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adrianl (02:01 30/11/2008)
adrianl (02:29 30/11/2008)
Phlamethrower (02:50 30/11/2008)
VincceH (10:22 30/11/2008)
monkeyson2 (12:26 30/11/2008)
monkeyson2 (12:57 30/11/2008)
Phlamethrower (13:25 30/11/2008)
VincceH (16:47 30/11/2008)
monkeyson2 (16:54 30/11/2008)
VincceH (17:34 30/11/2008)
filecore (16:58 30/11/2008)
monkeyson2 (23:56 30/11/2008)
Phlamethrower (00:02 1/12/2008)
filecore (06:28 1/12/2008)
ilcook (19:06 2/12/2008)
moss (19:31 2/12/2008)
adrianl (13:18 3/12/2008)
rich (15:25 20/12/2008)
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Adrian Lees |
Message #108906, posted by adrianl at 02:01, 30/11/2008 |
Member
Posts: 1637
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According to Moore's Law, computers should get faster year on year, so why
(i) do I have to wander off and do something else whilst an XP laptop starts up?
(ii) do I quite often have to yank the power because a Linux laptop is still shutting down/will never shut down?
(iii) do I have to wait for either of the above to start up?
(iv) does a DTV recorder ask me to be patient, "this may take a few seconds," when I just delete a recorded program?
(v) does this PS3 force me to wait whilst it installs unknown stuff from a newly-inserted disc onto its HD (storage whose existence that I, with my user hat on, should /not/ need to know about anyway)?
(vi) do I have time to drum my fingers, get bored and start thinking of something else, whilst the ATM reads my card details?
(v) must I type deliberately slowly a number that I know by heart just so that the telephone won't lose some of the digits?
There was an article on 'the reg' recently asking how the IT industry could continue to support itself in a future where transistors cannot be shrunk and clock frequencies/core counts increased indefinitely....well, here's a radical idea...how about even approaching a state where the 'wetware/liveware/meatware' (choose your preferred term) really /is/ the slowest link in the chain? After all, until the rise of Skynet, these machines we have built serve only our purposes, and it is only our time that matters, not the fact that, properly programmed, a recent personal computer could decode 2 frames of HD video between keypresses.
For programmers: Initialisation time /does/ matter, and your code will /not/ have exclusive use of the processor(s), and shutdown time (+ initialisation time) /does/ matter, if only because those users who deem it too long will /not/ shutdown and will leave their inefficient computer(s) running continuously; clearly environmentally disastrous!
</rant stalled, for now>
[Edited by adrianl at 02:08, 30/11/2008] |
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Adrian Lees |
Message #108907, posted by adrianl at 02:29, 30/11/2008, in reply to message #108906 |
Member
Posts: 1637
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As a follow-up, given that I've been accused of hating recent techology (regrettably true in many cases), I should state that I do still love computers for what they could be... they are the most flexible machines that we have, capable of mere accounting through to video playback and the depiction of entirely fictional worlds, and - I hope - I can never lose that fascination. It's the fact that extant platforms fall so far short of that, that causes me to rant so. :-/ |
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Jeffrey Lee |
Message #108908, posted by Phlamethrower at 02:50, 30/11/2008, in reply to message #108907 |
 Hot Hot Hot Hot Hot Hot Hot Hot Hot Hot Hot Hot Hot stuff
Posts: 15100
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But if people didn't have to sit around waiting for their computers, what would they do? Work?!?!
Also you could try some of this to speed up linux boot times, or just switch to a real-time linux distro. Or some slightly more techy tweaks like using 'make' to start services in parallel.
[Edited by Phlamethrower at 03:02, 30/11/2008] |
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VinceH |
Message #108910, posted by VincceH at 10:22, 30/11/2008, in reply to message #108906 |
 Lowering the tone since the dawn of time
Posts: 1600
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According to Moore's Law, computers should get faster year on year, so why
(i) do I have to wander off and do something else whilst an XP laptop starts up? (etc)
The real answer, which you clearly know given your comments about initialisation code etc, is that Moore's Law applies to the computer hardware. We then proceed to slow it down (from the user's perspective) by making software which in some cases is more powerful, cleverer, and really taking advantage of the incresed speed (fair enough), and in other cases, we just make our code less efficient and let the hardware's increased speed mask our own laziness.
