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I just read that Jack St.Clair Kilby died last week. The sad thing is that I’d never heard of Jack until I read his obituary even though his invention – the integrated circuit (IC) – undoubtedly paved the way for the computerised world in which we live today. His former employer, Texas Instruments, have a tribute site. What I find interesting is that had he not been a new employee (hence with no accrued annual leave), he wouldn’t have had the opportunity to carry out his early experiments whilst the rest of the company were on vacation!