Categories
Photography

Artifice

Visiting Scovil’s web site to once again look at and admire his photographs of minerals, I discovered the name of the green mystery mineral I discussed yesterday. It’s Vivianite.

viv1.jpg

It’s not a perfect sample, but at least it’s not blackened as so many Vivianite samples are with exposure to light (she says as she looks at her sample, sitting in the sun). Obvious holes in the matrix show where better crystals have been pried loose, probably to be sold separately. Personally, I think imperfections in the piece adds to its character.

I have always collected based on beauty and character rather than value and perfection. Because of my undisciplined approach, my collection is interesting rather than profound. That’s not to say that the collection isn’t worth money — sometimes beauty and character do go hand in hand with monetary worth, as demonstrated with this virtually flawless rhodochrosite.

rhodochrosite.jpg

Still, there are a few of my samples I shouldn’t include in the collection photos because they’re obvious fakes, or novelty items and of no serious value. When you show your collection, you don’t show these rocks. You certainly don’t photograph them.

Mineral collectors will only show you their good pieces, the ones they’re most proud of. However, if you look into their dark corners and hidden drawers, you’ll find their bits of fraud, fiction, and flaws — samples they think about tossing someday, but they won’t. The imperfect pieces, the mistakes, and the fakes add life to a collection. They add history. They make a collection interesting.

For instance, the photo below is of bismuth, which is normally a featureless blobby white/grey mineral. However, put it into a centrifuge, spin it at fast speeds and inject a little oxygen, and viola — you have a beautiful bit of color. No value to it, but I like my eccentric no value pieces. This particular one reminds me of an Escher drawing. You can also use it as a pencil — now, how handy is that?

bismuth.jpg

I have a few frauds, too. My favorite is a hand-sized rock with quartz and appetite crystals in it. I have no doubt about the nature and quality of crystals, but the sample itself is an obvious fraud. I knew it was a fraud when I bought it. I still bought it, and therein lies the value of the rock.

At an outdoor mineral show consisting of tents set up in the parking lot around a rather seedy motel in Tucson, Arizona, I came across one table filled with yellow-green appetite crystals from Mexico. Most were still attached to their rust-red matrix, making the pieces quite pretty overall.

I tried to effect a knowing attitude, but I swear, I must have had rube tattooed on my forehead. The Dealer, an older man who was very gallant to me and kind to my niece (not all that common among the tents if you’re not buying in bulk), sized me up, came to some kind of internal decision, and brought a rock from underneath his table for me to look at — a hand-sized piece with a couple of relatively nice appetite crystals in it.

“That’s what you want”, he said in heavily accented English. “That’s good rock. Nice crystals. I give you good deal on it.”

I picked up the rock and looked more closely at the two larger crystals. They were both wedged into the rock but even a cursory examination showed that the crystals were cut at the bottom and then glued into the rock, with bits and pieces of broken crystal glued around them in an attempt to hide the obvious manipulation. (Crystals in matrix always sell better than those that are loose.)

I looked up at the dealer and he beamed at me, nodding his head, pointing at the rock and kept saying, “Good rock, nice crystals, eh?”

“It looks like the crystals have flat bottoms and aren’t attached to the rock”, I said.

“No, no. This happens sometimes. Pressure on rock force crystals loose, but they held in by rest of rock.” He assured me, shaking his head a modest display of genuine sincerity. “No, this is good rock. Good crystals. I give you good deal.” Pause.

“Fifty dollars.”

I gaped at him. Literally gaped at him, mouth open in astonishment at the chutzpah of the dealer. I held the rock in my left hand, and pointed at the crystals with the index finger on my right hand and just looked at him.

He smiled back, beaming in pride of this treat he was bestowing on me.

“Fifty dollars?”

Beam.

“Are you kidding? This is a fake!”

His smile faltered. A hurt look entered his big brown eyes (before, bright black and alert, now suddenly taking on aspects of one’s favorite dog just before it dies). His age set more heavily on his shoulders and he shrunk in slightly, as if in despair. His body said it all: His son has died; his daughter has run off with a biker. I even thought that, for a moment, I could see his upper lip trembling, and a hint of moisture appearing in the corner of his eye. I watched his change of expression — from certitude to dejection — with utter fascination, and more than a little consternation.

