Raven's Journal

Last spring I ended up doing several interviews (since I was unemployed at the time) and I know several people doing interviews right now.

What passes for acceptable is amazing. 

One company contacted me for an interview, I replied via email and then poof nothing.  I waited until the next day, sent another email to verify they received my last one.  Well, I guess the recruiter decided to read my resume and not interview but didn't plan on telling me.  The way I looked at it all the fail was on http://www.barracudanetworks.com/ns/?L=en. 

I waited in rooms for 20 or 30 minutes.  I answered stupid questions, and suffered through awkward office tours ("See the office you'll never work in, etc...").

When the job market becomes a candidate's market again, some companies will be in for a shock.

Aion Online could be a great game.  If ... NCSoft got their shit together; and fixed the bots and gold spamming.  Seriously, it's really bad.  So bad I lag.  When I lag, I die.  When I die, I lose XP.  Thank you for backwards progress in many ways.

Also, really zero content for "casual" players.  By "casual", I mean a few hours a week (not a day like some asses claim on their forums).  Legions (guilds) appear to be shrinking. 

I couldn't find a way decent Legion which apparently meant I would stop leveling at 25.  I'd go further and say most of the players were very unhelpful.  Maybe it was the death penality but often I found other players would watch my character die, loot the resources near my body and then go away.  I'll go further and say NCSoft encourages this behavior with some of their design decisions.

 

test

Testing the new client

The Emo Knight

test

Testing mobile page

http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/06/hans-reiser-off.html

I'm at work.  Just wanted to see how the tags work.

Noah Webster, You're My Only Hope

Sadly, I understand this all too well.

Testing the 1.1 beta

It's Monday and I'm tired.  I didn't sleep well and on top of it, a certain client keeps sending emails.  I have sort of been ignoring the emails.  I only get so much done and then take a break.  I can't do their work all day.

My sinuses have been acting up.  The unexpected warm up in the weather has been causing me some problems.  I like the warmth, my body is quite upset though.

LJ just got sold - again!  This time to a Russian company called SUP.

Testing the widget

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2007/10/15/ccprof115.xml

Personally the scariest quotes is this:
"That is why I say there is a certain husband-wife, brothers thing, where you have an ability to agree, resolve issues, a fundamental respect, admiration, good feeling. All that lets you make one plus one equal three."

I didn't know Ballmer had a "husband-wife" thing going on with Bill Gates.

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2007/10/08

http://www.pvponline.com/article/3481/tue-aug-14

I am writing this blog here in hopes of it getting caught by Google.

Once a long time ago, Slashdot was a good source of news. 

Now due to the moderator's laziness it is crap.  If I wanted crap I'd go to Digg.com (yes I wrote that - digg is crap).

Luke and I both attempted to get a story about MidnightBSD releasing 0.1. 

No luck.

Why?

First, we're not a huge project.  We're a new OS project something that some percentage of slashdot readers may be interested in. 

However firehouse lets "users" bury stories.  So if some FreeBSD zealot is offended that we forked from FreeBSD - buried.  If some Linux zealot thinks BSD sucks - buried.

Honestly I think the best thing us geeks can do is ignore slashdot and BURY Slashdot.  Everyone knows the founder is a sell out anyway.

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2007/07/20

No - this will not work Laffer

As a female computer scientist, I feel greatly outnumbered already.  However in the open source world, I feel very, very alone.

This on the surface seems surprising due to the fact there is a surprising number of women getting graduate degrees in computer science.  A female computer science undergraduate is more likely than a male student to eventually pursue a graduate degree. 

Most fellow women in the field are successful in industry (by this I mean obtain programming jobs). 

At my current job, I have not felt discriminated against nor do I feel my gender influences how my colleagues view my work.  I am a fellow developer.

In the open source world, it should be natural for a woman to work in a project. 

However there is a real problem.  If I am talking to someone face-to-face, it's much harder for that person to discount my opinion.  The Internet allows the darker parts of human nature to appear.  By this I mean it's easier for a (fairly) anonymous person to express his or her opinion without real social consequences. 

Some men in the open source world take no effort to hide their sexist attitudes toward women and women programmers.

Another problem is the fact women tend not to become interested in computer science until college. 

Computers / programming are viewed as rather dorky hobbies.  When I was in high school, guys who liked programming also were magic card players (dates me slightly) and very much considered dorks.  No self respecting girl (or so it seemed) would join their ranks.  Also, computers are considered a "male" hobby.

Women tend not to have as much experience and may end up learning their first programming language in Computer Science 101.  By the time, women are ready to consider open source, we're looking for a job in industry.

It's rather sad how few female programmers are active in open source projects.  Open source projects need programmers from all walks of life.  Until that happens, I don't see how open source can get beyond power computer users.