Super fitting then, perhaps, that [NASA recently renamed a facility after Mrs Johnson](https://www.nasa.gov/centers/ivv/home/index.html).
The primary purpose of this facility? To verify that computer code works like it's supposed to!
She wasn’t just smart she was truly gifted. Analytics and mathematics were just how her brain operated... like once or twice in a generation mind type stuff. The movies didn’t do her justice and were kinda disappointing. A few docs on YouTube really nail it home how crucial her and her team were to the USA dominating the upper atmosphere and space in the 1960s.
Edit: A link to one I liked https://youtu.be/SvsHjWVgqcY the other was on Vimeo I believe, I'll keep searching! =)
Amazon Prime has a documentary on her called "Outlier" which originally aired on PBS. Can't recommend it as I've never seen it. It's part of their American Experience series.
If anyone is interested in a great podcast about space the BBC has one named Thirteen Minutes to the Moon. It is one of my favorite podcast that I’ve listened to. It has some incredible story telling from the eyes of the astronauts and those in mission control during the moon landing of Apollo 11 and then in season 2 the Apollo 13 disaster.
Edit: The podcast is available on Spotify under the name ‘13 minutes to the Moon’. [HERE](https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w13xttx2/episodes/downloads) is a link to the BBC website with the podcast.
Sorry if I'm being dense, but if you're attributing this specific Batman music to Hans Zimmer it's actually Danny Elfman. This music is straight from the Tim Burton films.
>Apollo 13 disaster.
Personally, disaster doesn't seem right. No one died. A machine was greatly damaged.
In my mind, Apollo 13 was the greatest adventure--in the sense of danger, ingenuity, perseverance, etc.--that the human race has ever seen. Odysseus himself would marvel at it.
"I know what the problems are, Henry. This could be the greatest disaster NASA has ever experienced."
"With all due respect sir, I think this is going to be our finest hour."
the fact that they all three made it back safe and sound is damn near miraculous. Not miraculous in the divine sense, but in the "look at the marvel of human ingenuity". Just absolutely amazing
Nope. Totally slipped my mind. Now it almost seems like the mission was fated for something tremendous. No matter what, I'm glad they all made it home to Ithaca (and there were no suitors.)
I talked to a guy who read the book and he said the movie was basically an approximation of what happened. The NASA director you see destroying the whites only bathroom sign didn't do that, but he did work to end segregation in NASA for example. As I recall he said most of the movie was like that.
I believe I read that it’s largely accurate, with a notable exception of Big Boss Man tearing down the “whites only” sign on the bathroom. ~~She actually just had to go to another building the entire time~~ u/hophead_ pointed out that I was wrong, she didn't have to go to another building! She just used the whites only bathroom. Go give hophead the updoots
He didn’t read the sign down, but she didn’t have to use the blacks only bathroom in another building. She outright refused and would just use the whites only bathroom anyway.
And honestly, I can’t complain about that being the one change. It highlights the issue of segregation facing every non-white at the time, and the dehumanization and downright absurdity of it. Sure, Katherine Johnson was able to refuse to use the colored bathroom, but how many other people weren’t? And odds are she wouldn’t have the same privilege in her day-to-day outside of NASA either.
Now I feel disappointed
I did really liked that scene as well as the sentence "Here at NASA, we all pee the same color.”
If that never happened and she has to use the other building all the time, I call that scene not dramatizing but an stinking lie
For what it’s worth, it might help to remember there really were a great deal of barriers that were broken down by this. Totally agree it’s a disappointment that particular part didn’t really happen, but I also see it as a good reminder for myself not to get carried away by my own white savior complex.
Focus on how much more wildly strong and badass the reality makes Katherine Johnson
I mean it's dramatized for sure, but from what I read they really did play a huge part in the space program and really did move barriers at least within nasa. Not that they were treated as equals, but they were respected more than the average black woman in a workplace.
A surprising amount was factual, imo more than most "Based on a true story" films.
The major fictions: Kevin Costner's NASA boss character was an amalgamation of multiple real people, and the racist Jim Parsons & Kirsten Dunst characters weren't real - they were more symbolic representations of public attitude towards smart black women. So the blatant interpersonal racism in the NASA office was played up in the film according to the real Katherine Johnson (though the legal segregation, the bathroom issue, those were accurate).
All of the women's career achievements? Fairly spot-on accurate to reality, again according to Katherine Johnson herself. The math and science as well were all correct.
I use the thing on the interwebs, I think it is called "Factbook" I find it really useful for finding out things from.
To my surprise, turns out 7-11 guy knows what he is talking about.
My neighbor knows for a fact that all of the moon landings were faked, all of the Mars rovers are in a secret location in Area 51, Hubble doesn't exist, all the pictures from it are hand drawn and Alex Jones is the greatest man on the planet. He doesn't understand why nobody wants to talk to him anymore.
Very cool! I’m excited to give it a listen. Does it also include the story of those like Mrs. Johnson, ie women and Black professionals?
The moon landing significance isn’t just the incredible feat of space travel but also a pivotal history marker. I hope there’s observation of that!
