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Technology

Actress/Inventor Hedy Lamarr dies 194

Posted by Hemos from the original-techno-talking-babe dept.
No Such Agency writes "Wired News reports that Hedy Lamarr has died at the age of 86. Lamarr was not only a sex symbol and film star in the 30's-40's but also invented 'spread-spectrum' or frequency-hopping radio (with composer George Antheil). Originally intended to provide jamming-proof communications and remote torpedo control, the technology is one of the foundations of modern wireless communications, including wireless internet connections and GPS. Unfortunately their innovation was not appreciated until after their patent had expired. You can read more about Lamarr and spread-spectrum radio here."
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Actress/Inventor Hedy Lamarr dies More

Actress/Inventor Hedy Lamarr dies

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  • so i guess he's the one we blame when we all get cancer from using our cell phones?
    : )

  • (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Slashdot really needs to separate the dead-people articles from the technology articles. We're all too addicted to just not click on the story.
  • she was totally hot in "White Cargo" (an otherwise terrible movie) but who knew she
    was a thinker? you'd never know from her
    film roles.

    "That's Hedley!"

    garyr
  • This is the first time I've heard of Hedy Lamarr the inventor. It is not the first time I've heard of Hedy Lamarr the actress.

    I would like to blast the mainstream media (and, I suppose, mainstream culture) for regarding acting as more worthy of attention than invention. This will all change after the Geek Revolution (heh).

  • Actually, that'd be 'she' rather than 'he'. Hedy was an actress. And no, I doubt she has much to do with the amount of power output a cell phone has and what that does to your noggin' as you jabber endlessly while driving down the freeway....

    Seriously, I doubt people who use cell phones moderately (eg. for emergency calls, etc), rather than as a primary contact medium or as a way to 'chat with the {boys|girls|etc}' while driving down the road, will have few cancer issues.

    On a different note, Blazing Saddles won't be quite the same for me now.

    --Joe
    --

  • This is the essence... (Score:4)

    by Shoeboy ( 16224 ) on Wednesday January 19, 2000 @03:17PM (#1356531) Homepage
    ...of the garage revolution. A composer and an actress coming up with a breakthrough in communications technology. Far out. I'm rethinking my whole approach:

    Wanted: Hollywood starlets and composers to assist in next generation web development architecture. Must have interest in compression technology, just-in-time compilers and self modifying code. Large, firm breasts and/or
    appreciation of Irving Berlin a plus. Competitive salaries, call today.

    In all seriousness, I like this story in that is provides a (admittedly anecdotal) refutation to the frequently expressed opinion that only stereotypical geeks can contribute to technology. Some geeks have bulging biceps or a knack for (american) football. Some geeks are cute. Too many of us on /. tend to assume that the beautiful people are lusers.
    --Shoeboy

  • To Hedy Lamarr, the original, never-to-be forgotten, Tech Talking Babe.


    TOYWAR [toywar.com]!!

  • Hot pics... (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    http://users.deltanet.com/users/d stickne/hedy.htm [deltanet.com]

    Hmm... many of them are black and white, like a statue....
  • Oh my God. You mean back then you could be a sex symbol and still be smart?

    kwsNI
  • See this wired link [lycos.com]

    I remember the 1989 Carnegie Hall
    version. I don't remember it in any detail,
    but I remember it kicked butt. We are not
    talking a trivial film composer here.


    but then I like Milton Babbit too.
    garyr
  • Hedy Lamarr must be about the closest thing to a geek guy's ideal woman. She was certainly a hot chick in her day. Just look at that Corel Draw picture of her that Corel uses for their. But before today I'd *no* idea she was an engineering genius.

    The orginal Techno-Talking Babe!(TM)

    Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
    Thought exists only as an abstraction
  • I heard it from Paul Harvey (true!) That she and her composer friend were thinking about the jamming problem, and she simple asked "why does it have to be on one frequency?" Thus the invention of spread spectrum broadcasting.

    Not sure if it's true, but sometimes the best inventions come from people who aren't knee deep in the problem already. :)
  • Coincidentally, Hedy Lamarr is also the face on the package of CorelDRAW [slashdot.org]. IIRC, she successfully sued Corel for using her image without prior authorization.

  • An interesting person (Score:3)

    by jd ( 1658 ) <`imipak' `at' `yahoo.com'> on Wednesday January 19, 2000 @03:28PM (#1356540) Homepage Journal
    It goes to show that women -CAN- be geeks AND make use of their looks. Looking good is NOT a bar to using your brain, as many schools seem to teach.

    Personally, I think Corel should pay for a permanent memorial to her, in recognition for her services both in entertainment AND technology. (Given Corel's extremely unpleasent treatment of her in the past, such as false allegations in order to overturn a lawsuit filed against them, it is the least they can do.)

    I also think that there should be some kind of fund, linking not only Hedy Lamarr but other well-known female geeks, nerds and innovators, to go to educating women (kids, teachers and parents) that it's OK to think, OK to earn decent money whilst clothed & vertical, and VERY OK to be interested in technology.

    Is this person's death -that- important? YES! The fewer role-models that can speak out, the less chance there is of change. And society, frankly, sucks. The average person seems to keep their brains at waist-height, and technology is something people avoid like the plague. (More than a few -blame- it for the plague.) We need people who can stand up and say that intelligence is OK, that we were born with brains, and they aren't just for decoration in gorefest movies.

