> From a personal point of view, I would say to myself ‘I am working in something my dad made.’ Every time I would walk in, I would say, ‘Thanks Dad.’”
As a dad, I should be so lucky as to create something my son will appreciate like that.
Also, Whitfield lived to the age of 92. What a blessing that must have been to his son, to have such a great role model and to have him still in his life for many decades. Maybe it’s just something I think about a lot because I lost both of my parents young.
It reminds me of the aquarium filter I had as a child in which a plastic grate was placed underneath the gravel and connected air bubblers would create enough of an upward water flow in the corners that anything on the gravel surface would gradually get pulled beneath the plastic grate.
This is still one of the best forms of aquarium filtration. It encourages beneficial bacteria to grow throughout the substrate and they do most of the work. The air bubblers have a bonus side effect of aerating the water for fish an bacteria alike.
Growing up on a farm with access to minimal technology provides a perfect setting for producing finest minds. It provides beautiful challenges, minimal resources and full of freedom.
And the reward (or punishment) would be to move to city life or to Western countries. That's a pity. Modern life puts you into a grove to move in. You are a caged animal or a micro-managed worker. There are no problems and no freedom. Can't even have the option to use or not to use AI at work. We are cells in a larger creature. Cells are not supposed to do thinking.
Density/proximity are far better incubators for innovation than people being bored and isolated on farms. Also not sure where the idea that 'freedom' is associated with farms comes from? How free are you if you must wake up at 4am and work for 12 hours to barely make a profit?
There are exceptions. They are notable for being exceptions.
Loneliness and boredom are good ingredients as well. Some physical isolation helps with that. I lived in a neighbourhood where I was the only kid. That made me bored frequently and drove me to habits that still serve me well.
> Density/proximity are far better incubators for innovation than people being bored and isolated on farms.
That might be the case for you.
I do all my best programming when I'm driving a tractor. When I stop, I just need to type it all in.
Or, driving my car, for that matter. I just need to get from here to way over there, it's maybe 90 miles, something like a two and a half hour drive, during which time no-one can phone me, no-one can come up and hand me something that's Clearly My Problem Because It Has An Electrical Connector, no-one can ask me what's wrong with the printer in the facilities office, and I can just sit and quietly think. I don't even have to put up with braying adverts on the local radio station.
Independently-owned farms aren't slave factories. Sometimes you'll be doing consecutive months of 13hrs/day labour, sometimes you'll have 75% of the day free, every day, for a few weeks. Guess what those with a low budget and an engineer's mind tend to get up to in their free time.
"Independently-owned farms" are the exception, these days, not the people. Every single one I've ever seen has at least one guy on there that performs miracles with PVC pipe, a TIG welder and spare bits of iron.
> Sometimes you'll be doing consecutive months of 13hrs/day labour, sometimes you'll have 75% of the day free, every day, for a few weeks.
That depends greatly on the farm in question. I grew up on a dairy farm, and there was no such thing as a break from work unless we hired someone to take care of the cows for us. They are fairly constant in the amount of work you have to put in (I imagine other livestock are similar but that's outside my experience).
Freedom as in randomness that was allowed and available in those settings and in those times. I grew up on a farm in the 70's. Observed how mills work. I could simulate and notice a gear error in a complex machine drawing in my engineering class. The teacher had to abandon the class to think it over.
Also, constraints, survival struggle, a bit of wilderness (lack of regulatory reach), forced alertness, exposure to vast variety in the context - they are all ingredients or a green field for innovation. It's like a camping or trekking adventure every day.
Farm work was grueling, lasted pretty much from dawn till dusk, took an enormous physical toll on the body, and you never know when a bad crop or unfavorable weather might mean you starve.
I'm descended from farm folk. I have relatives living who still are. I'm proud of that heritage, but let's not romanticize things. There's a reason the song doesn't go "How ya gonna keep 'em down in Paree after they've seen the farm?"
The song goes that way because Paris is attractive to young men compared to the American farms. But being attractive may not mean good. Candy is attractive too, to children. And that hard work in farms doesn't necessarily mean being less happier than your modern life, as happiness is more dependent on expectations than what you have. Paris experience raised expectations for army folks.
Sometimes, I think that the modern education setup (schools and colleges) is a recruiting and training mechanism. Bright kids from all over the country side are filtered and sucked away to work in the modern factories. Same as army recruitment camps that go to rural side, conduct running competitions and take away all the strong youth from villages.
