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IP Integration : What is the difference between stitching and weaving?

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I should write a article on: What is the difference between reusing and salvaging…

by David Murray, 12/15/2010, Design and Reuse

As a hardware design engineer, I was never comfortable when someone talked about IP integration as ‘stitching a chip together’. First of all, it sounded like a painful process involving sharp needles, usually preceded by a painful accident. I happened to be the recipient of said stitches when, at 8 years of age, I contested a stairs post with my forehead, and sorely lost. I have to say, luckily, I have been quite adept at avoiding the needle and thread ever since. That was of course until once when, an hour before that important customer presentation, my top-shirt button, due to an over enthusiastic yawn, pinged across my hotel room floor like a nano-UFO. A panicked retrieval of the renegade button was followed quickly with a successful hunt for an elusive emergency sewing-kit. The crisis quickly dissipated as I stitched back the button in a random-but-directed type of methodology. Needle-less to say stitching, whilst sometimes necessary, makes me uncomfortable.

Stitching, according to Wikipedia, is “.. the fastening of cloth, leather, furs, bark, or other flexible materials, using needle and thread. Its use is nearly universal among human populations and dates back to Paleolithic times (30,000 BCE).” It also states that stitching predates the weaving of cloth. So, 32,000 years later, in these hi-tech times we are still stitching things together. It’s not fur this time, but ‘ports’. Stitching a chip together involves connecting ports together with wires. (Note the terminology also where, if you don’t use certain ports you ’tie’ them off).

Weaving is a different game altogether. One definition simplifies weaving as ‘creating fabric’. Thus a key differentiator between stitching and weaving is that stitching may refer to fixing/mending things whilst weaving is used to create. Stitching is an emergency, an ah-hoc approach (please refer to my stitched button above) whilst weaving is more structured, more planned. Stitching invokes the image of being bent over, eyes squinted, immersed in the tiniest of detail. Weaving is more graceful and productive. In IC design flow terms, I equate stitching with scripting. It is task that is useful to join pieces of the flow together. Weaving creates something. It transforms thread to cloth, and therefore equates more to synthesis. Weaving is a process.

So when it came to developing and naming a tool used to effectively integrate IP and create a chip hierarchy, in a structured manner, we didn’t consider consider ‘STITCHER’ – It had to be ‘WEAVER’.

Stitching is important to fix things, and is necessary in emergency situations, however it has its limitations and as if used as a core creation process, it may come undone. So as I ranted on during that vital presentation, as I got to the cusp of the value-add, I curbed my enthusiasm, keep it slightly in check just in case those button stitches came undone and resulted in a serious eye injury of an altogether innocent customer. What then, of those poor stitched chips? What if those threads start to unravel and your chip integration is running very late. You may have to resort to different type of Weaving, when dealing with your management, customers or partners.

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Which MBA? Think twice

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According to Economist, studying MBA is not a good investment. So I should be glad that MBA school rejected my application.

2 Feb 2011, Economist
Set your heart on an MBA? Philip Delves Broughton suggests a radical alternative: don’t bother

Business schools have long sold the promise that, like an F1 driver zipping into the pits for fresh tyres, it just takes a short hiatus on an MBA programme and you will come roaring back into the career race primed to win. After all, it signals to companies that you were good enough to be accepted by a decent business school (so must be good enough for them); it plugs you into a network of fellow MBAs; and, to a much lesser extent, there’s the actual classroom education. Why not just pay the bill, sign here and reap the rewards?

The problem is that these days it doesn’t work like that. Rather, more and more students are finding the promise of business schools to be hollow. The return on investment on an MBA has gone the way of Greek public debt. If you have a decent job in your mid- to late- 20s, unless you have the backing of a corporate sponsor, leaving it to get an MBA is a higher risk than ever. If you are getting good business experience already, the best strategy is to keep on getting it, thereby making yourself ever more useful rather than groping for the evanescent brass rings of business school.

Business schools argue that a recession is the best time to invest in oneself. What they won’t say is that they also need your money. There are business academics right now panting for your cheque. They need it to pad their sinecures and fund their threadbare research. There is surely no more oxymoronic profession than the tenured business-school professor, and yet these job-squatting apostles of the free market are rife and desperate. Potential students should take note: if taking a professional risk were as marvellous as they say, why do these role models so assiduously avoid it?

