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I knew exactly how she felt

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Re: I knew exactly how she felt

#261

Post by andrewflnr »

pekk wrote: post #109
xyzzy123 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's probably why, when building a skyscraper, modern construction practices dictate that all the subcontractors just "do their own thing" and sort out with each other when it's OK to put in walls, pipes, wiring and structural alterations. The N^2 communication overhead is OK, because PMs are just useless overhead anyway. I heard sometimes building projects fail because the PM only understood what was supposed to b…

That would be great if software were exactly analogous to building skyscrapers, and developers were idiot construction workers who do nothing but put the sheetrock and nails where they are asked. (Note: I am not saying that construction workers are idiots, I am saying that programmers are not idiot-construction-workers.) There is not just one way to organize a project.

Programming is a lot closer to drafting a design for a building than actually constructing it, which is more akin to compiling.

Re: I knew exactly how she felt

#262

Post by [deleted] »

lotharbot wrote: post #118
petercooper wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've not seen Star Wars . Well, I tried to but fell asleep 10 minutes in. Oddly, I'm not feeling like an odd one out here, even so :-)

I refused to watch Star Wars as a kid, because people kept telling me that if I was a nerd I had to watch it. I considered it a protest against their definition of "nerd". I did finally watch the original trilogy after I was married. It's OK I guess...

[deleted]

Re: I knew exactly how she felt

#263

Post by devcpp »

ahoyhere wrote: post #201
petercooper wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've not seen Star Wars . Well, I tried to but fell asleep 10 minutes in. Oddly, I'm not feeling like an odd one out here, even so :-)

Star Wars is really, really stupid. Also boring. People have an obsession with it because it hit them at the age when they were too young to realize how it's about as intellectually challenging as My Little Ponies in Space. They saw LASERS! and SPACE SHIPS! and EVIL PEOPLE! as 9-year-olds and it embedded in their minds as "cooler than cool." The same way that some adults have a huge nostalgia-on for He-Man or Gem and…

You're absolutely right.

Read this: http://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/1bp44q/til_ge....

Basically, Lucas did the funding on his second movie, which encouraged him to use clever marketing strategies (since the profit was all for him).

So he came up with this idea of selling his boring movie to nerds (even though it's entirely unrelated) and it worked! He simply spotted an under-exploited demographic, an age-old business strategy. He's comparable to Steve Jobs, who found the hipster design demographic, for fabulous marketing genius.

Re: I knew exactly how she felt

#264

Post by ChiperSoft »

pflats wrote: post #91
memset wrote: post #25

I will offer an experience which is the inverse of this! I am a male software engineer who works in fashion (and before this I worked in wine.) I knew nothing about wine when I started, and my fashion sense is prototypically, well, male-software-centric. People in the wine industry are palpably aware that people view it as "hoity-toity". Professionals I've worked with are usually very gracious in explaining what it m…

That's a good insight, and Star Wars is a good parallel. Not knowing a Hermes bag is probably akin to not knowing who George Lucas is. You're aware there are big name designer handbags out there, but never cared about the details. They're entry level bits of geekery, just in different fields.

George Lucas is a household name, you would have to be pretty cut off from pop culture to not know who he is. I don't think that's quite an equal comparison to a brand of personal accessories.

Re: I knew exactly how she felt

#265

Post by tezka »

ucee054 wrote: post #248
tezka wrote: post #226

well, maybe the big part of what kills women's interest in programming/CS is the unnecessary nerdiness that comes attached with it. As if watching starwars or Dr. who or reading marvel comics is essentially related to competency in CS. Note that this is largely a US phenomena. I am not making a judgement about the value of said material, just that they need not be bundled and presented as part and parcel of computing…

How fucking stupid is that? "Because the other guy interested in the same field watches Star Wars, I'm going to change career!" Whether you like a field is supposed to be based on whether you like the field, not how cool you find the other people in the field. So you're not describing girls who are interested in CS, you're describing girls who want to get into a field full of cool people . Maybe if they are intoleran…

" you're describing girls who want to get into a field full of cool people." No I am not. And you are grossly oversimplifying the process typically involved in vocational decision making. Seldom people go to a field based on pure passion, when most other things about it is at odds with their interest.

