Nice informational video.
Dave
Dave
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The Secret History of Silicon Valley
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N
notbob
I may watch it, but if ppl think SV actually still exists, they're
sadly mistaken.
Sure, Apple and Google and a couple other biggies remain, but the
heyday of SV died by the late 90s. I worked there almost 20 yrs and
the last time I was down in its heart, it was a total ghost town. No
mfg, no support businesses, not even any traffic!! There are huge
abandoned campuses that have never ever had a tenet. So sad.
nb
M
miso
I assume you are joking.
My recollection was the building Atari built and never occupied was
empty until Loral took it over years later. The same is true for the
Adobe building in San Jose.
Empty space going unoccupied isn't nearly the disaster one thinks it it.
The firms that own the buildings erect new ones often on spec and
especially in down times. Labor and materials are cheaper when the
economy sucks. They are making the bet that there will be demand in the
future. In the mean time, they write off the expense of the new building
against the profits of existing buildings. Carl Berg is probably the
most famous person in the valley for doing this.
For reasons not 100% clear, quite a few companies have built their own
buildings of late rather than occupy existing ones. The cheap leases are
in Sunnyvale these days, but they are not very big, so for a large
company, the workforce would be spread out. Broadcom just built (or had
built for them and leased) a huge building out by 237.
M
miso
It is worth watching. The CIA was been in Palo Alto for years based on
old documents. The big dish was well known for sniffing Soviet radar.
Some of James Bamford's NSA books go into the bay area relationship to
SIGINT/ELINT. Two Rock Ranch in Petaluma was a SIGINT facility back in
the day.
Sylvania had a big pressurized inflatable building by Central
Expressway. It looked like an elongated pumpkin. There are so many
stories as to what was under the dome that I have no idea which was true.
L
Les Cargill
notbob said:
"Tenet" might be the best mispelling ever.
L
Les Cargill
F
Fred Abse
Maybe he was referring to a former CIA Director ;-)
N
notbob
DOH! ...and too true!, not necessarily in that order.
Last night, I don't know. This morning, when I read a7's post, it
still went over my head. Yer post finally opened the blinds. All I
can say is: Senior moment and pre-coffee, in that order.
nb
M
miso
I forgot to mention SR-71 != A-12.
M
miso
There's an A12 on the Intrepid, but unfortunately they took out the
engines--it's just the shell.
Cheers
Phil Hobbz
If you ever get to Palmdale, they have an A-12 engine on display at the
Blackbird Airpark (or whatever they renamed it). It is an amazing mess
of plumbing.
Not mentioned in the video is the MIT radiation labs was actually
tweaking designs from Britain. The Brits had better technology, but it
seems the British were having difficulty perfecting their radar with all
those attacks from Germany disturbing their concentration. They named it
"radiation" lab rather than radar lab since people even back then kept
their distance from radiation. It wasn't a bad cover story since
Berkeley had a real rad lab at the time.
It would be interesting to see some stats on which country has the most
engineers working on radar. An large number of engineers I've met from
Taiwan were doing radar when they worked on the island. Given the
proximity to China, I would say radar is a priority for Taiwan.
