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More Schmidt than Turing
by Drucker, Thomas L. 17 May '12

17 May '12

There was an impressive line-up of speakers for the Turing Memorial Conference at Princeton last weekend. (It is hard to keep track of where Turing is being honoured each week this year.) The article at the following link was the university's report to the alumni on the subject, but you will notice that there is not much Turing compared to the amount of Schmidt. Tom Drucker University of Wisconsin--Whitewater http://www.princeton.edu/main/news/archive/S33/67/65Q12/ druckert(a)uww.edu

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New Book: Biomedical Computing: Digitizing Life in the United States
by NOVEMBER, JOSEPH 16 May '12

16 May '12

Dear fellow SIGCISers, I am pleased to announce that the Johns Hopkins University Press has just published my book, Biomedical Computing: Digitizing Life in the United States. I believe it would be of particular interest to many people here. Briefly, this history book explores how computer technology, biology, and medicine transformed each other in the 1950s and 1960s. On the one hand, it examines the conditions that made possible the computerization of biology and medicine -- including strong technological, institutional, and political support from the National Institutes of Health. On the other hand, it also shows how work within the life sciences led to important developments in computer architecture and software design -- personal computers and expert systems both have seldom-discussed roots in biomedical research labs. A couple of my goals in writing this book were to: 1) demonstrate the historical importance of early computing projects not only to modern fields like bio- and medical informatics but also to everyday life in the lab and clinic; 2) show how biology and medicine, both areas of increasing importance to computing, have long shaped the development of computer technology. Therefore, to reach audiences familiar with biomedical research but not computing as well as those familiar with computing but not biology and medicine, the book is designed so that little knowledge of biology, medicine, or computing is required of the reader. More immediate to this community, quite a few SIGCIS members are referenced in the book. Furthermore, feedback from SIGCIS members (both at and beyond SIGCIS events) greatly helped me improve the quality of my manuscript. Thanks! More information about the book can be found at: <http://www.amazon.com/Biomedical-Computing-Digitizing-University-Historical…> http://www.amazon.com/Biomedical-Computing-Digitizing-University-Historical… http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/biomedical-computing-joseph-a-november/1110… Best, Joe Joseph November, Ph.D. Assistant Professor Department of History University of South Carolina 223 Gambrell Hall Columbia, SC 29208 november(a)sc.edu

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Postdoc in Social Studies of Information , deadline June 1
by Thomas Haigh 14 May '12

14 May '12

Hello everyone, This post doc call is for the information school at UWM, my own institution. Note the proximity of the deadline. "Social Studies of Information" is a new phrase I came up with to convey the idea of science studies perspectives applied to information/communication, akin to the recent push for "Social Studies of Finance." History is definitely part of this vision, but a successful applicant would need to frame historical work within a broader STS-style perspective and show an ability to teach something other than history. Our Social Studies of Information Research Group is just now establishing itself, so the postdoc would be able to play an active part in shaping the concept, inviting speakers, setting up a website, etc. A first step in this direction will be setting up a Social Studies of Information listserv -- look for an announcement of this soon. Tom (Position description follows). School of Information Studies University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee The School of Information Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee is accepting applications for a Postdoctoral Fellowship in the Social Studies of Information for the 2012-2013 academic year, to work closely with the School's newly established Social Studies of Information Research Group (SSIRG). The postdoctoral fellowship is designed for recent PhDs who are interested in research and pedagogy in the historical, social and cultural dimensions of information at its most fundamental levels, including information institutions, practices, industries, technologies, disciplines, users, policies, and ethics. Along with continuing their own research agenda, the fellow will work closely with SSIRG-affiliated faculty, assist in coordination of SSIRG speaker series and related events, work with current PhD students, and participate in the academic and intellectual community of the School at large. Opportunities will exist for the fellow to collaborate with the Center for Information Policy Research (CIPR), Center for 21st Century Studies (C21) and other related campus centers and institutes. The stipend for the fellowship will be $39,000 for a 12-month appointment beginning in August 20, 2012, with a $2,000 research and travel stipend. Fellows will be expected to teach one course each semester, with the opportunity to develop a course focused on their own research area. Fellows are eligible for benefits. The stipend for this position is subject to UW System policies. Application Information: Applicants must be scholars who are not yet tenured and who are no more than 3 years past receiving their PhD. Applicants must hold a PhD in information studies or related discipline. Applicants who do not yet hold a PhD but expect to have it by August 2012 will be asked to provide a letter from their home institution corroborating the degree award schedule. Verification of completion of degree will be required before the start date. Application packages must include: letter explaining research agenda and teaching interests; a 1-page statement of situating their personal research within the broader interdisciplinary contexts of the social studies of information; a curriculum vitae; a writing sample; and 3 references. Deadline for application is June 1, 2012. Candidates selected for online interviews will be notified by June 15, 2012. Send all application materials via email to Dr. Michael Zimmer (zimmerm(a)uwm.edu) For more information, please contact Dr. Zimmer, and visit us at http://www4.uwm.edu/sois/. UWM is an AA/EEO Employer

