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approved links The Institute of Official Cheer
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2.24.02 Do you miss the old, fiercely ugly 1996-vintage World Wide Web? Well, here it is back again in all its hideous glory. 2.21.02 Someone got here through a Google search for "yamato cannon fodder." Hee hee. Oh, and incidentally, I'm not bitter. Nope, not me. 2.20.02 Two data storage mechanisms from the early days of computing: the Williams Tube, in which data is displayed on an ordinary black-and-white television tube and then read back off it again by a metal plate pressed against the screen, and the acoustic delay line, in which data is converted into a series of sound pulses and played through an endless loop of wire. I want you to know I'm not making any value judgements here. I'm just layin' 'em out, that's all. Finally the Game Boy Advance is getting off the playgrounds and into the office where it belongs. 2.19.02 As if we didn't have enough cats already. 2.18.02 A weapon system that never was: the B-70 Valkyrie and its escort, the F-108 Rapier. Both planes were designed to cruise at Mach 3, far faster than the top speed of any of today's non-experimental aircraft. The famous XB-70 is the B-70's test article, while the F-108 never got out of the design stage. The programs were canceled in 1959 when it became clear that ballistic missiles could accomplish their goal (the destruction of all life on Earth) much more safely and efficiently. I certainly feel safer. Continuing the military theme of this weblog, I was surprised to find out recently that the UAV (unmanned air vehicle) concept is hardly new after all. Several attempts were made by the U.S. to convert decommissioned bombers into remote-controlled kamikaze planes during World War II. The technology wasn't quite up to the job and the project was cancelled but we won anyway, so I guess it's all right. In the end, though, let's not forget about the important stuff. 2.17.02 Flash! U. S. special forces liberate an adorable puppy from a terrorist camp in Afghanistan! Flash! Dave Barry column actually funny! Here's all seven parts (so far) of Dave Barry's reportage from the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, Utah: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7. This stuff's almost good enough to make me think we should keep the Olympics around after all. The U.S.S. Massachusetts is a really cool ship. It fired the first and last battleship shells of World War II, played a vital part in seemingly every major engagement in the Pacific theater and, if that wasn't enough, it singlehandedly defeated France. 2.12.02 Over at Gamasutra the third installment of Ernest Adams's long-running video game design gripefest "Bad Game Designer, No Twinkie!" has just come out. Here's Part One and Part Two, a year or three old but (sadly) still just as incisive. You will have to register for the site, but it's free. 2.09.02 The Lois McMaster Bujold-style uterine replicator (a.k.a., an artificial womb) is very close to practicality. And while we're being surprised by stuff, here's Lunar Magic, a level editor for Super Mario World. |