Eng's Principles The easier it is to do, the harder it is to change.
Funny ArticlesSome really funny articles which I came across while perusing the web!!!.
Snails are faster than ADSL"Dear Sirs, Following our experiment last year, and after long preparations, we have successfully proved that certain gastropods called African giant snails can be faster then ADSL and pigeons. The system we have used, called SNAP (SNAil-based data transfer Protocol), uses biological carriers (snails), and, for the first time, taking advantages of the unique merits of the wheel for data transfer. More details can be found here."
From /.Really sounds like an Ignoble paper that I was writing (long before)!!!
You can get the actual paper
here
Computers in SpaceI came across a
really interesting article which describes the computing power in space.
It gives a clear insight into the amount of computing power in space, and why you probably will not require that latest P4 with 1 gig of RAM and 200 GB hard-disk in space, unless you are going to play the latest game while trying to fit a critical component of the
International Space Station. Some excerpts:
...The first thing to realise is that spacecraft don’t really need to be very clever at all. A rocket on the pad has one goal – up. And to keep a rocket going up doesn’t require billions of calculations per second. It does require a colossal amount of grunt from the engines, but the guidance system just needs to be able to keep your giant firework on a relatively accurate course – once in orbit, your course can be corrected and finessed with ease. And all of this can be done with a tiny amount of computational power...
... Just making left turns around the planet isn’t the most difficult thing to calculate.Besides, it’s much more important to be hyper-reliable in the calculations, not hyper-quick....
... Even the International Space Station has less brains than you would think. Obviously the hardware is more modern than that of the Shuttle – after all, it’s a lot newer for a start. It stays up there thanks to the phenomenal computing power of - wait for it...
An 80-386 CPU
Can you feel the speed?
That doesn’t mean to say the Shuttle or the ISS flies without more up to date (read: fast) computers – they do. It's just in the form of the modern Laptops taken up by the astronauts, rather than integrated spacecraft systems....
Really makes the computers at home feel a lot more powerful, doesnt it!!!.
Further Reading:
Nasa History of Computers in Manned SpaceflightNasa History of Computers in Unmanned SpaceflightSource: bit-tech 
