Never look back unless you’re planning to go that way
Have something to say about this post? Contact me.Why every step forward is a step forward for women
I’ve come to the conclusion that I disagree quite drastically with the feminist status quo, of popular blogs at least. Which is okay, everyone sees the issue differently. Here’s how I see the idea of a woman president:
Urgent. I think a woman – any woman – in power is a step forward. Even a Republican.
Even someone who wants to ban abortion, doesn’t like gay marriage, etc etc.
I’ll start by saying that I am politically liberal, especially socially.
Now I don’t like these things about Bachmann. I really really don’t. I think she’s pandering to a dangerous, borderline-terrorist and racist fringe, and I sincerely hope a presidential candidate is not a racist. But oh well.
Despite this, I think having people with vaginas in power, regardless of politics, is an extremely positive step:
It’s a symbol. I’m not a very political person, and I don’t think anyone is capable of revoking abortion rights or passing any sort of overtly racist law from the executive branch. But I think the difference that the president literally is female would make a drastic difference in my life. The pure symbolism of a woman in power is what I need to get this gender jump-started.
I think respect would change. I think I would get paid more. I also think I would not get offered jobs I am not qualified for only because I am female and flirt-material. I think I would be looked at for a source of intellect equally to a male designer or programmer in the context of work. That has to do with respect.
The office of the president is in many ways symbolic, since it is a single branch and is not the supreme power of the government. But it is supreme in it’s symbolism. And a social movement relies on it’s symbolism. Nobody will pay you equal to what they pay a man until they see a reason to. Until women actually have leadership roles, especially the leadership role, they will not be seen equally, by anyone, not even other women.
I actually prefer Palin over Bachmann. I think Palin is much more harmless and pretty much moderate on paper. If I could choose Hilary, I would, but the left has offered me no female leadership. Obama is no feminist, and Michelle Obama is the pure perfect image of what a woman “should be.” A caretaker who tells kids to eat their vegetables. Screw that. It’s honestly not Michelle’s fault, it’s her circumstance. If she were president, and Obama was the first lad, I think her image, her rhetoric and pretty much my entire impression of her would be different. But it’s not like that, because people couldn’t vote for a liberal woman when they had the chance.
A right-wing female president might be five steps back to a liberal, but it’s ten steps forward for a woman.
PS – What makes all women the same is not that they have similar traits (nurturing, communicative, blah blah blah). It’s also not even their chromosomes that is significant. It’s that they all know how much it sucks to be a female in America. Even Bachmann, even Palin. The issue goes past abortion and choice (which, is not just a feminist issue, it’s also a religious issue. So you can’t blame them for having mixed feelings or letting one belief rule over the other.) The issue is respect. And I think these female politicians feel the burn of disrespect harder than I ever will, and that’s why I know they won’t take it lying down, and that’s why any female leader is the right leader for me.
Have something to say about this post? Contact me.Artifacts from the Trash
I throw things away. I also chronically recycle. So it’s no wonder barely any of my poetry survives. So when I found this, it made me smile. A little piece of 16 yr old Noemi. Ah, and I still really like it. That’s a surprise.
The sun burns the sky
leaving behind empty clouds
And they pass away.
Shadows come alive
they take shape in just a glimpse
And they pass away.
I wrote this in Romania, somewhere in the mountains, according to what’s left of the journal. I wrote alot of awesome things in this journal, in fact. One of my favorites, “Life is not fair, but it isn’t unfair either. It has no fairness property.” Oh yeah, fairness property. I really hope I didn’t talk like that.
Have something to say about this post? Contact me.Does anybody feel that the term troll has been seriously dilluted in the past 5 years?
When I hear people talking about it I don’t even know what they’re saying. For example. this blog post, explains that an IRL troll on twitter is someone who posts on twitter during the timeslot where they canceled a meeting. Wait, what? Another type is the link-jumping troll, someone who posts links without reading them. What do any of these things have to do with trolling? Even beer pong trolling (not making a shot an entire game) makes more sense than this.
Or maybe everyone’s just trolling me.
Have something to say about this post? Contact me.It took me 4 years to figure out my major
even though deep down I knew it was what I wanted since I could write (or draw, or see color, or think.)
