Am I dumb? Or can we at least guess when a quantum cryptographic message is read?

Quantum cryptography is based on the fact that measures will destroy what it observes.

In quantum cryptography you normally intricate to states A & B and transmit them over an unsecured layer, but any attempt at measuring the message will destroy the intrication/entanglement.

However, the problem is what if I can :

1. I can store a message;
2. I can know when the initial entanglement disappears; 

Then I can know exactly when the person deciphered the messages.

I don't know if it would be useful to an attacker, and I don't even know I my vague souvenir of quantum mechanics are solid enough to be certain of what I suggest.

Here are the experiments that make me wonder:

Storing quantum states without decoherence (losing information)

Here is a way to do it. Anyway, if we want to do usable quantum cryptography, we will have either to store the message or better repeat or regenerate it without measuring it which will be fun because I think the weakness in quantum cryptography will lie there.

Knowing if states are intricated without destroying the intrication

I remember that the initial experiment of Cohen Tannoudji on light decoherence was made using a non destructive way of measuring the number of photon using Ramsay interferometer : you send cold atom in a cavity containing light, and you make them interfere with other atoms using an other path (of same length) in a dual slit kind of montage. At the end, if level of energy varies, your interferometry changes without destroying anything.
Ramsay interferometer not destroying quantum states

Weak points in my theory

Did I understand correctly all the implications of the measures ?

Can we generate another system with a new entanglement C without destroying the initial entanglement, and do we keep the primary information ?
 

Ridiculing myself and dreaming at the same time :) 

The other point is quantum mechanics is hardly fit for common world intuition. I guess I may have missed quite a few point and that teams are already working on the topic :
it may be one of the point of quantum teleportation. The fun there is we would have to transport anyway quantum states at a speed lesser than light.  Since the source of information will weight quite a lot, it will probably use normal channels (air carrier, boats, human beings), making us going back to pre XXth century spy problematics.

But once both system are safely exchanged, if you synchronize measure on a series of entangled particles on both sides, you have a faster than light one way of exchanging information. Yes, it looks like an ansible.

And no, don't dream : nothing related to energy travels at a speed faster than the speed of light but phase can. That is causality.

Solution pourries du «monde» au problème PISA: la science française à faible bande passante et les méfaits d'Aristote.

La science est l'analyse de problèmes simples en interaction les uns avec les autres. Parfois ce qui importe n'est pas de trouver le résultat parfait, mais un bon résultat vite, car l'explosion des relations entre problèmes est souvent combinatoire. Pour ce faire la science doit à être à bande passante élevée.


Ce que j'ai toujours reproché à notre enseignement français est de baisser la bande passante en faisant appel à Aristote.

Aristote est à l'origine d'une régression scientifique en imposant deux choses à une communication scientifique :

• la réponse doit respecter l'harmonie (elle impose donc la forme de la réponse sous la forme de solution linéaires);
• la réponse doit respecter un canon de beauté dans sa communication, un formalisme parfait (qui s'inscrit dans un cadre pré-défini et formaté). 

Les avantages de la pensée aristotélicienne sont simples : le formalisme ne comporte pas d’ambiguïté, et on peut toujours comprendre la pensée de l'auteur, et on est sensé garantir sa validité formelle de manière objective. 

Le problème avec le fait de suivre la pensée d'Aristote et qu'elle a un coût :

• elle rend difficile de penser la disruption car les solutions nouvelles doivent appartenir à l'espace des solutions formulables actuellement (PI peut valoir 4 donnée une bonne géométrie); 
• elle est précises au prix de la bande passante et de la perte de l'exactitude (on appeler scientifique la recherche de  la précision maximale de PI sur une représentation numérique PI, Pi restera un nombre irrationnel en géométrie euclidienne);
• elle confond le fond et le formalisme (elle prend pour scientifique non les gens capables de faire des précisions basés sur des observations mais ceux qui maîtrisent le langage scientifique);
• elle rend dure l'étude des phénomènes non linéaires. 

Pour résumer, la science française préfère favoriser la communication verbale et le conservatisme sur l'intuition et la concision. Et elle a même contaminé le monde entier.

Cette critique est résumée par Feynman dans la notion de «cargo cult science» en réaction au programme enseigné aux US. Programme lui même inspiré des mathématiques fondamentales française eux mêmes ingéniés par Bourbaki. Un groupe de mathématiciens français réactionnaires (quand on s'appelle l'élite on est en général un tantinet du coté des réacs) au plus haut point qui ont pas aimé qu'un géomètre avec une intuition forte et un formalisme qui lui était propre tira la couverture à lui au début du XXé siècle.

Les maths modernes, base de la façon moderne de s'exprimer en science, oblige de formaliser rigoureusement avec un langage défini. Elles avaient pour but d'éliminer les dangereux intuitifs, ceux usant de la géométrie. Des gens comme Mandelbrot quoi que prétendent faussement les biographies françaises ont fui les enseignements français (prétendu) d'excellence à cause de ça.

