Ada plus One

Posted on by

Yesterday, 24 March, was the first ever Ada Lovelace Day. This is what happens when I don’t keep my ear to the ground.

Ada, as I’m sure you already knew (I did – hah!) was the daughter of Lord Byron who because of her work with Charles Babbage is often credited as being the first programmer. From the day’s official website:

“Ada Lovelace Day is an international day of blogging to draw attention to women excelling in technology.

Women’s contributions often go unacknowledged, their innovations seldom mentioned, their faces rarely recognised. We want you to tell the world about these unsung heroines. Entrepreneurs, innovators, sysadmins, programmers, designers, games developers, hardware experts, tech journalists, tech consultants. The list of tech-related careers is endless.”

What an excellent idea. Thanks to Pennski for bringing it to my attention.

I won’t blog at length on the general awesomeness of anyone, (a) because I don’t generally and (b) because I’d feel the need to ask permission and that takes time. But I will mention a few (by no means all; omission from this list implies absolutely nothing) of the several IT-related women I have known. In alphabetical order to avoid any hint of favouritism or bias:

  • Joella, former colleague, who was a reporter and then editor onInformation World Review. This means that for >50% of the 1990s she and her lovely but somewhat vague editor were the totality of UK-based IT reporting. (Correct me if I’m wrong, Jo …) She also, more recently, introduced me to the blogging concept.
  • L, former colleague, now working for Oxford Uni. Twenty years before we met she was working for Locomotive Software, proof reading their manuals, which would include the manuals that came with my Amstrad PCW all those years ago. I think that’s where she met her husband. She now programs Javascripty sort of stuff.
  • S, head of my division but I’m not crawling. Now responsible for heading communications and customer support on a 40Gbit/s optical network that links every university in the country, she started here in the mid eighties when it was basically two cans and a bit of string.
  • T, fellow writer, longest acquaintance of all the above, bisexual witch and freelance IT consultant. See where a degree in theology from Durham can get you?

Next year I may mention some others …

Victory!

Posted on by


I just wanted to preserve my own copy of this.

It’s HMS Victory. And it’s floating.

From a very senior relative’s photo album, dated 18 July 1914.

So that’s why I don’t deflect compasses

Posted on by

To give blood you have to have 13.5 somethings per something in your iron count. I have 13.3. Put another way, when they take the drop of blood they drop it into a tube full of blue liquid and it has to sink within 15 seconds. Mine floats.

I’m assured I’m not anaemic but still … Must be just one of those things. My diet hasn’t changed and I haven’t been ill. Maybe I’ve always been just at the upper end of the 15 seconds. So, plenty of lean red meat, pulses and brown bread required. And less tea, which blocks iron take-up, apparently.

Nah, stuff that.

UPDATE: Best Beloved comments that this is obviously what lay behind all those floating witch trials. They weren’t rejecting the water of their baptism, they were just severely anaemic.