Barbie Gets to be a Computer Engineer

http://www.barbiemedia.com/?cat=7

by tiffani • 16 years ago

89 53 16 years ago

tiffani• 16 years ago

I never willingly played with Barbies as a kid (I sold my last 6 at a yard sale my mom had when I was like 8 or 9), but I do believe I'll be buying this one--even if she just stays in the box.

epochwolf• 16 years ago

Non-standard navigation... To scroll you have to click the up/down arrows in the bottom right.

judofyr• 16 years ago

Hopefully that's the first thing Barbie will fix in her new occupation.

dmix• 16 years ago

I believe we'll still need designer Barbie to fix the crime that is black text on a hot pink background.

Josh_e• 16 years ago

When I was a kid my dad didn't let me play with Dolls. He ended up getting rid of all of my sister's Barbies so I would play with other toys instead.

Ever since I never play with or thought about buying a Barbie until now.

I will for sure be getting this one.

olliesaunders2• 16 years ago

He didn't want to reinforce gender stereotypes?

starnix17• 16 years ago

Does anyone else find the crazy amount of copyright symbols in that press release funny?

rbanffy4• 16 years ago

Most computer engineers would

freetard• 16 years ago

Those are registered trademark symbols.

jff2• 16 years ago

As a computer engineer, I might have to buy one and stash it away for any future daughters.

However, we don't wear "binary code patterned t-shirts". I guess maybe conference shirts aren't as recognizably geeky.

ryanelkins• 16 years ago

Yeah, I thought it was a bit silly myself, but I realize it's a difficult thing to design for - we don't really have any instantly recognizable uniform they could use. I'm not sure what I could come up with that someone could guess what she is supposed to be just by looking at her and not be somewhat ridiculous.

scdlbx• 16 years ago

Khaki cargo pants and a black t-shirt with "Got Root?" written on it.

jcl2• 16 years ago

Oh? http://www.thinkgeek.com/tshirts-apparel/unisex/generic/6c49...

ugh• 16 years ago

See http://www.barbiemedia.com/admin/uploads/ComputerEngineerBar... [PDF] for a photo.

DannoHung• 16 years ago

Not that I could come up with anything better, but is anyone else a little disappointed in what they've come up with? We need better accessorization to appeal to little girls, I guess.

Couldn't they have at least put some code on her laptop instead of 0's and 1's?

squidbot• 16 years ago

Agreed! Maybe we could lobby them to replace it with a DeCSS snippet.Or just be subversive and have some stickers printed up and leave them on shelves next to the Barbies.

akadien2• 16 years ago

At least, but the code in a terminal window, with a another window showing a bit torrent client or something.

AndrewHampton• 16 years ago

I thought the most interesting part about this was the binary code on the computer she's holding spells out "BarBie" repeatedly.

mjg• 16 years ago

perl -e 'print map(pack("B*", $_), qw(01000010 01100001 01110010 01100010 01101001 01100101)), "\n"'

rbanffy4• 16 years ago

Bluetooth headset?! Come on!

zackattack• 16 years ago

Might as well call it Taxicab Barbie

rodyancy• 16 years ago

She's making deals and writing binary.

Tichy• 16 years ago

And she still has a wristwatch.

rbanffy4• 16 years ago

What is a wristwatch?

red888• 16 years ago

Yeah looks less like an engineer and more like a generic technophile, which I guess is still a step in the right direction?

rbanffy4• 16 years ago

No way.

- Her notebook should never be pink

- There should be some stickers on the notebook stating her favourite OS and programming language

- And mocking all others

- The notebook should not run Windows. Neither OSX nor Linux. It should run some experimental OS she is busy writing

- Her t-shirt should be from Think Geek.

- Better: her t-shirt should have a haiku written in Haskell

docgnome2• 16 years ago

Seriously, couldn't someone from the Barbie team wandered over to IT for more than 30 seconds? ... Stupid question. Of course they couldn't, you only talk to IT when your magic typing box doesn't work. -_-

pbhjpbhj2• 16 years ago

Perhaps they wondered over but couldn't find a size zero tall blonde in IT to ask about dress sense?

Maybe they didn't think that grey-brown trousers, rolled up shirt sleeves and a pocket protector were going to clinch the market.

Frazzydee• 16 years ago

"Both News Anchor Barbie® and Computer Engineer Barbie® are currently available for pre-order exclusively at www.MattelShop.com."

Could anybody actually find it on their site?

johnswamps• 16 years ago

Nope, I couldn't either

jamesk2• 16 years ago

Barbie used to think that "Math is hard," now she's a master of recursion and lambdas.

rit• 16 years ago

Monads are hard, let's go shopping!

timr• 16 years ago

It's only a matter of time until Barbie loses her job to a Chinese-made equivalent.

jjs• 16 years ago

Are you sure she's not already made in China?

radicalmatt• 16 years ago

"To create an authentic look, Barbie® designers worked closely with the Society of Women Engineers and the National Academy of Engineering to develop the wardrobe and accessories for Computer Engineer Barbie®. Wearing a binary code patterned tee and equipped with all the latest gadgets including a smart phone, Bluetooth headset, and laptop travel bag, Computer Engineer Barbie® is geek chic."

A swing, and a miss.

matrix• 16 years ago

A wild off-balance swing and a stumbling miss, I agree.

Of course, real-life business casual isn't going to work ("Hey, its J.Crew Barbie!") but they could have gone for:

- An edgy all-black mod look ala The Matrix.

- Slim-fitting jeans, and fitted t-shirt with 8-bit graphics motif; accessorized with a super-slick looking laptop running Gentoo.

- A cute Unix hippy look, with BSD or Linux t-shirt, and a bus analyzer/logic analyzer as the accessory.

Groxx2• 16 years ago

- An edgy all-black mod look ala The Matrix.

haha, hopefully you're not referring to Trinity in that. Though I'd love to see Ken decked out like Neo when they stormed the building, guns and all.

conesus• 16 years ago

Oy, Computer Engineer Barbie gets a bluetooth headset and bad taste in clothing. Shouldn't she be selling the industry, not mocking it?

ricardo_sdl• 16 years ago

I couldn't look at the site, it hurt my eyes.

cmelbye• 16 years ago

Don't worry, I've heard a rumor that her next profession is a web designer.

Timothee• 16 years ago

That should come in handy:

http://lab.arc90.com/experiments/readability/

sliverstorm• 16 years ago

I read it, turned away, and found my eyes were honest to god burning.

(Not flames, just burning pain...)

dugmartin• 16 years ago

As a father of two daughters I'm both intrigued and repelled by this.

olliesaunders2• 16 years ago

Why repelled?

jcmhn• 16 years ago

Pink explosion.

jcl2• 16 years ago

For the ﬁrst time ever, Barbie® asked the world to help her select her next career.

Actually, Barbie® asked the internet. And it chose a computer career, which is about as surprising as moot winning the Time 100 poll.

(Edit: See the original Reddit thread for the call to action as well as various vote stuffing attempts. Apparently, this poll was more resistant than the Time one. http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/aobsa/vote_for_... )

moron4hire• 16 years ago

When I saw the headset on the doll, I immediately jumped to thinking it was some kind of "tech support Barbie", i.e. a demeaning job, not requiring a degree, barely above janitor at most IT firms, often staffed by people who found out they couldn't hack it in higher education.

Groxx2• 16 years ago

Are those binary semaphores, or are you just happy to see me?

I wonder what this implies for "tail-end recursion" o_ô

docgnome2• 16 years ago

I think this is my favorite thread of all time.

Barbie Gets to be a Computer Engineer

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