Friday, March 13, 2015

On choosing social media topics

Most of my social networking is not technical, and there's a reason for that. It's called Export Control laws, ITAR and EAR. The internet is global and public, and I'm not in a position to release data that is not mine to release.

That's a major reason that my social networking has focused on the non-technical issues of STEM culture and diversity. Also note that, for the most part, what I share on Twitter, LinkedIn, and this blog on research about STEM culture is statistical data, NOT personal experiences.

It's really awkward, trying to establish credibility in a field when one can't talk about work, and one cannot share their presentations. It's also tough attempting to prepare for job interviews, when one cannot keep examples of the presentations they have performed, can't reference the e-mails on the subjects, and can't keep records. I understand the "why"s, I discussed some of them in the Intellectual Property portion of this post.

That being said, I have been published and presented at conferences, so there is material that has been cleared for Export and is publicly available.

When I worked in Houston, our entire team was active with the International Conference on Environmental Systems (ICES, for short).  At the time I participated, it was sponsored by the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE).

For several years, I became part of the AIChE Environmental Systems Committee.

Here are the papers I initiated and co-authored:

I would have liked to have written more, but life happens.

TL,DR:
I talk a lot on social media about gender and STEM, because those are topics that I can discuss. The literature I read are freely available, the results are published in major news articles. Just because I don't, doesn't mean that I can't. Nor does it mean that women in STEM is the only topic I care about.

Thursday, March 12, 2015

Me Day

I think the economic systems post is going on indefinite hold.

Anyway. Grief comes in its own time and place. It has no schedule, it just is. And when you live hundreds of miles away from the other people who knew the person... mourning is different. It's easy to stay in denial.

Jenny's mom shared this on Facebook yesterday:


"Sold-out show" indeed. They had streaming video to her Austin church, and to the RE Chapel where additional mourners gathered. I should have brought tissues, thank goodness the person next to me did.

I don't want to give my Houston community false hope. But I've known since the funeral that I need to get back there someday, somehow. I want my son to know Houston something like I do.

Here were Jenny's Vimeo videos: https://vimeo.com/jmalin/videos/sort:date

I started my own film project this week, looking into ways to teach hands-on engineering, online. The demo is unlisted on YouTube now, I've asked friends for feedback. I'm working on a second cut based on the feedback I've already received.

For casual readers who didn't know:

Wednesday, March 11, 2015

He For She

It occurred to me that some of my readers may not be aware of important background material for my own blog and work. In order not to confuse the message, I'm pre-empting the economics post, look for it tomorrow.

Yesterday, I tagged my post with HeForShe, the UN Women campaign for gender equality. Emma Watson gave a speech to kick off the campaign:
"For the record, feminism, by definition, is the belief that men and women should have equal rights, and opportunities." - Emma Watson, HeForShe campaign 2014

More on the key concepts and my take below the cut:

Tuesday, March 10, 2015

The Personal is Political

When we lived in Houston, one of the interim ministers before Rev. Dr. Matt Tittle was Rev. Shirley Ranck, who nearly 40 years ago developed the Cakes for the Queen of Heaven adult religious education for the Unitarian Universalist Association. The curriculum explores the divine feminine in history, and also women's issues in society.

I believe that is where I first learned about the Consciousness Raising groups that developed in the 1960s. What I was told was that as the women started to talk about their lives, they began to see common themes, things that many or all women experienced. And so they began to see how their personal lives connected to the bigger, political world.

Yesterday I promised I would get back to John Scalzi's post: Why Yes, I Should Write About Politics.  John writes:

Monday, March 9, 2015

International Women's Day

March 8th, yesterday, was International Women's Day. In Russia, the day is seriously celebrated with flowers to the women in one's life. In the U.S., the celebration seems to be taken less seriously... perhaps because of its historical socialist roots.

That said, it is an internationally recognized holiday, celebrated on March 8 since 1913. NASA recognizes it, in part due to the cooperation that makes the International Space Station possible.

For the curious, International Men's Day is November 19. However, Google results show that it's existence only matters in March.

Why do we have an International Women's Day?