I’ve stated before that computer science is science. So: from Dartmouth College, a semi-short documentary about the “Birth of BASIC”, featuring Tom Kurtz.
Bonus #1: Here’s a mildly interesting sidelight on science history. In 1945, Kodak had a problem: batches of X-ray film were ruined. Specifically, the film was peppered with dark spots. Turns out the problem was…the bomb.
“How Kodak Exposed The Atomic Bomb”.
Bonus #2: Hey, they even call this a “Leadership Through Science” film! “The Inside Story Of Modern Gasoline: Science Fashioned Molecules For Top Performance”, from 1946 and the Standard Oil Company of Indiana.
You may know this particular Standard Oil better as Amoco, which is what the company was renamed to in 1985 (though they were using the Amoco name before that). They merged with BP in 1998.
After last week’s storm ended and the ice melted sufficiently, both Lawrence and I had trouble getting our cars started.
In my case, the car was sitting from Friday the 12th to Saturday the 19th, so a little more than a week, and it seemed like the battery was basically dead. I have a jumper box: when I hooked it up, though, the car would respond (dash lights, etc.) but it didn’t seem like my jumper box was providing enough power to kick the starter over.
I ended up calling AAA, who arrived within 30 minutes of my call (!) and brought their giant jumper box. The car started right away: I let it idle and drove it around for about an hour total, and didn’t have any problems with it starting after that. (Knock wood.)
What brings this to mind?
“Can We Make This FROZEN Truck Run During A Polar Vortex!?” I have to say: this does not look entirely unlike my situation. I was in a suburban driveway instead of a field next to a barn, but other than that…
Bonus #1: “Costco Boost Pack: Electrician vs. Truck Starter”. Somehow this reminds me of standing outside in the cold with that jumper box…
Bonus #2: My dad used to go around to various places in the winter and cut wood for firewood. What we didn’t burn in our own fireplace, he sold to friends and neighbors. Dad had side hustles before there were side hustles.
I was never able to talk him into doing anything with explosives, though.
Bonus #3: 60 Minutes Australia visits “the coldest town in the world”, Oymiakon.
I thought it might be fun to dip back into the AT&T Tech Channel and their archives, and pick out some stuff related to telephones and telephony.
All of these videos have modern introductions, but I’ve set the embedded versions to skip over that intro. If you want to rewind, you’re certainly welcome to: I don’t control your browser. (Never mind that bitcoin miner I opened in a separate window.)
“Good-Bye, Central” is from 1978, and documents the last places that actually used central switchboards, instead of the dial system. This is just a little over 10 minutes, and even less if you skip over the intro.
“The Hello Machine” is also short, and is historically interesting: it was directed by Carroll Ballard in 1974. Mr. Ballard went on to direct “The Black Stallion”, “Never Cry Wolf”, and “Fly Away Home”, as well as doing second unit direction on “Star Wars”.
I know it might be a snoozer for some. (I think when you say “wordless film-poem”, you’ve lost Lawrence. Unless it has music by Philip Glass. Though now I’m wondering: could you do a “wordless film-poem” with tanks?) But: only 13 minutes, and less if you skip the intro.
One more: “To Communicate is the Beginning”, from 1976. This is a bit longer (32 minutes).
There are other interesting folks in this besides Brattain and Welles (though you know I had to use this because Welles): I won’t spoil all of them for you, but I will say I was surprised that Vladimir Zworykin shows up. (He actually died in 1982, at the age of 94.)
Another spoiler (possibly): the Bryant Pond Telephone Company lasted until 1981. The company was sold to Oxford Networks, and Bryant Pond’s cranked system was converted to direct dial and incorporated into the regular network in 1983.
I can’t find any evidence I’ve used this before. Google doesn’t return any results when I search my site, but I’m not sure how it escaped me for this long.
Bonus: this is something called “Flight Into Time” from the 1950s and TWA. The unifying theme is travel through the Mediterranean and the area around it: Portugal, Spain, Italy, Israel, Syria & Egypt.
I’d like to think there would be some issues fencing bulldogs stolen at gunpoint. For example, I think most people who would pay money for a French bulldog probably want one with papers, which I’m sure the dog walker was not carrying around with him…
I was reminded last night that the National Security Agency has a YouTube channel.
I’m not ready to post the video that reminded me yet: that will come up next time I want to do a radio post. However, I thought I’d do both some more history, and something I haven’t done in quite a while: cryptography.
