Joshua Bell wrote:
>
> >From: "The Fool" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> >
> >> From: Ronn!Blankenship <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> >>
> >>
> >> Or, there is the argument that "I paid about as much for this computer
> >as I
> >> did for my refrigerator, and all I had to do with the refrigerator was
> >> bring it home and plug it in and it worked fine for the next ten y >>
> >
> >Computers are several orders of magnitude more complex than
> >refrigerators, the same way a NASA shuttle is more complex than a
> >catapult. Just the CPU has how many hundred million switches?
>
> Actually, that's irrelevant.
>
> A modern game console (e.g. XBox) is essentially a modern high end PC with one thing
> removed:
>
> Flexibility
>
> The reason that PCs are so widely popular is their amazing flexibility.
> People use PCs in ways that the creators never anticipated. PCs
> replaced dedicated word processors because they could do all of the same
> things plus run spreadsheets, play games, emulate terminals, store data,
> etc.
Greater flexibility = greater power
With great power comes great responsibility.
BTW, Dan's aunt is getting a used computer from one of her sons. Last I
heard, she wanted Dan to help her get set up with that, but that hasn't
happened yet; maybe her son helped her. Everyone in the family was
hoping she'd get an internet connection so's she could be in the e-mail
loop with the rest of us, but she said she just wanted to play games.
So when it's all up and running, she'll play games for awhile, and if
she decides she wants e-mail at a later time, it's probably us who will
have to help with setting that up. (Not that we mind -- the hardest
thing will be finding the right ISP for her.) She doesn't want to do
much right now, and that's fine for everyone immediately involved. (Not
so fine for, maybe, say, her nephew in New York, but there's always the
telephone.)
Julia
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