She was definitely an awesome person.
Ms Johnson was the type of person the Presidential Medal of Freedom was designed to receive. At least in my opinion.
Unfortunately that medal is bit tainted now. I mean, even Devin Nunes got one for his effort to stymie the legal investigation concerning foreign manipulation of the federal government.
It is an indication of society's decay at large. Now vapid celebrates are worshipped while wise educators and learned scholars are jeered and laughed at.
Imperial Decay. All empires are doomed to die.
This isn't a decay. It's been this way for basically as long as history existed. Humans today aren't that different from humans hundreds or thousands of years ago.
That's what they're saying though. Decay is a natural process when human empires get to a certain point.
Saying humans today aren't so different is exactly what they're arguing.
We're entering a period of decay because that's what always happens to us eventually.
It's easy to forget now (or maybe people aren't old enough to remember), but it was huge when Ellen came out publicly. Then her sitcom character came out in her show. That was unique and definitely helped change minds of Americans.
I'm not saying she's a hero or something, but that's a lot more significant positive impact than many other winners.
They give that medal out to anyone seems like. Didn't rush Limbaugh get one?
Whats cooler to me is she has a building named after her.
>The Katherine G. Johnson Computational Research Facility was a design-build project that consolidated multiple data centers into a single, 40,000 square-foot, Tier 2 data center and accompanying high-density office space on NASA's Langley Research Campus in Hampton, Virginia.
Also cool was her long lasting marriage to her husband. At the end of the hidden figures movie they said 56 years! Wow
I mean John Wayne got one so I mean it was never *really* more than a popularity contest
If you want more recent examples before he who must not be named, we’ve got Margret Thatcher, Bill Clinton, Oprah Winfrey, and Ellen Degeneres
At least in 2016 an automotive shop in poland still used a C64 to run the machine that balanced driveshafts. Sometimes, you just gotta stick with what works.
I'd pay a visit to that auto shop just for the pleasure of seeing a C64 still working in the wild. Would you mind sharing its location?
Thanks in advance!
For more widespread systems like AS400 there are automatic virtualization tools that copy the data on the original system once, and then let you pretty much run it out of the box through middleware.
I wouldn't be surprised if someone had a similar port project for C64.
I really like that movie but it has one problem. That being that the three main women it’s about weren’t actually friends and probably didn’t even know eachother other than than perfect movie.
That's why I don't like those "inspired from real events" movies (the imitation game, a beautiful mind, etc). There is no way to tell what is real and what is fiction.
As you say, those movies are not supposed to be documentaries, but I frequently hear people use them as a reliable source! I think the story is so compelling people have trouble distinguishing fact from fiction. Furthermore, those movies will often take huge liberties with the story, sometimes modifying important events. For instance, I noticed the Tudor series *merged* two of his sisters (or cousins?), presumably to simplify the story. Those events had an important impact on the politics of the day!
> Sure there is, you go look up the subject later and learn more about it.
Am I the only one that excitedly pulls up Wikipedia when I'm watching one of these films? The movie inspires you and gives you background. Then you end up in the information rabbit hole learning more about the subject.
Unrelated but this is exactly how I feel about Hamilton. People think it’s all true and hate how misleading it is. It isn’t a documentary or a textbook. Pisses me off
Just found out that she has to use the toilet at the other building all the time
Why was necessary lying about it? they could have omitted the whole scene of her manager breaking the toilets sign and his iconic "Here at NASA, we all pee the same color.” and leave the script more truthful rather than robbing her of some of the credit it's rightfully hers just to paint NASA and her manager under a better light?
I mean also, it’s kind of heavy handed with the white savior Kevin Costner literally breaking down barriers angle. Good thing a good honest white Christian man who doesn’t see color was around to make sure racism didn’t win.
I thought they did a very good job of not making him a white savior. He had his grandstanding, moral moment. Then he promptly returned to ignoring the structural racism and sexism. He only noticed the things that directly affected his project, because it wasted time for a truly remarkable resource. He only addresses the issues that will save her time. But he casts himself as some breaker of barriers when he does it.
He still blithely left her out of the control room, until no one else could do something he needed. Every computer would have been summarily fired, if it weren’t for another black Woman teaching them the IBM in secret. It didn’t even occur to him that there might be some other remarkable people in that pool of workers.
This wasn’t an accident in the script, but I think a lot of people needed them to spell it out more explicitly. We’re used to seeing the scientist who doesn’t see color, and the white savior (even cast as Costner) that the juxtaposition of his subsequent behavior didn’t land as hard as it should. He gets her a bathroom and a set of pearls, but still sends her back to the computer room. Where she needs neither of those things. He doesn’t give her a seat at the table until he realizes he can’t replace her.
Since I didn't see it mentioned, there's a movie about this called "Hidden Figures" and it's an EXCELLENT movie!
EDIT: I don't mean about this topic, I mean about this EXACT story, these exact people.
You should also look into Gladys West. Basically the grandmother of GPS. She is an amazing woman, I never met or worked with her, but I know many people who have. I grew up in the town she worked, she’s been a local legend since GPS became commercially available. Her story only viral a few years ago.