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Re: [SIGCIS-Members] CGI history - clarification
by Marguerite B Avery 11 May '12

11 May '12

Hi, Peter Meyers kindly pointed out that CGI could be any number of things, so I will clarify: I'm looking for Computer Graphics / Computer Generated Imagery. Specifically, I'm hoping to find some people who know this history from its inception; or some very interested fans who might be willing to read portions of a manuscript on the subject. (I'm toying with the idea of posting the manuscript and allowing a smallish group of readers access to it, so that people might comment on the sections with which they are familiar. The manuscript has already undergone traditional peer review.) I'm glad to elaborate on the subject of the manuscript or the process. Please do let me know if you are interested or can suggest some names. Thanks! Margy PS - and thanks to Peter for his suggestion -------------------------------------------------------------------- Marguerite Avery Senior Acquisitions Editor - Information Science and Science, Technology, & Society The MIT Press 55 Hayward Street Cambridge, MA 02142 | mavery(a)mit.edu<mailto:|mavery@mit.edu> | 617-253-1653 | 617-258-6779 (fax) | http://mitpress.mit.edu From: members-bounces(a)sigcis.org [mailto:members-bounces@sigcis.org] On Behalf Of Marguerite B Avery Sent: Thursday, May 10, 2012 10:04 PM To: members(a)SIGCIS.org Subject: [SIGCIS-Members] CGI history Hi, I'm looking for some scholars who work on CGI or have knowledge of its history. Please send me a message if you might be that person or can suggest someone working in this space. Many thanks! Margy ________________________________ Marguerite Avery Senior Acquisitions Editor - Communications, Information Science, and Science, Technology, & Society The MIT Press 55 Hayward Street Cambridge, MA 02142 (v) 617-253-1653 (f) 617-258-6779 mavery(a)mit.edu<mailto:mavery@mit.edu> http://mitpress.mit.edu

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CGI history
by Marguerite B Avery 11 May '12

11 May '12

Hi, I'm looking for some scholars who work on CGI or have knowledge of its history. Please send me a message if you might be that person or can suggest someone working in this space. Many thanks! Margy ________________________________ Marguerite Avery Senior Acquisitions Editor – Communications, Information Science, and Science, Technology, & Society The MIT Press 55 Hayward Street Cambridge, MA 02142 (v) 617-253-1653 (f) 617-258-6779 mavery(a)mit.edu http://mitpress.mit.edu

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History of 'Home' in internet browsers
by Sue Thomas 08 May '12

