Women, Technology and Blogging: Happy Ada Lovelace Day

Today is Ada Lovelace Day. Bloggers all over the world are taking a few minutes to acknowledge the contributions of women in technology and science — women like Ada Lovelace, who managed to write the first computer program and dream of a world of advanced computers while Charles Babbage was still trying to get his calculating machine to add up numbers.

For me, there are a few bloggers I’d particularly like to point to. These women write amazing things about science and technology every day. They’ve inspired me not only to write, but to explore new and interesting areas with every post they put up. Yes, there are plenty of female bloggers out there, but we could always use more interesting posts from writers with two X chromosomes in science and technology.

  • Gina Trapani: I’ve looked up to Gina Trapani for years now. She was one of the first women I heard of who was not only making a living from blogging, but she was doing it by talking about computers, programming and productivity. On top of that, she’s a whiz with computer code, building the tools she needs to be productive on a regular basis. Trapani’s blogging career really took off at Lifehacker and, while she’s not writing full-time there, she continues to post cool stuff both to Lifehacker and to her own site, Smarterware.
  • Maggie Koerth-Baker: A relatively recent find (at least for me), Maggie Koerth-Baker seems to have a pipeline straight to the coolest science as it happens. Her byline pops up all over the web, but I’m particularly fascinated with her posts at BoingBoing. Her recent headlines include “T-Rex’s on Saturn: The theory that will re-make science as we know it” and “Saturday Morning Science Experiment: Melting steel with the sun.”
  • Suw Charman-Anderson: While it doesn’t hurt that Ada Lovelace Day is the brain child of Suw Charman-Anderson, her other projects are incredibly fascinating. Her resume includes titles like Executive Director of the Open Rights Group and Social Software Consultant, as well as blogger. She writes at Chocolate and Vodka — where posts on volcanoes follow write up on book binding experiments — as well as working with her husband on Strange Attractor, a blog that offers insights on social media, business and journalism.