 
Normalement vous voyez pas ce que je veux dire, donc je vais illustrer ceci par un exemple pratique les solutions données par le monde au question du PISA qui aurait du mesurer notre niveau en science. Tentons les réponses à fortes passantes.

Regardez comment ces réponses sont compliquées au problème de PISA en math

Cheating like a boss

La science c'est art de résoudre une équation sans la poser.
    -- Feynman

Bon ben commençons par lire les questions et regardons si on peut cheater.

Questions 1 :
On injecte rapidement 16 - 12 on voit que ça fait 4 la racine carrée est triviale. On note.

Question 2:
Triviale.

Question 3:
Triviale

Question 4:
Reconnaissance de forme, trivial.

Question 5:
On voit des ans des jours, mais on reconnait dans 680 jours presque 2 x 365 soit deux ans. On voit que le problème est une question d'ordre de grandeur. Et on se dit en regardant toutes les questions que le but n'est pas de tester la capacité à formaliser mais à trouver des réponses simple rapidement. (/me parie que PISA est basé sur la rapidité de résolution pour départager les meilleurs scores).

Les solutions ne nécessitent presque pas la calculatrice ou l'algèbre, elles mesurent la capacité à résoudre rapidement des problèmes. Comme dans la vraie vie quand on fait de l'ingénieurie : notre but est dans un monde où l'on interconnecte beaucoup de choses simples ensembles d'avoir une bonne acuité rapide. La science est un compromis entre précision et vitesse. Ça s'appelle l'exactitude. La science vit très bien avec du gris si on gagne en vitesse.

Quelques exemples de formulation scientifique exacte mais non précises:

• rien ne déplace plus vite que la vitesse de la lumière;
• rien ne se perd, rien ne se crée, tout se transforme;
• l'électricité est un gaz incompressible d'électrons (si on ignore la vorticité/le magnétisme);
• l'entropie de l'univers augmente; 
• la température est toujours supérieurs à 0 car elle sa variation est liée à celle de l'entropie;
• un système non linéaire ne peut pas être prédit avec des équations linéaires (ce que font joyeusement les financiers les banquiers, les managers en entreprise, les économistes et les actuaires)...

Réponses aux question de PISA.

Règle 1: les réponses sont faites pour être calculables de tête.

Question 1 / lichen

Réponse 1

12 - 16 = 4 .. 2² = 4, donc d = 2 x 7 = 14

On vérifie qu'on a pas merdé sur les unités (des années avec des années OK)
On regarde l'unité du résultat et on répond :
1,4 cm car dans la vie de tous les jours ça parle plus les centimètres.

Réponse 2
On voit bien que les gens cherchent l'inverse.
On injecte les chiffres et on bouge les items.

On pose 42 = 7 * quelquechose
on se doutait que c'était fait pour être fait de tête et on est pas surpris d'avoir un nombre divisible par 7 en entrée... Donc confiant on pose:
6 = quelquechose

Or quelquechose est une racine carrée on élève au carré des 2 cotés et on remplace quelquechose par sa vraie valeur.

36 = t - 12

(3 x 12) + 12 = t -12 + 12

t = 4 x 12 =  48
NB utiliser le chemin de calcul mental qui vous sied pour être exact. Moi j'aime bien les multiples de 12.

On regarde les unités, on vérifie et on répond :
48 ans :)

Question 2

Ce que j'aime manger c'est la matière pizza qui est directement liée à sa surface.
Les surfaces quelque soient les géométries augmentent toujours comme le carré des longueurs (une surface s'exprime en mètre au carré). Donc plus vite que la mesure de longueur.

Donc quand prix augmente comme la mesure de distance je vois que ma mesure de miam augmente plus vite que ma mesure de ouch. J'ai donc intérêt à me placer dans les distances les plus grandes pour avoir plus de miam par unité de flouze.

Donc comme je suis scientifique j'achète la pizza la moins chère car 20 wtf me suffisent et que quoi qu'il advienne si tu veux éviter de dépenser trop d'argent tu évites d'acheter des quantités démesurées même si elles sont sur le papier plus avantageuses.

Gâcher c'est mal.

Question 3

Les comparaisons sont toujours affaire de ratio. Une représentation de deux nombres pour comparaison doit toujours montrer la valeur par rapport à 0.

Si on regarde les nombres absolus on voit que la différence est 5, les valeurs absolus autours de 500, on est scienfique et on aime dire que 10% c'est significatif (soit ~= 50). Là on dit que 5 c'est 10 fois trop petit pour être significatif.

Mais bon on dira au rédacteur de la question que l'on peut toujours tricher en changeant les référentiels (par exemple en déplaçant les cambriolages dans d'autres catégories) et qu'il y a effectivement une erreur de présentation des données et de conclusion, mais que cela n'exclut en rien une potentielle manipulation des chiffres. 


Question 4

Des jours, des années? Ça sent le problème de conversion et de règle de 3.
Tentons de bypasser tout ça.

