Is K-12 education to blame for the lack of women in the computer field?

I've written elsewhere about the unfortunate lack of women in the computer field and the myth that the field is geeky. I've been wondering recently if that myth is actually accurate. Perhaps "geeky" isn't the right word, but it's certainly true that technical cleverness is more important than interpersonal skills in the computer field. It's also true that schools are not doing a good job preparing young women for this fact.

K-12 education has changed in the last 20 years. These changes play a role in the male dominance of the computer field. Schools emphasize group projects, emotional intelligence, presentations, and community-based learning. This approach is conditioning girls (and some boys) to enter fields where they can use those skills. It has also created a set of (mostly) boys who don't excel at those skills but who have honed the ability to work alone and to solve technical problems. Picture the typical geek who spends hours playing video games, writing software, and dashing off snide remarks to slashdot. These are the guys entering the computer field. Where are the girls? They have fled to the social sciences, business, and healthcare, and that's a shame for the computer field.

In my youth (do I sound like an old codger? :-), growing up in the 60s in the US, science and math were a big focus. We wanted to beat the Russians to the moon. Teachers encouraged girls and boys to learn science and math. They used lectures and reading assignments to help us learn. They assigned problem sets and lab projects that helped us think like scientists. This focus on science and math continued into the 70s which was also an important decade for women's liberation where the removal of artificial barriers for women resulted in many women joining the ranks of computer programmers and engineers.

Both girls and boys succeeded in the classrooms of the 60s and 70s if they were able to work hard, focus, listen, and read. Schools left some students behind, of course, and some students got shuffled (possibly unfairly) to auto mechanics and home economics. But the vast majority of college-prep students could read, write, calculate, analyze, solve problems, and focus on individual projects. They were perfect for the computer field.

We old-timers were conditioned to fit into the computer field. We learned binary in grade school. (Remember new math?) We were taught to think like engineers, to appreciate systems, technical details, calculations, consistency, precision, maintainability, and scalability.

Then the 80s and 90s happened. K-12 education changed. The focus moved from systems thinking, textbooks, lectures, and problem sets to emotional intelligence, teamwork, active learning, self esteem, multitasking, and verbal skills. Many girls thrived in this environment, but they didn't learn to think like engineers. Many boys got lost in the shuffle. (See Peg Tyre's and Susan Pinker's work on the underachievement of boys). Some of these boys simply ignored the touch-feely stuff and worked alone on the classroom computers, teaching themselves how to program, configure servers, and hack into the administration's computers. The male geek was born. A new set of students, almost all male, were now conditioned to fit into the computer field.

Now we find ourselves in a situation where fewer and fewer women are entering the computer field and male geeks are taking over. Can this be fixed? I believe it must be fixed and that this must happen soon before we reach a turning point where almost no women are left in the computer field.

Those of us already in the computer field can help by providing more opportunities for women (and men) to work on team projects, to collaborate, to multitask, and to use the communications skills that girls demonstrate so effectively in modern classrooms. But K-12 education must change also. The pendulum has swung too far. The touchy-feely, emotional-intelligence, teamwork approach needs to be tempered with hard-core math and science. Bring back the problem sets. Bring back the individual projects. Bring back the lab work that is as much about the scientific method as it is about chatting with your lab partner. Put those kids back to work! We need rigorous thinkers and we need the girls. Computer technology is too important to let it be dominated by one gender.

iCertify CCNA iPhone app lets you pick music to go with your studying

Apple just shipped a new version of my iCertify iPhone app which is a set of almost 300 flash cards I wrote to help you practice for your Cisco Certified Network Associate (CCNA) test. The new version has 50 additional questions. This version also lets you choose (from your iTunes library) which music to listen to while you study for your test. Which music is best for this purpose? I like Sheryl Crow, Superstar, because getting your CCNA will make you a star! For subnetting, perhaps blues is a better choice, though. For STP, maybe Simon & Garfunkel, 59th Street Bridge Song? Am I showing my age? :-) What do you think is best? Add some comments! Thanks.

We bought a hybrid... and it's not a Prius!

We just bought a fancy, new car, a Ford Fusion Hybrid. We live in a small, left-wing town (Ashland, OR) where every other car is a Prius. We like being different.

We bought a Ford Fusion Hybrid because:

• It drives like a dream.
• It gets excellent gas mileage, 41 city and 36 highway MPG per EPA, though we're getting better than that.
  
• Hybrids are better for the environment and help reduce our dependence on foreign oil.
• The Prius is prissy. The Fusion Hybrid is a real car with muscle.
  
• We're proud to buy from a U.S. company.
  
• Ford didn't take the U.S. government bailout.
  
• Ford understands that we live in a global economy. The transmission comes from Japan, the engine from Mexico, and the assembly was done in Mexico.
• Many parts were made in the U.S. and the design, engineering, marketing, sales, and management were done in the U.S. Plus, profits stay in the U.S.
• Supporting the U.S. automotive industry saves jobs and helps spur the development of new technologies in the U.S.
  
• Whereas I'd like to see more manufacturing jobs stay in the U.S., as a technical instructor, I'm confident that many manufacturing workers can be retrained to work in IT, green tech, and healthcare. Ford supports Michigan's No Worker Left Behind program, which has shown great promise so far. (I'm not always opposed to government programs, especially not ones that support education. :-)
  
• We liked all the salesmen we encountered in our quest to buy a new car (the ones at Toyota and Honda as well as Ford), and we were pleased with the friendly (no pressure) way that cars are sold these days. (It's been 12 years since we bought a car). But we were especially impressed by the extra effort the Ford salesmen made to get us the car we wanted.
  
• We were able to buy local (from Butler Ford right here in Ashland). To buy a Prius or Honda, we had to drive to Medford. We would have caused extra emissions just to buy a hybrid. :-)
  
• I don't want to re-learn how to start a car. The Prius doesn't even start like a normal car. I work with annoying technology all day (I work on a PC) and I want my car to just work, without a bunch of technology that might be flakey and hard to use. Both my husband and I were concerned that the Prius has too many gizmos, too much technology.
  
• What's with that silly 2-inch gear shift in the Prius? You give it a little poke but then it pops back to its holding place. I want a "real" gear shift that has some moxie. :-)
• The Honda Insight LX we drove felt like a Go Kart. (Perhaps the EX model is better though.)
• We like the dashboard in the Fusion, especially the LCD screens. Making more leaves appear as you get better gas mileage is fun, though I did run a yellow light while focusing on the leaves. Ooops.
• My husband doesn't care too much about the leaves but he likes the other displays (the more manly, left-brained graphs for MPG, battery usage, tachometer, vehicle power demand, and all that other automotive stuff).
  
• Speaking of technology, we can sync our iPhones to our new car with Microsoft Sync. We hope that actually works... We haven't tried it yet.
  
• Finally, by buying a Ford, I have bragging rights with my fellow Michiganders. Go Blue!
  

Women are from Mars (or at least want to go there!)

A couple of weekends ago our local ScienceWorks Museum hosted NASA's Exploration Experience, an interactive traveling exhibit that lets visitors embark on a simulated journey into space. As you can see, I got to pretend I was an astronaut! This got me reminiscing about whether I ever really wanted to be an astronaut. I don't think I did. I assumed that people of all sorts would engage in space travel, not just astronauts. I envisioned traveling to the Moon or other planets in our Solar System, or even beyond our Solar System. As far as career aspirations, I admired astronauts, but I admired engineers (the makers of things) and teachers more.

