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Welcoming Melanie Swalwell, new SIGCIS Co-Chair
by Andrew Russell 10 Sep '20

10 Sep '20

Dear SIGCIS: I’m writing to share some exciting news, which is that Melanie Swalwell has agreed to join me as SIGCIS Co-Chair, effective September 1, 2020. Melanie is Professor of Digital Media Heritage <https://www.swinburne.edu.au/research/our-research/access-our-research/find…> at Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne, Australia. Many of you will have met Melanie at SIGCIS, or know her work in the histories of digital games and digital preservation. You should expect to hear from Melanie about the reorganization of the SIGCIS Officers, and opportunities for volunteer positions to help SIGCIS continue to grow and change. And you’ll also hear from Laine Nooney about SIGCIS’s plans for virtual meetings in these months when we can’t meet in person - and in anticipation of the rescheduled joint HSS-SHOT meeting in New Orleans in October 2021. Take care, Andy Co-Chair, SIGCIS — — — — — — — — — — — Andrew L. Russell, Ph.D. Dean, College of Arts & Sciences SUNY Polytechnic Institute Donovan Hall - 2123B 100 Seymour Road Utica, NY 13502 t. 315-792-7317 w. https://sunypoly.edu/ e. arussell(a)arussell.org

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Two more biographies
by Ceruzzi, Paul 09 Sep '20

09 Sep '20

I am enjoying the "meta-discussion" about the value of biographies. Although not directly computer-related, these two deserve mention: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lives_of_the_Saints (Bonus points if you went to a Jesuit high school and read them in Latin.) https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/lives-engineers This edition is edited by Thomas Parke Hughes. At one time required reading for anyone studying the history of technology. Lives of the Engineers | The MIT Press<https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/lives-engineers> The original edition of this work, first printer as two volumes in 1861, has long been out of print and is now a collector's item. Samuel Smiles (1812-1904) was a popular writer of “edifying” books, in the Victorian sense, whose best-known work, Self-Help (published in 1859), had sold almost a quarter of a million copies by 1900. As a British counterpart of the writers of American ... mitpress.mit.edu Best, Paul Ceruzzi

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Re: [SIGCIS-Members] Request for biographies
by David Walden 08 Sep '20

08 Sep '20

About one book in Paul Ceruzzi's list: The JAN Lee "Computer Pioneers" compilation of brief biographies is on line at https://history.computer.org/pioneers/ Off topic a bit, but I mention it anyway: Jim Cortada's wonderful half memoir of his life studying and writing history: History Hunting -- A Guide for Fellow Adventurers.

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Only 1 Month Until Submission Deadline for ACM FAccT (formerly known as FAT*)
by Abeba Birhane 07 Sep '20

07 Sep '20

Hello all, The 2021 ACM Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency (FAccT, formerly known as FAT*) is an interdisciplinary conference currently soliciting work from a wide variety of disciplines, including computer science, statistics, law, social sciences, the humanities, and education. We invite submissions that touch on any of the topics of fairness, accountability and transparency (broadly construed). For more details, see https://facctconference.org/2021/cfp.html We welcome scholarship in dialogue with fairness, accountability, and transparency in computational systems, including critical approaches that investigate core assumptions and propose alternative designs, practices, and policies. We especially welcome contributions that consider dimensions beyond individual decisions, including equity and justice in systems, policy, and pedagogy. Important Dates Paper pre-registration: 30 September 2020 Paper submission: 7 October 2020 Notifications: 11 December 2020 Conference: early March 2021 All deadlines are at 11:59 PM anywhere on earth (AoE) on the given date. Authors are required to pre-register their papers through the submission site by submitting a tentative title and abstract and specifying their submission area(s) by Sept 30. This process will enable the Program Chairs to better anticipate the submission load and to make necessary adjustments to the program committee. Submitted papers must be 8-10 pages (including all figures and tables), plus unlimited pages for references. This typically corresponds to about 8,000 words for the main content. Optionally, authors can upload supplementary materials (e.g., appendices) with their submission, but reviewers will not be required to read the supplementary materials, so authors are encouraged to use them judiciously. Questions? Contact the Program Co-chairs: program-chairs(a)facctconference.org. And stay tuned for updates by following @facctconference on Twitter. Please forward this call to other people or groups you think may be interested. Best wishes, Abeba & Deb -- Cognitive Science Ph.D. candidate Complex Software Lab, Lero - The Irish Software Research Centre School of Computer Science and Informatics University College Dublin, Ireland https://abebabirhane.wordpress.com/ t: @Abebab (she/her)

