text:
Ada Lovelace
|Ada, Countess of Lovelace
Ada, Countess of Lovelace, 1840
The Hon. Augusta Ada Byron
10 December 1815
London, England
27 November 1852 36) (aged
Marylebone, London, England
|Resting place
|Church of St. Mary Magdalene, Hucknall, Nottingham, England
|Known for
|Countess of Lovelace
|William King-Noel, 1st Earl of Lovelace
Augusta Ada King-Noel, Countess of Lovelace (née Byron; 10 December 1815 – 27 November 1852) was an English mathematician and writer, chiefly known for her work on Charles Babbage's early mechanical general-purpose computer, the Analytical Engine. Her notes on the engine include what is recognised as the first algorithm intended to be carried out by a machine. As a result, she is often regarded as the first computer programmer.[1][2][3]
Ada Lovelace was the only legitimate child of the poet George, Lord Byron and his wife Anne Isabella Milbanke ("Annabella"), Lady Wentworth.[4] All Byron's other children were born out of wedlock to other women.[5] Byron separated from his wife a month after Ada was born and left England forever four months later, eventually dying of disease in the Greek War of Independence when Ada was eight years old. Her mother remained bitter towards Lord Byron and promoted Ada's interest in mathematics and logic in an effort to prevent her from developing what she saw as the insanity seen in her father, but Ada remained interested in him despite this (and was, upon her eventual death, buried next to him at her request). Often ill, she spent most of her childhood sick. Ada married William King in 1835. King was made Earl of Lovelace in 1838, and she became Countess of Lovelace.
Her educational and social exploits brought her into contact with scientists such as Andrew Crosse, Sir David Brewster, Charles Wheatstone, Michael Faraday and the author Charles Dickens, which she used to further her education. Ada described her approach as "poetical science"[6] and herself as an "Analyst (& Metaphysician)".[7]
When she was a teenager, her mathematical talents led her to an ongoing working relationship and friendship with fellow British mathematician Charles Babbage, also known as 'the father of computers', and in particular, Babbage's work on the Analytical Engine. Lovelace first met him in June 1833, through their mutual friend, and her private tutor, Mary Somerville. Between 1842 and 1843, Ada translated an article by Italian military engineer Luigi Menabrea on the engine, which she supplemented with an elaborate set of notes, simply called Notes. These notes contain what many consider to be the first computer program—that is, an algorithm designed to be carried out by a machine. Lovelace's notes are important in the early history of computers. She also developed a vision of the capability of computers to go beyond mere calculating or number-crunching, while many others, including Babbage himself, focused only on those capabilities.[8] Her mind-set of "poetical science" led her to ask questions about the Analytical Engine (as shown in her notes) examining how individuals and society relate to technology as a collaborative tool.[5]
She died of uterine cancer in 1852 at the age of 36.
Byron expected his baby to be a "glorious boy" and was disappointed when his wife gave birth to a girl.[9] Augusta was named after Byron's half-sister, Augusta Leigh, and was called "Ada" by Byron himself.[10]
On 16 January 1816 Annabella, at Byron's behest, left for her parents' home at Kirkby Mallory taking one-month-old Ada with her.[9] Although English law at the time gave fathers full custody of their children in cases of separation, Byron made no attempt to claim his parental rights[11] but did request that his sister keep him informed of Ada's welfare.[12] On 21 April Byron signed the Deed of Separation, although very reluctantly, and left England for good a few days later.[13] Aside from an acrimonious separation, Annabella continually made allegations about Byron's immoral behaviour throughout her life.[14]
This set of events made Ada famous in Victorian society. Byron did not have a relationship with his daughter, and never saw her again. He died in 1824 when she was eight years old. Her mother was the only significant parental figure in her life.[15] Ada was not shown the family portrait of her father (covered in green shroud) until her twentieth birthday.[16] Her mother became Baroness Wentworth in her own right in 1856.
Annabella did not have a close relationship with the young Ada, and often left her in the care of her own mother Judith, Hon. Lady Milbanke, who doted on her grandchild. However, because of societal attitudes of the time—which favoured the husband in any separation, with the welfare of any child acting as mitigation—Annabella had to present herself as a loving mother to the rest of society. This included writing anxious letters to Lady Milbanke about Ada's welfare, with a cover note saying to retain the letters in case she had to use them to show maternal concern.[17] In one letter to Lady Milbanke, she referred to Ada as "it": "I talk to it for your satisfaction, not my own, and shall be very glad when you have it under your own."[18] In her teenage years, several of her mother's close friends watched Ada for any sign of moral deviation. Ada dubbed these observers the "Furies", and later complained they exaggerated and invented stories about her.[19]
Ada was often ill, beginning in early childhood. At the age of eight, she experienced headaches that obscured her vision.[10] In June 1829, she was paralysed after a bout of measles. She was subjected to continuous bed rest for nearly a year, which may have extended her period of disability. By 1831, she was able to walk with crutches. Despite being ill Ada developed her mathematical and technological skills. At age 12 this future "Lady Fairy", as Charles Babbage affectionately called her, decided she wanted to fly. Ada went about the project methodically, thoughtfully, with imagination and passion. Her first step in February 1828, was to construct wings. She investigated different material and sizes. She considered various materials for the wings: paper, oilsilk, wires and feathers. She examined the anatomy of birds to determine the right proportion between the wings and the body. She decided to write a book Flyology illustrating, with plates, some of her findings. She decided what equipment she would need, for example, a compass, to "cut across the country by the most direct road", so that she could surmount mountains, rivers and valleys. Her final step was to integrate steam with the "art of flying".[5]
In early 1833 Ada had an affair with a tutor and, after being caught, tried to elope with him. The tutor's relatives recognised her and contacted her mother. Annabella and her friends covered the incident up to prevent a public scandal.[20] Ada never met her younger half-sister, Allegra, the daughter of Lord Byron and Claire Clairmont. Allegra died in 1822 at the age of five. Ada did have some contact with Elizabeth Medora Leigh, the daughter of Byron's half-sister Augusta Leigh, who purposely avoided Ada as much as possible when introduced at Court.[21]
Adult years
Lovelace became close friends with her tutor Mary Somerville, who would introduce her to Charles Babbage in 1833. She had a strong respect and affection for Somerville,[22] and the two of them corresponded for many years. Other acquaintances included the scientists Andrew Crosse, Sir David Brewster, Charles Wheatstone, Michael Faraday and the author Charles Dickens. She was presented at Court at the age of seventeen "and became a popular belle of the season" in part because of her "brilliant mind."[23] By 1834 Ada was a regular at Court and started attending various events. She danced often and was able to charm many people, and was described by most people as being dainty, although John Hobhouse, Byron's friend, described her as "a large, coarse-skinned young woman but with something of my friend's features, particularly the mouth".[24] This description followed their meeting on 24 February 1834 in which Ada made it clear to Hobhouse that she did not like him, probably because of the influence of her mother, which led her to dislike all of her father's friends. This first impression was not to last, and they later became friends.[25]
On 8 July 1835 she married William, 8th Baron King,[lower-alpha 1] becoming Lady King.[26] Their residence was Ockham Park, a large estate in Surrey, along with another estate on Loch Torridon in Ross-shire, and a home in London. They spent their honeymoon at Worthy Manor in Ashley Combe near Porlock Weir, Somerset. The Manor had been built as a hunting lodge in 1799 and was improved by King in preparation for their honeymoon. It later became their summer retreat and was further improved during this time.
They had three children: Byron (born 12 May 1836); Anne Isabella (called Annabella; born 22 September 1837); and Ralph Gordon (born 2 July 1839). Immediately after the birth of Annabella, Lady King experienced "a tedious and suffering illness, which took months to cure."[25] Ada was a descendant of the extinct Barons Lovelace and in 1838, her husband was made Earl of Lovelace and Viscount Ockham,[27] meaning Ada became the Countess of Lovelace. In 1843–44, Ada's mother assigned William Benjamin Carpenter to teach Ada's children, and to act as a 'moral' instructor for Ada.[28] He quickly fell for her, and encouraged her to express any frustrated affections, claiming that his marriage meant he'd never act in an "unbecoming" manner. When it became clear that Carpenter was trying to start an affair, Ada cut it off.[29]
In 1841 Lovelace and Medora Leigh (the daughter of Lord Byron's half-sister Augusta Leigh) were told by Ada's mother that her father was also Medora's father.[30] On 27 February 1841 Ada wrote to her mother: "I am not in the least astonished. In fact you merely confirm what I have for years and years felt scarcely a doubt about, but should have considered it most improper in me to hint to you that I in any way suspected."[31] She did not blame the incestuous relationship on Byron, but instead blamed Augusta Leigh: "I fear she is more inherently wicked than he ever was."[32] In the 1840s Ada flirted with scandals: firstly from a relaxed relationship with men who were not her husband, which led to rumours of affairs[33]—and secondly, her love of gambling. The gambling led to her forming a syndicate with male friends, and an ambitious attempt in 1851 to create a mathematical model for successful large bets. This went disastrously wrong, leaving her thousands of pounds in debt to the syndicate, forcing her to admit it all to her husband.[34] She had a shadowy relationship with Andrew Crosse's son John from 1844 onwards. John Crosse destroyed most of their correspondence after her death as part of a legal agreement. She bequeathed him the only heirlooms her father had personally left to her.[35] During her final illness, she would panic at the idea of the younger Crosse being kept from visiting her.[36]
Throughout her illnesses, she continued her education.[37] Her mother's obsession with rooting out any of the insanity of which she accused Byron was one of the reasons that Ada was taught mathematics from an early age. She was privately schooled in mathematics and science by William Frend, William King, and Mary Somerville, the noted researcher and scientific author of the 19th century. One of her later tutors was the mathematician and logician Augustus De Morgan. From 1832, when she was seventeen, her mathematical abilities began to emerge,[23] and her interest in mathematics dominated the majority of her adult life. In a letter to Lady Byron, De Morgan suggested that her daughter's skill in mathematics could lead her to become "an original mathematical investigator, perhaps of first-rate eminence".[38]
Lovelace often questioned basic assumptions by integrating poetry and science. While studying differential calculus, she wrote to De Morgan:
I may remark that the curious transformations many formulae can undergo, the unsuspected and to a beginner apparently impossible identity of forms exceedingly dissimilar at first sight, is I think one of the chief difficulties in the early part of mathematical studies. I am often reminded of certain sprites and fairies one reads of, who are at one's elbows in one shape now, and the next minute in a form most dissimilar[39]
Lovelace believed that intuition and imagination were critical to effectively applying mathematical and scientific concepts. She valued metaphysics as much as mathematics, viewing both as tools for exploring "the unseen worlds around us".[40]
Lovelace died at the age of 36 – the same age that her father had died – on 27 November 1852,[41] from uterine cancer probably exacerbated by bloodletting by her physicians.[42] The illness lasted several months, in which time Annabella took command over whom Ada saw, and excluded all of her friends and confidants. Under her mother's influence, she had a religious transformation and was coaxed into repenting of her previous conduct and making Annabella her executor.[43] She lost contact with her husband after she confessed something to him on 30 August which caused him to abandon her bedside. What she told him is unknown.[44] She was buried, at her request, next to her father at the Church of St. Mary Magdalene in Hucknall, Nottinghamshire.
