Posted by Arny Krueger on 12/04/07 13:40

"Jack" <jack@beanstalk.net> wrote in message
news:Xns99FBD921F7D45jack@216.168.3.44
> "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."

The idea that resources will be creatively replaced by something more
suitable has many historical precidents. Between the population growth and
industrial uses, trees were running out in England, and getting inconvenient
in the eastern US. Then someone discovered coal. Coal ran its course as
*the* mainstream energy source and then someone discovered oil. Easy US oil
started running out and then someone discovered the mid east. Etc.

>>> 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.

Does it? Or are the losses of millions in Africa outweighed by the advances
made by the billions in Asia, notably India and China?

> Consumption has risen annually in most
> sectors since they've kept records, except for certain
> depressions and recessions.

Since it was consumed, it was supplied. Therefore supplies have continued to
increase at about the same pace as consumption.

>>> 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.

The rise in the efficiency of production and use of power by humans
continues.

>> 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.

I guess that every once in a while MS drops a loser on us. Then they fix
things better.

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