June 2016 - Members - lists.sigcis.org

IBM 610
by John Impagliazzo 25 Apr '18

25 Apr '18

Hi All, Allegedly, some consider the IBM 610 Auto-Point computer (1959) the ‘first personal computer’. http://www.columbia.edu/cu/computinghistory/plugboard.html Is this true – even slightly true?? John John Impagliazzo, Ph.D. Professor Emeritus, Hofstra University IEEE Life Fellow ACM Distinguished Educator

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Planning for SHOT meeting in Singapore, June 26-29, 2016
by Andrew Russell 10 Nov '16

10 Nov '16

Colleagues - It was nice to see so many of you for the SHOT and SIGCIS meetings this past weekend in Albuquerque. From my point of view things went extraordinarily well, and I don’t have words to express how happy I am about the quality of scholarship and spirit of camaraderie that I felt throughout the weekend. I think we all owe Nathan Ensmenger a special thanks for such a fantastic keynote presentation on computing’s environmental history - throughout the day people were calling it powerful, moving, transformative, etc. Also on Sunday, we celebrated the achievements of our colleagues, including: - the ten young scholars who were awarded travel grants from MIT Press, the Computer History Museum, and the Mahoney Fund. - Rebecca Slayton, winner of the 2015 CHM Prize for her book Arguments that Count - David Nofre, Mark Priestley, and Gerard Alberts, winners of the inaugural Mahoney Prize for their article “When Technology Became Language” - Sarah McLennan, winner of SHOT’s 2015 Robinson Prize for her paper “Computing and the Color Line,” presented in a session organized jointly by SIGCIS and EDITH, thanks to Marie Hicks and Ruth Cowan. The main purpose of this message is to reinforce and amplify my call on Sunday morning for proposals for SHOT in Singapore in June 2016. SHOT will issuing its call for papers very soon, with a deadline in late 2015. In anticipation, please be thinking about participating in one of the following ways: 1. Put forth an Open Panel Proposal for the main SHOT meeting. SHOT will place a special emphasis on “open panel” topics that SHOT will circulate widely as it publicizes the CFP. 2. Organize a Complete Panel Submission of 3 or 4 papers for the main SHOT meeting. Please feel free to use the list or to contact me (or anyone on the SIGCIS Exec) if you want to float ideas and/or find extra panelists. 3. Submit a paper or panel for the SIGCIS 2016 Workshop that will be held, as usual, at the end of the SHOT conference in Singapore on Sunday, June 26. We expect to issue the CFP for the SIGCIS Workshop well after the SHOT CFP is issued; watch this space in mid-November or early December for details. As you contemplate your participation in the Singapore meeting, please keep 2 additional things in mind: 1. This is a terrific opportunity to forge new bonds with colleagues working on computing and information-related history and STS topics in Asia and the Pacific. To that end, if you have contacts there who have not been active in SIGCIS or SHOT, please do encourage them to join the SIGCIS list and to reach out to me if they want to join or help organize a session. 2. If you are in North America or Europe, try not to be too put off by the expense of the trip - particularly if you are in the early stages of your career. SHOT and SIGCIS have been raising funds for this conference for some time, and the generosity of our communities has been nothing short of inspiring. Travel support will be available! In summary: SHOT and SIGCIS 2015 were fantastic; it’s now up to us to make SHOT and SIGCIS 2016 even better. Please get in touch with me (or the list) if you have questions, suggestions, etc. about making the most of our opportunities at the Singapore meeting! Cheers, Andy Russell SIGCIS Chair

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Forbes speculates that Peter Thiel may be underwriting Ayyadurai's lawsuit
by Thomas Haigh 05 Jul '16

