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Slashback: Invitation, MIR, History
(This item ceremonially closer to orbit) pcidevel writes: "According to this page at Mirstation.com there is no plans to down Mir and in fact a launch has been approved to make sure Mir has a long stay in orbit." I'm sure everyone with plans to visit (James Cameron on down / up) will be cheered to the cockles. I think I'll wait till the .1 release;)
To hell with anyone who won't help out ;) jonathan_atkinson writes: "The V2_OS (www.v2os.cx) that you featured twice a while back is currently undergoing a kernel rewrite. Having taken on some of the criticisms that Slashdot readers threw at us at the time (it hurt back then... but this is our baby :P), the kernel is being rewritten from scratch, using a fully modular architecture. An interesting project to be involved with ... So, any Slashdot readers who have wanted to get involved with a cool project like this, contact one of the project leaders in #v2os on EFnet or visit the website. Plenty of you had criticisms and ideas the last time this story was posted, lets see if anyone wants to put them into practise!"
"I was here first! No I was here first! Mom!" afrop writes: "Like Tesla vs Marconi in the field of radio, history seems to have already sealed the fate of ENIAC vs ABC. The Atanasoff-Berry Computer (ABC) is almost always overlooked when people say 'first digital computer', despite the 1973 court decision invalidating the ENIAC patents, and declaring Atanasoff the inventor of the first digital computer. History may have forgotten the ABC, but we shouldn't."
Similarly, An unnamed correspondent writes: "You've posted several things recently about the computing history, and you always claim the ENIAC or whatever was first. You really should post this link to the first electronic digital computer, from which the creators of ENIAC got some of their ideas. http://www.cs.iastate.edu/jva/jva-archive.shtml"
Interesting links, both. Of course, there are a lot of interesting devices which predate both of these, including the mysterious bronze computing device found aboard an Agean wreck.
And if you feel like turning over the rocks of history to find those little bugs that curl into balls, and wondering what the ancients would have called them, wonder, if not no more, at least a bit less -- GE Bickford writes: "While there is certainly a distinction between various individuals who hack, I have found a very early usage of "hacker" that demonstrates that the artificial semantic distinction between "cracker" and "hacker" is a vain conceit. This citation proves that the term "hacker" from the very beginning involved an implicit violation of 'territory' (trespassing) and threat to system integrity (vandalism). It also shows that hackers were considered at least a potential threat from the earliest days of the internet (then ARPANET). I note that the term 'cracker' didn't come into use until at least the late 1980s if not 1990s:
"We feel that this change will be sufficient to discourage "hackers",
although it is obviously insufficient to protect a node against a
determined and malicious attack."
- RCF521."
Bring me the head of Michelle Pong! You may have thought it was cool that a neural net could be taught to recognize the spoken word "one," but how about one that does useful work instead? Specifically, LinuxBand writes: "http://www.engin.umd.umich.edu/~watta/MM/pong/pong5.html this thing is pretty cool, teach it by hitting the ball for awhile and then try playing against it and watch it kick yer arse."
To steer a Mir, you clearly need a beer!
Comrades have got it? Comrades have got it! To steer a Mir, you clearly need a beer!How will we get from there to here?
We will steer, we will steer! Yeah, and what is crystal clear? Our beer! Our beer! Ya!To Steer a Mir, you clearly need a beer!
Houston, we have a drinking problem! Objects in Mir are nearer than they appear!!!"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
You know, with all the problems Mir had, it's now evident that it was the perfect place to test out what might happen on very long space travel. We've seen the effects of people staying on much longer than expected, the effect of colliding with another craft and surviving it, fires, equipement failures, infiltration by hostile lifeforms (moss); we've also seen that with little ressources and a lot of ingenuity, it's possible to make extensive repairs even when it seems like a hopeless cause.
After witnessing all these things and learning a lot from them, we really are better prepared for say something like a jaunt to the red planet.
De gustibus et coloribus non est disputandum
Can you imagine the dismay of the person who first canned something?
Scene from the First Cannery:
Minion: "Hey boss, so like, how do you get it back out?"
Boss: "Doh!"
Ya know, I always thought that fingers were the original digital computer...
In mathematics, one does not understand things, one merely gets used to them.
