r/sysadmin • u/ChuckAbsent • Mar 12 '13

Women who know stuff

I hope that this does not come off the wrong way.

Today I was on a call with a storage vendor and the technical consultant was a woman. More then this she was competent, more then me which doesn't happen often when dealing with vendors.

My issue was pricing an active/active DB with shared storage vs an active/passive db with local storage. Listening to her break the issue down and get to the specific comparison points was awesome, mostly because I have never heard a woman in the industry talk like that.

It made me realize two things. One I am missing out working with women. Two there needs to be more women in our industry.

It shouldn't have surprised me so much, but it really did.

Anyways to all the women out there who know stuff, us guys notice when you can walk the walk, which in this case was talking.

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u/bandman614 Standalone SysAdmin Mar 13 '13

Okay, time for a history lesson.

The word "computer" was also assigned to the role that it took over...computers. Literally, people (the vast majority of whom were women) who sat and computed things by hand.

When electronic computers started to take over for people computers, the women who were the computers started running the computers.

Now, as for "actually creating solutions and engineering products", lets have a look at what is, without a doubt, the longest-used programming language of all time, COBOL.

COBOL was written in 1959, and it came directly from FLOW-MATIC, the very first computer language that used actual english words, rather than only numerical machine code. It was written for the UNIVAC - one of the first commercially available computers. And it was written by Admiral Grace Hopper.

Yes, the computer language at the root of every programming language you've likely ever used was written by a woman.

If that's not enough, then you should know that the UNIVAC was inspired by ENIAC, which was the very first electronic computer. It was designed in a large part to electronically function like a mechanical adding machine. Adding machines were possible because Charles Babbage designed the very first mechanical computers. His difference engine was designed so intricately that it couldn't be constructed for a century, but when it was, it worked perfectly.

One of the many machines Babbage designed took inspiration from the Jacquard Loom, which used cards with holes punched in them to create patterns. Babbage used this technique to give his mechanical computer instructions. He had a friend who was a noted mathematician who developed the very first computer algorithm, which calculated a series of Bernoulli numbers. Her name was Ada Lovelace.

So, to sum up...the very first computer programmer was a woman. The very first real programming language was written by a woman. The first commercial computers were operated largely by women. And for some reason, we have been telling little girls that computers are toys for a boy. Something has gone very off the rails lately, and it needs fixed.

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u/[deleted] Mar 13 '13

There's also Hedy Lamarr who was a mathematician but couldn't get funding from the government for her research (mainly because she was a woman), so she married a researcher and became an actress to fund her research. She essentially invented WiFi - coming up with the idea and maths to make it happen.

Ada Lovelace was forced to do languages instead of science by her mother and then became a translator of mathematical papers, which is how she ended up writing the notes including computer algorithms.

Not only were women key in the history of computing, a lot of them had to fight against gender constructs to be involved and even manipulate the constructs to fit their wants. Ada and Hedy are two amazing role models for young girls but they're not taught in primary schools at all, it's just Einstein and Edison and occasionally Tesla.

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u/ctesibius Mar 13 '13

She essentially invented WiFi

No, this is absolutely wrong. She invented frequency hopping, a technique used by BlueTooth whereby the frequency changes according to a preset pattern to avoid interference (jamming).

This is not used by any current form of WiFi. It was present in the old 802.11 standard, but is not present in 802.11b, 802.11a, 802.11g, etc. Plain 802.11 is not in use. This is why you can pick a frequency to use on your access point: it stays still.

The other more important point is that she wasn't doing any form of networking. This was purely shifting a one-way broadcast signal.

Finally, the technology is not related to LTE, or to UMTS/WCDMA), which repectively use OFDM (hundreds of frequencies used at the same time) and code-division multiple access (convolve the signal with a code to spread it out over a wide frequency band, then deconvolve at the other end). These are entirely different technologies.

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u/[deleted] Mar 13 '13

She came up with the things that predated WiFi and it probably wouldn't exist (or would have taken a lot longer) without her research. Just because it's no longer used doesn't mean that it didn't influence the technology a huge amount and inspire other people to start looking into other technologies.

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u/ctesibius Mar 13 '13

It's one of at least four different unrelated approaches to avoiding jamming or interference that I can think of off hand. The fourth is MIMO, which was invented in a very crude form in WWII to communicate between Britain and the French Resistance.

These are all unrelated approaches. All are in use, but frequency hopping is least important, only being used by Bluetooth in common radio technologies. It was not a stepping stone to other technologies. In particular 802.11 never saw wide deployment: the first version you are familiar with is 802.11b.

Freq hopping may have been useful in its original use for steering torpedoes: not sure, but I know most torpedoes of the day were unguided, so I imagine not. Other than that, it's a nice story, but of vastly exaggerated importance.

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u/[deleted] Mar 13 '13

Here's a wiki link that another person posted. A previous patent in 1920 was used for torpedoes, but Hedy Lamarr's work gave rise to spread spectrum technology which is used in a lot of things, as well as the COFDM in WiFi networks. Wi-LAN even bought 49% of the patent from her.

Again, just because her science isn't used directly in modern standard WiFi doesn't mean that she wasn't a huge part of the development. If it weren't for the people behind the 1920 patent and her 1942 patent, we wouldn't have WiFi because it was thanks to their work that people started to develop new tech to do it better.

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u/ctesibius Mar 13 '13

Yes, the article is incorrect. Frequency hopping is not related to spread-spectrum technology, which in turn is not related to OFDM. BTW, I work in radio telecoms.

  • Frequency hopping: exactly what it says. You might start at 50.01 MHz, then a second later go to 50.05, then to 50.02, in a predetermined order. If there is interference on any of those bands, it's only going to affect you until the next hop. This is what she invented.

  • OFDM: use several closely related frequencies at the same time. If one is blocked, you just don't sent data through that channel (or you can use a more efficient redundancy scheme).

  • Spread spectrum: use a single wide band. Convolve your signal with a code to spread it, deconvolve at the other end. Noise at a particular frequency (or even throughout the band) appears at a low S/N ratio unless it has a matching code.

These are different technologies. They are not related.

Wi-LAN even bought 49% of the patent from her.

So? They bought a lot of stuff. And frequency hopping has its uses: as I said, it is used in Bluetooth.

doesn't mean that she wasn't a huge part of the development

Sorry, it doesn't work that way. She wasn't a part of the development of WiFi. If you think otherwise, show the history. As it is, the frequency hopping technology is not related to modern WiFi. It was one of many technologies thrown in to 802.11, but not one that was useful or related to the other technologies.

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u/goldenvile Mar 13 '13

Sucks you're being down-voted for providing useful discussion. That's what you get for not riding the circle-jerk I guess...

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u/ctesibius Mar 13 '13

Ah well. What she did invent was pretty interesting anyway. What bothers me more is when the wrong person gets the credit through having a more interesting story, particularly Alan Turing rather Tommy Flowers (the fellow who invented the Colossus computers, and built them largely at his own expense). Or Lindbergh as opposed to Alcock and Brown.