Silicon Valley wants a landmark. What should it be?

[Sredni]

Silicon Valley wants a landmark. What should it be?
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-47533596

If Paris has its Eiffel Tower, London its Big Ben and New York its Empire State. But what kind of landmark would best represent Silicon Valley?
That will be the decision of an 11-member jury in an upcoming competition that wants to determine how to pay homage to tech industry’s epicentre.
The winning design will (if all goes to plan) be built in a park in San Jose, the city which sits at the Valley’s foot. The non-profit organisation behind the idea should find out on Tuesday if it has the go-ahead to start planning.
It is hoped the project will be nearing completion by 2021.

Apart from a giant statue of Bob Widlar flipping the bird, if it's not a transistor or a diffusion junction, what could it be?

[magic]

It may be my software background showing but I think you are behind the times and most people associate "Silicon Valley tech industry" with computers nowadays.

My humble proposal is a giant statue of Mark Zuckerberg captioned those idiots trust me with their data.

Seriously though, I'm curious what will come out of it. Having spent some time on American software forums, one thing I surely expect is drama, you can already get a taste of it from that article:

And some may wonder, in a city where the proliferation of high-paying tech jobs has led to rapidly-rising housing costs, whether that amount of money can’t be better spent on something more beneficial to those who are struggling.

There will be many who will wonder. And others will wonder whether it should be about software or hardware, or perhaps business management. And others will ask if a bunch of white males really deserve yet another monument. That's the reality of SV today, in my experience.

If I were to bet, I would say it will fail for lack of consensus and funding or become some "statement of unity and diversity" thing built by a small group of corporate donors like Google or Intel. But I will believe it when I see it.

[sokoloff]

I’d suggest a garage. Make the garage a functional space for eating perhaps with photos and descriptions of key garages (and other starting places) for Silicon Valley key events. HP, Apple, Google all started in garages.

[coppice]

They want some kind of stone edifice to epitomise industry in silicon valley? Like a big chunk of silicon, maybe? Use a whole crystal, and it will look like a finger, combining a homage to the electronics industry, with a the current tech industry's attitude to the public.

[dzseki]

...and it will look like a finger ...

Like umm... a middle finger? Like a Widlar salute? 

[tggzzz]

Silicon Valley wants a landmark. What should it be?
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-47533596

THE garage is already an official landmark, much to Bill's disgust "it should have been torn down decades ago".

[HalFET]

A sculpture of "Apple Factory Suicide Nets" might be fitting.

But if they really want a landmark, maybe a few homeless shelters and some affordable housing might work?

[Bud]

...and it will look like a finger ...

Like umm... a middle finger? Like a Widlar salute? 

"The Bit" sculpture could also work that way.

[schmitt trigger]

It should be like an Egyptian Obelisk or Roman column, engraved with flowing imagery of the Valley's greatest people and their iconic achievements (think Steve Jobs announcing the IPhone 1, or the "traitorous eight" leaving Shockley Semiconductor).

With some companies logos spread around for good measure.

[Benta]

It should be this, in highest quality bronze, the first transistor:

[electromotive]

It should be a spine, because Silicon Valley lacks one. Dead serious on that one.

[raptor1956]

It should be this, in highest quality bronze, the first transistor:

Well, although Silicon Valley did much to make the transistor more valuable the transistor was not invented there -- that honor goes to Bell Labs in New Jersey.


Brian

[EEVblog]

Stature of Bill & Dave in front of a garage door, obviously.

[MT]

A gigantic orange?

[tooki]

A giant Juicero?

[notsob]

A 10m high 4k7 axial resistor

[chickenHeadKnob]

Stature of Bill & Dave in front of a garage door, obviously.

Memorializing HP is all well and good, however most people would consider Fairchild Semiconductor and the Traitorous Eight as the founding icons of the valley.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traitorous_eight

Anyway I don't think the intention with this is commemorating history as much as it is making a tourist attraction that will captivate numpties from far away.

[coppercone2]

software engineers running out of a work building at 5pm 9pm like this

[metrologist]

Tuesday is over. What did they decide?

[EEVblog]

Memorializing HP is all well and good, however most people would consider Fairchild Semiconductor and the Traitorous Eight as the founding icons of the valley.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traitorous_eight
Anyway I don't think the intention with this is commemorating history as much as it is making a tourist attraction that will captivate numpties from far away.

Yep, it'll be somehow mainstream, like maybe a giant early PC or circuit board you can sit on and look tiny in Instagram photos...

[HalFET]

...and it will look like a finger ...

Like umm... a middle finger? Like a Widlar salute? 

"The Bit" sculpture could also work that way.

Technically, if you want to go for a Widlar statue, why not one showing how to mow your lawn in an environmentally friendly way:
http://readingjimwilliams.blogspot.com/2011/08/app-note-16-and-sheep.html

[coppice]

Technically, if you want to go for a Widlar statue, why not one showing how to mow your lawn in an environmentally friendly way:
http://readingjimwilliams.blogspot.com/2011/08/app-note-16-and-sheep.html

Buy lambs in the spring, as the grass begins to grow. Have them slaughtered them in autumn when the growth slows. Its a wonderful technique, as long as you have suitable fencing around your grass.

A friend who does (or at least did) this every year worried what their kids would think the first time their pet lambs appeared on the table as chops. Rather than the expected tears, they had a discussion, based on relative bone size, about which chop came from which lamb. 

[tszaboo]

From bronze, very big, text saying in the bottom that:
"We lost 5 trillion dollars and 450.000 white collar jobs"

[dzseki]

software engineers running out of a work building at 5pm 9pm like this

Ha! That one is located in Hungary

[Brumby]

For Silicon Valley, I think it would be poetic to have a large version of a silicon wafer.  Each "die" could feature a different iconic element - the first transistor, the HP boys, the Fairchild logo and so on - with several of them being actual dies of classic chips like the 7400, 741, 555.

Getting the holographic/rainbow effect would be high on the priority list for me.

[schmitt trigger]

Brumby, excellent idea.

On a post above, I had suggested an obelisk or column with iconography depicting the many products and great man involved in the SV.......but a silicon wafer would be definitively far more fitting.

And to the list of classic chips, I would definitively add the 4004.

[magic]

A 10m high 4k7 axial resistor

With actual 4k7 of resistance between the terminals?
That could actually be quite cool, a free resistance standard for the public

[Brumby]

And to the list of classic chips, I would definitively add the 4004.

Yes.

I'm sure there would be several chips worthy of inclusion - and depending on the size of the wafer and the scale of dies, there would be the scope for quite a few candidates.  You might even have a row depicting the 4004, 8008, 8080, Z80 .... up to something a bit more current.  AND I suppose a couple of RISC processors to cover that side of things.

This idea has the scope for inclusion of a great number and variety of iconic elements ... and you heard it here on the EEVblog!

[wilfred]

No prizes for guessing what someone thinks the big landmark should be in the town of Woodenbong.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-03-15/wooden-bong/10901040

[Oldtestgear]

When I was visiting the valley regularly in the late 1990s / early 2000s the one landmark that almost everyone knew about was the Frys Electronics store on San Jose. Where else but here would a company build a store with a front entrance like an Aztec temple? In some ways highly appropriate as a temple to technology.

Is it still there or ha it been redeveloped in the name of progress? Probably now only stocks home appliances & other uninteresting stuff as it was heading there when I last visited in 2005.

Phil