Whenever anyone asked me what I wanted to do when I grew up, I said teacher. That was a safe choice for a girl in the 1960s. But the things I did for fun, in addition to teaching my little sisters, were pure engineer geek. I exchanged messages in secret code with my little brother, worked on the square root of 2 out to tens of digits (without, I must admit, realizing that this task would never end), tried to trisect a triangle, designed and drew mazes, read nerdy books, and practiced my viola.

Once we took an aptitude test (I think this was in 4th grade). The test said I should be a mechanical engineer. The other students made fun of me unmercifully! Next time we took an aptitude test I paid more attention to the clerical questions that were clearly geared towards making sure the female test-taker could show her aptitude for secretarial work.

I wonder if I had chosen to become an astronaut, whether I would have been successful. Wired Magazine has a fascinating article this month about women who trained to be astronauts in the late 1950s. The US government actually trained some women. They made good candidates because they were lightweight, hard workers, excellent pilots, and able to pass grueling endurance tests. The program was cancelled in 1961 though. Perhaps the women outshone the men! We can't have that! Back to the secretarial pool with you.

Well, it looks like I may never travel to space, but at least I can pretend, thanks to ScienceWorks and NASA. And thank goodness I have been able to become an engineer and teacher. I would make an abysmal secretary.

Autumn Musings

My patient blog readers may be wondering where I've been. I somehow didn't manage to blog for the entire month of September. I find myself quite melancholy most Septembers. I think about family, harvests, and saying goodbye to old friends. I think about making pies and new websites and new iPhone apps, but ideas blow away, like leaves in the garden. I visited with family on the East Coast and in the Midwest. Everyone is getting older. Hair that was once dark is now golden or grey or pure white. Minds that once solved complex problems now worry about fires and salad forks and what's for dinner. The makers of things putter, passing the torch to the next generation.

Top Down Thinkers

Today I got to thinking about top down thinkers. I'm a top down thinker. I design before I configure. I write specs before I write code. I write outlines before I write text. I'm the author of Top-Down Network Design, so all this comes as no surprise, no doubt. :-)

When I'm learning a new system, I like to hear the big picture first and then iteratively learn about the nuts and bolts. If a manager gives me a task and I don't understand how it fits into the overall project, I may get bored and/or confused and, I must admit, I may not do my best work. I like to understand architectures, interactions, dependencies, messaging between system parts, and so on, before I dig into a single component or task.

I think a lot of engineers work like I do, but I've also worked with many who prefer to work in a bottom up fashion. They develop the pieces first and then build them up into a working system. What about you? How do you work best?

And, speaking of top down thinkers, I love convertible cars and am a big fan of We-Envision.com's new Top Down Envi iPhone app. The picture above is a screen shot from the app. I also recommend my iCertify app. How's that for an awkward segue? :-) iCertify is a set of flash cards that will help you study for the Cisco Certified Network Associate (CCNA) exam.

Are you a Cisco Networking Academy student, by any chance? In honor of the school year starting, I lowered the price for iCertify to $2.99. Get it now before the price goes up!

I remember terrific Fall days when I was a college student, riding in cars with boys (convertibles, of course), lugging books along. These days you can just bring your iPhone and study for your CCNA in your top down car. Enjoy!

Movie Review: 500 Days of Summer, one to miss

I depart from my normal topics to review a movie. I'm so mad that I wasted an hour on it that I'm writing a review! I tried to post it on Yahoo Reviews but it said I had already posted a review. I'm so sick of buggy websites, as sick of them as I am of dumb movies. Anyway, here's the review...

If you like Hallmark greeting cards, IKEA furniture, and humdrum fashions, you might like 500 Days of Summer.

I found the movie boring, visually unappealing (except for the cute actors), and messily directed. It jumped from romantic comedy, to faux documentary, to a feeble attempt at Woody Allen-like dialog about the futility of happiness. The characters were irritating and uninteresting. The office scenes were typical office dullness, not worthy of being in a movie. The scenes of LA were laughable. Why pretend that LA is a hustling big city with a vibrant downtown, decent public transportation, and old architecture? The real LA has its charms: sprawling suburbs, Eichler houses, fast cars and 10-lane freeways, beaches, lots of sunshine and palm trees, gorgeous people with tans and scantily-dressed strong bodies. It's dumb to pretend it's something else.

We don't learn much about the lead female character other than she's quirky. She likes to yell obscenities in public and Ringo Starr is her favorite Beatle. The fact that she likes Ringo Starr says a lot. He was mediocre (compared to John, Paul, and George). This movie is mediocre. The lead male character is a bit more interesting but not much. His little sister may have had the best lines but the actress didn't enunciate and I couldn't understand them.

I hardly ever walk out of movies, but I wanted to leave this one pretty quickly. My husband wanted to stay, but, after an hour, he wanted to walk out. By that time, I was slightly curious whether the characters would finally make a commitment and/or demonstrate personal growth as expected in character-based movies. But, nanh. Not interested enough to stick around. I walked out with him.

Let me guess. The boy dumps his job writing greeting cards and becomes an architect. The girl goes back to Michigan and raises chickens. They each find true love with someone else, but they keep in touch via Twitter.

iCertify iPhone app for CCNA study: Version 3.0

Apple just shipped a new version of my iCertify iPhone app for Cisco certification. I added 40 new questions. These questions test your speed. Flash cards are an efficient and effective way to learn. With iCertify, you can learn what's really on the test from a certified pro who knows.

The iCertify CCNA flash cards now include 240 questions. (By the way, 240 is a good CCNA number to know. What would the CIDR notation be if 240 were the last octet in a subnet mask, e.g. 255.255.255.240? What would the block size be? How many hosts would be allowed? What is the address of the first host on the first subnet and what's the broadcast address? Assume subnet zero is allowed.) Did you answer those questions with nanosecond latency? If not, I have the product for you: iCertify!

So, seriously, why should you spend $5 on iCertify when you could spend that on a cold beer?

• All content is developed by an experienced pro with a lifetime career of networking experience.
  
• Content is honed from use in real classrooms, not copied and pasted from all those other study materials that you already have.
  
• Flash card format makes your brain work quickly with immediate feedback.
  
• CCNA is one of the most sought-after certifications, recognized by employers around the world.
  
• With your CCNA, your salary will be so high you'll be able to afford that $5 beer, and a $50 book and a $3000 class! (That's what I charge for my publications and classes.)
  
• It's a fast-paced, competitive world. Learn quickly. Learn exactly what you need to know.

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iCertify is an independent product, not sponsored by, endorsed by, or affiliated with Cisco Systems, Inc. Cisco, Cisco Systems, and CCNA are trademarks or registered trademarks of Cisco Systems, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the United States and certain other countries.

Drying sheets outside: A lost technology?

Recently I've been trying to dry our sheets outside after I wash them. This seems like the right thing to do environmentally, not to mention that it's 106 degrees here and the gas dryer would make the house even hotter. Heating up the house should be saved for important things like fresh blackberry pie-baking (we have a billion blackberries in our yard) and, well, things that are related to the sheets that I won't describe on this G-rated blog. :-)

It turns out that I'm inept at drying the sheets outside. Last time I did it, birds pooped on my beautiful, clean sheets. This time I dragged one of the clean sheets across the dirty deck by mistake. Plus, as you can see from the picture, I don't have a clothesline, just a rickety drying rack. Once, the wind blew it over! Would a clothesline work better? How would I get it high up enough so the sheets wouldn't drag on the deck? Even folded, our California King sheets are huge. (My husband is 6 ft, 3 inches. We have a big bed.) If the clothesline were high up enough, how would I reach it? Plus, is a clothesline really strong enough to hold wet sheets? Do you drape them over it or try to use clothes pins? Are the pins strong enough?

