An evening pause: A quick review, with images, of the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California. Like them, I was tickled by the gigantic scale of technological improvement that took place in this field in such a relatively short time.
Hat tip Ben K.
The Rosetta science team has now made available to the public all 70,000 images taken by the spacecraft’s high resolution camera.
Between 2014 and 2016, the scientific camera system OSIRIS onboard ESA’s Rosetta spacecraft captured almost 70000 images of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. They not only document the most extensive and demanding comet mission to date, but also show the duck-shaped body in all its facets. In a joint project with the Department of Information and Communication at Flensburg University of Applied Sciences, the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research (MPS), head of the OSIRIS team, has now published all of these images. The OSIRIS Image Viewer is suited to the needs of both laymen and expert and offers quick and easy access to one of the greatest scientific treasures of recent years.
The Rosetta archive can be found here.
R.I.P. Skylab astronaut Owen Garriott has passed away at 88.
From a different time and place.
Link here. The introduction:
A short list of the most transformative products of the past century and a half would include the lightbulb, Ford’s Model T—and the IBM System/360. This mainframe series forever changed the computer industry and revolutionized how businesses and governments worked, enhancing productivity and making countless new tasks possible.
In the years leading up to its 7 April 1964 launch, however, the 360 was one of the scariest dramas in American business. It took a nearly fanatical commitment at all levels of IBM to bring forth this remarkable collection of machines and software. While the technological innovations that went into the S/360 were important, how they were created and deployed bordered on disaster. The company experienced what science policy expert Keith Pavitt called “tribal warfare”: people clashing and collaborating in a rapidly growing company with unstable, and in some instances unknown, technologies, as uncertainty and ambiguity dogged all the protagonists.
Ultimately, IBM was big and diverse enough in talent, staffing, financing, and materiel to succeed. In an almost entrepreneurial fashion, it took advantage of emerging technologies, no matter where they were located within the enterprise. In hindsight, it seemed a sloppy and ill-advised endeavor, chaotic in execution and yet brilliantly successful. We live in an age that celebrates innovation, so examining cases of how innovation is done can only illuminate our understanding of the process.
Read it all. The story is fascinating, especially in how intellectual honesty made it a success. In one case two computer managers were competing directly against each other for the lead in how the product would be developed. The man that was picked immediately asked the loser to help him build his proposal, a level of honesty that certainly made this company work in the 1960s.
The story also has one bit of real irony. The 360 was a big success because it was compatible with IBM’s previous computer line, and was designed to be compatible across the board.
In the 1980s, IBM lost its entire dominance in the personal computer field when it introduced its second generation PC, the PS/2, which was NOT compatible with their first PC line. Customers fled to independent companies making computers compatible to IBMs first PC, and this loss of business ended up killing IBM entirely.
You would have thought they would have known better.
Hat tip Thomas Biggar.
An evening pause: I like the commentary about this song at the youtube webpage. “Although it has been described as a protest song, it poses a series of rhetorical questions about peace, war and freedom. The refrain “The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind” [is] … impenetrably ambiguous: either the answer is so obvious it is right in your face, or the answer is as intangible as the wind.
In this sense, Bob Dylan’s song really does transcend the 1960s, as does much of his work.
Hat tip John Vernoski.
In local elections yesterday the party of Turkey’s long-time president Recep Tayyip Erdogan was pounded by several startling defeats.
The party of Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has lost control of the capital, Ankara, in local elections, in a blow to his 16-year rule.
The main opposition is also slightly ahead in the contest for mayor of Istanbul, figures published by the state-run Anadolu news agency suggest.
But the president’s AKP party is challenging the result in both cities.
Municipal elections were held across the nation on Sunday and an AKP-led alliance won more than 51% of the vote. [emphasis mine]
The article at the link hints at a depressed economy as the cause of these defeats, but I wonder if Erdogan’s recent moves trending in support of radical Islam also contributed. I also suspect that Erodgan’s support was actually a lot less than indicated by these numbers. Turkey is not really a democracy as an American would perceive it.
