The Moore’s Law Schism

My new Mac is a nightmare in every way (hence the delay in posting) but there is an epiphanic upside: My realization that the personal computer market is another example of ‘technology holdback’ (for lack of an already-existing term), i.e., we useless eating saps don’t get the good stuff, the advanced stuff, and we’re not supposed to even know it exists.

What do I mean? Until recently, I used a Macbook Pro, with a Macbook Air as backup, each being at least a decade old (2008 – 2011), somewhere in there for both. They both crashed over the past year, so I thought I’d update my cyber ass with a new Mac — many old ones, dupes of the two I had, are available online, called ‘refurbished’ — figuring I’d get faster speeds, more storage, all that Moore’s Law good stuff. 

Addendum: If the Wiki definition is too much to swallow, Moore’s Law (which has applied since the 1970s) tells us that computer speed, storage, etc. will double every year (or 18 months), an exponential progression. In comparing my old Macs to my new Mac, in the 10 years since the old ones were built, the operating systems of a current Mac should be approximately 32 times as efficient, assuming five speed doublings (which is conservative): Two, four, eight, sixteen, thirty-two. Five doublings. You get the picture.

Surprise! My brand new, out-of-the-box 2020 Macbook Air is a piece of junk in every way, compared with its much older versions. Let’s start with speed. Being a cyber-fool, my measure of comparative speed is simple-minded. One of my nighttime sky-lapses consists of over 1,000 still images, right? With my old Macs, if my Final Cut was on the blink I’d put the stills in a folder and quickly scroll through them using the down arrow. A thousand clicks, say. Yes, boring, until I get one that blows my mind, like the three shots below…

My old Macs were instantaneous. No matter how fast I clicked, no problem. This new one makes a scroll-through all but impossible as there is a one second delay between images as the next photo loads. Horrendous. When I spoke to Apple about this, they tried to double-talk me with ‘CPU units’ and other bullshit (like Wifi speed issues, which are irrelevant in this case); none had an excuse for the slower speed that made sense (which they had to admit).

‘So,’ I said to the three different service people I spoke with, ‘instead of being 32 times faster, the new Apple product is actually slower, meaning less efficient, than a model from a decade ago?’ After some dead phone-air: ‘Is that about right?’ The double-talk would continue, and this also happened with the Uber-Supervisor a rattled rep finally connected me to.

Addendum: None of the three techies I talked to had heard of Moore’s Law, which I found incredible, given Apple’s cavalier use of the word ‘Genius’ in describing their people (the ‘Genius Bar’ in Apple stores, etc.), so I had to describe it, which took some of the wind out of my outrage-sails.

I plan on more multiple calls to Apple Customer Service, until I get someone who understands what I’m talking about when I opine that there is something downright sinister going on with the commercial computer market. The closest comparison here is with the space program, which I’ve talked about before, but which bears repeating, especially for those who don’t agree that there is something profoundly sinister here as well. The best way to sum up is to examine recent ‘missions’, what they accomplished, and the media/public reactions to these accomplishments. (This is assuming that the missions are real to begin with, which I most definitely do not.)

Back in the 1950s, when I was in grade school, the Russians put a piece of metal called Sputnik into LEO (low earth orbit). When Elon Musk did this more than 60 years after the Russkie achievement, the media went wild, as if this were a major accomplishment. Musk managed a docking in space in 2019, which was in principal no different than the Gemini mission in 1968. (Yes, I’ve shown that all the Musk missions were fraudulent, but that’s a separate subject.) 

Addendum: That Musk did an unmanned ‘test’ mission to make sure the docking would work, given the Gemini mission 60 years previously, was really all the proof we need that something is fucking seriously amiss with technological advancement, i.e., what we’re told versus what makes sense. 

Another way to look at this is to compare what we have now regarding space missions with Kubrick’s 2001; A Space Odyssey. It’s well established that Kubrick was meticulous in his predictive realism; he worked closely with NASA in getting right what NASA itself figured would be the status of space travel by 2001: It’s now two decades post-2001 and we have gone backwards in our space technology. And Moore’s Law should have applied to the space program as well as computer advancements. 

That no one, not the mainstream media nor the ‘truther’ alt media talks about this horrendous schism between what is and what should be, is maybe the best example of the degree of deceit/denial we are living under.

Addendum: In terms of storage (which is definitely subject to Moore’s Law), my 2010 Macs had 500 gigs of storage, whereas the best I can do with current Macs (via Amazon) is 256 gigs. Given the five doublings, new Macs should provide 32 times 500 (at least!), or more than 15,000 gigs of storage. Yet storage has decreased. Also, the new Macs lack ports to plug-in accessories; plus no DVD player. Are they serioius?!

I know some of you out there are computer-savvy and I would like very much to hear your opinion on the matter of this Moore’s Law schism. Have you noticed? Do you have a theory as to motive? Or do you disagree and have an excuse for the fact that my 2020 Mac is inferior to the models from a decade ago, when (IMO) the new one should be at least 32 times as efficient? (Even if we assume the sleazy motive of their trying to force us to use The Cloud — less storage so they can access all our info — this does not explain the slower processing speeds.)

Given that many of you spend most of your waking hours staring at a computer screen, I would think this subject would be of automatic/profound importance! Know what I mean?

Allan

I realize that you guys have been using this forum for various subject-debates while I’ve been missing in action, which is fine. Glad I could supply the cyber-space and I did enjoy some of your blabbing. But now we’re back to ‘normal’, and I expect comments to be related to the subject of the post. If you don’t think the subject matter is important, okay. Explain why. Disagree with me but do not insult me. 

As I’ve said before, you don’t like it, go somewhere else. 

If you want your mind bent and expanded, check out Dr. Cowan’s latest.  

 

Thought I’d add these from a few nights ago. I have no idea what this was. Theories welcome.