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Lynn Conway has died

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Re: Lynn Conway has died

#221

Post by dekhn »

divbzero wrote: post #191
dekhn wrote: post #20

I met her totally at random at a bio conference in hawaii- I sat down next to her at a bar and we started chatting. I asked what she did and she said VLSI- something I knew nothing about (I was a biologist). She was curious about biology and wanted to learn about how she could help. I looked her name up later and learned she really did work in VLSI :)

When did you meet her at this bio conference? I’m curious what aspect of biology she was interested in and whether she dove into the subject further.

probably Pacific Symposium in Biocomputing around 2000 but I don't think Lynn ever published in the area. I don't recall the specific details of what we discussed, probably something about molecular dynamics.

Re: Lynn Conway has died

#222

Post by docmars »

not_alexb wrote: post #216
docmars wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Outside of calling it hate, why do you think people even in the most "allied" places respond to you in that way? Do you think perhaps they're afraid they may be helping an activist who may deem their services unacceptable? The track record has it that in these situations, service providers are at a major disadvantage, if anything remotely goes wrong during their interactions. If activists belonging to protected class…

This writing has a lot of parallels with the writings of men who are scared of women after the metoo movement. Anyway, you're conflating fear with disgust. I haven't seen much fear, if at all; what I have seen a lot of is, hate that looks the exact same as before trans activists had any platform.

Do you think that reaction is natural, given the patterns and preferences of most of human society?

Re: Lynn Conway has died

#223

Post by sircastor »

bradneuberg wrote: post #218

Did Conway's Law originate with Lynn Conway?

No, Conway's Law[1] is attributed to Melvin Conway, a different computer Scientist. Also unrelated to either Lynn Conway, or Melvin Conway, is Conway's Life, which is named for John Conway[2]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway's_law

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Horton_Conway

Re: Lynn Conway has died

#224

Post by sophacles »

verticalscaler wrote: post #204

[flagged]

Why would it be an 'or' thing?

Each of these by itself is a big accomplishment:

* Inventing super-scalar architecture

* Writing THE book on VLSI

* Becoming an accomplished professor, a favorite and recognized teacher to many of the "greats" in the field.

* Undergoing (then new and much riskier) gender reassignment surgery despite the legal and social consequences that it might (and ultimately did) entail - losing a prestigious job, losing a family, and having to start life over.... and doing all that quite successfully!

The fact that ALL of them are true of just one person is pretty spectacular. The fact that there are many comments in this thread from people who knew her and respected her for just one of these accomplishments (mostly the tech ones) and are just learning about the rest should answer the question for you about why this is being upvoted.

Heck - either of my first two bullet points is on it's own black-bar worthy. The fact that you feel the need to focus on "the transgender thing" as possibly being the only reason there's attention should give you some pause. The fact that your entire comment is focused on the fact that a major innovator in our field was transgender with only the faintest of acknowledgement that her work underpins most of what we do here is just plain gross.

Re: Lynn Conway has died

#225

Post by orsenthil »

RIP, Lynn Conway.

For those had a doubt like me, it is different Conway than another computer scientist,John Horton Conway (26 December 1937 – 11 April 2020) famous for "Conway's Game of Life".

Re: Lynn Conway has died

#227

Post by verticalscaler »

jauer wrote: post #211
verticalscaler wrote: post #204

[flagged]

She was one of the people who literally built the technical foundation of the world we know. That alone justifies all the upvotes. The fact that she did that on top of basically starting life over at 30 due to the constraints around transition at that time? That's winning a marathon with a cinder block chained to your ankle. As far as the concentration of trans people in computing, AFAIK there are two predominant the…

[flagged]

Re: Lynn Conway has died

#228

Post by 29athrowaway »

KennyBlanken wrote: post #35

> Although she had hoped to be allowed to transition on the job, IBM fired Conway in 1968 after she revealed her intention to transition.[19] IBM apologized for this in 2020. Given that in 2012 there was an entire IEEE magazine issue dedicated to her career and contributions to the field which really brought awareness of all her contributions...it's disappointing it took IBM so long to apologize, especially given the…

One day we will be struggling for survival, be it here on Earth or in space, and the years wasted by our species getting in the way of technological advancement by preventing people like Hypathia of Alexandria, Alan Turing, Galileo Galilei, Lynn Conway and many others from fulfilling their full potential could make the difference between collective survival or death.

We are truly an idiotic species sometimes.

Re: Lynn Conway has died

#229

Post by mturmon »

DonHopkins wrote: post #4

Lynn Conway, co-author along with Carver Mead of "the textbook" on VLSI design, "Introduction to VLSI Systems", created and taught this historic VLSI Design Course in 1978, which was the first time students designed and fabricated their own integrated circuits: >"Importantly, these weren’t just any designs, for many pushed the envelope of system architecture. Jim Clark, for instance, prototyped the Geometry Engine an…

Thanks for this context. I hadn't known about the link to Jim Clark but it makes sense.

Here's another one. It's Carver Mead, Lynn Conway's co-author, talking about the genesis of their legendary book, and process.

I was a university student at the time, and this was the way you could get your little custom processor into a fab and get hardware back. It was kind of amazing to go from a digital file through a compiler and verification, and then to hardware.

Carver's description with some backstory (probably helpful):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAZWXX5930M&t=1984s

And skipped ahead to just the book part:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAZWXX5930M&t=2064s

Re: Lynn Conway has died

#230

Post by not_alexb »

docmars wrote: post #222
not_alexb wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This writing has a lot of parallels with the writings of men who are scared of women after the metoo movement. Anyway, you're conflating fear with disgust. I haven't seen much fear, if at all; what I have seen a lot of is, hate that looks the exact same as before trans activists had any platform.

Do you think that reaction is natural, given the patterns and preferences of most of human society?

This has little to do with human society. Western society, maybe. Plenty of other societies don't assert a distinct binary for gender (which doesn't even exist in sex; intersex people exist at the same rates as people that are red-headed, and you wouldnt call red heads unnatural).

Even if it was "natural" you're making the choice to treat someone like shit. You can backpedal onto what all your peers are doing all you want, but that doesn't change how you as an individual are making another human being, who has done nothing to you, feel

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