Caomhin’s blog

Let us assume I know a couple who live in a far off land. They met at university, both exploring the same scientific avenue, have married and are both studying for their PhDs. It could happen.

Recently someone she worked with a couple of years ago and he met a couple of times wrote a blog post which featured the names of both people in this couple - ironically the blog author hides behind anonymity.  The author of said blog post complained about sexual inequality in the world (specifically in science) and used this couple as an example. He will be awarded his PhD in a few months and she will be studying for an extra year. The conclusion our author came to was that he was in fact a sexist pig - oppressing his own wife to be part of the Boys Club and keep girls out of science.

All was quiet someone Googled their son's name and in first spot was this condemnation of seixsm. When he informed his son of the issue the couple agreed, with him due to start job hunting soon especially, they would contact this long forgotten aquaintence and ask that the names be removed. It seemed fairly sensible and rational really - they didn't object to the message of the post simply they felt (as it took an aggressive slant on the issue) they didn't want their friends, family, or potential employers having that as the first result.  It's ORM 101 really.

Instead the original author removed the post. People questioned it etc. and the author defended her actions by basically labelling him anonymously as a sexist pig again. And of course it doesn't stop there. Respected feminist blogger slams scientific community and then the male pigdog censors her? So more feminist bloggers jump on the story. The sins of sexism worsen with every post, comment, and opinion.

So today I have to watch a couple I know "outing" themselves to defend their reputations (for although not named they could be fairly easily identified anyway). She is hurt at the portrayal of her as weak-willed and abused by those she loves. He is insulted at the insinuations, the mis-quoting of his words, and the potential damage to his reputation. Thankfully both are intelligent and honest individuals so their words carry some meaning. Their reputation is, for now, safe enough that they can defend themselves against these stories. If anything the original author's reputation is taking a hit as they've reported a number of inaccuracies in the original story.

And this is my problem with so many people with agendas. I have no doubt sexism exists in the scientific field, just as many other forms of bigotry exist in many other areas of the world too. Of course they aren't acceptable, and we shouldn't turn a blind eye to them, but! I get very tired of so many people with agendas happy to tar everyone with the same brush as they fight against stereotyping. I feel sorry for the ironic liberals who think anyone with any view slightly to the right of theirs is a lower form of human being. I'm just bored with people who are unable to form coherent arguments and therefore just bring the debate down to a level they can "win" at.

What is achieved by tearing apart the reputations of a happily married couple? The evidence of sexism is feeble at best. The couple look at their situation and find logical and socially acceptable reasons for their differing status within the field. We just have yet another keyboard warrior pigeonholing the world in a way which fits their own views and agenda and don't worry about about stereotyping a few innocent bystanders into submission. How do so many opponents of bigotry manage to be bigger bigots than those they oppose?

With Google now showing "trends" for RSS feeds (which is a silly name since it's stats not trends) I discovered just how long it's been since I blogged here.  Which is a shame since I actually quite like Vox.  I mean, I'm not saying there aren't ways it could be improved, but in general it's fairly pleasant here.  So I intend to spend more time here, whether it'll happen or not we'll have to see, but like a pair of bad socks from a long lost relative at Christmas, it's the thought that counts.  So apologises for being absent and hope to see y'all around more in the future.

(See, just a quickie to break the ice and get back in the saddle.  Plus, if it's not too long I can only mix so many metaphors.)

What's your middle name?  Is there a story or history behind it?

Peter.  No idea how I got it but I believe it's one of them Bible names so probably a bit of history.

What song or lyrics are stuck in your head at the moment?  What album is it from?
Submitted by Lox Ly. 

The song in my head most at the moment is "How Come" sung by Embrace - it's a cover they did on Radio 1's Live Lounge, the original is by D12 I believe, although it's possibly one of Eminem's singles instead.

Embrace do a wonderfully haunting version - it's a classic.

What's your favorite way to keep in touch? Phone, snail mail, email, text message, Vox, _____ ?