Harvard Business School recently chose a new dean, Nitin Nohria, an expert in ethics and leadership. He was asked by Bloomberg Businessweek if he had watched the Congressional hearings on Goldman Sachs. He replied: “The events in the financial sector are something that we have watched closely at Harvard Business School. We teach by the case method, and one of the things we’ll do through this experience is study these cases deeply as information is revealed over time so we can understand what happened at all these financial firms. I’m sure that at some point we’ll write cases about Goldman Sachs because that’s how we learn.” He could have stood up for Goldman or criticised it. Instead he punted on one of the singular business issues of our time. It is indicative of the cringing attitude of business schools before the business world they purport to study.

When you look at today’s most evolved business organisms, it is obvious that an MBA is not required for business success. Apple, which recently usurped Microsoft as the world’s largest technology firm (by market capitalisation), has hardly any MBAs among its top ranks. Most of the world’s top hedge funds prefer seasoned traders, engineers and mathematicians, people with insight and programming skills, to MBAs brandishing spreadsheets, the latest two-by-twos and the guilt induced by some watery ethics course.

In the BRIC economies, one sees fortunes being made in the robust manner of the 19th-century American robber barons, with scarcely a nod to the niceties of MBA programmes. The cute stratagems and frameworks taught at business schools become quickly redundant in the hurly-burly of economic change. I’ve often wondered what Li Ka-Shing of Hong Kong or Stanely Ho of Macao, or Rupert Murdoch, for that matter, would make of an MBA programme. They would probably see it for what it is: a business opportunity. And as such, they would focus on the value of investing in it.

They would look at the high cost, and note the tables which show that financial rewards are not evenly distributed among MBAs but tilt heavily to those from the very top programmes who tend to go into finance and consulting. Successful entrepreneurs are as rare among MBAs as they are in the general population.

They would think to themselves that business is fundamentally about two things, innovating and selling, and that most MBA programmes teach neither. They might wonder about the realities of the MBA network. There is no point acquiring a global network of randomly assembled business students if you just want to work in your home town. Also, they will recall that the most effective way to build a network is not to go to school, but to be successful. That way you will have all the MBA friends you could ever want.

They might even meet a few business academics and wonder. Then they would take their application and do with it what most potential applicants should: toss it away.

動漫

鋼鐵俠(動畫版) Iron Man

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潮流興玩cross over﹐去年看見日本動畫版的「鋼鐵俠」預告片﹐還以為只是為「鋼鐵俠2」的電影打廣告。想不到原來真的有動畫企畫﹐還推了出一季十三集的電視動畫。「鋼鐵俠」是Marvel公司眾多英雄角色之一﹐外判給日本著名的Madhouse公司製作。故事由「鋼鐵俠」之父Stan Lee親自負責﹐日本方面只負責畫面設計和作畫﹐不用擔心劇情暴走或失控。這套美日混血兒動畫﹐有美式英雄漫畫的硬朗明快風格﹐又有日式動畫的精美畫面﹐正是集兩家之長處﹐開創全新動畫風格的先河。

看慣美式漫畫的觀眾﹐知道英雄漫畫有固定的故事公式﹐自然對劇本要求相對降低﹐不可能期望會有什麼新花款出來。但亦同時知道會有一定水準的保證﹐不會好得到那裏﹐也不會差得到那裏。今次的故事很王道大路﹐鋼鐵俠去日本建興新能源發電廠﹐遇上邪惡組織黃道十二宮。鋼鐵俠照例每週打一怪﹐壞人壞得額頭上寫著壞人二個字。最後的大奸角初初扮好人出場﹐觀眾便已經估到他想統治日本。人物造型揉合美式面相和日本畫法﹐與平時看慣的日本動畫人物很不相同﹐品味的問題無從比較優劣。動作場面大部份以電腦作畫﹐充份表達出鋼鐵俠快速戰鬥的流暢感。除了那些例牌開戰前的對話﹐一邊打一邊數說新仇舊恨﹐這些美式老梗的吐嘈位外﹐打鬥的處理令人十分滿意。

