While I agree with you, that's not the issue here. My original posting quoted the book saying that ENIAC was the first electronic computer. I was pointing out that it was not and quoted Atanasoff/Berry's ABC as an example...
From my parent posting, quoting; ".. so the modern electronic computer was born". Konrad Zuse's original Z1, Z2 and Z3 were electromechanical, not electronic. Hence why I didn't mention him.
For the past 20-30 years, there's been nothing but active encouragement for women to denounce their traditional gender roles
Not in my country, nor in my experience. When I say 'actively discouraged', I mean it. Been there, done that, saw it happen myself. Many of my contemporaries ( I graduated in '89) tend to concur, BTW.
Not to take away what those women achieved, but Grace Hopper was programming computers two years before ENIAC came along. Indeed, she had a major hand in producing the COBOL language.
Weeell, Atanasoff was American, as it happens & he was officially first (it went to a legal challenge). Arguably, Konrad Zuse - a German - produced the first programmable computer back in the '30s, though it was mechanical.
Anyways - just look at some of the coolest computer products that came out of Cambridge; The Sinclair range of computers were the first affordable home computers. I started on a ZX80 kit as a child & had to assemble the thing myself. Programming starts with a soldering iron!:-) Then there was the Jupiter Ace - a home computer using FORTH, when everyone else was programming in BASIC.
*sigh*... reminiscing.... Yeah, and I read that Ladybird book as a kid, too. That and all those Babani electronics books.
Is it me, or were they a little optimistic that there would be just as many women as men working on computers?
Probably, though back in the early days, the first programmers were women. Ada Lovelace has been described as Founder of Scientific Computing Grace Hopper also comes to mind. Futhermore, back in the days of cracking Enigma codes, it was teams of women who programmed the bombes. Somewhere along the line, computer programming was co-opted into professional studies as 'engineering' and 'science' and unfortunately, women were actively discouraged from entering those professions. Only now is this changing...
"1943 saw the need for computing artillery firing charts, and ENIAC [...] was born. [...] And so the modern electronic computer came into being."
I guess we now know different, with Atanasoff/Turing/Flowers. We were always taught that ENIAC was first when I did my studies back in the early '80s....
It's even better to warn about a goatse background
'sfunny - I'm not seeing the goatse background - just a disassembly listing on a white background (Safari & Firefox). I noticed this comment on the front page, tho';
sorry about the goatse images i set up.htaccess to stop hotlinking leechers and i missed the www. in the the referrers so you all got exposed to the leech image of the goatse man grin.. should be all fixed now
My point exactly. Andy has been in Linux flamewars since the beginning (probably even the first one!). Remember, also, that Kenneth Brown of AdTI wanted to claim that Linus 'stole' Linux from Andy's MINIX and how Andy refuted that at the time. Hence the careful choice of words...
Considering how many satellites are launched in the US and just how much of *that* goes to "actually help the poor and illiterate", given how many poor and illiterate people there are in the US. Using terms like 'backward' and 'third-world' are just a little offensive, no?
But that lack of integrated ad blocking just bugs me. It's the same reason why I don't run Safari.
I know it's not strictly integrated, but you are aware of PithHelmet for Safari, right? It integrates seamlessly into Safari (only appears in the preferences pane and in the contextual menu 'right-click'). I'd be completely lost without it...
Firstly, I have 2 eyes, so I can already do depth.
That's of zero use on a 2D screen! Close one eye. Spot the difference? Nope, me neither.
Second, without drop shadows, it is really easy to see which window has focus:
Your URL screwed up. Try this. I disagree with the point that drop shadow interferes with focus. Right now, my focussed window has a *deeper* dropshadow than all the others, giving the illusion that it is actually 'closer', not to mention the outlining, title bar colouring, etc, etc
Personally, I find that dropshadowing allows layered windows to be clearly delineated even if there isn't a thick (read 'wasteful') border around the windows themselves.
I've five iTerms going right now (yeah, MacOS X). They're all the same colour yet I can easily see where they intersect *and* I can see the text below through the shadow. It's an efficiency thing...
Women won't find the satisfaction most men will from watching their latest proggy run or finding a bug after several hours of searching. They tend to perfer a friendly smile and a light conversation, not really that complex is it?
*sigh* And that is just such a gross generalisation. I find that debugging is one of the programming tasks that women tend to excel at. Their approach seems to be quite different a times to that of their male colleagues. In programming teams, it often seems to be the case that when trying to squish a particularly elusive bug that member of the opposite sex will quite easily point out.
*shrug* - just my own observation.
