English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

> Aprender un idioma es con frecuencia una parte fundamental de mudarse al extranjero, pero en algunos lugares diversos lingüísticamente los inmigrantes deben aprender dos y tres lenguas para poder sobrevivir.

I'm saying we don't need those to sobrevivir.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus It's a good idea. Many computer cases waste space.

Robusto

What you call waste I call room to move.

Apparently L.A. is the most linguistically diverse city in the U.S. I would have thought New York.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

You don't often need to move around under where the CDROM goes. I like the drawer idea.

MετάEd

Expansion room is not wasted space, unless you waste it.

Robusto

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 No, but when you do it can be a royal pain.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

5:10 PM

@Robusto Yeah. But I don't see that as an argument against putting something useful in an otherwise empty expansion slot.

Robusto

> Es increíblemente probable que dos personas elegidas al azar en [Papua New Guinea] hablen dos idiomas nativos diferentes.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

My computer's case has like 12 bays in it. I only use 4. The rest are wasted.

tchrist

@Robusto Oh possibly.

Robusto

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 When I build a PC I buy a large tower case so that I can get to everything and add on when I need to. That's just me.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 What you call waste I call foresight.

I think I need to read up on PNG.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Robusto Yeah, me too, usually... but once built, the empty bays just sit there. I've worked with computers long enough to know that 99% of the time the extra bays sit empty until the computer, case and all, get retired.

I knew a guy once who couldn't rest until all the expansion slots, bays, ports, etc, on his computer were filled.

Robusto

5:12 PM

Well, I also tend to have a history of my previous hard drives on the SATA chain.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

He'd browse the store looking for something, anything, to fill that last ISA slot.

@Robusto SATA doesn't chain

Robusto

My current PC has four drives in addition to the SSD C drive.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Yeah, I knew that was the wrong word when I typed it, but I can't think of what to call that.

It's not like a SCSI chain. There are different ports on the motherboard for each connection.

But at some point what is it that it connects to? A controller?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

anyway, sure, go nuts putting whatever you want into a case. But I like the idea of a case drawer, which can put to use otherwise unused space. It's usually dead simple to remove later too, when you need to get your hand in there.

@Robusto yes.

I don't think we have a collective word for the octopus-like contraption of SATA.

Robusto

I have two tower computers. My PC, which I built, and my Mac Pro, which Apple built. The Mac is easier when it comes to adding/replacing drives and RAM, but anything else just breaks your ass.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

yeah

been there. I used to work in a computer repair shop.

MετάEd

5:16 PM

SATAY.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

sometimes you'd see a superbly-designed case.

other times you'd think "they're just having a laugh, aren't they?"

Robusto

I need to reapply thermal paste to the CPUs on the Mac, but I probably will not get to that until the machine fails for that reason. Too much work.

Whereas if I needed to do that on my PC it would be fairly routine.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 BTW, I want to apologize for the rhubarb we got into the other day. I should have been less confrontational on the matter. I was dealing with work shit and I let it leak out where it shouldn't have.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Robusto No worries.

Sometimes things push buttons... gender issues is one of my buttons. I've been trying for years to understand it better.

MετάEd

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Well, when a bee lands on a flower ...

Robusto

I sense we're on the same side on most of this. But certain aspects are Little Endian vs. Big Endian for many people.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

5:21 PM

@Robusto Yeah.

MετάEd

Okay, room. Big Endian or Little Endian? Let's have a show of hands.

Robusto

I like Little Endians because they're easier to push around.

MετάEd

Personally, I'm bi-endian.

Robusto

I'm endian-curious.

I will say, though, that there really is a glaring shortage of qualified women software engineers. I understand a lot of the reasons for that, but whatever those may be, it's not an issue that can be solved on a company's hiring schedule. Most of the good female programmers I've known have been here on H1B visas, from India. And even then they're a minority.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Robusto It can't be solved in the short term by adjusting hiring. But it is important to examine the hiring process, and the workplace environment, to try to identify problems.

