Sybreon Ones Nought

The Internets was abuzz with the launch of the newest Apple hotness, the iPad. However, the message that struck me the most about the iPad wasn’t that it was a well designed table, nor was it because of the iBooks store, nor was it because it wasn’t multi-tasking – it was because it came with Apple A4 – a custom designed System-on-Chip from Apple.

Now, as a processor guy, it naturally piqued my interest. However, after looking it up, it turns out that it is just a regular ARM Cortex-A9 CPU paired with an ARM Mali GPU core. Boring! There is nothing at all sexy about this SoC. I was hoping to see the PowerPC make a comeback into the Apple stable, maybe with either an ARM emulation layer or a co-processor.

The business side of me thinks that this marks a big shift in Apple’s business. Now that Apple owns its own silicon, you can bet that the A4 will find it’s way into all other Apple devices, starting with the iPhone and iPod that already use the Cortex-A8. However, the Cortex-A9 is gunning for Intel’s neck. It is the next-generation ARM processor that is capable of running applications as fast as Intel’s processors can but at a fraction of the power envelope. So, I can also see this processor moving into other Apple products including their AppleTV, laptops and desktops in the future.

Don’t be surprised if Apple completely shifts their devices over to the A4 because Apple has already done it several times. The original Apple PCs used a 68K, then a PowerPC and finally an x86 processor. If there is any company that can execute an architectural shift smoothly, it is Apple. They have already proven their ability to do so more than once, while still maintaining backwards compatibility with their older applications.

If Apple wants to take on the server market, this would be a good processor to do it too. They can stuff the A4 into a bunch of blades and house them all inside a sexy rack. They will instantly provide a differentiating factor to the Intel based servers – high-density and low-power computing with the ability to accelerate some floating point applications and not just integer ones. ARM has always said that it’s processors were good for data-centres, but there hasn’t been a kit released from any Tier-1 vendor.

You know what, it’s going to be like the 80s and 90s again!

I totally agree with what Anas Zubedy said in his Nut Graph article:

But in terms of politics, I would like to see us moving beyond a two-party system. I think we need a two-plus-one system. In this system, we’d have BN and PR, and also 30 to 40 Members of Parliament who are totally independent and who can vote entirely according to their conscience. I think this will make us a stronger country.

That is why I have often reminded people that with two ballot boxes and the ability to cross out any box, there are actually four outcomes. That is a mathematical certainty. I will quote a previous blog of mine, “The Maths of a Single Ballot”:

Problem: There is a ballot sheet with two boxes on it. One is labelled BN while the other is labelled Opposition. A voter, who has decided to go to the polls to have his/her voice heard, is asked to make a choice by crossing out any of the boxes according to his/her preference. By selecting a random voter, determine the possible outcomes of the single vote.

Gahmen’s Truth: There is only one choice, of course cross out BN lar!
Opposition’s Truth: There is only one correct choice, of course cross out Opposition lar!

Mathematical Truth: With two boxes and the possibility of crossing out any box, there are four possible outcomes, namely:

1. Cross out the box labelled BN.
2. Cross out the box labelled Opposition.
3. Cross out both boxes labelled Opposition and BN.
4. Cross out neither of the boxes and leave both empty.

Subjective Analysis: Assuming that the ballot reflects the voter’s true feelings, from the possible outcomes, determine the kind of voter for each possible outcome.

• Supports BN.
• Supports the Opposition.
• Supports neither the Opposition nor BN.
• Undecided.

Conclusion: There are many other ways that this result can be analysed. I leave it as an exercise to the reader to analyse this and draw whatever conclusions that they wish to draw. This blog wasn’t about the conclusions. It’s about the mathematical fact that there are four possible results for a single ballot in a straight fight between two parties.

In fact, I had tried explaining this concept to some of my colleagues and they cannot seem to fathom any of the other two possibilities. I think that is partially due to fear, uncertainty and doubt. We definitely need the third vote. I agree with Zubedy that we need 30-40 MPs who do not need to tow any party line but need to respect the wishes of their constituents.

However, that would only happen within a mature democracy – not ours.

I came across this when trying to get my Daily Fix of IGN today with Jessica Chobot. Note that it says: “A team of highly trained monkeys has been dispatched to deal with this situation.” Made me laugh.

When someone swings a crude 100-pound bludgeon at you, what do you do? Some people duck and hide. I swing back.

