Nasa has unplugged its last mainframe. That's one picture of the direction computing has been headed the last 30 years, but mainframes still exist to server other needs more closely related to enterprise-level data processing. Don't worry, though, NASA still has some big computer clusters.

Two slashdotted articles in a row related to I101 this section: the shift to IP is freeing up real estate for old companies like AT&T, and the importance of supercomputers to weather prediction has been highlighted.