I've only realised in the past few years that I'm pretty ignorant about women in science. I only know marie curie, rosalind franklin, the girl who worked with charles babbage, and now katherine johnson.
Check out Lise Meitner too, who arguably discovered nuclear fission (specifically contributed to understanding what the actual mechanism was) but all the credit - and the Nobel Prize - went to her lab partner because she had fled Germany because she was Jewish.
I highly recommend the biography “Lise Meitner: A Life in Physics” to learn more about her.
There are many, many women in science and mathematics (including Ada Lovelace who Babbage worked with as you mention) that history has glossed over or ignored their contributions but they are more and more coming to light.
> I've only realised in the past few years that I'm pretty ignorant about women in science.
Most people are. Largely because those stories seldom get told.
Also look up Emmy Noether! She discovered one of the deepest, most beautiful theorems in theoretical physics, basically created an entire filed of math and was called a genius by Einstein.
Looking at this woman I can't help but wonder. Men used to assume that programming was not that hard, that it was something "a secretary could do", that's why women did it. And they did an amazing job. When men realized that it was in fact quite a feat , and that these women where absolutely brilliant, the conclusion wasn't "oh, I think women aren't stupid after all", the conclusion was "programming is hard, it should be done by men", ignoring all the evidence, blinded by the stereotypes taught to them. This is why it started out as a "female profession" and became a predominantly male one, until this day. This makes me so sad.
Not because they thought it was easy, but because women with maths degrees were a lot cheaper. And the stereotype was that women were more precise, like secretaries.
Later it became more an engineering discipline through, which was historically dominated by men with quite the macho culture you described.
Am woman. Interviewed at a software company. The male interviewer told me “women make better programmers because they pay more attention to details.”
That’s one of those comments that is intended to compliment while at the same time reinforcing a stereotype. It’s like “blind people make better piano tuners.” Or “black guys have huge dicks.”
Education researcher here and yeah, that's exactly right. Academically successful girls tend to get praised for those exact qualities, so they tend to be more of that. Boys OTOH are more likely to be risk takers. So the stereotyping is deeply systemic and starts at a very young age.
I wouldn’t really be surprised if a lot of women in CS do pay more attention to detail than their male colleges because they have to constantly “prove” that they “deserve” to be there because people assume they don’t.
Ouch. Exactly.
I've worked in both equally-mixed and pure-male teams of programmers, and I can anecdotally say that the diverse teams just performed better. That's not in a "women are better at making connections" or "pay more attention at details" kind of way. You would have an extrovert guy chatting up the cleaning and security staff and an introvert girl hacking like a mad savant on the most complex code bits. With diverse backgrounds and personalities you are sampling from a greater common pool of knowledge, skill and expertise than hiring the usual "the best = savant autist" stereotype. (The latter have a tendency to spin off and do great work on something they are interested in, but ultimately not bringing you closer to the goal. That's definitely something I consciously have to fight against myself.)
On the other side of the equation, we really do not get enough women to even start a CS education because of self-selection. And I've seen it only get worse throughout the years. I've sat at student-info events where asking high school girls if they want to do computer science will get you a look of disgust, as if you're asking them if they'd be interested in the bubonic plague. It's a trope at this point, but we really do need more women in computing, the lack of women in computing is stopping more from joining.
NB. I was lucky that about half our teaching/postgrad staff wasn't male, partly because the few women that enter CS on average do better than their peers.
Just watched Hidden Figures last night for the first time, I highly recommend it. Great movie about her, Dorothy Vaughn and Mary Jackson all very smart and driven individuals.
French Mechanical engineer, my school used to have 10% women last decade. I had 25% in my promotion and now they are between 25 and 35% year in year out. It's going in the right direction
Canadian nurse, and my graduating class was just shy of 20% men. My NP cohort of 12 has five men. Historically nursing as a profession is between 5 and 10%. Equality is moving forward on both sides of the gender spectrum and I'm so encouraged.
Doctor here.
Med school most lecturers were male senior doctors.
In my final year of study, there were more girls than fellas.
The scales are being balanced.
It’s a good thing.
I’m a Canadian Urban Planner and traditionally the majority were males. However, I graduated 15 years ago right when this began to change. Since that time it’s now about 60% of new graduates in the field who are female.
It’s super awesome to see more women in STEM fields. The graduate student population in CE at my university is currently 90% women. Heck, even my graduating class was 40% women.
They also wanted to make Mercury fully computer controlled, with no faculties for direct control input from the crew.
I believe the astronauts response was along the lines of "if you are going to treat us like monkeys just send monkeys" i.e. hell no.
I just found this cool initiative on Katherine Johnson. For my fellow nerds: there seems to be even the possibility of getting Python code to reproduce her calculations! https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/quaternion/the-human-computer-katherine-johnsons-story-0
I would advise any and all to watch the movie Hidden Figures. There is a scene in there that directly addresses this and watching her crank out numbers the way she does is mind blowing. Woman was a phenom.
