January 2012
3 posts
13 tags
6 tags
“Life is more than work and getting the corner office, more than 4.0 GPAs and...”
– Candice Sesi via hellogiggles (via lasbicicletas)
December 2011
3 posts
2 tags
9 tags
Computer Engineering Barbie: Positive or Negative?
After reading about the LEED-Certified Architect Barbie Dream Home, I decided to do a little investigating on this “I Can Be” Barbie campaign. Talk about fantastic. It essentially is a line of dolls based off real career tracks - Computer Engineer Barbie was even selected from online voting. Imagine the implications - the majority of people who participated specifically wanted Barbie...
7 tags
Overheard in Web Programming...
This year, I have noticed several other CS major girls in my classes. This is extremely exciting, although I’m starting to feel settled among my guy CS buddies and my friends of all genders outside of classes - more on that later.
The number of CS girls I’ve seen around has quadrupled! Although I’m not on a first-name basis with one of them, its exciting seeing a little more...
November 2011
2 posts
“‘“Fat” is usually the first insult a girl throws at another girl when she wants...”
– Jk. Rowling (via brokenindividuals)
6 tags
“Engineers should be slightly paranoiac during the design stage. They should...”
– Lev Zetlin (via ichrider)
October 2011
2 posts
5 tags
11 tags
September 2011
17 posts
10 tags
5 tags
5 tags
“I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious.”
– Albert Einstein. (via sirmitchell)
12 tags
joqueneth asked: Ahhh, yes, I do understand. The gaps in a person's knowledge that make up their ignorance get filled with "probably right" things that they hear as total guesses from other people. Eventually that "probably right" thing turns into something people "believe in", like geocentrism for example, and then when contradicting facts come out, people can have a hard time...
Thanks to everyone for such interesting...
Getting a lot of messages and reblogs concerning my post about my Automata Theory class. Thanks everyone!
This discussion is why I wanted the blog in the first place!
Keep sendin’ ‘em in!
7 tags
5 tags
12 tags
Must I Ask for Gender Neutrality Twice?
One of the first meetings of my automata theory classes, my professor made a weird gender reference. This is the actually second time this has happened during my college career.
Without getting too math-y on you, we were discussing set theory - imagine Venn diagrams with numbers from mathematical functions in them. As an example of two separate sets that wouldn’t overlap, he used...
10 tags
4 tags
6 tags
Social Organization Can Impact Software...
My software engineer professor mentioned the other day that the organization of social groupings of those on a software design team can impact the quality of the final software deliverable. You can improve your software product not by changing programming techniques or languages or adding tools but just by adjusting how the people on the team work together.
Is this really such a new concept?...
12 tags
Sexism, and ACM (but not at the same time)
I was going to save this particular snippit of my life for a different time, but I just had to talk about it now.
Usually, despite all my wishes for more, the people I spend time with in my major are quite nice. The few guys that I do know are friendly to me, and most everyone is chummy in class. I point out many of the social faux-pas of my professors, but not one of them is malicious or rude....
8 tags
Eccentricities of Automata Theory Professors
In my automata theory class recently, my professor was going over some discrete math concepts relevant to the course. Without getting too mathy on you, we were talking about pairs of elements and how they can be grouped together. As a real-world example, he was talking about girlfriends and boyfriends, how this particular “girl” element might have a single “boyfriend”...
6 tags
The New Set-Up
I’m not sure what it is, but even after one week into my junior year course-work the mood of the CS department seems different. My classes are about theory more discussion based. There’s not as much need to prove oneself as a hardcore coder. The way we excel is different than before, and seems to be more about true success rather than how seemingly advanced one’s program is.
It...
9 tags
already experiencing a sense of disinterest in being a student. gotta sort that out.
will have more interesting things to post after.
August 2011
6 posts
11 tags
Update on More Coursework:
It seems like none of my classwork this year will include hours and hours of staying up late finding a way to make my broken code work. This is a godsend. The fact that these days may be behind me is such a huge relief, and a major reward for struggling through the past two years of work.
