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Finding Ada Day: Interview with Kate Carruthers, and Countess Lovelace

Nick Hodge — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 11:23:39 +0000

A really big thanks to Kate Carruthers for coming to the digital cottage for the in-studio interview.

Show notes:

Good evening! Welcome to #undercam, on Ada Lovelace Day. And in the studio at “the digital cottage” we welcome this week’s guest: Kate Carruthers. Tonight we talk about the impact of women in the information technology industry. We will interview Kate, and then look into this person of the early 19th Century: Ada Lovelace

Clip was Bop Girl by Pat Wilson, then-wife of Ross Wilson (of Daddy Cool and Mondo Rock). Notice “our” Nicole Kidman; video clip directed by Gillian Armstrong. Aussie chicks rule!

Sponsored by Sumo Beanbags!

Letters, Posts, Redux from last week

Meta-backchannel Producer is Dekrazee1: thanks! direct Qs to her in the chat, and we’ll get ‘em sent to us via the meta Backchannel
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29827248/ “if you had a pulse, you got a loan”
Nobel Prize winning Paul Krugman’s column in the New York Times: gives his verdict on the plans of the Obama administration to rescue United States banks. Obama is wasting his political capital. Radical reform is required. (Krugman has predicted the #gfc)
#gfc is now The Great Recession source: crikey.com.au // Alan Kohler; The reason the head of the IMF, Dominique Strauss-Kahn called this one the Great Recession is that every economy in the world, except, at this stage, China and India, is contracting at once, which makes it quite different to those other five. But the United States remains the key to ending it and preventing it becoming another Great Depression. And the key to that is stabilising the US financial system: fiscal stimulus and money printing wonâ€™t cut it.

Luddites and Lollards [days news as up to the minute, online.]

Luddite: Social movement against the mechanisation of work in early 19th Century. Now used as a term to describe those against technical progress and change. Lord Byron spoke for the luddites in the house or Lords My ancestors put out of hand loom linen weaver work in early 19th century by mechanisation, restored to farmer labourers; ultimate emigration to Australia. (as free people, not convicts)
Lollards: Radical English Iconoclasts who started a reformation from mid 14th Century.
Luddite 1: Conroy: disconnect between accepted satire of Fake Stephen Conroy vs. anti-democracy free speech ACMA list
Luddite 2: MSM: via Kawker ‘Newspapers demand Google Welfare’ NYTimes web site vs wikipedia for ‘gaza’
Lollard 1: iiNet: iiNet yesterday pulled out of the federal Government’s internet filtering trials, blaming drawn-out negotiations with the Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, constant changes in policy, and last week’s leak of a secret internet blacklist.

[at 8:40pm] The Kate Carruthers Interview

why the love of LOLCATs?
which female inspired you the most?
where and why IT career?
did you have support from the people around you?
MBA, Law (now) .. what drives you to continue to study and learn new things?
Battles/Strange Reactions from people?
Is there a truly a hidden secret network of feminists?
Has the glass ceiling broken: women CEOs, members of Boards?

[at 9:00pm] VIDEO 2: Jenny Morris / You I Know 4m01s [written by Neil Finn]

[at 9:04] The Right Honourable (father was a Baron) Countess of Lovelace (from Husband), Augusta Ada King

