Limor Fried on the cover of Wired

Hoo-ah! Congrats to Limor "Lady Ada" Fried on gracing the cover of the next issue of Wired. A better choice you could not find!

Hardware Hero

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

MORE: Technology

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Anonymous

It’s a shame people can’t accept such timeless beauty without the doubtful eye.

Beauty and brains = true attractiveness.
Anonymous

kudos from Portugal to ladyada and adafruit :D
emmdeeaych

I’d make THAT stuff anytime. woo woo.

With that obnoxiousness out of the way, what an awesome nickname! Definitely the sort you earn.
- DoctressJulia
  
  Wow, the first comment sexualises and objectifies her. What a surprise.
  
  Obnoxious? Yes. Sexist? Hell yes. Ugh. Just ugh.
  - emmdeeaych
    
    WHOOSH
- kateling
  
  Yeah, I clicked on this post to see how long it would take before a comment like that showed up, and surprise, very first comment. Pro tip: there’s actually no obnoxiousness quota.
  - pidg
    
    Congrats, and thanks for playing.
  - emmdeeaych
    
    Noted.
    
    Apparently a variety of commentary, both lavatory subcategory and preemptively castratory pillory, are patently obligatory
Anonymous

its a nice cover, but did they have to have the name arrow pointing at her boob?
tyger11

The DIY Revolution Starts … years ago. Way to stay on top of the trends, Wired! :)
gabrielm

Major congrats! Though, personally, I wish that she would have kept the lip ring in…
davejenk1ns

Wired always stood out as one of the few ‘young tech’ magazines that didn’t have copious amounts of pretty girls on the cover. I couldn’t ever decide if this was poor demographic marketing or a conscious decision to back their opinion of showcasing the “true leaders”, even if that meant they had middle-aged slightly overweight white dudes on there month after month.

I’m glad to see Limor Fried on there, regardless of her gender. Way to go!
Nawel

Well, I just want to say…
Hellooooooooooooooooooooo engineer! :D
Anonymous

Lady Ada’s projects often make me wish I had the knack for soldering. Sweet that she got this exposure!
ozmonatov

They spelled ‘Vogue’ wrong.

I’d find it more or less insulting that her real appearance isn’t good enough to get on the cover of that tech magaz- Oh wait, beauty magazine cover.

Screw it, let’s just blow ourselfs up already. Reality doesn’t seem to be appreciated anyway.
Anonymous

“if you can think it, you can build it”

like atomicpowerplants…
SamSam

It’s great that she’s on the cover, but as many said, the DIY revolution starts *now*??? Have they not been reading BoingBoing?

Anyway, does anyone know what the 25 projects are?
Anonymous

The DIY “revolution” starts now? Wow, I know Wired will never tire of calling anything a revolution, but what how do they think people made things before the industrial revolution? Things were hand made for the most part. The paintings at Lascaux? DIY. Sure we could or had to buy or barter things from others, but, really Wired. I have always wanted to love Wired, but they make it hard to do so.
Neural Kernel

Heh… a magazine with an article about how great it is to make things yourself… along with another article about a scratch built drug smuggling sumbarine… weee!!!
Anonymous

She’s been photoshopped! You can see what she really looks like in the first video on the Adafruit Industries “About” page: http://www.adafruit.com/blog/about/&zenid=b19eee8e0edf516ca6df51c0bed9225c
patrikd

In Wired’s defense, they were obviously aiming for an homage to the classic “We can do it!” (aka “Rosie the Riveter”) poster. It’s entirely possible this is completely un-photoshopped – you can do a lot with the right makeup, lighting and lenses. And if the photographer is actively trying to match a 40′s era oil painting, it’s not surprising it looks a little artificial.

Personally, I do think the cover would have looked even cooler *with* her lip ring and glasses – this ain’t your grandmother’s Rosie!
Anonymous

Sorry for trying to stray back on topic, but will Limor only be starring on the US edition or will she also appear on the UK edition of the magazine? Wired.co.uk site shows no hits for “limor” or “limor fried”, so I guess the answer is “no”.
Anonymous

hot damn, and well done ada. Getting some well-done publicity, first in the NYT and now wired -Noah
Anonymous

Read the Good article. Studied the photos. I’d cross the street to meet the woman in the cover photo, and cross the street to avoid the woman in the other photo. I never cared for the “King of the Hill” characters. But to paraphrase the Hank Hill character from a commercial, “I like it when people wear tattoos and have pierced body parts, it makes it easier to recognize the crazies.”
Anonymous

I find the comments about how it “doesn’t look like her at all” to be appallingly bad taste. Good for you, boys, to insult women’s looks like that, when it’s clear that you are the ones with the lack of eyeballs.

