Ages and ages ago, I thought, hey, mencal is way too simplistic, we need a complex algorithym for prediction of various portions of one’s menstrual cycle, available as a calendar plugin for Evolution or something. Sure enough, someone built a web app called CyclesPage to track cycles and fertility. They have a basic service where a lady puts in data about her periods and it guesses when she’s ovulating, and a premium service, where she puts in data about her periods and basal body temperature and all sorts of other stuff, and it gets more accurate, and it can also send her emails for ovulation season.
Along with BlogHer, the women’s blog conference, this is an encouraging sign that there are more and more women involved in technology– it’s hard to measure by, say, checking how many people sign up for gmail or something similar.
Discuss. And for homework, an essay on gender roles and technology in the workplace.
Secretly Ironic 