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Project Launch: What is a (computer) program? Historical and Philosophical perspectives
by ldemol 22 Jan '18

22 Jan '18

Dear all, I hope that the following announcement could be of interest to some members of this list, with very best wishes, Liesbeth De Mol /////////////////////////////////// Apologies for multiple postings /////////////////////////////////// It is my pleasure to announce the start of the ANR project "What is a (computer) program?" (http://programme.hypotheses.org) with a two days event to be held on February 7-8 at MESH, rooms 1 and 2, Espace Baïetto, 2 Rue des Canonniers, 59000 Lille. On February 7, we will have a session of the Lille-Paris séminaire "History and Philosophy of Computer Science and Computing (HEPIC)" with participation of Cliff Jones and Samuel Goyet (see http://calcul.hypotheses.org for more details). On February 8 we will have the workshop "Models between structures and meanings of programs" which introduces the project followed by several talks from members of the project. In order to register (February 7 and/or 8), please send a mail with your affiliation to: liesbeth.demol(a)univ-lille3.fr. Registration is free but required in order to attend. /Abstract for the workshop/ What is a (computer) program? This is a deceivingly simple question which today has many different answers that affect quite basic societal issues such as problems of responsability and accountability. The main assumption of the project PROGRAMme is that in order to give a proper analysis of the notion of program, one needs to give an account and take into account the following three structuring and historically-developed modalities of "program": (1) physical: program as stored and executed on a machine (2) formal: program as (formal) text (3) socio-technical: program as used and made by people The ambition then is to offer a historico-philosophical analysis of "program", structured along these three modalities. One basic methodological approach is to focus on "models" and their abstractions, where "models" are understood in their most generic sense and can refer to both concrete machine models (and how these shape, for instance, program code) as well as to more abstract models like lambda-calculus. The aim of this workshop is then to introduce the project as well as to offer a set of more in-depth studies focusing on the issue of how models are reciprocally developed and shaped by both the structures and meanings of programs where both structure and meaning can relate to each of the three program modalities. As such, this workshop will deepen the discussions initiated at the roundtable "What is a (computer) program?" (https://programme.hypotheses.org/prelaunch_en) as well as develop some basic themes to be included in future research collaborations. /Programme:/ 09.00-11.00: Introduction of the project and its members 11.00-11.30: BREAK 11.30-12.15: Mark Priestley, "Program structure and its graphical representation c. 1946" 12.15-13.00: Giuseppe Primiero, "Identity criteria for programs" 13.00-14.30: LUNCH 14.00-14.45: Edgar Daylight, "Towards a History of Model-Modellee Conflations in Computer Science" 14.45-15.30: Pierre Mounier-Kuhn, "Les notions de 'programmes" dans la machine de Couffignal"/The notion of `programs' in the Couffignal machine" 15.30-16.00: BREAK 16.00-16.45: Ray Turner, "The Ways of Computational Abstraction" 16.45-17.30: Maël Pégny, "Are machine learning algorithms programs?" 17.30-18.15: Tomas Petricek, "The Inner Life of Programming Concepts" The workshop and séminaire are supported by the platform DATA of MESHS and the the ANR project PROGRAMme. with best wishes, Liesbeth De Mol

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SIGCIS needs volunteer/s: Internet infrastructure
by Andrew Russell 19 Jan '18

19 Jan '18

Dear colleagues - Many of you may know Brent Jesiek, an associate professor at Purdue who works on engineering education, computer history, and other things. Among those “other things” is his role as volunteer Internet Infrastructure Officer for SIGCIS, a role he has held for many years (maybe since he was a grad student?). Brent’s final act in this role was the successful transition to a new version of Drupal, leading to an updated look and feel for https://www.sigcis.org/. Thank you Brent!! We’re now looking for one or more volunteers to join the SIGCIS team to manage the technology underpinning the SIGCIS website, conference registration, and email lists - including maintenance, periodic version upgrades, and participation in strategic planning with the SIGCIS Exec. Ideal candidates will have knowledge of, or the ability to quickly learn, the Drupal CMS platform. Familiarity with Unix, SQL, the Mailman listserv application, and HTML and CSS also would be helpful for this role. If you have any interest, or know of someone who might, please let me know. And, feel free to send Brent or me any questions about the specific tools and tasks involved. Thank you, Andy Russell SIGCIS Chair

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CfP: 4S 2018 - Machine Biases and Other Algorithmic Harms in Transnational Perspective
by Colin K Garvey 19 Jan '18

