gjkood

Just the other day I heard about the heroic effort[0] to restore communication with Voyager 2 after they inadvertently changed the antenna to point in the wrong direction due to some planned manoeuvres.

Definitely worth a listen if you get the time.

For me personally, I feel this project is the greatest engineering effort in human history bringing together the work of Newton, Kepler, the mathematics of the celestial navigation, gravitational assist techniques[1], etc. necessary to keep a little probe on its route accurately over 50 years in space.

[0] https://www.npr.org/2023/08/02/1191341035/nasa-voyager-2-spa...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Minovitch

One of the best shows I have ever watched. It evokes the early history (though fictional) of the personal computing revolution.

The character of Cameron Howe resonated with me greatly.

What a fantastic show.

First person I thought about when I read the title.

If you haven't already, I would highly recommend this book[1] on Seymour Cray. An amazing read.

1. https://www.amazon.com/Supermen-Seymour-Technical-Wizards-Su...

The best non-fiction book I have ever read is 'The Making of the Atomic Bomb'[1] by Richard Rhodes.

Fantastic early history of the people that eventually comprise the Manhattan Project. I feel any person who is interested in physics should read the book.

It is mindblowing the scale of the facilities that they had to build to generate a very small amount of the fissile material needed.

Strangely enough, I started on (a few times already) the second part, 'Dark Sun' [2], which is about the making of the Hydrogen Bomb focused on Edward Teller but I haven't been able to complete it yet.

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Making-Atomic-Bomb-Richard-Rhodes/dp/...

[2] https://www.amazon.com/Dark-Sun-Making-Hydrogen-Bomb-ebook/d...

The show was talking about chip packaging companies to create the end usable chips from the silicon produced.

Just for the construction work alone, they mentioned that the pipefitters local union membership has doubled since 2020. Refinery level complexity on the specialized piping needs for the plants.

Special training programs geared towards the semiconductor industry being offered in the local Community and Trade schools training people to be the skilled and semi-skilled workforce for these companies.

People who were teachers now making four times the income working on the construction project.

I believe the new term for Phoenix, AZ and other major cities in AZ is "Silicon Desert". You can see a map of the many companies in the high tech space in AZ at the following site.

https://siliconmaps.com/silicon-desert/

I have been listening to Kai Ryssdal's Marketplace on NPR/KQED the last few days on my commute home from work.

The topic for the last several days was on the CHIPS And Science Act and the new Semiconductor Fabs being built by TSMC and Intel in Phoenx, AZ.

It will be several years before the plants already being constructed will go into production but there is a whole ecosystem of current construction, education of the future workforce that will need to be hired in the future. Not to mention all the ancilliary companies that are needed to support these gigantic plants in the area.

The dollars from CHIPS Act are not only bringing in the manufacturing plants but will be essential to bring this lost capability back to the US in the scale needed both from an economic and national security perspective.

It was great listening to the show and the impact the CHIPS Act on people's lives already happening now and in the future.

For anyone interested the links to the specific shows are available as podcasts here.

https://www.npr.org/podcasts/381444600/marketplace

Early in my career I once optimized an inherited 10,000+ line C program to less than 500 lines. It was a C program making SQL calls into a Sybase database.

No, not because I had some brilliant insight but for the simple assumption that my predecessor may not have been aware of how to write functions or use parameters to supply variable data to the SQL query. They had literally written the same SQL statement inline with a couple of changed values in each SQL call.

I just rewrote the code making the SQL call as a function call with bind variables as parameters into the function. All the replicated inline code was replaced with the function being called in a loop with the changed bind values supplied from an array.

Interesting timing.

Just watching 'Tokyo Vice'[1] on Amazon Prime now.

There was an episode or two where Jake is chasing down a Yakusa Fan Magazine author to get intel on Tozawa.

Amazing Show! Reminds me a bit of 'The Wire'.

1. https://www.amazon.com/Tokyo-Vice-Season-1/dp/B0B73QR4TM

I started out my computing journey on the ZX81 learning little BASIC programs. I graduated to a full color MSX Spectravideo [1] afterwards. I loved making little graphics programs and playing with the sound chip.

