A Past, Present and Future Journey for GHC 15!

This year GHC will be awesome!!!

Oh, ok. Let me back up a bit. Did I say 12K women? Have I mentioned the sessions? Have you heard that it's "Our time to lead!"?

What happened?

First, some background information about why I am really excited. My first GHC was back in 2012, and I think it was the first time I really feel like I'm not alone -or, to be more honest- I'm completely normal! I get to meet with an enormous number of women in STEM fields and although it was my first time, it felt like I was within GHC community for ages, where everybody has a similar story and is more than welcome to talk/share/consult/mentor/mentee/help anytime. I know it sounds a little cliche if you haven't experienced being a part of something so huge but so intimate; but believe me, that was the closest realization for "It's a small world" attraction of Disneyland. As happy, as connected, as pretty, as diverse, ...as utopian!

As a recap, on the first day, the first ever session I have attended in a GHC: A wonderful interactive networking talk, given by two speakers from Lawrance Berkeley Lab and Google. After 3 years, I'm still so glad to catch this session, it was like a jump-start for the conference. This session taught what I was doing right unconsciously when approaching people (as an introvert), what I was totally wrong at, and what I actually should do in different situations. I probably created an elevator speech for the first time in my academic life, because of that session.

I have attended the Graduate Poster Session, where most of the posters were related to interesting security, cloud computing research, with some posters also in graphics: telling to this little fresh graduate student "Hey, over here! This is what's coming up for you soon!". Then I wandered around the Job Fair, having my first tips on career development, also having some interviews to boost up my confidence (this was real, no laughing please). Switching to talks... these girls were clever! I clearly remember that there was a talk for secrets to success, and it was prepared like a musical! How cool it is, right? You never saw anything yet, young Padawan. I will not explain the awesome technical talks or grant writing and funding sessions.. But, another GHC-specific talk: imposter syndrome. Wait, what? Of course I hadn't heard it before, and I was dragged into it by a senior friend of mine. Remember that uneasy feeling that you're not sure about whether you can achieve what's expected from you? (Don't argue with me, I know you had that before!) Yes, that's a tiny bit of imposter syndrome. And I would never ever be aware of that virus if GHC was not making everyone that is left (or made felt) outside of the circle...

Enough with the day, let's discuss the nights! The social events in the conference were spectacular. The awards ceremony was so inspiring that getting to know such work and such amazing people was a motivation all by itself. There was also a celebration for the 25th years of Systers community, which was like a closing party, and it was in the Maryland Science Center... This might still be "the event" of my life. Let me elaborate. Imagine a science center, full of dinosaurs, body parts, machines and experiments, with a planetarium! Now imagine islands of desserts, hills of cupcakes and cheesecake, and sweets that you ever saw. Finally, imagine hundreds of women in science. Now put them all together... Amazing, right? Oh, just to mention, there was a live disco right outside too. And when you get bored of dancing, you can just watch a wonderful night show in the planetarium. It was an amazing experience overall.


Anyway, enough with the memories, but hey, I still need to tell how awesome GHC in 2013 and 2014 was! I know you're getting bored, maybe I'll reflect them another day. For now, these stories [1][2][3] can feed your curiosity. Coming to the main idea, did you notice that how many "first time"s for me have been unlocked by GHC? This makes you realize that you're important. Which brings us to the next part...

What happens?

Attending Grace Hopper is a wonderful experience as well as a precious responsibility. It is not just a regular conference that you attend to, and then forget about; but it shapes one's lifestyle, priorities, and perspective. It makes everyone feel that we are never alone.

The organism

It gives tremendous amount of motivation by sharing, just sharing. Stories from your everyday life, experiences from reactions you are subject to, what-if scenarios if you do not assess those situations, emotions if the imperfect situation captures you, challenges to beat the imperfect situation, in summary, everything you have experienced and might experience in your everyday life is shared. This connects everybody to support others' cases, to union and to act together for the parallel challenges. So both for academic and volunteering activities, GHC community always keeps this collective organism fueled up.

The self

Inherently you share too. You see the newcomers, and wanna be there before they fall into that hole you have fallen before. You want to pass your experience, pass to torch as the others have passed to you. You want to carry the organism with you and make it more invulnerable.

It sounds silly, but realizing that all the wonderful 'godlike' people are also a part of the organism, (that they're always in reach or they make mistakes or they eat cupcakes or they moonwalk), makes you feel more rewarding and confident. You realize that it is only you, what makes it special. If you forget how to enjoy, or if you sacrifice your unique character to become a slave, that's when you being to lose, that's when trying to be perfect harms you. You realize that balancing and being in charge of unbalancing should be the key to their success, so as yours.

