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Google-Advised Disney Cartoon Aims To Convince Preschool Girls Coding's Cool
theodp writes: Cereal and fast food companies found cartoons an effective way to market to children. Google is apparently hoping to find the same, as it teams with Disney Junior on a cartoon to help solve its computer science "pipeline" problem. The LA Times reports the tech giant worked with the children's channel on the new animated preschool series Miles From Tomorrowland, in an effort to get kids — particularly girls — interested in computer science. The program, which premieres Friday, introduces the preschool crowd to Miles Callisto, a young space adventurer, and his family — big sister (and coder extraordinaire) Loretta and their scientist parents Phoebe and Leo. Google engineers served as consultants (YouTube video) on the show. "When we did our computer science research, we found the No. 2 reason why girls in particular are not pursuing it as a career is because their perception was fairly negative and they associated it as a field for boys," said Julie Ann Crommett, Google's program manager for computer science in media. Can't wait for the episode where Google and Disney conspire to suppress Loretta's wages!
Design shit on an iPad and give it to the "boys" to knock out some C# modules to slurp back DB2 recordsets for your shitty app. You go girl.
They can't even get basic computer use or hacking correct in a $200 million movie. How are they going to accurately represent software programming in a cartoon? The computer will probably beep every time she types like some 90's movie.
Any industry White Males work in needs to be diversified.
Presently 12% of men older than 45 in the US, by US Census data, have never married and will never have kids. 1955 - 1995 that was >5%. Demographic is half poor, half in the 80th percentile of wage earners.
The trend is, about a third of Men in the US will never marry, never have kids; if you're in highschool in grade 8-12, chances are, one in three guys will never have kids or marry. Majority is white.
Japan - same numbers, they're presently at 25% over 45 never married no kids, about 50% of men will never marry, never have kids.
That doesn't include half of the children in this country are being raised without a father in home.
Keep up the great diversification work, the last time we had this many men without families was the dark ages. As those men age, they realize they have nothing to lose. This creates instability, you are creating a demographic nightmare that will cause a lot of people to end up dead.
From the short description of the show what I get is that the boy is the hero (of course), and the older sister will probably solve stuff for him, but he'll get all the credit (what hero doesn't?)
I'd say it probably has more to do with equal opportunity laws not being excempted by H1B hire status.
Specifically, gender demographics biting them in the ass in this industry.
(Evil Human Resources Drone #1)
"We need more H1Bs to keep wages cheap--- But OMG-- Most of the H1B applicants are male too! That means we have to pass over H1B applicants TOO to meet our new PR demographic split!"
(Evil Human Resources Drone #2)
"Hey, I have this great idea! Let's use H1B labor NOW to drive down the wages of IT industry wide-- while simultaneously encouraging local girls to become technology experts! In 10 to 15 years, we will have enough female applicants that we dont have to pass up top talent when we see it because it's the wrong gender, AND wages will ALREADY be in the toilet!"
(Evil CEO)
"Brilliant!"
You wanna know why programming is thought of as a field for boys? Because to be really good at programming takes an almost obsessive devotion to honing your craft at a young age, and girls are far too social to spend their summers in front of a computer in the basement.
As a side note, this "everyone can code" stuff irritates the hell out of me. Yes, everyone can code just like everyone can play Chopsticks on the piano. But there's a world of difference between the coding that "everyone can do" and the kind of skill and breadth of knowledge required to land a job at Google.
Kids are going to feel disappointed and cheated when they realize programming isn't as quick, easy, and pretty like all the fun UIs in the show.
The Featurette on youtube didn't show any actual coding. It showed a bunch of MEL that's generated as the artist used the GUI. I am 99.9% certain that the artist didn't create the character in MEL and instead used the modeler tool. There's nothing wrong with that, but if they wanted to talk about programming, they could have shown some of the cool Maya plugins PROGRAMMERS created for the artist to use.
Comment on wage suppression is spot on. These fuckers are evil. There's an agenda here, like they know they can hire women at 76% the cost of a male.
The idea is to suppress EVERYONE's wages by increasing the overabundance of programmers even more. I'm just glad my daughters didn't follow me into the field.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
we found the No. 2 reason why girls in particular are not pursuing it as a career is because their perception was fairly negative and they associated it as a field for boys
Well, that's great, but if the No. 1 reason is that girls just aren't as interested in coding as boys (generally/on average) then how far are you going to get?
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
...coding ISN'T cool. It can be fun, rewarding, and it can pay the bills, but there is very little that is cool about programming. If you have a group of people picking their future careers simply using the "is it cool" filter, then you can except to get very few programmers out of that group.
The two rules for success are:
1) Never tell them everything you know.
The really hilarious implication here is that young boys code because society portrays coding as "cool" for boys.
Really? What society is that?
Take a peek at the adolescent reality of pimply-faced, never-gonna-get-laid young geeks and the truth becomes clear: Young males code *despite* it's complete LACK of coolness ...because they like it.
And therein lies the truth of most gender-heavy careers: The issue was not, and has never been one of innate capacity. It is one if interest. And interest breeds capacity.
Men and women LIKE different things. To argue with this point is to push ideology in front of empiricism.
Young chess aficionados spend thousands and thousands of hours watching chess games. Why? Because they like it. That's why chess grandmasters are men. And it's why there are women's chess championships. To suggest that some patriarchy is at work is laughable. But feminists insist that this is the case.
We are expected to believe that 90 pound, bespectacled chess geeks who spend their days fantasizing about even having a conversation with a female are somehow intimidating women out of the field.
In software the same dynamic exists. But feminists ignore the thousands of hours that geeky teenage boys spent along staring at CRT's, look only at the hiring patterns of large firms, and cry "patriarchy".
