By 10:00 a.m., a crowd had gathered by the California Supreme Court in San Francisco. They awaited word of the Court’s decision.

The decision, to uphold voters’ passage last year of the ban, wasn’t entirely unexpected. But it was a blow that affected even public officials. San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera, second from right, held a press conference.

“Today’s ruling doesn’t mean marriage equality will never be achieved,” he said. “It simply means that, in the end, we can’t rely on the courts to secure it.” He added, “The final decisive round will not be won in the legal arena, it will be won in the electoral arena.”

The effects of strategizing and organizing began to take shape almost immediately. Protesters blocked traffic on nearby Van Ness Avenue, a main traffic artery. There were between 100 and 200 arrests, which were processed relatively efficiently.

Early that evening, a rally gathered.

A march started by the domed City Hall…

…and passed by the state Supreme Court, where police remained on watch.

Quite a number of protesters found powerful and inventive ways to make their point.

At one point, emotions and alcohol set off a limited confrontation.

And that led to an unpleasant arrest of a companion.

Which then led to about 500 people diverting themselves to an unplanned route, leaving hapless drivers unexpectedly surrounded.

Marriage equality activists expect to achieve their goal in California via the ballot box in 2010, or 2012 at the latest.

Luke Thomas is editor and publisher of Fog City Journal, where a version of this story is concurrently posted.

The first H-P headquarters. (Photo: ddebold/flickr)

Things change very quickly in Silicon Valley.

In 1939, Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard built an innovative audio oscillator in this modest garage on Addison Avenue in Palo Alto, not far from Stanford University, where they had been classmates. Every computer today has some form of that technology.

The garage was the site of what is widely considered the beginning of a revolution in information itself. Yet the modest structure might have been destroyed, and gone the way of other key spots in Silicon Valley, had it not been named a state landmark in 2007. Hewlett-Packard (the company) bought the structure a few years ago.

Can't find the Shockley name on this sign.
(Photo: Jay McCauley)

Shockley Semiconductor was another launch pad of innovation. William Shockley had moved to Palo Alto to be near his mother. He was a Nobel Prize laureate who had co-invented the transistor in 1948 at Bell Labs in New Jersey. He recruited eight talented engineers and scientists, but his management style was blamed when they departed in 1956 to form Fairchild Semiconductor.

Shockley, furious, dubbed the defectors “The Traitorous Eight.” Fairchild went on to impress investors, while Shockley became increasingly weird. His racist statements are among the reasons why the industry may have preferred to forget him, and why the commemorative sign at the site of what had been Shockley Semiconductor doesn’t even mention Shockley by name.

At least there's a street sign.
(Photo: Jay McCauley)

Some feuds, like this one, end with a whimper: only a street sign remains where the Fairchild plant once stood. (The spot had become a major toxic waste site from all the underground tanks with solvents for processing silicon wafers).

The entire time, researchers sought to make electronics smaller. Transistors were smaller than vacuum tubes, which were their predecessors, but could gadgets be made even less bulky by integrating transistors with other components like resistors and capacitors?

Jack Kilby of Texas Instruments did just that in 1958: he created the very first integrated circuit. Unfortunately, each circuit required attaching tiny wires, so it wasn’t practical to manufacture in large numbers.

Dr. Hoerni's office was on the second floor, at the far end.
(Photo: Jay McCauley)

A year later, in 1959, or fifty years ago this summer, physicist Jean Hoerni of Fairchild came up with a solution. He used photolithography to etch a silicon wafer, almost like he was making a minuscule art print.

This reduced the bulk by making the whole enterprise utterly flat—dozens of transistors could fit onto a one-inch silicon wafer. This method also hugely reduced costs, because most of the processing steps could be applied at one time to every one of the tiny transistors on the wafer.

Another of the “Fairchildren,” Robert Noyce, expanded upon his colleague Hoerni’s invention. In July, 1959, he applied for a patent to wire together a bunch of planar transistors and other devices into a “monolithic integrated circuit.” This is the basic concept behind the entire integrated circuit industry.