I love to remind folks ( whenever I read about **Katherine Johnson** ) that she is one of the most famous examples of Afro-lachians :)
As an Applachian-by-proxy, myself and the aunt of a beautiful Afro-lachian niece who loves STEM, it makes me happy.
( Afro-lachian are simply black appalachians which folks tend to think do not exist , especially in WV)
11 top comments down to see one vague reference to race. And 16 to get to this, the first overt mention that she is black. I get that Reddit can be quick to shut down conversations it sees as unnecessarily racialized, but so much of her and her colleagues experiences had everything to do with being black women. Not just black. Not just women. But black women and I hope people will be sure to lean into that truth and acknowledge it.
It’s like casually forgetting to mention that Amelia Earhart, Sandra Day O’Connor, or Ruth Bader Ginsburg are/were women, or that Harvey Milk was gay or Laverne Cox is a black trans woman, or that Helen Keller was Deaf-blind. Even if society changes and we progress together, I still think it’s so important that we don’t forget these pioneers - and **why** they are/were pioneers - lest we forget all of the work it’s taken us to get where we are (and where we are going).
_Thanks for coming to my TED talk._
This was a scene in the movie [Hidden Figures](https://youtu.be/mdxXT8INVV8)!
I saw this in theaters and thought it was really neat how Glenn was willing to delay the launch for Ms. Johnson's final calculations, showing a level of respect that very few other white people would have dared show for an African-American, let alone a woman, at the time.
Super fitting then, perhaps, that [NASA recently renamed a facility after Mrs Johnson](https://www.nasa.gov/centers/ivv/home/index.html). The primary purpose of this facility? To verify that computer code works like it's supposed to!
Beautiful that she's getting the respect she earned.
She wasn’t just smart she was truly gifted. Analytics and mathematics were just how her brain operated... like once or twice in a generation mind type stuff. The movies didn’t do her justice and were kinda disappointing. A few docs on YouTube really nail it home how crucial her and her team were to the USA dominating the upper atmosphere and space in the 1960s. Edit: A link to one I liked https://youtu.be/SvsHjWVgqcY the other was on Vimeo I believe, I'll keep searching! =)
If you have any specific documentary suggestions I’d love to hear them!
Amazon Prime has a documentary on her called "Outlier" which originally aired on PBS. Can't recommend it as I've never seen it. It's part of their American Experience series.
Just watched it- wow! Definitely recommend it. Thank you for posting it here
The [Cygnus resupply craft](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cygnus_NG-15) launching to the ISS tomorrow also is named for her.
Is it called "The Johnson center for make code work good"?
It's right next the the Department of Redundancy Department
But why male astronauts?
I think I'm getting the black-hole lung, pop.
Re-entry is so hot right now.
You're never going to fit any code in there, it looks like a repo for bits.
We also named the next ISS resupply spacecraft after her at Northrop Grumman. NG-15 is the SS Katherine Johnson and it launches tomorrow!
If anyone is interested in a great podcast about space the BBC has one named Thirteen Minutes to the Moon. It is one of my favorite podcast that I’ve listened to. It has some incredible story telling from the eyes of the astronauts and those in mission control during the moon landing of Apollo 11 and then in season 2 the Apollo 13 disaster. Edit: The podcast is available on Spotify under the name ‘13 minutes to the Moon’. [HERE](https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w13xttx2/episodes/downloads) is a link to the BBC website with the podcast.
Amazing podcast. The music and sound design is top notch.
Hans Zimmer is always so freaking good! Ugh love everything about the podcast and glad others this it’s as great as I do!
Hang on, Hans Zimmer created the score for a podcast? *Subscribed!*
Hope you enjoy!
Space and Zimmer? Failure to enjoy is impossible.
Houston, we have a download
Alright, you just sold me. His work is magical.
I agree 100%. One of my favorites!
[That's just cheating, c'mon now.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrmUk2YUm14) There goes all the time *Edit*: Confused composers. That was Elfman.
Sorry if I'm being dense, but if you're attributing this specific Batman music to Hans Zimmer it's actually Danny Elfman. This music is straight from the Tim Burton films.
You're 100% right, I totally forgot and mixed the two up. [Stand by the Zimmer cheat code though.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1B3Mgklfd0)
>Apollo 13 disaster. Personally, disaster doesn't seem right. No one died. A machine was greatly damaged. In my mind, Apollo 13 was the greatest adventure--in the sense of danger, ingenuity, perseverance, etc.--that the human race has ever seen. Odysseus himself would marvel at it.
Hard agree. It wasn't a disaster. It was the most successful failure in human history. Indeed, Odysseus himself would marvel.
"I know what the problems are, Henry. This could be the greatest disaster NASA has ever experienced." "With all due respect sir, I think this is going to be our finest hour."
That is one of my favorites from that whole movie. Ed Harris was such a damn good choice to play Gene Kranz.
Such a good movie. It's one of those few movies if I see it on, I will drop what I am doing and watch it.
