More Lessons in Life Re: Lessons in Life from the Net (Ubiquity, Feb. 21, 2000)       When you asked about Vint Cerf's kids, I assumed you would ask about his wife -- who used to be deaf, but now has a cochlear implant that has allowed her to understand speech. I'd love to hear more about that. -- Don Norman Vint Cerf Replies:       Sigrid lost her hearing at age 3 as a consequence of spinal meningitis. For about 50 years she was profoundly deaf. She wore a large "body aid" to capture the tiniest bit of sound for her 100 dB loss (to illustrate, without her hearing aid, she would not hear a jet plane 50 feet away). She used lip reading to communicate and was unable to use the telephone except by way of the teletype relay service.       Then, in 1996, she began to investigate the state of cochlear implants. These had been in research for a couple of decades but only in the last 5 years or so had devices been developed that showed very high probability of working. These devices implant a dozen or more electrodes in the cochlea, each electrode touching a part of the auditory nerve. Electronics associated with the electrodes receive stimuli from an external computer called a speech processor that is about the size of a pager. The implant has a small magnet in it and the "external head piece" has a similar magnet. The transducer (the head piece) receives signals from the speech processor and translates them into electrical impulses that directly stimulate the auditory nerve.       Sigrid had the implant operation performed at the Johns Hopkins hospital in 1996 on an outpatient basis. The device was activated a few weeks later after the surgery healed. After about 20 minutes of preliminary programming of the speech processor, she made a phone call and we talked on the phone for the first time in our 30-plus years of marriage. Since then, she has listened to nearly 300 recorded books, she uses the telephone regularly, attends lectures and plays and movies, listens to the radio and television and, in short, functions as if she could hear more or less normally.       If you are looking for proof that we live in the 21st Century, this has to be one example. -- Vint Cerf Perpetuating Gender Stereotypes Re: Multimedia and Gender (Ubiquity, Feb. 21, 2000)       I am disturbed by the authors' assumption that having gender-specific computer games is a good thing. Their recommendations will only serve to maintain the status quo, which assumes that boys should be playing certain kinds of games and participating in certain kinds of activities, while girls should be doing other things. The focus should be on how computers, computer games, and computer-related activities are presented to girls, and on sending girls and women the message that they are capable of engaging in any computer-related activity, so as to encourage them to participate in all activities, rather than encouraging them to participate in certain computer-related activities. This includes the typical reference to women shopping online. Women do other things besides shop, and women are capable of doing other things with computers besides shop online. In addition, our society would be served best by finding ways to engage boys in the kind of computer games the authors recommend for girls, rather than being content for them to engage in the competitive and violent games traditionally marketed toward boys. -- Marcia Mandel, Ph.D. What Industry Needs, Education Lacks Re: What IT Labor Shortage? (Ubiquity, Feb. 21, 2000)       I agree with the article completely! They (meaning academia and industry) say that the information systems degree was established based on the need for graduates who understand both business functions and technology needs. The degree teaches all business aspects and then has just enough time to squeeze in basic theory in database and systems analysis, plus a little programming. It is, throughout, hailed as the most in-demand degree of all. Then when it comes time to look for a job, students are stumped because most companies want experience in software packages that the university has never heard of, as well as years of programming. Where are the junior level positions? University and industry professionals need to start talking so the education matches the needs, or else industry needs to spend more time and money molding its new-found workforce into what it needs. MIS graduates tend to be lost to computer tech support jobs and their potential stunted by never-ending help desk calls. Great thoughts on decomposing the real IT personnel problems. -- Andrew Stitt Blood, Sweat and Computer Science Majors Re: What IT Labor Shortage? (Ubiquity, Feb. 21, 2000)       1. There is another large community of people who can fill the personnel gap -- those in the physical sciences, applied mathematics, and engineering disciplines (other than computer engineering) who are computationally oriented. The article seems to focus on business types who are, in general, much less adept technically than the folks in science and engineering.       2. There was a recent article in Chronicle of Higher Education discussing the absence of women in the profession -- the turn-off of working with geeks and greedy people. Here is an opportunity for women to prepare themselves for the many academic positions that go begging every year. I have encouraged bright female graduates (at B.S. level) to pursue advanced study in graduate school, but the lure of the $50,000-plus job with signing bonuses trumps that effort. One of the problems I meet is that many female students will drop the CS major if they get a B or less, while male students will hang on even if they have to sweat blood for a C (and some of those SHOULD find another major). -- Anthony J. Duben

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