May 2023 - Members - lists.sigcis.org

Forum on Histories of the Internet - FINAL CALL for Abstracts of Proposed Papers
by tom＠abram.co 10 May '23

10 May '23

Archives of IT is organising a one-day academic-practitioner forum on the Histories of the Internet in January 2024 and we are now looking for proposals for papers and discussions. Deadline for Proposed Abstracts is 9am, Monday 29 May The forum will be hosted at the Livery Hall of the Worshipful Company of Information Technologists in Central London with space for 50 participants and the opportunity for more to join online. It would be great if you would be personally interested in participating and we hope you could share this information with your network and alert anyone you think would benefit from the opportunity to propose a session. More about the Forum The forum is designed to: . foster more critical, multidisciplinary perspectives on the history of computers, telecommunications, the internet, and related digital media; . illuminate how people, policies, initiatives and other social factors have shaped and are shaping technological developments; . feature talks and panels identifying a variety of competing perspectives on innovations or other key events in the history of information and communication technologies Calling for Abstracts of Proposed Papers We are now calling for abstracts of proposed papers that will bring together the insights gained from historical perspectives on the internet technologies and applications in education, civil society, business, industry, politics and government. Their aim will be to explore what can be learned from these histories and how historical perspectives can support future research, policy and practice for a network society. Abstracts of proposed papers should be between 300-600 words and sent to <mailto:forum@archivesit.org.uk> forum(a)archivesit.org.uk. The deadline is 9am, Monday 29 May. Those whose abstracts of proposed papers are accepted will be asked to provide a full paper, between 3,000 to 7,000 words, a month before the event. Click here for <https://archivesit.org.uk/ait-forum-on-the-histories-of-the-internet-call-f or-papers/> Full details about the AIT Forum Tom Abram Director - Archives of IT <mailto:research@archivesit.org.uk> research(a)archivesit.org.uk <http://www.archivesit.org.uk/> www.archivesit.org.uk > <https://archivesit.org.uk/sign-up/> Subscribe to our e-newsletter > Follow us on Twitter <https://twitter.com/ArchivesIT> @ArchivesIT > Please support us at <https://archivesit.org.uk/get-involved-4/make-a-difference/> https://archivesit.org.uk/get-involved-4/make-a-difference/ Registered Charity No: 1164198 This e-mail is confidential and may be privileged. It may be read, copied and used only by the intended recipient. If you have received it in error, please contact the sender immediately by return e-mail. Please then delete the e-mail and do not disclose its contents to any person. Tom Abram Director - Archives of IT <mailto:research@archivesit.org.uk> research(a)archivesit.org.uk <http://www.archivesit.org.uk/> www.archivesit.org.uk > <https://archivesit.org.uk/sign-up/> Subscribe to our e-newsletter > Follow us on Twitter <https://twitter.com/ArchivesIT> @ArchivesIT > Please support us at <https://archivesit.org.uk/get-involved-4/make-a-difference/> https://archivesit.org.uk/get-involved-4/make-a-difference/ Registered Charity No: 1164198 This e-mail is confidential and may be privileged. It may be read, copied and used only by the intended recipient. If you have received it in error, please contact the sender immediately by return e-mail. Please then delete the e-mail and do not disclose its contents to any person.

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AI and data science: Opportunities and threats
by Brian Randell 09 May '23

09 May '23

Hi: Last week a colleague of mine, Paul Watson, gave a lecture in Newcastle University's Insights Public Lecture Series: Title: AI and data science: Opportunities and threats. Abstract: Vast amounts of data are being generated in every aspect of our lives, and in every area of industry. How can we use this data to improve the economy and society for everyone’s benefit? Data science and AI are increasingly proposed as ways to achieve this, but what are they, and what are their strengths and limitations? This talk will introduce AI and data science, giving real-world examples of the opportunities and threats that they bring with them. Biography: Paul Watson is Director of the UK's National Innovation Centre for Data, Professor of Computer Science at Newcastle University, and a Fellow of the Alan Turing Institute. He began his career at Manchester University before moving to industry to help design a product based on his research. In 1995 he joined Newcastle University. He now leads the National Innovation Centre for Data which plays a key role in enabling private and public sector organisations to exploit data science and AI. Professor Watson is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering and received the 2015 Microsoft Jim Gray award for e-Science. I was not able to attend, but a recording of this lecture is now available on Youtube, at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SsTTmAcZWAU I've just watched Paul’s lecture. I strongly recommend it to you all - not just the last section, which is highly relevant to our recent discussions of ChatGPT as an untrustworthy aid to historical investigations, but in fact Paul's talk in its entirety. Cheers Brian

