Articles I've Read (2014-11-30)

2014-11-30

• The "right" categories depend on what you're using those categories for. In other words, every categorization involves an implicit value judgment of how that categorization fits a particular goal. This explains why tomatoes are botanical fruits but culinary vegetables. And that's okay! Because these are categorizations for different reasons, and neither are objectively wrong; they're just wrong for the other goal.

• We keep track of identity so that we know who to trust: "Evolutionary biologists point out that the ability to keep track of individuals is required for reciprocal altruism and punishment to emerge. If someone breaks the rules, or helps you out of a bind, you need to be able to remember who did this in order return the favour later."

• The gender problem in tech is not because tech is a meritocracy, but because we think tech is a meritocracy but it isn't, and we subconsciously judge women to be less competent than men. Which is the opposite of what this article suggests, that computer science is too focused on the computer itself, and women care more about its applications in other fields. I really want to believe the latter explanation, more because I think applications for other fields are underrated than because it would absolve me of sexism. But I also really dislike the implicit assumption that women are only good at non-technical things.

• It may be true that we need to get women and racial minorities into computer science at the grade school level, but we shouldn't recruit them during college, nor does it mean that we don't have a cultural bias against them anyway. This article also has an excellent example of how tech is not a meritocracy: "PayPal once rejected a candidate who aced all the engineering tests because for fun, the guy said that he liked to play basketball. That single sentence lost him the job."

• If technology is for "labor saving", what does that make educational technology? Whose labor, and what sort of labor, are we saving? Arthur C. Clarke apparently said that "Any teacher who can be replaced by a machine should be." I agree with him, and the solution is clearly to be the kind of teacher who can't be replaced by a machine. One day I should sit down and figure what kind of teacher that is.

• It's not enough to be good, or even enough to be getting better; you need to get better at getting better.

• Being a single woman may cost you a million dollars more than being married.

• The teaser trailer for Star Wars VII is out, and all I'm trying to understand is what functional requirement a laser cross-guard satisfies. Who made this thing? Have they ever taken an engineering design course?

• Norway is switching to pixelated currency and low-poly passports.