Ofcourse, they sell education as knowledge or refinement as a person. But the real goal is to create a workforce.
It's so telling that you have not even considered the possibility of starting your own business -- something that is much easier to do in a city, and which allows you the freedom to use AI as much or as little as you want.
What problems are left for starting a business? I see only solutions searching for problems. Maybe come up with a competing solution to an already solved problem?
As a technology startup your root goal would be an exit. So you would work on problem which is in the roadmap for a big company and your wish is, they are not agile enough to build it themselves quickly and would buy out your stuff to beat their competition. So it's kind of contract work, with contract coming after the work is done.
Interesting article, and he sounds like a clever (and, as the article says) humble guy.
> On the way home from one of those trips, Whitfield had an idea. “He was on an airplane, and he whipped out a tablet and basically drew out the whole schematic of how the clean room should work,” said Whitfield’s son Jim, who was 6 years old at the time. “It was just a simple sketch. It just took a few minutes, and it’s the basic principle that is still used today.”
This was in 1960 and he clearly drew it on paper. So is/was "tablet" a common term for a pad of paper? I've never heard it used in any context other than a slab of stone or a derivation of such.
Etymonline states: "The meaning 'pad of writing or blotting paper' is by 1880".[1] Also see the variety of meanings listed it the Webster 1913 edition, including: "1. A small table or flat surface. 2. A flat piece of any material on which to write, paint, draw, or engrave; also, such a piece containing an inscription or a picture. 3. Hence, a small picture; a miniature. [Obs.] 4. pl. A kind of pocket memorandum book. [...]".[2] -- No information on the frequency of use, though.
Also, typically glue bound along the top edge and having a solid backing, as if you took a hardbound book (of blank pages) and ripped off the front cover and spine. Pages could easily be peeled off, if glued at the edge, or torn off if perforated.
I picture it as a legal pad, more or less. If I really think about it, I imagine a "legal pad" as having that very specific paper (lined, with that nice margin), whereas a "tablet" could perhaps be any type of paper bound together in that same way.
I'm not entirely sure where I got these impressions from over the years, though I certainly used to use a lot of legal pads. I still really like stumbling across a nice one in the wild, even if I usually just get them from Amazon nowadays. (Aside: Is it just me, or are legal pads not as good these days as they used to be?)
Looks like paper tablets even predate that 1902 use. This source has newspaper ads for "Pencil Tablets" and "Writing Tablets": bound ruled and un-ruled paper with and without covers from 1894-1895: https://www.kristinholt.com/archives/3205
I wonder if binding at the top was necessary to be called a tablet? Or perforation to easily tear off sheets?
I was looking to see how long ago marble composition notebooks (which are side-bound) were created and what they were called and it looks like they existed in the mid-1800s but I couldn't find any evidence they were called tablets.
Slightly off topic but that lab book made me a bit envious.
I doubt my mental bandwith could cope without org mode and digital formats in general. But that penmanship and the general neatness really shows a focus and an intentionality that makes me feel that something has fallen off the wayside in this digital transition.
Or a circle template (rectangular with holes of different sizes). That would aid drawing the small circles, as well as drawing straight edges and right angles. It can be kept in a notebook like a bookmark.
Quote from his son:
> From a personal point of view, I would say to myself ‘I am working in something my dad made.’ Every time I would walk in, I would say, ‘Thanks Dad.’”
As a dad, I should be so lucky as to create something my son will appreciate like that.
Also, Whitfield lived to the age of 92. What a blessing that must have been to his son, to have such a great role model and to have him still in his life for many decades. Maybe it’s just something I think about a lot because I lost both of my parents young.
Losing a parent, especially, leaves its mark.
Recently, with my mom’s passing, I realised I’m now an orphan.
It really sucks, at any age.
I love how they call his engineer’s notepad a “tablet.”
It reminds me of the aquarium filter I had as a child in which a plastic grate was placed underneath the gravel and connected air bubblers would create enough of an upward water flow in the corners that anything on the gravel surface would gradually get pulled beneath the plastic grate.
This is still one of the best forms of aquarium filtration. It encourages beneficial bacteria to grow throughout the substrate and they do most of the work. The air bubblers have a bonus side effect of aerating the water for fish an bacteria alike.
