< technifiling > So I made a ridiculous investment (hello consumer debt, my old friend) in a new 500GB, 8GB memory MacBook Pro + lots of multimedia software. The first MBP had a 7200rpm hard drive that vibrated so consistently it made my hands go numb. After 24 hours I had it shipped back to Shanghai, and a week later got a replacement. I want to say technology is stupid, that machines are objects and they don’t matter and spending so much credit card unmoney on a computer instead of a vehicle, horse or intercontinental plane ticket is totally not worth it, but no! This computer is amazing and super fast with great battery life, and owning it and Final Cut 7 means I can do all my editing at home now. And do freelancing/consulting. Which, in about a year, might earn me enough to recoup the initial cost. Also I can write it all off on my taxes. Tra la! < /technifiling > < / justification >
Meanwhile, exactly a year ago I was in Cajamarca, Peru, washing my socks in a hotel sink and listening to great guitar singalongs led by a man named Jaime at a bar called Usha Usha. And taking taxis through the Andes every day and hiking to villages to interview rural entrepreneurs who mostly had broken internet connections for a film I am just now finishing. And eating fish & pizza & candy & Inka Cola and watching bad American TV shows. All of this with Mau (God bless you Mau, even though I felt like arm wrestling you 80% of the time) who is still in Lima, teaching attractive young women how to take digital photographs. {“con pasión y coraje haré este viaje contiiiiiiiiigo. y juro que secretos y recuerdos no los venderé, no no no.”}
Meanwhile, summer has arrived. Swooping in like a stealthy thief. The same fruit fly circles around my sofa every night, and birthdays come and go — of several friends, and soon my own. Instead of crying on the phone to FedEx employees from someone else’s living room, this year I will spend my birthday getting my master’s degree in an endless outdoor ceremony. How things change…
Sorry I haven’t posted much recently, I’ve been busy trying to be a high-ranking technical woman and finish my master’s degree. Therefore I felt it would be appropriate to post this little summary of research by the Anita Borg Institute. Enjoy.
Top attributes of success for senior technical women
Analytical: The majority of senior technical women perceive themselves as analytical. Indeed, all technical employees tend to see themselves as high on this attribute, as technical careers tend to first and foremost look for analytical and problem-solving skills.
Unafraid to Question/Desire to Learn: A majority consider themselves as questioning – having the ability to ask the right questions, which is critical to problem-solving.
Risk-Takers: A majority of senior technical women view themselves as risk-takers, which was identified by technical employees as one of the top four attributes of success. Moderate amounts of risk-taking are an important part of leadership, and senior women and men are equally as likely to perceive themselves as risk takers. This research shatters the stereotype that men are more likely to be risk takers than women are.
Collaborative: Senior technical women are collaborators. A collaborative work style is perceived as a critical success factor in high-technology by both technical men and women, and is consistent with a culture that values innovation, which cannot be achieved without extensive collaboration. Collaboration is both a critical source of success but also a great source of career satisfaction.
Hard-working/Long Hours: Advancement for senior women comes with long working hours. This finding is consistent with the culture of technology where advancement is tied to increased responsibility and significant availability. This can be a barrier for women who seek advancement while juggling family responsibilities in dual-career couples. 72 percent of the senior technical women surveyed reported cutting back on sleep to advance their careers and nearly a third have delayed having children.
Assertive: A majority of senior technical women describe themselves as assertive – significantly more so than women at the entry and mid levels. In a professional culture that rewards speaking up, self-promotion, and ambition, senior women interviewed uniformly said they had to learn to be assertive and promote themselves in order to advance. However, research also shows that women have less freedom than men in assertive behavior. Because women’s assertiveness defy long-standing gender stereotypes, women often experience a “likeability penalty” when they are assertive.
Thought this might be of interest to some of you nice geeks out there. Reposted from an email.
Google Digital Humanities Research Awards
Google has so far digitized over 12 million books in over 300 languages –
a significant fraction of all books ever published. This collection, much
of which was previously available only in university libraries, has helped
many disciplines in the humanities. Because of this vast increase in
digitized information, new avenues of literary research are now possible.