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Re: [SIGCIS-Members] Request for biographies (von Neumann)
by Barbara B Walker 07 Sep '20

07 Sep '20

The “great man” approach to biography is indeed a pernicious one, even as the biography format is so useful as a learning tool for all of us, especially students (as I argued in previous posts to this thread). It is a problem I tackle in an article I recently submitted for publication called “Creation Myths: How John von Neumann helped to create a new capitalist community for computing through mathematical story-telling.” In it I try to take apart the “legend” of von Neumann a little bit. Regarding the IAS project, by going over the lists of visitors to and communications with the project, I show how it served as a locus for creating commercial interest around the electronic computer when it was still very hard for most people to understand what a computer even was. This too might help to explain why the project took so long – its purpose was less to complete the computer quickly than to attract “buzz.” I argue that Goldstone’s role as team leader in that project was very important for creating that buzz because of his particular facility in effective story-telling and myth-making – phenomena that (not co-incidentally) pervade his later book “From Pascal to von Neumann.” Sorry, I did not mean to burden this thread by posting yet again, but I think the problem of how to write valuable life-stories, keeping the “great man” phenomenon at bay while still exploiting the remarkable power of biography, is very important in the history of science and tech. From: Members <members-bounces(a)lists.sigcis.org> on behalf of Richard Vahrenkamp <vahrenkamp2(a)gmx.de> Date: Monday, September 7, 2020 at 1:54 AM To: "members(a)sigcis.org" <members(a)sigcis.org> Subject: Re: [SIGCIS-Members] Request for biographies Dear all, I would also like to refer to the memoirs "Los Alamos from below" of the physicist (and later Nobel Prize winner) Richard Feynman, how he became head of a computing group. According to his statements, in 1944 the group of female computers equipped with tabletop calculators was about as fast in completing a large calculation task as a group that had been equipped with Hollerith machines since 1944. However, as Feynman notes, the Hollerith machines never tired. I would like to make the following comments about the thread on books on monographs and biographies of scientists and mathematicians. Until 1990 the history of science and technology was an uncritical history of "Great Men" (heroic history). Since then, historiography has changed by seeing science embedded in society (Science in context: Readings in the sociology of science, edited by Barry Barnes and David Edge, MIT Press 1982, also the book by Edwards: The closed World). Therefore, it is also important in biography projects to critically examine the portrayals of the respective men and women with their justifications and to examine which topics they left out. For example, the need for fire tables as legitimation for ENIAC was a good argument for raising funds for the project. However, fire tables were rarely or never needed in war, as Mitchell and Akera have shown (Marcus Mitchell and Atsushi Akera: Exploring the Architecture of an Early Machine: The Historical Relevance of the ENIAC Machine Architecture, IEEE Annals of the History of Computing, 18 (1996), no.1, 17-24). Therefore, one should be careful about adopting the view of Goldstine's book (The Computer from Pascal to von Neumann 1972) when talking about the importance of fire tables. Using the Aspray biography of John von Neumann as an example, one could also refer to his chapter on the meteorology project at the Institute for Advanced Study (William Aspray, John von Neumann and the Origins of Modern Computing, Cambridge, Mass., 1990). This project was started in 1945 and was strangely unsuccessful for a long time. In the literature it is sometimes suspected whether this project was not meant to hide the fact that computer development at the Institute for Advanced Study was actually intended for Los Alamos. The meteorology project can also be linked to the question why only the digital computer, the IAS computer (which was not available until 1952), was used there, but not the electronic analog computer available since 1945 for the integration of the meteorological differential equations. Electronic analog computers had been common in the laboratories of the USA since 1945. After all, the models and data in meteorology were still very coarse until 1955. Therefore, the accusation of computational inaccuracy made against the analog computer is not really convincing. Moreover, in the neighborhood of the institute, in the laboratory of RCA in Princeton, large projects for the electronic analog computer were developed on behalf of the Office of Naval Research. None of this happens at all at Aspray, so one has to be careful when adopting Aspray's view. Greetings from Berlin Richard Vahrenkamp Author of The Computing Boom in the US Aeronautical Industry, 1945–1965 in: ICON – The Journal of the International Committee for the History of Technology, vol. 24, 2019, pp. 127–149. Available at ResearchGate. On 03.09.2020 13:31, Troy Astarte wrote: Dear SIG-CIS, What is your favourite biography of a scientist or mathematician? I’m particularly interested in modern subjects and those who worked in computing/computer science. Ideally the book would cover the subject’s work in a reasonable level of technical detail as well as their life and the broader context in which they lived and worked. I ask because I am considering applying for funding for an essentially biographical project on a computer scientist and I would like to read some (more) biographies first. Best, Troy Astarte School of Computing Newcastle University _______________________________________________ This email is relayed from members at 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/<https://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Flists.sigc…> and you can change your subscription options at http://lists.sigcis.org/listinfo.cgi/members-sigcis.org<https://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Flists.sigc…> -- ******************************************** Prof. Dr. Richard Vahrenkamp Logistik Consulting Berlin Phone 0177- 628 3325 E-Mail: Vahrenkamp2016(a)gmx.de<mailto:Vahrenkamp2016@gmx.de> Web: www.vahrenkamp.org<https://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.vahren…> Trendelenburgstr. 16 14057 Berlin *********************************************