With most media either pro-government or controlled by Mr Erdogan’s supporters, critics believe opposition parties campaigned at a disadvantage. Mr Erdogan’s rallies dominated TV coverage.
The opposition pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) said the elections were unfair and refused to put forward candidates in several cities. Some of its leaders have been jailed on terrorism charges, accusations they reject.
I will not be surprised if the results flip in the coming week’s so that Erdogan’s party retains control in both cities. If this happens, however, I would also expect more turmoil there, as we are also seeing in many other places worldwide. Elections results recently have repeatedly slammed the status quo in places ruled by globalists, leftists, or Islamists. The establishment that has been in control then maneuvers things to nullify those elections.
The result: protests, violence, revolution, and bloodshed. Expect this in Turkey if the vote changes.
An evening pause: From the Wikipedia page:
Havah Nagilah…was composed in 1915 in Ottoman Palestine, when Hebrew was being revived as a spoken language after falling into disuse in this form for approximately 1,700 years, following the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE and the Bar Kokhba revolt in 132–136 CE. For the first time, Jews were being encouraged to speak Hebrew as a common language, instead of Yiddish, Arabic, Ladino, or other regional Jewish languages.
The lyrics reflect these events:
Let’s rejoice
Let’s rejoice
Let’s rejoice and be happy
Let’s sing
Let’s sing
Let’s sing and be happy
Awake, awake, my brothers!
Awake my brothers with a happy heart
Awake, my brothers, awake, my brothers!
With a happy heart
May we all sing with as much joy.
Hat tip Edward Thelen.
Buzz Aldrin and his family have decided to end their legal fight over the assets of the former Apollo astronaut.
Seeking to restore family harmony months before 50th anniversary celebrations of the first human moon landing, Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin has dropped a lawsuit that accused two of his children and the family foundation of abusing his finances and trust.
His children, Andy and Jan, also have dismissed an effort to win legal guardianship of their father, an 89-year-old Satellite Beach resident whom they claimed suffers from dementia.
A evening pause: From the vimeo webpage: “Mozart illustrated the score for the Rondo from his Horn Concerto No.1 with a series of naughty notes and jokes aimed at his horn player friend, Joseph Leutgeb.”
Performed by the OAE orchestra, with Roger Montgomery on the horn.
Hat tip Dan Coovert.
Mozart's Naughty Notes from OAE on Vimeo.
An evening pause: On George Washington’s actual birthday, let’s honor our first president with a history lesson essentially written by the man himself, and even more pertinent today.
An evening pause: Even though this evening pause is not music or entertainment and is about space, it is worth watching for its thrill factor. Listen to Hoot Gibson talk about his December 2, 1988 military shuttle mission.
Hat tip John L.
Sad: Andrew Aldrin, son to Buzz Aldrin, has moved to try to block his father’s access to the funds in two of his financial accounts.
Andrew Aldrin’s lawyer sent a letter last month to an associate in Morgan Stanley’s private wealth management division with instructions not to transfer any assets in two financial accounts in a trust of which Andrew Aldrin is a trustee. Buzz Aldrin, 89, has tried to terminate the trust and wants the assets distributed to him.
Astronaut Buzz Aldrin, member of the first landingBuy Photo
The letter from Andrew Aldrin’s lawyer warns Morgan Stanley that the son, acting as trustee, will seek damages if his instructions aren’t followed. “Please govern yourself accordingly,” the letter said.
Morgan Stanley asked a Florida court last week to decide if it should follow the instructions of Buzz Aldrin or his son.
The family has been fighting for control of Aldrin’s assets, with two of his children saying he has memory loss and is delusional.
Link here. The story is a wonderful illustration of the epic failure that NASA has represented for the past thirty years. They spent billions, and threw it all away before even one flight.
How the two partly built X-34 spacecraft ended up in someone’s backyard is fascinating in itself, and worth the read.
