As covered here, a computer scientist has claimed that Neil Armstrong’s first words on the moon were in fact grammatically correct. The recording sounds like he said “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind”, but apparently failed to pick up an “a” before “man”.
It’s a pity; I kind of like the idea of all those years of careful engineering and planning that it took to get there, everyone holding their breath, all to culminate in that first sentence being a fluff.
Here’s what was said next:
04 13 24 48 CDR (TRANQ)
And the - the surface is fine and powdery. I can - I can pick it up loosely with my toe. It does adhere in fine layers like powdered charcoal to the sole and sides of my boots. I only go in a small fraction of an inch, maybe an eighth of an inch, but I can see the footprints of my boots and the treads in the fine, sandy particles.
04 13 25 30 CC
Neil, this is Houston. We’re copying.
04 13 25 45 CDR (EVA)
There seems to be no difficulty in moving around as we suspected. It’s even perhaps easier than the simulations at one sixth g that we performed in the various simulations on the ground. It’s actually no trouble to walk around. Okay. The descent engine did not leave a crater of any size. It has about 1 foot clearance on the ground. We’re essentially on a very level place here. I can see some evidence of rays emanating from the descent engine, but a very insignificant amount.
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It’s been a while since I’ve posted. Must try to get back into the swing of things. To get going, a collection of thoughts and links:
Apple and Greenpeace have contrasting takes on the former’s environmental impact. I’m interested in exploring the environmental impact of computing, but its difficult to find reliable statistics — just look at those first two links. How significant is computing’s impact? Does paying attention to this type of thing really matter in in relation to higher impact industries like air travel? And why are we waiting for a software company to drive change in this area?
It’s conference season. I went to Barcamp and Blogging the Election. Thanks to the organisers of both.
New (to me) music: The Books’ Lost and Safe, The Clogs Stick Music. Both great.
Some links: David Byrne on Sufjan, CR Blog on the aesthetics of MySpace, Anne Galloway on Pulse Laser, History of the Button on… buttons.
We’ve moved house. All of the observations that get me every time I have moved before apply again this time. Despite my ongoing attempts to pare down my material possessions, I still have to cart half a room worth of stuff around behind me. I’ve realised that (apart from their practical uses), a lot of this stuff serves as an anchor; a day after moving into a strange new building and already spreading our familiar items around the place starts to make it feel like home.
Irish broadband service is still painfully poor, so I’ll be online less often for the next few weeks that it will take to get connected in the new place. It’s pretty much accepted here that Eircom did their best so slow the rollout of broadband in order to hang on to their phone line customers for another couple of years. This week they made a decent stab at shutting down their main competition.
Can people recommend nice cafés or quiet pubs with free wifi in Dublin? I’ll map them if I get enough for it to be useful.