Well, as you can see, I'm at a loss. The technology for drying sheets outside is a lost technology. I said to my husband, too bad I can't ask my grandmother or great-grandmother. They certainly knew how to dry sheets outside. He suggested we ask his grandmother. She is still with us, at 103 years, and could indeed advise us. She has taught us many homemaking skills over the years, including how to make pie crust for our blackberry pies, split-second cookies, and chopped liver. Thank-goodness for grandmothers.

The Makers of Quilts

I just went to an incredible art show at the Schneider Museum of Art in Ashland, Oregon. The show is quilts and works on paper by women from Gee's Bend. Gee’s Bend is a small, rural community southwest of Selma, Alabama. Quilting skills are passed down from woman to woman, going back six generations. The composition, colors, and sewing skills evident in these quilts awakens new creative synapses in the viewer's brain!

The show also includes Textile Assemblages by Kris Hoppe. I was pleasantly surprised to discover the works by the less famous Hoppe, a resident of Ashland. The photo above is of part of one of her quilts and, alas, doesn't really do it justice. Her quilts make your eyes jump, your brain swim, and your heart smile. Viewing her artwork and the quilts by the women of Gee's Bend was one of the best hours I've spent, comparable to the hours I spent in the Tate Museum of Modern Art in London. I highly recommend this show! I am so lucky to live in Ashland, OR, where the cultural advantages rival London. (The Oregon Shakespeare Festival plays rival anything I saw in London too, by the way.)

Seeing the show was especially fun on this of all days, by the way. Today We-Envision.com shipped their latest iPhone app. Guess what? It's quilts! For only $0.99, Quilt Envi lets you keep a collection of antique, Amish, and contemporary quilts in your pocket, on your iPhone.

40 years ago today!

The year 1969 was a difficult year for many. People in the U.S. had grown cynical after the deaths of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy and the re-election of Tricky Dick. There was racial unrest, war protests, and drug arrests. On June 27th, Life magazine published portrait photos of all 242 Americans killed in Vietnam during the previous week. But on July 16th at 13:32 UTC (9:32 a.m. local time), the bad news took a breather. People gathered around their TVs to watch as a Saturn V rocket launched Apollo 11 from the Kennedy Space Center. This would be the first mission to land people on the moon!

A condensation cloud, shown in the picture, formed around an interstage as the Saturn V approached Mach 1, one minute into flight. Saturn V entered orbit 11 minutes later. After 1.5 orbits, the S-IVB third-stage engine pushed the spacecraft onto its trajectory toward the moon with the trans-lunar injection burn. About 30 minutes later, the command/service module pair separated from this last remaining Saturn V stage and docked with the lunar module still nestled in the lunar module adaptor. After the lunar module was extracted, the combined spacecraft headed for the moon. (The third stage booster headed toward the Sun.)

Even those who were in despair over the state of the country celebrated. Well a few nay-sayers said the money should have been spent to reduce hunger, bring the troops home, etc. But certainly all of us future nerds celebrated. This was a huge achievement brought about by the makers of things: the engineers, designers, scientists, and project managers, and of course Neil, Buzz, and Michael.

Are newspapers dead?

Do you still read a newspaper (an actual tree-based newspaper with ink)? I read my local newspaper (The Mail Tribune) everyday. I skip some of the local articles, especially if they involve fishing or boating or anything OryGun-ish. I also read other newspapers occasionally at the coffee shop (and a variety of papers online, but those don't count for this inquiry).

I am often disappointed by the local paper and not just because it focuses more on made-up Ashland controversies and local business men (always men, by the way) than stories from Africa, Israel, Iran, the Soviet Union, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgzstan and all the other stans. I'm also disappointed because I find myself checking the top right corner for a clock (I'm a Mac user) or sometimes the bottom right corner (I use a PC too), and there's no clock! I also am just dying to click on words I don't recognize to get a definition. And why isn't Google reachable from the newspaper? Once a photo in the newspaper happened to include a little triangle and I tried to tap it to start the video! Alas, I fear that I will soon live entirely in the virtual world and won't understand anachronisms like tree-based delivery mechanisms for news and entertainment. How about the rest of you? Dear readers, do you read a newspaper? Thanks for commenting.

I <3 my iPhone!

I made the sketch to the left on my iPhone! It's of a homeless person who was sitting near me. If you read my Twitter stream, which is a highly-rated cure for insomnia, you will know that I spent Saturday morning waiting for the Ashland, Oregon July 4th parade to start and then spent two hours watching said parade. Now, what does this have to do with a weird looking sketch, and for that matter, what does it have to do with "the makers of things," you may be wondering? Well, here's the scoop. I couldn't have waited for two hours if it weren't for my favorite toys and delectable foods, made by engineers, baristas, chefs, and other skilled artisans. While waiting for the parade, I sat outside the Mix Sweet Shop, sipping a delicious latte, eating a fantastic tayberry, pecan, bran cake, using the shop's wireless access point, and sketching on my iPhone. The Mix Sweet Shop is top-notch, by the way, probably my favorite coffee shop in Ashland after the Rogue Valley Roasting Company.

A few years ago I would have brought my Macintosh to the parade to stay busy while waiting. No need this year! This year I had my iPhone. The iPhone gave me access to an ocarina for practicing my limited musical skills, a leaf trombone for displaying my limited skills on the World Stage, a terrific art collection, a space museum, and a sketch pad. The iPhone lets me be a Renaissance woman! If I eat many more of those delicious tayberry cakes, I will start to look like a Baroque woman (something from a Rubens painting possibly). Well, no worries. My personal trainer is working on an iPhone app!

iCertify iPhone app for CCNA study

It's been a long journey, but I am finally able to post a Makers of Things blog post about something I made. I made an iPhone app! I had lots of help. :-) It's called iCertify and it's a set of flash cards to help people pass the Cisco Certified Network Associate (CCNA) certification exam. You can learn more about it here. You can buy it at the iTunes app store.

iCertify is an independent product, not sponsored by, endorsed by, or affiliated with Cisco Systems, Inc. Cisco, Cisco Systems, and CCNA are trademarks or registered trademarks of Cisco Systems, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the United States and certain other countries.

Hats Off to Twitter and Their Hosting Site

I applaud Twitter for delaying its scheduled maintenance to allow tweets to come in from Iran regarding the Iranian election. Twitter delayed its maintenance till the next day and implemented it at 1:30 a.m. Iranian time, when most Iranians would be asleep. Of course, everyone is blogging about this, but I feel compelled to blog because I have a semi-unique perspective. Really I do. :-)

I would like to say "hats off" not just to Twitter management but to the network engineers, sys admins, and programmers who handled the rescheduled maintenance tasks so effectively while the entire world was watching. Those of us in IT know that upgrades hardly ever go smoothly. But Twitter and their network hosting service carried out what Twitter is calling a "critical network upgrade to ensure continued operation of Twitter" in less than the planned one hour. They finished ahead of time! According to Twitter, the upgrade significantly increases network capacity. Perhaps it was something mundane like disabling a hard-set "speed 100" command so an interface would auto-negotiate to Gigabit speed. Or perhaps it was more complex. Either way, we IT people know how much can go wrong, even with something simple like auto-negotiation. So, hats off to the engineers! We makers of things (engineers, sys admins, Twitter developers) come through again!

