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1. Embed this notice
   lj·rk (ljrk@todon.eu)'s status on Friday, 14-Jun-2024 23:30:51 JST lj·rk

   • Lisa Melton

   My #CompSci lecturers often dropped the names of inventors. But only if they were men. We talked about Gordon Moore, obviously Turing 🏳️🌈 was mentioned, about Don Knuth, about Chomsky etc.

   But when we discussed the #ARM architecture, we never talked about the inventor *Sophie Wilson*. We also never talked about *Mary Ann Horton*, despite her work on `vi` and `terminfo` -- but of course we mentioned Bill Joy. We discussed the Spanning Tree Protocol, but not its inventor *Radia Perlman*. We have the whole field of #SoftwareEngineering, but who coined the term? *Margaret Hamilton*. We mentioned the ENIAC and v. Neumann, but failed to talk about *Adele Goldstine*. We discussed the origins of #OOP and #Smalltalk but ignored *Adele Goldberg*. We programmed in #Assembly but never talked about the woman who wrote the first #Assembler, *Kathleen Booth*. And don't get me started on #Safari and our sweet @lisamelton <3 Or any of the (incomplete list) of *Ida Rhodes, Carol Shaw, Shafi Goldwasser, Edith Clarke, Annie Easley, Joyce Little*, ...

   And today? Let's talk about our favorite trans woman CPU designer, Lynn Conway.

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   • Embed this notice
     lj·rk (ljrk@todon.eu)'s status on Friday, 14-Jun-2024 23:32:42 JST lj·rk

     in reply to

     Lynn developed "generalized dynamic instruction dispatch" for IBM in 1966. 2 years later she was kicked out, just after Robert Tomasulo published the "Tomasulo Algorithm" for out-of-order execution of floating point instructions, utilizing Lynn's work. Everyone knows Tomasulo (and he did great work, mind you!), but no-one knows Lynn.

     Later, in technical compsci, you may stumble upon highly integrated circuits, everyone there knows #VLSI, but not the inventor, our dear Dr. Conway.

     Her story, her struggle against IBM who took decades to apologize to her for her mistreatment. She transitioned in darker times and pioneered not "only" in compsci. She was what many would call "greater than life". She died a few days ago.

     Today, let's remember Lynn 🏳️⚧️, tomorrow we'll fight on ✊

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   • Embed this notice
     hankg (hankg@friendica.myportal.social)'s status on Saturday, 15-Jun-2024 14:49:35 JST hankg

     in reply to

     • Lisa Melton
     @ljrk @lisamelton Yep. Grace Hopper was the only exception to that in my experience too.
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     clacke (clacke@libranet.de)'s status on Saturday, 15-Jun-2024 14:49:39 JST clacke

     in reply to

     • hankg
     • Lisa Melton
     @hankg @ljrk @lisamelton Grace Hopper and Ada Lovelace are the two women CS departments have heard about. *Maaybe* Margaret Hamilton if you're lucky.
   • Embed this notice
     Dr. Heather Etchevers (etche_homo@mas.to)'s status on Saturday, 15-Jun-2024 14:49:39 JST Dr. Heather Etchevers

     in reply to

     • Lisa Melton
     • Benjamin Eunice
     • ScienceCommunicator

     @ScienceCommunicator @ljrk @lisamelton @beunice The power differential makes the difference. Humans with coercive power tend to set themselves as the norm and those they find outside it are, in their view, subordinate. It's not that women find other women superior to men but rather, reminding the world that ignoring our talent is an opportunity loss. Same for other disempowered groups. Pride in group members' achievements despite adversity is not inversion of power dynamics.

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     ScienceCommunicator (sciencecommunicator@mastodon.social)'s status on Saturday, 15-Jun-2024 14:49:40 JST ScienceCommunicator

     in reply to

     • Lisa Melton
     • Benjamin Eunice

     @ljrk @lisamelton @beunice

     It's not original information to infer that men think men are superior or women think women are superior. Or, simply that men feel they can relate more to other men, & women relate more to women (precisely because they share similar life experiences)

     The terms "men" & "women" don't encapsulate the diversity of personality differences, gender perception, etc (& don't include humans that are physiologically "children". On there way to being anatomically " adult")

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   • Embed this notice
     lj·rk (ljrk@todon.eu)'s status on Saturday, 15-Jun-2024 19:34:39 JST lj·rk

     in reply to

     • hankg
     • clacke
     • Lisa Melton

     @clacke @hankg @lisamelton You just described my CS dept. :(

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   • Embed this notice
     Noah Cook (uncivilservant@med-mastodon.com)'s status on Saturday, 15-Jun-2024 19:34:44 JST Noah Cook

     in reply to

     • Lisa Melton

     @ljrk @lisamelton Even when people mention Von Neumann, for some reason it's always John and never Klara. Klara was the one who flew the Monte Carlo punchcards to ENIAC, directed the wiring of the machine for the problem, and ran the actual program (would that make her the kernel in that architecture?).

     But then again, John would have looked out of place at the time, since computer programming was "womens' work" back then.

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   • Embed this notice
     peter honeyman (peterhoneyman@a2mi.social)'s status on Saturday, 15-Jun-2024 19:34:48 JST peter honeyman

     in reply to

     @ljrk Very good points! In my Intro to Security class, I take some time to mention the contributions of Wang Xiaoyun, Elizebeth Friedman, Shafi Goldwasser, and Nadia Heninger

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   • Embed this notice
     Michelle Hughes (megamichelle@a2mi.social)'s status on Saturday, 15-Jun-2024 19:34:52 JST Michelle Hughes

     in reply to

     • Lisa Melton

     @ljrk @lisamelton

     Computers are so queer I'm surprised straight dudes allow themselves to use them.

