Oooh, girls don't like geeks...

Or so moans Jeanna Bryner in a sob-story on the dropping numbers of women in computer science written for MSNB's Live Science portal. Writes Bryner,

The stereotype of computer scientists as geeks who memorize Star Trek lines and never leave the lab may be driving women away from the field, a new study suggests.

And women can be turned off by just the physical environment, say, of a computer-science classroom or office that's strewn with objects considered "masculine geeky," such as video games and science-fiction stuff.

Oh, the poor dears and their tender little sensibilities. Over a hundred years ago, English novelist Jane Austen wrote a novel entitled Sense and Sensibility that clearly showed the superiority of sense over sensibility. At the end of the novel, the character whose sensibilities had previously dominated her decisions realized that common sense was superior to being driven by her emotions (sensibilities). Women have been telling the world that they are equal (and for some feminists, more than equal) for many years. Thus, they have abrogated their privilege to being allowed to claim some 'sensibility' problem, in my view.

Let's turn the argument on its head. Most women-dominated professions decorate their offices with fluffy, girly things and engage in water-cooler discussions that mot men would find utterly inane. Men do not feel comfortable in such surroundings, but it is a rare man who speaks up to complain about this overly feminine, masculine-unfriendly atmosphere. Men prefer a different sort of atmosphere and women should accept it. If a profession is male-dominated as computer science is, then women need to realize that most of the atmosphere will be more masculine than they might prefer, just as men who enter occupations that are female-majority, like teaching or nursing, need to understand that football posters and discussions of the latest tech gadgets are unlikely to occur with any frequency. Both need to adjust.

This is not to say that women should be deliberately made to feel uncomfortable, any more than men should be made to feel uncomfortable. but both sexes have top understand that the majority is probably not thinking about that - they are creating an atmosphere that is best sited to themselves. men have long since accepted that idea. It is time and past time for women to do the same. And sob-stories like Bryner's do not help that progress.

The iTouch Book

Are you tired of holding your iPod Touch whilst engaged in reading your favorite e-book? Well at least one guy has come up with an alternative- disguise it as a moleskin diary!

As a good friend and technology guru stated,

so, kill some more trees and put your ipod in a hole where you can't reach the powerkey. excellent.
the guy must have been sponsored by the pay reader.app to write that tripe because he totally missed RuBooks.app.

The base site for the ruBooks.app is located at http://colel.info/rubooks. And by the way- it handles Japanese, Chinese and Russian. There is a chance it may handle Palm docs as well, though that is not proven as yet. So- how did that idea of the iTouch/faux book work out as a pickup device? Hmm?

Thanks to Expat-Leo for the quotes and the original link to the Wired blog.

XP-Yes, Vista-No

Has Microsoft's strategy of forcing users to 'upgrade' whether or not they want to hit a snag? In the case of Windows XP, it seems that may indeed be the case. Microsoft had originally planned to stop selling Windows XP by January 31, 2008, but was forced to extend that deadline to June 30, 2008. However, now a new challenge to Microsoft's plans has surfaced, according to a story posted today on Yahoo! News. yahoo! reports that,

Fans of the six-year-old operating system set to be pulled off store shelves in June have papered the Internet with blog posts, cartoons and petitions recently. They trumpet its superiority to Windows Vista, Microsoft's latest PC operating system, whose consumer launch last January was greeted with lukewarm reviews.

No matter how hard Microsoft works to persuade people to embrace Vista, some just can't be wowed. They complain about Vista's hefty hardware requirements, its less-than-peppy performance, occasional incompatibility with other programs and devices and frequent, irritating security pop-up windows.

For them, the impending disappearance of XP computers from retailers, and the phased withdrawal of technical support in coming years, is causing a minor panic.

Take, for instance, Galen Gruman. A longtime technology journalist, Gruman is more accustomed to writing about trends than starting them.

But after talking to Windows users for months, he realized his distaste for Vista and strong attachment to XP were widespread.

However, as the writers note, the real pressure for Microsoft may be the almost 70 percent of business customers who have not yet 'upgraded' to Vista. The Yahoo! story quotes analyst Al Gillen as saying 'You really can't make 69 percent of your installed base unhappy with you'.

I recall talking to a data storage company recently and inquiring if they had changed over from XP to Vista. The CIO simply laughed and replied that Vista was too buggy to even consider using in the immediate future. I was relieved, since my own interaction with Vista, while limited, has failed to enthuse me about the latest Microsoft operating system.