“Madam,” he said quietly. “You wrong me. This is no fake. Please, I would not do such a thing”

Placing his hand over his heart, he lowered his head slightly and pulled away from the table, turning his shoulder away from me as if flinching from a blow. I looked back at him and I realized in that moment, I have met fraud before, but I have not met artifice. And artifice is a ceremony, as precise as the tea ceremonies in Japan — my response was equivalent to not taking off my shoes, spilling the tea, dropping the cup, and then farting when I go to pick up the pieces.

I didn’t know what to do. Putting the rock down and walking away would have flawed the moment and marred the experience, for both me and my young niece who was with me that day. But I didn’t know how to recover.

“I, uh, I’m sorry,” I stammered. “Uhm…I didn’t mean to..uh”

The dealer was not a cruel man; or perhaps he was used to dealing with gauche Americans who buy their goods marked with barcodes and stickers, with heavy assurances of quality. He turned towards me, his face now that of one’s favorite wise old Uncle, the one mother invites to dinner but then hides the booze.

“Madam, I understand. There is so much evil in the world. You must be careful. But see now, I am an honest man. But I am not a selfish man. I will give you this rock, this pretty rock for … forty dollars. It is a steal at forty dollars.”

Shrewd eyes on my face. Next line was mine. I had my opening. I could have put the rock down and say that I hadn’t that much money and I still needed to buy lunch for my niece and thanked him and walked away and the moment would have been salvaged, but it wouldn’t have been right. Besides, the crystals were good if small, and there were some interesting bits to the piece, not counting the ingenious use of glue.

“I’ll give you ten dollars for it.”

“Madam! Ten dollars! You are joking! No, no. Ten dollars. No, no!” He exclaimed in dismay, but he also smiled at me in approval of my response — there was hope for me yet, me with my wits dulled by years of supermarket shopping and sell-by dates.

“Thirty-five dollars. I will take thirty-five dollars.”

I was about to counter with fifteen, feeling more confident in this bargaining game when the Dealer picked up another crystal on the table — a small one. A very small one. Barely more than pretty dust.

“And I’ll throw in this lovely crystal for your niece. See? It is a fine crystal. Yes? Good offer?”

“That’s very kind of you,” I said, clenching my teeth at the exclamations of delight from my niece who loves getting something for free even more than she likes sparkly things that cost money.

Artifice.

myfavoritefake.jpg

Categories
Books Writing

Don’t search on me

Following on the heels of the recent excitement about searching within pages of books at Amazon, there’s now a growing backlash against this facility from, among others, the Author’s Guild. According to Volokh Conspiracy and numerous publications, such as Ziff-Davis News in the UK, and The New York Times the pushback occurs because each search returns five surrounding pages of a book, and the Guild says that this could be used to get all the pages for a relevant section of a book so it need not be purchased. Ultimately, according to the Guild, this violates contracts between authors and publishers.

I’m an author, and currently have several books out at Amazon. From test searches, it would seem that my Practical RDF book has not been added to the database yet. Personally, I hope it does get added, because it can only help sales.

For instance, a person is interested in an RDF API called Jena, and searches on this keyword, rather than RDF. My book shows up in the results because I cover Jena. This is good for me as an author because the more I put my book in the front of readers’ eyes, the better chance it has of selling. This is a much better selling tool then me going into book stores, pulling my books from obscure shelves and putting them in more prominant locations.

(Eye level of the average person, front of book displayed if there’s room, or pulled out from shelf so it’s no longer even with the other books.)

If I have a problem with the facility is that it’s a mess. There doesn’t seem to be a way to turn off this look inside feature to find a book on a subject, not just a keyword. As for ‘Jena’, its rather surprising the number of ‘Jenas’ in books out there. To compensate for this, you’re reduced to trying different search patterns that focus on Jena, the RDF API, rather than Jena, the Napoleon campaign.

This is less easy then it seems. For instance, you’d think you’d have a winner with ‘java jena rdf’, except the first title that shows is “The Polish Officer: A Novel”. What are these authors talking about?

