One of the most brilliant and talented women I've ever known once shared a story with me that absolutely shocked me, a story that I think should be heard.
She was hired as a software engineer at NASA, her dream job. Honestly, a dream job for many- it would have bee a dream job for me, before I moved to security. Writing software for spacecraft has to be one of the coolest and yet most demanding jobs in the industry. Yet, her joy was quickly gone, and her spirit deflated.
She was consistently assigned menial, even pointless tasks. Mere busywork at times. Work far below her ability. Work that never gave her the opportunity to show what she was capable of. It didn't take long to find out why.
You see, not long after she was hired, her manager made it clear that he saw women's place as being at home and raising kids. If he was so against women working, why did he hire her? He had a problem, his male engineers had a habit of moving out of the area for higher paying jobs in the private sector. So he started hiring single women in hopes that they'd marry his male engine
... Show more...One of the most brilliant and talented women I've ever known once shared a story with me that absolutely shocked me, a story that I think should be heard.
She was hired as a software engineer at NASA, her dream job. Honestly, a dream job for many- it would have bee a dream job for me, before I moved to security. Writing software for spacecraft has to be one of the coolest and yet most demanding jobs in the industry. Yet, her joy was quickly gone, and her spirit deflated.
She was consistently assigned menial, even pointless tasks. Mere busywork at times. Work far below her ability. Work that never gave her the opportunity to show what she was capable of. It didn't take long to find out why.
You see, not long after she was hired, her manager made it clear that he saw women's place as being at home and raising kids. If he was so against women working, why did he hire her? He had a problem, his male engineers had a habit of moving out of the area for higher paying jobs in the private sector. So he started hiring single women in hopes that they'd marry his male engineers, and keep them from moving away.
She had put in a tremendous amount of effort to establish her technical skills, her ability to solve the hardest problems, to prove herself as worthy of one of the most coveted roles in the public sector, to be able to work on cutting edge science and exploration. To her manager, none of that mattered. She was young, single, and he wanted someone that would tie his other engineers to that city. That's all she was to him.
He stated all of that plainly and clearly. He didn't care how smart she was, he didn't care how talented she was. He didn't care what she was capable of. All he wanted was for her to was to meet one of his male engineers, get married, and quit to raise kids.
I was fortunate enough to work with her and see her talent unleashed. I was lucky enough to see what she was truly capable of, and it was a lot. She would have been that manager's best engineer, if he'd given her the chance - if he'd seen her as something other than a means to tie down one of the men he'd hired.
His demeaning and sexist views robbed her of the career at NASA that she dreamed of, and robbed NASA of a brilliant engineer.
At this point, you may be asking why I'm sharing her story, a story that I don't believe was ever shared publicly, instead of her sharing it. Because of one of the other places that women have to fight to be heard: the doctor's office.
She knew something was wrong, she knew something had changed, she was dealing with symptoms of something, but had no idea what it was. Her doctor said it was a minor infection. As treatments failed, she went to a different doctor for a second opinion. Same answer. As the symptoms got worse, she went to more doctors, all said the same thing, Finally, half a dozen doctors later, she found one that was willing to perform even the most basic of medical tests.
It took only a few days to confirm the diagnosis: cancer. It would have been easily treated if diagnosed early, but had already progressed to stage 4. There was no effective treatment.
Because of a sexist manager, NASA lost a fantastic engineer, though the security community gained one of the most brilliant minds in application security that I've ever encountered. Because of doctors that don't listen to women, we all lost her.
(I won't mention her name, as she greatly appreciated privacy in life, though this story should be told and remembered. If you knew her, you're well aware of what a truly amazing person she was, not only as a remarkable talent, but a fiercely loyal friend. I was truly lucky to have her as a friend, and while she's been gone for a few years now, I still mourn losing her.)
Arch 💕
in reply to Simon Tatham • • •ooh! so, a friend just started a random puzzle, tapped the very middle tile, and got this!
chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtath…
did...they just find the first bug in 20 years?
(or was this caused by something else i might have missed?)
Mines, from Simon Tatham's Portable Puzzle Collection
www.chiark.greenend.org.ukSimon Tatham
in reply to Arch 💕 • • •@archenoth hmmm. If I press the solve button to see the mine pattern, there's a big open region in the top centre, and if you start by opening that section, you _can_ solve the whole grid.
