“It’s this culture of attacking women that has especially got to stop. Whenever I post a video of a female technologist there invariably are snide remarks about body parts and other things that simply wouldn’t happen if the interviewee were a man.”
- Blogger Robert Scoble, responding to threats against tech author Kathy Sierra
I’m stealing this analogy from a blog post by core Django contributor James Bennett. I think it’s brilliant:
There’s an old joke, so old that I don’t even know for certain where it originated, that’s often used to explain why big corporations do things the way they do. It involves some monkeys, a cage, a banana and a fire hose.
You build a nice big room-sized cage, and in one end of it you put five monkeys. In the other end you put the banana. Then you stand by with the fire hose. Sooner or later one of the monkeys is going to go after the banana, and when it does you turn on the fire hose and spray the other monkeys with it. Replace the banana if needed, then repeat the process. Monkeys are pretty smart, so they’ll figure this out pretty quickly: “If anybody goes for the banana, the rest of us get the hose.” Soon they’ll attack any member of their group who tries to go to the banana.
Once this happens, you take one monkey out of the cage and bring in a new one. The new monkey will come in, try to make friends, then probably go for the banana. And the other monkeys, knowing what this means, will attack him to stop you from using the hose on them. Eventually the new monkey will get the message, and will even start joining in on the attack if somebody else goes for the banana. Once this happens, take another of the original monkeys out of the cage and bring in another new monkey.
After repeating this a few times, there will come a moment when none of the monkeys in the cage have ever been sprayed by the fire hose; in fact, they’ll never even have seen the hose. But they’ll attack any monkey who goes to get the banana. If the monkeys could speak English, and if you could ask them why they attack anyone who goes for the banana, their answer would almost certainly be: “Well, I don’t really know, but that’s how we’ve always done things around here.”
I’m reading a book on Mac programming called Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X. However, unrelated to programming at all was this piece of advice on believing in yourself:
While learning something new, many students will think, “Damn, this is hard for me. I wonder if I am stupid.” Because stupidity is such an unthinkably terrible thing in our culture, the students will then spend hours constructing arguments that explain why they are intelligent yet are having difficulties. The moment you start down this path, you have lost your focus.
I used to have a boss named Rock. Rock had earned a degree in astrophysics from Cal Tech and had never had a job in which he used his knowledge of the heavens. Once I asked him whether he regretted getting the degree. “Actually, my degree in astrophysics has proved to be very valuable,” he said. “Some things in this world are just hard. When I am struggling with something, I sometimes think ‘Damn, this is hard for me. I wonder if I am stupid,’ and then I remember that I have a degree in astrophysics from Cal Tech; I must not be stupid.”
I think this is great advice. There have been many times where I’ve been struggling with something outside of computer science (like calculus or my Oceanography class last semester). Just as I start to consider giving up, I remember that I’ve found a way to succeed at some very difficult things; things that are much more difficult than these. It gives me the confidence to continue banging my head against the wall until I finally get it.
Streetsblog, a blog about streets and roads (I like weird stuff), made a post about a reason to like Rahm Emanuel. A quote of his that I really liked:
“You don’t ever want a crisis to go to waste; it’s an opportunity to do important things that you would otherwise avoid.”
This is a really interesting way of looking at it that I never though of before. Normally, people are afraid of change, because they’re afraid of things going bad. But when things are already bad, people are more open to it. Bush used this in 2003 to start the Iraq war*. Maybe Obama can use it for something more constructive.
*Note: I do not believe that Bush had any ill intentions in starting the war in Iraq, but I do believe he took advantage of the situation to bypass sanity checks and get done what he felt was right. When a person does something like this, they are deserving of any praise they get for being a visionary, but equally deserving of any criticism they get for being a reckless idiot.
A couple days ago, I showed a choice selection of some of the “condolences” for Obama’s grandmother’s death from the Hillary Clinton Forum. Compared to the usual responses on that forum, these quotes were very tame. Now, I’m going to give a look at the other end of the spectrum, as the forum-goers react to Obama becoming the 44th President of the United States.
As we type, Bill Ayers is preparing to attend Obama’s victory party (I threw up a little in my mouth as I wrote that). He seeks to take away personal freedoms and put us at the mercy of the government. I don’t see a bright side in any of this. – sadie
I’ve been reading the Hillary Clinton Forum for a long time – since back in April in fact. It’s the breeding ground for “PUMA”s – Democrats who were so completely devoted to Hillary Clinton, that they’re now more anti-Obama than the racists you see on those videos (despite Hillary’s pleas).
Today, Barack Obama’s grandmother died. A post was made on the Hillary Clinton Forum, titled *** “Obama’s Grandmother has died” – Condolences Only!*******. To give you all an idea of what these people are like, and what “condolences” really mean to them, here are a few choice quotes:
“And now we may never know the truths she held. In any case, I offer prayers for the peaceful repose of her soul and prayers for those of her relatives who might have actually loved her.” – Julianne Barbato
