Technology

This morning the Forum program on KQED is discussing Doug Engelbart’s computer demonstration (see my post yesterday with a link to Engelbart’s presentation video):

Tue, Dec 9, 2008 — 9:00 AM
Forty Years of the PC

Forty years ago today, the personal computer was unveiled. Concepts such as the mouse, the ability to cut and paste, hypertext and saving a file were introduced to the public in what is remembered as the ‘mother of all demonstrations.’ We look back on the event that introduced the public to modern personal and interactive computing, and discuss the evolution and future of the personal computer.

Host: Michael Krasny

Guests:

  • Brian Cooley, editor at large for CNET.com
  • Christina Engelbart, executive director of the Doug Engelbart Institute
  • Jeff Rulifson, director of the VLSI Research Group, Sun Microsystems
  • Paul Saffo, Silicon Valley technology forecaster and a consulting associate professor in the engineering department at Stanford University

KQED Forum: Forty Years of the PC


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Personal computers have been a driving force (arguably the driving force) in my life, allowing me to earn a living, communicate, write and create, among other things. Computers have become tools nearly all of us use on a daily basis, of course. Perhaps at this point we even take computers for granted. I’m pretty sure we do.

Forty years ago today, Douglas Engelbart and a group of researchers gave a demonstration in San Francisco of a computer system they had been working on since 1962. The machine was called NLS (oN-Line System) and included features such as a mouse and networking that would be further refined at XEROX PARC and elsewhere in the early 1970s, and become the basis for the computers we’ve been using ever since.

A video of the 90 minute presentation is available at http://sloan.stanford.edu/MouseSite/1968Demo.html.


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Here’s the video (noted in the last post) of Gavin talking about transit issues and the Transit Effectiveness Project (TEP), which is a series of major updates to the Muni system to address the changes in ridership patterns and new transit technologies.

Gavin talks about hiring more drivers, changing routes, spacing out stops more effectively for better throughput, computerized traffic management systems/notifications, having more fare inspectors on trains and buses, environmental impacts, Translink, security, automated parking citations via cameras on buses and other issues.

One thing I found particularly interesting is the plan for new bus shelters, which will include solar panels and wind power generators, more NextMuni info and possibly wireless Internet access (I’d love to see the green roofs included as well). There are also plans for a free bike sharing strategy tied to the bus shelters.

Other items: double decker buses, the Culture Bus program, congestion pricing, emission reductions, parking meter technology and many other issues. I was pleased to here Gavin say that Muni is the greenest transit agency in the US! It’s very interesting stuff and well worth watching.


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Okay, I’ve been doing all kinds of work on this site, including going through the tags and categories, cleaning up comments, updating plugins and switching to a new theme (with much easier to manage widget support); you may notice some little differences here and there, but by and large things should look pretty much the same.

There’s a new tag tree at the bottom of the right-hand sidebar, and new drop-downs to find posts by category and by date (and yes, there are some entries going back to 2001/2002-ish).


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I spent some time this evening updating the link structure for the blog and testing some tweaks to the site. Being an IT guy, I used a testing environment for, well, testing things out before implementing them here. In the process of refreshing the database in the testing environment, I had to deal with an issue that WordPress has: the site’s base URL is stored in the database, and each post has an absolute URL stored in the database too. Really, WordPress should have been designed to use relative URLs, but since it’s not, a little extra tweaking is necessary.

So, copying a WordPress database to use on another WordPress installation serving a different URL means all of those addresses need to be updated in the new database copy.

Some SQL to do just that:

UPDATE wp_options SET option_value = replace(option_value, 'http://old-domain.com', 'http://new-domain.com') WHERE option_name = 'home' OR option_name = 'siteurl';

UPDATE wp_posts SET guid = replace(guid, 'http://old-domain.com','http://new-domain.com');

UPDATE wp_posts SET post_content = replace(post_content, 'http://old-domain.com', 'http://new-domain.com');

If you have an additional part to your URL, such as “/blog”, the replace command will not overwrite it and it will work fine.


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Perusing Dwell Blog tonight I came across a post from Christopher Bright about the sustainability movement and some of the disposal issues cropping up with new technologies, such as how to properly dispose of toxic compact fluorescent lights (CFLs). Apparently Waste Management is offering disposal kits so they can take CFLs without breaking them and exposing the mercury they contain.

The sustainability movement has gone through a series of evolutions and iterations over the past several years””from nascent niche groups to mainstream, greenwashing, and back again””bringing us to the somewhat confusing current state of affairs. The pressing message of the environmental crisis is at the forefront of American minds, yet we”™re still stumbling our way towards a truly sustainable model.

Case in point is the CFL, or compact fluorescent light, the low hanging fruit of energy conservation. The easy-to-adopt traditional bulb replacement lasts exponentially longer than its antiquated predecessor, and uses much less energy, but elicits a new set of its very own green concerns. Since the lights last so long””and have only been introduced relatively recently””no one has really addressed what to do when CFL”™s finally do tucker out.

These new-fangled soft-serve-looking lights contain mercury, which means it”™s not ok to just toss them in the trash. In steps Waste Management, that company behind those big green trucks that most likely pick up your curbside recycling each week. With the introduction of their new program, all you need to do is go online, have a recycling kit sent to your doorstep, stuff your spent CFLs in the provided box, and drop it in the mail. Waste Management takes care of the rest.

Up next, similar programs for disposal and recycling of batteries, computer towers, monitors, and the like.

That last line sort of answers my first question as I started reading: “how do I dispose of old batteries properly?” Good to see the answers are starting to catch up to the questions. I think effective disposal is a great thing, but we also need to look at ways to reduce packaging and consumption across the board. It’s amazing how much trash we all create each and every day, and there should be lots of work going on to bring the amount of consumer packaging waste way, way, way down.

Greenbuild Conference: Waste Management


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