17-Year-Old Coder Creates Software to Save You From Spoilers

We’ve had many screaming matches polite discussions about spoilers here in the Geekosystem office, but this is probably something everyone can agree is a good thing. A 17-year-old coder named Jennie Lamere has created software that filters your Twitter feed for discussion of shows you don’t want spoiled. Lamere created the software at a competition where she was the only woman who presented a project, and — spoiler alert — she took the grand prize.

Lamere’s project is called Twivo, and it lets users filter out mentions of specific shows or characters from their Twitter feeds for a set length of time. For example, Doctor Who airs Saturday nights, but I usually can’t get to it until the next morning. For that reason, on Saturdays and Sundays I’m not very active of Twitter until I have a chance to watch the latest episode.

With Lamere’s code, which is available as a Chrome extension, I can still use Twitter, but just tell Twivo to filter out any mentions of The Doctor, Clara, Time Lords, etc. until I watch the episode. At least I’ll be able to once Twivo becomes publicly available in a few months.

Twivo was the result of Lamere entering the Boston Hackathon on April 27th. Not only was the only female who presented a finished product, she was the only coder working alone, and she finished Twivo in ten hours. That’s several different levels of impressive. She thinks it’s strange being the only, or one of the very few, female at events like this, but she said it’s something she’s gotten used to.

A spokesperson for the Boston Hackathon, Mike Proulx, said, “We marketed the hackathon to the entire developer community, and the demographics of the participants mirror the demographics of the community itself.” There aren’t enough female developers out there, but as Susana Polo of The Mary Sue points out, “Maybe next year they can use [Lamere] in their marketing. Never underestimate the power of a good role model!”

Polo may be on to something. I’m not a 17-year-old woman, but I’m still pretty inspired by Lamere.

(via The Mary Sue, image via jasoneppink)

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