It is an amazing work of art and scholarship. It’s so much fun. It is indeed thrilling to imagine Ada as an accomplished horsewoman and lady of adventure, wrangling engines both within and without. In one of the stories, she’s something of a parkour artist running through the gears of the difference engine. And it’s all full of footnotes to primary sources that explain more about her actual life.
I find it more fun to read than Wolfram’s blog post. Certainly more fun than, “in apparent resonance with some of my own work 150 years later, he talks about the relationship between mechanical processes, natural laws and free will.”
Nicely told history of topics I’ve heard conflicting accounts of. I’d love to read this story at book length to get a feel for the personalities of Lovelace and Babbage. Especially if there were hypertext linking to original sources where possible.
x-posting from HN:
I am a very happy owner of a print copy of the comic, and I recommend it at every opportunity possible:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thrilling_Adventures_of_Lovelace_and_Babbage
It is an amazing work of art and scholarship. It’s so much fun. It is indeed thrilling to imagine Ada as an accomplished horsewoman and lady of adventure, wrangling engines both within and without. In one of the stories, she’s something of a parkour artist running through the gears of the difference engine. And it’s all full of footnotes to primary sources that explain more about her actual life.
I find it more fun to read than Wolfram’s blog post. Certainly more fun than, “in apparent resonance with some of my own work 150 years later, he talks about the relationship between mechanical processes, natural laws and free will.”
broken link.
fixed
Nicely told history of topics I’ve heard conflicting accounts of. I’d love to read this story at book length to get a feel for the personalities of Lovelace and Babbage. Especially if there were hypertext linking to original sources where possible.