05 Jul '16

Interesting news updates. The Times this morning reported speculation that the lawsuits of Hulk Hogan and others against Gawker were underwritten by someone intent on bankrupting the company. The report suggests that Hogan’s case is being pursued in a very unusual way, designed to maximize the hit to Gawker rather than the size of the award. It notes that “Several legal experts said that it was particularly unusual for a plaintiff using a lawyer being paid on a contingency basis not only to turn down settlement offers (several sizable settlements were proffered by Gawker) but also to pursue a strategy that prevented an insurance company from being able to contribute to a settlement.” Also that “Mr. Harder has brought two new cases against Gawker that seem puzzling. One is a defamation case on behalf of Shiva Ayyadurai, who claimed to have invented email. Gawker had written an article challenging his argument, similar to an article from The Washington Post and others on the same topic.” http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/24/business/dealbook/gawker-founder-suspects… Now Forbes reports that Hogan’s case is underwritten by Peter Thiel, the guy who was paying people to drop out of college. Ayyadurai’s lawsuit is filed by the same lawyer as Hogan’s, but according to Forbes “It is unclear if Thiel is helping to fund Ayyadurai or Terrill’s cases against Gawker.” https://archive.is/5G63D. Best wishes, Tom NB: If you haven’t been following all this, for background see www.sigcis.org/ayyadurai <http://www.sigcis.org/ayyadurai> and www.tomandmaria.com/tom/emailgrab <http://www.tomandmaria.com/tom/emailgrab> .

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Tom Haigh on Bachman and IDS
by McMillan, William W 30 Jun '16

30 Jun '16

Hello, historians, elders, geeks, and lurkers. FYI, Tom Haigh discusses Charles Bachman and his development of the Integrated Data Store in Historical Reflections in the new issue of Communications of the ACM. Well worth reading, and suitable, I think, for assigned reading in even a lower-level database class or a related humanities class. I'm no DB wiz, but I've never had much affection for the relational DB model or the data world it imposes on us. I realize that efficiency trumps affection in data processing, but, coming way back from a psych and AI perspective, I am put off by the jettisoning of explicit semantic relations in data models. My take is that Bachman was more designing in the spirit of the latter. The relational model came thundering down the track and pushed semantic modeling off into the obscure byways. Nowadays, the NoSQL movement is growing like topsy as the likes of Amazon and Google bump into limitations imposed by balky, clunky, industrial-grade relational models. Maybe we're circling back in some sense to the elegantly-crafted database designs of Bachman, like some modern timepieces are eschewing boring blinking digits and reprising the art of past ages (search "Shinola watches Detroit" [1]). To the Americans on the list, Happy Independence Day! To the Brits, (Happy | Condolences on) Brexit Day! - Bill [1] Shameless promotion of my beloved Detroit.

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Cortada, All the Facts Book Discount
by James Cortada 30 Jun '16

30 Jun '16

Oxford University Press has just authorized a 30% discount on my book, All the Facts: A History of Information in the United States since 1870. If you wish to obtain a copy use the following: Order online at *www.oup.com/us <http://www.oup.com/us> *with promotion code AAFLYG6 to save *30%*! I hope this helps address the pricing concern some of you expressed to me. Thanks for the help so many of you have given me over the years in this and other projects. James W. Cortada Senior Research Fellow Charles Babbage Institute University of Minnesota jcortada(a)umn.edu 608-274-6382

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TOC: Spontaneous Generations, vol. 8 (2016): Science and Technology Studies and Social Inequality
by HAPSAT 20 Jun '16

20 Jun '16

Volume 8 of *Spontaneous Generations: A Journal for the History and Philosophy of Science,* has been published. The Editorial Board is pleased to announce the publication of the Journal's eighth issue, which features a Focused Discussion section devoted to the theme "Science and Technology Studies and Social Inequality." The journal is available via our website: http://spontaneousgenerations.library.utoronto.ca/index.php/SpontaneousGene… *TABLE OF CONTENTS* *FOCUSED DISCUSSION* STS and Social Inequality: Editor's ‎Introduction Christine V. Wood, Simon N. Williams ‎ Studying Science and Social Inequalities: Resurgences and ‎Divergences Steven Epstein ‎ ‎ ‎ Colorblind Science?: Perceptions of the Importance of Racial Diversity in Science ‎Research Kellie Owens ‎ ‎ ‎ Technology and Social ‎Inequality Caroll Pursell ‎ ‎ ‎ *ARTICLES* “What They Think of the Causes of So Much Suffering”: S. Weir Mitchell, John Kearsley ‎Mitchell, and Ideas about Phantom Limb Pain in Late 19th c. America Daniel Goldberg ‎ Maxwellian Electrodynamics Genesis and Development: Intertheoretic ‎Context Rinat Magdievich Nugayev ‎ *REVIEWS* Review: Nikolas Rose and Joelle Abi-Rached, Neuro: The New Brain Sciences and the ‎Management of the Mind Riiko Bedford ‎ Review: Thomas R. Dunlap, In the Field, Among the ‎Feathered Melissa Charenko ‎ ‎ ‎ Review: Cass R. Sunstein. Conspiracy Theories and Other Dangerous Ideas. Simon & ‎Schuster, 2014.‎ Ori Freiman ‎ A. Douglas Stone. Einstein and the Quantum: The Quest of the Valiant Swabian. ‎Princeton University Press, 2013.‎ Matthew Saul Leifer ‎ Roberts, Dorothy. 2011. Fatal Invention: How Science, Politics, and Big Business Re-Create ‎Race in the Twenty-First Century. New York: The New Press.‎ Alka Vaid Menon ‎ Review of Peoples' Science: Bodies and Rights on the Stem Cell ‎Frontier Joan H. Robinson ‎ Review: Cold War Social ‎Science Mike Thicke ‎

