The search for perfection

Once upon a time I was a hi-fi buff. (Hi-fi is short for high fidelity.) I bought all the magazines on hi-fi that I could find.

I learned about platters and woofers and tweeters, and over time I learned a few other things about the world of hi-fi...

I learned of the holy grain of hi-fi: The perfect sound. Hi-fi was an all-male activity (or so it seemed) and I noticed that some of the descriptions of this imagined nirvana had sexual overtones, and for some there was an implied parallel between how good your hi-fi was and how good you were in bed.

Then CD’s were introduced to the scene, and had the same effect as a pike being introduced into a pool of minnows. But even when it was proved that CD’s had a superior sound quality to vinyl, some vinyl buffs still refused to believe. Perhaps the sound of music without the snap, crackle and pop of vinyl was too clinical and lifeless?

Well, that was then and this is now. However, when I look at what is happening with computers I am reminded of my experiences with hi-fi. I wonder where this search for the perfect computer is leading. Now we have computers with 2GB (Gigabytes) of RAM (Random Access Memory) and more than 160GB (Gigabytes) of hard disk space.

It is a sad fact that even a computer with these impressive specifications will soon become out of date as software manufacturers compete to eat up memory, disk space and processor speed with 'improvements'. There is a term I picked up from a computer magazine in the 1990's - Bloatware - which sums things up nicely.

Is this rush towards apparent perfection driven by those who use computers or those who sell computers?