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Request for biographies
by David Walden 07 Sep '20

07 Sep '20

Severo Ornstein's memoir "Computing in the Middle Ages -- A view from the trenches, 1955-1983". Available publicly at the Computer History Museum. https://www.computerhistory.org/collections/catalog/102785079 His journey goes from Whirlwind to TX-2 to LINC to ARPANET to Durado to Mockingbird. At least look at the annotated Table of Contents and read the Preface to see what you'd be missing to not read his well written story.

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Request for biographies
by Troy Astarte 07 Sep '20

07 Sep '20

Dear SIG-CIS, What is your favourite biography of a scientist or mathematician? I’m particularly interested in modern subjects and those who worked in computing/computer science. Ideally the book would cover the subject’s work in a reasonable level of technical detail as well as their life and the broader context in which they lived and worked. I ask because I am considering applying for funding for an essentially biographical project on a computer scientist and I would like to read some (more) biographies first. Best, Troy Astarte School of Computing Newcastle University

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Re: [SIGCIS-Members] Request for biographies (Lovelace in the humanities)
by Barbara B Walker 04 Sep '20

04 Sep '20

Oops, sorry, I just saw Paul Ceruzzi’s reference to Betty Alexandra’s work on Ada Lovelace, and Aristotle Tympas’ to Brittain on Edith Clarke, so there are a few. My own favorite biography of Lovelace is in video form: “To Dream Tomorrow.” It’s very good indeed, and goes into detail about some of the issues that have held up women the world over – bad health, especially as related to childbirth, little if any financial control, etc. A nice description of the video is to be found at: https://computerhistory.org/events/dream-tomorrow/ My female students have especially appreciated this movie as it reveals both the challenges to women and the persistence of one very talented woman. I have shown it in a humanities course just after teaching Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s “Emile,” which argues that girls’ education is to be very different from boys’, preparing them for the household rather than the strain of mental activity; and Mary Wollstonecraft’s later “A Vindication of the Rights of Women,” in which she argues that it is precisely the education of women to be obedient, emotional, and unable to use their minds that makes them less capable citizens. (Her argument for better female education is in part that this will make them better wives! – I guess she knew her audience…) Ada Lovelace’s mother, Lady Annabella Byron, was a follower of Wollstonecraft and educated her daughter fiercely for the life of the mind; Ada’s childhood illness and a strong inclination to math and invention led her into such 19th-century intellectual circles as that of Michael Faraday; somewhere in those circles she also met Babbage. If I have time I have even had my students declaim a poem or two by Ada’s father, the Romantic cult figure Lord Byron (“mad, bad, and dangerous to know”)! Not that she ever really knew her father… The story of Ada and female education also dovetails nicely with a class meeting on Faraday and the Royal Institution – I have them read some of his Christmas Lectures for that. Usually the ones on gravity and electro-magnetism. He must have been an excellent speaker – the simplicity and clarity of those lectures amazes and delights my students. Barbara Walker Associate Professor Department of History/308 University of Nevada, Reno Reno NV 89557 From: Members <members-bounces(a)lists.sigcis.org> on behalf of Jeffrey Mathias <jm2499(a)cornell.edu> Date: Friday, September 4, 2020 at 10:49 AM To: "Ceruzzi, Paul" <CeruzziP(a)si.edu> Cc: members <members(a)sigcis.org> Subject: Re: [SIGCIS-Members] Request for biographies Not to throw yet another title at an already overflowing list but Tara Abraham's biography of Warren McCulloch "Rebel Genius" is quite excellent and well worth a read. Also, Helene Mialet's "Hawking Incorporated" can be read really usefully as a new method for