08 May '12

Hi I wonder if anyone can help? I'm trying to track down when and why it was decided to use the term 'Home' and its accompanying icon in web browser design. Does anyone have any information on that? We have got so used to it that it's almost invisible in our consciousness, but Home is not default in every part of the world. In the Middle East for example, that function is called the Main Page, not the Home Page. I'm thinking that 'home' is probably an American concept in this context. I'd also like to collect more equivalencies from non-English speaking countries, so please do get in touch if your country's browser features something other than 'home'. I'd be most grateful for your thoughts on the above. Please reply backchannel to sue.thomas(a)dmu.ac.uk Many thanks Sue _________ Sue Thomas Research Professor of New Media IOCT/Faculty of Art, Design and Humanities Clephan 1.01d, De Montfort University, The Gateway, Leicester LE1 9BH, UK +44 (0)116 207 8266 w: http://www.technobiophilia.com <http://www.technobiophilia.com/> Technobiophilia: Nature and Cyberspace e: sue.thomas(a)dmu.ac.uk <mailto:sue.thomas@dmu.ac.uk> t: @suethomas <http://www.twitter.com/suethomas> g: +suethomas <https://plus.google.com/110733806086330324299/>

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The double meaning of "home page"
by Thomas Haigh 08 May '12

08 May '12

[Here's a reply I sent when this message was cross posted to the internet researchers' list a few days ago - looks like it was held up on its way to SIGCIS. This one I know the answer to. As I wrote in a footnote to "The Web's Missing Links: Search Engines and Portals" in *The Internet and American Business*, edited by William Aspray and Paul Ceruzzi, MIT Press, 2008:159-200: The idea of a home page went back to Tim Berners-Lee and the origin of the Web. Berners-Lee had imagined that browsers would include integrated editing capabilities, so that each user would have a personal home page that he or she could edit to include links to pages of interest as well as public messages for other visitors. (Something rather like a blog). This explains the dual meaning of the term home page as both "the default start page for someone's browser" and "the main page holding information about a person or company." James Gillies and Robert Cailliau, How the Web Was Born: The Story of the World Wide Web (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 193-4. Remember that TBL's original browser could edit web pages as well as display them. (This was easy to implement on his NeXT computer because of its library of powerful, reusable object tools). In his original scheme the home page would fulfill the same function that bookmarks were used for in later browsers, but would be shared with everyone on the web. Thinking about how the web would have developed if this integrated editing capability had been retained is an interesting exercise. In fact the edit capability vanished from Mosaic, the first widely used browser. Browsing and editing were done with different tools, and bookmarks were private. Browser makers configured home page defaults to point to their own websites. Many early personal home pages really did include a mixture of links to recommended sites and information about their owners. You could argue that making this list of favorite pages public prefigured more recent social media innovations such as the "like" button. TBL discusses his original browser at http://www.w3.org/People/Berners-Lee/WorldWideWeb.html, including a screenshot at http://www.w3.org/History/1994/WWW/Journals/CACM/screensnap2_24c.gif. He writes The "Link" menu you can see. "Mark all" would remember the URI of where you were. "MArk selection" would make an anchor (link target) for the selected text, give it an ID, and remember the URI of that fragment. "Link to Marked" would make a link from the current selection to whatever URI you had last marked. So making a link involved browsing to somewhere interesting, hitting Command/M, going to the document you were writing and selecting some text, and hitting Command/L. "Link to new" would create a new window, prompt for a URI (ugh - it should have made one up!) and make a link from the selection to the new document. You never saw the URIs - you could of course always find documents by following the link to them. However the ability to save the edited page directly to the web server was not implemented. It would browse http:space and news: and ftp: spaces and localfile: space, but edit only in file: space as HTTP PUT was not implemented back then. More on the history of web browsers in Thomas Haigh, "Protocols for Profit: Web and E-mail Technologies as Product and Infrastructure" in *The Internet and American Business*, edited by William Aspray and Paul Ceruzzi, MIT Press, 2008: 105-158 (preprint http://www.tomandmaria.com/tom/Writing/ProtocolsForProfitDRAFT.pdf) and on the history of web navigation in "The Web's Missing Links: Search Engines and Portals" [in the same volume]:159-200 (preprint http://www.tomandmaria.com/tom/Writing/WebsMissingLinksDRAFT.pdf) Also, of course, in *How the Web Was Born* cited above. Best wishes, Tom Haigh www.tomandmaria.com/tom

