Dr. Ada

Dr. Ada

Lead researcher at the Absent Minded Research Institute.

The Absent Minded Research Institute

2 minute read

Notice: this page is a work in progress. The research subject plans on adding more documentation demonstrating the capabilities of the facility in the future.

PARAFICTION WARNING: Visitor, please be aware that the following documents contain parafictional elements. If you prefer to be BORING reading the purely nonfiction documentation, please visit this link.

Overview

Hello there. My name is Dr. Ada, I am the head researcher at the Absent Minded Research Institute. You may meet my colleagues, Dr. Mitchell and Dr. Fantastic, later. I have been given the responsibility of giving you a tour of our facility. So let’s begin, I have work to get back to.

This is the workstation of one of our researchers at the institute. As you’ll soon see, they are all hard at work, meticulously tracking and monitoring our subject, PT.

You are permitted to peruse the contents of the desk at your leisure. You may find some evidence of the institute’s activities, including testing logs, a live feed of PT’s current status and location, as well as a fully functional internal phone directory through the rotary phone on the desk.

On Display

Photograph of thesis project on display. No people are present, just the desk is visible. Photograph of thesis project on display. Two people are listening to the rotary phone on the desk. Photograph of thesis project on display. Several people and a dog are standing in front of it. Photograph of thesis project on display. One person is dialing the rotary phone on the desk.
On display in the Decker/Meyerhoff Gallery at MICA.

Display Elements

Rotary Phone

A photo of a green rotary phone on a desk, with a phone menu next to it.
Please do call around the facility. The scientists get lonely.

Each researcher at the institute is provided with a top of the line Western Electric 500 rotary telephone, to better promote department communication. While you’re visiting, please feel free to give the other scientists a ring.

Various departments and offices are accessible by dialing 1 through 9. You can reach our operator by dialing 0. Please be aware that our system does not allow you to dial outside our facility, for security reasons.

Dial!

Visitor, please note, the virtual dial is currently out of service.

Status Logger

Please note: the log will attempt to fetch data every 30 seconds, and timestamps are in UTC.

Hey, if the printer runs out of paper, don't look at me! I do my best under the circumstances...
- Mitchell

Here at the institute, we have a state-of-the-art thermal printer tasked with maintaining a constant log of PT’s activities. The data is streamed live, with a delay of a few seconds at most. This allows our researchers to be apprised as to PT’s whereabouts and activities at all times.

Of course, we do need to ensure the printer is well-stocked with thermal paper…

Photo of what appears to be an accounting calculator sitting on a desk, with a heap of paper spooling out the back. Photo of the accounting calculator close up. The logged activities of PT are legible on the spooled out paper. A blue post-it note asking for more paper is stuck to the front of the calculator.
The status logger runs continuously to provide the institute scientists with a perpetually-flowing feed of data.

Notification Orb

This is live! Please note: the orb will attempt to fetch data every 15 seconds.

The notification orb reflects PT’s most recently received notification, and is often used as a status indicator by our scientists. If it’s green, PT has been texting. If it’s red, they’ve been ordering food. If it’s yellow, PT is probably lonely…

Photo of the notification orb sitting on top of a filing cabinet. Scanned document that describes which app the test subject is using corresponds to which color the orb flashes.
The notification orb, and a printed key to understand it.

Filing Cabinet

Inside the filing cabinet, among other things, you will find detailed documentation of our observations of the test subject.

The filing cabinet also contains what appears to be a…a maid dress? It’s hard to say what this is for, but it has pretty lights on it!

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