Do I look different?

I just got a new keyboard and mouse. USB. Cordless. For the first time in my life I have one with no cigarette ashes between the keys, gumming up the space bar. It even has all the letters and numbers on it. That’s kind of cool.

But now I can’t talk straight. I really hate changing keyboards - that’s why up until today I’ve had the same one for close to 10 years. This just doesn’t feel like my old one. I know technically all the letters are still in the same places, but my fingers aren’t hitting them without looking down. The mouse is a different shape and has a page-scroll wheel in the middle. I can zip up and down the page if I want to.

This will be very nice once I get used to it. But that’s going to take awhile.

She’s Geeky; A Women’s Technology (un)Conference

What is She’s Geeky?

The She’s Geeky (un)conference will provide an agenda-free and friendly environment for women who not only care about building technology that is useful for people, but who also want to encourage more women to get involved.

It is designed to provide women who self-identify as geeky and who are engaged in various technology-focused disciplines with a gathering space in which they can exchange skills and discuss ideas and form community across and within disciplines.

Our goal is to create an open space forum for women in tech to come together to:

1. Exchange skills and learning from women from diverse fields of technology.
2. Discuss topics about women and technology.
3. Connect the diverse range of women in technology, computing, entrepreneurship, funding, hardware, open source, nonprofit and any other technical geeky field.

This is an unconference so it will have an agenda created by the people who attend.

Where?

Computer History Museum, Mountain View, CA.

When?

October 22-23

Start Time: Noon on Monday

Ending Time: Close 6pm on Tuesday.

How Much?

Cost: $125 until Sept 30 | $175 after.

Oh, I wish I could go …. I wonder if they have an age limit?

Hat tip to Have Coffee Will Write

In a supposed effort to attract more women into the computer sciences program at Washington State University (aka Wazzu), the campus Linux users group, predominantly male, got the idea of holding a Nerd Auction with this tag line: “You can buy a nerd and he’ll fix your computer, help you with stats homework, or if you’re really adventurous, take you to dinner!” Ben Ford, president of the Linux Users Group, said on its Web site recently, pointed out to me by AP.

In the resulting flurry, Ford was quick to disavow any lecherous intent toward sorority women:

Secondly, a lot of people are mistaking this as a feeble attempt to “get nerds laid by sorority members.” Although I can’t speak for the motivations of the individuals on the block, as far as the organization of the event, this couldn’t be further from the truth. Think about it. We are nerds. We know how to calculate return on investment. This event is costing us thousands of dollars to put on and I’m sorry, but I’m not willing to pay that kind of money to make six or eight dudes happy for a night. The sororities involved are partners in the event, not the target market. The event is open to the public and anyone can bid.

If not to “get nerds laid,” then what is the purpose of spending “thousands of dollars” for this event? The idea that this man auction is going to bring women into the CS programs is offensive on a couple of levels. If the men get cleaned up and made over by sorority women, other women will change their career path to be close to them? Buy a man to take care of your computer? Any geek woman who might be interested in majoring in CS is probably fixing her own, thank you very much. Switch majors or join a club because of a dinner date? Get real. And finally, if women aren’t in the CS program, it’s not because they are unaware of it. Instead, stop and take a look at the attitudes, like these, which are keeping them out.

That said, I think these guys are protesting too much, else why fixate on getting a sorority to cosponsor the event? When I was in college I knew far too many men who carried redwood-sized chips on their shoulders because the cheerleaders or sorority women wouldn’t go out with them. (Not that any of them ever actually asked one of those women out. No. The women of their dreams should have sought them out.) Many times I sat on the step of the student union listening to a guy I considered a friend, and some I was attracted to, spin tales of woe of how women only cared about looks or money or status and would never give a “nice guy” a chance. Funny, but they never considered dating their lab partner, or the woman studying at the next table at the library. Not because those women might be a better “return on investment,” but because they might have something in common, even if they’re not traditionally beautiful or high up the social ladder. That’s something that real men have always known. (Yes, that’s a bit of a chip on my shoulder, too.)

So I think this group needs to do a little serious thinking about what their goals really are and how best to accomplish them. If they really want to help women explore a career in science, this isn’t the way to go about it. If they want to use sorority members to up their own status and maybe attain the dream of dating one, they need to be honest about that, if only to themselves. A hallmark of true geekdom is self-awareness. Maybe that’s the difference between geeks and nerds.

I have Muslim friends who, five times a day, practice the commandment to “Turn then thy face towards the Sacred Mosque: wherever ye are, turn your faces towards it …. ” (The Quran, Al-Baqarah, 2:149) when they pray. Now, during the holy month of Ramadan, it’s more important than ever.

But what would they do if Mecca kept moving?

Such is the dilemma of Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor, an astronaut from Malaysia who is bound for the International Space Station this month.

From Wired:

Mathematically, Shukor would need to place both ISS and Mecca on the same imaginary sphere — by either comparing the place on Earth directly beneath ISS with the real Ka’aba, or by projecting the Ka’aba into space (the option recommended by the Fatwa Council).