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ada_lovelace
http://www.google.com/search?q=ada+lovelace&rls=com.microsoft:*&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&startIndex=&startPage=1
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Somerville
Melvyn Bragg: In Our Time Podcast http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/inourtime/inourtime_20080306.shtml
The world’s first computer programmer; even without access to the hardware
Hence: ADA programming language
Ada was born in December 1815
Lord Byron, her father, wanted a son. Left the marriage within weeks of her birth
Lady Annabella Byron (Ada’s mother, also a smart and educated woman) split from Lord Byron during one of his depressive episodes; estrangement between parents Ada often sick when young, had tutors, gifted in mathematics at an early age (like her mother)
Tutors in mathematics: Mary Somerville; Laplace translator into algebra
why? insanity of her father (Manic depressive) used mathematics as a mechanism of driving out the insanity; mother did not want Ada to become a mere poet. She was manipulated to hate her father.
Introduced by Somerville to Babbage 5th June 1833; at about 17 years of age
[2 minutes] Short video clip of Ada’s letter to Charles Babbage from Powerhouse Museum (science intellectual circle of the time: go to Babbage’s.)
Saw the Difference Engine; began correspondence with Somerville.
17 year old: called it a thinking machine. Wanted to look at the blueprints.
Mother and daughter: go on a tour of the Midlands of UK, saw Jacquard Looms
Others in Ada’s network: Charles Wheatstone (measuring resistance, telegraphy), Charles Dickens and Michael Faraday (work with magnetic fields)
Augustus de Morgan, Somerville and Babbage helped with Mathematics
Her unique skill was foresight.
Ada married William King in 1835; money from Lord Byron, Ada “wore the pants” in the family
1. William King was extravagent nature (gambler). 220 estates at beginning, borrowing from Lady Byron
Babbage on Lovelace “The Enchantress of Numbers”
Babbage: Difference Engine (half built, govt funded) : idea for Analytical Engine (1834, notice timing) due to his personality, he finished neither during his lifetime. Two working Difference Engines exist 8000 parts 5 tonnes.
1836, 1837 and 1839 (1842: 3 kids under 6!) Three children, only one had ‘issue’ » now the Lyttons of today. She was not keen on her children.
1838 title of Countess of Lovelace via her husband
During a nine-month period in 1842â€“43, Lovelace translated Italian mathematician (future PM) Luigi Menabrea’s memoir on Babbage’s newest proposed machine (from presentation in Turin), the Analytical Engine from French to English. With the article, she appended a set of notes. The notes are three times as long than the memoir itself and include in Section G a complete detail a method for calculating Bernoulli numbers with the engine, recognized by historians as the world’s first computer program or series of steps. Contention of work was Babbage’s or Ada’s; strong written evidence Ada strong influence over the content of the notes: language, included.
1. Letters of the day delivered 5 times a day. twitter of the day
2. Collaborated with Wheatstone and Babbage on the notes
3. The article, and subsequent notes: http://www.fourmilab.ch/babbage/sketch.html
Ada refered to manipulation of symbols, rather than the pure repetitve crunching of numbers
In this document, published in Richard Taylor’s Scientific Memoirs Volume 3 in 1843, there is a difference shown between Pascal’s calculator from the 17th Century and the planned Analytical engine, she correctly seperates data from the program, recognises the importance of a correct programming, subprograms, and mostly can see in Section G has the foresight to see the implications of computing (as we know it today)
1. The distinctive characteristic of the Analytical Engine, and that which has rendered it possible to endow mechanism with such extensive faculties as bid fair to make this engine the executive right-hand of abstract algebra, is the introduction into it of the principle which Jacquard devised for regulating, by means of punched cards, the most complicated patterns in the fabrication of brocaded stuffs. It is in this that the distinction between the two engines lies. Nothing of the sort exists in the Difference Engine. We may say most aptly that the Analytical Engine weaves algebraical patterns just as the Jacquard loom weaves flowers and leaves.
Alan Turing, another icon of the beginning of computer, had knowledge of Lovelace’s notes, but not the design of the Analytical Engine (blueprints not fully researched until 1970s, Collossus not known about until Bletchley Park)
This was the peak of her intellectual work; and due to lack of acquaintances and projects, health especially mentally (Bipolar?), declined. To offset the early pain of cancer: Drinking, Laudanum (opium) and probably inherited depression caught up with her.
Probably died of Uterine Cancer (and excess bleeding) in 1852 aged merely 37

[9:24pm] THANKS+CLOSE: To Kate, Dekrazee1 (Rai) and Cameron Reilly
Next Week: No show next week, presenting IronPython at the Sydney Python User Group

Thinking Thursday

Nick Hodge — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 23:24:53 +0000

In a strange confluence of the digital universe, two of Australia’s leading internet thinkers: Stilgherrian (Stilgherrian Live) and Cameron Reilly (G’Day World Live); conducted live broadcasts last night.

