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Ada Lovelace and Her Legacy

nightcats writes: Nature has an extensive piece on the legacy of the "enchantress of abstraction," the extraordinary Victorian-era computer pioneer Ada Lovelace, daughter of the poet Lord Byron. Her monograph on the Babbage machine was described by Babbage himself as a creation of "that Enchantress who has thrown her magical spell around the most abstract of Sciences and has grasped it with a force that few masculine intellects (in our own country at least) could have exerted over it." Ada's remarkable merging of intellect and intuition — her capacity to analyze and capture the conceptual and functional foundations of the Babbage machine — is summarized with a historical context which reveals the precocious modernity of her scientific mind. "By 1841 Lovelace was developing a concept of 'Poetical Science', in which scientific logic would be driven by imagination, 'the Discovering faculty, pre-eminently. It is that which penetrates into the unseen worlds around us, the worlds of science.' She saw mathematics metaphysically, as 'the language of the unseen relations between things;' but added that to apply it, 'we must be able to fully appreciate, to feel, to seize, the unseen, the unconscious.' She also saw that Babbage's mathematics needed more imaginative presentation."

139 comments

  1. Lord Byron by whoever57 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    When Lord Byron was attending Trinity college at Cambridge, he kept a bear. He was hauled in to be told to get rid of the bear, because domestic animals were prohibited by college rules from college rooms. His response: the bear is not a domestic animal. He got to keep the bear!

    --
    The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
    1. Re:Lord Byron by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I must confess I think of lord Byron chiefly as Ada Lovelace's father. I know the name, but can't name a single thing he has done.
      Apart from fathering his famous daughter. And, now, keeping a bear.
      I'm off to wikipedia!

    2. Re:Lord Byron by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 4, Informative

      I must confess I think of lord Byron chiefly as Ada Lovelace's father. I know the name, but can't name a single thing he has done.

      He wrote some poems, had lots of sex with people of various genders, and fought in the Greek War of Independence.

    3. Re:Lord Byron by dryeo · · Score: 4, Informative

      Wasn't he also present on the famous rainy holiday when Mary Shelly wrote Frankenstein?

      --
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
    4. Re:Lord Byron by JustOK · · Score: 4, Funny

      He was in charge of all Byrons.

      --
      rewriting history since 2109
    5. Re:Lord Byron by serviscope_minor · · Score: 2

      One he wrote was "England, With all Thy Faults I Love Thee Still", which makes me chuckle every time I read it. It's still absolutely spot on.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    6. Re:Lord Byron by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Let Byrons be Byrons.

    7. Re:Lord Byron by Archtech · · Score: 1

      And swam the Hellespont.

      --
      I am sure that there are many other solipsists out there.
    8. Re:Lord Byron by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      Harry 'Breaker' Morant: "This world is a comedy to those that think, a tragedy to those that feel."
      George: "Did you write that, Harry?"
      Harry: "No, no. It was a minor poet called Byron."
      Peter Handcock: "Never heard of him!"
      Harry: "I did say he was a minor poet."

    9. Re:Lord Byron by morgauxo · · Score: 1

      All that and he had a bear? Oh, man, I never knew that Putin was such a copycat!

    10. Re:Lord Byron by tehcyder · · Score: 2

      Byron was only a minor English poet if you count everyone apart from Shakespeare (including Chaucer, Milton, Wordsworth and TS Eliot) as minor English poets.

      --
      To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
    11. Re:Lord Byron by Darinbob · · Score: 1

      He was the guy that brought the cheese dip.

    12. Re:Lord Byron by Darinbob · · Score: 1

      He did live large chunks of his life outside of England. An ex-pat poet.

    13. Re:Lord Byron by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think Harry was probably being ironic (or rather, playwright Kenneth G. Ross through Harry).

    14. Re:Lord Byron by kmoser · · Score: 1

      Lucky for him he didn't eat the salmon mousse.

  2. ultimate sales job by Tablizer · · Score: 2

    She also saw that Babbage's mathematics needed more imaginative presentation

    All they needed was steampunk Space Invaders.

    1. Re:ultimate sales job by kav2k · · Score: 1

      Surely you mean Pac-Man.

  3. Re:hurrrudururrururur by chipschap · · Score: 4, Insightful

    With stuff like this, we wonder why women complain or feel harassed?

    Ada Lovelace had an unmatched intellect combined with imagination and creativity, and especially given the era she lived in, is worthy of great admiration. Show a little respect instead of being a d--k yourself.

  4. Re:hurrrudururrururur by dryeo · · Score: 4, Interesting

    In that era, upper class women often dappled in (higher) mathematics, with womans magazines often having mathematical puzzles.

    --
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
  5. Re:hurrrudururrururur by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Troll

    Come on, don't be a dick.
    I agree they aren't being respectful, but then again why should they?

    All this talk about being politically correct is utter crap.
    We also talk dirty amongst men; for example I think RMS is a dick head, and nobody will feel like I'm being harassing or being non inclusive towards bearded autistic men. Instead they will think I'm some sort of BSD/Microsoft sucker.

    Women want equality, that means not putting them in a high pedestal.
    They want to play the game? Fine, here is your insult manual and have a great time.

    --Me

  6. Re:Deep Throat by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Funny

    And you wonder why you don't have a girlfriend.

  7. Re:She was lucky by Dahamma · · Score: 1, Redundant

    Yeah, except for that pesky not being able to vote or own property issue...

  8. Re:She was lucky by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ... or be able get much in the way of a higher education ...

  9. Re: She was lucky by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    In a decade or less none of us 99 percenters are going to be able to vote (as if voting can make any difference right now) or hold any property, which will all belong to the One Percenters. Explain how we are better off.

