eWeek has an interesting article regarding women working in IT, or rather, women not working in IT.  The article is, Where Did All the Girl Geeks Go?

A professor says he has only one girl in a computer science major class in 2008, down from 40 percent in 2000. What happened? eWEEK gets field experts to weigh in.

While women hold 51 percent of professional jobs in the United States, they make up only 26 percent of the IT work force, according to the National Center for Women & Information Technology. Furthermore, fewer women worked in IT in 2008 than in 2000.

The article later discusses about the need to put more effort into convincing women that working with technology can be cool.  This argument and others the article makes for how to get more women involved in IT and computer science is a problem.  I don't know a single geek, whether male or female, that had to be convinced that technology is cool.

As a teenager in the 1980's, I mowed lawns for three reasons. I mowed lawns to save money for college. I mowed lawns for spending money on the weekends. Finally, I mowed lawns to buy the Commodore Vic-20 and eventually I purchased the Commodore 64. I was neither envious of the school's Apple II's nor my neighbor's TI-99/4A. I had a Commodore 64 and I was cool even before geeks were cool.

This month, fans of the Commodore 64 are celebrating the computer's 25th Year Anniversary. Check out the article at CNN of fans with their Commodore 64. Read the CNET article of the Commodore 64 get-together with not only Commodore founder Jack Tramiel, but Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak and Pong designer Al Acorn. Or just admire the above image I scanned from an advertisement for the Commodore 64 that I kept all these years. For you see, this computer was worth every lawn that I mowed for $15 and $20.

Need some humor in your life? Check out Robert Accettura's Secrets In Websites. I especially liked the references of Futurama in Slashdot's hidden code. Very well done Mr. Accettura!

In case you missed it, yesterday was Talk Like a Pirate Day. On those days when you feel too much like a geek (in a bad way), you can rest assure that there is someone out there geekier than you. Meet Dougal Campbell, the rambling geek:

Ahoy, me maties! It's Talk Like a Pirate Day once again, and as I'm sure ye've noticed, I've spruced me site up fer th' occassion. Around me office, I've been hearin' a lot o' "yarrr!" and "avast!", as many folks have been gettin' into th' buccaneerin' mood, to be sure. Or maybe 'tis just because they're grumpy -- 'tis hard t' tell on some days.

In any case, I hope ye're enjoyin' this fine holiday. Ye'll be sleepin' with th' fishes! Oho! Aarrr! And if ye ha'nae already, make sure t' install me WordPress pirate filter, by Davy Jones' locker! And hoist th' mainsail! Arrrr!