    Sadly, those who -do- think about high-tech think "big machines, big budgets, big teams, egg-heads on Penguin Mints, and Military Backing". They don't think "piano", which is how Hedy came up with the idea of shifting frequencies. They don't think "storms & a compass", which is how Marconi developed the radio. They don't think "growing cells" or "living beings", which were the roots behind Alan Turing's and Von Neuman's developments in computing.

    In the end, I doubt anyone will do a damn thing, in memory of this ingenious lady, to improve education, or to improve women's standing in society. But there ya go. What can you expect?

  • I like to do that.

    It isn't until they're in my secret laboratory, and have signed a non-disclosure agreement, that they realize I brought them there TO TURN THEM INTO GRANITE STATUES by means of an Open-source Patent-pending Method For Transforming Girls Into Granite Statues*

    *patent pending
  • yeah .. the he/she thing was a typo on my part



  • She was a Techno-Talking Babe!. Someone should tell Nitrozac to put her ghost in an issue of After Y2k.

    "You ever have that feeling where you're not sure if you're dreaming or awake?"

  • Hm. Hedy Lamarr Award? (Score:3)

    by MAXOMENOS ( 9802 ) <mike@mikesmithforor e g o n . c om> on Wednesday January 19, 2000 @03:36PM (#1356545) Homepage

    Maybe a Slashdot Hedy Lamarr Award for the most outstanding contribution made by a woman in the last year?

    Hey, it could work.
    TOYWAR [toywar.com]!!

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • When a was just a wee lad, my Mom used to tell me about Hedy Lamarr, how she was the most beautiful women ever and she invented spread-spectrum radio. Ever since, all of my dreams have been of divas and wireless connectivity.

    God bless you, Hedy. You're missed

  • Other Links (Score:4)

    by ewhac ( 5844 ) on Wednesday January 19, 2000 @03:40PM (#1356549) Homepage Journal

    Oh, sure, my submission about the passing of Ms. Lamarr gets rejected. Not that I'm bitter, mind you...

    Anyway, the San Francisco Chronicle ran a story about her passing [sfgate.com], inclding some nic e photos [sfgate.com] of her. They also had an overview [sfgate.com] of her spread spectrum invention.

    Hedy was also honored by the EFF with a Pioneer Award [eff.org] in 1997 for her spread spectrum work.

    Schwab

  • Patent-pending Method For Transforming Girls Into Granite Statues*
    You can't patent that you idiot! There's prior art:
    When you reach the third level of Harkyn's Castle you will find a "Stone Sword." This turns any creature you encounter into stone. I haven't encountered any girls in Bard's Tale I, but I'm stalled on the second level of Mangars' Tower.
    --Shoeboy
  • >Too many of us on /. tend to assume that the beautiful people are lusers.

    And the best part is, it mostly seems the feeling is mutual... (*grin)


    --
  • The problem with this proposition is that it is not ok. Women are inferior to men (1 Timothy 2:11-14) and should act like it and obey the bible in order to save there lustfull and sinful souls from the flames of hell.

    Dude...this is exactly the kind of ignorant, sexist garbage that keeps talented people from using their talents. (You do remember the parable of the talents, right?) If women using their God-given talents is against your religious code, then maybe you ought to re-think the way you worship.

    I certainly hope your children don't grow up to resent you. Gods know if I had been raised to think the way you do, I'd end up bitter and angry at my own father as I came to the realization that the real world is completely different from what my father told me.


    TOYWAR [toywar.com]!!
  • I used to work in an Army Surplus store. One of the managers was a guy named Tony: big guy, 6' 7", shaved head, always talking about the women who were browsing in the store, scoping them out, etc. One day we're sorting posters and I come across a Betty Page pin-up girly thing right in front of a poster celebrating Amelia Earhart.

    "Hey, Tone; who'd you rather have sex with: Amelia Earhart or Betty Page?"

    "Hank, I tell ya: Betty's got the package, right? Tits, abs, ass-she's built. But flyin' across the Atlantic solo? Man, that shit is hot."

    In 2 years, it was by far the most well reasoned, least sexist thing I ever heard him say.

    Tone would see the allure of Hedy, no problem. She's Betty's body with Amelia's soul.

  • Re:Hot pics... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Here [deltanet.com] is the picture for the statue freaks. Enjoy.

  • This is the first time I have ever heard of Hedy Lamarr the actress and the inventor!

    Yay me!

    Wish I had heard of her invention(s) before...
  • Hedy Lamarr must be about the closest thing to a geek guy's ideal woman.
    I thought so at at first. I became suspicious after looking at IMDB [imdb.com]. Apparently she's racked up more than half a dozen divorces, as well as a minor criminal record.

    So besides being well over 50 years my senior and dead, she's probably not this geek guy's type.

    -Chuck
  • I can only speak for myself but I have no objection to inventors who make significant breakthroughs in any field patenting their work, and thus allowing them to profit from it. I believe that this is what patents are for. I do have an objection to opportunists who abuse the patent system by patenting incremental "breakthroughs", business models, things that already exist in prior art and things that are obvious (can you say "one-Click shopping").
  • Just look at that Corel Draw picture of her that Corel uses...

