February 2020 - Members - lists.sigcis.org

Re: [SIGCIS-Members] Konrad Zuse's 1936 patent - German text?
by Brian Randell 24 Sep '20

24 Sep '20

Hi Mark: I have a copy of the original 1936 Zuse patent application that I had translated into English for my Origins book. (It took some finding - some of my Zemanek documents had strayed into the middle of the Zuse documents, and so had obscured them! :-) It is a type-written document, on the letterhead of Zuse’s patent attorney Dr.-Ing. Bruno Wolf, Berlin Charlottenberg 5, Kantstrasse 85, dated 9.4.36 (i.e. 9 April 1936). It is some twenty or so pages in length. However I should warn you that some of the pages are barely legible (though could probably be deciphered by someone who knows German - which I don’t). I could scan this document for you if you wish. (I have about two inches thick of documents about Zuse’s work, including a number of patents and patent applications, some pre-war, immediately some post-war, together with several typescripts from him. My plan is that this material will be added to the archive of my files held in the Special Collections section of Newcastle University Library. This already holds all the extensive correspondence that I was involved in while compiling Origins.) Cheers Brian On 24 Jan 2017, at 10:58, Mark Priestley <m.priestley(a)gmail.com<mailto:m.priestley@gmail.com>> wrote: Dear list, Zuse's 1936 patent "Method for Automatic Execution of Calculations with the Aid of Computers" is reprinted in Brian Randell's "Origins of Digital Computers" collections. Does anyone know if/where I can get hold of the German original? Thanks in advance. Mark _______________________________________________ This email is relayed from members at sigcis.org<http://sigcis.org>, the email discussion list of SHOT SIGCIS. Opinions expressed here are those of the member posting and are not reviewed, edited, or endorsed by SIGCIS. The list archives are at http://lists.sigcis.org/pipermail/members-sigcis.org/ and you can change your subscription options at http://lists.sigcis.org/listinfo.cgi/members-sigcis.org -- 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.ncl.ac.uk/computing/people/profile/brianrandell.html

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[CfA EASST/4S Prague] Other Indigenous “Knowledge Engineering” Systems: Designing and operating knowledge technologies at scale in emerging worlds
by Yoehan Oh 28 Feb '20

