SCANALYZER
https://www.fourmilab.ch/scanalyzer/
CONTEXT • THE HAPPENING WORLD • CONTINUITY • TRACKING WITH CLOSEUPSen-us2021-10-31T11:38:21+00:00SCANALYZER Has a New Home
https://www.fourmilab.ch/scanalyzer/archives/2021/10/scanalyzer-has-a-new-home.html
As announced on 2021-10-26, effective today, SCANALYZER has completed its move to the SCANALYST site, which is in full production mode. All content posted here since 2021-10-04 has been mirrored at SCANALYST, and new content will only be posted there. You can either bookmark the SCANALYST main page, which contains other topics in addition to SCANALYZER, or go directly to the SCANALYZER category page, which will only show you those posts. SCANALYST is a Discourse discussion forum, in which registered members can comment and create their own posts, but there is no need to join in order to read the SCANALYZER posts just as you've done here. If you do wish to join, SCANALYST has no subscription fees, no advertising, and requires no personal information other than a valid E-mail address to confirm your sign-up. We will never knowingly disclose any personal information about users. I'll see you at SCANALYST!...CONTEXTJohn Walker2021-10-31T11:38:21+00:00Breakthrough Listen Candidate Signal Evaluated to be Terrestrial Interference
https://www.fourmilab.ch/scanalyzer/archives/2021/10/breakthrough-listen-candidate-signal-evaluated-to-be-terrestrial-interference.html
On 2019-04-29, the Parkes radio telescope in Australia was observing the closest star, Proxima Centauri, to study its flare behaviour. The Breakthrough Listen project was conducting a piggy-back analysis of the signals, filtering for narrow-band emissions which might indicate transmissions from a technological civilisation. A signal was received, persisting for two and a half hours, which passed all of the tests for such a signal: It is a ~Hz-wide narrowband signal, which cannot be created by any known or foreseeable astrophysical system, only by technology. It exhibits a non-zero drift rate, as expected for a transmitter that was not on the surface of the Earth. Its drift rate appears approximately linear in each 30 min ‘panel’ (one single-target observation from a cadence of observations that makes up a waterfall plot), but the drift rate changes smoothly over time, as expected for a transmitter in a rotational/orbital environment. It is absent in the off-source observations (see ‘Initial investigation and parametrization of blc1’), as expected for a signal that is localized on the sky. It persists over several hours, making it unlike other interferers from artificial satellites or aircraft that we have observed before. The signal was declared a “candidate” by Breakthrough Listen and given the name “blc1” for Breakthrough Listen Candidate 1”. Two papers published in the 2021-10-25 issue of Nature Astronomy: “A radio technosignature search towards Proxima Centauri resulting in a signal of interest” “Analysis of the Breakthrough Listen signal of interest blc1 with a technosignature verification framework” have now concluded that the signal was likely terrestrial interference. From the abstract of the second paper: … [W]e find that blc1 is not an extraterrestrial technosignature, but rather an electronically drifting intermodulation product of local, time-varying interferers aligned with the observing cadence. We find dozens of instances of radio interference with similar morphologies to blc1 at frequencies harmonically related to common clock oscillators. A popular “front of book” article in the same issue with the somewhat sensational title “Mysterious ‘alien beacon’ was false alarm” summarises the results. The actual source of the signal has not been identified, and the signal has never been observed since. Here is an interview with Shane Smith, the Hillsdale College undergraduate intern at the Berkeley SETI project, who discovered the signal in the Parkes data....THE HAPPENING WORLDJohn Walker2021-10-30T13:43:59+00:00From 1970—IBM System/370 Product Announcements
https://www.fourmilab.ch/scanalyzer/archives/2021/10/from-1970ibm-system370-product-announcements.html
The IBM System/370 was announced in June 1970 as the replacement for its extremely successful System/360 range of mainframes. It was 100% upward compatible with System/360, running the same operating systems and application programs and supporting the same peripherals, and thus provided an easy migration path for System/360 customers. It replaced the “solid logic” circuitry used in the 360 with monolithic integrated circuits, and the 370/145 and all subsequent models replaced core memory with semiconductor main memory. When the System/370 was announced, many observers were surprised it did not include virtual memory, which was all the rage in computer architecture at the time, and which IBM had previously introduced in the System/360 model 67 in 1965. In 1972, the original System/370 models 155 and 165 were replaced by the 158 and 168 which did support virtual memory, as did all subsequent models in the series. The System/370 would continue to be marketed for twenty years until replaced by the System/390, with numerous evolutionary changes in the architecture over time. The IBM 3211 printer shown in the final film was stunning. Nobody made printers like IBM—this beast would crank out 2000 lines per minute, day and night, box after box of paper, without a hiccup....CONTEXTJohn Walker2021-10-30T13:00:20+00:00Exploring Ant Nest Architecture with Molten Metal
https://www.fourmilab.ch/scanalyzer/archives/2021/10/exploring-ant-nest-architecture-with-molten-metal.html
Prof. Walter Tschinkel's book, Ant Architecture: The Wonder, Beauty, and Science of Underground Nests, published in June 2021, describes the techniques he has developed for casting ant nests and what he has learned about the various ways ants structure their subterranean habitats....TRACKING WITH CLOSEUPSJohn Walker2021-10-30T12:21:01+00:00KIC 8462852 (Boyajian's Star): Possible Periodicity?
