If Babbage had succeeded this would have been your computer

[BaalChatzaf]

Here is the computer that Charles Babbage conceived of but never was able to finish:

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/gallery/2015/apr/12/thrilling-adventures-lovelace-babbage-in-pictures#img-6

I am afraid this would not have fit on your desk top. Perhaps it is fortunate that the programmable computer had to wait for the age of electricity before it could be made. The image shows what a computer in the age of steam would have looked like.

Over on the right hand side is a cartoon image Of Ada Augusta King, Lady Lovlace, the world's first computer programmer. She was the only legitimate daughter of Lord Byron, the Mad Poet. Born 1815 Died 1852 of ovarian cancer. In addition to being a genius she was a gambling addict.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Brant Gaede]

Got the cats right too.

--Brant

[duncan_bayne]

Here is the computer that Charles Babbage conceived of but never was able to finish:

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/gallery/2015/apr/12/thrilling-adventures-lovelace-babbage-in-pictures#img-6

I am afraid this would not have fit on your desk top. Perhaps it is fortunate that the programmable computer had to wait for the age of electricity before it could be made. The image shows what a computer in the age of steam would have looked like.

Over on the right hand side is a cartoon image Of Ada Augusta King, Lady Lovlace, the world's first computer programmer. She was the only legitimate daughter of Lord Byron, the Mad Poet. Born 1815 Died 1852 of ovarian cancer. In addition to being a genius she was a gambling addict.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Hmph. I don't think you can reasonably call Lovelace the first computer programmer, given that computers didn't exist during her lifetime. If you're looking for female role models in computer science, how about Margaret Hamilton, the person in charge of the software that put human beings on the moon?

[BaalChatzaf]

Here is the computer that Charles Babbage conceived of but never was able to finish:

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/gallery/2015/apr/12/thrilling-adventures-lovelace-babbage-in-pictures#img-6

I am afraid this would not have fit on your desk top. Perhaps it is fortunate that the programmable computer had to wait for the age of electricity before it could be made. The image shows what a computer in the age of steam would have looked like.

Over on the right hand side is a cartoon image Of Ada Augusta King, Lady Lovlace, the world's first computer programmer. She was the only legitimate daughter of Lord Byron, the Mad Poet. Born 1815 Died 1852 of ovarian cancer. In addition to being a genius she was a gambling addict.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Hmph. I don't think you can reasonably call Lovelace the first computer programmer, given that computers didn't exist during her lifetime. If you're looking for female role models in computer science, how about Margaret Hamilton, the person in charge of the software that put human beings on the moon?

Ada wrote the first program. She did not have a machine to test it on, but she wrote it according to the functional specifications laid down by Charles Babbage. The first programmer of the electronic age was Adelle Goldstein who wrote the first programs for the earliest von Nuemann machine. Yet another Ada, so to speak. It is interesting to note that the pioneer programmers were women.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[merjet]

Adelle Goldstein

Who? Adele Goldstine

Grace Hopper

[Brant Gaede]

Why did these people die so young? Von Neuman was in his fifties. Reading about him--his staggering intellect--only tells me human beings don't need a bigger brain--the skull is big enough--for greater intelligence. That's a relief for too many women have historically died in childbirth because of complicated and difficult delivery made necessay by the big human head. Modern medicine has made it much safer but there is no room for additional biological evolution though it might be possible for humans to get bigger heads in they employ C-section, which simply isn't going to happen unless the genes are fiddled with.

--Brant

the next big human advance will do away with male pattern baldness (too late for me [~Sob~])

[BaalChatzaf]

Adelle Goldstein

Who? Adele Goldstine

Grace Hopper

Grace Hopper invented COBOL and coined the term "bug"

If you program Mark I and never go to sea

you may become commander in the U.S. Navy

[BaalChatzaf]

Why did these people die so young? Von Neuman was in his fifties. Reading about him--his staggering intellect--only tells me human beings don't need a bigger brain--the skull is big enough--for greater intelligence. That's a relief for too many women have historically died in childbirth because of complicated and difficult delivery made necessay by the big human head. Modern medicine has made it much safer but there is no room for additional biological evolution though it might be possible for humans to get bigger heads in they employ C-section, which simply isn't going to happen unless the genes are fiddled with.

