Robo-babe of the day: Hedy Lamarr

In general I try to avoid the celeb worship... at least I avoid it in my blog writing, but a recent jaunt through the Internet led to the wikipedia page for Hedy Lamarr. I won't go through the particulars as to how I got there, but I will take the time now to point out why I now have a major crush on her.

1. She was a Jewish woman who fled from Germany in the mid-30's by drugging her husband(A friend of Hitler's) and the maid he had hired to make sure she didn't get away. "So?" the average reader may ask. Let's break it down...

First, she's Jewish. This came as big of a shock to me as anyone, but apparently I'm in to the ladies of the Jewish faith.

Second, she kicked more Nazi ass than Indiana Jones, and that's saying something. The only way she could be cooler is if she had also piloted a star ship with a big hairy side kick. Unfortunately she died in 2000 before such a dream could become a reality.

2. She ended up being a famous actress in Hollywood and starred in Samson and Delilah as well as a few other films.

3. She's an absolute knock out on the robo-babe scale:

4. If you're a nerd, you probably remember the CorelDraw 8 box which featured her face rendered in vector graphics. Not necessarily a reason to love her for the rest of the world but hey, I'm a nerd.

5. This is the big one...

Hedy Lamarr (under her then-married name of Hedy Kiesler Markey) and composer George Antheil received U.S. patent #2,292,387 for their Secret Communication System on August 11, 1942. This early version of frequency hopping used a piano roll to change between 88 frequencies and was intended to make radio-guided torpedoes harder for enemies to detect or jam. This idea was controversial and ahead of its time and technology.

She helped invent frequency hopping which is basically used everywhere now from CDMA(Cell Phones) to 802.11(Wireless computers). Some say she invented it just to help kick Nazi ass and piss her ex-husband off.

A robo-babe, nerd, and Nazi hunter? I've written stories in my dream journal involving me having magical powers, the two twins being in love with me, and a magical journey with a Pegasus named Chauncey that were more believable than this girl.

If I don't update the blog for a while it's because I'm currently working on rebuilding my time machine so I can go back in time, win her heart, and live happily ever after. I built one last week, but I forgot to put in the crystals and ruined it.