How I met my DH

I heard my coworkers talk about him before I met him, this computer whiz kid with a 4.0 grade-point average from MIT. Word was he was going to save us from our dismal destiny, daily predicted by the Wall Street Journal. I had already noticed his car in the Apple Computer parking lot. It was a long, white Plymouth, a defiant display of American pride, so unlike the Toyotas and Hondas driven by everyone else in California during the 1980s. A blue and white sticker pasted to the back bumper said, “Honk, if you hate the IBM PC.”

I heard his voice before I met him. Most of the other software engineers talked softly, if at all, murmuring to each other about the latest affront on our entitlement. “Did you hear? We’re not going to get free Friday morning bagels anymore!” But his voice, with its East-coast volume, traveled over cubicle walls. 

The first day I met him, I was sitting in my 8 by 10-foot cubicle, furious at my Lisa computer that would not do what it was told. I sat tensed in my not-so-ergonomic chair, surrounded by line analyzers and other test equipment, ready to pound my fist into the cute, greyscale icons on the Lisa's screen. 

“Hey, Priscilla,” I heard from outside my cubicle. It was Ralph, a happy-go-lucky coworker who spent more time wandering the cubicle maze than actually working. “Our project has been canceled and we’re out cruising for chicks!” he announced in a jolly tone. “Have you met my teammate, Alan?”

Visible behind Ralph were a pair of huge, dilapidated sneakers, and a set of long, skinny legs in tight, Levis jeans. Above a lean torso and thin shoulders, a pair of wire-rimmed glasses peered out from wild, frowning eyebrows. The comment about chicks was not sitting well with this young gentleman.

Being in no mood for interruptions, I quickly shook the slender hand, and glared at the intruders. Then it occurred to me that I might be able to benefit from this unexpected visit from the local genius. I put on a smile, and said sweetly, “How would you ignore the high-order bit from a byte? I'm trying to read a character from the keyboard and the high-order bit is useless and I hate Pascal.” Without a millisecond of hesitation, Alan leaned forward and said kindly, “It’s not too hard once you get used to it. You just have to do a modulo 128.” With a quick grin, he and Ralph disappeared from my doorway, and moved on to the next cubicle in their search for chicks. I knew at that moment that I didn't want this Alan character to meet any other chicks besides me!

Are these women pair-programming?

Dell just announced a new website to sell netbooks to women. Is this a good thing? Do women need their own site? The netbooks are adorable. I want one. But I'm frustrated with the site. It's too hard to get to the technical details. The Tech Tips aren't technical. Plus Dell isn't showcasing the netbooks that sell with Ubuntu, just the ones with Windows XP. I wonder what this says about their assumptions about the female market? I would think that they would realize that their target market includes women programmers, Unix sys admins, network engineers, computational biologists, and technical instructors who travel for a living and are sick of carrying around a massive laptop. (Dell has made progress though. Recently they removed the Tech Tip that had to do with counting calories. The last thing we need is more anorexic Dell girls!)

I like to imagine that the women in the Dell photo are pair-programming. Pair-programming is a method for software development where two people work together. One drives (types) and the other navigates (makes suggestions and checks the work). Studies have shown that although a task may take 15% longer with pair-programming, the results are less buggy. The design and implementation are better, technical skills and team communications are improved, and pair-programming is considered more enjoyable at statistically significant levels. Two heads are better than one!? 

Books for Nerd Mothers

Everyone is blogging and tweeting about this by now, but just in case my readers (all five of them!?) don't know about it, I thought I'd write about the very cool promotion O'Reilly books is having for the month of May. In honor of technical moms O'Reilly is offering a 40% discount if you use the code MDAYT. They are also posting pictures of moms, including my mom! My mother is 85 and still a nerd! She learned computer programming in her 50s about the same time as I was learning it in my 20s. She still spends many hours a day on her Macintosh. I'm glad we finally weaned her from her PCs.

The O'Reilly promotion got started when HillaryP who blogs about technical books and software noticed lots of mother's day promotions for flowers and beauty products and other girlie things. This got her thinking and caused her to post to her Twitter account, "Wouldn't it be awesome to see a mother's day discount on MS Press or O'Reilly books or other tech items?" Tim O'Reilly, founder and CEO of O'Reilly, took her up on it!   

I'm not a mother, but I am a nerd. My mother is both a nerd and well, duh, a mother. My mother's daughter is a nerd and a mother. What, you say? How can that be after what you just told us? It's a riddle! Ok, here's the answer. I'm referring to my sister, Sally, a brilliant programmer, security analyst, and QA expert. Her gorgeous daughters are also pretty tekkie, though they work in other fields. Hey, it's Mother's Day. I can boast a little even if I'm not a mother. Anyway, Happy Mother's Day everyone!

Sweat Pants Salvation

As makers of things, we nerds are responsible for an awful lot of junk that needs to be thrown out. What's the best way to handle this? I doubt it's what my dear hubby (DH) does. He secretly stashes his old electronic equipment in our attic and stacks his old nerd clothes in our closet. Take his 10 year-old sweat pants, for example. Please take them! DH wants to either hang on to them for another 10 years or give them away to some poor person. Who would want them, though? I take care of my sweat pants as you can hopefully see from the picture. I can't say the same for DH.

Today we had another heated discussion about the disposal of old things such as his sweat pants. I want to throw them in the trash. DH insists that we could give them to the Salvation Army store. He objects to the rampant consumerism he sees in the US and the excessive resource usage caused by producing and marketing a new pair of sweat pants. His points (if not his pants) are valid, but, did I mention that the sweat pants are stinky, smeared with grass stains, and holey? And when I say "holey" I mean full of holes, not sacred, despite DH's belief that the pants will somehow reincarnate into something that will save a poor homeless person from nakedness in the Salvation Army.

Now, I'm an environmentalist too. I was one of the first people I know to recycle bottles and cans. In grad school my roommates and I depended on the extra money we made from recycling. How else could we afford new cans of Mountain Dew? But when DH gets stubborn and illogical about his sweat pants and other old stuff, I tend to overreact. The end result? I drove to the Salvation Army in an attempt to make the sweat pants disappear. Yes, I admit I actually polluted the air in order to drive to the store to get rid of the sweat pants.

The Salvation Army said "no thank you!" They didn't want the sweat pants. Can you blame them? Luckily I'd also brought lots of my clean, un-torn, designer blouses and slacks to give away too. Then, I admit, I actually drove another 10 miles to the mall. There I bought a new pair of warm, fleece, sweat pants, just like DH's old ones, for $4.00 at JCPenney. Seriously, only $4.00! Does this make me a bad person? Were the sweat pants made in a sweat shop? I made JCPenney happy but what would JC do? Will I still find salvation?

Well all's well that ends well. DH is wearing his new sweat pants and didn't yell at me for driving to the mall. Oh, and by the way, we still have the old sweat pants. Would anyone like them? I'll walk to your house and deliver them in an environmentally-safe manner if you will puh-leeze take them off our hands.

Happy Equal Pay Day!

Today is the day that women "celebrate" their pay "catching up" to that of men. "Celebrate" and "catching up" might not be quite the right words, but celebrating is better than whining. In fact, some AAUW chapters, including my local chapter here in Ashland, OR, celebrated by giving away free cookies with a bite taken out of them. The remaining cookie was 78% of the original cookie to represent the ratio of women's wages to men's wages. The AAUW's booth in our downtown plaza today was quite crowded with people of all ages and gender taking free cookies and free literature about pay disparity.

