“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?

CALL FOR PAPERS

SIGCIS Workshop 2012
October 7, 2012, Copenhagen, Denmark

Information Identities:
Historical Perspectives on Technological and Social Change

Deadline for submissions: June 15, 2012

Did V.A. Shiva Ayyadurai Invent Email? A Computer Historian Responds

Note: This article was commissioned by the Washington Post on Feb 28, 2012 after it published an article lauding Ayyadurai as the inventor of email. Emi Kolawole, the same journalist who had written the erroneous story, accepted it with very minor changes on March 14 for publication online in her “Ideas@Innovations” department. However, news soon came of a delay caused by unspecified “developments” within the Post, and on March 19 I was informed that the article would not be published. Therefore I am publishing a slightly improved version of the article here. The saga is documented further in a letter I wrote the Post’s Ombudsman.

Introduction

On March 28, 2012, author Jon Gertner was interviewed at the Computer History Museum (CHM) by KQED's Dave Iverson about his new book, "The Idea Factory...," which chronicles the history of AT&T Bell Labs. Mr. Gertner told this author he had spent three solid years researching and gathering information for the book.

Lots of recent coverage about the 25th anniversary of OS/2, including this from Time Techland: "Big Blue's next-generation operating system was supposed to change everything. It didn't. But it's also never quite gone away." I can still vividly remember installing and playing around with OS/2 Warp. Read more: http://techland.time.com/2012/04/02/25-years-of-ibms-os2-the-birth-death-and-afterlife-of-a-legendary-operating-system/#ixzz1r4teUZcI

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