/me <3 life

Breast Cancer Awareness Month

noreply@blogger.com (JP) — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 20:01:00 +0000

It's that time of year, when stores and football stadiums alike paint themselves with pink and recite the mantra "Breast Cancer Awareness".

Every time pink awareness catches my eye, I bite my tongue. Really, I want to yell, "HOW IS *THAT* HELPING WOMEN WITH BREAST CANCER?"

I found this great post addressing this years lame facebook meme.

Many of the pink-washing is done under the guise of breast cancer awareness. But what good is it doing besides generating money for the manufacturers?

If you want to contribute this month, donate directly to breast cancer research.

I've written about this before, but I'll repeat myself; Think Before You Pink.

My Life Run by Google: Google Voice

noreply@blogger.com (JP) — Thu, 16 Sep 2010 16:57:00 +0000

Google has many amazing and useful applications. The past few years, I've come to rely on many of them, making my life easier yet sometimes more complicated. Why do I do it? How does it work?

This past year, Google Voice has become one of the most important Google products I use everyday. For awhile I could not afford a cellphone and used Voice completely to keep in touch with everyone. Now I have a phone and don't have to worry about giving everyone a new number, I just forward my Google Voice number to my phone and it works great! Everyone always asks me, why don't I have a phone number? why do I check my texts on the internet? what is a google voice number?

Texting: The biggest thing I use my Voice account for is texting. Luckily I had most of my contacts already in my GMail Contacts so it was easy to continue texting everyone. All of my texts show up in my inbox instantly and I can reply to everyone easily. I also have a notification go to my GMail so I know weather to check my Voice inbox or not. When I am using my cellphone, it is easy to forward texts and reply to texts.

Voicemail: The next best greatest thing. Google Voice will automatically transcribe your voicemail to text in your inbox. This is great for when I miss calls, I never have to listen to them, I just read what they say online. My mother is not always the best at texting, at one point when I was phoneless, I would text her cellphone, she would call and leave me a voicemail which I read in my inbox and then I would text her back right then and there. Unconventional, but worked.

Calls: Surprisingly less important to me, but still the pillar of a Google Voice number. I can forward my phone calls to many different phone numbers which is useful depending on where I am. My one gripe about Google Voice: From my cell phone, I cannot place a call and have it show up as from my Google Voice phone number. Although I believe they are working on fixing it. What I CAN do, is use the website to place a call and have it ring my cellphone and then the person I am calling. That usually works out alright.

How to get a Google Voice: Unfortunately, Google Voice is available by invite only, and not every person has invites to give. I use to have a limited amount of invites but once you use them up, you don't seem to get more. I got my number way back when it was GrandCentral, before it was bought by Google and revamped into Google Voice. Ask around your friends, maybe someone will have an invite to share so you can try it out!

Applying Design Thinking in Software Development

noreply@blogger.com (JP) — Wed, 15 Sep 2010 18:55:00 +0000

This was written for a course I took titled Design Thinking and Concept Development. The class was last spring, but the topic is something I am continuously rethinking.