The end result in both cases is that there is no significant speed gain for the end users.
Can I claim that as Hudd's corollary to Moore's Law or has it been said before by anyone? |
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Phil Mellor |
Message #108911, posted by monkeyson2 at 12:26, 30/11/2008, in reply to message #108910 |
 Please don't let them make me be a monkey butler
Posts: 12380
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we just make our code less efficient and let the hardware's increased speed mask our own laziness. Not necessarily laziness - sometimes it's "better"* to write code that is more maintainable at the expense of performance. Computers are cheap. Programmers aren't.
*depending on your definition of better, and from whose viewpoint
Can I claim that as Hudd's corollary to Moore's Law or has it been said before by anyone? Many times, I'd have thought. Monkeyson's Law: anything you say on the internet has already been said by somebody else first - and more eloquently. Lol1111!!!!11 |
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Phil Mellor |
Message #108912, posted by monkeyson2 at 12:57, 30/11/2008, in reply to message #108906 |
Please don't let them make me be a monkey butler
Posts: 12380
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(i) do I have to wander off and do something else whilst an XP laptop starts up? Because it's disk-bound, not CPU bound?
(ii) do I quite often have to yank the power because a Linux laptop is still shutting down/will never shut down? How will yanking the power lead on a (presumably) battery operated device help?
(iii) do I have to wait for either of the above to start up? Because you haven't invented a time machine that lets you travel back in time three minutes to turn on the computer before you want to use it. (Note: when you invent it, make sure the time machine doesn't take several minutes to boot up.)
(iv) does a DTV recorder ask me to be patient, "this may take a few seconds," when I just delete a recorded program? Because it's polite?
(v) does this PS3 force me to wait whilst it installs unknown stuff from a newly-inserted disc onto its HD (storage whose existence that I, with my user hat on, should /not/ need to know about anyway)? Because Sony are shit.
(So are Nintendo: the Wii takes far too long to recognise that you've put a disk in and show in the channels menu)
(vi) do I have time to drum my fingers, get bored and start thinking of something else, whilst the ATM reads my card details? Again, not CPU bound. There's the speed of your card's chip and the card reader to consider, plus the network connection it uses to verify the details. I thought ATMs did clever things and ask for PIN numbers and show you the menus whilst they communicate with the card network in parallel?
I've found most Yorkshire Bank ATMs to be painfully slow, mind.
(v) must I type deliberately slowly a number that I know by heart just so that the telephone won't lose some of the digits? Physics. Lots of mobile phones have cheap buttons that don't respond well to fast typing. With land lines, you're dealing with tones or pulses and old equipment in the exchanges.
here's a radical idea...how about even approaching a state where the 'wetware/liveware/meatware' (choose your preferred term) really /is/ the slowest link in the chain? After all, until the rise of Skynet, these machines we have built serve only our purposes, and it is only our time that matters, not the fact that, properly programmed, a recent personal computer could decode 2 frames of HD video between keypresses. Oh, computers should give us absolute priority over whatever else it's doing, absolutely. Windows is awful for this - if I right click a file, I want that menu to appear instantly, not seconds later. I don't care what else it's doing - stop it, right now, for I am more important. Even if it's not possible (for example, you have to read data from a slow storage device) some sort of immediate response is hugely important. An example is the 'default.png' feature of the iPhone, which - when you use it best - shows a shell of the UI whilst the app is starting. (See here and here.)
For programmers: Initialisation time /does/ matter, and your code will /not/ have exclusive use of the processor(s), and shutdown time (+ initialisation time) /does/ matter, if only because those users who deem it too long will /not/ shutdown and will leave their inefficient computer(s) running continuously; clearly environmentally disastrous! It's not just the shutdown time, it's loosing all your application states, taskbar window ordering, etc. Shutting down - i.e. actually stopping everything - should be unnecessary in the majority of cases; you should be able to save the state of your machine, remove the power, and restore it when it comes back on. (And for this to actually work.) |
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Jeffrey Lee |
Message #108914, posted by Phlamethrower at 13:25, 30/11/2008, in reply to message #108912 |
Hot Hot Hot Hot Hot Hot Hot Hot Hot Hot Hot Hot Hot stuff
Posts: 15100
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"Windows XP ... may not work properly"
No different from usual, then.
