[LINK] Ada and the Engine, Glenbrook Side Hall, 12-20 May 2023

[Roger Clarke]

On 1/2/23 8:54 pm, Marghanita da Cruz wrote:
> 
> Ada and the Engine
> 
> As the British Industrial Revolution dawns, young Ada Byron Lovelace
> (daughter of the flamboyant and notorious Lord Byron) sees the boundless
> creative potential in the “analytic engines” of her friend and soul mate
> Charles Babbage, inventor of the first mechanical computer. Ada
> envisions a whole new world where art and information converge—a world
> she might not live to see. A story of love, friendship, and the edgiest
> dreams of the future. Jane Austen meets Steve Jobs in this poignant
> pre-tech romance heralding the computer age.
> 
>> https://glenbrookplayers.com.au/current-production/


Something somewhat similar's been done before, but it's a story that
needs re-relling, in many ways and often.

I'm doing my bit (so's to speak)  (:-)}


http://www.rogerclarke.com/SOS/Drones-I.html#CRD
> Turing (1950) includes a quotation from Hartree (1949), which
attributes an expression of the problem to the very first programmer -
who was also arguably the first commentator on the limitations of
computing - Ada Lovelace, in 1842: "The Analytical Engine has no
pretensions to originate anything. It can do whatever we know how to
order it to perform" (italics in the original). ...


http://www.rogerclarke.com/DV/DV20.html
> Designers and coders have increasingly lost touch with their
creations. The world's first programmer, Ada Lovelace, had the insight
from the beginning that computers don't do what you want them to do, but
what you tell them to do. Increasingly, however, we're losing control of
their behaviour, by accidentally and sometimes intentionally delegating
decision-making to them. So now Ada would say:
>
>  Computers don't do what you want them to do. They do what they do.
>


Asides:

If Jane Austen met Steve Jobs, she'd turn away, muttering 'Bloody Nerd!'.

But the 'edgy dreams of the future' is excellent.

Particularly given that the metallurgy let Babbage down, because of the
shattering of the teeth-edges.


-- 
Roger Clarke                            mailto:Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au
T: +61 2 6288 6916   http://www.xamax.com.au  http://www.rogerclarke.com

Xamax Consultancy Pty Ltd      78 Sidaway St, Chapman ACT 2611 AUSTRALIA

Visiting Professor in the Faculty of Law            University of N.S.W.
Visiting Professor in Computer Science    Australian National University