Year: 2012
Gender and tech
Doing It Right: The GNOME Foundation Outreach Program for Women
Yesterday I got news that I was accepted into a super cool internship program. For the first quarter of 2013, I’ll be working with the Open Technology Institute to help them integrate Tor with their mesh networking platform called Commotion.
The internship is part of the GNOME Foundation‘s Outreach Program for Women. GNOME is an open source desktop environment, and my preferred desktop on Linux. In 2006 they ran an internship program whose goal was to get more women contributing to Free and Open Source Software (FOSS). People loved it and in 2010 they revived the effort and started running it twice a year.
For this iteration, they’ve partnered with a slew of FOSS projects to offer some pretty diverse opportunities in cloud computing, security, and tools for privacy and fighting censorship. The internships are set up as full-time work from home, making them accessible for … Read the rest
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O Hai, World
When I last checked in with this lonely blog I was OMG-pregnant, and I’ve left everyone in suspense. But as expected, in late August my pregnancy resulted in a tiny person with whom I share an emotionally potent chemical co-dependency.
More simply, I HAZ A CUTE BAYBEE!
Please welcome our tiny new friend–codename Chestnut–our toothless, elfen, smiley learning machine. This picture is from his first full day on the outside, when he still had an anti-theft device attached to his cord stump. It’s true, they make them for babies. Apparently, the idea is that if you try to abscond from a hospital with a kiddo, it beeps like a shoplifted dress from Ross. But if you try to remove it or tamper with it, it’s a felony because messing with the cord stump can potentially endanger the kid’s health.
So what’s it like on the other side of the … Read the rest
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What Pregnancy Has Taught Me About Other Body Types
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: Pregnancy brings on remarkable physical changes. I’ve experienced a good number of them. I had the classic early pregnancy nausea, some select cravings, and my torso widened before my belly, indicating a higher blood volume, lung capacity, and overall expanded infrastructure that’s required to support another person.
But plenty of people have griped about swollen feet and an intensified sense of smell. What I have found really interesting and novel is that my physical changes have helped me identify with people who have very different body types from mine.
By nature I’m a sturdy but healthy weight for my modest-to-diminutive height, I’m more sensitive to cold and more welcoming of heat than most people around me, I have a high-efficiency metabolism so I can do a lot with a little bit of food, and while I wouldn’t consider myself an athlete, I … Read the rest
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Personal
“Uterine Invader! I mean, happy breeding to you!”
With thanks to JJ for the quote!
Folks, somehow this ended up in my uterus:
I KNOW, RIGHT? I’m as confused as you are, but I suspect that project partner, housemate, and special friend Far McKon may have had some involvement. I raise my eyebrow at you, sir.
Here’s a FAQ about my spawn.
Basic stats?
Due mid-August. Sex unknown. Name TBD. Proto-baby was not planned, per se, but also not a surprise. Anticipated delivery at The Birth Center. Using a doula who has a special interest in this birth, as she also acts as my sister when she’s not applying counterpressure or advising on the latest research on perineal massage.
I’m your friend. Why did you tell the Internet before you told me?
Erm, it’s complicated? I’m really sorry if my failure to disclose is annoying or hurtful. Parts of the Internet already know and it’s public knowledge … Read the rest
Uncategorized
How to Survive Your Capstone in 10 Easy (HA!) Steps
Here’s a quick thesis/capstone survival guide I put together for a talk at Penn last fall. It’s close to graduation time so hopefully it will come in handy to someone!
1. Capstones scare everybody. Face it together.
You might think you are the worst procrastinator in the world, that no one has ever been as scared of a stupid paper, and that everybody else is doing way better.
Nope!
Everybody suffers when they’re working on the magnum opus of their education thus far, the document that could propel them to greatness or banish them to mediocrity FOREVER. It helps to have a cadre of friends or colleagues for venting, study dates, and plain old empathy. You often get tips and insights when you talk through whatever you’re stuck on, that you wouldn’t get plugging away on your own. So even if it seems like some of your classmates have … Read the rest
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Be Your Own Puppet: Miwa Matreyek’s stunning video shadow puppetry
In mid-March I went to Baltimore’s Quest Fest to see a performance by Miwa Matreyek, an animator who I hadn’t heard of even a couple of months ago. I stumbled across her work on some internet afternoon stroll and was captivated by the clips that I saw. Lucky for me, other people from the Pricess Grace Foundation to TED had heard of her.
Her work is heavily inspired by shadow puppetry, and in fact when I first looked at her work my mind immediately went to this exquisite video for the Little Dragon song “Twice” by Johannes Nyholm.
But in her work, she is the puppet. She performed two pieces at Quest Fest, “Dreaming of Lucid Living”, and “Myth and Infrastructure”. In each, she projects an original animation on a screen, but uses a second projector in back of the screen to throw the shadow of her figure into … Read the rest
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Hacking the Gender Gap at the Women In Tech Summit
Tomorrow, The Hacktory is excited to present a workshop at the Women In Tech Summit called Hacking the Gender Gap: A Hands-On Workshop for Boosting Gender Diversity in Tech. Georgia, Sarah, and Steph will facilitate activities to pull from people’s positive and negative experiences in tech as well as some of the research on the gender gap in STEM. We’ll work through strategies for combating sexist behavior and building a more diverse tech community. We hope to use this workshop as a first step in gathering data and stories that women, girls, and their allies can use in their organizations.
Check back here for a resource list and some of the outcomes from the session. And if you haven’t signed up for the summit they may still be taking some last minute registrations!
Happy Tech Week, everyone!… Read the rest
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