Blog

How I spent my summer vacation

School runs, in most parts of the world, from September to June, with a few breaks for religious and political celebrations in between. And school’s out in the summer, and August is as summer as ...

On being a curmudgeon and the meaning of life.

I need another thing From tiny screens that fit your wrist to systems that give you 1080p HD. Taking the philosophy of “we did it because we could,” which translated into modern parlance becomes, “Yes ...

Economy of scale doesn’t

A tale of electronic ink and the stupidity of false economy I got a new Kindle 2 for Kathleen for her birthday. I have a Kindle 1 and she kept borrowing it. It was a ...

On R&D and the singularity

I was thinking about where R&D comes from. And then I realized that what I really cared about was the R of R&D. Research, real research which has no immediate product connection, is something only ...

A quiet week is predicted

As predictions go my track record is pretty good, if I do say so myself. So, I’m predicting this week will be rather quiet, with the exception of Apple’s noise of course. And it should ...

On being James Tiberius Kirk

To beat the unbeatable Kobayashi Maru simulation (designed by Spock) at Star Fleet Academy, the young cadet James T. Kirk reprogrammed the game—he changed the rules because of he refused to accept a no-win scenario. ...

Those who don’t learn from history—will profit from the next bubble

When I asked my grandson what would like to be: a fireman, a doctor, a lawyer, a banker, the president of a company, a writer, or a benchmarker, guess what he said? Fireman get burned ...

Look, I know I don’t count

So anything I say is just screaming into the wind—no one hears it, no one cares, go find something else to do. So when I tell you I am an adult, cross streets by myself, ...

Larrabee is coming, Larrabee is coming!

Pat Gelsinger doing his Vanna White thing with a Larrabee wafer at Beijing IDF. (Courtesy Hardware Fr) According to reports from those who attended the Beijing IDF conference last week, the esteemed and always amusing ...

What’s in a processor?

Generally speaking, the difference between a microcontroller and a “processor” is soft code programming, microcontrollers typically run from a ROM-based set of instructions, which may simply be a function of manufacturing and cost convenience, and ...

ARM based netbooks?—not exactly.  But how about a new category?

Is this the future ARM-based cloud client? ARM netbooks are coming and it’s not about price because ARM silicon won’t be that much cheaper than an Intel or VIA solution. It will be about power ...

Multiple sources of entertainment— how come I’m not happier?

Jon needs a stimulus If I wanted to watch TV on a television set, like the 37-inch 1080p LG that’s proudly sitting in my family room, I have four choices of source: OTA (we live ...