There are many different sectors in the software industry, such as operating systems, enterprise software, security, and industry specific software. One of the most visible sectors is online or web development. This part of software industry has embraced design thinking approaches such as open source software, crowdsourcing, user generated content, and online and offline complete systems. Unfortunately this is just a small portion of the software industry and the majority of the industry operates in their own way and unseen by most.
A popular model in software engineering is the waterfall model. It moves the life cycle of software through five main steps; requirements, design, implementation, verification and maintenance. Comparing this with the Life Cycle Assessment Model shows how many steps the waterfall model is lacking when designing a piece of software.
Most of the time in software lifespan is spent in development, the actual coding of the software. Before this begins, requirements are gathered from the user or customer, planning out the entire functionality of the software. These requirements are the blueprint used throughout the development process and are often held sacred. Changes are not often made to these requirements after the initial planning for many reasons. Once coding has started, a change in requirements can cause problems to the software or other requirements to be needed to be changed as well. Often, this will cost the software company more time and money that they are not willing to spend. Because of this, developers are encouraged to think of everything they want the software to do before hand and not make any changes after that. This inflexible view can lead to bloated, useless software that is not necessarily the most user friendly it could be. To test the requirements, use cases are made, visualizing what the user will need to get done, and testing that that functionality is in the software. Once all the use cases are passed, the software is considered done.
A debate among companies in the industry is what kind of company do they want to be? Software versus service. A software company creates a piece of software and then markets it as is, making profit by selling it over and over. A service company creates software that will be adapted and rewritten over and over specifically for each client, making profit through customization. Both of these types have up and down sides, a software company cannot easily change their software if it was not useful or user friendly, they need a success the first time they build it, although they spend less time and money on the development. The service companies can tailor the software very closely to what the client wants unfortunately spending a lot of man hours and money in the process.
Another common problem is the software industry is the disconnect between software developers and the customer. Often the coders of the software and the users don't communicate with the same language. This causes a need for an intermediary, or as Tim Brown talked about, T-shaped people. A T-shaped person is one with a depth of skill yet still a breath of knowledge or empathy that allows them to communicate with those in other fields. These people are not as common in the software industry as would be hoped, often causing discrepancies in software between end user and coder, such as how user friendly the software is. Often, those designing the software are more computer literate then the average user and the entire user experience is not really considered. The obvious solution to the problem is to gain user feedback on how easy it is to use the software. Unfortunately, how to do this, is not as obvious. For an online or opensource tool, its easy to get feedback right away from users, but with enterprise or industry software, it is not as simple. Having users come test the software before it is finished could be one way a company gets feedback. But how much of the functionality needs to be complete before user feedback can be tested? If you implement too little functionality then you run the risk of not having the test be useful or complete, but if you implement too much functionality then it defeats the purpose of feedback during the process as you run the risk of having to redesign too many things. An accepted model of programming is agile development. This is an iterative process of developing small amounts then getting feedback as the drive for development rather than requirements. This is a generally good approach on paper, but very difficult to put into practice for many companies.
A design thinking concept that is important to consider is crowdsourcing and co-creation. The bringing together of several different minds to solve a problem collectively. This is a very difficult thing to do in the software industry, yet useful enough to try. One way to do this is known as partner programming, where two people work together on coding. The theory being, that with someone looking over your shoulder, mistakes can be caught easier and code will be more efficient with two people thinking about it rather than one. Unfortunately, the are many downfalls to this approach, one being that it sometimes results in one person working and the other simply sitting. Often a company will not like partner programming because it results in half as much work getting done while still costing time and money for two developers. Another attempt at co-creation in software is known as code reviews. This is a process that is repeated often where someone's code is given to a group of people and they all together go over it. This allows them to check mistakes, find better more efficient ways of developing, all while keeping the entire group informed all parts of the software. In practice, these code reviews often dissolve into tedious reviews of mundane code that don't really provide anything useful.
Perhaps there is no easy way to apply design thinking to the software industry. Developing software is not a science or even an art. It is a mixture of both that is susceptible to human flaws at many parts of the process. It is common knowledge that most of a developers time will be spent fixing problems they themselves created during the writing of code. Perhaps this is inevitable and there is not a way to improve the process, or perhaps we just haven't discovered it yet and one day someone will have an innovative solution that will solve the problems of making useful software.

I hate you paypal!

noreply@blogger.com (JP) — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 20:09:00 +0000

Dear PayPal,

Yesterday I received an email saying I had limited access to my own paypal account, and today I reached even more roadblocks with trying to resolve it.

I was informed by an information bubble that I have limited access because a third party tried to use my account. I agree, I think it was Apple. Yesterday I tried to hook up my paypal account to my iTunes account and I was told it was successful, and then that it had timed out and I should try again. So I did, several times. As that was the same day you limited my access, I assume that was the problem; you not working with iTunes.

Then to get access back to my account I was told I needed to change my password and security question, which I did. I also had to verify my location by a phone call to a landline at my home address. I don't have a landline at my home address. I have a cell phone, I don't need a landline. How else can I verify my own home address? By you mailing me a letter. Of course! I will wait a few days while you snail mail me something to prove that I am myself. Seeing as you have my money and I wanted to buy a keyboard today since mine stopped working, how about if I just take a picture of me outside of my house and email it to you instead?

