At the end of last year I posted some predictions for 2009. It's a nasty habit I stolepicked up from Cringely, it's one I enjoy, and since blogs are generally self-serving I plan to do it again.

Despite there being a few weeks left in the year, I'm posting the results from last years predictions. I did fairly well, but then this year really was boring and predictable.

( 2009 results )

I can't help but be slightly disturbed by this article.

Perhaps I'm looking at it the wrong way, but the main argument seems to be "if you want to encourage girls to participate in tech things, you need to be clean and not have any of that "boy" stuff lying around". Because we all knows girls don't like Star Wars, and are mostly concerned with cleaning^*.

I'm working on a proper summary of my foray into feminism, but I want to make sure I get the wording right, lest I offend someone. Because we all have the right to not be offended^**.

* - This is sarcasm.
** - This is also sarcasm.

Recently in a Q&A Mark Shuttleworth was asked the following questions:

12:31 <@akgraner> QUESTION how important is having a diverse group of contributors (women & minority folks) to solving Bug #1?
12:31 <+sabdfl> not especially, but it makes the project more interesting
12:31 <+sabdfl> next
….
12:57 <@jcastro> FOLLOW-UP QUESTION – did you just say that primarily white dudes are able to address the solving of Bug #1? Women & minorities just make it more interesting? Please clarify.
12:58 <+sabdfl> MarkDude, if you think i can’t see a baited trap from this close, you’re mistaken
12:59 <+sabdfl> i said that having diversity in the project is a wonderful goal. but it’s no more a requirement to fix bug #1 than it is a requirement to do most other things. fundamentalism is something i despise, and that goes for overdone activism too.

Mark has been in trouble for making anti-feminist remarks before. In this case he hasn't actually said anything wrong, and I believe the original question was designed to either get an attempt at an apology, or cause another scandal.

The trouble is Mark is right. Is diversity essential to the problem of breaking Microsoft's software monopoly? No. He does say that diversity makes things more interesting and that it's a wonderful goal, but it's not essential to success. If there's a logical fallacy there I don't see it, however he is being drawn back into the geek feminist spotlight because of it.

In the immortal words of Admiral Akbar: It's a trap!

The one offensive part for me in this exchange came from the person asking the question. He makes the assumption that "white dudes" are the majority. I can only assume he either referring to either the open source community, or the IT industry itself. Either way I think that view is a little outdated, and that's putting aside the whole issue about whether race and gender really matter.

The one thing we should all take away from this is Shuttleworth's closing remark, "fundamentalism is something i despise, and that goes for overdone activism too". Right on, Mark. Right on.

Mostly for the benefit of noisymime.

Exhibit A	Exhibit B

I've been arguing Atheism vs Religion enough over the past few years to fully come to a point where I understand the obvious: You are never going to convince someone that religion is wrong by arguing with them.

But I have noticed something rather interesting. In my experience the majority of fundamentalist Christians who convert to atheism do so along a specific path, that of apologetics. Essentially when you spend time trying to deconstruct the bible into logical sections in order to defend it, the entire things seems to unravel.

There's a little bit of irony in the fact that some of the most passionate atheists I know came to that path by trying to defend and understand their faith.

Last night I went to hear tcpip speak at the Atheist Foundation, where he gave a talk entitled "Atheist Support for Religious Freedom?" (Note the question mark). It was a great talk which stimulated some heated discussion on the trip home, and it has made me rethink some of my ideas about public funding for religious organisations. I do enjoy having to re-evaluate my world view.

Now this was my first time at the Atheist Foundation, so I'm not sure if this happens every month, but there were a group of people with obvious religious ties (Jesus badges!) that came along to "heckle". Admittedly they stayed relatively quiet during the main talk, limiting themselves to the occasional distort of disbelief and chuckle of incredulity. This all changed once question time began; they would not only rapid fire their own questions, they openly mocked the questions of others.

I would actually be okay with this if the questions were on topic. What did rub me the wrong way was how they tried to hijack the time for questions about the talk by asking generic 'What if?' style questions that are debated on the internet daily.

I did gain amusement during several moments last night, where I found myself:
(1) feeling like I was in a real live internet forum, with trolls and everything!
(2) sitting in a church, surrounded by Christians. At an Atheist meeting.

I'm told by saffireblue that we are going again next month. I'm inclined to agree.