    Is THAT who that is? I'll be damned, I never knew that! Thanks!

    -- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?

  • No, I skipped the rest of the bible. Turns out its pretty boring

    Oh...well...this explains everything.

    Care for some tea? One lump or two?


    TOYWAR [toywar.com]!!
  • Hmmn. I think singling out women's contributions, although on the face seeming nice, actually reinforces the perception of "women != technological" by making a big fuss when, <sarcasm> gasp, a woman actually got past the math-is-hard stereotype and did something smart!!! </sarcasm>

    I think Hedy Lamarr's contribution to technology was not (because of/in spite of/related to) her having XX chromosomes instead of XY. Instead, it was good instance of lateral thinking, getting an idea that kicks the struts out from under the core assumptions that so-called "experts" unthinkingly make when thinking about a problem.

    If there's to be a proposition for a Hedy Lamarr award, why not make it for the person of any gender who's had the best out-of-left-field idea that made the most impact?


    --
  • Actually most of the "actresses" I have met actually prefer to be called actors. There was this one girl who told me that only airhead bimbos call themselves actresses. :)

  • Hedy Lamarr: Ace Spy (Score:3)

    by Baldrson ( 78598 ) on Wednesday January 19, 2000 @04:02PM (#1356571) Homepage Journal
    From the biography of Hedy Lamarr:

    As the evening wore on, Lamarr began outlining her idea for a sophisticated antijamming device for use in radio-controlled torpedoes. If this seems out of character for a 26-year old film beauty, the fact is that not only did Lamarr possess a first-class mind but she also had listened to her husband's dinner-table business discussions with customers for his armaments. After all, Fritz Mandl's Hirtenberger Patronen-Fabrik had supplied much of the equipment Benito Mussolini used when his troops invaded Ethiopia in 1935.

  • Am I crazy or was there a character called Hedly Lamar (note the L in hedly) in the movie Blazing Saddles?

    I've never put the two together before but the thought just popped in my head. Was this a coincedence or an homage?


    -scuz me while I whip this out...

  • Re:Techno-Talking Babe (Score:3)

    by Accipiter ( 8228 ) on Wednesday January 19, 2000 @04:02PM (#1356573)
    Found the pic, in case anyone is interested.

    http://www.corel.com/graphics/contests/jpg/0379_ pho_bs1996_10.jpg

    Excellent graphics work. That pic is amazing. It's been on Corel's boxes for a while now.

    -- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?

  • If there's to be a proposition for a Hedy Lamarr award, why not make it for the person of any gender who's had the best out-of-left-field idea that made the most impact?

    Speaking of lateral thinking, that's a far better idea than the one I came up with. Hat's off to you.

    How about it Slashdot? If you want I'll start developing products that we can sell...proceeds to go to the Hedy Lamarr Award for Lateral Thinking.


    TOYWAR [toywar.com]!!
  • Some of these geeks are so desperate that never mind the divorces and arrests, even the *dead* thing wouldn't be enough to stop them if they got the chance!
    HA! No matter how desparate or lonely I get, I can always make myself feel better knowing that I have at least some standards!
    -Chuck

  • Actually, she was partly recognized for tech. (Score:3)

    by iKev ( 73931 ) on Wednesday January 19, 2000 @04:13PM (#1356586)
    A Canadian company specializing in wireless technology, Wi-Lan,acquired the original patent from Lamarr for "spread spectrum" technology back in 1998. Wi-Lan claimed that they were going to promote her role in developing the technology but sadly, I never saw much of that (I live in Canada and recall reading the article in June/98 in TCP, before Wi-Lan's apparent "discovery" by investors). The long overdue credit could still happen, but it's not the same once the co-inventor is dead (Lamarr's husband helped invent SST).

    Read about it here [wilan.com]


    http://www.wilan.com/news/press/press23a.html
  • Not only is the pic amazing, but it's also quite contentious. It was used completely without Hedy Lamarr's permission, and I know that she objected to its use. I'm not sure if she sued over it, but I think it was in definite bad taste for Corel to use her image without even contacting her.

    There was quite a good story about her in Invention & Technology [americanheritage.com] a couple of years ago. Unfortunately, it doesn't appear to be archived.
  • You should blast yourself, either for being a deficient geek or for not paying enough attention to the "mainstream media". I heard the spread-spectrum story a couple of years ago on the radio, at least twice.

    She was also in the news in '98 when she sued Corel for using her picture on the CorelDraw box without permission.
    --

  • Here's a quote from the San Francisco Chronicle [sfgate.com] obit (near the bottom):

    She was married and divorced six times -- to ... and lawyer Lewis W. Boies Jr

    Could this lawyer be any relation to the Boies hired by the DoJ who did such a wonderful job against M$?

    And moderators -- lighten up! laugh, it's funny!

    :-) :-) :-)

    --
  • And not only that, but didn't he (played by Harvey Korman, btw) have a problem with everyone always pronouncing his name "Hedy"? I always thought that was funny, but never really understood it until today. I'm guessing that it was homage, as Mel Brooks seemed to be celebrating classic Hollywood nonstop in his movies of the '70s.
  • Corel Draw picture of her that Corel

    Which was unauthorized. She sued [infoculture.cbc.ca] 'em and won too.

