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Old Stuff

Dan digs old things

If history class had included stuff like this, I might have paid better attention. Here are some links related to history … maybe a little more like archeology, but still “old stuff.”

Buried Boat
Vintage News has to be my favorite site (you’ve seen me use it a few times). It has such interesting things, yet not full of annoying pop-ups like so many sites. This article concerns a steamboat that was found 45 feet under a field and had been missing for 132 years.

Old Subs
A few years ago, maybe longer, there was a salvaged old Russian sub causing some issues outside of Tampa in the Gulf of Mexico. Ever wonder what becomes of old and obsolete military stuff? Here’s one example of what happens to subs. Bookmark this page’s home because it’s an interesting website on military history in general.

1966 NASA Computer
I thought this was a cool story. One of NASA’s very old guidance computers turned up in a scrap heap. A hacker from South Africa found it, identified it, and got it to do something (pretty sure he didn’t make any space flights).

1878 Audio Recording
Here’s a video from 2012 showing the presentation of the original recording of the Thomas Edison phonograph recorded in 1878. It’s interesting to hear. This was part of a seminar. The video is nearly 45 minutes long, but if you are interested audio, this is worth watching. For instance, at about 39 minutes into the video, you’ll hear a demo of the audio heavily processed to clean it up. But, as the presenter says, they want to maintain the original feel of the sound and not “paint over a classic portrait.” A second link is for the location of the audio recordings and some fascinating info on preserving and restoring audio. It’s within the video at about 40 minutes in … but to save you time, it’s irene.lbl.gov.

And finally …
A friend in the Army Reserves recently told me about this website. Like the submarines above, military equipment (including everything from heavy construction equipment to Humvees) eventually gets sold. This is an auction site that seems to have a ton of this stuff. Some of vehicles that might make for a pretty “bad” remote vehicle for a radio station!

If you stumble across a good or unusual web site that might be of interest, please don’t hesitate to send me the link and any info you might have about it. My email address is [email protected].

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