The Control Data 6600: a new iPod is more powerful.
(Photo: Jay McCauley)

Meanwhile, Seymour Cray was looking for faster transistors to build a “supercomputer.” He was able to put Hoerni’s concept to commercial use, and placed some of Fairchild’s earliest large orders to create the Control Data 6600 in 1964, in Minneapolis. The computing power of this enormous device would have been roughly the same as an iPod—the first, slower iPod of several years ago, that is.

This machine, the Cray-1, was about 17 times more powerful than the CD 6600 above.
(Photo: Jay McCauley)

Seymour Cray’s third supercomputer, the iconic Cray-1 from 1976, had such huge power supply and refrigeration units they were turned into benches. These hulking contraptions were usually bought by government agencies, such as the Department of Defense. A few were sold commercially—Apple had one.

Yet another of the “traitorous eight,” Gordon Moore, had already observed in 1965 that the number of transistors that could realistically be created in a single device seemed to be doubling, roughly, every year. This became known as “Moore’s Law.”

(Photo: Stanford University Libraries)

Part of what made the area such a hotbed of innovation is that many folks from the brand-new semiconductor industry were located in the same geographic area. The closest watering hole around was Walker’s Wagon Wheel. Presumably, a lot of cross-pollination and cocktail-napkin scribbling took place there, between “Fairchildren” and others.

Don Hoefler, a reporter for Electronic News magazine, wrote an article in 1971 about the industry in the Santa Clara Valley. He referred to the area “Silicon Valley” and the name stuck. He was, reportedly, a regular at the Wagon Wheel.

No beer here for watering ideas.
(Photo: Jay McCauley)

Unfortunately, the Wagon Wheel was forced to close in 1997. The city of Mountain View had it bulldozed in 2003. This ghostly vacant lot is all that’s left.

Workers at a fab have to wear bunny suits: people are fundamentally contaminated.
(Photo courtesy of Intel Corp.)

Last year, in 2008, Intel decided to close “Fab D2,” the last major integrated circuit fabrication plant in Silicon Valley. Noyce and Moore themselves had founded Intel. Although there are still some smaller fabs and research fabs, not much silicon is manufactured in Silicon Valley anymore.

The almighty chip, or integrated circuit.

The common personal computer today has processors with more than 800 million transistors. If Moore’s Law continues to hold, the next personal computer might have over a billion transistors in its central processing unit.

Could that really be? On May 8th, at a Computer History Museum event commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Integrated Circuit, Moore himself said, “It’s as obvious as Newton’s Law.”

The Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California, is currently celebrating the 50th anniversary of the invention of the integrated circuit, and some of the same digital pioneers are participating. The museum itself displays the original supercomputers and maintains The Wagon Wheel’s wagon wheel.

Jay McCauley came to Silicon Valley in 1976. He has held a variety of positions in system software development at Silicon Graphics, Inc. and elsewhere. Jay is currently the Vice President of the Society for Industrial Archeology. Follow him on Twitter at @jaym3.

A young black bear “just lumped along,” this past Sunday, according to Albert Lee, a resident of Seattle’s Magnolia neighborhood. Comments from the Magnolia Voice, a local blog, indicate that neighbors are calling him Boo Boo and asking how he might have crossed Interstate 5—something that’s a challenge even for natives.

The next day, My Ballard, another neighborhood blog, reported that after “a nap,” the bear was “moving like crazy,” running through yards and back alleys, and escaping before officers could arrive.

The Seattle Public Schools sought to reassure parents late Monday that areas outside school buildings would be checked for safety. Among their tips should anyone be confronted by a bear:

Remain calm, identify yourself as a human, talk in a low voice, avoid direct eye contact and don’t throw anything. If that doesn’t work, try to scare it by doing the opposite: yell, stomp, clap, and stare it in the eyes. Whatever you do, don’t run or climb a tree, because bears can run 35 miles per hour and follow you into that tree.

Sgt. Kim Chandler of the Department of Fish & Wildlife promised the bear would be moved to the woods.

Track the bear’s journey here. It’s heading north…

View Bear sightings in Ballard in a larger map

(If the bear were really considerate, it would use a location-sharing service on its iPhone like Glympse, so everyone in its path could leave their picnic baskets properly stored.)