28 Feb '20

Dear list members, Apologies for cross-posting. Please take into consideration submitting your abstract to the open panel session at the EASST/4S conference in Prague, August 2020, "Other Indigenous “Knowledge Engineering” Systems: Designing and operating knowledge technologies at scale in emerging worlds." The upcoming EASST/4S conference 2020, the joint conference of the annual European Science and Technology Studies (STS) conference and the worldwide major annual STS conference, will be held in Prague, August 18-21, 2020 (official website: https://www.easst4s2020prague.org/) If you have any question, feel free to contact me (ohy(a)rpi.edu) If you might, hopefully, find this interesting to others in your networks, please share it with them. Key dates and the CfA are as the following: KEY DATES 29 February 2020: Deadline for abstract submission: 15 April 2020: Notification of acceptance of all abstracts TITLE *Other Indigenous “Knowledge Engineering” Systems: Designing and operating knowledge technologies at scale in emerging worlds *(*Open panel 131*) ABSTRACT Some scholars in digital humanities and critical internet and digital technologies studies have asked for bringing critical concerns about race, gender, postcoloniality, and other inequal power structures to their field (Nakamura 2013; Noble et al. 2016; McPherson 2013; Posner 2016; Risam 2018; Benjamin 2019). One way to address those concerns is illuminating technically-inventive subjectivities, by appreciating and thus empowering them through conceptualizations they deserve. STSers have conceptualized them and their artifacts as “Black vernacular technological creativity,” “techno-vernacular creativity,” (Fouché 2006; Gaskins 2019), “innovation from below” (Williams 2018), “ethnocomputing,” (Petrillo 1994; Tedre et-al. 2006; Eglash 1999), “postcolonial computing,” (Irani et-al. 2010; cf. Burrell 2012), and “black software” (McIlwain 2019); historians of computing have studied information architectures, hardware, and software in the Middle East, Latin America, East Asia, Midwestern U.S., and (post-)communist contexts (Bowker 1994; Medina 2011; Tinn 2018; Rankin 2018; Švelch 2018; Biagioli et-al. 2019). To further these conceptualizations, this panel will focus on less resourceful worlds’ captures of knowledge technologies, predominated by a few resourceful countries’ R&D communities like U.S., Canada, some Western Europe countries, China, and Japan: Knowledge discovery by data, Data engineering, Semantic technologies, and Search engines, etc (Collins 1987; Forsythe 1993). Questions to be addressed are: How indigenous, aboriginal, vernacular, decolonial, de-ColdWar, or less capitalistically/settler-colonially exploitative the knowledge engineering practices at scales by technical actors in the underrecognized/emerging worlds can be? Which speculative, experimental, or empirical cases can we dig into as the Indigenous “Knowledge engineering” Systems (Watson-Verran et al. 1995; Brereton et-al. 2015; Chamunorwa et-al. 2018)? KEYWORDS: knowledge engineering, knowledge technologies, technological agency, indigenous knowledge systems, emerging worlds THREE CATEGOREIS: Big Data; Information, Computing and Media Technology; Postcolonial/Decolonial STS CONVENORS: Yoehan Oh, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Wish you a happy new year. Best, Yoehan REFERENCES * Acker, Amelia, and Joan Donovan. 2019. "Data craft: a theory/methods package for critical internet studies." *Information, Communication & Society *22(11): 1590-1609. * Aouragh, Miriyam, and Paula Chakravartty. 2016. "Infrastructures of empire: towards a critical geopolitics of media and information studies." *Media, Culture & Society *38(4): 559-575. * Benjamin, Ruha. 2019. *Race after technology: Abolitionist tools for the new Jim Code. *John Wiley & Sons. * Biagioli, Mario, and Vincent Antonin Lépinay, eds. 2019. *From Russia with Code: Programming Migrations in Post-Soviet Times. *Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press. * Bowker, Geoffrey C. 1994. *Science on the Run: Information management and industrial geophysics at Schlumberger, 1920-1940. *MIT press. * Brereton, Margot, Paul Roe, Ronald Schroeter, and A. Lee Hong. 2015. "Indigenous knowledge technologies: Moving from knowledge capture to engagement, reciprocity and use." In *At the Intersection of Indigenous and Traditional Knowledge and Technology Design, *edited by Nicola Bidwell and Heike Winschiers-Theophilus, 239-258. Informing Science. * Burrell, Jenna. 2012. *Invisible Users: Youth in the Internet cafés of urban Ghana. *MIT Press. * Chamunorwa, Michael Bosomefi, Heike Winschiers-Theophilus, and Tariq Zaman. 