Silicon Speculators

From the New York Times article on Apple’s A4 processor:

“I don’t see anything that looks that compelling,” said Linley Gwennap, a chip analyst at the Linley Group. “It doesn’t seem like something all that new, and, if it is, they are not getting far with it.”

I don’t understand how Gwennap can back up his claim. I find it hard to believe the Linley Group has any more information about the A4 than anyone else outside Apple’s hardware division. Apple is unlikely ever to release detailed specs. Wikipedia doesn’t say much more than it “runs at 1 GHz and has an integrated graphics processor.” We know Samsung manufactures it. We know Apple licensed technology from ARM. That’s about it.

What strikes me as journalistic negligence is that the Times fails to tell us the analysts they quote have no hard data on the chip, its fabrication process, or technical capabilities. The Linley Group certainly didn’t do a tear-down of an actual chip. And without seeing benchmarks or other performance metrics, how can Gwennap say he doesn’t “see anything that looks compelling”? Admittedly, an analyst with 15 years of industry experience can make some fairly educated guesses about what’s going on under the hood, but in the end it’s just speculation.

A Poem to Be Read by an Apple II Disk Drive

[d-d-d-d-r-r-r-r]

[doot-doooot-doot-whzzzzz]

[d-d-d-d-r-r-r-r]

[dt-doooot-doot-whzzzzz]

[dt dt dt dt]

[dt dt dt dt]

[dt dt dt dt]

[dt dt dt dt]

[dt dt whzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz dt]

[dt dt dt dt dt dt dt dt dt]

Just Start

The problem with saying things like “Obama should motivate young people to be entrepreneurs” or “2010 should be the year of Start-Up America” is that it implies that we are incapable of doing these things on our own. It’s a cop-out. How can we expect a slow, bureaucratic entity that is prone to chronic infighting, corruption, and foot-dragging to stimulate innovation? We, the entrepreneurs, do what we do against all odds, and when we succeed it is due to our vision, agility, and follow-through—not because we were awarded a handout from Uncle Sam. Stop whining that this stuff should be easy. It’s not. We don’t create Apples and Googles and Ciscos because it’s easy.

Transitivity? We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Transitivity!

I want to stop posting these. I really do.

// The setup.

class Foo {}

$array = array();
$object = new Foo();

$array > 100;       // This is true.
100 > $object;      // This is also true. (Wha?)

// The punchline.

$array > $object;   // THIS IS FALSE!

If $array > 100 and 100 > $object, shouldn’t $array > $object? Also, doesn’t the language documenation say that when comparing an object to any other type, the object is always greater? What the fuck, PHP?