Gender Gap in Earning

From Men Don't Have it Easy Either:[Emphasis mine]

6. Women earn less for the same work than men.
False: For the same work, women earn, on average, the same. According to the book, Why Men Earn More, based on a decade of analysis of government and other statistics, reasons for the "women earn 80 cents on the dollar" figure include that men more often choose careers that are more dangerous (e.g., police and firefighter), uncomfortable (from sewer repairer to crop duster), isolating and difficult (e.g., engineer and programmer) and work longer hours. The average man who says he works full-time works more than six hours a week longer than the average woman who says she works full-time. In addition, men are more likely to work evenings and weekends. For a promotion, more men are willing to move to places that fewer people desire. An offshore oil rig in Montgomery, Alabama, anyone?
Even comparing salaries in the same career tends to be biased against men. For example the Bureau of Labor Statistics lumps together all medical doctors but men are more likely to pursue higher-stress specializations with unpredictable hours such as surgeon whereas women are more likely to be a lower-stress pediatrician, and thus women physician salaries are lower.
Despite all this, today, unmarried women who have never had a child earn 113% of what men earn. That suggests that for the same nature, quantity, and quality of work, women likely earn more than men, and only when a woman makes the choice to have children and thus, on average, is less focused on her work life, does that woman's overpayment dissipate.
The good news for women is that when they make the same career choices as men, they can earn at least as much.

The article has much more info on how the world is getting difficult for men as opposed to women. A must read. [Via Ben]

Close Friends

From Ben Casnocha's recent blogpost:

I just told a friend I was writing this post. She said, "This is a litmus test I use for how close I am with a friend. If s/he doesn't tell me anything bad about their life, I assume we're not very good friends."

Very true. I have been using the same test for many years. :)

Forecasting Apple vs Microsoft

Paul Graham told in his cult classic Hackers and Painters [2004]:

And it [Apple] hasn’t lost yet. If Apple were to grow the iPod into a cell phone with a web browser, Microsoft would be in big trouble.

Aha!

From http://blog.oddhead.com/2010/07/15/most-prescient-footnote-ever/ via O'rielly radar.

Links

The physical basis for humanity - II: The genesis:

A nice analysis of Eastern vs Western cultures.

If Linux was the most used system in the world…

Most of the Linux is hard statements from people are due to the fact that they are accustomed to the Windows way of doing things. Not because Windows is better designed for usability. A little humorous take on it.
   -Via Kanchilug Newsletter.

Must-do MessagingMenu and MeMenu Tweaks

I've been using Lucid since it arrived on the scene and loved the social integration it provided. But I never had an always-on Internet connection and so didn't bother with tweaking them. Since now I'm always online at office, i tweaked it to my needs:

Adding a Gmail notifier to the MessagingMenu a.k.a. indicator applet:

go to [1] for instructions and package download. I installed the first package which just displays number of messages in selected labels but doesn't clutter the menu with subject lines (it displays subject in the one-time D-bus notification, though). Second one is for people who love clutter. :p

Removing Evolution from MessagingMenu:

Just remove following the file: /usr/share/indicators/messages/applications/evolution [Careful! This removes evolution from the menu for ALL USERS]. There is a way to block it only for you [2], but that doesn't work for me.

Go social from the start:

By default, social apps (Empathy and Gwibber) will start only after manually selecting them from MessagingMenu. Only then status options and textbox appeared in MeMenu. This was annoying for me and I wanted to go social the moment I logged-in.

• Gwibber has a check-box to start on login in its preferences window; solved.
• Empathy is the problem. Open System->Preferences->Startup Applications. The command to be added is empathy -h. '-h' is for hidden; no windows, just in menu, logged-in and ready to chat.

[1] http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2010/05/gmail-notifier-puts-gmail-in-your.html
[2] http://superuser.com/questions/73200/remove-or-add-entry-in-indicator-applet-ubuntu-gnome

The Funniest Bus Travel

This happened while I was traveling from Taramani to Velachery two days ago. A man(hereinafter called 'X'), who was visibly drunk, boarded the bus in next stop.

[Translated from Tamil]
[Conductor sounds a whistle]

X: You rascal. How dare u whistle at the ladies sitting before you? Who allowed you to sit in ladies side?

Conductor: How else do you expect me to stop and start the bus?

X: Doesn't driver knows where stops are? Or you stand near him and say these things.

[Conductor gives him a ticket to Velachery and sounds whistle at next stop]

X: Won't you listen to me? I'll give petition about you to Kalaingar.
[He comes near conductor and starts shouting after he gives another whistle to start the bus]
I'll complaint to police, MTC and I know minister. What's your name?

Conductor got irritated and sounded a whistle to stop the bus and told him that Velachery has come. He got down in the middle of nowhere, still scolding the conductor. :-D

Sema comedy. I was laughing till I got to bed that day. :-D :-D

I Became an Engineer

Well, Sort of. :p Yet to get PC.

A Chat With St.iGNUsius

Had a nice interactive session with Richard Matthew Stallman today at Carte Blanche. It was a time well spent. :) And fast. :(

Google Broadband

Google announces an 'experimental' broadband connection to homes with a bandwidth of 1 Gb/s.

Google wants to control every medium through which its services can be accessed, it seems.

iPad

I hate any technology that restricts the users freedom. Ergo I hate Apple iPad.

Flight Website is Online

This year's Flight website is online. The site is built and maintained by me, using the great Wordpress software.

Its my dream to run a website. I'm happy. :-)

Links

On the openness of Internet:

So, if we’re going to talk about the value of the open Internet, we have to ask what the opposite of “open” is. No one is proposing a closed Internet. When it comes to the Internet, the opposite of “open” is “theirs.”

Via O'reilly Radar.

The US high handedness in Haiti:

The US occupied and ruled Haiti by force from 1915 to 1934. President Woodrow Wilson sent troops to invade in 1915. Revolts by Haitians were put down by US military – killing over 2000 in one skirmish alone. For the next nineteen years, the US controlled customs in Haiti, collected taxes, and ran many governmental institutions.

Like all of us, Haitians made their own mistakes as well. But US power has forced Haitians to pay great prices – deaths, debt and abuse.

 Via Rahul Siddharthan's blog.