Are there any real geeks anymore?

This is truly shocking - at a Yahoo! Hack Day event in Taiwan last weekend, there were Lap Dancers of the sexy, scantily clad female variety, and instead of shouting Yahoo! the Geeks were scandalised ( but not before putting up all the pictures ).

Our industry is still young. If we want an all-encompassing technology scene, we need to actively work to cultivate an inclusive environment. This means a zero tolerance approach to this kind of entertainment. Booth babes, tequila girls, and scantily clad gyrating women simply set the wrong tone, here or abroad. Heck, this isn’t just about offending women—many guy geeks I know would be mortified by this kind of thing.

(Actually, the thing that shocked me was that the Geeks noticed. In my day (said the old curmudgeon) Real Geeks wouldn't know what a girl was, never mind actually get a lap dance off one . )

OK, OK cheap jokes aside, there is this issue of making the industry attractive to more women which we alluded to yesterday, and if you want to attract women, you need a less macho industry. Simon Willison was by and large right to say what he did above.

This (Lap Hack) was over the top. There is a time and a place for everything and this wasn't it!

But at the same time, looking at some of the responses, the risk of going the other way and being all PC is that one can be a bit too pious, in that any industry with sales(men) in it will be prone to this, so one needs a bit of give and take. We dont want to invent the New Victorians either, or do we?

Chippendales, anyone?