TheCapeBlog

First Holder. Then Richardson. Now Panetta.
Seems like the gloves are coming off already, two weeks away from the coronation, er, inauguration.

Since posting the link to Computerworld’s article on why women drop out of IT, I’ve read most of the 300+ comments that accompany the article.
Besides commenting on the article itself, the common theme seems to be that IT is a lousy profession, and those who escape it are lucky.
Well, well, well and well.
I’ve read a lot of nonsense through the years about why more women don’t enter the field, and agree with the person who said that this article comes closest to an explanation that makes sense to me.
What the article doesn’t do is propose a solution that makes sense.
The tired suggestion of mentoring, which relegates “older” developers to a ridiculous in loco parentis role is appropriately denegrated in the comments section.
Some one states the obvious, that when you get critical mass, the problems will go away on their own.
Based on my experience, you need a very strong, savvy COO type who has been empowered to crack some senior management heads.
In other words, someone who will take a swing at their peers. Because that’s where the problem is.
Of course, I – and everyone else who has ever worked in an American office – have yet to meet such a person.

Certain people in my life have claimed for years that the issues I’ve had with development departments are somehow or other my fault.
Thus, it is with tremendous relief – as well as sadness – that I discovered I am not alone. In fact, I’m very much in the majority:
Last year, Harvard Business Review published a research study which found that 52% of highly qualified women in tech drop out because of the corrosive attitudes of their male colleagues.
India was found to be slightly better than the US, which does not surprise me: recently, the youngest person ever to obtain their Microsoft certification was (you guessed it) a 9 year old Indian girl.
I relate to the following especially: “A women fails and is never seen again. A woman cannot survive a failure. So they become risk-averse in a culture where risk is rewarded.”
“It’s almost like a time warp” observed one of the researchers. “Engineering and tech cultures are worse than scientific, but across the board there

I was going through old photos and cards today, and I came across a letter which I’d forgotten about, from my adoptive mother, dated June 26, 2002.
The letter is honest, direct and heartfelt. It’s in response to one that I wrote. I don’t have a copy of my letter, but it seems from her answer that I had tried to explain the pain of my growing-up years.
The letter goes like this:
“Your last letter blew my mind. I’ve written draft after draft trying to answer it. Thought I’d start with the past and work my way up to the present.

Continue reading “Your Last Letter Blew My Mind”

It’s not just the snow on the ground or the frigid temperatures, but the absence of almost all event listings except movies, high school sports and support group meetings: winter is here on Cape Cod.

Continue reading Winter

It’s 8.4

My friend Ben Day pointed this out, and I doubled checked his numbers to be sure: since the start of the supposedly pro-business Bush administration, the three major equity indices declined by 18, 33, and 43%, respectively.
January 22, 2001, Index Closing Values
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 10,578.24
Standard & Poor’s 500: 1,342.90
NASDAQ Composite: 2,757.91
December 31, 2008, Index Closing Values
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 8,776.39
Standard & Poor’s 500: 903.25
NASDAQ Composite: 1,577.03

I’ve cleaned out the frig, paid bills, put up the new calendars and plan to make a trip to the transfer station this morning, hopefully before the snow gets out of control.
They’re predicting blizzard conditions tonight, which may preclude New Year’s Eve fireworks. I’d probably pass anyway, am still fighting the end of a cold which leaves me spent by about 6 or 7 pm. I’ll miss being in Newport, but maybe next year.
Except for a handful of people, like Barack Obama and Joe Biden, I don’t think there will be many who will look back with joy to 2008. It was a horrible year for me personally, and a very bad year for the economy.
It’s now 10:32 AM, and the snow, which started around 9, is coming down like fury. The roads were covered by quarter to 10. Peter postponed the transfer station run, a good call. I was on my way to their house from Stop & Shop when he phoned. By the time I got to 151, traffic was crawling at 20 MPH.
2008, a lousy year to the bitter end. Happy 2009.

I got a new laptop last month and as has been the case for a while with Windows-based systems, it came with VISTA. I took it as a professional challenge to better understand the problems people have with this operating system and was determined to master it anyway.

Continue reading VISTA, in Retrospect

Last week, it felt like the calendar was stuck around the shortest days of the year, which actually took place on December 22 and 24.
In fact yesterday, Sunday the 28th, was the actual beginning of the consistent lengthening of days, as sunset gets later and later.
It won’t be until January 9 that sunrise gets earlier and earlier. We get to have longer days until the fourth week in June, when the descent to winter starts all over again.