Throughout her life, Lovelace was strongly interested in scientific developments and fads of the day, including phrenology[45] and mesmerism.[46] After her work with Babbage, Lovelace continued to work on other projects. In 1844 she commented to a friend Woronzow Greig about her desire to create a mathematical model for how the brain gives rise to thoughts and nerves to feelings ("a calculus of the nervous system").[47] She never achieved this, however. In part, her interest in the brain came from a long-running pre-occupation, inherited from her mother, about her 'potential' madness. As part of her research into this project, she visited the electrical engineer Andrew Crosse in 1844 to learn how to carry out electrical experiments.[48] In the same year, she wrote a review of a paper by Baron Karl von Reichenbach, Researches on Magnetism, but this was not published and does not appear to have progressed past the first draft.[49] In 1851, the year before her cancer struck, she wrote to her mother mentioning "certain productions" she was working on regarding the relation of maths and music.[50]
Lovelace first met Charles Babbage in June 1833, through their mutual friend Mary Somerville. Later that month Babbage invited Lovelace to see the prototype for his Difference Engine.[51] She became fascinated with the machine and used her relationship with Somerville to visit Babbage as often as she could. Babbage was impressed by Lovelace's intellect and analytic skills. He called her "The Enchantress of Number".[52][note 1] In 1843 he wrote of her:
Forget this world and all its troubles and if possible its multitudinous Charlatans—every thing in short but the Enchantress of Number.[52]
During a nine-month period in 1842–43, Lovelace translated the Italian mathematician Luigi Menabrea's article on Babbage's newest proposed machine, the Analytical Engine. With the article, she appended a set of notes.[53] Explaining the Analytical Engine's function was a difficult task, as even many other scientists did not really grasp the concept and the British establishment was uninterested in it.[54] Lovelace's notes even had to explain how the Analytical Engine differed from the original Difference Engine.[55] Her work was well received at the time; the scientist Michael Faraday described himself as a supporter of her writing.[56]
The notes are around three times longer than the article itself and include (in Section G[57]), in complete detail, a method for calculating a sequence of Bernoulli numbers with the Engine, which could have run correctly had the Analytical Engine been built (only his Difference Engine has been built, completed in London in 2002[58]). Based on this work Lovelace is now widely considered the first computer programmer[1] and her method is recognised as the world's first computer program.[59]
Section G also contains Lovelace's dismissal of artificial intelligence. She wrote that "The Analytical Engine has no pretensions whatever to originate anything. It can do whatever we know how to order it to perform. It can follow analysis; but it has no power of anticipating any analytical relations or truths." This objection has been the subject of much debate and rebuttal, for example by Alan Turing in his paper "Computing Machinery and Intelligence".[60]
Lovelace and Babbage had a minor falling out when the papers were published, when he tried to leave his own statement (a criticism of the government's treatment of his Engine) as an unsigned preface—which would imply that she had written that also. When Taylor's Scientific Memoirs ruled that the statement should be signed, Babbage wrote to Lovelace asking her to withdraw the paper. This was the first that she knew he was leaving it unsigned, and she wrote back refusing to withdraw the paper. The historian Benjamin Woolley theorised that, "His actions suggested he had so enthusiastically sought Ada's involvement, and so happily indulged her ... because of her 'celebrated name'."[61] Their friendship recovered, and they continued to correspond. On 12 August 1851, when she was dying of cancer, Lovelace wrote to him asking him to be her executor, though this letter did not give him the necessary legal authority. Part of the terrace at Worthy Manor was known as Philosopher's Walk, as it was there that Lovelace and Babbage were reputed to have walked while discussing mathematical principles.[56]
First computer program
In 1840, Babbage was invited to give a seminar at the University of Turin about his Analytical Engine. Luigi Menabrea, a young Italian engineer, and the future Prime Minister of Italy, wrote up Babbage's lecture in French, and this transcript was subsequently published in the Bibliothèque universelle de Genève in October 1842. Babbage's friend Charles Wheatstone commissioned Ada Lovelace to translate Menabrea's paper into English. She then augmented the paper with notes, which were added to the translation. Ada Lovelace spent the better part of a year doing this, assisted with input from Babbage. These notes, which are more extensive than Menabrea's paper, were then published in Taylor's Scientific Memoirs under the initialism AAL.
Ada Lovelace's notes were labelled alphabetically from A to G. In note G, she describes an algorithm for the Analytical Engine to compute Bernoulli numbers. It is considered the first published algorithm ever specifically tailored for implementation on a computer, and Ada Lovelace has often been cited as the first computer programmer for this reason.[62][63] The engine was never completed so her program was never tested.[64]
In 1953, more than a century after her death, Ada Lovelace's notes on Babbage's Analytical Engine were republished. The engine has now been recognised as an early model for a computer and her notes as a description of a computer and software.[65]
Beyond numbers
In her notes, Lovelace emphasised the difference between the Analytical Engine and previous calculating machines, particularly its ability to be programmed to solve problems of any complexity.[66] She realised the potential of the device extended far beyond mere number crunching. In her notes, she wrote:
[The Analytical Engine] might act upon other things besides number, were objects found whose mutual fundamental relations could be expressed by those of the abstract science of operations, and which should be also susceptible of adaptations to the action of the operating notation and mechanism of the engine...Supposing, for instance, that the fundamental relations of pitched sounds in the science of harmony and of musical composition were susceptible of such expression and adaptations, the engine might compose elaborate and scientific pieces of music of any degree of complexity or extent.[67][68]
This analysis was an important development from previous ideas about the capabilities of computing devices, and anticipated the implications of modern computing one hundred years before they were realised. Walter Isaacson ascribes Lovelace's insight regarding the application of computing to any process based on logical symbols to an observation about textiles: "When she saw some mechanical looms that used punchcards to direct the weaving of beautiful patterns, it reminded her of how Babbage's engine used punched cards to make calculations."[69] This insight is seen as significant by writers such as Betty Toole and Benjamin Woolley, as well as the programmer John Graham-Cumming, whose project Plan 28 has the aim of constructing the first complete Analytical Engine.[70][71][72]
Controversy over extent of contributions
Though Lovelace is referred to as the first computer programmer, some biographers and historians of computing claim the contrary.
Allan G. Bromley, in the 1990 article Difference and Analytical Engines:
All but one of the programs cited in her notes had been prepared by Babbage from three to seven years earlier. The exception was prepared by Babbage for her, although she did detect a 'bug' in it. Not only is there no evidence that Ada ever prepared a program for the Analytical Engine, but her correspondence with Babbage shows that she did not have the knowledge to do so.[73]
Bruce Collier, who later wrote a biography of Babbage, wrote in his 1970 Harvard University PhD thesis that Lovelace "made a considerable contribution to publicizing the Analytical Engine, but there is no evidence that she advanced the design or theory of it in any way".[74]
Eugene Eric Kim and Betty Alexandra Toole consider it "incorrect" to regard Lovelace as the first computer programmer, as Babbage wrote the initial programs for his Analytical Engine, although the majority were never published.[75] Bromley notes several dozen sample programs prepared by Babbage between 1837 and 1840, all substantially predating Lovelace's notes.[76] Dorothy K. Stein regards Lovelace's notes as "more a reflection of the mathematical uncertainty of the author, the political purposes of the inventor, and, above all, of the social and cultural context in which it was written, than a blueprint for a scientific development".[77]
In popular culture
Lovelace has been portrayed in Romulus Linney's 1977 play Childe Byron,[78] the 1990 steampunk novel The Difference Engine by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling,[79] the 1997 film Conceiving Ada,[80] and in John Crowley's 2005 novel Lord Byron's Novel: The Evening Land, where she is featured as an unseen character whose personality is forcefully depicted in her annotations and anti-heroic efforts to archive her father's lost novel.[81]
In Tom Stoppard's 1993 play Arcadia, the precocious teenage genius Thomasina Coverly (a character "apparently based" on Ada Lovelace—the play also involves Lord Byron) comes to understand chaos theory, and theorises the second law of thermodynamics, before either is officially recognised.[82][83] The 2015 play Ada and the Memory Engine by Lauren Gunderson portrays Lovelace and Charles Babbage in unrequited love, and it imagines a post-death meeting between Lovelace and her father.[84][85]
Lovelace and Babbage are the main characters in Sydney Padua's webcomic and graphic novel The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage. The comic features extensive footnotes on the history of Ada Lovelace and many lines of dialogue are drawn from actual correspondence.[86]
The computer language Ada, created on behalf of the United States Department of Defense, was named after Lovelace. The reference manual for the language was approved on 10 December 1980 and the Department of Defense Military Standard for the language, MIL-STD-1815, was given the number of the year of her birth. Since 1998 the British Computer Society has awarded a medal in her name[87] and in 2008 initiated an annual competition for women students of computer science.[88] In the UK the BCSWomen Lovelace Colloquium, the annual conference for women undergraduates is named after Lovelace.[89]
"Ada Lovelace Day" is an annual event celebrated in mid-October[90] whose goal is to "... raise the profile of women in science, technology, engineering and maths," and to "create new role models for girls and women" in these fields.