https://www.fourmilab.ch/scanalyzer/archives/2021/10/kic-8462852-boyajians-star-possible-periodicity.html
The mystery star KIC 8462852, “Tabby's Star”, which the Kepler spacecraft observed to exhibit stunning (up to 22%) and irregular dimming events, continues to defy explanation. In 2017, Gary Sacco and two co-authors reported “A 1574-day periodicity of transits orbiting KIC 8462852”. The period has come around again, and current observations indicate the dips have returned, but not as deep as observed by Kepler. Images of the star have been found on archival plates exposed in 1978 and 1935 showing dimming consistent with the periodicity. In this interview, Gary Sacco provides an update on the current observing season, the archive discoveries, and speculations on the cause of the dimming events....CONTINUITYJohn Walker2021-10-30T11:41:06+00:00“Spot Me Up”
https://www.fourmilab.ch/scanalyzer/archives/2021/10/spot-me-up.html
CONTINUITYJohn Walker2021-10-29T12:15:46+00:00Boeing Takes Another US$ 185 Million Charge on “Hangar Queen” Starliner
https://www.fourmilab.ch/scanalyzer/archives/2021/10/boeing-takes-another-us-185-million-charge-on-hangar-queen-starliner.html
THE HAPPENING WORLDJohn Walker2021-10-29T11:48:58+00:00Mark Zuckerberg on the Metaverse
https://www.fourmilab.ch/scanalyzer/archives/2021/10/mark-zuckerberg-on-the-metaverse.html
CONTINUITYJohn Walker2021-10-29T11:12:55+00:00X1-Class Solar Flare—Coronal Mass Ejection Heading for Earth
https://www.fourmilab.ch/scanalyzer/archives/2021/10/x1-class-solar-flarecoronal-mass-ejection-heading-for-earth.html
THE HAPPENING WORLDJohn Walker2021-10-29T10:23:02+00:00Supersonic Baseball: 1, Mayonnaise Jar: 0
https://www.fourmilab.ch/scanalyzer/archives/2021/10/supersonic-baseball-1-mayonnaise-jar-0.html
TRACKING WITH CLOSEUPSJohn Walker2021-10-29T10:15:19+00:00Intel 12th Generation “Alder Lake” i9-12900K Processor—Press Kit and a Look Inside
https://www.fourmilab.ch/scanalyzer/archives/2021/10/intel-12th-generation-alder-lake-i9-12900k-processorpress-kit-and-a-look-inside.html
Intel's 12th generation CPUs, code named “Alder Lake” is scheduled to launch on November 4th, 2021. Here is a description of the chips and rumoured specifications. Chips and compatible motherboards and memory are already in the hands of the trade press, with reviews expected to drop as soon as the embargo lifts on November 4th. Ian Cutress is one of those reviewers, and provides a look inside Intel and MSI's press kits sent to reviewers. German extreme overclocker and YouTuber “der8auer” is also reviewing the chip and managed, by a fat finger, to blow up his i9-12900K CPU. He took the opportunity to remove the lid and take a look inside, evaluating the physical construction of the packaging and its suitability for direct die cooling for power-mad overclockers. And, by the way, if you think overclocking is some kind of outré activity undertaken by gamers with an excess of time on their hands and a shortage of common sense, did you know that Intel publishes a document titled “How to Overclock Your Unlocked Intel® Core™ Processor” and even provides a free “Extreme Tuning Utility” to aid in the process?...THE HAPPENING WORLDJohn Walker2021-10-28T13:58:41+00:00Dinosaurs—The True Story
https://www.fourmilab.ch/scanalyzer/archives/2021/10/dinosaursthe-true-story.html
How's that space program coming along?...CONTEXTJohn Walker2021-10-28T13:05:00+00:00An Appreciation of Pure LISP
https://www.fourmilab.ch/scanalyzer/archives/2021/10/an-appreciation-of-pure-lisp.html
John McCarthy's 1960 paper, “Recursive Functions of Symbolic Expressions and Their Computation by Machine, Part I” [PDF, reproduction of original], which introduced the LISP programming system, was a stunning achievement in the history of computing. McCarthy proved that with only a minimal set of functions and linked lists, it was not only possible to evaluate any computable function (Turing completeness), but that there was no distinction between programs and data—programs could manipulate themselves as easily as they could items of data. In a sense,a large part of the history of programming languages in the six decades that followed was re-inventing concepts inherent in Lisp from its origin. In this talk from 2019 Linux conference, Kristoffer Gronlund describes LISP, demonstrates how so few primitives can have such power, and describes how it has influenced programming languages and how we think about computing over the years....TRACKING WITH CLOSEUPSJohn Walker2021-10-28T12:33:51+00:00Florida Man—NASA Administrator Clarence William Nelson on UFOs
https://www.fourmilab.ch/scanalyzer/archives/2021/10/florida-mannasa-administrator-clarence-william-nelson-on-ufos.html
This is an excerpt from an hour long interview on 2021-10-19 at the University of Virginia Center for Politics. Scroll back to the beginning if you wish (why?) to see the whole thing. The interviewer/host, Larry Sabato, Director of the Center for Politics, is also a prize: “Of course, Einstein believed in parallel universes. So, that's good enough for me, if Einstein believed in it, and he inspired a lot of Rod Serling's ‘Twilight Zone’s” [56:50]....CONTEXTJohn Walker2021-10-28T11:26:02+00:00A Dyson Sphere May Double the Lifetime of a Low Mass Star
https://www.fourmilab.ch/scanalyzer/archives/2021/10/a-dyson-sphere-may-double-the-lifetime-of-a-low-mass-star.html
CONTINUITYJohn Walker2021-10-28T10:46:33+00:00