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

So goes the technology of the world

It's not always straightforward to distinguish between how a particular piece of technical innovation functions and the way it impacts the environment in which it exists. Certainly, Guttenberg's invention of movable type has had a significant impact on the subsequent creation and distribution of ideas and innovations but we don't often much discuss how it impacted the structure of society, the relationships between men and women, children and parents, employers and employees - even our sense of mortality.