Speaker 1: There Are No Girls on the Internet. As a production
Speaker 1: of My Heart Radio and Unboss Creative. I'm Bridget Todd
Speaker 1: and this is There Are No Girls on the Internet.
Speaker 1: Did you know the trash can logo, the sad mac icon,
Speaker 1: and all the other Apple logos and typography they made
Speaker 1: up the look and feel of early personal computing was
Speaker 1: actually designed by a woman. On the Stuff Mom Never
Speaker 1: Told You Podcast, where I'm a tech correspondent, we did
Speaker 1: an episode for Women's History Month that was really fun
Speaker 1: because I got to talk about Susan Care, an influential
Speaker 1: Apple designer and one of my favorite women in tech,
Speaker 1: and I had such a good time that I wanted
Speaker 1: to share it with all of you. Listen to me
Speaker 1: alongside Stuff Mom Never Told You co hosts Annie and
Speaker 1: Sam for a deep dive into the lasting legacy of
Speaker 1: Susan Care, the artist behind Apple. Hey, this is Annie
Speaker 1: and welcome to Stephane Never Told You production of I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Today, We're so thrilled to be joining the
Speaker 1: virtual studio space by our friend and colleague Bridget Todd. Hello,
Speaker 1: Bridget Hello, I'm so excited to be back here with
Speaker 1: you all. Say we missed you. Welcome back. Thank you.
Speaker 1: Thank you. I missed you too. As always, we know
Speaker 1: we know you're constantly going well. I can always make
Speaker 1: room for my two favorite ladies. Yes, we were discussing
Speaker 1: before this. We're very excited for this topic, particularly because
Speaker 1: we have different levels of experience when it comes to
Speaker 1: computers and technology, and in this case, Samantha, you're saying
Speaker 1: you don't know mac very well. No, I am so
Speaker 1: not in the loop. I've never used the Mac. I
Speaker 1: don't have an iPhone. I'm so far away from those products.
Speaker 1: And I'm a little scared of it because every time
Speaker 1: I've been on Friends, I literally look at it and
Speaker 1: touch a button, something goes around and I hand it
Speaker 1: right back. I'm like, I'm sorry. You're like I launched
Speaker 1: a missile. I don't know what. I'm sorry. I'm pretty
Speaker 1: sure I just started to war somewhere. I'm so sorry too,
Speaker 1: because my phone is a swipe And one time my
Speaker 1: friend handed me her her phone and it was like,
Speaker 1: can you texas message? And it was not a swipe
Speaker 1: and I stared at it, like, this makes no sense
Speaker 1: to me. I cannot figure this. Yeah, when its like technology,
Speaker 1: when you're used to one way and then you try
Speaker 1: to figure out something else. I feel like it's a trap.
Speaker 1: It's so true, it's so true. So I use an iPhone.
Speaker 1: Most of my friends do not use iPhones that use
Speaker 1: like Google pixels. When I am handed at Google Pixel,
Speaker 1: it does not matter how many times I have been
Speaker 1: schooled and how to do the most the most basic stuff.
Speaker 1: I'm not talking about anything advanced. I have to ask that, wait,
Speaker 1: is it this? Is it that? Every time? Whatever? Right,
Speaker 1: which actually relates really well to what we're we're talking
Speaker 1: about today. So who did you bring for us to
Speaker 1: discuss bridget So today we're discussing Susan Care. I'm so
Speaker 1: excited to talk about her, mostly because so it's Women's
Speaker 1: History months, and so I think it's a good time
Speaker 1: to honor women who, you know, maybe don't always get
Speaker 1: a lot of the loud public support. And also the
Speaker 1: fact that Susan Care, despite being very much part of
Speaker 1: tech history, she's still alive. She's still with us. I'm
Speaker 1: a big believer in giving people their flowers while they're
Speaker 1: still alive to smell them, and so not waiting until
Speaker 1: someone is no longer here to be like, oh, I
Speaker 1: loved their work. I loved their work but celebrating their
Speaker 1: achievements and their legacy while they're still here. She's very
Speaker 1: much still in tech, making tech history as we speak.
Speaker 1: And I also just feel like sometimes I come on
Speaker 1: the show and I bring topics that are a little negative,
Speaker 1: because let's face it, sometimes being a woman on the
Speaker 1: Internet is not that fun. But there's also lots of fun, joyous, cool,
Speaker 1: quirky aspects of it as well. So I'm super excited
Speaker 1: to talk about Susan Care. Yes, and I never heard
Speaker 1: about her story, and I loved it so much because, um,
Speaker 1: I know we've talked before on the show a lot
Speaker 1: about women in technology space and now there is often
Speaker 1: that these negative aspects to it are being intimidated off
Speaker 1: of it in various ways. And as somebody who's really creative,
Speaker 1: like where my cosplay closet as I call it in here,
Speaker 1: but like I love the application of how she got
Speaker 1: into technology. I think it is such a great story. Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: so let's get into it. I mean, so, if you've
Speaker 1: ever spent any time around not just Max but computers
Speaker 1: in general, you've probably encountered Susan Care's work for her legacy.
Speaker 1: So first and foremost, I should say if you have
Speaker 1: not seen a picture of her, there's an iconic picture
Speaker 1: of her with this like awesome eighties blown out curly
Speaker 1: hair and a sweatshirt and these like amazing new balanced sneakers,
Speaker 1: with her sneakers kicked up on her desk at her
Speaker 1: old school you he y'all please google a picture of
Speaker 1: her because it is iconic and truly just this one picture.
Speaker 1: I saw it on the subreddit old school Cool. I
Speaker 1: was like, who is this woman? I have to look
Speaker 1: her up and find out everything about her. She is amazing. Yes,
Speaker 1: it's so effortlessly cool in a way that I will
Speaker 1: never achieve. Like. I saw it and I was like, wow,
Speaker 1: I mean like, I'm looking at it right now. I
Speaker 1: have to google it, and I'm like, this is kind
Speaker 1: of what people want to look like today. I saw
Speaker 1: the outdated computers in the background, which, by the way,
Speaker 1: I use those in elementary school, so don't start with me.
