For you geek theorists out there, this is huge.

Gordon Moore, co-founder of Intel, postulated back in 1965 that the speed and capacity of computer technology would double every two years. This is Moore’s Law and, with very little variation, it has held true for over four decades. The exponential increase in process speeds and storage capacity hug the theoretical graph.

So where we are in the shadow of 2010 and Moore was asked if there is a barrier at the end of the graph. He said yes! Watch the video and hear it for yourself.

The computer on which you are reading this contains a processor in which millions of tiny electrical switches are crammed onto a 2 inch wide piece of silicon and copper. There has to be insulation around these switches. (Think of the plastic coating on your hair dryer’s electric cord that keeps you from zapping yourself.) In current technology, that insulation is as little as five molecules thick. That’s insane.

What Moore says is that you can’t make the insulation any thinner without things starting to short out. According to Moore, we are 10 to 15 years away from reaching the physical limitations of electrical shrinkage.

Does that mean that we can’t go any faster? Well, they used to say you can’t go faster than the speed of sound, and for a propeller driven play, that’s probably true. So, let’s say you can’t get more than 5 gigahertz of process speed out of a single copper/silicon chip. That may be true. But that doesn’t mean we’ll never see a 10 gigahertz computer, or a 100 gigahertz computer for that matter. It just won’t work the same way that processors work today.

Still, it’s a pretty amazing time to be a geek!

I have always liked Mr. Bean. His innocence, his naiveté, and his bizarre creativity in the face of adversity are nearly as genius as the genre’s first great star, Buster Keaton. Combine his Keatonesque ability to get into trouble with is perfectly non-Keatonesque expressions (I swear Rowan Atkinson‘s face is made of silly putty) and you get the genius that is Mr. Bean.

Bean would be quite at home in a silent film, but he’s even funnier with sound. He never really talks other than a rare monosyllable like, “Bean!” But his non-verbal expression is hilarious, from frustrated sighs and bored moans to shocked squeals and frantic babble.

Let’s be honest, a lot of people hate Bean. If you don’t “get” his humor, he can easy come off as gratingly fatuous. And his first U.S. released movie, entitled simply, “Bean”, really was bad. If that was your only exposure to Bean, please give Mr. Bean’s Holiday a chance.

In 1997’s Bean, they tried to frame a decidedly American movie around a decidedly British character. It just didn’t work. He talked too much. The plot was contrived and stretched. It wasn’t really Bean.

2007’s Holiday, on the other hand, is exactly and perfectly Bean. The only time I recall him speaking more than one syllable was when he said, “Gracias.” The wackiness is just the right length, never stretched or overstated. It feels very much like his TV shorts, stitched together with a believable plot (ok, believable enough). In short, it works.

Holiday also scored with me on two other points. First, it’s rated G. Yes, G. Remember G? In a time when even cartoon features are coming out as PG-13, it’s nice to know someone understands entertainment for a “general audience”. I can’t remember there being any foul language (although there may have been something in one of Willem Dafoe’s stereotypical, Hollywood-snob rants).

Second, there were gags in the trailers that I didn’t see in the movie, and (more importantly) there were many many things to laugh at in the movie that were not in the trailers. That’s a serious pet peeve of mine so here it becomes praise-worthy.

Okay, this is getting long winded. Let me put my grins where my mouth is. (I think I’ve used that before. Hmm.) I give Mr. Bean’s Holiday a well deserved four grins.

P.S. There are a few of Mr. Bean’s TV shorts on YouTube. Check them out!

I ordered some Microsoft certification training materials from Amazon last week. I’m not a frequent Amazon customer by any means, but they had a great deal on some stuff I needed.

Today, I received some requisite unsolicited marketing from the big A. Based on my purchase and some deep, dark, magical algorithm, I was offered these books in which I might be interested.

Apparently, Amazon thinks that the kind of people who read Microsoft training manuals are also interested in Harry Potter. I find that an offensive generalization! Those anti-geekite bigots!

Or… maybe… those Potter fans know some magic spell that can help me pass my certification test! Hey!!

Ever wonder…

How is it that a pizza can get to your house faster than an ambulance?

…Now I’m twittering. Good grief, what’s the matter with me.

For those of you who aren’t addicted to everything web allow me to explain. Twitter is kind of like a micro blog. It’s used to keep the people closest to you even more up-to-dater than a normal blog. Each “tweet” (that’s what you call a Twitter post, if you’re cool like that) can only be up to 140 characters long. You have just enough room to say what your currently doing or mention something funny from your last meeting or post a link to something worth sharing. You can even tweet from your cell phone with SMS or from a chat client.

Twitter is also cool because, using their web site, you can respond back to other people’s tweets and you can set up a list of folks whose tweets you want to follow. You can even have Twitter send you alerts via IM or on your phone when someone in particular has tweeted (I’m sure there’s a better past tense for “tweet”, but I could think of anything that didn’t sound vulgar).

The main reason I signed up is because a lot of the big names in web design and standards are on there and I can follow them and (maybe) do a better job of staying on top of my industry. As you may have noticed, my side bar links have been updated to reflect the fact that I’m trying to keep up with those guys’ blogs too.

As a handy-dandy side benefit, Twitter has a blog plug-in that allows me to display my last few tweets here as well (as you can see to the right).

Now the big question is, will I actually use it, or will Twitter just be one more thing that ends up stuck in the corner with cobwebs on it because I’m just “too busy”? Only time will tell.

The “man behind the curtain” is working on the side bar. Please ignore the mess. Carry on.

Remember when I talked about the stress level going up at work? First Dave left. Then I moved into his office. Now Thomas (the new guy) has moved into my old office. I’m still very uncomfortable being the senior-most guy. Now, if Thomas has any problems or questions, I’m the guy who must come up with the answer. Can you tell my confidence level is being put to the test?

Anyway. Enough whining. Here’s this week’s white board quip.

Constant change is here to stay.

I love Randy. I really do. But he should have at least warned me that the link he sent would cause my corneas to hemorrhage. So, as a public service to you, my faithful viewers: Don’t Click This Link.

Bonus points for the first commenter who knows what movie that poem is from. (Hint: I own it and love it.)

Double bonus points if your the first to tell me what Evan wants you to buy him.

We live in a brave new world where anything is possible, including getting over 800 complete strangers to play freeze tag in a park.

Improve Anywhere’s MP3 Experiment #4

That’s friggin’ awesome.

No really. Do you? Cuz I forget.

Oh, that’s right. I remember now. I hate when I get to work on Monday and have this vague recollection that sometime during the weekend something really funny happened and I said to myself that I would definitely have to blog about it, but now I have no idea what it was or why it was so funny.

I really hate that.