I, of course, also did a vanity search on my name, in quotes, out at the site and found a few references to it in other books. Not many – I’m usually the writer not the writee. One I thought was particularly interesting is my name showing up in a figure in a book,and the page containing the figure was shown. It would seem the search works with figures as well as text.

As for this enhanced facility adversely impacting on book sales, I’m finding that the current political and economic climate in this country and the rest of the world is doing a great job of this anyway – Amazon’s efforts aren’t adding much to the overall effect.

Update:

Professor Bainbridge has some good comments on the negative aspects of this search facility on the sale of his books – but I still want my books in it.

Categories
Photography

On the Rocks

Recovered story. I no longer have the collection, but you can see photos of what once was.

I spent yesterday taking photos of my rocks for the auction, but I’m never going to get this job finished if I spend all day and only have a few photographs for my effort. I can’t help myself, though — I’m having too much fun.

I started using the traditional mineral photographing techniques, as outlined in Jeffrey Scovil’s excellent Photographing Minerals, Fossils, and Lapidary Materials. However, somewhere along the way, I began to improvise.

For instance, I found that my TiBook makes a great backdrop for some of the harder to photograph minerals such as Azurite and Dioptase. I don’t have my studio lights and am having to use natural light, which makes my job much more challenging. Both black and white backdrops desaturate these minerals extremely rich hues. However, the neutral gray color allows the colors of the samples to come through.

(Or at least, that’s the excuse I’m using for such blatant disregard of mineral photography rules.)

As a backdrop for this yellow crystal, I used the paper the rock was originally wrapped in before I decided to use soft foam, instead (better for shipping).

Yellow Crystal

Notice that I called this mineral ‘yellow crystal’ rather than giving it a name? Well, I have to confess that I have no idea of what this crystal is. In fact, I have two minerals I can’t classify in my collection, and a third that I can’t tell is a fake or not.

This might surprise you: that a mineral collector can’t identify all the minerals in their collection. However, I purchased the mystery rocks at the Tucson mineral show early in 2001 and carried them home with their little labeling tags. When I got home, I found the dot-com I worked at had died while I was gone. I was distracted and didn’t record the purchases in my mineral ledger. Then I ended up getting divorced a few months later, and moving to California soon after that. During the move, I wrapped the rocks and stored them, losing their little tags.

Only now, going on three years later, am I looking at the rocks and I haven’t the foggiest what the yellow crystal is. Or the identity of a beautiful green crystal I haven’t photographed yet. I think the yellow is calcite, but the specific gravity is all wrong, and the luster doesn’t feel right. And its rare for calcite to form bladed crystals, though calcite will form into pretty much any crystal form.

I don’t have the materials to make a streak test, nor do I have the acids to see if the mineral behaves appropriately when exposed to this substance. I suppose I could hit it with a hammer to test its hardness, but that seems a bit extreme.

There’s the old taste test, and I remember when I took geology in college that we had to use taste during our mineral identification exam (boy, those were the innocent days.) However, there’s drawbacks to using taste on an unknown mineral. For instance, another crystal I photographed yesterday is this nice piece of Chalcanthite:

Chalcanthite

Pretty, isn’t it? It’s also toxic. In fact, if you bend your minds back to chemistry class, you might recognize this crystal if your class ever left a solution of cupper sulfate to evaporate over a few days. Crystals of Chalcanthite will form, which is one of the three reasons why people hesitate to have this mineral in their collection. First, it’s water soluble, and fine examples have been known to reduce to dust eventually. Then there’s that toxic thing. Finally, how can you tell the difference between lab grown crystals and naturally occurring ones?

This sample is one that grew naturally, but it was instigated by humans — it formed in a copper mine as a result of the mining actions.

While I photograph the minerals, I find myself just looking at them and this accounts for much of the delay. I hold them to light, move them around to watch the glitter on the surfaces; look into their depths to see the fractures and inclusions. Gloat in the rich and subtle colors. I like to feel the surface because the stones each have a different tactile feel to them. My favorite is the apophyllite, which has a soapy feel to it, and an iridescence that reminds me of those bubbles we used to blow as a kids.

Some of my samples were hot glued into little boxes and stands when I purchased them, and the first thing I did was remove these. I dislike having any form of container around my rocks. How can I feel the rock, or look more closely at it with all that protective gear in the way? Mineral collectors would be appalled to hear what I’m saying — crystals can be impacted by the oils on our fingers, the light or the even the air around us. Holding a crystal increases the chances of it being damaged. What am I thinking?