  • Its Headly!@#

    ;)

  • Arguably our last great heroine and patriot (Score:3)

    by kerouac ( 18850 ) on Wednesday January 19, 2000 @04:23PM (#1356599)
    Outside of the obvious things that she did for science and the Allied forces during WWII- as well as the simple fact that I would not have a modem if not for her, the one thing that sticks in my mind is this:

    After her accomplishments were turned over to the Government for the war effort, they did not welcome her into the halls of the nations think tanks.



    Instead, they asked her to sell her sex appeal as a spokesmodel for the sale of U.S. war bonds.

    Out of sheer patriotism, she did.

    I'm just happy that she has started to recieve some of the respect that she's had coming for so long, and that the EFF was good enough to say 'thanks' while she was still alive.



  • Yes. Madeline Kahn, who also died recently, did a wonderful Marlene Dietrich impersonation in Blazing Saddles, and was called Hedly Lamar. Given that it was Mel Brooks directing, I would doubt that this was either a coincedence or a homage, but rather a subtle (nudge, nudge, wink, wink) joke.
  • that was a spine-chilling thought, brother.
  • Yup, it's a true masterpiece... John Corkery won the 1996 design of the year for it... corelmag had a detailed writeup on it, but I can't find it to provide a link.

    And yeah, she sued. They've since resolved and she granted them a 5 year license. Details [corel.com] are available from Corel.

    She was definently the original TTB (hey Nitrozac, was she inspiration?) and will be missed.
  • If Hedy Lamarr, or anyone else, had patented something as simple as spread spectrum today, it would be a joke patent, much like so many others. In the 1940's, however, it was a marvelous new idea that should have been used more than it was.

    If no one else can figure out how to solve a real problem, then one person figures out a solution, that's a real patentable idea. Sometimes it's hard to tell if it's a solution seeking a problem. But stupidly obvious stuff like saving your credit card info in a server indexed by username or cookie, is not worthy of a patent (even if some .COM wasted 999 man*hours implementing it).

    If Hedy Lamarr had been in her prime at the launch of the Internet, she probably would have been a great contributor.
  • If you know how to do a web search, then search, and learn the truth.

  • Tesla invented this much earlier! (Score:4)

    by Epitaph ( 13745 ) on Wednesday January 19, 2000 @04:43PM (#1356610) Homepage
    I've read quite a bit about Nikola Tesla and his inventions, and I'm certain he invented this system right after the turn of the century.

    He invented radio, patented it, and in 1893 gave a lecture about it and published it free for everyone in the world to use. He was then totally ripped off by Marconi around the turn of the century when he made the first transatlantic broadcast using the exact same apparatus that Tesla had described in the paper he published.

    At this time, Tesla was trying to push the government to adopt his system of wireless war machines that could do battle without having humans be sitting ducks inside them. He demonstrated a model boat at the world's fair that was not only wireless, but used spread spectrum techonology to encrypt its signal. Nobody, of course picked up on this.

    He went on to invent radar and offered to build radar systems for the government in the late 1920's, but they refused, and were forced to play catchup in 1938 and develop their own radar system.

    If you'd like some more information about Tesla, go check out this short article about his major achievements: http://home.nycap.rr.com/useless/ tesla/tesla.html [rr.com].

    Tesla was not a crackpot, like a lot of people who know nothing about the man seem to think. This view was created by Thomas Edison who spent a large portion of his life trying to smash Tesla's image, and he ended up succeeding very well.

    - Chris

  • Re:Hm. Hedy Lamarr Award? (Score:3)

    by Lemmy Caution ( 8378 ) on Wednesday January 19, 2000 @04:49PM (#1356615) Homepage
    Because people, especially young people, are encouraged by the success of people who in some way resemble themselves in disciplines and fields in which people who resemble themselves in some way have not traditionally been recognized or are well represented.

    Smart girls want and need to see examples of smart women identified and recognized.

  • Hmm. (Score:3)

    by mindstrm ( 20013 ) on Wednesday January 19, 2000 @04:52PM (#1356617)
    Actually.. I think saying 'Spread Spectrum' covers more than just Frequency Hopping....
    There is Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum, Frequency Hopping Spread Spectrum.. and I'm sure there are/will be others....

    Freq. Hopping is when you shift carrier frequencies arond within the wider spectrum (hence, spread) that you are using.

    Direct Sequence is a lot wierder (very closely tied in to CDMA... or rather, I think CDMA is an extension of DSSS). In direct sequency, you simply 'spread' the signal over the whole wide spectrum at once.... and the special way the signal is coded gives it redundancy, and makes it hide.

    in FHSS, on a spectrum analyzer, a definite pattern of carriers on different frequencies shows up.. ina proper bell curve around the center frequency. (I think it's a bell.. something similar anyway).

    in DSSS, on a spectrum analyzer, a 'plateau' is all you see.. with fuzz under it.
  • That's basically what happend, IIRC.... and they *did* use her idea.. it wasn't ignored. It was kept quiet, though.. it had to be.
  • No, kahn played Lily Von Schtoop, the German singer. Hedley was Harvey Korman's villain. In this context (the real hedy being a beautiful actress), I guess it's easy to mistake the roles :).
  • Hedy Lamarr must be about the closest thing to a geek guy's ideal woman. She was certainly a hot chick in her day.