  10. Re:hurrrudururrururur by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    One day, hopefully, you'll get to see why this position is a little simplistic. Yes, criticise anyone for any reason; sounds fair. But sexism is quite prevalent and one side is starting with a disadvantage.

    Here's another example from a slightly later period - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emmy_Noether. If you're completely - completely - happy that we're all now on a level playing field criticise away.

    Otherwise, let's take gender out of it and try to get over the general geek thing of I'm-some-hot-shot-IT-geek-and-no-one-else-knows-anything nonsense. Try finding the positive rather than criticise. The "yeah, but..." thing is tiresome.

  11. I am sure the women in the crowd will like this... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    However anyone (woman or man) is not going to like Ada Lovelace any more after reading this article. First off, ADA of today is barely based on what ADA wrote. Secondly the original ADA was never implemented on hardware during Lovelace's lifetime. Thus no programs were ever written, that were tested, and run for periods of time in repetition. Imagination in Science is very important, but only just up to the point, where imagination is considered to be science.
    Honestly it seems like Ada had plenty of knowledge, and few outlets for her academic pursuits. In her lifetime society would have kept her from doing too much. (which is sad.)

  12. Re:She was lucky by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You treated your woman like gold back then, due in no small part to the fact that, when you got her pregnant, she had about a 1 in 5 chance of not surviving it.

  13. Far Out Man by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    "By 1841 Lovelace was developing a concept of 'Poetical Science', in which scientific logic would be driven by imagination, 'the Discovering faculty, pre-eminently. It is that which penetrates into the unseen worlds around us, the worlds of science.' She saw mathematics metaphysically, as 'the language of the unseen relations between things;' but added that to apply it, 'we must be able to fully appreciate, to feel, to seize, the unseen, the unconscious.'

    Of course, that was when laudanum was commonly used.

    She deserved better than to have Ada 83 named after her. Even Adolf 83 would have been a stretch for that language.

    1. Re:Far Out Man by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Just because you don't know how to program doesn't make ADA a bad language.

    2. Re:Far Out Man by Tablizer · · Score: 1

      No, Adolf83 was reserved for writing /. beta

  14. Re:hurrrudururrururur by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

    Ada Lovelace had an unmatched intellect

    as evidenced by what exactly? seriously, what basis do you have for making this rather strong claim?

    Here are some counter-examples you might like to consider:

    - Gauss invented the procedure that is now known as the Fast Fourier Transform before Lovelace was born.
    - Galois proved that there is no algebraic procedure to solve polynomial equations beyond the quartic while Lovelace was still a tween
    - Boole devised what is now known as Boolean logic and proved various properties that are probably being used by a programmer right now while Lovelace was working

    In all sincerity, I'm not sure which is worse: joking about Lovelace's sexual life, or seriously claiming that she was of unmatched genius. If you ask me, they are both despicable.

  15. Meanwhile, in an alternative universe... by turbinicarpus · · Score: 3, Informative

    Ada Lovelace and Charles Babbage: together, They Fight Crime (for certain definitions of "crime").

    1. Re:Meanwhile, in an alternative universe... by rsmith-mac · · Score: 1

      Ada Lovelace and Charles Babbage: together, They Fight Crime (for certain definitions of "crime").

      I am confused and yet intrigued at the same time. What the heck am I looking at?

  16. Re:hurrrudururrururur by thinkwaitfast · · Score: 2

    With stuff like this, we wonder why women complain or feel harassed?

    If someone said something like this about me, I wouldn't feel harassed or complain. But I'm not a woman. I usually complain about things like having seven bosses all telling me to do opposite things.

  17. Re:hurrrudururrururur by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Oh thank you gallant sir! Whatever we poor women would do without such a valiant knight coming to our rescue. You would like to claim your traditional reward for rescuing damsel in distress, yes?

  18. Re:hurrrudururrururur by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Spotted mathematics?

  19. Re:I am sure the women in the crowd will like this by NoNonAlphaCharsHere · · Score: 5, Funny

    My friend and I invented mechanical computation, and all I got was this lousy language named after me.

  20. Re:hurrrudururrururur by jandersen · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I agree they aren't being respectful, but then again why should they?

    Well, for one thing, when you express yourself like a crude fool, you shouldn't be surprised when people perceive as one. As for Ada Lovelace - why should you respect her? You mean, you don't already know? Or is it that you can see past the fact that she expressed herself in the style and terms that were regarded as appropriate for her time? Read a few books of contemporary authors, and you'll see. Well, perhaps not, but at least you'll then have had the opportunity.

    Many of her views on the nature of science and perhaps especially maths, were spot on - it isn't enough to know the equations or how to write code; to really understand, you need imagination and intuition - here's a quote that's attributed to Einstein (you do respect him?):

    âoeImagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.â

    And "intuition" is just another word for "abstraction": the process of "summing up" the essence of a class of concepts into a single, new concept - which lies at the very heart of mathmatics. Take natural numbers: a number is the essential quality that is common to all sets that are equivalent under isomorphism (in the category of sets: bijections). When we understand an abstraction without having to go into technical details like this, we call it intuition. So, don't scoff at imagination and intuition.

  21. Re:She was lucky by Celarent+Darii · · Score: 1

    A Victorian woman was sovereign over all of England [Queen Victoria]. Who needs the vote when you have the power? Who needs property rights when you are the guarantor for all property?

  22. Re:She was lucky by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    > when you got her pregnant, she had about a 1 in 5 chance of not surviving it.

    You got that statics from your tax payer leeched womyns study classes ?, like that 1 in 4 college womyn getting raped ?