But look at this opal from Oregon. It’s like a bit of the river from which it came, but petrified and preserved for all time. The feel of it is wonderful, and I wish there was a way I could attach that feel to this page so you can experience the texture — like candle wax dripped on velvet. It’s a very sensuous stone, and the colors become so real when you hold it up to the light.

Categories
Photography

Diet Cherry coke

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

I splurged this weekend and purchased 20 rolls of film from B & H, a photo supply shop I’ve used for years. I think most people who are into photography in this country, and even internationally, are familiar with B & H. Not everyone cares for them, but I’ve always been happy with their products and services.

Anyway, back to my major investment. Of the 20 rolls, ten were Fuji Velvia, ISO 50, my favorite color slide film; ten were Kodak’s classic Tri-X Pan Black & White print film (ISO of 400). I recently experimented with the Tri-X and really liked the results: fast so it works in most daylight environments, and with enough graininess to add interest. Seems to be a most forgiving film, too.

What can I say? Sometimes I feel like color, sometimes I don’t. Depends on the mood I want to set. For instance, the following two photos are of the same subject – but what is the story behind each? What am I saying? Other than, don’t drink the water?

Don’t drink the water.

walkwaycolor.jpg

Don’t drink the water.

Of course, I hope they say something different. If they don’t then I haven’t done my job.

I’m causing trouble in this weblog instead of out there in the world on promised break because plans I made went awry, or I should say, have been postponed. The surgery for removing the gallbladder went very well, but I’m amazed at how much it’s tired me out and how much I’m having to adapt. I’m not used to this – I’m a quick healer, and am rarely kept down for long. However, I’ve been fighting problems with the little bugger for a couple of years, and I’m not going to be climbing hills immediately. Not just immediately.

Still, as I said a couple of days ago before I decided to test the burn and see if I flame or only smoke, I feel good. And I don’t itch.

I’m also in the process of finally getting around to selling my mineral collection. This week I’ve been taking photos of the different samples, posting them to a site dedicated to this effort, but I have over 100 samples – this isn’t going to be a quick job. I’ve been in contact with one dealer who is interested in the collection, but I can’t connect up with them until Thanksgiving. What I’ll most likely do is send the URL for the collection out to several rock magazines and dealers and see if I can find a nibble. If not, on to eBay we go, though eBay is not my preferred option.

Once the pictures are all taken, I’m going to add a story about my favorite pieces to the associated page. I want to make the collection come alive, show the care and thought that comes with each sample. I’ll post the link again when I’m finished. Even if rocks aren’t your thing, there are fun stories associated with the collection.

(Well, I think they’re fun. If you don’t, then I haven’t done my job.)

When I was getting ready to check out after surgery, the nurse told me to drink plenty of fluids, but good things like juice or water, or tea would be okay. By no means was I supposed to drink cola products like Coke or Pepsi.

What? No Diet Cherry Coke?

No, that stuff will eat your stomach up in your current state, she said.

Since then I’ve been scared to try one of my favorite drinks. Not until today, and I’m drinking a can of it right now as I write this. Another step in the recovery process – indulging in my favorite degreasing substance, Diet Cherry Coke. Recovery is not measured by the good things we do for our bodies when we still have fresh memories of hospital white and green and the fear of frailty, and worse, lies heavy on our minds. Getting better is marked by Bad Things, like tic marks on a measuring stick. Coffee, check. Steak, check. Diet Cherry Coke, check.

When the nurse was telling me what to start eating, she said start with broths and jello and progress to light soups and finally start eating normally in a couple of days. Under no circumstances was I to eat fast food for at least a week.

What, no White Castle hamburgers, I asked?

She looked at me in horror, she really did, and exclaimed that under no circumstances should I eat White Castle ever again!

Well, this one really wasn’t a problem for me because I’ve heard so many stories about White Castle hamburgers, good and bad. They really are a cult food here in the States, and I thought about trying them when a new restaurant opened just a couple of blocks away from us. However, when I found a taste alike recipe for them, and saw what it used, I’m afraid I’ve lost my interest in trying White Castle.

