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Microsoft fixes 'big boobs' coding gaffe

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Microsoft fixes 'big boobs' coding gaffe

#11

Post by donall »

alexobenauer wrote: post #3
briandear wrote: post #2

Dear god. Microsoft ought just chill. Anyone offended by a Hex string needs iCouch.me. It would be different if it were some Nazi slogan or some Al Sharpton quote. Either way, it's in Hex. Consider it a funny Easter egg. Let the nerds have some fun! After all, for some MS engineers, that's a close to big boobies as they'll ever get.

It's a bit bigger of an issue than that. There's nothing wrong with easter eggs, but the big issue here is that it is a sexist remark at a time when women are having a difficult time making it in many STEM fields, specifically software development, directly because of the actions like this that affect them in the workplace.

I doubt there was any sexist intent (regardless of perception). The fact is that there are a limited number of intelligible strings that can be made out of 8 hex chars and this is one of them that brought a smile to somebody's face. If we seriously consider that guy to be some sort of misogynist, then should we also consider OxDEADBEEF to be a radical vegan statement?

Re: Microsoft fixes 'big boobs' coding gaffe

#13

Post by jabiko »

gjulianm wrote: post #6

So someone set 0xB16B00B5 as the guest ID in the hyper-v code in the Linux kernel, and some other people got offended and asked Microsoft to change it. I don't see the problem, I don't know how someone could be offended because of this. And as Paule Bolle says [1], it can be changed without breaking anything. The only serious thing that comes to mind about this is the MS Trustworthy Computing initiative, but I don't…

2976579765 is just the decimal representation for 0xB16B00B5. I wouldn't call this a change.

Re: Microsoft fixes 'big boobs' coding gaffe

#14

Post by stavros »

alexobenauer wrote: post #3
briandear wrote: post #2

Dear god. Microsoft ought just chill. Anyone offended by a Hex string needs iCouch.me. It would be different if it were some Nazi slogan or some Al Sharpton quote. Either way, it's in Hex. Consider it a funny Easter egg. Let the nerds have some fun! After all, for some MS engineers, that's a close to big boobies as they'll ever get.

It's a bit bigger of an issue than that. There's nothing wrong with easter eggs, but the big issue here is that it is a sexist remark at a time when women are having a difficult time making it in many STEM fields, specifically software development, directly because of the actions like this that affect them in the workplace.

Goddamnit, I don't know what's sexist and what isn't any more. What if the message was 0xB1GD1CK (okay, there's no K in hex). Should men be offended?

Re: Microsoft fixes 'big boobs' coding gaffe

#17

Post by exDM69 »

Now lets go bash oracle/sun for using 0xcafebabe for the magic number in java class files.

No, please, get serious. Trying to find a hint of sexism in everything is almost as bad an offence as making sexist jokes where it's inappropriate.

Re: Microsoft fixes 'big boobs' coding gaffe

#18

Post by georgefox »

stavros wrote: post #14
alexobenauer wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a bit bigger of an issue than that. There's nothing wrong with easter eggs, but the big issue here is that it is a sexist remark at a time when women are having a difficult time making it in many STEM fields, specifically software development, directly because of the actions like this that affect them in the workplace.

Goddamnit, I don't know what's sexist and what isn't any more. What if the message was 0xB1GD1CK (okay, there's no K in hex). Should men be offended?

Although I obviously understand how you formed your analogy, I just don't see how it's actually analogous. Software development is a male-dominated field, and the objectification of body parts is much more prevalent with women's breasts than with male genitalia. If we lived in a world where males felt uncomfortable working in software development environments due to repeated sexual harassment by their predominantly female co-workers and where billboards and music videos were filled with gratuitous imagery of male genitals, then this might be analogous. But that kind of hypothetical is way beyond my imagination.

Re: Microsoft fixes 'big boobs' coding gaffe

#20

Post by TwiztidK »

alexobenauer wrote: post #3
briandear wrote: post #2

Dear god. Microsoft ought just chill. Anyone offended by a Hex string needs iCouch.me. It would be different if it were some Nazi slogan or some Al Sharpton quote. Either way, it's in Hex. Consider it a funny Easter egg. Let the nerds have some fun! After all, for some MS engineers, that's a close to big boobies as they'll ever get.

It's a bit bigger of an issue than that. There's nothing wrong with easter eggs, but the big issue here is that it is a sexist remark at a time when women are having a difficult time making it in many STEM fields, specifically software development, directly because of the actions like this that affect them in the workplace.

I'm seroiusly having difficult time figuring out how this is a "sexist" statement. It definitely is sexual, but I can't see how it would convey that women are inferior or that they don't belong.

Honestly though, I'm not a woman or programmer, at least not by trade, I have no idea how a woman would interpret this, so please enlighten me.

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