Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Girls were the first computer scientists


Well, I don't know about that, but it used to be depicted as a feminine job.  One of the computer girls described coding "just like planning dinner".  Really you can code while  your kids are napping and still be a stay at home mom while (if you were doing it now) earning the big bucks.  Maybe this is the perfect career for women.  However, in my programming classes, I was one of very few girls in a class, so don't think that other girls have caught on.  In one of my classes there were 5 of us (girls) in a class of about 150...now, this programming class was in the electrical engineering department and touted as one of the toughest classes at UC Berkeley.  I didn't feel lonely in the class, as the senior from Johns Hopkins University says she is, but I also didn't do my work at home.  We had a homework group and two of the girls from the class (including me) were in it, so we still had some girly support but we hung out with the guys too.  This article describes the fluctuations of girls in computer science over time, they were at their peak involvement in 1984.  Now the percentage of women in computer science is noticeably low, but it is on the rise again.  Besides, all the guys will realize they are doing a girly job and quit pretty soon anyway.  

S

Thursday, July 21, 2011

Parenting

In class recently we had a lot of discussions about suburbia, and why people move out there. I am an urban planning student, so that is sorta expected, I mean, we at least have to cover suburbia!  And a lot of students have some really strong points, BUT I read this article in the Chicago Tribune about a woman who loves the city, and loves everything that the city provides.... and is pregnant. She and her husband can afford a two bedroom condo, and can afford to store all of their stuff that they can't keep in their condo in a storage unit, for now, but are afraid they will have to move to the suburbs when they decide to have a second child. 
My first reaction to this is, why do you even need a storage unit, just get rid of some stuff? But my second is.. I actually understand in terms of a two bedroom condo, with two kids, and a couple, it could be a pretty hectic life. I am all for city living, and mostly all against suburban living, but I'm not planning to have a huge family, and I believe that supplementing a public school education with in home expectations and work would be good enough for my child, but I understand her point. It makes me realize how much people have come to expect from the city, and the limitations of just saying "why not live in the city?"  A lot of people want to live in the city, and just think that they can't. It would be a hard, and more expensive life... but it is possible, as this woman shows, even better in some ways. She has networked with other pregnant women in her building and has found a morning pregnancy exercise class and loves the new friends she makes while pregnant in the city. But the inevitability of moving to the suburbs is something many parents are facing today with poor schools, expensive life, and too much stuff. Maybe to stop the suburbs we should be focusing on bringing the elements of the suburbs that the people need or want into the cities, instead of just deciding that these people have a problem for wanting to live in the suburbs. Their priorities are just different than mine... and we need to figure out how to help the city meet these priorities.  

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Go Bill!

ecuador toiletsAt least the Gates Foundation, I'm not sure how much Bill Gates actually had to do with this, but it's pretty awesome, they are working to get better, cleaner sewage systems in the "developing world". And people wonder why I would say I would marry this man.... well.. that's actually the money. But he's also doing great things in the world!

R

Interesting video

I decided I wanted to share this, but wasn't sure how, so I'm posting it on the blog! This video is really an interesting view on how we see things (Maybe S should be writing about this, she might know more about WHY this happens). But these normal pictures of people are transformed into crazy looking monsters if you stare at the cross in the middle, it's really interesting and not scary at all. Believe me, I'm one of those people who HATE those pages where they ask you to stare at something and then have something scary jump out at you, this is totally innocent, just an interesting view of the abilities of our eyes!

R

Carmageddon!

Last weekend, California closed down the 405 ("the 405" or "405" or "I-405", whatever you want to call it). It got a lot of attention and a lot of people were not happy about it, and then were. According to this article, it took 18 hours less than expected (what?! that never happens in road construction!), and hopefully it is successful. Either way, it was an amazing work of coordination to have that major of a freeway shut down for a day, even on a weekend. One of the most interesting things that came out of it was a group of bikers raced a $4 Jet Blue flight from Burbank to Long Beach and won! This flight was supposed to help "ease the crazy" on the weekend while the freeway was down, but really, if you can bike it just as fast or faster, why fly?! The Wolfpack, as the bikers called themselves, admittedly were racing the plane, so they might have been in better shape than I am, but the possibility that I could get there for almost free, at about the same rate, and feel good about myself would make me definitely want to try it out!
On another note, India is promoting traffic congestion with their new policy to give couples a car if they sterilize themselves. I realize that overpopulation is a lot of a problem there, so traffic congestion may not be their top concern, but it is an interesting way to reduce the number of children being born, and encourage mobility for the residents!
And this road in Jackson Heights has turned a road into a summer play area, closing it off to cars for a few months every year, and now is considering turning it into a permanent thing! I think this is an amazing idea. If people are willing to give up driving and parking for a few months, why not a couple more to always have a safe place for kids to run and play outside of their homes. A coworker also mentioned that it could be an issue to NOT have it open all year because children might not realize that cars are allowed at certain times of the year and could wander into the street only to be hit by a car, and then of course, their parents might be blamed (see two postings below for my angry rant on a lady who was charged when her son was hit by a car). 

