In the last article in our disinformation series, we focused on things that we as individuals can do to prevent the spread of disinformation -- false information that is intended to mislead its consumers. A better solution then would be to stop disinformation BEFORE it proliferates.
We’ve come a long way and …
My 16 year old daughter recently participated in the Western Aerospace Scholars (WAS) sophomore program. She spent 3 days researching, learning and designing a rover for a robotic mission to Mars. What fun! I was curious about the demographics of her co-participants, specifically, how many other young ladies were participating in the program. Reason for my curiosity;... Continue Reading →
Diversity Goals: A Necessary Discomfort?
When I started out in my undergraduate program, women made up about 50% of my freshman class in Computer Science. But by my senior year, that percentage had dropped to 10%. Bias was part of life – the look of concern when a student who didn’t know me got me for a group assignment, the... Continue Reading →
Digital Counting: Fun with Binary
My last few posts have been a bit serious so let's have a little fun! It's easy to count to 10 with your fingers, and you can count to 20 if you throw your toes into the mix. But how can you use your fingers to go higher than that? You could throw in your... Continue Reading →
Disinformation: What Can You Do About It?
In the first post in this series on disinformation, I asked what we could do as a society to prevent or manage disinformation -- false information that is intended to mislead its consumers. The solution isn’t easy, but we can start here...
Life by the Numbers
After coffee, I take on the morning’s math problem: figuring out the insulin needed for my kid's breakfast. So much for total carbs, minus amount spilled and not eaten, plus replacement carbs eaten, minus some for gym class in the morning... Life is all about numbers when you’re living with Type 1 diabetes (T1D). Type... Continue Reading →
Summer = Sunscreen
Last weekend, my family went camping. It was our first exposure this year to our medium yellow star and as always, we forgot about “carefully” applying sunscreen on our virgin skin. By the end of the day, my daughter’s fair skin looked like preschoolers finger painted sunscreen. She sported some lovely patterns of white and... Continue Reading →
Cultivate Wellbeing & Resiliency
This 2018 graduation season is difficult for me for many reasons. There is little-known local news reporting that two high school students ending their own lives just days before graduation, following the well-known national news that two public figures committing suicide the week before. I know families that bear the same grief from losing their... Continue Reading →
Disinformation: Do you know when you’re being had?
A few days ago, Abijeet Nath and Nilopal Das were killed when they stopped in a village in Assam state in India to ask for directions. They were attacked by a mob that suspected they may be child abductors. Abijeet and Nilopal were the latest victims in a series of deaths in India related to... Continue Reading →
GDPR: Who Owns Your Data?
I attended a conference by the Data Warehouse Institute (TDWI) last October. In one of the presentations, Gerald Hopkins talked about GDPR. It was the first time I had ever heard of it, and Gerald basically told us that if we were doing business in Europe and hadn’t started working on GDPR we should be... Continue Reading →