doing biography. Jeff On Fri, Sep 4, 2020 at 1:25 PM Ceruzzi, Paul <CeruzziP(a)si.edu<mailto:CeruzziP@si.edu>> wrote: Sorry if this response is too much. There are a lot of biographies about computer pioneers, but less so "computer scientists." I've left off autobiographies & memoirs but can supply a list if you wish. The following biographies tend to skew older, which is fine with me. Warning: the quality does vary: Paul Ceruzzi ______________________________ Aspray William John von Neumann and the Origins of Modern Computing Austrian Geoffrey Herman Hollerith: Forgotten Giant of Information Processing Belden, Thomas and Marva Lengthening Shadow, the: the life of Thomas J, Watson Berlin Leslie Man behind the microchip, the: Robert Noyce and the Invention of Silicon Valley Buxton H.W. Memoir of the Life and Labours of the Late Charles Babbage ESQ. F.R.S. Cohen I. Bernard Howard Aiken: Portrait of a Computer Pioneer Berg Christian Heinz Nixdorf: Eine Biographie [in German] Hodges Andrew Alan Turing: The enigma: the extraordinary story of the brilliant scientist… Hyman Anthony Charles Babbage: Pioneer of the Computer Macrae Norman John von Neumann: The Scientific Genius Who Pioneered the Modern Computer, Game Theory, Nuclear Deterrence, and Much More Manes Stephen Gates: How Microsoft's Mogul Reinvented an Industry - and Made Himself the Richest Man in America Mollenhoff Clark R. Atanasoff: Forgotten Father of the Computer Reid Constance Hilbert Rodgers William Think: A Biography of the Watsons and IBM Smiley Jane The Man Who Invented the Computer: The Biography of John Atanasoff, Digital Pioneer Toole Betty Alexandra Ada: The Enchantress of Numbers - Prophet of the Computer Age Van Dormael Armand Heinz Nixdorf: A German Computer Pioneer Wallace James Hard Drive: Bill Gates and the Making of the Microsoft Empire Zachary G. Pascal Endless Frontier: Vannevar Bush, Engineer of the American Century ________________________________ From: Members <members-bounces(a)lists.sigcis.org<mailto:members-bounces@lists.sigcis.org>> on behalf of Troy Astarte <Troy.Astarte(a)newcastle.ac.uk<mailto:Troy.Astarte@newcastle.ac.uk>> Sent: Friday, September 4, 2020 9:06 AM To: members <members(a)sigcis.org<mailto:members@sigcis.org>> Subject: Re: [SIGCIS-Members] Request for biographies External Email - Exercise Caution Dear all, Very many thanks to everyone who has sent suggestions, I’ve got a great reading list! I’ve already had a look at a few of them, and there’s some high quality work indeed. The only further question I would have is whether there are biographies with a higher technical content? Perhaps that just isn’t common in biographies? Best, Troy Astarte School of Computing Newcastle University On 3 Sep 2020, at 12:31, Troy Astarte <Troy.Astarte(a)newcastle.ac.uk<mailto:Troy.Astarte@newcastle.ac.uk>> wrote: Dear SIG-CIS, What is your favourite biography of a scientist or mathematician? I’m particularly interested in modern subjects and those who worked in computing/computer science. Ideally the book would cover the subject’s work in a reasonable level of technical detail as well as their life and the broader context in which they lived and worked. I ask because I am considering applying for funding for an essentially biographical project on a computer scientist and I would like to read some (more) biographies first. Best, Troy Astarte School of Computing Newcastle University _______________________________________________ This email is relayed from members at sigcis.org<https://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fsigcis.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/<https://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Flists.sigc…> and you can change your subscription options at http://lists.sigcis.org/listinfo.cgi/members-sigcis.org<https://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Flists.sigc…> -- Jeffrey Mathias AHA/NASA History of Space Technology Fellow PhD Candidate Department of Science and Technology Studies Cornell University jeffreymathias.info<https://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fjeffreymat…>

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FW: Request for biographies
by Irish, Sharon Lee 03 Sep '20

