Monday Links from the Lounger vol. DCCCXV

[DoctorStrangelove]

Who knew the 386 package was so complicated? I wonder why they liked 16 pin packages so much.

The Chicago thing was on one of those disaster programmes a couple of years ago.

The other useless factoid about Chicago is that the city was jacked up 14 feet out of the swamp it was built on so they could install a sewer system.

Who'd have thunk that a closed cycle gas turbine operating at 10 bar might be a bit problematic. .

Never mind, to infinity & beyond, stick a reactor on the moon before the Chinese do. . Space 1999 here we come.

I recall talking to a chap many years ago who was a miner in northern Canada. They had freezer pipes at the surface to stop the permafrost melting & disappearing down the hole.

[NickFitz]

My holiday continues, and it looks like I'll even get "the weather for it" - except that I can't stand hot weather

• Whiteouts, Ice Roads, and Wolverines: What Working at a Diamond Mine in the Far North Is Like - The perils of life in the far north: ”The cold that ripped through the plane after the door was opened caused a wave of grumbling. The cabin speakers came on and the pilot welcomed us, casually noting that the temperature outside hovered around thirty below… Improperly dressed, forty below zero will kill a man in about thirty minutes; he is likely past the point of rescue after fifteen.”
• A Hawk in New Jersey Figured Out Traffic Signals and Used Them to Hunt - ”A Cooper’s hawk shot from a small tree, flew low over the idling cars, and vanished into a front yard across the street. Moments later, it reappeared, talons full, having snatched a sparrow from a family’s lawn… The hawk had launched only after a pedestrian had pressed the crosswalk button, triggering a longer red light and a longer line of cars — perfect camouflage.” Clever bird
• How to alter the passage of time to feel fast or slow - ”Knowing the psychology behind why moments drag or whizz by can give you a degree of control over your experience of time.” TBH there isn't much in here about making Teams meetings go by more quickly, but there's some interesting tips if you want to enjoy the feeling when it ends for (what seems like) longer.
• A Comedy of Errors: How a Small Leak Became the Great Loop Flood of 1992 - ”On the morning of April 13, 1992 as commuters were heading to their offices in Chicago’s Loop, fish were swimming in the basement of the Merchandise Mart. A strange flood was rising. But at street level, no one could actually see the flood. What began as a leak in a unique but mostly forgotten underground freight tunnel system became a two-week combination of comedy-of-errors and soap opera that cost almost $2 billion.” I like the fact that the primary cause was that a civil engineer who could have prevented it ever happening missed the opportunity because he couldn't find anywhere to park
• The Ultimate Version of the Worst 1980’s Micro? - HT to DoctorStrangelove for this project by Lee of “More Fun Making It”: ”This isn’t a repair or a restoration—this is a full custom build of what I consider the ultimate ZX81. Starting with a ZX81+38 PCB designed by Mahjong, and packing modern components, a custom 3D-printed case, a mechanical keyboard, and a healthy dose of retro bling, I’m building the machine I wish I’d had back in 1981.”
  
  
• Large Hardon Collider Poised to Receive Major Tech Upgrade - Yes, there is an unfortunate typo in the headline. No, I'm not going to tell them ”As the LHC undergoes upgrades and becomes the High Luminosity-LHC, the number of collisions will increase to an astounding ~1.5 billion collisions or more per second… A team of scientists have been working for years to create a chip that is capable of digitally examining all 1.5 billion of these collisions in the blink of an eye.”
• The US Army tried portable nuclear power at remote bases 60 years ago – it didn’t go well - HT to DoctorStrangelove again for more on the USA’s habit of taking nuclear reactors to cold places: ”In a tunnel 40 feet beneath the surface of the Greenland ice sheet, a Geiger counter screamed. It was 1964, the height of the Cold War. U.S. soldiers in the tunnel, 800 miles from the North Pole, were dismantling the Army’s first portable nuclear reactor… The Army called the reactor portable, even at 330 tons, because it was built from pieces that each fit in a C-130 cargo plane.” For a more realistically portable option the good doctor also offers the ML-1 Mobile Power System: Reactor in a Box, along with a PDF of The ML-1 Design Report
• Clues By Sam - Fun little logic game: ”Your goal is to figure out who is criminal and who is innocent. Based on what you know, tap on a suspect to choose if they are innocent or criminal. They might reveal a new hint. You cannot guess!”
• A CT scanner reveals surprises inside the 386 processor's ceramic package - Ken Shirriff gets back to the Intel lineage: ”Lumafield performed a 3-D CT scan of the chip for me, revealing six layers of complex wiring hidden inside the ceramic package. Moreover, the chip has nearly invisible metal wires connected to the sides of the package, the spikes below. The scan also revealed that the 386 has two separate power and ground networks: one for I/O and one for the CPU's logic.”
• 2025 Milky Way Photographer of the Year - ”While we can only see a small part of the Milky Way with our own eyes, photography allows us to uncover its hidden beauty—showing details, colors, and patterns in the night sky that usually go unnoticed… Now in its 8th edition, our Milky Way Photographer of the Year brings together 25 of the most stunning night sky images captured around the world—and beyond.” Don Pettit took this one from the ISS
  
  

Happy invoicing!