Sometimes the biases are subtle.

Robusto

5:28 PM

I personally have worked to bring along several women who didn't have all the skills and background but who were obviously smart. Programming is something you don't have to have a degree in to get good at.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

For example, many orchestras have switched to blind auditions so that seeing the musician doesn't impart any bias. This resulted in more women being hired in orchestras.

The problems will probably take generations to fully fix. But we have to start somewhere.

Robusto

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 I auditioned for orchestras when I was in my 20s, and I never had an audition that wasn't blind. There was always a screen. So that's pretty much been the case for decades.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Robusto Yes, but it wasn't always that way. And not all orchestras do it. It's a well-studied phenomenon.

People are biased. They're not always aware of their biases.

Robusto

I can't believe there are orchestras who don't use a screen these days.

Cerberus

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Yeah. That's why I think many people want small cases nowadays.

Robusto

5:32 PM

Even when I had good reason to believe the "fix" was in, like when I made the callbacks for a West Coast orchestra and spent good money to fly back out there, only to learn later that they gave the job to the wife of the principal clarinetist. Even then they used a screen.

And you were instructed not to say anything, just do what the committee of reviewers asked.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Robusto Orchestras have been doing it for decades, yes. I found one article claiming that they started filtering for gender bias as early as the 1950s.

Robusto

And for the record, I don't think I've felt any greater pressure in my entire life than that.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

I can imagine. It's a job interview AND a music exam all at once.

Robusto

Plus: nerves.

You have performance anxiety that approaches lethal.

I honestly thought they could hear my heart beating , because it was going like a trip hammer.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

Yeah, I can vividly recall the time I took a Royal Conservatory of Music piano exam. I was very very nervous, even though I knew I wasn't continuing my studies after that no matter what.

I guess your situation would be like mine, only, worse.

Lots of people can pass a test. Only one person gets the job.

Robusto

5:36 PM

And there is no feedback, and they will stop you in the middle of something and say "Move on to the Stravinsky" or something like that. And you don't know if they're moving on because you satisfied what they wanted to hear or because you didn't.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

geez

Robusto

In the end, you're just happy to get off the stage. The ordeal is over.

I remember having vivid dreams before an audition, like that I would get onstage and the scores would be blank, or that I forgot how to read music, it all looked like some bizarre notation I couldn't fathom.

Damn, it gives me the heebie-jeebies thinking about it even now.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

it's like those dreams that you're back in school, and it's exam time, and you can't remember going to any classes.

Robusto

Or you forgot to wear pants that day.

Johan Larsson

That is a common dream right?

Robusto

5:50 PM

I suppose so.

[Regarding the likelihood of Dan appearing at a Congressional hearing]
Dan: Okay, let's say this does actually happen and I get called in, what's it like up there?
Larry: You know those dreams where your football coach is, like, screaming at you, you look down, you're dressed like Shirley Temple and all your teeth fall out? That's like a Disney version of the Congressional Committee!

MετάEd

Didn't that audition thing come up in one of Gladwell's books?

Robusto

I don't recall.

MετάEd

Yeah. Found it. slate.com/articles/arts/the_book_club/features/2005/…

It was in Blink.

Matt E. Эллен

veep s01 ep08

MετάEd

Blind audition

A blind audition is a method of evaluating the skills being tested, while the candidate performs from behind a wall or screen. The purpose is to assure that the decision-makers are judging the person solely on performance, with no consideration of appearance, name or implicit bias. == History == Research published in American Economic Review suggests the use of blind auditions also changed the role that gender apparently plays during auditions. According to a 2001 study by Cecilia Rouse of Princeton and Claudia Goldin of Harvard, the introduction of blind auditions to American symphony orchestras...

Mitch

6:00 PM

I can play the kazoo

Oh and the triangle

Robusto

@MattE.Эллен Yup. Really funny show.

Matt E. Эллен

@Mitch at the same time?

Mitch

ha ha. No. Are you crazy?