You are holding my money hostage and I don't appreciate it, if I knew there would be a problem I would have had people write me checks and mail them into the bank rather than paypal-ing me money. I live at the address I said AND it is in fact my own paypal account. Please let me have my account back now. I promise to not let Apple and iTunes touch it again. And I still don't want to get a landline phone.

Sincerely,
Jenny

Failure as a 1930s Housewife

noreply@blogger.com (JP) — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 19:10:00 +0000

-16

As a 1930s wife, I am
Very Poor (Failure)

Take the test!

Looking at the scoring:

0-24 - Very Poor (Failure)
25-41 - Poor
42-58 - Average
59-75 - Superior
76+ - Very Superior

I am off the chart a poor 1930s housewife! No surprise.

Happy Geek Pride Day!

noreply@blogger.com (JP) — Sun, 25 May 2008 17:39:00 +0000

May 25 is Nerd Pride Day or Geek Pride Day!

Read about Nerd Pride Day, visit the official Geek Pride Day site, or buy some items to show off your Geek Pride!

Just remember to be proud to be a geek!

Paying Invites Forward

noreply@blogger.com (JP) — Fri, 09 May 2008 15:14:00 +0000

I was inspired to figure out what sites I have invites to and pay them forward.
If you want one of them send me your email address to jdots24 at gmail or dm me on twitter.

Ping.fm - use code "pingscompany"

socialthing!

brightkite

SkyDeck

DropBox

Orgoo

StatusTweet

Twine

TunesBag

Jaiku

Vorolo

Mento

Wuala

Social Browse

Updated 8/1/08

Can't send email to + address

noreply@blogger.com (JP) — Wed, 07 May 2008 18:15:00 +0000

I have several different Google Alerts and I wanted to filter them easily into different labels in my Gmail. Since they all come from the same email address I decided to have them sent to different email addresses and filter them that way.

Of course one of Gmails features is being about to add '+txt' to your email and it all goes to your email address but you can identify the email it was sent to easily. Unfortunatly when I tried to add a + to my Google Alerts, I got an error.

I cannot think of a single reason why Google wouldn't be able to do this. I understand that Google Alerts is still in beta, but it seems like the address they send an alert to shouldn't be restricted by one of their own features.

Strange.

Need More Feeds!

noreply@blogger.com (JP) — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 17:47:00 +0000

Hi! My name is Jenny and I'm a feed reader-holic!

I have been at work for 4 hours and my Google Feed Reader is empty.

This past week I have been emptying my feed reader too fast, and once it is empty, I don't know what to do. So I skipped over to Toluu and found many seeming interesting feeds. I added many feeds but here I am, a few days later and still empty google reader.

I like feeds that stop and make me read each item, unfortunately many feeds have one or two gems in with lots of useless posts. What I like to do is subscribe to a feed, read the items for a few weeks and then reevaluate. If I skip over the majority of the posts then I might as well unsubscribe, if I like most the content, I keep it.

I have about 150 feeds in my google reader right now. You can see most of the feeds I read at my Toluu page. I say most becuase there are some feeds that I haven't added to Toluu but I do read. But most of them are there.

I feel that an empty reader is wasting time in my quest to read the entire interwebs.

I need more reading material! Send them my way!

Oooh! 3 new items popped up!

Pink Breast Cancer Awareness

noreply@blogger.com (JP) — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 14:35:00 +0000

Here is a quick thought, one of those ideas that are too long for Twitter...

Yes I know it's the wrong time of the year....

Besides my personal preference against the color pink, I find the breast cancer awareness products annoying for one main reason, commercialization.

I do think breast cancer awareness is important and groups have done a great job being seen and raising money, the problem come with all of the companies that join in making pink products for profit. They agree to donate a certain amount to Breast Cancer Research in exchange they paint their product pink and cover it with pink ribbons. They do not donate a percentage of all purchases, it is a set amount, usually very low.

For example, the pink iPod Shuffle that surfaced for breast cancer awareness month.

For the same $79 that Apple charges for the diminutive clip-on digital players, Target is also throwing in a $15 iTunes gift card. In addition, the retailer is donating a portion of the proceeds of each sale to The Breast Cancer Research Foundation — up to $25,000 in total.

