Jack Kilby was a humble man. As the guest of honor at a co-op luncheon at TI he simply thanked everyone for honoring him with a hearty round of applause and sat down.
Just to point out an interesting tidbit about his invention of the IC, he was a new employee at TI in 1958. While everyone else was on vacation he had to find something to work on, as he had no vacation time saved up yet. (In those days TI would normally shut down most operations for maintenance and most employees would take their vacation) As much as those around him told him that his idea would never work, he used his time to prove them all wrong.
(history is just about the only thing you actually learn in those training days when you first start a job at a company like Texas Instruments)
The original moon missions used the venerable Saturn V rocket. The Saturn V was a heavy lifter that is unrivaled even today. The problem is, we don't have any working Saturn V rockets anymore. And I think they threw the plans away during a bit of a spring cleaning. If we intend to get back to the moon within 10 years we have some serious engineering and construction work to get down to. Judging by what we learned on the series of moon missions in the past, NASA will probably have to seriously overengineer everything.
That fine powdery moon dust turns out to be ridiculously abrasive. The moon happens to lie outside of the major influence of the Earth's magnetic field, so high energy charged particles are a big problem. Considering the setbacks to the shuttle program recently, I wonder if NASA has the budget to start new designs of this sort. Especially considering the fact that we spent enormous amounts of money sending men to the moon Kennedy style.
Even more, mention of setting up a base on the moon brings thoughts of even greater engineering, construction, and financial burdens. Sending a lander and a few go-karts to the moon is far easier than building a habitat that must withstand the dust, temperatures, and high energy particles. The maintenance required to keep things working on the ISS is tough enough, but throw it a quarter of a million miles away from the Earth on a ball of sandpaper and see how long it lasts.
This isn't to say I'm not optimistic. I truly hope that we go to the moon and begin building clusters of human life off of this rock we call home. We have all of our eggs in one basket, and the moon seems a good place to start diversifying. I just think that 2015 may be a bit overly optimistic with current budget restraints. (At least in the 60's we had some competition to try to bankrupt, and even then it took us until Reagan to finish the job)
Apple is in a bit of a unique position right now. Apple is both a hardware and a software company. Their revenues from each are highly dependent on the other. Without Mac OS X and Apple's line of professional tools (Final Cut, Logic, et cetera) their hardware is practically useless. Without their hardware, there is a much larger task in optimizing the software, not to mention the lower revenues (which for a company the size of Apple is a big deal). Locking Mac OS X down to Apple hardware is something Apple will have to do, at least in the near term. As their market share changes this may become unneccesary, but even then I expect the greatest revenues to result from the combination of hardware and software.
In my opinion, I expect that there will be some contingent of shady users attempting to hack OS X to run on commodity hardware. I actually look forward to this, but I think that Apple will care little about this because of the small number of users who will bother with this. If installing OS X on commodity hardware is possible, but non-trivial, Apple stands to lose very little (and perhaps even gain a tiny bit more market share from the/. crowd).
Re:Studies on Dvorak - the patent holder
on
Advocating Dvorak
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· Score: 1
I ran across that article some time back and it was very much eye-opening. I have been a devotee of the Dvorak keyboard layout for about 5 years and had heard all of the legend and myth. It was interesting to see the truth behind the story, but the story is, as is almost always the case, biased.
I have been using Dvorak for some time now, and I have noticed a significant difference in terms of ergonomics. It took me about two weeks to learn the Dvorak layout, and probably a couple months to become proficient. About a year later I could type well on either Dvorak or QWERTY. I type about equal speed using both layouts now, but my hands feel more contorted when using QWERTY. During long typing sessions I have noticed that my wrists tend to ache less when using Dvorak. Granted, I haven't performed any proper scientific studies on the matter, but it has been enough to satisfy me.
Plusses of Dvorak:
- It appears to be easier on your wrists
- It confounds fools who try to use your machine
Minuses:
- Slightly more trouble to set up (keyboard layout selection in OS of your choice)
- Sucks for programming (who put the semicolon on my left pinky?)
Slashdot Mirror
Just to point out an interesting tidbit about his invention of the IC, he was a new employee at TI in 1958. While everyone else was on vacation he had to find something to work on, as he had no vacation time saved up yet. (In those days TI would normally shut down most operations for maintenance and most employees would take their vacation) As much as those around him told him that his idea would never work, he used his time to prove them all wrong.
(history is just about the only thing you actually learn in those training days when you first start a job at a company like Texas Instruments)
That fine powdery moon dust turns out to be ridiculously abrasive. The moon happens to lie outside of the major influence of the Earth's magnetic field, so high energy charged particles are a big problem. Considering the setbacks to the shuttle program recently, I wonder if NASA has the budget to start new designs of this sort. Especially considering the fact that we spent enormous amounts of money sending men to the moon Kennedy style.
Even more, mention of setting up a base on the moon brings thoughts of even greater engineering, construction, and financial burdens. Sending a lander and a few go-karts to the moon is far easier than building a habitat that must withstand the dust, temperatures, and high energy particles. The maintenance required to keep things working on the ISS is tough enough, but throw it a quarter of a million miles away from the Earth on a ball of sandpaper and see how long it lasts.
This isn't to say I'm not optimistic. I truly hope that we go to the moon and begin building clusters of human life off of this rock we call home. We have all of our eggs in one basket, and the moon seems a good place to start diversifying. I just think that 2015 may be a bit overly optimistic with current budget restraints. (At least in the 60's we had some competition to try to bankrupt, and even then it took us until Reagan to finish the job)
In my opinion, I expect that there will be some contingent of shady users attempting to hack OS X to run on commodity hardware. I actually look forward to this, but I think that Apple will care little about this because of the small number of users who will bother with this. If installing OS X on commodity hardware is possible, but non-trivial, Apple stands to lose very little (and perhaps even gain a tiny bit more market share from the /. crowd).
I have been using Dvorak for some time now, and I have noticed a significant difference in terms of ergonomics. It took me about two weeks to learn the Dvorak layout, and probably a couple months to become proficient. About a year later I could type well on either Dvorak or QWERTY. I type about equal speed using both layouts now, but my hands feel more contorted when using QWERTY. During long typing sessions I have noticed that my wrists tend to ache less when using Dvorak. Granted, I haven't performed any proper scientific studies on the matter, but it has been enough to satisfy me.
Plusses of Dvorak:
- It appears to be easier on your wrists
- It confounds fools who try to use your machine
Minuses:
- Slightly more trouble to set up (keyboard layout selection in OS of your choice)
- Sucks for programming (who put the semicolon on my left pinky?)