19 Jan '18

Perhaps a bit far afield for some, but historical takes on this theme will be more than welcome. In any case, please circulate to your networks. For more information, feel free to contact Colin Garvey at garvec(a)rpi.edu <mailto:garvec@rpi.edu> Machine Biases and Other Algorithmic Harms in Transnational Perspective Colin Garvey, RPI; Gernot Rieder, IT University of Copenhagen On Halloween, October 31st 2017, three monsters called Facebook, Twitter, and Google were forced to testify before US senators about the services they offer. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Terrorism, noted that “millions of Americans use your technology to share the first step of a grandchild, to talk about good and bad things in our lives” before going on to declare that “the bottom line is these technologies also can be used to undermine our democracy and put our nation at risk.” Indeed, from drone-mediated assassination to racial discrimination on digital platforms and beyond, algorithms have made possible the creation of a new category of harm in both digitized as well as digitizing societies. A growing literature has described a number of algorithmic harms deriving from information gatekeepers (Tufekci 2014), killer robots, secretive decision making black boxes (Pasquale 2015), “weapons of math destruction” (O’Neil 2016), as well as a variety of other systems. These investigations have remained constrained primarily to Western contexts, however, as algorithmic harms in contexts outside the Global North remain largely unexamined. This panel calls for knowledge from the margins; transnational perspectives on algorithmic harms as they have occurred, are transpiring, and may unfold in futures to come. What do computerized systems capable of wreaking socioeconomic devastation on diverse publics look like in, from, through, and across different nations? 109. Machine Biases and Other Algorithmic Harms in Transnational Perspective https://4s2018sydney.org/accepted-open-panels-4s/ Submission link at bottom of page.

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ACM HC --> 2018 fellowship grant deadline upcoming 1 March 2018
by Thomas Misa 15 Jan '18

15 Jan '18

Hi all, A friendly reminder that the ACM History Committee will fund up to four research projects in the amount of $4,000 (each) for research that relates to ACM’s activities — that is interpreted broadly to be organizational activities as well as activities of its membership, award winners, and SIGs. Deadline is 1 March with decisions in 6-8 weeks. Please see the full announcement here: http://history.acm.org/public/public_documents/acm_history_fellowship_annou… <http://history.acm.org/public/public_documents/acm_history_fellowship_annou…> ACM HC has supported 25 projects, including these: http://history.acm.org/public/public_documents/acm_history_fellows.php <http://history.acm.org/public/public_documents/acm_history_fellows.php> Best regards, Tom Misa

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Sources on IT & Sustainability
by Anne Pasek 15 Jan '18

15 Jan '18

Hi SIGCIS, I'm working on a chapter dealing with the history of environmental sustainability initatives at Microsoft, and was wondering if anyone knew of any material about recent carbon neutral/renewable energy pledges or prior precedents at Microsoft or other major IT corporations. Besides Nathan Ensmenger and Rebecca Slayton's recent special issue of *Information and Culture <http://www.infoculturejournal.org/abstracts/52.4>, *I haven't seen this topic well represented in the literature. I hope to be proven wrong! Thanks in advance for your thoughts, Anne Pasek PhD Candidate / Media, Culture, and Communication / New York University Editorial Assistant / *Feminist Media Studies*

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CiE 2018: Final Call for Papers
by ldemol 12 Jan '18

