Mouse bad, keyboard good
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.
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.
This article was cross-posted on ria.creuna.com.
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.
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.
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?
There’s been radio silence here for a while now, interestingly not because I haven’t had anything to share with you from my regular rambling repertoire of reprehensibly reckless recommendations. In fact I have quite a few posts I’ll be happy to perpetrate quite shortly.
No the cause of my negligence is that I’ve acquired a new affliction. Symptoms are pretty serious and include terrible insomnia, severe anxiety, sudden bursts of emotions and reoccurring nausea.
It’s a chronic condition, and only rarely does anyone get rid of it in their lifetime, and in those cases it’s always resulting in terrible depression (well… except in cases of people that are already severely suffering from disturbing mental issues).
I’ve already spent a fortune on different necessities to treat the condition in the proper manner and I can clearly see I’m not going to get rich in this lifetime.
The name of this curious syndrome? Let me present: Mathilde Trømborg Jacobsen.
That’s right. I’ve been fatherized, daddyfied and papa’ed and holy crap has my life ever changed. Firstly I’ve never been so much in love, and secondly I’ve never been quite so fucking tired before. (This from a man with chronic periodical insomnia. Not the kind you brag about. The kind that hurts.)
It’s been said countless times before, and it will be repeated to the end of time; Having a child is a crazy, lovely, terrifying, messed up experience. That part about it being a treasured and beautiful experience for the father to attend the birth? Bullshit! We will be there; but do not be fooled, prospective mothers, we are there for your sake. There isn’t one of us that doesn’t secretly yearn for the days when the mans role during child birth was to nervously smoke a lot of cigarettes in the waiting room.
Mathilde, being a daughter of mine, entered the world explosively and wreaking havoc and mayhem to all that beheld her. And, well… A hundred years ago I would be a single parent. Then again; A hundred years ago I’d be wearing my trousers pulled up to my nipples, probably worrying about the potato harvest and speaking in a weird staccato. The point is; It was dramatic. Very dramatic. 1 But both lovely mother and lovely daughter are now doing well.
So we’ve established that I do love my sweet little imp, but boy does she ever scare the crap out of me some times. On the subway this morning after spending about 4 the last 48 hours asleep I had to distract myself and get an outlet, so these tweets what was I came up with:
- I’m sure I’m losing followers Like I’m spending money with all this spam, but so be it. The torture of parents by infants needs a voice.
- FACT: an infants screams are designed by evolution to drive (grown-up) people completely bonkers. Much like the stench of corpses.
- FACT: Depriving someone of sleep is a well known form or torture (or “enhanced interrogation” for you yanks).
- FACT: The result of the two latter excrutiating experiences combined is far, far greater than the sum of their parts.
- FACT: Infants have no wish to cause you harm. It is simply in their nature. Much like that frog-riding scorpion. This does not help.
- FACT: Much like a camel can retain impressive amounts of water an infant can save up to three times its own weight in poop in its body.
- FACT: Infants live by and enforce Murphys extended law. This is why they will strike exactly when you are about to enter REM sleep.
- But she really loves me. I shouldn’t have made her so mad. It’s all my fault really.
Well. It says it all I guess. Still:
She is my sweet little princess (think Leia, not Cinderella), and I vow to spend my life protecting and supporting her, and make sure she has somewhere she can feel safe, no matter how crappy of a human she may turn out to become. “It’s bullshit to say that my life now has meaning”. It already seemed very meaningful to me, but it’s very much true that my life now has a slightly different focus, and yes, another meaning entirely. That, my friends, is all.
Finally I can keep track of all my favorite people and BFFs.
The picture was taken at a “Tattoo and General Freak-me-out Stuff”-convention in Oslo 2004 or so.
There goes a woman who has impacted generations of children in a profound and important manner. Thank you for the memories, and in case I’m wrong about life after death; Godspeed and may you be as loved in the hereafter as you were in the hearts of Norwegian children of all ages.
Anne-Cath Vestly stub on Wikipedia. Too short, and not indicative of her place in Norwegian history.