I thought I would blog tonight about the 1st computer I had. To be technical, the computer was bought by my parents, but it was the 1st computer we had in the house. It was the commodore 64. I do remember spending a few hours typing out a program into the computer that would allow me to play some game. For those of you that weren't into computers back in the 80's (or who weren't born yet), the programs would use BASIC, which was a computer language that involved typing 10 ____, 20 ____ ... for line after line. Anyway, I do remember (25 years later) that after spending several hours typing it out, I had missed a digit or a comma or a letter and the program didn't do anything. However, I do remember that my parents purchased or I borrowed some word games that did work. A far cry from "Grand Theft Auto" or even "Super Mario Brothers".
I did look up some information on the Commodore 64 online and I thought it was interesting (at least to me). The commodore 64 had 64 KB of RAM (as the name implies). It was introduced in 1982. It cost $595, which is $1318 in today's dollars. It sold 30 million units, making it the best selling single personal computer model of all time. For the time period of 1983 to 1986, the Commodore 64 dominated the market with between 30% and 40% market share.
a couple of tidbits: In the 1999 song, "its all about the pentiums" by weird al yankovic, he sang ""You think your Commodore 64 is really neato, what kinda chip you got in there, a Dorito?"
they now have flash drives (or USB drives) that can hold 64 GB of RAM on a device smaller than a chapstick. That is 1,000,000 times as much memory as the commodore 64.
Saturday, June 27, 2009
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Global Warming 2
I decided to post again about Global Warming, not because it is the only thing I think about, but because I came across something today that was related to Global Warming and the environment.
I was watching one of the business shows that come on TV on Saturday morning (it was Cavuto on Business, I believe) and they were discussing the new initiative "cash for clunkers" endorsed by President Obama to give people up to $4500 to trade in their old car or SUV for a vehicle that gets better mileage. Now, there are 2 main criticisms of this idea as 1) it rewards people who purchased gas guzzlers and provides no reward for people who bought Prius's or some other more environmentally friendly car and 2) it entices people that are driving "clunkers" to buy a new car when they cannot afford one and thus, will hurt them financially in the longer term
I would say there are 2 main reasons to support the plan: 1) it will spur demand for automobiles which will help out the car manufacturers, dealers and auto workers 2) it will reduce emissions and also our dependency on fossil fuels.
Now, the bill will only affect someone who is driving a vehicle that gets 18 mpg or worse and that is worth less than $4500. (My wife drives a 2000 Honda Passport and fits both of those criteria). The Passport is an SUV (they don't make them any more) and it gets 18 mpg (according to the website I found). So, if she were to buy a new suv that gets 20 mpg, she would get $3500 and if she were to buy a new suv that gets 23 mpg, she would get the full $4500.
With the economy the way it is, we are not in the market for a new car, but if we were, this is certainly something that we would keep in mind. Buying a new suv that gets 23 mpg instead of 18 mpg would save us some $ on gas (I calculate 145 fewer gallons of gas a year which would save $360 a year based on 12,000 miles/year and $2.50 a gallon). But $4500 vs the $2000 or so the car is worth is a difference of $2500 which would dwarf those gas savings. If 10,000 people did this, that would save a lot of gas (over 1 million gallons a year). Although, I don't know if a suv that gets 23 mpg emits less emissions that an suv that gets 18 mpg, but I figure it must. I guess the main point of the bill must not have been about the environment and global warming unless there is a direct connection there which I'm not sure of.
Any thoughts?
btw, I read the post about "Boys and their Toys" about the new ipod, and I have read articles about it. I'm not going to get one as I don't want to pay the extra $25 a month for a data plan, but it seems like pretty impressive technology to me....
