If Your Geek Goddess Skips A Date, Perhaps It's Because Her Calendar Is Wrong
from the oooops dept
A couple months back, an Australian company decided to put out a calendar of "geek goddesses." That is, this pinup calendar was supposedly full of women who work in the technology field, posed glamorously, copying well known scenes from various movies. The company behind the calendar claimed that it was intended to change the stereotype of women who worked in technology to encourage more women to enter the field. Of course, a few more cynical observers noted that it certainly seemed a bit more targeted at geek guys, who wanted to see scantily clad attractive geek women. It wasn't difficult to assume that people getting their hands on the calendar were more likely to spend time ogling the photos, rather than considering how they had misperceived female contributions to the tech world. Now, it appears that those who put together the calendar may have spent a bit too much time focusing on the photos rather than, well, the geeky details such as getting the dates correct (you know, the little things). According to the Raw Feed, it turns out that the "Geek Goddesses" calendar is riddled with all sorts of embarrassing errors. Apparently, the geeks may be good looking, but they're in need of a proof reader for their calendar. The company is offering replacements, but pushing customers who already bought the calendars to accept "free calendar screen savers and/or high resolution files of the corrected pages" as an alternative. They claim that most buyers are willing to take those alternative offers because, honestly, it's not like they actually were using the calendar anyway.Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
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Geek Goddesses
Where can I get one? I don't care if it's correct or not, the incorrect one is a collector's item!
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Sales Mentality Extraordinaire
That could be the best advertising technique of 2006, despite being a bit late in the game for an annual calendar.
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Goddesses?
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Aren't they supposed to... look good?
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What?
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Speaking of
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eh.
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OH MY GOD
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Re: OH MY GOD
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Re: Re: OH MY GOD
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It's riddled with problems alright
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Well, they're not THAT bad
And let's face it, it's pretty difficult for ANY chick to look ugly after you've stared at Apu Nahaspemapedlanguptalicious for 8 hours.
But I'll agree that about 30% of them were atrocious...
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WoW!
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REPOST They're not THAT bad
I just took a look, and you've got to admit, if (most) of those women were working in your office, they'd be hot... if for no other reason that you almost definitely work beside 100+ stinky, ugly looking dudes.
And let's face it, it's pretty difficult for ANY chick to look ugly after you've stared at Apu Nahaspemapedlanguptalicious for 8 hours.
But I'll agree that about 30% of them were atrocious...
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They're not THAT bad
And let's face it, it's pretty difficult for ANY woman to look ugly after you've stared at Apu Nahaspemapedlanguptakrishna for 8 hours.
But I'll agree that about 30% of them were atrocious...
PS The techdirt SPAM filter sucks...
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They're not THAT bad
And let's face it, it's pretty difficult for ANY chick to look ugly after you've stared at the elbonian immigrant in the cube next to yours for 8 hours.
But I'll agree that about 30% of them were atrocious...
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Spam filter?
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Re: Spam filter?
The spam filter is fine. If you bothered to read the message when it told you it was holding your comments as spam, it says very clearly that someone from Techdirt will review the posts, and if they're not spam they will be posted, exactly as they were.
The spam filter works on a variety of qualities, including IP address, which explains why your posts on the other computer didn't go through.
However, the spam filter works great. In the last 5 hours, we received 2412 spam comments. Yes, two thousand, four hundred and twelve. Of those, SIX were false positives. Four of which were yours.
You'll note that they were all posted within a couple hours (other than your annoying "tests" of the spam filter, which I deleted as spam). There's nothing wrong with the spam filter at all.
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Re: Re: Spam filter?
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Re: Re: Spam filter?
At that point, the message was never reposted... and while my comments (along with everybody else's) may not be worthy of a Pulitzer, I don't think they are "spam".
Because of my previous experience with your spam filter I was expecting the same result. Can you honestly say that you would've picked up my false positive comments if I hadn't posted my complaint? If you can truly read 2412 posts in 5 hours, then I give you well deserved credit. If there is a chance that you may miss a valid message or two, then please forgive my frustration at my previous experiences with your spam filter.
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Re: Re: Re: Spam filter?
Yup. I actually saw the posts caught in the spam filter before I saw your other comments.
The admin form we have allows us to skim a lot of "spam" comments very quickly. It's usually pretty easy to spot the few non-spam comments mixed in with the thousands of spam comments. I'm sure every once in a while we do miss some, but I think it's pretty rare. Apologies if an early comment didn't get through.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Spam filter?
I look forward to the time when both my computers are removed from your spam filter. :-)
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Re: Re: Spam filter?
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(PS, the post above was labled as SPAM on my other computer by the techdirt filter, you guys should check this out)
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Bah!
(Back to slashdot)
-bendodge
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Really hot women tend to want really hot men. Look in a mirror and apply the same standards to your own bodies, guys. Are you perfect? Sure you are. All the hot chicks want you.
*Runs to kitchen to get you a sandwich*
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But even ugly women won't pay to see pictures of ugly men. Ugly women are a dime a dozen, I don't have to pay money to see them.
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Oops..
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I bought one of those...
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Re: I bought one of those...
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As for myself, I'd consider myself a 6 on a scale of 1-10.
And no, I wouldn't even think of being a model for a calendar.
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Good on em I say - no one is making people buy the calendar *winks*
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Techie Women Are Here to stay
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Re: Techie Women Are Here to stay
www.techinthecity.com/blog
Hope you enjoy it..
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On a side note...
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Shallow Hal
Screen Goddess www.itgoddess.info is about smashing through that and getting the topic on the table and getting people to realise the ONE thing that does unite technology people is we love technology and innovative ways to create things - geek is good.
There are women in their 20's and 60's there are bikini gorgeous as well as size 16's, there is a wide ethnic blend and massive diversity of roles and backgrounds, there are people who love firefly and andromeda and also those who love the classics.....book readers, and surfers......
Move beyond 'shallow hal' comments and get into what it is about....DID you know every image has placed/ or hidden technology in it, plus there is a secret message in the calendar waiting for some wise geek to solve it and win prizes.
What technologist does not want more women in the workplace do you really want an increasing male environment - where technology is created from one view point/experience??? - 100% of the profits of the calendar go towards actively encouraging more women in technology studies and careers.
Stand up and be counted and Support this brave, bold initiative! don't hide behind personal comments stand by principles and a shared pasison for the industry.
regards
Sonja sonja@itgoddess.info
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