Posted by Jack on 12/04/07 05:20

"Arny Krueger" <arnyk@hotpop.com> wrote in
news:Q7CdnQLnGsLUfdPanZ2dnUVZ_hadnZ2d@comcast.com:

>> My comment was also about people's perception that growth
>> (of any kind) can go on without limits in a finite world.
>
>
> Straw man. Everybody knows that the world and even the part of the
> universe that we can explore in any sense is finite. The only question
> is how limited our resources really are.

Apparently you haven't been exposed to Cornucopian economic theory,
practiced by about 2/3rds of the Republican Party. If a resource tapers
off, someone will magically find a substitute for it. Google "Julian
Simon."

>> At some point Internet capacity will peak, just like the
>> ability to supply electricity to power it all.
>
> The internet is getting to be far more energy-efficient. The amount of
> power it takes to run it might peak, but that is a different thing
> than what you are talking about, Jack,

But there are tens of millions more people on this planet each year,
which consistently outpaces technological efficiency. Consumption has
risen annually in most sectors since they've kept records, except for
certain depressions and recessions.

>> Computers/servers have become a major energy hog.
>
> Actually, the amount of power that a desktop computer draws from the
> power line (system unit) has been fairly stable at about 100 watts.
> Since we started trading 100 watt + CRTs for 35 watt LCDs, the average
> power used by a typical PC system has probabaly dropped quite a bit.
> Laptops use far less power and are a bigger fraction of the market
> than ever. The growth of the numbers of PC's will probably fall off
> once there is one for everybody to have their own.

Again, the growth of the human population is nowhere close to falling
off. There are not a stable number of users to set a benchmark.

> Finally, lossy coders for audio have become far better than they once
> were. If you want to really hear some bad coders, try
>
> http://www.pcabx.com/product/coder_decoder/index.htm

We do agree on that, which if you recall, was my original puzzlement at
the WMA glitch. This whole thread has deteriorated into something it was
never meant to be. The one solid bit of info seems to be a difference in
output between WMA 9.2 (via my GoldWave 5.22) and WMA 9.1 uploaded by
Steve. His did not have the same artifacts.

Jack

[Back to original message]