Kim Flournoy

While my grade-school education was co-ed, I had to make a choice when selecting a college: would I attend an all-girls’ school or not? I thought about it, and even toured a few heavily (but not exclusively) female campuses, but finally decided that I was more comfortable in a mixed setting - not for educational purposes, but for social reasons. (This of course worked out well for me, as I met Jamie during my freshman orientation.)

However, I’ve always held the suspicion that my earlier education would have been much more academically productive and fulfilling if I’d attended a single-sex school, and perhaps more socially supportive as well. I know there is sexism and gender bias everywhere, but grade-school girls aren’t usually prepared to recognize it, to fight back against it. I know I wish I had done so.

Now we have some proof: a recent paper concluded that “boys benefit from being in a classroom with girls, but girls do not benefit from being in a classroom with boys.” Read the full article in Slate.

Somewhat related article: For Some Girls, the Problem With Math Is That They’re Good at It (free registration required)

If things were really this funny, I might ever consider working there: The Microsoft Office (with Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant)

I thought that San Francisco’s paper ballots were kind of archaic when we first moved here, but now they’re reassuring in a way. The malfeasance that can arise is mostly the traditional kind (like throwing out the ballots).

Here’s a funny illustration of what can go wrong with electronic voting (thanks Lary!) - Homer tries to vote for Obama:

Even though I haven’t posted a single word to a blog for more than two years, that doesn’t mean that time elapsed without my finding stories that were interesting, touching, and/or amusing. As I intended to resume blogging at any moment, I bookmarked these items in a “to blog” folder.

Of course, now that I’m back in the saddle, I’m beginning to mine that folder for content. I’ll probably toss more than half of what’s in there, often because the article is outdated or irrelevant (OMG, Johnny Depp and Tim Burton are remaking “Sweeney Todd”!), but sometimes because it’s difficult for me to get up the energy or outrage to discuss something that really had me fired up 18 months ago (the HPV vaccine debates). But many items are (hopefully) timeless.

Anyway, in case you notice that I’m suddenly posting a bunch of articles from 2006-2007, this is why. To start, some of my favorite XKCD comics from that period:

RTFM
Organic Fuel
Online Package Tracking
Cat Proximity