Vintage Radio Construction 1955

[Geaney]

It's reached a stage at which people are no longer astonished by even breathtaking achievements.

Hi David,

Fully agree. I was online (NASA TV) nice and early to watch the Curiosity landing - what an achievement. I had watched the press sessions the day before and, when I saw what they were proposing to do, I thought there were so many things that could go wrong that this would another botched landing. All credit to the team for the result - flawless.

Similarly I was online for the announcement at CERN recently about the Higgs field - to me another major advancement in our knowledge as a species. One of my favourite YouTube channels is sixtysymbols run by Nottingham University Physics Dept. They gave the CERN event lots of coverage.

As you say, these seem to no longer be newsworthy for the general public which is a great shame.

On the subject of sodder versus solder one of my American colleagues queried why we don't pronounce the 'l' in words like salmon and yet we do for solder. Fair point I guess. As the man said - two nations separated by a common language.

What struck me about the transistor radio video was how just about all those jobs are now gone East. All the components and a great deal of the assembly are no longer generating wealth in western countries. It's one reason why I'm sure that my kids would be well advised to learn to speak Mandarin, and for their kids it will be an absolute necessity!

I found this LSE lecture given by Jon Moynihan, the head of PA Consulting, to be one of the best in terms of the realistic future that lies before us. It's not very encouraging but I believe it's very important for our kids to understand so they can have the best chance at a quality of life at least similar to ours.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-y2aqYwOQ0

Cheers, John