TWO amusing days in a row... what i have done to deserve such luck??
<big company>, highly involved with online services, just rang for a phone interview, except that i knew nothing about it! hr were meant to email me details with timing and tips on how to prepare (in my spare time?). it turns out that <big company>'s own email service spam filtered their email from my inbox! that's just too damn funny for a friday afternoon...
well, at least the email to reshedule the interview just made it through their spam filters!
Friday, August 1, 2008
Thursday, July 31, 2008
a new crusade!
an inspirational day today: ran a first year class with engineers who actually communicated with each other and had a vibe of (academic) community amongst peers, donated a carload of unloved crts to an organisation who actually take all electrical and computer equipment (working or not!), and heard about a potentially very interesting boy who is into unionism!
i've been looking for an organisation that takes old computer equipment, particularly crts, for so long, it's beyond a relief to finally find one. and not only do they take computers but also any electrical equipment. hooray! so, a new ewaste crusade: starting with resetting the institutional default for unloved working furniture and electricals/computers from death by skip binning to donation to charity. this will probably be the last thing i do at this forsaken institution before throwing in the paperwork for my backpack and passport.
i've been looking for an organisation that takes old computer equipment, particularly crts, for so long, it's beyond a relief to finally find one. and not only do they take computers but also any electrical equipment. hooray! so, a new ewaste crusade: starting with resetting the institutional default for unloved working furniture and electricals/computers from death by skip binning to donation to charity. this will probably be the last thing i do at this forsaken institution before throwing in the paperwork for my backpack and passport.
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
robb trade phonics
1. robb
"I think Australians don't necessarily expect us to wait for the rest of the world but they certainly expect us not to get too far ahead of the rest of the world," said andy robb. although this is in relation to the opposition's internal scratchings about climate change policy, if that's the view that a shadow minister has about the people of this country: fuck. no wonder we're so behind in countless ways.
2. trade
hooley dooley. in one my my rare outings to the real world, i found fairtrade coffee as part of aldi's in-house organic food range. first coles, now aldi: someone must be campaigning their pants off (not literally, i hope) to make this happen. someone else also told me that mccafe is now serving rainforest alliance coffee. more pants-off campaigning? given that some maccas outlets in the us sell fairtrade coffee, the decisions would not appear to be from the very top down. and, starbucks seems to be on the way out! to the fair trade campaigners who wanted to keep the movement out of the mainstream, what say you?
3. (ambio)phonics
i knew there had to be a more mathematically and compositionally sound method for multichannel reproduction other than stereo diffusion (which makes me so very cranky): ambiophonics! but, no amount of equations and psychoacoustic theory can dispute listening tests, so to the chamber i go...
"I think Australians don't necessarily expect us to wait for the rest of the world but they certainly expect us not to get too far ahead of the rest of the world," said andy robb. although this is in relation to the opposition's internal scratchings about climate change policy, if that's the view that a shadow minister has about the people of this country: fuck. no wonder we're so behind in countless ways.
2. trade
hooley dooley. in one my my rare outings to the real world, i found fairtrade coffee as part of aldi's in-house organic food range. first coles, now aldi: someone must be campaigning their pants off (not literally, i hope) to make this happen. someone else also told me that mccafe is now serving rainforest alliance coffee. more pants-off campaigning? given that some maccas outlets in the us sell fairtrade coffee, the decisions would not appear to be from the very top down. and, starbucks seems to be on the way out! to the fair trade campaigners who wanted to keep the movement out of the mainstream, what say you?
3. (ambio)phonics
i knew there had to be a more mathematically and compositionally sound method for multichannel reproduction other than stereo diffusion (which makes me so very cranky): ambiophonics! but, no amount of equations and psychoacoustic theory can dispute listening tests, so to the chamber i go...
Friday, July 25, 2008
rainman
there's a man in a raincoat outside my window spraying it with high pressure water. just because the body corp wants the pretty yellow townhouses to be shiny yellow, not black-streaked yellow.
drought? what drought? there's no drought when i want my house to look pretty and be dirt free... groundwater? the runoff won't go there, surely...
drought? what drought? there's no drought when i want my house to look pretty and be dirt free... groundwater? the runoff won't go there, surely...
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
boy boy boy girl boy boy
<rant type="braindump">
recent happenings have brought gender bias issues in technology-based professions to the fore (again). why is this a problem?! perhaps that statement is ambiguous: to clarify, why is such a bias grossly apparent in primarily australia, us, and britain? what is the difference between these countries and cultures, when compared to europe and (south, east, south-east) asia where the so-called gender divide in IT, computer science, and engineering is much less pronounced? a quick google scholar search reveals that research (from countries with the gender divide) has shown that women prefer 'contextual' computing over, say, technology for nerd kudos (not that there is anything wrong with that!). but now that the journal papers and books showing this have been published, why has nothing changed? why are we still sitting on our hands and whinging about it?