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ChatGPT’s Astonishing Fabrications about Percy Ludgate
by Brian Randell 09 May '23

09 May '23

Hi: Motivated by the extensive publicity and excitement about the new AI chatbot ChatGPT, a tool for answering natural language queries across numerous domains, I and colleagues undertook a brief assessment of its ability to answer questions on a computer history topic. To our astonishment ChatGPT responded with 48% fake facts to the twelve questions we posed it! A brief account of our assessment has just been accepted for publication by the IEEE Annals of the History of Computing. The full details of the assessment are to be found in the report “ChatGPT’s Astonishing Fabrications about Percy Ludgate” by Brian Coghlan, Noel O'Boyle and myself - available online at https://tinyurl.com/383pbuwb . Cheers Brian Randell

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Fwd: faculty position at Stevens for AY 23-24
by Andrew Russell 08 May '23

08 May '23

Hi folks - please see below, share, etc. Alex W can answer questions :) Andy Begin forwarded message: The College of Arts and Letters at STEVENS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY is seeking candidates for a one-year full-time, non-tenure-track appointment as Lecturer in Science & Technology Studies, commencing fall 2023. Candidates must hold a Ph.D. in Science & Technology Studies (STS) or one of its affiliated fields (i.e. the History, Anthropology, Sociology, or Philosophy of Science and/or Technology), and possess experience teaching at the undergraduate level. The successful candidate will be responsible for teaching multiple sections of HSS 371 Computers & Society and additional upper-level STS courses based on the candidate’s areas of expertise. Teaching load will be 4/4. This position is renewable. https://stevens.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/External/details/Science---Tech… thank you, Alex -- Alex Wellerstein Associate Professor and Director, Science and Technology Studies program Stevens Institute of Technology 1 Castle Point Terrace College of Arts and Letters Hoboken, NJ 07030-5991 Office tel: 201-216-8534 (x8534) Office: Morton 337 Web: https://alexwellerstein.com<https://alexwellerstein.com/> Blog: http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com<http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/> Book: https://book.nuclearsecrecy.com<https://book.nuclearsecrecy.com/>

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First hand account of automation in banking
by Bernardo Batiz-Lazo 07 May '23

07 May '23

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software failures
by Thomas Misa 05 May '23

05 May '23

Kim writes: "These are all in addition to the technical issues . . . such as performance issues, reliability issues, and misrepresentation by the vendor of the systems capabilities . . . . // I don't know of a great book or even article that describes this ..." Perhaps have a look at retired IBM-er Robert Britcher's *Limits of Software* (1999) and esp. his chapter 16 "The System to End All" which describes the stupendously expensive FAA Advanced Automation System (1981--94). "At $3.7 B, the AAS was one of the largest civilian computer contracts ever let . . . It was the largest single contract in IBM's history. At its peak, the project employed more than 2000 people--about $1 million a day" (p. 171) Best, Tom =========================================================== Thomas Misa tmisa(a)umn.edu | tjmisa.com Past President 2021-22 @SocHistTech <https://twitter.com/SocHistTech>

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CfA (extended): HaPoC 2023 - 7th International Conference on the History and Philosophy of Computing - new deadline 15 May
by Mate Szabo 03 May '23

03 May '23

Dear all. Submissions are still open for the 7th edition of HaPoC, to be hosted by the Faculty of Administration and Social Sciences at Warsaw University of Technology from 18 through 20 October, 2023. Important dates: - Submission deadline: May 15 (extended from April 30) - Notification of acceptance/rejection: June 30th, 2023 - Conference: October 18-20, 2023 Conference website: https://hapoc2023.sciencesconf.org/ Submission website: https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=hapoc7 HaPoC website (with links to past conferences): https://hapoc.org/ About the conference: Since 2011, the biennial History and Philosophy of Computing (HaPoC) conference series has contributed to building an interdisciplinary community that addresses the topics of computing and computing technology. HaPoC aims to bring together historians, philosophers, computer scientists, social scientists, legal scholars, designers, engineers, practitioners, artists, logicians, mathematicians, each with their own experience and expertise, to participate in the collective construction of a comprehensive and forward-looking image of computing. For HaPoC-7, we welcome contributions from researchers from different disciplinary backgrounds who intend to participate in the debates on the implications of computing and computing technologies for culture, science, and society. HaPoC participants contribute from their respective areas of expertise and are open to engage in interdisciplinary discussions across multiple fields. Topics include but are not limited to: - Historical aspects of computing - Philosophical aspects of computing - Ethical and legal aspect of computing - Social and cultural aspects of computing - Computing and the arts How to submit: We cordially invite researchers working in a field relevant to the main topics of the conference to submit two items for review: i. a short abstract of 180-200 words and ii. an extended abstract of at most 1.000 words (references included) Submissions shall be made through EasyChair under this link: https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=hapoc7 All abstracts will be reviewed by the members of the Programme Committee. We look forward to meeting you at HaPoC-7 in Warsaw! The local organising committee --- Lecturer in Computing School of Computing and Mathematical Sciences University of Greenwich https://gre.academia.edu/MateSzabo he/him