The National Committee on Pay Equity started Equal Pay Day in 1996 to raise public awareness about the gap between men's and women's wages. The day, observed on a Tuesday in April, symbolizes how much a woman must work, on average, to earn as much as a man. Tuesday is the day of the week on which women's wages catch up to men's wages from the previous week. April is the month when women's wages catch up to men's wages from the previous year. On average, full-time working women earn 78% of what full-time working men earn.

I've read a few blog posts that object to women making a big deal out of the earnings disparity. The blogs rehash the same old myths we've been hearing for years. I would like to make a few points about these myths:

Myth #1. Women earn less than men because more of them work part-time. Nope, that doesn't explain it. The data used to celebrate Equal Pay Day are based on an analysis of full-time, year-round workers.

Myth #2. Women choose less lucrative occupations than men. A 2003 Government Accountability Office study controlled statistically for this factor and still showed women's average pay was about 80% of men's. Also, I have to ask, why do certain occupations (librarianship, teaching, etc.) attract more women and why do these occupations pay so little?

Myth #3. Women aren't as well educated as men. Well, this simply isn't true. More women go to college than men these days. Also, studies show that one year out of college, women graduates earn, on average, only 80% of male graduates.

Myth #4. Women take time off to raise families or take easier jobs because of small kids at home. Um, why should women do that more than men? And even if they do, please note that the GAO study mentioned above took that into account.

Myth #5. Women aren't as good at negotiating salaries as men. This is possibly true, but studies by Carnegie Mellon researchers and others show that when women do negotiate, they are less likely to get the job. Hiring managers are often turned off by an assertive woman but impressed by an assertive man.

Myth #6. Women whine too much and the government shouldn't protect them. Well, we're trying to whine less and celebrate with half-eaten cookies, so give us a break! Regarding the government, I'm all for a government with a small footprint. It would be nice if anti-discrimination laws were unnecessary. Let's all aim for that. If you're a man in a position to hire employees, please consider writing job descriptions that detail the knowledge, skills, and abilities that potential employees should have and appropriate salary ranges. Then hold interviews. Let other managers and employees assess the potential hire. Don't just give the job to your male buddy at the salary he suggests. I've seen enough of that to make me want to upchuck my cookies.

Too many screens!?

I'm teaching in New York City this week. It's great fun, but a bit overwhelming coming from Southern Oregon. One thing I've noticed that's different from the last time I taught in New York City (admittedly about 15 years ago) is that it's impossible to get away from video screens. Note there's even TV access in my taxi!  If I had any photography skills (which I obviously don't) and/or a good camera instead of my iPhone, I would have caught a picture that shows that while sitting in traffic I could see more than just the TV screen in my taxi. To the left of me was a huge screen advertising something useless. To the right of me was a TV store with about a hundred screens. This taxi ride came after breakfast at the hotel where no matter where I went in the breakfast room there was a TV blaring. When I talk about "the makers of things" on this blog, I usually have good things to say. But I'm not sure all these screen things are a good thing. Where can one go for silence? Silence is golden. Well this trip will certainly help me appreciate Southern Oregon more.

A Few of My Favorite Things

Since this blog is supposed to be about the makers of things, I thought I would cover a couple of my favorite things for this blog post. I just discovered a very cool website and app that lets you create abstract art! It's called Bomomo. It lets you make all sorts of random squiggles look elegant. You can save your drawings and use them as wallpaper or print them to put on your refrigerator to compete with your kids' or nieces' drawings. :-) I made a movie with mine, using iPhoto on my MacBook. On the downside, it doesn't seem to work with Safari. It works fine with Firefox though. So, I add to my list of favorite things, Bomomo, Firefox, my MacBook, and iPhoto from Apple.

What is a professor?

I was an adjunct professor for five years. It was fun. I finally quit due to the glass ceiling made of pure optical fibers with total internal reflection (a concept I taught in my networking class!) The all male department hired their male students based on the buddy system. I didn't stand a chance coming from industry where hiring decisions are based on qualifications. I got stuck teaching the same class over and over and over again.

So, I got to wondering, what does make a good professor? What qualifications should hiring managers actually look for? Is it about being friendly to the department chair, blowing your own horn, showing off in the lecture hall, playing politics with the powerful tenured faculty, keeping quiet in faculty meetings so as not to make waves? I don't think so. I think a good professor is someone with teaching abilities and skills who cares about students. Here are some characteristics I came up with for being a good professor. 

• A talent for teaching. Yes, I think it's a talent. My father (shown in the picture above) was a professor for over 30 years until he retired. He still tries to engage us in scholasticism when we visit, questioning every statement we make. My mother was also a professor, as was my aunt. In fact, all my aunts and uncles were teachers. My family is riddled with them. My nieces are professors and teachers. If we aren't teachers, then we're librarians or musicians. That's what we do. It's an inherited trait.
  
• Teaching skills. Some aspects of teaching are learned skills, not just talents. You can be taught how to lead an engaging lecture, to develop labs and homework that help students practice what they're learning, to write quizzes that fairly assess whether students have learned what you wanted them to learn, etc.
• A love of teaching. Don't do it because you couldn't find any other work. Do it because it energizes you and your students!
  
• Subject matter expertise. It's not OK to learn from the textbook at approximately the same pace that the students are learning.
  
• The ability to develop labs or problem sets based on your goals for the class. It's not OK to buy a lab kit and hand students the user's manual.
  
• A passion for your subject! If you get stuck teaching a subject that's not really up your alley, try to get excited about it anyway. It won't be hard. Learning is fun, even when you're the teacher.
  
• Research skills. I didn't work in a department that did much research, but I add it here because I know universities consider it important. I did research to make sure I was prepared to teach. I did research in order to write my books, even modeling network traffic and doing statistics like real academicians. But I haven't posed a research question, developed methods to answer it, gathered and analyzed data, and drawn new conclusions, etc. I was just an adjunct. :-) How important is research in a definition of a "good professor?"
  
• An ability to see the big picture and to focus on the entire curriculum, not just your class. What do you want students to be able to do upon completing your four-year program? What skills and knowledge do successful graduates possess?
  
• A focus on the learner rather than the teacher. You have to care about how your students' brains work more than you care about your own brain and how cute you look in your new tweed jacket. (I had a cute green corduroy jacket but no tweed. :-)
  
• Good listening skills. You should be able to interact with students one-on-one, not just en masse in a lecture hall. Get to know your students. Learn their names, their hang-ups, their strengths and weakness. If you see a student hyperventilating due to stress when taking a test, help her breathe and relax.
  
• A sense of humor. Lectures that are funny lead to more learning. A sense of humor helps when grading papers too.
  
• Humility. Teaching is a powerful position. Students will look up to you even if you're an idiot. Use this power wisely.
  
• A big heart, full of compassion and empathy. Sometimes the dog really did eat the homework, or the squirrel might have actually eaten through the cable modem line, cutting off Internet access. It happens.
  
  

A Philosophy of Persistence

During a prime-time press conference on March 24th, President Obama said he follows a philosophy of persistence. He was referring to his efforts to shore up the economy, which I won't comment on, due to lack of expertise. But I will say this: Obama is an inspiring speaker and he's correct that persistence will be a key component of our economic recovery.

I have always been persistent. I'm sometimes so persistent that I drive my coworkers nuts. Obama may also be driving some of his coworkers, the press, and the American public a bit nuts with his Energizer-bunny approach to policy development and dissemination. Nonetheless, I applaud his doggedness and think it will work in the long run. Take me (please take me!) I've relied on persistence for many years and have achieved success because of it.