Bon ... tous les résultats sont des multiples de 10, on va modifier les chiffres sans modifier les ordres de grandeurs (on peut faire des erreurs mais cumulativement elles ne doivent pas entraîner l'apparition d'un facteur 10). 


15 ans =~ 100 000 tours  (on maximise un poil)
 
680 jours =~ 2 x 365  = 2 ans (on minimise un poil)

15 ans =~ 2 x 10 ans = 100 000 tours (on maximise un poil)

2 ans =~ 100 000 / 10 tours =~ 10 000 tours

 Est ce que mes approximations me font perdre un facteur me font perdre un facteur 10? Non.

11 000 se rapprochant le plus c'est la bonne réponse. (Un résultat à 10% près ça roxe.)

Question 4:

Réponse 1
Okay, pour poser une question sur une période on doit au moins montrer deux fois la période, sinon comment on peut savoir que ça se répète? 

Donc on sait que c'est pas 12 :)

On prend les durées. Et dans sa tête on vérifie que les propriétés répétés sont les mêmes. On prend arbitrairement 0 - n secondes comme période de test.

Si la période est 0-2 secondes. Comme le signal est tout le temps obscure sur l'intervalle 0, 2 secondes alors ça impliquerait que le phare soit éteint. Ça marche pas.

3 secondes? : de 0 à 3 seconde on est majoritairement obscure, mais de 2 à 5 seconde on voit majoritairement de la lumière. Ça ne se répète pas. Ça sux.

Bon par élimination c'est 5 secondes. :)

Réponse 2

Là on revoit nos amis les multiples, et on sait que la réponse va être simple.

60s = 12 x 5 secondes = 12 périodes.  (je vous l'avais dit que j'aimais la table de 12)

On regarde l'intervalle 0-5 seconde, on compte le nombre de trait de 1 seconde qui correspondent à une illumination et on aboutit à
1 période = 2 secondes de lumière.
12 périodes = 24 secondes de lumières. (Voilà encore une preuve qu'il faut mémoriser la table de 12 :) pour aller plus vite (cache L1 pour le calcul scientifique)

Réponse 3
1) commencez par le principale : la durée de votre période.
Travaillez sur l'intervalle 0-6secondes
 2) la condition s'exprime par 
30 secondes obscures par minute, ce qui fait un phare éteint la moitié du temps. 

3) Ce qui est vrai pour une répétition de signal (6 x 10 = 60) est vrai aussi pour une période donc juste dessiner un phare éteint sur 3 secondes, allumé sur 3 secondes suffit. La manière la plus simple est de faire 3 traîts illuminés et de compléter par de l'obscurité le reste du temps.

Conclusion

L'article du monde montre probablement la voie pour avoir une note moyenne quand on est un polard de prépa. Mais, pour avoir des bonnes notes à ce test je parie que la rapidité importe. Donc, je pense que l'obtention de bonnes notes avec le formalisme proposé est un handicap : il ralentit la bande passante donc de fait la note maximale atteignable.

L'article du monde exprime des solutions exactes, mathématiquement et formellement parfaite. Mais à la mode française elle requiert un formalisme qui exclut de facto la plupart des gens. La réponse est faite pour faire la part belle au formalisme et faire croire que les maths requièrent le formalisme pour fonctionner. C'est faux.

Les maths marchent aussi avec de l'intuition, des ordres de grandeurs, des simplifications et du feeling.

Les maths intuitifs augmentent la capacité de résolution car :

• ils sont correctifs (ils nécessitent de se poser la question de la validation du résultat quand on le modifie en utilisant des ordres de grandeurs); 
• ils nécessitent moins d'équations, et sont plus aptes à être véhiculer par la langue vulgaire (celle du peuple non scientifique);
• ils nécessitent moins de salive donc ça permet de densifier la communication (et donc de résoudre plus de questions);
•  ils sont une gymnastique de l'esprit qui obligent à remettre en question les formalismes canoniques (1 minute ça s'écrit 60 secondes, ou 12 x 5 secondes, toutes ces écritures sont vraies).

Malheureusement à moins que les élèves français soient tous jugé sur PISA, la sélection actuelle ne se fait pas sur la capacité à résoudre des problèmes mais introduisent une difficulté accidentelle (et non structurelle) à comprendre le formalisme dans lequel ils sont posé, et à saisir dans lequel il faut exprimer la solution.

L'enseignement moderne de science est à chier. Les papiers sont chiants à lire et pédants. Ce n'est plus fun.

/me retourne lire les cours de physique de Feynman et les Éléments d'Euclide.

Of the importance of playing bass poorly and a thought on the temptation for elitism

I really do enjoy coding and talk about coding, but on IRC I was sometimes seen as an irascible troll amazed by the lack of experience and knowledge especially where you expect it the less.
I was sometimes quite shocked at poor software solutions given by teachers that were themselves giving advanced python lessons to the elite of the nation.

So sometimes, and even at work I have a temptation for elitism. I think a coding langage is like a natural langage (probably my Perl past) and that there is no excuses for not learning the new idiomatism. Python core team is nice enough to provide the PEP that helps us know how the langage evolves. Thus I often think to myself there are no excuses for coding python in 2013 like one would have coded in 2003. (Imagine a world without array context, generator, with statements....).

