Control Option Command

It has, at the moment of writing, barely become sunday the 24. of July 2011. On friday Norway was struck by the worst act of terrorism in recorded history. A self-proclaimed “Cultural Conservative” and “Conservative Christian” committed two unprecedented acts of violence. First he detonated a car bomb outside the building containing several departments of government, as well as the prime ministers office. The material damage was devastating, and at least seven lives were lost along with several critically wounded. His next act of terror makes this pale in comparison however.

The terrorist, clad in a police uniform, drove 40 kilometers to Tyrifjorden where the Young Labour Party had their traditional summer camp. He identified himself as a police officer and was shipped by ferry to the small island Utøya. When he arrived on the island he gathered the mostly adolescent crowd around him using the authority of the uniform. He then proceeds to open fire upon these kids for about 90 minutes. Chasing them into their tents. Luring them out of hiding by claiming again to be a police officer, and even shooting the kids trying to swim away from the island. The death toll is currently at 85. That is eighty-five kids between 10 and 20 murdered in one friday afternoon.

A ten year old boy is reported to have screamed “I’m just a small boy! You killed my father already! Go away and leave me!”

This has shocked and devastated Norway. We aren’t accustomed to anything even approaching this level of terror. It feels even closer to home to me as I attended and eventually arranged and led summer camps like these for almost ten years. Not for the Young Labour Party, but at the same location and with the same demography. I know this island in and out. Every single nook and cranny. And now I can only imagine this motherfucker walking from tent to tent and murdering the finest, bravest and most promising of our youth as they flee in terror.

I don’t cry often, I’m too much of a cynic, but this thought has me severly choked up.

I am also not much given to nationalism. Hell, the fucker who perpetrated this was a self-proclaimed nationalist. I must say however that even though I don’t vote Labour (more to the left) and I CERTAINLY don’t vote Conservative I am immensely proud of both my Prime Minister, Jens Stoltenberg and my Mayor, Fabian Stang, for how they have handled the media response. They have both since the first moment emphasized that we will NOT let this scare us into surrendering our freedom for illusions of security. We WILL remain an open and democratic society. We will NOT be intimidated.

Thank you to our elected leaders for representing the will and sentiment of your people.

And I am deeply moved to see that the response from the Norwegian people seems to be unanimously the same. We are not forming lynch mobs. We will not be scared into straying from our path of humanity and democracy. No fucking way.

I was choked up by the incident itself, but what had me actually break down in tears (in front of inlaws and all) was reading the messages of condolances and well-wishing from around the world. It’s a true comfort to me to see the people of Sweden and Denmark telling us they are crying with us and to tell us to keep our faith in an open and humane society, and then the messages from every country in the world; Some in English, some google translated, giving their messages of support and solace.

I’m the only one awake in the house of my inlaws now. Today we “Kept calm and went about our business.” and travelled to Sweden to do a bit of shopping and take our girls of 2 and 4 years old to the amusement park as we had promised. I know, however, that I will have to try somehow to explain all of this to them tomorrow.

I have no idea how to do that. But I will. Because Oslo is MY damn city, and Utøya is MY damn island and I’ll be skewered hotly before I let some fascist motherfucker make me or my girls be afraid in MY damn city.

This is a tragedy beyond imagination. My very warmest and fondest thoughts go out to those who died, those left behind and those traumatized.

And the terrorist? We will give him a lawyer. We will have him before court. We will judge him and sentence him humanely and we will NOT torture or lynch him. Because that’s what we believe in. Even when every fiber in my body wants to tear him apart with my hands; That’s not what we do.

That is all.

This is a shortie. I just want to tell you a couple of things pretty quickly.

1. One microgram is one millionth of a gram.

2. One microgram of certain stuff may make an enormous fucking difference in your brain.

3. Happiness is chemistry.

4. As is unhappiness.

5. This is Kaja.

6. These are some stats.

7. That’s all for now. I’m good. Thanks for asking. I hope you’re doing alright as well.

So, yes. I met someone. Namely the inimitable Kaja. Which is lovely. More to follow.