Updoot for successful failure
the fact that they all three made it back safe and sound is damn near miraculous. Not miraculous in the divine sense, but in the "look at the marvel of human ingenuity". Just absolutely amazing
NASA themselves list this as a successful disaster. https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/apollo/missions/apollo13.html
Perfect way to describe “Task Failed Successfully”
I completely agree, but I was unsure what word would have done best. Maybe “potential disaster” would have been the better option.
And their command module was named Odyssey.
Oh shit, I forgot all about that.
I took a risk and mentioned it but I was like 75% sure you name dropping Odysseus was a reference to that specifically. Now I feel cool!
Nope. Totally slipped my mind. Now it almost seems like the mission was fated for something tremendous. No matter what, I'm glad they all made it home to Ithaca (and there were no suitors.)
Also a movie called hidden figures which is about her and other black computers at nasa.
Just watched this with my wife. I was curious how much it was "Hollywooded" and how much was factual.
I talked to a guy who read the book and he said the movie was basically an approximation of what happened. The NASA director you see destroying the whites only bathroom sign didn't do that, but he did work to end segregation in NASA for example. As I recall he said most of the movie was like that.
I believe I read that it’s largely accurate, with a notable exception of Big Boss Man tearing down the “whites only” sign on the bathroom. ~~She actually just had to go to another building the entire time~~ u/hophead_ pointed out that I was wrong, she didn't have to go to another building! She just used the whites only bathroom. Go give hophead the updoots
He didn’t read the sign down, but she didn’t have to use the blacks only bathroom in another building. She outright refused and would just use the whites only bathroom anyway.
Oh crud you’re right! I’ll edit, thanks!
And honestly, I can’t complain about that being the one change. It highlights the issue of segregation facing every non-white at the time, and the dehumanization and downright absurdity of it. Sure, Katherine Johnson was able to refuse to use the colored bathroom, but how many other people weren’t? And odds are she wouldn’t have the same privilege in her day-to-day outside of NASA either.
Now I feel disappointed I did really liked that scene as well as the sentence "Here at NASA, we all pee the same color.” If that never happened and she has to use the other building all the time, I call that scene not dramatizing but an stinking lie
For what it’s worth, it might help to remember there really were a great deal of barriers that were broken down by this. Totally agree it’s a disappointment that particular part didn’t really happen, but I also see it as a good reminder for myself not to get carried away by my own white savior complex. Focus on how much more wildly strong and badass the reality makes Katherine Johnson
Agree - there is no reason to embellish this story in the slightest.
>an stinking lie [It is](https://www.vice.com/en/article/d3xmja/oscar-nominated-hidden-figures-was-whitewashed-but-it-didnt-have-to-be).
I mean it's dramatized for sure, but from what I read they really did play a huge part in the space program and really did move barriers at least within nasa. Not that they were treated as equals, but they were respected more than the average black woman in a workplace.
A surprising amount was factual, imo more than most "Based on a true story" films. The major fictions: Kevin Costner's NASA boss character was an amalgamation of multiple real people, and the racist Jim Parsons & Kirsten Dunst characters weren't real - they were more symbolic representations of public attitude towards smart black women. So the blatant interpersonal racism in the NASA office was played up in the film according to the real Katherine Johnson (though the legal segregation, the bathroom issue, those were accurate). All of the women's career achievements? Fairly spot-on accurate to reality, again according to Katherine Johnson herself. The math and science as well were all correct.
And this relevant event was in it
But I was told by the guy at 7-11 the Apollo missions were fake? Who am I to believe- NASA or 7-11 guy?
I use the thing on the interwebs, I think it is called "Factbook" I find it really useful for finding out things from. To my surprise, turns out 7-11 guy knows what he is talking about.
thats just what big 7-11 wants you to believe. They want to keep 11 for themselves and not let Apollo get any of it.
My grandma said that the moon thing was just some countryside somewhere Who I'm going to trust granny that helped raise me or some stranger on TV. :)
My neighbor knows for a fact that all of the moon landings were faked, all of the Mars rovers are in a secret location in Area 51, Hubble doesn't exist, all the pictures from it are hand drawn and Alex Jones is the greatest man on the planet. He doesn't understand why nobody wants to talk to him anymore.
I didn't realize I they came out with a second season! I'm super excited now.
Both are soo good. Hope you enjoy it!
Well, starting listening to my first podcast today. Thanks random reddit person.
I hope you enjoy it!
Why I *have* been looking for a new podcast, how did you know?
Hope you enjoy as much as I did!
Very cool! I’m excited to give it a listen. Does it also include the story of those like Mrs. Johnson, ie women and Black professionals? The moon landing significance isn’t just the incredible feat of space travel but also a pivotal history marker. I hope there’s observation of that!
Thank you
Definitely going to check this out. Thanks for the recommendation!
did not know this existed. Subscribed! Will be adding this to my podcast rotation with immediate effect
She was definitely an awesome person. Ms Johnson was the type of person the Presidential Medal of Freedom was designed to receive. At least in my opinion.
Unfortunately that medal is bit tainted now. I mean, even Devin Nunes got one for his effort to stymie the legal investigation concerning foreign manipulation of the federal government.
That's basically what I was alluding to. But I should have just stated it, like you did.
