Hopper and Hamilton Receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom
November 23, 2016 8:50 AM Subscribe
On Tuesday, President Obama awarded Margaret Hamilton and Grace Hopper the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Margaret Hamilton helped write the onboard flight software for NASA's Apollo project. Grace Hopper created the first compiler for a computer programming language.
Woo! Gotta love it when we get to see righteous recognition.
posted by drewbage1847 at 9:21 AM on November 23, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by drewbage1847 at 9:21 AM on November 23, 2016 [1 favorite]
*cough*
I think you mean Earlham graduate Margaret Hamilton.
posted by leotrotsky at 9:24 AM on November 23, 2016 [3 favorites]
I think you mean Earlham graduate Margaret Hamilton.
posted by leotrotsky at 9:24 AM on November 23, 2016 [3 favorites]
I guess Mefi doesn't have an opposite of the mournful lone "." to signal joyful, rather than sombre, recognition? I wish it did!
!
posted by leotrotsky at 9:25 AM on November 23, 2016 [3 favorites]
!
posted by leotrotsky at 9:25 AM on November 23, 2016 [3 favorites]
I read this and I'm like wait a minute, the actress died decades ago...oh, duh...
posted by Melismata at 9:37 AM on November 23, 2016 [4 favorites]
posted by Melismata at 9:37 AM on November 23, 2016 [4 favorites]
🎉
posted by rtha at 9:39 AM on November 23, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by rtha at 9:39 AM on November 23, 2016 [1 favorite]
<3
posted by Flannery Culp at 9:45 AM on November 23, 2016
posted by Flannery Culp at 9:45 AM on November 23, 2016
Wonderful and well deserved!
Related, I'm really stoked for the film Hidden Figures, about three African American women (Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan, and Mary Jackson) who were NASA mathematicians.
posted by nicodine at 9:45 AM on November 23, 2016 [12 favorites]
Related, I'm really stoked for the film Hidden Figures, about three African American women (Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan, and Mary Jackson) who were NASA mathematicians.
posted by nicodine at 9:45 AM on November 23, 2016 [12 favorites]
More broadly: Obama Awards His Last Presidential Medals of Freedom (NYT, Nov. 22, 2016)
Time has the full list and a short bio for each.
posted by filthy light thief at 9:45 AM on November 23, 2016 [2 favorites]
President Obama gave the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, to 21 artists, sports figures, scientists and philanthropists on Tuesday in a bravura performance that had the East Wing, stuffed to capacity, laughing and whooping with appreciation.I WILL MISS YOU SO MUCH, OBAMA!
“Everyone on this stage has touched me in a powerful personal way,” Mr. Obama said at the ceremony’s end. “These are folks who have helped make me who I am and think about my presidency.”
...
He took a dig at Mr. Jordan, the basketball star, by calling him “the guy from ‘Space Jam,’” a 1996 film with Bugs Bunny. A tall man, Mr. Obama had such trouble reaching up to put the award around the towering Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s neck that the basketball great leaned back to help.
Time has the full list and a short bio for each.
posted by filthy light thief at 9:45 AM on November 23, 2016 [2 favorites]
Until the movie comes out, I heartily recommend Hidden Figures the book.
posted by Flannery Culp at 9:47 AM on November 23, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by Flannery Culp at 9:47 AM on November 23, 2016 [1 favorite]
Probably good Obama gives the speeches so Jordan didn't give us a list of presidents who didn't believe in him.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 9:57 AM on November 23, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 9:57 AM on November 23, 2016 [1 favorite]
Finally! A Hamilton post that everybody's happy to see!
posted by schmod at 10:48 AM on November 23, 2016 [4 favorites]
posted by schmod at 10:48 AM on November 23, 2016 [4 favorites]
* GRACE HOPPER
ACCEPT NEW-AWARD.
ADD NEW-AWARD TO OLD-AWARD-TOTAL GIVING NEW-AWARD-TOTAL.
DISPLAY NEW-AWARD-TOTAL.
posted by SPrintF at 11:27 AM on November 23, 2016 [21 favorites]
ACCEPT NEW-AWARD.
ADD NEW-AWARD TO OLD-AWARD-TOTAL GIVING NEW-AWARD-TOTAL.
DISPLAY NEW-AWARD-TOTAL.
posted by SPrintF at 11:27 AM on November 23, 2016 [21 favorites]
Excellent! What great news.
posted by mixedmetaphors at 11:36 AM on November 23, 2016
posted by mixedmetaphors at 11:36 AM on November 23, 2016
I had no idea that you could give medals to dead people, except ones that are usually given posthumously. The more you learn.
posted by Joe in Australia at 12:49 PM on November 23, 2016
posted by Joe in Australia at 12:49 PM on November 23, 2016
Get hype: I saw Hidden Figures at an awards screening last week, and it was fantastic. The right film for our times.
posted by adrianhon at 12:50 PM on November 23, 2016
posted by adrianhon at 12:50 PM on November 23, 2016
"I am the president, he is the Boss"
But, but, so is Miss Ross!