But I had a Toaster at Sonic Thursday. See, it’s the bad things that measure our wellness.

Categories
Diversity

It’s all about circles

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

When I was creating symbols to use for my categories, I thought about what would best represent the concept of “Connecting’, one of my categories. To me, connecting is when two or more people have a discussion or reach out to one another in some way. This doesn’t mean that the people agree, or disagree. It just means that a connection was made.

Eventually I settled on intersecting circles: circles because we are, first and foremost, individuals, complete and whole on our own; and intersecting because when we interact with each other, we become a part of something bigger – not necessarily better, and not necessarily something positive – but something beyond what we are, alone.

My use of this symbol was pointed out today on a post that has since been removed. The focus of the post was about Liz’s new group weblog focusing on women and technology, Misbehaving.net. My reaction was one of personal hurt and dismay, and I don’t retract either of these honest emotions. However, as they were expressed originally it became more of a “me too, me too!” statement, and that wasn’t the point I had hoped to make. After a series of emails today and time to think about it, I decided to try the post again, but this time with more a story to go with the reaction. The reaction’s still there, but I hope it’s now more nuanced.

Women and technology. This is a subject that has personal interest for me with a degree in Computer Science, and having worked in the field for 20 years. And being a woman, too, of course. When I first started taking computer science way too many years ago, the program had about 8 men for every woman but oddly enough I didn’t really notice this disparity. Or if I did, it was more a matter of the program was very new at the University and women were quite new to the sciences. In time there would be more women in the field. I just knew it.

My professors and fellow classmates at Central Washington University were terrific. Though men outnumbered women, three of the top five students in the program were women.

When I left school I wanted nothing more than to work in research, but only having a BS degree didn’t provide the entre into research positions, so I ended up in a job at Boeing, working as a system support person. My job was to provide application and system support for an HP box as well as yet more primitive PC computers. It was there that I was blooded into the profession by doing a mistype while formatting a specific directory and formatting my boss’ entire machine. Luckily, he had a sense of humor.

The IT group at Boeing Military had a surprising number of women. I was to find that, as the years progressed, the ratio of women to men was much less significant in those days than it is today. However, while I was at Boeing, and in all my Boeing positions, I never once met anything remotely approaching discrimination. Nor did I ever feel odd being a ‘woman in technology’.

I went from the system support position to work on Peace Shield, the defense system that the US military helped fund for the Saudi Arabian air defense. My job there was to write FORTRAN programs to extract critical information about data points in several million lines of code created by three separate companies, and put this information into a data dictionary in order to meet compliance with military guidelines. While not research, the work was challenging. I’d take FORTRAN coding sheets home at night to work through code. Eventually my boss finagled one of the first ‘portable’ computers from Compaq for me to use, though the thing was more hassle than it’s worth. One can only handle so much amber and crashing disks.

From Peace Shield I went to Boeing Commercial into the database group, working into a position, eventually, of lead Data Analyst, and finally Commercial’s Information Repository manager, trained by IBM in this brand new meta technology. Most of the people I worked with in data were women – an odd fact that still tends to exist today.

It was a great job and I met movers and shakers and really learned Data. But I was seduced away by my old research bug. During my work I became acquainted with a group called ALIA – Acoustical and Linguistics Applications. This group was using some of the most cutting edge technology to create applications such as robotic warehouse systems, smart search systems (one of the many Google precoursers, and actually using rudimentary markup languages), and even computer systems used by quadriplegics. I loved the work, I loved my boss – a woman as fate would have it.

Unfortunately, though, we ended up being cut during one of Boeing’s down sizing and I ended up working for Sierra Geophysics – a software company for the petroleum industry owned by none other than Halliburton.

It was at Sierra that I began to realize that being a woman in this field isn’t quite a simple thing. My boss, a man named Jim Bonner, was a wonder and he’s still one of the best people I’ve worked with. The bosses all the way up the line were also terrific. However, within the groups there was a flavor of behavior that was gender based – and this behavior manifested itself with both men and women.

