type='html'>Due to circumstances beyond my control (a long plane ride), I watched "The Social Network". I didn't really want to watch it, but also sort of did, kind of like a train wreck. I also wanted to see sudo*-Matt Welsh's cameo teaching Operating Systems.
I was pleased that Hollywood got some of the technobabble correct (apache with a SQL backend), and I loved that the closeup of Mark's laptop showed it running *nix. I also thought it was cute they re-branded the iBook laptop as "Book".
However, I was greatly displeased with how the film portrayed women. By my count, there was only one female character who was not: a flake, a flirt, a drunk, a girlfriend, or crazy - and she was a lawyer with hardly any personality depth. Why were there no female engineers, or CS majors? Or, heck, I'd even take an Art History major. Just somebody with some brains to accompany the legs.
I was also displeased with how Mark Zuckerberg was portrayed. I don't know the real Mark, but the director seemed really dedicated to employing the geek-with-zero-social-interaction-skills trope. Couldn't the actor have smiled occasionally? Been somewhat friendly now and then?
So, Hollywood, your scorecard is: B+ for suspending my geek disbelief, but an F for perpetuating stereotypes.
(*) Pun intended!
Monday, June 2, 2014
Finally, some useful internet activism
type='html'>Great article in this Monday's Technology Review on different websites/apps set up to help people in Japan, such as Ushahidi, SparkRelief, and Hurricane Party.
I was happy to read about these efforts, and encourage you to participate with them and/or donate on your own.
For monetary donations, InterAction has a list of verified charitable organisations who are accepting donations, which also describes how they will use the funds. Definitely check InterAction or with the Better Business Bureau before donating - there are a lot of scams out there.
For non-monetary donations, you can donate frequent flyer miles, socks, or send hopeful letters. (The sock guy mentioned letter writing as a thoughtful gift the Japanese will appreciate, which I think sounds like a great idea).
I was happy to read about these efforts, and encourage you to participate with them and/or donate on your own.
For monetary donations, InterAction has a list of verified charitable organisations who are accepting donations, which also describes how they will use the funds. Definitely check InterAction or with the Better Business Bureau before donating - there are a lot of scams out there.
For non-monetary donations, you can donate frequent flyer miles, socks, or send hopeful letters. (The sock guy mentioned letter writing as a thoughtful gift the Japanese will appreciate, which I think sounds like a great idea).
A boy called Sue
type='html'>Kim O'Grady writes, "I understood gender discrimination once I added “Mr.” to my resume and landed a job".
The tl;dr version is: Kim was an experienced engineering/business person who was applying for jobs. Sent out dozens of resumes to top places, did not get a single interview. Sent out his resume to a bunch of lower tier places, still no interview. Finally, he realizes they are taking "Kim" to mean he is a woman. So he adds the prefix "Mr." to his resume, sends it out again, and immediately lands interviews.
The one I hear a lot in my field is, "X is a superstar" or "X is gifted", and always "X" is a man. I've never heard a woman referred to as a superstar or being gifted in her field. I've also never heard of a young woman referred to as a child prodigy.
The tl;dr version is: Kim was an experienced engineering/business person who was applying for jobs. Sent out dozens of resumes to top places, did not get a single interview. Sent out his resume to a bunch of lower tier places, still no interview. Finally, he realizes they are taking "Kim" to mean he is a woman. So he adds the prefix "Mr." to his resume, sends it out again, and immediately lands interviews.
My first name is Kim. Technically, it’s gender neutral, but my experience showed that most people’s default setting in the absence of any other clues is to assume Kim is a woman’s name. And nothing else on my CV identified me as male. At first I thought I was being a little paranoid, but engineering, sales and management were all male-dominated industries. So I pictured all the managers I had over the years and, forming an amalgam of them in my mind, I read through the document as I imagined they would have. It was like being hit on the head with a big sheet of unbreakable glass ceiling.This is so sad. It reminds me of neurobiologist Ben Barres' experience, where after giving a seminar as a Ben after his transition from Barbara someone in the audience remarked, "Ben Barres's work is much better than his sister's."
The one I hear a lot in my field is, "X is a superstar" or "X is gifted", and always "X" is a man. I've never heard a woman referred to as a superstar or being gifted in her field. I've also never heard of a young woman referred to as a child prodigy.
How to get your paper accepted: Orshee
type='html'>In today's installment of how to get your paper accepted, we shall discuss gender inclusive language.
Back in my days of blissful ignorance, I didn't notice gender use in language very much. "John Doe" and "He" were pretty much par for the course.