  23. Re:She was lucky by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    It's bullshit when someone says that men have all the power based on the position of a few men, it's equally bullshit to say women were equal based on the position of one woman.

  24. Hells Bells slashdot by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1

    Well, having that post modded insightful rather than "troll" is a new low for shashdot[*].

    She was the first person to figure out that a number crunching computer could do more than just crunch numbers. This seems easy and obvious now, 70 years on from the Church-Turing thesis, and when such fundamental insights are baked into every electronic product around us. Such insights are much much harder to come by when you're the first person ever looking at something.

    Imaginary programmer for an imaginary computer?

    Well, if you've modded that insightful, then you've managed to dismiss a large amount of computer science as essentially worthless.

    [*] Measurement of lows resets every midnight. Who am I kidding, the trolls come out of the woodwork on all the Ada related threads and attempt to play down her achievements.

    --
    SJW n. One who posts facts.
    1. Re:Hells Bells slashdot by jedidiah · · Score: 1

      The problem is that you describe a number crunching machine as the first instance ever of number crunching and that is clearly not that case. There are much older examples of using math and mapping that to something else. Also, at that time there were already other examples of machines that could do something besides number crunching. This was a real example as opposed to just a mathematical construct or element of fiction.

      There seem to be too many eager white knights here.

      --
      A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
    2. Re:Hells Bells slashdot by serviscope_minor · · Score: 2

      The problem is that you describe a number crunching machine as the first instance ever of number crunching and that is clearly not that case.

      No I didn't. Learn to read.

      There are much older examples of using math and mapping that to something else

      Quite possibly, but that's not the point I was making. You need to learn to read.

      Also, at that time there were already other examples of machines that could do something besides number crunching.

      Yeah there were machines to do all sorts of things. Like steam trains for pulling heavy things, and looms and whatnot. That still has no bearing on my point:

      No one had realised that a number crunching machine could do other things with its numbers. This wasn't fully formalised until the Church Turing thesis about 70 years later.

      This was a real example as opposed to just a mathematical construct or element of fiction.

      Ah so an advance in maths isn't a real advance now?

      If the question of P being in NP is solved while we're still on slashdot I'd like to see you dismiss it as not being "real" because it's a mere "mathematical construct" in the same way.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
  25. 100 MBit fiber brought to you by Linda Lovelace by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Never ending quest for bandwidth has helped build the Internet.

  26. Re:She was lucky by jabuzz · · Score: 5, Informative

    On the first issue of voting that needs to be seen a wider context. Most of the British population where unable to vote during Ada Lovelace's lifetime (she died in 1852). Specifically until the Representation of the People Act 1867, only around 15% of the adult males in the United Kingdom could vote. Even with the Representation of the People Act 1884 around 40% of adult males in the United Kingdom could still not vote.

    On the issue of property you are flat out wrong. Women where also allowed to own property for the entirety of Ada's lifetime. The one restriction was that when they married their property became that of their husbands to do as they saw fit under the doctrine of Coverture. That did not start changing until the Married Women's Property Act 1870 and was not completed until the Married Women's Property Act 1893.

    It was not uncommon for wealthy women to not marry for this very reason.

    The situation in Scotland was different, because Coveture was a Norman thing introduced by Henry II. There where separate married womens property acts that covered Scotland.

  27. Re:hurrrudururrururur by TapeCutter · · Score: 1

    And "intuition" is just another word for "abstraction":

    Not according to my thesaurus.

    --
    And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
  28. Re:hurrrudururrururur by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Please do shut your fucking cake-hole. No one cares about your political correctness. No one.

  29. Re:hurrrudururrururur by LaurenCates · · Score: 5, Insightful

    With stuff like this, we wonder why women complain or feel harassed?

    I feel genuinely put upon when I hear guys say things like this.

    So, I'm going to say this in every thread where I encounter this statement.

    I am a woman. I do not feel harassed. Stop fucking speaking for women and let us stand up for ourselves if it is necessary.

    Please do not presume to speak for me, and further, please look up the definition of "harassed", because even if the above statement was insulting to all women (it isn't), it certainly does not count for the dictionary or legal definitions of "harassment".

    --
    Some people don't believe in fairies. I don't believe in The Patriarchy.
  30. Re:hurrrudururrururur by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Trolls attack everyone. Women who feel harassed by them need to grow the fuck up.

  31. Inevitable by PopeRatzo · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Who would have predicted that a Slashdot story that mentions a woman from the 19th century would inevitably whining comments about feminism and dicksucking jokes?

    You guys are just the best.

    --
    You are welcome on my lawn.
    1. Re:Inevitable by tehcyder · · Score: 1

      Yeah, probably get those revisionist scumbags PopeRatzo and AmiMoJo posting in the comments too

      And a lot of Anonymous Cowards with the aforementioned "whining comments about feminism and dicksucking "jokes".

      --
      To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
    2. Re:Inevitable by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1

      They were, for a while at any rate, modded up. You can't blame the ACs for that.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    3. Re:Inevitable by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      The editors put these stories up on purpose.
      1. So that they can point to the inevitable, minority, comments and use them as ammo to beat down male programmers in general
      2. So that they can create another item that feminists can link to when beating the drum on their agenda which "proves" their point
      3. So that they can crystalize/divide the /. community and get page views

      Why? Because M$, Google, Facebook, Apple, Obama and everyone else is throwing huge sums of money at the "equality problem".
      The companies' motivation: it drives down wages because the more programmers the more competition there is. The politicians' motivation: it buys votes because they can pander to the victim complex that feminists (and many females) have about the non-existant wage gap. The feminists' motivation: they can point to it and shout "See?! We're being oppressed! Give us free stuff!"

