As a female computer scientist, I would be very sad if a speaker I was very much looking forward to hearing at a conference opted out because there happened to be no women on the panel. This seems to be an inappropriate level at which to demand action or try to intervene. How about a pledge instead to mentor some young women so that they go into the field and then go on to become part of the panel?
Here is an interesting thought for the discussion: in fact, the more highly skilled women I see in tech, the less I feel I should be in this field unless I am as good as them, which I simply am not. If there were more average chicks doing average tech things, I would feel much better - but as it is, I feel like I need to be some sort of super women who speaks on a panel in order to fit in.
> while a programmer who is not concerned with design is little more than a line cook following instructions.
I disagree with this and am inclined to take offence. Programming is not at all like following a simple recipe. Perhaps if the chef specifies that the line cooks must raise special chickens to be slaughtered for the main dish, keeps a herb garden that the line cooks have to maintain, puts the line cooks in charge of estimating and purchasing ingredients, and gets them to experiment with genetically engineering food to taste good in the dish, maybe then there is hope for a comparison.
This happened to me recently with a WP blog. It happened quite by accident, however, since the client just didn't want the website field. When comments still came in with a URL, the client was concerned that I had screwed up - but it clicked right away for me that these must be bots. It might have been a little disheartening for the client, since a number of these spam messages were along the lines of "I have never read such a great article. I have bookmarked your blog and will come back every day to read more of your insightful posts." What unaware blog owner wouldn't want that on their comments? Crafty spammers.
I think there should be a distinction made in this discussion between the technical use of dates for the purpose of storage, and display of dates for the end user.
Why don't we display dates as seconds since epoch? Because people don't recognize that format.
For technical purposes, use a date format with technical advantages (YYYYMMDD). For displaying the date for the user, format it so people can understand it (ex. January 10th, 2013) - and localize it if you have that information, or allow customization, or it all else fails, provide and explanation.
Why I don't wear the same shirt everyday: I think shopping for clothes is fun. I'm not awake enough in the morning to do anything but pick out clothes. My company doesn't have branded T-Shirts?
I guess if I tried to do a start-up, it would surely fail as I stare bleary eyed into my drawer of shirts, having just been distracted from the most important idea I've ever had.
I have seen children become bored with opening gifts on Christmas because there were just so many of them. From what I could gather, the family really could not afford all the gifts either (they'd be paying off their credit cards just in time for the next holiday season, maybe).
From the other side, though, I have a new niece, and my desire to shower her with gifts and things is something I struggle with. Any time I see something cute, I just want to buy it for her. I have to stop and remind myself that she's got plenty of stuff already.
Sometimes it's not just a matter of being intrinsically motivated, and no matter what you sacrifice, you never seem to have enough.
"Many young people, who have the ability to attend post secondary institutions, will not get that opportunity because of limited family financial resources." - http://rotarycs.org/local.aspx
This is my anecdotal story.
Not only did I fit into that category, I was also not initially intrinsically motivated. But the good people at the Rotary Club accessed my high risk of dropping out and gave me a "Stay in School" scholarship.
Having people believe in me and put $5000 on it - well, I can't say enough good things about them. I believe I would have given up on school in grade 7 (and I still missed a large chunk of it (long story)), but instead here I am with a BSc in Computer Science with "Great Distinction" instead. I imagine I would still be a min-wage Courtesy Clerk at the local IGA if I hadn't been given this opportunity.
Part of the trouble is that only 3 of these scholarships were given out when there were plenty of other kids who could have used them too. Not necessarily hand outs, but a hand up. These scholarships come with mentoring and support to develop motivation in the student to not only stay in school, but to do well at it.
It's not that I think they owe me a scholarship and mentoring, but just that it's not really my fault I was born in to a situation where I would have otherwise had virtually no idea and no means of escaping. I suppose maybe I could have tried worked for it all by myself and for myself (and I did pay for the rest of my schooling myself), but I can't imagine how I would have known to without intervention and I'm not sure I wouldn't have worked myself to death before getting anywhere.
I wish I had more profound and coherent things to say about this, but it's a subject that is pretty close to home and I could start rambling pretty quick.
I am rather apprehensive about something of the opposite effect. I'm a chick and I'll be attending Google I/O this year . It'll be my first tech conference. I looked at the pictures from last year and it appears men are the majority by a long shot. Trouble is, I'm a sufficiently plain looking chick that I imagine it'll be "There's a girl... aw."