I arrived in California in 1981 from Chicago, IL, with a suitcase and guitar. That's me in the picture above with the Golden Gate Bridge in the background. I sold my books, of which I had hundreds, to Powell's Bookstore in Hyde Park. (Few people realize that Powell's started in Chicago, not Portland.) I sold my few pieces of furniture to friends, gave my winter clothes away, and spent a fortune to have a career consultant type, print, and mail my resume to every organization in California she could find in her big printed volume of Standard & Poor's. (Few personal computers existed yet so I was at the mercy of somebody with an S&P book and an IBM Selectric.) Then I spent almost every dime I had on a one-way ticket to San Francisco!

I arrived at the San Francisco airport with little cash, no credit cards, no debit cards, no winter coat (dumb!) and, luckily, no toxic assets. In fact, I had many positive assets:

• A year of experience working as a computer programmer at the University of Chicago
  
• An MS in Information Science from the University of Michigan
  
• A brother who was working on his PhD at UC Berkeley and who let me sleep on his floor and even lent me his comfy down sleeping bag
  
• My brother's girlfriend who lent me her car so I could go apartment hunting (I bet she couldn't wait to get me off her living room floor!)
  
• Good genes and bell-bottom jeans
  
• An inheritance that wasn't monetary but did include strong will power and good critical-thinking skills, maybe too much critical thinking, according to some ex-coworkers :-)
  
• A love of adventure, hard work, and computer programming
  
• Five job interviews lined up, all of which resulted in job offers
  
• Terrific friends, especially my beautiful friend Dawn who is highly intelligent and willing to gently nudge me back in the right direction when I'm being dumb (as in posting her picture on the Internet!?) She followed me to California a year later, where her persistence led to great success.

Well, I took one of those job offers (to be a programmer for Matson Navigation) and the rest is history. I worked at some of the best companies in Silicon Valley (Cisco, Apple, Network General), and wrote or co-wrote five books on computer networking. There have been setbacks over the years, of course, and I've made mistakes, but I've always relied on persistence to get me back on the road to success. Today I am working on the 3rd edition of my first book and I offer consulting and training services that can help you achieve success in the computer field.

A lot of people are unemployed and underemployed these days. I'd like to say to them, don't give up! Focus on your positive assets, not your toxic assets, and develop a philosophy of persistence. It worked for me and it worked for President Obama and will continue to work for him, the economy, and you.

Radia Perlman: She Radiates Intelligence and Humor

In honor of Ada Lovelace Day, my blog post today features Dr. Radia Perlamn. Dr. Perlman is a Sun Fellow at Sun Microsystems. She specializes in network and security protocols. In the past she worked at DEC and Novell and she is the author of two textbooks. She has an MS in math and a PhD in computer science from MIT.

Radia, which by the way is pronounced to sound like "radio" but with an "a" at the end, is brilliant, quirky, funny, and a terrific teacher. She radiates intelligence, humor, mother-earth friendliness, and strength. I first met her in 2002 when I took her USENIX course on network security protocols. I had admired her for many years before that, though. Like most networking people of a certain age, I cut my teeth on her terrific book, Interconnections: Bridges, Routers, Switches, and Internetworking Protocols.

Radia invented mechanisms that make modern link-state routing protocols efficient and robust. Her thesis on routing in the presence of malicious failures remains the most important work in routing security. She has also made contributions in such areas as strong password protocols, analysis and redesign of IPsec's IKE protocols, PKI models, efficient certificate revocation, and distributed authorization. She recently was granted a patent for her work on ephemeral decryption which can make files reliably disappear. (Oh, I wish I could use that to make some emails I've sent disappear! :-)

Radia is the inventor of the spanning tree algorithm used by network bridges (switches). The photo above shows her posing as a spanning tree. Many computer scientists have worked on spanning tree algorithms, but Radia's work is noted for having a long life outside the academic lab. Her spanning-tree algorithm is at the heart of most enterprise networks.

Bridges (and the spanning tree protocol) were invented to deal with endnodes that run applications directly above Ethernet, without the benefit of a "Layer 3" protocol (e.g., IP). Bridges were a method of moving Ethernet frames around without a Layer 3 header. According to a recent email discussion I had with Radia, she assumed once everyone implemented Layer 3, bridges would go away. This probably would have happened if the world had adopted ISO's Layer 3, the Connectionless Network Layer Protocol (CLNP), Radia said. But the world adopted IP.

CLNP supported a prefix that an entire corporate network shared. Nodes could move around within the corporate network and keep their Layer 3 address. In contrast, with IP, every link requires its own prefix, which means routers have to be configured, addresses have to change if a node moves, and addresses get wasted. Once the world adopted IP, network administrators tended to avoid the extra configuration required with IP by using bridges (switches). The spanning tree algorithm lets administrators create large Ethernet bridged networks with redundant links that take over upon failure of the links chosen to be part of the spanning tree.

The spanning-tree algorithm has many shortcomings. It doesn't use optimal paths, doesn't allow splitting network traffic across multiple paths, and is lacking many other features of Layer 3 routing protocols. It is also intrinsically fragile because the Ethernet header doesn't contain a Time to Live (TTL) or hop count field, so any loop that forms can be devastating. Frames loops forever and bridges flood broadcasts over and over again. Something as simple as missed spanning-tree protocol messages can result in these deadly loops.

Radia is currently working on a new type of device that has the ease of management of bridging, but the robustness and features of routers. This is being standardized in the Transparent Interconnection of Lots of Links (TRILL) working group of the IETF. The TRILL working group is designing a solution for shortest-path frame forwarding in multihop Ethernet networks with arbitrary topologies, using Radia's work on link-state routing protocols. Radia isn't afraid to say it's time to retire her famous spanning-tree protocol.

One of the reasons I admire Radia is because she has a knack for remaining friendly while speaking controversial or unwelcome truths. In 2005, the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology honored Radia with a Women of Vision award. I highly recommend listening to her keynote speech which is available here. She recently told me that some of the things she said in this speech make her cringe, but I think her thoughts on the topic of women in technology are awesome, just like I think she's awesome. Well, now I've probably made her cringe again. Oh well!

I'm on fire!?! Watch out! :-)

I just read a helpful article by Marianne Weidlein, a wise business consultant and personal coach, who happens to live in Ashland, Oregon (where I live). The article is called What Is Transmutation?

Transmutation is a change from one form or condition to another. An example is the biological transmutation of a caterpillar larva into an adult butterfly. The human parallel is a major change in consciousness. I am currently going through transmutation. I am trying to avoid negatively reacting to bad experiences.

So, what am I going to do about this goal? The article says it takes practice, and that seems believable. Every new skill takes practice. So I'm going to watch myself, watch my reactions. When I see the habitual negativity cropping up, I will intentionally turn it around, spin it 180 degrees and practice seeing the positive aspects of the situation.

The article says that the world around me may remain unchanged, the people in my life still trapped in the throes of negative habits. This is a good reminder. I should keep in mind that people around me aren’t also necessarily transmuting. As the article suggests, I will meet these realities with acceptance, compassion, and strength. 

One thing that came up while reading the article was my reactions to the gender discrimination I faced. The situation wasn’t good, but I can't let it limit me. I can't imagine anything worse than spending any more time being a victim. I have so much to give, to offer. I want to help others. I don't want to be some angry feminist. I love men. I have compassion for the problems they've had in their lives. I can’t rely on just compassion though. I have to maintain my integrity and stand up for myself also.

