Out with the slow
In the computer industry, one way of explaining the progressive nature of things (the treadmill) is to use the term “Moore’s Law”. It isn’t a law, exactly. More an excuse to keep on spending. And for some, like me, the law has a corollary. I call it the “Recycle Principle”.
We (my employer and me) have a lot of hardware. No leading edge stuff (because we’re constrained by budget rules), but we do have a share of the second string stuff. And, in keeping with Moore’s Law, we replace stuff that is functional, because… well, because.
There’s a limit to how much you can buy; oddly, it is not the money available. Instead, think of constrained space. We don’t have enough extra room to store the stuff that is taken out of service. Every couple of years, we contract someone to fill up their truck with piles of computers and related hardware. Today was The Big Sort, in anticipation of The Big Throwaway.
Amazing how those laptops that seemed so speedy a few years ago are now fit for nothing at all. I’ve pulled the memory and drives (and wi-fi cards and DVD readers) and put the batteries into separate boxes for real recycling. The rest of it – just heavy jetsam (won’t float). Even the memory modules get put through triage. 256 MB or less equal surplus. Hard drives of less than 40 GB; just dead weight. Even a few projectors (what teachers call “cannons”) will be gone by next week. Bright lights no more.
Am I saddened? Maybe. On the positive side, I’ll have less soul searching to do when asked why a particular machine seems so slow. After all, it’s probably due to be recycled.