Actual conversation between me and Malin about the Norwegian movie “Pathfinder”.
Note: Lapps are the indegenous tribal folk of Scandinavia

• Me: I saw it ages ago when I was just a kid. I was way too young to understand any of it.
• Her: I guess you were only nine or eight at the time it was released.
• Me: Yeah. I can only remember something about some Darth Vader-Lapps out to get the hero.
• Her: Mmhmm? *Being busy with the baby*
• Me: Hey! DARTH VADER-LAPPS!
• Her: Oh, sorry. Let’s go again. I guess you were only eight or nine…
• Me: Yeah. I only remember something about some Darth Vader-Lapps out to get the hero.
• Her: Ahhhahaha! Darth Vader-Lapps. Good one!
• Me: Thank you.

This article was cross-posted on ria.creuna.com.

Hear ye; Codesmiths and Script Artisans. Nay; Hear ye all who labour with keyboard and mouse, for you owe a debt to the singular person we commemorate today.

Ahem. On this day, the 10th of december, a shockingly large number of years ago the First Programmer was born. If this story isn’t old hat to you you might be surprised to learn the bearer of this distinct honorific was born in 1815 in London.
What might also surprise you, a pleasant surprise, is that she was a woman.

Ada Lovelace

Born Augusta Ada Byron she was the daughter of Lord Byron (he of poetry fame and infamy) and Anne Isabella Milbanke.
Her mother, who was not impressed with Lord Byrons debauchery and loose morals focused her education on mathematics and science, forbidding her to pursue the social sciences in order to prevent her from becoming a bohemian bum like her father. At seventeen Ada showed remarkable aptitude in mathematics and her interest continued even after her marriage; Contrary to the custom of women at the time.

Charles Babbage, her friend and fellow math wiz (amongst other things) had been working with logarithms and in an effort to remove uncertainty and human errors in this line of work he conceived of a Mechanical Computing Device to replace the traditional system of the time which were human clerks with the title ‘Computer’; “One who computes”.

Babbage; For all his genius ground work, was severely limited in his conception of the computer. He saw it as a mechanical means to execute mathematical operations with high precision. Enter our heroine Lady Lovelace.

In 1842-43 she translated a memoir of italian mathematician Luigi Menabrea on Babbages conceptual machine. Her additional notes were longer than the memoir itself, and substantially more visionary in nature. In these notes she conceived of making the analytical device accept, comprehend and execute commands; In essence creating the first programming language.

Babbage was never able to actually create his machine, and Ada never got to see the fruits of her labour. Vindicated in history her notes are published and distributed today, she has post-humously been awarded a medal from The British Computer Society and the contemporary programming language Ada is named in her honor. As a side note; Babbages machine have later been constructed as per his notes and was found to be highly accurate at mathematical operations.

Why should we care?

Geek holidays are great, and we need more of them. But if you look at the notable dates and personalities in this industry there are two factors that separate Ada Lovelace from the rest.
Firstly; she is by far one of the strongest examples of the long heritage of brilliant people on whose shoulders we stand to todays technology. Secondly: and it’s sad that this should matters, but it remains to be a factor and an important one at that; She is a woman. Our industry is heavily male-dominated. Not only in our workplaces but also in our heroes and legends.
I mean no slight to Alan Turing, Steve Wozniak, Sir Tim Berners-Lee and their esteemed co-idols, but by god; this sausage party needs some dames.

Searching for “Ada Lovelace” yields among other links a page that declares 24th of March to be Ada Lovelace Day and ask bloggers to pledge to write a post about Ada. Since the site seemed defunct after this date I propose that Ada Lovelace Day should be her birthday; the 10th of December and that we geeks make room for it among Towel Day, Blue Beanie Day and PI Day so this amazing historical figure gets the attention she deserves.

Who’s with me?

Further studies.

• The wikipedia article on Ada Lovelace from which most of this post was taken
• iTunes link for “The Enchantress of Numbers“. The episode of the great podcast “Stuff you missed in history class“.
• The difference engine; A site dedicated to the work of Charles Babbage.