Barbie Goes Binary
In case you haven’t heard, Mattel® has created Computer Engineer Barbie®, based on popular vote. Here’s the laptop she is holding:
Binary Code on Barbie's Laptop
It spells “Barbie” — repeatedly, in ASCII code.
Articles with the ‘Pop culture’ Tag
Binary Code on the Pioneer 10 Spacecraft
The Pioneer 10 (also known as Pioneer F) spacecraft, launched in 1972 and now on a very long journey towards Taurus, has a plaque mounted on it which is designed to inform alien civilizations about the spacecraft’s origin. The plaque contains a diagram of our solar system, the trajectory of the spacecraft, a drawing of a man and woman, and groups of vertical and horizontal strokes — you guessed it, binary code — that gives information about how to find us:
Pioneer 10 Plaque (click image for higher resolution).
Ki-Adi-Mundi Has a Binary Brain Too
I’m not the only one with a binary brain.
The other day my son showed me a page in a Star Wars® book which described a character named Ki-Adi-Mundi, who up until that point we knew as “big brain head.” I read in his bio that he has a binary brain, at which point I exclaimed, “Hey, just like me!” Well, not quite — his is binary in a different sense:
From starwars.com:
“Ki’s most distinguishing physical feature was an enlarged conical cranium that contained a binary brain.”
How Do You Pronounce “Binary”?
According to Merriam-Webster, there are two ways to pronounce binary:
- “bye’ nuh ree” (rhymes with “winery”)
- “bye’ nairy” (flows like the words “bye Mary”)
Binary Hopscotch
Here’s what hopscotch might look like if you numbered the squares in binary (click on the image in that post to make it legible).