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
Hey, that's how I got into it ... why in 1981 I was assured that being a nerd was a sure ticket to fame, fortune, and women swooning over me.
No, wait, it was the other one ... mockery, social outcast, and no play with the hunnies.
Come to think of it, that part came first and then the coding.
Awww, crap.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Have the cool kids be good at school
Have kids be unashamed about doing well in school.
If you must have a comic relief buffoon have him be good school
Do not promote ignorance and or stupidity as a good thing.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
in the future, it will be done by 'cheap world labor'. ie, NOT YOU. I see every day in the bay area; there are so few americans doing software work in silicon valley, that you only have to connect the dots to see that this field is QUICKLY DRYING UP and won't be viable for US based folks (who want to be above poverty level) in the future.
maybe 5 yrs, maybe 10 yrs. 20 yrs tops. it shows all signs of going to 3rd world countries who can 'think and work remotely'.
thinking jobs (or IP jobs) just don't make sense locally anymore. companies don't want to pay (in their minds, 'overpay') and I don't see this trend reversing (how could it? we are greedy capitalists and don't care for our fellow locals; and so since cost is ALL that matters, it WON'T be done in the US anymore).
so, putting your kids thru college for software? what a waste of time, money and disservice to THEM!
I hate this. I spent my whole friggin life being good at software and gaining tons of (what I thought was) valuable experience. but its not valued! only 'time to market, speed and low cost' matters. quality is a has-been.
sure, there are some counter examples, but being a bay area resident for over quarter of a century, I've seen this trend and its a very obvious clear trend to anyone who's been here long enough. there USED to be a good software job market here. now, its drying up and all you see in companies are h1b's! and soon, even those won't be viable anymore.
please, see the writing on the wall. save your kids the upset and expense of going into a field that has, by the time they are ready for it, dried up.
very sad. depressing. but lets be honest, here. we all see this, don't we?
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
It's 2015, and most of the egregious geek stereotypes have changed significantly. But, the development and IT industries are still very similar. Development is a very solitary experience, as is IT once you get out of run of the mill support. I know I've spent stretches of a few hours digging through log files, troubleshooting an intermittent problem, etc. by myself. Even with agile development, pair/team programming, and every other coding fad that makes people work together, there is a lot of time spent alone solving problems. I like doing this -- it fits my personality type. Do most women? Probably not; I'm guessing most would rather be in social situations. Do some? Sure, I've worked with a bunch.
Being married to a female, and now having a daughter, I can safely say that men and women are very different creatures. I think women self-select out of IT and development mainly for the following reasons:
- Perceived lack of socialization, and yes, the nerd stereotypes are still there to a lesser extent.
- Especially in workplaces that suck, the work/life balance is screwed up. My wife and I both work, I'm in IT and she's got a corporate finance job. We are both incredibly lucky to have good employers who don't death-march us on a regular basis. I know many more people who don't have this luxury. If you're female, and are wired like most females, you will want to take care of your children more than spending extra hours at work. I feel that way too, and this is coming from someone who really loves my job and loves digging into strange problems.
- Women are smart, and they see the writing on the wall for the IT/dev industry. Now that it's "easy" to program an application for a phone, and more aspects of systems management are automated, there will be an inevitable reduction in employment and salaries across the board. These days, you really have to be on top of your game to stay employed at the higher salaries, and be constantly learning. There are a lot of jobs that have less of the constant retraining, are more stable, and have a better balance.
- Especially in the SV startup/web/social media sphere, the rise of the "asshole brogrammer" stereotype as evidenced by many stories all over the tech press might be scaring women away too. This is kind of the opposite end of the nerd spectrum -- now that development is open to more people, the more extroverted fratboy types who got through CS are founding startups and getting themselves into sexual harassment trouble.
Do I think any of this encouragement works? Not really. I think what would work is to keep developing girls' logic, problem solving and math skills at an early age. Those who excel at these and can handle all the other crap that comes with an IT/dev job will gravitate toward it. Others won't, and we just have to live with that.
pretty much what I said in my last post.
the field is already saturated and I, as a born-and-raised american, can't find a job in the bay area (I'm also over 50, and I admit that's a big part of it) even with nearly 30 yrs of software experience.
guiding young people into the software field - for anything other than personal use (ie, not a day job that pays the bills) is doing a disservice to our own people.
companies are brutal and refuse to support people in their own local society. they only care about low-cost, above all, to the exclusion of all.
you think americans will still be hired for 'grunt software work' in 10 or 20 yrs? no way! not even h1b's will be given the work since it will be cheaper for africa (probably the next geo to take over 'cheap remote work' once india and china have had wages go 'too high') to do the work.
its very clear that the cost of living in the US will never be competitive to overseas work. and being able to think and type does NOT require you to set even one foot on US soil.
US companies will be 'mangement houses' at best, with some token low-wage support folks here, just to say we have a US presence. but all the real work will be done overseas.
want job security: do something physical. hang wallboard, do plumbing, car repair, gardening. all the stuff that you were told NOT to go into (isn't that a switch?). but physical things can't be done remotely. they won't be high paying but SOME pay is better than being out of work for months at a time, every few years (a cycle that I'm put into, by virtue of my age and being 'too experienced').
do you see wages and life balance going UP in software? I don't. and it won't change. the hey-day of being in software and living in the US is on the decline and there's only so much time left before it bottoms out entirely.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
An "innate ability" would imply a genetic cause, which as we know from experience doesn't exist.
Sorry, what? How do you explain someone like Mozart? I could play the piano every single day for the rest of my life and never even be close to being as talented as he was at like five years old. Clearly there was something more than just "practice" at work for savants like him.