2018. "An Intermediary Database Node in the Namibian Communities Indigenous Knowledge Management System." In *Digitisation of Culture: Namibian and International Perspectives, *edited by Dharm Singh Jat, Jürgen Sieck, Hippolyte N'Sung-Nza Muyingi, Heike Winschiers-Theophilus, Anicia Peters, and Shawulu Nggada, 99-117. Singapore: Springer, * Collins, Harry M. 1987. "Expert systems and the science of knowledge." In *The social construction of technological systems: New directions in the sociology and history of technology, *edited by Wiebe E. Bijker, Thomas P. Hughes, Trevor Pinch, 329-348. MIT Press. * Ebner, Susanne. 2019. “Hierarchies of Knowledge: Usage of a Chinese Media App in Rural Tamil Nadu” presented at the 2019 Annual Meeting of the Society for Social Studies of Science, New Orleans, U.S. * Eglash, Ron. 1999. *African fractals: Modern computing and indigenous design. *Rutgers University Press. * Forsythe, Diana E. 1993. "Engineering knowledge: The construction of knowledge in artificial intelligence." *Social studies of science *23(3): 445-477. * Fouché, Rayvon. 2006. "Say it loud, I'm black and I'm proud: African Americans, American artifactual culture, and black vernacular technological creativity." *American Quarterly *58(3): 639-661. * Gaskins, Nettrice R. 2019. “Techno-Vernacular Creativity and Innovation across the African Diaspora and Global South.” In *Captivating Technology: Race, Carceral Technoscience, and Liberatory Imagination in Everyday Life, *edited by Ruha Benjamin, 252-274. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press. * Irani, Lilly, Janet Vertesi, Paul Dourish, Kavita Philip, and Rebecca E. Grinter. 2010. "Postcolonial computing: a lens on design and development." In *Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on human factors in computing systems, *ACM. 1311-1320. * Kita, Chigusa, and Hyungsub Choi. 2016. "History of computing in East Asia." *IEEE Annals of the History of Computing *38(2): 8-10. * McIlwain, Charlton. 2019. *Black Software: The Internet and Racial Justice, from the AfroNet to Black Lives Matter. *Oxford University Press, USA. * McPherson, Tara. 2013. “US operating systems at mid-century: The intertwining of race and UNIX.” In *Race after the Internet, edited by Lisa Nakamura and Peter Chow-White, *27-43. Routledge. * Medina, Eden. 2011. *Cybernetic revolutionaries: Technology and politics in Allende's Chile. *MIT Press. * Nakamura, Lisa, and Peter Chow-White, eds. 2013. *Race after the Internet. *Routledge. * Noble, Safiya Umoja. 2018. *Algorithms of Oppression: How search engines reinforce racism. *NYU Press. * Noble, Safiya Umoja, and Brendesha M. Tynes. 2016. *The intersectional internet: Race, sex, class, and culture online. *Peter Lang International Academic Publishers. * Petrillo, Anthony. 1994. “Ethnocomputers in Nigerian Computer Education.” Paper presented at the 31st Annual Conference of the Mathematical Association of Nigeria (March 1994). * Philip, Kavita, Lilly Irani, and Paul Dourish. 2012. "Postcolonial computing: A tactical survey." *Science, Technology, & Human Values *37(1): 3-29. * Posner, Miriam. 2016. “What’s Next: The Radical Unrealised Potential of Digital Humanities.” In *Debates in the digital humanities 2016, *edited by Matthew K. Gold and Lauren F. Klein, 32-41. University of Minnesota Press. * Risam, Roopika. 2018. *New Digital Worlds: Postcolonial Digital Humanities in Theory, Praxis, and Pedagogy. *Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press. * Snow, Jackie. 2018. “We’re in a diversity crisis”: Cofounder of Black in AI on what’s poisoning algorithms in our lives.” *MIT Technology Review *(Feb 14, 2018). * Stöckelová, Tereza, and Jaroslav Klepal. 2018. "Chinese Medicine on the Move into Central Europe: A Contribution to the Debate on Correlativity and Decentering STS." *East Asian Science, Technology and Society. *12(1): 57-79. * Rankin, Joy Lisi. 2018. *A People's History of Computing in the United States. *Harvard University Press. * Stevens, Hallam. 2019. "Digital Infrastructure in the Chinese Register." *Made in China Journal. *4(2): 84-89. * Švelch, Jaroslav. 2018. *Gaming the Iron Curtain: How Teenagers and Amateurs in Communist Czechoslovakia Claimed the Medium of Computer Games. *MIT Press. * Tedre, Matti, Erkki Sutinen, Esko Kähkönen, and Piet Kommers. 2006. "Ethnocomputing: ICT in cultural and social context." *Communications of the ACM *49(1): 126-130. * Tinn, Honghong. 2018. "Modeling Computers and Computer Models: Manufacturing Economic-Planning Projects in Cold War Taiwan, 1959–1968." *Technology and culture *59(5): S66-S99. * Watson-Verran, Helen, and David Turnbull. 1995. "Science and other indigenous knowledge systems." In *Handbook of Science and Technology Studies, *2nd edition, edited by Jasanoff, S., G. E. Markle, J. Peterson, and T. Pinch, 115-139. Sage. * Williams, Logan D. A. 2018. *Eradicating Blindness: Global Health Innovation from South Asia. *Palgrave Macmillan. -- Yoehan Oh Ph.D. Student Department of Science and Technology Studies Rensselaer Polytechnic institute 110 8th Street Troy, NY 12180 USA e-mail: ohy(a)rpi.edu ; yoehan.oh(a)gmail.com phone: (518) 368-1257 pronoun: he/him