I worked for a female lead who did not get along with the male lead of another small group. However, she did get along with the male lead of the third group – in fact, he could do no wrong. Not even when he was wrong. As for the man antagonistic to my lead, we got along fine. We both collected minerals and he was a geology major turned computer scientist, so we had that in common. Still, when I was assigned to hypertest some of the code, he tried to get me pulled and put his own guy in, saying that his person was ‘calmer’ in difficult situations. Believe me folks, if I was any calmer in those days, I’d have been asleep. My boss saw through the root cause of this ‘request’ and rejected it and basically told him to butt out and go away with his bad self.

Still, I didn’t take it personally. Didn’t impact my job, boss stood up for me. No harm done.

I worked on creating the shell scripts for all of the applications, as well as coding database portions of the application for five different Unix boxes. We used C++, my first exposure to the language, and I liked it. I didn’t like working make files for five different flavors of Unix, though.

Eventually Hallibuton decided we Seattle folks were too uppity for good hard working Oklahoma people and we were all canned. We knew it was coming and we were all extremely uptight. I used to bring in some hard candy and I noticed that people would come by more and more to grab a piece – not for the sake of the candy so much but to get away from their desks. I started adding more candy and eventually filled a drawer with the silliest candies – lollipops and candy necklaces, and buttons, and cinnamon bears. And chocolate of course.

My little candy drawer became the place people would come to when they were uptight, frustrated, and scared about losing their jobs. This was before the dot-com era. Before easy pickings, and losing a job was a pretty scary thing.

When I left, my boss thanked me for the work and for the drawer. He said it was the only thing that kept the lid on at times. My female lead said I was a great worker, but I really needed to become more aggressive and not let the men push me around.

I hope you’re not bored, because we’ve just started this saga, long that it is. But then, the topic is about women and technology. And I am a woman, and this was technology.

Next it was an insurance company and becoming a senior developer, and my first lead position. I led two efforts – one to rewrite the quarterly financial system that failed every run. The second to code the room size automated mailing system the company just bought. The group was half and half – women and men, and there wasn’t a bit of problem being a woman developer there. Not when more than half the actuarials at the company were women, and everyone knows actuarials are the scariest, smartest people in the world. They set the pace for our group.

Standard Insurance company was my last fulltime gig. I was ready to branch out into contracting and did so as an employee for a contracting company. My first gig was at Intel.

What a nightmare. I, from my previously protected position as woman as equal contributor walked into a situation where I had one member of the group talking about sex with me, every single friggen day; and other member of the group calling me names, telling me, to my face, that “women shouldn’t be in this profession – they get hysterical too easily’, and don’t have the brains for it.” I complained to my company, but Intel was too lucrative. I was told to just go along. I finally filed a complaint with Intel’s personnel, and left the position.

The funny thing is, the guy that talked sex all the time was the one that ‘testified’ for me in regards to the complaint I had about the abuse from the other member. He talked for two solid hours of incidents of the abuse I suffered. I was vindicated, but my vindication came at the hands of another person who was guilty of yet another type of abuse.

By the time I left the gig, I was not the same person. It wasn’t that I was treated in the most extreme sexist manner, and with such abuse – it was that my company didn’t believe me, but did believe another abuser.

I went to another gig at Intel and this one was okay. I was only one of two women, but the guys were straight up. Did my job and left.

I went to Nike after that, and the Nike folks were very cool. I know that Nike offshores, and I don’t approve – but they treated me well, and after Intel, I needed this. I also worked some part time gigs during this time – consultant for Multnomah county on a smalltalk feasibility study, converting a desk top application to web based using Netscape’ brand new Livewire technology, coding here, database design there. I even created an Oracle prototype touch screen application for a door factory in Wisconsin.

(Small town in the middle of nowhere – bugs the size of volkswagens and the mainstreet alternated churches with bars. Odd place.)

I had a good reputation in Portland so I was treated with respect wherever I went. Still, I couldn’t help but notice that in all but a few of the places, the ratio of women tended to be anywhere from 4 men to 2 women, to about 20 or so men to one woman. Things were changing. The good old days were dead.

I moved to Vermont and spent a year writing tech books and then to Boston where I went to work at another insurance company. Every group had a good mix of women and men except one – the technology architecture group. There was exactly one woman in this group among all the men. And most of the guys there reminded me of, well, they reminded me a lot of the male tech webloggers I’ve interacted with – both the good and the bad.