Maybe this sort of apprehension is part of the issue for women in tech. Maybe it comes from those awful "Hottest Geek Girl" articles the "booth babes" or such. Not only am I not as geeky and successful as them, but by comparison I look like a stick recently fetched out of a swamp, even on good days. sigh
I actually spent more than an hour on the phone with some of the call-you-up-because-you've-won-something-but-you-can't-have-it-unless-you-give-us-money scams once. I repeatedly gave them a bogus credit card number and insisted it ought to work. I got passed from person to person and was asked with varying degrees of politeness and barely suppressed aggravation to repeat the number backwards and forwards, and was I sure it hadn't expired, and did I possibly have another credit card, etc.. I was very polite and cheerful, agreeing graciously with every request to be put on hold or transferred. Hold times are great to get the giggles under control.
When the last guy they transferred to me asked if I was toying with them (I'm pretty sure I covered my giggle with a decent enough cough, but maybe not), I asked him if I could phone my bank to find out what the problem was and call him back. Out of the question, of course. I asked if I could check with my bank and if they'd please call me back in 10 minutes. He agreed, but I never called my bank and he never called back.
What I wish I had got in there somewhere was something like "it really ought to work, I used it yesterday to pay for postage on a parcel from Nigeria."
This article resonates with me, I really appreciate it!
I would like to add a source or two of grumpiness.
To the "Work cross-functionally" section: it is possible to be injected into the creative process too early and too far. I may be creative, but I am not a replacement for a designer or graphics artist. I can sketch a wire frame, but I get really grumpy when someone says "now we want a screenshot of what it would look like in the real website."
Also a source of grumpiness is being expected to know everything about computers and be able to do/fix anything. As a programmer, if I say I can't administer a production level server, I hope that will be respected and someone qualified will be found to take care of the task.
I know there are really talented people with a wealth of cross domain knowledge and expertise, but for me - I'm a programmer, Jim, not a graphics artist or a system administrator.
Imagine having nothing that you love to do, and imagine the things that you previously loved to do are now laborious and draining, no matter the positive things you tell yourself about them.
Think of something you really enjoy doing, and really look forward to, now imagine replacing the positive anticipation with dread instead.
Imagine knowing you should be getting positive feedback from some accomplishment or activity, but all that your brain and emotions register is "meh." It's not that you don't try to pull it together and keep slogging forward every day, achieving things and smiling at people, it's just that none of your efforts ever seem to pay off emotionally. It's not that you don't recognize and routinely count your blessings, but rather the very act becomes negative as you lament not feeling much of anything for them.
I understand the sentiment that it's hard to imagine, I hope this description may help.
I just buy my clothes in outfits. For each pair of pants there is at least one sweater and at most two that will go with it. I don't try to mix and match to make new combinations on the fly. When I wake up, I think briefly of which sweater I'd like to wear and get the designated matching pants, or I think of which pants I'd like to wear and pick an appropriate sweater from the pre-defined matches. This usually takes less than 30 seconds.
I have to admit though that this scheme has arisen largely from shopping at thrift stores (not that I probably couldn't afford new clothing, but it remains a thrifty habit from a tight-budgeted youth). I enjoy the hunt for an outfit, but when I find one, I don't have the option of just buying 10 because generally the items are one of a kind in the store.
Overall it works for me: interesting clothes, fun finding them, uncomplicated mornings, low budget.
Yes. My mom said "Now what do I do?" when there was a box on her screen that said "Click Next to Continue" and that's all that could be done. I've been trying to teach her to read the boxes that come up before she calls me for help.
On the other hand, when she doesn't call me for help, she ends up printing off a picture from a webpage and scanning it back in to get it into a power point presentation. That's better than giving up on the problem, I guess.
I couldn't agree more with Mr. Torvalds. I'm relieved to know I'm not the only one - I was thinking maybe I was too picky, or too dumb to set Gnome 3 up the way I wanted it. I spent a half hour searching and Googling to find where they had hidden certain settings only to discover they had removed them, as if to say "This setting you depend on everyday, we don't think you need it - too bad!" I don't mind tinkering with things that may or may not break when I'm at home, but I've got to work at work, so I back-peddled to Gnome 2.32.