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Interesting article about Charles Baggage's computer designs finally being put to use! Found it interesting because we read about Charles Babbage and I was surprised to learn that the computer hadn't been built yet.

For the latest on Plan 28, the initiative to build Babbage's analytic engine, visit http://plan28.org/.

This resource is interesting in light of our discussing Babbage and Lovelace, as well as Ada Lovelace Day. This article is particularly interesting to me as it deals with women's contributions to significant advancements in history, many of which are often ignored or excused.

Riley, I mentioned in class that October 14th is Ada Lovelace Day, an international day for recognizing the contributions of women in science. Details: http://findingada.com/. I've wanted to organize an Ada Lovelace Day event here at Vanderbilt for a few years now, but never found the time. Let me know if you'd like to cook something up (an event? a blog series? a Wikipedia editing party?) for the 14th.

I found it really interesting that people took the fact that Lovelace made a few mistakes as an excuse to try to remove her contribution to computer programming. Male scientists and programmers also make mistakes, but we rarely see those used in an attempt to discredit them. Also, she literally designed a computer program before the computer even existed. I think we can excuse a few past mathematical errors.

This site has some really neat pictures and a video detailing Babbage's Difference Engine. The pictures are gigapixel, so they are incredibly detailed.

Wow. That's a lot of zoom.

It's time to start bookmarking Charles Babbage weirdness.