Before I considered writing a blog of my own, I found myself enjoying other people’s blogs. I found information that I wouldn’t have otherwise read. In the haze of internet commercialization, it seems odd to talk about giving back to the community, but this altruistic inclination was the #3 reason that I started this blog.

The internet has a wonderful history of people freely sharing their creations. As a backdrop to the venture-capital-driven internet boom, there were always organizations and individuals who contributed to shared community wisdom and practical software. From slashdot to ask-a-linguist, there are large and small communities that exists purely to provide information to like-minded souls.

It wanted to do more than simply lurk, but become a participating citizen this strange community of bloggers. I enjoy my small presence in an obscure corner of the blogosphere.

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“Information foraging theory…views humans as informavores, continually seeking information from our environment”
— Do Your Links Stink? Techniques for Good Web Information Scent by Jason Withrow

I enjoy foraging for information, but I imagine that someday I’ll be able to unleash virtual hounds who will go dig up information with just the right scent. It would be neat if there were some quasi-intelligent software that could read what I write and lurk as I browse the web and then dig up interesting reading for me.

Jason Withrow talks about information scent and other ideas from cognitive psychology, such as perception, memory and learning, in his boxes and arrows article.

Whenever I read about someone doing interesting work or a paper someone has written, I like to look them up on the web. It’s neat to find other papers they’ve written or see projects they have worked on or just get a better sense of who they are.

Most times when I look up someone, I find his web site, but I don’t find hers. Just last week I read an interesting paper, which appears to be written by 3 men and a woman — all three men had websites, but I couldn’t find the fourth author’s website. What’s up with that?

Most of the men I know don’t have websites, and I read many sites clearly authored by women, yet this subjectively observed phenomenon persists, and it bugs me. I never thought of my not having a website as a gender issue. Was I the pot observing a host of other black kettles?

This perceived gender disparity was the #2 reason I created this blog. I don’t write about gender issues much, because I don’t think about them much. However, I cannot immerse myself in this thriving technical ecosystem without occasionally noticing that I’m the only woman in the room. I’m thrilled that there are so many other technical women out there. I hope that I will see a day when there as a many women as there are men who are involved in this fun and exciting work (and play).

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