Big News: No Need to Change Your Oil Every 3,000 Miles

Much of life consists of routine: get your teeth cleaned every six months, go for an annual physical at the doctors', get your car's oil changed every 3,000 miles. These are what we do. The New York Times recently had an article asserting that there is no need to change a car's oil every 3,000 miles. It asserted that changes in car engine and oil technology meant that most cars of recent vintage could go 7,500-10,000 miles between oil changes. We can see several themes in the history of technology in this. One is that while we often concentrate on big changes in technology, often there are smaller ones, like the aforementioned changes in oil and engine technology that can be significant as well. Another point the article made is that now, due to environmental concerns, California has run campaigns urging drivers not to get their oil changed every 3,000 miles. Some people say that doing so only increases the waste oil that needs to be recycled or reprocessed. I sometimes think of technology as a game where the rules are always changing.

The US versus China: Too Many Hamburgers

Thomas Friedman of the New York Times has been one of the leading voices crying out that America is in danger of losing the economic/technological race to China. Today he has a piece that repeats many themes he has been harping on. He notes how the Chinese see Americans as a people who always expect that they will be first, but have "eaten too many hamburgers." He also suggests that the "can do" attitude that surrounded the Apollo program is gone in America, but is present in China. China has many problems and their authoritarian structure is certainly one that we wouldn't want to copy. But it will be interesting to see how the United States responds over the next years to the challenge of the rise of China.

Transistors and Grains of Rice

A columnist for Fortune magazine recently wrote an article on the development of the transistor in our society. I wrote a book on the history of the transistor, so this is a subject that is near and dear to my heart. He mentions that 100,000 transistors can be bought for less than the price of a grain of rice! When I was a kid, and when he was a kid, it used to be that a home might have 10 or so transistors in a transistor radio or a transistorized tv. Now it is just about impossible to count how many transistors we own--it is in the many billions. This cheap transistor has made possible many new applications of electronics that would have seemed impossible a few decades ago. Cheap transistors make it possible to have digital paper towel dispensers. One of the great challenges of our day is to try to figure out new uses for cheap transitors.

The Economics of the World Trade Center

In STS302H, we talked about the building of the original World Trade Center, and now a new World Trade Center is going up, topping out at 1776 feet, making it the tallest building in the US. The new WTC, originally called "Freedom Tower," will demonstrate American determination in the face of terrorism, but will the building make economic sense? That is the question Joe Nocera, a New York Times reporter, asks, and his answer seems to be no. He says that the new World Trade Center will be the most expensive office building ever built, costing almost twice as much per square foot as other skyscrapers. This suggests that either the owner of the building will have to subsidize those who want to rent space in it, or charge much higher than the current market rates. Most businesses will not want to pay higher rent just for the privilege of being in the WTC, so that means that the owner, the Port Authority of New York, will have to subsidize rents. This story is a reminder that technologies are symbols, but they also have to work economically. In this case the symbolism of the WTC seems to be overwhelming the economics.