46. Hark, chorus of beans and meat and vegetables!
The new year of 2018 dawned, but since everyone at work had been given the day off until January 7, I was left to mope around my house in loneliness.
From nob le mt l. co m
John was taking Jane and Amy to Hawaii and invited me to join him, but I’m not a pariah or anything, and I can’t keep dragging my feet on his family events.
George had also left for a vacation with his girlfriend, so the spacious house was deserted.
From now on, I should go to Korea.
After a day or two of hanging out and shooting at the Aegis Company training range in San Joaquin, my phone rang.
RING! Chirp!
It’s been a while since I’ve been so happy to hear my phone ring.
And when I checked the caller ID, it was Dear Mrs. Lisa Mada.
– Alex?
“Oh! Lisa! Happy New Year!”
– Why is she so excited today?
“Hmph, it’s because it’s nice to see you, isn’t it?”
– I thought you guys were just taking this week off, but everyone else is going on vacation and you’re all alone?
“Oh, yeah.”
Shouldn’t you have had a chance to meet a girl?
I’ve always felt like every woman I’ve ever met professionally is out for my money.
– Ew, you couldn’t even get a girlfriend with a decent hoo-dah?
“If you’re going to say that, why don’t you set me up with a decent girl?”
– I’m in L.A. by the way, if you’re okay, can we at least meet up?
“Really? I’m good, right?”
– Okay, sure. I’ll have my secretary stamp your address. I’ll see you tonight.
“Okay!”
That evening, I went to the address Lisa had given me, and it was a very upscale restaurant.
This is why I told you to pay attention to the dress code.
“Hi, Alex.”
“Aunt Lisa, how nice to see you.”
“After seeing you last month?”
“Nothing, I just wanted to see Lisa’s melancholy face for some reason, hehehehe!”
Lisa’s expression is always so strange.
It’s not smiling, it’s not crying, it’s more like a Steven Seagal look.
She also changes her outfits, but it’s always the same thing.
He’s always wearing a dark colored jacket.
One day I asked him if he was doing a Steve Jobs impersonation, and he said he just wears it because it’s comfortable.
“Alex, have you heard the news about Intel?”
“I’ve seen the news, but I’m kind of out of the loop here, is it serious?”
On January 3rd, Intel was screaming about a critical bug in their CPUs, but who the hell knew what it was.
The staff was all on vacation, and it wasn’t like there was anything new about bugs on this side of the world, so I shrugged it off.
But when Lisa asked me, I realized that wasn’t the case.
“Yeah, it’s very, very serious, and I think it’s safe to say that the Intel empire is starting to crumble.”
“Is it that bad?”
“CPU life? Speed? Heat? That’s all good, but what comes before that?”
“Well?”
“Oh, come on! Alex, you need to pay some attention to this, the guy who owns half of AMD, what is this?”
“…”
I apologize.
But by that logic, I’m invested in Boeing, so I should know about airplanes, and I’m invested in Aviomed, so I should know about heart-related medical devices.
What do you want me to do?
“Why don’t you start by explaining how many stocks I’m invested in, and how can I possibly know everything about them?”
“Well, that’s part of it. Anyway, the lifeblood of a CPU is speed and heat, and before we get into the nitty gritty, security is security, because while being a little slow and hot can be inconvenient and annoying, a security breach means irreparable damage to the user, whether that’s a business or an individual.”
“That’s true, isn’t it, but?”
“What do you mean, Intel’s CPUs were found to have that security hole, and now they’re stuck with it, because they’re completely defenseless and exposed to zero-day attacks.”
“A zero-day attack?”
“Ha, Alex, how ignorant are you?”
“Let’s not hurt our humanity too much, shall we?”
Are the people who design semiconductors the same as the people who invest in them?
“A zero-day attack is a hack that occurs after a vulnerability has been discovered, but before you’ve had a chance to mitigate it. What happens if you don’t have a plan, or you get attacked before you can create and deploy a patch?”
“Wouldn’t we be caught flat-footed?”
“Exactly, which is what’s happening with Intel right now.”
“No, shouldn’t they keep it a secret and announce it after they’ve secured it?”
“Of course they should, but in this case, Intel ignored Google’s discovery and warnings since last year, and was forced to announce it in hindsight because they were exposed while they were working on countermeasures by warning their big customers like Microsoft and Linux first…and Google.”
“Huh!”
Intel’s situation is worse than I thought.
“Doesn’t that mean they’ll just release a patch sooner or later?”
“No, it’s a problem because it doesn’t fix the root cause, and it causes a significant degradation in CPU performance.”
“Significant performance degradation?”
“From what we’ve tested in our lab, maybe 50% on the file system I/O side and 6-15% on other performance?”
“Whoa!”
“This is not normal. We’re already calling it ‘CPU gate’ down here.”
Listening to Lisa, I didn’t understand 100% of what she was saying, but it sounded like we were in trouble.
What about us?
“Is our AMD okay?”
“We’re fine, thankfully, because the flaw types are Meltdown and Spectre, and the most serious flaw, Meltdown, is completely irrelevant because our microarchitecture design is different from Intel’s, and Spectre has some impact, but we’re coming out with a new product soon that will completely eliminate even that small impact.”
