Digital computers are a fairly old technology at this point. The first ones date from the mid-1940s, which makes them older than nuclear reactors, integrated circuits, polypropylene, and orbital satellites. What they aren’t is a durable technology. Computers age fast, both because they’re easily superseded by later models, and because their components wear out quickly. [...]
Archive for December 2011
The Oldest Active Computer
December 29, 2011The Farewell Dossier and CIA Cyber-Sabotage
December 17, 2011I recently came across an extraordinary story of Soviet industrial espionage and subsequent CIA wrong-doing – the Farewell Dossier. I heard about it through the French movie “Farewell” (2009), which is a fictionalized version of it. “Farewell” is a rather drab title, but the French title was worse – “The Farewell Affair” – since this [...]
The Moon Is Dull
December 1, 2011Last summer there were two movies partially set on the Moon: “Transformers: the Dark of the Moon” and “Apollo 18″. In the first, the Apollo program has a secret agenda to explore alien robots that are discovered there. In the second, a secret final Apollo mission is launched to investigate Soviet reports of monstrous vacuum [...]