The Ada Initiative is a non-profit organisation dedicated to increasing the involvement of women in the free culture and open source movements.[91]
The Engineering in Computer Science and Telecommunications College building in Zaragoza University is called the Ada Byron Building.[92] The village computer centre in the village of Porlock, near where Ada Lovelace lived, is named after her. There is a building in the small town of Kirkby-in-Ashfield, Nottinghamshire named Ada Lovelace House.[93] One of the tunnel boring machines excavating the tunnels for London's Crossrail project is named Ada in commemoration of Ada Lovelace.[94]
Ada: A Journal of Gender, New Media, and Technology is an "open-access, multi-modal, [open-]peer-reviewed feminist journal concerned with the intersections of gender, new media, and technology" that began in 2012 and is run by the Fembot Collective.[95]
Adafruit Industries is an open-source hardware company named in honour of Lovelace.[96]
Ada College a further-education college in Tottenham Hale, London focused on digital skills, is named after Lovelace.[97]
Titles and styles by which she was known
- 10 December 1815 – 8 July 1835: The Honourable Ada Byron
- 8 July 1835 – 30 June 1838: The Right Honourable The Lady King
- 30 June 1838 – 27 November 1852: The Right Honourable The Countess of Lovelace
|Ancestors of Ada Lovelace
The bicentenary of Ada Lovelace's birth was celebrated with a number of events, including:[98]
- The Ada Lovelace Bicentenary Lectures on Computability, Israel Institute for Advanced Studies, 20 December 2015 – 31 January 2016.[99][100]
- Ada Lovelace Symposium, University of Oxford, 13–14 October 2015.[101]
Special exhibitions were displayed by the Science Museum in London[102] and the Weston Library[103] (part of the Bodleian Library) in Oxford, England.
- Menabrea, Luigi Federico; Lovelace, Ada (1843). "Sketch of the Analytical Engine invented by Charles Babbage... with notes by the translator. Translated by Ada Lovelace". In Richard Taylor. Scientific Memoirs. 3. London: Richard and John E. Taylor. pp. 666–731.
See also
- Great Lives (BBC Radio 4) aired on 17 September 2013 was dedicated to the story of Ada Lovelace.[104]
- Code: Debugging the Gender Gap
- Women in computing
- ↑ Sources disagree on whether William King, her maths tutor, and William King, her later husband, were the same person.
- ↑ Some writers give it as "Enchantress of Numbers"
Sources make it clear that William King, her tutor, and William King, her future husband, were not related.[105]
- 1 2 Fuegi & Francis 2003, pp. 16–26.
- ↑ Phillips, Ana Lena (November–December 2011). "Crowdsourcing Gender Equity: Ada Lovelace Day, and its companion website, aims to raise the profile of women in science and technology". American Scientist. 99 (6): 463.
- ↑ "Ada Lovelace honoured by Google doodle". The Guardian. 10 December 2012. Retrieved 10 December 2012.
- ↑ Ada Lovelace Biography, biography.com
- 1 2 3 Toole, Betty Alexandra (1987), "Poetical Science", The Byron Journal, 15: 55–65, doi:10.3828/bj.1987.6.
- ↑ Toole 1998, pp. 234–235.
- ↑ Toole 1998, pp. 156–157.
- ↑ Fuegi & Francis 2003, pp. 19, 25.
- 1 2 Turney 1972, p. 35.
- 1 2 Stein 1985, p. 17.
- ↑ Stein 1985, p. 16.
- ↑ Woolley 1999, p. 80.
- ↑ Turney 1972, pp. 36–38.
- ↑ Woolley 1999, pp. 74–77.
- ↑ Turney 1972, p. 138.
- ↑ Woolley 1999, p. 10.
- ↑ Woolley 1999, pp. 85–87.
- ↑ Woolley 1999, p. 86.
- ↑ Woolley 1999, p. 119.
- ↑ Woolley 1999, pp. 120–21.
- ↑ Turney 1972, p. 155.
- ↑ Woolley 1999, pp. 138–40.
- 1 2 Turney 1972, p. 138.
- ↑ Turney 1972, pp. 138–39.
- 1 2 Turney 1972, p. 139.
- ↑ "Ada Augusta Byron", The Peerage, 31 Jan 2012.
- ↑ "Lovelace, Earl of". Cracroft's Peerage. 2005.
- ↑ Woolley 1999, pp. 285–86.
- ↑ Woolley 1999, pp. 289–96.
- ↑ Turney 1972, p. 159.
- ↑ Turney 1972, p. 160.
- ↑ Moore 1961, p. 431.
- ↑ Woolley 1999, p. 302.
- ↑ Woolley 1999, pp. 340–42.
- ↑ Woolley 1999, pp. 336–37.
- ↑ Woolley 1999, p. 361.
- ↑ Stein 1985, pp. 28–30.
- ↑ Stein 1985, p. 82.
- ↑ Toole 1998, p. 99.
- ↑ Toole 1998, pp. 91–100.
- ↑ "December 1852 1a * MARYLEBONE – Augusta Ada Lovelace", Register of Deaths, GRO.
- ↑ Baum 1986, pp. 99–100.
- ↑ Woolley 1999, p. 370.
- ↑ Woolley 1999, p. 369.
- ↑ Woolley 1999, p. 198.
- ↑ Woolley 1999, pp. 232–33.
- ↑ Woolley 1999, p. 305.
- ↑ Woolley 1999, pp. 310–14.
- ↑ Woolley 1999, pp. 315–17.
- ↑ Woolley 1999, p. 335.
- ↑ Toole 1998, pp. 36–38.
- 1 2 Wolfram, Stephen (10 December 2015). "Untangling the Tale of Ada Lovelace".
Then, on Sept. 9, Babbage wrote to Ada, expressing his admiration for her and (famously) describing her as 'Enchantress of Number' and 'my dear and much admired Interpreter'. (Yes, despite what's often quoted, he wrote 'Number' not 'Numbers'.)
- ↑ Menabrea 1843.
- ↑ Woolley 1999, p. 265.
- ↑ Woolley 1999, p. 267.
- 1 2 Woolley 1999, p. 307.
- ↑ "Sketch of The Analytical Engine, with notes upon the Memoir by the Translator". Switzerland: fourmilab.ch. Retrieved 28 March 2014.
- ↑ "The Babbage Engine". Computer History Museum. 2008.
- ↑ Gleick, J. (2011) The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood, London, Fourth Estate, pp. 116–118.
- ↑ Alan Turing (2004). Stuart Shieber, ed. Computing Machinery and Intelligence. The Turing Test: Verbal Behavior as the Hallmark of Intelligence. MIT Press. pp. 67–104.
- ↑ Woolley 1999, pp. 277–80.
- ↑ Simonite, Tom (24 March 2009). "Short Sharp Science: Celebrating Ada Lovelace: the 'world's first programmer'". New Scientist. Retrieved 14 April 2012.
- ↑ Parker, Matt (2014). Things to Make and Do in the Fourth Dimension. Farrar, Straus & Giroux. p. 261. ISBN 0374275653.
- ↑ Kim & Toole 1999.
- ↑ Hammerman, Robin; Russell, Andrew L., eds. (2015), Ada's Legacy: Cultures of Computing from the Victorian to the Digital Age, Morgan & Claypool, doi:10.1145/2809523
- ↑ Toole 1998, pp. 175–82.
- ↑ Lovelace, Ada; Menabrea, Luigi (1842). "Sketch of the Analytical Engine invented by Charles Babbage Esq.". Scientific Memoirs. Richard Taylor: 694.
- ↑ Hooper, Rowan (16 October 2012). "Ada Lovelace: My brain is more than merely mortal". New Scientist. Retrieved 16 October 2012.
- ↑ Isaacson, Walter. "Walter Isaacson on the women of ENIAC." Fortune magazine. 18 September 2014.
- ↑ Toole 1998, pp. 2–3, 14.
- ↑ Woolley 1999, pp. 272–77.
- ↑ Kent, Leo (17 September 2012). "The 10-year-plan to build Babbage's Analytical Engine". Humans Invent. Retrieved 16 October 2012.
- ↑ Bromley, Allan G. (1990). "Difference and Analytical Engines" (pdf). In Aspray, William. Computing Before Computers. Ames: Iowa State University Press. pp. 59–98. ISBN 0-8138-0047-1. p. 89.
- ↑ Collier, Bruce (1970). The Little Engines That Could've: The Calculating Machines of Charles Babbage (Ph.D.). Harvard University. Retrieved 18 December 2015. chapter 3.
- ↑ Kim & Toole 1999, p. 76.
- ↑ Bromley, Allan G. (July–September 1982). "Charles Babbage's Analytical Engine, 1838" (pdf). IEEE Annals of the History of Computing. 4 (3): 197–217. doi:10.1109/mahc.1982.10028. p. 197.
- ↑ Stein, Dorothy K. (1984). "Lady Lovelace's Notes: Technical Text and Cultural Context". Victorian Studies. 28 (1): 33–67. p. 34.
- ↑ Klein, Alvin (13 May 1984), "Theatre in review: A lusty Byron in Rockland", New York Times
- ↑ Plant, Sadie (1995), "The Future Looms: Weaving Women and Cybernetics", in Featherstone, Mike; Burrows, Roger, Cyberspace/Cyberbodies/Cyberpunk: Cultures of Technological Embodiment, SAGE Publications, in association with Theory, Culture & Society, School of Human Studies, Univ. of Teesside, pp. 45–64, ISBN 9781848609143
- ↑ Holden, Stephen (26 February 1999), "'Conceiving Ada': Calling Byron's Daughter, Inventor of a Computer", New York Times
- ↑ Straub, Peter (5 June 2005), "Byron's heir", Los Angeles Times
- ↑ "Tom Stoppard's 'Arcadia,' at Twenty". The New Yorker.
- ↑ Profile, Gale Edwards, 1994, Director of "Arcadia" for the Sydney Theatre Company
- ↑ "Ada and the Memory Engine". KQED. Retrieved 14 November 2015.
