I’m touring Intel’s processor fab here outside of Portland, Oregon. I lived in Silicon Valley for more than 30 years and have never been inside a processor fab. These things are awesome, very cool to tour if you ever get a chance (very few will, they don’t like tourists inside these buildings). The building we were in is one of the cleanest places in the world. One very small piece of dirt will ruin a chip that could sell for hundreds of dollars at retail. And we are pretty dirty things as things go. I probably have kicked off millions of particles alone just today. One guy like me could ruin a whole run of processors.
Anyway, I’m under NDA so can’t reveal my Intel videos today. Coming soon. In the meantime last week I filmed an interview with John Edwards at the back of the plane. Unfortunately the interview was after I broke my camera, so I used my backup Xacti (a $700 camera that isn’t nearly as good a quality as my $4,000 Sony, especially in low light and noisy places). Funny story, I was just asking Edwards about what he wanted the tech industry to know about him and my battery died on the camera, lucky enough I was also recording audio.
Always have backups!
Anyway, the video of Edwards’ interview is here and the audio of just the part of the interview that got cut short by my battery death is here.
Scobleizer 
Just took a look and listen; nice job. He’s articulate and you asked good questions. Are there ever too many toys?
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Just took a look and listen; nice job. He’s articulate and you asked good questions. Are there ever too many toys?
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Can’t wait to see your Fab videos. Very interesting places. Had a semiconductor client (chips for disk drives) and spent 24 hours in the fab shooting photos all bunny suited up. In spite of cleaning all the photo gear and being suited and the laminar flow air system in full force, it still took them another 24 hours to clean up after us and get the Fab running production again.
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Can’t wait to see your Fab videos. Very interesting places. Had a semiconductor client (chips for disk drives) and spent 24 hours in the fab shooting photos all bunny suited up. In spite of cleaning all the photo gear and being suited and the laminar flow air system in full force, it still took them another 24 hours to clean up after us and get the Fab running production again.
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Oh, and, you might find this interesting. At one point in time, every disk drive manufacturer was headed by an ex Control Data executive. Minnesota was the center of the universe for drives and drive technology.
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Oh, and, you might find this interesting. At one point in time, every disk drive manufacturer was headed by an ex Control Data executive. Minnesota was the center of the universe for drives and drive technology.
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I got to visit Intel’s fab plant in Albuquerque, New Mexico. A friend works on the machines and he took me for a quick tour. Granted this was back in 2002 so things have surely changed a bit since then.
I wasn’t aware at the time how exclusive such a tour is.
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I got to visit Intel’s fab plant in Albuquerque, New Mexico. A friend works on the machines and he took me for a quick tour. Granted this was back in 2002 so things have surely changed a bit since then.
I wasn’t aware at the time how exclusive such a tour is.
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Since you’re in the Rose City, you might want to stop by the Portland Web Innovators meeting tonight, if only because it’s at the Lucky Lab brewpub, a true Portland institution — local beer and dogs, all in one place.
Does life get any better?
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Since you’re in the Rose City, you might want to stop by the Portland Web Innovators meeting tonight, if only because it’s at the Lucky Lab brewpub, a true Portland institution — local beer and dogs, all in one place.
Does life get any better?
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Man, that audio is painful to listen to. Reminds me of one of Dave Winer’s Morning Coffee Notes when he was driving, had the radio playing and what sounded like the window down. Impossible to listen to without way too much concentration.
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Man, that audio is painful to listen to. Reminds me of one of Dave Winer’s Morning Coffee Notes when he was driving, had the radio playing and what sounded like the window down. Impossible to listen to without way too much concentration.
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Ah, yes, the old Lucky Lab. Great place to enjoy the waft of wet dog hair…heaven knows how fanatical Oregonians are about pets:
http://www.oregonlive.com/search/index.ssf?/base/living/1167420306219670.xml?oregonian?ylvcdw&coll=7
I’m glad you liked your tour of the fab–those are about all that is left of the Silicon Forest.
OK, I know, back to blogging about Oracle
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Ah, yes, the old Lucky Lab. Great place to enjoy the waft of wet dog hair…heaven knows how fanatical Oregonians are about pets:
http://www.oregonlive.com/search/index.ssf?/base/living/1167420306219670.xml?oregonian?ylvcdw&coll=7
I’m glad you liked your tour of the fab–those are about all that is left of the Silicon Forest.
OK, I know, back to blogging about Oracle
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I was offered a job at IBM 10 years ago, and even then the Fab (for PowerPC and Cyrix chips in Burlington, VT) was just amazing. I can’t imagine how cool Intel must have been in comparison.
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I was offered a job at IBM 10 years ago, and even then the Fab (for PowerPC and Cyrix chips in Burlington, VT) was just amazing. I can’t imagine how cool Intel must have been in comparison.
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Do they have you at the Hillsboro plant or the Aloha plant? I grew up a few blocks from the Aloha plant and the hum that filled the night lulled me to sleep as a child. The Hillsboro plant came along later and is much bigger and better.
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Do they have you at the Hillsboro plant or the Aloha plant? I grew up a few blocks from the Aloha plant and the hum that filled the night lulled me to sleep as a child. The Hillsboro plant came along later and is much bigger and better.
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Matt: we were at the Hillsboro plant.
Unfortunately we’re on the way back home today. It was an incredible day, really appreciate spending time with some of Intel’s top people (one guy I interviewed had worked there for about 30 years).
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Matt: we were at the Hillsboro plant.
Unfortunately we’re on the way back home today. It was an incredible day, really appreciate spending time with some of Intel’s top people (one guy I interviewed had worked there for about 30 years).
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PXLated: sorry about that. ALl I had was a $700 Xacti camcorder and we were in a very noisy plane. It was the only time that I could get a sit down interview of my own, unfortunately (I have a couple of others where he was interviewed by bloggers — they’ll be up tomorrow or Friday).
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PXLated: sorry about that. ALl I had was a $700 Xacti camcorder and we were in a very noisy plane. It was the only time that I could get a sit down interview of my own, unfortunately (I have a couple of others where he was interviewed by bloggers — they’ll be up tomorrow or Friday).
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What model of Xacti you have used in this review? Usually one can get much better video quality and much longer battery life…
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What model of Xacti you have used in this review? Usually one can get much better video quality and much longer battery life…
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Comic: it’s the HD one. I forget the model number. They suck in low light and image stablization on them sucks (it’s much better on the newer models that just came out, by the way). I was at the back of the plane and it was really dark back there.
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Comic: it’s the HD one. I forget the model number. They suck in low light and image stablization on them sucks (it’s much better on the newer models that just came out, by the way). I was at the back of the plane and it was really dark back there.
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Robert S, this can be your best interview of all times – if John Edwards will be elected. It is very good interview anyway and your questions were superb, particularly this one: “will you continue this level of transparency after you will be elected?” I also liked this talk about “from bottom to top, instead of top from bottom”. Amazing job, Robert S! Wow. YOU, and not Ze Frank or Rocket Boom, are the best video podcaster on this planet.
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Robert S, this can be your best interview of all times – if John Edwards will be elected. It is very good interview anyway and your questions were superb, particularly this one: “will you continue this level of transparency after you will be elected?” I also liked this talk about “from bottom to top, instead of top from bottom”. Amazing job, Robert S! Wow. YOU, and not Ze Frank or Rocket Boom, are the best video podcaster on this planet.
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John Edwards knows a lot about poverty, after all, he’s helped throw a lot of people into it with:
– his co-sponsorship of H-1b visas,
– his support for illegal aliens,
– his vote for MFN-China
but what about stuff like iraq war and the patriot act?
well, he voted for them too
About the only thing you can say for Edwards is, he spent so much time running for president that he didnt have time to do more damage as senator
You’ve got to ask yourself – ‘what did he do, with the power he had, when he had it?
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John Edwards knows a lot about poverty, after all, he’s helped throw a lot of people into it with:
– his co-sponsorship of H-1b visas,
– his support for illegal aliens,
– his vote for MFN-China
but what about stuff like iraq war and the patriot act?
well, he voted for them too
About the only thing you can say for Edwards is, he spent so much time running for president that he didnt have time to do more damage as senator
You’ve got to ask yourself – ‘what did he do, with the power he had, when he had it?
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@17
Not to mention his contributions into raising healthcare costs and prices by getting rich from suing healthcare providers. Surprised Scoble didn’t ask him how he plans to rationalize that with his free healthcare plan.
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@17
Not to mention his contributions into raising healthcare costs and prices by getting rich from suing healthcare providers. Surprised Scoble didn’t ask him how he plans to rationalize that with his free healthcare plan.
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Why ask the tough questions? That would mean Edwards would have to take a stand and do you really think a lawyer is going to do anything that isn’t going to benefit him?
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Why ask the tough questions? That would mean Edwards would have to take a stand and do you really think a lawyer is going to do anything that isn’t going to benefit him?
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LayZ: plenty of other people asked him that. By the end of this campaign you’re gonna hear so much about his plans that you’ll get sick of hearing the answers. He mostly said he’s going to get into specifics “soon.”
Rebecca: he got asked about 500 questions in three days. If he can’t answer the tough questions that’ll come out before any of you get a chance to vote for or against him. Same for all the candidates.
My goal was to figure out how technology was being used by the candidate. I think I did pretty well on that. More videos coming today that’ll give you more insight into that.
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LayZ: plenty of other people asked him that. By the end of this campaign you’re gonna hear so much about his plans that you’ll get sick of hearing the answers. He mostly said he’s going to get into specifics “soon.”
Rebecca: he got asked about 500 questions in three days. If he can’t answer the tough questions that’ll come out before any of you get a chance to vote for or against him. Same for all the candidates.
My goal was to figure out how technology was being used by the candidate. I think I did pretty well on that. More videos coming today that’ll give you more insight into that.
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