Category: Culture

Categories
Connecting

Beautiful photos but less happy story

I also wanted to post a link to Mike Golby and his beautiful photos of South Africa. Unfortunately, these may be it for a while, as his car was stolen today.

Of the event he writes:

The snaps I’ve been able to catalogue over the past eight months have, frequently, felt like my documenting of the end of something. I’m not sure what; but that’s the way it’s felt to me. The end of a city’s innocence, the end of the democratic dream, the end of ‘sharing’?

I guess the latter says it best. The forced redistribution of wealth, where those ‘without’ are as much victims as those who ‘have’ in abundance, is not sharing. Theft is brutal, violent, and barbaric. And it reflects an abysmally ugly side to our society.

The ruthless, cunning, and mercilessly vicious way in which those who ‘have’ cling to obscene wealth reflects this horror as clearly.

It was my father’s car and it had great sentimental value. I do hope his spirit drives the bastards who pinched it into a tree, but I hope so in a detached way — having no knowledge who these assholes are. Were they to return it, I’d probably thank them and carry on as normal.

Categories
Legal, Laws, and Regs Religion

Free will and religion

The Columbia Missourian has a thoughtful article on how the different religions in Missouri view Amendment 2. It’s timely, for me at least, because I needed to be reminded that religion does not automatically kill brain cells.

The St. Louis Post Post-Dispatch has an excellent article on the economic impact of not passing Amendment 2. Not only are we closing the doors to most stem cell research (including adult stem cell), it’s closing the doors to almost all biolife research in this state–primarily because any time someone wants to introduce a bill encouraging such, those opposed to embryonic stem cell research attack it, worried that in some small way the unrelated research might open a door for this activity.

Note in the article the reasons for Amendment 2: people like Rep. Lembke and state Senator Bartle, who spend all their time trying to pass legislation every year to criminalize embryonic stem cell research. Year after year, they try to push this through, and if they succeed, this means people such as Dr. Stephanie Watson can’t seek help for her daughter’s diabetes, even in another state, if such is based on embryonic stem cell research. To do so, would make her a felon. Oh excuse me, our beloved state representative and senator are thinking on not pushing this through as a felony–just making it one of extremely huge fines, which I’m sure that most Missourians can afford.

I got into a joke of a debate at Blogher with a person who is against such effort because of her religious beliefs. What she failed to explain is why it’s better to trash unused embryos left over from In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) than it is to use them for research that could possibly help find cures for Dr. Watson’s daughter’s diabetes, as well as Michael J. Fox’s Parkinson’s, or Matt Fickie’s congenital kidney disease. I am finding that the right to life people seem to be willing to kill off any number of living people in order to save one embryo–and this doesn’t make sense. Is it really life they value? Or is it the empowerment that comes from being able to exert control in a world, and on a world, where they feel increasingly powerless and threatened?

(PS Also see Marianne Richmond’s post at Blogher on this issue for another Missourian’s view. And another article on denominational views on Amendment 2. )

Categories
Diversity Weblogging

This is not a feminist weblog

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

I’ve been informed that I can no longer call myself a feminist because I don’t agree with the other feminist webloggers as regards to the Alas a Weblog issue. To be honest, after reading some of the responses, I must say I don’t feel too unhappy.

I’m not sure where this new breed of feminist webloggers has come from. I do know that I’ve seen a breathless amount of intolerance practiced this week, not to mention enough group think to bring down the house.

It’s not an issue of disagreement–no one denies anyone the right to disagree (including myself). It’s that we can’t disagree and still call ourselves ‘feminists’, at least within these so-called feminist circles of weblogging. In a way, this is rather scary stuff: the more we participate as a ‘community’ member, the less freedom we, as individuals, have.

This has been a rather eye opening experience.

Categories
Diversity Technology

OpenAjax

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

From OpenAjax update:

With each member company having one vote, OpenAjax Alliance elected its inaugural 7-member Steering Committee: Dojo Foundation (SitePen), Eclipse Foundation, IBM, Nexaweb, Tibco, Zend and Zimbra. The individuals that represent these member companies on the Steering Committee are: Alex Ruseel (Dojo/SitePen), Mike Milinkovich, David Boloker(IBM), Coach Wei (Nexaweb), Kevin Hakman (Tibco), Mike Pinette (Zend) and Scott Dietzen (Zimbra).

In my opinion, this is a well balanced committee that would give OpenAjax Alliance the right leadership and guideline to make it successful.

No this isn’t. You have no women, you have no expert on accessibility, you’re too heavily weighted to Java, you have little representation outside of commercial interests, you have no representation from leaders in the fields related to the individual components of the technology, you mentioned confidentiality agreement in the first paragraph, which is counter to any movement that begins with “Open”, I can’t tell for sure, but it doesn’t look like you have anyone from outside the States, and more importantly, you have no critics: people who provide the necessary ballast when the balloons get too high.

What’s Ajaxian for ‘echo chamber’?

Categories
Diversity Technology

Women hackers

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

According to Techcrunch, the winning team of hackers at Yahoo’s HackDay was an all woman team. The project was a mobile computing device that one carries in one’s handbag or pack, which is a camera integrated with a pedometer that takes pictures every few steps, which it then posts it to Flickr using the Flickr API (a Yahoo! API).

The winning team consisted of Diana Eng, Audrey Roy, and Emily Albinksi. From lookups on their names, Diana and Emily have appeared in Make magazine for their techno-clothing (and Diana for her work with the popular TV show, “Project Runway”), and Aubrey looks to be an MIT engineer who has done some very interesting stuff with architecture, and who works with Sharpcast.

Some of the responses have been congratulatory, but I’ve seen a lot of “beaten out by a girl” crap, and it’s too bad that when women do participate, and participate very well, their effort is dismissed primarily because they are women. As such, I hate to join these others in making a point the winning team’s sex, because I imagine the three would like to think of themselves as complete hackers first, who happen to be women.

But I’m so damn proud!

Update

Beyond Caffeine wishes the project had been something non-gender related. True, the device was installed into a purse, but could be connected with a GPS device instead of a pedometer and installed into a backpack and allow people to follow along on a hike through the Alaskan outback, as much as a jaunt through the hills of San Francisco. Travel magazines would be of interest, and organizations such as the US Geological Service. Think of it: hands free static imaging, immediately posted to a group of interested folk.

If we keep putting caveats on how women must act and what we must do in order to establish our ‘cred’ with the tech community, we’ll never achieve any level of success because the bar continues to be moved. We seek to join the profession, but when we do we’re told we must be more visible; when we are, we’re told we must only do that work that satisfies a predominately male view of what’s “useful” and what’s not.

This is women being hackers, good hackers–plain and simple.