In 1945, six women programmed the world’s first computer—without manuals, formal training, or recognition. Their names—Betty Holberton, Jean Bartik, Kay McNulty, Ruth Teitelbaum, Marlyn Meltzer, and Frances Spence—were nearly lost to history. When a young computer scientist named Kathy Kleiman stumbled upon a photo of them beside the towering ENIAC machine decades later, she was told dismissively, “They’re probably just models.” But they weren’t. They were the world’s first true coders. Originally hired during WWII as “human computers,” the women were tasked with programming ENIAC from scratch—working from blueprints alone, since they weren’t allowed in the lab. They invented the first algorithms, flowcharts, and logic systems on paper, before manually programming the machine by plugging in cables, switch by switch. On February 14, 1946, ENIAC debuted to global astonishment. But while the male hardware engineers were celebrated, the women behind the programming were left out of the headlines. Society didn’t yet see coding as “real work.” As computing evolved, so did the myth of the male coder, and the women who had laid the foundation were erased from textbooks. But they continued shaping tech—Holberton wrote the first software application, Bartik advanced memory systems, McNulty helped invent subroutines, all core to modern programming. Their legacy was nearly lost—until Kleiman tracked them down in the 1980s and brought their story back into the light. In 1997, they were finally honored, many in their seventies. But by then, tech culture had already shifted, claiming innovation as a boys’ domain. We can’t undo that erasure—but we can rewrite the narrative going forward. Because women didn’t just enter tech—they built it. And the legacy of the first programmers belongs to all of us.

Sprinty got laid again...  writes home about it....

Lovely manners.

When Harriet Tubman was just twelve, enslaved and still a child, she was ordered to help tie up a man who had tried to run for freedom. She refused.
As the man tried to flee again, Harriet moved to block the doorway—not to stop him, but to help him escape. An overseer hurled a two-pound weight at him. It missed—and struck Harriet in the skull. She collapsed, bleeding and unconscious. She would suffer from the effects—severe headaches, seizures, and sudden sleep episodes—for the rest of her life.
But even that didn’t stop her.
Years later, when she learned she might be sold, Harriet—now in her twenties—ran away in the night with her two brothers. They turned back. She kept going. Alone. Ninety miles through woods and fields, walking by night, hiding by day, trusting no one. And when she reached the North, she said:
“I looked at my hands to see if I was the same person now that I was free. There was such a glory over everything… I felt like I was in heaven.”
Most people would stop there. Not Harriet.
She went back. Again and again. First for her family. Then for strangers. Over 13 missions, she led more than 70 people to freedom—and not one was ever caught.
“I never ran my train off the track, and I never lost a passenger.”
She was five feet tall. Scarred. Unshakable. A conductor on the Underground Railroad—and a light in one of the darkest chapters of history.

Sprintcyclist wrote on Jul 17^th, 2025 at 7:56pm:


Lovely, tell yer mum.

https://www.themarginalian.org/2015/02/12/lou-andreas-salome-sigmund-freud-lette...


Russian-born poet, essayist, and intellectual Lou Andreas-Salomé (February 12, 1861–February 5, 1937) created for herself a freedom that modern women have come to expect, at a time when such freedom was practically impossible. She became a philosopher in an era when women were neither expected nor even allowed to study philosophy and was a muse to Rilke, who wrote her passionate love letters and dedicated his Book of Hours to her, and to Nietzsche, who set down his ten rules for writers in a letter to her and whose Thus Spoke Zarathustra was largely inspired by her.
...

The whole of Sigmund Freud and Lou Andreas-Salomé: Letters is a forgotten treasure of formative ideas on the human psyche. Complement it with Rilke on the tenacity of the human spirit and Tolstoy’s little-known correspondence with Gandhi on love, violence, and why we hurt each other.

Sprintcyclist wrote on Jul 17^th, 2025 at 7:56pm:


I have the book she wrote/ghostwrote (Harriet likely couldn’t read and write, forbidden to slaves.) Quite a lady. Not just brave but effective in freeing other slaves.

Sprintcyclist wrote Yesterday at 9:14am:



Aaaargh - the Original Mushroom Lady?  The mind boggles!!!  I was in a fruit and veg market today - huge swathes of mushrooms - How could I help myself?  Got any Golden Tops?