Think about how much Apple made off of that pink iPod, and people most likely bought the iPod thinking they were doing a good thing, what they didn't know is there purchase wasn't making that much of an effect, the donation was already set. I am just using the Apple iPod as an example, look closely at any pink product and see how much they are really donating.

There is a group, Think Before you Pink, which urges you to think about the product and how it is really helping before you buy it. Their website has lots of good information.

One of the reasons that breast cancer awareness is so easily exploited, is because it is a disease that primarily affects women. Breast cancer is a serious disease and many large companies are exploiting women and their sickness for their profit. When was the last time you bought a product to help research for colon cancer?

If you really want to help, then donate directly to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation.

Floppy Disc Fun That Does Not Involve A Computer

noreply@blogger.com (JP) — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 15:33:00 +0000

Today my boss handed me a box of old 3.5 inch floppy discs that were going to be thrown out. Since today looked like it was going to be especially quiet, I thought I'd find something fun to do with the discs.

Looking around online I've found several ideas. Here are some of the most interesting;

A shoulder bag

Pen Holder

Wallet or Money Clip

Magnet Backings

Hiding Place

Notepad

Drink Coasters

Starship Enterprise and Spaceship

Using just the supplies at my desk I decided to make something like the notepad.
I cut up paper to fit using the floppy as a guide, and used bent paper clips to hold it together becuase I didn't have any of those ring paper holders. I wanted it to be small so I didn't put as much paper in it, and only used one floppy disc. I pulled it apart and used the top for the front cover and taped the magnetic tape to the inside bottom and used that for the back cover.

It isn't professional but it kept me occupied for awhile and I like it! Since I still have lots more discs I will try some nicer crafts at some point.

Gmail Filter Annoyances

noreply@blogger.com (JP) — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 16:33:00 +0000

I recently spent some time organizing my GMail inbox. For me, that mostly meant making sure every message was tagged with a label and archived. I like using the filters to automatically tag messages for me, so I just need to read and archive and I know it'll be saved in the right spot without me having to do as much work. I have a bazillion filters and for the most part I am happy with it. But the creating a filter process isn't as flexible as I think it could be.

1. You can't set up just one filter for messages sent to and recieved from a specific person.
I ran into this problem when I wanted to set up a filter for a particular teacher that sends many emails out, has several similar email addresses and I've had class with him more than once. I wanted to create one filter that all messages sent to and received from can be labeled and archived. But the way the boxes are set up, you can't get any type of OR option between two different boxes. This made me realize that google should have a master box like in their search. For example; I can use the search term 'to:jsmith OR from:jsmith' to view messages both to and from this person. But there is no way to set up a filter to catch the exact same messages, I would need to type jsmith into the 'to' box and then create another filter with jsmith in the 'from' box. If Google made an option with one text box that can be used like the search box then this problem can be remedied.

2. You can't set up a filter for a group.
This is kind of an odd problem, most likely not that necessary and I'm probably the only person with this issue, anyhow, I'm annoyed that you can't set up filters or search using a group from your contacts. Say I had a group in my contact list called 'family' which consisted of several contacts, (mom, dad, brother, other brother, aunt etc,). There is no way I could either search or make a filter for all emails that I sent to this group. I think this is because groups are converted to the list of contacts immediately before you even send or save the message. But Gmail has the list of contacts in the group, I think it would be helpful if they used that to search for all the contacts when the group is entered into the search box. So if I searched for 'to:family' it should translate that into 'to:mom to:dad to:brother ...'.

3. There is no simple option to view messages with no filters.
There IS a way to view messages without filters but if you have many filters like I do then it becomes more difficult. To view message with a certain label such as 'personal' then you would type into the search box 'label:personal'. By adding a minus sign before that like '-label:personal' it will bring up all the messages that do NOT have that label. So all you need is to string together ALL your labels with minus signs such as '-label:personal -label:facebook -label:classwork" and it will show all the messages without those labels. The problem comes when you have so many labels that it is a pain to type them all out. It's an annoying thing that Google should be able to easily fix. They just need to do it.

Ms. Pac Man

noreply@blogger.com (JP) — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 20:59:00 +0000

Because I am in the mood for a video, and because I'm tired of hearing about false feminist heros, I present my Feminist Hero; Ms. Pac Man

Caroline's Egg Hunt!

noreply@blogger.com (JP) — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 18:24:00 +0000

Caroline Middlebrook, author of my fav Twitter Guide, is having an easter egg hunt this weekend! I am super excited so I'm clicking through her site like crazy!

