The latest blog posts to take off on Hacker News. 422 posts.
Yesterday a Reddit link started going around the IF circles: "Wait," I thought, "haven't I seen that map before?" No, I had not. But I sort of had? Then I looked through my collection of Zork maps. Then I realized, oh no, I have a collection ...
The New York Times called it a “mystery,” but the United States executed a covert sea operation that was kept secret—until now
Experience history's greatest journey along the veins of the world. Relive the interactive journey from Europe to China, explore the map of the Silk Roads, or choose an outpost to trave back in time to.
Few things are harder to start than a narrative of the thing you “do” and what all the ramifications of it are. For people who don’t make it the center of their lives, your thing …
This was posted to USENET by its author, Ed Nather (utastro!nather), on May 21, 1983.
You're probably reading this page because you've attempted to access some part of my blog (Wandering Thoughts) or CSpace , the wiki thing it's part of. Unfortunately you're using a browser version that my anti-crawler precautions consider suspicious, most often because it's too old (most often this applies to versions…
An inquiry into how critics stumble
And it was so avoidable! The bug was from a piece of dead code, left over from the previous Ariane 4 mission a decade before.
I've been on many projects that get canceled. We're building cool stuff. We're going above and beyond, and we're excited. But the project encounters reality, shifting priorities, or budgeting constraints, and the work never goes anywhere. It always feels tragic, but then I move on. But what if I didn't let a project…
As recent politics illustrates, Eton has a reputation for producing pupils who achieve high office, but who are not sufficiently competent to hold high office. One thing that is rarely mentioned, however, is all the murder.
Back in 2017 I was fortunate enough to travel to RAF Lossiemouth together with a bunch of Finnish media courtesy of BAE Systems to get up and close with the Eurofighter Typhoon group operating ther…
...that was the question I asked my Dad, a radio engineer for many decades, who worked at the biggest AM station in St. Louis, KMOX. The station is approaching its centennial in 2025, as are—some YouTube commenters argue—its primary audience! I recorded that video during my convalescence at my parents' house (I am…
Cistercian numerals were invented by the Cistercian order of monks in the 13th century. Giuseppe Frisella explains how the notation system works: A vertical str
I am writing this memo to explain what happened to the case our NeXTCube Computer, Serial Number AA001032.
It's time to add another family of emulated older technology to the Internet Archive.The vast majority of platforms within what we call The Emularity happens because of the work of MAME Team, which has spent over 25 years adding support for tens of thousands of machines, platforms, and tools to their breathtaking…
How much do you know about how the PSTN (that is, the public telephone network) works? At some point long long ago, it was signalled using in-band frequencies, which facilitated the infamous phreaking using so-called “blue boxes”. This led to a switch to out of band signalling, ultimately culminating in something…
When my parents sold the house and moved to the great white north, they dropped off a few boxes of my stuff that was still in the garage. ...
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It has been over 20 years since I wrote " Lisping at JPL ", half memoir and half geeky screed (and all of it half-baked) about how an obscur...
Early in his career, Kevin Mitnick successfully hacked California law. He told me the story when he heard about my new book, which he partially recounts his 2012 book, Ghost in the Wires. The setup is that he just discovered that there’s warrant for his arrest by the California Youth Authority, and he’s trying to…
My personal website and blog
This morning I stumbled upon [a video](https://www.thegreatcoursesplus.com/films/title/ibn-battutas-search-for-knowledge) that mentions one of the famous traveler, Ibn Battuta. And the deeper I dig, the more fascinated I am by his journey. It is one thing to visit a place and buy merchandises before return to home…
“Good night, Malaysian three seven zero.”
This post explains how Amazon replaced ISBNs with ASINs (Amazon Standard Identification Numbers) for its Catalog Database Key
These things used to be pieces of furniture
Intel introduced the 8086 microprocessor in 1978 and it had a huge influence on computing. I'm reverse-engineering the 8086 by examining t...