Robusto

@MετάEd "But then, for a number of reasons, orchestras in the 1980s started putting up screens in audition rooms, so that the committee could no longer see the person auditioning." All my auditions were done in the '70s. All screens. I don't know where they get their information.

Matt E. Эллен

@Mitch maybe

Mitch

6:01 PM

Walking is so hard I can only do it one leg at a time.

Matt E. Эллен

@Mitch how many legs do you have?

Mitch

The usual. same as you. How many do you have?

Matt E. Эллен

@Mitch more than one

Mitch

Whew ... Nice. Same here!

Matt E. Эллен

:D

Robusto

6:03 PM

@Cerb has four legs and three heads. 1.333... legs per head, in fact. Whereas I have two legs per head, which is a more comfortable ratio.

Matt E. Эллен

I am glad I have more than 1⅓ legs

Mitch

More comfortable if you have one headed two legged jump suits

NASA just makes multiplied jumpsuits and everything fits. You know for alternate alien biologies

Thinking a'head'

Matt E. Эллен

what about jump suits for creatures that float and only have bodies?

I suppose those would be float suits

you can't jump without legs

Mitch

You could lean into it maybe

Robusto

Current space-suit technology would have to be altered to accommodate orcs.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

6:09 PM

Google image search fails me for "Centipede spacesuit"

tchrist

6:27 PM

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

Donald Trump Fights to Break Wind

Mitch

8:28 PM

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Goddamit. We can send a man to be stranded on Mars but we can't outfit a centipede to do the same. Thanks NASA.

@Robusto I think the rough skin and spiny projections can protect them directly from space.

Robusto

And if it doesn't, well, what's another orc more or less?

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

9:05 PM

@Robusto why does the world need more female programmers specifically?

crl

How do you call them in English?

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

@crl Hermit crabs.

crl

ok, thanks

Johan Larsson

9:25 PM

maybe

Robusto

11:01 PM

@cornbreadninja麵包忍者 The world needs more programmers, period. If women comprise ~15% of all those jobs right now—a generous estimate, I'm sure—doubling or tripling that share would go a long way toward alleviating the problem.

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

11:12 PM

@Robusto I thought the field was saturated.

For whatever reason.

Robusto

Maybe in KC. Not here.

I tried to retire yesterday and my boss begged me to stay.

tchrist

@cornbreadninja麵包忍者 There is no shortage of terrible programmers.

Robusto

He told me to go home, take the weekend, and think it over.

@tchrist Which just increases the demand for good programmers.

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

@Robusto I mean nationally, I guess.

go-royals

Robusto

Nationally it's the same. I get headhunters contacting me from New York and California, Chicago, Minneapolis.

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

11:15 PM

Okay. But I want to argue about women in programming.

Robusto

Like I would consider any of those places. Or any places at all, at this point.

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

Because the STEM thing kinda pisses me off.

tchrist

What would you like to argue?

Robusto

@cornbreadninja麵包忍者 Get the bit in your teeth, girl. Testify!

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

That you don't beat a boys club by making a girls club.

Robusto

11:16 PM

I don't think that's the issue.

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

Not that beating a boys club is the object.

It's my issue.

Pink LEGO sets are dumb.

tchrist

Ug.

Yes.

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

Why can't we just be humans?

tchrist

Are you talking about this?

Women in STEM fields

Many scholars and policy makers have noted that women have historically been underrepresented in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM fields). Scholars are exploring the various reasons for the existence of this gender gap in STEM fields and are also seeking ways to increase diversity within STEM fields. == Gender imbalance in STEM fields == Studies suggest that many factors contribute to the attitudes and achievement of young women in mathematics and science including encouragement from parents, interaction with mathematics and science teachers, curriculum content, hands...

Robusto

@cornbreadninja麵包忍者 I'll tell you what, though. When I was student teaching, I saw a marked difference between how boys went at science-class experiments and how girls did. Not that they were worse, just different.

