I got another email from the White House today, and I thought I’d share.  As always, my thoughts are in italics.

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A few years ago, I was fortunate enough to visit the U.K. Prime Minister’s residence at 10 Downing Street. How nice for you.  The closest I ever got was a pub a few blocks away.  Of course, I was in the UK for more than a junket, so I guess we’re even.

During a tour of the residence, we were shown a painting of an elegantly dressed woman. “Of course, you know Lady Lovelace,” we were told.  I’ll bet half of you thought she was a porn star, didn’t you?

Imagine our surprise to learn that we were staring at a portrait of the woman who is considered to be the world’s first programmer. Our group had never heard of her. Wait, seriously?  You’re the “U.S. Chief Technology Officer” and you didn’t know who Ada Lovelace was?  Never heard of the Ada programming language?   Seriously, you’re older than I am, and I know that.  What exactly did you learn at MIT, anyway?

Ada Lovelace’s experience remains all too familiar: So many of the breakthrough contributions of women in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields continue to go untold, too often fading into obscurity.  Like I said, if you’ve been in technology long enough to remember Y2K, then you have no excuse not knowing who Lady Lovelace was.  If you do know and aren’t passing it on without a government program, then shame on you.

Join us in doing something to change that: Listen to women from across the Obama administration share the untold stories of women who’ve inspired us.  I’ll pass, thanks. Want to pass on stories to inspire people?  Try leaving your ivory tower and go teach at a disadvantaged school.  And no, Chautauqua and MIT aren’t disadvantaged schools.  Pass on what you’ve learned, and learn what happens beyond the Beltway or Silicon Valley.

Then add an untold history of your own, and make a commitment to share these stories in any way you can to help inspire more young women and men to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering, and math.  Here’s my inspiration:  A lot of people, who were willing to learn, keep learning, and learn how to apply what they’ve learned, have gone on to make a lot of money in engineering, science, technology, and mathematics.  Some of them even found it interesting.  If that doesn’t inspire you, then maybe women’s studies really is for you.

Women were central in the early teams building the foundation of modern programming. They unveiled the structure of DNA. Their work inspired new environmental movements and led to the discovery of new genes. It’s past time to write their stories permanently into history, so they can stand side by side with the extraordinary men like them who have used their technical and innovation skills to bring needed solutions and discoveries to our world.  Can’t disagree with you here.  Lots of women have worked their butts off for hundreds of years, and yeah, it sucks that many of them didn’t get credit for their work.  But, hey, guess what?  If you work your butt off now, not only will you probably get credit for your ideas, assuming you didn’t sign an “All your ideas are belong to us” agreement with your employer, you’ll not only get credit, but there’s a good chance you’ll make some money too!  Again, if that doesn’t inspire you, might I suggest a career in Lifeguard Sciences?

And here’s what’s worth noting: Telling and sharing these stories will actively help create more of them in the future.  So will saying “People with usable skills tend to be able to feed themselves.”

Research shows us that a key part of inspiring more young people to pursue careers in science and technology is simply sharing the stories of role models like them in these fields who have had a significant impact on our world.  Again, probably true.  My role model was Eric the Red, a man so contentious he got thrown out of not one, but two Viking cultures.  If you’re that big of an asshat, you’re my guy.  He’s been a great inspiration during my two decades or so of working with and on technology.

Stories like that of Rosalind Franklin, whose research was essential for revealing the structure of DNA. There’s Katherine Johnson, who calculated key flight trajectories during the Space Race. The ENIAC team — six young women “Computers” who were the first digital programmers in America. Or Navy Rear Admiral Grace Hopper, who first developed computer languages and a compiler to translate them into machine code.  I’m more inspired by the army of male and female programmers, administrators, and technicians who have kept the wheels on the Information Revolution for the past 40 years or so while the chosen people, like you, could have “great ideas” and make oodles of money convincing other people your brain droppings are worth paying for.

Seriously, though, I can see where you’re going.  For whatever reason, girls and women are kind of thin on the ground in STEM education and jobs.  But we’ve been pushing ‘equality’ in girls’ education for nigh-onto 40 years, and we’re still working on this.  What we need to do is encourage young people of both sexes to learn as much as they can about as many things as they can, then work toward a degree that they can enjoy and will provide gainful employment.  Making ” Studies” degrees easily available and convincing students that someone will pay them because they’re bright and creative is probably part of the problem. 