At some point, I was reading an article and it was positively littered with "him or her" "he or she" "his or hers", and I wanted to pull my hair (short or long) out. While I appreciated the sentiment it was completely distracting from the prose.
I once was given a Parenting 101 book, and it alternated between male and female examples per section (i.e., every few pages). I liked this approach a lot better, because it made for much easier reading while still being gender inclusive.
Gender exclusive language has no place in scientific writing, unless the author is describing a single case study (i.e., "When Patient M. first came to the hospital, he..."), a gendered-exclusive event (i.e., The Society for Women Engineers summer camp for fourth grade girls), or is somehow written in the third person from the perspective of one of the authors.
It's very easy to use anonymous, gender-neutral subjects in sentences to give examples of people. For example, "the student", "the user", "the agent", "the engineer", "the scientist", etc.
It takes practice to write in active voice while remaining gender neutral; sometimes the writing can get a bit bogged down when you start. Sometimes writing they or them can feel awkward. But like any sort of writing, practice makes perfect. After awhile it becomes second nature.
Unlike those days of blissful ignorance, as a reviewer I am now very distracted and occasionally annoyed by both gender exclusive language (of either gender), as well as by too many Orshees. In some particularly egregious cases of the former I have politely reminded the authors to be more sensitive to their use of language. I know it is often a result of English being a second language.
Google, however, really should know better. Check out this error message I just got in Chrome (emphasis mine):
Back in my days of blissful ignorance, I didn't notice gender use in language very much. "John Doe" and "He" were pretty much par for the course.
At some point, I was reading an article and it was positively littered with "him or her" "he or she" "his or hers", and I wanted to pull my hair (short or long) out. While I appreciated the sentiment it was completely distracting from the prose.
I once was given a Parenting 101 book, and it alternated between male and female examples per section (i.e., every few pages). I liked this approach a lot better, because it made for much easier reading while still being gender inclusive.
Gender exclusive language has no place in scientific writing, unless the author is describing a single case study (i.e., "When Patient M. first came to the hospital, he..."), a gendered-exclusive event (i.e., The Society for Women Engineers summer camp for fourth grade girls), or is somehow written in the third person from the perspective of one of the authors.
It's very easy to use anonymous, gender-neutral subjects in sentences to give examples of people. For example, "the student", "the user", "the agent", "the engineer", "the scientist", etc.
It takes practice to write in active voice while remaining gender neutral; sometimes the writing can get a bit bogged down when you start. Sometimes writing they or them can feel awkward. But like any sort of writing, practice makes perfect. After awhile it becomes second nature.
Unlike those days of blissful ignorance, as a reviewer I am now very distracted and occasionally annoyed by both gender exclusive language (of either gender), as well as by too many Orshees. In some particularly egregious cases of the former I have politely reminded the authors to be more sensitive to their use of language. I know it is often a result of English being a second language.
Google, however, really should know better. Check out this error message I just got in Chrome (emphasis mine):
In this case, the certificate has not been verified by a third party that your computer trusts. Anyone can create a certificate claiming to be whatever website they choose, which is why it must be verified by a trusted third party. Without that verification, the identity information in the certificate is meaningless. It is therefore not possible to verify that you are communicating with XXX.YYY.ZZZ, instead of an attacker who generated his own certificate claiming to be XXX.YYY.ZZZ. You should not proceed past this point.If I was a man I might be offended. I'm sure there are plenty of female hackers out there. (Heck, even that attack is poorly named - "man in the middle". I guess it's catchier than "person in the middle", but still).
Oh noes, it's women CEOs!
type='html'>Today at Scientopia I discuss the latest debate raging across the pond - hiring quotas to ensure there are more women CEOs of companies.
Reviewer armchair psychology
type='html'>Did I mention July is the month for reviews this summer? I must have reviewed 25 this month (one for every hot, humid day!)
After I review papers, if I have time I enjoy doing armchair psychology on my fellow reviewers. Some conferences / journals let you see the reviews others have submitted, and some even allow you to change your score based on what you read. I'm not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing, but it's interesting.
When there are 3-4 reviewers for a paper, the scores tend to regress to the mean. So on a 1-5 scale, the average score will be 3. There are also often repeats - so if I give it a '4', it's likely some one else will give it a 4 too. Really bad papers tend to have scores that cluster around 2, and really good papers cluster around 4.
