow techies - know I am more geeky than them too, and they are used to it now.
I made the mistake of not going directly to university out of high school, but I went back to school a few years ago to start my computer science degree (I am not finished it yet - I am on a break while I try to recoup financially). I encountered my first experiences with stereotyping at a university level. I would never be assumed to be in computer science by strangers, after all, I am female, I must be in Social Work, or Psychology. I didn't encounter any stereotyping from my classmates in computer science or any of my instructors. I was in the top 10% of my class and I quite enjoyed working with people who appreciated my mind and my technical abilities instead of (or perhaps as well as) my looks.
Girl geeks get stereotyped by society, yes, as shy introverted socially awkward plain janes. Male geeks are stereotyped too. Unattractive socially awkward dumpy short and wearing glasses. I am sure the male geeks appreciate the stereotypes just as much as the girls. I am an attractive woman, and I know attractive men in computer science as well.
Having a brain does not disfigure the body!
I think more women should go into computer science, so I can have more women friends to chat with who will understand when I am having a problem debugging a program at 4 am. So I can talk about a concept I thought up for setting up my server in a new more secure manner. I want female friends I can talk about the things that excite me, and their eyes will not glaze over.
The problem is not female role models, or sexist stereotypes.
Women, girls, check out MECCA and join the Syster's mailing list, or if you are a student, the Syster Student mailing list ( be prepared for tons of mail from Syster's).
Their url is http://www.systers.org/
That is almost enough of a ramble for me, I have decided not to include in this such things as a long ramble on Ada Lovelace, Grace Hopper, or any of the women who programmed the ENIAC, because if you knew anything about computer history - these are givens.
Without Turing it is highly unlikely linux users would be able to be able to type ls -l *.txt or windows users can click and point to sort by file name.
Okay I am over stating things, but regular expressions and sorting is a dervitive of Turing's contribution to computer science, how else do you think the messy german encoded information was unencoded via a machine.
Regular Expressions
How do you think you computer searches and replaces text in you word processing programs
Regular Expressions
I am not saying that Turing was the inventor of the regular expression, or even the first to implement them, I am saying that he was one of the great contributers to those regular expressions.
If you are in computer science and have never heard of Turing, or perhaps even heard about regular expressions, then I don't want you writing any software for me to use. I would like to see your magical methods of parsing, and searching and replacing irregular strings.
On to the NT flaming, and Linux flaming. This is highly off topic for an article on Turing, but I must add a few words, whether you have an NT system or Linux box or are running Mac OS, I betcha your computer implements Regular Expressions, and I am glad my operating system is not in German, I can thank Turing for that too.
Next subject that is off topic, about those pdf files, didn't Adobe, the ones who created that format get their start writing software for Macs? I may not be old enough to remember clearly, but for some reason, I remember quite a few companies that made graphic and vector graphic programs all were originally making software only for Macs.
And how do you think compilers work so that all of our programs wheather wrote for Linux, Macs, or a Windows varients all turn into bit streams that the computer understands so we can look at that pdf file?
Regular Expressions!
So in honor of Turing I think I will search the internet, and list the files in my home directory, maybe I'll even get around to writing some code.