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With all the over-the-top sensationalized news reports, I did not hear an understated humor in a long time and then I saw this in the article! Nice one! >>IBM
by hi41 5y ago
With all the over-the-top sensationalized news reports, I did not hear an understated humor in a long time and then I saw this in the article! Nice one!
>>IBM states that the technology can fit ’50 billion transistors onto a chip the size of a fingernail’. We reached out to IBM to ask for clarification on what the size of a fingernail was, given that internally we were coming up with numbers from 50 square millimeters to 250 square millimeters.
- FridayoLeary 5y agoThe author seems to be a Professor in Oxford. I took the trouble to look up because i (correctly) guessed this was typical, dry British irony. The academic link also came as no surprise.
- throwaway2037 5y agoTo be clear, according to his LinkedIn profile (https://www.linkedin.com/in/iancutress https://www.linkedin.com/in/iancutress): <<Academically I have obtained a doctorate degree (DPhil, aka PhD) from the University of Oxford>> It does not say he is/was a professor. (Please correct me if wrong.) Still, a PhD from Oxford is an amazing achievement! And, yes, I also enjoyed that bone-dry humor about enquiry about size of fingernail...
- IanCutress 5y agoCan confirm, not a professor :) Nine papers on Computational Chemistry during my 3 year PhD. Been writing about semiconductors for 10+ years now. Also doing video on the youtubes. https://www.youtube.com/techtechpotato https://www.youtube.com/techtechpotato
- secfirstmd 5y agoHahaha. That's some achievement and perfectly timed response. https://youtu.be/_uMEE7eaaUA https://youtu.be/_uMEE7eaaUA
- gsibble 5y agoHey! Subscribed to you the other day. Great channel. Keep up the hard work!
- Covzire 5y agoI really like your level-headed, not-overly-gamer-but-still-not-too-dry style. Keep it up!
- johncalvinyoung 5y agoApparently we were up at Oxford at the same time! I wasn't working on my DPhil, though... PPE as a visiting undergrad student. I greatly enjoy your deep dives on Anandtech!
- IanCutress 5y agoThanks! I've only been back that way a few times since I finished. I'm quite upset that Noodle Nation has folded.
- mcdevilkiller 5y agoHello, chip eater :)
- FridayoLeary 5y agoOops. Didn't think you were reading this, Doctor....
- colordrops 5y agoMaybe too dry or I'm dense. I don't get the joke.
- beowulfey 5y agoThe joke is that their reference of a fingernail, as if it were a consistent unit of measurement, turns out to be useless as a reliable measurement of surface area given the range in measurements of those around them.
- ludsan 5y agoISO has it as 1/42042042042042 of a "library of congress"
- Normille 5y ago>"..reached out.." When I'm king of the world. There will be public floggings for anyone using that puke-making phrase!
- bdamm 5y agoWhat alternatives would you suggest? What are you willing to bet that they will stand the test of time without also becoming overused icons of language? "Reached out" at least has a warm diplomatic connotation so I personally don't mind it at all.
- mbg721 5y agoWhy not "asked" for "reached out to ask"?
- bqmjjx0kac 5y agoAt the end of the day, it is what it is.
- geenew 5y agoIt's certainly not what it's not, and it was what it was. Going forward, it will be what it will be. Despite the claims from some quarters, it wasn't what it wasn't; despite the hopes from other quarters, it won't become what it won't become. Some want it to be what it was, while others want it to not become what it is. Everyone can agree that it might or might not become what it is. All anyone can do is learn from what it was, understand what it is, and work to make what it will be what they want it to be.
- Normille 5y agoOh "going forward" is another good one! It's obviously designed to imply so much more 'progression', 'improvement' and 'boldly striding into the future' than the wholly unambitious "from now on"
- 5y ago
- ineedasername 5y agoClearly we need an ISO standard for fingernail size.
- tambourine_man 5y agoWell, we (some stubborn countries at least) use feet as a unit of measurement, so I wouldn't be surprised.
- lstamour 5y agoWorse, there were actually two different foot measurements, one used in surveying and the other more generally. They vary by not much, but it adds up when surveying, and still causes trouble today as you have to determine whether or not something was measured using one definition of a foot or another. Of course, one pair of fingernail trimmers tends to be as good as another, but one can't say the same about shoes sized for the wrong foot. ;-)
- ineedasername 5y agoHmmm... people also trim fingernails to different lengths. There are also artificial finger nail extensions, although I think those can clearly be left out of consideration. I think to accommodate such variables the standard would really need to consider only the nail plate that covers the finder itself, not any overhand resulting from growing nails out longer. Further, I would propose we settle on a single finger to use. While all fingers are important, the dominant role of the pointer finger makes it a clear candidate. Really, if we're moving to a nail-based benchmark for generating transistor density metrics then these details really need to be, um... nailed down.
- dopidopHN 5y agoStubborn. Interesting choice of adjectives here.
- szc 5y agoEven better would be to classify / specify based on the mammalian species. Which I think would account for the large variation the article author was noting.
- babypuncher 5y agoThe scandal will be when it turns out their reference was actually a toenail.