But hey we're at Slashdot, only women we see here are blow up:)
Anyone interested in women in computing should read the book "Does Jane Compute; preserving our daughter's place in the cyber revolution" by Roberta Furger. Don't be put off by the silly title & the gratuitous 'cyber' word - it's an excellent look into the whole area of female geekdom & how we bring up our kids.
(Yeah, I've a 5-year-old daughter & she's fearless around computers. As it should be!)
Slashdot Mirror
While I agree with you, that's not the issue here. My original posting quoted the book saying that ENIAC was the first electronic computer. I was pointing out that it was not and quoted Atanasoff/Berry's ABC as an example ...
Mmm. While Ada was cool and described how Babbage's Analytical Engine could be programmed, she never actually programmed a computer.
Nope. Zuse's Z1-Z3 were not electronic, as the old Ladybird book had specified.
From my parent posting, quoting; ".. so the modern electronic computer was born". Konrad Zuse's original Z1, Z2 and Z3 were electromechanical, not electronic. Hence why I didn't mention him.
Not in my country, nor in my experience. When I say 'actively discouraged', I mean it. Been there, done that, saw it happen myself. Many of my contemporaries ( I graduated in '89) tend to concur, BTW.
Not to take away what those women achieved, but Grace Hopper was programming computers two years before ENIAC came along. Indeed, she had a major hand in producing the COBOL language.
Anyways - just look at some of the coolest computer products that came out of Cambridge; The Sinclair range of computers were the first affordable home computers. I started on a ZX80 kit as a child & had to assemble the thing myself. Programming starts with a soldering iron! :-) Then there was the Jupiter Ace - a home computer using FORTH, when everyone else was programming in BASIC.
*sigh* ... reminiscing .... Yeah, and I read that Ladybird book as a kid, too. That and all those Babani electronics books.
Probably, though back in the early days, the first programmers were women. Ada Lovelace has been described as Founder of Scientific Computing Grace Hopper also comes to mind. Futhermore, back in the days of cracking Enigma codes, it was teams of women who programmed the bombes. Somewhere along the line, computer programming was co-opted into professional studies as 'engineering' and 'science' and unfortunately, women were actively discouraged from entering those professions. Only now is this changing ...
I guess we now know different, with Atanasoff/Turing/Flowers. We were always taught that ENIAC was first when I did my studies back in the early '80s ....
'sfunny - I'm not seeing the goatse background - just a disassembly listing on a white background (Safari & Firefox). I noticed this comment on the front page, tho';
D'oh. Let's try that URL again; illmob.org
Interesting stuff ... shopping at Ikea the day before his arrest, oblivious to the impending doom.
My point exactly. Andy has been in Linux flamewars since the beginning (probably even the first one!). Remember, also, that Kenneth Brown of AdTI wanted to claim that Linus 'stole' Linux from Andy's MINIX and how Andy refuted that at the time. Hence the careful choice of words ...
Interesting that Andy now refers to MINIX in terms of Linux, no? Considering that Linux is obsolete and all that ... ;-)
Also Access Denied here in a US multi-nat based in Ireland tho' my own server in the UK reads just fine. Stupid location-by-netblock software ... :-/
Glasshouses and stones and all that ....
I know it's not strictly integrated, but you are aware of PithHelmet for Safari, right? It integrates seamlessly into Safari (only appears in the preferences pane and in the contextual menu 'right-click'). I'd be completely lost without it ...
That's of zero use on a 2D screen! Close one eye. Spot the difference? Nope, me neither.
Second, without drop shadows, it is really easy to see which window has focus:
Your URL screwed up. Try this. I disagree with the point that drop shadow interferes with focus. Right now, my focussed window has a *deeper* dropshadow than all the others, giving the illusion that it is actually 'closer', not to mention the outlining, title bar colouring, etc, etc
I've five iTerms going right now (yeah, MacOS X). They're all the same colour yet I can easily see where they intersect *and* I can see the text below through the shadow. It's an efficiency thing ...
(And hey, it's written by an ex-Apple employee, BTW. James Thompson - nice guy)
Ten Mil. Never thought I'd see the day.
(Wish I'd mod points ... grumble, growl)
*sigh* And that is just such a gross generalisation. I find that debugging is one of the programming tasks that women tend to excel at. Their approach seems to be quite different a times to that of their male colleagues. In programming teams, it often seems to be the case that when trying to squish a particularly elusive bug that member of the opposite sex will quite easily point out.
*shrug* - just my own observation.
But hey we're at Slashdot, only women we see here are blow up :)
Hardly surprising, with an attitude like that! ;-)
(Yeah, I've a 5-year-old daughter & she's fearless around computers. As it should be!)
They do indeed, which is why I always custom-install.
Having said that, my point still stands; don't put it in the OS unless it adds major value versus risk.