Tracking map on GoogleMaps from MyBallard.com. Additional reporting from MagnoliaVoice.com.

Hundreds of human embryonic stem cells. The reddish ones have completed the process of becoming nerve cells; the green ones are still precursors. (Photo: University of California, Los Angeles/California Institute for Regenerative Medicine)

All three diseases could be gone—non-existent. New treatments, and possibly an outright cure, can come from stem cells. “And without side effects,” added Dr. Peter Brink, a stem cell researcher at Stony Brook University in New York.

Most restrictions have just been lifted on federally-funded research using embryonic stem cells. That alone opens a giant door to huge advances in the field. President George W. Bush’s executive order of 2001 had limited embryonic-based research to a small number of pre-existing stem-cell lines. (These “lines” are lab-grown cells, resulting from the continual division of one parent cell.)

Bush’s restrictions had forced researchers to scramble for private funding. With the ban gone, researchers say embryonic stem cells and federal funds could be more readily available for research.

But because the harvesting of embryonic stem cells kills the embryo, opponents say the cure isn’t worth it. An embryo, according to the opponents, is a human being in its earliest form—one that will eventually become a fetus. The embryos are “defenseless human beings,” said Lewis Ragonese of the Right-to-Life Association chapter in Syracuse, New York. “And right now, the government is going to let them be killed.”

Rather than cheering the reinstated availability of embryonic stem cells, Ragonese and other opponents want their use banned, and all government-funded research eliminated.

Colonies of human embryo stem cells. The nuclei are blue. The pink and green spots hold the key to the cells' ability to differentiate into different cell types. (Photo: University of California, Riverside/California Institute for Regenerative Medicine)

He said there have been few favorable results from embryonic-based research, so there is no sense in continuing to use human embryos. Besides, he argues, harvesting stem cells from elsewhere could provide the same possibilities.

“We can get stem cells from adult skin tissue and other sources,” said Ragonese. “They have infinite potential.” He called continuing with embryonic stem-cell research “morally questionable.”

Researchers counter Ragonese’s point about the lack of results, saying the research is still in its infancy. And they aren’t at all certain about other sources of stem cells, which would be years in coming. James Thomson, a pioneer researcher in creating the alternative, “reprogrammed” stem cells at the University of Wisconsin, recently warned there “could be evidence” showing these alternative stem cells to be “fatally flawed.”

Peter Brink, the scientist at Stony Brook, said the value of embryonic stem cells lies in their ability to grow into any kind of cell. Stem cells, he said, could eventually repair or replace organs damaged by illnesses without the side effects of most of the treatments used today.

For example, in the United States:

Cancer
Over 500,000 people a year; the second leading cause of death.
Stem cells: could be used to replace bad cells and cancer-causing tissue.

Diabetes
Over 75,000 people a year; the sixth leading cause of death.
Stem cells: could regenerate cells in the pancreas that create insulin, a hormone diabetics lack that allows the body to metabolize sugar. Without it, diabetics are at risk for nerve damage, kidney failure, and blindness.

Alzheimer’s Disease
Over 71,000 people a year; the seventh leading cause of death in the country.
Stem cells: could help repair degenerated brain tissue, restoring the brain’s ability to retain new memories.

These smooth muscle cells could someday replace cells in blood vessels, bladder, intestines, and uterus. (Photo: Burnham Institute for Medical Research/California Institute for Regenerative Medicine)

A poll conducted by the Pew Research Center in 2005 reported that 32 percent of Americans oppose destroying embryos to harvest stem cells. However, 56 percent favor the research to find new cures for diseases.

Seven states have created their own programs to fund stem-cell research, to help move the field along. One of these is New York’s Empire State Stem Cell Board, and a board member, Samuel Gorovitz, is a medical ethicist. He acknowledged the debate. “People say that it’s not right to use public money to support what is strongly opposed by some segments of the public,” he noted.

Gorovitz is in favor of expanding the use of non-embryonic stem cells. Peter Brink, the Stony Brook researcher, concurred: “We should explore any method that seems promising.”