But then I go and (try to) play bass.

Lost myself in the difficulty of not being able to have the decent level I wish, I work. But my level improves so slowly each few day I practice (since 4 years). And I don't seem to be any better.
But I love that. Because I want to be a good bass player, maybe, one day. I know I do shit, and sometimes I realize that I can understand the "noobs". In fact, it brings back memories.

I am pretty much considered against my will as a gifted programming expert. It may be true for them, I know how totally wrong this is.

I had my first computer when I was 12. I first played (like a game) with it. Like with my bass I was using it quite scarcely in a serious way. It was not motivation, it was because of discouragement. I liked the computers, but I was discouraged at how slow my progress where. I played with some in memory ASM debuger with my cousin when we were cheating, and this guy was the genius. By watching him I learnt a lot and had fun.

I had a PC in the early 90s, I would copy games and animated GIF's with Pr0n on it on 1.4MB floppies. Nothing serious.

I have learnt linux in 1993 with friends at university. I was just installing linux and compiling kernel cluelessly. Let's say I was not a genius. We had our first C lessons and I was not really good. I learnt C, fortran, sh, matlab, VHDL.

Truth is : I had a computer since I was 12, I was in my 20's and still quite sucking in average but I began to have strikes of inspiration. And that is for this light memories that I held on. Like when I play bass and a good inspiration comes.

99% of the time on my computer was dedicated to inefficient wandering and stupid mistakes due to the arrogance I felt from the 1% remaining times.

Let's wrap it fast. I consider beginning to really code in 2001/2003. I was in my late 20's and still fighting my way. When I look back at my code: it suxed.

I began being serious 2 years ago and now more often then never the code I write is exactly the code I wish to write, I can foresee the path for delivering  a result that will match 90% of the specifications. And sometimes people oppose my views on software engineering based on obvious faulty conception, and when I read their code I recognize you know what?

A naïve mistake I myself did most of the time. And since learning is better achieved by failing and that they did not failed yet, thus we could get quite an argument. At the end I often wished that such under-skilled developers were out of my way and wondering how they couldn't understand the mistakes, since I overcame it.

But you know what?

I am the same as them: when I look my older code, even sometimes from the last week I also see mistakes in my code and I am pissed at still being that bad at coding and still having misconceptions.

And then I play bass. And I reach enlightenment:  what matters is to «play», that is the root of improvement. It is all about having an earnest incentive for improvement: it is only about having fun.

I never was gifted or good in software development, I just worked, failed, worked, and sometimes improved. And since I still do improve I am just still a noob. But a special noob; one that constantly improves.

I now dream of another form of elitism where we would select a team not only with the goal of shipping stuff, but also on the goal of maximising the fun of everybody. Happy people improve faster.

(Brain is very good at delivering high quality natural drugs in your brains when you are happy, call it Dr FeelGood).

Now, maybe because Quebec is making me write weird things I intend to remember that coding should be considered fun, and help people having fun when coding. And since trolling is part of the fun I still intend to troll the other coders :)

PS: I do insist I think people being are too suspiciously nice and happy in Montréal. They might put prozzac in the tap water and it is getting to me.

Is Tech Industry sexist? Who cares free software is the solution.

Hacker news has a low frequency persistent signal these last months :
https://www.google.com/search?client=ubuntu&channel=fs&q=hackernews+sexism&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8

IT is said to be sexist. News divide in 2 categories: stupid stuffs made by companies clearly sexists, and mainly my preferred kind of articles: the testimony of women saying how mistreated they are.

It is a person saying «I am being bullied because I am a woman» based on a lot of real life example and the conclusion of this is Tech Industry is sexist.

Well according to Dialektik: Die Kunst, Recht zu Behalten(Schopenhauer) these articles may deserve a sarcastic answer: they defeat all the necessary ingredients needed to an argumentation :

• generalizing the case experienced by one person in one place to the whole community (both for men and women);
• appeal to sentiment (I have been hurt bouhou bouhou);  
• it does not expose any causation or any mechanism which could explain, and could help us fix the problem; 
• it resort to guilt to make a point and I hate manipulation. 

So here is my answer to these testimony of sexism in IT: I am going to tell a story equally based on real events and voluntarily biased telling how women get what they deserve, that is explicitly a troll 

I will then do an über troll by argumenting the right way: the thesis will be a logical mechanical causation in the way women are treated by the IT community: some are not discriminated positively and they hate that.

Then I will try to be more constructive for women wishing to integrate the open source community and prove free software has perhaps a lesser sex ratio, but that it is a radically non discriminative community were women will find less discrimination than anywhere else.

TROLL: Women get what they deserve

This story is based on true facts. However it is misleading. It is just an illustration of the bias of the reasoning through testimony. (It is an exercise of style)

My life: women are taking a part in bullying the nerds/geeks during school time, I understand how the weakests may think now is payback time.