    4. Re:Inevitable by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Better than you, faggot cock sucker.

  32. Re:hurrrudururrururur by Intrepid+imaginaut · · Score: 1

    Yes I was going to post something similar to this.

  33. Re:She was lucky by Intrepid+imaginaut · · Score: 0

    You should read the book "No Votes for Women", on the movement of women who opposed the passage of the Amendment which gave women the right to vote. The following excerpts from the book shed light on how women back then had preferential treatment under the law and an excess of privileges compared to men already according to these women:

    "Catharine Esther Beecher, daughter of Lyman Beecher, the preacher and revivalist, feared that woman suffrage heralded an imminent national crisis challenging the “most sacred interests of woman and of the family state.”
    She pointed out that under New York State law women had more advantages than men had.

    A woman had unlimited and independent control of her property but regardless of how rich a wife was, the husband had to support her and the children. It had also become easier for a woman than for a man to obtain a divorce."

    "Almost immediately after the April committee meetings, Helena Gilder detailed the reasons she opposed woman suffrage in a long letter to her dearest friend , Mary Hallock Foote...

    "In view of the privileges they already had women did not need political rights. Mariana Van Rensselaer articulated her particular views about women in articles for the New York World in May and June 1894;...She considered the enfranchisement of millions of women a risk not worth taking. Women already held more privileges than men under the law.

    Specifically, Van Rensselaer wrote, a woman had control of her earnings, her personal property, and any real estate she owned. She could carry on a business or profession, she had no responsibility for her husband’s debts, and she was not required to support him.

    She could sue and be sued, and she could make contracts. She had no obligation to serve on juries. With her husband she had equal rights to their children and, yet, he was obligated to support her and her children. Women were entitled to alimony in the event of a divorce, while a man could not ask for alimony.

    She was entitled to one third of her husband’s real estate upon his death, but he was not entitled to her property after death if there were no children. Van Rensselaer concluded that the distribution of labour and privileges between women and men seemed fair, that the different roles of women and men were critically important, and that it was “slander” to claim that men did not already take good care of women."

    Usually when presented with this information feminists and manginas go into full meltdown mode but it's only one part of the entire picture. Education and opportunity at the time had far more to do with class than gender, and we never hear anything about that majority of women who had to work outside the home because they had to help support their families.

    I don't even know what the OP is gibbering about with his modern day patriarchy.

  34. Re: She was lucky by cyber-vandal · · Score: 0

    +1 Troll :-P

  35. Re:hurrrudururrururur by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

    With stuff like this, we wonder why women complain or feel harassed?

    I am a woman. I do not feel harassed.

    Look, Whitney, you are not every woman. Many women do complain and feel harassed. I'm getting the idea that you're actually a man in disguise. Welcome to the internets, I guess.

    --
    "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  36. Re:She was lucky by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Or be conscripted in the army against their will.

    catchpa: moaned

  37. Re:hurrrudururrururur by thejam · · Score: 1

    I am a woman. I do not feel harassed. Stop fucking speaking for women and let us stand up for ourselves if it is necessary.

    So only the individual being wronged has any standing in defending against aggression. Sorry, in my experience that gives a free hand to all kinds of exploitation and aggression, since many people -- maybe a majority -- people do not stand up for themselves when necessary, but that doesn't mean they deserve that treatment. We should celebrate those who are willing to step in and help others, not scold them.

  38. Feminist mythologizing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This is one of their in-roads. Note all the five-dollar words and appeals to emotional wonderment.

  39. Re: She was lucky by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    We'll be better off once the bottom ten percenters stop claiming 89% of us also got a degree in Transgendered Womyn's Studies from an out of state school.

    Fuck you and your insipid doomsaying; I work for a living and am happy to do so. Poverty continues to decline globally. Standards of living continue to rise. Wealth is not finite, it is created; and Edbert "Monopoly Man" the Third isn't doing me out of anything, no matter how much you piss yourself whining.

  40. Re:hurrrudururrururur by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    With stuff like this, we wonder why women complain or feel harassed?

    If a woman can't handle a few jokes, then maybe she doesn't deserve our respect. 95% of the jokes in a male workplace are men making fun of other men. But you don't see us running away like a delicate snowflake every time someone cracks a joke.

    Being stalked or physically hazed would be one thing. But if you can't even take a joke, then you don't belong in the workplace. The proper response isn't to run to HR weeping. It's thus:

    "Hey, did you hear the one about the cockney woman programmer who thought kept wondering who this Harry everyone kept talking about was, and why he was indexed?"

    "No, but did *you* hear the one about the male programmer who thought 3 inches was a normal dick size?"

    Instant respect.

  41. From Allen G. Bromley's essay "Difference and... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Analytical Engines"

    I quote verbatim:
    "All but one of the programs cited in her notes had been prepared by Babbage from three to seven years earlier. The exception was prepared by Babbage for her, although she did detect a 'bug' in it. Not only is there no evidence that Ada ever prepared a program for the Analytical Engine, but her correspondence with Babbage shows that she did not have the knowledge to do so."

    I get that some women feel bad for a lack of contibution to computing but bold faced fabrication is only going to earn you the emnity of intelligent people, presumably of which computing would have a number.

  42. Why is it by The-Ixian · · Score: 1

    That I never see Ada Lovelace's name alone.... It is always that she is some guy's daughter.

    Don't her achievements allow her to stand alone in history?

    Does she always have to be tied to some dude to give her legitimacy?