Here are the eggs I've found so far;

Egg
Egg
Egg
Egg
Egg

Egg
Egg
Egg
Egg
Egg
Egg

Egg
Egg
Egg
Egg
Egg
Egg

Egg
Egg
Egg
Egg
Egg
Egg

Egg
Egg
Egg
Egg
Egg
Egg

I'll update more as I find them!

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

Where in the US is JP?

noreply@blogger.com (JP) — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 01:29:00 +0000

I've been to 22 states. 28 more to go.

Throwaway culture?

noreply@blogger.com (JP) — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 21:10:00 +0000

Technological progress has merely provided us with more efficient means for going backwards.
-Aldous Huxley

As much as I adore Aldous Huxley, I had to laugh at this quote. If you have read Brave New World, (my favorite book in the whole world) then you can understand why he might say something like this.
My dad has always pushed this view, that tv rots your brain, technology is evil, and nothing beats doing things the good ol' fashioned way. He doesn't like using a computer and only does when he needs it for work, and he only got a cell phone when his work made his and he still doesn't carry it around.
Over the holidays, he was telling me how he discovered wikipedia, telling me that I could be a werewolf according to Russian lore. Seeing how open he was to technology at the moment, I suggested that my dad should get a Kindle, it would be perfect for him! It took a few minutes to explain to the family what a Kindle is, how it works, and what would be cool about it. Then, to my surprise, he agreed, he would love an ebook reader and I should buy it for him. (ha! right). He has been living in New York in a tiny apartment, if he brought all his books from home there, it would prolly fill his entire apartment. He flys home every weekend, again he can't take alot of books with him on the plane. All of this, and his need to constantly buy new books, an ebook reader would be the perfect gadget for him!
My brother argued that just because something was new, doesn't mean it was is great. I apparently am embracing the throwaway culture. Technology consumerism, and I am buying right into it blindly. I am going to talk about how wonderful things are until something newer and shiny comes along. All this procession of technology isn't really doing any good, not pushing society forward, just distracting us. (This of course is just a summary of what he said, using my own words.)
I disagreed, I think that I'll take about how cool the newest technology is then when I stop, it isn't because something cooler came along, but because the technology became commonplace. The example I gave my brother was with music. He argued that part of the fun of reading was, holding a book in your hands, seeing them lined up in a row on a shelf, looking at the titles embossed on the spines, bending the binding (which when I was little, he hated doing to his books, he always insisted reading his books only part ways open so as not to bend the spine and have the pages opened out). I likened my brothers view of books to record albums. My dad's huge record album is testament to how people loved to look at the album covers, feel the vinyl and buy lots of records to line up on their selves. Of course records were replaced with newer and newer technology until now I can put hundreds of albums onto my phone in minutes. I told him I could easily see books going the same way, eventually, schools will just hand kids ebook readers with all the text books on it instead of a mountain of huge texts.
Sure, right now it is new and shiny, but eventually I hope ebook readers will be as common place as ipods.

How to get a girl interested in you...

noreply@blogger.com (JP) — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 20:41:00 +0000

I've noticed that my post sarcastically titled How to get a girl interested in CS? ...date her! has been getting hits from people searching google for 'how to get a girl interested in you'. If they want to get a girl romantically interested in them, then my previous post will be no help to them what-so-ever. So here it is....my tips on how to get girls interested in you!

1. Be confident.
People get put off if you look at the ground and stumble over your words. Hold your head up, shoulders back, and speak confidently. Confidence is sexy.

2. Take care of your appearance.
It sounds sort of shallow but it is very true, girls like better dressed guys. I'm not saying go get a new wardrobe, but on days where you know you are going to see her, put on a nicer shirt.

3. Don't get over eager.
This comes off creepy and stalker-ish. It includes excessive starting, showing up everywhere she goes, obsessively talking about her to other people, and mentioning how you looked her up on facebook and know everything about her. (even if you have looked her up.... don't admit it!)

4. Don't scare her off.
Mentioning how you enjoy playing WoW is okay. Inviting her over to watch you and your friends obsessively kill ten year olds on Halo 3..... should wait till later in the relationship.