Ragonese, of the Syracuse Right-to-Life Association, agrees. “I don’t want everyone to think we’re opposed to treating diseases, or even stem-cell research,” he said. “We just don’t want embryonic cells used. There has to be a better way.”

Mark Banick is a newspaper journalism major in his junior year at Syracuse University; his minor is in religion. He is a contributor to Democracywise, a political news Web site at the university.

Sunset over the Straits of Juan de Fuca (Photo: BeamReach.org)

Jeanne Hyde couldn’t understand why she was hearing human voices from under water all through the night last Tuesday. Normally, Hyde, a photographer and naturalist who works at the Whale Museum of Friday Harbor, Washington, monitors a network of hydrophones to track the pods of orca whales that live in the waters off Washington’s San Juan Islands. But the distorted sounds of people counting and talking were not normal. Listen here to a sample of what she heard.

Jeanne Hyde: devoted to orca whales.

Hyde has devoted her life to protecting the marine mammals that live in the frigid waters off the coast of Seattle. If she’s not on the water photographing orca whales, then she is part of a network of citizen activists, staying up late listening on her computer to the sensitive hydrophone stations that pick up underwater sounds in the Straits of Juan de Fuca, a shipping channel that links Seattle to the Pacific Ocean.

Hyde monitors the water because intense sonar sounds are thought to interfere with the navigation systems of marine mammals, sometimes causing some of them to run aground, often with disastrous results.

Orcas in the front, a U.S. Navy ship in the back. (Photo: Ken Balcomb, Center for Whale Research)

Environmentalists have been battling the U.S. Navy to limit their use of sonar systems in areas where orca whales are known to live and breed. President Bush exempted the Navy from following Marine Mammal Protection laws that would have prohibited them from using sonar in areas where orcas have been recently spotted. Environmentalists are fighting to have those exemptions overturned.

A recent photo of the U.S. Navy submarine, the U.S.S. San Francisco (Photo: RLW)

That night, Hyde knew she had stumbled onto a potential problem. After frantic phone calls to the Coast Guard, she confirmed that an attack class submarine, the USS San Francisco, was in the Strait, and was probably responsible for the strange underwater voices and loud “pinging” sounds. But there was nothing she could do to stop them. Except make the episode public.

Jeanne Hyde

Hyde posted updates all night on her blog, called her environmentalist friends, and through them urged the media to cover the story. At a town meeting in Port Townsend, Washington, the Navy confirmed that its submarine had been testing sonar in the Straits of Juan de Fuca, but denied it ever entered the protected Haro Straits, where orca whales spend much of their time.

Image of the sounds.

While the Navy continues to test their sonar, Hyde says she will sit patiently at her computer, monitoring them as best she can. “I get frustrated at all the talk from so many people and groups, yet years and years go by and the same topics are still being addressed and very little has been done,” Hyde says. “If I don’t take action, who will?”

Andrew Chapman is a television writer.

More information on the Salish Sea hydrophone network and Val Veirs available here.

It just doesn’t seem possible to “celebrate” 11 million gallons of oil spilled into prime fishing waters.

Here are a couple of things we actually can celebrate.

First, let’s acknowledge the Oil Pollution Act of 1990, which Congress passed a year after Exxon’s hideous accident. The act requires oil tankers and barges to be double hulled by 2015. That requirement kept the Gulf of Mexico safe during two recent incidents. Unfortunately, Exxon is currently the only U.S. oil company still sailing single-hulled tankers on the west coast.

Second, Washington Governor Christine Gregoire signed legislation this very week that requires all commercial vessels over 300 gross tons calling on the Juan de Fuca Strait to contract with an emergency response tug boat in Neah Bay. Until now, public funds have kept the Neah Bay tug operating during the winter; it has aided 42 ships since 1999, preventing numerous new spills. With the governor’s signature, the responsibility for those operating funds shifts, appropriately, to the shipping industry itself. The tug will now operate year-round in one of the busiest commercial shipping lanes on the west coast.

With the support of other environmental groups and North West tribal governments led by the Makah tribe, Fred Felleman has worked on this issue for 20 years on behalf of the Friends of the Earth.