Saw this on Boing Boing this morning and my first thought was, "Dang! Geek week is over!"
My second thought was, "Why not?"
My constant thought is, "Librarians rule."
Geek Week Epilogue
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Sat May 29, 2010 10:01 AM EDT
— Filed under: geek-week
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The way I see it, Geek Week ends at midnight tonight...so there's still time to geek out.
Loved the video...my best friend is a librarian, so naturally I HAD to send that to her.
YES! This has to be UW in Seattle, bwahaha. Love it! :)
Just goes to prove how sexy librarians really are.
It would be super if smart women could get credit for being geeky and cool without constantly being reminded that, as women, anything and everything they do is filtered through partiarchy's sexified lens. Right, so they're geeky and creative and funny, and all of that can't be allowed to stand on its own merits, but instead has to be reduced to "evidence" of how women with such qualities are totally sexy and worthy of men's attention.
@MechTrek -
Smart, geeky women are sexy and cool, including the women who helped to make the 'Librarians Do Gaga' video. I use the term "sexy" without a sexual connotation. This has nothing to do with patriarchy, nor with being worthy of men's attention. Sorry if my comment gave you that impression.
I'm not familiar with nonsexual connotations of "sexy". Perhaps you would be kind enough to elaborate what you meant by "sexy" if it was not "sexually attractive" or "possessing qualities that make one sexually attractive". You might vet your links a bit more carefully as well, b/c the very first link in the sidebar of the page "Librarians are SEXY" is "Librarians in Pornography." Porn, unless I've been living under a rock and the definition has changed, is explicitly sexual material. So even if you don't agree that "sexy" connotes "sexual", the page you linked to certainly does. I understand that you were just trying to be complimentary. I was pointing out the underlying sexism in complimenting a woman's sexiness in lieu of whatever talents she's actually displayed (geekery, in this case). It does have to do with patriarchy, b/c one of the primary assumptions of a patriarchal society is that women's attractiveness and availablity to men takes precedence over any other function, which leads to a compliment about a woman's desireability being considered the highest compliment a woman can receive.
Here is an example. One of my colleagues recently replaced her iPhone with a Droid. When I asked why she selected the Droid, she said "because it is sexier". I did not take that to mean she desires the Droid sexually; she just sees the Droid as more functional, cooler and a better concept than the iPhone.
Another example. A couple of vendors offering new software tools for trending equipment performance recently made presentations to our engineering leadership team. After the meeting, I was interested in learning which product the director was considering. He said although vendor A "had a pretty sexy presentation", he actually thought vendor B's product would be more compatible with our existing systems. Having sat through both presentations, I can tell you there was nothing "sexually attractive" in either one.
Regarding the linked website, I chose it because I thought the paragraphs on the selected page would be thought-provoking regarding librarians. Honestly, the sidebar links were not important to my selection (at least one doesn't even work). However, I realize that you did not appreciate the link, and I acknowledge that the potential for offence did not factor into my thought process in choosing it.
I have been called many things, but "sexist" is a new one. The folks I work with every day would likely say I am rather vigilant regarding careless sexism in the language of our work place (though I try not to be pedantic about it). I reject patriachal definitions of how women should feel, act, look, and live in both my professional and personal life.
Rebecca Traister commented in her article The New Language of Feminism, "We must repurpose old words or come up with new ones." I still think "sexy" can be used to describe a smart, fun, geeky team of creative librarians (not all women) who have made a clever video emulating Lady Gaga. Nevertheless, I apologise for any offence in my post.
Ciào.
Dude, you just compared describing a woman and describing a phone. Objectifiation: see definition of. I'm not trying to pick a fight, and I do appreciate the apology. I'm just saying we're all swimming in it. See you around.
Dude?! I think not.
Of course librarians rule, as you well know. Librarians truly are the masters & mistresses of the universe.
Love this! Sending it on. Just so cool!
Well, here is something for the next Geek moment:
Check out some German engineers! Wonder if they have any ideas on oil management.
http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=RobaJKGMMiE
Cool video. Vielen Dank.
And there's Josh, the World's strongest librarian. http://worldsstrongestlibrarian.com/
Rachel--
You can use this for a Moment of Geek!
We librarians in Seattle are proud of our soon-to-be colleagues!
I second that. the librarians at our school are totally cool and they know how to run the universe.
As a grad student, I am fully aware of the awesomeness of librarians. Their jobs should come with capes!
How come you don't use the New Google Wave yet? http://wave.google.com/about.html
This doesn't really fit in to the Librarian category -- though I did think of it while writing a resume towards a job as a librarian -- but it is Engineering geekery.
The most recent tidbit of TV news I've watched on the subject of the Deepwater Horizon blowout shows a BP response leader saying that the next step is to cut off the existing broken pipeline somewhere above the broken blowout preventer, the attach a new down-pipe to the cut-off stump of the old. They must not be allowed to go forward with this plan!
The problem of aligning the end of a long down-pipe to an existing stub at a depth of a mile below you is not easy. It's made harder by the effects of ocean currents dragging the pipe around.