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Additional new finding aid from the Computer History Museum
by David C. Brock 27 Feb '20

27 Feb '20

The Computer History Museum is also delighted to let the list know of another recently processed collection in our archives, with a complete finding aid. It too was made possible through a grant from the National Archive’s National Historical Publications and Records Commission: Access to Historical Records program. The collection is Frank da Cruz’s materials on Kermit, a file transfer protocol and software package developed at Columbia University in the 1980s and after: https://www.computerhistory.org/collections/catalog/102721894 If you have any questions about this collection, and/or are interested in using it, start by contacting us here: https://computerhistory.org/collection-requests-contact-form/ +++++++++++++++ David C. Brock dcb(a)dcbrock.net 40 Russell Street, Greenfield, MA 01301 Mobile: 413-522-3578 Skype: dcbrock Twitter: @dcbrock Pronouns: he, him, his

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CNC e-book: Mastering Tolerances for Machined Parts
by Jonathan Coopersmith 27 Feb '20

27 Feb '20

Not historical but may have a lot of history and certainly some leads for doing a CNC history. Jonathan Coopersmith Professor Department of History Texas A&M University College Station, TX 77843-4236 979.739.4708 (cell) 979.862.4314 (fax) ---------- Forwarded message --------- From: SmartBrief <hds(a)smartbrief.com> Date: Wed, Feb 26, 2020 at 10:07 AM Subject: [eBook] Mastering Tolerances for Machined Parts To: Jonathan Coopersmith <j-coopersmith(a)tamu.edu> This is a paid advertisement for SmartBrief readers. The content does not necessarily reflect the view of SmartBrief or its Association partners. [image: Xometry] <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__aom.smartbrief.com_act…> Get The eBook → <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__aom.smartbrief.com_act…> <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__aom.smartbrief.com_act…> Mastering CNC tolerances can be challenging for designers and engineers. Are general tolerances good enough? When does it make sense to call out for tighter tolerances? Do you need a better understanding of fits, datums, or GD&T? In this e-book, Greg Paulsen, Xometry’s Director of Applications Engineering, and Jason McClure, Xometry's VP of Manufacturing, share their decades of knowledge on machining tolerances, their importance, and offer best practice guidelines you can use when doing your CAD designs and drawings for your next project. Get The eBook → <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__aom.smartbrief.com_act…> Xometry <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__aom.smartbrief.com_act…> is your source for on-demand manufacturing. We offer massive capacity, instant online quotes, and affordable pricing. Our nationwide network of over 3,000 manufacturing facilities enables us to maintain consistently fast lead times while offering a broad array of capabilities including CNC Machining, 3D Printing, Sheet Metal, Injection Molding, and Urethane Casting. We have a diverse customer base, ranging from startups to Fortune 100 companies and can make anything from a single prototype to 100,000 parts. We work with ITAR qualified facilities and we are ISO 9001:2015 and AS9100D certified. Trusted by Thousands: [image: Xometry's customers include engineers at BMW, GE, NASA, and the U.S. Army] <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__aom.smartbrief.com_act…> *“The Xometry web site is the best in this industry by a long margin. The quoting system is simply fantastic. Everything at Xometry operates in real-time. This is truly refreshing!”* —Deon Smit, DLS Projects [image: Facebook] <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__aom.smartbrief.com_act…> [image: Twitter] <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__aom.smartbrief.com_act…> [image: LinkedIn] <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__aom.smartbrief.com_act…> [image: Instagram] <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__aom.smartbrief.com_act…> [image: YouTube] <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__aom.smartbrief.com_act…> <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__aom.smartbrief.com_act…> <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__aom.smartbrief.com_act…> <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__aom.smartbrief.com_act…> 555 11th St NW, Suite 600, Washington, DC 20004, USA © 2019 SmartBrief About this email: SmartBrief will occasionally send emails from our business partners promoting products and services likely to be of interest and relevance to our readers. The content of these messages does not necessarily reflect the view of SmartBrief or its Association partners. update preferences <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__aom.smartbrief.com_act…> | unsubscribe <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__aom.smartbrief.com_acto…> View our Privacy Policy <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__aom.smartbrief.com_act…>

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Newly processed archival collections at the Computer History Museum
by David C. Brock 26 Feb '20

