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FeministHacker | 13 years ago | on: Why Men Can't Have It All

"it’s patriarchy that says men are stupid and monolithic and unchanging and incapable. It’s patriarchy that says men have animalistic instincts and just can’t stop themselves from harassing and assaulting. It’s patriarchy that says men can only be attracted by certain qualities, can only have particular kinds of responses, can only experience the world in narrow ways. Feminism holds that men are capable of more - are more than that. Feminism says that men are better than that"

(The source, http://zeroatthebone.wordpress.com/2011/11/22/on-claiming-to..., isn't entirely relevent, although it's conculsion is)

FeministHacker | 14 years ago | on: Jessamyn Smith: Fighting sexist jokes with a Python bot

I don't have the reference to hand, but it's worth noting that when women use only 20% of conversation time, they are perceived by a group to be dominating the discussion.

The same thing is in effect here, basically. A bot with a very limited purpose is being seen as causing significantly greater disruption.

FeministHacker | 14 years ago | on: How Not To Sell Software in 2012

The management-heavy buying process still applies, however - as support and service contracts become extremely important for large organisations, and are essential to their operations.

FeministHacker | 14 years ago | on: Startup dudes: Cut the sexist crap

It's great to see that I'm not the only one who likes to use this approach! :) That is probably the best example of this tactic I've seen, very well written.

[Also, I couldn't let this comment thread go without this nick getting an outing ;)]

FeministHacker | 14 years ago | on: Virginia Tech unveils HokieSpeed, a powerful new supercomputer for the masses

A bit of engineer's rough estimating:

System was built in 2003 - 8 years ago. Assume moore's law of doubles every 2 years - expectation of 16x more powerful Actual increase in performance - 22x in 1/4th the size

Given that it's then a quarter of the size of system X, that's an amazing increase in peak performance.

There's only one problem - that speed increase appears to owe a lot to the use of GPGPU. As I understand it, whilst research into GPGPU for HPC* is a hot area at the moment, the scale of the actual benefits it offers is still a matter of debate (especially when considering costs and power consumption).

FeministHacker | 14 years ago | on: Virginia Tech unveils HokieSpeed, a powerful new supercomputer for the masses

Whilst your average person at home may not be able to fork out $1.4M, this is in the afordable range of many medium to large businesses, and opens up access to private compute clusters*

The highest cost for supercomputers isn't the raw hardware - it's the power consumption. This also includes the cooling needs of a large cluster. Over the lifespan of a cluster, these will add up to a significant multiple of their base cost.

* of course, this may not be the ideal way to provide access to these services

FeministHacker | 14 years ago | on: Stay away from This* (thiswebhost.com)

I am of the opinion that businesses are defined by how they handle the exit of customers more than by how they handle take-on of customers. A customer being difficult to manage or not profitable still deserves a professional exit.

These sorts of customers are not, however, automatically "stupid customers". They are "difficult" or "non-profitable". In my experience, a user simply being "stupid" doesn't in itself mean that you shouldn't work with them - in fact, often with a little bit of work, they might even become a reasonable repeat customer.

Like a lot of people who have had customer facing roles, I have enjoyed reading notalwaysright (and the older http://customerssuck.livejournal.com/). But I have found over time the postings to have become more deliberate funny-making or actually problematic from an equality point of view.

FeministHacker | 14 years ago | on: Why Minecraft Works (Design Concepts)

What I find interesting is the ultimate heratage of MineCraft:

If I recall correctly, Wurm Online directly owes it's existance to RuneScape, a Fantasy MMO with skills instead of classes, and a strong crafting system. RuneScape started originally as a project to recreate Utima Online in java.Ultima Online has a crafting system, player housing, skills instead of classes, and is the second-oldest MMO, and the first that most people would recognise as such.

Ultima Online is closer to a MUSH or MOO, unlike most modern MMORPGS. On the whole they follow a similar style of game as designed in DikuMUD, one of the most popular MUD engines.

As far as I am aware, there are few major competitors to Ulima Online and RuneScape. The DikuMUD model of classes and limited interaction with the world is far similar to develop and market (see World of Warcraft et al). Yet MineCraft's appeal clearly shows there is a huge demand for something else.

FeministHacker | 14 years ago | on: DoD: $42,000,000 to influence Social Media

1 to 3 of your above list are about determining and uderstanding, not influencing. Sure, ultimately this would be about influencing, but you can't really do that without the former being well-understood first. Arguably, the former is actually more important to national security concerns, too (the set of identities on the internet >> the set of those you will interact with and be able to influence)

FeministHacker | 14 years ago | on: How to remove yourself from all background check websites

Changing your name is not an option for many people: 1) In many parts of the world, this is a complex process in and of itself. Often you need to petition a court, and to place notices in local papers. 2) Names have reputation. Just because you want to not be listed in background check sites, doesn't mean that you don't want your professional reputation, that you want the hassle of explaining to an employer why your references are for a different name, etc. 3) Names have meaning. Even for those who have never changed their name, their name will mean something to them. To hear it said can be frightening, or arousing. It can be a mantra of strength, and give a sense of self. And for those who have already changed names, this is even more so.

Even if changing name was an option, there are many means to link an old name to a new one. Many organisations keep both on file, even when they shouldn't. And combining public records with statistics can show that someone still is the same person.

FeministHacker | 14 years ago | on: Scalability

Likewise. I typically keep open a large number of tabs, opening a pile of links at once and then going through them during the working day. At any one time, I tend to have a hundred-odd tabs open.

Although to be fair, firefox isn't too happy with that workflow, either - but I blame that partially on flash and javascript.

FeministHacker | 14 years ago | on: What happened to all the female developers?

Somewhere buried at home I have an old Cobol programming book, talking about how, as a programmer, typing was beneith you. Instead you were instructed to write neatly on cards and supply these to the typist for her to type in.

FeministHacker | 14 years ago | on: XKCD's Randall Munroe on Google+ requiring your gender to be public

There are more names than you realise that give away little about gender, or are used by people across the gender spectrum. For example, Alex, Sam, Rowan, Raven, and Kim.

And as for photos, it's harder to tell than you think from a static photo, as a lot of gender presentation comes from body language. Speaking of which, photos only give you gender presentation - which can be quite different to someone's self-dentified gender.

FeministHacker | 14 years ago | on: XKCD's Randall Munroe on Google+ requiring your gender to be public

The range of answers you get when you give a free text entry field is wonderful, and proves why this is the best route.

On matters like forced revealing of gender, my gender is rage.

I'm in the process of trying to convince an genderfork academic I'm friends with to actually put a 20 marks question on an exam "what is your gender?".

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