Sara J Chipps

In which I answer all of the questions

This blog post has been in the corners of my mind and nipping at my ankles for a while. 

Please don't linkbait this, or pick comment fights. This isn't for upvotes, or HN fame. 

Many people I meet ask me a varient on this question "I understand we want more women in technology, but why?" It's a great question, and not at all something we should be offended by. Often men are afraid to ask questions like this for fear there will be backlash, I think that fear can lead to stiffling of an important conversation.

Frankly, the internet is thriving without women building it, why should that change? 

I put together the following answer for a Quora thread, I thought it would be also advantageous to put it here, so I (and maybe you) can reference it in the future. 

I think the reason why we need more women building technology is threefold, I will outline below. 

You will notice I stay away from generalizations like "women are better at xyz," because such generalizations imply that we therefore must be worse at other things that men may be able to do better. I don't think approching the argument that way is productive. 

Diversity leads to better products and results

As illustrated in the Cornell study included below and many more to be found online, diversity improves performance, morale, and end product. More women engineers means building a better internet, and improving software that can service society as a whole. Building a better internet is why I started doing software development in the first place, I think we can all agree this is of utmost importance.

(source: http://web.mit.edu/cortiz/www/Diversity/PDFs/Jehn%20et%20al%201999.pdf)

The internet is the largest recording of human history ever built 

Right now the architecture for that platform is being built disproportionally by white and asian males. You've heard the phrase "he who writes history makes history"? We don't yet know how this will affect future generations. 

How can architecture be decidedly male? I like to refer to the anecdotal story of the Apple Store glass stairs. While visually appealing one unforeseen consequence to their design was the large groups of strange men that spend hours each day sitting under them looking up. As a women, the first time I saw them I thought "thank god I'm not wearing a skirt today." Such considerations were not taken in designing these stairs, I think it's probable, if not easily predictable, that in a few years we will see such holes in the design of the web. 

Women in 10 years need to be able to provide for themselves, and their families

Now, this reason is purely selfish on the part of women, but we all have mothers, and sisters, so I hope we can relate. 

This year there are 6 million information technology jobs in the US, up from 628,600 in 1987 then 1.34 million in 1997. Right now jobs in technology have half the unemployment rate of the rest of the workforce. There is no sign this will change anytime soon. If growth continues at the current rate, it will not be long until women will not be able to sustain themselves if not involved in a technical field. 

We have to start educating young girls about this now, or they may ultimately become the poorest demographic among us. 

(sources: http://www.gao.gov/corresp/he98159r.pdf, http://media.dice.com/report/july-2012-top-tech-talent-gaps/, http://www.bls.gov/ooh/About/Projections-Overview.htm)

I hope this has been educational for you, if this is something that you have debated. If you have any thoughts please share. 

Teaching a Man to Fish With a Computer

Last week I had the privilege of traveling to the Dominican Republic with the organization Handfuls

 of Hope. We went down to bring food, clothing, and care to some of the poorest villages about an 

hour outside of Santo Domingo. We also built a roof, and did a lot of painting (photo above is me 

after a full day's work painting).

 

The trip was an amazing experience, it was incredibly humbling how helpful and happy the 

children were at the village. We think that all our stuff provides us with happiness, but in reality it 

provides us with stress and obligation. After months planted behind my machine it was lovely to

 be able to spend my days working outside. I even did construction and help put a roof on one of 

the buildings in the village. 

The folks there live without running water, mostly (a few homes had it). They only have electricity 

for a few hours a day. I was spending some time chatting while painting a fence, and I learned 

from one of the women that put the trip together that in the school (a small school with several 

classrooms holding 10 or so students) there was a computers class that was held weekly. 

Excited, I asked if I could see it. So, I stopped by and saw 10 adults in a classroom with 1 

computer that a teacher was working with. There was a larger monitor they were all watching on 

and learning from. From what I could see, a specific program was being taught on a Windows box,

 it could have been anything, I didn't get to ask. I got to say "Hello," the experience was wonderful

 and it was great to see that even in this place, where many people don't own much more than

 their clothes, and this is their Wikipedia:

and they were being taught how to use a computer. 