Also, I’m posting three of these, but they are all fairly short. I’ve been running long for a while now, and figure youse guys could use some short history as a break.
“Cryptology in the American Revolution: Ciphers” part 1:
Part 2:
Part 3:
And a bonus for people who would like something a little more recent: “Civil War Signals”.
I don’t like falling back on the same people over and over again. In this case, I am pleading the timeliness exemption.
For those of you who may not have heard, there was an incident over the weekend involving a United 777 flying from Denver to Honolulu: one of the engines failed and the engine inlet separated from the aircraft. The aircraft was able to make an emergency return to Denver, and there were no injuries on board. Parts of the aircraft fell into a neighborhood in the flight path, and some of those parts went through the roof of a house, but there were no injuries on the ground.
So the question comes up: what do you do in these situations? What do you do if you’re flying a plane with 239 people on board, and the plane starts shedding chunks of itself on departure?
I’ve said this before, but one of the answers is: first, fly the plane. At least, for as long as you can: it doesn’t always end this way. (But we have learned a lot since 1979.)
“Captain Joe” put up a video explaining what happened (including what checklists the pilots would have used) from his perspective, based on what we know now.
Bonus #1: From the VASAviation channel, here’s the traffic between the United flight and Denver ATC.
This video states the plane made a full stop on the runway, where no problems were found, and then it was towed off to parking. However, the article I linked earlier says that the right engine was actually on fire when the plane landed: emergency services extinguished the fire and then it was towed off.
Which kind of made me wonder when I read it: why did they not evacuate the aircraft if the engine was on fire? My suspicion is that it was a trade-off. As I understand it, the expectation is that anytime they have to use those emergency slides, people are going to get hurt. They aren’t designed to be gentle, they’re designed to get you off the airplane fast, and there are usually bruises, sprains, or even broken bones associated with that. Emergency services may have felt the fire was small enough to be controlled, and decided the risk to passengers was manageable. It seems like that was the right choice in this case…
Bonus #2: sort of unrelated, but I wanted to put this here for reasons. “Reel Engineering” covers “No Highway In the Sky”.
We watched “No Highway” not too long ago (it is available in a reasonably priced bluray (affiliate link)) and I think it is a fine movie. The book, to my mind, is even better, and I would genuinely like to see more people seek out Nevil Shute’s work.
It seems like he’s mostly remembered for On the Beach, which, you know, is an okay novel and worth being remembered for. But he wrote a lot of other stuff as well: besides No Highway, I enthusiastically recommend Trustee from the Toolroom and Slide Rule, his autobiography of his experiences in the aviation industry.
Been a while since I’ve done any vintage police training videos, mostly because not that many have been popping up.
Here’s one for you, from the FBI apparently sometime in the 1970s: “Examination Of Stolen Cars”.
Bonus #1: Don’t you love stupid people getting what is coming to them? I know I do. Plus: CanCon!
“Bait Car Greatest Hits” from the Vancouver Sun.
Bonus #2: “Accident Investigation” from 1974. Not one of those traffic safety films, but more a guide for the patrol officer on how to handle these situations: use your car as a shield, don’t move injured people, watch for spilled gasoline, etc…
It seems to me that a lot of folks I know are interested in the computers of the space program. Especially the Apollo Guidance Computer.
Well, here you go: from the National Museum of Computing, “Light Years Ahead: The 1969 Apollo Guidance Computer”. Bonus points: the presenter, Robert Wills, is (or at least was as of October 2019) a Cisco employee.
Bonus video: “Common Misconceptions in Aerodynamics”, a presentation to University of Michigan engineering students by Doug McLean, a retired Boeing Technical Fellow.
Bonus #1: There was a five part BBC series called “Cathedral”, in which the film makers went around to various famous British cathedrals. This one I think is particularly noteworthy: “Murder at Canterbury”.
I missed posting a historical note on the 850th anniversary, mostly because I was confused about the date of Thomas Becket’s murder: I keep seeing December 29, 1170, but is that Julian or Gregorian? I feel like that’s kind of a stupid question, but I honestly don’t know if the various online sources I’ve seen have already done the date translation, or if they just assume everyone knows it is Julian and leave the date conversion up to the reader?
Bonus #2: Since Wednesday was Ash Wednesday, and we’re now in the Lenten season, how about something thematically appropriate? “Secrets of the Last Supper”, from “Ancient Mysteries” on the History Channel.