So I'm always intrigued when I see the following:
As a more seasoned author, you tend to think, "Oh no, what is my Fatal Flaw? (Reviewer 4 is a jerk who Didn't Get It.)"
And as a seasoned reviewer, you tend to think, "Who is Reviewer 4 and what is their beef?"
Occasionally Reviewer 4 has a valid point, and the other three reviewers really did miss something major. But more often than not Reviewer 4 is angry at the authors for taking too many liberties in their paper. Or for not citing Their Brilliant Work. Or it's the "Someone is WRONG on the internet" phenomenon.
In any case, when I'm an editor or paper chair I can ignore the outlier and life goes on. But when I'm a fellow reviewer I feel more vested in the outcome, particularly when I 'm Reviewer 2. I hate to see the possibility of good science getting squished because some reviewer was being thick, especially when it's someone else's science.
So sometimes, if a conference or journal offers a discussion period for reviewers, I occasionally have to confront Reviewer 4 head on, less they somehow manage to convince Reviewers 1 and 3 to change their scores.
Anyway, this is some of what goes on behind the scenes behind your favorite publication venue. As an author, try not to let the outliers get under your skin. If your other reviews are good, be persistent and try again somewhere else. There's an awful lot of randomness in this process.
After I review papers, if I have time I enjoy doing armchair psychology on my fellow reviewers. Some conferences / journals let you see the reviews others have submitted, and some even allow you to change your score based on what you read. I'm not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing, but it's interesting.
When there are 3-4 reviewers for a paper, the scores tend to regress to the mean. So on a 1-5 scale, the average score will be 3. There are also often repeats - so if I give it a '4', it's likely some one else will give it a 4 too. Really bad papers tend to have scores that cluster around 2, and really good papers cluster around 4.
So I'm always intrigued when I see the following:
Reviewer 1: 4As an nascent author, when you get a set of reviews back like the first one you tend to think, "Reviewer 4 is a jerk who Didn't Get It."
Reviewer 2: 5
Reviewer 3: 3
Reviewer 4: 1
As a more seasoned author, you tend to think, "Oh no, what is my Fatal Flaw? (Reviewer 4 is a jerk who Didn't Get It.)"
And as a seasoned reviewer, you tend to think, "Who is Reviewer 4 and what is their beef?"
Occasionally Reviewer 4 has a valid point, and the other three reviewers really did miss something major. But more often than not Reviewer 4 is angry at the authors for taking too many liberties in their paper. Or for not citing Their Brilliant Work. Or it's the "Someone is WRONG on the internet" phenomenon.
In any case, when I'm an editor or paper chair I can ignore the outlier and life goes on. But when I'm a fellow reviewer I feel more vested in the outcome, particularly when I 'm Reviewer 2. I hate to see the possibility of good science getting squished because some reviewer was being thick, especially when it's someone else's science.
So sometimes, if a conference or journal offers a discussion period for reviewers, I occasionally have to confront Reviewer 4 head on, less they somehow manage to convince Reviewers 1 and 3 to change their scores.
Anyway, this is some of what goes on behind the scenes behind your favorite publication venue. As an author, try not to let the outliers get under your skin. If your other reviews are good, be persistent and try again somewhere else. There's an awful lot of randomness in this process.
NRC Computer Science Rankings Reprise
type='html'>There's an article in CACM this month by Computer Scientists Andrew Bernat and Eric Grimson, Doctoral Program Rankings for U.S. Computing Programs: The National Research Council Strikes Out. It talks about the ways in which NRC rankings are broken for CS (we have heard this before), but it details ways in which it could be fixed, which we hadn't heard before, and I like.
Two suggestions I thought were good:
Two suggestions I thought were good:
- "Explore making the rankings subdiscipline-dependent. It is clear that different departments have different strengths. Thus, enabling a finer-grained assessment would allow a department with strength in a sub-field, but perhaps not the same across-the-board strength, to gain appropriate visibility. This may be particularly valuable for students deciding where to apply."
- "Use data mining to generate scholarly productivity data to replace commercially collected citation data that is incomplete and expensive."
The first is a nice idea; for example, you might be interested in a top ranked department, but it turns out 19/20 faculty focus on Theory and you actually want to do Systems. Or there might be some school with three top faculty exactly in your subspecialty, but you don't see them because they're 93rd in the rankings.
The second is nice as well; I think with Google Scholar Citations data available this turns out to be a trivially easy problem to solve.
Maybe CRA can do their own rankings; they collect a lot of their own data anyway, and it avoids needing to rely on the NRC.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)