R

Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Why are people not outraged about this

I realize that maybe we aren't getting the whole story with this, and maybe there is a crosswalk just down the road or something, but a mother in Georgia has been charged with Vehicular Homicide when her 4 year old son got hit by a car while they crossed the road where there was no crosswalk! There is a bus stop, but no crosswalk, I think there should ALWAYS be a crosswalk at a bus stop, especially one that is across the road from an obvious residential area, and there should be lights, and whistles and arrows and flashy things to warn drivers around the corner (if there is a corner) that there is a possibility for people to be crossing the road right there. Ok.. maybe not to that extent, but from the pictures (see below and links) it look like there is no crosswalk, no lights, no signs, but there IS a bus stop. Google tells me to cross a road where there is no crosswalk all the time when I have to take the bus to the southwest, but I usually walk the half block to the crosswalk, even though it is a dangerous intersection, hopefully the crosswalk is at least a little more obvious than me crossing in a poorly lit road, but when families depend on the bus, and have to cross the road to get home from the bus stop there should absolutely be a crosswalk.   And that is all I have to say, I linked to three different articles that I could find about this story, but I am still shocked that I only found three, this should be a revolutionary story demanding attention from everyone. I don't want to be charged with attempted suicide every time I have to cross a road with no crosswalk to get to a bus stop when I see the bus coming!

R

Friday, July 15, 2011

Minimalism in the kitchen

So, I have been on a minimalist type of kick for a while now, and these are a couple articles that recently caught my eye. Just how much space do you really need on a table anyway?

flatpack table up photoFirst, let's talk about this foldable table. Now, I remember this type of thing in our tent trailer from when I was a kid, of course, in the tent trailer the table also lowered to be a bed, which was pretty sweet. But this idea is an interesting one also. Why do people not mount their kitchen tables?! If it is easy to fold down, I would consider doing this. I hate that when I come home, I end up throwing all of my stuff right where I want to eat, and then I am too lazy to move it so I end up holding my food while I eat it, sitting at the table, but not using the table. If it were folded up every day, and only taken down for meals, I wouldn't have to worry about throwing all of my stuff on it. Of course.. it could get frustrating if you didn't have a place to put all of that stuff right when you walk in the door too, so that problem would have to be solved. But really, do we need to have as much space as we take up now? If a table folded up, you could use the kitchen as a kitchen and a living room, or a dining room and a kitchen if you don't quite have enough room in your kitchen for a table while you are cooking, but once the oven is off, why not?!  I like this as a way to reduce your space footprint, but also reduce the mess I create when I come inside.  Click on the image for the full article on treehugger!

la cool vie table Daniel Gantes photoAnd then there is this idea. I know these are both treehugger articles, and I know I should find another blog/magazine to read, but for now, I'm just going to talk about both of these. This table is basically a sawhorse with spots for two people to eat. It is pretty fun too, though I do like to rest my elbows or arms on the table as I eat.. so I probably wouldn't like this idea as much, but it definitely sheds light on how much space a table takes up and how much we actually use!

Just a couple things for thought for the day!

R

Thursday, July 14, 2011

Donating Blood

It is one of my (many) goals in life to donate blood in all 50 of the US states. I am not very far, and I'm not trying very hard, but it's a goal, and I hopefully have a long time to fulfill it. One thing that always bothered me is the questions they ask at the beginning, there are SOOOOO many, and when I first donated I wanted to just say that I haven't even had a chance to experience most of these things. At the time I was a virgin, had never left the country, and never drank alcohol, let alone done other drugs. That would wipe out about 90% of the questions they ask. But one question has always irked me, and still does every time. The question about homosexual sex. I understand the fears that originally started that question (or at least the arguments behind those fears). AIDS was definitely scary, and tests were not strong enough to detect HIV in blood until at least 3 months after HIV was contracted. But HIV is no longer only a gay disease AND our testing has improved to a 12 day period according to this GOODMagazine article (the same one linked to the picture of my arm post blood donation). So why are we still prohibiting blood donation by people who have had male on male sex, or have had sex with a man who has had sex with another man since 1976, or whatever the question is.

AIDS is scary, but discrimination is scary also, and so many straight people have unprotected sex, or sex with an unknown person and don't realize the risks they are taking. Personally I have never felt that this is an OK question to ask, and I think it needs to stop, the risk of getting HIV from a blood transfusion is so low, and would probably not increase with a change in the policy. Why not allow more people to donate when they can, instead of prohibiting a huge portion of the population from giving something they know they can give.

R

UPDATE:

I think this is a good article about how AIDS has affected New York, and the United States in General. It talks about how the HIV incidents have increased over the years, and compares the loss of people to AIDS in the US would seem if all of those people disappeared in one day.  Scary, sad, and also inspiring! We need to think about these things as an awareness alert rather than a fear inducing thing too!