In other words, telling young ladies about Ada Lovelace or the other women who have excelled in science or engineering is probably only going to work on a few of your targets.  Let’s try something that’s worked before:  being truthful in how good a STEM degree and job can be for them.

You just might inspire the next Ada Lovelace. Or the next Carly Fiorina, or Meg Whitman, or the other women who have become CEO’s of major companies, both in and out of the STEM fields.

Thanks,

Megan

Megan Smith
U.S. Chief Technology Officer
The White House

• From the “Bubble Bursting” Department – Smith and Wesson is reporting that sales of its rifles have dipped when compared to the same period last year.  Amazingly enough, when the threat of the government restricting the exercise of a right, people stop panicking and stocking up on the thing that you need to exercise the right.  Now that the rush for guns and ammunition are over, I may be back in the market.
• From the “Barbecue Spear” Department – Archeologists are reporting that humans probably tamed fire about 350,000 years ago.  The ability to start a fire when needed was a giant step for early humans, and brought about improved hunting tools, cooked food, and the ceremonial lighting of the mid-winter flatulence.
• From the “Common Sense Reforms” Department – The Texas legislature is considering several pro-gun rights bills.  It is hoped that the open carrying of pistols will be legalized, either with or without a license.  The usual gang of useful idiots are howling about blood in the streets, but that’s become so pro-forma that it’s basically background noise.  Here’s hoping the Lone Star state joins states such as Kentucky that allow open carry and don’t have people slapping leather at high noon.
• From the “Misdirected Anger” Department –  Several families of people who were hurt or killed at the Newtown shooting are suing the manufacturer, distributor, and gun shop who handled the Bushmaster AR-15 used in the attack.  The basic contention of the lawsuit is that the AR-15 has no proper civilian use, including hunting or self-defense, and the companies named in the suit are negligent for manufacturing and selling them.  I hope Bushmaster fights this tooth and nail.  If this goes through, I’m suing Toyota for making their cars so safe, thereby preventing the death of my ex-wife when she ran hers into the back-end of a truck.  No word if the families plan on suing the estate of the attacker’s mother, the doctors she used to try to control her son, or all of the other people who did little to nothing to keep the little creep away from good people.
• From the “Even Dozen” Department – In a follow-up to a story I wrote about in an earlier post, the Navy has revealed that not only did one petty officer on a submarine videotape female officers undressing and showering, but that 11 other sailors and PO’s watched the videos.  I’m guessing none of them went to the chain of command to report this breach of trust and etiquette.   I wonder what it looks like when you keel haul twelve dumbasses at once?
• From the “And The Horse You Rode In On” Department – The police union in New York city is encouraging its members to proactively shun local politicians, who supported the recent protests against the police, from their funerals.  It is traditional for the mayor and other ‘leaders’ to attend the funerals of police and fire workers who die in the line of duty, and I guess that the rank and file might not want them to get the spotlight at their wake.  This might be a bad idea.  How are you going to keep flies off the body if there isn’t something more smelly at the wake?
• From the “Blast From The Past” Department – A time capsule, originally placed by Paul Revere and Sam Adams, has been discovered in the Massachusetts State House in Boston.  It was previously found and augmented in the 1850’s, and the commonwealth’s government plans to X-Ray it to see what it contains.  It is known that there is some Revere silver plate and several coins in the package, but my sources say that there is also a backbone for the current leadership of the country, provided by George Washington, as well as Ben Franklin’s hand-written guide to the best bordellos in Paris.
• From the “Felonious Feline” Department – A stray cat, who has been seen around the Vladivostok Airport before, was recently filmed having a luncheon seafood buffet at an airport market.  Authorities have no idea how the cat got into the seafood case, and assure consumers that the legally prescribed amount of vodka has been used to forget how to disinfect the area.  When reached for comment, the cat stared balefully at the camera for a few moments before mumbling something about reporters under its fishy breath and walking away.  Sources at the Kremlin report that President Putin is planning to denounce the cat as an American plant, just as soon as he finishes his search for a moose and squirrel.