All that got me thinking, what is the most important thing to teach to adults who are seeing a 

computer for the first time? What is the fastest way to get them from illiterate to a place where 

they can be making money from the web like the rest of us? 

The internet is a perfect environment for them to thrive. The decentralization of 

commerce means that you don't have to own a storefront on Park Ave to make serious cash, or 

ideally, feed your family. There are many organizations that take homemade crafts from third world

 areas and put them online, however, what about empowering the people to do this themselves? 

I immediately did what I do and broke things down into steps. Step one: find the tools to supply

them.  The first place I looked to send help to this class was One Laptop Per Child to see if I 

could buy some laptops and send them, from their site it appears you can only donate laptops to

the areas they designate (that makes perfect sense for their organization, just doing some 

research). I could buy some netbooks and send them, but would need to come up with a strategy 

to make them provide value, especially with no clear way to get them online. As much fun as 

MS Word and Solitaire are, what could you show them that would turn them into tools that could 

help feed a village?

That brings us to the second step, and that's teaching folks how to fish. The Kahn Academy has 

an offline version of their site (I bet for this very reason), so that's a great place to start. Giving

them the ability to teach themselves the higher maths and sciences is key. In this village, it's 

extremely rare to have anything higher than a middle school education as going to HS costs 

money that they don't have. There is a lot that has to happen after that, and that's where I am lost.

 

Computing played a big role in my trip in general. Below I'm going to post some pictures of the kids

 I hung out with there (taken with my iPad). I was able to communicate with them through this 

offline app from Lonely Planet (and broken HS spanish). They loved my iPad, we played a lot of

Checkers and other games. It was a real study in how technology brings the world together.

 

In the end Girl Develop It donated money to their class to buy tools for the short term. I hope to

 go back next year to teach and by then I'd like to have a helpful strategy, I'm going to continue 

doing research on my end, but if anyone has seen anything like this out there it would be greatly 

appreciated. 

Teaching a Man to Fish With a Computer

Last week I had the privilege of traveling to the Dominican Republic with the organization Handfuls

 of Hope. We went down to bring food, clothing, and care to some of the poorest villages about an 

hour outside of Santo Domingo. We also built a roof, and did a lot of painting (photo above is me 

after a full day's work painting).

 

The trip was an amazing experience, it was incredibly humbling how helpful and happy the 

children were at the village. We think that all our stuff provides us with happiness, but in reality it 

provides us with stress and obligation. After months planted behind my machine it was lovely to

 be able to spend my days working outside. I even did construction and help put a roof on one of 

the buildings in the village. 

The folks there live without running water, mostly (a few homes had it). They only have electricity 

for a few hours a day. I was spending some time chatting while painting this fence, and I learned from one of the 

women that put the trip together that in the school (a small school with several classrooms holding

 10 or so students) there was a computers class that was held weekly. 

Excited, I asked if I could see it. So, I stopped by and saw 10 adults in a classroom with 1 

computer that a teacher was working with. There was a larger monitor they were all watching on 

and learning from. From what I could see, a specific program was being taught on a Windows box,

 it could have been anything, I didn't get to ask. I got to say "Hello," the experience was wonderful

 and it was great to see that even in this place, where many people don't own much more than

 their clothes, and this is their Wikipedia 

 they were being taught how to use a computer. 

All that got me thinking, what is the most important thing to teach to adults who are seeing a 

computer for the first time? What is the fastest way to get them from illiterate to a place where 

they can be making money from the web like the rest of us? 

The internet is a perfect environment for them to thrive. The decentralization of 

commerce means that you don't have to own a storefront on Park Ave to make serious cash, or 

ideally, feed your family. There are many organizations that take homemade crafts from third world

 areas and put them online, however, what about empowering the people to do this themselves? 

I immediately did what I do and broke things down into steps. Step one: find the tools to supply

them.  The first place I looked to send help to this class was One Laptop Per Child to see if I 

could buy some laptops and send them, from their site it appears you can only donate laptops to

the areas they designate (that makes perfect sense for their organization, just doing some 

research). I could buy some netbooks and send them, but would need to come up with a strategy 

to make them provide value, especially with no clear way to get them online. As much fun as 

MS Word and Solitaire are, what could you show them that would turn them into tools that could 

help feed a village?

