11 ms·
The printed book is truly delightful. It contains a mostly complete explanation of how the difference engine worked and how the analytical engine was supposed t
by jordigh 10y ago
The printed book is truly delightful. It contains a mostly complete explanation of how the difference engine worked and how the analytical engine was supposed to work. It's also full of scholarly footnotes to primary sources of everything she put into it. And it's fun! Steampunk fantasy of what could have been. I hope it gets adapted to a movie or TV series some day.
- toyg 10y agoI have the book too and it's great, but it's not complete - I'm pretty sure it lacks the bits with Babbage fighting street musicians.
- gknoy 10y agoThat sounds vaguely familiar, so I think that it does have it. If not, it has to be at least mentioned in the footnotes. In fact, I think it might be one of the first pages of the alternate-universe section? The footnotes in Ms. Padua's book are _AMAZING_. More entertaining than the book itself at times. I have never enjoyed reading footnotes so much. That sounds like faint praise, but I mean it as real praise. ;) She has multi-page footnotes, breaks the fourth wall in HILARIOUS ways, and introduces you to characters like I. K. Brunel. This is a book that I treasure, and I wish I could explain why I love it. It is a comic book about Nerd Things, with footnotes, and footnotes for footnotes, and so on. It's a labor of love, masterfully executed, and I feel like I want to read parts of it again for the fun of it.