The product

At the end, you want to keep those connections and improvements alive. Thus, you come to a point that you understand that GHC is not limited to 3-4 days. We are all connected with Systers, WISP/WIE programs, CRA-W, and local CS people. And after a while it becomes a life-style, to protect and develop the self and the organism, by taking part in all events, volunteering for all opportunities, and advocating wherever you see something wrong.
 
You also get amazed (see my first lines:) ) that how such a huge product can consistently be kept alive. You admire the creators and defenders of our fragile but connected world, most of which are only volunteers, and appreciate all efforts, all time commitment, and all the love given to our community.

What will happen?

Of course, GHC will keep impacting the world, again this year.

Me

I have been saying that after a while you just need to be "more" a part of it, right? Well, after being a Communities Volunteer for 2 years, this year I'm proud to be on the Communities Committee and help organizing this awesome "get-together with friends and systers". Thus, it's an honor for me to actually spend labor in this event which I completely believe in. Rest assured that our committee is working like bees to enable everyone to make the best out of the conference, with new events, gatherings, channels, and news!

This year is especially important for me, because I'll be presenting my pretty buildings in #GFX session. Looking back and realizing that how far I have come since the misty first days of PhD, I can't wait to share my awesome work while looking each one of you in the eye! If you want a trailer about the presentation, I suggest you to have a look at our papers [4][5]. Else, you're invited to my talk on Wednesday Oct 14 at #GHC15.

You

You'll definitely level up! Both motivated and armored! Socially, academically, and personally.

Maybe after reading this, you will want to be a volunteer and start being a part of us, now!

But more importantly, I believe you'll become one of us, you'll find yourself both similar and different enough to be comfortable with the crowd, and you'll realize that the imperfections of any systems (human-centric, data-centric, process-centric), can be overcome by a little environment support.

Us 

For me, GHC become like an annual celebration where I spend quality time with friends all around the world, colleagues from all disciplines, and anyone interested in our battle for humanity:) I really want all of us to share that same feeling, that our safe environment is getting larger and larger by all of our efforts and we can accomplish anything we want! The chamber that had 8.000 women in computing fields, has reached a record of registration for the celebration and this year we're expecting a 1.5 times larger circle of 12.000 women! Not comparable to us in size for #GHC15, but I want to conclude this excitement with some of us that can convey that feeling with their smiles, to show us, just us...

 
Can you imagine? Can you think about the accumulated knowledge we can obtain from this year's GHC? Now, is it possible to not be excited about such an adventure??!

I'm already amused and can't wait to be in Houston. I hope to see and meet each one of you, to embrace our community, to be useful for our living organism, and to carry this perspective onto the new generations.


Thank you girls, see you in Houston!



[1] Purdue CS @ GHC 13: https://www.cs.purdue.edu/news/10-11-13_gracehopper.html
[2] Purdue CS @ GHC 12: https://www.cs.purdue.edu/news/10-10-12_Hopper.html
[3] Purdue CS @ GHC 14: https://www.cs.purdue.edu/news/GraceHopper2014.html
[4] Proceduralization of Buildings: http://www.cs.purdue.edu/cgvlab/papers/aliaga/3dv2014.pdf
[5] Segmentation of Buildings: https://www.cs.purdue.edu/homes/idemir/Ilke_Demir/segsim.html

Module Path in Python

Hello fellas,

Lost in your build? Too many env variables? No idea what calls which, and need to see the implementation in a specific module, at god knows where?

>> import <module_name>         
>> print <module_name>.__file__ 

is what you need: the abs path of the module. Cheers!

Perforce: Back-out From an Existing Change

Using super-duper Perforce system for "helix" versioning , but you still make mistakes and need to back out a changelist? And you need to do it from command line, since you are not a GUI person and not good with p4's beautiful "back out" and "rollback" buttons"? Here is how:

> p4 sync <filename>@<the last changelist number before your change>
> p4 edit <filename>
> p4 sync <filename>@<your changelist number>
> p4 resolve -ay
> p4 sync <filename>
> p4 resolve
> p4 submit <filename>

Notes:

•  If you don't know the filename, check the beginning of "p4 descibe <your changelist number> | less".
•  If you don't know your changelist number, check "p4 changes | grep <your username>".

Qt 4.7 and VS2010 Moc problem

When the projects grow bigger, the project settings might go out of control sometimes. Today I want to share a quick fix for one specific such case.

My case and fix happens under Qt version 4.7, Visual Studio 2010 and Qt Visual Studio add-on 1.1.7; however it might be applicable to other versions too.

