#FermiFriday 8: #MargaretHamilton, who led the team that wrote the on-board flight software for Apollo, has died aged 90. In the best-known photograph of her, taken at MIT in 1969, she stands beside a stack of printed program listings about as tall as she is. If […]

[Original post on hachyderm.io]

#FermiFriday 7: #Brazil votes on Sunday. On the ballot: the presidency, plus a governor and two senators for each of the 26 states and the federal district, every seat in the 513-member lower house, and every seat in the 27 state and district assemblies, which run from 24 members in the smaller […]

#FermiFriday 6: This is a little self-indulgent, but today I turn the grand old age of 45. Suppose every one of my birthdays has been marked with a cake carrying the full complement of candles: one for the first, two for the second, and so on up to forty five this evening. Estimate the total […]

A bit of a weak #FermiFriday, this week:

I'm going to guess the average is about 5 thanks per speech, of actual people, so that's 95. Some awards go to a subset of the crew, whom each give mini-speeches with their own thanks, so that would bump the number up. No more than 120, I'd say 🎭

#FermiFriday 5: Nineteen awards were handed out during Monday's #Emmys telecast in Los Angeles. Estimate how many people were thanked by name from the podium over the course of the evening. Count someone once per speech, no matter how often they come up, and ignore unnamed groups and […]

#FermiFriday 4: Yesterday, Germany ran its nationwide warning day, pushing an alert to mobile phones across the country at 11am. Cell Broadcast sends that message once per radio cell, not once per handset. Germany has 84 million people spread over 357,000 km², with three companies running […]