19 May
2010
19 May
'10
5:15 p.m.
Tony Duell wrote:
I am stil lowndering what is so great about replacing something with 10
transsitors (a cassette recorder) with something with sevreral million
transistos,
Those several million transistors may actually use fewer atoms than the 10
transistors in the cassette player when one includes packaging.
I like simplicity too, but there are many ways of assessing which 'fewer' is
better.
We could have a big debate about it and end up demeaning ourselves by sounding
like economists.
I know which I'd rather have to keep running in 40
years
time (and yes, I do have a cassette recorder over that age, all it's ever
needed are new belts).
I think the concept is that in 40 years the choice will be the 70-year old
cassette player vs. whatever the future playback technology is, not the
then-40-year-old now-current playback technology.