Re: How to make money fast (in science fiction)

Chuk Goodin skreiv:
> Saying computers are faster (subjectively) now, except for the Microsoft

> stuff, is kind of like saying movies are way better now, except for the 
> Hollywood ones.

Which would be a perfectly valid statement to make for the vast majority 
of human beings on this planet. Perhaps a quarter of the movies I see 
are Hollywood-made, so if the general quality of movies improved, except 
for those from Hollywood, that'd be fine with me.

> Theoretical improvements or improvements in some small areas are not
better.

True. So if the vast majority of the worlds computers ran Microsoft 
Windows, these improvements would be irrelevant. But in the real world 
90% or more of the worlds computers do NOT run Microsoft Windows.

Even if you limit it to the computers in posession of an average 
American family, MS-Windows will be a small minority. The Playstation, 
car, wireless-router, printer, nintendo-ds, pvr, digital-cameras, 
mp3-players, and assorted mobile-phones are likely not to run 
MS-windows. (though some of them may be, for example windows-based 
mobile-phones exist)

> One thing I wonder about is if there's some kind of limit to this. As 
> computers keep on getting faster and more powerful, will software bloat 
> continue to rise at the same pace? Or will one or the other hit a 
> wall? It'd be nice if computers got so fast they could run any
human-coded 
> software "fast enough".

There's no limit. Software runs as fast (or as slow) as it does because 
what is tolerable to humans is frequently also the arbiter of what gets 
included and/or where more resources are spent on optimization.

If a word-processor can do something clever, but it'd mean waiting 45 
minutes for a keypress to register, that won't go in.

If it could do something clever, but it'd require lengthening 
startup-time by 3 minutes with the simple implementation, 10 seconds 
with the clever implementation, that may get optimized.

If responsiveness to keypresses could be reduced from 30ms to 3ms by 
spending a man-month doing optimizations, that more likely than not 
won't get done.

Put differently, computer-programs will likely always be just sluggish 
enough to be barely tolerable. The only way they'll be much QUICKER than 
that is if consumer-demand starts to revising "tolerable" downwards, 
which only happens in markets with real competition.

Consumers are unlikely to start demanding that Windows boots in 10 
seconds. Perhaps they would if there where 2-3 OSes in equal competition 
and the others DID boot extremely fast. But currently there's (in the 
mind of consumers anyway) not much choice.

They -will- however today opt NOT to buy a digital camera that spends 10 
seconds booting. (something that was perfectly normal a few years ago) 
My camera today is ready for first-picture 0.15 seconds after poweron, 
the one I had 5 years ago spent 5-10 seconds.


	Eivind Kjørstad