The Amazing Unlockable CPU

I just found this article on Engadget about a CPU unlocking program started by Intel about 9 months ago. This program has drawn considerable fire in the comments section of reporting websites such as Atomic PC, Tom's Hardware, and of course the Engaget page, but the commenters are...misdirected. Many comments read something like this "It's like getting a corvette and finding out after you paid for it that it can only do 60mph until you pay to unlock it up to 120mph!" That example is flawed because that's illegal and because sports cars are actually kind of like that. What Intel is doing is telling consumers that they are getting a processor that has 2 threads of execution that run at 2.8GHz and 3MB of L3 cache for $X. Intel also says that for an additional $50 you can unlock 2 more threads and 1MB of cache on this CPU after purchase giving you 4 threads running at 2.8GHz and 4MB of L3 cache. That is not illegal or unethical.

Manufacturing a CPU, or anything else with nano meter sized transistors, is challenging and expensive. The smallest piece of debris on the silicon can damage the chip being manufactured. To increase the number of chips a manufacturer can sell, they determine which parts of the chip work and which parts don't. They will have some flawless chips and some with defects that can be worked around to make a flawless chip. Lets say you have a 4 core CPU but there is a manufacturing defect in one of the cores. You could throw it out as defective, or you could disable that core and market it as a 2 or 3 core chip. The customer never knows the difference, but that isn't important because they got exactly what they paid for.

Unlocking a CPU is not a new idea. Certain models of AMD CPUs have been unlockable with the right kind of motherboard for a long time, although it hasn't a guaranteed upgrade. Intel is taking CPUs that have features that are known to be working and disabling them making a CPU that will be sold for less but is guaranteed to be upgradable. I think that most people who participate in this program will not be satisfied with their upgrade. Most of the programs people use only need 1 core to run smoothly once they have loaded. More cores is better for multitasking, but how many people REALLY multitask? Having word, email, and a web browser with 10 tabs open is hardly multitasking because you can only use one of those programs at once. Thus you really only need 1 core and throwing more cores at these programs won't result in a noticeable speed increase. A real upgrade for people would be to turn the processing speed up. Upgrading from 2.8GHz to 3.6GHz would be a very noticeable improvement. That's called overclocking and it is still more or less free.

Will this be a useful product in the future? Probably not, but I bet that we'll see more of it. I'm sure that many people would prefer to do a cheap and easy upgrade rather than buy a new computer or install a new processor to try to get a faster computer.

Disclaimer: I am an Intel employee, but I do not speak for or represent Intel in any way in my comments. This information is all public knowledge, just intelligently assembled.

Angry Birds Did Not Improve My Productivity

Back in the day when I had both free time and friends, I played tons of First Person Shooter video games at LAN parties. I stopped playing video games to make more time for studying and haven't played them seriously for at least 7 years, that is, until Angry Birds was released for PC. Instead of programming I played over 100 levels of bird flinging, pig killing awesomeness, practically drooling on myself. I noticed that I had neglected my wife all night and realized that I have a weakness toward simple video games. When a person is extremely busy they have to look for small and quick distractions to keep them sane. Little games are great for this and so are web comics or blogs, used in moderation. If given too much attention they can overcome your willpower to work on important things. I deleted Angry Birds from my PC because I knew it would be an ongoing problem for me. Everyone has to know their own limits and take appropriate action to avoid negative consequences of video games and other distractions.

ICANN Haz .xxx Domain?

Good luck finding someone who has used the Internet for a while and hasn't stumbled into some sexually explicit content. The new .xxx top level domain that ICANN has approved gives further credibility to the porn industry. The only way that I would ever be in favor of creating a red light district on the Internet is if there were a way to completely eradicate sexually explicit content everywhere else. If that were possible, all someone would have to do is download a web filter, filter .xxx domains, and pick a garbage password and forget it. Problem solved, you'll never see Internet porn again! Children would be protected, and marriages would not fail because of Internet pornography viewing. The beauty of the Internet is that no government currently has the ability to regulate it, but the problem with that is no one can enforce "law" making moving all that objectionable content to .xxx domains impossible. Therefore I will NEVER be in favor of a red light district. The .xxx domain speaks only of the depravity of the human race.

Social Media: My Conversion

I just read "Here Comes Everybody" by Clay Shirky. It is a terrible book and horribly repetitive, but it convinced me embrace social media and stop hating it. The most important idea that stuck in my mind after reading it is that personal restraint has to be a part of social media. The public nature of social media exposes the author in ways they never have been before. What they write is available to the whole world and is not likely to go away any time soon. Where does your Facebook status go when you post it? Facebook's servers, i.e., out of your control forever. Anyone interested in learning about you now knows that you think your cat is adorable.

I have always seen social media as blogs with no substance or grammatical correctness, the Wild West of the Internet where anything goes because there are no rules. Facebook statuses like "chilin wit my homies" make me cringe because they are completely unnecessary! The only people that care about my status updates are the "homies" I'm "chilin wit". Social media is a way for an individual to publish for a audience that is genuinely interested in their life, but the broader audience of the Internet must always be considered. You might think that your boss is an idiot, and it might be important to your immediate audience to know about it, but remember that what you say is very public despite any illusion of privacy. Find your niche, be creative, have fun, express your unique perspective! Show the world the best of yourself, but be responsible.

Interview from The Green Show - Rouge Sys Admins

Show Us Your Papers!

The entertainment industry needs to find other ways to monetize their products or change their business model to cope with the new challenges the internet has produced. They have replaced fair use with Gestapo tactics trying to put themselves on your computer and tell you what you can and can't do with your legally purchased media. Instead of suing alleged pirates tracked through sketchy ISP traces, they should be focusing on developing good content that people want to purchase in high quality format. I watched a poor quality version of the third Narnia movie a few days ago and it was great! Has the movie studio lost anything from me? Absolutely not! Despite my distaste for the industry, I'm going to purchase the Bluray when it is released and I'll probably pick up a copy of Inception too. (I watched it at a friend's house. It was awesome!) I'll purchase a good product because I enjoy having high quality things, but I'll use it in my own way within fair use. To the entertainment industry: Deal with it.

Women in the Workplace

I believe that men and women should get all of the education they can. Men should be educated so they can be good providers for their families and women so they can raise their children. Therefore, women should only study cooking, sewing, child development, and family dynamics. Absolutely not! Those are all fine things to study but engineering, math and the hard sciences are too. If America needs a new generation of engineers to compete with developing nations, then no one would be better to raise them than mothers that have hard science degrees. I love it that my wife will have degrees in Civil Engineering and Mathematics because I intend to instill in my children a desire to pursue an education in the hard sciences. I have seen the influence a good mother has on children and it is worth much more to me than an extra salary. There are some women in the workplace that should be in the home until their children are raised properly. Work will always be there, but children will not.