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   • Embed this notice
     Lisa Melton (lisamelton@mastodon.social)'s status on Saturday, 15-Jun-2024 19:35:10 JST Lisa Melton

     in reply to

     @ljrk Wow! Thanks so much for mentioning me in your list of absolutely awesome women! I am honored and humbled. 😊🥰💖

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   • Embed this notice
     lj·rk (ljrk@todon.eu)'s status on Saturday, 15-Jun-2024 19:35:17 JST lj·rk

     in reply to

     • Lisa Melton

     @lisamelton Anything else would be a bad omission, you rock! <3

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     Wolfgang (bewo001@darmstadt.social)'s status on Saturday, 15-Jun-2024 19:35:29 JST Wolfgang

     in reply to

     @ljrk Sally Floyd, who did pioneering work in Internet congestion control.

     https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sally_Floyd

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   • Embed this notice
     Eliot Lash (eliot_l@social.coop)'s status on Saturday, 15-Jun-2024 19:35:35 JST Eliot Lash

     in reply to

     @ljrk Shout out to the original ENIAC programming team: Kay McNulty, Betty Jennings, Betty Snyder, Marlyn Wescoff, Fran Bilas and Ruth Lichterman.

     I watched some interviews with them at the Computer History Museum. This doc also looks cool:
     https://eniacprogrammers.org/

     I have heard that some black women were also involved with this project but sadly this has not been well documented and information about them may have been lost in the historical record.

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     Eliot Lash (eliot_l@social.coop)'s status on Saturday, 15-Jun-2024 19:35:48 JST Eliot Lash

     in reply to

     @ljrk Also shout out to Klára Dán von Neumann (John von Neumann's wife) also considered to be one of the first programmers:
     https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kl%C3%A1ra_D%C3%A1n_von_Neumann

     She was Head of the Statistical Computing Group at Princeton, and worked at Los Alamos laboratory. She programmed the MANIAC I and ENIAC and coded the first monte carlo simulation.

     The Lost Women of Science podcast devoted an entire season to her, I've been meaning to get around to finishing it: https://www.lostwomenofscience.org/season-2

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   • Embed this notice
     ScienceCommunicator (sciencecommunicator@mastodon.social)'s status on Tuesday, 18-Jun-2024 13:30:57 JST ScienceCommunicator

     in reply to

     • Dr. Heather Etchevers
     • Lisa Melton
     • Benjamin Eunice

     @Etche_homo @ljrk @lisamelton @beunice

     Social power dynamics are certainly a significant driver. Of course, generally, what we are saying is that we want equal opportunities.

     Ask yourself this. Would you prefer to be a male or female that couldn't afford to buy food?

     In cities, are there more homeless males than females? Do the homeless care that female CEOs get less of a bonus than their male colleagues?

     Sex discrimination effects people from the 'top' to the 'bottom' of society

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     clacke (clacke@libranet.de)'s status on Tuesday, 18-Jun-2024 13:30:57 JST clacke

     in reply to

     • Dr. Heather Etchevers
     • Lisa Melton
     • Benjamin Eunice
     • ScienceCommunicator

     @ScienceCommunicator Are "women think women are superior" and "[as what gender would you rather starve]" arguments against "[we should showcase more of the women inventors that built our field because they're usually swept under the rug]"?

     I'm lost. Your science communication is not effective and I have no idea what direction this subthread is going.

     @ljrk @Etche_homo @beunice @lisamelton

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     clacke (clacke@libranet.de)'s status on Tuesday, 18-Jun-2024 22:20:47 JST clacke

     in reply to

     • ScienceCommunicator
     @ScienceCommunicator what
   • Embed this notice
     ScienceCommunicator (sciencecommunicator@mastodon.social)'s status on Tuesday, 18-Jun-2024 22:20:48 JST ScienceCommunicator

     in reply to

     • clacke
     • Dr. Heather Etchevers
     • Lisa Melton
     • Benjamin Eunice

     @clacke @ljrk @Etche_homo @beunice @lisamelton

     Do you

     1. Strongly agree

     2. Agree

     3. Neither agree or disagree

     4. Disagree

     5. Strongly disagree

     That honesty is what any healthy relationship, or communication, is based on?

     As for a direction of travel, honesty is up, dishonesty is down. Effectively, dishonest people lose their way in life

     It's an implicit ironic tradegy for them. Just for an example, they think they're being clever by re-editing posts to 'fool' people (the fools do)

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     ScienceCommunicator (sciencecommunicator@mastodon.social)'s status on Tuesday, 18-Jun-2024 22:20:52 JST ScienceCommunicator

     in reply to

     • clacke
     • Dr. Heather Etchevers
     • Lisa Melton
     • Benjamin Eunice

     @clacke @ljrk @Etche_homo @beunice @lisamelton

     Now, pause for a second, regardless of the thread, any honest & intelligent person would appreciate \ value, what l have said (e.g., advocating for equal opportunities. Regardless of what 'gender' pronouns they want to be called)

     The people that find a problem with basic biology (science), are a problem.

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     clacke (clacke@libranet.de)'s status on Tuesday, 18-Jun-2024 22:20:52 JST clacke

     in reply to

     • ScienceCommunicator

     @ScienceCommunicator Oh! I see. I made a mistake.

     I don't have time for bigots, much less wall-of-text ones.

     Bye!