Snippets (technology)
Things to use or delete. See Snippets.
Quality control anecdote
True story. I used to work for a company that did low-cost assembly for big vendors. Razor-thin margins, which means that the whole business depends on a highly efficient supply chain composed of other low-cost suppliers. When it came to a specific production line, a change of less than 1% in components rejection would either cause a financial loss on the whole batch, or create an expensive shipping buffer which also incurred unsustainable losses. So at one point the company ditched a "mostly high-quality" supplier for a consistently terrible one. Being able to tune the production line and let it run at a predictable rate was immensely more profitable than getting fewer average component rejections.
https://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=10736551&cid=54613935
Whirlwind I computer
Whirlwind I computer
Phantogram
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phantogram
Hinman collator
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinman_collator
Teleview
Teleview was a system for projecting stereoscopic motion pictures invented by Laurens Hammond, best known as the inventor of the Hammond organ. It made its public debut on 27 December 1922 at the Selwyn Theatre in New York City, the only theater ever equipped with the system. The program included several short films, a live presentation of projected 3D shadows, and the 95-minute feature film M.A.R.S. (or The Man From M.A.R.S.), later re-released in 2D as Radio-Mania.
Submarine cable disruptions
The 2008 submarine cable disruptions were three separate incidents of major damage to submarine optical communication cables around the world. The first incident caused damage involving up to five high-speed Internet submarine communications cables in the Mediterranean Sea and Middle East from 23 January to 4 February 2008, causing internet disruptions and slowdowns for users in the Middle East and India. The incident called into doubt the safety of the undersea portion of the Internet cable system. In late February there was another outage, this time affecting a fiber optic connection between Singapore and Jakarta.
On 19 December, FLAG FEA, GO-1, SEA-ME-WE 3, and SEA-ME-WE 4 were all cut.
2011 submarine cable disruption refers to two incidents of submarine communications cables cut off on 25 December 2011. The first cut off occurred to SEA-ME-WE 3 at Suez canal, Egypt and the second cut off occurred to i2i which took place between Chennai, India and Singapore line. Both the incidents had caused the internet disruptions and slowdowns for users in the South Asia and Middle East in particular UAE.
Nuclear events
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Beard_(nuclear_weapon)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polaris_(UK_nuclear_programme)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevaline
Shortt–Synchronome clock
Shortt–Synchronome clock
The Shortt–Synchronome free pendulum clock was a complex precision electromechanical pendulum clock invented in 1921 by British railway engineer William Hamilton Shortt in collaboration with horologist Frank Hope-Jones, and manufactured by the Synchronome Co., Ltd. of London, UK. They were the most accurate pendulum clocks ever commercially produced, and became the highest standard for timekeeping between the 1920s and the 1940s, after which mechanical clocks were superseded by quartz time standards. They were used worldwide in astronomical observatories, naval observatories, in scientific research, and as a primary standard for national time dissemination services. The Shortt was the first clock to be a more accurate timekeeper than the Earth itself; it was used in 1926 to detect tiny seasonal changes in the Earth's rotation rate. Shortt clocks achieved accuracy of around a second per year, although a recent measurement indicated they were even more accurate. About 100 were produced between 1922 and 1956.
Shortt clocks kept time with two pendulums, a master pendulum swinging in a vacuum tank and a slave pendulum in a separate clock, which was synchronized to the master by an electric circuit and electromagnets. The slave pendulum was attached to the timekeeping mechanisms of the clock, leaving the master pendulum virtually free of external disturbances.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shortt%E2%80%93Synchronome_clock
Pstarch-Synchronome syndrome
The Shortt–Synchronome free pendulum clock was a complex precision electromechanical pendulum clock invented in 1921 by British railway engineer William Hamilton Shortt in collaboration with horologist Frank Hope-Jones, and manufactured by the Synchronome Co., Ltd. of London, UK. They were the most accurate pendulum clocks ever commercially produced, and became the highest standard for timekeeping between the 1920s and the 1940s, after which mechanical clocks were superseded by quartz time standards. They were used worldwide in astronomical observatories, naval observatories, in scientific research, and as a primary standard for national time dissemination services. The Shortt was the first clock to be a more accurate timekeeper than the Earth itself; it was used in 1926 to detect tiny seasonal changes in the Earth's rotation rate. Shortt clocks achieved accuracy of around a second per year, although a recent measurement indicated they were even more accurate. About 100 were produced between 1922 and 1956.
Shortt clocks kept time with two pendulums, a master pendulum swinging in a vacuum tank and a slave pendulum in a separate clock, which was synchronized to the master by an electric circuit and electromagnets. The slave pendulum was attached to the timekeeping mechanisms of the clock, leaving the master pendulum virtually free of external disturbances.