That brings us to the second step, and that's teaching folks how to fish. The Kahn Academy has 

an offline version of their site (I bet for this very reason), so that's a great place to start. Giving

them the ability to teach themselves the higher maths and sciences is key. In this village, it's 

extremely rare to have anything higher than a middle school education as going to HS costs 

money that they don't have. There is a lot that has to happen after that, and that's where I am lost.

 

Computing played a big role in my trip in general. Below I'm going to post some pictures of the kids

 I hung out with there (taken with my iPad). I was able to communicate with them through this 

offline app from Lonely Planet (and broken HS spanish). They loved my iPad, we played a lot of

Checkers and other games. It was a real study in how technology brings the world together.

 

In the end Girl Develop It donated money to their class to buy tools for the short term. I hope to

 go back next year to teach and by then I'd like to have a helpful strategy, I'm going to continue 

doing research on my end, but if anyone has seen anything like this out there it would be greatly 

appreciated. 

Thank You, Yahoo

 In October of this year Yahoo host Open Hack Day in NYC. It was a cool event, they had great speakers (including a keynote from Clay Shirky); they also provided space, resources, and food to those who wanted to compete in an overnight coding competition. They had workshops, and cool exhibits (like the Makerbot 3d printer using icing). They had amazing food that included a  hot dog stand and Stella (my favorite beer). It was a great experience, I didn't get to catch many of the talks, but I did get to speak to other developers, meet some fine folks, and learn much about Yahoo's dev tools. 

In our welcome pack we got a bag, which included our schedule, a toolkit for "hacking," and a bag of toiletries for those of us that decided to stay the night.  The bag included things like soap, toothbrush, toothpaste, deodorant...etc. It was a great idea, and nice of Yahoo to consider the developer's personal hygiene. 

Thinking I could use the soap or the lotion included I threw my kit in my gym bag. I've taken to working out before heading into the coworking space I work out of some days recently. The week before last I was at my gym, freshly showered and about to put work clothes on when I realized I had forgotten to grab deodorant. I remembered I had that little Hack Day toiletry kit and I remembered the deodorant inside. I have used men's deodorant in a tight spot before, I figured I would just make due. I automatically assumed it would be men's deodorant, I mean, this was a coding competition? 

It wasn't! It was scentless gender neutral deodorant. I know it's dumb, but this surprised me greatly and made me feel included. I know there was some scandal involving the Hack Day in Taiwan and female dancers, however, the Hack Day in New York was a smashing success and whomever planned the goodie bag is awesome. 

So, thanks, Yahoo, for thinking of the ladies as few as we may be. 

The Rotting Stink of Corporate IT

My friend Lisa has a prejudice against those lip glosses that come in a little jar. The kind you dip your finger in and rub on your lips? She calls them little petri dishes, with all the bacteria and germs from your fingers just living in there waiting for their next home.

I see many similarities between lip gloss germ factories and corporate IT. There are good bacteria, and there are bad bacteria, but what they have in common is that they fester. The good developers fester in frustration, the frustration of change request forms. The frustration of knowing the right thing to do, and not being able to do it until four months later when the "budget is there." The bad programmers are festering in sloth, in the fact that their work goes largely unnoticed and as long as their tie matches their shirt we can ignore the fact that their classes go on for days, and their code is illegible, and their methods are bloated. In these environments you are taught that to care is to waste time, and the only thing that is important is that it GETS DONE, not if it is done right. A culture of apathy and wanton disregard for standards is all that is being enforced.

The biggest issue here is not the bad programmers, it's not the suffocated good programmers, as they say "A fish rots from the head." Management is who decides what the priorities are. If the priority is to "get it done so it works for now and ship it out" you will get exactly what you asked for. It starts at the top, when the CTO puts pressure on the IT Directors who put pressure on the Department Managers who in turn flip on their coders and turn the screws that bind them. Some symptoms of this are projects that are constantly coming back for work, deadlines that are constantly pushed, and the blame game from QA to the developers to the testers.

