Day: July 25, 2005

What do feminists think about in 2005?

by philg

American women have seemingly achieved most of the goals of the folks in the 1960s who called themselves “feminists.”  Women can work 24/7.  Women can vote (for the white male of their choice, at least in the last few presidential elections).  Women can get abortions without having to travel beyond their home state.  Women constitute close to 50 percent of the young folks training for and holding jobs that are actually worth having (e.g., medical doctor).


What then does someone who calls him or herself a “feminist” think about in 2005?  http://melancholicfeminista.blogspot.com/ is an interesting place to start looking for the answer.

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What should we say to non-nerds to give them hope from computer technology?

by philg

One challenge in admitting to having spent some time as a computer nerd up in Alaska is that folks sometimes ask “What is the next improvement in computer technology going to do for me?”  Mostly they are just trying to be polite and make good conversation.  What should one say?  These are folks who use a Web browser but that’s about it.  They don’t care about the latest operating system tweak from the lumbering Microsoft elephant or the competitive fleas on its hide.


One idea that seemed to excite them was chucking their desktop machines and the associated sysadmin.  I mentioned that their mobile phone had a communications capability, a computer, storage capacity for personal info, and an authentication capability.  Why couldn’t it be their home computer as well?  They could plug their mobile phone into a dock at home that would let them use a full-size display and keyboard and maybe augment the storage and computational capacity of the phone.


What vision of the electronic future would the readers/commenters paint for a rugged Alaskan who has a DSL line and Web browser at home right now?

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