In honor of the 40th anniversary of Apollo 11:

First computer on the moon

Here's a really fascinating piece on the BBC about NASA programmer Don Eyles and the team behind the infamous AGC (Apollo Guidance Computer). Don was only 23 when he got the gig. Maybe it was good that he was young and naive. As he says: "I don't recall the risk and the responsibility and the fact that other people's lives were to some extent in our hands."

There are few instances in which I'm happy to be as old as I am. The fact that I got to live through and be an active observer (aka space geek!) during the Apollo program is one of those times. I still get chills reliving some of that footage.

There's a great jargon term in here, too: "LOL memory." It stands for "Little Old Lady memory" and refers to the "rope core memory" used in the AGC that required teams of (women) employees to weave meters and meters of copper wire around magnetic cores.

what kind of phone?

LN, It's a Verizon, uh, Qualcom 3G CDMA. I had another one that worked fine, but then my sister got a new one and gave me this one, and it had a cute little QWERTY keyboard and a bigger screen, but I kind of think my old phone worked better.

Jen,

how do you feel about bookmarklets?

[link]

I like these a whole lot and check through the link for some options. They are for opera (as a browser) and maybe Internet explorer mobile.

If you don't have either, put this link into google mobilizer: [link]

Thanks, LN! I'll give those a try.

Speaking of the Moon, here's "We Choose The Moon" a real-time presentation of the burns and the journey with time clock to events.

[link]

Daniel, that link too me to a web page that was indeed wechoosethemoon(dot)com, but instead of any flash movie, it gave me a non-standard "You need to install Adobe Flash player" web dialog box object, and proceeded to try and download an .exe that was NOT install_flash_player. I very strongly suggest you go over your computer with a fine tooth comb.

Huh. Contrary to what I thought would happen, when I manually downloaded and installed the latest Flash player, the page works fine now, but I swear, the package it tried to download to my computer was named something very suspicious, suggesting it was NOT an official Macromedia package.

But I can see the We Choose the Moon web site now.

Huh. Looking at the source code for the opening page, the no flash sends one to adobe.com/flashplayer.

And it wouldn't have affected me even if it did try and download an exe. Don't use them, myself. (Well, in Virtual PC when I need something from Windows on occasion.)

Maybe you were sent on a random redirect by explorer?

Info on the Star Trek DVD/Blu-Ray release: [link]

With the packaging feature dubbed "augmented reality," consumers will be able to hold their disc packaging in front of any standard Web cam to unlock an interactive hologram tour of the U.S.S. Enterprise. In the tour, which plays on the computer screen, viewers will be able to tour five cabins on the movie's Enterprise and even shoot enemies from the ship's deck.

Today I was gifted with a brand new iPhone G3 (16GB).

I have to confess, I have no idea what to do with it and I'm a little nervous about making the right decisions.

My current phone is a Verizon landline with unlimited domestic calling, voicemail, etc. That, with my dsl runs $115 per month.

The AT&T options I see suggest I cannot have a landline OR a dsl account in this area. I don't know if it's worth it to switch just the phone as it seems I'd be spending roughly $50 more per month.

Most importantly, I'm worried about the sound quality of working on a a cellphone, with clients who are also on cellphones. It's critical that I have a very clear connection.

At the moment, I can spend 4 to 5 hours on the phone per day, is it possible to have the iphone connected to a power source while it is in use?

I'm so grateful for the gift, but I'm pretty stressed out about how to make the most of it.

Any thoughts?