Growing up on a farm with access to minimal technology provides a perfect setting for producing finest minds. It provides beautiful challenges, minimal resources and full of freedom.
And the reward (or punishment) would be to move to city life or to Western countries. That's a pity. Modern life puts you into a grove to move in. You are a caged animal or a micro-managed worker. There are no problems and no freedom. Can't even have the option to use or not to use AI at work. We are cells in a larger creature. Cells are not supposed to do thinking.
Density/proximity are far better incubators for innovation than people being bored and isolated on farms. Also not sure where the idea that 'freedom' is associated with farms comes from? How free are you if you must wake up at 4am and work for 12 hours to barely make a profit?
There are exceptions. They are notable for being exceptions.
Loneliness and boredom are good ingredients as well. Some physical isolation helps with that. I lived in a neighbourhood where I was the only kid. That made me bored frequently and drove me to habits that still serve me well.
> Density/proximity are far better incubators for innovation than people being bored and isolated on farms.
That might be the case for you.
I do all my best programming when I'm driving a tractor. When I stop, I just need to type it all in.
Or, driving my car, for that matter. I just need to get from here to way over there, it's maybe 90 miles, something like a two and a half hour drive, during which time no-one can phone me, no-one can come up and hand me something that's Clearly My Problem Because It Has An Electrical Connector, no-one can ask me what's wrong with the printer in the facilities office, and I can just sit and quietly think. I don't even have to put up with braying adverts on the local radio station.
Independently-owned farms aren't slave factories. Sometimes you'll be doing consecutive months of 13hrs/day labour, sometimes you'll have 75% of the day free, every day, for a few weeks. Guess what those with a low budget and an engineer's mind tend to get up to in their free time.
"Independently-owned farms" are the exception, these days, not the people. Every single one I've ever seen has at least one guy on there that performs miracles with PVC pipe, a TIG welder and spare bits of iron.
> Sometimes you'll be doing consecutive months of 13hrs/day labour, sometimes you'll have 75% of the day free, every day, for a few weeks.
That depends greatly on the farm in question. I grew up on a dairy farm, and there was no such thing as a break from work unless we hired someone to take care of the cows for us. They are fairly constant in the amount of work you have to put in (I imagine other livestock are similar but that's outside my experience).
Freedom as in randomness that was allowed and available in those settings and in those times. I grew up on a farm in the 70's. Observed how mills work. I could simulate and notice a gear error in a complex machine drawing in my engineering class. The teacher had to abandon the class to think it over.
Also, constraints, survival struggle, a bit of wilderness (lack of regulatory reach), forced alertness, exposure to vast variety in the context - they are all ingredients or a green field for innovation. It's like a camping or trekking adventure every day.
Farm work was grueling, lasted pretty much from dawn till dusk, took an enormous physical toll on the body, and you never know when a bad crop or unfavorable weather might mean you starve.
I'm descended from farm folk. I have relatives living who still are. I'm proud of that heritage, but let's not romanticize things. There's a reason the song doesn't go "How ya gonna keep 'em down in Paree after they've seen the farm?"
The song goes that way because Paris is attractive to young men compared to the American farms. But being attractive may not mean good. Candy is attractive too, to children. And that hard work in farms doesn't necessarily mean being less happier than your modern life, as happiness is more dependent on expectations than what you have. Paris experience raised expectations for army folks.
Sometimes, I think that the modern education setup (schools and colleges) is a recruiting and training mechanism. Bright kids from all over the country side are filtered and sucked away to work in the modern factories. Same as army recruitment camps that go to rural side, conduct running competitions and take away all the strong youth from villages.
Ofcourse, they sell education as knowledge or refinement as a person. But the real goal is to create a workforce.
> There are no problems and no freedom.
It's so telling that you have not even considered the possibility of starting your own business -- something that is much easier to do in a city, and which allows you the freedom to use AI as much or as little as you want.
What problems are left for starting a business? I see only solutions searching for problems. Maybe come up with a competing solution to an already solved problem?
As a technology startup your root goal would be an exit. So you would work on problem which is in the roadmap for a big company and your wish is, they are not agile enough to build it themselves quickly and would buy out your stuff to beat their competition. So it's kind of contract work, with contract coming after the work is done.
