Gun control

[Tor]

Thread drift? Perhaps thread diversion would be closer to the truth. Seems to be a "situation normal, rambling all over" case.

I know I often find my mind wandering all over, and every now and then I'll find myself having turn from one subject to something very different, and have to think about how I managed to follow a host of tangents in about as many thoughts. The mind is a wonderful thing.

[PatJ]

I saw something I have to share even though it is thread drift but here is an ethnic joke that you just might get away telling without offending anyone.

An Englishman, a Scotsman, an Irishman, a Welshman, a Gurkha, a Latvian, a Turk, an Aussie, two Kiwis, a German, an American, a South African, a Cypriot, an Egyptian, a Japanese, a Mexican a Spaniard, a Russian, a Pole, a Lithuanian, a Swede, a Finn, an Israeli, a Dane, a Romanian, a Bulgarian, a Serb, a Swiss, a Greek, a Singaporean, an Italian, a Norwegian, a Libyan and an Ethiopian went to a night club.

The bouncer said, "Sorry, I can't let you in without a Thai."

[john62]

Very clever

John

[Pdxfashionpioneer]

Getting back to the joke about Heaven and Hell. Whoever thought French engineers deserve to be in Hell was misled about engineering history consider:
The Eifel Tour
The Parisian Metro (subway, one of the first)
Paris's sewer system being such an engineering marvel for decades it was a tourist attraction (I skipped it)
Their cathedrals
Bugatti automobiles (the originals, though the 21st century version has plenty going for it as well)
The first airplane to cross the Channel (there IS only one, right?) was French

I could probably go on but it's getting late and I have to get up early.

[crfriend]

The mind is a wonderful thing.

Indeed! Don't leave home without it.

"Sorry, I can't let you in without a Thai."

Well played, sir! I almost spat my beer out after reading that!

[...]The Eifel [Tower] ("Le Tour Eiffel" in French)

There's an interesting State-side facet to there as well -- Gustave Eiffel designed the structural skeleton for the Statue of Liberty which adorns New York City's harbour.

Many years ago when I was working for an engineering firm in Boston, I named the four Internet-facing computers "Brunel", "Eads", "Eiffel", and "Roebling" -- all of whom either have strong ties to the New World or spent their lives there. It pained me (even to this day) that so few of the engineers at the place understood the references.

[hoborob]

Yes it is indeed sad that the people of today have so little knowledge of the history of the business that they are in. I would use the phrase ENIAC and ask if anyone here knows what it stands for and what it was, along with the term that used today that came from it.

[skirtyscot]

...I named the four Internet-facing computers "Brunel", "Eads", "Eiffel", and "Roebling" -- all of whom either have strong ties to the New World or spent their lives there.

Well, I must confess I had never heard of two of them (though it turns their achievements were purely local affairs in your country ) and I had no idea that the other two had any connection at all with the USA, let alone that I have seen the American work of one of them at fairly close range. (We were told that the trip to the Statue itself was not a great way to appreciate it, as you were inside it, and that the Staten Island ferry would take us close enough. Actually the ferry stays quite some distance away. Next time I will go inside Ms Liberty and climb up to her crown.)

[crfriend]

Well, I must confess I had never heard of two of them (though it turns their achievements were purely local affairs in your country ) and I had no idea that the other two had any connection at all with the USA, let alone that I have seen the American work of one of them at fairly close range.

If you're not an engineer or have an interest in engineering then no disdain or disappointment sticks to you -- recall that I used to work at a company cock-full of engineers of every imaginable discipline.

That said, after a bit of research, you nailed three of the four. Eiffel for his genius with not only the eponymously-named tower, Roebling (whose work you will have seen if you've been in New York City) for the Brooklyn Bridge, Eads for his work on one of the first large-scale bridges across the Mississippi River and also on river gunboats used in the US War Between the States.

You missed the connection of Brunel to the New World, and that's OK because it was just that -- a connection. Not only was he a brilliant railway engineer and builder, he also gave the world the great steamship the Great Eastern which was used to lay the first several trans-Atlantic telegraph cables thereby shrinking the world dramatically.