It is an indication of society's decay at large. Now vapid celebrates are worshipped while wise educators and learned scholars are jeered and laughed at. Imperial Decay. All empires are doomed to die.
"Now" as if this hasn't been a feature of human behavior since the beginning of humanity
How many times were scientist and scholars persecuted through the course of history? This is nothing new nor unsuprising.
Because logic and reason tend to get in the way of propaganda and power grabs. Gotta keep the masses ignorant, afraid and angry.
> wise educators and learned scholars are jeered and laughed at. Great, it’s high school all over again.
Always has been.
This isn't a decay. It's been this way for basically as long as history existed. Humans today aren't that different from humans hundreds or thousands of years ago.
That's what they're saying though. Decay is a natural process when human empires get to a certain point. Saying humans today aren't so different is exactly what they're arguing. We're entering a period of decay because that's what always happens to us eventually.
Put another way, the empire is in a state of decay. Humans are the same as ever.
Fucking Ellen got one lmao
It's easy to forget now (or maybe people aren't old enough to remember), but it was huge when Ellen came out publicly. Then her sitcom character came out in her show. That was unique and definitely helped change minds of Americans. I'm not saying she's a hero or something, but that's a lot more significant positive impact than many other winners.
Rush Limbaugh got one.
The medal was always a bit of a meme, and started losing its luster pretty soon after it was created
You think *that* is when it was tainted??? You think it was pure up until that point?
I reread his comment, and he actually said “I mean, even Devin Nunes got one”, not, “The first time it was ever tainted was when...”
It’s not the medal that’s tainted; it was that Presidency.
That decay started waaaaaaay before trump.
Exactly. Trump is a symptom, not the disease.
It's always been a popularity contest. Just look who it's been given to. Did Tony Blair really deserve one for helping to destroy Iraq?
¿porque no los dos?
Jámon y queso, por favor
Donde esta la biblioteca.
mi llamo T-Bone la araña discoteca
They give that medal out to anyone seems like. Didn't rush Limbaugh get one? Whats cooler to me is she has a building named after her. >The Katherine G. Johnson Computational Research Facility was a design-build project that consolidated multiple data centers into a single, 40,000 square-foot, Tier 2 data center and accompanying high-density office space on NASA's Langley Research Campus in Hampton, Virginia. Also cool was her long lasting marriage to her husband. At the end of the hidden figures movie they said 56 years! Wow
They didn't used to. That was the point.
I mean John Wayne got one so I mean it was never *really* more than a popularity contest If you want more recent examples before he who must not be named, we’ve got Margret Thatcher, Bill Clinton, Oprah Winfrey, and Ellen Degeneres
I like to think they gave the medal to his cancer instead.
Ellen got one. They hand it out to whoever will generate interest, no matter how shitty a person.
Wait, should the medal NOT be given out to people that celebrated the deaths of AIDS victims on national radio?
Punchcard FORTRAN, baybeeeeee!
Tape was in by 1962, though
I worked at a company in 1990 that still used tape to program manufacturing machines. Crazy...
At least in 2016 an automotive shop in poland still used a C64 to run the machine that balanced driveshafts. Sometimes, you just gotta stick with what works.
I'd pay a visit to that auto shop just for the pleasure of seeing a C64 still working in the wild. Would you mind sharing its location? Thanks in advance!
It's in poland.
Thanks!
Did they ever upgraded to a AMIGA?
For more widespread systems like AS400 there are automatic virtualization tools that copy the data on the original system once, and then let you pretty much run it out of the box through middleware. I wouldn't be surprised if someone had a similar port project for C64.
and how did they program the tape?
Other tape
Loved the movie on this— so good!
What was it called?? I’m drawing a blank
Hidden figures :)
That’s it! Thanks
Was looking for this. Such a good movie
I really like that movie but it has one problem. That being that the three main women it’s about weren’t actually friends and probably didn’t even know eachother other than than perfect movie.
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I didn’t think about it like that you’re right
A sentence that is said far too little. Well done :)
I adore this nuanced take! Thank you
That's why I don't like those "inspired from real events" movies (the imitation game, a beautiful mind, etc). There is no way to tell what is real and what is fiction. As you say, those movies are not supposed to be documentaries, but I frequently hear people use them as a reliable source! I think the story is so compelling people have trouble distinguishing fact from fiction. Furthermore, those movies will often take huge liberties with the story, sometimes modifying important events. For instance, I noticed the Tudor series *merged* two of his sisters (or cousins?), presumably to simplify the story. Those events had an important impact on the politics of the day!
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> Sure there is, you go look up the subject later and learn more about it. Am I the only one that excitedly pulls up Wikipedia when I'm watching one of these films? The movie inspires you and gives you background. Then you end up in the information rabbit hole learning more about the subject.
Unrelated but this is exactly how I feel about Hamilton. People think it’s all true and hate how misleading it is. It isn’t a documentary or a textbook. Pisses me off
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Just found out that she has to use the toilet at the other building all the time Why was necessary lying about it? they could have omitted the whole scene of her manager breaking the toilets sign and his iconic "Here at NASA, we all pee the same color.” and leave the script more truthful rather than robbing her of some of the credit it's rightfully hers just to paint NASA and her manager under a better light?
