21 May 2003 Archives

update

This discussion in Kevin’s comments has quickly degenerated into how women and men are different, physically, and how women can’t do math and engineering. I would stay to uphold the fight against this attitude, but I have to go to work. Doing the thing I should not be able to do, being a woman and not having the brain for the work.

Earlier

Kevin Drum, aka Calpundit, reflected on an article out today in the LA Times about the lack of women in IT, saying it reminded him of the previous writing I did, Outside even among the Outsiders. He writes:

I imagine this is at least part of the reason for the relative lack of women in IT: they feel enormously pressured by the obsessive, almost semi-autistic nature of some of their prospective IT colleagues. In most of the IT groups that I’ve been involved with, you have to be willing to engage in rhetorical near-war in order to be heard, and you have to put up with challenges to your ideas that are so aggressive, so intense, and so basically anti-social that it’s almost impossible not to take them as personal affronts.

I have seen this aggressive behavior, frequently, in IT. However, as one person mentioned in the comments attached to Kevin’s post, women in IT can also demonstrate this same aggressive behavior. Perhaps it has something to do with getting instant obedience from our computers, and demanding the same from those we work with?

I do know that IT is very competitive, a culture I think that originated with the early computer people, part of the older scientific community’s need to prove my brain is bigger than yours. This competition is probably responsible for 80% of our innovation. However, it’s also probably responsible for 80% of our inability to agree on standards, as well as 80% of application development failures.

Anyway, interesting and thoughtful post and discussion at Kevin’s on this topic.

Just a ramble:

Had a grand celebration meal with roommate last night: caesar salad and prime rib rubbed with seasons and lightly grilled, accompanied by margaritas made with Sauza Tres Generaciones Anejo tequila and Grand Marnier.

Since I start my new job tomorrow, I am happily busy today, though I hope to get out for a nice walk later. Lest you all think my walking will be drastically curtailed once I start working, my new office location is in the midst of parks with over 16 miles of trailway, rough and paved. If anything, I think I’ll be walking more, not less.

With such a quick start date, I only have one day to break some of my bad habits. For instance, tomorrow when I wake up, I must immediately put on clothes rather than around the home flops. And when I’m working on the computer, I must stop talking to it. I especially must not sing to it.

I also need to get my butt in gear and finish installing the software on the new server, disabling root access, enabling FTP and so on. For some odd reason, this has all become that much more enjoyable now.

We moved the Renaissance Web discussion group to a JournURL site, but aren’t quite sure who made the move over with us. Rick Thomas and I had a lovely discussion about the Semantic Web and Natural Language, including Poetry Finder, and he promised to return in a couple of days with talk about organic semantics.

Speaking of technology, I may be spinning the semantic web posts, including RDF for Poets and the Finder, to a separate weblog again. Hard to say, but I am all enthused to branch out and have fun again.

And speaking of fun: evil twin’s having fun in the comments in Farrago’s (Lynette’s) new experimental photo blog. She be teaching the twin how to make sisterfritters.