I didn’t know her, but even still it was immediately obvious that the lighting, the make up and the combing were enough to make her to look like that!

I really enjoy the looks of her, btw, it reminds me a lot of Mona Lisa.
stevemullis

Is it just me, or is there a bit of a Photoshop disaster going on with her hand holding the tool?
- hungrylens
  
  Aside from obviously doing something weird with her hand, whatever they did to her face is kind of uncanny valley-ish.
  
  Wired should know better…
  
  http://www.spiegel.de/images/image-118951-galleryV9-luwn.jpg
  - Rayonic
    
    I guess Wired didn’t think she looked magazine-cover-pretty. Not without a thick layer of photoshoppery, anyway.
    
    Or perhaps they made a detailed plastic replica of her for the cover. To keep with the issue’s theme.
  - pt
    
    i was at the photo shoot with limor and jill greenberg the photographer uses light and camera unlike anyone i’ve ever seen, her images are amazing and almost glisten – the wired photo is very very close the original i saw, the background was changed to red and the tool in limor’s hand was added (it was a wrench). but other than that – when you have lighting, makeup and really dramatic lighting, this is how photos (can) look – i love it, i think it looks great and captured the moment perfectly. limor is about 10 feet from me right now, she looks like this :)
Jack

Kudos for her getting on the cover! But that is some major Photoshopping happening there.
ladyada

Hi everyone!

The cover is stylized but that is really what I looked like. I was not ‘plasticized’ or ‘heavily photoshopped’. if I take off my glasses, have my hair done, and wear make-up its what I look like. Jill uses lighting and makeup to create a glossy look, we saw the shots right off the camera and the only things that changed are the background color and the tool. Its her style and it looks cool!

Its a bit different than my every day look, especially when shot with a proper camera and lighting, but it -is- me. I do get dressed up from time to time, being a magazine cover is one of those times! :)
- Anonymous
  
  I’m sorry for saying that Wired photoshopped you. It never occurred to me that lighting, makeup, and hair styling were part of the process. I will be more careful about posting like that from now on.
- wakeupsilver
  
  Awesome Limor!! A lot of people back at the Media Lab really look up to you and your company as an example of what’s possible. Some of the undergrads are impressed that we used to work in the same lab as you. Rock the cover!!! Literally yesterday in the class I’m teaching (Radical Design for Learning) Leah Buechley gave a guest lecture and had you up on a slide.
  
  (:
- opmaroon
  
  Only the original RAW file will convince the “zOMG SH0PPED” crowd – me included : )
Anonymous

You know, Flickr does exist, and adafruit has a photostream: http://www.flickr.com/photos/adafruit/5538367452
http://www.flickr.com/photos/adafruit/5538367530
Yes, she is a cool engineer and entrepreneur who also happens to be a beautiful woman. They are not exclusive traits and by jumping into the “zOMG SH0PPED” bandwagon many of the commenters are doing worse for women in technology than what they rage about on the magazine cover.
morcheeba

If I learned anything in photography it’s that lighting and preparation make all the difference. And an awesome subject!

So is the 10nH standard is gone?
Anonymous

I wasn’t going to mention the Photoshop disaster factor, but since someone else’s already done it for me… Jebus, it barely even looks like her anymore. I guess the lip ring was too “edgy” for them too. It’s disappointing that not even Wired realizes that intelligence is a lot sexier than genericized fake plastic looks.
- Ambiguity
  
  It’s disappointing that not even Wired realizes that intelligence is a lot sexier than genericized fake plastic looks.
  
  Since when is life a zero-sum game? Demand both! Heck, I try to be both sexy and brilliant — it’s the least I can do for my wife, who would appear to be stuck with me for the rest of her life.
  
  (But seriously, I don’t see any evidence of fake plastic boobs in that picture. They may have done some weird stuff with it, but not in that way.)
  - SamSam
    
    (But seriously, I don’t see any evidence of fake plastic boobs in that picture. They may have done some weird stuff with it, but not in that way.)
    
    Um. I think you may have read some words in the quote you quoted that weren’t actually there. Boobs on your mind, maybe? I admit that “looks” does have two o’s…
    
    :)