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PROGRAMme workshop: Future visions on computing and programming, then and now, June 12 Lille
by Liesbeth De Mol 03 May '23

03 May '23

Dear all, it is my pleasure to invite you to a PROGRAMme spring workshop: /Future visions on computing and programming then and now/ The workshop will be held on June 12 2023, in Lille, Maison de la recherche, Salle F0.13, Campus Pont de Bois. The campus can be easily reached from the Gare de Lille Flandres by taking the metro line 2, direction “Quatre Cantons”, get off at “Pont de bois”. The workshop is the second workshop organized in 2023 within the Lille-Paris Séminaire Histoire et Philosophie de l’Informatique et du Calcul (HEPIC) organized by Alberto Naibo and Liesbeth De Mol and supported by UMR 8590 IHPST; and UMR 8163 Savoirs, Textes, Langage. More details about the program can be found here: https://programme.hypotheses.org/programme-workshop-future-visions-on-compu… Subscription is free but necessary. Please send a message to Liesbeth De Mol (liesbeth.de-mol(a)univ-lille.fr) if you would like to participate, with best wishes, Liesbeth

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James Pelkey - in memory
by Andrew Russell 02 May '23

02 May '23

Dear SIGCIS - I’m writing to share the sad news that James Pelkey passed away earlier this year. Some of you may know his name from the oral history collection at CHM<https://www.computerhistory.org/collections/catalog/102746648> that bears his name. These interviews are a remarkable resource, both because they document the perspectives of many leading Internet pioneers - Licklider, Cerf, Kahn, Baran, Pouzin, Metcalfe, Postel, and more - and also because Pelkey conducted these interviews in the late 1980s, well before the social and commercial significance of their work was understood. Jim’s website, The History of Computer Communications<https://historyofcomputercommunications.info/>, is likewise an extraordinary resource: it has links to the interview transcripts, as well as Jim’s own personal story and his analysis—in the shape of hundreds of interconnected hypertext pages—of the formative years of computer communications. The site, which was completed in 2009, includes some valuable and underutilized primary sources, such as market research about the companies that made devices (modems, routers, and so on) that facilitated computer communication. Over several years I worked with Jim and our friend and co-author, Loring Robbins, to bring Jim’s work and insights to different audiences. For me, the main outcome of this collaboration was the time I was able to spend with Jim and Loring, which included a couple of lovely weeks visiting Jim at his home in Maui, as well as countless hours on the phone and, more recently, zoom. For computing historians, I’m happy that we were able to complete three publications together that may appeal to you, depending on your level of interest in the subject. It was Jim’s sincere wish that scholars in computing, computer history, business, and related fields would grapple with his work and the underlying source material, perhaps draw different conclusions, and use the work to inform teaching and knowledge about entrepreneurship, technological change, the late 20th century, and more. 1. Circuits, Packets, and Protocols: Entrepreneurs and Computer Communications, 1968-1988 (ACM Press, 2022). More information here: https://circuitspacketsandprotocols.com/. Over 600 pages of pure joy! Many thanks to Tom Misa, our area editor at ACM Books, for his support in bringing this to fruition. 2. “The Business of Internetworking: Standards, Start-Ups, and Network Effects” Business History Review 96.1, Spring 2022, pp 109-144. Available online via Cambridge Core<https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/business-history-review/article/abs…>. (and perhaps elsewhere). Special thanks to JoAnne Yates and Craig Murphy, who included this article in a special issue of BHR on Standards and the Global Economy. 3. “The Do-Or-Die Moments That Determined the Fate of the Internet<https://spectrum.ieee.org/computer-networking>,” IEEE Spectrum, published online March 27, 2023. This one wins the title for brevity, compared to the book and article in BHR, and is accompanied by some nice photos. I believe the plan is to include this essay in the print version of Spectrum that marks the 50th anniversary of the invention of Ethernet. Finally, I’m pasting below an obituary that Loring Robbins wrote. It provides a glimpse of Jim’s enormous legacy and warm spirit. Best regards, Andy ————————— James Pelkey had a big smile and an even bigger heart, and he made strong, lasting connections with people wherever he went. Whether paddling or hiking in the Adirondacks as a young boy, traveling to research emerging markets for new technologies, or probing the boundaries of consciousness through meditation, his curiosity drove him to explore the world and engage with it passionately. Jim was always eager to share his youthful energy and deep compassion with anyone in his presence. His laughter and sense of humor, his grounded advice, and his loud (often off-key) singing will be greatly missed by those he knew and loved. He died on February 16 on his home island of Maui, Hawaii at the age of 77. Born on March 12, 1946, to Lois Hoffer and Willis J. Pelkey in Saranac Lake, New York, Jim loved hiking, camping, and competing in basketball and track, holding a high school record in the high jump for many years. After graduating from Saranac Lake High School in 1964, he attended Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, graduating with a BS in Mechanical Engineering in 1968. The following year he attended Harvard Business School, receiving his MBA in 1970. After moving to San Francisco, Jim worked as a financial director for Sunset Designs, eventually helping the company launch operations in Canada, England, and France. He served as president of Digital Sound and later Sorcim before joining Montgomery Securities in 1984 to oversee its venture capital operations, becoming a general partner in 1985. From 1990 to 1992 he served as chairman of the Santa Fe Institute. He later held board positions with Prediction Company and Blue Sky Research. In 1989, Jim suffered an injury to his spine that left him paralyzed from the waist down. More debilitating than losing the use of his legs was the neuropathic pain he experienced regularly for the rest of his life. Despite his condition, he continued to travel, a longtime passion of his, and made several trips to investigate possible treatments for his pain. He was an early donor to the Neuroscience & Regeneration Research Center at Yale University and his connection with the lab helped alter the course of research on spinal cord injury to include the study of pain that often accompanies this condition. In 2007, he moved to Hawaii. Drawn to the upcountry region of Kula on the island of Maui, Jim made deep connections with many in his community, regularly attending gatherings of like-minded spiritual seekers and hosting events at his home. In his retirement, he took up painting, continued to follow NBA and college basketball avidly, and pursued his passion for history and economics. During his time at Montgomery Securities, Jim conducted a series of 85 interviews of engineers, academics, government regulators, and startup founders in the growing fields of data communications and computer networking. These interviews formed the basis of a decades-long project to document the birth of new industries critical to the evolution of the internet. Initially published online in 2009, his work was published in print in 2022 under the title Circuits, Packets, and Protocols: Entrepreneurs and Computer Communications, 1968-1988. Jim is survived by his friend and former wife, Dorothea Smith, his brother Brian, his nephews, Brent and Arik, and many close friends.

