Lady Ada • 5 July 2008 • The SnowBlog
Lady Ada
This week I seem to have been far too busy achieving nothing. In my quiet moments, I've been reading about, and experimenting with, various sorts of electronics. Perhaps it was reading the book about the Hacking of the Xbox that did it, but I've been following links to other links and tinkering with off-the-shelf kits for building all sorts of gizmos and spimes. This morning I happen to be exploring the website of one Lady Ada. Girl geniuses in the realm of complex electronics seem a little thinner on the ground than I might have hoped, but Lady Ada certainly qualifies. I was particularly tickled by her Masters Thesis from MIT. In her words "In contemporary Western society, electronic devices are becoming so prevalent that many people find themselves surrounded by technologies they find frustrating or annoying. I designed two counter-technologies to help people defend their personal space from unwanted electronic intrusion. The first is a pair of glasses that darken whenever a television is in view. The second is a low-power RF jammer capable of preventing cell phones or similarly intrusive wireless devices from operating within a users personal space." I have no interest in cutting myself off permanently from the Twenty-First Century, but it might be fun to occasionally take a holiday from it all and walk around in your own (admittedly illegal) offline bubble.
Rob
This week I seem to have been far too busy achieving nothing. In my quiet moments, I've been reading about, and experimenting with, various sorts of electronics. Perhaps it was reading the book about the Hacking of the Xbox that did it, but I've been following links to other links and tinkering with off-the-shelf kits for building all sorts of gizmos and spimes. This morning I happen to be exploring the website of one Lady Ada. Girl geniuses in the realm of complex electronics seem a little thinner on the ground than I might have hoped, but Lady Ada certainly qualifies. I was particularly tickled by her Masters Thesis from MIT. In her words "In contemporary Western society, electronic devices are becoming so prevalent that many people find themselves surrounded by technologies they find frustrating or annoying. I designed two counter-technologies to help people defend their personal space from unwanted electronic intrusion. The first is a pair of glasses that darken whenever a television is in view. The second is a low-power RF jammer capable of preventing cell phones or similarly intrusive wireless devices from operating within a users personal space." I have no interest in cutting myself off permanently from the Twenty-First Century, but it might be fun to occasionally take a holiday from it all and walk around in your own (admittedly illegal) offline bubble.