Monthly Archives: May 2011

Intel’s D1X In The Oregonian

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The Oregonian has an article titled “Intel goes big to get small — an early look at its new Hillsboro research factory, D1X” which looks at the construction and impact of Intel’s new factory in Oregon. Even in Oregon Intel is a big employer.

“If you’re talking even a thousand jobs on one project, that will have a substantial impact on overall construction employment in the Portland area,” said David Cooke, an economist with the Oregon Employment Department. “The construction jobs are very important to the overall economic picture over the short term.”

Those workers will haul away up to a million yards of dirt as Intel excavates for D1X’s foundation and brings the site level with D1D, the fab next door.

Of that, 150,000 cubic yards are headed just up the road, to SolarWorld’s Hillsboro property. That company is contemplating a second factory someday and needs to elevate its property to ensure proper drainage.

The castoffs will raise 4 1/2 acres of SolarWorld’s site by 21 feet.

Intel May Or May Not Make Not Intel Chips, But May

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An article on Reuters titled “Intel might make chips based on non-Intel cores” says.

“There are certain customers that would be interesting to us and certain customers that wouldn’t,” Chief Financial Officer Stacy Smith told journalists after an investor event in London on Thursday.

He said Intel would be happy to produce chip cores based on its own architecture for other companies but that allowing rival architectures to be manufactured in its plants would be a tough decision.

“If Apple or Sony came to us and said ‘I want to do a product that involves your IA (Intel architecture) core and put some of my IP around it’, I wouldn’t blink. That would be fantastic business for us.”

How about Apple or Apple?

Car Vs. Cow Accident In Rio Rancho

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From local TV news station KOAT “Man Shaken Up After Slamming Into Cow“

A Rio Rancho man said he’s lucky to be alive after his car crashed into a cow that walked into a busy street.
Action 7 News has detailed the cow crossing problems in Sandoval County for years, but reports of cow incidents have spiked in recent weeks.

Last Friday, Action 7 News reported on several cows that’d been getting through a cut fence line near King Boulevard in Rio Rancho. That cut fence line is just down the road from where Gill’s accident occurred.

Hard to believe that there’s enough out in the desert of Rio Rancho for cows to eat, but there are many of them out here, epecially near this area which is which is supposed to be downtown.

Kidnapping In Tuscon Arizona

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A man was run off the road and kidnapped in Tuscon Arizona, his sister called the local news who called police.

The victim’s brother-in-law was en route from Tucson to Phoenix on Wednesday to pay the ransom when the Police Department’s Home Invasion Kidnapping Enforcement team interceded and helped devise a plan for him to meet the abductors at a restaurant near 23rd Avenue and Thomas Road, Martos said.

Intel And Apple Getting Along Fine

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Reuters has an article titled “Intel eyes Apple as it maps its future“

Tom Kilroy, a senior vice president at Intel, told the Reuters Global Technology Summit in New York on Wednesday that the runaway success of the iPad and other Apple products shapes how Intel thinks about future devices and the chips that will power them.

“We work very closely with them and we’re constantly looking down the road at what we can be doing relative to future products. I’d go as far as to say Apple helps shape our roadmap,” Kilroy said.

“Apple — they push us hard,” he said.

Rio Rancho’s Santa Ana Star Center In The New York Times

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DSCF2053

The New York Times has published an article titled “Company’s Arenas Leave Cities With Big Problems” which discusses the problems with the arenas that Global Entertainment built around the country, specifically the Santa Anna Star Center in Rio Rancho, New Mexico.

But trouble started almost from the day the doors of Santa Ana Star Center opened in 2006. Global Entertainment, the company hired to build and manage the arena, failed to book enough events, and the minor league hockey team it recruited folded. Attendance was light because of high ticket prices and the arena’s remote location. Unrealistic sales targets and high turnover among the arena’s staff added to the problems.

The article says the Global Entertainment promised revenue that was incredible even when there wasn’t a recession and that they weren’t able to meet their projections in several other cities. The free market at work, screwing the tax payer. The New York Times also included a very crappy picture of the Santa Ana Star Center.

Field of Schemes suggests the article was written with a pro sports spin because it’s written by New York Times sports writer Ken Belson and that Global Entertainment owns the Central Hockey League.

The article also includes an unrelated but interested history of Rio Rancho.