    --
    My eyes reflect the stars and a smile lights up my face.
    1. Re:Why is it by ameoba · · Score: 1

      She's really more of an interesting footnote than an influential figure in computer programming and is largely unknown outside of computing circles.

      Her father, OTOH, is one of the best known authors in the English language.

      --
      my sig's at the bottom of the page.
  43. Um, seriously? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So I'm just curious as to how successful her "imaginative" approach to mathematics has turned out. Did the mathematicians who tried her approach find greater success in uncovering mathematical truths, and thus turn the whole field that direction? Or has mathematics found more success by staying logical and analytical?

    Or was this just her wild, touchy-feely approach to mathematics that nobody since then has found particularly fruitful? Just asking...

    1. Re:Um, seriously? by cwsumner · · Score: 1

      So I'm just curious as to how successful her "imaginative" approach to mathematics has turned out. ...

      Yes, it is used in higher mathmatics and engineering. The "dry" math equations are only useful once you figure out what might apply and how to "position it". For that you need something closer to what she was describing. But they use different technical language, these days, which did not exist then.

      I am confident, though, that she could do quite well with math. After all, they used to do puzzles in math after lunch, just for fun.

      If you try to use only the dry math, it will happily lead you off into a swamp...

  44. Re:She was lucky by alvinrod · · Score: 1

    I don't even know what the OP is gibbering about with his modern day patriarchy.

    Sarcasm.

  45. Re:hurrrudururrururur by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1

    What makes you feel that you, personally can speak for all of woman kind? Sounds like double standards to me.

    Every Ada Lovelace thread has a peculiar feel to them with unpleasant undertones. You always get people belittling the work and getting modded up, far more than in threads about male luminaries. I don't really care if you don't care about that.

    --
    SJW n. One who posts facts.
  46. Re:hurrrudururrururur by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Unmatched intellect for a woman, like how a dog is a "genius" for learning how to open a door.

  47. Re:hurrrudururrururur by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    intuition - a natural ability or power that makes it possible to know something without any proof or evidence : a feeling that guides a person to act a certain way without fully understanding why.

    That is exactly anti-science.

    Which is not even close to abstraction.
    abstraction - the act or process of abstracting
    abstract (v) - to make a summary of the main parts of (a report, speech, etc.) : to make an abstract of (something)

  48. Confused by argStyopa · · Score: 1

    At first I though "WTF is Slashdot talking about a porn actress's legacy", then I realized: ADA Lovelace, not LINDA Lovelace.

    *Totally* different legacy, although the quote still works:
      "...that Enchantress who has thrown her magical spell around the most abstract of Sciences and has grasped it with a force that few masculine intellects (in our own country at least) could have exerted over it..."

    --
    -Styopa
  49. Lord Byron and Lady Lovelace by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Sometimes I have to shake my head when I realize that I am related to these two giants of human imagination and engineering. I guess that is where I got my creative and engineering aptitudes from!

  50. Re:hurrrudururrururur by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    > But if you can't even take a joke, then you don't belong in the workplace.

    Being in your workplace gives me just as much say over working conditions as you. And I say, "if you can't even do your job without poking fun at people, then YOU don't belong in the workplace."

  51. Re:She was lucky by epine · · Score: 1

    Usually when presented with this information ...

    "Information" is an awfully big word to apply to your chosen narrative tactic.

    Rule 34a: if there's a thing, there's straw of the thing.

    This can be broadly demonstrated with just two words: straw manginas.

    Q.E.D.

  52. Re:hurrrudururrururur by meta-monkey · · Score: 3, Informative

    Also, you are not an idiot who is unable to recognize and ignore a retarded troll comment that's already been modded -1.

    This is why I find women (ahem) like Brianna Wu insufferable. When faced with yes, truly horrible sounding things that no human should say to another, instead of ignoring it or laughing at it, she flees from her home in "mortal terror." Given that saying horrific things to strangers is par for the course on the internet, no reasonable person could possibly take that seriously. If .01% of rape and death threats made over XBox Live were followed through the streets would be ankle deep in blood. Has it ever happened? No. Does that mean it's okay to say such things? No, I think very poorly of anyone who says such things. But I think worse of those who respond.

    To be genuinely horrified and offended by stupid things said by morons on the Internet is a strong indicator that you are very stupid. To pretend to be horrified and offended by stupid things said by morons on the Internet to garner sympathy and attention from others is to be a manipulative lying weasel deserving derision.

    Only a fool or a weasel would react to "if you were around back then maybe she would suck your dick! turns out there really IS a reason to have women in IT!"

    --
    We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
  53. Re:hurrrudururrururur by thejam · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I think you basically said that unless you're a schoolyard alpha, you'll never make Fields Medal level contributions. You gotta be bloody kidding me. I think of Claude Shannon, who apparently hid away in his office at AT&T Bell Labs, and I can only imagine he would be chewed to bits in the petty verbal battles you so admire. Or of Alan Turing, who no doubt was relentlessly hounded by the ancestors of your beloved verbal alphas for being gay. He ended up committing suicide, apparently. Most of the repartee you regard as a necessary precondition for your respect is aimed at censoring deviations from the status quo. Shouldn't we support the opposite? There is no necessary connection between spoken wit and technical achievement.

  54. Role models matter by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Admittedly Ada Lovelace is a role model for anyone (especially women), but it was interesting to read the article and find that her mother, Lady Annabelle Byron, was gifted in geometry and know as the "Princess of Parallelograms." I think that's a message to everyone, especially mothers, as to just how strong a positive role model can influence a child. Maybe this is a realization that if we want more women in IT, it's women that have to step up and convince their daughters that mathematics aren't solely masculine.

