Microsoft code contains the phrase 'big boobs' ... Yes, really
networkworld.com"Puerile sniggering at breasts contributes to the continuing impression that software development is a boys club where girls aren't welcome" This is a primary building block of such articles.
But in fact magic numbers are kind of art: good art shocks you a little - or a lot; more for people who are less free. Who gets offended by big boobs? People who think they are religious, as if Jesus had anything against boobs; people who think boobs are strategic weapons that should be controlled; people who are afraid of any life because life is non-professional; people who try to close their eyes on the existence of two genders; and some women that are insecure.
I feel sorry for the latter because I don't want any woman in the world to feel insecure. But for all other people, it's like they had this demon inside and we're exorcising and it tries to escape the host body by ripping its way outside. It's a good thing. Maybe they'll become less religious and more spiritual; maybe they'll become less restrictive; maybe they'll become less "professional" and more skilled; maybe they'll be forced to acknowledge woman and man.
I don't think it helps insecure girls, I even think it might actually harm them, but is this the reason to harm art? It never was. Who is responsible for insecure people? It's society. Who should be punished for that? Not artists, mind you.
"but is this the reason to harm art?"
No.
But it's a damn good reason to keep your so-called "art" out of the workplace. Keep your "art" in the galleries where it belongs.
Why would we? Because you tell us so? Guess what - you fit the profile; "people who are afraid of any life because life is non-professional". Making you feel uncomfortable might cure you one day, we're be trying like Hippocrates supposed us to.
Galleries are the places where art dies. If you'll consult art history, you'll not see much straight-to-gallery art. It had some purpose. It was built into lives.
Modern art should be on streets, it should be embedded into city (or code). In fact, in any city there's a lot of accidental art. Something random but just too good.
No, I just get upset when women are reduced to sex objects, particularly in a context where people are forced to endure it because they have to work for a living.
I suppose you would also support putting up racial epithets in a corporate lobby and calling it "art"?
"women are reduced to sex objects"
I feel like some kind of infernal being talking to me right now.
How do big boobs reduce women (which women? how many of them? what's their names?) to sex objects? What's a sex object anyway? Are you supposed to deny the existence of big boobs to prevent it? What happens if truth leaks?
This is exactly a set of questions that DOES NOT cross the mind of people who drop "women are reduced to sex objects" in the conversations. You are afraid to think. You want to club people with blocks over their heads.
That's why art is a good thing. Is reflects the damage back to you. You desperately need to make peace with your sexuality; and once you do, the shadows will disappear and big boobs will be just big boobs and nothing more.
I hope that viewing those pieces I've linked will make you a happier and calmer person. Cheers and good night.
It is not far fetched given that "big boobs" is interpreted in a societal context which is dominated by male gaze. That is, big boobs is "artsy" and "funny" for a man, since he is the target audience of the joke. Someone at the other end of the joke might take offense. Especially if you experience similar events on a daily basis within your professional environment. Just because something could qualify as art, doesn't mean that you are not allowed to scrutinize it.
I suggest that you employ a bit of empathy instead of drawing assumptions about the persona of the other party.
Putting up twenty links to Wulff & Morgenthaler (epic comics) and using it as an educational/critical source without context only dilutes what you are trying to say, i.e. people should more relaxed.
That being said, being able to figure out how to spell anything sensible using 8 sixteen-digit letters is an accomplishment.
I fail to understand the step where the other end takes offense. It's almost like underpant gnomes: 1. Big boobs in code. 2. ????? 3. Offended people.
What's that stage?
Big boobs are a fact of everyday life. If for some reason their mention casts such strong emotions, perhaps there are deep problems in the workplace culture. Art lets you expose that. But art is not a source of those hypothetical problems, rather than reactions to it are merely indicators.
I don't say people should be more relaxed. People should get better; It usually involves them getting a little worse first. Force them to reflect. Force them to negotiate peace with their sexuality and their environment.
More relevant ones:
http://wumocomicstrip.com/strip/2011/04/14/
http://wumocomicstrip.com/2009/05/28/
http://wumocomicstrip.com/2010/06/16/
http://wumocomicstrip.com/2012/07/18/ This one kind of contradicts me
http://wumocomicstrip.com/2004/12/29/ directly relevant
http://wumocomicstrip.com/2007/05/03/
http://wumocomicstrip.com/2008/08/31/ this about stereotypes
http://wumocomicstrip.com/2009/09/29/
http://wumocomicstrip.com/2007/07/27/
http://wumocomicstrip.com/2007/03/26/
http://wumocomicstrip.com/2004/09/06/ bullseye
http://wumocomicstrip.com/2009/10/27/ this would be the last one for today and pretty much sums it.
http://wumocomicstrip.com/strip/2011/04/15/Abuse concerning sex objects
http://wumocomicstrip.com/2007/07/02/ Another relevant one.
There are people who were sexually injured - but then again, people die of hunger. Should we not eat or talk about food since it would offend famine victims?
By the way, when you write so-called "art", you know who was the most devoted user of ironic quotes and "so-called"? Nazis. They would ironically quote anything related to jews (or communists, or later americans), and everybody will be - so-called expert, so-called scientist, so-called victim.
Just sayin'. I was shocked to find it out, too, since I use those a bit.
I guess people should read less xkcd and more http://wumocomicstrip.com/
To not only get smarter but also crawl outside of their bubble.
Until it is proven that the coder who put that in was, in fact, a male it is highly sexist to just assume that it was a man and that ladies are not capable of being childish or being into big boobs as well. ;)
The point of this is to make sure you recognize a number as the magic number it is when you see it scrolling by in a debugger. Preprocessor directives have this problem where they don't survive the preprocessor stage.
Its not just a meaningless joke, it has an actual raison d'être. Of course there might be less offending choices, but this hardly ranks among the top of the problems that plague open source development (communities).
To be fair, 0xDEADBEEF may be considered offensive to hindus.
I had a coworker once lament the use of 0xDEADBEEF because he was a vegetarian.
I'm bothered by what lowest common non-offensive denominator we will eventually have to reach. Is 0xCAFEBABE not only offensive to women but is it also offensive to male Starbucks employees?
I don't have the answers. I don't even think I know what the questions are. I just weep for society as a whole over stuff like this.
Use both 0xCAFED00D and 0xCAFEBABE at the same time might alleviate some of those concerns.
And let's not forget Java's 0xCAFEBABE or any of the others: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hexspeak
How about some 0xC0FFEE?
Not for Mormons.
You win. How about 0x12345678 :)
That's a horrible way to talk about Steve Ballmer.
Thanks for the upvotes, but I now really regret this comment. Juvenile stuff.
So writing 'big boobs' in hexspeak makes you sexist....
I have a problem understanding this.
Whom should this offend?
How does this offend anyone?
How is it sexist when it didn't even specify the which sex's boob it is referring to?
If I name something 'curly_blond_hair' in my code, is that sexist?
Looks like another slow news day...
I'm left wondering now what on earth those engineers were thinking.
Did they really not understand that this was going into an open source project? Or did the Microsofties somehow think this would work as an elaborate way of discrediting the Linux project?
It is fully how people now are forced to acknowledge lesbian, gay, bisexual and transsexual coders, but they fail to grind to acknowledge big boobs in the code.
Hint: if you have coders with gender, you get code with gender.
It was discussed in reddit a week ago http://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/wi4bf/inappropriate_m... .
This is hardly the worst thing I've ever seen in source code - mine or others'. Heck, I had a developer once send me something where the "placeholder" image was a dog turd.
Surely this can't be worth all the oh-noes.
Wasn't this already resolved??