granting scholarships to encourage (tertiary) enrolment has noble intentions but can be a double edged sword. on one hand, people jump for the money, some with sincere interest in the area and some not. but, for every scholarship that comes out, the typical response from male peers is a la "what about a scholarship for men?!". with this thinking often comes resentment and potential further alienation and (negative) attention drawn to the minority. a good thing? who knows. money certainly talks though: with the current resource boom in our sunny country throwing stupidly high paying engineering jobs around, the number of women entering mining engineering has correspondingly increased. so, with engineering managers the highest paid professionals here, why has this not been used as a (capitalist) selling point? but, when people choose a profession for the money, and they might not necessarily be any good at or enjoy it, is this the best way to propagate gender membership?!
now with technology in every nook and cranny (ubiquitous computing being the appropriate industry buzzword), the young 'uns are all growing up with nerd gear from day one; even schools teach powerpoint in year one! so what happens between year one and year twelve? societal pressues kick in? stereotypes formed from the media and parents? attitudes and expectations changed by peers? these are the types of issues that need to be studied, and to change such widespread cultural bugbears is no mean feat.
what does this all mean professionally? what happens to people in educational and work environments with a sizeable gender bias towards males? what kind of ideas, solutions, and products do gender unbalanced teams come up with and build? perhaps technology-oriented professions should pause and take a long hard look at themselves to see if the cultures and mindsets propagated are hindering their own progress and development.
yes, some people may treat you differently if you are a minority. but this is only if you let them. yes, you might have to work harder to 'prove' yourself to some people. but this is their problem, not yours. people will respect good work (well, they friggin' better!) and if they don't because of their gender issues and it bothers you then do something about it. at least try to make sure it doesn't happen to the next generation: start changing people's stereotypes, thinking, expectations, and attitutes, however mis-informed they may or may not be. and, with one third of the world's population living in india and china, making sure that our stereotypes and mindsets that cause this bias don't infect the next technological world powers is something to keep in mind.
</rant>
an afterthought: putting science-based toys and construction sets such as lego, the starter to any engineering career, under 'toys for boys' in shops really doesn't help. do you numbnuts in marketing know what damage you could be causing?!
recent happenings have brought gender bias issues in technology-based professions to the fore (again). why is this a problem?! perhaps that statement is ambiguous: to clarify, why is such a bias grossly apparent in primarily australia, us, and britain? what is the difference between these countries and cultures, when compared to europe and (south, east, south-east) asia where the so-called gender divide in IT, computer science, and engineering is much less pronounced? a quick google scholar search reveals that research (from countries with the gender divide) has shown that women prefer 'contextual' computing over, say, technology for nerd kudos (not that there is anything wrong with that!). but now that the journal papers and books showing this have been published, why has nothing changed? why are we still sitting on our hands and whinging about it?
granting scholarships to encourage (tertiary) enrolment has noble intentions but can be a double edged sword. on one hand, people jump for the money, some with sincere interest in the area and some not. but, for every scholarship that comes out, the typical response from male peers is a la "what about a scholarship for men?!". with this thinking often comes resentment and potential further alienation and (negative) attention drawn to the minority. a good thing? who knows. money certainly talks though: with the current resource boom in our sunny country throwing stupidly high paying engineering jobs around, the number of women entering mining engineering has correspondingly increased. so, with engineering managers the highest paid professionals here, why has this not been used as a (capitalist) selling point? but, when people choose a profession for the money, and they might not necessarily be any good at or enjoy it, is this the best way to propagate gender membership?!
now with technology in every nook and cranny (ubiquitous computing being the appropriate industry buzzword), the young 'uns are all growing up with nerd gear from day one; even schools teach powerpoint in year one! so what happens between year one and year twelve? societal pressues kick in? stereotypes formed from the media and parents? attitudes and expectations changed by peers? these are the types of issues that need to be studied, and to change such widespread cultural bugbears is no mean feat.
what does this all mean professionally? what happens to people in educational and work environments with a sizeable gender bias towards males? what kind of ideas, solutions, and products do gender unbalanced teams come up with and build? perhaps technology-oriented professions should pause and take a long hard look at themselves to see if the cultures and mindsets propagated are hindering their own progress and development.
yes, some people may treat you differently if you are a minority. but this is only if you let them. yes, you might have to work harder to 'prove' yourself to some people. but this is their problem, not yours. people will respect good work (well, they friggin' better!) and if they don't because of their gender issues and it bothers you then do something about it. at least try to make sure it doesn't happen to the next generation: start changing people's stereotypes, thinking, expectations, and attitutes, however mis-informed they may or may not be. and, with one third of the world's population living in india and china, making sure that our stereotypes and mindsets that cause this bias don't infect the next technological world powers is something to keep in mind.
</rant>
an afterthought: putting science-based toys and construction sets such as lego, the starter to any engineering career, under 'toys for boys' in shops really doesn't help. do you numbnuts in marketing know what damage you could be causing?!
nerd comics
i didn't think that beat frequencies in various aspects of life interested others too: http://xkcd.com/165/
other neat comics:
http://xkcd.com/327/
http://xkcd.com/379/
http://xkcd.com/55/
http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=8
http://xkcd.com/198/
http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=905
http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=1012
http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=858
oh...
http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=868
other neat comics:
http://xkcd.com/327/
http://xkcd.com/379/
http://xkcd.com/55/
http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=8
http://xkcd.com/198/
http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=905
http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=1012
http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=858
oh...
http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=868
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