From primate to pulp fiction

F. wrote:

What is the relationship between CPU speed, RAM quantity, hard disk space, and how fast your computer does stuff? eg. start up some piece of random software, save files, etc.

If I have a computer with a 333MHz CPU, 4G hard drive and 64 MB of RAM, does that mean that if I install 256MB of RAM (but change nothing else) my computer will run 5 times faster (64 + 256 = 320 = 5 x 64). What are the factors that go into speed?

Hi F.,

my uncle has a publishing house that produces romance novels. They employ primates to bang out pulp fiction -- bonobos for the sex scenes, orangutans for the hairier sections. My uncle hates zoologists (who can blame him), and calls his primates "monkeys".

The monkeys spend most of the day tapping away in a room full of typewriters, munching on bananas. The bananas give them their creative juices, the thinking space they need to create great works of trash.

My uncle's company is based in Nigeria, and recently arranged a round of private investment with westerners (as a result of which I need to move 73 million US dollars out of Nigeria, please email me if you'd like to take part in this fabulous opportunity). This investment is to be used to expand the publishing business and increase the rate of production, from primate to pulp.

My uncle has three options to increase the rate of publication:

1. buy more monkeys
2. buy more paper
3. buy more bananas

Adding more monkeys is the only thing that can make the publication rate go faster. However, if he did that without adding more bananas into the mix, the monkeys would hardly be able to think and would spend most of their time fighting over bananas.

Paper is somewhat different in that you only really need more of it in order to produce more novels. To produce the same number of novels faster you don't need more paper, although I'm sure some publishing nerds will point out that if the monkeys don't have enough bananas, they'll start eating paper. In any case, whatever spare paper you have is likely to get filled up with badly drawn pictures of naked monkeys.

My uncle uses these rules of thumb to pour ever more buckets of typewritten filth onto an already-gagging market.

To answer your question above, adding five crates of bananas without adding more monkeys will not increase the rate of production five-fold. It may help feed some of the monkeys who are currently missing out on bananas, but chances are that most of the extra bananas will just sit in a side room and rot. You need more monkeys.

hope that helps,

kfish.

PS. Zoologists are cool