Inclusion, Diversity

Hat tip to Geek Feminism for the links:

1. Ellen Pao Speaks: ‘I Am Now Moving On’ Ellen Pao writes about the bad in Diversity & Inclusion today, including:
1. issues with legal assumptions about discrimination, that do not reflect today's implicit biases
2. the financial costs of being a plaintiff, and the severe inequality of resources for a case like hers
3. Quote: "I have a request for all companies: Please don’t try to silence employees who raise discrimination and harassment concerns. Instead allow balanced and complete perspectives to come out publicly so we can all learn and improve."
2. Insurance and Feelings a Slack employee writes about a company that is successfully including everybody.
1. "even in the rough bits, I still feel like I’m ok to be myself. I still feel like I’m part of the team. I still don’t feel like I’m different. I still feel like I belong."
2. "One [catchphrase]though, is pretty demonstrative of what I think makes Slack feel good to me: “We’re all in this together.”"

Technology Tuesday: Codecademy

{Note: This was supposed to post on Tuesday, June 4th.  Apparently Publish Failed, and I am just now getting it out of my Draft-box.}

I know it's late, but it's still Tuesday.  Some months ago I thought I might start talking about Technology occasionally on Tuesday.  Today, I want to mention a website called Codecademy.  It's a free, online resource for learning how to program.  I've been slowly working my way through the Python course, and I've learned a lot from it.  The site includes other languages for programming on the web.

If you are just beginning to code, or if you already know the basics and just want to pick up another language, Codecademy can help.

Also, especially if you are a student, no matter what gender or what major you want to go into, I strongly encourage you to learn the basics of coding.  It doesn't have to be something you love, it doesn't have to be something you do for a living.  In an increasingly automated society, learning to code can help you to "speak computer."  Computers are in your car, in your phone, and increasingly in other appliances.

Creating the Future

Working as an engineer, I find old and new technologies juxtaposed on a regular basis. As an engineer concerned about our future, I think sometimes we look for the latest, greatest, highest technology solution, when sometimes low-tech will do the job.

Here are three four posts that mesh with some of what I've been thinking regarding wealth.

Multiple worlds - Electricity

One of my friends from Houston earned his M.S. in Future Studies while I was doing my M.A. One of the points he regularly made was that the future is multiple. One of the ways that the future is multiple, is that old, traditional, ways of life tend to continue along with the new.

STEM Outreach

One of the things that's important to me is engineering outreach. I've even created a Page for my blog listing engineering outreach events that I'm aware of. A few of them are events that I competed in during my education. Several more are events that I have volunteered at.

Earlier this spring, I was blessed with the opportunity to attend a Symposium honoring the 40th Anniversary of the Lunar Rover, as part of the Great Moonbuggy Race. The high school and college students asked the panelists a great many questions about their experiences on the moon and with the rover.

Engineering and Compost

Just in case anyone reading my previous blog post Got worms? wonders what composting and gardening has to do with engineering, here's the deal.

The National Academy of Engineering has developed a list of 14 Grand Challenges for Engineering in the 21st Century.

One of the challenges on the National Academy of Engineering's list, is Manage the Nitrogen Cycle.

Got worms?

Last week, I posted about the different kinds of wealth there are in the world, and about how self-sufficiency can be a kind of wealth.

Feminism

If you have an hour available, I highly recommend the full video posted above linked. Professor Nancy Hopkins of MIT gives the keynote speech at a conference on The Status of Women in Science and Engineering at MIT. The transcript is also available from the website.

At 19 minutes into the speech, she mentions "I fled from feminists. I just wanted to be seen as a scientist."

Wealth

I've been reading S.M. Stirling's Change series lately, which begins with the book:

The premise is that in 1998, something happens around the world which eliminates all of Earth's high technology, particularly electronics and explosives.  It's alternate "history," with both utopian and distopian elements.

But reading the series has had me thinking about wealth.

See, in the Dying Time that followed the Change, very few people in the cities survived.  All our stockbrokers in New York?  Turned cannibal and/or died.  Wealth did not necessarily mean survival.

Ad Astra

I caught Gene Roddenberry's vision almost independently, when I was very young.  But as a student in Nebraska, I felt very alone.  Criticized for liking "boy things," there were very few who encouraged me to pursue engineering or my interest in space.

My senior year of high school, in the school library, I found a copy of a magazine, titled "Ad Astra," meaning "to the stars."  I loved the phrase, and used it as the tag line for my essay when I applied to Notre Dame.  They must have liked it too... but I didn't go there.