Speaker 1: B like she, I'm like, no, you are. She is
Speaker 1: exactly what people are like, Oh, we want to look
Speaker 1: like this. This is such a great throwback, and she
Speaker 1: looks so comfortable, so relaxed and ridiculously cool. I want
Speaker 1: to be this cool. Yes, she is like an advertisement
Speaker 1: forever Lane, like I feel like the norm core like
Speaker 1: vibes of like oh baggy, baggy sweatshirt and like like
Speaker 1: relaxed fit. Geez, she's brocting it. Honestly, you could wear
Speaker 1: the wellfit that she's wearing, a nineteen eighty whatever this
Speaker 1: photo was taken. You could work today and people would
Speaker 1: be like, Oh, cool outfit, That's what I'm saying, Like,
Speaker 1: this outfit looks so comfortable. But again, yeah, she looks
Speaker 1: so freaking stylish, and I'm like, I don't want to
Speaker 1: be back here in this fashion because I did wear
Speaker 1: that once upon a time, and that was when it
Speaker 1: was supposed to be cool, when I was a young baby.
Speaker 1: So I love that. So Susan Care she designed a
Speaker 1: huge part of the digital infrastructure of using a Mac
Speaker 1: computer back in the eighties, and so I'm talking all
Speaker 1: of the font all of the typography, and all of
Speaker 1: the little icons. And so if you ever remember the
Speaker 1: little happy Mac when you booted up a computer, like
Speaker 1: the little computer with a smiley face, that was seems
Speaker 1: in Care the concept of the icons for your computer
Speaker 1: sort of matching up with the thing that you were
Speaker 1: going to do. Even if you don't use a Mac,
Speaker 1: even if you use a PC. That's still a concept
Speaker 1: that we use today. So she really was an early
Speaker 1: architect of how being online sort of looked and felt,
Speaker 1: and then also just sort of the concept that sort
Speaker 1: of how we conceptually move around and we're using a computer.
Speaker 1: And it's funny because I had also never heard of her.
Speaker 1: I've been using a Mac for most of my life.
Speaker 1: It was like the first computer that we had in
Speaker 1: our home when I was a kid, like in what
Speaker 1: my parents called the computer room, where like you could
Speaker 1: you could never bring a snack or a drink or
Speaker 1: my my dad would kill you was a Mac. And
Speaker 1: I had never even heard of her, even though she
Speaker 1: had shaped such a big part of my online experiences
Speaker 1: both as a child and today. So I really excited
Speaker 1: to be, you know, giving her a little bit of
Speaker 1: shine because that's that's so iconic that she, you know,
Speaker 1: was that architect of that the whole story that I
Speaker 1: had about this like this happy Mac and the one
Speaker 1: reason I kind of know what that is now I've
Speaker 1: seen the other things. I've seen the watch well icon before.
Speaker 1: I feel like a lot of these are associated to
Speaker 1: me as something bad is about to happen because I
Speaker 1: did something wrong. Signs usually because the one episode that
Speaker 1: I remember with Insect in the City, Yeah, we're gonna go.
Speaker 1: You're don't talking about where her Mac crashes and she
Speaker 1: gets a sad Mac and the dude keeps telling her
Speaker 1: you got the sad Mac. Sorry, you can't fix it,
Speaker 1: and this whole conversation about the sad Mac, and I'm like,
Speaker 1: why does it have to be a sad mag? And
Speaker 1: then the dead Man because I've got the ex is
Speaker 1: all that I said about how angry it looks. I
Speaker 1: was like, yeah, that does not make me want to
Speaker 1: get a mac. Yeah if I feel like that episode
Speaker 1: probably scared a lot of people. Also, fun fact, that
Speaker 1: is how deep my Sex in the City knowledge goes
Speaker 1: the guy who tells her about at the computer store
Speaker 1: Ausu Mandy from The Daily Show. Yes, yes, yes, so
Speaker 1: I Oh, he's a comedian. I love it when they
Speaker 1: bring in comedians that you really know but you always
Speaker 1: know their face. Love it, love it, and you gotta
Speaker 1: hop on board. This is what you're missing out when
Speaker 1: you haven't seen Sex in the City and he's never
Speaker 1: seen it. She seen like two episodes. I've seen one
Speaker 1: of the first episode, and that's it, really, girl, what
Speaker 1: are you putting on in the background while you're doing
Speaker 1: something else? Like, what are you putting on in the
Speaker 1: background when you're doing the dishes? Come on, I'm ready,
Speaker 1: I want to I want to embark on this journey.
Speaker 1: I'm just a little nervous, but so Bridget when we
Speaker 1: have our Sex in the City, we're gonna do a
Speaker 1: watch and like kind of live watching, live viewing party.
Speaker 1: You want join us, yes, of course, you know, And
Speaker 1: they're getting ready to make another view of that movie,
Speaker 1: which I mean, I have a love hate relationship with
Speaker 1: Sex in the City and that you look back and
Speaker 1: you're like, well this was problematic or like well this
Speaker 1: is not good, but there's just something about it where
Speaker 1: I'm like, I know, I'll probably watch it, Like I
Speaker 1: know they're they're they're like, you'll take this like problematic
Speaker 1: movie with like a bunch of lazy puns, like just
Speaker 1: taking it like I know what I want. But I mean,
Speaker 1: like Sarah Jessica Parker's character Carrie that Mac at the
Speaker 1: very beginning, like at all other things, like the fact
Speaker 1: that she carries it around like is her treasure, Like
Speaker 1: she carries it as just like she and the Mac
Speaker 1: go hand in hand. The show her work. I feel
Speaker 1: it's grounded around the man act. Like you kept watching
Speaker 1: the episode towards the end when she moved to Paris,
Speaker 1: she leaves her Mac in her apartment to like Charlotte
Speaker 1: goes to her apartment and she's like her computer was
Speaker 1: just sitting there, Like it's like such a big deal.