posted by fuse theorem at 1:27 PM on November 23, 2016
But, but, so is Miss Ross!
posted by fuse theorem at 1:27 PM on November 23, 2016
More broadly: Obama Awards His Last Presidential Medals of Freedom
This part of the award ceremony got to me (The Guardian video clip):
Outgoing US president Barack Obama admits to getting ‘kinda choked up’ while presenting the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Ellen DeGeneres. ‘It’s easy to forget now just how much courage was required for Ellen to come out on the most public of stages 20 years ago.’
posted by cynical pinnacle at 4:00 PM on November 23, 2016 [3 favorites]
This part of the award ceremony got to me (The Guardian video clip):
Outgoing US president Barack Obama admits to getting ‘kinda choked up’ while presenting the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Ellen DeGeneres. ‘It’s easy to forget now just how much courage was required for Ellen to come out on the most public of stages 20 years ago.’
posted by cynical pinnacle at 4:00 PM on November 23, 2016 [3 favorites]
Grace Hopper had mad skillz but I just cannot bring myself to forgive her for COBOL.
posted by flabdablet at 8:48 PM on November 23, 2016
posted by flabdablet at 8:48 PM on November 23, 2016
Grace Hopper had mad skillz but I just cannot bring myself to forgive her for COBOL.
it was the 1950s, the era of punchcards and paper teletypes. Surely expecting her to invent Python from first principles or something would have been far too big an ask...
posted by acb at 2:20 PM on November 24, 2016
it was the 1950s, the era of punchcards and paper teletypes. Surely expecting her to invent Python from first principles or something would have been far too big an ask...
posted by acb at 2:20 PM on November 24, 2016
Yeah I mean to be fair people back then really believed that making it look like English would make it easier for people to understand - and it kind of did, compared to what was before. We can't all be ALGOL 60.
posted by atoxyl at 3:28 PM on November 24, 2016
posted by atoxyl at 3:28 PM on November 24, 2016
(or LISP of course but I think an alternate 20th century where everybody uses LISP was never that likely)
posted by atoxyl at 3:30 PM on November 24, 2016
posted by atoxyl at 3:30 PM on November 24, 2016
people back then really believed that making it look like English would make it easier for people to understand ... We can't all be ALGOL 60.
Quite so. Doesn't alter the fact that anybody who can't be arsed learning to read FORTRAN should be gently steered away from the computer and given something else to do.
Languages with English-like syntax are inventions of the Devil with which no honest coder should have any truck.
posted by flabdablet at 7:08 PM on November 24, 2016
Quite so. Doesn't alter the fact that anybody who can't be arsed learning to read FORTRAN should be gently steered away from the computer and given something else to do.
Languages with English-like syntax are inventions of the Devil with which no honest coder should have any truck.
posted by flabdablet at 7:08 PM on November 24, 2016
Ya, we know that now. It was a little less obvious when they were writing the first instance.
flabdablet: "Doesn't alter the fact that anybody who can't be arsed learning to read FORTRAN should be gently steered away from the computer and given something else to do."
You realize you are talking about, like, 99.9% of people who use computers everyday.
posted by Mitheral at 8:12 PM on November 24, 2016 [1 favorite]
flabdablet: "Doesn't alter the fact that anybody who can't be arsed learning to read FORTRAN should be gently steered away from the computer and given something else to do."
You realize you are talking about, like, 99.9% of people who use computers everyday.
posted by Mitheral at 8:12 PM on November 24, 2016 [1 favorite]
Yeah, that's a pretty smug and dickish attitude to take, flabdablet.
posted by tavella at 9:16 PM on November 24, 2016
posted by tavella at 9:16 PM on November 24, 2016
You realize you are talking about, like, 99.9% of people who use computers everyday.
You realize you are conversing with a man whose outlook has been soured by having spent years cleaning up the messes that those people make of the computers they touch because of their fundamental disinclination to understand the first thing about how they work :-)
posted by flabdablet at 9:57 PM on November 24, 2016
You realize you are conversing with a man whose outlook has been soured by having spent years cleaning up the messes that those people make of the computers they touch because of their fundamental disinclination to understand the first thing about how they work :-)
posted by flabdablet at 9:57 PM on November 24, 2016
I think COBOL was an early example of a syndrome now more closely associated with JS - where something done on a tight deadline and intended as a short-term solution becomes (extremely) permanent. Though JS was of course one guy (and kinda seems like it) while COBOL was design-by-committee (and kinda seems like it).
posted by atoxyl at 1:02 AM on November 25, 2016
posted by atoxyl at 1:02 AM on November 25, 2016
\o/
I'll listen to the whingeing about COBOL when one of the whingers invents something significant to advance the state of the art in CS.
posted by tel3path at 2:35 AM on November 25, 2016 [3 favorites]
I'll listen to the whingeing about COBOL when one of the whingers invents something significant to advance the state of the art in CS.
posted by tel3path at 2:35 AM on November 25, 2016 [3 favorites]
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