nataliepo

Ain't nothin wrong with a pink robot made by teenage girl geeks!

School was done for the day, and Yuan and her friends had gathered at the Lower East Side Girls Club on First Avenue to dress the mechanical teenager, which they built over the summer. Mounted on the base of an electric wheelchair bought on Craigslist for $200, and fashioned of steel piping, recycled electronics and fabric remnants, Girlzilla will parade through the Lower East Side on Saturday as part of the annual Howl! arts festival. “She’s one crazy diva,” Yuan said as she wove multicolored plastic streamers onto the robot’s head to simulate hair.

via www.nytimes.com

Awesome project, awesome name.  THIS IS THE STUFF THAT MAKES ME BLOG!  Too bad I missed its parade a few weeks ago.  I would have loved to cheer them on in person.

I do have mixed emotions about the author's overemphasis of these teenage engineers' girlish qualities, though. I mean,  they're teenagers from New York City!  Of course they gossip, of course they wear cute blue flats, of course they laugh, of course a 60-year old man lacks star quality, and of course Robert Downey, Jr in Iron Man makes for a cute engineering role model.  It feels like she went out of her way to overstate that these girls are completely normal.  

But I recognize this as a positive new spin on an old story.  And I'll take it!

I am a set of dancing, swoopey lines.

Logos for women's groups always roll my eyes since they overemphasize whimsical femininity and underemphasize our strengths.  The collection from "Squiggles, Trees, Ribbons and Spirals: My Collection of Women’s Health, Beauty and Support Group Logos as the Stages of Life in Semi-Particular Order" (excerpted below) induces eye-rolls like no other.

via www.artfagcity.com

 

 I always liked the logo for the Center for Women and Information Technology (CWIT) since it sends a tongue-in-cheek message to ladies who know its code.   Ask a nearby female if you can't figure it out.

Thanks, Matty, for the tip!

"I hope you live."

Soldiers get dozens of letters from kids, and, for some reason I can't fathom, this was my brother's favorite.

The Brooklyn Cyclone [UPDATED]

There I was, working from home on a day where our office had no water nor internet, planning new features for a fine blogging platform, when, all of a sudden, my droopy dream pop beats were interrupted by my landlord on the first floor screaming to her young children to "GET IN THE BASEMENT."  

On the third floor, I drop what I'm doing.  Dude, I KNOW a mother's grizzly-bear tone WHEN I HEAR ONE.  I get up from my desk and look outside.  Front windows: normally a rowhouse with white side-paneling, another under construction, many multi-level rooftops in the distance under a clear sky.  Today's front windows: completely gray painted with sideways strokes.  I turn around, walk into my kitchen to look out my back windows: no green leaves or backside of rowhouses on another block like I expect -- it's all gray, with a swirl of lightning and billowing clouds.  

My eyes grow 10 sizes.   My fragile windows creak under the pressure of the vacuum.  I curse, close my windows, shut my laptop, unplug the necessities, throw on my No-Joke boots, grab my purse and a jacket, and wait it out in the stairwell on the second floor for about 5 minutes.  

I tweet.

I wait. The sound dies down, it rains for 10 minutes, then the sun comes out, car alarms halt, and people walk on their respective rooftops/yards to assess the damage.  God, with his great sense of humor, has preserved the power and therefore internet connection, where I confirm that yes, there was a tornado, and the cleanup crews are on the move.  

I put on my best investigative journalist/hipster trucker/lumberjack flannel hat and bring my camera to take these photos and videos for a nataliepo.typepad.com exclusive.

Go Linux Chix, Go!

Some conference organisers will say "we didn't get any submissions from women" to explain the lack of women on their stages. As of two years ago, the Ohio LinuxFest was in that category. With a little outreach effort, and embracing diversity as a core value, the Ohio LinuxFest has successfully recruited more women to share their experience at OLF.

How'd we do? While last year only five of the speakers at Ohio LinuxFest were women, out of a total of 31, this year 14 of the 38 speakers are women. That's a third of the conference speaking slots! One of the two keynoters is a woman. There were 107 talk proposals for the 27 general speaking slots. Before anyone tries to suggest that we simply took them all, it should be noted that a full 48% of the proposals for talks categorised as not assuming high levels of prior knowledge (making them suitable for the most attendees) were from women.

via ubuntulinuxtipstricks.blogspot.com

1/3 of conference speakers are female is a heckuvalot better than the 0  -  1/10 range we usually see, but it's still a lot less than then 1/2 distribution that I'd like to see.  Go Ohio and Go Linux Chix!  

Many props to the excellent, insightful, supportive, and fun grrltalk list for distributing this post.