The newest IEEE Spectrum has a nice article on debugging a data anomaly with the Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11 spacecraft. It is a short and interesting read – one of the key issues was the need to review many years of historical data retrieved from a variety of physical media formats.
Pioneer Spacecraft and Data Preservation
December 20, 2012
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archaeology, datamining, Dead Media, hardware | 
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Posted by Karl W. Reinsch
Dead Media: The CD?
January 30, 2010One subject of interest to me is dead media. Plenty of others have written about the changes in how we consume and purchase music. I’ll simply link to some interesting read on the topic:
- A discussion of the death of the music album as an art form, and how Radiohead’s “Kid A” could be considered one of the last true albums
- The Beatles’ remasters as the last true CDs
- the resurgence of vinyl
- the last place where music cassette tapes are still in use
- a social history of the MP3
Lastly, when did redbox start offering used DVDs in their vending machines and has it had a noticeable impact on the used dvd market?
No Comments » | Dead Media | Tagged: CD, Dead Media, DVD, LP, mp3, redbox, songlifting, vinyl | Permalink
Posted by Karl W. Reinsch
The Apollo Mission Programs
October 8, 2009I note with some interest the recent release of some of the lunar module code in celebration of the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing.
This is related to the Virtual AGC project, which is an effort to build an emulator for the Apollo Guidance Computer.
I’m fascinated by the constraints placed on computing resources in outer space environments, so I find this all quite interesting.
I’ll also take the opportunity to plug James Tomayko‘s book “Computers In Space: Journeys With NASA” – the content should be obvious from the title. I had the opportunity to hear Dr. Tomayko speak on this topic when he was on the ACM lecture circuit in the early 1990s and found his talk fascinating.
No Comments » | Dead Media | Tagged: Apollo, Apollo Guidance Computer, archaeology, James Tomayko, NASA | Permalink
Posted by Karl W. Reinsch