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New(ish) book: Klara and the Bomb
by Crystal Bennes 01 May '23

01 May '23

Dear SIGCIS, Some of you may remember my posting about my photobook project on Klara Dan von Neumann and women in computing to the list during its crowdfunding days in autumn 2021 (which many of you were kind enough to support!), but I wanted to flag that Klara and the Bomb was indeed published for anyone who might find the book of interest and hasn’t yet procured a copy. Publisher's blurb: Klara and the Bomb is a photographical and historical work that charts connecting threads between the invention of modern computers, the history of nuclear weapons and, in particular, the narratives of the women involved. While computing technology is ubiquitous today, its militaristic history and colonial connections continue to be underplayed or obscured: the modern computer originates in military-funded nuclear weapons research and development that took place during and after the Second World War. Many of these weapons were later detonated in the Marshall Islands where indigenous communities were coerced into leaving their homes. These interconnected stories are told through the little-known life of Klara von Neumann, who came to the United States after marrying the noted mathematician John von Neumann. As one of the first computer programmers, Klara’s story highlights the extent to which women were involved in the development of both computing and nuclear weapons from the 1940s onwards. Klara’s life ended tragically: in 1963, her body was found on the beach not far from her California home. Suicide by drowning, the coroner’s report stated. The book is available directly from the publishers (based in the Netherlands) for €35 + shipping: https://www.eriskayconnection.com/home/123-klara-and-the-bomb.html For those in the UK, I also have a number of copies remaining in my personal stash which are £35 (includes shipping). Please do get in touch if you’d like one. Very best wishes, Crystal -------------- Crystal Bennes Artist, Researcher & Writer hello(a)crystalbennes.comwebsite | twitter | instagram Order my debut photobook, Klara and the BombThorvaldsen's Weeds at Thorvaldsens Museum, June 2023 Platform, Edinburgh Art Festival, August 2023

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