Yet the option to pray while facing a point in space brings up another problem. Muslims face the ground to pray, in part to avoid any hint of pagan sun or moon worship (”Prostrate yourselves not to the sun nor to the moon, but prostrate yourselves to Allah Who created them, if you (really) worship Him” (The Quran, Fussilat 41:37). If the Ka’aba projection happens to line up with the sun or moon, purists might believe the prayer invalid.

Shukor will find an answer. To keep his Ramadan fast he’ll also have to figure out which sunrise and which sundown to calibrate against but he’s not concerned. “God does not take a person to task for that which is beyond his/her ability to work with,” he said.

The Catholic Church considers the use of any birth control, including condoms, to be a sin, whether to prevent pregnancy or a deadly disease. But that wasn’t enough for an archbishop from Mozambique. When threat of Hell doesn’t work, go with the conspiracy theory.

From the BBC:

Archbishop (Francisco) Chimoio told our reporter that abstention, not condoms, was the best way to fight HIV/Aids.

“Condoms are not sure because I know that there are two countries in Europe, they are making condoms with the virus on purpose,” he alleged, refusing to name the countries.

“They want to finish with the African people. This is the programme. They want to colonise until up to now. If we are not careful we will finish in one century’s time.”

With over 16% of the population infected and another 500 contracting the virus every day, ignorance kills. I’ve yet to see any Church official disputing Chimoio’s claims.

Was it really 21 years ago that the Highlander movie came out? And 15 years since the series?

So who do you think was the real Highlander? Christopher Lambert or Adrian Paul?

From Burrow on her blog Angry For A Reason:

The daughter of teachers and with a glittering academic future, Fran was delighted when she became pregnant. But social services discovered the illness she thought she’d put behind her - and will confiscate her daughter when she is born…

It’s frightening but true. A 22-year-old woman in the UK is losing her baby at birth because of a mental illness she suffered at 15. Her psychologist says she’s no danger to anyone, not even herself, but a letter from a specialist who has never met her was all it took for the family court to decide her baby would be better off in foster care, or adopted.

The fear of this happening is one of the things that kept me from getting treatment for a lot of years. When I first asked for help, the doctor asked only one question; was I a danger to my children? Absolutely not. Never. Then you’ll get over it, he told me. But the seed was planted. If anyone knew what shape I was in they could take my kids away, even though I would never hurt them.

What’s happening to this woman is right out of my nightmares. Skip over to Burrow’s place and read all the awful details. This could happen to any one of us.

Yesterday while filling out paperwork at the dentist for my son, I found this on the medical history form. If you look carefully at the blurry picture above (sorry - took it with my cell phone), you’ll see circled a line which says “Allergies other than drugs? WOMEN.” The answer was an emphatic NO, he’s not allergic to them.

Today, September 21, is the United Nations International Day of Peace, established in 1981 to be honored first in 1982, coordinating with the opening of the General Assembly.

From InternationalDayofPeace.org:

In establishing the International Day of Peace, the United Nations General Assembly decided that it would be appropriate

“to devote a specific time to concentrate the efforts of the United Nations and its Member States, as well as of the whole of mankind, to promoting the ideals of peace and to giving positive evidence of their commitment to peace in all viable ways… (The International Day of Peace) should be devoted to commemorating and strengthening the ideals of peace both within and among all nations and peoples.”

The Assembly’s resolution declared that the International Day of Peace

“will serve as a reminder to all peoples that our Organization, with all its limitations, is a living instrument in the service of peace and should serve all of us here within the Organization as a constantly pealing bell reminding us that our permanent commitment, above all interests or differences of any kind, is to peace. May this Peace Day indeed be a day of peace.”

(Quotes excerpted from the United Nations General Assembly Resolution UN/A/RES/36/67)

…The new Resolution added the call for the International Day of Peace to be a Global Ceasefire:

“Declares that the International Day of Peace shall henceforth be observed as a day of global ceasefire and non-violence, an invitation to all nations and people to honour a cessation of hostilities for the duration of the Day…”

To help celebrate the day, IDP has made available mp3s of peace music for you to download and enjoy. Then observe a moment of silence for the hope of peace in our lifetime.

This is so cool. In the same way that you can drag your mouse around the screen to draw in Paint, you can now drag your mouse across a graduated color screen and create music that rises and falls in pitch, depending on where on the grid you move. The choice of instruments include flute, piano, harp, upright bass, tenor sax and many others. You can select several at a time, making a whole symphony if you want.

The color spectrum on the screen is quite narrow, so it didn’t match up with the colors of the instrument timbres for me, but that’s ok. It’s totally addictive; after playing for 20 minutes I had to force myself to close the window or I wouldn’t get anything done today. When you have a big block of time open, give it a try.

Hat tip to Have Coffee Will Write, whose fault it will be if I end up playing with this all weekend.