Sep

26

An Extraordinary Kazak, from Victor Niederhoffer

September 26, 2008 |

1 Comment so far

1. douglas roberts dimick on September 27, 2008 4:48 am

   [
   First post has a fense nto fence — sorry. So much of Chinese versions of English Word…

   As for my opening query to V, I am directing it to him as a personal request for employment. Then again, after reading it as it appears in Comments, I defer to for editorial consideration… Sounds like a good title for the article… Ya think?
   ]

   Vic, is it OK to come work with you now?

   Korean not Nockian

   I was approached this month by a Chinese firm in Shanghai to develop US sales — their first target being TI in Dallas. Perhaps the most notable finding from my preliminary due diligence was a reminder that this September marks the 50th anniversary of JK’s debut of the integrated circuit ( http://www.custompc.co.uk/news/604848/integrated-circuit-is-50-years-old-today.html ).

   Standard VN schematic nomenclature here of our “bailiwick” appears to present appellate-like predilections of policy, law, and fact embedded circuitry: citing Dershowitz on procedure and Nock for substantive review of what began in 2000. Granted, as the saying goes… if you haven’t the law, argue the facts; if you haven’t the facts, argue the bible.

   Are we presuming here there to be a failure to appear…

   Law and fact. Pulling up stakes that had claimed and secured American investment banking territories now surrounded by a crownless orchestration, thereby encapsulated as an economic peninsula (more so than a Kazak, given the global melting of Chinda); herein we find the venue, and therein lies the proximate cause of our derivative poisoning.

   Rockin-rollers with one foot in the grave. Albeit apocalyptic envisioning, consider funds to funds having chewed the quant-generated metric cud of our free-ranging private equity scions born out of the 90’s lineage. They have been herding hedge funds into depository fields of first-cut, well beyond any regulatory purview from a 70 year-old fenceline done torn down.

   In equity law courts, one with clean hands has standing. All others are left to the joinder of petitions for either recusal or vigilantism — but for the one looking around the card table wondering who is the sucker.

   Right, that would be me: the WASPs, the Jews, and of late (replacing the 80’s Japanese bank holding companies) are the Chinese communists. Geesh, here they haven’t a clue what’s in store for them behind the barn — hence my writing a book for them to read… and for us.. so we all can “Think About it” (campaign theme of Maine’s first independent governor).

   And the tone of your brief… it has a tea house resonance with the blame-game thing going on…

   My Chinese girlfriend drives me tofu with the prima facie “it’s not my fault” defense, be it for burnt rice or 40% of Shenzhen’s sweatshop manufacturing reportedly being closed within one month — imagine that, how Olympic-opening-synchronized-like seeing how privatization is the “thang” here now.

   And so, as Maine goes, so goes the nation… as with this opinion. Evidenced in my response to your speculation by digressing into personal abstracts and characterizations. All of which returns us to Nock, whose society maintains that “what” not “who” is important when it comes to being right relative to any given pursuit of truth.

   Fine for me… you? Let us — along with the Secretary of the Interior — then return to the good ole days of brightlines.

   Hm, first we need to form a committee. Then the committee needs to go somewhere — seeing how we’re not paying for it, let’s go somewhere new.

   This is not like with hedge fund investors, right Vn? We don’t pay for “it” do we? Right?

   China is old hat — so passe, and we have to come again in 2010 for the World’s Fair. Where’s the beef, anyway?

   India? Lots of Ivy league educated people running around thinking their running things — might as well as stay in New England.

   Fryeburg Fair (Maine’s Blue Ribbon Classic) opens tomorrow. Pig scrambles… lots like the bipolar activities of the you-know-who’s in NY and DC this month.

   Let see… any jackass can kick a barn down — or “blowed up” a nuclear “scientific research” (ahem) facility.

   Nope, it takes a real-deal type to build a barn — forget those “village” doing it mouthpieces, as they seem to be always scheming on how to do it to others before somebody “do’s it” to them. Lawyers…

   Hey, I got an email this week on doing business in North Korea… http://www.custompc.co.uk/news/604848/integrated-circuit-is-50-years-old-today.html

   Well, now that you’re no longer the king… what ya say, dude? Time to leave the building, lease a bus, and let’s all do a fact finding mission at the 37th Parallel.

   Real brightline. Can’t miss it.

   Then we can come back, report on who we did not talked to, where we ate, what travel agent to use, and then get down to business and start stringing up some of that new, shiny (now made of plastic, I kid you not) fence.

   Just like their “Great Leader” over there, then we all can play sheriff… new territory or what — yyyyaaaa, that’s the ticket.

   dr

   Ps. While in Pyongyang, may be time to broker a deal. I know were we can get derivatives, cheap… we’ll trade em to get the boat back.

   Integrated circuit is 50 years old today
   Posted at: 4:24pm 12th September 2008 by Ben Hardwidge

   It’s half a century since the first integrated circuit was demonstrated by Jack Kilby at Texas Instruments

   If it wasn’t for the invention of the integrated circuit, then computers today would probably be housed in huge mahogany cabinets with a baffling array of polished, brass valves, or at least be stuffed into huge boxes containing hand-soldered transistors. We owe a lot of thanks to the integrated circuit, or microchip, which is today celebrating its 50th birthday.

   The first microchip (pictured) was first demonstrated by Jack Kilby from Texas Instruments on 12 September 1958. It might not be much to look at, but then Texas Instruments admits that Kilby often remarked that if he’d known he’d be showing the first working integrated circuit for the next 40-plus years, he would’ve ‘prettied it up a little.’ The chip worked, though, producing a sine wave on an oscilloscope screen at the demo.

   The integrated circuit itself is the germanium strip that you can see in the middle of the glass slide, and it measured 7/16in by 1/16in. With protruding wires, and just containing a single transistor, some resistors and a capacitor, it’s a primitive chip by today’s standards. However, it opened the gate for mass production of larger-scale chips that could contain more and more transistors without the need for complicated hand-soldering jobs.

   This was a major factor when it came to using lots of interconnected transistors, and in 1958 Texas Instruments was researching a new idea called the ‘micromodule,’ in which the components of a circuit all had the same size and shape, but still didn’t address the problems concerning high numbers of transistors.

   In July 1958, Kilby took it upon himself to find the answer to small-scale modules with large numbers of transistors. As a new recruit at Texus Instruments he wasn’t able to take a two-week leave while his other colleagues were off sunning themselves. Instead, he confined himself to his lab alone where he came up with the idea of fabricating all of a circuit’s components with a single block of the same material. Two months later, the first integrated circuit was demonstrated, and technology has never looked back.

   Kilby also kept very detailed notes on all of his work, and you can see the page about the first demonstration of the integrated circuit in the picture below, which is dated 12 September 1958. He later went on to develop the first handheld electronic calculator at Texas Instruments in 1967, and racked up a prestigious et of awards, including the Nobel Prize in physics, the National Medal of Science and the National Medal of Technology.

   To mark the occasion, Texas Instruments has recreated the original lab where Kilby worked on the first integrated circuit at its HQ, which it hopes ‘will inspire future inventors and serve as a visual reminder of the power of science and technology combined with creativity.’ The company has also contributed to a fund to put up a statue of Kilby in his hometown of Great Bend, Kansas.