One detail the article misses is why the X-34 got cancelled in 2001: politics. This program was part of a range of space initiatives under the Clinton administration (including the X-33). All were overpriced and essentially boondoggles. When George Bush Jr. became president, his administration reviewed them all and junked them, replacing them with his own boondoggles (Constellation and Orion).
The Russian empire resurgent: Belarus’s leader yesterday said his country is now willing to re-unite with Russia.
Putin has built his reputation as the man who added territory to the Russian Federation, not one who allows it to be taken away. However, there is a higher calling in a formal union of the two countries. It seems the Kremlin may believe that upon such a real union, the Russian constitution becomes ‘invalid’ and guess what, the new country needs a new president – none other than Vladimir Putin! Those pesky term limits of the old constitution will no longer be a problem.
“The two of us could unite tomorrow, no problem,” Lukashenko said in a video shared by a Komsomolskaya Pravda tabloid Kremlin reporter on Twitter Friday, reported The Moscow Times.
Russia has been applying strong pressure to force Belarus back into its fold, and it appears that pressure is working. And as the article correctly notes, nations neighboring Russia should be prepared for the same treatment.
An evening pause: Sixty years ago this month a plane crash killed Buddy Holly. This is one person’s interpretation of the words of this classic song, finely done, and linked to that event.
Hat tip Mike Nelson.
An evening pause: On this, Abraham Lincoln’s birthday, it is once again time to remember a man who stands as one of our nation’s — and possible one of the world’s — greatest leaders. Of our Presidents possibly only George Washington is more significant. We must above all not forget the incredible and now all too rare good will he held for everyone, even to those who hated him and wished to kill him. As I said in 2015: “We should also remind ourselves, especially in this time of increasing anger, bigotry, and violence, of these words from his second inaugural address, spoken in the final days of a violent war that had pitted brother against brother in order to set other men free:”
Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said “the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.”
With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.
An evening pause: “People complain a lot about the space that I take up”.
Hat tip Jim Mallamace.
An evening pause: Hat tip Jim Mallamace. The opening chords should be very familiar to talk radio fans. As Jim says, “The 6 opening bars of the song are almost as familiar to many as the first 4 bars of Beethoven’s 5th.”
Knowing the subject matter of this song clarifies for me one reason why Rush picked it, back in 1988, when his show started.
Link here. The story is interesting indeed, and is especially relevant in the context of what SpaceX and Elon Musk have done to force prices down in rocketry. This quote, about the government’s eventual response to the challenge to its postal monopoly, struck a nerve with me.
Constitutional or not, the government defended its monopoly. Six days after Spooner’s company began, Congress introduced a resolution to investigate the establishment of private post offices. Meanwhile, Spooner’s company was booming. As the US postal revenue went down, the government threatened those who were caught serving private mail carriers. In his book, Spooner noted that by March 30, he and his agents were arrested while using a railroad in Maryland to transport letters. Spooner, busy with multiple legal challenges, was released on bail by mid-June ( “Mr. Spooner’s Case.” Newport Mercury, June 15, 1844.)
People had become accustomed to inexpensive mail, and Congress reluctantly acknowledged the need to lower postal rates. Still, officials stressed that “it was not by competition, but by penal enactment, that the private competition was to be put down” (The Congressional Globe, 14. Washington: The Globe Office, 1845, page 206). In March 1845, Congress fixed the rate of postage at five cents within a radius of 500 miles. The post office adopted tactics that private carriers used to increase efficiency, such as requiring prepayment via stamps. These changes turned the post office’s budgetary deficit into a surplus within three years.
It seems that as much as things change, they remain the same.
R.I.P. Nancy Roman, NASA’s first chief astronomer, died on Christmas at the age of 93.
Her name is largely forgotten, but her support for building the Hubble Space Telescope in the 1960s and the 1970s was critical in getting it done. As important, her support for all in-space astronomy in these early years eventually made it possible. During her term NASA built and launched the first space telescopes. Some were duds. Some were incredible successes. Regardless, her leadership proved that astronomy in space made sense, leading to the achievements that have followed in the half century that has followed.
God speed, Nancy Roman.
