Control Option Command

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.

Freud, the father of the psychoanalysis, received a letter from a woman who was deeply worried about her son, describing what she perceived as his abnormalities and seeking advice. This is Freuds reply.

Dear Mrs….

I gather from your letter that your son is a homosexual. I am most impressed by the fact that you do not mention this term yourself in your information about him. May I question you, why you avoid it? Homosexuality is assuredly no advantage, but it is nothing to be ashamed of, no vice, no degradation, it cannot be classified as an illness; we consider it to be a variation of the sexual function produced by a certain arrest of sexual development. Many highly respectable individuals of ancient and modern times have been homosexuals, several of the greatest men among them (Plato, Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, etc.). It is a great injustice to persecute homosexuality as a crime, and cruelty too. If you do not believe me, read the books of Havelock Ellis.

By asking me if I can help, you mean, I suppose, if I can abolish homosexuality and make normal heterosexuality take its place. The answer is, in a general way, we cannot promise to achieve it. In a certain number of cases we succeed in developing the blighted germs of heterosexual tendencies which are present in every homosexual, in the majority of cases it is no more possible. It is a question of the quality and the age of the individual. The result of treatment cannot be predicted.

What analysis can do for your son runs in a different line. If he is unhappy, neurotic, torn by conflicts, inhibited in his social life, analysis may bring him harmony, peace of mind, full efficiency whether he remains a homosexual or gets changed. . . .

Sincerely yours with kind wishes,
Freud

How come we still have people trying to “cure” homosexuality with therapy? And how come married couples in California are being divorced against their will?

Chrome!

And that’s all I have to say about that.¹

Perpetrating some hackery on my iPhone I stumbled over my custom generated dictionary file. I found a odd sort of pleasure in the fragmented and / or randomly constructed phrases it contained. Since I’ve nothing else to contribute with today, I’ll share it with you. No I have not been drinking.

but feels so damn sluggish dear god yes let’s just hope will be out soon and will be painless for unlocked phones things that gather windows show hide remove files rename all files in folder saturday night slightly just by breathing air wondering i’ll to for using because this is some black magic shit then remembered don’t believe in haha time for some to see that of the visitors my mainly tech and web related use what the are four people thinking oh wait tell lie only guess my mom and dad and their dog then the dog only counts as tenth of person since it passed and over iphone apps being useless input feeds tv books where’s the time to think safe as in the easily the best mouse ever for those tasks just can’t find course plo fine my secret trick slamming my genitals on the desk scream am fear me and just in itunes plo caution however you’ll lose and jailbreak apps totally worth it to me since they’ll be out soon anyway hear one more word about i’m going to scream and will so shall bin it how clipping test this is stupid her okay first smoke today i’m quitting first smoke today i’m quitting temperate really naturally spent two hours making the to get work done for for my blog fail sure but as you average computer user user i’d expect it to heavily slanted away from oslo fire it feels sad the first time your don’t recognize grandparents didn’t recognize me me for the first time no joke i’d love for this to work nicely although wish would come with an iphone app soon just isn’t what i’m after test for text recognize bin test venter can’t edit but can depressed all were it’s too early for to think of anything witty to say just pretend that whatever says next was really said me html plo several methods none of them optimal i’m using these days and it’s not too shabby waste so far this day has failed to amaze and dazzle with it’s awesomeness something extraordinary better happen soon on the bus test bin does the dictionary suck here as well seems it’s good anyway still have problems loving this app maybe it’ll improve sure hope so what is this bullshit fix it cheers found it then promptly lost interest thanks anyway create iphone flex du i’m i’m talking about flash dag was better at object oriented programming illustration singing climbing cooking sex the last once upon time web professional was supposed to know both design and programming is there place for this middleman anymore worries may not cut as programming in this context even alex book as list tasks make i’m confused import flash display but only use some of the in my code does or just plo ring agree but it’s nice to know clients don’t suffer when up if this but see my update after umpteen secs plo agreed just good to know clients don’t for my men now that we’ve got to know each other and do hope think too forward but please what are your feelings feelings regarding you don’t right now at this well i’ve better and i’ve felt worse suppose i’m happy and lift in the wee hours better catch some deadline day is my favorite joke perversely last minute up up and away on bike what kind of up place do you work oh right get drunk instead den money for beer ashamed wish hadn’t wished wished money for beer wish wished had money and secretly spent it on beer nmr nmr ok i’ll bite what’s trying set up compile           and be on saturday   bowdlerized ipsum gidder opp blir z’s misc hadde ikke tenkt typen ser textmate swf’s fuck lazyness meh i’ikke  nme   yojimbo dder opp blir z’s misc hadde ikke tenkt typen ser   ikke nme  yojimbo mbo e  yojimbo  ikke yojimbo o bo tive   hotkey yojimbo mbo bo imbo

That is all.