The technology sounds like it involves a silly Windows plug-in of some sort
The LinuxFund/MBNA one-use card numbers work with Netscape/Linux as well. It launches a Java applet which works quite spiffily. I authorized a friend of mine for a $2 number on my card the other day. (Don't ask.)
I asked you this at LWCE, but I think this is a better forum for questions, so I hope you don't mind my repeating it.
You've said a great deal about the plight of geeks in schools. What do you recommend that schools, teachers, and parents do to (a) encourage geeks to socialise with their peers, and (b) encourage the reverse - that is, provide more ways for geeks to become accepted in school society?
Also, what do you think of projects like the Alternative Superintendancy of New York City, the 12 Consortia for Specialised Secondary Schools in Science and Math, and various magnet programs around the country that are trying to focus on areas of scholastics that may have previously been neglected?
No wonder the quake 3 arena source was recently released... it was so Linus could play Dave Taylor in q3a to demo Crusoe! For the record, what I saw was: Dave: 3 Linus: 0
"As for your concept of school, I believe there are schools that give the kids the materials to learn, and the kids are given the option to learn if they want to, but from my understanding of it, it's only shown to be an effective form of teaching at younger ages. (I wish I could remember the name of this style of teaching, but it escapes me)"
You could perhaps be speaking of Montessori. I attended such a school for three years, and came out of it reading at a seventh grade level and doing maths at a fifth grade level - all at the age of 8. Plus, I acquired a great many analysis and problem-solving skills. I recommend Montessori schools very highly.
Linuxfund.org is throwing a party Wednesday November 17 at COMDEX (Zone C-8) for all interested. Drop by the linuxfund booth (624E, just around the corner from Andover) for details.
What prevents the OS co. from saying, "hey, we just formed a strategic alliance with MSApps Co, so we're going to bundle IE with windows and optimize windows for running office apps, just like we did before"?
Nothing. Except, of course, the US GOV will effectively forbid that (under contract tying laws) and the two MS's will simply find another way around it.
At the turn of the century, Standard Oil had a monopoly on oil refinement. The U.S. government filed an antitrust law (under the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890) and broke the company up. When they informed its CEO, John D. Rockefeller, of their decision, he merely laughed and said that the seven companies they broke Standard into would continue to dominate the market.
Think he was wrong? Remember the last time you bought gas? Whose pump did you use?
Standard never went away... they just renamed it. To Exxon, Phillips, Chevron, Amoco, Citgo...
Microsoft will never go away if the government takes action. Only real, honest-to-goodness competition can bring down the giant.
And here I thought all this fuss was over my 21st birthday. Now I'm all disillusioned and stuff.
In regards to celebrating techies, there doesn't seem to be any more of a celebratory atmosphere at work today than there ever is.
There are flower bouquets and card for Secretaries' Day... shouldn't there be, I don't know, special Linux distributions or something available for Techies' Day?
As for open source: over the years, I've found that generally I contribute to projects which directly affect both myself and others who share the same ideals...
This, I think, is the major difference between male and female geeks (yes, I'm generalizing. Hear me out.) Female geeks tend towards ends-oriented projects. We aim for a goal, and the means by which we try to attain it are justified by the end results. Male geeks, on the other hand, tend towards means-oriented projects. Even if they never get to the end they were originally aiming for, or wind up accomplishing something completely different, the fact that they spent hours on end trying to get there counts for a lot. Men, therefore, will stay up all night drinking Jolt and coding because they feel justified in doing so even if nothing definitive comes of the effort - it's the effort itself that counts. Women want to know that their time and energy is spent on something they can look at when the process is all over.
So when you ask "How do we attract more women to these development projects?" you might also want to ask yourself "Are these projects something which a woman would want to work on?"
I'd like to reference the Y2K thread started by AC and continued by Paranoid Diatribe here - women are working in disproportionate numbers on this project because they feel that their time is well spent, as they will be able to see a definite end result. In addition, the fact that people could be inconvenienced (to say the least!) if the problems are not corrected makes women feel like they are contributing something to the well-being of the world.
I can only hope that other girls in my class were just as impressed with those stories of a woman far ahead of her time.
Heaven knows I could have benefited from one. All I have learned about computing has been in the last four years. Granted, this has been a very good time to learn just based on the developments in the Internet, the Web, and the open source community, but my road towards geekdom would have been much simpler had I been exposed to computing - and female role models in the field - at a younger age.
Which brings me to an interesting question: ARE there any high-profile women in the computing industry? Of course, anyone reading this will know (or have learned in this thread) about Ada Lovelace and others in programming, but everyone knows who Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and (now) Linus Torvalds are. Are there any female counterparts?
--- Female geeks: http://wondergeeks.net This geek: http://wondergeeks.net/users/starlady
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The LinuxFund/MBNA one-use card numbers work with Netscape/Linux as well. It launches a Java applet which works quite spiffily. I authorized a friend of mine for a $2 number on my card the other day. (Don't ask.)