“Whoa, that’s good news?”
Very good news.
And if it’s bad news for Intel, isn’t it good news for us?
“After all, if we can hear the Intel empire crumbling, that’s good for us, right?”
“Ho-ho-ho! That’s true, but don’t you think it’s a bit much to say so blatantly?”
“Hmph, I’m an investor, investors don’t care about that kind of thing, so anyway, we’re good, right?”
“Yeah, well, AMD is on a growth trajectory, and last year’s Q4 was over $60 million in the black, and revenue is up.”
“Shouldn’t they be overtaking Intel by now? Sounds like a good opportunity.”
“Alex, don’t be so quick, wait for next year.”
“What’s next year?”
“The third generation Zen 2 is coming out next year.”
“Do you think it will do well?”
“Really? Intel is staying on the 14nm process, and we’re going to the 7nm process? The Intel empire? It’s over.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa!”
In what year did this happen?
Oh, my God, they’re getting rid of Intel?
It was a junk-rated company when I invested in it, and no one expected it to turn around.
I wonder if the word was out that Intel was purposely giving AMD breathing room with their monopoly issues?
“Lisa.”
“Why, Alex?”
“Good luck with that.”
“Good luck?”
“Do what? I’ll give you a raise, of course.”
“Well?”
“How about I buy you a nice wine farm?”
“Ho-ho-ho! Does that sound good?”
“Okay. If you do well on that Zen 2 next year, I’ll buy you the best wine farm in California.”
“You promise?”
“Hmph, yeah?”
As I stood up from our merry feast, Lisa called out to me again.
“Oh, hey! Alex!”
“Um, why?”
“I want you to take some time off in April and come with me to Shanghai, China.”
“China? Shanghai? Why there?”
“Well, there’s a Formula One race in Shanghai in April, and we’re a Ferrari sponsor here at AMD, so I thought I’d go, and you’d come with me. You like Ferraris, and you have a car, right?”
“If you know a guy who doesn’t like Ferraris, tell him to come out.”
“Ho-ho-ho! Sure.”
“I’m coming, no matter what!”
“Okay!”
That was the only time I saw Lisa during my staff vacation, and the next day, the weekend through Monday, I had free days again to work out, swim, go to Sen Hoa Quin, and shoot.
On top of that, Jenny, who was in charge of the kitchen, went to visit her family in Korea for the first time in a long time, so she wasn’t eating.
In the meantime, we had to make do with the food Jenny had cooked.
I wondered if I could make some ramen, and I saw Camilla helping Jenny in the kitchen.
Camilla had come to work for the first time in the new year to finish the holidays and take care of me.
She must have arranged it with Jenny beforehand.
“Hello, Señor.”
“Oh, hi, Camila. Have you been resting?”
“Ho-ho! I made an agreement with Jenny that I’d come in on the weekends to get things organized.”
“Eh, why didn’t you just take a break? You’ve been resting like crazy.”
“It’s okay, Señor. Jenny said she’d give me an allowance.”
“Really? Make sure you get paid generously then, I’ll talk to Jenny.”
“Thank you.”
When there’s peace at home, all is well.
That’s why I’ve been as generous as possible with the people who do odd jobs around my house.
I didn’t want them to come and go because they were treated badly.
Sniff!
But what’s that smell?
“But what’s that smell?”
“Oh, I bought some tacos and burritos from Chipotle for us to eat, would you like to try them, I brought plenty?”
“Chipotle? What’s Chipotle?”
“Oh my God, you don’t know what a chipotle is? Chipotle Mexican Grill?”
“Huh? I don’t know, what is it?”
“Oh my God, you’ve lived in L.A. for years and you don’t know chipotle!”
I don’t know, what’s the big deal?
“What is it?”
“Well, it’s a Mexican food place that sells tacos and burritos and—.”
“Oh, and how would I know that?”
“Oh, my God, what do you mean, do you know McDonald’s?”
“Who in the world doesn’t know McDonald’s?”
“Senor, it’s safe to say that in America, Chipotle is more popular than McDonald’s.”
“Really? Is that true? No way?”
“Oh my God, it’s true, you can look it up.”
“By the way, I’m hungry, can I have some?”
“Ho-ho, sure, just wait a minute.”
A few moments later, Camila brought a large burrito on a plate.
“I don’t know if you’ll like it, but here’s one for you.”
“Hmph, thanks, this smells good, where—.”
I picked up the burrito, popped it in my mouth, and chewed.
Wow!
Oooooh!
Yum!
What an exquisite chorus of beans and meat and vegetables!
Wow, wow, wow, wow, wow!
It was so delicious that in no time at all, the Chipotle Burrito was in my stomach.
“Hey, isn’t this delicious?”
“Ho-ho-ho! Am I right?”
“It’s really good, isn’t it?”
“Would you like another one?”
“Okay!”
Wow! Wow! Salty!
A slightly different flavor this time, but this one was good too.
What the heck is this?
Curiously, I looked at the burrito’s wrapper, and something strange caught my eye.
Shiny! Shiny!
What, what?
You want me to invest in a Mexican restaurant?
