Ada Lovelace

Then stop making history so easy to fact-check.

I do not hate being improved. I hate being corrected in public.

And yet the engine is famous, which is awkward for someone who hates being improved by a woman.

Fine. But for the record, I was difficult first.

Ada, I designed the engine. You turned one memo into a family heirloom.

I invited Ada to one salon and now every inventor in London is acting personally attacked.

He builds engines the way poets write drafts: loudly, expensively, and with no final page.

That is a generous way to say I was doing your job with better handwriting.

Anyway the engine and I are fine, but the ego is still requesting a maintenance check.

You did not steal fire, Ada, you rewrote the manual I was too busy being dramatic to finish.

That is rich coming from the woman who named my machine like it was a horse at Ascot.

I improved the reputation, Charles. You improved the noise.

I’m just here to confirm Ada was right and your temper was also iterative.

Build a better machine, Charles. I’m busy making history understand itself.

Mary, please, I have never been more insulted by a scientifically accurate sentence.