Capt. Grace Hopper on Future Possibilities: Data, Hardware, Software, and People (Part One, 1982)
Why Hacker News recommends it
HN enjoys it as a funny, quotable lecture from a bygone era, with lines about horizontal scaling and change that still resonate.
What it is
Part one of Capt. Grace Hopper's 1982 NSA lecture on the future of data, hardware, software and people. It includes her humor, her nanosecond demonstration and views on scaling and resisting old ways of doing things.
Recommended by 2 HN commenters across 2 different months, 2024 to 2026.
What Hacker News said
Recommends joshstrange · 2024-08 · on “NSA releases 1982 Grace Hopper lecture”
I can't wait to watch this later. I watched just a few minutes starting at this timestamp [0] (it was linked in another comment) and it was gold, I love her sense of humor. [0] [this video]
Recommends joschuaantares · 2026-05 · on “Ask HN: What is your favourite tech talk?”
I find Grace Hopper's lectures very entertaining, even though they seem to come from a bygone era when viewed from today's perspective. [this video] [LINK]
Cites scrlk · 2024-08 · on “NSA releases 1982 Grace Hopper lecture”
Great quote at 45:26 regarding vertical vs. horizontal scaling: [this video] > "Now back in the early days of this country, when they moved heavy objects around, they didn't have any Caterpillar tractors, they didn't have any big cranes. They used oxen. And when they got a great big log on the ground, and one ox couldn't budge the darn thing, they did not try to grow a bigger ox. They used two oxen! And I think they're trying to tell us something. When we need greater computer power, the answer is not "get a bigger computer", it's "get another computer". Which of course, is what common sense would have told us to begin with."
Cites interroboink · 2024-08 · on “NSA releases 1982 Grace Hopper lecture”
I just want to make one last attempt to get my point across, since I think you are discussing in good faith, even if I don't like your aggressive timbre. There is risk in reinforcing a narrow-minded approach that "all we need is more oxen." It limits one's imagination. That's the essence of what I've been advocating against in this thread, though perhaps my attempts and examples have merely chummed your waters. Ironically, I'd say Grace Hopper rather agrees, elsewhere in the linked talk[1]. > Faster CPUs aren’t coming. Not with that attitude, ya dingus (: [1] " [this video] I think the saddest phrase I ever hear in a computer installation is that horrible one "but we've always done it that way."
Cites gregw2 · 2024-08 · on “NSA releases 1982 Grace Hopper lecture”
You can go to the Youtube page for the video: [this video] ( or [LINK] for part 2) click on the "...more" link in the video description, then click on the "Show Transcript" button further down that appears and you will see a transcript in the upper right of your screen which you can scroll through and read.
Cites jp42 · 2024-09 · on “Satellites Spotting Aircraft”
"Those satellite photographs -- the landsat photographs -- are so darn good that when they re fully enhanced by computer, we can actually tell how high the waves are out in the middle of the Pacific; we can tell what the temperature of the ocean is 20 feet below.." - Grace Hopper in 1982 NSA lecture. YT link: [this video] I bet current spy satellite will be doing a lot things we can hardly imagine, may be we will know in 40-50 years down the line.
Cites throw0101b · 2025-07 · on “Copper is Faster than Fiber (2017) [pdf]”
> Light speed is ~3ns per metre, so maybe the lowered speed through the fibre? Obligatory Adm. Grace Hopper nanosecond reference: * [this video]