Monday Links from the Comfy Chair vol. DCCCLI

[NickFitz]

I’m on holiday this week. Not that I’m going anywhere

• The Sofa - Spencer Wright on buying a secondhand sofa which turned into a restoration project: ”I’m almost done restoring my old sofa, and I think it’s good, and I want to tell you about it… I saved the nails, and disassembled the frame, and stacked it up against the dining room wall, and looked at it fondly from time to time over the next week and a half. And in this time it became clear: I would completely restore the sofa. ”
• The Ancient Weapons Active in Your Immune System Today - ”Dozens of new discoveries reveal that defenses evolved by bacteria and viruses billions of years ago still define our own innate immune system.” We're just big germs that got out of hand, really
• Ten thousand years ago, human evolution went into overdrive - Speaking of getting out of hand, it seems that civilisation accelerates evolution: ”Ancient DNA reveals ‘massive’ genetic shifts tied to rise of farming, wheels, and metal tools.”
• The Accursèd Alphabetical Clock - For those who like things to be neatly organised: ”This clock displays the current time alphabetically… In Three-Hand mode, the hours, minutes, and seconds are each independently sorted by their English spelling, with a hand for each. In Combined mode, every possible time (43,200 of them) is spelled out, sorted alphabetically, and a single needle points to the current one.”
• Play the Official Tetris Game for Free - HT to WTFH for pointing out that you can play original Tetris online. But there’s also a load of additional information about the game and its history: ”Discover quirky, surprising, and nostalgic tidbits about Tetris — from its Soviet roots to world records and hidden secrets you never knew!”
• Every train, a note. - This website plays jazz derived in real time from the feed of train locations in the NY Metro: ”Every dot is a real subway train. Eight hundred of them, give or take, form a small jazz combo (walking bass, piano, sax, vibes, brushes) that has been playing without pause for over a hundred years. On the platforms they are hot, screaming, full of complaint. This is the music inside the noise.” If you happen to be in New York, it will even adjust the volume so the notes generated by trains nearer you are louder. Of course, what’s needed now is for somebody to do this with the London Underground
• U-1206 - The wreck of a U-boat which sank on its first patrol, allegedly because of a malfunctioning toilet: ”Having arrived off the Buchan coast U-1206 had to effect mechanical repairs to the diesel engines, during which the bow section started flooding releasing chlorine gas from the batteries. Ballast tanks were blown and loaded torpedoes fired to improve buoyancy, the submarine surfaced but the diesel engines failed. As it was obvious that the boat was lost, secret equipment was destroyed and the boat allowed to sink.”
• 10 classic computing adverts from the 1950s - HT to DoctorStrangelove for this look at how early computers were marketed: ”The 1950s began with the creation of the Polio vaccine, the Great Smog of 1952, the introduction of car seats and the discovery of DNA. In 1954 the first nuclear submarine was launched, Britain sponsored an expedition to find the Abominable Snowman and Roger Banister broke the four-minute mile… Here are ten adverts taken from the pages of Computer Bulletin which capture the technologies that defined 1950s computing.” There are a few broken images; it’s ironic that the BCS is apparently unable to prevent link rot for files that are supposed to be on its own server
• The electromechanical angle computer inside the B-52 bomber's star tracker - Ken Shirriff explores an analogue aviation computer: ”Before GPS, how did aircraft navigate? One important technique was celestial navigation: navigating from the positions of the stars, planets, or the sun. While celestial navigation is accurate, cannot be jammed, and doesn't require any broadcast infrastructure, it is a difficult and time-consuming process to perform manually. In the early 1960s, an automated system was developed for the B-52 bomber to automatically track stars and compute navigation information. Digital computers weren't suitable at the time, so the star tracking system performed trigonometric calculations with an electromechanical analog computer called the Angle Computer.”
• Sand Under a Microscope - Magnified Sand Photos - One of those sites that does exactly what it says: ”Under microscopic magnification, the unique beauty and individual character of sand grains reveal a diverse origin reflecting geological history and marine life biodiversity. Sand is everywhere on earth – on our beaches, in our deserts, and on the bottoms of lakes, rivers and oceans. Sand particles are coarser than silt but finer than gravel, ranging in size from 0.02 to 2 mm. They are created when weather and chemicals break down terrestrial rocks, minerals, marine bivalves, corals, mollusks, bryozoans, and foraminifera.” There’s even a Google Earth app, so you can find out if there’s any interesting sand near you. This example, with a blue fragment of mussel shell, is from Titlow Beach in Puget Sound
  
  

Happy invoicing!

[ladymuck]

• 10 classic computing adverts from the 1950s - HT to DoctorStrangelove for this look at how early computers were marketed: ”The 1950s began with the creation of the Polio vaccine, the Great Smog of 1952, the introduction of car seats and the discovery of DNA. In 1954 the first nuclear submarine was launched, Britain sponsored an expedition to find the Abominable Snowman and Roger Banister broke the four-minute mile… Here are ten adverts taken from the pages of Computer Bulletin which capture the technologies that defined 1950s computing.” There are a few broken images; it’s ironic that the BCS is apparently unable to prevent link rot for files that are supposed to be on its own server

What did people sit on in pre-1950's cars?

[DoctorStrangelove]

What did people sit on in pre-1950's cars?

More to the point that first Polio vaccine introduced a lot of us of a certain age to the SV40 monkey virus. . Just mentioning that for a friend, like. .

[Protagoras]

[*]The electromechanical angle computer inside the B-52 bomber's star tracker - Ken Shirriff explores an analogue aviation computer: ”Before GPS, how did aircraft navigate? One important technique was celestial navigation: navigating from the positions of the stars, planets, or the sun. While celestial navigation is accurate, cannot be jammed, and doesn't require any broadcast infrastructure, it is a difficult and time-consuming process to perform manually. In the early 1960s, an automated system was developed for the B-52 bomber to automatically track stars and compute navigation information. Digital computers weren't suitable at the time, so the star tracking system performed trigonometric calculations with an electromechanical analog computer called the Angle Computer.”

What a great find. Imagine working on the design of that system - that would be properly interesting work.

[DoctorStrangelove]

What a great find. Imagine working on the design of that system - that would be properly interesting work.

Shoulders of Giants, mate, shoulders of giants. It's probably EMP proof too. .

[Protagoras]

Shoulders of Giants, mate, shoulders of giants. It's probably EMP proof too. .

Yes, I was thinking when I read it that it would be less vulnerable to EMP than a modern electronic system. Then again, a competent navigator can work up a celestial fix reasonably quickly, so there's always a fall back.

It seems that this was not the sole astro-nav system on the B52. There was an 'astrotracker' to provide initial data to the Hound Dog (surely 'Dawg') missile. https://www.ion.org/museum/upload/28...igation-sy.pdf

I suppose that in these days there was plenty of expertise around to develop such devices given that gun laying mechanical computers had been around since the 1930s.