Posted on 07/13/2012 8:26:28 PM PDT by re_nortex
Paolo Bonzini noticed something a little awkward in the Linux kernel support code for Microsoft's HyperV virtualisation environment - specifically, that the magic constant passed through to the hypervisor was "0xB16B00B5", or, in English, "BIG BOOBS". It turns out that this isn't an exception - when the code was originally submitted it also contained "0x0B00B135". That one got removed when the Xen support code was ripped out.
At the most basic level it's just straightforward childish humour, and the use of vaguely-English strings in magic hex constants is hardly uncommon. But it's also specifically male childish humour. Puerile sniggering at breasts contributes to the continuing impression that software development is a boys club where girls aren't welcome. It's especially irritating in this case because Azure may depend on this constant, so changing it will break things.
So, full marks, Microsoft. You've managed to make the kernel more offensive to half the population and you've made it awkward for us to rectify it.
Better than the 0xDEADBEEF we used to use when debugging.
Um, the disparity between male and female coders has nothing to do with “sexism.” It has everything to do with the fact that men’s and women’s brains are wired differently.
Are there some great female coders? Sure. But they’re rare. And many of the top male coders have ODD senses of (yes, juvenile) humor.
This is just reality - something we’re apparently not supposed to pay attention to anymore, at least if it offends the PC (not as in personal computer) gods.
OK, time for a nerd test: who here knows what F3GUM was?
Omg are you serious, or??
Honestly man, you are taking a lib position on this one.
It is any companies right or coders right to use perfectly legitimate numbers in sequence.
To the philosophical and factual point of it, the implication is only in YOUR head. It is completely irrelevant if the coder had it in HIS head at one point.
I had to look it up but was not familiar with it offhand. I do recall that 0xABADCAFE (or was it 0xCAFEBABE) is a magic string for a Java class bytecode. And, of course, the MZ signature was used to introduce the program segment in Microsoft executables.
And shame on my bad grammar on that post; sorry on the phone web.
I had a Model II with two 8 inch flopies
You’re probably a little bit too easily offended to work in a male dominated occupation like coding.
You should probably specialize in coding talking baby dolls to ensure such offenses don’t come across your eyes.
Yawn. Somebody suffers from boob envy.
My posting of the article should have been accompanied by the requisite [BARF ALERT] tag and I've asked the Admin Moderator to append that to the title.
I hope we're all right now and that there are no hard feelings. I'm a 70-year old Unix geek from way back (the days of K&R as well as "ken") and, believe me, I hate political correctness in all forms.
Thanks for the post.
Appreciate NON-PC
"make the kernel more offensive to half the population"?
Most people don't read source code of any kind. Please drop the faux-offended male feminist pretense, and get real. (BTW, my wife just read your post and thinks B00B5 are funny.)
That site needs some FReeping! :-)
Trash talk. ;)
“Boob” has more than one meaning. One of them is “simpleton.” The gals can quite properly razz those gutter minded laddies by calling them boobs.
The CCI mini computer boot monitor would return cafebabe on successful completion of the board diagnostic. It was the name of a nearby coffee shop.
I have a working Model 16A with 512KB on memory on the 68000 CPU board. My board actually has the 68010 CPU. My Xenix OS has a port of the Korn shell from the 1986 source. Microsoft ditched support before adding demand page virtual memory to the 68k kernel.
Just do a recursive grep though the Linux kernel source tree sometime for the seven naughty words. Here's but one example (cleaned up for FR standards):
/* Only Sun can take such nice parts and f**k up the programming interface * like this. Good job guys... */
0xBI6BOOB5 is pretty tame stuff by comparison.
Not me. I've got my own.
Well, OK, TECHNICALLY they're moobs, but I do got 'em...
Offensive? Maybe, to the easily offended. I have known and currently know some very sharp ladies in programming. They have just as irreverent of a sense of humor as their male counterparts.
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