Mannerisms

"One of the most salient features of our culture is that there is so much bullshit", is how Professor Harry Frankfurt, Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at Princeton University, starts his book called 'On Bullshit' published by the Princeton University Press. http://press.princeton.edu/titles/7929.html

We are used to getting curious remarks from marketing guys and Paul Otellini, CEO of Intel, makes some of the more curious of them. 'Oh well he's not an engineer', is how these remarks get shrugged off, but here are a couple which raised some eyebrows:

Every now and again a scientist comes up with the notion that humans are going to get taken over by machines.

Clearly there is a need for a new type of 'C' class officer in technology companies alongside the Chief Executive Officer, the Chief Financial Officer, The Chief Operating Officer, the Chief Information Officer and the Chief Marketing Officer.

After commenting on market rumours and speculation that SanDisk is in merger talks with Samsung, SanDisk made this rather witty comment: "We maintain a policy of not commenting on market rumours or speculation."

Intel CEO Paul Otellini must have felt a little uncomfortable when he saw that ARM had joined IBM's Common Platform programme for next generation process technologies.

After a year in which the Dow Jones dipped from 12,500 to below 9,000, when the oil price went from $147 to $40, and the £ went from 2 to the $ to 1.5, it takes a brave soul to forecast the semiconductor market in 2009. Let alone forecast it to a decimal point.

So what's the Middle East Peace Envoy been doing this last eighteen months?  Not very much to judge by the carnage in the Middle East.

Last week, discussion in The Wheatsheaf  turned to solving the problem of Guantanamo Bay i.e. what do you do with around 250 presumably rabid anti-Western guys after you've closed down their prison?

Will we ever trust economists again? The Queen put her finger on it exactly when, during a visit to the LSE, she asked the economists: "Why didn't you see it coming?"

At the Intel-TSMC press conference announcing the outsourcing of Atom, it was illuminating to hear a number of Wall St analysts asked if Intel was transferring process technology to TSMC to make Atom.