Grace Hopper on Late Night with David Letterman (1986) [video] | Hacker News Reader

Grace Hopper on Late Night with David Letterman (1986) [video]

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242 points11thEarlOfMar52 comments

Wow, I'd never seen her speak before. 79 years old and sharp as a tack here. Her memory and comebacks are better/faster than mine are at half her age!

"How did you know so much about computers?"

"I didn't... it was the first one."

I definitely laughed out loud at that one.

I know it was the 80s, and it was a different time, but I never liked how Dave kept calling her "Grace." If Colin Powell was on Letterman, Dave would have called him "General Powell."

David Letterman is a real jerk. Watch his interview with John Waters where he treats him with disdain or when he creeps out Jennifer Aniston by licking her.

Watch his interview with Paris Hilton after the prison thing.

Never cared for her, but jesus how can someone be so cruel to a young girl in the middle of a life crisis?

https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/news/dav...

In fairness, she had to know it was coming at least somewhat. It's probably the reason she was there. If she didn't want to talk about it, she didn't have to go on a late night talk show, but she wanted to promote her business. Not everybody even gets the opportunity to make that tradeoff in support of businesses they work just as hard on.

He was a dick to Harvey Pekar, too. He even said he feels bad about it in a Howard Stern interview after his retirement.

A lot of comedians seem to hold him in high regards, which I never understood, but that's probably on me. But he really does seem like a massive prick.

That was kind of his schtick. He wasn’t above going for laughs at a guest’s expense from time to time, and that sort of irreverent snark was part of the show’s appeal.

"It the hardest thing to tell the people in this country: There was a time when everyone in this country all did one thing together."

Yeah yeah, common foe (this was around ww2), I know. But still.

That nano and pico seconds example is such a nice example of taking a difficult scientific concept and getting it across, in a way that I'll never forget.

"President Carter took [a boat to work] away."

Wow, she enlisted at 37 in 1944. That's impressive.

EDIT: I hate to #nit god like Comic Book Guy, but a picosecond is a trillionth of a sec and femtosecond is a quadtrillionth.

Grace Hopper on Letterman - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16555400 - March 2018 (1 comment)

Grace Hopper on Letterman - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8967077 - Jan 2015 (1 comment)

Grace Hopper on Letterman - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4456613 - Aug 2012 (2 comments)

"... between here and the satellite there are a very large number of nanoseconds."

I have one of her quotes on my office door: "The most dangerous phrase in the language is, 'we've always done it that way.'" It's applicable way more often than it should be.

And is the one below that by Chesterton?

For those who don't know what he's talking about:

https://www.google.com/search?q=chesterton%27s+fence

I wonder where she was going with the question about Letterman's ancestry

The way she assumed UK ancestry was interesting. Maybe it's just small talk in an old fashioned way?

You should watch it if only for her illustration of nanoseconds and pico seconds. It's brilliant and not what I expected.

Brilliant find, throws in the reference to DEC, where she had just joined.

Does anyone know if her star earrings are a reference to her rank? Or is it just a coincidence?

I have no idea. Googling it gets "Grace Hopper Nanosecond Earrings."

FWIW, when I became STAR Student in high school, my mother bought me a necklace with a starfish on it to mark the occasion. She was looking for a "star" of some sort and the starfish was all she could find.

So maybe someone else bought them because of her rank and she wore them in part to honor that memory and that relationship-- family, friend, whatever. That's something people sometimes do.

That would be very against military tradition, so I doubt it.

I'm not aware of a military tradition against retirees wearing jewelry that is a throwback to their service, quite the contrary in fact.

Generally speaking in the Navy and Marine Corps we're discouraged from representing or using our rank to influence the public or gain favor. I don't go around calling myself by my rank, I'd expect a former Rear Admiral not to as well.

In the Marine Corps, honorably separated Marines are entitled to use their rank as a courtesy title in civilian life. Wearing jewelry to celebrate and pay homage to one's service is hardly influencing the public.

I've seen pendants with an EGA, spearheads, and whatnot but not insignia. I kind of diluted this thread by talking about rank instead of insignia at first. Very different things.

By mentioning that you have a rank, aren’t you representing it to gain favor?

Hm. Not a lot of earrings in the military? So, maybe against men's military tradition...