Can a large corporation have a healthy team? Yes. I didn't used to think so, but I have kept my eyes and ears open. I haven't experienced it, but I have met people that have shared their good experiences. The friends I have that are in corporate IT that are also happy have always had one thing in common: small teams. When you break up a big group into small teams, and hold the leaders of those teams personally responsible for the health of the team it succeeds. When you give them the tools they need for success, when you make it about who is contributing the best, when managers take the time to examine who is touching the code and IF what they are doing is the best solution, that's when you can succeed. When you allow for enough time and budget to make sure that things only need to be done once, and changes can be easily made, that's when you can succeed. The Five Dysfunctions book is a great place to start if you are looking to do so. I can imagine it's hard work, but when you look at companies like Microsoft and Google the reward is obviously worth it.

C'mon, You Guys, We Can Do Better Than This

This article is in response to the presentation seen here  which was given at the Golden Gate Ruby Conference a few weeks ago. It has stirred up quite a few reactions, some of which are here and here.

The first thing I thought of was "I totally could imagine being in that audience." I know exactly how it went. The images went up on the screen, and every guy in there looked sideways at the closest girl (maybe three rows over) to see how she was reacting. Every girl in that audience was thinking "Make it look like you don't care, make it look like you aren't feeling weird about this." My insides are cringing.

I've seen the reactions all over web, "we're rockstars," "we're all adults here," "I'm an R rated person, I'm ok with it." Well I'm not going to sit here and say it's "unprofessional," or "sexist," or "perverse." It was all of those things, but that's been said. I'm going to sit here and say "shame on all of you."

I am a feminist. I support a woman's right to do and act the way she chooses to (and accept the consequences when they are due). I think that we should have the same rights engendered to a man, without question. I do not, however, disregard the difference between the sexes. We are women, you are men. That's why I say "shame on you." Shame on each and every one of you men who sat next to a woman and didn't treat her like a lady. Shame on you for letting the women who were brave enough to come to your convention sit there, and experience the discomfort of having borderline pornographic images on the screen that were intended to arouse (admit it, it wasn't there so you could all study the brilliance of the photographer and his use of light) and stimulate the audience sexually enough to keep them interested. What if that were your sister, or your mother sitting in that situation. What would you want the man sitting next to her do? Would you think it's ok if he laughed and thought it was a "great ploy?"

Some may think it ironic that the girl that has "All marriage proposals must be accompanied by last year's W2" on her blog is criticizing others.  I'm not saying it's always inappropriate. Looking at these things in your own homes or as part of your personal recreation is fine. Some women are comfortable around this kind of thing, they let you know by telling you, or joking with you about it. Then it's status quo, and we all can have fun. However, to put a woman you don't know in the situation where she either needs to laugh along or feel like an object is way "Goofus" and not at all "Gallant."

This may make me prude, or old-fashioned, or plain not fun; however, I think we know I'm none of those things. I don't think I'm overreacting either. It is difficult to encourage young girls to get in this field. I get emails all the time. It is scary being "the only girl in your class," and one of three in a room of fifty people. It's scary to ask questions when you're afraid your entire gender will be judged by your grasp of a concept. Asking girls to brave these situations because writing software is fun, and interesting, and exciting is a moot point when faced with these type of stories.

The "deep zoom" Playboy thing at Mixx was a bit tasteless. This situation is just embarrassing. The community really needs to do some introspection if it wants to attract more women to the field. You are saying one thing, and doing another.

PS - I'm only saying this because I freakin love you guys. You have made being a part of this community an awesome time thus far. I only want other girls to have the same experience I have.

Is Microsoft the New IBM?

Remember in, like, 1993 when it was awesome to work for IBM? I remember hearing about their awesome rockstar offices and how many amenities that they had. This guy at my church had just finished Chubb's "Top Gun" program and now was a shoe in at IBM because it was such a great place to work. I heard they had a coffee shop and hair salon INSIDE the building. (hey, it was cool then). I had heard that programmers that worked for big companies like IBM made, like, $200 an hour. It was the place to be.

Then around 2000 I started noticing that only my dad's weird friends worked at IBM. The ones who didn't care that much about where they worked or what they did. The company name wasn't thrown around that much, didn't have the same impact anymore. I no longer had any desire to be a programmer at IBM, it seemed like a bummer.

