Briareos H on 12/7/2017 at 12:23
Moving to Stockholm tomorrow. Dang.
Kolya on 12/7/2017 at 13:17
Sounds cool. What are you up to up there?
Nayru-chan00 on 12/7/2017 at 13:43
Quote Posted by Kolya
@Nayru-chan00 : I know what it's like to be that guy in the family of course. But it can be warranted if your relatives have other skills and help you back. Continuously relying on others at the job is different.
But what I really wanted to get at is this: If you want your daughter to become a programmer (and you should because it's one of the most intellectually fulfilling jobs there are, that also gets paid) then teach them how much fun it is to solve logical problems. Every techie I know wants women in this job, but at Girls Day I hear those old cliches repeated by 14 year old girls, how they don't want to program because that's difficult and numbers and logic are basically appalling. There's a straight line going from Princess Lilly Fee's dreamworld to thinking you can live off (and should be valued for) your overwhelming emotions. Keep them for god's sake away from that crap unless you want them to become someone else's breeding chamber.
And yeah, advice from a childless guy of course. Don't listen to me, what do I know.
That's an interesting perspective, thanks!
I think one of the reasons why women are under-represented in programming jobs and IT in general (combined with your reason, Kolya) is because they don't want to be harassed on a daily basis. Sadly, it happens a lot of times, but less and less each day.
heywood on 12/7/2017 at 13:47
Quote Posted by Kolya
Ever since she has required constant hand holding. There's a number of reasons for her eventual failure but the main points are that A) She is too old to learn and remember complex stuff.
There is no such thing as too old to learn and remember complex stuff. I have worked with engineers and scientists as young as 20 and as old as 83. Some of the oldest people I've worked with are also some of the most intellectually curious and are always learning and looking for something to challenge themselves. I could make this a long post by sharing a bunch of anecdotal stories, but the short version is that I don't see much of a correlation between age and ability to learn, at least up to the point where people start losing some of their mental faculties. Instead, what I see is some correlation between age and the desire to learn, but I think that correlation mainly exists among people who are intellectually lazy to begin with.
Quote:
B) Being a coder to her is a male thing that she basically rejects. So she tried to become a designer, but her lack of basic computer skills (file organisation, consistency) got in the way.
Well, then she is naive. I've encountered a lot of people like that who think programming is beneath them and think they can work in software at a higher level without understanding how the software really works. That never works. Some of them find their calling in project management or functional management, some move into quality, configuration management, process engineering, tech writing, or another ancillary engineering discipline. And unfortunately, there are always a few who are somehow able to sell themselves to management as architects, and produce useless models or go around evangelizing tools or methodologies that help nobody.
Sulphur on 12/7/2017 at 15:44
Quote Posted by Kolya
Whether you are good at some skill and like it is at least partly due to your upbringing. Women are underrepresented in programming jobs. Since I don't believe they have less natural ability for it, it follows that they are brought up to dislike it and hence don't get good at it.
This may be true, but only to a degree. It depends on the culture of the place you're brought up in. I do a massive amount of interviews where I need to assess people's communication skills on a regular basis, and it's startling how many of them tell me that they studied computers and IT engineering because their parents asked them to, but aren't interested in careers within the domain because they're bad at programming. I'm not saying it's only the girls who say it, but there's a decent % either way.
Anyhow, it always comes across as a cop-out. At some point, the individual is responsible for their own choices regardless of what the parents have to say.
Kolya on 12/7/2017 at 16:18
On my way to work there's a stretch of blackberry bushes. Today they were ready to be eaten. I pushed down the protruding branches with my skateboard and felt like a kid stealing from the neighbor's garden. They are on public property, but living in the city it's exceedingly rare to find stuff you want to eat just growing somewhere.
I heard they plan on planting fruit trees in the city now. Why has no one thought of this before??
Pyrian on 12/7/2017 at 17:13
Quote Posted by Kolya
I heard they plan on planting fruit trees in the city now. Why has no one thought of this before??
Mostly pest management, actually. But think about this: A lot of cities went for a big tree planting push when it turned out that they're pretty good at sopping up pollutants in the ground and air. City neighborhood gardens have been known to test rather high for various heavy metals.
Al_B on 12/7/2017 at 17:56
That would probably just turn the blackberries a shade of Deep Purple
TannisRoot on 12/7/2017 at 18:44
Quote Posted by Kolya
Yeah, her current weight loss is due to thyroid suppressing medicine. She was already very weak because of lack of potassium and then stopped eating for 3 days straight. Last night I filled a syringe with cat milk and shot that down her throat. Apparently that reminded her that eating isn't all that bad and she had some light snacks. Finally.
I should mention (
http://felinecrf.info) here, which helped me diagnose her correctly. The vet's tip had been a rare disease that she was tested negatively for.
We had a cat who also suffered from this thyroid issue. We were able to get medication from the vet that reversed the problem - in fact we had to start monitoring her food intake because after a year she was getting quite fat! If you haven't explored the medication option, it was relatively inexpensive and easy to administer. We hid the pills in treats (I think Pill Pocket was the brand) and it worked like a charm.
heywood on 12/7/2017 at 19:35
OT: Blackberry bushes are the bane of my existence. They are the worst invasive species around here and every time I mow the lawn I have to spend 15 minutes cutting down new stalks and trying to find root crowns to tear out. The stuff grows and spreads so fast.