This is an astonishingly bad faith take. She was in the Navy. The Navy and the Marine Corps have explicit policies about not representing your rank or using your rank for influence or gaining favor. As I said in another thread, I don't walk around calling myself by my former rank and I'd expect such a highly ranked officer not to as well.

As I said, I doubt that's what the ear rings are.

Before you edited your comments to say "my former rank," you listed a rank that in the Army would be too low to be a retiree. Granted, ranks are different in the Navy.

First, they do call her by her rank in the video.

Second, it's common in military culture for a retiree to be listed as [their rank] (RET) to indicate their Retired status.

Third, the video is from 1986. Policies and culture can and typically do change over the course of several decades.

If you served only a few years and did not reenlist, no, it's not appropriate to call yourself by your former rank. But retirees are free to use their rank so long as they don't misrepresent themselves as if they are still active duty, generally speaking.

> you listed a rank that in the Army

I was in the Marines, both have the rank of Corporal. I asked a friend and he pointed me here: https://www.defense.gov/Contact/Help-Center/Article/Article/...

You are right about the use of rank by retirees.

The example I gave is wrong or rather, more pertinent to active duty when operating in a civilian capacity. The Navy and Marines are the only branches that have specific rules about that. Wearing your insignia as an earring is what I was addressing and that is still very taboo. I served under Mattis and I'd be floored if I saw him wearing four star bars in a suit.

Now I’m curious about your former rank. Is that something you would disclose when asked or is it more personal and private than that?

No, I just removed it because it's not super relevant. I was a Corporal if you're curious.

Could you please explain to me what you think "bad faith" means in this context?

Yes, military traditions are just that. They're not different for women and men.

That's a bit disingenuous, for a service that has been overwhelmingly male for centuries. I little like saying "Our club is completely fair and traditional, even though we don't have any women's bathrooms. Tradition!"

Remember this woman was an Admiral(?) and a groundbreaker. Maybe she made the tradition. Not a lot of Navy folk (publicly) wearing dresses before either.

That was my point, badly made. There were likely no traditions regarding menopause or menstruation before women joined for instance. There was a need to 'make tradition'.

Whether that applies to decorative dangly earrings worn during interviews, I suspect there was some part of tradition that was lacking clarity.

She was in the Navy. The Simpsons had a joke about Bart getting an earring to be all rebellious and his dad saying something about "You're disrespecting our proud Navy heritage."

Sailors have been known to wear earrings. I mean male sailors.

The only official earring I'm aware of that was actually written into a NavMC at some point was the Black Pearl for being the lone survivor of a ship wreck.

The question wasn't about officially sanctioned jewelry.

But thank you for your informative comments.

I would infer that it is likely that there is a connection.

Fun fact: Next month David Letterman will only be 4 years younger than Hopper is in the video.

I wonder if WW2 felt more far away at that time, then the 80s feel today, even though both are 4 decades?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_bug

One of the biggest travesties of American culture is that people like Grace Hopper are not lionized on television. The best we've been able to do is the occasional appearance of intellectuals on late night or premium channels. There was a time in the first few decades of American television that intellectuals, academics, writers, etc. were invited on to actually discuss ideas.

Maybe that's where podcast shows have taken over... Guys like Lex Fridman and, dare I say, Joe Rogan help further the intellectual conversations of today.

On the other hand, they exist in other forms, like interviews or talks viewable on YouTube, or podcasts that can be re-listened to at any time.

Safely removed from broadcast television where there are many, many people who are not innately curious or able to fathom a different set of ideas. Exposure to different points of view are crucial to a well rounded mind and development of curiosity.

Nothing is wrong with things being available on Youtube or podcasts. The point is that much (if not most of it) is only available there and broadcast TV sits at the bottom of an ocean of emotion that exerts such extreme pressure that free thought cannot occur.

Yup, good old Dick Cavett Show. Even now I'll put up a re-run every once in a while

He was de man. Spent my teens watching him on late night TV. What a positive influence! With all due respect to Johnny Carson, master of the art, Carson's show was pablum in comparison.

Well we do have the NVIDIA Grace Hopper Super Chip: https://developer.nvidia.com/blog/nvidia-grace-hopper-superc...

Case in point, all those Noam Chomsky interviews.

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