/me <3 life

I liked IM in 8th Grade

noreply@blogger.com (JP) — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 06:10:00 +0000

Every time I come back to my parents house I can spend hours looking through all of the stuff I have accumulated over the years. Books, school work, diaries, pictures, etc. I am a cluttery person. I found a journal from my eighth grade english class, about my favorite room in my house. This entry I found hilarious!

My favorite room in my house is the computer room. It is a tiny room that never gets cold, it has large open windows. The sun always shines in there and makes the room bright and friendly. The computer is kept in that room. I enjoy using the computer, typing on it, surfing the web, playing games, IM. I enjoy IM because you can talk to several people at the same time and you don't have to feel uncomfortable around them. I enjoy the games on the computer, I even like to simply play solitaire or minesweeper. The computer room is filled with books and is a pleasant room to do homework or read in quiet.

Shows I haven't changed too much, huh? :P

The First Programmers: Lovelace, human computers and the ENIAC

noreply@blogger.com (JP) — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 19:28:00 +0000

I did this paper as a project for my History of Women in Science and Engineering class.

With women in the far minority today in computer science, it is often forgotten the roles that females played in the history of programming. The first theoretical software was created by a woman Ada Lovelace, when she was working with Charles Babbage on his theoretical Analytical Machine. In scientific study, people were needed to perform complex mathematics by hand for use in calculations. The work was very tedious and was usually preformed by assistants, many times women, until the creation of digital computers. Men took leading roles in the creation of the first computer machines, as women at the time did not have the education or opportunity to participate in the building of hardware. These hardware creations were seen as more important than the clerical work that women did with software. “A preoccupation with hardware, therefore, has had the unintended effect of obscuring the role of women” (Abbate 4). The six women programmers of the ENIAC were some of those who were not recognized for their work as some of the first real computer programmers. Often overlooked, women played important roles in the history of computer science, for various reasons, being the first to work with and create the field into software engineering as we know it.

Ada Lovelace is often called the mother of computer science and the first programmer because of her vision for Babbage’s machine. Charles Babbage first sought to create a machine in 1822 that would calculate tables of logarithms. With this thought he created what he called his ‘Difference Engine’. Unable to properly build such a machine, Babbage came up with another idea. Instead of building a machine that preformed only one specific function, he could create a machine that preformed many different mathematical functions. This ‘Analytical Engine’ would take input from punch cards and perform tasks specified by the input. (Rheingold par. 12-22) Ada Lovelace realized the possibilities of what Babbage was trying to build and wanted to help him develop the software for the machine. After meeting Lovelace, Babbage asked her to translate his texts of the machine from French into English. Lovelace translated the texts, adding her own notes as she went along. When she finished, her addendum was three times as long as the original text (Karwarka par. 5). Professor B.H. Newman noted in that her notes “show her to have fully understood the principles of a programmed computer a century before its time” (Rheingold par. 32). Although the Analytical Engine was never built, Lovelace wrote the first computer program for it, calculating Bernoulli numbers. She was never able to test it, but when run with modern computers, Lovelace’s program works (Karwarka par. 6). She is also credited with creating concepts important to computer programming such as loops and subroutines. With all of the conceptual programming she wrote, it is speculated that if she had not died at a young age, digital computers might have been create a century earlier (Goyal 37). In recognition of Lovelace’s contribution to computer science, the United States military named the computer language they developed ‘Ada’. Since Lovelace and Babbage were never able to create a working model of the Analytical Machine, for the next century human computers were still needed.

Before digital computers, mathematical computations needed to be done by hand, by a person known then as a ‘computer’. Since the 18th century women were employed to do calculations by hand. They worked in fields such as astronomy, architecture, aviation and weapons research (Abbate 5). To aid in the computers work, books of tables were created that had values that could be looked up and copied. The work of the computer was tedious and considered not worth the time of college educated men, but was perfectly suited for college educated women (Light 461). When machines were built to perform mathematical computations, it seemed natural that women’s jobs as computers would change as well. “A ‘computer’ was a human being until approximately 1945. After that date the term referred to a machine, and the former human computers became ‘operators’” (Light 469). Many of the pioneering women programmers started off as mathematicians and human computers, then going on to work on machines such as the ENIAC.

The Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer (ENIAC) was one of the first digital computers and was programmed exclusively by women. It was developed by the army to provide calculations for ballistics. During World War II women were needed to fill jobs left by men, and ballistic computing was no exception. The US Army’s Ballistic Research Laboratory (BRL) and the Moore School of Electrical Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania collaborated on the building and use of the ENIAC machine. Before the machine was built, BRL had been recruiting women to work as computers, using differential analyzer and hand calculating firing tables for bullets and rockets (Light 460-463). Employees with mathematical backgrounds were needed and then they were educated on anything else they would need for their job. Women with college math degrees were hired as well as other college graduates with math experience and eventually even high school graduates with solid mathematical experience were hired as well (Fritz 15). BRL decided that six of the best computers were to be transferred to Moore School to learn to program the ENIAC. Since BRL hired almost exclusively women computers, all six were female. “…designing hardware was a man’s job: programming was a woman’s job” (Light 469). The women hired to program the machine were taking orders from the engineers and army officials who built and maintained it. Their job was seen as clerical, but in reality it was much more complex. In order to complete their job of programming the ENIAC, they needed to learn everything about the machine, the logic, circuitry, blue prints and operations. The women learned how things worked by crawling inside the massive frame and write controls for the punch card machines. (Light 470) Betty Jean Jennings, one of the programmers, described, “Since we knew both the application and the machine, we learned to diagnose troubles as well as, if not better than, the engineer” (Light, 471) After World War II ended, the details of the ENIAC project came out as before it had been a military secret. The War Department press release and subsequent news stories never made mention that the primary operators of the ENIAC were women. The male engineers who headed the project were named but the women who did the work were omitted. Even in photographs taken of the machine and its workers, only photos with men working or with females only in the background where they could be cut out, were released in newspapers and military pamphlets (Light 473-477). This omission is particularly glaring as BRL had hired all women for the job, and they did not receive any recognition deliberately.

The above imagage was taken with the male maintance engineers in the front and the women in the background. The picture was used by the Army in pamphlets and posters for recuiting, with the women cropped out.

In a field with so few females today, it is often forgotten that women were the pioneers of computer programming. The first theoretical programmer was Ada Lovelace when she laid the basics of programming out without ever testing on a machine. Because of their jobs as human computer, women were able to switch into the role as digital computer operators. Such as the women of the ENIAC, they became some of the first real computer programmers. With females historically a part of creating the field of computer science, women should be confident in continuing to work with computer software.

Works Cited

The Pink Gadget Wonderland

noreply@blogger.com (JP) — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 20:19:00 +0000

Anyone who knows me, knows that I do not like the color pink. Part of my adversion to the color most likely comes from being told it was the color that I should like. All the little girls were given pink items at birth and then it is expected that pink will be their favorite color. But I was never like all the other little girls. As soon as I was old enough to know my colors I would always pick other colors as my favorite. Sometimes red, sometimes purple, sometimes blue, never pink. I find it annoying when people give young girls pink items and expect it is their favorite color. Even more annoying is when gadgets are covered in pink and that means they are for gadgets for girls.

Nothing could be more patronizing then painting a gadget pink and then expecting women to buy it becuase of that. Contrary to what the tech industry believes, women are smarter than that. Apperantly, women are actually put off by pink gadgets! Imagine that! only nine percent of women want 'feminine' gadgets. I am not saying that there can't be any pink gadgets. I object to the pink being the 'female friendly' version. As if women couldn't appriciate a gadget as much as a man unless it was colored pink. The industry is just now thinking about targeting gadgets to women in more productive ways, but there are still missing the mark and just end up patronizing. Making it worse is when these items are colored pink under the guise of breast cancer awareness. (Why are women's health issues commercialized? But thats a rant for another time.) When will people start to understand that if you make a good useful product then women will buy it without needing it all bubble gummy?
Never seen a pink gadget? Pink! Pink! PINK! PINK! PINK! PINK! PINK!

50 Things To Do Before I Die

noreply@blogger.com (JP) — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 07:55:00 +0000

In no particular order, things I have never done and want to someday.

