ben lowery

One of the first electronic computers, the Colossus Mk2, has been rebuilt using vintage parts.  It was a code breaking machine, used to decipher German messages and provide critical intelligence during the late part of World War II.  From the article:

He [Mr. Sale] argues that the original Colossus was so powerful, it would take current computers the same amount of time to break codes.

The machines were so successful that by the end of the war, 63 million characters of German messages had been decrypted.

I don’t think I buy the first bit; modern computers are quite a bit faster than the original ENIAC and other computers of that era, but hey, what do I know.

Mandy pointed me to a great photoblog, joe’s nyc, today.  He, like many others, is protesting the possible ban on photography in NYC subways. Bans and limitations on public photography seem to be a common theme lately and it really disturbs me. Preventing photographers from taking photos of folks in public places doesn’t make anyone more secure and removes a basic right to capture a moment and share it with others.  It’s all quite ridiculous.

The fine folks over at Way of the Rodent have released an awesome selection of paper print-cut-and-fold templates for some old school video arcade cabinets from the 1980’s.  Now you too can have a mini version of the cabinet for Pac-Man, Tempest, or Defender sitting on your desk!  I made a little Pac-Man in about 10 minutes.  Mental note: buy some glue sticks.  Tape is too hard to work with.

Ah, sweet sweet nostalgia!  The fine folk over at b3ta.co.uk teamed up with MJ Hibbett & The Validators to come up with a brilliant piece of flash that brings back so very many memories from the days of tape-loading games and Commodore PETs.  Ah..  those were the days…

With a link to www.mandalei.com!

yay!