Day: September 18, 2024

Catching The BOAT: Gamma-Ray Bursts And The Brightest Of All Time

September 18, 2024 by 11 Comments

Down here at the bottom of our ocean of air, it’s easy to get complacent about the hazards our universe presents. We feel safe from the dangers of the vacuum of space, where radiation sizzles and rocks whizz around. In the same way that a catfish doesn’t much care what’s going on above the surface of his pond, so too are we content that our atmosphere will deflect, absorb, or incinerate just about anything that space throws our way.

Or will it? We all know that there are things out there in the solar system that are more than capable of wiping us out, and every day holds a non-zero chance that we’ll take the same ride the dinosaurs took 65 million years ago. But if that’s not enough to get you going, now we have to worry about gamma-ray bursts, searing blasts of energy crossing half the universe to arrive here and dump unimaginable amounts of energy on us, enough to not only be measurable by sensitive instruments in space but also to effect systems here on the ground, and in some cases, to physically alter our atmosphere.

Gamma-ray bursts are equal parts fascinating physics and terrifying science fiction. Here’s a look at the science behind them and the engineering that goes into detecting and studying them.

Continue reading “Catching The BOAT: Gamma-Ray Bursts And The Brightest Of All Time” →

Bringing The Horror Of Seaman Into The Real World

September 18, 2024 by 15 Comments

A little under 25 years ago, a particularly bizarre game was released for Sega’s Dreamcast. In actually, calling it a “game” might be something of a stretch. It was more of a pet simulator, where you need to feed and care for a virtual animal as it grows. Except rather than something like a dog or a rabbit, your pet is a talking fish with a human face that doesn’t seem to like you very much. Oh, and Leonard Nimoy is there too for some reason.

Most people in the world don’t even know this game ever existed, and frankly, their lives are all the better for it. But for those who lovingly cared for (or intentionally killed) one of these rude creatures back in the early 2000s, it’s an experience that sticks with you. Which we assume is why [Robert Prest] decided to build this incredibly faithful physical recreation of Seaman. 

Continue reading “Bringing The Horror Of Seaman Into The Real World” →

From High Level Language To Assembly

September 18, 2024 by 22 Comments

If you cut your teeth on Z-80 assembly and have dabbled in other assembly languages, you might not find much mystery in creating programs using the next best thing to machine code. However, if you have only used high level languages, assembly can be somewhat daunting. [Shikaan] has an introductory article aimed to get you started at the “hello world” level of x86-64 assembly language. The second part is already up, too, and covers control structures.

You can argue that you may not need to know assembly language these days, and we’ll admit it’s certainly not as important as it used to be. However, there are unusual cases where you really need either the performance or the small footprint, which is only possible in assembly language. What’s more, it is super useful to be able to read assembly from your high-level tools when something goes wrong.

Of course, one of the problems is that each assembly language is different. For example, knowing that the x86 assembly doesn’t completely transfer to ARM instructions. However, in most cases, the general concepts apply, and it is usually fairly easy to learn your second, third, or fourth instruction set.

We’ve had our own tutorials on this topic. You can also debate if you should learn assembly first or wait, although in this case, the audience is people who waited.