Neat that you've been to Russia. I have had former Soviet acquaintances tell me that going and waiting in several hours-long lines was social. Women would bring their five children, kids grew up in lines. It kind of reminds me the Gridlock episode of Dr Who, really.

So, help me with corroboration or a contrary assessment: what caused these ridiculous lines? I was told by aforementioned Soviets that it was done to subdue the people.

Thank you for your insight. You command an interesting mind and heart.

What you are describing is a "circle the wagons" move. My guess is that a group returns from the boy's bathroom with a new strategy to present to the larger group. It just materialized into the air, like so much methane and sulphur! I smell something. Fact is, they would do that whether it was the men's room or Instant Messages.

Maybe women will understand why men get unhinged when they see women travel in packs all the time to the ladies' room. I think your narrative would be more upfront if the individuals decided to meet separately and then announce it, but you're describing politics here, not sexism. The men's room may have been a convenient dividing line. If another man was antithetical, it would have been "outside for a smoke" "upstairs to get something from a printer" or related.

The code review story, hey, I've made that mistake but never by gender. The lesson I learned was to just politely ask "excuse me, where are you with your skill level? Oh. It's your code. got it. Pardon me." And on the other side of things, I once had a guy with a PhD in computer science remove some OO code of mine and replace it with three static code branches in the repository.

I guess what I'm saying generally is that sexism is less common. Differences in the way people think is more common, and differences in the way people think because they are different sexes is the stuff in the middle we need to respect as not blatant, just incidental. Room for everyone to understand each other more.

They exist, I've met them, but women who get excited about technology, and women who succeed in technology are an intersecting set, not a full union set. I have a female teammate (from Houston, I might add), who will go on and on about her car. I know a woman who has been in IT who will go on and on about her Mac.

Now, how about the ones who go on and on about their code? Allison in Dayton, Ohio: your IDXML framework was worth bragging about! I've told a lot of people about it, too.

My advice: celebrate the women who succeed in IT/computers. Leave the ones who suck to figure things out for themselves, and tell everyone on the outside of IT/computers to, in this case, read 500+ comments instead of 1 article by sociologists.

Yay! You are like a few of my female associates in the field. Please give strong consideration to speak at grade schools about your career. You are the kind of leader that young women need. I admire your spirit and accomplishments. Please don't ever lose sight of that. I suspect you don't even need the encouragement, but I'm writing it anyway. Feminists are not suffragettes.

And the coward failed to speak to you directly about it, I'm guessing? Typical. Tell your pastor that the person who spoke up needs some spiritual guidance and probably has some unaddressed wounds in their life.

When I've worked with small children in church care programs, I've always insisted on having a female helper. At a minimum, it resolves the "trip to the bathroom" needs, but additionally, it avoids the appearance of impropriety, however insane that may be as a personal accusation.

Hey, you might be in the BSA: any chance there's a Merit Badge in the Girl Scouts for computers?

Except on the few occasions where women have aptitude and interest, but are socially pressured to avoid IT/computers, I would say your attitude is healthy. I really think that's the only problem here: discouraging women who actually might thrive if encouraged.

I genuinely hope you are a man catching these secret meetings in the men's room. The men's room is sacred, and I've found it typically very quiet, except for the occasional biological sounds. It isn't a social place, and the last time I've said anything in a men's room, it's typically been "that faucet's not working" or "occupied." Locker rooms are a bit different, but toilet facilities? Come on. It's not like we have couches in there.

I think what's really happening is conversations get started, like in a hallway. Anything longer than a couple minutes, I swear, if I was in a stall, I'd probably shout "hey, guys, take it outside, please. I'm workin' here." If I ever catch someone on their cell phone having a casual conversation (unless they are trying desperately to have a difficult conversation in private), I will ritually consider making flatulent, throat-clearing, or expectorating noises to communicate their location. At a minimum, I'll give them a puzzled, offended look.

I don't know where you are where a transsexual appearing female is actually attractive. It has been my observation that transsexuals are emotionally troubled, and I'll back that up with the APA's DSM II materials. The APA took it out of DSM III+ only on the protest of the gay rights crowd, not because they were the least bit wrong on the subject. The transsexual was probably overlooked for reasons other than appearing gender.

I'm not without my compassion, but to undergo intense surgery just because you're convinced you should have been born "a man" or "a woman" is not accepting who you are. And, you know what? That translates to poor self-image. I really, genuinely feel for people who are struggling like that. But, denying that there isn't a poor self-image, some level of emotional pain or suffering, that's not compassionate, that's being selectively observant. How you address the issue is another matter entirely. I remember there was some article on Slashdot about being able to locate "closet" homosexuals on social media sites by feeding in data such as who their friends are, to determine probability that they are homosexual. One thing that homosexuals have on heterosexuals is that, on the whole, they have love and compassion figured out, because they need it more, and have built a tight community around it. That did not require a research grant to figure out.

So, on topic, here's my theory: women dislike IT/computer science because it is thankless, grueling, demeaning, and without the right "titan" spirit, emotionally damaging. I'll put forward the argument that emotional balance is harder for a woman because of their hormone dynamics, and they wear thin more easily in this field, and either back out of it completely, become a heartless person (there's an example above with totem poles) and deny their nature, or they work very hard to find an excellent life balance and actually thrive.

Okay, I'm parsing this. You understand the challenges, you don't indicate in your post that you've ever faced them, so that makes you a college student, studying either computer science or information technology/related. You align yourself with the technology culture by saying you are a geek. You like technology, but not enough to face its challenges, so you're going for a "softer" job, which to you is teaching. That means your defeatist spirit will then go on to influence young women in the future to leave it to the men, thereby propagating and multiplying the condition.