- ↑ Costello, Elizabeth (22 October 2015). "Ada and the Memory Engine: Love by the Numbers". SF Weekly. Retrieved 14 November 2015.
- ↑ Doctorow, Cory (5 October 2009). "Comic about Ada Lovelace and Charles Babbage". BoingBoing. Retrieved 10 October 2014.
- ↑ "Lovelace Lecture & Medal". BCS. Retrieved 2 March 2008.
- ↑ "Undergraduate Lovelace Colloquium, BCSWomen". Leeds. Retrieved 6 March 2008.
- ↑ "BCSWomen Lovelace Colloquium". UK.
- ↑ "FAQ". About. Finding Ada. Retrieved 10 December 2012.
- ↑ Aurora, Valerie (13 December 2011), "An update on the Ada Initiative", LWN, retrieved 5 October 2012
- ↑ "Ada Byron Building".
- ↑ "Conference Facilities". Ashfield District Council. Retrieved 21 October 2012.
- ↑ Kremer, William (1 August 2013). "Crossrail: Where is it in the list of 'big digs'?". BBC News.
- ↑ "FAQ – Ada: A Journal of Gender, New Media, and Technology". University of Oregon Libraries. Retrieved 17 April 2015.
- ↑ PCH. "PCH Talks with Limor Fried". Retrieved 21 April 2015.
- ↑ Davis, Anna. "New college in north London 'will boost women in tech sector'". Evening Standard. Retrieved 16 March 2016.
- ↑ "Ada Lovelace Day: Celebrating the achievements of women in science, technology, engineering and maths". FindingAda.com. 13 October 2015. Retrieved 11 January 2016.
- ↑ "Ada Lovelace Bicentenary Lectures on Computability". Ada Lovelace Day. FindingAda.com. 20 December 2015 – 31 January 2016. Retrieved 11 January 2016.
- ↑ "The Ada Lovelace Bicentenary Lectures on Computability". Israel Institute for Advanced Studies. 20 December 2015 – 31 January 2016. Retrieved 11 January 2016.
- ↑ "Ada Lovelace Symposium – Celebrating 200 Years of a Computer Visionary". Podcasts. UK: University of Oxford. Retrieved 11 January 2016.
- ↑ "Ada Lovelace". UK: Science Museum, London. Retrieved 11 January 2016.
- ↑ "Bodleian Libraries celebrates Ada Lovelace's 200th birthday with free display and Wikipedia editathons". UK: Bodleian Libraries. Retrieved 11 January 2016.
- ↑ "BBC Radio 4 – Great Lives, Series 31, Konnie Huq on Ada Lovelace". BBC.
- ↑ Wade, Mary Dodson. Ada Byron Lovelace: The Lady and the Computer. New York: Dillon Press, 1994.
- Baum, Joan (1986), The Calculating Passion of Ada Byron, Archon, ISBN 0-208-02119-1.
- Elwin, Malcolm (1975), Lord Byron's Family, John Murray.
- Essinger, James (2014), Ada's algorithm: How Lord Byron's daughter Ada Lovelace launched the digital age, Melville House Publishing, ISBN 978-1-61219-408-0.
- Fuegi, J; Francis, J (October–December 2003), "Lovelace & Babbage and the creation of the 1843 'notes'", Annals of the History of Computing, IEEE, 25 (4): 16–26, doi:10.1109/MAHC.2003.1253887.
- Hammerman, Robin; Russell, Andrew L. (2015), Ada's Legacy: Cultures of Computing from the Victorian to the Digital Age, Association for Computing Machinery and Morgan & Claypool, doi:10.1145/2809523, ISBN 9781970001518.
- Isaacson, Walter (2014), The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution, Simon & Schuster.
- Kim, Eugene; Toole, Betty Alexandra (1999). "Ada and the First Computer". Scientific American. 280 (5): 76–81. Bibcode:1999SciAm.280e..76E. doi:10.1038/scientificamerican0599-76..
- Lewis, Judith S. (July–August 1995). "Princess of Parallelograms and her daughter: Math and gender in the nineteenth century English aristocracy". Women's Studies International Forum. ScienceDirect. 18 (4): 387–394. doi:10.1016/0277-5395(95)80030-S.
- Marchand, Leslie (1971), Byron A Portrait, John Murray.
- Menabrea, Luigi Federico (1843), "Sketch of the Analytical Engine Invented by Charles Babbage", Scientific Memoirs, 3, archived from the original on 15 September 2008, retrieved 29 August 2008 With notes upon the memoir by the translator.
- Moore, Doris Langley (1977), Ada, Countess of Lovelace, John Murray.
- Moore, Doris Langley (1961), The Late Lord Byron, Philadelphia: Lippincott, ISBN 0-06-013013-X, OCLC 358063.
- Stein, Dorothy (1985), Ada: A Life and a Legacy, MIT Press Series in the History of Computing, Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, ISBN 0-262-19242-X.
- Toole, Betty Alexandra (1992), Ada, the Enchantress of Numbers: A Selection from the Letters of Ada Lovelace, and her Description of the First Computer, Strawberry Press, ISBN 0912647094.
- Toole, Betty Alexandra (1998), Ada, the Enchantress of Numbers: Prophet of the Computer Age, Strawberry Press, ISBN 0912647183.
- Turney, Catherine (1972), Byron's Daughter: A Biography of Elizabeth Medora Leigh, Scribner, ISBN 0684127539
- Woolley, Benjamin (February 1999), The Bride of Science: Romance, Reason, and Byron's Daughter, AU: Pan Macmillan, ISBN 0-333-72436-4, retrieved 7 April 2013.
- Woolley, Benjamin (February 2002) [1999], The Bride of Science: Romance, Reason, and Byron's Daughter, McGraw-Hill Ryerson, ISBN 978-0-07138860-3, retrieved 7 April 2013.
External links
|Wikimedia Commons has media related to Ada Lovelace.
|Wikiquote has quotations related to: Ada Lovelace
|Wikisource has original works written by or about:
Augusta Ada Byron
- "Untangling the Tale of Ada Lovelace". StephenWolfram.com. 10 December 2015.
- "Ada Lovelace: Founder of Scientific Computing". Women in Science. SDSC.
- "Ada Byron, Lady Lovelace". Biographies of Women Mathematicians. Agnes Scott College.
- "Papers of the Noel, Byron and Lovelace families". UK: Archives hub.
- "Ada Lovelace & The Analytical Engine". Babbage. Computer History.
- "Ada & the Analytical Engine". Educause.
- "Ada Lovelace, Countess of Controversy". Tech TV vault. G4 TV.
- "Ada Lovelace" (streaming). In Our Time (audio). UK: The BBC (Radio 4). 6 March 2008.
- "Ada Lovelace's Notes and The Ladies Diary". Yale.
- "The fascinating story Ada Lovelace". Sabine Allaeys (Youtube).
- "Ada Lovelace, the World's First Computer Programmer, on Science and Religion". Maria Popova (Brain).
- "How Ada Lovelace, Lord Byron's Daughter, Became the World's First Computer Programmer". Maria Popova (Brain).
- O'Connor, John J.; Robertson, Edmund F., "Ada Lovelace", MacTutor History of Mathematics archive, University of St Andrews.


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The CBI charge-sheet in the Ishrat Jahan encounter case and its aftermath has led the BJP and supporters of Narendra Modi (within and without the Intelligence Bureau) to discover the joys of time travel. Apparently, David Coleman Headley's testimony in 2010 (which says that Ishrat Jahan was an LeT operative) has given the Gujarat police officials a means to tell us why they killed Ishrat Jahan in 2004. Or, following on from Shivam Vij's recent tweets, we could say: "The IB says that Headley says that Ishrat Jahan was a non-non terrorist…"
We will discuss more about this heady Headley testimony and 'non-non terrorism' later, but for now, let us admit that the secret of how a statement in the future can influence the unfolding an event six years in the past is known only to those who are partisan to Mr. Modi and his party. It is not for nothing that they call him a Yug Purush ('The Man of Time')- all times, past, present and future, can do his bidding, or so thinks the BJP.
Narendra Modi, the Yug Purush himself, has not however, been saying much about Ishrat Jahan lately. He is letting others (some journalists, a few of his colleagues in the BJP, some retired intelligence bureau officers, and assorted NaMo-Maniacs like Madhu Mausi, Nirmala Bhabi, Kiran Didi, Meenakshi Tai, Rajnath Chacha and Arun Bhayya) do the talking, which is perhaps wise, because it is difficult at present for Narendrabhai to open his mouth about Ishrat Jahan (or Sohrabuddin, or Khalid Jamal, or Prajapati, or Haren Pandya for that matter) without implicating himself in the process. The past has a bad habit of catching up, not just with the present, but even with the future.
It was not always so. Narendra Modi has talked about Ishrat Jahan in the past. Here he is, for instance, on the 17th of July, 2006 addressing the Maharashtra state BJP on the war against terror at the Shanmukhananda Hall in Mumbai.
Watch him carefully. Listen to him. "…Ishrat Jahan naam ki ek aatankvaadi ladki, jiska HAMARE Gujarat Police ke saath encounter hua…(wipes his face)…aur use maar giraya." ("this terrorist girl Ishrat Jahan, OUR Gujarat Police had an encounter with her, they shot her down…"). He goes on to berate the 'five star' activists who made a noise about Ishrat Jahan, saying how they were forced to keep mum once a Lashkar e Toiba website owned Ishrat Jahan as one of their own. Two full years after the Ishrat Jahan encounter, Narendra Modi has nothing less than pride in the fact that 'HIS' Gujarat police shot this nineteen year old woman.
If you hear the rest of his speech, which is available on Youtube, you will learn that Narendrabhai thinks that had the Maharashtra Police shot a few girls pre-emptively like the Gujarat police did then there would have been fewer bomb blasts in Mumbai, because after all, there were reports that burqa-clad girls were said to be planting bombs. All you need to do is to shoot a few burqa clad girls on their way home. Philip K. Dick, the science fiction writer who wrote about 'pre-cognitive and predictive policing' in 'Minority Report' would be pleased to know that his peculiar brand of visionary dystopia has such ready takers in Gujarat and the BJP. Narendra Modi would have cut a fine figure in a Philip K. Dick novel.
