User:Ssstephen/Reading/The Future Looms

Characters in this paper in order of appearance:

Sadie Plant
Mallory
Ada Byron ("the Queen of Engines")
The Prime Minister
William Gibson
Bruce Sterling
Ada Lovelace ("the Queen of Engines")
The Difference Engine
Luce Irigaray
The computer
The loom
The patriarchal present
The end of human history
Freud
Woman
Man
Charles Babbage
Lady Byron ("Princess of Parallelograms")
Sophia Frend
Moore
Mary Somerville
Dr Dionysus Lardner
The Mechanics Institute
Menabrea
The Analytical Engine
That Brain of mine
William Carpenter
The Devil
Babbage's fairy
Her three children
Her husband
Her mother
A Snail-Shell
A Molecular Laboratory
A.K.
Morrison
Morrison
Jacquard
Jacquard's cards
the Jacquard loom
Weaving

Ada Lovelace often described her strange intimacy with death... it was no wonder that she was so attracted to the unfamiliar expanses of mathematical worlds.

This story starts mostly with a character assessment of Ada Lovelace as sadgirl.

There is no finite line of demarcation which limits the powers of the Analytical Engine. These powers are co-extensive with our knowledge of the laws of analysis itself, and need be bounded only by our acquaintance with the latter.

Quote from Ada Lovelace. Quite utopian, but I see where the excitement comes from. Outside of a mathematical definition of "limits", there are plenty of limits on the Analytical Engine like quantity of punchcards, computation speed, weight, location, networking capabilities, no USB-C ports, it never existed, etc.

the Analytical Engine weaves Agebraical patterns, just as the Jacquard loom weaves flowers and leaves.

Quote from Ada Lovelace. Interesting that she says the Jacquard loom weaves flowers and leaves, as opposed to thread and yarn. Are all machines running simulations? Certainly these two early examples look like they are.

Stopped at page 5 for today.