Old Computer

The Harwell Dekatron is officially the world's oldest working digital computer, again.  (I missed the story of its restoration last year, but El Reg pointed me to it yesterday). The Dekatron part of the name refers to the 10-position clock-face style glowing number valves, which were the best thing at the time for storing digits until the transistor changed everything a few years later.  It was no faster at sums than a man with a mechanical calculator, but the point was that humans get tired, and this beast could chug along for hours. Its 2.5 tonne bulk is now over at Bletchley Park.

Moon Flyby

You may know that the GRAIL lunar orbiters finished their mission of mapping the moon at the end of last year; the JPL just released a cool video they took of flying low over the moon.