Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/05/02/watch-computing-pioneer-grace.html
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That was awesome and actually informative.
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Hang on, I’ll be back in a nanosecond…
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I think this was on 60 Minutes, or maybe PBS at some point.
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She was one of the greats, and an inspiring computer scientist/engineer.
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I seem to remember her explaining this on a “60 Minutes” segment about her from the same time period. Either way, it’s something that stuck with me in the same way Feynman’s explanation of the Challenger O-ring failure did. She was a towering figure in computing.
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The full 60 minutes story is online too
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@pesco I think she was a Rear-Admiral. (Isn’t rank capitalised any more, as a proper noun?)
Certainly she was not a “read admiral” - which is not quite a butterfly - though she may well have been a naval admiral who was “read”, I suppose.
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I still vote for Grace Hopper to be on the next $10 (binary, one-zero, get it?) bill.
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But how do you explain an attosecond?
Way too short to even see such a distance.
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60 Minutes, I think. I remember seeing it back then - I’d just started working as a COBOL programmer the year before. This lady is my hero!
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My father brought one of those nanoseconds home from one of her talks when I was a kid. I still remember it.
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Nano-seconds was all that was available after everyone had been served dinner, in our house.
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Was she on David Letterman ? Back of my mind, I recall something on his show and the discussion was about nanoseconds. Positive it was with her.
EDIT-
Yep, found it. From 1986. Interesting how that stuck in my head from over 30 years ago. I was heavy into programming then but now quite into electronics where I found nano in a lot of things. Neat!
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I was going to do a Mork and Mindy NanuNanusecond joke, but Grace Hopper is too awesome to do that to.
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She was! I was able to find this copy of it Grace Hopper on Letterman
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She really was amazing.
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Was it on 60 Minutes or 3.6e+12 Nanoseconds?
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That was lovely, but dammit, do SO fucking hate anything that autoplays when “done”. Well, in truth, I hate autoplay in general. Give me the optionf first.
