I've repeated the above mantra many times with regard to computers. And several times a year, some new software or hardware is introduced that is a "game changer".
I started out programming a cards-in/cards-out computer in 1959. I now carry two computers in my pocket that have more power than that: a cell phone and an iPod. I added a 5MB hard drive to one of my first Macs. I now have a 500GB hard drive accessed wirelessly by two Macs. The first modems I used on mainframes were 110bps, and on microcomputers 1200bps. I thought moving from 56Kbps to 256Kbps broadband was a big step. Now 1.5Mbps seems slow. The highest currently available in Duluth is 20Mbps, but Google is looking at providing some city with 100Mbps.
Then I saw this about Cisco's CRS-3 router: "It can handle 322 terabits of traffic per second, or simultaneous video calls for every person in China, Cisco said." - "Cisco to introduce new heavy-duty router", Yahoo Finance/AP, 2010-03-09.
Oh, yes, it costs only $90,000. My DSL costs $22 (exclusive of $12.95 ISP charge) for 1.5Mbps. Let's see, my bps cost based on the monthly cost is $0.0000147; the Cisco router bps cost is $0.000000000280, or my bps cost is about 50,000 times the router bps cost.
Of course, I'm comparing apples and oranges here in more than one way, but the order of magnitude differences are mind-boggling.
The sobering thought is that moving all this data so fast for so many people may increase the world's knowledge, but will it make us any wiser?
