July 2007 Blog Archive
Posted July 31, 2007 at 1:00 PM in Computing, People I Admire, Women! | Comments Off
The ACM has posted video of Fran Allen’s Turing Award lecture. Go check it out!
Delivered by Frances E. Allen, recipient of ACM’s 2006 A. M. Turing Award, the presentation calls for software systems designers to develop new tools that can improve the performance of computer software.
Allen, the first woman to win the Turing Award, issued the challenge in her Turing Award Lecture, delivered in June at the 2007 FCRC Conference in San Diego, CA.
Ms. Allen received the 2006 A.M. Turing Award for “pioneering contributions to the theory and practice of optimizing compiler techniques that laid the foundation for modern optimizing compilers and automatic parallel execution.” In her Turing Award Lecture presentation, she warns that computer software capabilities have fallen far behind the capabilities of computer hardware, and proposes several approaches to boost the performance of software in the face of the new hardware developments.
Posted July 30, 2007 at 11:40 PM in Commuting, Punky, Travel | Comments Off
Since I fly Northwest just about every single week, I naturally keep up with news about flight cancellations. Stories like this one cause me to check flight status early and often.
However I’ve so far been pretty lucky. Northwest canceled over 800 flights at the end of June due to pilots running out of hours to fly, thanks to all of the air traffic control problems earlier in the month. I skipped that hassle thanks to having booked a flight on July 1 (it saved me about $300, too).
The few times I’ve been stuck with no flight, while disappointing and inconvenient, haven’t worked out all that badly. Only twice have I ever been stuck in a stop-over city (Minneapolis); the first time NW got me into a hotel that had jacuzzis in all of the rooms and the second time I had about 5 hours to go shopping at the Mall of America. All other times I’ve been “at home” — meaning someplace I could get back to easily, where I had my own bed, clothes, and food — so those certainly weren’t problems.
Northwest doesn’t give super-fancy upgrades like the one that Molly got, but so long as they get me home to Punky, my cat, what I’ve gotten is all I need.
Posted July 29, 2007 at 1:48 AM in Television | Comments (2)
And how happy fans of the show would be! Word on the street is that there could be a “Gilmore Girls” movie… apparently Amy Sherman-Palladino, creator of the show and writer for 6 of the 7 seasons, said so during a press event for her new sitcom. Other juicy tidbits about the ending of the Gilmore Girls and info on her new show here.
Posted July 18, 2007 at 4:08 AM in Just Sayin, Meeeeeeee, Women! | Comments Off
I tore this ad out of one of my skateboarding magazines in the mid-80s, and as you can see, it’s beat to hell, having been pinned and taped to various surfaces over the years.
Growing up, messages like this one really spoke to me. Even as a kid, I didn’t want to be seen as a girl. I was a woman, strong and self-confident, capable of doing anything that any guy could do. (Though, to be honest, I wasn’t a very good skateboarder. But the important thing is that I tried!)
So what I want to know is… where are the messages like this one for kids today? Everything seems so dumbed-down, or watered-down, with a “let’s be subtle, the kids will get it” type of approach, so as not to offend or oppress stupid boys. I want aggro, in your face, straight-up shit that burgeoning young feminists can get behind, dammit!
Hmm, that gives me an idea. Check back for more on this later.
Oh, and did you notice that the ad is pink, but that it still kicks ass? I had a pink Rodney Mullen freestyle deck, too… though I really wanted it in white, but the skate shop was out of them. Anyway, pink isn’t just for girls… it’s for real women, too!
Posted July 12, 2007 at 10:12 PM in Bryn Mawr, Computing, Robots | Comments Off
Over at the Institute for Personal Robots in Education Blog Natasha Eilbert summarizes the feedback from the intro CS class taught with robots at Bryn Mawr and Georgia Tech:
The class consisted, in large part, of non-science students, many choosing to take the class incidentally. However, students felt that, through the course, they learned important, basic computer science concepts, such as breaking down a problem and planning out a solution. They got the impression that computer science involves logical thinking, problem-solving, and patience, and they left feeling that computer science was fun (how great!). Most students enjoyed using the interactive, hands-on Scribbler robots, and a number of them even became attached to the life-like creatures. The students did get frustrated with the robots at times, especially over the imprecision of the robots and over hardware issues that were out of the students’ control; at the same time, they learned that it is reasonable that, like humans, robots are not completely perfect. … Happily, most of the students left the class with the feeling that computer programming was important and in some way relevant to their future life, whether in their field of study or in the every day world.
Awesome!
Hi, my name is Kimberly Blessing. I'm a computer scientist, Web developer, standards evangelist, feminist, and geek. This is where I write about life, the Web, technology, women's issues, and whatever else comes to mind.