If, as the CBI charge-sheet details, a Gujarat Police Deputy SP called D.H. Goswami did in fact say that he heard the encounter specialist Vanjara say that Narendra Modi and his minister of state for Home Amit Shah had given him the clearance to 'encounter' Ishrat Jahan before the 15th of June, 2004 (the date on which the young woman was shot) , we will have unravelled an interesting twist to this sordid tale.
If Modi knew of the plan to kill Ishrat Jahan in advance, and did not stop his police officers from actualizing this plan, then there is simply no conclusion to reach other than that of Modi's culpability . If not an actual conspirator, Modi becomes at least an accessory to murder. The wannabe prime minister of this country will then have proved himself to be little more than a common assassin's accomplice, or, at best, the man who hands out the reward for a supari, a contract killing. In common parlance such a man is called a thug, a criminal, a mafia don.
Naturally, today, in the wake of the CBI charge-sheet, Narendra Modi has reason to be quiet. The BJP, which has all but anointed Modi as it's prime ministerial candidate in the forthcoming elections is trying to say mainly one of two things in order to cover for Modi and his eloquent silence.
One – Ishrat Jahan was a terrorist, and she was planning to kill Modi anyway, and so she had to be eliminated.
Two – The central government, knew everything about the plan to kill Ishrat Jahan and had okayed the operation because the senior most echelons of the IB regularly brief the Union Home Minister and the Prime Minister's Office, and there is no way that they would not have done so in this case. Responsibility for the event of the encounter is shared between the Gujarat Government and the Central Government, between Chief Minister Modi and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh
The problem with the first line of argument is that she was killed way before anything happened to Modi. In other words she was killed before she could do the killing for which she was killed. In still other words, Ishrat Jahan and four others (and we know now how exactly they were killed) were murdered in cold blood. There is no room left any longer for the argument that the Gujarat police had to shoot in self defense. We know now how arms were procured from the IB arsenal and placed on the dead bodies to 'dress' the scene of the crime. We even know that Ishrat was drugged and tranquilized before being shot.
In order to deal with the problems posed by this line of argument, the BJP and its friends have deployed the second argument – which says – "well she was killed in this way because she was a terrorist and we know this from the IB inputs, and the IB informs the Central Government, so the Central Government is as implicated in this as the Gujarat Government. In other words, the responsibility for the extra-judicial assasinaion of the 'terrorist' Ishrat Jahan is not Modi's alone, but stretches, via the IB, right up to the prime minister and the union home minister.
Further, the BJP is trying to argue that the CBI is a tool of the Central Government and is being used to malign Modi and his government in Gujarat. Unfortunately, it is not the Central Government which ordered the CBI inquiry in this case, it is the Gujarat High Court, and no amount of trying to deflect attention towards the centre can take away from the fact that the most damaging testimonies and indictments of the Gujarat Government's conduct in this case have come from its own officials.
It is not my case that the Central Government cannot be implicated in the Ishrat Jahan case. And yes, the IB is a 'central' agency. Politicians belonging to the UPA coalition and its lynchpin the Congress Party, its allies and other political parties, are implicated, routinely, in many fake encounter cases, in Delhi, UP, Punjab, Maharashtra, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir and Manipur . Like riots, as far as 'encounters' are concerned, the Congress is no better than the BJP, and we should have no hesitation in saying so.
We can cite any number of cases from Manipur, from Kashmir, from Delhi's Batla House to Ansal Plaza – as instances of extra-judicial assassinations. The human rights activists and lawyers who are talking about Ishrat Jahan and Gujarat today have talked about all these other encounters in the past, so we do not quite understand exactly who the BJP is trying to fool in this matter. We do know that the Gujarat Chief Minister took an inordinate interest in encounter killings and was in the habit of bragging about his police force's track record. Is it unnatural then for the heightened interest in encounters in Gujarat not to reflect on to the Chief Minister's role in desiring their execution ?
Madhu 'Mausi' Kishwar, for instance, is crying hoarse over Omar Abdullah's 'encounter' track record on TV (which is somewhat embarrassing to her new found friends in the BJP, because as far as they are concerned, the number of encounters in Kashmir has never been a problem) as a way of shoring up her pathetic and spineless defense of the murderous Modi dispensation. She neglects to mention that many of those who are willing to be counted in the Ishrat Jahan case have spoken about gross human rights violations in Kashmir, and have in fact pointed out the abusive nature of the Omar Abdullah regime, not once, but repeatedly. But Madhu Mausi does not like taking cognizance of facts that are inconvenient to her. She has other fish to fry.
Various BJP leaders, from Nirmala Sitharaman to Meenakshi Lekhi to Kirron Kher to Rajnath Singh have said – the IB reports to the Prime Minister's Office, and so, the PMO is as implicated in this as anyone else. Fine. No problem.
We need to then also ask who from the IB did the reporting to the PMO. According to this narrative, the senior most officers of the IB would be the people who would interface with the highest levels of the executive. Who was amongst the highest echelons of the IB at that time? A gentleman named Ajit Doval was Special Director of the IB at the time of the Ishrat Jahan encounter and was also the chief of the Multi-Agency Centre within the IB – charged with integrating intelligence gathering at the highest levels. It is reasonable to say that he must have been among those briefing the PMO, or at least, he would have been aware of what the PMO was being told about the encounter. A little later in 2004 he became the chief of the IB itself.
Who is Mr. Doval, and where is he now?
Following his retirement from government service, Mr. Doval has become the director of the Vivekananda International Foundation, a New Delhi based think-tank close to the BJP and the RSS. The foundation is staffed by many former officials from the 'intelligence community'. And it regularly advises the BJP on matters of national importance. Mr. Doval himself has conducted workshops on 'national security related issues' for BJP legislators and party workers. So, the person who would have supervised and handled the 'Ishrat Jahan' case at the central level is now a person very close to the BJP. It would indeed be a good idea to ask him a few questions.
Not that he is not talking. He has been consistently saying that the IB was aware of the fact that Ishrat was an LeT operative. He has said so on a show called 'Views Hour' on NWR, an online radio channel that is part of the Niti Central network (Niti Central is a group blog close to the BJP, run by Kanchan Gupta). He has also appeared on an NDTV programme, 'Trending This Week' aggressively defending the IB's role. During this program, when asked about the fact that those killed in the encounter (Sadiq Jamal, Ishrat) were shown not to be terrorists, he says the following gem –
"You never know about your ignorance. If I say that I do not know that a man is terrorist he does not become a non-terrorist. An ignorance of a thing does not prove anything. It is the knowledge that proves him. Ask those who say that he is a terrorist why they say that he is a terrorist. "
So, according to the former director of the Intelligence Bureau, which, in all fairness, should now be renamed the Idiocy Bureau, if the IB does not know that any one of us is a terrorist, it can still not rule out that we are not non-terrorists. A non-non-terrorist is a terrorist. No other evidence is necessary. Hence any of us could be a terrorist, and so fair game for trigger happy cops and spooks. This is why Ishrat Jahan had to end up the way she did.
There is something distinctly peculiar in a section of BJP's dragging in of the central IB in the discussion whilst simultaneously trying to shield Rajendra Kumar, the agency's principal protagonist in Gujarat.
What after all can be so worrisome in any move to investigate Rajendra Kumar ? Especially if the BJP sees no problem in saying that – "if the IB is involved, so must the centre be". Is it simply that the degree of proximity that Rajendra Kumar enjoyed with Modi is embarrassing and can cause a lot more trouble, especially if Kumar decides to talk in order to defend himself and his chances in a possible murder trial by saying that he did what he did at Modi's behest and in Modi's interests ?
WIll this spill the beans on the public secret of the degree to which hard line Hindutva is already in bed with the deep state – the shady depths of the civil and military intelligence community. We already know from the Samjhauta Express, Malegaon and the Mecca Masjid cases that there is enough material pointing towards a deep symbiosis between rightwing politics and segments within the labyrinthine world of Military Intelligence as represented by Lieutenant Colonel Purohit and his liaison with the 'Abhinav Bharat' module. Will the Ishrat Jahan case establish the degree to which sections within the IB, right up to its highest ranks, are, or have been, or appear to be complicit with the BJP's agenda ?
Is this why Ajit Doval has to be so enthusiastic in propagating his theory of 'non-non terrorism' on television?
Finally, we come to the matter of the so-called Headley Report a document prepared by the Indian NIA (National Investigation Agency) following its interrogation of David Coleman Headily, a suspect turned witness in the Mumbai – 26/11 case, currently in US custody.
Much has been made about the apparent references to Ishrat Jahan as an LeT operative in this document, just as much was made of a recording of a tapped telephone conversation between Headley's handlers and the Lashkar 'terrorists' that was presented under the slug of 'Ishrat Jahan's LeT Links' on the Headlines Today TV Channel and some newspapers like the Times of india and the Hindustan Times.
Like the NIA report, the taped conversation actually has NO mention of Ishrat Jahan and it is mystifying as to how those who thought it fit to make these 'leaks' about Ishrat Jahan's involvement in the LeT did so without verifying the fact that her name does not figure in either trace. It is not in the phone tap recording. And contrary to what Rahul Kanwal might have said on Headlines Today, or Bharti Jain might have reported in the Times of India, neither paragraphs 158 and 159 (in Kanwal's account) nor paragraphs 168 and 169 (in Bharti Jain's account) have any mention of Ishrat Jahan. Kanwal and Jain quote a non-existent document to the effect that (in these paragraphs of the report) a man called Zaki introduced Headley to a man called Muzammil Butt who then told him (Headley) that Ishrat Jahan was part of the LeT module. The 'Chinese Whisper' slip between 158 and 159 on the one hand and 168 and 169 on the other in two reports suggests a set of hurried phone conversation with a not very careful IB handler desperate to get a story planted in the media rather than a verifiable account from a reliable source.
The NIA report, contrary to what the IB may think is actually now available in the public domain and people can read it and match what they read with what is being 'leaked' about its contents.
