MENT to explode¿

Crytek's recent presentation at the High Performance Graphics Conference 2010 was released June 30, 2010, yet a Larrabee 2 is listed under "What’s the next generation of consoles?". Larrabee seems to be quite popular for a technology that's supposed to be dead.

Upon the discovery of the nuanced Larrabee 2 name from Crytek's presentation, I was lead to KitGuru's May 15, 2010 article, where 1 of their employee recalls chatters of Mentor Graphics, Intel, Larrabee, and "Mentor Graphics developed Calibre InRoute to support manufacturing closure for advanced node designs" at a pub.

Somehow with just that information, KitGuru concludes, "Intel seems to have completed its internal analysis of the failings of Larrabee v1, created a completely revised strategy and product definition for Larrabee v2 and, most importantly, begun shopping for the tools necessary to design and deliver a world class, discrete graphics solution.".

But the conclusion is very similar to what Charlie Demerjian wrote on May 17, 2010, "That brings us to Larrabee 2, basically a refresh and cleanup of Larrabee 1. Tie up loose ends, optimize what they could, and fix whatever low hanging fruit that remained... Larrabee 3 was going to be a big bang. Intel learned a lot with Larrabee 1, but too late incorporate any of it in Larrabee 2.".

So I'm researching Mentor Graphics, and MENT is coincidentally at a 52-week high today, much thanks to famed hedge fund honcho Carl Icahn. Financial analysis aside, Low-Power Engineering in late 2009 interviewed a chap from Mentor, who let slip that, "by 2011 it [Larrabee] will have 4 billion gates and 128 cores.".

Based upon the KitGuru pub chat, Charlie's subsequent corroboration, and legendary investor Icahn's approval, I expect MENT to blow up pretty soon. If not, at least it's another tea leaf into the viability of Larrabee.

Blacklight Power collusion and incompetency

October 20, 2008, Blacklight Power Inc. announced "independent" replication of its hydrino technology, by Dr. Peter Jansson of Rowan University of New Jersey. 1 of his publications, dated May 1997, is titled HYDROCATALYSIS: A New Energy Paradigm for the 21st Century.

On Blacklight's site, they say,

In 1991, Dr. Mills founded HydroCatalysis Power Corp. to pursue the development and ultimate commercialization of a new form of energy - the HydroCatalysis Process. In the fall of 1996, the Company's name was changed from HydroCatalysis Power Corp. to BlackLight Power, Inc. to reflect the ultraviolet light emission produced by catalysis in the renamed BlackLight Process. In 1999 the Company moved to its present location, a 53,000 square-foot research facility, in Cranbury, NJ, and has since expanded its employee base to 25 people.

There's no such thing as coincidence. If it's not, it ought to be criminal to claim independent verification, when clearly, Randell Mills and Peter Jansson obviously go way back. On top of the HydroCatalysis "coincidence", others explore his employment history with Atlantic Energy, now Conectiv, or as VentureBeat notes,

Jansson has been aware of Blacklight for years, and even acted as an advisor for an energy company that ultimately made a strategic investment, but it appears to have no unethical ties, just an ongoing interest. Jansson also professes to be impartial to the existence of hydrinos, saying he’s interested in hearing any “alternative explanation” to the hydrino theory.

Collusion aside, they could possibly be sitting on explosive technology, though a glimpse at their jobs page doesn't inspire confidence. For their business development executive, they are seeking someone with "success with soliciting government agencies for funding technology development; prior grant writing experience, technological capability, especially around internet use for internal and external communication, and possesses a good sense of humor". For their senior mechanical engineer, they want "demonstrated grant-writing experiences" and require "formal presentation skills".

So while they clearly don't have any explosive technology yet/ever, they are ready to rumble with funny rock star marketers that know how to get that government cheese.

Lockheed and Tata maybe EEstor too

July 8, 2010, a news release came out, concerning Lockheed Martin and Tata Advanced System Ltd., a part of India's Tata Group, in which they signed a joint venture to "make defense equipment and aircraft parts in India". Lockheed will invest 428 million rupees, while Tata would invest 1.22 billion rupees (around $35 million as of today).

Tata Group also makes cars with Tata Motors in the famous $2500 Nano. Tata Motors is not just a small novelty car company ala Zenn, they also own Daewoo, Jaguar, Land Rover, and Daimler. 

Flash back to 2008, when Lockheed signed exclusive rights to develop EEstor electrical energy storage units for "military and homeland defense applications". The initial hype of EEstor was that it would make the electric car a viable alternative to regular gasoline cars, but Dick Weir just hasn't delivered.

So isn't it somewhat significant that Lockheed is announcing a joint venture this week with another company that can leverage the barium titanate technology in both its defense and car business? Or perhaps just its defense business, as the government has possibly decided that the super battery is just too good for the rest of us. But at least Tata can apply their car knowledge to defense applications. Sorry Zenn, you're just a useless useful idiot.

never get it up

On All I Do Is Win, I thought at first T-Pain was saying, "got money on my mind, I can never get it up", like he needed some Cialis, Viagra, or something. The actual lyric is, "I can never get enough". No erectile problems for him I guess..

count white faces

I was listening to All I Do Is Win and Rick Ross's verse got my attention. He says

I can never be a racist, wake up every morning just to count white faces

Meaning what exactly? I went back and watched the video and it turns out white faces is a reference to the presidents on our dollars, kind of like dead presidents, or something. Kind of clever. If he were speaking literally, just because you deal with white people as a black person doesn't mean you're not racist...

ZN5 sucks

Don't let first impressions fool you. The Motorola MOTOZINE ZN5 sucks. It can take good, but not great pictures, and that's about as good as it gets.

It has WiFi, but the browser is limited and performance is awful. There was no point in including it.

If you text, it lags horribly, even before much use. In a couple months, mine degenerated beyond texting. Calls would come in, and I would press answer, but it just wouldn't answer, so I had to call people back.There are similar reports all over the web of how the phone, like many Motorola phones, is just terribly buggy.

This is a pretty, horrible phone, double entendre intended.