/blog en gail.banaszkiewicz@gmail.com Copyright 2008 2008-10-09T18:37:07-06:00 http://www.nerdgirls.com/blog/celebrating-women-in-computing/ http://www.nerdgirls.com/blog/celebrating-women-in-computing/#When:17:37:07Z Have you ever been in a room with more than 1500 other ‘nerd girls’? Let me tell you, it’s the most amazing and unexpected feeling you could imagine. This is exactly what I got to experience the first week of October when I traveled to Keystone, Colorado for the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing. If you get excited while reading what I have to say about it, then mark your calendars for next year’s edition to be held around that first week of October in Tucson, Arizona. You won’t want to miss it. Computer Science 2008-10-09T17:37:07-06:00 http://www.nerdgirls.com/blog/connect-with-computer-science/ http://www.nerdgirls.com/blog/connect-with-computer-science/#When:18:34:06Z If you thought that computer science was all about sitting in boring old cubicles, pounding away on the keyboard and writing code all day, think again! You can connect computer science with just about anything you’re interested in. Take video games, for instance. If you have a passion for entertaining others, you can use the coding skills you learn in college to help develop the next blockbuster hit in one of the fastest growing industries around. But it goes much further than just programming. Computer Science 2008-09-25T18:34:06-06:00 http://www.nerdgirls.com/blog/chic-geek-of-the-week-summer-williams1/ http://www.nerdgirls.com/blog/chic-geek-of-the-week-summer-williams1/#When:22:32:43Z Let’s be honest: when we think of cheerleaders, several images automatically spring to mind. Ponytails. Pom poms. Short skirts. Rocket scientists with pilots’ licenses. Wait… what? Maybe not so much that last part. Still, aerospace engineer Summer Williams stood amid the squad at Houston Texans games through two seasons, riling up the crowds and cheering for touchdowns. The Kansas native tried out for the squad in 2005, essentially on a dare from male colleagues who wanted to meet the squad members and thought Summer could help them. She had a background in cheerleading and dance, so she gave it a somewhat reluctant shot and was selected as one of 33 cheerleaders from the 1,000 women who showed up for tryouts that day. Nerd Girls News 2008-09-18T22:32:43-06:00 http://www.nerdgirls.com/blog/making-games-think/ http://www.nerdgirls.com/blog/making-games-think/#When:17:28:34Z As more women than ever before begin to find themselves interested in video games, it’s likely that many women are also wondering, “What is it that makes games think?” For many games, from adventure and role playing genres to challenges like chess, game developers need to incorporate techniques that allow help a computer to think for itself in a timely fashion. Some of these techniques will be revealed below as light is shed on what gives games brains. First, let’s reflect on why having good artificial intelligence (also known simply as AI) can be so important for a game to be fun. Many board games and first person shooters can’t be played without an actual opponent, but a human contender is not always available. Computer Science 2008-09-04T17:28:34-06:00 http://www.nerdgirls.com/blog/girls-really-are-good-at-math/ http://www.nerdgirls.com/blog/girls-really-are-good-at-math/#When:17:09:32Z A lot of people think that girls just don’t “do” math.  In fact, many of these same people believe that this is related to girls just being better at different things than boys.  This might be true in some areas, but recent studies have shown that, when it comes to math, girls just might be as good if not better! You might be surprised to learn that not all of these studies are recent.  Janet Hyde, a psychologist at the University of Wisconsin, found that girls tested in math just as well as boys before high school.  That was in the late eighties/early nineties Science and Engineering 2008-08-18T17:09:32-06:00 http://www.nerdgirls.com/blog/women-and-the-quality-of-code/ http://www.nerdgirls.com/blog/women-and-the-quality-of-code/#When:02:47:43Z A good way to stir up some controversy is to bring up possible differences between the way men and women write code. Add to it a tone that suggests that women write better code, and you’ll really get people talking. Is there something to it? Would you really be able to tell the difference between male and female code, and could you really say that one is better than the other? Computer Science 2008-07-26T02:47:43-06:00 http://www.nerdgirls.com/blog/chic-geek-of-the-week-danica-mckellar/ http://www.nerdgirls.com/blog/chic-geek-of-the-week-danica-mckellar/#When:02:31:50Z This week’s brainiac bombshell: Danica McKellar. You may remember her as Kevin Arnold’s long-standing crush, Winnie Cooper, on the classic television show The Wonder Years. More recently, you might have caught her in her role as Elsie Snuffin on The West Wing or Trudy on How I Met Your Mother. Or perhaps you’ve perused a physics journal and stumbled across the Chayes-McKellar-Winn Theorem she co-authored before graduating summa cum laude in mathematics from UCLA. Danica took a break from acting to pursue her studies in math and then took her education a step further by sharing it with anyone who would listen. (photo credit: USA Today) Pop Culture 2008-07-26T02:31:50-06:00 http://www.nerdgirls.com/blog/chic-geek-of-the-week-natalie-portman/ http://www.nerdgirls.com/blog/chic-geek-of-the-week-natalie-portman/#When:00:06:45Z Starlets. They’re everywhere. On television, in magazines, splashed across the Internet, and constantly in our faces, the Hollywood It Girl is as ubiquitous as oxygen. We can’t seem to escape her, and some of us admittedly don’t want to. But to those of us who pride ourselves on our intelligence, aren’t some of these so-called role models rather… uninspiring? Here at Nerd Girls, we like to give props to girls who say what they mean and mean what they say. And when they’re smart, isn’t what they say a whole lot more interesting? Photo Credit: People.com Pop Culture 2008-07-17T00:06:45-06:00 http://www.nerdgirls.com/blog/the-magic-behind-wall-e/ http://www.nerdgirls.com/blog/the-magic-behind-wall-e/#When:09:09:17Z If there was ever a doubt that computer science and engineering are exciting career choices, let the recently released hit animated picture Wall-E change your mind. What most people see when they watch this movie is a touching love story from an unexpected source. Sure, I saw this too, but I also saw some of the many reasons it would be really cool to work in the computer animation industry! Science and Engineering 2008-07-16T09:09:17-06:00