I wish I had seen the original articles in time to order one from the first batch. I am eager to order one when they decide to make another batch.

[1] https://www.msx.org/wiki/Spectravideo_SVI-728

I wonder if anyone recalls the little worker robots in the 1972 movie "Silent Running". [1]

I don't know what it was about those fellows but I felt emotionally attached to them. It was not that they had any visible means of conveying emotions. They just went about their tasks quietly and diligently.

For some reason they pulled at my heart strings. It was quite heart wrenching to see them destroyed in the last part of the movie.

[1] - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0067756/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

Its still alive!

Even though NASA would likely have restablished connection with Voyager 2 sometime in October during the next pre-scheduled alignment window there would be an element of uncertainty about its health. However they have detected signs that the spacecraft is still functioning.

What an amazing project and a testament to the foresight to plan for such eventualities.

OT wrt. Shakespeare, but David Suchet's portrayal of Agatha Christie's Poirot is one of my favorite shows.

What a wonderful classy portrayal of the character!

I enjoy it more with each repeated viewing.

If you don't mind, can you clarify what is the fast front-end framework that you mentioned above?

For those new to MicroPython or to the ESP8266 line of microprocessors here is a talk that I gave at a PyCaribbean conference in 2017. [1]

Its a bit long winded but I tried to touch upon everything that a new entrant to the space would want to know to start playing with the board immediately.

I am not a natural public speaker so please excuse my verbal (or other) tics.

I have also linked the presentation PDF. [2] You can scan the entire PDF in less than 10 minutes to get the gist of the 45 minute+ YouTube video.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ctB8VMm6RA

[2] https://github.com/spicecoaster/pycaribbean2017

Couldn't agree more!

When I am forced to use a Windows environment I find myself reaching out to these evergreen tools in many situations and is frustrated by having to find workarounds to these tools that should be ubiquitous tools in any OS.

Everything I learned almost 30 years ago still holds true today when it comes to the basics.

And yes I know of Cygwin, MKS toolkit etc, but trying to convince corporate IT in a Microsoft Centric world to install these usually hits a brick wall.

A very good choice Karsteski, probably one of the best online CS programs out there. Wishing you the best in getting in.

I have embarked on another MOOC catering to a business degree and still figuring out how to balance course load with personal and professional life but I am loving it.

Learning a lot and the courses encourage group/team assignments working with students from all over the world. Learning to navigate the global team work model.

Good luck.

Have you tried some of the old "Graphics Gems" series books yet? [1], [2], [3] They are not CS fundamentals but will help you out with the necessary concepts, math and algorithms for graphics programming and ray-tracing.

As others have mentioned any books on Data Structures & Algorithms are a must. [4], [5], [6]

However in my opinion, trying to understand CS fundamentals without undergoing some sort of formal education is a chore. You won't know what you are missing. Going through an established approved syllabus will give you a fuller understanding. But that is only if you are interested in the long haul.

There are a number of MOOCs that may fit the bill allowing you to slowly gather the knowledge without sacrificing too much time and focus on a day job to keep you going. I feel they are also great value for money for what you get. Some of them are from very reputable names if that is important. [7][8].

Since you have a B.Sc you can do the Masters level but there are also Bachelors level courses. [9]

1. https://www.amazon.com/Graphics-Gems-Andrew-S-Glassner/dp/01...

2. https://www.amazon.com/Graphics-Gems-II-IBM-No/dp/0120644819...

3. https://www.amazon.com/Graphics-Gems-No-3-David-Kirk/dp/0124...

4. https://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Algorithms-3rd-MIT-Press...

5. https://www.amazon.com/Algorithms-4th-Robert-Sedgewick/dp/03...

6. https://www.amazon.com/Algorithm-Design-Manual-Steven-Skiena...

7. https://www.coursera.org/degrees/master-of-computer-science-...

8. https://www.coursera.org/degrees/mcit-penn

9. https://www.coursera.org/degrees/bachelor-of-science-compute...

Indeed! I am sure I missed quite a few high speed systems.