  55. Re:hurrrudururrururur by thejam · · Score: 1

    No, everyone who has an interest in educated debate should at least be tolerant of efforts to defend against those who wish to undermine the debate, even if they don't want to do the defending themselves. If we all have to endure trolls and defend ourselves against them individually, then what we'll get is a bunch of folks who are good at such defense, but lose the others who may have the better arguments. It's a kind of natural selection, but we control the environment. I'd rather the environment be selective for your ideas, not your ability to withstand trolls.

  56. My daughter is named Ada by netsavior · · Score: 1

    because role models matter

  57. Re:hurrrudururrururur by dwpro · · Score: 1

    Hi chipschap, welcome to the internet! If this is your first time here, please be aware that there will be individuals, sometimes dubbed 'trolls', that will say intentionally inflammatory things to try and get a response. What's worse, they actually are actually encouraged by folks wasting precious time addressing their commentary. Please refrain from giving them extra visibility by responding to their drivel, as I wasted time reading the comment that inspired yours, rather than something that adds to the conversation. Cheers!

    --
    Millions long for immortality who do not know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon. -- Susan Ertz
  58. Re:Deep Throat by fyngyrz · · Score: 3, Funny

    I love her legacy!

    Me too! Deep Throat was a classic! The way she... uh... wait -- Ada? Ada Lovelace? Uh, I mean, wow, yeah, math... and stuff.

    --
    I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
  59. Sorry, I have to agree with the parent by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    That's a bit odd. I find that women with imagination and creativity tend to excel at sucking cock. And frankly, I guarantee she would be mighty fucking proud if she found out that there wasn't anybody in the entire world that could suck cock better than she. She might not admit it publicly, but you know she'd be thinking it deep down inside.

    So get your fucking high horse off.

  60. Re:I am sure the women in the crowd will like this by phantomfive · · Score: 3, Interesting
    The article is not flattering. When the article says, "She also saw that Babbage's mathematics needed more imaginative presentation," it's not being complimentary. It is a compensatory way to suggest that she really didn't know how to program the machine. The wording of the article is very careful, for example, here is how it describes that she didn't know how to program:

    Lovelace is sometimes loosely described as the first computer programmer. She did produce an elegant set of tables showing how the engine could calculate Bernoulli numbers, but based on equations supplied by Babbage. Lovelace's originality lay in her conceptual definitions of the engine's mathematical functions, and her brilliant speculations on its design possibilities, going far beyond anything Babbage himself articulated. She wrote: “We may say most aptly that the Analytical Engine weaves algebraic patterns just as the Jacquard-loom weaves flowers and leaves.”

    Overall, the article is somewhat insulting, implying that "the only contribution a woman can make is to bring her imaginative, creative views to the table when she copies men. Put her in marketing." The article doesn't quite say that, but it is the natural conclusion from what the article says.

    --
    "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
  61. Re: She was lucky by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    > Wealth is not finite, it is created

    "Anyone who believes exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist."
      - Kenneth Boulding

  62. Re:hurrrudururrururur by tehcyder · · Score: 2

    But if you can't even take a joke, then you don't belong in the workplace.

    Ah yes, the classic "harmless banter" argument.

    You probably don't believe that there's any such thing as bullying at school, just a bit of lighthearted physical pranking, right?

    --
    To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
  63. Re:hurrrudururrururur by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Who's the troll? The one making the chauvinistic comment? Or the one claiming the chauvinist is a misogynist and they represent the whole internet?

  64. Re:hurrrudururrururur by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Imagination is fantastic, but imagination is nothing for practical science. NOTHING. Imagination and science have their intertwining, but imagination cannot be part of the actual science being done.

    I beg to differ.

    Slashdot recently reported on an experiment that is truly ingenious, and required great imagination to conceive and execute. That doesn't mean logic isn't a part of it, but logic didn't lead to the experiment - imagination did.

  65. Re:She was lucky by tehcyder · · Score: 1
    You are correct in the sense that in Victorian times being a rich woman was better than being a poor man, but it was still nowhere near as good as being a rich man.

    There is nothing in the passages you quote to explain why the right to vote shouldn't apply equally to men and women, regardless of the particular balalnce of financial rights and responsibilities between the sexes.

    --
    To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
  66. Re:I am sure the women in the crowd will like this by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    First off, the language is called "Ada," and it has NOTHING do with what she wrote. The language was named in honor of her.

  67. Re: hurrrudururrururur by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Gimme a definition without the word abstract in it lol.

  68. Re:She was lucky by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I really suggest you read From Hell, by Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell. A well-documented work of fiction that might make you discover how totally wrong you are.

  69. Fuck you guys. by theghost · · Score: 3, Insightful

    First post: Intentionally confusing her with porn actress.
    Second post: Her dad was cool - here's some cool stuff about him!
    Third post: Meh. She didn't really do anything noteworthy.
    etc.

    Fuck you guys. Stop living up to the worst stereotypes of geeks and nerds.

    --
    The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.
    1. Re:Fuck you guys. by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1

      Fuck you guys. Stop living up to the worst stereotypes of geeks and nerds.

      Now go and tune in to the other thread to see how the very same slashdotters will tell us that sexism is dead and actually women have it better anyway and maybe they just don't want to go into tech.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    2. Re:Fuck you guys. by erapert · · Score: 0
      Except that if you two actually read the comments posted on this page you'd see things like:

      I quote verbatim:
      "All but one of the programs cited in her notes had been prepared by Babbage from three to seven years earlier. The exception was prepared by Babbage for her, although she did detect a 'bug' in it. Not only is there no evidence that Ada ever prepared a program for the Analytical Engine, but her correspondence with Babbage shows that she did not have the knowledge to do so."