So, this past weekend the Microsoft in Manhattan hosted Code Camp III. I had a freaking blast, not only did I get to rock my new hightop sneakers but it is so much fun communing with other nerds, isn't it? I don't get to do that too often, my office hasn't had any other developers until recently (our hardcore vegan yoga teaching flash guy), and though I have programmer friends I don't actually SEE them too often. The talks were great, even though I didn't pick up any new tech I wanted to try it's good to see how other people do things sometimes. Gives you a lot of ideas.

One thing struck me as odd, though. So, I expected MS in Manhattan to be posh. However, when I got there they looked like a regular drab office in the city. Now, how "cool" your office looks doesn't make the entire company. However, it does reflect on the management and how much they prioritize their employees. Now, they did have xbox workstations, however, they were the kind you see at Radio Shack. Obviously for visitors and not employees.

Here is a team that knows what they are doing. The fog creek offices are seriously posh. Who WOULDNT die to work there (well, maybe not DIE). Something that Joel knows is that in order to make your staff bust their buns and make your company successful you should show them that they matter to you. Make them love where they are. Even in Joel's blog post about the subject he said it cost a tiny fraction of their revenue. I'm in some pretty sweet digs here (I'll post some pics in the AM, I'm tired). This company understands that in order to attract the talent you need to show them how much they mean to you, we have some serious rockstars under this roof.

Like I said, it's not EVERYTHING. However, if I got a call from Microsoft tomorrow I don't know that I'd be jumping for the phone. That's a very different attitude than the one I used to have. Am I hating on Microsoft? No, I am pretty grateful for this whole "career" thing... but I think that in order to stay current they need to spend a "tiny fraction" of the big bucks they have. Because beleive me,  reputation trickles down. If developers don't want to be there users will find out. No matter who they hire, one thing they know is that developers are the best evangelists they have.

Rating my iPhone Applications (straight up Ebert style)

According to Josh who commented a few posts ago, "developers don't need iPhones, only sheep do." That being said a lot of us have them, the 3G one and the OG (Original Gangster). First of all, quit acting like you are cooler than me because you have the 3G, I am yet to see a compelling reason to switch (except that I may get less attitude from sales people who told me the only skins they have are for the 3G like I was carrying around a VCR). I figured I could rate the apps I have used and maybe you could share some of your own? If you don't have an iPhone make sure to tell us why your phone is cooler, I can be convinced. Here goes:
 

Ok, so I downloaded a twitter client because I didn't really want to get twitter texts. To be honest with you I'm not a huge fan of Twitterific. I swear it kills my battery (a conclusion I came to after gathering much circumstantial evidence). I really fare better by going to twitter on the browser on my phone. The mobile UI that is provided by twitter is much cleaner, and straight forward. I give it 2 out of 5 tweets.

 

 Taptastic is the perfect game to play when you are somewhere and you are uncomfortable and you want to pretend you are doing something important. It's a game that flashes little boxes on the screen and you have to tap them. Get it? Taptastic! I have never gotten past the third level, nor have I wanted to. Altogether a good purposeless app, 7 out of 10 carpel tunnels.

 

 So it could be that my hand eye coordination stinks because, unlike you guys, I haven't been playing first person shooters my whole life. It could be that I have the attention span of a goldfish and I didn't play with it long enough. However, it also could be that  Tap Tap Revenge just stinks. It's supposed to be like guitar hero, but it's not. I get the strings at the right time and it doesn't register and the music isn't melodic enough to get into. I give this app 1 out of 10 pretend instruments.

 

 Spore is the only app I have paid for. It was 7.99 (actually, that's a lie I have paid for 2) and I think it was worth it. I got a real feel of the game (it is like a small portion of the real game – the beginning I gather). I'm currently stuck on level 27 I think, it's a level that you have to push one animal into another round animal to kill it but if you push the animal too much it dies. It's heck-a annoying. I do feel like I got my moneys worth and got at least an hour of entertainment. I give it 4 out of 5 over-hyped PC games.