12 Jan '18

Dear all, please find below a final Call for Papers for Computability in Europe 2018, to be held from July 30 to August 3 in Kiel, Germany and which might be of interest to some people on this list. As I said before, within that community there is certainly also an interest in the history of computing and it is for that reason that the commission for the History and Philosophy of Computing offers some small grants (up to 250 USD) for participants to the conference who presents a paper that has a clear historical and/or philosophical dimension. For more information, please do not hesitate to contact me. More details can be found here: http://hapoc.org/node/249 with very best wishes, Liesbeth ========================= FINAL CALL FOR PAPERS: ========================= CiE 2018: Sailing Routes in the World of Computation Kiel, Germany July 30 - August 3, 2018 http://cie2018.uni-kiel.de http://www.computability.org.uk IMPORTANT DATES: ============================ *** Deadline for abstract submission: January 17, 2018 *** *** Deadline for article submission: February 1, 2018 *** Notification of acceptance: April 6, 2018 Final versions due: April 20, 2018 Deadline for informal presentations submission: April 20, 2018 (The notifications of acceptance for informal presentations will be sent a few days after submission.) Early registration before: May 30, 2018 CiE 2018 is the fourteenth conference organized by CiE (Computability in Europe), a European association of mathematicians, logicians, computer scientists, philosophers, physicists and others interested in new developments in computability and their underlying significance for the real world. Previous meetings have taken place in Amsterdam (2005), Swansea (2006), Siena (2007), Athens (2008), Heidelberg (2009), Ponta Delgada (2010), Sofia (2011), Cambridge (2012), Milan (2013), Budapest (2014), Bucharest (2015), Paris (2016), and Turku (2017). TUTORIAL SPEAKERS: ================== Pinar Heggernes (Bergen, Norway) Bakhadyr Khoussainov (Auckland, NZ) INVITED SPEAKERS: ================= Kousha Etessami (Edinburgh, UK) Johanna Franklin (Hempstead, US) Mai Gehrke (Paris, France) Alberto Marcone (Udine, Italy) Alexandra Silva (London, UK) Jeffrey O. Shallit (Waterloo, Canada) ORGANIZED BY: ============= Department of Computer Science, Kiel University For questions please contact the organisers at the email address cie2018(a)email.uni-kiel.de SPECIAL SESSIONS (and organisers): ================================== Approximation and Optimisation — Organisers: Leah Epstein (Haifa), Klaus Jansen (Kiel) Bioinformatics and Bio-inspired Computing — Organisers: Andre Franke (Kiel), Victor Mitrana (Bucharest) Computing with Imperfect Information — Organisers: Tim McNicholl (Iowa), Mariya Soskova (Wisconsin-Madison) Continuous Computation — Organisers: Ulrich Berger (Swansea), Dieter Spreen (Siegen) History and Philosophy of Computing — Organisers: Liesbeth de Mol (Lille), Giuseppe Primiero (Middlesex) SAT-Solving — Organisers: Vijay Ganesh (Waterloo), Olaf Beyersdorff (Leeds) The speakers of the special sessions will be announced soon on the website of the conference. PROGRAMME COMMITTEE: ==================== Eric Allender (Rutgers), Arnold Beckmann (Swansea), Marco Benini (Insubria), Olaf Beyersdorff (Leeds), Patricia Bouyer (Paris), Alessandra Carbone (Paris), Barbara Csima (Waterloo), Anuj Dawar (Cambridge), Henning Fernau (Trier), Ekaterina Fokina (Vienna), Peter Høyer (Calgary), Georgiana Ifrim (Dublin), Lila Kari (Waterloo), Elham Kashefi (Edinburgh), Karen Lange (Wellesley), Benedikt Löwe (Amsterdam), Barnaby Martin (Durham), Florin Manea (Kiel), Klaus Meer (Cottbus), Russell Miller (New York, co-chair), Angelo Montanari (Udine), Andrey Morozov (Novosibirsk), Anca Muscholl (Bordeaux), Dirk Nowotka (Kiel, co-chair), Arno Pauly (Bruxelles), Isabella Peters (Kiel), Giuseppe Primiero (Middlesex), Henning Schnoor (Kiel), Monika Seisenberger (Swansea), Shinnosuke Seki (Tokyo), Mariya Soskova (Wisconsin–Madison), Raymond Turner (Essex), Peter Van Emde Boas (Amsterdam), Heribert Vollmer (Hannover). CONTRIBUTED PAPERS: =================== The CiE conferences serve as an interdisciplinary forum for research in all aspects of computability, foundations of computer science, logic, and theoretical computer science, as well as the interplay of these areas with practical issues in computer science and with other disciplines such as biology, mathematics, philosophy, or physics. The PROGRAMME COMMITTEE cordially invites all researchers (European and non-European) to submit their papers in all areas related to the above for presentation at the conference and inclusion in the proceedings at https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=cie2018 . Papers must be submitted in PDF format, using the LNCS style (available at ftp://ftp.springer.de/pub/tex/latex/llncs/latex2e/llncs2e.zip) and should have a maximum of 10 pages, including references but excluding a possible appendix in which one can include proofs and other additional material. Papers building bridges between different parts of the research community are particularly welcome. The CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS will be published by LNCS, Springer Verlag. INFORMAL PRESENTATIONS: ======================= Continuing the tradition of past CiE conferences, in addition to the formal presentations based on the LNCS proceedings volume, CiE 2018 will host a track of informal presentations, that are prepared very shortly before the conference and inform the participants about current research and work in progress. The deadline for the submission of abstracts for informal presentations is May 1st, 2018. WOMEN IN COMPUTABILITY: ======================= We are very happy to announce that within the framework of the Women in Computability programme, sponsored by ACM-Women, we are able to offer four grants of up to 250 EUR for junior female researchers who want to participate in CiE 2018. Applications for this grant should be sent to Liesbeth De Mol, liesbeth.demol(a)univ-lille3.fr, before 15 May 2018 and include a short cv (at most 2 pages) and contact information for an academic reference. Preference will be given to junior female researchers who are presenting a paper (including informal presentations) at CiE 2018. HaPoC Grants | Commission for the History and Philosophy of Computing ===================================================================== The HaPoc Council is happy to announce the availability of two HAPOC travel grants of 250USD each to support participation to the conference. To be eligible for a grant, a paper or informal presentation in the area of history and/or philosophy of computing accepted at CiE 2018 is required. In order to apply for a grant, please send the following details to info(a)hapoc.org: cv, the paper or informal presentation submitted, accompanied by the acceptance email, a detailed budget indicating any other funding possibilities (if available). Association CiE: http://www.computability.org.uk CiE Conference Series: http://www.computability.org.uk/index.php/cie-conference-series/

