> Connections, Cosmos, Civilization, The Ascent of Man and Attenborough's Life on Earth
Civilization and The Ascent of Man were both commissioned by Attenborough - he had a major impact on the broadcast landscape well beyond natural history.
The article is a great read. Though it talks about OBEX, and how Bluetooth wiped out IrDA, but not that Bluetooth took OBEX straight out of the IrDA stack.
Not IRDA, but there was also IRTalk built into some of the Power Book series, allowing native AppleTalk to a diffuse IR access point. I really wanted to try that out but never had the opportunity.
Typically, fun memory they'd move to a secure connection for credit card input, but most of the site would be open HTTP - why secure what isn't confidential? Concerns about 3rd parties eavesdropping on the sites you visited weren't a big thing at the turn of the century.
I bought myself a 3 year subscription with my very first pay cheque. I got 2 or 3 issues before it went under. As a way of teaching a teenager about the full range of computer technology from the Cambridge Active Badge through to Big Data, it was and is unmatched.
The MRAO is a fascinating place, with things left as they were the last time an instrument was used. The floor of the hut where the array cables were aggregated for connection to the cable back to the Cavendish is covered in little plastic caps from the connectors, discarded as the instrument was being set up.
The article talks about HERA; MRAO hosts the prototype for that. IIRC, they experimented with methods to build the dishes with off-the-shelf parts - such as drainpipes to build the ring.
Reminds me of Field, an art installation of planted fluorescent tubes under an HV electricity distribution line back in 2004: https://www.gorge.org/images/field/
I did learn German at school but it didn't help much when trying to get to Munich airport last year. I could understand what was going on with the cancelled trains at the station I boarded at, but the train I did catch end up tipping us all out after a few stops.
I could make out a bit of what the driver said, but not enough to be sure of the detail, which is what really mattered. I expected to miss my flight, but just made it in the end.