Horton created [forerunner to email attachments] uuencode while completing her computer science doctorate at Berkeley, when she was still going by a male name.
While at Berkeley, she also started working to grow Usenet, a virtual bulletin board that was “really the first social media” and “the Facebook of its day,” as she explains for the benefit of younger readers. Horton says she “kind of waved the flag” for Usenet for seven years after her Ph.D.
But all the while, she tells The Daily Beast, Horton “felt the need that every trans person feels over most of their lives and it was intensifying”—the need to be herself.
Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, TinyGO, or even use the Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for CircuitPython, MakeCode, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.
Have an amazing project to share? The Electronics Show and Tell is every Wednesday at 7pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat – we’ll post the link there.