Moore’s Law at 40

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Forty years ago yesterday, Electronics magazine published Gordon Moore’s celebrated article predicting that the number of transistors that could be placed on a silicon chip would continue to double at regular intervals for the foreseeable future. Several years later, the physicist Carver Mead christened it “Moore’s Law”. I met Moore some years ago in Cambridge (where he has endowed a nice library for science and technology), and he was wearing the crappy digital watch which, he proudly declares, cost $15 million. (that’s what it cost Intel to get in and out of the digital watch business).

We met in the University Library and when we’d finished talking discovered that the limo the university had ordered to take him to his next appointment (lunch with the Duke of Edinburgh) had failed to arrive. So I offered him a lift in my chronically untidy car. He climbed in over the crisp packets and tennis rackets and all the other detritus deposited by the kids and nattered cheerfully all the way to Clarkson Road.

When I got home, I told Sue (who was temperamentally an extremely tidy and organised person, and regarded my car as an environmental hazard) about what had happened. She looked at me incredulously. “You did what? You took Gordon Moore in that vehicle!” “Yep”. She went off muttering in disapproval, looked up Moore’s Intel shareholding and calculated that, on that day, he was worth just over $7 billion!

Environmental Heresies

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Stewart Brand has written an essay on what he calls “Environmental Heresies” which has ruffled a lot of feathers. Here’s the gist:

Over the next ten years, I predict, the mainstream of the environmental movement will reverse its opinion and activism in four major areas: population growth, urbani­zation, genetically engineered organisms, and nuclear power.

Running crazy

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My friends Sean French and Nicci Gerrard are running in today’s London marathon. I get tired just thinking about it. Nicci is one of the wonders of the world. She manages to combine being a terrific mother, a generous host, a great journalist, a best-selling novelist (in collaboration with Sean) and an inspired cook. Two years ago, she broke her back in a riding accident. Now she’s racing round London. Ye Gods!

Update: They both finished in just under four hours (3:58:50)!

The Rover fiasco

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From Frank Kane’s admirably robust commentary on the disaster.

The number of politicians hand-wringing their way through Longbridge on Friday – including the Prime Minister – almost made you think MG Rover’s collapse was some great natural disaster that had engulfed Birmingham.

But there is nothing ‘natural’ about the Longbridge scandal; it is no act of God. It is an entirely man-made catastrophe, which can be blamed on a relatively small number of individuals. They can and should be made to pay.

He also points out that Patricia Hewitt, the Cabinet Minister ultimately responsible, has to explain

why she wasted another £6.5m of taxpayers’ money last week – apparently acting on orders from the Prime Minister – when the Chinese had told her in writing more than two weeks ago they were not interested in Rover. As one adviser says, ‘Which part of “no” did she not understand?’

On this day…

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… in 1961, 1,500 CIA-trained Cuban exiles launched the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in a laughable attempt to overthrow the government of Fidel Castro. In the process, they also taught Jack Kennedy an important lesson about the CIA. 45 years later, the Cuban factor still poisons US politics, especially in Florida, where the next Bush presidential candidate presides as governor.

The Reith Lectures

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The BBC has put up an audio archive of famous Reith Lectures. I’ve just been listening to the first RL ever — given by Bertrand Russell in 1948. Amazing to hear the old boy’s reedy tones coming across the Net and out of my PowerBook speakers. If you want a justification for public-service broadcasting, look no further.