India is in the shape of a diamond, where the most populous cities would be at the four points of the diamond aligned North-South. A high speed train network that would cover Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai and Mumbai together as a fully connected graph will probably have the highest volume of traffic. [1]

A trip from Trivandrum, Kerala or Kanya Kumari, Tamil Nadu in the South of India to the stations in Assam or Arunachal Pradesh in the North East of India would be some of the longest trips that you can take.

India has also some of the most beautiful railway lines in the world with switchbacks connecting the plains to the hill stations. [2]

Also some of the most expensive train rides. [3]

Of course there's air travel for the time conscious but the trains are for the adventurous travelers.

BTW, One of the most interesting stays I had in the US was at the Chattanooga Choo Choo in Chattanooga, TN. [4]

[1] https://www.trainspnrstatus.com/images/indianrailwaymap.jpg

[2] https://navrangindia.blogspot.com/2017/09/amazing-darjeeling...

[3] https://traveltriangle.com/blog/luxury-trains-in-india/

[4] https://www.choochoo.com/

The Indian Railways is definitely an interesting organization.

Doing a cursory glance at a Wikipedia entry, some of the stats:

1. Established in 1832

2. 3rd largest railway network in the world

3. 8th largest employer in the world.

I was hoping to see something about the actual Rail Track details but this is more of a civil engineering specs for building construction.

I am curious about when and how Indian Railways will incorporate high speed rail such as the French TGV, Japanese Shinkansen or Chinese CRH.

On a visit to China in 2017 and taking a short trip in the Chinese CRH, I heard stats about 2,000 high speed trains a day. It was an interesting experience traveling at speeds greater than 300 kmh and not feeling a thing.

Of course I am curious about when the USA will incorporate the same.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Railways

Ah MSX! My first computer was a Spectravideo MSX machine.

Loved it!

I learned programming on a Sinclair ZX81 so getting the MSX was a huge boost in graphics and color.

But it was the 80s so anything with color was great!

1. https://www.msx.org/wiki/Spectravideo_SVI-728

"Tell ‘Em What You’re Going To Tell ‘Em; Next, Tell ‘Em; Next, Tell ‘Em What You Told ‘Em" - attributed to lots of people all the way back to Aristotle. [1]

I know this is not the same thing as the linked article but I just love this fundamental guidance to public speaking.

1. https://quoteinvestigator.com/2017/08/15/tell-em/

I would recommend watching "The Durells in Corfu" for some wonderful stories about a British family living in a remote Greek village.

1. https://www.amazon.com/Masterpiece-Durrells-Corfu-Seasons-1-...

I wonder how the availability of Starlink in the truly remote areas will make remote work more accessible.

Of course being truly remote also means lack of accessibility to basic facilities that we take for granted.

But there is a certain romanticism about being able to work remotely while enjoying the beautiful vistas.

If you live near San Francisco, the Bay Area or Silicon Valley there is a Monarch Butterfly overwintering site in the Ardenwood Historical Farms, Fremont.

The season is from November to February.

Just searched for Hansen's book on Amazon. The only one available was 'U.S. Nuclear Weapons the Secret History'. Steep price, $159 for a used copy.

“Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds” - J. Robert Oppenheimer's thoughts on witnessing the first atomic bomb test. A quote from the Bhagavad-Gita.

That bomb was finally measured to be 'only' 20 kilotons. [1]

God I hope one of these is never dropped in anger.

1. https://www.osti.gov/opennet/manhattan-project-history/Event...

One of the most interesting non-fiction books I have read is Richard Rhodes' "The Making of the Atomic Bomb". It talks about how the majority of the brains behind the Manhattan Project came from one school in Budapest, Hungary called the 'Minta School'. John von Neumann being one of those geniuses.

[1] The Making of the Atomic Bomb, Richard Rhodes https://www.amazon.com/Making-of-Atomic-Bomb-audiobook/dp/B0...

RIP Sir Clive Sinclair.

His Sinclair ZX81 got me into my love for computing.

I wouldn't be where I am without that exposure.

"In a YouTube video, Toyota Chief Executive Akio Toyoda apologized for the incident and said he offered to meet the person but was unable to do so."

Is it just me or does it feel refreshing to hear a CEO accepting some responsibility involving one of it's products regardless of what the investigation may finally reveal as the root cause.

The buck does indeed stop at his desk.