Speaker 1: And it's actually funny that you say this, because when
Speaker 1: I was thinking through this episode, I didn't think about this.
Speaker 1: But now I'm like, oh my god, how many different
Speaker 1: times have Max been, Like I'm thinking of legally blonde
Speaker 1: when Elwood's goes to get her like orange Mac and
Speaker 1: all of her like stuffy law students are on their
Speaker 1: black laptops and she's on the orange Mac. I guess
Speaker 1: I had never really thought about how many times Max
Speaker 1: have been sort of part of popular culture. Lends it
Speaker 1: kind of goes into like being a designer piece. Almost. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure
Speaker 1: you don't have to get permission to show Mac, Like
Speaker 1: normally you have to get the companies and pay, but
Speaker 1: they wanted people to think like, oh, this is a
Speaker 1: cool style of she ubiquitous technology. I think the only
Speaker 1: time you have to check is if it's something like real,
Speaker 1: real bad, real bad. Yeah, you're like beating Amanda death.
Speaker 1: But it's the only sid But I mean, like I remember,
Speaker 1: as I'm looking at some of these things, I remember
Speaker 1: seeing the little bomb icon as a part of the
Speaker 1: show as well. And again, like I said, that to me,
Speaker 1: is like a big warning sign. I mean, yeah, I
Speaker 1: don't know what the bomb means, but the bomb means
Speaker 1: something bad. Yeah, the bomb, you see the bomb designed
Speaker 1: by Susan Care. Hopefully you never have to see it,
Speaker 1: but if you, if you put in a command that
Speaker 1: doesn't work and it's like oh no, good bad, you know.
Speaker 1: And also I mean even the even the different icons
Speaker 1: that you're describing the sad Mac, the bomb. One of
Speaker 1: the things that that Susan Care really um architected was
Speaker 1: this idea of the interface being super user friendly. So
Speaker 1: when you do something that is bad, it is very
Speaker 1: obvious that it is bad. It is a bomb, it
Speaker 1: is a sad face, like it could not be more
Speaker 1: clear that you have done something incorrect. Or when something
Speaker 1: is good, you know, when you would boot up a Mac,
Speaker 1: you would see a smiley face. All of that was
Speaker 1: intentionally designed by care to make people who you know,
Speaker 1: might have been using a computer for the first time,
Speaker 1: who might have been a little bit skinnish about using
Speaker 1: a computer. Helped them sort of shepherd them through the
Speaker 1: experience in ways that are like super easy to understand,
Speaker 1: which I really appreciate as someone who, even as someone
Speaker 1: who enjoys tech, has to be a little bit like
Speaker 1: tech challenged, shall we say, right as I am, it
Speaker 1: definitely tells me what I'm doing something wrong. Definitely, I'm like, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm just waiting, great and look at that happy face exactly, yes,
Speaker 1: And those are things you take for granted, right, Like
Speaker 1: somebody had to think through that process and design those things,
Speaker 1: especially when computers were so new and people were like,
Speaker 1: what is this huge, bohemous thing that's expensive? I don't
Speaker 1: want to wreck it by pressing the wrong button exactly,
Speaker 1: And I mean, what's funny is it? Like some people
Speaker 1: who are a bit young might be thinking, oh, what's
Speaker 1: the big deal, but truly, like keep in mind that
Speaker 1: back then in the early days of personal computers, like
Speaker 1: most people did not have a personal computer in their
Speaker 1: home at that point, and so computers were these big,
Speaker 1: clunky boxing nightmares that were really inclined toward mathematicians or engineers,
Speaker 1: not just like your regular user. And so somebody had
Speaker 1: to take the time to design ways of like illustrating
Speaker 1: what you were doing in ways that would be simple
Speaker 1: and user friendly and not scary, not intimidating, because if
Speaker 1: you know, if the whole idea is that you want
Speaker 1: people to feel the freedom of having a personal computer
Speaker 1: like in their house, it has to feel like something
Speaker 1: they can really matter for themselves. And so Susan Kare's
Speaker 1: design I think was a big part of why personal
Speaker 1: computing later took on took off. Her hustory is pretty interesting.
Speaker 1: Why don't you tell us how she even Scott started
Speaker 1: into this industry. So this is my favorite thing. So
Speaker 1: her background was in art, right, So she was a sculptor,
Speaker 1: she worked in visual arts, and so she is not
Speaker 1: someone who has hard technical skill. She described herself as
Speaker 1: completely non technical. And the reason that she first got
Speaker 1: involved in graphic design in the first places because her
Speaker 1: mom taught her these these skills that we guess commonly
Speaker 1: associate with femininity, so like needle point and embroidery, which
Speaker 1: luckily those two skills work in small grids. So if
Speaker 1: you've ever done needle point, you know you're moving a
Speaker 1: thread through like a tiny box. And so when she
Speaker 1: was designing things on a computer for Apple, it also
Speaker 1: was a small box. And so if it wasn't for
Speaker 1: her mom teaching her these highly kind of like domestic tasks,
Speaker 1: we might not like personal computing might be might have
Speaker 1: gone a completely different direction. And so I just love
Speaker 1: that because it's such a good reminder that you don't
Speaker 1: have to be a coder. You don't have to be
Speaker 1: a hacker to make an impression in tech or to
Speaker 1: have ownership over it. And so I always like to
Speaker 1: remember that that if it wasn't for her mom teaching
Speaker 1: her how to sew and do needle point, truly, I
Speaker 1: might not be recording this podcast on my maclepro right now.