If I've gotten any of your background right, I'm going to suggest you not abandon your passion for technology, and just choose something a little less brutal, like technical support. Your hours are fixed, you will face challenges, but they will not drain you because you will have peers to lean upon for input, until you get more proficient. Leave the influence of young, capable female minds to the men and women who are driven. Wok for five or ten years, prove yourself, then look at teaching. I regard teaching young minds as a sacred job, not a bin for half-hearted left-overs from a degree program who wanted a soft place to land.

My apologies to those in technical support who do go all-out. I've met a few of you, but you know you are the exception!

I am sorry for your loss. There are winners and losers in every divorce. Be the winner. Rise above this. Change who you are on the inside. Courts don't take that away, you do. If she never changes and just becomes a soulless shell with nothing but material and ephemeral things, she is the one suffering, not you. All the wealth in the world won't mean a thing to her if she sees you happy with less. It will enrage her. Believe me, buddy, I've seen it happen. I call it poetic justice.

On the subject of women in computers, I've noticed only a few categories:

• Talented, foreign-born women
• untalented American women
• exceptions in either direction

I am always pleased to meet the exceptional, talented American woman. With men, obviously I see talent and mediocrity, regardless of origin. If you are a talented woman, regardless of where you are born, please commit time to volunteer at and American school to speak to promising girls in your local schools. There is obviously a cultural problem at work here. If women want to solve this, they can. I will not get in their way. In fact, I will help, but I can only do so much as a man in this situation.

First, it was a piece of string hanging off the top of the sensors, then it was a stray wisp of puffy cloud. After that, it was a ship that was somewhere around the launch location, although how close, I'll never doubt it was far enough not to get caught up in the blast, perhaps in danger of falling bits if the thing exploded. Presently, more wispy clouds and a failed radar system are plaguing a large but mostly harmless activity.

Personally, I think they should go ahead and launch it. The amount of money wasted in the hundreds of people running amok in Florida is outstanding.

You're justifying buying the Mac when OS X came out, like the rest of us, aren't you? Even Eric Schwartz bought a Mac eventually. We're okay, then, right?

You know, the Amiga community is probably pleased that the announcement page got slashdotted. I really wish that things had worked out differently, that when Escom AG or even Gateway 2000 bought them, they would have committed to the platform. There were some ideas in the later Amiga OS designs which are only just now showing up in Vista. And, if I'm correct, they pulled it off without the same, disgusting overhead of Vista. I think, to honor the dedication of the Amiga community, we should all enjoy a moment of their perspective on things. Let's not forget where a lot of the Amiga community went, shall we? XFree86 seems to have a few high-profile Amiga developers working on it, or did when it was created. My co-workers, there seems to be a distinct lineage of former Amiga users, and if you run into someone who is a good programmer, it's worth the trouble to ask if they used to program on the Amiga. That clapped out old beastie was really fun to program, and I, for one, miss it.

your handle is "Don't make me think." Very apropos. Come on. Do you know how hard it is to get a supercritical reaction? For one, you need a Curie of material. For two, you need a high-energy explosion, usually triggered with a chemical explosive. For three, it has to be shaped/confined right. Paranoia is an irrational fear. What's an ignorant fear called? I am sorry you saw a tragic truck fire. We call those car-becues out here. However, despite your personal experience, compare the simplicity of a burning fuel source with the math, science, and engineering required to make an explosion with a nuclear battery that is little more than a resistor pop. If you are reading Slashdot, then I hope you have the initiative to go read up on the explosive requirements to make a nuclear bomb. Please, I'm begging you to stop running around with your understanding of supercritical reactions to be no more informed than a Hollywood movie.

Actually, the fundamental flaw was the comrade-tards who decided to turn off all the safety systems and use one reactor to power the other's pumps, in an experiment. They tried it before, but the safety systems shut everything down. I think they were running one reactor at about 6%, which apparently is very dangerous. When they disabled their safety systems, then yes, the graphite-tipped control rods combusted with the steam bubble that built up, then they melted and went boom. If they had built a reactor with a positive reactivity coefficient (or was that negative?) that meant reaction speeds went down as heat went up, such as American/French/Canadian designs do, it wouldn't have gone critical. If they had bothered to build what's called a sarcophagus (concrete bunker) around the reactor, then the very small explosion would have not produced a vent of radioactive material. If they had bothered to build an energy-producing reactor, instead of a breeder reactor (Chernobyl was not a power plant, it was a weapons factory), then really, none of this would have been possible. Still, I blame the comrade-tards, and their hatred for the West. This is why Socialism is so bad. It breeds hatred for capitalism and free will, which includes freedom of religion. Please, American Democrats, think about this when you decide whether or not to re-elect a Marxist for a president. Hear the Warning from Soviet Russia! Or, if you prefer, Read it.

What do you mean were? Three Mile Island is running just fine. You can just see it from the airport in Harrisburg, by the way. Puffy, white steam clouds wicking up around the corner of the river, surrounded by green, happy forests... An eagle glides low along the water, snatches a wayward trout from the river, and climbs powerfully upwards. She turns into the thermal column from the reactor, getting a welcome boost to higher altitudes, as she heads further out towards the hills. Off in the distance, cries from her egrets, nestled in their aery, welcome a fresh meal. Atomic reactors are as American as Baseball and Apple Pie. The simple fact that the French and the Canadians and so many other countries have soundly spanked us in our own inventions, means that the environmentalist whackos have perturbed the spirit of this great nation. I say we shave off $100M from the Cash for Klunkers budget, and spend it on these atomic battery researchers. Oh, no, even better. Let's all write letters to our favorite capitalists, and invite them to invest in the research, for the good of mankind, through the ingenuity of our American scientists.

My rhetoric falls apart if this assistant professor Kwon is going back to China in 9 months and taking his research with him.