Also, fact-fans, this ~70MB update uses over 1GB of hard disc space during the (failed) install (and originally over 2GB, until I castrated System Restore).
[Edited by Phlamethrower at 13:26, 30/11/2008] |
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VinceH |
Message #108915, posted by VincceH at 16:47, 30/11/2008, in reply to message #108912 |
Lowering the tone since the dawn of time
Posts: 1600
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(iii) do I have to wait for either of the above to start up? Because you haven't invented a time machine that lets you travel back in time three minutes to turn on the computer before you want to use it. (Note: when you invent it, make sure the time machine doesn't take several minutes to boot up.)
Doesn't matter. When you go back three minutes to boot the computer, you also take the opportunity to boot the time machine so that when you arrive and want to go back three minutes to boot the computer, the time machine is already powered up and ready.
As is the computer.
At which point you can say "Sod it" and not bother going back. If anyone ever notices and complains that you've created a paradox, you can say "I'll go back and sort it out next week. I have a time machine, after all. Any discrepancies in the past can always be resolved at some point in my personal future."
And, by an amazing demonstration of the fact that the computer was booted, you know full well that at some point in the future, when you can be arsed with it, you will indeed go back and sort it out. No worries.
(Thinks: Must incorporate that in the chapter that explains time travel.)
And now for a pet hate...
it's loosing all your application states, AAAAAAAAAAAAGH!!!!!!11
I HATE THAT! IT'S "LOSING" DAMN IT!
...says Mr Perfect-Use-of-English-I-Don't-Think-So |
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Phil Mellor |
Message #108916, posted by monkeyson2 at 16:54, 30/11/2008, in reply to message #108915 |
Please don't let them make me be a monkey butler
Posts: 12380
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And now for a pet hate...
it's loosing all your application states, AAAAAAAAAAAAGH!!!!!!11
I HATE THAT! IT'S "LOSING" DAMN IT!
...says Mr Perfect-Use-of-English-I-Don't-Think-So 
I hate it too. I'm going to pretend it was a typoo. |
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Jason Togneri |
Message #108917, posted by filecore at 16:58, 30/11/2008, in reply to message #108912 |
Posts: 3868
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(ii) do I quite often have to yank the power because a Linux laptop is still shutting down/will never shut down? How will yanking the power lead on a (presumably) battery operated device help?
Because he said "yank the power", not "yank the power lead". It's a fine distinction which relies on your having erroneously inserted an extra word into his sentence based on your own assumption. Sometimes, when my laptop stops responding, I will "yank the power" from it - meaning, I'll pull ("yank") out the battery, forcing an immediate power-down. Then I'll re-insert the battery and boot up again. |
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VinceH |
Message #108918, posted by VincceH at 17:34, 30/11/2008, in reply to message #108916 |
Lowering the tone since the dawn of time
Posts: 1600
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I hate it too. I'm going to pretend it was a typoo. Isn't that what you get if someone from Thailand goes to the lavatory? |
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Phil Mellor |
Message #108919, posted by monkeyson2 at 23:56, 30/11/2008, in reply to message #108917 |
Please don't let them make me be a monkey butler
Posts: 12380
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(ii) do I quite often have to yank the power because a Linux laptop is still shutting down/will never shut down? How will yanking the power lead on a (presumably) battery operated device help?
Because he said "yank the power", not "yank the power lead". It's a fine distinction which relies on your having erroneously inserted an extra word into his sentence based on your own assumption. Sometimes, when my laptop stops responding, I will "yank the power" from it - meaning, I'll pull ("yank") out the battery, forcing an immediate power-down. Then I'll re-insert the battery and boot up again.
That seems a fairly complicated form of yanking. |
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Jeffrey Lee |
Message #108920, posted by Phlamethrower at 00:02, 1/12/2008, in reply to message #108919 |
Hot Hot Hot Hot Hot Hot Hot Hot Hot Hot Hot Hot Hot stuff
Posts: 15100
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(ii) do I quite often have to yank the power because a Linux laptop is still shutting down/will never shut down? How will yanking the power lead on a (presumably) battery operated device help?