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Nolan Bushnell, a pioneer Silicon Valley ICON, Joins the IT History Society Board
by Info ＠ IT History Society 04 May '12

04 May '12

San Francisco, CA, May 4, 2012 - Nolan Bushnell, founder of Atari and Chuck E. Cheese, joins the <http://www.ithistory.org/> IT History Society's (www.IThistory.org) board of directors. "We are pleased to announce that Nolan Bushnell, founder of Atari, one of the very first visionaries of Silicon Valley and a revolutionary icon in consumer electronics, has joined the IT History Society board as a director," said Jeffery Stein, Chairman; "Nolan has a unique vision of the information technology industry and will assist the Society in accomplishing our goals". "I am pleased and honored to be associated with the Society in the hopes I can give back to an industry that has been instrumental in my career and vision," said Nolan Bushnell who is currently focusing on revamping education. The IT History Society with its many new databases is becoming the 'table of contents' of where the history of information technology is located. In addition, the Society wants to encourage information technology companies to preserve their histories and the accompanying return on investment. The Society's membership includes nearly 700 historians and archivists, as well as institutions such as the Center for IBM, Hewlett-Packard, INTEL, The Internet Archive, Technology Innovation, Charles Babbage Institute, Computer History Museum, IEEE History Center, Mid-Atlantic Retro Computing Hobbyists, McKesson, U.K. National Archive for the History of Computing, ACM History Committee, FedEx, Agilent, British Library, Applied Materials, Caltech, Computer Conservation Society, Deutsches Museum, Deltek, Microsoft, MIT, the Smithsonian Institution, and Symantec. Membership in the Society is complimentary due to the generous donations from the computer industry. The IT History Society supports the collaboration of like-minded institutions and individuals in expanding the reach of historical and archival activities while at the same time communicating to the private sector the value of preserving their history and heritage for future generations. The IT History Society continually promotes the value of preservation of information technology corporate history with its many databases and acting as a gateway for the location of historical information as a teaching and research aid for colleges, universities and researchers in both the public and private sectors. Another key resource is the IT Honor Roll Database <http://ithistory.org/honor_roll/honor-roll-random.php> http://ithistory.org/honor_roll/honor-roll-random.php The Honor Roll includes individuals who have made a noteworthy contribution to the information technology industry. The IT History Society Historical Resource Sites comprises over 1,600 historical information technology sites that are indexed by the Society for use by educators, students, and researchers. <http://www.ithistory.org/resource_sites/resource-sites.php> http://www.ithistory.org/resource_sites/resource-sites.php An added database is the hardware database of all information technology hardware ever manufactured. The library consists of over 2,000 entries growing by over 100 per day. The database is located on the web at <http://ithistory.org/hardware/hardware-name.php> http://ithistory.org/hardware/hardware-name.php About ITHS The IT History Society exists to enhance and expand works concerning the history of Information Technology and to demonstrate the value of IT history for the understanding and improvement of our present and future world. IT History Society One Blackfield Drive - Suite 331 Tiburon, CA 94920 (415) 435-2263 <mailto:info@ITHistory.org> info(a)ITHistory.org <http://www.ithistory.org/> www.ITHistory.org Sm logo dropEnsuring the Future by Preserving the Past <http://www.twitter.com/ithistoryorg> twitter <http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/It-History-Society/143799552346273> find-us-on-facebook <https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=RRE7C2 JV47KKJ> btn_donate_LG

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Brogrammers and other elite nerds throughout history
by Marie Hicks 02 May '12

