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Unseen images of Colossus code breaking computer
- janwillemb 3y agoThe (changed) title made me think that there is some nasty hack that breaks computers by showing a hidden image of something called "Colossus code" to the user: Unseen images of Colossus code / breaking computer
- belter 3y agoYeah...still trying to understand when is ok to change the tittle... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39048960 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39048960
- janwillemb 3y agoPlease note that images of computers from this era nearly always have women at the "terminal". Women are the ones who invented programming. Spread the word. We need more women in our field. See for example https://www.jstor.org/stable/25147356 https://www.jstor.org/stable/25147356 and https://doi.org/10.7275/yen8-qn18 https://doi.org/10.7275/yen8-qn18
- codetrotter 3y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ada_Lovelace https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ada_Lovelace Ada Lovelace, the very first programmer in the world ever, was a woman as well. She was the first to recognise that the machine had applications beyond pure calculation. And she was one of the first to make a program for it.
- nickloewen 3y agoGood links, thank you!
- verisimi 3y agoMaybe the data entry bit was seen as more of a secretarial role, rather than an engineering one?
- KineticLensman 3y agoThere is a long history of involvement of women in these sort of roles, for various reasons. [0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_computing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_computing
- NoZebra120vClip 3y agoThe voice of the Star Trek onboard computers, Majel Barrett, was romantically involved with the executive producer, Gene Roddenberry, and she was also able to land roles as supporting characters throughout her lifetime.
- globular-toast 3y ago> We need more women in our field. Why?
- robin_reala 3y agoOK, I’ll take the question at face value: programmers build systems on computers that interface with the real world and hence real users. If you want to build systems that work well for users then you need to understand the problems those users have. Having a wide spread of life experience in the industry will lead to a greater chance that a greater spread of users will have their problems solved by digital systems.
- globular-toast 3y agoSounds contrived to me but I'll give the benefit of the doubt. Is there any evidence that women have more trouble with computer programs or are less well served compared to men? Even if so, wouldn't that require more female product owners etc rather than more programmers?
- Mountain_Skies 3y agoThings do come up sometimes but it's a question of do you need exact 50:50 representation or is it enough to ensure there's a voice for each sex. danah boyd pointed out to VR researchers she was working with that their product was "sexist" because it made assumptions about vision that were far more true for males than females. But she used the word sexist in a narrow way to just point out that vision fact, not to make a moral judgement or imply any intention. It's worth noting that she was able to point this out on her own. She didn't need the team she was working with to be 50% female for her to have this insight and share it with everyone else.
- doublerebel 3y agoVR/AR/XR is a very good example. Meta’s headsets and most 3rd party straps still default to a top strap that runs along the center of the head front to back. For any woman that wears their hair in a ponytail or bun this is a no-go. That design makes it really hard to demo product to 50+% of the population. I always seek out replacement straps that have an extra front strap instead of a center strap for this reason. And still very few men who work in the industry are aware of this despite that I’ve been working in AR/VR for a decade. This might seem like a product failure, but in a software company there are far more programmers than product managers. It would only take a couple females writing software for the headset all day to point out how uncomfortable it is.
- cjs_ac 3y agoIn this case, they were the 'Wrens' of the Women's Royal Naval Service[0]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%27s_Royal_Naval_Service https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%27s_Royal_Naval_Service
- holoduke 3y agoWe need more people in the field. Nothing more Nothing less.
- eh_why_not 3y ago> Women are the ones who invented programming. Hmm?
- dartos 3y agoSpecifically Ada Lovelace described what we’d now call computer programs in her own language while assisting in the creation of adding machines. She’s widely regarded as the first programmer.
- eh_why_not 3y agoSure. The statement quoted above, however, is childish.
- barelyauser 3y agoThe statement that "women invented programming" is as meaningless as "men invented mathematics". It is blind to all the contributions of everyone that preceded and entire field.
- eh_why_not 3y agoPrecisely. The redditization of HN: activism vs critical thinking.
- globular-toast 3y agoExactly. Notice how the two comments calling out the childish comment, one simply asking why and one questioning the claim, were downvoted. "We need more women in the field" really means "we want more women in the field" and they refuse to reflect on why they want this. I assume it must be some kind of guilt that's been drummed in.
- dartos 3y agoI mean, an argument could be made that more diverse life experiences could lead to more diverse approaches to solving problems. So if that’s true, and I think it is, then it’d be a good thing to get more <insert underrepresented group> working in <some field>
- mangoo84 3y ago[dead]
- keepamovin 3y agoImagine the code breaking computers the NSA and MSS has today wow
- tgot 3y agoMy mother was in the 2nd (? early...) class of AT&T programmers hired. Nobody knew any programming, so the identified pre-requisites to getting hired were: 1) College degree 2) Typing 60 WPM She and basically everyone else had been pushed to learn to type in high-school, so they'd have something better than waitressing to fall back on.
- niccl 3y agoMy cousin designed the paper tape reader. Just before he died in 2004 he said that as far as he knew it was still the fastest optical reader in the world. He was one of the main reasons I got into electronics and then programming
- icosian 3y agoThe photo of the Wrens has been published before. I was once sheltering from the rain in the doorway at Bletchley Park, along with an elderly lady. She turned out to be Dorothy du Boisson, the woman on the left in the photo. I happened to have a book with that photo on me, and she pointed herself out. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorothy_Du_Boisson https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorothy_Du_Boisson