Am I alone in suspecting that after perhaps a few weeks of publicity, this guy's going to quietly walk out of his house, pop to the local pub, and have a few beers? Indeed, I noticed that he's afforded a certain amount of privacy and time to cover up the web cams; how many of us really believe that he's going to remain indoors? I don't mean to be too cynical, but the impression I've had from the start is that this is purely a publicity stunt, rather than a genuine attempt at scientific discovery. The media being as it is, any news that the guy had abandonded the entire project would be essentially a non-story and probably wouldn't make it onto the news. This guy's getting his fifteen minutes of fame, and good luck to him - but I'm willing to bet he won't still be at it a year, or even a month or two, from now; nobody'll notice, either, because it's going to be so horrendously dull watching some guy alone around his house. "The Real World" without the contrived "interesting" elements..
Given the current state of software, it would take one hell of a long time for the market to saturate; besides, one we move beyond fad, people buy things because they are useful or otherwise valuable to them. Increase the real value of the software and it won't matter whether the machine's not getting faster every year. Realistically, true computing power has plateaued, anyhow: the average computer buyer can do little that he couldn't do two years ago, the newest computer games notwithstanding. Much of what is being pumped into Silicon Valley has less to do with chip developments than with the web, software, and information services, and this trend is only likely to continue. We already live in an information- and services-based age and I see little reason to believe that the end of Moore's law should lead to global depression. Bandwidth, not processor speed, is the real issue.
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Am I alone in suspecting that after perhaps a few weeks of publicity, this guy's going to quietly walk out of his house, pop to the local pub, and have a few beers? Indeed, I noticed that he's afforded a certain amount of privacy and time to cover up the web cams; how many of us really believe that he's going to remain indoors? I don't mean to be too cynical, but the impression I've had from the start is that this is purely a publicity stunt, rather than a genuine attempt at scientific discovery. The media being as it is, any news that the guy had abandonded the entire project would be essentially a non-story and probably wouldn't make it onto the news. This guy's getting his fifteen minutes of fame, and good luck to him - but I'm willing to bet he won't still be at it a year, or even a month or two, from now; nobody'll notice, either, because it's going to be so horrendously dull watching some guy alone around his house. "The Real World" without the contrived "interesting" elements..
Given the current state of software, it would take one hell of a long time for the market to saturate; besides, one we move beyond fad, people buy things because they are useful or otherwise valuable to them. Increase the real value of the software and it won't matter whether the machine's not getting faster every year. Realistically, true computing power has plateaued, anyhow: the average computer buyer can do little that he couldn't do two years ago, the newest computer games notwithstanding. Much of what is being pumped into Silicon Valley has less to do with chip developments than with the web, software, and information services, and this trend is only likely to continue. We already live in an information- and services-based age and I see little reason to believe that the end of Moore's law should lead to global depression. Bandwidth, not processor speed, is the real issue.