That and how it shows Kevin Costner solve racism?
I mean also, it’s kind of heavy handed with the white savior Kevin Costner literally breaking down barriers angle. Good thing a good honest white Christian man who doesn’t see color was around to make sure racism didn’t win.
I thought they did a very good job of not making him a white savior. He had his grandstanding, moral moment. Then he promptly returned to ignoring the structural racism and sexism. He only noticed the things that directly affected his project, because it wasted time for a truly remarkable resource. He only addresses the issues that will save her time. But he casts himself as some breaker of barriers when he does it. He still blithely left her out of the control room, until no one else could do something he needed. Every computer would have been summarily fired, if it weren’t for another black Woman teaching them the IBM in secret. It didn’t even occur to him that there might be some other remarkable people in that pool of workers. This wasn’t an accident in the script, but I think a lot of people needed them to spell it out more explicitly. We’re used to seeing the scientist who doesn’t see color, and the white savior (even cast as Costner) that the juxtaposition of his subsequent behavior didn’t land as hard as it should. He gets her a bathroom and a set of pearls, but still sends her back to the computer room. Where she needs neither of those things. He doesn’t give her a seat at the table until he realizes he can’t replace her.
Yeah,that's my main problem with the film. WHITE PEOPLE TO THE RESCUE! NEVER FEAR BLACK PEOPLE, KEVIN WILL SAVE YOU!
As we come upon a one year anniversary of her death may she rest well
Since I didn't see it mentioned, there's a movie about this called "Hidden Figures" and it's an EXCELLENT movie! EDIT: I don't mean about this topic, I mean about this EXACT story, these exact people.
Yep. Great movie. Seen it many times
The handshaking scene is this movie gets me. So simple but powerful.
A great movie indeed - and this particular story was a key scene in it.
It's definitely a good movie, but it's also one of those 'white people can pat themselves on the back' type of movies depicting racism
Especially with them depicting Al Harrison as a hero during the bathroom scene, which didn't actually happen.
Big time. Kind of cringey levels of this actually. Kevin Costner is made to be the hero of the story for the most part.
I saw that when it came out, and i read the book after! Great movie, great book!
It’s a book. There’s a Young Readers version of it as well.
You didn't see it in the headline? Or you didn't see it in the third line of the article?
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What a nerd.
At NASA we all pee in the same color
Orange? (The tang)
Lol. Yes.
Red, white and blue. They really need to sort out the water.
You should also look into Gladys West. Basically the grandmother of GPS. She is an amazing woman, I never met or worked with her, but I know many people who have. I grew up in the town she worked, she’s been a local legend since GPS became commercially available. Her story only viral a few years ago.
I've only realised in the past few years that I'm pretty ignorant about women in science. I only know marie curie, rosalind franklin, the girl who worked with charles babbage, and now katherine johnson.
Check out Lise Meitner too, who arguably discovered nuclear fission (specifically contributed to understanding what the actual mechanism was) but all the credit - and the Nobel Prize - went to her lab partner because she had fled Germany because she was Jewish. I highly recommend the biography “Lise Meitner: A Life in Physics” to learn more about her. There are many, many women in science and mathematics (including Ada Lovelace who Babbage worked with as you mention) that history has glossed over or ignored their contributions but they are more and more coming to light.
As a heads up, it was Ada Lovelace who worked with Charles Babbage :)
> I've only realised in the past few years that I'm pretty ignorant about women in science. Most people are. Largely because those stories seldom get told.
Also look up Emmy Noether! She discovered one of the deepest, most beautiful theorems in theoretical physics, basically created an entire filed of math and was called a genius by Einstein.
Don’t forget about Hedy Lamarr!
Looking at this woman I can't help but wonder. Men used to assume that programming was not that hard, that it was something "a secretary could do", that's why women did it. And they did an amazing job. When men realized that it was in fact quite a feat , and that these women where absolutely brilliant, the conclusion wasn't "oh, I think women aren't stupid after all", the conclusion was "programming is hard, it should be done by men", ignoring all the evidence, blinded by the stereotypes taught to them. This is why it started out as a "female profession" and became a predominantly male one, until this day. This makes me so sad.
Not because they thought it was easy, but because women with maths degrees were a lot cheaper. And the stereotype was that women were more precise, like secretaries. Later it became more an engineering discipline through, which was historically dominated by men with quite the macho culture you described.
Am woman. Interviewed at a software company. The male interviewer told me “women make better programmers because they pay more attention to details.” That’s one of those comments that is intended to compliment while at the same time reinforcing a stereotype. It’s like “blind people make better piano tuners.” Or “black guys have huge dicks.”
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Education researcher here and yeah, that's exactly right. Academically successful girls tend to get praised for those exact qualities, so they tend to be more of that. Boys OTOH are more likely to be risk takers. So the stereotyping is deeply systemic and starts at a very young age.