Is it possible that your friend clicked somewhere in that area, and then pressed undo to go back to a blank grid, and then re-clicked in a different location? For example, if the _original_ first click had been one square higher than the centre, that would have done it.
Arch 💕
in reply to Simon Tatham • • •ooh, interesting! i didn't see an undo, but it's possible they dragged their finger a little before it revealed?
i just put it in front of them and was very surprised by the singular square that was revealed when they tapped my phone
(i wonder if there's a bug in the fdroid port? if so, i can bug em about it instead of you! aha)
Simon Tatham
in reply to Arch 💕 • • •Arch 💕
in reply to Simon Tatham • • •Simon Tatham
in reply to Arch 💕 • • •@archenoth received, thank you! The first MOVE line in the file says "O4,4", meaning open the square at (4,4). That doesn't match the click location (4,3) in the DESC line, which I think confirms my idea of what must have happened.
If I load that whole save file into Mines and look at the 'specific' game id dialog, it says "9x9:4,3,m446403f6fcc8d8d699418". The location 4,3 is the first-click point used for game generation – the one from which you're guaranteed to be able to solve the game. In a 9×9 grid, (4,3) is one space up from the central location. If you paste that game ID back into a fresh Mines, it will start up with an area already open as if you'd clicked at (4,3). For example, on the web version, try chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtath….
And the random seed is extra confirmation. If you open Mines
... Show more...@archenoth received, thank you! The first MOVE line in the file says "O4,4", meaning open the square at (4,4). That doesn't match the click location (4,3) in the DESC line, which I think confirms my idea of what must have happened.
If I load that whole save file into Mines and look at the 'specific' game id dialog, it says "9x9:4,3,m446403f6fcc8d8d699418". The location 4,3 is the first-click point used for game generation – the one from which you're guaranteed to be able to solve the game. In a 9×9 grid, (4,3) is one space up from the central location. If you paste that game ID back into a fresh Mines, it will start up with an area already open as if you'd clicked at (4,3). For example, on the web version, try chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtath….
And the random seed is extra confirmation. If you open Mines with the same _random seed_ as in this game, e.g. chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtath…, then clicking one space above the centre generates the same game again – but if you reload that URL fresh and click in the very centre, you get a totally different game with a 3×3 square opened around the centre point.
I said "reload the URL fresh" because if instead you load that random-seed URL, click one space above the centre, then _undo_ and click in the centre instead, you see what you described originally: just a 2 square in the centre open, and no further move possible without a guess.
Mines, from Simon Tatham's Portable Puzzle Collection
www.chiark.greenend.org.ukArch 💕
in reply to Simon Tatham • • •that's neat! happy to add to the growing list of "every single one was a pebcak" stories, ahah
i'm not really sure how they managed to get a game like that started, but they definitely had me thoroughly convinced there was something weird going on!
thank you for looking into it~ (and thank you for your work on the puzzles! they're great!
)
Simon Tatham
in reply to Arch 💕 • • •@archenoth I may have to think about tweaking the UI to prevent undoing of the first click. I've had one previous case of a possible problem which I also suspected of having this root cause.
Then again, if you're investigating the properties of the game rather than playing it to win, it is sometimes _useful_ to be able to try the same game from a different starting point.
Perhaps a compromise would be: once the game has been generated such that a specific first click guarantees solubility, if the player rewinds to before that square is opened, mark it with a small 'click here' cross. Then at least you'd know when you'd done that, but you could still do it if you wanted to.
Simon Tatham
in reply to Simon Tatham • • •I've done this now. The current version of Puzzles on my website – both the live web version and the downloadable binaries – mark the original first click location with a cross if you undo past the move that opened it. For example, I loaded the save file you sent me into the Linux version, and now it looks like this. Same if I use "Upload save file" at chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtath….
Mines, from Simon Tatham's Portable Puzzle Collection
www.chiark.greenend.org.ukArch 💕
in reply to Simon Tatham • • •yoooo! thank you!
i didn't expect you to go out of your way for a mistake on my part, but i really appreciate it either way!