Three cheers go out to my coworkers, as well - our twelve-woman team (admittedly including one sort of honorary-female) serves as academic tech support for our small liberal arts college. Hurrah for us - for every fixed software issue, every server update, every coded login system and organizational algorithm that gets used in our center, hurrah for us!
Try here for more information about Ada herself, and here to join the pledge for Ada Lovelace day.
To finish, my favorite Sarah Williams poem - on astronomy, not technology, yes, but on the courage that it takes to plow into the next challenge, or the next field where no one believes you belong, and to hold science and hard work and passion for discovery above everything else.
Sarah Williams, published in 1868, The Old Astronomer to his Pupil.
Reach me down my Tycho Brahe, I would know him when we meet,
When I share my later science, sitting humbly at his feet;
He may know the law of all things, yet be ignorant of how
We are working to completion, working on from then to now.
Pray remember that I leave you all my theory complete,
Lacking only certain data for your adding, as is meet,
And remember men will scorn it, 'tis original and true,
And the obliquy of newness may fall bitterly on you.
But, my pupil, as my pupil you have learned the worth of scorn,
You have laughed with me at pity, we have joyed to be forlorn,
What for us are all distractions of men's fellowship and smiles;
What for us the Goddess Pleasure with her meretricious smiles.
You may tell that German College that their honor comes too late,
But they must not waste repentance on the grizzly savant's fate.
Though my soul may set in darkness, it will rise in perfect light;
I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night.
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