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Why yogurt is awesome, potatoes suck, + fruits win over veggies. (gasp!)
Just as the four hour body explains, you don’t need to eat less, you just need to eat less of the wrong food. Eating less in general is too simplistic. But what about eating “good food”? What does that mean? Isn’t that just another simplistic statement? Unfortunately all the weight-loss companies, diet trends, bad science and false advertising makes it impossible to find out what specific foods actually do to our bodies. 4HB has it’s own list, but the New England Journal of Medicine has broken it down to 5 terrible foods for you and 5 good foods for you. Also included are behaviors that modified weight loss or gain.
This is how these numbers break down. The number in the parentheses indicates the weight gain or loss over the course of 4 years, for each serving of this food a day.
The Good
Vegetables (−0.22 lb)
Whole grains (−0.37 lb)
Fruits (−0.49 lb)
Nuts (−0.57 lb)
Yogurt (−0.82 lb)
Physical activity (−1.76 lb)
The Bad
Potato Chips (1.69 lbs)
Other Potatoes (1.26 lbs)
Sugar-sweetened beverages (1.00 lb)
Unprocessed meats (0.95 lb)
Processed meats (0.93 lb)
The Ugly
Other lifestyle factors were also independently associated with weight change.
Alcohol use (0.41 lb per drink per day)
Smoking (new quitters, 5.17 lb; former smokers, 0.14 lb)
Sleep (more weight gain with <6 or >8 hours of sleep)
Television watching (0.31 lb per hour per day)
I think the bad is all pretty well documented, but the good had some surprises. Fruits are more effective at weight loss than vegetables, apparently. This goes against the 4HB recommendations to avoid fruit because of the sugar in them. Of course, this is a correlation, so its important to examine all the effects of fruit, like curbing appetite and/or replacing high fructose corn syrup in one’s diet. Yogurt is kind of a random one to have almost 4 times the weight loss effect of vegetables, but since I am a yogurtofile, I love it. Now I have an excuse to eat it for breakfast lunch and dinner. The effect of potatoes is quite depressing. I wonder how potatoes stack up next to other carbs? Whole grains apparently help with weight loss, another point where the study differs from 4HB dogma.
In Romania, in the countryside, potatoes are traditionally grown to fatten pigs. We do have some potato dishes, but eating them all the time is viewed as a poor man’s thing. Because you really have to be starving and poor to need a pure carb like that. I find it interesting that slighting older cultures than mine value good food. That being said, people that do hard physical labor in the countryside do eat a polenta-style dish called mamaliga with sour cream and Romanian cheese. This stuff fills you up instantly. But it fits the culture – if you worked hard physical labor all day, having 1 or 2 of your meals just be corn wouldn’t fatten you, it would actually make your body more efficient. Although, in cases like this where there is alot of physical activity, meat is actually the ideal meal, it is just not viable in a countryside village setting to eat meat every day. You’d run out of animals.
Math Time!
If this was your meal plan for almost every day for 4 years, you’d lose 6.8 lbs. every 4 years.
Breakfast: Yogurt (2 servings) and Fruits (1)
Lunch: Whole grains(1) and Vegetables(2)
Snack: Fruit (1) and Nuts (1)
Dinner: Vegetables (1) and Whole Grain (1), Fruit Desert(1)
15-30 minutes (let’s say the 4HB routine) : Physical activity (−1.76 lb)
* Also including all the random stuff they didn’t mention in the study like dairy. *
Does that seem paltry? Well, read the next section.
What I don’t like about this study
1. They should’ve studied body fat %, not weight. Weight is really misleading! It’s different for men and women, people with muscle and people without, and in certain cases, gives you bad information or at the very least mixed signals. I do believe this study has validity, I just wish I could have a more accurate representation of what these foods actually do to your body fat.
2. More foods need to be included so one can properly create a meal plan from this study. I’d like to know the effect of eggs, milk, certain types of vegetables, diet soda, cheeses, types of meat, butter, etc. I know they are trying to use this study to explain that higher quality food is better and there is a theme of unprocessed food winning over processed food (sugar soda, refined grains, etc). But I want more facts! Science is about specificity. It is not a novel, it does not need an overarching theme. Now get to it, scientists!
xoxo
Noemi
PS, while I traveled, yogurt was my go-to meal. It just makes sense!
