It seems like it’s alive again. You saved it OP!

It would make sense that eventually you could do both real-time and after-the-fact calculations depending on whether real-time communications is available. Presumably it will depend on the specific application

Indeed. It seems this wouldn’t be useful for applications where real-time position is needed. You would most likely do the calculation at a later time like in the Miikshi video. It’s a little confusing from the article, but the video actually does a good job of explaining this limitation.

I think the most amazing part about this is the video at the bottom of the article: Miikshi: Cosmic Rays (4K). The caption calls it a “charming fictional animated video to explain their muon-based systems”. But I cannot emphasize enough how much this undersells it.

It’s like a weird charming mashup between Thunderbirds, Muppets and a real muon science team. You really have to just watch it.

If you had trouble understanding what the muon positioning system from the article might be used for or how it works there is a short explanation from Professor Tanaka at the end of the video.

I think the metaphor is great. Calling an adult cat dead would indeed be extreme. But calling a perfectly working piece of hardware dead is also extreme. I wouldn’t call my toaster dead because the people who made it don’t make toasters anymore.

We’ve become far to accustomed in this day and age to accept that because something has software on it that it’s expiration date is decided by the company that made it. Cats don’t work like that, toasters don’t work like that, and neither should game consoles.

In practice that means modding is very important. And unfortunately many companies make that very difficult or impossible. But we should celebrate any product where that is possible, even at launch and its estore equivalent is still around.

Edit: dead cat not alive cat