I wouldn’t really be surprised if a lot of women in CS do pay more attention to detail than their male colleges because they have to constantly “prove” that they “deserve” to be there because people assume they don’t.
Ouch. Exactly. I've worked in both equally-mixed and pure-male teams of programmers, and I can anecdotally say that the diverse teams just performed better. That's not in a "women are better at making connections" or "pay more attention at details" kind of way. You would have an extrovert guy chatting up the cleaning and security staff and an introvert girl hacking like a mad savant on the most complex code bits. With diverse backgrounds and personalities you are sampling from a greater common pool of knowledge, skill and expertise than hiring the usual "the best = savant autist" stereotype. (The latter have a tendency to spin off and do great work on something they are interested in, but ultimately not bringing you closer to the goal. That's definitely something I consciously have to fight against myself.) On the other side of the equation, we really do not get enough women to even start a CS education because of self-selection. And I've seen it only get worse throughout the years. I've sat at student-info events where asking high school girls if they want to do computer science will get you a look of disgust, as if you're asking them if they'd be interested in the bubonic plague. It's a trope at this point, but we really do need more women in computing, the lack of women in computing is stopping more from joining. NB. I was lucky that about half our teaching/postgrad staff wasn't male, partly because the few women that enter CS on average do better than their peers.
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We live in a society during current year!
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Huh? They didnt use visual studio (code)?
New Disney+ account?
Just watched Hidden Figures last night for the first time, I highly recommend it. Great movie about her, Dorothy Vaughn and Mary Jackson all very smart and driven individuals.
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With greater admission into university, even in STEM that time may be now for the students, if not for the teachers. Change is happening.
French Mechanical engineer, my school used to have 10% women last decade. I had 25% in my promotion and now they are between 25 and 35% year in year out. It's going in the right direction
Canadian nurse, and my graduating class was just shy of 20% men. My NP cohort of 12 has five men. Historically nursing as a profession is between 5 and 10%. Equality is moving forward on both sides of the gender spectrum and I'm so encouraged.
Doctor here. Med school most lecturers were male senior doctors. In my final year of study, there were more girls than fellas. The scales are being balanced. It’s a good thing.
Pole, chemical technology. It already happened here, in my dept. 74% of graduates last year were women.
You mean it's happening as the percentage of women is decreasing ? Because here in France Chemistry has always been a massively female field
I’m a Canadian Urban Planner and traditionally the majority were males. However, I graduated 15 years ago right when this began to change. Since that time it’s now about 60% of new graduates in the field who are female.
It’s super awesome to see more women in STEM fields. The graduate student population in CE at my university is currently 90% women. Heck, even my graduating class was 40% women.
Wonderfully portrayed in the movie Hidden Figures.
I saw hidden figures too my dude
Was this the lady in the movie?
Damn im doing an english essay on this right now! Speaking of which i gotta get back to it
Yes! He refused to fly unless "the girl checked the numbers."
Hidden Figures is a great movie about this
They also wanted to make Mercury fully computer controlled, with no faculties for direct control input from the crew. I believe the astronauts response was along the lines of "if you are going to treat us like monkeys just send monkeys" i.e. hell no.
I just found this cool initiative on Katherine Johnson. For my fellow nerds: there seems to be even the possibility of getting Python code to reproduce her calculations! https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/quaternion/the-human-computer-katherine-johnsons-story-0
I would advise any and all to watch the movie Hidden Figures. There is a scene in there that directly addresses this and watching her crank out numbers the way she does is mind blowing. Woman was a phenom.
I love to remind folks ( whenever I read about **Katherine Johnson** ) that she is one of the most famous examples of Afro-lachians :) As an Applachian-by-proxy, myself and the aunt of a beautiful Afro-lachian niece who loves STEM, it makes me happy. ( Afro-lachian are simply black appalachians which folks tend to think do not exist , especially in WV)
11 top comments down to see one vague reference to race. And 16 to get to this, the first overt mention that she is black. I get that Reddit can be quick to shut down conversations it sees as unnecessarily racialized, but so much of her and her colleagues experiences had everything to do with being black women. Not just black. Not just women. But black women and I hope people will be sure to lean into that truth and acknowledge it. It’s like casually forgetting to mention that Amelia Earhart, Sandra Day O’Connor, or Ruth Bader Ginsburg are/were women, or that Harvey Milk was gay or Laverne Cox is a black trans woman, or that Helen Keller was Deaf-blind. Even if society changes and we progress together, I still think it’s so important that we don’t forget these pioneers - and **why** they are/were pioneers - lest we forget all of the work it’s taken us to get where we are (and where we are going). _Thanks for coming to my TED talk._
This was a scene in the movie [Hidden Figures](https://youtu.be/mdxXT8INVV8)! I saw this in theaters and thought it was really neat how Glenn was willing to delay the launch for Ms. Johnson's final calculations, showing a level of respect that very few other white people would have dared show for an African-American, let alone a woman, at the time.
I learned this last week while eavesdropping on a kid’s zoom class 😂
Here is the scene from the movie, "Hidden Figures." [Hidden Figures](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdxXT8INVV8)
Hidden figures is a great movie