      I get that some women feel bad for a lack of contibution to computing but bold faced fabrication is only going to earn you the emnity of intelligent people, presumably of which computing would have a number.

      and

      This is one of their in-roads. Note all the five-dollar words and appeals to emotional wonderment.

      Telling it how it is isn't the same as being an asshole or a misogynist.

      Your self-righteous white knighting is disgusting and insulting to me. My wife feels the same as I do, by the way.

    3. Re:Fuck you guys. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      For future reference, "white-knighting" is when someone outside of a specific demographic speaks for that group while at the same time diminishing their voice in a discussion about them. Because the OP was not positioning himself as an authority on Ada Lovelace above Ada Lovelace herself, nor even above any other woman, that's clearly not what's happening here. You appear to be using the broader version of that term that implies that anyone who speaks out against anything that does not directly affect them (usually men speaking against misogyny) is doing so only to impress whoever is directly affected by the issue (in this case, the multitudes of women who frequent slashdot). Aside from being incorrect usage, that's also just arguing in bad faith because it presumes that someone else's motives for engaging in a discussion are suspect even though there's no reason to believe you possess any special insight on the matter.

      Secondly, "my wife agrees with me" carries about as much weight as "my mother thinks i'm handsome." Even if we assume that you are telling the truth, it adds nothing to the discussion. It's you trying to claim some extra credibility by riding on the weak claim of having found one woman who agrees with you.

      If we ignore these rhetorical missteps, you have managed to bring up one debatable point out of 3 observed instances of asshole behavior. Congratulations.

  70. Re:She was lucky by Intrepid+imaginaut · · Score: 1

    There is nothing in the passages you quote to explain why the right to vote shouldn't apply equally to men and women

    Possibly you missed this part: "how women back then had preferential treatment under the law and an excess of privileges compared to men already". The purpose of the quote is to highlight the historical revisionism rampant around the role of women in the past.

    And obviously I don't think that women shouldn't be allowed to vote, but I also understand that among the reasons for the delay in their suffrage, many women didn't want to be drafted. Eventually they got what they wanted, the right to vote without the responsibility of the draft. In places like Ireland where no draft existed, men and women got the right to vote at the same time.

  71. Re:hurrrudururrururur by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Sexism will only become more prevalent. The more anything is mashed in your face day after day, the more you come to resent it -- whatever it is.

  72. Re:She was lucky by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1

    In places like Ireland where no draft existed, men and women got the right to vote at the same time.

    Oh like England when women got the vote later and there was no conscription at the time when men were given the vote?

    --
    SJW n. One who posts facts.
  73. Re:She was lucky by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1

    Usually when presented with this information feminists and manginas go into full meltdown mode

    You have some peculiar fantasies. I'll believe you when you actually post evidence of "full meltdowns".

    PS what's a mangina?

    but it's only one part of the entire picture.

    Touche my man, touche.

    --
    SJW n. One who posts facts.
  74. Re:hurrrudururrururur by chipschap · · Score: 1

    I understand what you're saying here, about not feeding the trolls, but some things are just too much and deserve to be put down.

  75. Re:hurrrudururrururur by chipschap · · Score: 0

    With stuff like this, we wonder why women complain or feel harassed?

    I feel genuinely put upon when I hear guys say things like this.

    So, I'm going to say this in every thread where I encounter this statement.

    I am a woman. I do not feel harassed. Stop fucking speaking for women and let us stand up for ourselves if it is necessary.

    Please do not presume to speak for me, and further, please look up the definition of "harassed", because even if the above statement was insulting to all women (it isn't), it certainly does not count for the dictionary or legal definitions of "harassment".

    I'm sure you and many others can and do fight your own battles. But I fail to understand your attitude. I guess you feel that men should just stand idly by when women are denigrated and treated as objects?

    Well, here's the thing you overlook. When men act poorly, it reflects badly on other men. So as a male I have EVERY right to speak up in such situations.

  76. If she had been alive today by NoSalt · · Score: 0

    If she had been alive today, can you just imagine what she could have accomplished?

  77. Re:I am sure the women in the crowd will like this by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Because that is the only conclusion one can come to regarding Ada Lovelace herself. She rode on Babbage's coat tails and he spoon-fed her everything.
    This doesn't apply to all women, nor to even most female programmers. But in Lovelace's case it's the truth.

  78. Re:She was lucky by Intrepid+imaginaut · · Score: 2

    The UK is an interesting case. The simple fact was that at the start of the 20th century, most men also did not have the right to a parliamentary vote. While Mrs. Pankhurst and her supporters were fighting for their right to vote, the overwhelming majority of young men sent to the trenches in 1914 lacked any political franchise. Further, while other groups supported universal adult suffrage, such as the Labour movement, the suffragettes advocated a separate bill for wealthy women with property; women such as themselves.

    The following extract from the Socialist Standard in 1908 makes clear its opposition to their proposals.

    “Men vote at present under the £10 franchise. The suffrage is thus upon a property basis with plural voting for the wealthy. Therefore, according to the proposals of the women Suffragists, only those women having the necessary property qualifications are to be allowed to vote. This excludes not only all those single working women unable to qualify because of their poverty, but it also bars practically the whole of the married women of the working class who have no property qualifications apart from their husbands’. Further, it increases enormously the voting power of the well-to-do, since the head of the wealthy household can always impart the necessary qualifications to all the women of his house, while the working-man, through his poverty, is entirely unable to do so. ...

