I'm a Barbie Girl in a CS World
scribd.com
scribd.com
Yes, I know that scribd is a YC company, is what the cool kids use, etc. But. It. Doesn't. Actually. Work. The pdf reader I have does.
That said, I liked the article. Once I actually managed to read it.
(apologies for going off-topic - I just couldn't resist this one)
I'm on Linix,
I've tried the default readers and they are all horrific.
What would you recommend, seriously. I have never found a pleasant PDF reader on any platform but I'm open to the idea they might exist.
Also: foxit reader is a great reader for window. Not quite as polished as skim but still the best reader I have come into contact with on the windows side of the fence.
But I'd always rather have a PDF too.
I can't even view the scribd page properly. All the scripts and CSS are broken.
I'm also running the Vimperator plugin, which is why my chrome looks weird. It has literally never caused a problem in any other site though.
It was on my work computer, which I don't have access to right now. If the problem persists (it's working on my Chrome OS X home computer right now), I'll see if I can get you a ss tomorrow morning.
I've sent her an email.
It is also on slideshare, and I can upload to other desired formats.
It is originally a Microsoft PPT, as that makes the 15 seconds timing easy to enforce and practice.
Especially because you can just click the download link and get it in whatever format you want.
I was not willing to register with a non-functional website I didn't want to use. That was the point I pulled out Firefox instead.
I tried clicking. Double clicking. I tried the arrows at the bottom. (They even have nice mouse overs that say Next Page/Previous Page.) I tried changing the view type. None of these let me scroll through the presentation.
Based on other comments in this thread I tried putting my mouse on the boundaries of the image. OK, that works. It is a cool idea. But it is an interface that is different from how everything else on the web works. Once you know to do it it is easy. But it isn't exactly the easiest interface to discover when you aren't looking for it. That would be OK if it was just a backup shortcut for people who realized it. But the traditional interface that should be the primary one for people who don't know the site doesn't work. Hence the problem.
The reason that Firefox worked for me is that the browser is in a different place on the screen and therefore I naturally was over the right area of the page. So pure luck.
Incidentally this is the kind of deficiency that is better caught with usability testing than A/B testing. Take 20 people, sit them down with your website, and ask them to complete a task. See what they have trouble with. If you've never done it before you'll likely be shocked at the result.
I suspect that the bug got fixed.
The only way to go forwards I could figure out is clicking on the right side of the slide.
My general test is, if it works in 3 of the 5, then it's the other browsers' fault. There are simply too many browsers now and a I wonder sometimes if google did more harm than good by not putting more effort into one of the existing browsers than by releasing a completely new one and increasing the workload on developers.
Are they trying to further innovation or hinder it by creating one more hurdle for web developers to jump? We could make all our sites work in all the browsers, or we could spend time making more sites and bringing more value to the world. I have four browsers installed on my machine, ie, firefox, opera, and safari. I test sites in all of those. Making it work in a 5th means it might break in the other 4 and that's just ridiculous.
At some point, you have to say it's "good enough".
Also, Flash takes up insane amount of resources. The built-in PDF reader I have works perfectly.
I study both CS and Vocal Performance (opera). I'm not a gamer in the slightest. I'm also a gay male.
At least go with an example like... Wedding Crashers or Old School, or Bad Boys if it has to be an action movie.
ANYWAY, games are not a geek exclusive thing anymore (at least not if all of the frat bros I used to know in college are any indication). Comic books still are somewhat, but there is an ever growing independent movement that's causing the interested parties to become more diverse. Science Fiction is clearly no longer niche since like, 9 out of 10 of the top earning films are Science Fiction or Fantasy.
I played the original D & D at a kid but there was no crowd for which this meant fitting-in.
The idea of conformist geek culture is something that I've gradually become aware of - just as, I think, geek culture seems to have become more conformist.
Funny...
There is a woman in my CS department that I met in a Bollywood Cinema class I was taking. She's totally non-geek; I see her in the lobby talking the fairly standard social drama banter of college students, not about this week's ACM programming problem. At first I was kind of dismissive about her, since I didn't feel she was /really/ a CS student (I remember thinking once, "I wonder if she's here to meet a boyfriend"; I'm really ashamed of that thought). Reading Patrick's piece made me reconsider that view. Regardless of what her motivations are for joining the department, I respect the fact that she's here.