We also know more could be done to facilitate this research. Sometimes
humanities research consists of amassing and curating a private data set,
and writing or customizing tools specifically for that data set. While
that might be the quickest way to answer a particular research question,
it does little to help other researchers with similar questions. We want
to make it easy for people to share not just results, but the tools and
intermediate data upon which future research can build. Toward these ends,
Google is creating a collaborative research program to explore the digital
humanities using the Google Books corpus. Disciplines of interest include
(but are not limited to):
Linguistics
History
Classics
Literature
Philosophy
Sociology
Archaeology
Anthropology
Some example projects to give you an idea of what we’re thinking about:
Building software for tracking changes in language over time
Building software for tagging and identifying concepts, structure, or entities in text (possibly tailored to a specific domain or language)
Creating utilities to discover books and passages of interest to a particular discipline, with support for annotations and collaborative research
Developing systems for crowdsourced corrections to book data (e.g., OCR text) and metadata
Generating marked up freely usable datasets (e.g., part-of-speech tagging for little-known languages)
The testing of a literary or historical hypothesis through innovative analysis of a book corpus
Analysis of the generative or creative processes revealed in texts
These are one-time awards for up to US $50,000. Google may choose to renew
the award for another year following review of the research at the
conclusion of the first year. Where appropriate, we expect award
recipients to make their software, utilities, datasets, or similar results
freely available to others to use. We are requesting proposals in this
area from select researchers and faculty members, and we would be
delighted with your participation. We expect to make several awards under
this program, and welcome proposals that include investigators from
multiple organizations. Proposals that share resources or funding with
other efforts are also welcome. Google may offer help in some instances by
providing relevant subsets of the Google Books corpus (subject to
copyright and metadata licensing) or by hosting data for researchers. For
instance, we anticipate being able to provide frequency lists of words
categorized by language, publication date, country, and subject; and a
limited number of scans and plain text from books in the public domain. If
your research requires a specific data set, feel free to contact Jon
Orwant (orwant@google.com) about availability.
…All hype and a pretty face, but not as faithful as Brian Krakow.
It’s tempting, because I don’t want to switch from T-Mobile. But I can’t handle even a one-year contract renewal, let alone two. Also there’s no multitouch. Also iPhone apps are more comprehensive. But I wouldn’t need to get the Nexus One jailbroken before moving abroad. Also the camera + video quality is way higher on the Nexus, and seeing as that’s my thesis topic, it might be smart to use it. The total cost of a new Nexus + early contract cancellation after six months = $380, with an ~$80/mo. phone plan. The iPhone 3gs 16GB would total $340 after a six-month cancellation, and about the same cost per month for AT&T’s plan. But the coverage is much spottier, the network gets held up and ATT customer service is booty.
A post I found on a Gizmodo comment string sums up my feelings, and totally makes me laugh. We are all so spoiled, after all:
I still don’t know if I want one. This has been the most frustrating gadget decision time in my life.
I just know that if I get one in the spring on Verizon, Apple will immediately release a new and fantastic iPhone on Verizon which I will want even more.
The Android apps are severely lacking in interface/functionality compared to iPhone apps. So frustrating.
Furthermore I bet Apple will refuse to improve the new iPhone’s screen resolution/quality since they don’t want to make compatibility issues with apps.
We have a new site, for all the living room portraits and monologues: studiocrux.com. Check it out, and if you’re interested in coming over for a portrait, or a video, or both, let me know.
**Researching eGovernment 2.0 requesting your participation**
The Kogod School of Business at American University and the National University of Ireland, Galway, are collaborating on a research project that investigates the value of federal government web sites. Professors Murray Scott and William DeLone are leading the project; they are particularly interested in the value created in recent initiatives designed to promote citizen engagement and participation.
The researchers would very much appreciate your support by following the link below and completing the survey. The survey should not take any longer than 15 minutes of your time and can be found at: http://govsurvey.nuigalway.ie
The researchers can be contacted with any questions or comments at murray.scott@nuigalway.ie or wdelone@american.edu