    And don't forget Jayne Mansfield, who reputedly had the "highest IQ in Hollywood" in her time... somewhere in the 180s, IIRC.

    So why didn't she in her spare time invent side-looking radar or something like that? She was a pragmatist and decided that making movies was an easier way to get rich... Hey Lamarr never made a dime from her invention...

  • Hedy Lamarr's patent partner [ncafe.com], George Antheil, was also no slouch at premature applications of future technologies. His riot-inciting [schirmer.com] work, Ballet Mécanique required sixteen synchronized player pianos to sound right. This wasn't technically possible until 1991, and first performed correctly in 1999 [antheil.org] so perhaps the "George Antheil award for premature killer apps" is in order too... Anyway we geeks will miss you, Hedy!
  • Apparently you only get this famous after you die and you finally can't stop the media from talking about you--it sounds like the story of her life.

    Here's a link from before she died...

    MIT Inventors [mit.edu]

    Now, the Forbes article was pretty good. I can understand how someone with her background could help out on an idea like this, but she certainly didn't invent it outright, which is what the Wired article sounds like. Maybe we could have gotten the full story before, but she's dead now, and let the media make a story about it all they want, they always do...
    ---
    pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate [152.7.41.11].
  • Your heart is in the right place but:

    1. I'd be willing to bet that the original poster is just a troll, not a sexist, you're probably wasting your breath

    2. The parable of the talents has nothing to do with talents as we know them: the talents referred to in the parable are a form of currency.

  • A toast.. (and a picture) (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Aye, to Hedy, the original, brainy, beautiful Tech Talking Babe (jpg) [infocom.com].

    (perhaps Ada Lovelace was the penultimate original tech talking babe, but can't forget Nitrozac either .. oh my)

  • Tesla is one guy who really got screwed by history. I remember back in the day (OK, early 90s when I was still *listening* to Tesla, the band) doing some research for a college paper on Tesla. He was also the one that pressed for the use of Alternating Current when Edison was pushing for Direct Current. We all know which one is more widely used, but somehow, we all think Edison came up with that idea.

    Tesla was, however, very eccentric which didn't help his image any.
  • Blazing Saddles quote?
  • You can't patent that you idiot! There's prior art:
    When you reach the third level of Harkyn's Castle...

    Not to mention the work of one Dr. Frankenfurter. There is no explicit documentary evidence that Frankenfurter's machine could do granite, per se, but I doubt that porting the mechanism would be difficult in comparison to the task of handling the conversion itself.

    Furthermore, it strikes me that granite may not be the ideal material for petrifying naked young women; I am thinking, here, of the frictional elements and the consistency of "skin" tone. A white marble or perhaps a nice glossy black volcanic would likely be more pleasing to the touch and the eyes.

  • wow (Score:1)

    by delmoi ( 26744 )
    Someone dies

    Someone posts to slashdot with a link to "hot pics" of said person, and gets a score+1 informative?



    "Subtle Mind control? why do html buttons say submit?",
  • Well, Lot's wife was turned into a pillar of salt, which is pretty close.

    dave
  • I just tired to look at the website listed in the article, and got the following: 500 Server Error

    The hard transfer limit for this user has been reached

    Not everyone has a site that can be slashdotted. Not everyone can afford it. I think in this case, someone has web hosting with limits, and we exceeded them.

    A page that is probably lucky to get maybe a few hundred hits a month has probably been hit more tonight then it has in it's entire existance. In this case, some person's content may be totally inaccessable to others until their next billing period, which is sad.

    Slashdot needs to remember this before linking a url in an article like that.

    Problem is, I don't have a solution. Any suggestions?

  • Hedy Lamarr's nude scene (Score:3)

    by / ( 33804 ) on Wednesday January 19, 2000 @06:51PM (#1356652)
    In case anyone missed it, the German film Ecstasy [imdb.com] which launched Hedy Lamarr's career had a nude scene [geocities.com]. It's quite tasteful by today's standards, and no, there's no petrification involved.

    And if it doesn't disturb you to ogle the body of someone who is now dead, you should perhaps reconsider. And if you find it disturbing that someone posted this comment, then you're probably right.
  • The linked to picture is captioned as: "Shown above is the infamous skinny dipping scene."
    Actually, what was probably most shocking was that she wasn't merely displayed clearly nude in the water (as seen on the photograph), but also on land. She wanders around a bit, walks over a meadow and caresses a horse, all in the nude, though with a gauze. Innocent beauty.
  • Why reply anonamously? Be proud to be the athiest you are. But since we've gotten into the whole spiritual thing, why not just worship me not as a god, or God but as a man not a deity. I say it's good for women to do their thing, in fact I have a thing for good-looking women that can apreciate the geek speek. Let them love me and i'll love them (unless they're piggies, tons of them at my school). Be happy that they do something instead of spend your money! Please for my cell phone's sake.. let the women think, and sure let them think they are superior whatever. it's all perspective. Even all that hippe christain stuff.
  • Yeah, true, _now_ - but think history, man.