The NIA report is organized chronologically. Paragraphs 158, 159, 168 and 169 refer to events that take place in 2009 and 2010, not in the vicinity of 2003, 2004 and 2005. Headley talks about visiting Delhi-Jaipur-Pushkar-Goa and Pune in March 2009 and England, Sweden and Denmark in paragraphs 168 and 169. There is a reference to the possibility of staking out a refinery in Gujarat for a future operation, but no suggestion of anything to do with Ishrat and the events of 2004. There is no internal narrative logic that can enable us to suppose that the original paragraphs have been dropped or substituted by other material. For that to be the case, the substitution would have to appear much earlier, in consonance with the chronology that places the events of 2004-2005 before 2009-2010.
Moreover, contrary to Kanwal's and Jain's account, Zaki does not introduce Muzammil to Headly in 158-159/168-169, simply because Headly already describes, much earlier in the report, in paragraphs 17, 18 etc how he got to know Muzammil in 2002. It makes absolutely no sense for the same person to be introduced twice to someone. (I would like to thank Mukul Sinha for pointing this out to me). Clearly, something is fishy about this business of chronologies.
Actually, there seems to be mounting evidence to suggest that the reference to the NIA report was a badly timed untruth, a piece of amateur psy-ops conducted by the Idiocy Bureau in a desparate effort to regain some control on a narrative that was rapidly spinning out of its orbit.
The Ishrat Jahan case is teaching the value of nuanced reporting to many journalists. Even Praveen Swami, well known for his 'sources' within the deep state cautions us about taking the Ishrat Jahan case without a necessary degree of skepticism in First Post.
He argues for the accountability of intelligence agencies through a mechanism of oversight. What he does not tell us today, is about how he had referred to the case in 2004 and 2005. In an article published in the Frontline magazine shortly after the murder of Ishrat Jahan, he gestured towards the fact that the IB had successfully penetrated the LeT and that it was using a compromised former LeT operative, a Gujarat based lawyer, as a double agent – to brainwash and recruit young Jehadis and make them undertake missions at it's (the IB's )behest.
According to Swami, Javed Sheikh aka Pillai (who some others claim was an IB informer) and the two other men killed in this operation were all contacts of this lawyer. Ishrat happened to be in the way, in the wrong place at the right time, and so had to be eliminated.
According to this theory, offered up by Swami, The IB's modus operandi in this case is as follows – it traps an LeT operative, forces him to act as a sort of double agent, recruits people through him for a terrorist operation, gives them a target, and then kills them before they can do the job. Then it takes the credit for the whole operation. Modi gets strengthened (as a tough guy who takes action against terror) and the IB earns kudos. Its just that in the process a nineteen year old woman ends up dead. And then it all starts to unravel, all over again. If Narendra Modi does succeed in winging his way into power, all nineteen year old women would be well advised to learn how not to be a non-non terrorist.
For further resources on this case – read the excellent series of notes on evidence in the Ishrat Jahan case being put out by Mukul Sinha on his Facebook page.


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In 2017 Sóley, Sin Fang, & Örvar Smárason got together and decided to release one song a month for the entire year. They ended the year with the vinyl, "Team Dreams," which you can listen to here, and a performance at Sigur Rós's Norður og Niður festival in Reykjavik. Us that were not able attend were treated with a great New Year's gift, as they announced they would be touring around Europe. I was lucky enough to photograph the concert at Bush Hall in Shepard's Bush London.
Combining three brilliant musicians can go all sorts of ways, but in typical Iceland fashion their uniqueness blended well, with obvious positive chemistry between all three. They were slightly nervous as this was the first concert of the tour and only the second time they had played together, and while they kept mentioning this nervousness, it really didn't show.
If you don't want to read my babble you can click here to just go to the pics.
I've mentioned before that one of my favorite characteristics of Iceland musicians are their ability to remove the 4th wall. And these three lived up to and surpassed that theory from the absolute beginning charming the audience with jokes, ambitions, and conversation.
They supported themselves, each artists doing a 20 minute solo set before all joining on stage for the main event. I had not seen Smárason's solo material so I was pleased with this surprise. After briefly chatting with the crowd as he set up apologized as he wasn't going to chat through his set of ecclectic beats, and creative use of microphones. He then performed 20 minutes of his new material giving us a preview of his first solo album, "light is liquid" which will be released via Morr Music on May 18th, check out his Facebook page for more details.
Sin Fang was next, starting off with piano and eventually moving over to guitar a broad span of his catalog. I've been watching Sin Fang since the days of duct taped microphone nests, and he never disappoints. He even covered "teenage Spaceship" by Smog, which while the audience didn't seem to know who Smog is, made me really happy.
After a brief intermission, Sóley came to the stage and proceeded to sing a good amount of material. She told us stories of chocolate spoons being used to stir things, and mentioned that she would be the queen of the Theremin by next year, I'm holding her to that.
When the trio came on stage they were accompanied by Gylfi Sigurðsson of Retro Stefson fame. I unfortunately didn't get a good shot of him, but you can kind of see him in the photo below:
There is still time to catch them on tour with 5 shows remaining, and I suggest you do, I certainly wasn't disappointed and doubt you will be either. You can find out more about the tour dates, by following them on their individual Facebook pages and Instagram.


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-*Is handwriting passé in the Digital Era?
-*Has keyboarding eclipsed pen and paper?
University of Washington's Virginia Berninger with Robert Abbott, Amy Augsburger, and Noelia Garcia argue that handwriting provides valuable cognitive training, and advantages in expressive speed, fluency, and productivity.
Berninger's team conducted brain scans and found that the brain's thinking, language, and "working memory" regions are more activated when handwriting letters than when typing.
This change in brain activation occurs because handwriting letters generally requires more than one sequential stroke, rather than selecting a letter key during typing, according to Berninger.
Berninger's studies demonstrated students in grades two, four and six wrote more words more quickly and expressed more ideas when writing essays by hand versus with a keyboard.
Karin Harman James's research using an fMRI at Indiana University confirms the benefits of handwriting.
With Isabel Gauthier of Vanderbilt University, she showed alphabet letters to children before and after they received letter-learning instruction.
Participants who practiced printing by hand showed more enhanced and "adult-like" the neural activity than those who had simply looked at letters.
James suggested that adults may show similar neural activity benefits when learning a new graphically-different language, such as Mandarin, or symbol systems for mathematics, music and chemistry.
Université de la Méditerranée's Marieke Longcamp, Céline Boucard, Jean-Claude Gilhodes and Jean-Luc Velay with Jean-Luc Anton, Muriel Roth, and Bruno Nazarian of Hôpital de La Timone, Marseille, France demonstrated other neural benefits of handwriting: Movements memorized when learning how to handwrite enabled adults to more effectively recognize graphic shapes and letters.
Steve Graham, now of Arizona State University, with Michael Hebert, now of University of Nebraska, demonstrated that handwriting is still associated with improved classroom performance, even when most classrooms and students type on computers.
Besides enhancing academic achievement, writing can be a coping tool, according to University of Chicago's Sian Beilock.
She reported that bright students managed test anxiety by writing about their anxieties to "off-load" them.
Beilock collaborated with Andrew Mattarella-Micke, Jill Mateo, Neil Albert and Katherine Foster of University of Chicago, and Vanderbilt University's Marci DeCaro, Robin Thomas of Miami University, and Megan Kozak of Pace University to study students as they derived solutions to challenging math problems.
The team confirmed that those who performed well on the math problems said that they did not have math anxiety, whereas low performers said they were anxious about math performance.
A less expected finding was that both high performers and low performers had the stress hormone, cortisol, in their saliva.
Although both groups experienced measurable stress, the performance outcome was mediated by the calm or anxious "mindset," suggesting that performance can be enhanced through managing anxiety and expectations.
Writing by hand helped participants boost performance by reducing anxiety and freeing working memory to focus on the math problems.
Handwriting practice may be valuable for adults as well as children, according to P. Murali Doraiswamy of Duke University, who suggested that handwriting practice may be a useful treatment to stabilize cognitive losses in aging.
-*How often do you use handwriting and printing instead of typing on a keyboard?
Twitter: @kathrynwelds
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text: Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Comment on this quote Share via Email Print this Page [1-1] of 1 Fda quotesFda QuotesFda Contrary to everything our rulers tell us, and everything that our schoolteachers are teaching the children of this nation, the biggest threat to the lives and well-being of the American people lies not with some foreign government. The biggest threat to the American people today lies with the United States government. And while gun ownership stands as a barrier to potential, Nazi-like behavior, the long-term solution is to dismantle, not reform, the iron fist of the welfare state and the controlled economy. This includes the end (not the reform) of the IRS, the DEA, the BATF, the SEC, the FDA, HUD, the departments of HHS, Labor, Agriculture, and Energy, and every other agency that takes money from some and gives it to others or interferes with peaceful behavior. It entails the repeal of all laws that permit such conduct. And it means the privatization of most of the bureaucrats who work for the U.S. government.~ Jacob G. Hornberger Share on Facebook Tweet Email Print


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Phishing has, unfortunately, become a part of our everyday life, whether we like it or not. Cyber attacks have become more refined and changed their modus operandi – they have now gone mobile and social. According to the yearly Norton Cybercrime Report issued in September 2012, cybercrime has been enjoying exponential growth within the last year and the direct costs associated with global consumer cybercrime at US reached $110 billion over the past twelve months.
The Calm before the Storm: A Spike of Email Phishing Activity in August 2012
According to the monthly periodical Symantec.Cloud data, global email phishing rates stayed calm during the spring and most of the summer of 2012: 0.21% of all mail was detected as phishing in April, June and July; this rate was a bit lower in March and May (0.20% and 0.18% respectively). However August 2012 showed a spike in phishing activity and accounted for 0.32% of phish emails, or one in 312 messages analyzed.
See below a chart based on the Symantec data which traces the rising trend:
Most Attacked Countries
Month by month, the Netherlands remained the most attacked country in terms of email phishing attacks, and July 2012 was not an exception. According to the Symantec Intelligence Report, as of July 2012, one in 94.4 emails (1.06%) was identified as phishing in the Netherlands. South Africa was the second-most targeted country, with one in 171.2 emails (0.58%) identified as a phishing attack.