I asked you this at LWCE, but I think this is a better forum for questions, so I hope you don't mind my repeating it.
You've said a great deal about the plight of geeks in schools. What do you recommend that schools, teachers, and parents do to (a) encourage geeks to socialise with their peers, and (b) encourage the reverse - that is, provide more ways for geeks to become accepted in school society?
Also, what do you think of projects like the Alternative Superintendancy of New York City, the 12 Consortia for Specialised Secondary Schools in Science and Math, and various magnet programs around the country that are trying to focus on areas of scholastics that may have previously been neglected?
-----------
No wonder the quake 3 arena source was recently released... it was so Linus could play Dave Taylor in q3a to demo Crusoe! For the record, what I saw was: Dave: 3 Linus: 0
"As for your concept of school, I believe there are schools that give the kids the materials to learn, and the kids are given the option to learn if they want to, but from my understanding of it, it's only shown to be an effective form of teaching at younger ages. (I wish I could remember the name of this style of teaching, but it escapes me)"
You could perhaps be speaking of Montessori. I attended such a school for three years, and came out of it reading at a seventh grade level and doing maths at a fifth grade level - all at the age of 8. Plus, I acquired a great many analysis and problem-solving skills. I recommend Montessori schools very highly.
Linuxfund.org is throwing a party Wednesday November 17 at COMDEX (Zone C-8) for all interested. Drop by the linuxfund booth (624E, just around the corner from Andover) for details.
Good thing Chris killed Hemos' cell phone, then. *grin*
"There's nothing in that bucket." **ploop**
What prevents the OS co. from saying, "hey, we just formed a strategic alliance with MSApps Co, so we're going to bundle IE with windows and optimize windows for running office apps, just like we did before"?
Nothing. Except, of course, the US GOV will effectively forbid that (under contract tying laws) and the two MS's will simply find another way around it.
---
At the turn of the century, Standard Oil had a monopoly on oil refinement. The U.S. government filed an antitrust law (under the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890) and broke the company up. When they informed its CEO, John D. Rockefeller, of their decision, he merely laughed and said that the seven companies they broke Standard into would continue to dominate the market.
Think he was wrong? Remember the last time you bought gas? Whose pump did you use?
Standard never went away... they just renamed it. To Exxon, Phillips, Chevron, Amoco, Citgo...
Microsoft will never go away if the government takes action. Only real, honest-to-goodness competition can bring down the giant.
---
And here I thought all this fuss was over my 21st birthday. Now I'm all disillusioned and stuff.
In regards to celebrating techies, there doesn't seem to be any more of a celebratory atmosphere at work today than there ever is.
There are flower bouquets and card for Secretaries' Day... shouldn't there be, I don't know, special Linux distributions or something available for Techies' Day?
-----
Ya, there is that chick who was involved in writing Java. She is pretty cool.
And her name is.....?
My point.
----
http://wondergeeks.net
As for open source: over the years, I've found that generally I contribute to projects which directly affect both myself and others who share the same ideals...
This, I think, is the major difference between male and female geeks (yes, I'm generalizing. Hear me out.) Female geeks tend towards ends-oriented projects. We aim for a goal, and the means by which we try to attain it are justified by the end results. Male geeks, on the other hand, tend towards means-oriented projects. Even if they never get to the end they were originally aiming for, or wind up accomplishing something completely different, the fact that they spent hours on end trying to get there counts for a lot. Men, therefore, will stay up all night drinking Jolt and coding because they feel justified in doing so even if nothing definitive comes of the effort - it's the effort itself that counts. Women want to know that their time and energy is spent on something they can look at when the process is all over.
So when you ask "How do we attract more women to these development projects?" you might also want to ask yourself "Are these projects something which a woman would want to work on?"
I'd like to reference the Y2K thread started by AC and continued by Paranoid Diatribe here - women are working in disproportionate numbers on this project because they feel that their time is well spent, as they will be able to see a definite end result. In addition, the fact that people could be inconvenienced (to say the least!) if the problems are not corrected makes women feel like they are contributing something to the well-being of the world.
I can only hope that other girls in my class were just as impressed with those stories of a woman far ahead of her time.
Heaven knows I could have benefited from one. All I have learned about computing has been in the last four years. Granted, this has been a very good time to learn just based on the developments in the Internet, the Web, and the open source community, but my road towards geekdom would have been much simpler had I been exposed to computing - and female role models in the field - at a younger age.
Which brings me to an interesting question: ARE there any high-profile women in the computing industry? Of course, anyone reading this will know (or have learned in this thread) about Ada Lovelace and others in programming, but everyone knows who Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and (now) Linus Torvalds are. Are there any female counterparts?
---
Female geeks: http://wondergeeks.net
This geek: http://wondergeeks.net/users/starlady