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future research for someone
by Jonathan Coopersmith 15 Jun '16

15 Jun '16

yet another roadbump on the way to the internet of things or a demonstration of creativity and uncovering yet another vulnerable service? https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/06/06/somebody-keep… Jonathan Coopersmith Professor Department of History Texas A&M University College Station, TX 77843-4236 979.845.7151 979.862.4314 (fax) http://historynewsnetwork.org/blog/author/42 : latest post on Osama bin Laden and NASA is http://historynewsnetwork.org/blog/153671 * FAXED. The Rise and Fall of the Fax Machine* (Johns Hopkins University Press) is the co-recipient of the 2016 Business History Conference Hagley Prize for best book in business history.

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Antikythera, revisited
by Evan Koblentz 14 Jun '16

14 Jun '16

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2016/06/14/the-w… I still say it's not a computer.

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CHM Update - New Oral History (Andreas Bechtolsheim)
by Dag Spicer 08 Jun '16

08 Jun '16

Just fyi, we just released this today… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GjR7sRASjdo&feature=em-uploademail Best wishes, Dag -- Dag Spicer Senior Curator Computer History Museum Editorial Board, IEEE Annals of the History of Computing 1401 North Shoreline Boulevard Mountain View, CA 94043-1311 Tel: +1 650 810 1035 Fax: +1 650 810 1055

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Fwd: Colossus veterans see the making and breaking of Lorenz
by Brian Randell 06 Jun '16

06 Jun '16

Hi: Here is the press release describing the very pleasant event I attended last week at TNMOC, Bletchley Park. Cheers Brian Randell Begin forwarded message: From: Stephen Fleming <stephen.fleming(a)palam.co.uk<mailto:stephen.fleming@palam.co.uk>> Subject: Colossus veterans see the making and breaking of Lorenz Date: 6 June 2016 09:44:11 BST To: <brian.randell(a)ncl.ac.uk<mailto:brian.randell@ncl.ac.uk>> Reply-To: <stephen.fleming(a)palam.co.uk<mailto:stephen.fleming@palam.co.uk>> NEWS RELEASE The Breaking of Lorenz Colossus veterans see the whole process at The National Museum of Computing 6 June 2016 For the first time ever, all the equipment used in making and breaking Lorenz, Hitler’s most secret cipher, was demonstrated with re-enactors to an audience including Colossus Wrens at The National Museum of Computing (TNMOC) on 3 June 2016. Full story and photos here: http://www.tnmoc.org/news/news-releases/veterans-see-lorenz-end-ends With BBC News coverage here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-36446422 ITV coverage here (video at end): http://www.itv.com/news/anglia/2016-06-03/from-berlin-to-bletchley-home-of-… And Getty Images: http://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail/news-photo/operations-director-at-the-n… -- School of Computing Science, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 7RU, UK EMAIL = Brian.Randell(a)ncl.ac.uk<mailto:Brian.Randell@ncl.ac.uk> PHONE = +44 191 208 7923 FAX = +44 191 208 8232 URL = http://www.cs.ncl.ac.uk/people/brian.randell

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