--VonNeumann
The first person to invent the radio was not Marconi (or Tesla) but a Russian named Popov. Popov was aware of Marconi's work in EM waves, and he was the first to build a device that carried information via radio waves. The device was used to relay messages from Russia's mainland to an outpost on an island in the Gulf of Finland.
It is actually a fascinating story, if you are interested in the history of science and technology.
Thank you for pointing out that the ABC computer came first. This thing was developed in the early part of the 20th century...well before ENIAC. If Atanasoff had patented that puppy, Silicon Valley would have been in Iowa and I don't care what CmdrTaco thinks about patents!
Now don't you think that achievement should put an end to the weenie arguments against drinking?
That's it! I've got me a bottle of single malt scotch, and I'm goin' to invent me the warp drive tonight! That means from now on every starship engineer's gonna have a Scots accent!
YEEEE-HAAAAAA!
And the brethren went away edified.
a) secrecy / obscurity -- which is why the colossus project was quiet when others were getting credit for a while. How many people have even heard of Konrad Zuse? Even with more modern computers, there are sometimes disputes about provenance / heritage (I was reminded as I re-read a little bit of The Soul of New Machine this evening).
... what exactly constitutes "a computer" / "a digital computer" / etc.? A turing machine? Babbage's engine is pretty cool. What about projects which may have been there theorectically but never really reached fruition.
b) definitions
But yeah, the truth will out at some point. It's one of those things that some people like to argue the fine points of because they're interested in / fascinated by those fine points. Earliest flight, earliest automobile, earliest steam engine, earliest language all raise the same kind of questions, eh?
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
an OS written in pure assembler.. hehehe, that OS sounds like a speed demon, I'm going to be looking into it from now on.
Alas, I have no floppy drive, so I will have to wait a bit... The little gumby looking mascot is a little odd, my favorite OS mascot is always the BSD devil. Tux is fat, someone tell him to lose some weight...
Shit adds up at the bottom...
Slightly off topic, but... If the Russian government wanted to pocket some quick cash, they should sell the Mir space-fungus on eBay. It's probably worth more than the space station it's devouring..
On December 24, 1906, at 9 P.M. eastern standard time, Reginald Fessenden transmitted human voices from Brant Rock near Boston, Massachusetts to several ships at sea owned by the United Fruit Company. Fessenden concluded the broadcast by extending Christmas greetings to his listeners - as well as asking them to write and report to him on the broadcast wherever they were. The mail response confirmed that Fessenden had successfully invented radio as we know it. Technically, he had invented radio telephony or what radio listeners would call "real" radio as opposed to Marconi's Morse code broadcasting. Fessenden could truly lay claim to be the inventor of radio and he fully expected the world to beat a path to his door. Instead, he never received his due recognition, lost control of his patents and the ensuing revenue which made other inventors and companies immensely wealthy. Even today the Encyclopedia Canadiana does not give him a separate listing. Mention of him is only included under the listing for his mother Clementina.
/radio/radio_unsung.html
http://www.ieee.ca/millenn ium
This citation proves that the term "hacker" from the very beginning involved an implicit violation of 'territory' (trespassing) and threat to system integrity (vandalism).
This interpretation is dubious in my opinion. It would seem that this text is intentionally making a distinction between a "hacker" who might be merely poking around and who will be sufficiently discouraged, and a "determined and malicious" attacker who will not be stopped by "this change".
This seems to demonstrate a clear separation between the concepts of the curious 'hacker' and the malicious 'cracker', contrary to what Mr. Bickford claims.
A designer in the UK makes reproductions of orreries and other devices, as well as this working replica of the Antikythera Device.
http://www.orreries.freeserve.co.uk/
An orrery is a model of the solar system, and his prices range from affordable to... dare I say it... astronomical. Beautiful pieces.
A photo of the original lumps of sea-bed rock, with the bronze Antikythera device embedded, available through a link or two.
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Something interesting:
even if you leave the app in PTRAIN for a long time, have it play against itself (use RECALL) and the only time it will lose is when the ball is in the uppermost left corner. i tried this on about 12 attempts with varying lengths of training time, ball speed, size, etc... i find it hard to believe that this situation never comes up in training going by the assumption that the training is simply how to respond to the ball being at each point on the y axis of the court....