    She was an actress in the 1930s-50s, and that's what they said back then.


  • Tesla was one of _the_ best scientists of 20th century. They could have named him Man of the Century easily. Tons of stuff that we take for granted today was invented in part by him.

    --
    GroundAndPound.com [groundandpound.com] News and info for martial artists of all styles.
  • An ISP that triggers limits like that on an automatic basis so quickly is not one that ANYONE should use at ANY price range. Any decent ISP (and there are way too few of them) would recognize a spike and just ride it out for at least a day, with a review to be done by a human. Checks should be made to make sure they aren't posting the newest Redhat ISO image or something like that. Sure, if they buy the low level of service, then they shouldn't be expected to sustain a continuous 10000/hr rate (as being slashdotted could potentially do for a day or so for the most popular sites). But it doesn't help the ISP any to give 500 when slashdotted.
  • A pretty good Hedy Lamarr Website can be found at www.hedylamarr.at [hedylamarr.at] . It's in German as well as in English, an offers some nice information about her Invention.
  • Hedy Lamarr did get rich from making movies. Believe it or not, the reason she invented frequency-hopping wasn't to make a wad of cash, it was to help the Allies win WWII. If she'd have made any money from it, it would have been nice but besides the point. Some people do respond to nobler motives than the almighty dollar, you know.
  • I think he was being sarcastic. I hope he was being sarcastic.

  • Re:Hmm. (Score:3)

    by Phil Karn ( 14620 ) <karn&ka9q,net> on Wednesday January 19, 2000 @10:35PM (#1356670) Homepage
    Lamarr's invention was specifically for frequency hopping spread spectrum. Their original implementation used identical player piano rolls at the transmitter and receiver. It was not a practical scheme, which is why it wasn't used for many years until it became possible to implement in electronics.

    Frequency hopping found its main application in military anti-jam links, just as Lamarr envisioned. It is also used in some (but not all) Part 15 wireless LANs.

    The spread spectrum used in GPS and in CDMA cell phones is the *other* form of spread spectrum, direct sequence. Lamarr did not invent this.

    Both forms of spread spectrum can appear as featureless wideband noise signals. They are generally flat across their bandwidth, though this can be affected by filtering. Frequency hopped systems can be programmed to avoid certain channels, thus punching "holes" in the spectrum. An IS-95 CDMA cellular signal, which uses direct sequence, is 1.25 MHz wide, and on a spectrum analyzer it bears a close resemblance to the top of Bart Simpson's head due to the filtering in the transmitter. From the early days of CDMA development at Qualcomm we called this a "Bart's head" signal.
  • Till the Linux Router Project picks up steam. ;)

    Vovida, OS VoIP
    Beer recipe: free! #Source
    Cold pints: $2 #Product

  • Yes, they are told to have IQ in the 130s.
    What are they inventing?
    But probably you can make much more money in world-class acting vs. inventing now than in the 30s.
    --

  • Patents, Hedy, George, possibilities, and Slashdot (Score:5)

    by ChrisInSF ( 140519 ) on Thursday January 20, 2000 @12:39AM (#1356674)
    I was very sad to hear about the death of Hedy Lamarr tonight, and I wanted to share my opinions on her invention. George Antheil, her co-inventor, was my father, and Hedy's son Tony is a close friend of mine.

    The story of the "Secret Communications System" patent is truly one of the most incredible stories I've ever heard, (wouldn't it make a great film?) and a look at the patent is a real eye-opener for people who are familiar with modern digital technology.. Why? Because the design was for a digital system built with analog components..

    And the person who said that Hedy and George had given their patent to the government in hopes of helping to stop Hitler was right..Hedy had seen facists and facism at close hand.. and so had my father, and they both knew what was at stake..

    in spite of this, Hedy was still looked at suspiciously as an "enemy alien" by some.. :(

    She was married off by her family when she was stillin her teens, and was kept virtual prisoner in Austria as a "trophy bride" of the Austrian arms magnate Fritz Mandel a few years before the war, and she literally had to drug a maid in order to flee..

    While being forced to sit at the dinner table with her husband and his facist friends, who included high-ranking Nazi military officials, she built up a knowledge of military technology and carried that with her when she fled to London. (where Samuel Goldwyn, I think, gave her a ticket to the US) She met my father at a party at Janet Gaynor's house, and asked him if he could help her turn what was then a valid, but unformed idea into something that could work..(My father had a reputation in Hollywood as an experimental musician and as somebody who was familiar with the latest in technology..)

    It took them about six months to do the whole process, and the patent is really interesting.

    (you can see it at http://www.ncafe.com/chris/pat2/index.html [ncafe.com] at some point. I tried to check my site tonight and got a message saying that I had exceeded my "hard limit" ..Ive been linked to by media outlets several times, but this has never happened before..

    I have my web site virtual hosted at what was until recently Best, but they were recently bought by Verio -perhaps "assimilated" is a better word..:(

    (Best said that they would not turn off a site for a short anomaly like being picked "Cool Site of the Day", which is sort of like what has happened..but maybe that has changed..)

    an aside...does anybody have any suggestions how to avoid this in the future?