02 May '12

Hi all, Recently there's been a bit of a press furor over the "brogrammer" identity that's been getting louder in Silicon Valley. (Brogrammers are half fratty bro and half programmer.) I say "getting louder" because this trend has been evolving for quite some time; when I lived in RTP in the first decade of the 21st century some of my best friends were bro programmers! So in response to all the press lately I've done a post on the SIGCIS blog that talks about the coverage and what it's missing, in my opinion. I argue that brogrammer culture isn't as much of a disjuncture as the press is making it seem, and that the popular focus on how this will affect women in computing--rather than how it affects folks from a wide spectrum of gender and sexual identities--is helping the public miss the forest for the trees. Most of the press has also been somewhat humorless--a difficulty when the brogrammer identity gets a good deal of traction from how it can flirt with campy facetiousness. You can read my post here: http://sigcis.org/node/335 Or scroll down to the end of this message for the full text. I've been heartened to have gotten a good deal of response on twitter, and would also like to very much thank Suzanne Fischer for retweeting it to her 3,000+ followers. Best, Marie _______________ Marie Hicks, Ph.D. Assistant Professor of History of Technology Lewis Department of the Humanities Illinois Institute of Technology Chicago, IL mhicks1(a)iit.edu twitter: @histoftech www.mariehicks.net >From Antisocial to Alphasocial: Exclusionary Nerd Cultures and the Rise of the Brogrammer “Sometime in the last ten or twelve years, the stereotypical image of the Silicon Valley programmer has shifted from a socially awkward, Utili-kilt-wearing geek to something far more sinister, and fratty, and sexist,” begins the article in the Sfist. Recently, a new term for programmers in their 20s has come into the national consciousness: brogrammer. Half fratty “bro” and half programmer, as a whole the concept of the brogrammer is completely masculine. So is this latest reaction to the nerdy programmer stereotype a problem? Many commentators have pointed out the damage that this new type of computing culture might have on women coders or potential coders. A recent Mother Jones article pointed out that if women are looking for a job in an environment where interviews by a committee can be casually referred to as “gang bang interviews,” they might be turned off by the workplace culture of a company before they even have the chance to work there. And the phenomenon isn’t limited to just a few Silicon Valley startups. As a cultural archetype, it’s been gaining currency and power for the last year or so at an alarming rate: “the term has become the subject of a Facebook group joined by over 21,000 people,” notes Bloomberg BusinessWeek in their recent article. [Brogrammer cartoon from Bloomberg BusinessWeek article] It’s difficult to parse the different levels of irony—or genuine commitment—that those thousands of individuals feel for the brogrammer identity. But this may be part of the problem. As the Mother Jones article indicates, several companies and their employees--when called on the sexism of the brogrammer ideal--excused themselves on the grounds that they were being ironic, and that people just weren’t getting the joke. If it is a joke, and much of the brogrammer identity is certainly meant to be facetious, then “there’s also an audience that feels left out of the joke…. Anything that encourages the perception of tech as being male-dominated” will contribute to the decline of women in computing, warned Sara Chipps, quoted in Bloomberg. Chipps is the founder of Girl Develop It, which encourages women ask questions of other women programmers to minimize the intimidation factor of workplaces with a gender imbalance. One thing missing in the recent flurry of discussions on brogramming and its ills is the fact that this issue isn’t really about women. It’s about gender. And the image of the straight, feminine woman the media invokes as likely to be turned off by a workplace environment where brogrammers hold sway is actually only one of many likely to be hurt by brogrammer culture. A panoply of other people with different gender identities and sexual identities--men, women, or genderqueer--would likely be similarly unhappy in an environment that privileges a certain kind of retro, straight, masculine gender identity as normative or aspirational. The other element that seems to be mostly missing from these conversations in the press is the historical element. Although each article quotes the obligatory handful of stats about women’s declining share of computer science degrees, they don’t go any further. And yet, in many ways, the rise of the brogrammer is unsurprising to historians: it’s just another iteration of the “alpha nerd” archetypes that have circulated since the inception of commercial computing. From sixties-era self-styled wizards who held the key to the black art of programming; to mischievous whiz kids like Gates and Jobs who got their start in the wild west of computing in the seventies; to the scruffy, bearded, UNIX geeks who became mainstream in the nineties; to the most recent wave of fabulously wealthy boy wonders epitomized by Mark Zuckerberg and other start-up billionaires who fit a certain age, race, and gender profile. The characters in these stories have appeared in the popular press for decades, gaining more and more currency with each repetition, and coming to define the narratives we tell ourselves and each other about computing. Those who don’t fit these molds end up disappearing, unrecognized and unrecognizable as technology workers because they clash with the popular images conjured and reinforced by media. Historians of computing like Nathan Ensmenger, Janet Abbate, Tom Misa, Jennifer Light, myself, and others have shown how these images and discourses can’t be taken for granted as accurate: computing was never as masculine as our received popular conception makes it seem. And the recent furor over brogramming shows that it’s still not.

