ZOOM UNIK::UNIK DAN UNIK

Senin, 09 Juli 2012

Kudos to Margo Seltzer

Margo Seltzer, fellow FCS, profesor at Harvard, and well known in the CS blogosphere, was featured in a great article in Txchnologist about women in CS. You can read the article here.

I love just about everything about the article, in particular Margo's comments on polo shirts:

Txch: The computer science community may not be able to control the way programmers are portrayed in the press, but it can at least control the image it projects. What are the big things they shouldn’t do if they want women to apply?

MS: Here’s my favorite. I was chatting with a group of university reps from a very large high-tech company. The reps were both men and women, and they were bemoaning the fact that they found it very difficult to attract women programmers. I looked at them and I said to one of the women, “Are the company shirts you’re wearing men’s polos or women’s polos?” She said, “Oh, it’s a men’s polo shirt.” I said, “Why? Why don’t you buy women’s polo shirts? They would fit better.” And she says, “Well, there aren’t very many of us and it would cost more.”

Now, this is a multi-billion-dollar corporation. I looked at them and I said, “I run a company of 25 people, and you know what? We buy men’s and women’s polo shirts. You’re sending a message that says men are the norm and women are second-class citizens, so we have to put up with what they give us.” I’m sure not many women look at the polo shirts and say, “This isn’t for me,” but I still think it sends a very strong subliminal message.

The other data point is—look at the big annual events that these companies hold for all their customers. How many of the featured speakers are women? The answer goes from zero to one, amidst twenty or thirty speakers. You see this over and over. I think it sends a message that says, “We’re a guys’ company.” There are little things that a company could do to send a message that says, “We’re gender agnostic. We actually hire both boys and girls.”

And her comments on how sexism is less of a big deal to companies than racism:

Txch: Does it behoove companies to narrow the gender gap?

MS: In the same way that we would not tolerate an environment that was blatantly racist. That would not be tolerated in any company in America. And yet we have these pockets in cultures of companies that really are very hostile towards women. People don’t seem to find that nearly as offensive.

I believe I've written about this topic before, where it's strangely acceptable to be sexist and ableist, but not racist. We really need to work on that if we have any hope of making progress.

In any case, kudos to Margo. Go read the article and check out her blog!

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With less than a month to go now until London 2012 bursts into life, we hear from Sport Wales staff who are joining the thousands of volunteers who'll be keeping the Games ticking behind the scenes. Here we hear from Senior Officer, Sue Maughan who has been chosen as a Games Maker official for athletics at both the Olympics and Paralympics.

Welsh Athletics official, Sue Maughan

From an early age Athletics was in my blood. My mum had competed for Cheshire schools and was a coach but if you’d said to me at the age of eight, when I followed in her footsteps and joined Colwyn Bay Athletics Club, that I’d be going to the 2012 Olympics I wouldn’t have thought that it would be possible - especially not in the way that it has now worked out.

I was a pretty good club runner and donned a Welsh vest a few times but in reality was never good enough to make it to the British, never mind the World stage, but my passion for athletics continued. As many people do I got the usual raft of coaching and officiating qualifications when I was at university including for athletics. I’m sure my first officiating duties were at a Midlands athletics fixture at Northwood stadium in Stoke-on-Trent.

My first job took me to Essex where I joined the newly formed Castle Point Athletics Club at the track in Canvey Island. Being a new club, volunteers were few and far between. So rather than resurrecting my athletics career I was soon helping out coaching at the club as well as officiating for the club at league fixtures on weekends. Out of interest, one of the new club members at the time was a certain Dean Macey…didn’t he go on to be quite a good athlete?!

Sue takes officiating in her stride!

A change in jobs took me back to Wales, but this time to the southern end of the country, where I signed up with Welsh Athletics as an athletics official. My mum and dad were also involved in officiating and it became the standing joke: "My parents are down this weekend," I'd say. "Oh, you’re officiating then?" But it was something we could share and continued to share for many years. I got more experience, officiated at different levels, and worked my way onto the UK National list for officials.

So how is it that I’m now off to the Olympics? Well with a once in a lifetime opportunity I signed up in August 2009, via UK Athletics, to be a Games Maker volunteer thinking that it would be great just to be part of this once in a lifetime experience. Then, in April 2011 the email arrived...

“We are delighted to confirm that you have been provisionally selected as a National Technical Official in Athletics for the Olympic Games in 2012.”

Colleagues in the office must have wondered what had happened with the shouts and cheers that came out of my mouth! Those cheers were to be repeated in September when I also received provisional selection for the Paralympic Games.

People often say that time flies. How true. It seemed so far off when I first applied to be a volunteer back in 2009, or even when the email came through in April 2011, but here it is less than a month away.

I regularly just sit with a smile on my face in the office, or at home because I am going to the Olympics and Paralympics, and that distant dream will now become a reality. My mum would have been so proud!

Keep track of all our Welsh athletes at London 2012 and follow @sport_wales on Twitter for all the latest news. Remember to use the #2012cymruwales hash tag!

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Chris Kresser spent quite a bit of time in his Real Food Summit presentation discussing the "inactivation" of mercury by selenium. The good news about this is that for many of the fish where mercury contamination is of concern -- particularly large coldwater ocean fish -- there is a high level of selenium. Selenium binds mercury and in essence converts it to a non-toxic form. Sorta like those amalgam fillings most folks over 35-40 (and younger but less common) have had*. The good news is if a fish has high selenium, it's a low mercury toxicity risk. The bad news is if the fish has a high mercury content, there's less of the beneficial "free" selenium you need.

I went looking for mackerel since it was brought up in comments and found this "pamphlet". Thought I'd share: Selenium and Mercury - Fishing for Answers

I feel much better eating my fatty fishies, farmed or otherwise. Meanwhile Joel Salatin made me feel pretty bad about my real food based diet. Maybe I'll share some thoughts on his intro video (free download with registration ... unfortunately missed his presentation yesterday).