Speaker 1: Things might look different. When you're thinking about people you
Speaker 1: do associate with, particularly mac but like technology and computers
Speaker 1: in general is often men, and you do often have
Speaker 1: this assumption that, oh, there must be like really technically
Speaker 1: minded and gotten a lot of education in those fields,
Speaker 1: and like the names we remember are them. But this
Speaker 1: is a huge part. What Susan care did is a
Speaker 1: huge part of how the technology we use in particularly
Speaker 1: with Max, but in other things. Um, and it is
Speaker 1: what you like, a non traditional route and this sort
Speaker 1: of feminized skill set and this kind of traditionally masculized
Speaker 1: or seen as a very masculine field. And I just
Speaker 1: love it. I love it so much. Yeah, it makes me.
Speaker 1: It's it's a good reminder for all of us. You know.
Speaker 1: I did an interview on my own podcast with this
Speaker 1: really amazing historian and technologist Claire Evans, and she has
Speaker 1: this book all about like the history of women in computing,
Speaker 1: and I guess the thesis would be, you know that
Speaker 1: we are often told that technology is a boys club
Speaker 1: and that women and other marginalized people are trying to
Speaker 1: like break break their way in, but actually women have
Speaker 1: been at the start of computing since the beginning, and
Speaker 1: so is like rightfully our domain. We are not trying
Speaker 1: to break in anywhere, like it is our landscape. And
Speaker 1: that some of the reasons why women kind of get
Speaker 1: pushed out of tech, both you know, in terms of
Speaker 1: like careers, but also just in terms of like who
Speaker 1: gets remembered, who doesn't, who goes over looks. First of all,
Speaker 1: just to be clear, a lot of it is just
Speaker 1: good old fashioned sexism, like nothing, nothing special about that.
Speaker 1: But then another aspect of it is exactly what you
Speaker 1: were saying, is that a lot of times the contributions
Speaker 1: that women have made to computers and technology are things
Speaker 1: that are a little bit harder to preserve. And so
Speaker 1: you know, if you if you make an actual computer
Speaker 1: that can go and a museum, that's that's a solid
Speaker 1: tangible thing. If you design a concept or you know,
Speaker 1: do something cool on a message board or develop an
Speaker 1: icon or you know something graphic that is that is
Speaker 1: less tangible, those things are harder to preserve and sort
Speaker 1: of more ephemeral. And so a lot of that work
Speaker 1: throughout the years has been associated with women and and feminization,
Speaker 1: this idea that like women are a lot of the
Speaker 1: times the ones who are building the things that are
Speaker 1: a little more difficult to hold onto, and thus these
Speaker 1: contributions can really go overlooked and less we make intentional
Speaker 1: efforts to preserve them, to highlight them, to amplify them.
Speaker 1: All of that. So completely agree, completely agree. Yes, I
Speaker 1: mean here we are talking about it, and because I'll
Speaker 1: take every opportunity to bring it up, I do think
Speaker 1: too if you look at something like fan fiction. The
Speaker 1: website AO three was one of the biggest coding projects
Speaker 1: of its time, and it was women did it. But
Speaker 1: it doesn't get a lot of respect because if women
Speaker 1: in marginalized people who did it, and it seem as
Speaker 1: this kind of weird corner of women fandom and not
Speaker 1: therefore not worth the respect as something else more masculine. Right,
Speaker 1: technology is nothing without people using it for something, right,
Speaker 1: without users and so and those people who were who
Speaker 1: are building that there were architects of something important and
Speaker 1: and like that, we would not even see that as
Speaker 1: worthy of preservation or like mentioning is a real crime.
Speaker 1: And I think we really do have to go back
Speaker 1: and look at history and say, well, where are the
Speaker 1: times where because this was associated with women or marginalized
Speaker 1: people just doing something geeky on the internet, you know
Speaker 1: how women are, whether it's fan fiction or you know,
Speaker 1: recipe blogs or anything like that. Why do those things
Speaker 1: not deserve to be remembered in the same way that
Speaker 1: some of the other more obvious contributions to computing and
Speaker 1: technology in our digital landscape. Like, I completely agree that
Speaker 1: we need to have a whole scale sort of of
Speaker 1: rethinking of what what is worthy of preservation because I'm
Speaker 1: not down to just live in a world where the
Speaker 1: stuff that we make that marginalized people, that women make,
Speaker 1: it's just not worthy of preservation. No way. Yeah, absolutely not.
Speaker 1: Thank you for letting me bring up fan fiction all
Speaker 1: the time. I aren't gonna help myself. But I also
Speaker 1: think it's a good like correlation to Susan Care's story,
Speaker 1: where there is this sort of like creative, non technical
Speaker 1: thing that she was involved with, and she was able
Speaker 1: to translate that into technology because there was this need
Speaker 1: and I think also like again having to kind of
Speaker 1: predict what people's concerns would be and like predict what
Speaker 1: would soothe those concerns and be clear, like coming perhaps
Speaker 1: coming from a different background actually helped her with that.
Speaker 1: I think so I love that point. I think so so.
Speaker 1: She said that when she first got the call to
Speaker 1: design things for Apple, she was just like, I don't
Speaker 1: know what any of this is. I love this little detail.
Speaker 1: She was in the middle of working on a life
Speaker 1: size sculpture of a hog when she got which if
Speaker 1: that doesn't, if that doesn't tell you all you know
Speaker 1: about hair, I feel like that really, Oh I wanted
Speaker 1: to yes, that's a good question. I want to know.
Speaker 1: I want to see this picture of what she was
Speaker 1: working on. Did she get to finish it? I needed please?
Speaker 1: Elbow deep in hog right, she gets this call from
Speaker 1: Andy Hurtzfield, she had gone to high school with and
Speaker 1: he was a member of the original Apple McIntosh development
Speaker 1: team during the eighties, and he asked her to hand
Speaker 1: draw some icons and bonds to help inspire what was
Speaker 1: going to be this like Mac inter days, this was
Speaker 1: a completely new concept to her. She's like, I had
Speaker 1: no idea what I was doing. But luckily Andy had
Speaker 1: an idea because he knew that she worked with design
Speaker 1: and graphics. He told her to go out and by
Speaker 1: the smallest, tiniest graph paper that she could find, and
Speaker 1: then use it to block out thirty two squares and
Speaker 1: filled them with color to kind of come up with
Speaker 1: the designs because what she would be designing would be
Speaker 1: a matrix that was essentially a grid. So again back
Speaker 1: to that sort of needle point embroidery um upbringing that
Speaker 1: she had which really helped her work in this grid function.
