If you watch the New Year’s festivities from New York, you know that they mark midnight with the dropping of a big, gaudy ball. You might assume this was just an arbitrary gimmick, but it turns out dropping balls has a place in the history of timekeeping, especially for ships at sea. The New York ball doesn’t work precisely the same, but it was clearly inspired by an ancient method of indicating the time.

Apparently, even the ancient Greeks used ball dropping to indicate time. But the modern ball got its start with [Captain Robert Wauchope], who installed one at Portsmouth, England, in 1829. The Royal Observatory in Greenwich got one in 1833, which you can see working in the video below.

youtube.com/embed/1JnLuQxNxaw?…

The Problem to Solve

The time ball in Greenwich (photo by [ChrisO] CC-BY-SA-3.0)Ships need accurate timing for navigation purposes, so when you made harbor, you wanted to set your clocks in case they were a bit off. But if you were far from the nearby town, you might not be able to hear a clocktower bell or a cannon shot at noon. Even if you did, the speed of sound could be significant. The signal needs to be something visible and preferably something that can indicate that it is “almost” time to get people’s attention.

You want something tall so it can be easily seen. You also need something that clearly indicates the exact moment of the time mark, so that precludes something like raising or dropping a signal flag.

The Solution

[Wauchope’s] idea was to put a tower with a ball near a solar observatory with an accurate clock. Every day at noon, someone would sight the sun and determine the exact moment of noon, setting the accurate clock.

Then, at 1300, an hour later, you’d drop the ball. Everyone could set their clock to coincide with the ball drop. The moment the ball started falling was 1300.

About 1255, you’d raise the ball halfway. Around 1258, it would go to the top of the rod going through the center of the ball. The release would be at exactly 1300.

The American Take

The Boston Time Ball in 1881 (Public Domain)
Well, that’s not usually true in the United States. The first ball in the US was at the United States Naval Observatory in 1845. They would drop their ball at noon, exactly.

The Times Square ball first dropped on January 1, 1908. However, in another American difference, the stroke of midnight is when the ball reaches the bottom, not the instant it starts to drop.

End of the Ball

Of course, radio time signals made this technology obsolete. Still, there are about sixty balls still around, including many in Australia, the United Kingdom, and several scattered in other parts of the world. In the United States, you can find time balls at the Naval Observatory, the New York City Titanic Memorial, and the Plymouth Light in Massachusetts.

The Greenwich Time Ball located at the Royal Observatory in London still drops its ball every day at 1300, as you saw in the earlier video. The guide at Greenwich mentions that the expression “on the ball” relates to time balls, but we’ve also read it is a sports idiom, so we aren’t sure about that. Surprisingly, it isn’t the tallest Time Ball in England. That honor goes to the one in Hull, which, as you can see below, was recently restored and is once again operational. You can also watch a deep dive into the history of that particular ball.

youtube.com/embed/XKTvD1OcYbI?…

Ships at sea have driven our time-keeping technology in many ways. Not to mention things like GPS or LORAN.

Featured image: “Working New Years Eve Social Media for NBC” by Anthony Quintano. Thumbnail: “Newyearseve loz batrch” by Alex Lozupone.

hackaday.com/2025/02/04/tellin…

È stato rilasciato l’Android Security Bulletin per il mese di febbraio 2025: al suo interno, gli aggiornamenti per 46 vulnerabilità di cui una che risulta essere già attivamente sfruttata in attacchi mirati. Ecco tutti i dettagli e i consigli per mettere in sicurezza i propri dispositivi mobile

L'articolo Aggiornamenti Android febbraio 2025, corretta una vulnerabilità sfruttata attivamente: i dettagli proviene da Cyber Security 360.

Le botnet sono nate come reti di elaboratori usati per gestire e mantenere attivi servizi Web. I criminal hacker le hanno trasformate in reti di computer compromessi da usare per eseguire attività fraudolente. Ecco le giuste contromisure per rilevarle e mettere al sicuro la rete e i PC aziendali

L'articolo Botnet: cosa sono, come funzionano, i consigli per proteggere la rete aziendale dagli zombie del Web proviene da Cyber Security 360.

A well-known secret in the world of open source software is that many projects rely on donated hosting for everything from their websites to testing infrastructure. When the company providing said hosting can no longer do so for whatever reason, it leaves the project scrambling for a replacement. This is what just happened for Alpine Linux, as detailed on their blog.
Modern-day infrastructure, as visualized by XKCD. (Credit: Randall Munroe)
Previously Equinix Metal provided the hosting, but as they are shutting down their bare-metal services, the project now has to find an alternative. As described in the blog post, this affects in particular storage services, continuous integration, and development servers.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, Equinix was also providing hosting for the Freedesktop.org project. In a post on their GitLab, [Benjamin Tissoires] thanks the company for supporting them as long as they have, and details the project’s current hosting needs.

As the home of X.org and Wayland (and many more), the value of Freedesktop.org to the average user requires no explanation. For its part, Alpine Linux is popular in virtualization, with Docker images very commonly using it as a base. This raises the uncomfortable question of why such popular open source projects have to depend on charity when so many companies use them, often commercially.

We hope that these projects can find a new home, and maybe raise enough money from their users to afford such hosting themselves. The issue of funding (F)OSS projects is something that regularly pops up, such as the question of whether FOSS bounties for features are helpful or harmful.

hackaday.com/2025/02/04/freede…

Mi è capitato nel tempo di scrivere anche cose di tipo "divulgativo" — per usare una parola alla quale non riesco a trovare un'alternativa migliore ma ci siamo capiti — sul mio mestiere.
Prima o poi mi piacerebbe raccoglierle.