Phone = Demanding and instant.  Plus I'm fairly quiet and can get quite a croaky voice on the phone

Snail Mail = Quite enjoyable really.  I enjoy getting nice mail to break up the bills and other official stuff.

Email = Generally a good idea, probably the most efficient way of contacting me really.  Not many of my mail accounts go more than a day without checking.

Text = Look, I broke text messaging.  I don't know how but my phone is stuck in some weird mode which works great if I want to send template text messages but I don't speak like that so I just come across as drunk.  The concept has grown on me, I must admit, but I like a proper keyboard.

Vox = Erm, don't tell anyone but not a great way of getting a message to me.  A comment somewhere so I get an email would work but then you could just send me an email and save me getting creeped out by random mis-placed comments cluttering up the place.  But as a broadcast medium it's pretty effective.

____ = Hmm, knocking at the door works.  IMs get my attention but I'm not a fan of time wasting on them - I'm too polite to tell people I'm trying to work when they want to send a message every 3 minutes asking what the weather's like.  IRC can be a bit hit and miss since I've got out of the habit of getting online anywhere; if I am online it's usually #afp+ and #bsd on lspace, #achievo on Krey and I've even been on #multipack on freenode a couple of times.

I vote for email usually though.

Who's your favorite movie villain?

For outright villainy Jack Nicholson's The Joker is probably top of the pile.  He just brings such a spectacular insanity to the role.

However in the geekiest cliché I can manage I think my real favourite is Darth Vader.  That menacing black costume, the presence, the (ab)use of The Force, the fact that deep down we all knew he had a heart and James Earl Jones giving a wonderful perfomance all combine to make him likeable enough to be a favourite.

Capture a new angle on something you see every day.

Over there

2 comments

Thought I'd try photos in posts with the scavenger hunt today.

This is the corner of the bathroom. My head would normally be in the top-right corner looking at the ceiling along the bottom of the image. Simple really.

Are there any snacks, food or candy that are no longer made that you desperately miss?

It's hard to know what things aren't being made and what stuff just gets pushed out of your vision really.  Probably the item from my childhood I suspect isn't made but I loved were those packs of Fish & Chips.  Little crackers shaped like fishes and chips with a liberal dosing of salt and vinegar - the packet even had fake newspaper print on it.

I'd probably enjoy nibbling on those still actually - most of those crackers seem to only come in cheese if they have any flavouring at all.  Else they're coated in seeds.  Sometimes a little change is nice.

So, this is Vox huh?

Well, seems reasonable enough for now.  A few niggles but I think I can adapt, and the other things bugging me are hopefully just pre-release bugs. I think Murky's got a pretty good overview of the place really but I'll add some of my discoveries.

Being a freak with an odd browser I'm getting a few rendering bugs. The sad part about that is this browser actually has pretty good standards support so I can only assume it's all the hacks and fixes to make it look pretty in the stuff people actually use without worrying about those of use who have working software.

Apparently you can type too quickly into the input boxes - I managed two titles to this post "Hello W" and "orld".  Yes, we know you're all smart enough to put my cursor in the top box once everything on the page has loaded but you need to do it sooner. As it is I get bored waiting for the whole compose box to render and I start my title, then halfway through you decide I'm ready to start writing my title and you let me overwrite everything I've put in. Just put the focus code before the compose interface!  If that doesn't suit you at least include a little check to make sure the title is still the default text before you start messing with that box - it's easy, trust me, I've done it.

I'm not sure if I managed to change the options. Twice I tried setting the default for my entries to allow friends and family to add tags but each time it looks like it was reset to only allow me to set tags.  Shame, I think friends and family can do a better job at tagging since they have a different angle.

Then again, some of the options are a little weird. I think I've found my way around a lot of them but there still seems to be a couple I can't find yet.

I would also quite like to be able to edit this post as actual HTML if I wanted.  It's a nice feature for those of us who know it - partly because these WYSIWYG boxes always look strange to me.

I don't wish to sound negative though. The Flickr-esque interface is quite nice in general, I think Murky got it right when he said this had a slightly more grown-up feel to it.  Maybe not middle-aged but certainly late 20s early 30s.