Speaker 1: Like truly probably couldnot have provided a better basis or
Speaker 1: education for the work that she would go on to
Speaker 1: be doing that. She had no idea, you know, that
Speaker 1: she would be so foundational in and luckily these skills
Speaker 1: really came to rescue. She says. Bit map graphics are
Speaker 1: like mosaics and needle point and other pseudo digital art forms,
Speaker 1: all of which I had practiced before going to Apple.
Speaker 1: This is what she told somebody to an interview in
Speaker 1: two thousand. So again like you never know what skill
Speaker 1: is going to apply later in your life. Like I'm
Speaker 1: sure when her mom was teaching her needle point, she
Speaker 1: probably was like, this is really fun and awesome. She
Speaker 1: probably was not thinking and I will go on to
Speaker 1: revolution guys personal computing because you have taught me how
Speaker 1: to do needle point. Mom. Yeah, so I run a
Speaker 1: Dungeons and Dragons campaign and I use Python coding to
Speaker 1: h run it. So basically Python is a bunch of
Speaker 1: if then statements. But I think you can you can
Speaker 1: take like a really creative, non technical thing and you
Speaker 1: can construct it in a way where you can like
Speaker 1: make it work in that sense, because if you think
Speaker 1: about like conversation if X then y, like you can
Speaker 1: I don't know, there's something I find really interesting that
Speaker 1: you can take those things and you can experiment with
Speaker 1: them in that way. You could take needle point and
Speaker 1: think about it in this way of like coding, like
Speaker 1: I I love that stuff. Are there other things that
Speaker 1: you have learned that you feel might help you when
Speaker 1: you're doing when you're coding and Python, like other other
Speaker 1: skills that you're like, oh, I wouldn't have thought that
Speaker 1: this would be, um, some thing that would help me
Speaker 1: think about Python, but actually has been helpful. So something
Speaker 1: that helps me like use Python more or just in
Speaker 1: general in in the work that you do when you're
Speaker 1: building out these things. The reason I started doing that
Speaker 1: is because essentially it's almost exactly like this. You have
Speaker 1: to when you're running a game. You have to predict
Speaker 1: what people are going to do, and that could be anything, right,
Speaker 1: Like that could be literally anything, and so you it's
Speaker 1: like project management where you have to analyze a person
Speaker 1: and then try to make that work in a game system,
Speaker 1: right like in a kind of technical rule based games.
Speaker 1: So you've got this like really illogical, chaotic person. Now
Speaker 1: I've got to make that work in a way where
Speaker 1: I can say, like if X, then Y so the
Speaker 1: game doesn't break. So I would say, like reading people
Speaker 1: and project management because again a lot of interaction and
Speaker 1: in life it's almost cold to think of it this way,
Speaker 1: but you can see in a like technical sense of
Speaker 1: like person why needs this? Therefore these actions happen, like
Speaker 1: you can map out to a certain extent people and
Speaker 1: their behavior. That's so fascinating. It's a whole theorem. You
Speaker 1: have to do all these little like hypothesis of this
Speaker 1: may happen. So you have two problem solve ahead of time,
Speaker 1: which I know nothing about dungeons and dragons. Just what
Speaker 1: she tells me. It's wild. I mean it completely, it's
Speaker 1: and I think if you take that to its logical
Speaker 1: next step like in tech workplaces and stuff. This is
Speaker 1: why I always say, if you're someone who's listening and
Speaker 1: you're like, I want to be more involved than tech.
Speaker 1: I want to work in a tech space. You do
Speaker 1: not have to have tech card skills to be someone
Speaker 1: who makes your living or takes off a big footprint
Speaker 1: in tech. People need to have people reading skills, problem
Speaker 1: solving skills, critical thinking skills. Those are not you know,
Speaker 1: necessarily what we think of as like tech hard skills,
Speaker 1: but these are all things that go into you know,
Speaker 1: working like being able to think in this way, and
Speaker 1: so I just love this example because I think it
Speaker 1: really does illustrate how all of these different skills that
Speaker 1: aren't necessarily the the hard skill or knowing Python or
Speaker 1: knowing you know, knowing the code, they will help you
Speaker 1: when you're when you're doing these kinds of things. It's
Speaker 1: like a whole way of thinking. I love that example.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's definitely a whole correlation between art, music,
Speaker 1: and math, and we know that that's been proven to
Speaker 1: be linkage, and which is why would people talk about
Speaker 1: losing arts and losing music is really detrimental for a
Speaker 1: lot of kids learnings and just overall development. And this
Speaker 1: is one of those more things because not only what
Speaker 1: she's doing art, but she's an amazing at which I
Speaker 1: saw some of the pieces that she's selling now I'm like, wow,
Speaker 1: it's gorgeous. But that that it translated into yeah, these
Speaker 1: little squares and dots in which also equals numbers and such.
Speaker 1: This is me knowing all this stuff obviously, but the
Speaker 1: fact that it's a greater picture of how it's all
Speaker 1: correlated and it is linked, oh absolutely, And I mean
Speaker 1: that's why I obviously am such a big advocate for
Speaker 1: young people going into stem and steam fields and get
Speaker 1: and getting that kind of education. But I also think
Speaker 1: you're exactly right that you have to have a well
Speaker 1: rounded approach. And so if we lose the art, if
Speaker 1: we lose music and the funding for these things, when
Speaker 1: people are like, oh, well just learn to code and
Speaker 1: get a job like that, it'll be so much harder
Speaker 1: if these students are not well rounded students who do
Speaker 1: not have a well rounded art education. And so you know,
Speaker 1: I am an English major, right like, I did not
Speaker 1: have a hard skills background. So many people who made
Speaker 1: it a big splash in tech had arts degrees, humanities degrees,
Speaker 1: you know, studied music, studied literature, and so I definitely
Speaker 1: am a big advocate for a well rounded approach. I
Speaker 1: am not someone who was like, oh, just learn to code,
Speaker 1: that will solve all your problems, because we do need
Speaker 1: all kinds of skills to have, you know, young people
Speaker 1: who are really equipped to go into these fields. Yeah. Absolutely.