So, I have been an average nerd/geek interested early in computers even if I was not very productive or gifted (games, and stuff), and literature, and learning everything.

People used to wait for me in my 11-15 years at the end or beginning of school to beat the pulp out of me because I was standing out learning and having good marks (without working too much). In fact I found learning fun.

Since I was a smart coward and a fast runner I got cornered only once in hundredth of attempts at beating me. Being beaten is not that terrible, but I hated giving an easy mathematical win to people I did not liked so I tried not to please them by giving their victory. I was too much an «intello» for them. I was not quite interested in women right at that time, so it is just to draw a global picture.  I was different, I was interested in learning, I chose to specialize in science because I was good in literature, bad in science, and bored.

Girls saw me being chased but never thought they were any prejudice: either I got what I deserved for standing out or it was not their problem. If you were not helping people like me why should I help you now I could say? Solidarity is something I did not experienced. I was all by myself outnumbered and I had to fight back in a disgraceful way (running like a coward).

In high school I was in scientific section. We were already experiencing a sex ratio of 1/6. Our section were lacking glitter for girls so we were quite not the popular boys. Science was the choice of the losers; all cool jobs were supposed to be achieved with a degree in economic or literature or else. My skills at counterfeiting papers for justifying school leave were appreciated so I had no prejudice then.

Then came university and the troubles.

Well I don't know why girls always asked us what we were studying every time we were partying and then stopped talking to us. Another friend smarter than me suggested we were being ignored because of our field of study. I did not believed him. So one night at ESSEC (famous for his MBA) instead of saying I was studying science I said I was studying finance, and got my first success at kissing a girl in a party. As an experimenter, I dared reproduce the experiment in various places times and social communities. My sexyness would always be positive when I was lying. Disturbing no?

I also co-founded an association for sharing reproductions of our lessons. We had to interact with BDE (people organizing parties) and unions. And we were considered non relevant for any topic even after one year of existence. We had the most people in our association, the most actual results, and since we were selling books at a discarded price we also had the most money. I once confronted a girl on the topic of the scientific education having a negative effect on dating. She who was feminist  -and who wished to become a journalist-  told me: why would I talk to you? When we will work you'll be just a bum under my orders! You will have no social status. I wish it was an exception at least she was frank. Could some who experienced the same be resentful? I think so. It was vexing.  How can someone who feel discriminated discriminate me? She should have sympathize, no?

We had quite a few fights with the unions (with a better sex ratio) that were behaving like we were neglectable quantity in the university, and by outsmarting them we proudly stand up and won decisive battle. I love to fight back because it is fun,  at the point we also acted as an union for the scientific and won the elections in the science department presenting scientific student where the union would present only «able» student (from economic or literature sections).

The pattern of being rejected socially because of my guilty liking for science and computer repeated itself more than often, and being turned down by women in an insulting way when I said I was in this field always happened when I was a student. Some have learned very efficiently by first hand how to reject people. Maybe we/I reproduce the same schema I have experienced? I don't know. But, women rejection came first.

So stop trying to make us guilty of something we are not responsible of. Women chose not to be with the geeks/nerds in highschool because we were studying science. Now that the job pays after hard work in schools, after we have been outcasts by you or our problems ignored for years, we are now a place where you should be welcomed? The truth is you are: just follow the rules. Work consistently and learn to focus on the product not the people.     
 Here comes the conclusion of the troll made to appear cool in order not to alienate to much people. 
Truth be told I think it is stupid to resent women as a group for older wounds of some stupid girls, but I do empathise with those who were not that lucky.

END OF TROLL1 : Why is it a troll?

Well, I was happily dating girls I loved and keep found memories of them. Most  of them were not scientific and they never cared for what I was studying. Yes I was bullied and it was truly painful but I learnt how to fight my way and it is a good and funny experience that I enjoyed. I bullied a little myself (shame on me and I regret it).  My university association had a she president mostly because it would help having an entry to the vast majority of the male professor's office and also because we all wanted it this way. The women in our association were bringing a very welcomed balanced with our testosterone with their softer ways ... and we made a great team.

All of that really happened but these are selected episodes, and I could have less selectively told you the truth: these bullshits about being scientific were also equally told by men. And these people even if they were vexing were a painful minority. I could also tell the truth the vast majority of women were normal and I was a bit provocative.

This is a fallacy by selective memory... Okay, I have dated girl easily when I was lying on the fact I was in university in a suburbs and scientific or when I finally had a job considered better paid than average.

But it is an hasty generalisation, and does not explain any causation.

Plus it may had nothing to do with women, but with how I behaved or what I am.

ÜBER TROLL: Pseudo scientific explanation.

This troll has the merit to propose an easy enough causal  mechanism to provide a basis for finding a solution. I don't know if it is a troll, but I am sure that is the wrong way to solve «the sexism problem in the IT».

An educational problem before the IT

Before being an IT guy, most people with a position in the IT were in a scientific related formation. The sex ratio is already negative at this point so the problem lies upstream.

