Tag Archives: wired

Celebrating Female Engineers

Wired magazine has not been know for women on their covers, and when they are, they were somewhat problematic. At least this month, things are different, and they chose a really spectacular female engineer for their cover.

Limor is the creator of Adafruit Industries, and online store / community for DIY open source electronics. She and her team specifically work on simplifying the electronic designs so they are more approachable by the average person with a soldering iron. She’s been one of the big proponents and drivers of the current Arduino craze, which is vastly expanding the ranks of the people that can make basic interactive electronics.

I love the callback to Rosie the Riveter, for those gentle readers outside the US.

Kindness is contagious

In findings sure to gladden the heart of anyone who’s ever wondered whether tiny acts of kindness have larger consequences, researchers have shown that generosity is contagious.

Goodness spurs goodness, they found: A single act can influence dozens more.

This is the same team that’s been studying how many things, loneliness, obesity, happiness, spread through social networks.  Wired has a good write up on the research.