1. visit Machu Picchu

2. learn to play bass

3. learn to bartend

4. write a will

5. live in a spanish speaking country to learn spanish fluently

6. send a postcard to postsecret

7. have a lucid dream

8. go on a cruise

9. travel to every state in the US

10. get married

11. go on a honeymoon

12. need to spend a night in jail

13. learn ballroom dancing

14. dance in the rain

15. find a four leaf clover

16. float on the Dead Sea

17. learn sign language

18. egg a house

19. road trip across the US

20. see a musical on Broadway

21. get in a fist fight

22. go rock climbing outdoors

23. witness a solar eclipse

24. visit a 3rd world country

25. catch the bouquet

26. have my palm read

27. try something random and new

28. have a baby

29. go deep sea fishing

30. have a room with a view

31. climb Pike's Peak

32. spend christmas and my bday on the beach

33. make a pizza for scratch

34. sit on a bus stop and tell my life story just like Forest Gump

35. go backpacking in Scotland

36. give a homeless person a christmas gift

37. go to the rose parade

38. get a tattoo

39. go class 5 white water rafting

40. kiss under a waterfall

41. stand on the four corners

42. be my own boss

43. buy something at an auction

44. go to a spa

45. go off the grid for a month

46. be friends with an ex

47. visit the Grand Canyon

48. Push all the button on an elevator in a sky scraper

49. make a wall collage

50. plant a fruit garden

Frisbee runs in the family

noreply@blogger.com (JP) — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 00:56:00 +0000

I was bored in class so I googled my brother, and came across this picture!

He should get to work writing more reviews!
Via BG News

Computers make women bored

noreply@blogger.com (JP) — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 20:01:00 +0000

I remember in high school my teacher showing a video my first semester in Computer Science class, a film I think he regularly showed to his classes for special occassions. I was hit with the memory of it yesterday and I had to track it down. After a quick imdb search I found it.
The scene I remember was of a conference or expo of some sort and was showing the excitement and the bustle. Then the video showed a shot of a women sitting in a corner by herself, looking like she was about to fall asleep The voiceover said,

"It's no coincidence that the only woman in the vicinity looks bored, because this is a boy thing -- the obsession of a particular type of boy who would rather struggle with an electronic box than with a world of unpredictable people. We call them engineers, programmers, hackers, and techies, but mainly we call them nerds."

I remember at the time, two of my female classmates and I jumped up yelling in protest and he turned off the movie becuase we wouldn't quiet down. I had several other classes with the same teacher in the future and whenever he suggested watching it again, I told him no and he would go find some other video for the class to watch.

According to IMDB, this movie was made about ten years ago and had four woman in the documenty.
Christine Comaford - CEO, Corporate Computing International
Esther Dyson - computer industry analyst
Adele Goldberg - former Xerox PARC researcher; founder, PARC Place System
Jean Richardson - former VP, corporate communications, Microsoft

A transcript of the video revealed some other interesting quotes such as;

"For one thing, such logic CAN be understood -- as opposed to things that can't be understood at all, like the motivations of young women, say, or of the French."

Luckily, the PBS site says they are no longer showing this documentary.

Here is a clip that doesn't say it, but is from the documentary, just for fun!

Gender gap in software

noreply@blogger.com (JP) — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 15:26:00 +0000

I found this interesting article about studies on gender difference in using software.

It started with Laura Beckwith studying how people use computer in everyday problem solving.

A couple of years ago, they stumbled upon an intriguing tidbit: Men, it seemed, were more likely than women to use advanced software features, specifically ones that help users find and fix errors. Programmers call this "debugging," and it's a crucial step in building programs that work.

...

One theory grabbed her attention: High confidence correlates with success. Both men's and women's confidence in their ability to do a challenging task affects their approach and the outcome. And most studies indicated that women — even ones who study computer science — have less confidence than men in their computer skills.

Confidence in computer science has always been a debate. It is obvious it is a problem and from it stems more issues, but there is not one answer to fixing it. Beckwith conducted an experiment where men and women had to find errors in an excel document. While the error finding wasn't too revealing, the survey the participants took on their confidence levels, were.

For men, it didn't really matter whether they believed they could complete the task. Some men with low confidence used the debugging tools, and some with high confidence didn't.

