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[–] 8 points 3 years ago (7 children)

Okay I don't have the time to research this, but if this is the reason Adafruit is called Adafruit then that is fucking sick

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  • [–] 7 points 3 years ago (4 children)

    There’s also a programming language originally used for missile guidance called Ada, I had to learn it in university back in the dark ages: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ada_(programming_language)

    Please know I’ve never designed missile guidance systems.

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  • [–] 2 points 3 years ago (3 children)

    You weren’t at York were you?

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  • [–] 2 points 3 years ago (2 children)
  • [–] 2 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    Long shot. I also learnt Ada. York’s justification was that “nobody would know it already, so nobody’s got an advantage” :)

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  • [–] 6 points 3 years ago

    Our justification was that Ratheon and Lockheed Martin held recruitment seminars and actively wanted this language to programme their avionics and guidance systems.

    I learnt it but then did my industrial placement with the Red Cross working out ways to map land mine fields autonomously, because fuck the war machine.

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  • [–] 8 points 3 years ago* (1 child)

    This was like the first thing we learned in history of computers in university.

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  • Grace Hopper invented the compiler!

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  • [–] 6 points 3 years ago

    Another interesting tidbit is her father was Lord Byron, the famous poet. He actually abandoned her and her mom after birth. This made Ada become more math oriented since her mom wanted her to be independent and a logical thinker.

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  • [–] 4 points 3 years ago

    she understood that the analytical engine/mechanical computer could be used symbolically, way beyond the numerical calculations that babbage built it for.

    she foresaw how powerful that could be. when she was dying (of ovarian cancer), she said i would give all the days i have left for just three days a hundred years from now.

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