The Gender Genie

There's a website, called The Gender Genie, that claims to be able to tell whether the author of a piece of prose is male or female. I decided to run Everyday Narcissism through the genie to test its accuracy. I figured that the notion of determining an author's sex or gender based on a computer program was suspect, so my assumption was that it would be right about half the time. (Which is what it would get by random chance.)

Everyday Narcissism has 72 blog posts. I excluded my list and quiz posts when I ran the genie. That leaves me with 61 posts to analyze. 24 of them came up as female, and 37 of them came up as male. This means that the genie was only correct 39% of the time. The genie actually did worse than random chance.

There seemed to be little rhyme or reason to which posts came up as female and which posts came up as male. Jen posited that the computer was just guessing based on stereotypes, but that didn't seem to fit because the two posts I wrote about laundry came up as male, and the post I wrote about how much I hate shopping came up as female.

The funniest error was in the analysis of An Open Letter to the California Highway Patrol. In that post, I specifically stated that I'm a woman. The gender genie's result: male. At least the one where I talked about being vaccinated for cervical cancer came up female!

My results, in case you were wondering:

Space Invaders

Not hostile extraterrestrials bent on conquest, but people who have no respect for personal space...

I dislike it when people invade my personal space. Unless the person in question is someone I know well and like, I prefer that people stay a handshake distance away. It's been my understanding that in western American culture, approximately 1 cubit (I love the Biblical reference there. A cubit is about 18 inches, or the distance from elbow to hand, i.e. handshake distance.) is the socially acceptable bubble of personal space for strangers and casual or professional acquaintances, BART during rush hour notwithstanding. I've heard that in Japan, it's even farther, more like bowing distance, but I've never been there, so I don't know for sure.

It's especially uncomfortable when professors become space invaders. Yesterday evening, I was sitting in the lounge studying. I was on a large couch-like piece of furniture. There were a few other people in the lounge on the other side of the room. Suddenly, I noticed that someone practically appeared right next to me. I looked up, and it was one of my professors. (We'll call him Professor Space-Invader.) He sat down on the couch right next to me (like, probably an inch away) and struck up a conversation. I made small talk, but I was really uncomfortable. Finally, he wrapped up the conversation and headed off. Then I relaxed.

Professor Space-Invader is from Alabama. I have another professor who is a bit of a space invader, too (though he doesn't really make me uncomfortable), and he's from New England. Both of them have lived in California for many years, though. Is there an eastern/western divide in how much personal space is socially acceptable? (I lived in North Carolina and Virginia for a year and a half, and I never noticed personal space being smaller out there.)

Installation Wizard

I probably should have been an engineer, like my father, and his father, and...well, you get the idea. For some reason, computers make sense to me. This can be both a blessing and a liability.

My roommate's computer has needed a fresh re-install of the operating system ever since she got the computer two years ago. (It used to belong to her aunt or someone, and it's an old computer, but hey, it was free.) She didn't want to do it because it's disruptive, so she decided to just make do.

This morning, she said that her antivirus software said she had a virus. I went to take a look at it. Her update license expired in 2007, so it hasn't been updating since then. The computer had 26 unique viruses. I figured I would just download and install AVG, since it's free and it would solve the immediate problem. For some reason, the antivirus software that was already installed wouldn't uninstall, so I couldn't install AVG.

I decided to look around a bit to see what was going on. The registry was completely corrupted, and whoever had originally installed the operating system formatted the disk incorrectly. I was honestly surprised that it had lasted this long. I retrieved the files and then asked if it was ok for me to reinstall the OS. (I explained that it was the only way to properly fix the computer.) She said ok.

So, I've spent my entire holiday reinstalling Windows. It's a good thing I actually enjoy this sort of stuff. I'm going to set everything to be automated so that the Windows components and the antivirus software update themselves. Hopefully there won't be any more problems.

Update: One of my friends sent me this link to a comic on the subject.

Legal Textbook Review

A friend asked me for advice on legal writing textbooks so I figured that I would write about a variety of law textbooks. I've had my fair share, so my thoughts are below.

Space

Not outer space, unfortunately, though that would make a great topic for a blog post. (Hmmm...Note to self.)

For the last six or so months, I've been sharing a room with my sister. She was ready to move out of our parents' house, and she wanted to save money, so she moved in with me. I was cool with the idea of cutting my rent in half, so I went along with it. We have a bunk bed, so there's still sufficient floor space in there, but it's cramped to have to share. Plus, I go to bed around 10 and get up around 6. Jen goes to bed around midnight and gets up whenever strikes her fancy, though she complains that 8 is early. (I would find sleeping until 8 to be a rare luxury.)

The apartment has been cramped because it was inhabited by 5 people, 2 dogs, and a cat. (3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, 1050 sq. ft.) However, one of my roommates moved out on Saturday, along with her dog. Now there are only 4 people, 1 dog, and 1 cat in the apartment. I moved into the vacated room, and it's so nice!

It's a smaller room, and I don't have all of my stuff in there yet. (I have a big deadline on Tuesday night, so that takes precedence.) My bed frame isn't scheduled to arrive until tomorrow, so my mattress is on the floor in the mean time. Last night was a dream. I shut my door and everyone left me alone. (Well, except for the cat, but I don't mind her. She's pretty quiet.) I got to hit the snooze button without feeling guilty. I got up at 5:15 AM without anyone throwing stuff at me for disturbing slumber.

I'm so done with the sharing a room thing! I can share a bathroom with no problem, but the only time I'm ever going to share a bedroom again in my life is when I'm married. (Even then, I'll make sure I have an office or something so I have a place I can get away from people and have my own space.) Don't get me wrong, I'm not a misanthrope. I genuinely like people. I also like being able to get away from people sometimes so that I can recharge.