Phishing levels for the US reached one in 995.5 (0.1%) and one in 244.9 (0.41%) for Canada. In Germany the phishing level was one in 1,091.0 (0.09%); Denmark accounted for a 0.14% phishing rate (one in 719.6 emails). In Australia, phishing activity accounted for one in 752.1 emails (0.13%) and one in 2,241.4 in Hong Kong (0.04%). For Japan it was one in 7,448.8 (0.01%) and one in 3,450.6 for Singapore (0.03%). In Brazil one in 786.2 emails was blocked as phishing (0.13%).
Organizations Spoofed in Phishing Attacks, by Industry
In July 2012, Information Services, Banking and E-Commerce were the most targeted industries among the organizations spoofed in phishing attacks: these industries accounted for 36.29%, 32.99% and 27.99% of all victimized companies respectively.
The other industries, from the most popular to the least popular, go as follows: Telecommunications (1.4%), Communications (0.46%), Retail (0.44%), Government (0.37%), Insurance (0.02%), Retail Trade (0.014%), Security (0.011%) and ISP (0.002%).
Do you find your industry in the list? Take preventive measures before cyber criminals tarnish your reputation. Use SSL certificates for your websites, assess your websites for vulnerabilities on a regular basis, ensure a strong password policy in your company and ask your employees to follow 5 simple rules of cyber security. Also, remember to install EmailTray as your smart anti-phishing email client on your PCs and Android devices. Then you can enjoy emailing which is free from spam and email phishing!


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You know what's infinitely better than a carton of Tropicana? A carton of boozy Tropicana, of course. And if you've got $10 and two days, Spike Your Juice's magic powder will make that happen.
The process of getting from juice to happy juice is stupid simple: take a 64 oz. bottle of your favorite juice (recommended: grape, cranberry, or pomegranate) with a minimum sugar content of 20g/serving and none of that unfiltered or artificial sweetener junk. Then pour in a Spike Your Juice packet (that $10 will score you six of them), seal the bottle with the supplied airlock, and sit patiently.
I know, I know, you're worried it won't taste good. And it may not! But you can adjust the potency/dryness the potable with how long you leave the cap on. Besides, if you've got 64 oz. of the stuff, you won't care about the taste by the time you hit the bottom.
And take it from me, once you're making sparkling wine in your kitchen out of Welch's and a mail order kit? You hit the bottom. [Spike Your Juice via Geekologie]


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My entire life, like many on the autism spectrum, I have oftentimes been misjudged, misinterpreted, and misunderstood. When I finally, after over four decades on this earth, located individuals with like minds, I was overcome with mixed emotions. I'd finally found "my people" and at the same time lost a piece of myself that I thought was extremely different. Lost in the sense that I came to realize, after conversing with other autistics, that I wasn't so different and "unique" after all. However, this was okay—extremely okay. Finding a home base community in which I was at last understood, accepted, and supported far out weighed any sense of loss of elements of self.
Four-plus years later, after an outpour of online writing, and I am navigating another aspect of my journey. I am entering another unfamiliar zone—a place of no predictability. I am facing a wide-open space of new people and new encounters. In addition, I am trying my best to maneuver in rarely frequented territory: that of an autistic leader.
Autism, in my case Asperger's Syndrome, comes in all shapes and sizes, multiple colors of the rainbow. It is truly a spectrum. With autism, there are the typical "gifts" and tribulations. For me, the beneficial attributes of my ASD are profound empathy and insight, prolific writing, poetry, and the ability to put into words my suffering in a way others can understand. In this way, I am able to make the loneliness of some less of a burden, and I have been able to serve as a sort of gateway into a supportive community of other autistics. A community in which we find ourselves in one another. I don't say this lightly. There have been streams of individuals filtering through the pages of my blogs and social media pages to essentially say that they now have at last found hope—and some a reason to not end their life. I don't say this to brag, either. Those that have known me, know my heart, and it is for them I speak.
The trouble today is not so much my tribulations related to ASD, such as peak moments of heightened anxiety, bombardments of feelings that at first look are hard to decipher, the jarring reminders every hour of my waking day that I am somehow not built like most others, the intense heartache and lack of breath from searing pangs of empathy, and the worries brought on by my minds ability to steer off into complex, multi-level corridors of discovery. No, it's not so much in that—though "that" still consumes me. More over, it is this new place I find myself, in where I am exposed.
I am a natural born leader; I always have been, despite my own qualms and misgivings. Despite my protest. Despite my quirks and challenges. Overall, I tend to end up as a voice of some sort–usually for the downcast or underdog. And it's not amongst my favorite of tasks—this speaking up for myself and others. Indeed, it would be fair to say, I dread many moments beyond the comfort of my home. Still, there are mornings of great hope and gratitude for my ability to reach out, and with this comes waves of great peace; but there, on the other end of the pendulum, is the bareness of naked vulnerability, the removal of shield, the entranceway for stinging spears. There, in the darker zone, lives my fear and weakness, and the very brittle fight to survive exposure. For I'm not the average person, I'm not made the way of the masses. I am very much, despite where I stand, still autistic.
I am hurt daily, by my own accord, by the acceptance of others' truths as mine. By the energy it takes to abstract and remove everything that doesn't ring true to me. And to then wade through the muck of others' ideas, input, feelings, insights—and on an on—to hopefully decipher what is valid and necessary at this time. I am not only balancing myself, which those on the spectrum readily know is a gallant effort, I am also balancing everyone within my reach. In this way, it is hard to be outside exposed in the "real" world.
It is especially challenging when outsiders (who do not know me and often see a reflection of their own self) try to pin their tail of identity onto me. I feel smothered, unrecognized, and brought back to the bastardized halls of my high school years. Brought back to the pettiness, the name-calling, the finger pointing, and relive the nightmares over again. It is equally difficult when another, particularly in the autistic community, starts proclaiming how I should tailor my words to suit their needs—the current societal trends—the current "right way." To see this conglomeration of "do-gooders" with supposed good intention in mind, attempt to steer me into what is the most well accepted approach of the day is excruciatingly exhausting.
I can only be so much. I can only do so much. And I don't understand why my own tribe would not see this. They forget that I am autistic. They forget how dreadfully scary this is. How frightening to attempt to build a bridge from the autistic world to the non-autistic world, and to appear "normal" enough in the typical arena to be heard and listened to, and "autistic" enough to be trusted in my own community. It is a fine balancing act in which I am continually on a high wire with a long heavy pole. Constantly pushed off balance while attempting to get to the other side to the unknown. I am walking step-by-step toward something that is neither a goal nor destiny, but rather a calling. I am serving, I am giving, I am loving, I am supporting, I am being my all. Yet no matter how I struggle, no matter where I step, to some, as is this world—it is never enough.
(I normally post at my blog Everyday Aspie, but my WordPress options were not working accurately there today.)
Sam's book Everyday Aspergers is now available internationally on Amazon.
More information can be found at her company: myspectrumsuite.com


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All About Glass
All About Glass
This is your resource for exploring various topics in glass: delve deeper with this collection of articles, multimedia, and virtual books all about glass. Content is frequently added to the area, so check back for new items. If you have a topic you'd like to see covered, send us your suggestion. If you have a specific question, Ask a Glass Question at our Rakow Research Library.
Listen as glass artist William Gudenrath describes the techniques used to make this bird-shaped vessel. This was an ancient Roman form of packaging. It was filled with perfume, then the tail was sealed by heating it in a flame. To extract the perfume, the user broke off the tip of the tail.


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retired tyre
wheel of life
It is often the shortest journey, undertaken with least expectation, that offers up an excess of possibility beyond what we expect to see.
It's always worth exploring the other side of the barbed wire fence.
Never keep to the path.
(Extracts from FPC Field Guide).
Time constrained by commitments later on in the day and yet compelled by the need to go for a walk, we settle on a local part of the Fife Coastal Path. The very short stretch between Inverkeithing and Dalgety Bay is a narrow tarmacadam / cinder ribbon of a mile, or so, that meanders around the coastline. Whilst offering fine views of the Forth Rail Bridge and over to Edinburgh and Arthur's Seat it is unlikely to trouble any tourist brochure. Indeed, the walking guide for the Fife Coastal Path devotes one short paragraph to it. There is a clear implication that this is a space that you can simply pass through. It is also a functional path, popular with dog walkers, leisurely strollers and is even lined with street lighting. However, as the sign above indicates, the traveller is asked to keep within the marked path. We cannot help thinking of Little Red Riding Hood but can only read the sign as an invitation to stray …
There is a distinctive topography to the land along this stretch of the path which edges around Inverkeithing Bay with sloping scrub and wooded elevations up to Preston Hill and Letham Hill behind. These factors and lack of road access, has prevented any urban coalescence between the nodal points of the old industrial harbour of Inverkeithing and the 1960s new town of Dalgety Bay.
However, there is also a distinct feeling of crossing a threshold, as you escape the gravity and material ephemera of the human settlement, and move into this zone from either end. A feeling of the wildness encroaching, long forgotten histories written into the land, whispered stories at the periphery of perception. A freeing up of the rules.
Leaving from Inverkeithing, we walk past a row of lock-ups, that are not without some semblance of aesthetic beauty in their irregular order and contrasting colours. You wonder what is behind these out-of-the-way closed doors? Some have obviously not been accessed for some time given the overgrown vegetation in front. We also notice that as soon as you pass the last lock-up, the wild space is already there, encroaching green fingers, edging into the human space and into the photo frame. There is also a rather cryptic graffiti announcement:
We are not sure whether to read this utterance as a comment on some existentialist predicament ("Out of it") or a marker post to signify a transition point of moving out of the urban setting. (Moving oot it). Later on, when we reach the Dalgety Bay end of the path we find more graffiti on the first inhabited house. There is a clear sense that both of these graffiti bookend an entry – or exit. We read these signs as an intimation that what lies between these threshold markers is a different place – a zone. Not urban, yet not rural. Not even 'classic' edgeland. Instead, an indication that what lies within is an escape from the ostensible order of the settlements. Possibly a play area, a hidden place, an out of sight place, a gathering place, a wildness.
