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Category Archives: History

Ada Lovelace Day 2010

Today is Ada Lovelace Day. Who was Ada? From Wikipedia:

She is today appreciated as the “first programmer” since she was writing programs—that is, manipulating symbols according to rules—for a machine that Babbage had not yet built. She also foresaw the capability of computers to go beyond mere calculating or number-crunching while others, including Babbage himself, focused only on these capabilities.

And yes, the computer programming language “Ada” was named in her honor.

So what is Ada Lovelace Day? In general terms, it’s a day to acknowledge and encourage women in technology. This is sort of the same mission as IEEE’s Women in Engineering group, or the “Women Who Tech” program, or the National Center for Women & Information Technology. More specifically, many people are taking a Pledge to honor specific women in technology through blog posts and twitter.

In my Ada Lovelace post last year, I wrote about two amazing women who influenced my personal career (Paula Berger and Karen DelPrete). This year, and particularly this month, I’ve been repeatedly wowed at how the knowledge, experience, and professionalism of Molly Holzschlag, an amazing whoman has helped people all over the world. Molly began her blog in 1993, back when the Internet was new – and on the news!

Molly was honored as one of the Top 25 Most Influential Women on the Web in 1998. She’s worked for the W3C, for Microsoft, for WebReview online magazine, and currently for Opera Software. More importantly, she’s engaging and fun, and if you ever get a chance to see her speak, grab it! Hint: She’ll be at the upcoming STC Summit with us in Dallas this year! Here’s one more clip, this from South by Southwest. That’s Molly in the glittery black gown, interviewing the various browsers.

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Hint about my childhood

Cute picture, Right? Yeah, unless you happen to be one of the Phalon girls! We wore these on Thanksgiving, to parties, and at school assemblies. One year, they even had us wear them on a REGULAR SCHOOL DAY in November, and made us visit all the other elementary school classes. Not only were we the… Continue Reading

Ada Lovelace Day

Today is Ada Lovelace Day. Who was Ada? From Wikipedia: She is today appreciated as the “first programmer” since she was writing programs—that is, manipulating symbols according to rules—for a machine that Babbage had not yet built. She also foresaw the capability of computers to go beyond mere calculating or number-crunching while others, including Babbage… Continue Reading

Stunning old photos

I was lucky enough to get some great old family photos the other day from the Huettner of Mobridge Studio (South Dakota, 1911 – 1950 or so). This one is my favorite! Notice the wheel cover advertising – it says “Kodak As You Go” followed by the “Huettner of Mobridge” name. Apparently, they were encouraging… Continue Reading

The Twist and cultural influence

Part of our microwave engineering site allows for a monthly opinion piece on a wide variety of topics. Past editorials have covered burning questions like “how do you prevent a shower curtain from blowing inward when you take a shower?” to a story about Edward Rowe Snow, America’s Flying Santa (1936-1981) to an analysis of… Continue Reading