    The limited suffrage movement is consequently only a means of providing votes for the propertied women of the middle class, and faggot votes for the wealthy; possibly tipping the balance of votes against the workers—men and women. Yet the Suffragettes pretend that this is a movement for the benefit of working women! The huge sums spent in this agitation prove that it is not a workers' movement. It is a movement by women of the wealthy and middle class to open up for themselves more fully careers of exploitation, and to share in the flesh-pots of political office, to get sinecures, position and emoluments among the governing caste.”

    At the conclusion of the war, women over the age of 30 became eligible to vote in parliamentary elections. Rightly or wrongly, it was argued at the time that the age restriction was necessary to avoid a gender imbalance in voting given that so many young males had lost their lives. By 1928, however, universal suffrage for both men and women over the age of 21 became a reality.

    So as you can see the picture was quite complex but had little to do with cultural misogyny or patriarchal power structures as some would paint it today.

  79. Re:I am sure the women in the crowd will like this by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You fucking ID10T.
    ADA is the American Dental Association not the Person or the Computer Language.

  80. Re:hurrrudururrururur by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ADA => American Dental Association
    Use the name correctly or Fuck Off.

  81. Re: hurrrudururrururur by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You can take your complaint up with Merriam-Webster.

  82. Re:hurrrudururrururur by Darinbob · · Score: 1

    What mashing?

  83. Re:hurrrudururrururur by Darinbob · · Score: 1

    Intuition gives you a hint at the solution, but you still need to do all the steps along the way to get a proof. Using intuition by itself is pointless.

  84. Re:hurrrudururrururur by Darinbob · · Score: 1

    "Unmatched" is clearly meant as a superlative. Perhaps to Babbage's own mind she was unmatched and used that word. By your logic, no one is unmatched and you should be equally outraged now matter to whom the word is applied, male or female.

  85. Re:hurrrudururrururur by Darinbob · · Score: 1

    A silk handerchief?

  86. Re:hurrrudururrururur by Darinbob · · Score: 0

    Gamergate went off the rails and turned into an argument about feminism in gaming, but a few stalwart people kept shouting futilely "it's about ethics!". Gamergate was like Watergate, far bigger than the small trivial event that started it. What went down during gamergate was real harrassment not made up stuff. It was an opening to let the troglodytes of the world speak their mind and get away with it.

  87. Re:hurrrudururrururur by Darinbob · · Score: 0

    I am a male, and I don't really care what you think, but I am utterly disgusted when I hear males make such repulsive remarks. If you don't want to be tarnished by association because of feminists, then I also don't want to be tarnished by association of being the same gender as misogynist cretins.

  88. Re:She was lucky by Darinbob · · Score: 1

    Or be allowed to teach at a university even if they got the education somehow.

  89. Re:hurrrudururrururur by taylorius · · Score: 1

    I'm enjoying the irony of an explanation of the power of imagination and intuition being rejected because a word "isn't in my thesaurus".

  90. Re:hurrrudururrururur by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Spotted Dick. As in the English dessert:

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spotted_dick

    Why, what did you think I meant?

  91. I Thought That Film Suxed by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Nowadays you can find plenty of girls doing that sort of thing... without all of that hair "down there".... I just can't figure out why people just keep bringing her name up....

  92. Re:She was lucky by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
  93. The Purpose of the Flowery Language by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    SJWs desperately need an accomplished female to flaunt about, so they elevate understanding a man's work and inducing him to compliment her to SCIENCE. Ada Lovelace was a nobody. If you pretend otherwise, you're an anti-male sexist.

  94. Re: hurrrudururrururur by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Well dappled.

  95. Re:She was lucky by Dahamma · · Score: 1

    She had as much power as the (all male) Parliament let her have. You might want to brush up on "Constitutional Monarchy".

    Also, read the original post "women", not "woman". One woman having nominal power does not equal "women treated better than today". But you knew that, and were just trolling, I'm sure...

  96. Re:She was lucky by Dahamma · · Score: 1

    Specifically until the Representation of the People Act 1867, only around 15% of the adult males in the United Kingdom could vote.

    And that changes the fact that women were totally unable to vote back then vs today exactly *how*?

    The one restriction was that when they married their property became that of their husbands to do as they saw fit

    Oh, such a tiny technicality, that! So, in other words, *not* flat out wrong, but right for 90%+ of women at the time.

    On the first issue of voting that needs to be seen a wider context.

    No, it doesn't, as the CONTEXT is the simple OP statement that Victorian women were treated better and had less patriarchy than today. Both of which points are still bullshit, and your typical /. pedantry changes it not one bit.

  97. Re:She was lucky by Dahamma · · Score: 1

    Except we are talking 1840's England, not 1890's America. Very little of what you said has any relevance, particularly as far as property rights of married women (of which there was NONE).

    Anyway, by the way you try to insult feminists, etc. it's clear what your opinions are. I'd imagine you also think that slaves had it better back then because they were valuable property?

  98. Re:She was lucky by Intrepid+imaginaut · · Score: 1

    See my response to a similarly ill educated zealot in this same thread. And some further education for you, the Victorian era persisted until 22 January 1901.

  99. Re: She was lucky by cyber-vandal · · Score: 1

    Poe's Law in action :-P

  100. Re:She was lucky by Dahamma · · Score: 1

    Except we are talking about Ada Lovelace, who lived IN ENGLAND and died 50 years before that.

    But sure, when your argument is already irrelevant might as well throw an ad hominem in there as well, couldn't hurt...

  101. Re:She was lucky by Celarent+Darii · · Score: 1

    The United States prides itself on landing a man on the moon.... and yet neither you nor I will ever get that chance. Isn't life so unfair?