[2012-Feb-10] The gracehopper

[Danny Boy (London Derriere)]

1) So what is it about her corporeal form? I thought it would be a giant grasshopper.

2) The votey is a callback to the weird goggles/glasses in an earlier panel. But without that connection it would read as a bra.

3) I did once see Adm. Hopper on a speaking tour. She brought along a measuring rod that she said was the length of a light-second. No, that can't be. A light-microsecond?

[DannyBoy]

Must have been a light-nanosecond.

> units
1948 units, 71 prefixes, 28 functions

You have: light-nanosecond
You want: m
* 0.29979246
/ 3.335641
You have: light-nanosecond
You want: cm
* 29.979246
/ 0.03335641

[DonRetrasado]

Extremely terrible.

[Pitch Hitter]

But DR it lionised women programmers in an incredibly boring way! It was almost as good as xkcd.

[younglink164]

As a female programmer this is the best thing I've ever seen in my life

[Pitch Hitter]

To use Plato's analogy of the cave, do you live in a cave?

[Guest]

way to alienate your core demographic

[AllanO]

Two things bug me about this comic: first Grace Hopper was part of the team operating the Harvard Mark I, but did not participate in its construction, second, surely the term "rear admiral" should not pass by without a joke.

Otherwise yes Grace Hopper is pretty cool. Also, yes history shows that women can work in computer fields as competently as men.

[DonRetrasado]

Also, yes history shows that women can work in computer fields as easily as men.

Funny, I would've assumed there'd be some discrimination in computer fields.

[Pitch Hitter]

Men can carry more computers when it comes to harvest time.

[AllanO]

Funny, I would've assumed there'd be some discrimination in computer fields.

Well in light of your response, I edited my post to be more precise about what I meant. Interestingly in the period Grace Hopper began her computer career there were probably proportionately more women in computers than in other technical fields (not going to swear to that), but I could not say parity existed.

Before the advent of the electronic computer technical (and accounting) calculations that had to be done in large numbers were often done by rooms full of women working on various calculator type machines (or even pen, paper and log tables). Such grunt work was often done by the same sort of women who became typists. However some of the organizers and technical point people of such teams were women with advanced degrees in mathematics (note Grace Hopper had a PhD in mathematics from Harvard). Woman could get the organizing jobs because while they were technical they were not exactly prestigious. However such numerical analysis expertise was rare at the time when computers were invented and vital to optimal use of computers. So they could often get jobs at the early computer installations (which often grew out of places using human computing power) and that is why there are probably more prominent women in the early history of computers than in other fields at the time.

[Pitch Hitter]

Wow, you've really thought through your version of "My field is less bigoted than all the others".

[AllanO]

Wow, you've really thought through your version of "My field is less bigoted than all the others".

How was I defending history with that post?

[Lethal Interjection]

Wow, you've really thought through your version of "My field is less bigoted than all the others".

How was I defending history with that post?

I don't know about defending history, but you were essentially saying "look how open-minded us computer science folks are!"

[AllanO]

I don't know about defending history, but you were essentially saying "look how open-minded us computer science folks are!"

I think I was saying look how gendered division of labour (prejudice) is based in random historical contingencies that can lead to counter intuitive consequences. I thought it was relevant background to the strip.