We are not far out of Inverkeithing when our advice to keep to the marked path is quickly discounted. We are drawn to the barbed wire topped, chain wire fence that we can see across a flat area of post industrial wasteland off to the left. It's a pretty feeble attempt at preventing access as a whole section has been removed and most of the barbed wire has been snipped off.
We follow the well trodden desire path through the fence to find ourselves in the heart of the abandoned Prestonhill Quarry, now filled up with water. There is a compelling, uncanny beauty to this place. A void gouged and hewn out of the Earth, with the remaining dolerite walls reflecting weak sunlight like a cubist canvas. The acoustic ambience has also noticeably changed. We are in a huge reverberating chamber so that the slightest noise pings around the walls. A distant ice cream van sounds as if it should be coming from somewhere within the quarry, possibly submerged underneath the water. At the same time swallows dart and zig-zag above our heads, whilst magpies hop and skip around the top rocks, observing us with curiosity. A couple of buzzards circle in the distance . There is no one else around.
What is noticeable is that even in these most barren of conditions, non-human nature is restaking a claim with outcrops of growing vegetation, clinging to the quarry walls, thriving in the most hostile of conditions and the thinnest scrapings of soil.
We soon find the ubiquitous discarded fridge. Lying face down, its broken body surrounded by other accumulated fly tipped debris. The human stain of the dumping ground. It is always a puzzle to consider the time and energy it must take to fly tip a fridge in an 'out of the way' area, such as this, compared with taking it to the recycling point. Perhaps it's for the sheer visceral thrill of throwing a fridge into a quarry. We assume that it has been pushed over the top and has been there for some time.
There is perhaps another attraction of the quarry. It is an unseen place with very deep water. Every surface has another side. What else lurks underneath the skin of calm blue water? What is submerged down there in the green depths with the little fishes?
All underwater photographs of the quarry are by 'Zibi' and can be accessed here along with many others. Whilst we have attempted to seek permission from Zibi to use these images, we have not received any reply to our request. Clearly if our request is subsequently refused we will remove the photographs from the blog but in the meantime were are grateful to Zibi for their inclusion.
It would appear that the quarry is also a favored disposal spot for stolen cars, making for an ideal symbiotic relationship with the diving community who find the quarry an attractive destination for underwater exploration. There is plenty to see and investigate below the surface. We are also told later that local fishermen stock the quarry with fish which they then try to catch again, fostering a fledgling underwater eco-system. There are rumours that someone may have introduced a pike.
The quarry is also clearly a gathering place. A hidden place of escape and unregulated recreation. We walk around the void, recording some of the many tags that have been written on to the rocks.
Staring up at the quarry wall and contemplating the material passage of time ossified in these rocks. The play of light on the angular shapes conjures up dynamic planes of movement and appear to imbue the rocks with an almost animistic quality. We can eventually see a cubist rock giant, emerging from time with right arm raised:
Back on the path, we head off to the right hand side this time.
Stretching out over the water is a fretwork pier of rusting metal which we find out later was the old industrial conveyor system used to load the quarried stone on to tethered ships.
We stand for a while to listen out for the lost sounds of this place. The kling klang ghosts of the industrial machinery, the heft of monolithic slabs of dolerite rattling down towards the waiting ships.
almost silent now
now almost silent
only the ack-ack-ack
of a solitary gull
riding the wind currents
A large steel plate has been placed across the structure presumably in an attempt to prevent people from climbing out along the pier. It's unlikely to be a deterrent but it no doubt satisfies some health and safety regime. The plate has rusted and weathered into something resembling a Richard Serra sculpture:
Once again, we can see how the wildness is staking its claim with tendrils of green growing up, through and out of the lattice structure. "Shugg and Leanne" evidence the human urge to make a mark. The basic proof of existence. A name recorded. A demonstration of love?
Running parallel to the fretwork structure is another abandoned jetty. The pulleys remain suspended from the cross beam conjuring up something of the gibbet or perhaps some form of cosmic launch mechanism to project the traveller up and into the pillows of cloud:
all of this
abandoned history
lost stories, forgotten stories
sounds of absence
whispering in the wind.
We decide to explore a bit further underneath the conveyor structure sensing that this may yield possibilities. We are not disappointed when we alight on this gathering site:
What is noticeable is that there is no rubbish strewn here. It's as if this is a place of respect. Strangely enough, the atmosphere evokes a similar feel to another outcrop of rocks that can be found on The Binn (Hill) along the coast at Burntisland:
Humans have also made their marks on The Binn stones, albeit some 4,000 years earlier
We pick up a bit of walking pace to take advantage of the seascape.
a sounded wave, persistent and seductive –
plays the shoreline.
flux and flow of sea brine –
a spilling over
of elemental energy.
Once again the unusual topography is such that we can hear a mash-up of field and hedgerow bird song against foreshore waders and gull talk. A chorus of crows, darting finches and tits; a wren bobs along the wall before taking refuge in the trees. What looks like a falling red leaf is actually a robin. On the foreshore, oystercatchers, and curlews wade and waddle whilst fulmars, cormorants and herring gulls dive and swoop. Symphonies of birdsong and gull chatter.
It doesn't take long to reach Dalgety Bay, but just before the threshold graffiti we come across this:
Roofless and abandoned, it looks as if all of the surrounding land has been sucked away from the foundations leaving it sitting like an old tooth stump.
We try to piece together a narrative here but fail. Why has it been abandoned? Why left to ruin? It was clearly a property that had wealth behind it at some point, sitting in its walled garden. Enquiries are made of a few passing locals but yield nothing. "It's always been like that" says a man who looks to be in his forties. "Ever since I was a wee kid". He doesn't know the story though.
We are on the reverse trip back to Inverkeithing when we spot a small opening in the stone wall with a signpost:
How could we resist? Off up the rickety path which didn't appear overly well trodden.
We find a beetle on its back on one of the steps clearly distressed. A multitude of legs. flailing wildly, unable to right itself. We soon tip it on to its feet and the little jet black shell scuffles off into the grass.
The path ascends fairly steeply and it's not long before we find ourselves on a high ridge which slopes away towards Letham Wood. That will have to wait for another day. Our immediate area of interest lies off to the left. Another barbed wire fence and it's as easy to circumvent as the last one. This is what we had been leading up to. We could already feel what we were about to witness but were unprepared for the sheer scale of it. Compared to the ground level, water-filled heart of the quarry, we could now gain a perspective of the entire void and walk right up to peer over the edge.
Peering over the side, into the void, it's as if a vacuum is trying to suck your insides out. I'm reminded of Aragon in Paris Peasant and the 'suicide bridge' in Buttes Chaumont park – coincidentally built in a reclaimed stone quarry. Before metal grilles were erected along the side of the bridge, it would supposedly claim victims from passers-by who had had no intention whatsoever of killing themselves but found themselves suddenly tempted by the invocation of the abyss.
Our photographic skills are unable to adequately capture the scale of this almost mournful absence, hewn from the Earth. It's a place to simply sit and stare for a while.
It's often easy to forget to raise our heads to the horizon. Having escaped the seduction of the void, we now realise how high up on the ridge we are. It changes our sense of the whole topography of the area. We can see how connected we are to the East side of Inverkeithing and marvel at the long view over to Dunfermline. We can see Spinner in the distance with the distorted perspective making it appear as if it is growing out of a housing estate.
We later discover that there is also an abandoned WW2 radio station complete with intact pill boxes not too far away but don't see them today. Another time.
We descend back down the hill to the coastal path and reflect on our experience. What we had anticipated as a short, local coastal walk had been transformed into something else. A journey through a zonal space teeming with encounters and traces of the human, non-human and even the animistic. A co-existence of dumping ground, liminal playground, gathering place and nature sanctuary. The transient narrative of human activity inscribed in the abandoned house and the mute quarries and jetties a reminder of how financial capital abandons one exhausted void to migrate to the next site of profitable extraction.
Above all of this, the continually changing drama in the sky:
And as we return to Inverkeithing we can smell the sweet wood lying in the still functioning timber yard and take one last photo. It's only later, that we notice that in this photograph, and almost all of the others, there is some intimation of wild nature straying into the frame.
An alert wildness, observing, perhaps patiently waiting for its moment to come.
This has been a little slice of:
From The
Now Playing: James Plotkin : Mark Spybey – A Peripheral Blur


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Recently I was sent a link to an article titled Cheer up, it's not all doom and gloom published by the Australian Broadcasting Commission's The Drum.
This article mentioned a book by Steven Pinker called Better Angels of Our Nature which had been recommended to me by Geoff Le Pard in a comment on my post about childhood illness. The premise of this book is that humanity, over the ages, has become less violent. After to listening to Pinker's history of violence, I'm pleased that I live these relatively peaceful times.
The article also introduced me to a new term 'meliorism' which means having a belief that the world can be improved by the actions of humans. While the term may have been unfamiliar to me, the attitude is not and I attest that I am a meliorist.
I have a very strong belief in the power of education to improve the world. Education empowers individuals, and educated individuals empower societies to build improved futures. It becomes very difficult to sustain negative practices in the face of overwhelming evidence and information.
What better place is there for education to begin than in the home?
In a recent post I referred to a new book by Michael Rosen called Good Ideas: How to Be Your Child's (And Your Own) Best Teacher. At the time I had not read the book but now I can say, with great delight, that I have listened to most of it. With messages such as those contained in Michael's book, it is easy to be a meliorist.
I think Rosen's book should be available to, perhaps compulsory reading for, every parent; I consider its message to be that important. In fact, I am off to the shops today to purchase copies to give to parents of young children I know. It will become part of my gift to new parents that also includes Reading Magic by Mem Fox and a selection of picture books. I have previously blogged about that here and here.
The "Good Ideas" contained in Rosen's book, if implemented, will keep alive the natural curiosity of one's children and oneself. They will encourage the development of thought, creativity and responsiveness.
In the next few weeks I will post a more detailed review of the book and some of Michael's ideas for stimulating curiosity, whoever and wherever you are.
What about you? Are you a meliorist?
I welcome your feedback. Please share your thoughts about any aspect of this post.