This is by no means an extensive guide, or perhaps even a useful one. But I think it's the best advice. More questions? Call the LOOOOooooooove doctor.

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

Watching full length TV episodes online

noreply@blogger.com (JP) — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 05:22:00 +0000

I enjoy keeping the TV on and watching new shows that interest me. I have run into the problem although of sometimes I can't find anything worth watching that isn't an episode I haven't seen so far. OR even when I dvr shows, there are too many shows at a certain time slot that I have to make a desicion on which to watch and which to ignore. I know of options to download shows from various source, but if I'm watching something on my laptop, I am not too worried about video quality and more interested on watching it right away. So, for over a year now, I've been getting up to date on shows streaming online. In this past year, I've come to find several different sites that offer free streaming full length episodes, some which I like more than others. AND the writers strike is the perfect time to catch up on TV shows you haven't been watching. (Yes, I do support the strike, and yes, I do recognize the irony)

1. Network websites. These have been my favorite. While each site differs greatly, I think when you want to watch a specific show, it's easiest to get this from the source. Usually have the most up to date episodes and sometimes you can find a whole season. Here are some that I've enjoyed. Most of these have a few second ads where commercial breaks would be that you can't skip through.
*ABC - They have what they call their full episode play which, once it loads, is pretty easy to use. You can scroll through shows and then choose which episode you'd like to watch. They seem to also have some shows in HD streams which I have never tried becuase I doubt my internet connection is fast enough. It is annoying tho that you need to click a continue button after each commercial. Shows I enjoy from here: Desperate Housewives, My So Called Life. Shows I wish they had: Women's Murder Club
*NBC - A few months ago they revamped their entire video viewing site and right now it's not too bad. My biggest gripe is that inexplicably, the control buttons and options don't show up sometimes and the scene selection doesn't always work. But if you like to watch shows straight from start to finish without bathroom breaks, then it's not too bad. Shows I enjoy from here: Friday Night Lights, Las Vegas, Journeyman. Shows I wish they had: Law and Order SVU
*FOX - Thankfully, they are no longer hosting their videos on myspace, the site now is a little bit nicer. Shows I enjoy: Bones, House
*CW - A decent site, tho the video window is kinda small. and the many advertisements are annoying. Shows I enjoy: Gossip Girl
*CBS - Kinda cumbersome, but decent quality. It is kinda fickle with browsers tho. Shows I like: NCIS, Big Bang Theory.

2. Sites with full episodes.
*Hulu - Currently requires a personal invite to view the site. I like the quality and decent selection. It has gotten good reviews too.
*OpenHulu - Site that takes all the content from Hulu and puts it on a site that doesn't need an invitation. I haven't tried it but I am sure it is nice.
*TV Paradise - Same as OpenHulu.
*Fancast - I haven't used much but it has an okay selection.

3. Sites with mirrors. These sites are a bit more sketchy to me. They usually point to other sites that have the content, usually in some foriegn language, and are more likely to have broken links and worst quality. All that doesn't mean I haven't used them. They are also better for finding older stuff, past seasons, but not reliable at all.
*Fanpop - This isn't actually a tv site. It is a site of almost anything you can be a fan of. It has several tv shows and under the tv spots, a video section that links to episodes. It links to those sketchy sites but I like how it will display the videos in the fanpop page rather than with the linked site.
*Veoh - haven't really used it. The site looks nicer, but not always reliable.
*Peekvid - very hit or miss

Rosie and I are BFFs!

noreply@blogger.com (JP) — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 20:59:00 +0000

Today in class we watched a movie about Rosie the Riveter, it brought back some memories. I didn't start calling myself a feminist until I came to college and took my first Women's Studies class, but I have had feminist ideals for forever. When I was in high school there was a guy I dated who most of the time insisted on driving me everywhere. He would call me a crazy feminist whenever I offered to drive and make jokes about how I like to argue for women's rights. When Christmas came around he gave me a gift of the Rosie the Riveter action figure, with spring action rivet gun! I loved it and put it on the shelf in my room next to my American Girl and Madame Alexander Blue Fairy and Jo from Little Women. I need to remember to bring it back next time I go home.

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!