Speaker 1: And one of the things in this story, and Susan
Speaker 1: Carey's story is one of my favorite kind of random
Speaker 1: I guess it's a good tell of when you grew
Speaker 1: up in terms of technology, when you're talking about your
Speaker 1: legacy because if you examine some of these symbols, like
Speaker 1: my ex boyfriend used to argue so hard, like we
Speaker 1: need to redefine what these means, because they don't mean
Speaker 1: the same thing anymore. Right, one is the icon for
Speaker 1: saving if you could talk about that, Oh, it's such
Speaker 1: a good one. So Susan Care came up with that
Speaker 1: concept of the icon being an association or an illustration
Speaker 1: of the thing that you were doing. So like the
Speaker 1: paint bucket being used to philo surface with color, or
Speaker 1: like this isn't as being used to be the cut function.
Speaker 1: So when you think about the save function, right, So
Speaker 1: if you are a contemporary of me, and I think
Speaker 1: Annie and Samantha, I think you got you all as well.
Speaker 1: When you were saving something, you had to save it
Speaker 1: on a floppy disk. You to put a floppy disk
Speaker 1: that square with the metal thing on it into your
Speaker 1: computer and only that you had to may annually hit
Speaker 1: save every I don't know, twenty minutes, otherwise it wouldn't save.
Speaker 1: Now here you're probably working on Google Docs or some
Speaker 1: other kind of interface. It saves automatically. You don't have
Speaker 1: to put any kind of external thing into your computer
Speaker 1: for to save. This the concept is so different, yet
Speaker 1: the little disc it's still the image for save, and
Speaker 1: so I almost wonder, like, I don't know that young
Speaker 1: people know what that. I like, they're probably not as
Speaker 1: innately familiar with like the floppy disc as they are,
Speaker 1: Yet that is still the icon for save, even though
Speaker 1: you don't even really have to say about the used
Speaker 1: to right. It's funny how it's endured. Oh my god,
Speaker 1: you just reminded me. We did a time capsule I
Speaker 1: think in my eighth grade, sixth grade year, and I
Speaker 1: think I put in a thing of floppy disk, like blank. God.
Speaker 1: I have a lot of floppy disk memories. I remember,
Speaker 1: Oh my god, if he's listening to this, he's gonna
Speaker 1: kill me. My older brother he had to do a
Speaker 1: UM class project and at the time we were fighting
Speaker 1: and I never he had it on a floppy desk
Speaker 1: that he left on the computer, and I swapped it
Speaker 1: out with a blank one, so like I put his
Speaker 1: put his in my backpack and put a blank one
Speaker 1: on on the computer. So when he got to school
Speaker 1: he was like, wait, where's my project? That's me. That
Speaker 1: was real, Betty. It was very fatty it was very fatty.
Speaker 1: He's listening to this. I apologize, but you know you're
Speaker 1: deserved it, but you like, yeah, but yeah, no, I
Speaker 1: just remember that because I knew that it would be
Speaker 1: outdated by that point. You were right, you were you
Speaker 1: were like prophetic here right, I'm trying. It costs a
Speaker 1: lot of money, so I can't believe I did that.
Speaker 1: Oh they used to be hella expensive. That was like
Speaker 1: thirty dollars. Yeah, I'm kind of like, why maybe I
Speaker 1: put one. I just remember putting something to do with
Speaker 1: the floppy does like, I'm gonna put this in here, guys,
Speaker 1: It's gonna make it dumb. I love it. It's like
Speaker 1: one of those things, you know how. I think some
Speaker 1: comedian has this this line and is stand up where
Speaker 1: when you're driving and you want someone to roll down
Speaker 1: their window. Even though most cars no longer have the crank,
Speaker 1: that's still emotion that you do to tell someone, even
Speaker 1: though you're like, well the cars haven't really had this
Speaker 1: for a while, why am I doing this? That's still
Speaker 1: the enduring motion that you do, but it keeps it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's the things like she created this in the eighties
Speaker 1: and it's still iconic. And it's still used today. And
Speaker 1: even though I may not have known what a MAC was,
Speaker 1: it was definitely universally used well. And that's funny to
Speaker 1: think about to you, because there's some technologies like the
Speaker 1: floppy disk that did just go by the wayside. And
Speaker 1: that's one of my favorite things. Back to the future too,
Speaker 1: when they thought the fax machine was going to be
Speaker 1: the thing. Um but like the you have a story
Speaker 1: in here about like the copy machine, right, So she
Speaker 1: was initially going to have the copy function be a
Speaker 1: little illustration of a copy machine that you would drag
Speaker 1: and drop your file that you wanted to be duplic
Speaker 1: aided onto the copier. But copy machines are like kind
Speaker 1: of complicated and like difficult to render at that size,
Speaker 1: and so that didn't work. And then she got this
Speaker 1: idea to try an illustration of a cat in a mirror,
Speaker 1: which I feel like that really tells me a lot
Speaker 1: about how she was thinking about these illustrations, Like that's
Speaker 1: a really like using a cat looking into a mirror
Speaker 1: as a way to illustrate the copy functionality. I don't know,
Speaker 1: I just want that to be a very interesting manifestation
Speaker 1: of what the copy function does. You know what I mean,
Speaker 1: because it started with the sea, but I approved that.
