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

On Wed, 02 Apr 2008 16:37:16 -0500, Michael Ash <mike@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>>>It sounds like you're talking about console-based word processors,
giving 
>>>you monospaced fonts and no graphics capabilities, whereas I was
referring 
>>>to a word processor running in a windowing system such as the Macintosh
or 
>>>Microsoft Windows, rendering pro****tional text with bitmapped fonts.
Such 
>>>systems are significantly more capable than the console-based systems,
but 
>>>if you want to make your stuff run fast, pu****ng all text rendering
into 
>>>the video hardware and making every character the same width is a great

>>>way to do it.
>>>
>>>Also I tend to ignore Microsoft products when talking about modern 
>>>computing. I know they're used a lot, I just do my best never to use
them 
>>>personally, so I often forget that they're there. Microsoft Office does

>>>seem to be an example of a product which *does* get a lot slower as
time 
>>>goes on for no particularly good reason.
>> 
>> 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.
>
>I would say that it's more like saying that media of all kinds is way 
>better now, except for the Hollywood movies. There's a lot more to the 
>computing universe than desktop PCs. Most of the computers you interact 
>with aren't running Windows.

Yes, that is a good point. I was thinking of desktop/laptop general 
purpose PCs, though.

>How fast it boots is basically irrelevant; the proper benchmark is the 
>time required to go from "off" to "ready to use". Even running the
Dreaded 
>Windows, a modern computer should be using sleep/hibernate functionality,

>which will go from off to ready in a few seconds at worst.

Sorry, I am using the word "boot" here as more of a generic term -- time 
to go from "off" to "ready to use". Energy costs being what they are these

days, many PC users can't afford to keep their machines on 24/7. (And if 
it's a Windows machine, you're gonna need to reboot it a couple of times a

day anyway...)

>I have distinct memories of various times during my childhood where I 
>would turn on the computer, then go hunt for snacks or something to wait 
>for it to boot. I do not do this on any kind of regular basis anymore,
and 
>I'm sure I wouldn't if I ran Windows either.

You're probably more patient now than you were as a kid. I know my kids 
have less tolerance for long boots than I do. :-) And Windows can be 
pretty slow -- I have a slow Linux box (I think it's some kind of 1.8 GHz 
AMD CPU, 768 MB of RAM) and a fast-ish XP machine (2.4 GHz dual-core, 2 GB

of RAM, faster disks, etc.), and if I turn on the XP machine, then go over

and turn on the Linux box, they end up ready to use at the same time (and 
that's including extra time to log in to the Linux one). Some networked 
computers load settings etc. before they are ready to use, and this can 
literally take minutes.

>> 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".
>
>It's an interesting question. I would say that "fast enough" won't be 
>achieved until the computers get smart enough to start designing faster 
>versions of themselves, a stage I assume will arrive right around when 
>human-equivalent AI occurs. Before that point you can always suck up time

>by doing ever more. I'd be willing to wait an extra five or ten seconds 
>for my newsgroups to appear if I had near-human intelligence sorting the 
>most interesting messages to the top, for example.

And after that, we can just all upload ourselves, then slow down our 
"personal" clocks relative to the "computer" clocks so that it looks like 
they're running as fast as we want them to. :-)
-- 
chuk