I think ultimately Microsoft's arrogance, coupled with their less-than-stellar record of product releases may do them in as others work to topple their near-monopoly on the business platform market. Should that occur, they may well point to the failure of Vista as the starting point for their fall. Hat tip to Glenn Reynolds.

Are Macs Still Safe?

For a long time, one of the Macintosh's primary attraction has been its relative immunity from the horde of viruses that affect Windows-based computers. Certainly I have benefited knowing that I as long as I run my utilities on a regular basis and exercise a degree of cAution when surfing the Web I am fairly safe from attack. And of course when I surf using my ancient pre-OSX Macs, the odds of getting a virus are infinitesimal.

However, according to the Financial Times online edition, this may be changing. The Financial Times reports that hackers are increasingly targeting Mac users as Apple's share of the industry rises. The Times writes,

After years of relative safety, the Apple Mac is becoming an increasingly tempting target for malicious computer hackers, according to a new report published this week.

Security researchers have been aware of the threat to Apple since last year, when they detected the first piece of malicious code – or “malware” – specifically designed to target Apple.

Over the past few months, however, the number of malicious programs has increased, according to a report published this week by F-Secure, an internet security company.

“Over the past two years, we had found one or two pieces of malware targeting Macs,” said Patrik Runald, an F-Secure security researcher. “Since October, we’ve found 100-150 variants.”

So what is the good news? Unlike the Windows system, which contains a widely publicized number of vulnerabilities. Any PC user is used to the security patches that appear with monotonous regularity from Microsoft, usually without any real explanation. Apple in contrast has a reputation for being much more secure, and as a result, the new viruses rely on users installing the problem software themselves as opposed to a system vulnerability. So as long as a Mac user is educated and suspicious, he or she should continue to be safe from the hackers. As long as they don't have to use a Microsoft-based system, that is!

More Thoughts on Vista

As some of my devoted readers may recall, I wrote a couple of short pieces about my opinions on the Microsoft Vista operating system both before its release and two more that were published sortly after it released on February 2, 2007 and again on Febrary 6, 2007. These were based both on my experiences testing Vista's long-running 'beta' version code-named Longhorn, and my long experience with Microsoft products. Among other things, I noted security expert Harry Erwin of the University of Sunderland as saying that,

I think they may have gone overboard on security. Their programmer productivity has reportedly dropped to a level that they won't be able to sell Vista at its price point. Mac OS X has been beating them on price for some time now, and this may make it worse."

Now Captain Ed Morrisey who is himself no beginner at using computers weighing in on the (dis)advantages of using Microsoft Vista. Writes Captain Ed,

Just FYI, I have been using Microsoft systems since CPM DOS on the Apple IIe, and used to build my own computers from scratch until it got so cheap to buy pre-constructed systems about ten years ago. I worked as a net admin for a Fortune 100 company for a few years as a second hat during my call-center days. I'm not exactly a novice at this. I'm figuring that this will be my last Microsoft based system ever. The low price simply isn't worth the hassle any longer.

I wholeheartedly agree. Like the good captain, I have become accustomed to XP, though I hate Microsoft's penchant for thinking that they know better than I what I actually want to do. this tendency is most marked in Word, which is constantly trying to auto-format my text, but it is latent in virtually every Microsoft product I have ever used. However, Vista's tendencies for weird behavior, coupled with the many levels and the insanely high price have made me a permanent convert to Apple's far more robust OS X (although I am highly irate with Apple's decision to change the Software Update so that I cna no longer work with it running in the background. Bad APple! Bad Apple!)

However, Apple is much less intrusive and far more permissive in allowing users (especially expert user) wishes to be fulfilled. I wish that Apple had shown more marketing and sales acumen back during the OS wars, but that battle is forever lost. All we can do is try to force Microsoft to actually consider their customers once in a while.

A Truly Smart Car

I posted last month about Newsweek magazine's shameless shilling for Daimler-Benz's 'Smart' car brand. However, an article in Yahoo today has brought my attention to a car that Newsweek perhaps should have shilled for instead.

Produced by Japanese carmaker Nissan, the Pivo 2 is a concept car that is scheduled to be introduced at the upcoming Tokyo otor Show later this year. The Pivo can carry three adults and features a cabin that can rotate to face forward or backwards. In addition, Yahoo says of the Pivo 2,

Its wheels also turn 90 degrees, making parking easier.

