Fortune and cowsay get egalitarian
Fortune is a simple program that displays a pseudo-random message from a database of quotations that first appeared in Version 7 of Unix and runs on the command line on Unix-like systems.
Cowsay is another simple program running on the command line which generates ASCII pictures of a cow with a message.
I have used fortune and cowsay in the past to demonstrate the use of a pipe | which feeds the output of one program and uses it as the input for the next program.
Today running fortune | cowsay yielded the message in the image below.
The message is most apposite as half the human race is under-represented in IT and other technical fields.
In March this year The Guardian reported as follows:
In 2005, women made up 24% of computer science students. By 2010, that figure had dropped to 19%, according to the Higher Education Statistics Agency. A 2012 report from Creative Skillset found that only 29% of the interactive media industry in the UK is female, and the majority hold positions in art and design and communications rather than engineering.
The Guardian’s report concluded that
There is a long way to go before there is parity between the genders in the technology industry. But every baby step made has a tiny effect on the representational content of the diverse audience that uses software and hardware. Developers are known to develop solutions for themselves.