The round out the seriousness, I broadcast and recorded my second “Stilgherrian’s Understudy” show

Some forwarning. I do swear. I do use technical words. Great music is included, and I do dis my present employer. And I have much to learn with this broadcasting caper; including getting thoughts out clearer. Almost scripted. Thanks to @stilgherrian for the inspiration.

Things for next time:

Music correctly sequenced at the beginning, and thematic
Opening sting of some sort
Donâ€™t drop words, and put thoughts into clear linear thoughts.
White balance at the beginning
Animate and vocalise more
Deliver jokes better
Determine a mechanism to make it true Q&A (maybe questions beforehand)
Learn switching process between videos and camera to make smoother
The recording does something weird at 19:34 when I played the music video

Painting in Sand

Nick Hodge — Fri, 16 May 2008 11:34:49 +0000

Recently experienced at Sydney’s Powerhouse Museum

Respecting the Snacker: Video Producer’s Perspective

Nick Hodge — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 07:33:16 +0000

Audio is not video without pictures: respect the form and video
Respect the form: movement, rule of thirds, watch other’s videos, adapt
Respect the time of the viewer: what is the story you are trying to convey?
When producing, have a time budget in mind.
Short form, editing is OK.

Thanks jjprojects for the ping.

Microsoft Popfly, Builderau Interview

Nick Hodge — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 06:04:46 +0000

Want to be famous? Go large at Virtual TechEd 2007

Nick Hodge — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 03:42:40 +0000

Virtual TechEd will be at TechEd Australia. This is a major coup as Microsoft continues to evolve the TechEd format.

As you can see from the existing content on Virtual TechEd, if you have something to say to the world: now is the time to stand up and be interviewed!

Comment here/send me an email and we’ll schedule you in.

Also, I’ll be at the Blogger’s lounge with video camera, laptop and a wireless connection. Come and have a chat!

AUReMIX07: The Movies

Nick Hodge — Tue, 03 Jul 2007 02:43:14 +0000

Photo: delic8genius

Just before I depart for a holiday, I’ve pumped out three videos

Alive at Pamplona

Nick Hodge — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 01:40:08 +0000

Hey, Jeffa The Geek Stories has the scoop, before The New Inventors: watch the interview with the Alive Tec CEO Bruce Satchwell — that blue device attached to the patient is made on the Gold Coast!

Emailing Bruce last night, apart from complementing me on my sharp eyes and good memory — he also broke the news that Alive’s Web Developer, Tim Hilliard, is wearing the monitor for the running of the bulls in Pamplona in a couple of weeks.

Alive have made a very crude map of the bull run route using Windows Live maps.

Map view

http://maps.live.com/default.aspx?v=2&cp=42.81795~-1.642793&style=r&lvl=17&tilt=-90&dir=0&alt=-1000&scene=11721060&&cid=62DC070579519371!130&encType=1

Birdseye view

http://maps.live.com/default.aspx?v=2&cp=r42pyngvwrkz&style=o&lvl=1&tilt=-90&dir=0&alt=-1000&scene=11721060&&cid=62DC070579519371!130&encType=1

Youtube video of the run in 2006

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTHHgxFOD_g

I hope this doesn’t end in tears.

Beginning of Gonzo Video Journalism

Nick Hodge — Sat, 23 Jun 2007 12:00:16 +0000

A unique program on the ABC 10 years ago, John Safran ruled.

“Race Around the World” pitted amateur videographers against each other, as they traveled around the world getting stories.

Handicams, simple editing and excellent stories pre-dated the intraweb pseudo-stars doing long-form interviews or strapping a camera to their head.

