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   Jason Grigsby (grigs@front-end.social)'s status on Tuesday, 16-Apr-2024 09:31:55 JST Jason Grigsby

   • Tyler Sticka

   ”A collection of innovations by women in the fields of computer science and technology.”
   https://nowebwithoutwomen.com/

   /ht @tylersticka

   • Embed this notice
     djsumdog (djsumdog@djsumdog.com)'s status on Tuesday, 16-Apr-2024 09:31:53 JST djsumdog

     in reply to

     • Tyler Sticka
     Ada Lovelace was not a programmer:
     
     https://www.bbvaopenmind.com/en/technology/visionaries/ada-lovelace-original-and-visionary-but-no-programmer/
     
     Grace Hopper invested COBOL, but she hardly made the first compiler. She coined the turn compiler; and she did some amazing things, but there's no reason to inflate her beyond those already big accomplishments.
     
     Robert Williams was big in the era of text adventure games, but let's just admit it: all the Sierra games kinda sucked, and were just a means to sell hint books. The only really good games she wrote were Kings Quest VI and Phantasmagoria (just the first one; second one sucked)
     
     I don't recognize the other names. Some of them may have been important, some exaggerated. I feel like from the few issues I've seen, I can't trust the rest of this list.
     
     Why not just let great people stand on their own? Why is there this bizarre need to elevate the few who excel in something their in-group typically doesn't care about? You don't see "Greatest men of needle-point"
   • Embed this notice
     djsumdog (djsumdog@djsumdog.com)'s status on Tuesday, 16-Apr-2024 09:49:11 JST djsumdog

     in reply to

     • cipote :bishrexual:
     • Tyler Sticka

     I think people just like a good story, which leads to this weird adoration for the barely exceptional just because they are of identity group x. For instance, Amelia Earhart was likely a terrible pilot. People really wanted the story of a female aviator, and that's probably what got her killed:

     https://archive.is/APHbT

     Meanwhile no one is going to talk about Hanna Reitsch, an absolutely stellar German aviator, and the only woman awarded the Iron Cross First Class and the Luftwaffe Combined Pilots-Observation Badge in Gold with Diamonds during World War II. Because she was of a certain wrong identity.

     There's also stuff like the famous photo of the stack of code that Margaret Hamilton wrong "by hand" that turns out to be an entire fabrication:

     https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1629315139169075200.html

     All this unhistorical bullshit diminishes people with actually great accomplishments. I also feel like "who cares." Let people stand or fall on their merits with them given no handicaps just because they're part of your favorite victim group.

   • Embed this notice
     cipote :bishrexual: (teratology@the.asbestos.cafe)'s status on Tuesday, 16-Apr-2024 09:49:12 JST cipote :bishrexual:

     in reply to

     • djsumdog
     • Tyler Sticka

     @djsumdog @grigs @tylersticka regardless Ada Lovelace is still highly influential in the field of CS, as are many women in the field who were erased and pushed out of the industry post WWII but nobody wants to talk about that..

     Why not just let great people stand on their own? Why is there this bizarre need to elevate the few who excel in something their in-group typically doesn’t care about? You don’t see “Greatest men of needle-point”

     This is an insane double standard. I’m not trying to attack you as a person or anything, but scientific field has been ridden with sexism and women’s accomplishments have been stolen numerous times. Rosalind Franklin is one infamous example. Einstien’s wife is rarely credited for her contributions to his theories, and he relied on her for mathematical expertise.

     And yet, nobody is taking away awards or credit from Jim Watson and Francis Crick. Thats the difference.

   • Embed this notice
     waltercool (waltercool@pl.slash.cl)'s status on Tuesday, 16-Apr-2024 09:58:51 JST waltercool

     in reply to

     • djsumdog
     • cipote :bishrexual:
     • Tyler Sticka
     @djsumdog @grigs @tylersticka @teratology Same about the Night Witches, the all-female-team of Soviet bomber pilots.
     
     Sure, Communism is a fked up ideology just like Nazis, but both sides had great aces during wars.
     
     Highly skilled female experts who become great due their skills don't need virtue signaling.
     djsumdog likes this.