03 Sep '20

For some reason the post by Morten Bay didn’t go through, so I am re-sending to the list. ~Listserv Moderator (Sharon Irish) From: Morten Bay <mortenbay(a)live.com> Date: Thursday, September 3, 2020 at 12:16 PM To: Marc Weber <marc(a)webhistory.org>, Troy Astarte <Troy.Astarte(a)newcastle.ac.uk> Cc: members <members(a)sigcis.org> Subject: RE: [SIGCIS-Members] Request for biographies +1 for The Dream Machine. I have yet to read a better trade book on a historical person from that era…or on the era, for that matter. Morten From: Marc Weber<mailto:marc@webhistory.org> Sent: Thursday, September 3, 2020 10:11 AM To: Troy Astarte<mailto:Troy.Astarte@newcastle.ac.uk> Cc: members<mailto:members@sigcis.org> Subject: Re: [SIGCIS-Members] Request for biographies The Dream Machine by Mitch Waldrop on J.C.R. Licklider is a real classic. It is also an important history of his entire milieu, and of early work in timesharing, networking, Web-like online systems, etc. It’s a trade book but deeply researched and referenced. Best, Marc On Sep 3, 2020, at 04:31, Troy Astarte <Troy.Astarte(a)newcastle.ac.uk<mailto:Troy.Astarte@newcastle.ac.uk>> wrote: Dear SIG-CIS, What is your favourite biography of a scientist or mathematician? I’m particularly interested in modern subjects and those who worked in computing/computer science. Ideally the book would cover the subject’s work in a reasonable level of technical detail as well as their life and the broader context in which they lived and worked. I ask because I am considering applying for funding for an essentially biographical project on a computer scientist and I would like to read some (more) biographies first. Best, Troy Astarte School of Computing Newcastle University _______________________________________________ This email is relayed from members at sigcis.org<https://eur01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fsigcis.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/<https://eur01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Flists.sigc…> and you can change your subscription options at http://lists.sigcis.org/listinfo.cgi/members-sigcis.org<https://eur01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Flists.sigc…> Marc Weber<https://eur01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.comput…> | marc(a)webhistory.org<mailto:marc@webhistory.org> | +1 415 282 6868 Internet History Program Curatorial Director, Computer History Museum 1401 N Shoreline Blvd., Mountain View CA 94043 computerhistory.org/nethistory<https://eur01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fcomputerhi…> Co-founder, Web History Center and Project, webhistory.org<https://eur01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwebhistory…>

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Postdoctoral opportunity in STS and cybersecurity
by Rebecca Slayton 02 Sep '20

02 Sep '20

Dear Colleagues, I’m pleased to announce a postdoctoral opening at Cornell, focused on STS approaches to cybersecurity. The full description is below. Please distribute widely, and feel free to direct any questions to me. Thank you! Best, Rebecca Rebecca Slayton Associate Professor, Department of Science & Technology Studies Director, Judith Reppy Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies Cornell University, Ithaca NY 14853 Postdoctoral Research Position in Cybersecurity and STS at Cornell University The Department of Science & Technology Studies (STS), jointly with the Judith Reppy Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies, invite applications for a postdoctoral research position focused on STS approaches to cybersecurity. Anticipated start date is in July 2021, for a one-year appointment with possibility of renewal contingent on performance and funding availability. This position is funded by National Science Foundation grant 1553069, “Enacting Cybersecurity Expertise,” and is supervised by Principal Investigator Rebecca Slayton. The postdoctoral researcher will be expected to pursue research that contributes to achieving project goals, but will have considerable latitude in defining specific areas of empirical focus. Responsibilities will include developing and refining research questions, identifying appropriate research sites, establishing relationships with informants, conducting interviews and observational research, gathering documentary evidence, analyzing results, publishing research in peer-reviewed journals, and presenting findings at professional conferences. The postdoctoral researcher will be expected to demonstrate leadership and independence, while also working collaboratively with the principal investigator. Required qualifications: Applicants should have earned a Ph.D. in a relevant field such as science & technology studies, anthropology, sociology, history, or information science, between August 2017 and June 2021. Competitive candidates will have successful record of empirical social scientific research in a topic relevant to critical infrastructure and/or information security, including publications and presentations and professional conferences. Application process: The following application materials should be submitted to Academic Jobs Online at https://academicjobsonline.org/ajo/jobs/16775: * A cover letter articulating your proposed research focus and plan, its relation to the NSF project, and relevant qualifications; * A curriculum vita; * A brief (less than 10,000 words) writing sample; * Names and contact information for three references. Review of applications will begin on November 1, 2020, and will continue until the position is filled. Due to pandemic restrictions, visa sponsorship is not available for this position. Until pandemic restrictions are lifted, work must be done remotely, so relocation to the Ithaca area is not required. Cornell University is an affirmative action/equal opportunity employer and educator, committed to a diverse faculty, staff, and student body. Women and members of under-represented minority groups are strongly encouraged to apply. Diversity and inclusion are a part of Cornell University’s heritage. We are a recognized employer and educator valuing AA/EEO, protected veterans, and individuals with disabilities.

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