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CFPs for IFIP World Congress - Sept. 2018
by Chris Leslie 05 Jan '18

05 Jan '18

Dear Colleagues, I want to bring your attention to two opportunities to participate in this year's International Federation of Information Processing’s 24th World Congress (http://wcc2018.put.poznan.pl) held in Poznan, Poland from 17 to 21 September 2018. The first opportunity is a workshop sponsored by the Human Choice and Computers Technical Committee (TC 9) and is entitled “This Changes Everything” (http://hcc13.net) Although there will be several groups with various themes represented at this workshop, I most want to bring your attention to the track devoted to the history of computing (http://ifipwg97.org/workshops/hcc13/) The deadline for draft papers is at the end of this month. Secondly, IFIP's History of Computing Working Group (WG 9.7) is sponsoring a separate workshop covering Histories of Computing in Eastern Europe (http://ifipwg97.org/workshops/eastern-europe/) In addition to traditional paper sessions, this workshop will feature a remote demonstration of the Bomba created by Alan Turing. In order to honor the effort of Polish cryptographers during the war, a message enciphered using Enigma coding will be transmitted to Bletchley Park, decoded using the replica Bombe, and sent back to Poznan. The deadline for draft papers to be considered for this workshop is 1 May 2018. Please consider being a part of either or both of these workshops. I expect that selected papers from both will be published in separate proceedings volumes. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me off-list. I hope 2018 is off to a good start for you all. Sincerely, Chris Leslie Chair, IFIP Working Group 9.7 - History of Computing (http://ifipwg97.org) Fulbright Guest Professor, South China University of Technology

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Aha ai panel question
by Luke Fernandez 05 Jan '18

05 Jan '18

Does anyone know what happened to the history of ai and its discontents panel? Its slated for right now (1030) at the aha. But there are no panelists in sight in the assigned room.....

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Collections of Spreadsheet Software
by David C. Brock 03 Jan '18

03 Jan '18

Dear All, I recently had the real pleasure of speaking with a person who works in the financial sector and is keenly interested in the history of spreadsheets. He has gathered a private collection of ~800 spreadsheet programs, including many versions of popular products, covering formats from ROMs to DVDs. Does anyone aware of any comparable collection of spreadsheet software? Best wishes, David .............. David C. Brock Director Center for Software History [http://www.computerhistory.org/softwarehistory/] Computer History Museum [http://www.computerhistory.org/] Email: dbrock(a)computerhistory.org Twitter: @dcbrock Skype: dcbrock 1401 N. Shoreline Blvd. Mountain View, CA 94943 (650) 810-1010 main (650) 810-1886 direct Follow Us: @CHM Blog [http://www.computerhistory.org/atchm/] Facebook [https://www.facebook.com/computerhistory] Twitter [https://twitter.com/ComputerHistory] Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/computerhistory/] YouTube [https://www.youtube.com/user/ComputerHistory] Make Software, Change the World! Now Open. [http://www.computerhistory.org/exhibits/makesoftware/]

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Web site update
by Jesiek, Brent K 30 Dec '17

30 Dec '17

Hi all, and happy holidays. As some of you may have noticed, the SIGCIS web site (https://www.sigcis.org/) has a new look. The redesign was prompted by a sorely needed update to the Drupal CMS. A few things to note: 1. The menu system has been redesigned, but we have done our best to maintain a coherent navigation structure. That said, if you can't find something or encounter dead links, let me know. 2. All user accounts and associated information have been migrated to the new site. Now might be a good time to log in and check/update your info (https://www.sigcis.org/user/login) 3. The Members Directory and Search features are available ONLY to valid users after they log into the site. These options are easily accessed via the left-hand User Menu after you log in. As Andy has noted, SIGCIS is a volunteer organization. I think the web site update is another good example of how we serve the community. Please consider making a year-end donation! Brent

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