2025-04-28


etc

  • From Walden Pond to the Ganges - by George Dillard

    the idea of a truly global ice trade — of Massachusetts ice going all the way to India, becoming accessible to more than a tiny elite — was a product of the globalizing nineteenth century and the stubborn drive of one businessman. Frederic Tudor reminds me a little bit of the startup bros of the twenty-first century. When he pioneered the idea of transporting ice all over the world, he was a familiar type: a young, ambitious, stubborn guy from a wealthy background who had skipped college at Harvard to jump into the business world and make money.

    Tudor died a very rich man in 1864, and his industry continued to prosper for a few decades afterward. But inventors eventually devised machines that could make ice from water.

  • The Missteps That Led to a Fatal Plane Crash at Reagan National Airport - The New York Times

    On Jan. 29, the Black Hawk crew did not execute visual separation effectively. The pilots either did not detect the specific passenger jet the controller had flagged, or could not pivot to a safer position. Instead, one second before 8:48 p.m., the helicopter slammed into American Airlines Flight 5342, which was carrying 64 people to Washington from Wichita, Kan., killing everyone aboard both aircraft in a fiery explosion that lit the night sky over the river.

    Direct, immediate intervention was needed that night. Instead of seeing and avoiding Flight 5342, Captain Lobach continued flying straight at it. Investigators might never know why. There is no indication that she was suffering from health issues at the time or that a medical event affected her during those final moments aboard the Black Hawk, according to friends and people familiar with the crash investigation, which included autopsies and performance log reviews. Two seconds after the controller’s cut out instruction about passing behind the jet, Warrant Officer Eaves replied, affirming for the second time that the Black Hawk saw the traffic. “PAT two-five has the aircraft in sight. Request visual separation,” he said. “Vis sep approved,” the controller replied. It was their last communication.

    The Black Hawk was 15 seconds away from crossing paths with the jet. Warrant Officer Eaves then turned his attention to Captain Lobach. He told her he believed that air traffic control wanted them to turn left, toward the east river bank. Turning left would have opened up more space between the helicopter and Flight 5342, which was heading for Runway 33 at an altitude of roughly 300 feet. She did not turn left.

Horseshit


TechSuck / Geek Bait

  • (2014) How many bytes can you pack on a floppy, and how to hack the FDC to achieve it

  • (2007) Tim Paterson: The First DOS Machine

    The software situation did not change until I wrote DOS for this machine, first shipping it in August 1980. When IBM introduced their PC in August 1981, its 8088 processor used 8-bit memory, virtually identical in performance to using 8-bit memory with the SCP 8086 CPU. Except IBM ran their processor at 4.77 MHz while the SCP machine ran at 8 MHz. So the SCP 8086 computer system was about three times faster than the IBM PC. IBM also reintroduced memory limitations that I had specifically avoided in designing the 8086 CPU. For S-100 computers, a low-cost alternative to using a regular computer terminal was to use a video card. The video card, however, used up some of the memory address space. The boot ROM would normally use up address space as well. SCP systems were designed to be used with a terminal, and the boot ROM could be disabled after boot-up. This made the entire 1 MB of memory address space available for RAM. IBM, on the other hand, had limited the address space in their PC to 640 KB of RAM due to video and boot/BIOS ROM. This limitation has been called the "DOS 640K barrier", but it had nothing to do with DOS.

  • USB 2.0 is 25 years old today – the interface standard that changed the world

Democrats

  • Why Sedans Disappeared

    Obama era CAFE standards had the opposite of the desired impact: sedans died, vehicles ballooned in size, and America's streets turned into an SUV parking lot. All thanks to a policy that accidentally incentivized bloat instead of efficiency. Don't get me started on "cash for clunkers!"

World

China