Saturday, June 9, 2012

Analog Computer

Not sure exactly what this can be used for, but PERTECS is a software simulation of an analog computer.

Tuesday, June 5, 2012

Monday, June 4, 2012

Controlling the Internet

The folks over at Harvard have analyzed routing data to determine how easy or hard it is for a country to control internet traffic.

Mapping local control of the Internet

Sunday, May 27, 2012

Solar Eclipses until 2012

World map of solar eclipses for the next 7 1/2 years


With any luck, this will help take pictures like these:





Couple of threads from reddit where I got these photos:
Windmills

Annular Eclipse

Saturday, May 26, 2012

Couple of Quotes from "Turings Cathedral"

Despite the title, Turing's Cathedral, by George Dyson, isn't primarily about Alan Turing.  Rather, it focuses on John von Neumann, another giant in computer history.  A couple of interesting quotes:

The speed of fiber deployment
Thirty years ago, networks developed for communication between people were adapted to communication between machines.  We went from transmitting data over a voice network to transmitting voice over a data network in just a few short years.  Billions of dollars were sunk into cables spanning six continents and three oceans, and a web of optical fiber engulfed the world.  When the operation peaked in 1991, fiber was being rolled out, globally, at over 5,000 miles per hour, or nine times the speed of sound: Mach 9.  (emphasis added).

Global computing efficiency
Among the computers populating this network, most processing cycles are going to waste.  Most processors, most of the time, are waiting for instructions.  Even within an active processor, as Bigelow explained, most computational elements are waiting around for something to do next.  The global computer, for all its powers, is perhaps the least efficient machine that humans have ever built.  (emphasis added)

Given how power hungry data centers are, this is a sobering number.

Monday, May 14, 2012

Two Beautiful Pictures of Glastonbury

Glastonbury, England, and specifically, the abbey there, claims to be the burial place of King Arthur. 
Believe what you will, but these are two beautiful pictures of the ruins there