time

so, for some strange reason, I have no homework right now and no research to work on because all the items I ordered have yet to come in. even solar cells class is currently without work (though I have this constant fear that I'll get an email in the next few minutes from the prof with homework attached). what does one do with spare time?

apparently:

- make dinner - the homemade pizza crust too large for my pizza stone = lots of crust!

- repaint my nails in 'eternal optimist' - which, while it took slightly less than 40 minutes this time, I went and messed up two nails right near the end :(

- climb!! climbing today, climbing tomorrow, comp on saturday at Western!

- catch up on all the TV shows I made myself not watch for two weeks - thanks solar cells class

- buy new slacks! yay GAP, thanks for making pants that fit my shape. red trousers are the best.

- see my sister's last high school home game!

- help feed tent city 3 - though my friends did all the cooking, I just drove the food down there in my mom's giant suburban (my car is in the shop :( ) such good homemade pulled pork!!

that's about 50 lbs of pork shoulder, a bag of large onions, 20ish lbs of baked beans, 200 chocolate chip cookies, a hundred buns, 6 bags of salad, and many people fed. 

- make muffins (recipe is from my favorite bakery of all time, Macrina, found here)

- and find fun things on the internet:

in which I fix my girlfriends grandparents wifi and am hailed as a conquering hero
(used to happen frequently when I visited relatives...not so much anymore for some reason)

excerpts from the safety brochure
(for all of you who want to know about NASA's plans for space tourism and colonization, please read for your safety)

and this infographic
(have I ever mentioned how much I love infographics?! so many infographics....)

apparently, before this survey, it was assumed that religious = backwards. really?! umm, some of the christian people I most admire are smack dab in the middle of technology! favorite part of the infographic was reveling how much religious people use technology - a lot.

also, today I began contemplating starting a science tumblr, strictly for all the science-y things I find on the internet, so that the poor people who are my friends on fb don't get their feeds filled up with all my posts....like this sweet NASA air traffic video!

women, tech, and the superbowl

In the post-superbowl commercial analysis, there are a few terribly inappropriate commercials are on everyone's radar because their content so explicitly objectified women in a way that needs to stop happening. However, while pursuing the twitter hashtag #notbuyingit, started by the women of Miss Representation (a film that I recommend watching) I was caught off guard by the dislike of the best buy mobile commercial:

Maybe it was just because I was watching the commercials in a room full of women who had met one of the people featured (and were very excited about it every time, understandably so :)  - it was the guy who turned text in to voice) or because I'm so used to the male-dominated tech field, that I didn't have an issue with the fact that every single developer featured was a male. Some people thought that best buy was sending the message that while men can make apps, women can only sell them. While that conclusion can be drawn from the ad, I, somewhat surprisingly, don't have a large issue with the ad, because it is such a male-dominated industry right now and men have created great technological advances. (side note, I hope that guys don't feel like their tech advances are being completely discounted because they are men and not women, in this whole conversation about women in science/tech - that is not my intention. I just want to see women given more opportunities and told that they can succeed in a currently male-dominated industry. It can be quite intimidating to be the only women in a room if you don't have support and encouragement!)

An article on a site called Jezebel pulled together a list of females in the tech industry that the author felt best buy could have included in their ad. Click the link, read the list of women. Quite honestly, Amanda Wixted, the creator of Farmville, is the only women I feel would be well-know enough by the superbowl-watching crowd to merit real consideration by the marketing team at best buy. Would you recognize Emily Chang, the woman who created a company who designs user interfaces - recognizing her product in the 3 seconds she would have been on the screen? I can't even remember the faces of the men who made Words with Friends, but I connected with the ad because I saw the image of the app on the phone screens. Maybe it's because I've been on the flip side as well, as a member of the commercial-producing crew (my uncle makes commercials and I've worked for him in the past) that I understand why the men who appeared were featured. Do any of you know about the women Women are still making great strides in the tech industry, but I'm not ready to quit shopping best buy because of this commercial. Women were not objectified and we got to see some of the faces behind some of the most well-known and useful mobile technology. And anyways, there were both men and women in the mix at the end, I'm just glad the used a female to do the talking, as it easily could have been a male 'manager' - which is the role I mentally put the woman in because she was the spokesperson. (second side note - check out the racial diversity in that group of best buy sales people and note that not all of the male developers are white males.)

I'm curious, though, what my other feminist-minded friends thought of the commercial, did your radar pick up on the all-male developers vs women salesperson when you first saw it?

booth babes

ommph. I would audibly express my frustration, but my roommate is trying to learn how to nap (I know, who doesn't know how to nap?!) so I'm going to write about it. I'm also putting off finishing homework, but that's nothing new.

you all know how I struggle with appropriate dressing in a male-dominated science field, but there is absolutely no reason booth babes should exist.

'Booth babes' stir controversy at 2012 CES
(for some reason, BBC won't let me have an embed code, but you should click on the link and watch the video, it's not too long)

Booth babes are insulting to women working in the tech field and only encourage gender stereotyping and inappropriate behavior. Regardless of if a women voluntarily agreed to work as a booth babe, she should not be subject to inappropriate comments and behavior from men, as seen in the BBC clip. (I also hate the way women are dressed in most video games and sci-fi books, but that's for another post.) I also finding it insulting to attendees to just assume that they would not be interested in a product if they don't have a scantily-clad model holding it. The problem only doubles when models are hired and not expected to know anything about the product. A company engages an attendee by objectifying a woman and then can't the sell the product because the rep doesn't know what she is handling - awesome marking strategy PR department (a marketing team probably all filled with men, but I won't put it past a woman to set something up at a male-heavy expo) Someone attending something like CES is there specifically to find out about new products, so I really don't see the point of hiring booth babes to introduce new products. And to the gal in the red shirt who though what they were wearing was fine because they weren't practically naked and laying across the hood of a car - if the clothing isn't appropriate for the tech workplace, it shouldn't show up at a tech conference.

Violet Blue, over at ZDNet has a humorous and pointed discussion about what it would be like if booth babes were male. also awful was the number of men taking pictures of the women without a product in her hands (link is from another gaming conference where apparently booth babes were supposed to be absent. it's quite funny, actually). If you're a guy who would go ask about a product because of the women holding it, not because of the actual product itself, I never want to work with you. That behavior quickly translates into an uncomfortable atmosphere in the workplace and I want nothing to do with it.

I also found the model's comments on women not being interested in technology telling about what she values and how the low visibility of women in tech makes entering the filed intimidating. I don't believe girls will see science and technology as a viable career to pursue until we get more women doing high-profile awesome things in a non-exploiting manner. Which is tricky, because minds, values, and attitudes in the industry have to change now before more women will join. I'm not sure what exactly to do to help this change happen, but I think that starting by mentoring girls and showing them how they can excel in those fields and supporting women like my friend Meredith, who is blazing trails through the tech industry.

for more discussion about booth babes, there are some other articles that have popped up on the internet:
another ZDNet one
one from The Guardian - apparently women were dancing in thongs at CES....really?!!!
from The Atlantic Wire
CNET (via huffington post) posted an except of a Women in Tech Panel - and look how awesomely they all were dressed!!!

and a whole ream of photos of booth babes - can you tell what they are marketing?
oh wait - there's more
and look! some gadgets, but don't forget the booth babes.

I'm done ranting now, but if you read all the way through this, I'd be interested in hearing how you would/do respond to the idea or presence of booth babes at a conference.

Also, no relevant pictures in this post, because the only related pictures would be of scarcely clad women, and I don't want that on my blog. But I can give you a cute kitten picture!

I would totally check out a product if a marketing department used kittens to sell it.....