Controversy is not new in Rio Rancho. The city became nationally known in the 1970s when four executives from the Amrep Corporation were convicted of mail and land fraud for their role selling patches of desert in Rio Rancho to residents of New York and elsewhere. Buyers accused Amrep of using high-pressure techniques to sell lots that, they learned, had little resale value.

For years, Rio Rancho residents, including many from the East Coast who wanted to live more cheaply and quietly, resisted incorporating the town. Rio Rancho was so off the beaten track that the F.B.I. reportedly located some members of its witness protection program there.

First Scorpion Of 2011

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I woke up this morning about 4am (don’t ask why, I was awake and I got up). Saturn the Cat was laying next to me. I expected her to get up with me and run into the kitchen and meow to be fed, instead she went to the front door and sat there.

I know something is up when she doesn’t want food right away so I got the flashlight and found a scorpion in a space between the floor and the front door. I got a pair of needle-nosed pliers and put the scorpion in a glass, while trying to keep Saturn away from it.

First scorpion of 2011

My cat is part bloodhound.

part bloodhound cat

It is possible to train a cat. For the last several years I have been using positive reinforcement whenever she finds a bug, but specifically a scorpion. She wants me to know about them if she doesn’t manage to kill them first.

That she plays with them then kills them is probably not something that I could have trained her to do. I have seen the scorpions sting Saturn, usually on the nose while she is trying to sniff them. This results in her getting pissed off and smashing the scorpion with her giant 6-toed polydactyl paw.

I’m pretty sure this scorpion came in from the garage since I forgot and left the door to the garage propped open overnight. I open the door so that Saturn can go into the garage and hunt (or whatever it is she does in there). Since big garage door to the outside is warped and I have seen scorpions go into the garage, finding them in the house will probably continue to be an issue until I have the garage door replaced.

Intel Gets A New Air Permit

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KRQE reports:

RIO RANCHO, NM (KRQE) – Intel has cleared a major hurdle that could lead to a bigger plant in Rio Rancho with more jobs. The New Mexico Environment Department approved Intel’s request for new air permits.

“This sends a very positive sign that New Mexico is open for business,” Rio Rancho Economic Development Director Noreen Scott said.

Sources tell News 13 a multibillion dollar expansion is in the works that could add hundreds of jobs.

Intel would not confirm that plans are already on paper but released a statement to News 13 saying, “While Intel has not announced plans to expand its New Mexico facility, approval of Intel’s permit revision helps pre-position the site for future growth.”

The Rio Rancho Observer also has an article on the new permit and the equipment that could be installed.

The proposed modification consists of the installation of seven thermal oxidizers, 10 cooling towers, one boiler, three ammonia treatment systems and one bulk specialty solvent waste-treatment system. This equipment would be needed – and only installed – if Intel made the decision to expand its local facility, Davidson reiterated.

Meanwhile silica emission were tested and deemed to be safe.

Intel hopes the testing of silica emissions from its Rio Rancho plant will assuage fears of Corrales residents who say it made people sick.
A recent report by a Corrales-based task force formed to study silica emissions said sampling done in December revealed the stacks at the computer chip plant emitted 0.00050 pounds of crystalline silica per hour, or 1/55,000 the level considered safe by the Community Environmental Working Group. The Intel-sponsored group developed the level based on data from the state of California.

Some Corrales residents won’t be happy with either of these developments.

Southwest Flight 812 Blown Roof Due To Boeing Manufacturing Issue?

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I flew on Southwest this weekend, on an older jet without the flippy Winglets wing-tip things that the new jets have. I wasn’t concerned that the plane’s roof would come off, especially now with all the attention. But I continue to follow the happenings around the investigation and the latest reported by the Wall Street Journal is that it could be due to a manufacturing issue 15 years ago.

Investigators suspect that a manufacturing lapse at a Boeing Co. factory 15 years ago is why the fuselage of a Southwest Airlines Co. jetliner ruptured in midair this month, according to government and industry officials.

This time, investigators led by the National Transportation Safety Board are trying to unravel the potential impact of riveting techniques and certain sealants going back to around 1996, according to the officials. They said investigators also are looking into factory tooling used to hold plane parts during assembly. Possible production problems were reported Saturday by ABC news.

A big reason behind the manufacturing-related focus, according to government and industry officials, is that a number of the Southwest planes with fuselage cracks were built around the same time. The officials said it is too early to know whether the suspect Southwest jets illustrate a quality-control problem involving specific workers and a relatively short span of time, or whether they are the result of broader production issues.

No detail on exactly what the issue is.