"With this easy-to-handle car, you can feel comfortable while driving," said Masahiko Tabe, senior manager of the advanced vehicle development group at Nissan Motors.

"You can go everywhere without worrying about your driving skills." The car is as yet not for commercial sale.

The futuristic, three-seat car also comes with a robotic device that Nissan said monitors the driver's expression using censors and tailors its conversation accordingly.

The device, able to converse in English and Japanese, can help an angry driver overcome road rage or wake you up if you're prone to dozing behind the wheel, the car makers said.

Now if they could only produce it in electric!

Air Cars!

According to Popular Mechanics magazine, a partial answer to the problem of the internal-combustion engine may have arrived. The magazine reported that air-powered cars will be sold in India starting in 2008. Designed by a former Formula One engineer, the cars can travel up to 68 miles per hour and have a range of 125 miles. The vehicle, named the CityCAT, is built by Luxembourg-based carmaker MDI, and will sell for approximately US $12-13,000.

The magazine reports that,

It will take only a few minutes for the CityCAT to refuel at gas stations equipped with custom air compressor units; MDI says it should cost around $2 to fill the car’s carbon-fiber tanks with 340 liters of air at 4350 psi. Drivers also will be able to plug into the electrical grid and use the car’s built-in compressor to refill the tanks in about 4 hours.

While they do have some drawbacks, such as being held together entirely by glue, this represents a possibility for the United States as well. With a few modifications, perhaps this could offer an answer for our dependency on foreign oil. It would not take that much to add compressed-air rechargers to service stations, and thus extend the range. In addition, I could see an air-powered motor as a possible replacement for the hybrid's gasoline-powered motor. Is anyone in the auto industry listening?

Hat tip to Glenn Reynolds.

Thoughts on Vista

Microsoft's that is. An interesting letter from a computer security expert in the United Kingdom was posted on Jerry Pournelle's site. To get to the original, simply click on the link and scroll down to the 'Subject: Microsoft Vista" section. I reproduce it in full as follows:

Subject: Microsoft Vista

I think they may have gone overboard on security. Their programmer productivity has reportedly dropped to a level that they won't be able to sell Vista at its price point. Mac OS X has been beating them on price for some time now, and this may make it worse.

-- Harry Erwin, PhD, Program Leader, MSc Information Systems Security, University of Sunderland. http://scat-he-g4.sunderland.ac.uk/~harryerw
Weblog at: http://scat-he-g4.sunderland.ac.uk/~harryerw/blog/index.php

I have thought for some time that Microsoft is not doing a very good job on their new operating system. Vista is simply a repackaged and (probably) re-programmed version of the aptly-named 'Longhorn' (for the inordinately long time Microsoft has been promising it) and it is still not out. Longhorn itself was promised at least since 2003. Now I read that Microsoft has postponed the release of Vista yet again.

In the meantime, Apple Computer has managed to get OS X released, updated and made into a top-line OS. All for the price of US $129.00 on average for a single-user copy. On that thought, I agree with Dr. Erwin's analysis on the potential price point of Vista. Windows is already ridiculously expensive, and if the price goes up much more, I think more people will commence thinking of switching to a different operating system. The various flavors of UNIX/Linux are mostly free and OS X is not a budget-buster either at it's current pricing. Ergo, Microsoft had better get this new OS out and working in fairly short order, or they may find themselves in trouble, in my opinion. Even Windows users won't wait forever.

Courtesy of Jerry Pournelle.

Mag-Lev and Rail

I was first introduced to mag-lev (magnetic levitation) was in the 1986 Vancouver World Expo, where Japan's exhibit had a short mag-lev train for riding. I have been aware that Japan has continued to push ahead with their own mag-lev research, but until today, I had not kept up with developments in the United States.

However, according to Business Week, Senator Harry Reid has been continuously salting away research money for a mag-lev train from Anaheim to Las Vegas. This is interesting. Although mag-lev is a fascinating technology, I wonder if a train from Anaheim to Vegas is a worthwhile investment.

While I would be interested to see a practical use of the mag-lev technology, I also wonder if Americans can be convinced to once again use trains in preference to air travel. In Japan, the rail system is both very good and very extensive. In this country, that is not the case, and has not been the case for a good long time. Therefore, unless we can guarantee that Americans will embrace a rail travel that is still not as fast as air travel, I doubt this is a good investment.

