Cold, but clear. The perfect weather to take my “Yamaha Twins” out for some Fall riding.
Category: Images
The Apollo Guidance Computer
The Apollo Guidance Computer (AGC) was an amazing piece of technology for its time. At 12:16 PM EDT, on July 16th, 1969, the Apollo 11 spacecraft began its translunar injection burn to leave its 115 mile-high Earth-orbit thanks to this navigation computer.
The AGC operated at 1.024 MHz, or one-million cycles per second, to help multitask 8 jobs, all with 2 kilobytes of memory.
You can try out the AGC yourself with the simulator found at here.
Your modern smartphone likely has a CPU designed to run at 2 GHz, or a billion cycles per second, and will often have 2 gigabytes of memory.
That said, comparing it to the modern smartphone isn’t really fair considering the AGC was a specialized computer designed to perform in a high-stress environment.
The Apollo Guidance Computer helped to take a spacecraft over 225 thousand miles to the Moon. Thanks to the efforts of the early space pioneers, your smartphone now uses an orbiting network of 24 GPS satellites.
Where will your technology take you today?
Apollo 11 Launches Into Space!
45 years ago today, the Apollo 11 mission began with the launch of the Saturn V rocket at 9:32 AM EDT on July 16th, 1969.
The 4 day journey to the Moon was the result of decades of engineering, problem solving, and team work from tens of thousands of NASA employees.
The work of those scientists, engineers, astronauts and other employees still inspires our passion and curiosity around technology to this day.
Where will your curiosity take you?
Cuyahoga Valley National Park
If you ever want to ride through history, the Cuyahoga Valley National Park has several ways for you to do it. My trip today was via motorcycle, travelling along both sides of the canal. It’s a relaxing ride, perfect for a Sunday. Along the way, there plenty of interesting places to stop, like Brandywine Falls, Hale Farm and Village and a number of national park educational sites.
For those who prefer self-powered transportation, there are a number of Ohio and Erie Canal Towpath that follows the canal’s scenic route. If you didn’t bring your own bicycle, there are places to rent them along the route as well.
Or if a classic train is more your style, check out the Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railroad.
Avon Heritage Duck Tape Festival 2014
Avon is home to the World Headquarters of ShurTech, known for their Duck Tape brand. Each year during Father’s Day weekend, the city holds a “Duct Tape Festival” with costumes, artwork and crafts created entirely from the product on display. The theme for this year’s festival was “Out of this World”.
For more information, visit ducktapefestival.com.