26 Feb '20

I’m pleased to announce that the Computer History Museum has several newly processed archival collections, with finding aids. This work was made possible through a National Historical Publications and Records Commission: Access to Historical Records grant. (See https://computerhistory.org/blog/new-grant-will-highlight-software-s-histor…) As part of the work, we are digitizing a portion of each collection. Our efforts are ongoing. The processed collections are: Robert Bemer papers https://www.computerhistory.org/collections/catalog/102724781 <https://www.computerhistory.org/collections/catalog/102724781> Adam Osborne papers https://www.computerhistory.org/collections/catalog/102738362 <https://www.computerhistory.org/collections/catalog/102738362> Mike Markkula collection of early Apple Computer material https://www.computerhistory.org/collections/catalog/102708204 <https://www.computerhistory.org/collections/catalog/102708204> 1185 Design records https://www.computerhistory.org/collections/catalog/102776101 <https://www.computerhistory.org/collections/catalog/102776101> Charles Bourne papers https://www.computerhistory.org/collections/catalog/102776102 <https://www.computerhistory.org/collections/catalog/102776102> First Osborne Group (FOG) records https://www.computerhistory.org/collections/catalog/102708253 <https://www.computerhistory.org/collections/catalog/102708253> If you have any questions about these collections or using them, please start by contacting the Museum here: https://computerhistory.org/collection-requests-contact-form/ Best wishes, David +++++++++++++++ David C. Brock dcb(a)dcbrock.net 40 Russell Street, Greenfield, MA 01301 Mobile: 413-522-3578 Skype: dcbrock Twitter: @dcbrock Pronouns: he, him, his

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Cfp for Open Panel on STS+Universities at 4s/EASST 2020 in Prague 18-21 August
by Sharon Traweek 21 Feb '20

21 Feb '20

Sunday 29 February deadline for Abstracts to participate in Open Panel 97: Locating & Timing Governance in STS and Universities Organizers Knut H. Sørensen (NTNU) and Sharon Traweek (UCLA) The panel will be held in Prague, 18-21 August 2020, at the joint conference of the European Association for Studies of Science & Technology (EASST) https://easst.net/ and the Society for the Social Studies of Science (4S) http://www.4sonline.org/ The EASST/4s 2020 Conference theme is Locating and Timing Matters: Significance and Agency of STS in Emerging Worlds https://www.easst4s2020prague.org/focus-and-themes/ For more conference information see https://www.easst4s2020prague.org/ https://www.easst4s2020prague.org/call-for-papers-and-panels/ https://www.easst4s2020prague.org/accepted-open-panels-all-abstracts/ Description for Open Panel 97: Locating & Timing Governance in STS and Universities Organizers Knut H. Sørensen (NTNU) and Sharon Traweek (UCLA) For many generations universities have been institutions of higher education and research. Now they are expected to contribute to local and global economies by commercializing research and spurring innovation, while addressing grand social challenges like climate mitigation and social disparities. They also must engage successfully in mass higher education and outreach with a variety of publics. This means that universities now occupy a strategic place in re/shaping society by circulating research and knowledge through teaching and professional expertise. Meanwhile, universities have become subject to increased auditing practices and austerity policies, locally and globally. Many universities turn to experts in branding and commodification for strategies in defining and representing their work as successful. STS provides resources for understanding such dis/continuities in the making and circulation of knowledge while the study of universities in dynamic ecologies is vital to addressing unexamined assumptions in STS about the relationship between research, teaching, and society, as well as the governance of that relationship. We invite papers that address how universities engage with the changing: - fragility and resilience of university cultures. - demands for rapid intellectual, social, and economic contributions to society; - work life and agency of academics - relationship between teaching, research, innovation, and outreach; - intersectional issues in knowledge making, teaching, outreach, funding, and society; - political economies of research, teaching, funding, and outreach; - campus infrastructures from software and budgets to buildings and transportation; and - increasingly complex webs of relationships among universities glocally through rankings, MOUs, satellite campuses, academic mobilities, etc. The organizers are co-authors of Questing Excellence: Tales of Two Universities (under contract with Routledge). Abstract Requirements: Give your main arguments, methods, and contributions to specific aspects of the panel topic in in 250 words or less. Deadline for abstract submissions is 29 February 2020 Submission information https://www.easst4s2020prague.org/call-for-papers-and-panels/ For more information contact: Knut H Sørensen, Interdisciplinary Studies of Culture, Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) knut.sorensen(a)ntnu.no<mailto:knut.sorensen@ntnu.no> https://www.ntnu.edu/employees/knut.sorensen Sharon Traweek, Gender Studies, University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) traweek(a)history.ucla.edu https://ucla.academia.edu/STraweek http://genderstudies.ss.ucla.edu/faculty/sharon-traweek

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Hiring Graduate Research Assistants
by Dr. Joy Lisi Rankin 19 Feb '20

