Subject: [LINK] Considering Fibre to the Home

[Stewart Fist]

Kim reveals himself as a died-in-the-wool infinite extrapolist.
> 
> Yeah, and the world market for computers is probably about 5 in total
> and you will never need more the 640K of memory.  While I agree with
> almost everything else you said I don't agree with this.  Computing
> and networking are moving so fast it is impossible to predict even a
> few years in the future.

And every house will need stable space for 160 horses by 2010, because the
number per household doubled between 1900 and 1910.

And we'll all want to drive at 1000 kph on suburban streets, and so on, in
cars that are 30 metres long and consume gas at a litre a kilometer, because
that was the trend in motoring in the 1970s.

The easiest way to establish yourself as an infallible predictor of the
future is simply to claim that there is no end to any of man's needs.

You can never be proved wrong, since you can always extend the horizons.

But common sense says that all technology development either comes to an
end, or it goes through a quiescent phase in its development when it
satisfies the requirements of the society at the time.   What usually
happens, is that the society's interest changes, and goes off in new
directions.

Infinite extrapolation is not prediction or analysis, it is the chanting of
a mantra.


-- 
Stewart Fist, writer, journalist, film-maker
70 Middle Harbour Road, LINDFIELD, 2070, NSW, Australia
Ph +61 (2) 9416 7458