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

11:17 PM

Yes, men are stronger. Yes, men rule the world. So what?

tchrist

Have you read Ancillary Justice yet?

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

@Robusto Most girls aren't as inherently curious or prone to taking risks.

terdon

@cornbreadninja麵包忍者 What? We do? Damn! I wish someone could have told my mom and girlfriend.

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

@tchrist pretty much.

Robusto

When we had mixed groups doing the experiments, the boys would wade in and start fucking with the project, while the girls would hang back, waiting for something to happen.

tchrist

11:17 PM

@cornbreadninja麵包忍者 It seems complicated.

terdon

@tchrist YES! Reading the third one now.

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

@Robusto Of course.

tchrist

@terdon WTF?

I thought it wasn't out!

Robusto

@cornbreadninja麵包忍者 But when, as my own experiment, I put the boys in groups and the girls in groups, in that situation the girls actually came up with better results.

tchrist

I just read the first two.

terdon

11:18 PM

@tchrist :) Came out the day before yesterday or so. I had preordered it on Kindle.

Robusto

Haha, "expirement" . . .

tchrist

FMH

terdon

@tchrist Umm...?

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

I don't see the need to push girls into any field. No one is pushing boys into nursing or teaching.

Robusto

@cornbreadninja麵包忍者 You're in a pretty non-girly field right now, aren't you?

tchrist

11:19 PM

@terdon I was so sure there were only two. Now I have to go renege on something I told Mom. I just gave her the first two for her birthday next week. And I may be able to get the third one to her in time.

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

@Robusto I suppose.

tchrist

But this is fabulous news.

Robusto

@cornbreadninja麵包忍者 Well, what's different?

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

@Robusto About what?

terdon

@tchrist That it is. Those are probably the best new SF I've read in the last decade.

Robusto

11:20 PM

@cornbreadninja麵包忍者 Why did you choose that field? Did you just fall into it?

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

@Robusto Kind of.

Seventeen years ago this December.

I'm suddenly very hungry. :{

BBL for arguments.

terdon

By the way, @cornbreadninja麵包忍者, my stupid previous joke notwithstanding, in my experience, there are many women in biology. Yes, the sexism is still there, yes, many feel they need to be twice as good as the men (though I've found a few who claim to have never felt any sexism at all) but the field is almost 50-50. Much more than in any other STEM field I know.

Robusto

@terdon That is true. My son, who is a scientist at Novartis, says it's all women in his lab except for him.

@cornbreadninja麵包忍者 But I don't think you'd have fallen into it if you hadn't an interest in it, if you see what I'm saying.

tchrist

@terdon It’s especially impressive for a first novel.

terdon

@Robusto It was the same as an undergraduate. We were about half and half. I used to teach undergrads in the university where I did my PhD and there the women were the clear majority. Something like 2-3 men in each ~20 person class.

tchrist

11:29 PM

I enjoyed the first one better than the middle one, but that might be in part a middle-book issue.

terdon

@tchrist I know. She's great. Just wonderful. She has this strange taste to her prose. Manages to get the whole semi human ancilliary thing across beautifully.

@tchrist Same here. I don't have an opinion on the third yet. Only just started it.

tchrist

I mostly gave up trying to figure out what people’s genders were.

terdon

In the books? Yes, she has made it completely irrelevant. One of the few good things about that society.

tchrist

Yes, in the books. I don't normally have trouble figuring it out in real life.

Robusto

11:52 PM

@terdon I dunno, I rather like genders. I guess I'm just old-fashioned.

terdon

@Robusto I like them too. I dislike their being relevant to anything other than choosing a mate.

Robusto

Well, I think that's an oversimplification.

I think gender informs everything we do, and we ignore that at our peril.

People who want the genders to be identical remind me of the character of M. Homais in Madame Bovary, who believes himself wonderfully intelligent, and an inventor.

Wonderful theories that fail in practice.

We're at the point now when we can't even acknowledge that there are differences. And that, my friends, is crazy talk.

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English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…