It also makes me wonder about our Women in CS initiatives. Here we have a woman who, from all I can tell, does not define her identity primarily in terms of her field of study (which is something I feel like many of us do). She is not a CS woman, but rather a woman that happens to study computer science, kind of like a man who happens to study pharmacy. I'm still developing my thoughts on this, but meeting her and the discussion around this new Barbie have ironically enough really challenged my existing beliefs.
I have some cognitive dissonance on this issue. I'm not sure what to conclude, so I'll just air it.
On the one hand, I would love to see people in the field who are both high-performing and high-functioning socially.
On the other hand, the degree to which undergraduates (and, by extension, probably front-line programmers in general) "live and breathe CS" seems to be a very good heuristic for their proficiency with the nitty technical details. By "live and breathe" CS, I am not talking about passion for traditionally geeky activities like video games, DND, and so on; I am referring to their penchant for work as entertainment (not that we don't all need a break from time to time). This seems to preclude being a social individual who happens to do CS some of the time.
On the third hand, lots of researchers I've met seem to be better rounded.
> This seems to preclude being a social individual who happens to do CS some of the time.
The best programmers I know (and I tentatively include myself here; though Im really an engineer) are highly social work hard/play hard type people.
If I think about college, I would also have said that the best programmers I know are the ones who I frequently see out doing other stuff. However, I didn't spend that much time with the more introverted people (not being able to relate to them as well) so its hard to say if they were better or worse.
I was more interested by the use of "frontline" in the original posting. It's not so much technical merit as your ability to, well, be a programmer (as a career).
The big idea was to get girls excited about something related to computers. The execution was about as far off-base as you could get. The only redeeming quality is just that initial idea... but it may be enough to have an impact on its own. The point is, it helps break down the subliminal barrier that computers are a "guy thing." That's what the article is talking about at first, and then takes that point and goes even further.
Actually, that's the type of barrier-breaking that I would prefer more of. The whole "we'll give you the help you need" type of barrier-breaking seem in outreach programs implicitly reinforces that "you need the help." The implicit message with the CS barbie is the exact opposite, and that's a good thing.
Now, I have no idea how a CS barbie should look. I totally agree with the author of the presentation that it is a good thing that Mattel did not make the CS barbie extra dorky. However, as it is now, I don't think girls will make any connection with programming.
I remember way back, when I had to learn all this stuff about DOS and RAM just to get Ultima 7 to work on my computer. I had a friend who couldn't get sound to work correctly on his PC in StarCon2, so he soldered together his own sound card to get it to work. Nowdays you don't need to do that with modern computers and most of time you can't even do that even if you wanted to, because modern software and hardware are exponentially more complicated now.
Probably not, but they definitely think that coding/engineering is a guy thing.
I agree though that this design does not scream "computer engineer" at all. Perhaps it would have been better if they had her putting a computer together or something like that... not sure if that would work well for a toy though.
The Barbie lets the girl unlock extra content online related to the career, so presumably its programming related stuff.
Its also covered in binary code, which may get some girls curious about that. Binary math is a good gateway drug for engineering. :)
This might be a European thing though I don't know. Certainly the girls on my university course were nothing like the stereotypes
I hate to be that guy, but seriously? I have never witnessed this kind of behavior before. In fact, from my experience at Cal, all of the student groups are absolutely desperate for anyone to join, let alone a girl! If you just walk across campus you will be aggressively flagged down and invited to all sorts of things. If you are on Facebook, you will be shamelessly spammed with invites to all sorts of events. I just can't picture someone getting shunned from even an IEEE meeting or hardcore hackathon because they are "not a true geek".
I'd like to think adults are more mature than kindergarten-level exclusion, fellow hackers most of all.
She then goes on to say that she bought vintage gaming t-shirts and worked on some video games and afterwards, all the geeks were "cool" with her again. I don't really know what I'm trying to say here other than this seems totally unbelievable.
Alright, I'm a dude, but I think I can say a few things on this. Here's my biases: I train for and play sports for fun, I've never played D&D, I don't watch or read sci-fi, and I don't really play video games (and if I do, they're sports games).
In my college CS department, I was definitely not invited to anything that any of the other students were doing. I'm not saying I wanted to be, but probably greater than 90% of my CS classmates were in the D&D sci-fi crowd.
I think you underestimate the intimidation factor; I truly don't think that I was mean or overbearing to them, and we worked together just fine on projects, but we all kind of believed implicitly that we belonged to different speheres.
I suspect that a similar dynamic is often at work when women interact with that kind of group.