What do I mean by this? Well, when I deferred to the group in all things, I was an okay person. But when I disagreed, I became a bitch. I know. I was called a bitch. You see, unlike at Intel, I wasn’t going to be quiet, be good, or be conciliatory. No more candy drawers. I was going to fight back, and I’ve been fighting back ever since.

Good girls might get pats on the head from daddy, but they don’t get respect from hard core techs. It takes skill, but more than that, you can’t give an inch – not an inch because when you do, you’ll never get that inch back. If I had a choice between being liked, or being respected for my technical ability and being allowed to exercise it, I would choose the latter.

It was also in this position that I began to find out that the more technical the position, the closer to the metal, the fewer the women, and the more difficult for women to ‘break’ in.

Other jobs followed: Harvard and Stanford, Skyfish, and odds and ends for companies big and small, but enough about the past.

Now we come to weblogging and I see bits and pieces of my old Boeing group here, and my old jobs at Nike and I think, this is a good thing. But I also see much, way too much, of Intel here.

Lots of great technical guys around here. Could care less if I’m a woman, as long as my code’s sexy. That’s cool – I know where they’re coming from. But I’ve also been called ‘hysterical’ by Mark Pilgrim so many times, I should just tatoo it on my butt. Don’t have to believe me, read it yourself. Want to see what Dave Winer has said? Go to my blogroll, click on the link for his past comments.

I can dig this and I can handle it, but I wanted something more this time – I wanted support from the women. I didn’t want to be the only woman in the group, the only woman close to the metal – the only woman talking tech. But, how many women have been involved in Pie/Echo/Atom? RSS and coding? How many women at the conferences?

Yet when I’ve asked woman for support, it isn’t coming because let’s face it – the guys I take on, the Dave Winers, the Mark Pilgrims, and yes, even the nice guys like Sam Ruby – and Sam is a nice guy, and hasn’t a sexist bone in his body – they mean something here. They have a lot of juice. They are hits, conferences, speaking gigs. The coin of the realm is measured in hypertext links, and the men, well, they have most of the bucks.

No, I’m told that for women to get ahead, we have to be calm, dignified. We have to go along, to get along. We should never call a man on his behavior to his face, but do it in a round about manner, a non-confrontational manner. Above all, we should never be a bitch. Never lose our tempers. Never wipe the mud off our faces and throw it back.

Provide a drawer of candy. Learn to be good little girls, and maybe the boys will let us play.

This leads me back to Liz’s new group, and the smaller inner select group of members. Make no mistake – I was upset about this, and for two reasons.

The first is the group aspect of it, the member’s only aspect. Here’s a group of women who are talking about women in technology and supposedly women being excluded in technology, and the first thing that happens is they create an invite only group that exclude all women’s voices, including the cranky bitches like me.

Oh yes, women like me can still talk on our weblogs but our voices are less likely to be heard because let’s face it: the tech guys are going to find this group of women to be a lot more ‘comfortable’ to work with than someone like me. I’m that bitch – remember?

That leads me to my own personal reaction to not being invited. Yes, I was upset. And yes, I was angry. And hurt. And I did feel rejected because Liz and Dorothea and I have talked about these issues via email when I’ve asked their support in the past. When I tried to share my pain and rejection from the male technical circles. When I tried to explain why I find the word ‘hysterical’ to be so offensive.

Be quiet. Don’t react. Don’t get angry. Don’t fight back. Be good. Be dignified. Go along to get along. Look at the rewards – Tim might let you speak at ETConn, or Clay might ask you to one of his inner meetings. That’s the way for women to break into the technology fields – with dignity and restraint. Not calling the guys on their behavior. Not pointing out the discrepany at conference after conference. Not rocking the boat.

Not fighting back. Not fighting. Not.

Being quiet. That’s how women get ahead in technology, especially here in weblogging – we stay quiet. Even when we write, we’re still quiet. Even when we scream in the privacy of our minds, in frustration and anger, we still stay quiet.

Today I learned how to get ahead with the men in technology and tech weblogging circles. I’ve also learned how to get ahead with today’s new ‘woman in technology’, too.

I wish you luck ladies. I have no doubts you’ll be successful.