The main point of Weidlein’s article is that we can transmute. It's difficult, but doable, and beautiful in the long run. Birds and bugs try to eat the larva while it's transmuting. I've experienced that. Oh dear, there I go with negativity again. And… here I go with practicing positivity. Right now I'm moving the signpost 180 degrees, flipping it back in the positive direction.

I'm a visual person. I found the image above on the web. It has to do with fire danger, but I'm going to use it for my purposes. For me the low means low power, low self-esteem, low compassion, low positivity. It means reacting with lowbrow negativity and criticism of others. When I find myself having this habitual low reaction, I’m going to mentally move that arrow to the right. I will gently recondition myself. I want extreme positivity, joy, compassion, and highbrow reactions, or at least high positivity, joy, compassion, and highbrow reactions! :-) I will love with fire in my belly. I will have red-hot passion for what I do and can achieve. I think I’m liking that I stumbled upon a fire metaphor. But the main thing to remember right now is my ability to flip that arrow to the RIGHT.

Of firewalls, users, and marital bliss

When is user friendliness more important than security? I've been discussing this with my dear hubby (DH), pictured with me in the photo on the left taken by Orville Hector, an Ashland, Oregon photographer.

I would say the answer is never. Security is always more important than user friendliness. But, of course, there is the old axiom that if security is too hard to use, people will bypass it, leaving their system really insecure.

I'm having a friendly disagreement with my DH. His software-based personal firewall product lets a user add the following rules, with one click of the mouse on a button having to do with protecting UDP services:

allow log tcp from any to any dst-port 53 in setup
allow udp from any to any dst-port 53 in
allow log tcp from any to any dst-port 67-68 in setup
allow udp from any to any dst-port 67-68 in
allow log tcp from any to any dst-port 123 in setup
allow udp from any to any dst-port 123 in

Why would a personal firewall allow traffic into port 53 (DNS server)? Luckily that port will be closed on most personal computers, but still it seems risky and unnecessary. And why allow traffic into port 67? That's the port used by a DHCP server, not a client. The client uses UDP 68. Allowing traffic into UDP port 123, it turns out, is necessary for NTP to work. Both the client and server use UDP port 123. But the rest of the rules are unnecessary and unsafe, in my opinion. And what's with the TCP rules appearing because I clicked on a button related to UDP?

My DH's answer? Users get confused and complain if you don't allow those ports. Something goes wrong with their firewall or their computer, (or they knock over the cable modem and kick out the power cord, I'm thinking), and they claim that it's because the firewall doesn't allow DHCP and DNS. What kind of pseudo-technical user would say that, I wonder, but my DH stubbornly refuses to agree with me. At least he agrees on other things in our life, like I'll do the dishes if he cooks. :-)

My DH's most important goal with his product is ease of use for non-technical users (as well as pseudo-technical users, it seems), and I can understand that. The usability/security tradeoff is an important consideration, but I think my brilliant husband's brain may be tipping too far into the iFruit mentality. :-) Or maybe he just got sick of the tech support calls like this:

Caller: Is the Internet down?
DH: um, no

Caller: Are your servers having a problem?
DH: um, no

Caller: Well, I think it's your firewall then. I can't get an IP. Your firewall doesn't allow DHCP and DNS.
DH: um, ok, we'll change the firewall software...

Me: hunh?

Vote for Woz!

Steve Wozniak needs your vote to stay on Dancing with the Stars! He's a bit of a klutz, but he's so persistent and gallant, that you just have to vote for him. Once the show begins Monday at 8 pm (7 Central), text message VOTE 3410 (from your iPhone of course) or vote online or call 800-868-3410 until noon (Eastern time) Tuesday. The photo of Woz was taken by Al Luckow.  Can you believe Apple thought the upside-down Apple was OK? Don't blame the Woz for that decision though. :-)

Five Top Myths About the Computer Field

Oh dear, I seem to be on my pulpit again. :-) I've been thinking a lot about a question I heard offline from a couple of women after my previous post. They asked why should young women study computer science if the computer field is dominated by immature males and discrimination against women. I would like to address that question and other myths I have heard over the years about the computer field.

Myth #1. There's so much discrimination in the computer field that women can't get ahead. That's not true. Yes, there's discrimination, but it makes women in the field stronger, not weaker. As a woman, you may have to work harder than the men who get unearned privileges. But there's a silver lining in that cloud. It will make you better at your work and more agile. If you find yourself in a job where the good old boys won't give you a chance, leave. The good news is that the hard work you did will make you qualified for many other jobs.

Myth #2. It's young, geeky, conceited guys who work in the computer field. This is partially true, but there are a lot of mature, non-geeky men and women also. Plus, the young smart-alecs can be funny, and they are trainable.

Myth #3. Heard from a parent: "Why should my daughter study computer science? She's already good with the computer." First of all, don't say "the computer." It dates you. :-) Kids these days are good with computers, whether it's Mac OS, Windows, Linux, or the mainframe that runs the cash registers where they sell lattes to overpaid executives who don't pay enough taxes to fund schools so your kid can get a better job. Computer science isn't about "using the computer." It's about creating the technology that makes computers function. 

Myth #4. Women are motivated by social responsibility and helping people. The computer field isn't about helping people. Try telling that to Dawn Taylor, Ph.D. who works on brain-machine interfaces for prosthetics that restore movement for paralyzed people. Try telling that to Latanya Sweeney, Ph.D. who is dedicated to creating technologies and related policies with provable guarantees of privacy protection while allowing society to collect and share sensitive information for worthy purposes. Or take me. Please take me. :-) I got into computer networking not just because I love hardware, systems engineering, and network design. I got into it because it enables people around the world to communicate and collaborate. I didn't work at Cisco just because of good stock options. I worked there because Cisco understands that it's the human network that makes a difference.

Myth #5. All the jobs are moving to India, China, Kazakhstan, etc. Globalization is real. It's here to stay. But this is good for computer scientists! We build the technology that makes the post-geographic world possible. There are still lots of jobs in the US. However, maybe your job will be in Bangalore or Dubai for a few years. Cool! You may have colleagues in Brazil, Israel, Malaysia, Germany, the US, and countries you have never heard of. Way cool.

Finally, I would say, do what you love. If you were born a nerd, you'll know. You'll know you're happiest when solving problems, tinkering with devices, or writing software. You'll know that you enjoy configuring the family's home network, or fixing Grandpa's computer, or designing a code so you can communicate with friends in a way that non-friends won't understand. When you're doing what you should be doing, time goes by more quickly than expected. You feel energized and curious about what you're learning. Yes, there will be frustrations when your software/hardware won't do what it's supposed to do. But if you feel a sense of accomplishment when you work around those frustrations, you may be a nerd, and this is a good thing.

Artists see paintings in their heads. Musicians' brains play music. Social scientists analyze people. Natural athletes pick up sports right away. Perhaps you do some of these things too, but if you also solve logic problems in your head, and think in terms of numbers and databases and systems and communications, you may be a computer nerd. Join us! Please! We need you.

Why So Few Women in the Computer Field? A message for the guys

A lot of paper, hot air, and numerous bits and bytes have been used in the last few years to discuss why more women aren't going into computer-related fields. Scholarly papers, NY Times articles, science magazines, blog posts, and online forums have all discussed the problem.

Some articles claim it's because women aren't as technically-savvy or as interested in technology as men. Nonsense. Some articles say that women are too smart to go into a field where all the jobs are moving to India. Nonsense. Women are smart (and practical about supporting their families), but all the jobs aren't moving to India. This is especially true for network engineering. Someone has to be back here in the US to make sure the pointy-haired managers and marketing dweebs can communicate with the software sweat shops in India. Just kidding!

