Re: value of time [was: system questions]

[turnbull@example.com (Stephen J. Turnbull)]

I wrote:

    me> Has anybody done any benchmarks on human-relevant multitasking?
    me> What I mean is this.

>>>>> "Ted" == TMatsumu  <TMatsumu@example.com> writes:

    Ted> Probably not enough.

It's certainly very difficult to do.

    Ted> When one notices a perceived difference in reaction time from
    Ted> a machine, however slight, production increases in my
    Ted> opinion, and time is money, and I like to make money.

Granted.  At least, I've noticed you like money....  But that "however
slight" is is too extreme.  Is it really worth upgrading your
secretary from a 500MB hard drive to 500MB of static RAM?  She *will*
perceive a difference in reaction time.

    Ted> I've done all the tweaks you mention, and I still want a
    Ted> 200MHz Pentium Plus.  I've programmed for a living also, and

That P200++ will more than exhaust Kise's budget by itself (once it's
available).  And *that* is the point.  The tweaks I've mentioned do
not cost money.  So if he is short of money, he might find it
worthwhile to invest the time.  On the other hand, if you spend 40
hours a week tweaking, you're in overtime before you do any useful
work.  Everything is a tradeoff.

    Ted> I could never imagine settling for a 2 hour compile if a
    Ted> faster system could do it in 10 minutes.

Why wait for the Pentium Plus?  You can buy an Indy today.  Or an
Alpha (make my brother's day).  Obviously, price/performance isn't low 
enough.  (Although the Multia should price out at about $2000 for a
pretty complete system.)

    Ted> Time is Money.  Faster is more Money.  Faster is Better.

But this doesn't answer (my version of) Kise's question, which is:

    If you have $500, should you spend it on extra memory or on
    upgrading from the P75 to the P100?

You can't have both.  So you want to know which reduces perceived
response time in the application at hand more.  Sou ja nai?

-- 
                            Stephen J. Turnbull
Institute of Socio-Economic Planning                         Yaseppochi-Gumi
University of Tsukuba                      http://turnbull.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp/
Tennodai 1-1-1, Tsukuba, 305 JAPAN                 turnbull@example.com