Have something to say about this post? Contact me.Blogs I wrote with my left hand Graphic Design Jumpino Media Nerdy Computer Stuff Web Design
by Noemi x
Did Google Plus steal design elements? [or the things money cannot buy.]
I don’t want to write this post right now, but I have to. I damaged my wrist pretty badly yesterday and its in a splint. So here goes blogging with my non-dominant hand. I designed the website Jumpino.com. Recently me and my brother have been getting lots of comments on the similarities with Google+.
I care more about my wrist right now, honestly. Because I write with my right hand, I draw, I paint, I sew, I sketch, I type/use the mouse with it. I can’t even continue my lighting project without my right hand. And this is the crucial difference between me and Google – I am a creator. Google is a company. They pay people well to come up with ideas, to design them, to market them, and to monetize them.
I got paid nothing, I took a break from school, I didn’t work – I dedicated half a year of my life to creating something I thought at the time was revolutionary. Give me a break, I was a teenager. Two people. Zero funding. and a HELL of a lot of determination. More importantly, I gave all this up for a project that ultimately failed – and I’d do it again.
So did Google steal my idea? No.
Ideas are a dime a dozen and if you put 10 smart kids in a room and tell them to brainstorm on social networking ideas, the Jumpino idea (live discussion grouped in the construct of social circles) will be brought up much faster than you think. It’s a great idea, but not a genius one. I am no Tesla. In fact, I’m surprised I was the first person to use the term “Private Circles” in the context of live web discussions.
So did they steal the design? Maybe.
I think there is a good chance my design heavily inspired Google+
Here are four solid things that feel uncomfortably similar:
1. The terminology, specifically, “Private Circles.”
2. Hand drawn crayon style, specifically arrows and circles.
3. Circle Icon. You can make a circle a million different ways. The red, the edge thickness, the fact that it’s hollow. This was the first thing that struck me.
4. Multiply Color Effect.
I think all of these separately don’t mean much – but in the context of an app based on the similar idea of social circles, it raises a few flags. I’m still willing to believe it might be a huge coincidence or synchronicity.
I think watching our “ad” videos, looking at the graphics below and visiting the Jumpino site will help you make up your mind.
Crayon style design elements. Still on the live website today.
Similar terminology. Still on the site.
Circle icons. still live.
I don't think this is live anymore but it was on the about page for a while
an early icon for circle linking
About 90% of people I’ve asked that compare the graphics say that there was probably some inspiration going on. For one, I guarantee there is someone at Google who has the responsibility of scoping out competitor products. We did that and we were just two people. (Fun fact, there are lots of other startups based on the same concept, but only our’s has this design and only ours used the term circles pre-Google+)
So what is it that I want? Nothing, actually.
I don’t need the recognition. I already know what I made, what I’m capable of, what I will make and that I will figure this life out without a footnote in the commented code of some big corporation. I know my startup failed to get a huge following and the lessons I learned were priceless, which brings me to:
I don’t need compensation. I’m lucky enough to get freelance work here and there on top of having a loving family that gave me a roof and sustenance and a computer to start programming on at the exciting age of 7. I have enough – and I have the tools to create more.
and lastly,
I don’t want Google plus to fail. After all, I use Google Reader, Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Docs and much more.
I’ve already won – because I make stuff without caring about recognition and compensation. Google – How many of your Google+ employees would still work if you never paid them or gave them credit for their work? Maybe one, two?
Google can’t afford authenticity.
This is why real web innovation will still come from kids and young adults screwing around with code, people with or without degrees, of any gender(!), ethnicity, and class. I think alot of people get discouraged when they hear about what happened with Dodgeball and Google – but remember that we have the drive and the authenticity to move the web forward. Your competitor is not Google or Microsoft or Apple. You are competing against yourself and against time. Small time developers have this huge advantage of actually caring about what we program. We are 5 steps ahead of Google, all the time. How else did I come up with a similar idea to the circles in Google+ 2 years before they did? I’m not a genius, I’m just passionate.
I would say I’m off to make the next big thing but I’m really just going to google wrist injuries, elevate my arm, eat ice cream, and take a nap.
xoxo!
Noemi
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