Tag Archives: Time

Space: It’s the final frontier

WENT to an Intel gig last night at the Bloomsbury Ballroom – covered it in TechEye yesterday.

The biggest problem any journalist have was not solved by Albert Einstein. If there’s an infinite amount of space to fill, do you have the time? The Tantrarajatantra is quite illuminating about this, if you’ve the time to read it.

After ducking out of the Intel conference because we were feeling a bit peckish, we proceeded in an easterly direction to Lamb’s Conduit Passage, there to the Dolphin to quaff a few ales with our old mate Tony Dennis.

Opposite the Dolphin is The Enterprise, on Red Lion Street. On Red Lion Street is Conway Hall, an emblem of the ethical society, free thinking and humanism. The last time I was in the Dolphin it was with David Tibet and Dadaji. David Hall might have been there too… The former had a skeletal hand on his belt and a Tibetan thighbone trumpet, and many a piercing around his ears. Dadaji  was dressed in full ceremonial Nath regalia. Dave Tibet said to me quietly: “It’s a bit embarrassing being in a pub with a man dressed like a sadhu.”

How we laughed. ♥

The Enterprise

This Intel tick-tock stuff is doing my brain in

AMONG THE MATERIALS Intel sent for the announcements it made yesterday was one about Quickpath and the first paragraph of this document is truly an outstanding example of marchitecture.

To wit: “Through its rapid ‘tick-tock’ cadence for microprocessor innovation, Intel introdces a new microarchitecture or a new process technology (that includes enhanced microarchitecture features nearly every year.”

When I was a kid, I went to see Peter Pan at an Aberdeen theatre. The scariest character was the crocodile who’d swallowed an alarm clock and also been fed Captain Hook’s hand and lusted for more bits of his body.

Hook always knew when the crocodile was around because of the tick-tock cadence from the alarm clock. Tick-tock is scary because sooner or later we know the alarm will go off and we’ll be woken up from our pleasant slumbers.

It’s also scary because it marks the passing of Time, the most powerful thing in the world, that marks the end of all things, and in the case of us humanoids, the end of our life.

Yeah, this Intel tick-tock marketing metaphor really creeps me out. ♥