Odd Lots
- The very first magnetic hard drive had 50 platters, stored 5 megabytes, and weighed over a ton. IBM was so proud of the RAMAC system that included the hard drive that it would take a demo unit on tour, to show it to a skeptical business community. Must have been hard on the truck’s suspension.
- Compare that original hard drive to Intel’s Edison, which is an X86 Quark processor and associated logic in an SD card chassis. The comments to the story are cautionary: There’s not much hard information on Edison right now, and it’s not clear whether it adheres to the full SD card spec or the mechanical spec only. Rumor holds that it runs Linux, though what the connectivity is I’m not sure.
- Edison is targeted at the idiotically named “Internet-of-things,” which, given Bruce Schneier’s cautions, I’m not entirely sure I want to clutch uncritically to my oddly shaped ribcage.
- If Edison’s a little too small, consider Intel’s Next Unit of Computing (NUC) machine, which crams a non-gamer desktop into a box 4 1/2″ X 4 1/2″ X 1 1/2″. $700. As best I can tell, that would do pretty much whatever I do now on my quadcore, minus hard disk mobility.
- I don’t remember when I last saw a sunspot this big. I think 2003. Must … scan … 10… meters…
- If you’re under the illusion that TV news outlets actually write the news stories that they broadcast, well, watch Conan O’Brian’s video mashup of 23 newcasters saying precisely the same thing. And it’s a really dumb thing, too. (Thanks to Pete Albrecht for the link.)
- Calling all pop music fans Of A Certain Age. (Like me.) This may interest you: Forgotten Hits has a collection of top 40 music surveys for various (mostly Midwestern) radio stations from 1956-1980.
- Talk about planned obsolecence. This truck is guaranteed not to rust…but it will melt within six months, tops.
- We could sure use a few of these right now.
Posted in: Odd Lots.
Tagged: astronomy · hardware · media · music
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For #1 hits back through a century, check out http://bettylou.zzruss.com/no1hits.htm
I had a lot of fun finding the top of the charts on the day each of my brothers and sisters was born. Some day it will form the basis of a skit at a family reunion. Me, I’m “Rock Around the Clock”!
I saw that article on the Edison over at HackADay…that’s so cool.
It’s also amazing that the very tiny microSD cards typically have an ARM running at 50 to 80mips as the controller. They need the cpu since flash is so riddled with bad sections… The ARM is a COB package and costs about a quarter each in lot 10,000+
A 32 bit cpu running at 50-80mips in every tiny microSD..who would have ever imagined.
Here’s a nice intro to The Exploration and Exploitation of an SD Memory card….this is from the recent 30c3 conference in Berlin (In English)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPEzLNh5YIo
Hi Jeff,
saw in some earlier posts you where working on a Free Pascal/Lazarus Book. Just wanted to let you know a good book on that subject would be great. I recently switched all my development over to Lazarus and don’t even use Delphi anymore. Free Pascal and Lazarus totally rock and they are going to release version 1.2 of the Lazarus IDE soon.
Yes, and I intend to go back to it after I’m through with my current book project. I can’t describe the book yet (and I’m not the sole author) but it includes a short section on Lazarus, as available for the Raspberry Pi.
Not sure what else I can tell you right now. I’d like to sell the book to a real publisher, but if I can’t I’ll publish it myself. Let’s just say that, having once co-owned the largest book publisher in Arizona, I know how to do it.
Many thanks for the encouragement. Noodges on this front always welcome.