Into The Unknown

What better way to celebrate ITU's 100th post than with a comic strip - featuring Charles Babbage and Ada Lovelace (also the only legitimate daughter of Lord Byron), inventor of the original computer no less?

Well, if you've not caught 2DGoggles' cartoon series featuring Charles Babbage and Lovelace (Ada, Countess of) then your first encounter with the couple might be the BBC's Techlab feature strip, which made its way onto their web site on Thursday.

It's strongly suggested to read the strip in full (click on the link above), then read the strip again with Sydney's extra foot- and bootnotes on his web site. And after you've done that, go back to his first comic and read them all! It's my new favourite comic strip alongside longtime geek favourites xkcd and pennyarcade - and what's great about Sydney's web site is that she also has little featurettes and behind-the-scenes explanations of how she puts her comics together alongside the finished strips.

And with comics featuring cells like this:

It can't be argued that we've come a long way as a species and as a society without it, but one thing's for sure - we couldn't have advanced this far technologicaly. On Sunday, the humble transistor turns 60, in no small part thanks to three guys: 'William Shockley (1910-1989), John Bardeen (1908-1991) and Walter Brattain (1902-1987). As El Reg also notes, 'it was Bardeen and Brattain who made the first working point-contact transistor on 16 December 1947.'

So, while you're in the pub, enjoying some sports on the plasma TV whilst sipping on a pint brewed to tightly-controlled specifications in a computer-controlled brewery, pause for a moment's thought and say thanks to three of the people who gifted society with one of the most ingenious little inventions in recent history.