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The Weekly Round-Up: 14.07.06
The paper clip and the publicity stunt...

By silicon.com

Published: Friday 14 July 2006

Women who want to be taken seriously in the world of IT have several options.

One is to get their head down and fight on through the stigmas, stereotypes and sexism, and hope that endeavour can somehow break down the walls and bring the glass ceilings shattering down to earth, there to serve as a relic of the outdated and anachronistic attitudes that kept too many down for too long.

Or they can get their tits out.

The latter option has pretty much been the preferred avenue taken by a group of Australian female techies who have decided that a racy calendar is the way forward to promote themselves and to further the image of women working in technology.

'The IT Screen Goddesses' website claims: "We are doing this to smash through the perception of the geeky technologist."

The calendar features 16 tech 'Sheilas' in poses made famous in iconic stills or scenes from the silver screen - such as the famous image of Mena Suvari in American Beauty lying naked among rose petals or Ursula Andress emerging from the sea wearing the white bikini which for some defined the first Bond film, Dr No.

Promotional material for the calendar says it includes "beautiful photos of real women". Not "real photos of beautiful women", you'll note, though the Round-Up was very impressed with Ursula Andress - or Sharon from Personal Broadband Australia, to use her full title.

It's certainly a brave move for some of those featured but the Round-Up would be very unlikely to pose for a similar calendar (you may well be glad to hear) and as such is loathe to cast the first stone and thinks it would be unfair for anybody else to.

Of course by posing for a calendar and attaching a word like 'Goddess' they do invite some subjectivity upon themselves but it's all for a good cause with proceeds going to not-for-profit organisations and initiatives to encourage more women to follow in their footsteps (by getting jobs in IT, not by posing in their undies).

So we wish them the very best of luck with their appeal. Whether it really does anything in the short term to improve the image of women working in IT is another question altogether.

It certainly gives men working in IT another girly calendar to hang on the office wall... but the Round-Up has a nagging suspicion that kind of behaviour may be part of the problem in the first place.

Of course perceptions don't just hold back women trying to make a career in IT - they can hold back anybody who comes up against the legacy left for them by predecessors in the industry.

For example, the Round-Up doesn’t doubt there are some vendors and resellers out there with integrity but the reputation of the IT salesman is not synonymous with touching honesty - and that's a reputation everybody must fight against, unless they're one who chooses to perpetuate it.

But who's worst? Who do you trust least - an IT salesman, an estate agent, a second hand car salesman, a double glazing salesman or a mobile phone salesman?

We're asking this very question of you, our readers, and we'd really like to know what you think.

We've got our suspicions and we don't mind giving you a clue as to who we think will win this wonderfully well-appointed poll within easy distance of the rest of our news content and all local amenities. Must be seen.



And speaking of, dare we say dishonest individuals, the powers that be behind the UK's proposed ID cards scheme were left with egg on their faces this week when word was leaked to the media about grave doubts in Whitehall over the feasibility of the scheme.

Who ever would have thought that such a scheme could be fatally flawed?

The man unwittingly hurling the rotten eggs in the direction of the government was David Foord, mission critical director of identity and defence at the Office of Government Commerce, whose leaked emails did a far better job of summing up the effectiveness of most large government IT schemes than even the most barbed of journalist comments could ever do.

"Even if everything went perfectly," began Foord. "Which it will not... given [the] performance of government ICT projects."

There's nothing like some brutal honesty to heap embarrassment on top of the already manifold headaches the ID cards scheme has created for the government.

Foord added: "I conclude that we are setting ourselves up to fail."

Indeed but it will be interesting to see at whose feet that failure is laid. (Though given two Home Secretaries have already been shown the door the search for a fall guy could be long and arduous.)



Moving on, the internet is many things to many people - some love it, some loathe it, while others choose to blame it for all the ills of society.

And it seems online gambling is one area where opinions are fiercely divided, perhaps because of issues such as the plight - or stupidity, if you like - of one gambling addict who hit the headlines this week after admitting he had stolen in excess of £1m from his employers in order to feed his online gambling addiction.

The problem, of course, cited by critics and experts in the field of addiction, is that online gambling is a 24-hour temptation and one which proved too much for 23-year-old Bryan Benjafield, a junior accountant with a construction company.

Benjafield, in court this week, admitted blowing a small fortune with Ladbrokes and Skybet online casinos.

One of the investigating police officers referred to it as the largest online gambling case he'd seen or heard of after Benjafield pleaded guilty to the theft which forced his company into administration.