Speaker 1: I want that now. I know. I wish that was
Speaker 1: the case. That's the direction we've gone. And I can
Speaker 1: just imagine, I mean, that would be iconic if that
Speaker 1: is what it was like today. That'd beyond shirts. The cat,
Speaker 1: the cat just staring into the mirror. Yeah, the copy cat.
Speaker 1: I think I don't get it. Yeah, yeah, I love it.
Speaker 1: I'm so good. That is a creative mind, like perhaps
Speaker 1: not the most intuitive like that, Like I think that
Speaker 1: what she ended up going with was like much better,
Speaker 1: but it's like I can sort of see her her logic.
Speaker 1: I guess in what she was going for with the
Speaker 1: with the copycat in the mirror. It's so good. I'm
Speaker 1: good with it. I would have approved it immediately. So
Speaker 1: at the top, he said that cares still alive today.
Speaker 1: What's she what's she up to? So that's my favorite
Speaker 1: thing about this story is that I feel so often
Speaker 1: when we're talking about somebody who had a great impact,
Speaker 1: we're talking about them after they have, you know, aged
Speaker 1: out of whatever they're doing, where they've passed away. Not
Speaker 1: care Carr is still very much alive and very much
Speaker 1: involved in tech. So today she works at Pinterest, where
Speaker 1: you are probably familiar if you use Pinterest with some
Speaker 1: of her current designs. She designed the image on Pinterest
Speaker 1: that is modeled after the pushpin that symbolizes pinning an item.
Speaker 1: So again that kind of idea of having the icon
Speaker 1: be kind of a visualization of what the user is
Speaker 1: supposed to be doing and the spinning button that appears
Speaker 1: on Pinterest when you refreshed. So very much still a
Speaker 1: person involved in imagining what tech looks like today, the
Speaker 1: tech that we use all the time. If you use Pinterest,
Speaker 1: she's in your Her designs are in your pocket, you
Speaker 1: know which I just I just love. You can also
Speaker 1: find her notebooks today. They're part of the permanent collections
Speaker 1: at the New York and San Francisco Modern Art Museum,
Speaker 1: which the one in New York is my favorite art
Speaker 1: museum on the planet. It's so cool. Cannot wait to
Speaker 1: get back there when COVID is over. And one was
Speaker 1: included in the recent London Design Museum exhibit called California
Speaker 1: Designing Freedom. So yeah, she still is this, you know,
Speaker 1: representing this past and present and perhaps future of does
Speaker 1: I and when it comes to tech, you know, still
Speaker 1: out there, still shaping how we conceptualize the tech that
Speaker 1: we use every day. I love that so much, and
Speaker 1: I just realized that. I guess if you look at
Speaker 1: movies or TV show, that's another application where it's not
Speaker 1: necessarily a real world application. But if you were a
Speaker 1: designer and you're designing, like something sci fi, what will
Speaker 1: this look like in the future, what does this like
Speaker 1: technology or button or whatever represent, and then being able
Speaker 1: to communicate that two audiences. So yeah, there's a lot
Speaker 1: of applications here. Definitely. Did you say, Samantha she has
Speaker 1: art you can still get Oh, yes, she uh had
Speaker 1: a collection where some of the and I don't know, Samantha,
Speaker 1: I don't know if this is what you're referring to,
Speaker 1: but if you go to tear prints dot com, you
Speaker 1: can find her limited edition prints and they include like
Speaker 1: the like little logos and things that she designed. You
Speaker 1: can get like the sad mac on a poster or
Speaker 1: the time bomb on a T shirt. Right, Like some
Speaker 1: of herself is really nice, Like I really wouldn't mind
Speaker 1: one of these blankets that had all these different icons
Speaker 1: on it that she designed. And what's funny is that
Speaker 1: when you go to caraprince dot com. They talk about
Speaker 1: how she was one of the original originators of what
Speaker 1: we think of today is you know, emojis, and so
Speaker 1: I hadn't even really thought about that that her design
Speaker 1: says why And I'm emoji obsessed. If you ever text
Speaker 1: me get ready to get a million emojis? But yeah,
Speaker 1: just how how fundamental that is in terms of how
Speaker 1: we think of, you know, representing things online. Yes, and
Speaker 1: that's another great example of what we were talking about earlier,
Speaker 1: where emojis filled a gap that was missing, right, and
Speaker 1: we had to like kind of envision what are these emotions?
Speaker 1: What is this trying to convey? And like that is
Speaker 1: another example of something that's kind of artistic but being
Speaker 1: in this very kind of technical world. Right. Also, Annie,
Speaker 1: I don't know this is what I read earlier, And
Speaker 1: how something that is related to your superpower, one of
Speaker 1: your useless superpowers, which is including fonts or face you
Speaker 1: can't recognize. I wasn't when I was calling you out, um,
Speaker 1: which I'm like, I don't know you could be lying
Speaker 1: to me and just randomly naming a font and I'm
Speaker 1: just believing you. But yeah, because like Chicago was one
Speaker 1: of them. I know that was one of her first
Speaker 1: typeace is what it called. And then the emojis, which
Speaker 1: was cairo, so that how do you say that c A?
Speaker 1: I r oh, but that's the blanket, right, So she
Speaker 1: went even further into the world of computer stuff. I'm
Speaker 1: so of fish oil. But the fact that she actually
Speaker 1: created typeface I actually created like fonts is an interesting
Speaker 1: thing because I've always wondered who does this? And also, Annie,
Speaker 1: why do you know these? Could you recognize what Chicago
Speaker 1: looks like? Chicago twelve for the For the listeners who
Speaker 1: don't know this, I have a very useless superpower. It's
Speaker 1: not as good anymore because I used to edit video
Speaker 1: all the time, and I actually would because a font
Speaker 1: does convey an emotion, al right, it does help shape whatever.