First let's state a few (controversial) premisce

Is IT/science a magnet for socially inept males (that deserve to be rejected/bullied) more sexists than average or maybe behaving awkwardly with women?  

According to meriam webster a Geek noun \ˈgēk\ is a person often of an intellectual bent who is disliked

Is their a «social» or «epidemic» reason that makes people with intellectual bent attracted people to the IT and make them socially inept (especially with women) and (also) disliked? Or is their a social explanation for disliking scientific people?

If it is the intellectualism that is disliked why artists or economists are not disliked? It means it has something to do with the field of interest. So is science socially hated recently, and why would women would be more receptive to the social signal than men?

If we search in the «social direction» I dare remind that French women had the right to vote (75 years after the women in Turkey a non religious country by law of islamic culture) after WWII because De Gaulle after some survey found women were more prone to vote for conservative parties thus helping him to win the elections against communists. So, science being related to disruption (progress) there might be an hint there is a cultural bias in women education against change. Or in the society...

But, I will discard this because I have no hard fact that would help explain how it would work. 


So let's work on the «epidemic» reason.

Is there something in Information Technology that would attract male under performing in social skills that could impact women? 

• First it has to be something genetic related to the Y chromosome to explain the sex ratio. 
• then, we notice that the more a field in the IT is technical the fewer the women (corporate consulting companies have a better sex ratio then python community which has a better ratio than debian maintainers);
• then it has to be brain related;
• then it has to explain a difference in men/women behaviour;
• then is has to explain the difficulty in socializing.

You know what? I have a candidate: Asperger and high functional form of autisms.

• Asperger and autism explains the sex ratio (1:9) ;
• Asperger and autism explains the attraction for science
• and it explains the social awkwardness and bullying is actually a side effect of this;
• since kids of older parents are more likely autistic and that older parents also means higher education it could also explain socially the success in science;
• Asperger also comes with an under performance in social skills;
• that results in non discrimination.   

BINGO It respects the Curie principle: I find in the cause I suspect the roots of the effects described in the geek/IT particularism.

Ho! By the way there is a strong suspicion there are more Asperger in the IT than in other fields of competence. Zuckerberg, Bill Gates and others are strong candidates.

Hans Asperger, the Austrian psychiatrist who first identified the condition, once wrote it seems that for success in science and art, a dash of autism is essential.

How Asperger impact men-women relationship? Are Asperger more sexists than average?

Nop. They just are insensitive to non verbal communication. One of their trait is to be less prone to discrimination than others, to be tough in their communication, critical, and very unable to behave correctly in a social environment. Yes Asperger are usually more free than the average of discriminative bias towards the other. The good news is that Asperger won't treat women any differently than other people. The bad news is that you'll be treated equally if you are a women. If a women are used to a positive bias in their social interaction, they might consider the absence of the bias as a negative discrimination.

So if women  think they have a problem with sexism in IT and my hypothesis of an higher Asperger rate is verified then they may have a problem because they expect a positive discrimination they don't have. 

END OF UBERTROLL: I think this is bullshit.

Because even if there are more Asperger I don't think the vast majority of IT is Asperger, and if my hypothesis was true women would suffer the most discrimination in the less technical field. So it would have nothing with IT tech/Asperger but just regular sexism. And if I am right, women claiming IT is sexists are picking up on people that are actually less discriminating than average ... even positively. So it would be unfair.

I also think this troll is not useful since it does not help. Because helping is not about explaining why software could be sexist or not  it is about helping people integrating the community and feeling better.

The guide to Free Open Source software community for women (and maybe IT)

I cannot speak of IT as a whole, I can speak for a world I know : Free Open source software (FOSS for convenience).

Worst case scenario: you already have experienced FOSS and we are sexists (at least you are sure of it)

In worst case hypothesis even if FOSS is really sexist then it is the right place to go: just grow your own community with the rules you want. You can even fork an existing project (linux, openBSD, openSSL) and do a women only community that can interact (or not) with the other communities.  No one will care as long as you publish something useful. And as any projects you will be mocked, but see it as a jest since every projects are antagonizing a little bit for fun (BSD vs linux, PHP vs Perl vs Python vs Ruby). 

The interest of free software is you can do all by yourself without anyone blocking you because of your sex: our tools (pypi, github, CPAN, forums, mail, irc, internet) are gender agnostic, and good projects have documentations that helps you being autonomous and thus you don't need to ask for help or interact with the sexists community.

And if you exists long enough with consistent results people will respect you even more for proving we were sexists and your views will be accepted. You'll be accepted as a brilliant member of the FOSS not only for standing up rightfully but also for finding a solution and you'll be invited to a lot of conference to expose your views. That's the power of FOSS: if we are defeated in a square and fair fight we will warmly accept and respect you and recognize our wrongs.

The cool stuff about free software is it costs 0. Nothing is needed but the fortitude to build something. No one can actually block you. You are free to become whatever you want with or without the consent of the community. So .. our community is the most radically friendly to women even to those who think we are the most sexist community in the IT.