Reading between the lines we're pretty sure Benjafield's flutters weren't winners. It's interesting in fact that there are never any successful 'gambling addicts'.



The US has also been looking at the issue of internet gambling this week with the House of Representatives backing a bill that aims to make it illegal for US banks and credit card companies to process payments to overseas gambling sites.

Because, you see, although it is illegal for US citizens to place bets with online bookmakers and casinos it seems the laws aren't really worth the paper they are written on, as around half the $12bn annual revenue of the online gaming industry comes from within the US.

One of the bill's sponsors has claimed this measure is necessary to protect people from themselves.

Republican Bob Goodlatte (who is just a space and an accent away from being a coffee review - hmmm Good Latté) said gambling is a "scourge on society" which causes "innumerable problems".

(In light of this it's interesting to note that the Republican Party still manages to reach down from its moral high horse long enough to accept donations from casino owners when the opportunity arises... but the Round-Up digresses.)



Moving on, press release of the week received in the editorial mailbag has to be: 'System Union is pleased to announce the appointment of a new receptionist... '

And they say none of the big news breaks during the summer.

Then, showing an incredible disregard for concerns that they might be perceived as a bunch of jokers, that email was followed by three more announcing similar appointments which - with the utmost respect to the named individuals concerned - were not newsworthy.

What next: 'System Union is pleased to announce its managing director had a ham and coleslaw sandwich for lunch, washed down with a can of Sprite and some cheese and onion crisps?'.

It's not really news, is it?

Feel free to let us know if you really do want to find out when companies have appointed a new receptionist but in the meantime we're going to assume you, our dear readers, aren't all that fussed.



And finally, in a long and chequered history of weird eBay sales and surreal online transactions, from selling the naming rights of a newborn baby to offering a hand in marriage, there has probably not been anything so creative as the Canadian man who this week hit the headlines after he swapped a paper clip for a house.

We kid you not.

On 12 July 2005 Kyle MacDonald launched a blog on which he stated his intention to trade-up his red paper clip and 13 subsequent items, step by step, until his final trade was for a house.

And exactly one year later - how neat - MacDonald became the proud owner of, well, this place in Kipling, Saskatchewan.

Still, it's not bad for the cost of a paper clip.

You see MacDonald swapped the paper clip for a knife, shaped like a fish. The knife was swapped for a novelty door knob, the knob for a barbecue, the barbecue for an electric generator and the generator for a keg of beer with a neon sign attached.

So you see how it works - Noel Edmonds eat your heart out, this guy makes Multi-Coloured Swap Shop look like a rubbish programme hosted by a buffoon in terrible sweaters... oh, hang on.

And from here on in the value of items begins to jump around a bit (which is kind of inevitable when you consider this guy was trading up from a paper clip to a house).

For example, MacDonald traded his keg of beer for a snowmobile, which in turn was swapped for an all expenses paid skiing trip for two in British Columbia. The trip was swapped for a truck and the truck was swapped for a recording contract - at which point you start to suspect the traders were growing as aware of the publicity this stunt was creating as its originator.

The recording contract was swapped for a year's rent-free accommodation in an apartment in Phoenix which - and this is where thing start getting surreal (OK, more surreal) - the apartment in Phoenix was swapped for an afternoon with... wait for it... Alice Cooper - part-time celebrity golfer and full-time creature of the night rock legend.

Perhaps predictably therefore the afternoon with 'the Coop' was bid for by a rock fan who offered in return a KISS snow globe.

That's right a snow globe - one of those tacky plastic souvenirs which you shake-up frantically for no greater return on your efforts than about 30 seconds of unconvincing 'snow action'.

At this point the Round-Up can't help thinking MacDonald had taken a step back, with an item far closer in value to a paper clip than to a house - and yet he was just two trades away from getting the keys to his new home.

At this point the publicity his stunt was receiving really saved MacDonald as C-list actor Corbin Bernsen, formerly of LA Law and a string of television and movie appearances as long as your arm, stepped in with an offer to trade the snow globe for a paid role in his latest movie (which we assume was an offer not unbeknownst to the director or producer).

At this point the good people of Kipling, Saskatchewan (which the Round-Up is glad to be typing for the last time) stepped in and offered MacDonald a house in return for one of their own landing the role in Bernsen's movie.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how to trade a paper clip for a house. Cue lots of imitators trying to trade a fridge magnet for a Ferrari or a novelty eraser for a racehorse.

In other news this past week:


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