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- Obscure Creators of the World #1 – Federico Faggin
- Ukraine v Russia Is a Tech War Like Union v Confederacy
- My Mother Was a Ukrainian Refugee
- Following in the Parents’ Footsteps
- Launching US Rockets From Soviet Bombers
- Ekranoplans are Back! Maybe. The Regent Seaglider
- How Re-industrialization Now Works: GO Lab and Wood Fiber Insulation
- Why Care That “Foundation” Is Bad?
- Space vs Balloon Tourism
- The First Exa-Transistor Computer
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Author Archives: jlredford
Obscure Creators of the World #1 – Federico Faggin
The people we know about are usually the ones with publicity staffs. Their success depends on how widely known they are. This is obviously the case for sports figures, actors, musicians, and politicians, but also applies to technicals like Steve … Continue reading
Ukraine v Russia Is a Tech War Like Union v Confederacy
In the 1860s the Europeans watched the American Civil War in horrified fascination. It had been almost 50 years since the Napoleonic Wars, when they had been in a real war with matched combatants. They had been mainly fighting colonial … Continue reading
My Mother Was a Ukrainian Refugee
Let me start by encouraging you to support the Ukrainians in any way you can. I gave money to AmeriCares, a relief outfit that is sending medical supplies and personnel to help refugees in Poland. The International Red Cross was … Continue reading
Following in the Parents’ Footsteps
I just read a fun steampunk-ish novel, Angelmaker, by Nick Harkaway (2012). It’s set in the present day, but takes place in a London that is just as ancient and weird as one would hope. A morose young man who … Continue reading
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Launching US Rockets From Soviet Bombers
In the last post I complained about how ugly the Soviet ekranoplans were. I’m glad I can now pass along a story about one of their really beautiful planes – the TU-160 supersonic bomber. It almost got used for doing … Continue reading
Ekranoplans are Back! Maybe. The Regent Seaglider
The Soviets used to build the world’s biggest and ugliest airplanes: They called them by the ugly term “ekranoplans”, or “screen effect” in Russian. They flew low over water, and got lift from the cushion of air between the wings … Continue reading
How Re-industrialization Now Works: GO Lab and Wood Fiber Insulation
I was driving through central Maine recently, and was struck by how dreary the landscape looked. The houses and towns looked run-down, and store fronts were vacant. This is an old story about industry leaving rural areas, and can be … Continue reading
Why Care That “Foundation” Is Bad?
The new TV miniseries “Foundation” is full of meaningless CGI, ponderous religious imagery, thudding messages about terrorism, imperialism and climate change, and dialogue so clunky that even a serious actor like Jared Harris can’t deliver it. So what? There are … Continue reading
Space vs Balloon Tourism
After a long hiatus, space tourism came back this year. The last trip was in 2012 to the ISS, but there have recently been four trips: two sub-orbital flights by Blue Origin in July and October, one by Virgin Galactic … Continue reading
The First Exa-Transistor Computer
That is, the first single system to have more than 1018 transistors, more than a quintillion, or 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 . It’s the Fugaku supercomputer in Japan: It’s the world’s fastest machine as of November 2020, as defined by the benchmarks on … Continue reading
A Niche in the Library of Babel 