Crossing my news feed a few days ago is something rather interesting to me – An Atari 2700 console that was found in a thrift store in California… for $30! Yeah, if you know the story of the 2700, it’s amazing to read about. If you don’t, well, let me explain it to you. The […]
Apparently, the Playstation 4 online store has, over the past half a year or so, become quite flooded with games that are, to say the least, of sub-par quality. Now, every online store has its share of terrible games, and it used to be that Steam was the poster boy for terrible game repository – […]
It looks like SpaceX has, as the title states, built the final Dragon V1 capsule, in preparations to get to production of the Dragon V2 capsule going – this is the vehicle that will be crew-capable. So, this means that SpaceX wil be re-flying their Dragon capsules for the foreseeable future, as their role as […]
With the death of Flash coming in a few years, it only felt right to share (as I did in the previous article) this episode of the Computer Chronicles from 1998 discussing web plugins – after all, that’s how Flash got started, as a web browser plugin. Oh, those were the days. Granted to a […]
In what seems so far to be a flawless mission, Soyuz MS-05 made a successful docking with the Rassvet module of the International Space Station slightly ahead of schedule, a little before 6 hours after its launch on the 28th. The images of the docking are quite beautiful – the below video shows views from […]
So, you may recall a few days ago in my thrifting adventures I snagged an old 70’s calculator that, after working for a few minutes failed in a flurry of smoke and heat. If not, the previous article will be shared below. https://www.xadara.com/i-got-a-vintage-70s-calculator-and-then-it-blew-up/ Well, I mentioned I would ask on the eevblog forums about what […]
Yeah, you read that right – Adobe is finally killing off the multimedia platform Flash in 2020 – that’s just 2-3 years away, depending on exactly when in the year they pull the plug. Now, Flash was one hell of an important plugin in the history of the internet – it gave a way for […]
A couple of days ago, the internet was seemingly enraged over the announcement that the next Windows 10 update would remove the legendary paint program from Windows. Oh yes, people got pissed. Then, the next day Microsoft decided to announce that paint isn’t going anywhere; at least, not in principle. Here’s what’s up: Paint 3D […]
Not the typical article here on Xadara, but these types of posts will become more common as time passes. I love random gadgets of yesteryear – be it old adding machines and typewriters, to slightly more modern things like computers and other consumer devices of the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s, there is a charm to […]
Yesterday I did my best at trying to explain the concept I call “Trendy Science” – that is, the idea of proposals which sound amazing and pick up interest from the media and the populace, but when examined in detail the proposal just doesn’t hold up. Rather than researching something and figuring out practical applications […]
The news right now is filled with reports of different companies, in all kinds of fields, announcing new technical marvels that will change the way we live! Hyperloops, Solar Roadways, self filling water bottles and more get thrown in our faces in much the same way that the next big weight loss cure is pushed […]
File this one under “things not going as planned”, SpaceX announced at a recent conference that the planned Crewed Dragon vehicle (also known as Dragon V2) which will be used for SpaceX launched manned missions to the International Space Station and also as part of their planned Mars missions will no longer use propulsive landings […]
This film is a quick, 6 minute look at the navigation and guidance systems of the Apollo spacecraft. Something I noticed is that the film is dated to 1966, but uses footage from what is clearly the Apollo 6 mission, an unmanned Saturn V launch in April of 1968 – my best guess is this […]