I would use the phrase ENIAC and ask if anyone here knows what it stands for and what it was, along with the term that used today that came from it.

It's worth recalling that we're not all computer geeks here -- we have folks from all walks of life. For instance, Mr. Kirbstone -- a dentist -- likely doesn't care much for either engineering or computer bits; ChrisM -- a naval architect -- I'm almost sure got the Brunel reference from above, as well as likely the Eads one; Stevie D is a geologist; Moonshadow does field service on food-preparation and storage equipment; everybody gets Eiffel. The list goes on and on -- and it's wonderful to see such a diversity of characters all loosely associated because of a simple clothing preference. I'm glad to be in everyone's presence here.

I'll withhold comment on ENIAC for a bit to see if anybody else chimes in.

[Stevie D]

I've heard of the ENIAC machine - an early computer, which used thermionic valves. Built in the US in the 1940s, I think.

Stevie D is a geologist

Yes, although mainly retired now. There's a photo of me at Orgreave colliery here:
http://www.ipernity.com/doc/earthwatcher/39021472

[moonshadow]

I thought Tom (Kirbstone) was retired?

[hoborob]

You are correct Steve. and if by Thermonic valves you mean vacumn tubes you are very correct. The term Eniac stood for Electronic Numerical Integrator and Calculator. It was used to calculate the trajectory tables used by the Navy to determine where a round fired would land given its mass and the amount of powder used to fire it. The ENIAC is also famous for a commonly used phase today, care to try that one out.

The real significance is that the ENIAC was the first electronic Computer. There are many versions of mechanical computers predating the ENIAC, The Abacus is the earliest example. Even Galileo designed a mechanical computer and produced plans for it. However he never built it but the design has been built and does work. Many of the design Galileo came up with actually do work in the real world and many are still used as the basis for products we use today.

[Stevie D]

You are correct Steve. and if by Thermonic valves you mean vacumn tubes you are very correct. The term Eniac stood for Electronic Numerical Integrator and Calculator. It was used to calculate the trajectory tables used by the Navy to determine where a round fired would land given its mass and the amount of powder used to fire it. The ENIAC is also famous for a commonly used phase today, care to try that one out.

The real significance is that the ENIAC was the first electronic Computer. There are many versions of mechanical computers predating the ENIAC, The Abacus is the earliest example. Even Galileo designed a mechanical computer and produced plans for it. However he never built it but the design has been built and does work. Many of the design Galileo came up with actually do work in the real world and many are still used as the basis for products we use today.

Thanks for the extra info.
Yes - 'vacuum tube' = thermionic valve, or just 'valve' in the UK.

[crfriend]

The real significance is that the ENIAC was the first electronic Computer.

ENIAC was certainly a calculating device, but it in no way resembles the general-purpose computer of today. This is why it's not classified as a computer in the purest sense. ENIAC more resembles an electronic implementation of a difference engine than it does a computer.

To be classed as a computer in the modern world, machines must be dynamically re-programmable; this usually manifests in executing instructions from a read-write memory. ENIAC was programmed in much the same way as setup is done on a modular synthesizer -- with patch-cords. This means that the program was embodied in the physical configuration of the system and it could only do one thing without needing to be reconfigured to do something else. It also dealt purely in numbers -- base 10 numbers -- and not in arbitrary symbols the way modern machines do.

It was a ground-breaker to be sure, but it was also an evolutionary dead-end. This is not to belittle the accomplishment, but rather put it in the much larger overall context of computing history.

[pelmut]

...The real significance is that the ENIAC was the first electronic Computer.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colossus_computer

[hoborob]

Ah so crfriend but the ENIAC was reprogrammable. There were a number of patch panels within the machine that could be reconfigured to allow the machine to perform other tasks as well. Being one of the earliest computers it was this fact that made it a computer. Reprogramming did take a long time but it could be and was done.