19 Feb '20

Dear SIGCIS Colleagues, Please see below for AI Now’s announcement hiring (paid) Graduate Research Assistants (GRAs) for now *through the 2020-21 academic year*. In particular, I want to note that the Gender, Race, and Power in AI Program that I’m leading is planning to hire two GRAs. We welcome graduate students with any disciplinary or experiential background to apply, including technical and non-technical backgrounds, and especially those with experience in Science and Technology Studies, History, Media Studies, Critical Race and Gender Studies, Disability Studies, Literature, Sociology, Anthropology, and Philosophy. Please share and circulate widely. Warm regards, Joy Joy Lisi Rankin Research Lead Gender, Race, and Power in AI AI Now Institute New York University www.joyrankin.com Dear friends, AI Now is hiring Graduate Research Assistants (GRA) to support the ongoing research at the Institute. These part-time positions are ideal for graduate students looking to gain exposure to the developing interdisciplinary field surrounding the social and political implications of artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies. We welcome graduate students with any disciplinary or experiential background to apply, including technical and non-technical backgrounds, and especially those with experience in Science and Technology Studies, History, Media Studies, Critical Race and Gender Studies, Disability Studies, Literature, Sociology, Anthropology, and Philosophy. You can find the full job description below and on our website. Applications will be accepted and reviewed on a rolling basis. Know someone who might be perfect? Please feel free to share this email. Thank you for helping the AI Now Institute grow! Kate, Meredith, and the AI Now team Learn More Tweet Share Share Forward Copyright © 2020 AI Now Institute, All rights reserved. You are receiving this email because you signed up to receive news and notifications about AI Now at www.ainowinstitute.org Our mailing address is: AI Now Institute New York University New York, New York 10013 Add us to your address book Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list.

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Second CfP HaPoP-5, 27 May 2020, Paris
by lidemol 18 Feb '20

18 Feb '20

Dear all, it is my greatest pleasure to send you the second call for papers for the fifth symposium on the history and philosophy of programming, organized by the DLMPST/DHST commission HaPOC (www.hapoc.org) and to be held in Paris on 27 May 2020. If you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to contact me or Tomas Petricek (my co-chair), with best wishes, Liesbeth *HaPoP 2020* Second call for papers Fifth international symposium on the History and Philosophy of programming 27 May 2020, Paris, France Co-located with NewCrafts 2020, 28-29 May 2020 https://www.shift-society.org/hapop5/ In a society where computers have become ubiquitous, it is necessary to develop a deeper understanding of the nature of computer programs, not just from the technical viewpoint, but from a broader historical and philosophical perspective. A historical awareness of the evolution of programming not only helps to clarify the complex structure of computing, but it also provides an insight in what programming was, is and could be in the future. Philosophy, on the other hand, helps to tackle fundamental questions about the nature of programs, programming languages and programming as a discipline. HaPoP 2020 is the fifth edition of the Symposium on the History and Philosophy of Programming, organised by HaPoC, Commission on the History and Philosophy of Computing. As in the previous editions, we are convinced that an interdisciplinary approach is necessary for understanding programming with its multifaceted nature. As such, we welcome participation by researchers and practitioners coming from a diversity of backgrounds, including historians, philosophers, computer scientists and professional software developers. /Programming as an art, a craft or a science/ This edition of the symposium will be colocated with NewCrafts, an international software development conference for professional developers who care about quality code and improving their practices. In recent years, NewCrafts featured many talks on software craftsmanship, programming paradigms, architecture, but also ethics and philosophy and history of computing. To initiate an inspiring conversation between the NewCrafts and HaPoP communities, we are particularly looking for talk proposals that discuss the question in how far programming can/has been/should be understood as an art, a craft and/or a science and what that implies both for the practice of programming as well as for our understanding of computer programs. We may not be able to answer this question, but we believe it will lead to useful insights about the nature of programs and programming. We also welcome papers with a broader scope. /Selected topics of interest for the symposium/ Possible and in no way exclusive questions of relevance to this symposium are: Can/has been/should be programming understood as an art, a craft and/or a science? Are we getting better at writing programs that solve the given problem? Is programming a specialist discipline, or will everyone in the future be a programmer? What are the different scientific paradigms and research programmes developed through the history of computer programming? Is it possible to eliminate errors from computer programs? What is a program? How did the notion of a program change throughout the history? How are programs and abstractions born, used and understood? What was and is the relationship between hardware and software developments? How did theoretical computer science (lambda-calculus, logics, category theory) influence the development of programming languages and vice versa? What are the novel and most interesting approaches to the design of programs? What is a correct program? Historical and philosophical reflections on issues in formal specification, type checking and model checking. What is the nature of the relationship between algorithms and programs? What legal and socio-economical issues are involved in the creation, patenting and free-distribution of programs? How do we understand the multi-faceted nature of programs combining syntax, semantics and physical implementation? How is programming to be taught? /Dates, format and submissions/ For the symposium, we invite submission of two-page extended abstracts (including footnotes, but excluding references). Accepted papers will be given a 30 minute presentation slot including discussion. As with the previous editions, we also intend to submit a proposal for a special issue of a suitable journal for publication of full papers based on the symposium presentations. Important dates Submission deadline: *20 March 2020* Author notification: *20 April 2020* HaPoP symposium: *27 May 2020* /Important links/ Submission web site: https://easychair.org/account/signin?l=PRJGt7pZiwCv3QpOfMAmKd# Financial support: Coming soon Registraton site: Coming soon /Program committee/ Liesbeth De Mol (co-chair, CNRS – UMR 8163 STL Université de Lille) Tomas Petricek (co-chair – University of Kent) Arnaud Bailly (Aleryo) Martin Carlé (Ionean University) Andrea Magnorsky (Independent) Ursula Martin (Oxford University) Baptiste Mélès (CNRS, UMR 7117 Archives Henri-Poincaré Pierre Mounier-Kuhn (CNRS & Université de Paris-Sorbonne) Romeu Moura (Independent) Mark Priestley (Independent) Giuseppe Primiero (University of Milan) /Registration/ Program committee of the symposium, as well as registration information will be announced soon. Please check this page regularly for updates. We will be also sharing updates via the HaPoC Comission web page (register to get updates via email) and on Twitter at @HaPoComputing. HaPoP-5 co-chairs are Liesbeth De Mol and Tomas Petricek. If you have any questions regarding suitability of a topic or format of the extended abstract, please contact Liesbeth at liesbeth.de-mol(a)univ-lille.fr or Tomas at tomas(a)tomasp.net. For quick questions, you can also use @tomaspetricek on Twitter.

