Digital Spelunk 42: Aerospace and Computing - How Many Degrees of Separation?

Wednesday, June 25, 2014

Aerospace and Computing - How Many Degrees of Separation?

Ed. Note: This is another brief "Finals week" item.

As a person born human, once upon a time I lived in North Carolina. My parents, and I along with, we'd visited the local "Beach scene," while there, and Kittihawk.

As a person born during the end of the Cold War, I think I'm familiar with a certain history of humanity that just doesn't "Make the press" any more, though it was a part of real human history -- the nuclear deterrence part of world history, not so much from a view of "Escalationism", and not so much from the time of the volatile "Post-OWS world."

As a student of information science, I'm cautious to share too much of a bibliography, however -- not if too hastily so -- in this same "Post-OWS world" -- this same "Post-Snowden world" -- this same "Post-Manning world" -- this same "Julian Assange world", this "same". The wish-oriented politics of a naive and revolutionary few could topple a whole nation, in "This world." I don't think that's a good thing, but even as in the time of the Cold War, one lives within the world climate in as it is, nonetheless.

There's a history of aviation -- certainly a few -- from the first person to see a bird in flight, to Da Vinci's ornithopter, later the Montgolfier Brothers in their "Lighter than air" designs, later the gliders designed and put aloft by Octave Chanute, and later, the Wright Brothers -- they were certainly not "Makers, alone," in that history. Moreover, there's a fellow who worked with the Wright Brothers -- and later than that, who worked with IBM: Mr. Charles R. Flint, in whose ostensibly "Rambling" commentary, his support of the Wright Brothers is denoted -- namely, in an excerpt from Flint's autobiography. That excerpt alone, though it might not be suitable as a primary reference, but it speaks volumes of the history of aviation, of technology in war, and then there's the note about IBM.

Obviously, I'm writing this not with "Punched cards," though I've heard of those-- and it's nothing too far off from modern digital system, I'm sure.

So, in a spirit of "Once upon a time," I would ask such an oblique question:

How many degrees of separation are there, between this: