The Nerd's Eye View

As you can imagine I have a bit of egg on my face due to being a week late (which I'm sure Ada Lovelace would not have stood for at all, being English and a mathematician to boot, as well as a Lady). But when I realized this day was actually so closely past, I couldn't resist the urge to put up a quick post about it. For those of you who know me well, you know I'm a big supporter of women in the sciences and frankly the more the better. There's something about walking into an engineering building in any college in the world, that changes the enterer (is that word?) from whatever gender they are into an Engineer, and that's a lovely thing. So kudos out there Women of Science! and don't let the bastards grind you down!

Post-script: Just want to thank Shaenon Garrity, creator of Narbonic and Skin Horse (for getting me into mad science ladies), and Sydney Padua, creator of The Adventures of Babbage and Lovelace for teaching me about Ada Lovelace and opening the door to a real discussion of women in the sciences. Ms Padua is also an accomplished animator and general art bad ass, so check her out talking about graphic storytelling and just random Babbage anecdotes.

Check out more about Ada Lovelace day at Finding Ada.

Posted by Lo Fat Mo at 1:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I just read an article this morning in the Times, about a group of "Christian militia" folks in Michigan who were planning to kill a law enforcement officer and then bomb his funeral procession. They were caught prior to actually carrying out their plan, and have been charged with sedition and intent to use a weapon of mass destruction (is this really a legal term now?). Good guys win, bad guys in jail, right? Except these guys don't seem like run of the mill traitors. Beyond their intention to kill a law enforcement officer - who they view as a "foot soldier for the Federal government" - they wanted to bomb that officer's funeral procession. That sounds like an attempt to spread terror to me, beside the fact that it's a tactic that the IRA used to great effect in Northern Ireland in the 70's and 80's.

Then there's the manifesto on their website which reads like a paraphrasing of an AlQaeda recruiting pamphlet/video:

The Hutaree Web site features the motto “Preparing for the end time battles to keep the testimony of Jesus Christ alive” and a video showing rifle-toting men in camouflage running through woods and firing weapons.

“Jesus wanted us to be ready to defend ourselves using the sword and stay alive using equipment,” the Web site says, adding, “The Hutaree will one day see its enemy and meet him on the battlefield if so God wills it.”

These folks differ from an AlQaeda sleeper cell in two ways: the details of their religious belief, and their ethnicity. Based on how Pakistani-American AlQaeda recruits in California, or upstate New York have been charged, I think the government needs to ask itself whether these two groups with similar aims and tactics can really be treated differently.

Posted by Lo Fat Mo at 9:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I'm concerned. Lately I have been listening to what I say and it seems like everything that comes out of my mouth is a bit derivative. That's to say it's a riff off something in the popular culture, or a trope from retro comedy shows. When I look around that's what pretty much everyone is doing as well. So it would seem that the more I rail against the lack of original material in "Hollywood", the less original material I myself create. Troubling. Then again there are all sorts of asides in Shakespeare that refer to the Bible and previous playwrights (some of whom were hacks on a par with the writers for your average contemporary sitcom), so maybe I am being unreasonable.

Posted by Lo Fat Mo at 2:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Yeah, I don't write. I know. Anyway, I'm here in San Diego "on business". My employers at LiteBrite Co have decided to send me to an industry conference/trade show and in my quest to make myself indispensable I said yes. So here I am at the convention center, which is quite familiar due to the times I have spent here at San Diego Comic-Con (yes, nerd, proud, let's move on). In a sense it's pretty much the same. Booths all over the place, nerds wandering the aisles, some dressed well, some dressed like Comic Book Guy from the Simpsons. The only thing that really stands out, or at least stands out most, is the large number of people who look like they don't belong here.

Before charges of elitism come flying this way (yes, elitist, unapologetic, let's move on), I am not simply judging a book by its cover. I am judging a number of books by their collective covers, statistically. By that I mean, that we all know that engineers have a tendency to be either slobs, or at the very least careless about their appearance. So a few unkempt fat guys wandering the aisles of a trade show is not a big surprise. What is a surprise is the guy in the wife-beater with the large facial tattoos who is there with his girlfriend (also sporting excessive body ink). That was second look worthy, but owing to my desire to not die by shanking at a technical conference it was not worth an iPhone pic.

So what is it about the youth of San Diego? Are they really that into fiber optics? Perhaps. My cynical nature, though, begs to know whether or not this is some sort of convention tourism. I mean, do people honestly just come to conventions of any type in hopes of picking up some plastic bags full of crappy swag? And why doesn't this happen in San Francisco? Mind you, it's miserable around here and we may or may not have the sheer volume of conventions that San Diego does; either that or our youths are less industrious. Either way, it's a weird thing to see a couple of thuggish kids in Michael Vick, football jerseys conversing with a thick-waisted mid-level marketing guy about optical components.

Posted by Lo Fat Mo at 11:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)