I’ve been rather busy of late, getting funded, doing experiments, writing code for obsolete computers and building building blocks for radio systems. All the usual really. So I’ve not posted anything here.
Have a cat photo to make up this. Because there are not enough cat photos on t’interweb.
Happy new year*
*The Bad Astronomer explains just what a year is these days – saves me having to.
I was hoping to be spending this week at 24C3. It hasn’t worked out. A shame, as it looks like fun.
Next year.
On on Dec. 16, 1947 – sixty years ago today – the world’s first transistor was constructed and tested at Bell Labs, New Jersey, USA. Those responsible for the device were William Shockley, the theorist and John Bardeen and Walter Brattain who actually constructed the first one.
What started life as a heap of precariously balanced parts…
…ended up kick-starting the microelectronics revolution.
Today’s equivalent to Bardeen and Brattain’s part is one of the myriad sub-millimeter sized black specks you’ll find on the PCB of just about any modern electronics. Yet even these dwarf their tiny sibblings on the silicon die of a CPU, where they are packed with more than 150 million to the square centimeter.
Another image from the archives this week: Clay Cottages of Marston Avenue. You won’t find them there now though, these last two were demolished in 1962, razed to make room for garages.
These particular cottages were around 500 years old – some of the oldest dwelling places in Essex. They originally had no first floor, this being added fairly recently. In our enlightened times there would probably be a cry to save them from destruction. In the 1960s however, the low ceilings and lack of modern facilities condemned them.
I’ve reason to believe even the garages that replaced them are now gone.
