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African American Women Worked as Some of NASA's First Computers
- horsecaptin 11y agoPretty cool. They used to have a position at NASA whose job title was "computer", which was typically filled by women. They would compute whatever was necessary, and invent any tools they needed to make those computations.
- aaronbrethorst 11y agoThe term dates back to the 17th century: http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=computer http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=computer
- marcusgarvey 11y agoHow awesome and how instructive for Silicon Valley's diversity struggles today.
- brighteyes 11y agoAwesome yes, but how is it instructive for today? We are talking about completely different worlds.
- nickpsecurity 11y agoAnd, yet, the percentages of hired and remembered are similar despite women usually making it in blind auditions. Are they really different worlds for black women in engineering?
- brighteyes 11y agoWhat do you mean by "blind auditions" in engineering?
- nickpsecurity 11y agoIt can be as simple as looking at the quality and metrics of the work while not seeing name, gender, race, etc. Most experiments where they can see it lead to different results than where they cant. That's evidence of a discriminating bias plus a start on removing it on part of hiring process.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- brighteyes 11y agoAs I wrote in another comment, I'd like to see a source for that. edit: downvoting me for asking for a source? :)
- nickpsecurity 11y agoIm on mobile and at work right now. Hence holding off on real reply. I never downvote here unless spam or pure hate. I even upvote opponents when they make good points or state common misconceptions worth visibly debunking. Just for future reference. ;)
- malandrew 11y agoUpvoted because I too asked for a source and have yet to see one.
- nickpsecurity 11y ago"Upvoted because I too asked for a source and have yet to see one." Probably because you weren't looking. I spent a little time with Google for you, though, to find some anecdotal, subjective, and scholarly work: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10935155 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10935155
- rustynails 11y agoWhen I was about 10, I loved the idea of technology. I knew (loosely) about 50 people (all male) who were interested in computers and technology. There were no sign posts, ads, encouragement - it was binary: you were either interested or you weren't. I fought my parents and got a job at 8 to get a computer because my parents wouldn't buy me a glorified toy. When I watched an old documentary from the 70s a few months ago, they had boys going around junk shops sniffing at junk parts to put together their own systems. Now, revisionists talk about women being barred, ostracised, etc - but the only people I ever saw ostracised were the geeks like me. We didn't care what gender you were: you either were interested or you weren't. Even my nerdy female friends thought I was odd back then. I hear these revisionists like you and it annoys and disappoints me. When we were in computing classes, girls and boys wanted to be my friend in equal measure. When we left the room, us nerds were scorned by both sexes in equal measure. It most probably doesn't surprise me, but my wife (the same age as me) was in the same boat as me - but I didn't meet her until we were adults. In short, I never met a girl in my childhood that was interested in computing. I am not inclined to agree with the "social conditioning" excuse as everyone I knew motivated themselves. Two years of paper round tells you how dedicated I was.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- malandrew 11y agoDitto. I get incredibly irritated with this naïve revisionism. I spent a lot of my child hood seeking out broken and junk electronics anywhere it could be found, including dumpster diving behind the high school and businesses. One of the opening scenes in Robert Cringely's Triumph of the Nerds is most instructive. In the first few minutes, you're introduced to a 10 year old kid named Edwin Chin. Take a good long look at that kid, imagine yourself being back at that time and ask yourself, "What adult, except an adult nerd, would ever encourage any kid, male or female, to be like Edwin?". I was like Edwin myself. The number of people that I knew that were adults interested in computers and technology was exactly one, Murali Mani, and I lived in Chappaqua, NY, which was the very model of a privileged well educated community. This was a community where many people worked at IBM's headquarters at the time, but every person I knew that worked for IBM, were suits. The successful people at IBM were not the engineers, but the suits. No one encouraged you to be an engineer. Everyone encouraged you to be interested in being a doctor, a lawyer or a suit. Engineering really only started to become a desirable career around the first dot-com boom. And even in the first dot-com boom, mostly founding engineers did very well. After the founding engineers, suits still took home a lot of the winnings. It was only post-dot-com bubble that engineering truly became a desirable career that people encouraged and supported you in pursuing instead of pushing you to be a doctor, lawyer or suit. Beyond Murali, exactly no one encouraged me to get involved with computers. I eventually moved to Raleigh, NC and went to a small private school, that like most private schools, preps you for university. Tech and engineering was never a focus even when I graduated in 2000 at the height of the first bubble. Guy or girl, you were not encouraged to go into tech at all. You would be more likely to be encouraged to play a musical instrument, do art or some sport than do anything tech related. The revisionists really need to spend some time reading Meredith Patterson's "When Nerds Collide" essay, since most of their real beef is not with hacker culture, but with bro culture that became a part of tech at best a few years after the first dot com bubble. https://medium.com/@maradydd/when-nerds-collide-31895b01e68c#.9v8oka2x5 https://medium.com/@maradydd/when-nerds-collide-31895b01e68c... Another thing worth considering about computing history is that that there is a huge huge huge difference between computing pre mini-computer and post-mini computer. The culture in tech from the 80s and 90s didn't destroy the culture in tech pre-1980s described in this article because #patriarchy, but because the tech industry 1980s was entirely wiped out like dinosaurs with the move from 5" HDDs to 3.5" HDDs and the move from mainframes to hobby personal computers. Clayton Christensen's "The Innovator's Dilemma" and AnnaLee Saxenian's "Regional Advantage" will do far more to explain why the engineering/computing world pre-1980s disappeared than any revisionist explanation.
- geomark 11y agoOne of my undergrad math teachers once held a job as a computer. She liked to tell the story of how she once spent about a week solving a complex integral. The answer turned out to be 1. She said she felt both elated and kind of disappointed.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- astrange 11y agoThis is basically the plot of an Iain M. Banks novel. (Spoilers.)
- feral 11y agoI've read that novel. I think your comment, while clever, and admittedly a little oblique, is still a major spoiler. Why would you write 'spoilers' after your comment? Its probably better to say nothing. Would you consider editing?
- Dylan16807 11y agoYou can't give a "maybe don't read this" spoiler warning without saying what it could spoil. This is more of a "don't ask what book".
- reustle 11y agoI don't understand how people continue to expect that it is nearly their right to not be spoiled about every book, movie, and so on. You're on the internet, on a website with public comments. If it is such a big deal to not be spoiled about an old book you probably weren't even going to read, then maybe you should reconsider your browsing habits.
- PhasmaFelis 11y agoPardon me, do you understand what "spoiler" means?
- downandout 11y agoThere are smart people of both sexes and all races, and I always assumed that an organization as focused on problem solving as NASA would employ the smartest people and ignore the discrimination that was all too commonplace at the time this occurred. While I'm glad to see that my assumption was grounded in facts, articles like this, in 2016, seem divisive to me.
- zappo2938 11y agoNeil deGrasse Tyson will not answer any questions about his race for this reason.
- Wingman4l7 11y agoIt would certainly be hoped, but NASA was run by fallible human beings.
- PhasmaFelis 11y ago> articles like this, in 2016, seem divisive to me. I dunno, this seems kinda like the "racism is over" argument. As long as there are many, many people who (consciously or unconsciously) believe that nothing of value was ever accomplished by a non-white non-male, there's value in pointing out that they're wrong.
- zo1 11y ago>"As long as there are many, many people who (consciously or unconsciously) believe that nothing of value was ever accomplished by a non-white non-male" Nothing good will come of trying to forcefully change those peoples' minds. Because such actions are incredibly divisive, even if you sugar-coat it with noble ideals.
- kaitai 11y agoAn article on the internet is "trying to change someone's mind by force"?
- 11y ago