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Charles Babbage Institute's Just Code Symposium, Website/Program and Registration (Event May 8-9, 2020)
by Jeffrey Yost 18 Feb '20

18 Feb '20

Dear Colleagues, The website for the Charles Babbage Institute's Symposium "Just Code: Power, Inequality, and the Global Political Economy of IT" (May 8-9, 2020 at the Charles Babbage Institute, Andersen Library) is now up. Please see the website at: http://justcode.cbi.umn.edu/ The website includes the full program/schedule, registration form (registration is free), and other information. Con (UC Davis Assoc. Prof. of STS Gerardo Con Diaz) and I are thrilled with the tremendous program (stellar interdisciplinary scholars, diverse geographies, and vital, insightful papers on IT and race, gender, labor, disability, and the environment, and inequality/equality and injustice/justice globally). We are greatly looking forward to the event! I am hoping many of your will join us for this public day and a half symposium! (registration required). We've been delighted to see graduate students and academics steadily registering to attend from throughout the U.S. and across the globe. Please register soon, as space is limited. Please forward to those who might be interested. Best, Jeff and Con Jeffrey R. Yost, Ph.D. Director, Charles Babbage Institute Research Professor, Program in the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine 222 21st Avenue South University of Minnesota Minneapolis, MN 55455 612 624 5050 Phone 612 625 8054 Fax

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Happy 74th Birthday ENIAC
by Brian L. Stuart 15 Feb '20

15 Feb '20

On this, the 74th anniversary of the unveiling of the ENIAC, I've decided to post a couple of things I've been working on. The first is the 3D model of the ENIAC mentioned before. It's designed using brlcad, from the Ballistics Research Lab. It just seemed too appropriate to model it using the tool devleoped where it lived. The thingiverse link is: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4164825 The second thing is a draft of a chapter from a book I'm in the very early stages of. It describes the basic circuit designs used in the ENIAC with SPICE simulations of them. The layout and formatting are based on the old Army Technical Manuals of the time. http://cs.drexel.edu/~bls96/eniac/ch1.pdf Enjoy, BLS

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