Re: Minutes from Feb 21 LSE Call

Hans Reiser
2003-02-25T23:49:58Z

Scott Robert Ladd wrote:

> But I honestly can't see how 8 processors can possibly make
>Abiword run "better."
>
They can't, but you know it was before 1980 that hardware exceeded what
was really needed for email. What happened then? People needed more
horsepower for wysiwyg editors, the new thing of that time.....

Now it is games that hardware is too slow for. After games, maybe AI
assistants?.... Will you be saying, "My AI doesn't have enough
horsepower to run on, its databases are small and out of date, and it is
providing me worse advice than my wealthy friends get, and providing it
later."? How much will you pay for a good AI to advise you? (I really
like my I-Nav GPS adviser in my mini-van.... money well spent....)

>I live half-time in rural Colorado -- at 9800 feet above sea level, on rough
>highways 60 miles from the nearest grocery store.
>
Ok, you win that one.;-)

>Kinda like folks who buy
>dual-processor systems with 250GB drives, so they can web surf or impress
>people at LAN parties... ;)
>
I am buying a new monitor so that I can do head-shots more easily in
tribes 2;-). I suppose I should be more motivated by having bigger
emacs windows and thereby increasing the size of my visual cache, and
maybe when I was younger I would have been more motivated by that, and
it does prevent me from feeling guilty about spending that money, but at
this phase of my life ;-) I hate it when pixelization prevents me from
lining up on the head....

It is interesting that games are the only compelling motivation for
faster desktop hardware these days. It may be part of why we are in a
tech bust. When AIs become hardware purchase drivers, there will likely
be a boom again.

--
Hans