printing, quantum tic tac toe, apollo 11 code, astronaut spoor

Filed under:link mania, oh you pretty things, space - it does a body good — posted by daniel e mcanulty on July 21, 2009 @ 10:06 pm

1. experimenting with stencils and screens

I’ve been working on some printing lately. I started out with spraypaint stencils, but then wanted to try for more detail, so i bought myself a nice nortech 18×20 inch screen and a photo emulsion kit. I really like the nortech, but i’m worried that it may be difficult to properly stretch my own fabric onto later. They have a strong solid frame, but they glue the screen on instead of having one of those things like the speedball with the mitred groove.

here’s my first experiment (salvaged from a bigger print that wasn’t very perfect):



2. quantum tic tac toe

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_tic_tac_toe

This is a pretty cool game which is a lot like normal tic tac toe, except that whenever it’s your turn you choose two spots instead of one, which you then label X1 and X1, for example. You have not yet actually occupied those squares, but you have quantumly entangled them. Each square can be entangled with as many other squares as the players want.

When three squares become entangled in a loop (one square connects to the next, which in turn connects with the next, which then connects back to the first square) the squares in question all collapse to classical tic tac toe spaces and are evaluated as normal. It sounds like fun!

3. Apollo 11 code

NASA has released the original Apollo 11 Command Module and Lunar Module code as open source. This code, which was developed at (what was then MIT’s) Draper Labs, can be run on the Apollo Guidance Computer emulator yaAGC.

source files for the Command Module: Comanche055
source files for the Lunar Module: Luminary099

The Master Ignition Routine has some cool comments, i especially liked the use of latin religious phrases:


#	Assemble revision 001 of AGC program LMY99 by NASA 2021112-61
#	16:27 JULY 14, 1969
...
# Page 731
# BURN, BABY, BURN -- MASTER IGNITION ROUTINE
...
# THE MASTER IGNITION ROUTINE WAS CONCEIVED AND EXECUTED, AND (NOTA BENE) IS MAINTAINED BY ADLER AND EYLES.
#
# 		   HONI SOIT QUI MAL Y PENSE
#
#	***********************************************
#		TABLES FOR THE IGNITION ROUTINE
#	***********************************************
#
#                       NOLI SE TANGERE

P12TABLE	VN	0674		# (0)
		TCF	ULLGNOT		# (1)
		TCF	COMFAIL3	# (2)

et cetera et cetera
and at the end:

...
  		TCF	GOTOP00H	# V34E TERMINATE
  		TCF	P40A/P		# RECYCLE
GOBACK		CA	TEMPR60
  		TC	BANKJUMP	# GOODBYE.  COME AGAIN SOON.

4. astronaut spoor

and just in case any of you missed it, the lunar orbiter caught this picture of the Apollo 14 leftovers:

4 comments »

  1. oh boy – so much exciting stuff! i think the screen print looks great.

    Comment by irony — July 22, 2009 @ 12:20 pm

  2. Pretty! On a plain frame, you can use a staple gun. (I’ve never used the rope-and-groove way, though I need to learn soon for my new frame.)

    Sounds a little like what I would have expected from source code written by the monks of the Albertian Order of Leibowitz.

    Comment by grace — July 25, 2009 @ 4:37 pm

  3. thanks for commenting, it makes me feel like people actually read my writing :)

    Comment by daniel e mcanulty — July 26, 2009 @ 3:47 am

  4. awesome screen print!

    Comment by nadia — August 9, 2009 @ 9:47 am

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image: detail of installation by Bronwyn Lace