One of my professors even said today that struggling is part of learning with Computer Science, and that if...
10 tags
And Fall Semester Begins!
That was quick!!
This year, I am enrolled in five courses, 14 credit-hours - Linear Algebra, Ethics in CS, Software Engineering, Automata Theory, and Web Programming. Although 14 credit-hours isn’t as much as the average student, I feel this is an appropriate class load for me.
One thing that really bothers me now that I’m getting to upper-division coursework is how I have no idea...
8 tags
Summer Classes Finally Over With - Fall Semester...
My calculus II summer session class is completely over. I was awarded with a C, which I am totally alright with. I had previously gotten a D, so finally passing Calc II the semester before I take three courses with Calc II as a prerequisite is a huge relief.
However, I now feel about ten times as burnt out as I did at the end of the spring semester in May. Spring semester was pretty rough for me,...
11 tags
4 tags
15 tags
Barbie, Now an Architect, Gets Her Very Own... →
Those of us who grew up with Barbie dolls - whether or not they were played with as fashion mavens, fantasy characters, G.I. Joe counterparts, every-day people, or however - might be interested to know that a sustainable Barbie Dream Home toy set is apparently in the works.
To quote the article:
“Over the half-decade of its history, Barbie has had more than a hundred career switches from...
July 2011
9 posts
9 tags
10 tags
"The Rape of Men," by Will Storr for the Observer →
An extremely dark article about the ever-present yet often forgotten male victims of rape during war time. Don’t skip this one.
Yet another reminder that patriarchal structures fostering machismo and requiring cold masculinity of anyone remotely male is damaging to all people. So many people concentrate on the misogynistic parts of patriarchy without considering the misandristic parts as...
9 tags
8 tags
Rutgers Okays 'Gender-Neutral' Dorm Rooms to Help... →
Heading off to college is tough enough without getting paired with a bad egg for a roommate. Finding a good match can be even harder when you’re a square peg amid a circle of dormitory conformity — a student who’s gay or bisexual or transgender, as Rutgers senior Aaron Lee is. Now New Jersey’s state university has become the latest to announce it will allow male and female...
12 tags
Northern Arizona University North Campus...
As some aware NAU students might know, Northern Arizona University - my college, located in the town I grew up in - is currently int he process of planning a revitalization project for its historic part of campus, simply called “North Campus.”
North Campus includes the buildings that were originally built when NAU first was constructed as a normal school, educating future teachers....
8 tags
13 tags
2 tags
So:
Duke Nukem was so unappealing and dull that we quit about thirty minutes in.
There didn’t seem to be much of a plot, and I wondered a lot about why I was doing the things I was doing. You drive fall out of a duct and into a elevator shaft - you stop the elevator from falling. You direct an RC car in a separate room around a track to push a fuel cell through a slot. You shrink in size and...
10 tags
About to struggle through Duke Nukem Forever:
That’s right. I am about to brave through he action game, sequel to Duke Nukem 3D and over 10 years in the making. There’s gonna be potty humor. There’s gonna be trashiness. There’s gonna be outdated and unfunny depictions of macho men. There’s gonna be offensive and cruel interactions with women. For god’s sake, you start the game pissing into a urinal! Its...
June 2011
6 posts
5 tags
Objective-C, I'm Coming For You!!
For my 21st birthday, my dad purchased me a book introducing the language Objective-C. There was an opportunity at my workplace to do some development for iPod/iPad apps, and although I was told I wouldn’t need any previous experience, I did want to be ahead of the curve.
And thus, “Objective-C for Absolute Beginners”
Although I am definitely not an absolute beginning, I am...
6 tags
13 tags
Major Discussions in Bars
Now that I am of legal drinking age, I’ve been able to start going to bars in the downtown district. It has been hugely enjoyable, and its a nice excuse to spend some time with my older brother, Jack, the one person in town that is over 21 that I like to spend time with.
The other night we went to a coffee shop/bar called the Rendezvous and sat by the window discussing music recording...
8 tags
8 tags
May 2011
7 posts
9 tags
11 tags
