What is Moore's Law, really?

Of course Wikipedia has an entertaining discussion about the topic, and it tells us that Moore himself was only observing/predicting that the growth in the number of transistors on a chip at the lowest price point would be exponential. It's used by many as an indicator of the increase in computing power in general... and the longest theoritical limit on Moore's law in this sense is about 600 years, at which time Moore's law would require more information processing power than can be encoded in the universe. My favourite related law is from Wirth,

"Software gets slower faster than hardware gets faster"

This page has pithy summaries of observations (as opposed to real laws) named after people.

More gadget woes

Well, my iMic arrived, and works fine, so I can now DJ from the coffee table without getting up again!

But my other recent gadget purchase - a cheap Logitech bluetooth headset for use with Skype (among other things) - is a dud. When the computer finds it, Skype doesn't, and when Skype does, I've never had an online contact to try and call!

Apple help makes some cryptic comment about setting up the headset from someplace other than the Bluetooth Preferences menu "for best results". i.e. it's buggy.

And forget about support from the little bluetooth dongle in the PC!!!

The Australian makes an uncomfortable juxtaposition

The front page of today's Australian leaks the East Timorese report into the Indonesian occupation (180,000 killed it says), and then it's photo feature is about West Paupuan asylum seekers landing in far north Queensland. Of course the politicians are already declining to say what will happen to the 40 or so boat people... but the clear implication of the Newscorp editors is that we could be looking at 180,040 if they get sent home.

Powerbook broken - need gadget

I'm not happy - my new Powerbook's audio out (headphone) jack is only working on one channel. I asked various friends how long an average apple service would take, and they said 6-9 weeks. I just can't afford to be without the machine that long, so I'm buying one of these to get around the problem:
It's a Griffin iMic, which is actually a tiny sound card in a USB-powered enclosure, with 48k sampling, and it seems to get the audiophile's stamp of approval (can't find that article with all the spectrograph images)... Only $65 on some sites with $33 shipping and handling fees, or $75 with $5.96 Aus Post on others. Or $100 at your Apple dealer.