You could attempt to produce crops or live stock for less than you can sell them for later.
Well said.
Link (pdf) to the issued patent: https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/cb/4f/c5/d10b79e...
I wish the article said what they did with the patent. Did everyone using this technology have to license it from Sandia?
Interesting article, and he sounds like a clever (and, as the article says) humble guy.
> On the way home from one of those trips, Whitfield had an idea. “He was on an airplane, and he whipped out a tablet and basically drew out the whole schematic of how the clean room should work,” said Whitfield’s son Jim, who was 6 years old at the time. “It was just a simple sketch. It just took a few minutes, and it’s the basic principle that is still used today.”
This was in 1960 and he clearly drew it on paper. So is/was "tablet" a common term for a pad of paper? I've never heard it used in any context other than a slab of stone or a derivation of such.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tablet#Inscription,_printing,_...
Minor point but struck me as odd.
Etymonline states: "The meaning 'pad of writing or blotting paper' is by 1880".[1] Also see the variety of meanings listed it the Webster 1913 edition, including: "1. A small table or flat surface. 2. A flat piece of any material on which to write, paint, draw, or engrave; also, such a piece containing an inscription or a picture. 3. Hence, a small picture; a miniature. [Obs.] 4. pl. A kind of pocket memorandum book. [...]".[2] -- No information on the frequency of use, though.
[1] https://www.etymonline.com/word/tablet
[2] https://www.websters1913.com/words/Tablet
> So is/was "tablet" a common term for a pad of paper?
In drafting it was a pad of drawing or tracing paper.
Also, typically glue bound along the top edge and having a solid backing, as if you took a hardbound book (of blank pages) and ripped off the front cover and spine. Pages could easily be peeled off, if glued at the edge, or torn off if perforated.
Growing up in the 1980s in suburbs of NYC my elementary school teachers always asked us to get our “tablets” out to work on math.
I picture it as a legal pad, more or less. If I really think about it, I imagine a "legal pad" as having that very specific paper (lined, with that nice margin), whereas a "tablet" could perhaps be any type of paper bound together in that same way.
I'm not entirely sure where I got these impressions from over the years, though I certainly used to use a lot of legal pads. I still really like stumbling across a nice one in the wild, even if I usually just get them from Amazon nowadays. (Aside: Is it just me, or are legal pads not as good these days as they used to be?)
Anyway, from this bit on Wikipedia about legal pads, it seems like that is one origin story for using "tablet" in this context: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Notebook#Legal_pad
Notably, from the last sentence of that story:
> ...he glued together a stack of halved sheets of paper, supported by a sheet of cardboard, creating what he called the "Silver City Writing Tablet".
Looks like paper tablets even predate that 1902 use. This source has newspaper ads for "Pencil Tablets" and "Writing Tablets": bound ruled and un-ruled paper with and without covers from 1894-1895: https://www.kristinholt.com/archives/3205
I wonder if binding at the top was necessary to be called a tablet? Or perforation to easily tear off sheets?
I was looking to see how long ago marble composition notebooks (which are side-bound) were created and what they were called and it looks like they existed in the mid-1800s but I couldn't find any evidence they were called tablets.
Is there a vague idea of what percentage of each country's nuclear arsenal would be duds? Prior to or after clean rooms got cleaner?
Slightly off topic but that lab book made me a bit envious.
I doubt my mental bandwith could cope without org mode and digital formats in general. But that penmanship and the general neatness really shows a focus and an intentionality that makes me feel that something has fallen off the wayside in this digital transition.
The handwriting in that drawing is beautiful!
It looks pretty but it's so low resolution I can barely make out any words. Found a higher res version though (embedded in a PDF, page 7):
https://www.sandia.gov/app/uploads/sites/194/2022/01/GIANTS_...
It's interesting that all lines in the sketch are straight, and circles are perfect, so it seems Whitfield took a ruler and a compass on that plane.
> ruler and compass
Or a circle template (rectangular with holes of different sizes). That would aid drawing the small circles, as well as drawing straight edges and right angles. It can be kept in a notebook like a bookmark.
> It's interesting that all lines in the sketch are straight, and circles are perfect, so it seems Whitfield took a ruler and a compass on that plane.
Imagine trying to board a plane with a compass nowaday :)
Hey, the magic mushroom grow tech credits goes to sir.