Taniith’s Relto

“IBM delivered the first disk drive 50 years ago. It was about the size of two refrigerators and weighed a ton.”

Or so it says here. Kind of interesting, no? Look at what we have now….. there’s a 300 gig external drive on my desk (400 gig?), and you can go out and buy a hard drive that can hang from your belt until you need it; and no, I’m not talking about a jump drive, I’m talking about a mini hardrive that has to spin up and everything!

-Taniith

Taken from here:

The U.S. Air Force has announced the official closing of Cheyenne Mountain Complex just outside of Colorado Springs — the real-world setting of the fictional series Stargate SG-1. GateWorld reported in April that there was serious talk about shutting down the real Cheyenne Mountain because of budget cuts and obsolescence.Admiral Tim Keating, who commands both N.O.R.A.D. and the U.S. Northern Command, told the Denver Post that current intelligence “leads us to believe a missile attack from China or Russia is very unlikely.”The complex, built in 1961, is a symbol from the Cold War era. Back then, N.O.R.A.D. tracked incoming bomber flights and potential missile trajectories potentially launched from the Soviet Union. While it is possible such threats could arise again in the future, the current emphasis on combating terrorism has priority. In light of modern politics, the more complicated mission also tracks in-bound cargo ships and suspicious cars parked near power plants.

As a result of the February Air Force Internal Review, the Air Force determined that there was serious duplication of efforts between nearby Peterson Air Force Base and Cheyenne. The complex costs too much money to maintain and update. N.O.R.A.D. has generated over $250 million in cost overruns hemorrhaging $700 million to update the Mountain since the 9/11 attacks. Closing the base will save at least $250 to $350 million a year on top of stopping the modernization cost overruns.

In short, space is too limited and the facilities are too old.

The move itself will cost “tens of millions of dollars,” Air Force Col. Lou Christensen, deputy director of operations. And budgets will increase initially to cover maintenance costs after the base closes.

Closing Cheyenne will maximize the commander’s time and make him easier to reach. In the midst of the 9/11 attack, Air Force General Ralph Eberhart, the commander at the time, was caught in the air shuttling between the two sites and was unable to respond to urgent queries.

“I have found, over the course of several pretty extensive, rigorous exercises, that I’m able to get as good or better situational awareness in the command center … at Peterson,” Keating said.

What will happen to the 1,100 Cheyenne employees? The Air Force Space Command, which tracks objects in outer space, will move to California’s Vandenberg Air Force Base north of Santa Barbara. Moving that many core personnel will empty the base of any meaningful work. The Canadian teams will move to nearby Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs. The rest will be reassigned to other sites.

However, the site will be maintained for reactivation within one hour should the need occur.

The nagging question remains, however: How will this affect Stargate Command? The most common possibility will be that N.O.R.A.D.’s departure will have no influence on future stories in the television series. The election of President Henry Hayes has established to viewers that Stargate’s universe is not exactly the same as our own. But several clever and creative explanations may grow from this real-world change.

So, today was a combination good day/bad day. It was good until I got home, that is to say. I’m not really going to go into detal on that though.

However, during the day, I had not shifts and was thus able to see the show floor. The main exibit/booth hall doesn’t open until Tuesday, but the Art Gallery and E-Tech(Emergent Technologies) is open. There is some really amazing stuff there! I got to try this device that will let the blind ‘feel’ what is around them, and it really works! You just have to get used to interpretting the sensations, but it doesn’t seem that hard (that, and sign a liability release waiver….). So much other cool stuff too. I also went to an SV only presentation from 6-8 by Sony Pictures Imageworks (the guys who’s names are on our badges and hats….), and it was really interesting. Granted, I don’t want to go into movies, but it was still good to find out about this stuff, and now I know what the graphics industry means by ‘Technical Director’ (as opposed to the theater version).

Oh, and people are starting to recognize me. Yesterday someone from my Friday shift knew me by name (she lives around Boston I think…), my main Team Leader(in charge of 2 of my shifts) seems to know me, one of the commitee members knew my name without seeing my badge, and an SV I met on Friday started chatting with me on the show floor out of the blue. I think they see the red hat, as no one else wears a bright red Kangol hat ;p

I’m debating getting up early tomorrow to take the 7:30 train and go to a class or paper before my 11:30 shift. Depends when I go to sleep I guess.

Oh, and as it turns out, by being SVs, we all automatically get a one year student membership to ACM Siggraph! Woot!

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5058529870025933880

I had a thought as I was falling asleep last night. It seems to me that the Bill and Ted movies stole the idea of a time travelling phone booth from Dr. Who. Anyone agree?

-Taniith

I was at Julia’s tonight, and she and Dave noted that my blog has a problem on Macs. I checked, and it turns out that the problem was related to some code that I commented out of the theme. I commented out the ending of a link, but not the opening tag, so while pc’s seem to deal with it, the mac turned the entire blog into a link. I fixed it, I hope.

Anyway, so Julia and I tried out my Siggraph route today. We took the commuter rail into Boston, and walked around for a few hours. We stopped at Backstage Hardware, and browsed…. I love that place, and I found (erm, Julia found, I bought) a great book the tells you everything you might ever need in any technical theater discipline (or for the AP chem, physics, or calculus tests….). Then we came back, and her mom invited me for dinner.

Then we played some backgammon, followed by Uno. Then Dave showed up, and (get this) we played a single game of Uno between the three of us that lasted for TWO BLOODY HOURS! I couldn’t believe it! Everytime someone was close, a draw 4 wild card would be played, or they wouldn’t have the right color and would need to draw 20 cards to find something they could use! It was rediculous.

Oh, while in Boston, we kept noting that people were wearing Siggraph tags (well, first I notcied someone with a Siggraph esque shirt walking into the building with a large group…. then we noticed the tags). Julia tried to make me talk to them, but it seemed kinda weird to bug them just to say that I’m a volunteer. Oh, and I checked the info I have so far, and I apparently have a shift durring the volunteer orientation meeting on Saturday. They claim that anyone with a shift then will be given the same info, but somehow I doubt it…… Oy.

Anyway, my wrist hurts and I need sleep, so Shorah all.

-Taniith

I just remembered something. I had a dream last night that I went and visited Cyan Headquarters. I talked to Rand Miller, who showed me some stuff (that I had already seen in videos of other visits), but they were too busy to give me a full tour. We chatted, he knew some stuff about me (crazy!), and then when I went to leave, I say my friend Jeff Pamfile leaving the grounds too, as there had been some big focus group going on some floors above me (there are no upper floors in the Cyan building I don’t think).

Hows that for wishfull dreaming? We even chatted about how strange it is that Cyan is hosting Mysterium durring Siggraph, rather than sending people to the convention.

I wish it had really happened though :( Someday!

-Taniith