It is now the winter solstice here in the southern hemisphere. That means that the days are now getting longer… Although many people feel that this is the true start of winter.

It was a strange time at the conference yesterday. The guy on my left was a client of mine. The guy on my right was a vendor who I had been trying to get in touch with for a week or so to get some technical information out of.

More interesting was that there were a few people there from UTS. And I knew one of them. More importantly he remembered me. It was one of my lecturers from first year uni. Someone who I actually did not even spend any time with – it was either the first year programming course, or first year digital techniques which was digital circuit design.

According to Texas Intruments, Jack Kilby, Nobel Prize winner and the co-inventor of the IC died a few days back. He intented the IC whilst he should have been on vacation. A very sad day for the world. Last year the IC business was valued at US$189 Billion.