When you have an error like "moc: Too many input files specified":

moc: Too many input files specified
1>  Usage: moc [options] <header-file>
1>    -o<file>           write output to file rather than stdout
1>    -I<dir>            add dir to the include path for header files
1>    -E                 preprocess only; do not generate meta object code
1>    -D<macro>[=<def>]  define macro, with optional definition
1>    -U<macro>          undefine macro
1>    -i                 do not generate an #include statement
1>    -p<path>           path prefix for included file
1>    -f[<file>]         force #include, optional file name
1>    -nn                do not display notes
1>    -nw                do not display warnings
1>    @<file>            read additional options from file
1>    -v                 display version of moc

One of the general cases I have encountered is the problem caused by the spaces in the project path. A quick solution might be getting rid of that ambiguity by changing the workspace and/or paths of environment variables.

However, in my case, I have multiple moc files and I get this error for only a few files. In that case, open the project settings file with a text editor (i.e. "vi <project_name>.vcxproj"), and look for "moc_". You will see that some moc files might be excluded from the build.

Normal:

<ClCompile Include="GeneratedFiles\Release\moc_normal_file.cpp" />

Excluded:

<ClCompile Include="GeneratedFiles\Release\moc_excluded_file.cpp" /> <ClComp      <ExcludedFromBuild Condition="'$(Configuration)|$(Platform)'=='Debug|Win32'">true</ExcludedFromBuild>      <ExcludedFromBuild Condition="'$(Configuration)|$(Platform)'=='Debug|x64'">true</ExcludedFromBuild>   <ExcludedFromBuild Condition="'$(Configuration)|$(Platform)'=='Release|Win32'">true</ExcludedFromBuild>    </ClCompile>

Changing the excluded file to a normal form would make it be compiled and linked as the usual files:

<ClCompile Include="GeneratedFiles\Release\moc_excluded_file.cpp" />

If not, I would advise to look for more changed/corrupted settings in that file, especially with the filename associated with the error above. 

It Doesn't Have To Be Pink! Designing for Women

I will continue with my notes from some Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing Conference. Since this summary has been waiting in my "drafts" for a little while, this entry will contain less "commentaries" :)

Presenters

Jessica R. Cauchard, Funda Kivran-Swaine, Sarah Esper, and Yael Kliper

Abstract

The session aims to change our perception about design, give tools that women use for designing and open a discussion on twitter (@GHCdesignforwoman).

Note: please check for the beautiful designs that we have contributed during the session, from the twitter handle above!

Notes

If we want people to use something, then dedicate it to them.

Laptop for women: Pink laptops, phones, etc.!!!

Hardware-wise: Many of us missed calls because it was in our bags? But men carry phones in their pockets more, so vibration is more effective... Another example, has anyone seen any smart watches for ladies?

Reject assumption

Example: Photos and pictures are with us since the cave paintings to current very high-res photos.

Assume everyone in the room is a designer, so think about a product to help people take photos of themselves. Go find people who are not like you to get some knowledge, even if they are taking really unbelievable selfies. Think about a sportive, outgoing adventurer living far far away. None thinks that he takes selfies, but when you give the selfie-stick to him, he takes incredible selfies from around the world at extreme places!

Outcomes:
  - reject casual cultural observation
  - truth+awareness>stereotypes
  - go out with an open mind
  - challenge assumptions

Woman and Money

Money is exclusive in the male domain. When googled "women+money"= Models, quotes, sad women.. comes as pictures. But when googled "banking"= males across the globe! (almost all business-related hand-shakes belong to men!).

However, there are many females that benefit from and use micro finance. Unfortunately, they have issues getting loans and building credit histories. There are many ways being developed about increasing such. One great example is to include social-presence and influence network into credit score computation. Since women have much more reach on social media and local network, using social media presence as a parameter into the credit issues enhances not only women, but benefits everybody.

More examples include, branch designs for woman, atms for woman, coupon clipping for woman, retirement planning for woman... Think.

Power and Equality

1. shifting the concern from equality to power
2. distributive collaborative learning vs. massive online learning

Online media is more personal, so woman can grow more intimate, one-to-one and caring relationships.

Workshop

We were divided into groups of 5-6 people, and designed! I will explain step-by-step development and give examples from our group's experience.

**Step 1: Select an application to design for.**

The categories included everyday life apps like whatsapp, health and financial applications. We have chosen online-banking, because we needed an app that all members of our team were familiar with.

**Step 2: Describe the app with adjectives and how it makes you feel when using.**

I believe this was the sparkle that started the creativity.