pears

Interesting. In high school I've often thought there's a kind of critical mass thing at play. Once a subject becomes too gender dominated the other gender 'sees' subject X as a boys/girls subject or just doesn't want to be the odd one out in class.

I think this is a really important point. It's so easy to jump to conclusions about who gave a negative when you might be completely wrong about it. True. By the way I didn't mean to criticize the giving of plus for witty comments. I do it myself all the time (give the pluses not make the witty comments )

The other female I knew of was Hypervalent Iodine. I have seen posts from Mooeypoo in older threads but haven't seen her around recently. Are you still out there Mooey?

So I'm only aware of one other regular female on the site. Are we the only two? Is science (and this site) that male dominated? Forgive me if I'm being nosy

That's exactly why I posted this: But on the other hand being hasty in your replies will get you nowhere on a site with a down arrow on each post. Believe me I've had to bite my tongue (still my fingers?) plenty on this site. When another poster winds me up I try and leave it at least an hour before I reply. It's all too easy on the internet to reply in a manner that's much harsher than you would in a face to face encounter. And it's all too easy to get taken the wrong way too. Once you're words are out there they're out there. And so is that down arrow.

I think sometimes posters use the neg rep instead of actually replying to a post they don't like.

It doesn't seem like you've got very far. I'm not going to write your essay for you Perhaps you could add some description as to how late they stay out. What things they like to drink. How they feel the next day. Describe how they get ready etc You might need to look up some vocabulary if you don't already have it.

OK so you're describing a party animal in 120 words? What have you written so far?

Well that's what I mean. If a poster has a negative total then I might be particular careful when reading their posts. Or sometimes I will read some scientific ideas and think - that sounds a bit odd, then if I check their total score and it's -50 I know I can take what they've said with a pinch of salt. But sometimes I guess it might feel like a bit of a popularity contest. Having been on the site a little while now I've seen good posts from people with low rep and bad posts from those with high rep so I am a bit more careful to judge the posts more than the poster - so I use the totals as a guide rather than a final judgement. But I can understand your concerns. It's not a perfect system.

I think the idea is that the site is meritocracy so e.g. you can see the validity of someone's scientific statements, otherwise anyone could post anything and it might not be so clear what is valid logically or scientifically. I think in general that's a good thing. However, I have seen neg rep get used in a kind of ugly way during disagreements and arguments. Also positive rep is often given for witty comments rather than scientific know-how. So it's not a perfect system. I try not to judge people solely on their rep but a neg score might give me pause to consider carefully what someone has said. Likewise I won't take for granted something said by a poster with a high score. Presumably most people here do the same. And don't worry you are still in the neutral zone and look I'll give you a +1 for a good question

OK I see. It seems a bit odd to ask on a science forum - you might be better off on a language forum. What do you need? Some phrases or vocabulary to help you? You give a 120 word limit which makes it sound like you want us to write something for you?

I'm not sure what you're asking here. It seems an odd question to ask on a science forum. What exactly are you trying to find out?

You could try earplugs - or throw some rolled up socks at her head when she wakes you up snoring

Isn't thinking associated with understanding? In computing terms, all the understanding (and the logic) is done by the biological programmer isn't it? The computer just computes based on rules that have been fed to it by a thinking mind.

I'm not an expert on those particular technologies but I expect there are tonnes of good resources on the web. You need to google things like "good coding style" "best practice" alongside whatever technology you're looking at and hopefully you'll find some good discussions which can take you to some good resources. stackoverflow.com is my favourite site for specific questions.

This sounds like a homework question. People will be happy to provide guidance if you can show you've done some work yourself and what you're stuck on but we don't answer questions for you here

If you want to get into programming then software engineering might be a good alternative to computer science. And often companies will take graduates with a technical degree e.g. maths/science. What you really need to demonstrate is an aptitude for learning, logical thinking and problem solving. A degree can help with this or even a course that doesn't go to degree level. As md65536 says employers are looking for different things. But you can get into the industry and be self taught (though I don't personally know that many without a degree.). I would recommend learning about good software design/architecture and read authors like Martin Fowler and Robert Martin (Uncle Bob) as well as learning the languages and technologies you need. If you can give yourself a decent project and implement it then you'll have something to talk about in interviews as well as learning from it. If it's something like a website you've built then you'll also have something to demonstrate. If you want a job and don't think you need a degree then I'd say jump right in. The best way to learn in the software industry is from experience but learn and read around the subjects you need along the way. You'll know what those are when you get started. I didn't have a computer science background when I started and I did OK but the learning curve was quite intense at the start of my career.

I hate killing anything. The only thing I'm fairly OK about killing is mosquitoes but even then I often feel the need to apologize to them. Other bugs get caught and released or wafted back outside.

How many words do you need to translate? A java hashmap can hold simple mappings of data but if you have to store a lot of data you might want a database. It depends on the scope of your task and what you are actually trying to achieve.

That doesn't answer my question and no I'm not going to take your word for it. Why should I?

I get that because of light speed when we see things we are looking into the past, but how does that make time-travel possible? And what does it have to do with the picture of the wormhole?

I was merely offering advice on how to express yourself here if you want to be taken seriously. If you don't want your ideas taken seriously you of course may express yourself however you wish.

Evolution doesn't mean a monkey turned into Leonardo De Caprio! Also using fancy fonts and silly pictures lends no weight to your point. If you have a sensible point to make please make it using sensible words instead of prettily coloured soundbites.

Yikes that sounds freaky. Could it have been some kind of 48 hour virus? The extremely close synchronization of symptoms starting and stopping makes it almost sound like you ingested a poison or something at the same time but I guess a virus *could* have infected you at the same time. Did the doctor have any ideas?