My belated Ada Lovelace Day 09 post was a result of a combination of events that left me in a mood which wasn’t conducive to finishing up my post and then posting it. The breakage of my website did not improve that even one tiny bit. At long last, however, a little more than 24 hours after the ending bell I have turned in my essay and I feel I can rest.
I know Ada Lovelace Day is about celebrating women in technology but ever since I first heard about it I wanted to write about Alice Sheldon. Under the guise of James Tiptree, Jr. she guided me to the fantastical world of science fiction that I still enjoy today. I really had very little interest in it before her. This is not strictly technology, of course, but we were invited to “interpret” “widely” and so I did, to include the role of exposing to and arousing curiosity in technology and natch, science. It’s a little rambly, I’m sure, because it’s mostly like an open love letter, but I can say, definitively, I wouldn’t be half the geek I am today if I had never discovered Tip. Thank you a million times Alice, even though I am regularly somewhat disappointed to find I bit off your ideas without realizing it, more than once even.
*Transmission is indirectly inspired by and similar to “The Screwfly Solution” where “Harry and Debbie” is part of a story in which there exists a technology similar to that used in “The Girl Who Was Plugged In.”