Computers frigten and disgust me
 

Between this:
http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com...&wa=wsignin1.0

and this:

http://news.com.com/Intel+shows+test...3-6030489.html

I think we're well ahead of schedule for a Robot Apocalypse. It's news like this that makes me want to keep putting off buying a new computer. Not because I don't want a mechanical overlord, but because I want one that's top of the line, and at this rate the one I buy will be a piece of crap by the time the Robot Secret Police get to my door.

Seriiously though, hardware needs to slow the hell down if it's progressing so fast that software can't keep up enough to even use any of this stuff. Operating systems can barely utilize dual cores, now they want to throw in 78 additional ones?

So 3D chip design is finally getting somewhere? Cool deal. Hell, weren't they supposed to have been bumping up against the limits of subatomic structure by now?

I mean I'm pretty much for shit at anything reality-based, so the sooner they can plug me into the Matrix, the better.

I was at IBM a couple years ago and they were talking about how they were working on getting past that stepping stone, heck now we really do need to start on the VR! Also they showed some cool stuff on a living computer they had made, artifially grown programmable synapses.

Honestly, I'm not so much afraid as indifferent. Do we really need all that processing power? I've got an 80GB Hard drive on this computer. Between my entire family's music, video, files, games, and viruses (-_-#), we've only managed to fill up 20 of it. Computers are delving from progress into excess.

Oh, and I wouldn't worry. Computers are incredibly stupid. You learn this in programming. You'd never believe how many assumptions you normally make that computers don't. It's like the 80 steps to tie your shoelaces.

I wouldn't call it excess, no. The space gets bigger BECAUSE people want more, and buy the bigger stuff. If people truly didn't use a 1TB hard drive, no one would buy a 1TB hard drive, and they would stop marketing 1TB hard drives.

But people do. I used to use very little hard drive space as well. My gaming PC that I admittedly don't use as often anymore after getting a laptop has 512GB of hard drive space. What generally happens there is I can freely install games and never uninstall them, because I'll never come close to running out of room. With OS and random programs and all games, I was using maybe 100GB (granted, I don't know MANY games). But, then I started dealing with watching TV shows and movies and such. There went 150GB in a month.

My friends have, easily, a couple terabytes of movies and shows sitting on massive stacks of DVDs. I'm sure the porn archives of many males (or females? Rawr) necessitate more hard drive space, too. But aside from that, with an increase in quantity can come an increase in quality. Movie and TV files 5 years ago probably aren't what they can be now. Now we've got HDTV EDTV FuckDTV, and the file sizes get bigger. With bigger sizes, you need more space.

Besides, if you have an 80GB hard drive and only used 20 with your entire family's games, files, and music, that means: A) You guys don't game much, B) You guys don't have many files and C) You guys don't keep much music.

Yeah, seriously, I have 20gb of just music alone so I can see where people would need into the TBs of data when you get into tv and movies. my point was that we've gotten literally to the point with hardware that we can't make software fast enough to keep up with the changes. pretty soon they're gonna have computers writing the software just to have it done in enough time. and when the computers start writing their own code, that's the begining of the end.

Actually, they already do. Download a copy of Visual Basic Express.

Before anyone panics, computers are far from doing it intelligently. VB has a code generator that essentially gives you what you tell it you need.

Actually, though, your computer probably contains computer-designed chips. Elevators in some buildings use "fuzzy logic," a form of crude AI. The NPCs in many video games also use AI. Take Oblivion. Everyone has a schedule, biases based on race and gender, a field of vision, a hearing radius, the ability to carry out simple conversations with each other, and will even judge you based on your appearance (clothes) and fame and infamy levels.

Does that mean Dagon will take over the world? Probably not. Like I said before, computers are stupid. As much as they learn, and as capable as they become, they can only do what they're programmed to. So instead of worrying about a computer revolt, worry about what kind of person might want to make one happen.

Adressing the "excess" of modern hardware, my mom's boyfriend has more than 100GB of music. Just music.

And also, industrial applications generally require as much storage and power as they can get their freakin' hands on. 3D animation, anyone? Not to mention all the data crunching that scientific applications require, from pharma to financial analyses to university research teams -- they're all always looking for more power.

Hell, at my dad's work, where they do graphic design, even their dual- and quad-core G5 towers could run Photoshop a little faster, and certainly when they need to do any 3D work, there's still a lot of time sunk into rendering.

Not to mention that they always need more storage, working as they are with thousands of Tiff images.

Computer technology is only "excessive" if we assume that every field -- commercial and industrial -- that utilizes computer technology will suddenly stop advancing.

Power usage is different than personal usage, which is what I assumed this thread was about. Honestly, computers that used to take up an entire floor of a building are already being compressed into cabinets. Power usage can utilize those extreme advances better than a PC will need to in the near future. Once we get holodecks and reploids, then maybe it'll be a bit more important to John, Jane, Billy, Sue and Sparky.

I really wish I could, say, afford all of these new innovations. There are some PC games I'd really like to play if they'd stop making me pay a ton of cash to be able to do that.