I first got online in 1994 or so, and the Internet was a very
different place to how it is now. It was like a busy marketplace -
thousands of FTP servers, things you could telnet to, email addresses,
Usenet groups, IRC channels, gophers, MUDs and, increasingly, Web
sites. Directories like DMOZ and
Yahoo!, as well as FAQs for relevant newsgroups and mailing lists,
were how I found things. It was cheap to set up servers and run
services on them, so lots of people did. Companies and universities
got leased lines to provide Internet access to their folks, and ran
servers to provide their presence to the Internet; while individuals
got dialup Internet access, and basic email/Web hosting capability
from their ISPs; or for the nerdier amongst us, wrangled or paid for
"colocation", getting somebody with a leased line to let you put your
computer on a shelf somewhere, hooked up to their power and network.
It was pretty chaotic, but it worked. Internet usage exploded in that
period, but the rate of technological advancement wasn't that fast
(relatively speaking). All the technologies we used - TCP/IP itself,
DNS, Email, Usenet, IRC, the Web - were built around some documents
describing how the system worked (usually in the form of
RFCs). Most of
these technologies were implemented in two parts: the client that
somebody ran on their computer to interact with it, and the server
that somebody ran on a big permanently-Internet-connected computer
with a fixed IP address and a nice hostname. For instance, with the
Web, the client is your Web browser, and the servers are the computers
that actually hold all the web pages; your web browser talks over the
Internet to the server responsible for the page you want, gets it, and
then shows it to you. Because the client and the server talk to each
other using the protocol defined in the documents, there would often
be several clients and several servers available, written by different
people and aimed at various different kinds of users - and they would
largely work together.
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Really wonderful news, the Cuddly Science event Ada Lovelace's Coding Time at the Museum of Gloucester on Saturday 14th Oct 2017 is not only having a wonderful OhBot Robot but also Simple Graphics by Kitten Technologies 😀
Kitten Technologies
This event is aimed at kids and is ticketed at £5 per child, there is puppet story telling, colouring in sheets, Robo Robs Jobs the board game as well as the OhBot programmable robot head and the simple graphics programme. I am very excited about how this event is shaping up 🙂
Today is Ada Lovelace Day - an annul celebration of women in Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM), named after the Victorian mathematician and visionary Ada Lovelace.
Each year we try to do a little write up on women who have inspired us in the sciences. There are many entries for previous years - in fact later today I am going to make a special category for them all 🙂
This year I have chosen my friend Dr Rebecca Wilson.
Rebecca started off in Geology studying at Imperial College's Royal School of Mines, where she not only excelled in her own studies but helped me with some of the more advanced GeoChemistry elements, lending books and explaining things in multiple ways.
She was part of the posse that went with me to the Natural History Museum London to get work experience and helped me get into the meteoritics department. A PhD at the Planetary and Space Science Institute looking for organic material in micrometeorites.
She went on to post doc and research and science outreach at Leicester University and the associated Space Centre. During this time she developed some pretty awesome out reach kits. Those that can be available to the public/teachers are downloadable here.
Rebecca also won an science journalism internship which took her to Ireland, she has in fact been all over the globe studying, researching and presenting.
She has side stepped into medical data visualisation realm where she is pushing the frontiers of science ever forwards as well as highlighting the issues of accessibility on her various travels.
Rebecca has rubbed shoulders with the top people in both space and planetary science as well as within the deep data computering spheres not to mention the odd science communicator such as Brian Cox! Becca he is highly versatility and extremely dedicated and she is also a hell of a lot of fun to be around 🙂
She was even chosen by Jean for a school project on role models and heros!
11 am to 1 pm Saturday Oct 14th 2017 I shall be taking Cuddly Science along to the Museum of Gloucester for an Ada Lovelace Day celebration tix £5 - the event is aimed at kids and will contain:
Ada the puppet explaining about herself and the technologies of the victorian era leading to modern day computing.
Colouring in sheets I have drawn of Ada, computers and other sundries - the photo is of the currently finished ones but there will be more before the weekend 🙂
Ada's friend Oh Bot Robot - a programmable robot head which the kids can complete programming tasks on including composing poetry!
Robo Robs Jobs - a board game that teaches children about the fundamentals of programming with out any scary numbers or computers 🙂 Very important to help engage all levels of understanding and expertise and the game can get a difficult as the players want!
Other bits and bobs 🙂 We are very excited about this Ada Lovelace day is an annual celebration of women in science, technology, engineering and medicine (STEM) and has events going on both nationally and internationally. These range from talks to shows to interactive events - check out where your nearest event is on the Ada site.
Fri 1st Sept 11 am - 3 pm Gloucester: Community Craft Day at Gloucester Cathedral - upcycled accessories a Salaric Craft workshop.
Fri 1st-2nd Sept Cheltenham: Jean's performance as Joe in the Young Gloucester Opera and Dramatics Society's production of Fame at the Parabola Arts Centre.
Sun 3rd Sept Oxford: ICFP-International Conference on Functional Programming where Alaric will be speaking about the programming language Scheme part of Kitten Technologies.
Tues 5th 6:30 Stroud: Villanelles Poetry Evening with the Gloucester Poetry Society. Performance as part of The Wiggly Pets Press.
EDIT2: Talk is Wednesday lunchtime at the Museum of Gloucester.
EDIT: there is some confusion currently as to weather this talk is on Tues or Weds as the History Fest have it down as Tues and the Museum for Weds - Currently trying to sort it out 🙂
1pm Gloucester: The Start of Art general interest talk on cave and rock art at the [Museum of Gloucester](http://venues.gloucester.gov.uk/Freetime/Museums/events/Talks.aspx] part of the [Cuddly Science's)(http://www.salaric.co.uk/cuddly-science/) Histories.
Sat 9th 3-5pm Gloucester: Food For Thoughts at the Cafe Rene, poetry performance as part of The Wiggly Pets Press.
At three things to be confirmed later in the month 🙂
Computing, Society | alaric | 
Sun 22nd Apr 2018 12:51 pm | 
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