Integrate FOSS the boring way: respect the rules (which are the same for everyone).

• show me your code: FOSS is not about who you are, it is about what you can do;
• ask question the smart way: because people are here on a benevolent basis, respect them; 
• contribute and have fun : http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html
• on internet no one knows you are a fish. If you fear to be treated differently with a negative sex ratio: cross dress on the internet;
• for 1 line of code in a big community project (like linux) expect to have up to 200 lines of talk of interactions (by mail, IRC ...) so communication matters; 
• in free software people don't matter, only ideas/technics matters even though some benevolent dictator are more fun than others;
• you win an argument by being constructive, fun, witty or pertinent or a genial troll;
• if you think you have a good idea and present it then people will stress it. Not because they dislike you, but to test the strength of the idea. So be prepared to answer an heavy rain of questions some of which might be stupid, tricky or complex in proportion with the awesomeness of your claim; 
• there are also assholes in free software (me for instance because I love the bad guys in the movies): just ignore them (/ignore on IRC, filter rules in your mail client);
• argumentation is not a fight, and if you do think so the discussion might end in a flame war especially if you make it personal;
• when you are wrong don't take it personally, unless the answer is sarcastic and well crafted (which is a sign of respect and of belief in your intelligence);
• not knowing or making mistakes is normal: we don't know everything and we usually create stuff that don't exist yet so you will fail like us sometimes or admit your ignorance (I don't know what I am writing right now -_-');
• you will win respect not by being right forcefully, but in the constance of your good will to help build stuffs;
• not every communities are cool or fits you; don't persevere if you have a bad feeling with a community and leave it: communities are like bars they might harbour some bitter persons with too much time on their hands; 
• learn the workflow of code publication when you enter a community, every one does follow the rules especially the benevolent dictator no exceptions will be made unless your contribution is genial;
• Flame wars and antagonizing are sometimes a game, don't take it seriously;
• trolling is either an art or involuntary (lost in translation or in humour): don't feed the troll;
• you can contribute to more than code (translation, documentation, maintaining an abandoned project, packaging, system administration, web design, graphic design, sound design, bringing your knowledge and views, helping new comers, posting news...); 
• ultimately free software is radically women friendly and non discriminative because you can be the benevolent dictator of your own project!

LinkedIn is flawed for assessing a developer actual skills

Social networks are funny games

I am user of social networks since the beta of orkut the first prototype made by google. I was with fellow free software companions as Sam Hocevar and we have always played social network with the following rules :

- it is fun to have connexions;
- it is fun to play with.

We are instinctively pretty distrusting social networks, thus we were always making fun social groups like eyes with lasers, phô lovers, and stuff like that. If ever you go on linked in, don't hesitate to come in the game and endorse me as either a troll, or any exotic funny skill or expertise that I would be glad to endorse (eyes with lasers for instance).

Distrusting for you means I probably fear that my private data are used ? Well, as a pure hellenist I live according to my moral and value to live in a «glass house». No I just distrust the feedbacks to be genuine. I am who I am, and I voice it gladly.

You can't trust retroaction when they are not gratuitous

Look at linked-in new game: endorsement.

The question is when you endorse people is the endorsement genuine based on professional recognition, or based on your interest that the more you endorse the more you get endorsed?

And by the way did you actually see that person actually doing stuffs right?

Every time I decide to play «endorse people» I have the fear to be misleading, because I actually have not seen the people's real work in depth. In companies, at the opposite of free software your work is protected by the secrecy and the noise of inefficiency that cripples commercial organisation.

And I had a revelation

A fellow free software developers which module I evangelize and use connected to my network. And I discovered I badly wanted to make an endorsement that would stand out as more genuine than the others. So I made a recommendation to Olivier Lausanne based on his module pyQuery that I love. I made sure people could verify it existed, what it is, and what makes this developer special, and that they could check what I say by themselves. And for the first time in my linked in use I was a satisfied user (even though I had to bent its arms so that I could do what I thought fair and genuine).

But, I was pissed off by linked in. First, it was painful to explain how and in which context I used this software. For linked-in it seems we cannot be assessing another peer's work without actually have met him. But I trust more a developer which code I used and never met without the pollution of informal social chit chat. I am more confident to endorse a skill of someone I don't know because I will assess him only on what matters: getting things done the right way. Then I realized Linked-In is missing a massively more important fact than which company did you attend which is : in which you way do you help people and what do you do for the community?

I myself is a proud owner  of a first aid certification (in the context of a company). And I belong to the open source community where I like to help people. I value people volunteering to help the others because in a working context it means a team player someone that can not only produce, but value communication.


Hence I thought: an itch is scratching you then why don't you develop a software to supply these informations that would be on top of linked in helping people belonging to various communities that are actually getting things done (red cross volunteers, benevolent firemen, open source developers and users) endorse each others?

Well, the best solution is sometimes to do nothing

Then I my wits came back: I would distrust this social network. I still had a lot of pleasure giving back my recognition to someone whose work I value, but I value it because I had no selfish interests involved in the process. It came from the bottom of my heart, and I wish no incentive for doing things right.

