The Future of Moore’s Law

Somewhere in the deep recesses of my mind, not so deep perhaps, I secretly hope this post will be brought up decades from now as a defining moment of light shone upon an uncertain future. But I also realize that it’s funny to think that way.

My friend Charles has suggested that Moore’s Law will fail, not by slowing the pace of innovation, but by following it to its mathematical conclusion, and assuming that innovation will become infinitely rapid.

I’m not sure I buy the notion of infinitely fast innovation, but I had a wonderful insight, and then I saw the future, and then I saw my place in it, nearly all at once.

Pro-engineers, as I’ll call them, are problem solvers for problems no one has even discovered yet. Typically, someone builds a widget, then discovers that certain moving parts tend to interfere with one another, or wear prematurely. Pro-engineers preemptively see not only the problem, but are then able to set about finding a solution, before the first prototype is ever built.

I’m fond of telling friend that I get to see the future, but only about 10%. Just as soon as I’m told how funny and worthless that must be, I point out the notion of a dot-to-dot and how much 10% really is. A reasonably intelligent person can put 10% of the dots into a coherent picture at that rate.

I submit that before Moore’s Law fails, in whatever fashion, it will continue its onward march past the point of impossibility with the help of Pro-engineers, inventing past the horizon of the future that we can see, prefetching innovation as it were.

Dear Beloved

Today is a Hallmark holiday, and it frustrates me how readily the commercial taglines come to mind. I want to use words like “priceless” to hide the fact that I feel badly about not going and making a purchase to mark the occasion.

Of course, that has much to do with being ill for over a week, which did not help my classically poor attention to the calendar.

Thinking about being ill reminds me of the things you do here to make yourself the mother in this household. While I was sick, you took care of the children, something I would have had to figure out on my own a year ago. Had I been too dizzy to drive, I would have to choose between keeping a healthy Carissa home, or making the dangerous commute.

One of my greatest frustrations watching people live through abusive relationships is noting that their children are watching and taking note, deciding that living in a crazy or abusive household is normal. History shows that children pay careful attention to the roles their parents play and the examples they set, and later in life emulate them in their own homes. I take great pleasure in noting that my daughter will have your example to follow when she is building her life and nurturing children of her own, and in knowing that when my son selects a mate, he will measure all of his candidates against the standard that you’ve demonstrated. I sleep well at night in knowing that your fundamental influence will be one that I’ll not regret as they grow older.

It’s a hard job you’ve taken on, but one that so far no one has had the chops to see through. They love you plenty, but they’ll be as grateful later on as I am right now.

With all my heart,
Eric

Parenting Theories III

Only three sorts of behavior from my children get a quick and painful response: outright defiance, intentionally hurting others, and being intentionally destructive.

Spilling paint on the carpet could be a minor infraction, so long as it wasn’t done with destructive intent. By the same token, something as minor as spilled milk could be met with a frightening response if its intent was to harm someone else, or purposefully make a mess.

Short of these three, there is very little that passes for a serious infraction in my home.

Parenting Theories II

Let the punishment fit the crime? Sure, sounds like a great idea, but how about letting the punishment result directly from the crime? I’m a big fan, actually, of restitution and making things right. So when handwriting appears on the wall, there is no reason for screaming and shouting, no fussing and crying, and it’s certainly not necessary to punish the short people. They’ve already punished themselves enough, whether they’ve realized it yet or not.

Their greatest misery results directly from their own misdeeds. The more they color, the more there is to scrub from the walls, and all of the good things in life come to a screeching grinding halt until they correct their mistake. Then it’s promptly back to business as usual, running, climbing, and playing as children should.

I respond to them as a lock to find the right key for. Things happen sequentially around home, like a video game. If they don’t proceed successfully through the first thirty minutes of the day, what’s the use of skipping ahead until they’ve mastered the preliminaries?

Parenting Theories I

Stop rescuing your children!

Stupidity is the inability to correctly parse negative consequences. People act stupidly these days because they are so thoroughly protected from danger and negative consequences. Stupid drivers on the freeway are those who seem unable to comprehend that their actions could cause damage and loss of life.

If you were to raise your child to love football, and carefully rescued him from any hard hits on the field, he would carelessly (and stupidly) wander onto a field full of NFL players without so much as a helmet. We would think him stupid, but that would be his sincere effort to play what he has come to understand as the game of football.

By the same token, we’re often tempted to come to the rescue of our children. I’d like to suggest that barring two exceptions, we refuse to rescue our children from their own consequences.

What are the exceptions? First, it would be appropriate to protect our children from outside players and forces that would seek to cause them evil or harm. Nothing is accomplished by allowing evil to befall an unsuspecting person of any age. Secondly, intervention at the last moment to prevent loss of life or limb would be appropriate.

I tend to use meals as punctuation. There is some debate, but I submit that there are far worse things that can happen than missing a meal, so the typical morning routine here includes getting dressed, socks and shoes, brushing teeth, getting backpack and coat ready, and finally breakfast after all’s said and done. Yesterday was the first day in awhile we’d tried the new routine without rescuing them with a banana or sandwich in the car. Yesterday, there was fussing and stalling, crying and tardiness. This morning, knowing that there would be no rescue, things went smoothly. We arrived at school dressed and fed, and confident in our self-reliance.

Airwolf

So I found Airwolf online for viewing, and have been piping it to my fancy new TV, watching 80’s reruns like I’ve never seen them before. And something interesting just came up. Ernest Borgnine has been one of my favorite actors since I was a youngster. He’s not super-bad like Clint Eastwood, not pretty like Vin Diesel. He’s approachable, the friendly kind of fellow that I could leave my kids with for an hour while I run to the store, and would expect they’d be munching on chocolate chip cookies when I returned.

The episode I’m watching is the sixth, in which his character, Dominic Santini, attempts a dangerous movie stunt. At issue is the question of his age, whether or not he’s getting to old to pull off the feat. With some frustration, he expresses that he’s not ready to retire yet.

That was something like 25 years ago. He’d be 92 today. So imagine my surprise when I looked him up on wikipedia, and he is in fact 92 today, and still working as an actor, including the occasional cameo appearance on Spongebob Squarepants as Mermaid Man. 25 years ago, there was a debate as to whether or not he was old enough to retire. Today, the debate is clearly and soundly settled. He’s still working. I’d rather enjoy meeting him, I suspect.

Flash, Youtube, Google, Linux

I’m trying my best to get Youtube and a few other online TV sites to play nicely with Ubuntu. It has been a minor headache. The thing that never seems to come up in any of the how-to’s is Hardware Acceleration.

Right-click in the flash window, and disable hardware acceleration.

What’s that for? It’s not as though Flash is doing high-volume hardware texturing and lighting. Bizarre.