Some things happened at work today and I got caught in a massive political game. If there was some finesse in it, I would still be afraid of a knife in the dark. However, there was none of that and I was just totally pissed at the crudeness of it – what a waste of my time and energy.

Truly, I would have appreciated it if there was a knife in the dark. However, I could see this bludgeon coming from miles away. So, I had already taken steps to avoid it but the bludgeon continued to come. I guess that is why it is called a bludgeon. Since the bludgeon was aimed at me by a 1-tonne gorilla, I blocked it with my shield and swung back with my scimitar.

For now, I am just taking a step back and looking at the situation. If the bludgeon decides to try another swing, I will swing back with my scimitar for my blade was forged in Damascus and this time, I will not hesitate to take off the swinging arm.

PS: Finished playing Assassins Creed last month. However, I’m not really looking forward to the sequel.

I am in a rather foul mood today and unfortunately, a few people moving objects got in my way today. Since I have an extremely low tolerance for stoopidity, I whacked a couple of heads today.

The first one is someone who I gave a briefing to last week. Everything seemed fine and he seemed to have a clear picture on what is happening. Then, over the weekend he must have lost his brain. This morning, he began asking me questions on how to do this and that. At first, I pointed him in the right direction but after a while, I just told him – “I am sorry but If you expect me to spoon-feed you, it is not going to happen.”

Then the next one is someone whom I have never met or even spoken to. He is probably a new guy who has been unfortunately saddled with the job of dealing with me. He presented me with a document that clearly showed that he failed to understand the whole concept. So, I suggested that he do some reading on the concept to catch up with what is happening then we can talk. He had the gall to tell me that he does not have the time to read and since I am the ‘expert’, I could walk him through it. I just told him – “If you do not know how to read, maybe you can look at the pretty pictures in the document that I included.”

In both cases – silence ensued. I can be particularly nasty when I am in a foul mood.

There has been a lot said about our ex-former PM, the dear old Tun, and his comments on 9/11. Clearly, he made these comments after watching the wonderful blockbuster by James Cameron – Avatar. He opined that if the Americans can make a movie like Avatar, with such surreal realism, they could definitely manufacture 9/11. While I don’t believe that 9/11 was entirely staged inside a computer, I would put myself in the Truthers camp. There are just too many holes in the official 9/11 story that just raises some red-flags in my head.

It reminds me of a quote from the X-Files.

Deep Throat: “Mister Mulder, why are those like yourself, who believe in the existence of extraterrestrial life on Earth, not entirely persuaded by all the evidence to the contrary?”
Mulder: “Because, all the evidence to the contrary is not entirely dissuasive.”
Deep Throat: “Precisely.”

Then again, I am also someone who does not believe in the science of climate change. I am not crazy. Neither am I stupid. In fact, a recent poll found that of the people who do not believe in the science of climate change in the US scientific community, 49% of us were engineers. Maybe there is just something in an engineer that automatically makes us skeptical of beautiful stories. It is probably to do with the fact that we deal too much with the real world to believe in the flawed beauty of mathematical models.

However, back to Mahathir’s comments on 9/11. According to his most recent blog entry, he raised a few pertinent questions that have not been satisfactorily answered by the official 9/11 story. If you have some free time and the interest in these things, you may want to check out some of the flaws in the 9/11 story. There is a lot of information on the Internet from both camps. Draw your own conclusions.

However, unlike Mahathir, I am fully prepared to just leave the mystery of 9/11 as it is, for the next few decades. After that, we can get the declassified copies of official government files. Then we can maybe get down to the real story behind 9/11.

Streamyx sucks. Since Monday, I have been getting a terrible Internet connection at home. Knowing that these things sometimes happens to Streamyx, I just ignored it at first. But today, I decided to do a speed test and found that my internet speed is only 0.06Mbps. So, I called up their customer service line to see what the problem was. According to the customer service agent, they have a service outage in my area and it has been marked as an active outage. They cannot promise when they will restore the service and will try their best to fix it as soon as possible. I was told to call back if the problem still persisted over the weekend.

I hope that TMNet really gets down to fixing it as soon as possible. I have just recently applied for a 1Mbps upgrade and I do not wish to end up getting such a slow speed instead. Here is me hoping that they can do wonders.

UPDATE: The speed was back up again an hour later! Thanks TMNet! Here’s hoping that it stays this way!