I was watching one of the business shows that come on TV on Saturday morning (it was Cavuto on Business, I believe) and they were discussing the new initiative "cash for clunkers" endorsed by President Obama to give people up to $4500 to trade in their old car or SUV for a vehicle that gets better mileage. Now, there are 2 main criticisms of this idea as 1) it rewards people who purchased gas guzzlers and provides no reward for people who bought Prius's or some other more environmentally friendly car and 2) it entices people that are driving "clunkers" to buy a new car when they cannot afford one and thus, will hurt them financially in the longer term
I would say there are 2 main reasons to support the plan: 1) it will spur demand for automobiles which will help out the car manufacturers, dealers and auto workers 2) it will reduce emissions and also our dependency on fossil fuels.
Now, the bill will only affect someone who is driving a vehicle that gets 18 mpg or worse and that is worth less than $4500. (My wife drives a 2000 Honda Passport and fits both of those criteria). The Passport is an SUV (they don't make them any more) and it gets 18 mpg (according to the website I found). So, if she were to buy a new suv that gets 20 mpg, she would get $3500 and if she were to buy a new suv that gets 23 mpg, she would get the full $4500.
With the economy the way it is, we are not in the market for a new car, but if we were, this is certainly something that we would keep in mind. Buying a new suv that gets 23 mpg instead of 18 mpg would save us some $ on gas (I calculate 145 fewer gallons of gas a year which would save $360 a year based on 12,000 miles/year and $2.50 a gallon). But $4500 vs the $2000 or so the car is worth is a difference of $2500 which would dwarf those gas savings. If 10,000 people did this, that would save a lot of gas (over 1 million gallons a year). Although, I don't know if a suv that gets 23 mpg emits less emissions that an suv that gets 18 mpg, but I figure it must. I guess the main point of the bill must not have been about the environment and global warming unless there is a direct connection there which I'm not sure of.
Any thoughts?
btw, I read the post about "Boys and their Toys" about the new ipod, and I have read articles about it. I'm not going to get one as I don't want to pay the extra $25 a month for a data plan, but it seems like pretty impressive technology to me....
Monday, June 15, 2009
Global Warming
Hello. I am a Finance major at GSU and have never done a blog before. Going through the links to get to this point, I will say that the process is easier and more user-friendly than I would have thought.
I thought my first post would be on a subject that a read about in the wall street journal (online) today. The subject is a controversial one- global warming.
Earlier efforts to stop or ease global warming have focused on reducing the amount of carbon emissions by reducing the emissions from the burning of fossil fuels and deforestation. However, even if carbon emissions were to be severely curtailed or even stop completely, the earth would continue to warm for decades, possibly even centuries.
So, some argue that more drastic measures are needed. The wsj article talks about directly cooling the planet through geoengineering. There are two methods: temperature management, which moderates heat by blocking or reflecting a small portion of the sunlight hitting the Earth; and carbon management, which gradually removes large amounts of carbon from the atmosphere.
Trying to force countries to implement policies to reduce the amount of carbon emissions was controversial enough, certainly these drastic measures which, as the author points out, will likely have unforeseen ramifications, will be even more so.
The post is here - http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204771304574181522575503150.html
This doesn't directly impact information technology, but it does talk about the impact that technology can have on our lives and the benefits and possible costs and downsides to that technology. Lee
I thought my first post would be on a subject that a read about in the wall street journal (online) today. The subject is a controversial one- global warming.
Earlier efforts to stop or ease global warming have focused on reducing the amount of carbon emissions by reducing the emissions from the burning of fossil fuels and deforestation. However, even if carbon emissions were to be severely curtailed or even stop completely, the earth would continue to warm for decades, possibly even centuries.
So, some argue that more drastic measures are needed. The wsj article talks about directly cooling the planet through geoengineering. There are two methods: temperature management, which moderates heat by blocking or reflecting a small portion of the sunlight hitting the Earth; and carbon management, which gradually removes large amounts of carbon from the atmosphere.
Trying to force countries to implement policies to reduce the amount of carbon emissions was controversial enough, certainly these drastic measures which, as the author points out, will likely have unforeseen ramifications, will be even more so.
The post is here - http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204771304574181522575503150.html
This doesn't directly impact information technology, but it does talk about the impact that technology can have on our lives and the benefits and possible costs and downsides to that technology. Lee
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