Because he said "yank the power", not "yank the power lead". It's a fine distinction which relies on your having erroneously inserted an extra word into his sentence based on your own assumption. Sometimes, when my laptop stops responding, I will "yank the power" from it - meaning, I'll pull ("yank") out the battery, forcing an immediate power-down. Then I'll re-insert the battery and boot up again.
That seems a fairly complicated form of yanking.
You'd be surprised what people will do to get a good yank. |
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Jason Togneri |
Message #108921, posted by filecore at 06:28, 1/12/2008, in reply to message #108920 |
Posts: 3868
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(ii) do I quite often have to yank the power because a Linux laptop is still shutting down/will never shut down? How will yanking the power lead on a (presumably) battery operated device help?
Because he said "yank the power", not "yank the power lead". It's a fine distinction which relies on your having erroneously inserted an extra word into his sentence based on your own assumption. Sometimes, when my laptop stops responding, I will "yank the power" from it - meaning, I'll pull ("yank") out the battery, forcing an immediate power-down. Then I'll re-insert the battery and boot up again.
That seems a fairly complicated form of yanking.
You'd be surprised what people will do to get a good yank.
There are good Yanks? |
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Ian Cook |
Message #108933, posted by ilcook at 19:06, 2/12/2008, in reply to message #108921 |
 Resident idiot
Posts: 1077
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(ii) do I quite often have to yank the power because a Linux laptop is still shutting down/will never shut down? How will yanking the power lead on a (presumably) battery operated device help?
Because he said "yank the power", not "yank the power lead". It's a fine distinction which relies on your having erroneously inserted an extra word into his sentence based on your own assumption. Sometimes, when my laptop stops responding, I will "yank the power" from it - meaning, I'll pull ("yank") out the battery, forcing an immediate power-down. Then I'll re-insert the battery and boot up again.
That seems a fairly complicated form of yanking.
You'd be surprised what people will do to get a good yank.
There are good Yanks?
Yeah, dead ones.  |
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John Hoare |
Message #108934, posted by moss at 19:31, 2/12/2008, in reply to message #108933 |
Posts: 9348
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(ii) do I quite often have to yank the power because a Linux laptop is still shutting down/will never shut down? How will yanking the power lead on a (presumably) battery operated device help?
Because he said "yank the power", not "yank the power lead". It's a fine distinction which relies on your having erroneously inserted an extra word into his sentence based on your own assumption. Sometimes, when my laptop stops responding, I will "yank the power" from it - meaning, I'll pull ("yank") out the battery, forcing an immediate power-down. Then I'll re-insert the battery and boot up again.
That seems a fairly complicated form of yanking.
You'd be surprised what people will do to get a good yank.
There are good Yanks?
Yeah, dead ones.
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Adrian Lees |
Message #108946, posted by adrianl at 13:18, 3/12/2008, in reply to message #108919 |
Member
Posts: 1637
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meaning, I'll pull ("yank") out the battery, forcing an immediate power-down. Then I'll re-insert the battery and boot up again. That seems a fairly complicated form of yanking.
Well, I (ab)use the verb to mean using the 5-second power down that's done purely in hardware (the PMU) on modern laptops. Thankfully, that at least, has never failed. |
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Richard Goodwin |
Message #109040, posted by rich at 15:25, 20/12/2008, in reply to message #108912 |
 Dictator for life
Posts: 6828
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I would just like to point out that ATM machines[*] in the UK seem to be fairly low-spec PCs running Windows XP. The one outside the Co-op on Carlton Road opens up[**] to reveal a Dell keyboard plugged into it, and the Lloyds TSB machines inside the Parliament Street branch crashed the other day, rebooting themselves to "fix" the problem. Windows startup logo ahoy!
So I'm guessing they're not going to be benefiting from Moore's Law anyway, even if the network wasn't the bottleneck.
[* extra "machines" added to annoy pedants]
[** to the bloke with the key who was mending it, not to random punters. Shame.]
________
 Cheers,
Rich.
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