...in quel regno della biodiversità che è la psicoterapia, quei diversi strumenti corrispondono in qualche modo a diverse concezioni del mondo. E questo riguarda la prima assunzione di responsabilità di un terapeuta, quella che sta a monte di tutte le altre...

massimogiuliani.it/blog/2018/0…

Ma un terapeuta risolve problemi? Corregge malfunzionamenti? Cambia le persone?

La psicoterapia spiegata a chi fa un altro mestiere / 1 Giusto per mettere le mani avanti, qualunque cosa scriverò sull’argomento sarà necessariamente imprecisa e semplificata. Già il titolo è una …

^{Corpi che parlano}

OGGETTISTICA, raccolta di prose non orientabili e talvolta nemmeno euclidee, si presenta in una delle più belle librerie d'Italia, MODO INFOSHOP, a Bologna, venerdì 14 febbraio, giorno di San Valentino. Le coppie di innamorati che verranno ad assistere riceveranno in omaggio una ventata di buonumore: slowforward.net/2025/02/04/14-…

slowforward

2025-02-04 10:03:00

14 febbraio, bologna: “oggettistica” a modo infoshop

Venerdì 14 febbraio, a Bologna, presso
MODO INFOSHOP (via Mascarella 24/b)
alle ore 18:15

presentazione di

OGGETTISTICA
di Marco Giovenale

intervengono

Stefano Colangelo e Sergio Rotino

letture dell’autore

evento fb:
facebook.com/events/1170357224…

il libro:
ticedizioni.com/products/ogget…

informazioni e link:
slowforward.net/2024/04/15/lin…

modoinfoshop.com/
instagram.com/modoinfoshop/
t. 051 5871012
info [at] modoinfoshop.com

N.b.: il libro è fin da ora disponibile in libreria,
quindi chi lo desidera può acquistarlo già adesso

#Bologna #LibreriaModoInfoshop #Modo #ModoInfoshop #presentazione #prosa #prosaBreve #prose #proseBrevi #proseNonEuclidee #proseNonOrientabili #reading #scritturaDiRicerca #scrittureDiRicerca #Tic #TicEdizioni #ventataDiBuonumore #viaMascarella

Marco Giovenale on Instagram: "venerdì 14 febbraio, Bologna, @modoinfoshop : OGGETTISTICA (@ticedizioni 2024) con il legale rappresentante @marco.giovenale & le annotazioni critiche di Stefano Colangelo e Sergio Rotino h. 18:15, via Mascarella 24/b h

14 likes, 2 comments - marco.giovenale on February 4, 2025: "venerdì 14 febbraio, Bologna, @modoinfoshop : OGGETTISTICA (@ticedizioni 2024) con il legale rappresentante @marco.

^Instagram

peertube.uno/c/fiorelisag/vide…

Il progetto nasce dalla volontà di offrire un punto di partenza per l’approfondimento di questioni legate all’attualità ed alla storia recente, dai conflitti aperti sullo scenario globale ai fenomeni sociali, politici e culturali che operano nel mondo.
I filmati divulgativi intendono fornire le coordinate minime per orientarsi nel percorso di ricerca e promuovere un approccio multidisciplinare.

Trovate Fiorella anche su YouTube a questo indirizzo youtube.com/@fiore.ytchannel

La prima volta che ho sentito questa canzone vivevo a Parigi e la mia collega spagnola sosteneva che questa pare una struggente ballata sulla sofferenza d'amore ma in realtà la persona onnipresente che fa soffrire Silvio è Fidel Castro.
Silvio poi questa cosa (che si è estesa a Pinochet) l'ha smentita - era davvero una donna che aveva amato.
Tuttavia, mi affascinò l'idea che sotto una canzone d'amore potesse esserci altro. Quindi, in quesa nostra interpretazione, vedeteci chi volete.
(il mio pigliama dello Psicopato era in continuità linguistica).
VIDEO NEL LINK QUA SOTTO

peertube.uno/w/kcf7b2Nwtr4We42…

Grazie al film A Complete Unknown di James Mangold tornano d'attualità i fatti di Newport 1965, quando sul palco del Folk Festival Bob Dylan fu contestato (al grido di "suonate musica folk!") perché suonò un set elettrico con la Paul Butterfield Blues Band.
Per dire quanto fosse accecante l'ideologia della purezza acustica, “Mr. Tambourine Man” e “It's All Over Now, Baby Blue”, dai testi densi di immagini oscuramente visionarie, in quel clima venivano accolte come dolci ballate. La chitarra acustica era in qualche modo garante delle convenzioni della musica folk.
Nel libro Guitar Cultures curato da Andy Bennett e Kevin Dawe (2001), un saggio di Peter Narváez (“Unplugged: Blues Guitarists and the Myth of Acousticity”) racconta il "mito dell'acusticità", l'ideologia della "purezza acustica".

Thanks to James Mangold's film A Complete Unknown, the events of Newport 1965 are back in the news. On stage at the Folk Festival Bob Dylan was challenged (to the cry of “play folk music!”) because he played an electric set with the Paul Butterfield Blues Band.
To say how blindingly acoustic purity ideology was, “Mr. Tambourine Man” and “It's All Over Now, Baby Blue,” with lyrics dense with darkly visionary imagery, were received as sweet ballads in that climate. The acoustic guitar was somehow a guarantor of folk music conventions.
In the book Guitar Cultures, edited by Andy Bennett and Kevin Dawe (2001), an essay by Peter Narváez (“Unplugged: Blues Guitarists and the Myth of Acousticity”) explains the “myth of acousticity,” the ideology of “acoustic purity.”