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Items relevant to "6-Digit Retro Nixie Clock Mk.2, Pt.1":
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SILICON
CHIP
www.siliconchip.com.au
Publisher & Editor-in-Chief
Leo Simpson, B.Bus., FAICD
Production Manager
Greg Swain, B.Sc. (Hons.)
Technical Editor
John Clarke, B.E.(Elec.)
Technical Staff
Ross Tester
Jim Rowe, B.A., B.Sc
Nicholas Vinen
Photography
Ross Tester
Reader Services
Ann Morris
Advertising Enquiries
Glyn Smith
Phone (02) 9939 3295
Mobile 0431 792 293
glyn<at>siliconchip.com.au
Regular Contributors
Brendan Akhurst
David Maddison B.App.Sc. (Hons 1),
PhD, Grad.Dip.Entr.Innov.
Kevin Poulter
Dave Thompson
SILICON CHIP is published 12 times
a year by Silicon Chip Publications
Pty Ltd. ACN 003 205 490. ABN 49
003 205 490. All material is copyright ©. No part of this publication
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E-mail: silicon<at>siliconchip.com.au
Publisher’s Letter
Electronics affects every area of
society – why not debate it?
My Publisher’s Letters are often controversial, and
often trigger angry responses. Some readers send in
angry emails while others go to web forums where their
comments can be quite, let me just say, “unbalanced”.
Some readers also attempt to curtail and sanction my
editorials with the threat of refusing to buy any more
SILICON CHIP magazines. Some have done just that.
I accept that some readers will not agree with some of
my editorials. I don’t agree with some of the editorials in my daily newspaper
but if that happens I just turn the page. I don’t fire off an angry email or consider
cancelling future newspaper deliveries – that would merely be “cutting off my
nose to spite my face”.
However, I cannot understand why the topics discussed should cause so many
people to say that they should not be in the magazine at all. Why not discuss
climate change, wind power, nuclear power and host of other topics in which
electronics and technology have an all-pervasive effect? Surely, that is valid.
A few years ago, I attended a lecture by a prominent climate scientist from
the University of New South Wales, hosted by the IEEE. After the lecture there
was heated comment, both in favour of and against some of the predictions by
the climate scientist. Clearly, the engineers felt able and justified to question
and probe the various predictions, some of which may never come to pass, in
spite of being passionately promoted by the climate scientist. So if the engineers
were comfortable and indeed passionate about issues such as this, why not
discuss them in SILICON CHIP?
So why not have an article about the possible medical effects of wind turbines
and an accompanying Publisher’s Letter on the topic? Why not have a project
to measure the ultrasonic signals from wind turbines? So we did. And why not
discuss nuclear power? It is just another way of generating electricity and its
merits and drawbacks are quite relevant to a magazine like SILICON CHIP, just
as solar power is relevant.
And when we published the article on Argus, surely a legitimate technical
topic in SILICON CHIP (December 2014), why not have a Publisher’s Letter discussing how it could be used to fight crime, as it surely will? Will all-pervasive
surveillance systems have significant privacy issues? Of course they will, just as
do octocopters and much of the technology being used in unmanned vehicles,
a major feature article in this month’s issue.
The point is that virtually every aspect of electronics has significant effects on
society and they should be discussed. Furthermore, every technical innovation
will have a possibly unseen and unwelcome effect. Nobody would deny that
smartphones are wonderful but they also present a vast range of unwelcome
effects on individuals and society in general.
These effects of electronics technology should be discussed. And where else
but in one of the very few electronics magazines in the world?
To try to shut down such discussion is yet another attack on free speech. We
all know where that can ultimately lead.
Leo Simpson
ISSN 1030-2662
Recommended and maximum price only.
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