 

 Ok, so I bought this Absolute Fitness app when I had a large motivation to get fit, it worked well. It's a food diary/calorie counter/weight tracker/workout buddy. The only thing is that it's time consuming, but I think I may start tracking again since it's holiday time. The price is a little steep $14.99, but you get a lot of bang for your buck. Some failings: the food list is incomplete, I would love it if it remembered things you input recently. I give it 3 out of 5 muffin tops.

 

Pandora seriously takes the cake as being the best application you can download on your phone IMO. It has come in handy so many times. At work we have one of those sound systems where you can just plug in your ipod and I put it in there sometimes. I listen to it at the gym when I want a change from my workout songs.... it's great to have assorted music you will like so handy. I give it 9 out of 10 awesomes.

 

These applications are all ones I think are good ideas but have never used:

iTalk looks good because I constantly get mislead by CS people trying to get me off the phone. Then I call back when something doesn't happen, like a refund, or a cancellation, and a different CS agent says there is no way I was told what I was told. This is never fun so I keep meaning to start recording these calls but I forget.

 

 

The Fake Calls thing is exactly as it appears, I haven't had to use my phone to get out of a sticky situation yet.

 

I have used Say Who once, it's a voice dialer, it's pretty good but in order to use it I have to do as much tapping as if I were dialing myself...so eeeeeeeh.

 

So, that's it! Later gators.

O'Reilly Web 2.0 Expo

Today was the O'Reilly Web 2.0 Expo at the Javits Center in Manhattan. Today was "Workshop Day" and that's what I thought looked the most applicable for me, I have a feeling the expo will be filled with things like this so I would be more productive at work. The conference was cool, there were SOME nerds which was awesome. I heart nerds that wear backwards baseball caps and dirty jeans and lean back in their chairs and don't care what you think, because if I was a guy that's how I would be. Plus I would skateboard. Not saying girls can't skateboard, because they totally can, but I digress. I met a few cool nerds, and think I made some friends.

There were also a bunch of people walking around loudly talking on their cell phones saying things like "Really? Did you check to make sure the blog was published? Ok, well then you should definitely twitter about it and post a bulletin. Ok, then check the adsense and call me back." BLECH. I'm SO on Web 5.0 at this point. My Space is SO the AOL of 2002 I'm deleting mine this week I'm almost embarrassed to be there. Twitter : Internet as DVR : Television, it just is. Developers need to come up with some anti-Web 2.0 terminology ASAP.

This morning I went to a talk about "Building Successful Next Generation Web 2.0 Applications," it basically reinforced in my mind that 'm doing the right thing. S3, REST, JSON, CSS, XHTML, AJAX, JQuery... the whole she-bang. It got me feeling pretty confident that I was keeping on top of things, however, I didn't learn much. This afternoon, however, was totally worth it. I went to a talk for Developers (which there were hardly any at all as seen here):

About Advanced Javascript given by this guy (PS, I just noticed, um he only MADE JQuery), is it weird that I decided his talk would be interesting because he had cool glasses? I think he may have skipped fourth period health to give this talk, I can say that because not 3 months ago my orthodontist asked me what grade I was in.... (it's like when you make racial jokes about your own race). Not only was the teaching tool he used awesome (See? You can edit and debug(kinda) and compile) but I learned a lot that I really want to play with. Javascript is like a mountain, once you conquer it you think it's awesome, but if it's in your way you abhor it. People that are good at JS freaking love it, and wouldn't live without it... but getting to that point is rough because of limited debugging resources and other languages that offer more functionality (because regardless of how fast the client is, the server has just so much more info) tend to be distracting.

So I learned about Javascript caching, which is cool. Basically what you have to do is declare a function's cache, like so:

Add.cache = {};

Then set it within a function like this:

                                                                                       
function Add(num){  
if(Add.cache[num] != null)
return Add.cache;
var ber;
ber = num + 1337;
Add.cache[num] = ber;
return ber;
}

then you can call the cache if the variable passed in is the same, through the cache.

assert(Add(3) == 1340, 'YAAAAY');

assert(Add.cache[3] == 1340, 'YerAwesome');

For small functions like this it means nothing... but when you're holding up processes with your insane JS calls this is super handy. I also learned about OO Javascript, and inheritance, and recursion (the only thing I was already aware of) and all sorts of fun things. I will do a more indepth post at a later date.