Re: I knew exactly how she felt

#266

Post by gfodor »

klipt wrote: post #241
gfodor wrote: post #92

"To see what is in front of one's nose is a constant struggle." If you want more geek women, you need more geek girls. (Girls, if you wait long enough, turn into women, funnily enough.)

"Geek" is not synonymous with "programmer" though. There are plenty of girls who are band geeks, or literature geeks, or even science geeks (especially in biology). They're just not computer geeks.

Yes, it was implied I meant computer geeks.

Re: I knew exactly how she felt

#267

Post by vacri »

s_baby wrote: post #234
vacri wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A) 'Edge cases'? 'Few cases'? Ha. B) I like how you elect to stay mysterious on this point. Since you didn't bother to actually clear anything up and explain where you're coming from, you sound just like yet another pride-wounded MRA mouth-frother.

Why would I waste my time proving myself to someone so rude and bigoted? If you're as familiar with gender studies as you say you are and these "complex narratives" are as ubiquitous as you claim you should easily be able to show us several counter examples. You can't because you've obviously never seen this literature.

I have done exactly the same thing you have - I thought that was obvious in the way I phrased it. Just declare "it's this" and moved on. You've provided nothing of substance in the way of rebuttal at all, just a defensive "you don't know about me", and even now, you continue to avoid supporting your statements.

And 'show us several examples'? Really? So I get to go and do more work, only for you to hand-wave them away with "yeah, but those are just edge-cases". How does one prove anything is not an 'edge case' with a couple of examples?

As for rudeness and bigotry, it's pretty much what I thought you were being by just dismissing my statement as 'edge cases' when they're not. 'Feminism is 1-dimensional' is as bigoted as anything I've said. And despite you being pride-wounded at how I assumed your background (which you still haven't fronted up with), you say I've 'never seen this literature', assuming my background. And now, interestingly, not even allowing for the existence of your 'edge cases', because that literature now 'doesn't exist'.

Re: I knew exactly how she felt

#268

Post by vacri »

s_baby wrote: post #231
_bfhp wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A) Dominant discourse as in the occasional Jezebel article you see shared on FB or actual gender and sexuality studies? What is your experience with the latter? B) You're not giving much to address those assumptions.

A1) I meant both independently though you can't really separate the two. Academic feminism is just as involved in creating a public discourse as they are an academic one. B) Why would I? The question was obviously a red herring just like the "mouth frothing" ad-hom. My competence in the matter is sufficient. I switched my major from sociology to CS with a focus on machine learning/data. I've dated several feminists a…

B) Why would I?

Because at the time this comment was made, the 'mouth-frothing' ad-hom hadn't yet been made, which is a bit of revisionism on your part. You also speak of 'the question obviously being a red herring'... but there was no such question posed - you were the one that brought up the significance of your background. How can a non-existent thing be an obvious red herring?

Re: I knew exactly how she felt

#269

Post by ams6110 »

chris_mahan wrote: post #214
sanderjd wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe I missed this somewhere else in the thread but ... what do you do? I feel like I can't quite grok your comment without that context.

I write software automation for the team at a very large bank that processes repurchase requests for mortgage loans issued prior to 2008, aka toxic assets. Our work allows for clarity and resolution of the aftermath of the mortgage crisis. This has a direct impact in the ability of lenders to establish more accurate risk models and re-enter the mortgage lending business. This allows more funds to be available to mort…

"allowing more people to refinance and purchase homes" is a big part of what got us into this mess.

Re: I knew exactly how she felt

#270

Post by ams6110 »

skrebbel wrote: post #136
marquis wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My great mentor taught me that every time someone might have a blank face at what you say, look at it as an opportunity for learning. Most people love it when you get excited and say "yeah, memset is this awesome way of getting data ready to copy on a computer. You know when you watch a movie on Youtube it preloads while you watch? Memset is helping make sure your computer is prepared so you can watch it without anno…

I see your point, yet I have a really hard time associating something like memset() with "awesome". I think if anyone would actually respond "wow, cool!" to a story like that, the message to me is that this person finds everything (s)he doesn't understand cool.

They're saying "Wow, cool!" to be nice. In their head, they're thinking "gawd what a dweeb"
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