    Hedy and George never made a penny from the patent, which was really unjust, I think, because the government had classified it as "Top Secret" and made the commercial utilization of the invention difficult. Just after the patent expired, in 1960, it began to see commercial use..(in the Cuban Missle Crisis) Its now the main secure communications technology in use in Milstar, the US govt's 25 billion dollar "survivable" satellite communications system. Spread Spectrum is, in addition to being an incredibly efficient way to send data, inherently secure.. (one needs to know the code, in order to read the message..or usually, even know a message exists..)

    By the way, spread spectrum holds out another possibility with startling implications.. It could be used to create a new television and/or radio broadcasting service that would be able to, in any given geographic area, accomodate the broadcast of many, many more channels of information, at higher quality, than we have now, eliminating scarcity on the airwaves and the battles over bandwidth .. Just imagine, community radio, community television, creativity, true democracy of the airwaves, and perhaps, even, no need for a license to broadcast..and no more canned satellite shows..

    That possibility scares some interests tremendously. And its something worth fighting for.

    They have digital radio in Europe, why not here?

    Guess why...

    Back to the patent:
    Just a thought:
    The government sat on this..Rightfully, they should have compensated Hedy and George for that, or extended the patent to make up for the years in which it was classified... I know that Hedy was poor for many years.. until quite recently actually. She lived on a small pension and basically spent time with friends and tried to live cheaply.. My father was better off in the later years of his life, I understand, but was never rich in the same way that many well-known composers were. He was quite prolific musically, writing the scores for over 60 films.. But my favorite music of his was his early pieces.. He was enamoured with the possibilities opened up by machines, which could play faster and more accurately than any human ever could..

    Anyway, my father died about six weeks after I was born, so I never knew him.. But I definitely did inherit his interest in communications technology...and music..and now that I know the real story, I'm very proud of him..

    Now if only I could only get my only two relatives on this planet to stop saying I'm "blackmailing" them for simply being open about my father..(Its a generational thing, I guess. my mother and father weren't married, big deal..)

    By the way, thanks for an excellent site, I read it almost every day..

    Chris Beaumont
    chris@ncafe.com [mailto]

  • Funny. I have found no comments about the fact that according to the IMDB bio (link in the article), she was arrested two times for shoplifting (in 1966 and 1991).
    Had she used her genius for Good!
    --
  • Moderators, the parent page [slashdot.org] is highly informative, an account of a related part, besides he is the owner of one of the pages linked in the article.
    But I couldn't see it, even the cached page at Google.
    --
  • Apparently she's racked up more than half a dozen divorces

    That's par for the course, in Hollywood :o(

    as well as a minor criminal record

    Imagine her as a sad lonely old lady. It's not that surprising really. There have been quite a few cases of faded stars getting caught shoplifting. Some say it's a subconsciously-driven attempt to get attention.

    So besides being well over 50 years my senior and dead, she's probably not this geek guy's type

    Yeah, but a decent geek husband might have saved her from all that.



    Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
    Thought exists only as an abstraction
  • "Just think.. in 50 years you can sue HER for the name! HAHAHA!"

    (another shameless quote from Blazing Saddles)

    --

  • Never happen today (Score:3)

    by heroine ( 1220 ) on Thursday January 20, 2000 @03:55AM (#1356682) Homepage
    Amazing how World War II got a lot of women to do things they would never to today. With all the men fighting it was like a phsychological switch. By forcing them to take their husband's place they found that technology wasn't impossible and that seems to have carried over into the 60's. Today of course, there is no incentive for them to work and we live in a rapidly moving economy, with very high economic mobility, equal opportunity for everyone, and no women.
  • so we now have a TRUE hacker goddess ..

    'bout time if you ask me .. ;-)
  • I'd love to see that.
    I'd like to see intelligent women honoured. I'd kill to know who's doing what in which field. I'd like to hear all of the things I normally do - just with 'she' instead of 'he' once in awhile.

    -Noiz,
    Who is used to being outnumbered, but would like to not be sometimes.


    ---------
  • speaking of unbounded egoism....
  • just for you... watch for it tomorrow, possibly in the QuickPoll. :)

  • True,

    I just saw an NBC report, and it was quite extensive, but it said nothing about her being an inventor. This is very sad.

  • For the past few months I've been reading Slashdot's front page and avoiding reading the comments because of the idiots who post petrified crap here. (BTW, you can thank me for being a part of the clean-up at Segfault) :-)

    For the first time in about 2 months I checked out the comments here because I've been getting a ton of email to check out this story. I'm furious at the sheer amount of the stone posts, I just don't think the moderation is clearing them out fast enough. I think Slashdot should ban the IPs of these abusers, because in essence if you just leave them to post, you're pushing away the many intelligent women who would like to be a part of this community, including myself.

    These petrified posts, assault women, they're cleary mysogynist. I think the intent is to drive away women. It's a good way to turn /. into a woman-hating boy's club. It's a real shame, because I know the women that would like to contribute here, I believe /. is suffering from their absence.

    I understand that freedom of speech is important, but wouldn't you want IPs to be banned if they spewed racist hate? Why does /. allow women to be raped literally here, like someone did to me on my interview page?
  • These posts sicken me. It is a deep seated hatred of women that represents them as immobile sexual objects. They are openly hostile to women.