Speaker 1: Everybody loves comic sands, right, that's what everybody loves. And
Speaker 1: so I can recognize the font like it is one
Speaker 1: of my most annoying. You get a little alcohol on
Speaker 1: me and I'll be like, there's Nancy's chalkboard, Like I
Speaker 1: apologize that anyone I've ever done that too. Do you
Speaker 1: have a favorite font? That's a good question because I
Speaker 1: used to really love I loved the ones that looked
Speaker 1: like people's handwriting. So I did really like marker felt
Speaker 1: one with a very little bit of drop shadow very little,
Speaker 1: or like Nancy's. I like Nancy's chok work, but I
Speaker 1: don't know if I would say those are my favorite,
Speaker 1: but they were once I'd turned to a lot because
Speaker 1: they I wanted those videos to feel very approachable, which
Speaker 1: is actually the stuff I've never told you videos. So
Speaker 1: they're on YouTube and you can go look at all
Speaker 1: my chalk and marker based fonts. I need to do
Speaker 1: this right away. I also love a good fund, you know,
Speaker 1: like I'm not even someone who is technical in this way,
Speaker 1: but like good design is really important, like bad design.
Speaker 1: I can't tell you how many times I've been on
Speaker 1: like a restaurant website page where I'm like, this is
Speaker 1: so infuriating. That is terrible, and this user experience is terrible.
Speaker 1: I don't even want to go to this restaurant anymore.
Speaker 1: Like good like good design can really open some doors
Speaker 1: and bad design can really close them. I'll just put
Speaker 1: it that way. You are completely correct, But no, I
Speaker 1: did like that. I just was like, oh, look she
Speaker 1: did this and this and then that blanket. I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: I love this blanket just has all those essentially emojis
Speaker 1: that's all over her blankets that she designed. I was like,
Speaker 1: that is so cool, and then I thought about the
Speaker 1: fact that it and he loves talking about how she
Speaker 1: has a super power. So you're welcome for telling everyone
Speaker 1: your super power. It's a good power. It's probably my
Speaker 1: most useless one, but also the safest one. I'm glass direction. Wait, okay,
Speaker 1: thing I killed the sun killed that conversation real good
Speaker 1: a U Well when it comes to to Care, uh
Speaker 1: and these icons she's going to have, like her legacy
Speaker 1: is a lasting legacy. It is a lasting legacy. And
Speaker 1: I guess yeah, As I said, I think it's important
Speaker 1: to highlight. You know, what she did was important. You know,
Speaker 1: I couldn't tell you whether or not personal computing would
Speaker 1: be the same if not for Care, But I know
Speaker 1: that she had an impact, and I think it's important
Speaker 1: to recognize. And I also just think it's important to
Speaker 1: again underscore that she did all of this as a
Speaker 1: non technical person. She told the smith Sony in a
Speaker 1: better time at Apple, I loved working on that project.
Speaker 1: I always felt so lucky for the opportunity to be
Speaker 1: a non technical person and a software group. I was
Speaker 1: all by being able to collaborate with such creative, capable
Speaker 1: and dedicative engineers. And I yeah, I think it's really
Speaker 1: awesome that she was holding it down on this group
Speaker 1: of engineers as a non technical woman doing her thing
Speaker 1: and really building out a lasting, endorming legacy in a
Speaker 1: field where things don't often last and don't often endure
Speaker 1: in this way. So I think it's really important to
Speaker 1: recognize her work. I do too, And I think, you know,
Speaker 1: even looking back at the time when she was doing
Speaker 1: this and being a woman in this non technical space
Speaker 1: and I don't know, creating these things that have lasted,
Speaker 1: she's very very inspiring and I'm glad. I'm glad that
Speaker 1: you brought this story to our attention. Bridget Thank you
Speaker 1: for giving me the space to nerd out on this. Honestly,
Speaker 1: it truly is because I saw that badass picture of
Speaker 1: her on Old School Cool and Reddit. So whoever put
Speaker 1: that on Reddit, thank you listeners. Please if you have
Speaker 1: not seen that picture, look it up. She is amazing. Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: it's so cool. Just I had goals, that would be
Speaker 1: one of them. Yeah, yes, you can achieve this Samantha. Now,
Speaker 1: I don't think so. I would fall out, like there's
Speaker 1: so many levels are cool that I couldn't hit, and
Speaker 1: one of them would be actually sitting like the Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm worried for her back. Help she's really lean back. Well,
Speaker 1: thanks as always for being here, Bridget. Where can the
Speaker 1: listeners find you? Well, if you want more nording out
Speaker 1: on all things tech and the Internet and things of
Speaker 1: that nature, you can definitely check out my podcast on
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio called there Are No Girls on the Internet.
Speaker 1: We would love to have you there, and you can
Speaker 1: follow me on social media. I'm at Bridget Marie on
Speaker 1: Twitter and at Bridget Marie in d C on Instagram. Yes,
Speaker 1: so go check out that podcast and followed Bridget. If
Speaker 1: you don't already listeners, and we can't wait to have
Speaker 1: you again, Bridget, Oh, I can't wait. I cannot wait.
Speaker 1: Took sics in the city, I bet, and just like
Speaker 1: that and just like that, And you don't get that
Speaker 1: job because you don't want to. I don't want to
Speaker 1: be left out of the conversation. Help, but wonder, I
Speaker 1: couldn't help, but wonder Alright, alright, down to watch it.
Speaker 1: I'm just a little nervous, but I'm down to watch it.
Speaker 1: I guess yes, it will be. It will be. And
Speaker 1: if you'd like to contact us listeners, you can our
Speaker 1: emails stuff Youdio, mom Stuff at I Hurt mea dot com.
Speaker 1: You can find us on Instagram at stuff I Never
Speaker 1: Told You or on Twitter at mom Stuff Podcast. Thanks
Speaker 1: as always to our super producer Christina. Thank you Christina,
Speaker 1: and thanks to you for listening stuff one Never Told
Speaker 1: You insrotection of I Heart Radio for more podcast from
Speaker 1: my Heart Radio, I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or
Speaker 1: wherever you listen to your favorite show