A lazed off afternoon, spring break, though still sitting at lab, and a point of time when there is absolutely no looking back, possibly not much looking ahead and a time when deadlines are something we are too used to as graduate students - it was a very typical holiday afternoon at school today. I needed to work on two things with utmost immediacy, but the penchant to constantly live in the present that I have been trying to attempt since past sometime marred a rather eerie blow to my afternoon work! Off I was meeting some friends at the 4th floor of Brickyard (our department): reason, just to chat.
Then came the topic of primitive computers - and certainly came up the Moore's law effect - the boon of the hardware (also software technology) of the new century. Popped up this question, which was pretty obvious, "Remember those days of floppy disk drives?" Sure yeah, we do - and Ice Age it might look, honestly only four-five years back we were using Floppy disks, not only using them, but actually heavily relying on them, often just helplessly waiting for them to get corrupt. And look at today - I just got this buy [dot] com ad email the other day that some 750 GB of external hard drive was decently cheap. 750 GB, isn't that a ridiculous leap from 1.44 MB just five years back?
So obviously, the inquisitive question that comes henceafter is that, is there any limit to this exorbitant flexibility in hardware technology? If so what is that maximum point of stagnation? The Singularity? I am not sure.
On a different track, look at our lives - we are leading a life where probably things are changing at a pace a decently smart human brain can possibly digest at any time. Are we aware of that? I guess no - simple things, the floppy disk transition to external hard drives worth 750 GB. More than countably infinite number of things are at our fingertips - another boon of the technology evolution.
However, the question remains - is this how the technology is outgrowing us?
Then came the topic of primitive computers - and certainly came up the Moore's law effect - the boon of the hardware (also software technology) of the new century. Popped up this question, which was pretty obvious, "Remember those days of floppy disk drives?" Sure yeah, we do - and Ice Age it might look, honestly only four-five years back we were using Floppy disks, not only using them, but actually heavily relying on them, often just helplessly waiting for them to get corrupt. And look at today - I just got this buy [dot] com ad email the other day that some 750 GB of external hard drive was decently cheap. 750 GB, isn't that a ridiculous leap from 1.44 MB just five years back?
So obviously, the inquisitive question that comes henceafter is that, is there any limit to this exorbitant flexibility in hardware technology? If so what is that maximum point of stagnation? The Singularity? I am not sure.
On a different track, look at our lives - we are leading a life where probably things are changing at a pace a decently smart human brain can possibly digest at any time. Are we aware of that? I guess no - simple things, the floppy disk transition to external hard drives worth 750 GB. More than countably infinite number of things are at our fingertips - another boon of the technology evolution.
However, the question remains - is this how the technology is outgrowing us?
2 comments:
Yeah, technology has outgrown us. Take for example, mobile phones. Those priceless entity during our 1st year of Engineering, which could be only afforded by rich clan of people. But now, they are omnipresent. And whats more riveting here is, there has been a proliferate transition from Nokia 1100 (Black and White :)) to the black berry (in a span of 7 years only!!!!)
I still remember struggling to store all my contacts in that KB of my phone memory. Now we have internet on the run, GB's of phone memory, camera etc. Sometimes it makes me happy but more often it scares me !!!!
@ tech monster
Yeah sure, see these are the signs of the technological Singularity coming to us, lol! :D
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