The Cloud Under the Lamp Post

David Fetter

Wednesday, April 14. 2010

The Cloud Under the Lamp Post

A drunk is under a lamp post. It's late at night, and he is crawling
around on his hands and knees, searching frantically all over the tiny
pool of brilliant light it casts. A passer-by asks him, "what are you
doing?" He answers, "I'm looking for my keys." Pointing out into the
darkness, he continues, "I dropped them over there, but the light's
much better over here."

The joke is an old one, and illustrates an interesting truth about
human psychology.

What does this have to do with The Cloud, you ask?

Read on.

Gordon Moore's observation about transistor density has
held true for the past forty years. There is every indication that it
will continue to be true for at least a few more.

In the computing industry, this has caused an extremely unusual
situation, namely that certain components just keep getting better on
an exponential curve. While CPUs and such have been improving
exponentially, the same has not held true for bandwidth.

Back to the drunk. While it first may seem easier to throw CPUs at a
problem than consider whether bandwidth is the limiting factor, let's
take care that we're not the fools crawling around on our hands and
knees in a grimy street, searching for something we know we'll never
find, while others look on and laugh.
Posted by
David Fetter
at 19:12 | Comment (1) | Trackbacks (0)
Trackbacks
Trackback specific URI for this entry

No Trackbacks

Comments
Display comments as (Linear | Threaded)
(Comment removed)
#1 verniykot (Homepage) on 2012-11-17 11:13
Add Comment
Enclosing asterisks marks text as bold (*word*), underscore are made via _word_.
Standard emoticons like :-) and ;-) are converted to images.
To leave a comment you must approve it via e-mail, which will be sent to your address after submission.

To prevent automated Bots from commentspamming, please enter the string you see in the image below in the appropriate input box. Your comment will only be submitted if the strings match. Please ensure that your browser supports and accepts cookies, or your comment cannot be verified correctly.
CAPTCHA

 
   
 

Archives

Subscribe

  • XML

Blog Administration

Open login screen