(edited to add: except the Jordanians! I forgot, we had a small group of Jordanians in the group that I got along with great, they taught me to smoke houkah and we watched soccer together. They weren't involved with the CS kids either.)
When they got to college, they found a social group that would accept them without them having to pretend to like the things they don't care about. Apparently that's a bad thing.
Speaking personally I grew up without a TV, get motion sick if I play first person shooters, and don't like sushi. Despite being a stereotypical geek in many ways I can't count the times when I've felt excluded by the fact that I don't know Monty Python inside out, have avoided most games produced in the last 15 years, and don't want to eat at certain restaurants.
I can only imagine how much worse it can be if I didn't catch and appreciate other geek references.
I suspect that often girls in CS are effected by this.
If you read me as implying judgement, I apologize, I did not intend that.
(Also, your implication that I was not a nerd and/or cool in high school is way off. But that's cool.)
People who aren't into geek things often display contempt of them, viewing rpgs and sci-fi as immature and weird. My guess is that she didn't even see that she giving off a "listen dorks, don't invite me to play pretend wizard with you" vibe. Because my experience is that geeks are enthusiastically inclusive.
If it was clear to both parties that the other did not enjoy the same activities... why would you expect to be invited to those activities? Why would it bother you to not be invited to an activity you probably would not enjoy?
The only answer seems to be that she was lonely, so she put on a mask to fit in... not really surprising but seems a bit shallow and I can't imagine it really being personally fulfilling. Would not her time have been better sent seeking out those with whom she shares more common interests?
Hope I am not too badly missing the point.
I guess I think that I would have enjoyed some of the activities (e.g. I do watch some Sci-fi flicks), but as they had a perception of me not being like them, they assumed I wouldn't like anything at all.
But, right, ultimately, its about realizing that I am not as interested in most of the things that my colleagues were interested in, and I am hoping that the diversity of my colleagues increases so that would not be the case.
I seek out other stuff like dance lessons, art classes, etc, but it does take time to meet the strangers at those activities. I still prefer that stuff (even if its by myself) to going to the pub, which is the defacto activity around here.
Agreed. The main feel I get from the article seems to be frustration about how she doesn't fit in, but that and it's inevitable result are not her fault, and not the other people's fault. We are more than happy to have diverse people working in our field, and it's totally ok to like different things.
The areas you want to hang out and talk to then about are overshadowed by the opposite interests.
I can see how one might conform a little so you could have a decent cs conversation :-)
Of course everybody liked to be friends with the few girls in our classes. Even if we were not attracted to them, it was nice to actually chat with a girl once in a while.
Engineering has always been male dominated, for whatever reason. What disturbing about CS is that it has become more male dominated over time.
You should be able to be a fashionable construction worker, a cross-dressing politician, a preppy tattoo artist, or a sex-crazy golfer
Instant classic.
So I wonder if this could really make a difference. I have seen my nieces playing with barbies and I don't think they really notice if Barbie has a computer, a bikini or a purse.
Could be reading things wrong tought
So, onto the story.
Apparently, one day at McDonalds, she ordered a happy meal. She was rather young, when McDonald happy meals with toys were awesome and fun. Anyways, being who she was, she would normally pick the cards, or the other "Boy" toys. However, this time, she asked to get the Barbie. Her father was shocked, because this was unusual for her, but she got the Barbie. Anyways, they went home, and she ran to her room with the Barbie. After some time, she came out, and proudly displayed her barbie to her father. The barbie had been changed, shortened hair, different clothes and other assorted accessories. She explaimed proudly:
"Look dad! It's Lt. Ripley!"
I can only hope my kids and I have that kind of relationship when they grow up.
Although, I had some issues with our vacation to the Oregon beach that summer.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/johncarney/3515851216/
I'm not really buying that she's a Barbie girl.
Of course, you're welcome to camouflage as much as you like, I'm just sayin'
I think a better example of someone who's like that is Isis (she's in research- but the same sort of thing applies in science too http://scienceblogs.com/isisthescientist/ Exhibit A: http://scienceblogs.com/isisthescientist/weekly_shoe/ Exhibit B: http://scienceblogs.com/isisthescientist/2008/11/on_the_need... )
http://www.goingthewongway.com/208/difference-between-nerd-g...
You can be an extreme of either, or more likely a custom mix of all three. The thinking goes not all combinations necessary mesh perfectly with one another.
i'm just guessing, though. i haven't actually read the arc source code.
She must know different geeks than I do.