But if you can do that, you can also maneuver a supplementary blow out "preventer" onto that stub of pipe, because it's the same basic problem, simplified by the absence of a mile of pipe overhead being pushed around by the ocean.
Blowout preventer stacks as installed on the sea floor are complex devices with multiple mechanisms of closing off the pipe, presumably gushing oil, gas, and tarballs, after a blowout. Why they're called "preventers" when they only act after the fact is another whole ball of tar.
What is needed to close off Deepwater Horizon drill tubing is actually simpler than that: there needs to be just one mechanism which actually works. If cutting off the ongoing discharge of muck into the Gulf of Mexico were the main priority for BP, the plan would be to cut off the pipe, slide a blowout abatement device down over the pipe, and then firing it off.
But what BP is really concerned about is the effect of the spill on its bottom line. Reconnecting the existing drill hole to the surface would have BP operating that drill hole as a well in the time between when they were in a position to seal the existing blowout and the time when their relief well comes in.
If BP believe, as a corporation, that their liability for oil spill damage costs are capped, and especially if they believe that they have exceeded that cap, then their corporate drive is towards the approach that makes or saves the most money.
If they have the competence to cut off the pipe to install this new pipe segment to the surface, then they have the competence to do so to install a blowout abater and stop the outflow now.
The President, to the full extent of his Kagan-blessed operational Executive authority, make it clear to BP that they need to take stopping the blowout a life or death decision for their corporate and personal fortunes.
that was hot.
Poker Face is really doing the rounds. I'm a theatre arts student, so of course this little gem was doing the rounds last fall. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2SKhRPq6gk That one is called "Focus Tape" and made specially for theater geeks.
This one is pure geek:
Neutraface: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xHCu28bfxSI
I likes it. I guess it is no exaggeration to say everyone is going Gaga
thanks rachel you know that librarians do it while reading!
Linguists are pretty cool too... (pouts and bats eyelashes). Expect to start my PhD in the fall.
Good luck!! That's very cool.
Geek Week was so banal I can't believe it was your idea. I think a producer pushed it because the production was cheaper. It wasted my time and your talent. Your strengths are investigation, research, and interviews of real power. Leave the gee-whiz stuff to Huell Howser. The Pentagon is co-opting you with the celebrity treatment - Aircraft carriers have already been presented to excess - what's needed is the hard news you present. This is lacking on all other channels.
This thread really does a good job of describing why I am a liberal, I hate other liberals. Whine, cry.
AIRCRAFT CARRIERS ARE COOL. That's why it's on TV. It's not imperialism, it's becuase running a city on the water is FARKING COOL. And it's geeky. It's a logistical challenge only true geeks can stand up.
Earlier someone was whining about use of feminist terms. Yes, that's evolving language. "Sexy" doesn't just refer to the female form. It's evolved into a word meaning desirable in all permutations. A car can be sexy, a guy can be sexy, a girl can be sexy, a phone can be sexy, a house can be sexy.
It really gets me annoyed how everyone on the left, whom I desperately want to support, stakes out little claims of moral high ground and impedes anyone from doing anything but venorating them. We can't ever look at the military positively, they're all imperialists. You can't ever say anything in relation to a woman becuase that's anti-feminist. You can't make jokes, you can't work satire, you can't do anything, because it impeeds some liberal's little personal stake.
It's annoying as hell. It's why I can't hang out with politically left people, they just drive me up the wall with little causes I can't give a shat about, even though I share all the same political beliefs.
Very good points, Saint. I am a lefty liberal, but man some people really need to LIGHTEN UP. I'm not a gung ho military type, but some things involving the military really are COOL. I love reading about the aircraft and ships they use. They're amazing examples of ingenuity.
Maybe I'm not PC, but brains are SEXY. And I mean it in the literal sense.
Come on folks, life is short. No need to pick apart every little thing people say and make big deals out of nothing. Live a little!
Science can also sexy. Definition of "sexy" number 1,326: a research idea that is sure to land the originating researcher a crap load of grant funding. Synonyms: a hot topic, buzzword, eureka moment, aha!. Antonyms: a dud, a dog, a red herring (caution, this term has been hijacked by politicos as of late), a crack smoker (as in, "You're smoking crack if you think that dog of a dud idea is going fly!")
Dear TRMS, please don't stop Moment of Geek, no matter how "banal" the topic. This is the only newscast that incorporates special interest segments that paints science in a good light into the everyday humdrum, often dower news stories. It's nice to see some uplifting news once in a while and it's nice to be appreciated. Bringing light to all the cool things that one can do with science can only help increase interest in the STEM disciplines. It's time to rejuvenate innovation in the States.
Oh, and librarians have saved many a grad student butt numerous times. Jack, sorry bud, but you don't know what you are talking about.
oh, BTW, thank you Tricia, we librarians do rock the body that rocks the party.
/archival freelancer
//five second pose
That was a moment of Geek Awesomeness. Oh and I didn't see a woman in that Video that didn't do something to my Dewey Decimal System.
Thank you