Month: July 2007

When I was a young student in University in the 70s I remember a rich friend of mine had an HP 67 they he wore prominently on his belt, and was I jealous?

This little beauty was fully programmable, had a card reader on which the user could store programs and data, fully scientific and could fit in the users pocket. An amazing beast. Of course I was far too poor to be able to afford one of these but I could dream.

Later on when I was studying electronics I was working so I could indulge my dreams and so bought a second hand HP 41C.

This was nothing short of extraordinary. Unheard of computing power in your pocket. Similar to the 67 but with a linger battery life, full alpha numeric keyboard and display, full range of peripherals such as card reader, data cartridge, printer just to name a few. This was my pride and joy until it was stolen. However, the insurance company bought me a brand new replacement and I managed to get a discount through a collect lecturer so I got myself the HP 41CX with a card reader, a supply of cards, and a number of modules.

My next calculator was the HP 15C.

This little beauty was capable of complex number calculations and capable of solving a 4×4 complex matrix. Now to those who are not scientists, or electronics engineers that means nothing, but let me assure you that in 1981 that was incredible. I would sit in electronics tutorials with my trusty 15C and churn out my answers in minutes whilst my fellow students were ploughing through the dozens of calculations on their “scientific” calculators only to make a small arithmetic mistake in the first few minutes and have to do it all over again.

Unfortunately that too was stolen, and never replaced.

Well 35 yearsa later and HP are celebrating the event with the release of a brand new calculator, the HP 35S in memory of the origonal HP 35.

This little beauty encapsulates all that is fine about the HP scientific calculators and in real terms it is about a tenth of the price of the original.

The HP has always been the leader in scientific calculators with the finest examples being the HP 67, HP 41C, HP 15C. There have been a few mistakes along the way but their attenting to customer needs has made them the world leader.

See the HP site here, and the HP 35S here.

Thanks to Engadget for the heads up.

The images above are from The Museum of HP Calculators and from Engadget.

There has been a lot of hoo har in the last few years over the threatened climate change, but nothing compared to the kerfuffle in the last few weeks over the British Chanel 4 documentary attempting to refute the whole climate change hypothesis.

Who is right? Are we being swindled? What is the man in the street who knows little of these weighty matters to think? How can we decide intelligently when so many knowledgeable scientists are apparently in violent disagreement?

Whether man’s activity is causing climate change one thing they all agree on is that there is climate change. I can remember a time when the gainsayers were even dismissing the evidence indicating climate change, however the evidence is now too compelling. What they do say however is that the changes are a part of the ever occurring cycle and point to changes in the recent past (100 – 1000 years) for support.

So the only common ground is that climate change exists, but that is where it ends. Caused by man or part of the periodic cycle?

There are two possible scenarios. It is naturally occurring. If this is the case and the “greenhousers” have their way what is the outcome. More effective methods of generating energy. Less dependence on fossil fuels. Far more efficient tools. By tool I mean mechanisms to make our life easier. Transport, houses, etc…. In short we will begin to live in a far more green manner. And how is this a bad thing? There are many reasons for doing this even taking climate change out of the equation completely. And what have we lost? Well…nothing from what I can see. We will live far cleaner and more efficiently and have gained some significant advances in technology. And as for the scientists who supported the theory? Well they will be hailed for the advances in whatever field in which they worked and all will be forgiven because they would have contributed significantly to research and technology. So they made a mistake – we all make mistakes and they did their best.
What if it does transpire that climate change is man made? Then those supporting the swindle scenario are going to look pretty stupid, as well as appearing churlish. And it will be universally agreed that we were right not to listen to them.

Quite frankly – although I do have a background in science – I am not enough of a scientist to pick through the minefield, although at this stage the man made scenario has the weightier arguments and the magazine style doco with half expressed and emotive arguments is unlikely to score high on my credibility scale.

So given all of that I think I will stick to the majority opinion for several reasons. We do have clear evidence of climate change. The majority of scientists adhere to the view that it is the result of human activity (BTW this is not a new phenomenon but just on a new scale). I do not find the arguments of the gainsayers at all compelling (or perhaps just poorly presented). But finally I would rather be safe (appear a fool) than sorry (be proven to be both willfully ignorant and stupid and in the event commit to an irreversible global change).