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SIGCIS 2012 Workshop CFP
by Andrew Russell 01 May '12

01 May '12

Hi everyone - Please see below for the Call for Papers for the SIGCIS 2012 Workshop. I'll be sending it to various mailing lists and websites over the next 24 hours or so. If you don't see it pop up in the places you would expect, please do forward it to people and organizations who you think would be interested! Cheers, Andy Russell (2012 Workshop Chair) College of Arts & Letters Stevens Institute of Technology --------------------------------------------- CALL FOR PAPERS SIGCIS Workshop 2012 Information Identities: Historical Perspectives on Technological and Social Change For the latest updates and the full Call for Papers, see http://www.sigcis.org/workshop12. DEADLINE for submissions: 15 June 2012 The Society for the History of Technology's Special Interest Group for Computers, Information and Society (SIGCIS – http://www.sigcis.org) welcomes submissions for a one-day scholarly workshop to be held on Sunday, October 7, 2012 in Copenhagen, Denmark. As in previous years, SIGCIS’s annual workshop will be held at the end of the SHOT annual meeting on the day that SHOT has reserved for SIG events. For more information on the main SHOT program, see http://www.historyoftechnology.org/annual_meeting.html. SIGCIS invites proposals that examine the relationships between computer and information technologies and changes to individual and/or group identities, such as those shared by a nation, company personnel, or members of a virtual community. Such papers might consider: * Specific “information identities”—a term that we invite scholars to interpret broadly and creatively—that have been articulated in the recent or distant past * Relationships between information technologies and political change * The rhetoric and discourses of globalization that have been linked to information and computer technologies * National identity and its relation to information technology * National and transnational strategies for joining or creating an “information society,” a “network society,” an “information economy,” or related concepts * Transnational and international organizations, such as IFIP, UNESCO, the European Union, or standard-setting committees. * Ways in which particular information technologies acquired new meanings and fulfilled new roles through interaction with local practices and identities * The emergence of new kinds of community and identity around information technologies. SIGCIS encourages submissions along these and similar lines of inquiry, but it also maintains a proud tradition of welcoming all types of contributions related to the history of computing and information, whether or not there is an explicit connection with the annual theme. Our membership is international and interdisciplinary, and our members examine the history of information technologies and their place within society. Proposals for entire sessions and individual presenters are both welcome. We hope to run special sessions featuring dissertations in progress and other works in progress. The workshop is a great opportunity to get helpful feedback on your projects in a relaxed and supportive environment. All proposals will be subject to a peer review process based on abstracts. All submissions should be made online via the SIGCIS website, http://www.sigcis.org/workshop12. Limited travel assistance for graduate students and other scholars without institutional support is available. Questions about the 2012 SIGCIS workshop should be addressed to Andrew Russell (College of Arts & Letters, Stevens Institute of Technology), who is serving as chair of the workshop program committee. Email arussell(a)stevens.edu.

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