The BBC reports that Babbage Analytical Engine designs to be digitised

A project to construct one of the earliest mechanical computers based on sketches by its designer, Charles Babbage, has received a major boost.

The Science Museum in London has agreed to help by digitising the mathematician’s original plans.

Eventually the images will be used to create a full working model of the Analytical Engine.

Conceived in the late 1830s, it foreshadowed the modern computer revolution by more than a century.

IBM had a portion of the Analytical Engine built just to see if it would work, and it did. The basic problem that Babbage had was that the precision machining necessary for his design didn’t exist during his lifetime.

It will be the ultimate ‘steampunk’ computer.

According to the CBC: Obama says Palestine statehood will take compromise

U.S. President Barack Obama says there is no short cut to resolving the decades-old conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians.

In a speech to the UN General Assembly, Obama expresses frustration at the failure of both parties to bridge their differences and at the Palestinian leader for planning to seek a declaration of statehood through the Security Council. The U.S. has said it will veto such an effort.

Obama said Palestinians deserve to live in a sovereign state of their own, and their vision has been delayed too long. But a genuine peace will only come through compromise and negotiation, he said.

Zero still hasn’t learned it takes two sides to negotiate. The Palestinians have been trying it for decades and Israel keeps reneging on agreements. The reality is the Likud don’t want to negotiate until after they have plundered everything of value in the West Bank, and then they will offer the Palestinians small islands of poverty.

One would have thought that Zero would have learned something from trying to negotiate with the Republicans, but apparently not.

A lot of people are linking to the video and transcript of Elizabeth Warren responding to the distortions being spread by the plutocrats and their minions, about how things work in reality. She slaps down all of the libeRandian ignorance about ‘self-made’ businesses.

Listening to her it is difficult for the younger people to understand that what she is talking about isn’t liberal. She would have been classified politically as a fiscally conservative Republican not all that long ago, quite similar to my former Congresscritter when I lived in Rochester, New York, Barber Conable.

On a similar theme, Ellroon has my new favorite graphic.

Position: 13.7N 46.2W [10PM CDT 0300 UTC].
Movement: West [280°] near 15 mph [24 kph].
Maximum sustained winds: 60 mph [ 95 kph].
Wind Gusts: 70 mph [110 kph].
Tropical Storm Wind Radius: 230 miles [370 km].
Minimum central pressure: 1000 mb.

Currently about 1065 miles [1715 km] East of the Leeward Islands.

The current intensity forecast doesn’t have the storm becoming a hurricane because of unfavorable conditions closer to the islands.

Here’s the link for NOAA’s latest satellite images.

[For the latest information click on the storm symbol, or go to the CATEGORIES drop-down box below the CALENDAR and select “Hurricanes” for all of the posts related to storms on this site.]