Folsom: Not Just a Prison But A Cache

A nice update to my previous posts about the Intel Penryn microprocessor:

1. Moore at 45 nm
   
2. More on Penryn
   
3. More on Moore
   

appears on a Dutch blog (in English---damn good English, BTW). The blogger was apparently invited to Intel's geographical home for the development of Penryn; not HQ in Santa Clara, California but Folsom (pronounced: 'full sum'), California. Consistent with Intel's January 2007 announcement, he notes that November looks to be show time for their 45 nm technology.

Since the author was a visitor, he failed to appreciate certain local ironies in his report. He missed was the fact that Penryn is a small town due north of Folsom, just off Interstate 80 on the way to Lake Tahoe. He refers to the huge Intel campus at the edge of the town. At the other end of town is an even better known campus; one of the state's major prisons immortalized in this Johnny Cash (not Cache) song. So, not only are criminals cached there but so also are some of Intel's best microprocessor designers (not as an intended punishment for the latter, presumably). OK, I'll stop there because I'm having way too much fun with this. Read the blog.

Erlang's Collected Papers

In 1948, the collected papers of Agner Erlang (AKA the father of queueing theory) were translated from the original Danish and published in the Transactions of the Danish Academy of Technical Sciences. They were reissued as a book by Acta Polytechnica Scandinavica in 1960, but due its underwhelming popularity, that book is now out of print. However, I just discovered that the chapters of the book are now available on the web. Kudos to the Academy!

Streeeeeeetch!

The October 2007 Linux Magazine (no. 10, issue 83, p. 62) is carrying the English version of my original German article about converting load averages to stretch factors. Unfortunately, there is no direct URL (Sun Oct 28, 2007: As Metapost commented below, it is now available for viewing) but the cute visual hook has a picture of a stretch limo ... stretched across two pages.

I wish I'd thought of that.