While I am not a fan of the many stupidities of the DHS connected with air travel, I do not see a viable alternative at this time, especially in this age of time-is-of-the-essence business thinking. I like trains. But when I need to get to a business meeting today, I will fly. Even to Vegas.

My reasoning is that mag-lev is not particularly energy-efficient, and the number of passengers from LA to Vegas may or may not be enough to keep the train in the black. Also, is this really something that the federal government should be spending money on? If there is a company that thinks they can make a profit, by all means they should make some investments, but I do not think the Federal government should be spending taxpayer dollars for the benefit of LA and Las Vegas, two of the high-dollar tourist attractions already.

This also points to the problem of pork in the federal budget. While this can be rationalized as a good expense (R & D on a potentially useful technology), there are many similar earmarks salted away that have no such excuse. As a taxpayer, I am more than a little upset that the federal government exercises such laxity with our money. Maybe if they had to spend their own money for these things, they might understand the Pork-Busters movement. And if they don't it is time to replace them. The problem is that neither party shows any real budget restraint. The Republicans are spending like drunken sailors. Unfortunately, the Democrats' record is even worse- and they are also un-serious about security. So what is a frustrated taxpayer to do? Support a small-government candidate in the next primary. Let's get these big spenders out of Congress and give someone else a chance!

Japan Trip, Part 2

I was in the electronic mecca of Akihabara this weekend. I remember my previous trip as one where the streets were filled with foreigners and foreign-worshipping Japanese, all of whom were milling around the elecronic goodies prominently displayed. However, I was surprised to find that Akihabara has changed rather drastically.

In the streets, were legions of the sub-group known as 'cosplay', folks who dress up in anime- or manga-inspired costumes and who seem to have become more intense about their hobby with each passing day. The amount of money and detail contained within many of these costumes was startling. Then it also appears that the 'companions' who hawk various merchandise and/or services become younger as well. I could have sworn that this trip they appeared to be around high-school age!

Finally, there is a dearth of low-price options. Japan was never known as a bargain-hunter's paradise, but I did not notice any deals that particularly caught my eye. However, I shall be taking another trip this week, and this time I shall take my camera to provide some documentary evidence. In the menatime. Japan has definitely changed- I am not yet sure if that is for the better or not

Japan trip, Part I

I am in Japan for the next two weeks on a business trip, and I will be blogging on the changes since my last trip. The main thing that is dominating the newspapers is the Livedoor scandal. It appears that wunderkid Horie Takafumi, the erstwhiel founder/president of Livedoor, cooked his accounting books to make it appear that Livedoor was doing better than it actually was. This scandal has mostly flown under the US media's radar, but it is dominating the media here in Japan. I have been amused at the feeding frenzy as every move by police and prosecurotrs is followed by a swarm of media members. It reinforces my opinion of most media members as fatuous, slavish followers who rarely if ever have the knowledge or professionalism to actually do their own homework.

In other news, it appeare that Japan is finally starting to come out from the post-bubble blues that have affected its economy for so long. I am noticing that there are fewer stories in the news about the bad economics, although that may have something to do with the approaching Olympics, which the J-media usually follows obsessively- at least as long as there are Japanese medal hopes.....

DVR Users Skip Ads...

...and Yahoo Singapore is reporting the television purveyers of advertising garbage (with a few exceptions, such as the Budweiser Frogs) are in a panic. Somehow I find myself quite unable to sympathise with their predicament. Via Matt Drudge.

PowerBooks & Mac Minis

According to Apple Insider, IBM has at long last produced a potential G5 chip for the PowerBook series. Unfortunately, it appears that Apple may not avail themselves of the new product, as it contradicts their stated Intel transition strategy. Too bad- I could aways use a more powerful PowerBook, though my recently purchased 1.42 GHz Mac Mini is still a delight.

NOTE: One word of advice to potential Mac Mini buyers: If you plan to install 10.3 Server, be aware you will need a machine running 10.3 in order to successfully install it. If you have 10.3.9 or above, you should be OK.

Is .Mac Worth It?

The guys at Macintouch have a short discussion today on the benefits or lack thereof regarding Apple's .Mac account. I agree with the majority, who argue that .Mac simply doesn't offer enough benefits to justify the high ($80-100/year) price involved. Speaking solely for myself, I find SBC Yahoo DSL a much more satisfying option- particularly as it includes he ISP, which .Mac does not.