Go have a look at John Safran’s work:

In 1997, the ABC gave John Safran, “Australia’s most exciting guerilla filmmaker”, his big break on Race Around The World. Although he came last in the competition, it’s not too hard to fathom why he won the popular vote, with these submissions: Don’t screw with the rules in Japan, The ambulance chaser (Mumbai), Anarchy in the Renault family hatchback (Bristol), The right to bare grudges (Cote d’Ivoire), Mum I’m not Jewish any more (Cote d’Ivoire), Father Pino vs the Devil (Sicily), Mohammad’s guide to busting a move (Lebanon), Football’s my religion (Jerusalem), The series of unfortunate events and The happiest place on earth, my butt (Disneyland).

via: Metafilter

Don’t Stop Now — Crowded House

Nick Hodge — Wed, 30 May 2007 08:51:40 +0000

(Photo: Matt Sherrod, Neil Finn from video clip Don’t Stop Now)

Neil Finn and Crowded House at their best. video: Watch the video now

Guitar weirdness at 2:20 and lyrical changes at 3:00 into the song. Love it.

Cookie Monster!

Nick Hodge — Wed, 02 May 2007 02:43:45 +0000

As I would have probably watched this on Australia’s ABC as a young un’, I now understand why I am a geek.

Be your own TV

Nick Hodge — Sun, 15 Apr 2007 05:53:05 +0000

Video camera, stream up, people watch your life. Obviously, this mechanism of publishing is old as the internet itself — but with bandwidth increasing and alpha-geeks / rock-stars emerging in recent years — we are seeing the new world being born.

The initial years of large company sponsored video-on-the web (think soapflakes sponsors in the 1950s) was followed by soap operas on YouTube (think LonelyGirl15) to reality TV of Justin.tv (think Survivor, without the dramatic editing)

Insert 3D worlds of WoW, SecondLife and the like — we are seeing Snow Crash and True Names appear before our eyes.

How long before thegeekstories.com is a live-to-web experience?

The Geek Stories — David Wallace, The Lifekludger

Nick Hodge — Sun, 25 Mar 2007 08:45:34 +0000

Click to Play

Uncle Dave “Likekludger” Wallace goes large!

This video was originally shared on blip.tv by nickhodge with a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license.

Kevin Richardson, Headmaster, Immanuel College

Nick Hodge — Sun, 25 Mar 2007 07:00:31 +0000

Kevin Richardson, Headmaster of Immanuel College, on the Future of Learning.

What’s Your Geek Story

Nick Hodge — Thu, 08 Mar 2007 06:55:30 +0000

Click to Play

BarCampSydney: The Geek Stories

Nick Hodge — Sat, 03 Mar 2007 12:17:16 +0000

Not all the video I captured today will be used On10.net

So, rather than discard the bits: I’ve uploaded them to YouTube.

Follow the tag “BarCampSydney” or just look at this playlist.

My favourite: Geeks in Startups are Hot

fixed playlist URL, thanks mountainash

Amazing Human Story, about another Planet. On Earth.

Nick Hodge — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 08:43:07 +0000

Dr. Temple Gradin The Woman Who Thinks like a Cow. Just being shown on Australia’s SBS: but also on Google Video.

Korat vs. Bird in our Window. Window wins.

Nick Hodge — Sun, 01 Oct 2006 02:37:19 +0000

On10.net

Nick Hodge — Thu, 21 Sep 2006 05:26:07 +0000

On10.net.

Microsoft on design; but more than slicing and dicing Photoshop. The big kahuna/picture. More than what it looks initially too.

I am an avid watcher of Google’s EngEd videos (eg: Grid-based Integrated Bioinformatics Systems for High Throughput), and Microsoft’s Channel9 videos (eg: Model driven development in Dynamics AX); these provide a visual perspective on from people who are involved in stuff you may not ever need to know about. But learning is good.

Now waiting for Channel 11 that goes up to 11.

Amber Mac

Nick Hodge — Tue, 29 Aug 2006 09:12:10 +0000

Looks like a loss for the AU world as Amber MacArthur is leaving Call For Help (which she is a co-host with Leo Laporte) for some obscure Canadian TV channel. (as seen 6.30pm on the Foxtel How To Channel).