February 2013
1 post
BraceLand: How I Remember Aaron Swartz →
cbracy:
… his passing has made me think about what it means to actually be who you say you want to be and have your life’s work reflect that. I hope I’ll be a little more honest in my work because of him.
Beautiful articulation of Aaron’s work and what we can all take away from his life’s work.
November 2012
1 post
Developers for Good: Future Software Superheroes -... →
developersforgood:
The hour’s approaching, just give it your best, You’ve got to reach your prime. That’s when you need to put yourself to the test, And show us a passage of time. We’re gonna need a montage
CodeMontage improves your coding skills with real projects that matter. You’ll get real challenges that…
August 2012
1 post
3 tags
That Special Someone (A Mentor / Mentee)
They say when you find the right person you just know.
Why do we embrace this notion for love and friend relationships, but create our most pivotal career relationships from job titles or at best, text-based inventories of skills? Mentoring is about so much more than a discrete transfer of skills - it’s about sharing the real failures and successes we inevitably encounter in our...
July 2012
1 post
Agree the People: Debate Does Not Scale Well →
agreethepeople:
Debate is way too linear, and that problem grows with number of people and issue complexity. For example, 3 people sitting at a table would have no trouble reaching perfect, mutual understanding about whether or not orange is the new pink. On the other hand, 10,000 people in a stadium, even if…
May 2012
1 post
8 tags
Ruby Heroes, Open Source, and Hacking to Prevent...
First and foremost, Congratulations to Yoko Harada, one of this year’s Ruby Heroes! She’s made substantial contributions to the Ruby community, specifically for her work on open source projects JRuby and Nokogiri. Yoko inspired me to share an example of one of many projects that were possible thanks to free and open source software, and specifically Nokogiri.
In July 2011, Girl...
November 2011
1 post
3 tags
Piercing the Tech Networking Bubble with Open...
Last night I watched Soledad O’Brien’s CNN Black in America: The New Promised Land - Silicon Valley special that offered a lesser known perspective on an industry I know well. The special followed black entrepreneurs who participated in the first annual NewMe startup accelerator. After the special aired, I watched Mario Armstrong’s Town Hall and heard plenty of great advice...
August 2011
1 post
8 tags
Data-driven Time Management
Laziness: The quality that makes you go to great effort to reduce overall energy expenditure.
In keeping with Larry Wall’s virtues of a programmer, I seek to be as lazy as possible while still achieving my goals. Working smarter, not harder, is fundamental in every program I write - shouldn’t it be fundamental in how I behave? My deepest fear is working incredibly hard on something...
July 2011
1 post
Tech Thursday: Data Maven Vanessa Hurst
girlswhorockny:
Paperless Post Database Engineer and Girl Develop IT co-founder Vanessa Hurst recently sat down with GIRLS WHO ROCK for our Tech Thursday: Women in Tech Series.
Read More
April 2011
1 post
8 tags
The Zone
Last Friday morning I woke up completely exhausted. Each previous day that week felt as if it shoud have been Friday, but disappointingly turned out to be just some anonymous middle-of-the-week day. I’m sure I don’t need to explain the intense psychological role the day Friday plays in our lives - we have internet sensations for that. But this Friday, instead of strolling into work...
March 2011
2 posts
PG East 2011 & Defense Against the Dark Arts
This week, March 22-25, the PostgreSQL community (with guest appearances by MongoDB advocates & users) came to NYC for PG East 2011. At the beginning of the week I wasn’t sure how to manage my jealousy of those headed to GigaOm’s Structure Big Data (which, by the way, is at the same time and 5x more expensive), but I didn’t think twice about it while meeting and learning...
1 tag
SXSW 2011 Review
This year at South by Southwest Interactive, I
Ate a five-course local dinner one table from Jake Gyllenhaal at delicious WINK restaurant. Despite the sketchy law offices, bail bonds for sale, dark alleys and many cops on our walk to the restaurant, I have no regrets about being a pedestrian anywhere for as long as possible. And JG is way more attractive in person than the movies (even my...
January 2011
3 posts
9 tags
TEDx 636 Eleventh Ave NYC
On December 7, 2010 I had the honor of speaking at a local TEDx event, TEDx 636 Eleventh Ave, organized around the TED Women conference in DC. I spoke briefly about my path to becoming a computer programmer. I wish I’d known earlier what incredible potential for impact careers in technology hold. I hope more women and men, young and old, throw away preconceptions and approach programming...
3 tags
TED Women 2010 Reflection
During the national TED Women conference in December 2010, I was lucky to be in the good company of fellow live speakers and supporters at TEDx 636 Eleventh Ave in NYC. Every speaker makes themselves vulnerable giving a talk like that, particularly with no topic guidance and no particular requirements, and I have so much respect for every one who participated both locally and nationally. Among...
Goodbye 2010
Dear 2010,
You almost got me down with these health problems, but even so
1) Developers for Good has directly connected dozens of programmers with awesome volunteer opportunities in NYC, 2) Hirelite has placed dozens of software engineers with great jobs in NYC through efficient video interviews, 3) Girl Develop It has created a community of over 600 women, including 200+ students, who are...
October 2010
2 posts
5 tags
Why Software Developers Rock (and Could Be Even...
Software developers are awesome. More specifically:
Software developers make significant contributions to the community for free - both free as in beer and free as in speech - which lead to Creative Commons and similar licenses which are growing in popularity across industries. Our forums (e.g. Stack Overflow, Hacker News, and hundreds of technology-specific online user groups) are some of the...
3 tags
Women in Tech: The Opportunity
In the United States, STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) fields are hurting. You know you’ve got a problem when even the government is trying to solve it (as shown by the White House’s Educate to Innovate initiative (Nov. 2009) and private-sector CEO engagement in Change The Equation (Sept. 2010)). Raw data clearly shows that the US awards a significantly smaller...