未變身成為鋼鐵俠的Stark﹐在劇中也承接電影中的性格﹐常常對身旁的美女口花花﹐而他的美國佬性格碰上日本文化﹐也為故事增添幾分幽默。可能這套動畫作為獨立故事﹐不能影響漫畫或電影的劇情﹐結局只好給女主角派便當﹐讓鋼鐵俠不用拖泥水﹐乾手淨腳回到美國的主線故事﹐續繼追求他的美女秘書。動畫中重新演譯鋼鐵俠的誕生﹐講述他如何從販賣武器的死亡商人﹐變成申張正義的鋼鐵俠﹐比電影第一集更有味道。至於那個從好人變壞人﹐又從壞人變回好人﹐當年救了主角一命的醫生﹐對Stark說的一番話倒刺中問題核心。Stark說自已不再製造兵器﹐可是他不是製造了鋼鐵俠這個最強兵器出來嗎﹖不過動畫中鋼鐵俠的性能未免太遜了﹐常常只有挨打的份兒﹐連新一代鋼鐵俠Dio也打不過﹐不單鋼鐵俠盔甲也被打脫﹐連心臟的反應堆也被搶走了。原本以為鋼鐵俠會像日本機械人動畫般﹐故事中段推出新機體挽回劣勢﹐豈料還是美式漫畫的英雄無敵方便﹐只要是主角最後總會忽然反敗為勝﹐明明敵人可以使出致命一擊也要放過主角。

「鋼鐵俠」中X-Men的狼人客串出場﹐為下一季他的新動畫打廣告。看來這個美日合作的動畫系列會長做長有﹐Marvel這麼多年來素造了那麼多英雄人物﹐逐一過移植去日本也可以拍好幾年了。

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有建設必地回應網絡留言

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從哲學哲學雞蛋糕那兒借來的圖﹐雖說這是回應網路留言的方法﹐說穿了其實是寫哲學論文的規格。有建設性的網路留言﹐其實與研究哲學一樣﹐是很好的思辯訓練。

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The power of posture

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According to this research, how your posture affect your projection of power and how other people perceive it. It is interesting to note the powerful sitting posture is regard as bad sitting manner in traditional Chinese culture. Another evidence for my theory that manners are simply rules set by the authority to make people easier to rule.

How you hold yourself affects how you view yourself
Jan 13th 2011, Economist

“STAND up straight!” “Chest out!” “Shoulders back!” These are the perennial cries of sergeant majors and fussy parents throughout the ages. Posture certainly matters. Big is dominant and in species after species, humans included, postures that enhance the posturer’s apparent size cause others to treat him as if he were more powerful.

The stand-up-straight brigade, however, often make a further claim: that posture affects the way the posturer treats himself, as well as how others treat him. To test the truth of this, Li Huang and Adam Galinsky, at Northwestern University in Illinois, have compared posture’s effects on self-esteem with those of a more conventional ego-booster, management responsibility. In a paper just published in Psychological Science they conclude, surprisingly, that posture may matter more.

The two researchers’ experimental animals—77 undergraduate students—first filled out questionnaires, ostensibly to assess their leadership capacity. Half were then given feedback forms which indicated that, on the basis of the questionnaires, they were to be assigned to be managers in a forthcoming experiment. The other half were told they would be subordinates. While the participants waited for this feedback, they were asked to help with a marketing test on ergonomic chairs. This required them to sit in a computer chair in a specific posture for between three and five minutes. Half the participants sat in constricted postures, with their hands under their thighs, legs together or shoulders hunched. The other half sat in expansive postures with their legs spread wide or their arms reaching outward.

In fact, neither of these tests was what it seemed. The questionnaires were irrelevant. Volunteers were assigned to be managers or subordinates at random. The test of posture had nothing to do with ergonomics. And, crucially, each version of the posture test included equal numbers of those who would become “managers” and “subordinates”.

Once the posture test was over the participants received their new statuses and the researchers measured their implicit sense of power by asking them to engage in a word-completion task. Participants were instructed to complete a number of fragments (for example, “l_ad”) with the first word that came to mind. Seven of the fragments could be interpreted as words related to power (“power”, “direct”, “lead”, “authority”, “control”, “command” and “rich”). For each of these that was filled out as a power word (“lead”, say, instead of “load”) the participant was secretly given a score of one point.

Although previous studies suggested a mere title is enough to produce a detectable increase in an individual’s sense of power, Dr Huang and Dr Galinsky found no difference in the word-completion scores of those told they would be managers and those told they would be subordinates. The posture experiment, however, did make a difference. Those who had sat in an expansive pose, regardless of whether they thought of themselves as managers or subordinates, scored an average of 3.44. Those who had sat in constricted postures scored an average of 2.78.

Having established the principle, Dr Huang and Dr Galinsky went on to test the effect of posture on other power-related decisions: whether to speak first in a debate, whether to leave the site of a plane crash to find help and whether to join a movement to free a prisoner who was wrongfully locked up. In all three cases those who had sat in expansive postures chose the active option (to speak first, to search for help, to fight for justice) more often than those who had sat crouched.

The upshot, then, is that father (or the sergeant major) was right. Those who walk around with their heads held high not only get the respect of others, they seem also to respect themselves.