There's lots of work to be done and we need the women. It's crazy to tap into only 50% of the population. We face enormous challenges with digital video, virtual reality, neural prosthetics, bioinformatics, IPv4 running out addresses, BGP scalability, network security, online privacy, medical records management, energy grid modernization, and getting the inter-galactic Internet up and running.

Most of the scholarly papers, NY Times articles, etc., don't talk about the elephant in the room: the computer field hosts many men who discriminate against women. In addition, many men in the field communicate in bizarre Mars-like ways that are confusing to those of us from Venus. The field has many nice men too, of course, and many highly intelligent, hard-working and ethical men who have social skills and good grooming techniques, but it can't be denied that there's much room for improvement in the male nerd population.

I would like to give some advice to men in the computer field, especially those who say they would like to see more women in the field:

• Please bathe every day. Yes, every day. :-)
  
• Doing laundry can be fun. Do it early and often. Bring entertainment so it's not so boring. iPhones are good for this.
  
• It's OK to say "I don't know" when you don't know something.
  
• Don't puff yourself up into a big balloon. A lot of us women simply can't help ourselves -- we will prick the balloon and it won't be pretty.
  
• Don't hire your male cronies when more qualified women have inquired about the job.
  
• It's not OK to say, "The department would hire a woman if they could find a qualified one with nice boobs." (A colleague told me that, though he used a different word than boobs. This was in 2008, by the way. I'm not talking about the 70s here.)
  
• It's OK to occasionally compliment a woman on her clothes. It's not OK to comment on her clothes, hair, or earrings every single day.
  
• Please give us eye contact when talking to us.
  
• An occasional glance at the boobs is probably normal. I admit that, especially when I'm nervous, I occasionally glance below the belt. Staring is not OK, however.
  
• It's illegal and unethical to hire your auto mechanic buddy because you "want to give him a chance" when a qualified female engineer is vying for the work.
  
• It's not OK to say that women will never get ahead because too many decisions are made in the men's room. A colleague told me that. He'd be surprised at all the decisions that are made in the women's room, including the one where the women engineers decided that he's an idiot.
  
• Try to listen to what we say and then comment based on what you heard.
  
• Don't spend the entire time we're talking figuring out how you're going to refute what we said. Once in a while we actually say something right and useful.
  
• Please comment your code.
  
• We aren't competing for your job (usually). Give us a break. There's enough work to go around.
  
• If we ask a question, it means we are interested in having a technical discussion. Please don't reply with patronizing attempts to "help the little lady understand."
  
• Equal employment opportunity -- it's the law.
  
• Don't ask women who are in the computer field why there aren't more women. We can't explain someone else's point of view. Ask the women who aren't going into the field.
  
• Recruit those women who aren't going into computer fields. A lot of very smart women go into biology, chemistry, medicine, library science, criminology, and the law. Recruit them!
  
• It's not OK to say, "She got the job because she has sex appeal." (A colleague told me that in reference to a recent female hire who had a 4.0 grade-point average from one of the best colleges in the world, with a major in physics and a minor in computer science. He, by the way, never finished college.)
  
• Give credit where credit is due. You'll do a lot of your own work and it will be good. You don't need to make it look like your female colleague's work is yours.
  
• Please don't wear cologne. Deodorant, on the other hand, is a good thing.
  
• And finally, please work out at the gym. We like to look at buff guys fixing our computers. Just kidding!

Vanity, thy name is woman

I doubt that I am the only one who does this. Sometimes when I'm bored I do what I call  "vanity Googling." I Google myself. It can be quite revealing. A couple months ago, when I was really bored, I decided to vanity Google my maiden name. I was more wild and crazy in my unmarried youth, and I thought it might be good to verify that no youthful indiscretions have popped up on the Internet. Well, one thing led to another, and I found myself at Intelius's site clicking yes, I'd like to spend $0.75 to find out more... Oh, you need a credit or debit card? Well, here's my debit card number. Dumb, dumb, dumb. 

For one thing, you don't get anything of use for 75 cents. (Duh.) Worse, Intelius fraudulently bills people for more services than they ordered. Luckily, I very carefully check my credit/debit card statements. First thing I noticed was that they charged me $0.95, not $0.75 for the one-time report. Well, no big deal, I thought. What's 20 cents?

But then I discovered that Itelius had also charged me $19.95 for their monthly service! I very carefully did not click on any button that authorized them to charge me for a monthly service.

I called my bank and canceled the card and am disputing the charge. In the process, I found out that Intelius had also charged me another monthly fee, so I'm disputing that too. Turns out it's all over the Internet that Intelius is doing this to others too. So, lessons learned:

1. Research services before you buy them. Duh. 
2. Don't buy stupid stuff on the Internet. Save your money for useful things like clothes, shoes, hair products, books, and electronic gadgets.
   
3. Use a credit card, not a debit card. Debit cards don't offer as much protection against fraudulent use as credit cards do. With most credit cards, you're only liable for a small amount. Not so with debit cards. Also, you're in a better position to dispute charges with a credit card because the scum bags don't have your money yet, whereas they do with a debit card.
4. If it sounds too good to be true (a report for 75 cents), it probably is too good to be true.
   
5. Don't waste time on vanity Googling! Google other people instead. 

Growing Up Right-Brained in a Left-Brained World

I've been wondering if more makers of things are right-brained or left-brained. I think a lot of them are right-brained, like me, but possibly more are left-brained. Let me tell you it's not easy being a right-brained nerd because so many nerds are left-brained: they think sequentially; they make lists; they remember codes and acronyms; they look at the parts rather than the holistic picture; and they are a bit condescending to us right-brainers.

I'm used to being a right-brained person in a left-brained world. My Dad (shown in the picture) is probably left-brained. In addition, I'm pretty sure that my mother, my numerous siblings, my cousins and aunts and uncles, all our cats (of which we had 18 at one point), and even our poor, neglected dogs were probably all left-brained. There I was, in the middle of all these logical, analytical, verbal braniacs (well, except for the dogs), lost in my world of imagination and art. It wasn't easy, I tell you (with tongue placed firmly in cheek).

So, I wondered how to explain the difference. I wonder if Blogger will let me post a table...

Me	My family
Forget words, jokes, idioms	Capacious vocabulary (and they would know what that means without a dictionary!)
Surround myself with expensive furniture, nice art, clean lines, no clutter	Books, magazines, ashtrays, clothing scattered everywhere; Good Will furniture
Artistic	Musical
Kandinsky, Klee, Miro, Rauschenberg, Rothoko	Adam Smith, Karl Marx, Aristotle
Brown eyes	Blue eyes (well except my Dad, who has brown eyes, and my twin brother who has hazel eyes)
Math, art, poetry, literature	Languages, history, economics, political science, biochemistry
Bad at games except for Mastermind, Risk, and Four Square	Good at all games especially Scrabble, Boggle, Scattergories, Checkers, and all those other games that I consistently lost
Dreamy, imaginative, grumpy in the morning, need lots of time alone	Togetherness, music competitions, awake at 5 am! Argh!
Made my own paper dolls with paper, pencil, and scissors	Ran with scissors
Hate MS Excel	My mother was one of the first users of Lotus 123 and still talks about how much she loved it!
Can't imagine anything worse than doing my own taxes (except Death)	Actually enjoy doing their own taxes
Big-hearted	Also big-hearted! Thank-goodness.
<3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3	What are those silly squigglies? Sideways hearts??