A social network of recommendations on open source would results in coteries of developer artificially cross recommending themselves to stand out of the crowd (maybe on their  teachers or companies behalf), the same way stackoverflow or HN became crippled by these negative feedback loops of incentive.

 And then I realized I already had this in free software:
- people using my python modules are de facto endorsing my skills;
- people building softwares over my software trust me even more;
- people saying thanks are the endorsements I care about;
- people solving issues I raise value my troubleshooting experience;
- people accepting my patch trust me;
- people reading my doc, value my work.


Why would I need an imperfect version of what I already have?

Can I do something constructive?

I have a trillion ideas :) as usual.

I could write an howto assess a free software contributors that would encompass all the skills (doc writing, social interactions, QA, code, deployment, design...) for instance helping people use the already existing tools (github, bitbucket, free OS/distribution mailing lists, CPAN, pypi, rubygems, read the docs, travis-ci ....).

I could write a gamification tool for developer that would not only grant them achievement for actual code, but also for packaging, documentation, issues solving (both as a coder and a user), successful patch proposition, helping (on stackoverflow for instance) ....

I can actually do nothing because I don't want people doing the right things for an incentive but for the love of doing things right. And I value the benevolent aspect of free software. Still, I realize linked in will remain in my mind just a social game where it is fun to max your connexions, play the endorse game, and bypass the stupid logic of «only companies can be trusted».  Companies lie! Actual software don't.

Conclusion

After numerous interviews, and realizing how linked in is considered a tool of choice by recruiters and Human Resources Department I realized we have a problem software can't fix : recruiting based on recommendation is biased and a software cannot fix broken massive human behaviours. Recruiters are just doing recruiting the wrong way at least in the programming field of competence.

In fact I am liar: my last interviews in Canada were the best I ever had, and actually contradict every aforementioned statements in this post about broken HR process, I am thrilled and impatient to work for my new employer that (like the others) based its interviewed on getting things done and was actually taking my portfolio into account and checking it worked. Since it happened more than once, I endorse the whole Montréal's software industry as doing recruiting right. And as a (probable) result, the «benevolent» developers communities I have met had an outstanding level and were focused on getting things done (and of course while drinking beers :) and having fun). I love Montréal it is a developer's heaven, Tabernacle! And they even value being involved in a community and helping the other.  
  

Boxing will knock down touchscreen based UI

TouchScreen promises on the rise !

Tablet PC, microsoft windows 8, smartphones are all there to make us believe in the future of multitouch device. My geeks friends buy and make huge surface. And I won't follow them.

Soon, some marketing people will think : let's revolution the «User Experience» and make the touchscreen a basic must have input, thus making you buy new hardware.

Let's see what boxing can make us understand about this crap

I actually met  Steve Hérélius and his trainer in Miami, and I love these guys. They have lighten my found memories of when I was boxing myself (I was a very average french boxer though), and they speak so well of boxing, and they are so into it, that it inspired me. 

And you know what, when you have boxed on a ring, you actually know touchscreens can only be used for a very short time. 

I already talked about the «gorilla arm» as stated by Palo Alto Parc while investigating the future of User Interface, and I think nothing disruptive really has emerged since this time. But, stupid people think that old facts cannot be real today. 

However with boxing you can understand, and experiment by yourself why touchscreens will never be an adequate input device for actual human beings.    

Higher your guard ! Higher your guard ! 

You may have heard these words during combat, you may even have wondered why an athlete with arms the size of my thighs have a tendency to let his guard fall.

Well, keeping your guard high is a straining activity. Even if the couple is less than if you have you have arms used like with a multitouch screen, they tend to fall. 

These are well trained athlete, trained for stamina on 12 times 3 minutes and they have difficulties keeping their arms up, and what they do is less straining than using a touch screen.

You may say, tonicity and stamina being antagonists it is a side effect of their training, and maybe average persons are better suited? 

Well, let me propose you an experiment

Do your jogging and run with a guard the same as a boxer. 

Then do your running and every 5 minutes keep your arms stretched out for 5 minutes.

First your arms will fall, and how much you train does not matter, it is strainful. 

Then, you'll notice the couple higher the strains. 

Finally, you'll understand how tough keeping your guard high is.

You think you are smarter cause you «lay you tablet on the table so it hurt less?»

Well, boxing and long term injuries also will tell you something: you are a dumbass. 

Your  cervical vertebra  are strained, resulting in a long term use in neck pain. 

Your head is heavy some kilograms which is proportionally heavier than most animals   you thus induce a strong couple when tilting your head on your spine. 

Conclusion

I am an old geezer, I think old simple truth remains true as long as we cannot prove over-wise, and that touchsreen and tactile surface will never ever more than a gadget since their use can only be casual, and any stupid marketers or geeks pushing a touchscreen based user interface for long term use deserve to be held responsible (and accountable on his money) for the harm that will occurs to the users, since there is no doubt it is one of the most stupid idea in UX these last years.