Thursday, January 19, 2006

Podcasts

When I graduated from university (and no, it wasn’t the year Titanic sank) it was unusual to find any kind of computer in a commercial or industrial setting. Desktop applications meant IBM Selectric typewriters (http://www.etypewriters.com/history.htm) and PLD were all pneumatic (stuff you can do with pneumatics http://www.visi.com/~dc/hexapod/) Now they are so commonplace that that Ray Kurzweil believes we are approaching a point where machines will take on many of the characteristics of living creatures. http://www.singinst.org/kurzweil.html As you might imagine this can and will have both positive and negative consequences. Predicting these consequences may depend on your overall faith in the future.
All this lead to an entertaining exchange between Leo Laporte and John C Dvorak on the weekly TWiT show – to which I am addicted http://thisweekintech.com/podcastinfo