It never fails, though, at these talks there are always guys that ask questions just to ask them. Kind of like "stump the speaker" where they already know the answer but they are asking to see if HE knows the answer. This would be fine in moderation but when it happens over and over it's a bit annoying.

While I was in the shower the Mets decided to finish their nap, so the game is over. Now it's time for The Shield and 90210 (I don't even want to hear it that show is AWESOME). My card for Thursday this week starts my study on LINQ for filesystem. It looks hella useful and if it is I will make sure to tell you all about it.

ALSO, if anyone else is having trouble with their OpenId on StackOverflow (Technorati) please let me know, I can't log in, I'm experiencing analphylatic shock, I thought if there were a bunch of us we may be able to get the attention of the overseers.

The Politics of a Developer

      I'm not here to tell you who to vote for, however if you're going to vote based on what some girl on the internet tells you you may as well listen to me. Why? Because I'm funny, that's why.

    It can be argued that there isn't much difference between the two parties. This is very true, and I myself don't affiliate myself with either. I do practice my right to vote. For all the things about our government that I disapprove of, the fact that we can vote to elect our officials is pretty cool. My grandmother's generation fought so that I can vote, therefore I take pride in the fact that I can do it.

  I mean, there really isn't a debate about which candidate is more computer savvy. Obama also supports tax breaks for companies that don't outsource. If you're voting as a developer it just isn't feasible to vote for a man who admits never being in front of a computer. However, some of you may be voting with your values, and that I can understand.

  The biggest thing that appeals to me about Obama has nothing to do with his qualifications to be president, though I think it contributes. The thing I adore is his unfailing idealism. I'll say it again unfailing idealism. Some may associate that with naiveté and inexperience, however, I maintain that it is part of the foundation of success. It's not the message of "change" that gets me. The word "Change" along with the phrase "Web 2.0" makes my ears bleed at this point. Its the idea that your dreams are possible, that hope isn't a weakness. Associating our emotions with manifesting our dreams and goals is a message I can stand behind. 

   This attitude is mistaken for weakness too often. I'm sure some of you are shaking your heads and rolling your eyes as I speak (or type). You probably think I am "young" and "just haven't learned what reality is yet"  I maintain that I have accomplished things uncharacteristic for my demographic. Why? Because I know I can.

   There are many discouraging things that come my way on a daily basis. I have failed, others have told me I will fail, and people tell me that I need to get a grip of what I am capable of. People have asked who I think I am, they don't like my attitude, they think I am loud and overly confident. I am tempted to feel sorry for myself, to make excuses on why something can't be attained. I can't afford to listen to any of these things. I can't for an instant take my eyes off my goals. Why? Because that's when I fail.

   There are a lot of mumbo jumbo books out there like "The Secret" that promote this type of thinking. The thing that they lose is it's not some "magical key to unlocking your future" and it's not some great revelation, it's been known for a long time. Thomas Jefferson said "Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude."

   Do I lose sight of this? Often. Not two months ago someone had to remind me to stop questioning myself. I'm knee deep in this project because of it (more like waist deep at this point). But, I digress, Politicians break hearts. This I know. However, the one thing I see in this candidate is the chance that someone may show the next generation something that has been lost in ours, that idealism and belief in ourselves and each other can move mountains.

   Ok, I'll get off my soap box in a hot second. However, I have to say something quick to say about Michelle. She isn't the pretty woman in the nice dress that is standing behind a great man, she's the pretty lady in the nice dress that is standing WITH a great man. When her husband speaks to her I hear something I haven't heard in a politician before, he talks to her like she's a man. By that I mean, that he addresses her as a true equal, and that's something I can admire.

   I guess this comes across as one big endorsement. On a level I suppose it is....I'm not trying to open a debate about platforms and earmarks and inexperience and whatever else is a hot button issue. I understand we all have our beliefs and I'm not challenging yours. I just can't help but admire his unwaivering belief in his own ability to affectively improve our country. That is something I would want exemplified for my (currently non-existing) children.