But for the women, only those who believed they could do the task successfully used the automated debugging tools. The women with lower confidence in the task relied instead on what they knew — editing formulas one by one — and ended up introducing more bugs than when they started.

Then the researcher took an approach that I think is very important to note.

As a computer scientist, Beckwith wasn't interested in changing women's confidence levels. She was interested in whether changing the software could help women over this hurdle.

So she explored whether a gentler presentation of the debugging tool, one that seemed to require less confidence, would appeal to women.

Only small changes were made to the next experiments. She added "maybe" buttons to the options of right and wrong. Used softer colors for errors, and eliminated the need for right-clicking in the experiment.

Beckwith tested the new feature during several other experiments. When she tallied up the numbers, she found that in some experiments, women used some form of the debugging feature almost as often as men did. In others, they used the debugging tools even more than men did.

The article goes on to explain more about gender gaps in computer science and how Beckwith will be joining Microsoft.

There, she'll put her research experience to work helping the team that designs software for programmers. That group has never given much thought to the user's gender, said Susan Todd, Beckwith's boss-to-be.

"In the past, since we concentrate so much on developers — and as you know, there are not a lot of women developers — we haven't really gone in that direction," Todd said. "I think it's going to be something that will be really quite interesting for us to look at."

This is fascinating and it is great to know that women's specific needs will be addressed in the making of software products. This experiment was very specific and targeted only one simple task, but the implications are important and need to be explored more.

Source MSNBC

Segregated Schools

noreply@blogger.com (JP) — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 15:41:00 +0000

via Weekly Feminist Reader I came across this blog musing on separating girls and boys in education.

The writer was exploring the idea from his perspective as a father of two daughters. He found studies stating that girls did better in single sex environments than in classrooms with mixed sexes. Here are some snippets

Boys pollute the educational system, it seems, for a number of unmysterious reasons: They wear down teachers, disrupt classes, and ruin the atmosphere for everyone. And more boys are worse than fewer boys, not because they egg each other on but simply because more of them can cause more trouble in total.

Some studies then found that boys did not thrive as well as girls in the single sex education.

Their answer chimes perfectly with the conventional wisdom: Boys benefit from being in a classroom with girls, but girls do not benefit from being in a classroom with boys.

While this debate is interesting as related to elementary education, I think more interesting is the same debate raging among secondary education level classes, especially in the technology field.

This debate first came to light for me when I recieved my fall schedule for freshman year classes and learned I was enrolled in "Women in Computing Learning Community". Basically it was a group of girls (CS, CE, IT, and SE majors) that took all the same classes together, had specially selected female teachers and participated in some outside activities together.

The idea behind this was to give girls an exclusive environment in which to learn without the pressures of males in the classroom. From my observations (I didn't actually participate as I tested out of many of the classes) the girls seem to enjoy their bond, developed a camaraderie and to my knowledge never complained about their situation.

While this seems nice on the surface, I was glad I didn't fully participate in the program for two reasons.

First, the program can give the girls a false sense of reality. The are able to thrive in this separate environment, but won't that just shock them more when they are tossed back into the male dominated real world? They will be hard pressed to find a job in the information technology industry that is not mostly males. And as much as it shouldn't be, working among men and working among women are two totally different experiences. They may also be unprepared for the hostility they may face which will be unfamiliar to them.

Second, isolating the girls is detrimental for the male education as well. Part of the problem that so many girls face is hostility from men that arise from the unfamiliarity of having females in their field. By keeping the girls out of the classroom with the guys, it doesn't allow them to learn or interact with the opposite sex as well.

Conclusion: while sex single education is a seemingly nice option, I think in the long run it doesn't do much good for EITHER sex.

Source Slate
Source Feministing

Gadget Fun!!

noreply@blogger.com (JP) — Thu, 06 Sep 2007 19:00:00 +0000

This is a very exciting time for gadgets. The biggest news being....
I GOT MYSELF AN IPHONE!!

Yesterday Apple announced their new iPod touch. I planned on getting one until I heard the next news that they dropped the price of the iPhone! With some urging from Nick I bought the phone last night and I absolutely love it. It is amazing!

To pile onto the excitement for the day, I got a new monitor at work! After weeks of waiting!

Tonight: Nick is anxious to hack the iPhone

Source NPike.net
Source Apple