Re: Minutes from Feb 21 LSE Call

[Hans Reiser <reiser@namesys.com>]

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horsepower to run on, its databases are small and out of date, and it is 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