    Just read Telsa Cox's diary [linux.org.uk] page (and here [linux.org.uk])to see what she thinks about Slashdot.

    Naked and Petrified posts are ruining Slashdot.
  • Hey Nitrozac. I browse at +2 and I've never seen a petrified post except for a couple that got moderated up as Funny. (except when I'm moderating, and I browse at -1, or when I'm meta moderating and get to approve of people moderating the petrified posts down).

    I agree those posts are the worst thing on Slashdot. We should try to get rid of them. But, banning IP's is a bad idea. People can change their IPs, and sometimes many people can be behind the same IP.

    I think that allowing posting only by logged in users is a good idea. However, logged in people should still be able to post anonymously - but moderation of their anonymous comments should still apply to them. I also like the idea of people temporarily losing the right to post every time they get moderated down to -1. That would get rid of a lot of the petrified stuff, and would be nice.

    But mainly, I think Slashdot works ok. It's certainly better then the newsgroups, which I gave up on six years ago. In the meantime, I think you need to change your viewing options. Aren't the default viewing options +2? If not, I certainly think they should be. We don't want new users to see all the crap unless they want to.

    And I like your comic strip, by the way.

    Torrey Hoffman (Azog)
  • I'm largely in agreement with Nitrozac's conclusion, though I am not personally affected the same way she is. My complaints are along different lines:
    1. This stuff increases the load on the servers, and the traffic on the lines. The cumulative effect of so many of them is a creeping denial-of-service attack.
    2. Worse is the demand on people's attention. I haven't seen the /. thread yet which was meant to be a piece out of talk.bizarre. These things would have a place there, but anywhere else they're off-topic and just wasting people's time even to page past them.
    3. The repetition has lost them whatever humor value they ever had. A six-year-old will laugh at the same joke ten times in a row, but most /.'ers have advanced beyond the mentality of a six-year-old. The poster(s) seem to have serious cases of arrested development.
    4. The poster(s) have this obsession with helpless, sexualized objects. It's pretty obvious that their fantasies involve encounters with blow-up dolls. (Has anyone pointed them at the "I Love Ewe" yet?)
    5. As Katz has been noting over the past few days, this place is hostile to a lot of groups. Perhaps not deliberately, but there's a culture-clash here that isn't along ethnic, class or religious lines, but sexual ones. The people you're alienating aren't "them"; they are your mother, your sister, your girlfriend. What's really sad is that these posters don't have the empathy to care.
    I found it amusing that the only person to stick up for the N&P postings was an AC; he (almost certainly "he") wouldn't even put the reputation of a login behind his defense.

    What to do about it? Ban the IP's? If they're from some large proxy server, this causes a lot of collateral damage. I favor the idea of giving moderators renewable (based on prompt meta-moderation) points for "off-topic", "redundant" and perhaps a new category of "hateful" down-moderations, combined with some auto-moderation which kicks things down based on all the boring and repetetive key-phrases most of us have come to hate. If "naked and petrified" automatically posts at -1 (Offtopic), moderators don't have to waste any time at all.
    --

  • This is a two step proposal. One step is trival. The second takes a lot of work.

    1. Include a moderation, -1, naked and petrified post
    2. Allow people to screen out posts, or highlight posts, with certain moderations. Thus, if Nitrozac (who presumably posts at 2 by default) posts a "I want Linus Torvalds Naked and Petrified!!" and gets moderated down for a naked and petrified post, I wouldn't even see it if I was "bottom feeding" at a threshold of -1, if I didn't want to see a naked and petrified post. This would save considerable time and trouble for moderators, who would otherwise have to waste valuable moderation points moderating a "Naked and Petrified" post down to -2 (invisible). The downside is that "naked and petrified" posters wouldn't lose much karma...but hell, most of them post as AC's anyways, right?

    One possible abuse: moderators who disagree with someone's comments can abuse the "Naked and Petrified" option. Blip their comments are never seen again, until meta-moderation, and then the moderator loses only one karma point. I'm not sure how to fix this except to up the karma penalty for an unfair "Naked and Petrified" post to -5.


    TOYWAR [toywar.com]!!
  • I agree with everything you say, and still stand by my thought that focussing on the 'women' part of 'smart women' downplays the 'smart' part, and furthers the gender divide by highlighting it.

    IMHO, smart girls seeing smart women identified and recognized in the same context as smart men would learn more about equality than if there was a special "Miss Intelligent" contest.

    So, yes, traditionally women are terribly under-represented and -recognized in technical fields, but making a separate category of recognition gives the subtle message that the rules are different for different genders, which (I thought) was the message we're trying to avoid.


    --
  • I understand what you are saying, but disagree. A separate category for women emphasizes the "under-represented and unrecognized" part. This isn't zero-sum, of course. There's room for a "Left field" award, which men and women are eligible for, and a "Smart women" award as well. The latter gives girls a clear set of role-models and even contacts, and highlights achievement against expectation.

    The day that as much as 40% of the "left field" award goes to women would be the day that I would subscribe to your 'gender-blind' model.

    The fact that the preponderance of the announcements of Hedy's death don't mention her intellectual accomplishments is an indication to me that we can't pretend a level playing field exists.

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