--Brant

the next big human advance will do away with male pattern baldness (too late for me [~Sob~])

Von Neumann was out in Utah where they tested nuclear explosive in the Salt Flats (yes, parts of the U.S. were deliberately nuked). Von Neumann breathed in some of the irradiated dust. The same fate befell the actors John Wayne, Agnes Moorehead and Susan Hayworth who made a movie located in the Salt Flats. Radioactive fall out is the gift of nuclear explosions that keeps on giving.

[Brant Gaede]

Wayne smoked. Did any of these others?

My understanding of radiation and cancer doesn't well fit yours.

--Brant

[BaalChatzaf]

Wayne smoked. Did any of these others?

My understanding of radiation and cancer doesn't well fit yours.

--Brant

They all showed signs of cancer at about the same time. It could have been radiation. By the way smoking causes a radiation effect. One the nasty residues from tobacco smoke is Polonium a radioactive element.

[Brant Gaede]

The more background radiation up to livable altitude the less cancer overall, maybe more than twice what the EPA fears.

The idea that any radiation can cause cancer is preposterous. It's in excess of x, y or z.

--Brant

[BaalChatzaf]

The more background radiation up to livable altitude the less cancer overall, maybe more than twice what the EPA fears.

The idea that any radiation can cause cancer is preposterous. It's in excess of x, y or z.

--Brant

The connection between high doses of radiation and cancer has been well established. Ionizing radiation does a number on DNA.

From the NIH site:

Epidemiologic studies provide the necessary data for quantifying cancer risks as a function of dose and for setting radiation protection standards. Leukemia and most solid cancers have been linked with radiation. Most solid cancer data are reasonably well described by linear-dose response functions although there may be a downturn in risks at very high doses. Persons exposed early in life have especially high relative risks for many cancers, and radiation-related risk of solid cancers appears to persist throughout life.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Here is the URL for the site: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2859619/

Those poor sods in Hiroshima and Nagasaki that were not killed off immediately suffered very high incidence of cancer in the years following, much higher than the average rate of cancer in Japan.

[Brant Gaede]

dup

[Brant Gaede]

"Any" refers to low doses. There is a tipping point that overcomes what good radiation can do for you.

--Brant

[Jules Troy]

Well it's a good thing I get my daily dose from Ir 192 eh Brant?

Back when I started in the industry we were allowed to pick up 5R/year. Up here in Canada NEW (Nuclear Energy Workers) are now allowed 2R. I guess the govt figured out radiation might be bad for us?

[syrakusos]

The Difference Engine by Bruce Sterling and William Gibson is set an alternative England c. 1830. Lord Byron has been Prime Minister and leads the "radical lords" who have transformed England. ("Mad" Shelley is locked up.) The plot involves the theft of a programme of punched cards for one of the huge difference engines. The chase takes the detective to the French surite whose "Napoleon Engine" requires cards of greased mica. (Summary on Wikipedia, of course: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Difference_Engine)

Much as I admire and tout Admiral Grace Hopper, she did not invent the use of the word "bug" in this context. First of all, "there's bugs in the wires" goes back to telegraphy. (See When Old Technologies Were New, by Carolyn Marvin.) Also, of course, Hopper's bug was, indeed, found in the hardware of the computer. Programming was by hardwiring, still. I saw this for myself as late as 1961 or 62 in the accounting office of University Hospital in Cleveland, Ohio, though software was developed and used by then.

[Brant Gaede]

Well it's a good thing I get my daily dose from Ir 192 eh Brant?

Back when I started in the industry we were allowed to pick up 5R/year. Up here in Canada NEW (Nuclear Energy Workers) are now allowed 2R. I guess the govt figured out radiation might be bad for us?

You trust the govt?

I just trust/tout the principle of radiation hormesis. I don't come with the actual doses.

Do not work years in an underground uranium mine if you smoke. Feel free if you don't smoke. (I doubt it's healthy. Just don't worry about cancer induced by radiation.)

--Brant