• Home
• About
• Archives
• Contact

Subscribe

LIAR LIAR LIAR! - Pants on fire

Video: Youtube

I was just thinking, shouldn’t that be the plural… liars?

And now The Mac in 1984

Video: YouTube via Stumble

You’d be wrong to think I use an Apple Mac… unfortunately for now.

Disappearing Car Door

Photo: Disappearing Car Door

This is brilliant (check out the video on their website)… well done guys and thanks for the link Tony.

Route 66 Lost and Found

Photo: Route 66 Lost and Found

Ever wanted to take the journey down Route 66 or just wanted to know more about the famous road.? Well Route 66 Lost and Found is your perfect companion.

“This is the book that started it all, featuring 75 classic Route 66 service stations, main streets, motor courts, cafes, campgrounds, honky-tonks, truck stops, barbecue joints, and more. Thanks to the research and photography of author Russell Olsen, all these sites and structures are shown both as they appeared during their mid-century heydays, in the 30s, 40s & 50s, and as they appear today, at the dawn of the twenty-first century.”

To get a look at this book checkout the link below to the Route 66 Lost and Found website. You can order yourself a copy

Website: Route 66 Lost and Found

A 1977 Steven Spielberg…

& UFOs.

Video: YouTube

Endangered Plant: Wollemi Pine

Photo: Australian government biotechnology

The Wollemi Pine is one of the world’s oldest and rarest tree species, it’s a cousin to the earlier posted Bunya Pine going back some 200 million years. The largest of these Wollemi pines is about 40 m tall and its main trunk is some 63 cm in diameter. What’s staggering is the fact that they were thought to have been extinct for millions of years, yet here they are in a small remote location barely 200 Ks from Sydney. They have survives all the bush fires in their time to hang in there despite being genetically virtually indistinguishable… it seems that one tree survived, managed to keep breeding largely because they have both female and male reproductive cones on the same tree and can sprout multiple trunks from their base.

Being one of the world’s oldest and rarest trees has understandably brought this tree in to the limelight. Unfortunately despite pleas to avoid contact with these few trees (less than a hundred) and efforts to keep their location secret in order to preserve them, it appears that they have recently become infected with a potentially fatal root rot fungus (Phytophthora cinnamomi) and this has it’s thought to have been brought in by unauthorised visitors… there’s probably a couple of egocentric ‘adventurers’ who more than likely have photos of themselves; which they undoubtedly showed to their friends, at the base of these endangered trees, perhaps even a photo of them climbing them, and are now more than likely responsible for infecting and endangering these trees.

Website: The Wollemi

Computers: Then & Now

Then: The ENIAC

Photo: Wikipedia

ENIAC is short for Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer.

The ENIAC was the “first purely electronic , ‘Turing-Complete’ digital computer.” Basically this means that it was the first machine that could take a finite input and return a finite output in a finite number of steps.

The ENIAC was designed and built to calculate artillery firing tables for the U.S. Army’s Ballistic.

The ENIAC was massive compared to modern PC’s. It contained 17,468 vacuum seals, 1,500 relays, 7,200 crystal diodes, 70,000 resistors 10,000 capacitors and around 5 million soldered joints. The weight was 27 tonnes and it was approximately 8.5 feet by 3 feet by 80 feet (2.6 m by 0.9 m by 26 m). Oh and the it consumed 150kW of power.

“Input was possible from an IBM card reader, while an IBM card punch was used for output. These cards could be used to produce printed output offline using an IBM accounting machine, probably the IBM 405.”

The ENIAC cost almost $500,000 when finished in February 1946 remained in operation until October 2nd 1955.

As of 2004 a chip of silicon measuring 0.02 inches (0.5 mm) square holds the same capacity as the ENIAC, which occupied a large room.

and

Now:Sun SPARC Enterprise M4000 Server

Photo: www.sun.com

Below I have included some details of a current SUN Sparc Enterprise M4000 Server.

You could fit 2 to 3 of these servers on your average size kitchen table.

Price (standard) $ 99,000.00

Sun SPARC Enterprise M4000 server, 4 x 2.15 GHz SPARC64 VI Processors (2 CPU boards with 2 CPUs each and 5 MB on-chip L2 cache), 32 GB system memory (2 memory modules with 8 x 2 GB DDR2 DIMMs), 2 x 73 GB SAS disks, 1 DVD-ROM, 2 Gigabit Ethernet ports, 1 I/O tray with 4 PCIe and 1 PCI-X slots, 2 power supplies (110V or 220V with 1N redundancy).

With extra warranty a tape drive and a few bits and pieces this Sun server comes to $114,613.00.

Still its not expensive when compared to half a million to build the ENIAC in 1946.

By the way, you could fit more processing power into the little on/off buton on the front of this Sun Server than 2 or 3 ENIACS put together. Sort of scary when you think about how far we’ve come in a relatively short time.

Websites: ENIAC on Wikipedia and Sun Solaris

Transatlantic air travel: Then & Now

Shorts S23 Empire Flying Boats of the mid 1930s.

Video: YouTube

Of course these aircraft were used to service the British Empire… back in the days when it still had an empire.

Airbus 380 - Test Flight New York some 70 years later.

Video: Popular Mechanics via YouTube

Do you ever get those thoughts that just pop out and leave you… perhaps just a little disturbed. Well the thought that popped into my mind was how much the huge staircase, bar and the sleeping accommodation reminded me of the Titanic… even the name Titanic seemed to fit.

Ford: Then & Now

THEN: Henry Ford (Standing) with the 1902 “999″ racing automobile

Photo: Wikipedia

The 1902 999 Ford racing automobile.

“Built on a wood chassis, with no body, and no hood. But, it did have some advanced features, like balloon tires and the first version of a driveshaft and differential (other cars of the day used chain drives). Its massive, 18.8-liter engine developed an unheard of 50 horsepower (some say as much as 70). In a twin of this car, called the “Arrow” (later renamed “No. 999”), Ford set the world speed record of 91.4 mph on January 12, 1904, breaking the mile-a-minute record with a 39.4-second run on the winter ice of Lake St. Clair.

and

NOW: The 2008 Ford Shelby GT500 KR, Mustang

Photo: Mustang Heaven

“The Shelby GT500 KR Mustang will be unveiled at the 2008 New York Auto Show, it will feature a 540 horsepower 5.4L supercharged V8 with Ford Racing Power Pack upgrade, 3.73:1 rear axle ratio, short throw shifter and a beefed up suspension. The exterior of this beast will get a unique Carbon composite hood, 18-inch wheels and special 40th Anniversary badging along with GT500 KR striping.”

Websites: Ford on Wikipedia and Mustang Heaven

Comments

Copyright © 2008 Get A Look At This · Login