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One of the first supercomputers was the Cray-1, produced in 1975 for $7.9 million (the 2024 equivalent of $41 million). It measured 6.4 feet tall x 8.7 ft wide, weight 5.5 tons, and had to be housed in an air-conditioned, filtered room. It had an 80mhz processing speed.
In comparison, the iPhone 3GS cell phone sold for $600 and has a processing speed of 600 mhz, and is by no means the most powerful microcomputer on the market. The average Android tablet is far more powerful than the most advanced Cray system.
I began coding microcomputers in the late 70s. By far the advances that have impressed me the most are:
Computer graphics (graphics cards are just incredible these days)
NVMe hard drives (such incredibly huge storage in such a small device) and start at around $55 for 1TB.
Micro-SD cards (TTF cards), which can store two terrabytes of data and is no larger than my little fingernail. 8}
My first hard drive was 5.5" in size, about an inch or so tall, and held a whopping 10mb. (No, not gb, mb). I remember thinking at that time, “How am I possibly going to put 10 mb of data on that drive? It should last forever.”
The most recent drive I bought was an SSD that holds 2 TB and I already have it half full. blink blink
Yeah, I just noticed that Go-Comics (for whatever reason) has even overcome the bypass method that have been used for external links. Maybe they did that to stop advertising spam, and maybe to try and stop the “provide a reference!” demands on silly debates. Dunno.
What I searched was “Shovel vs Spade” and followed both weblinks and images. Many sites stated a shoved has a pointed end and a spade a squared end, which is exactly the opposite of what other sites state. Too bad I can’t show you the funny one. I’ve no idea where it is.
Oh wait, found it. Amazing. Let’s see if we can pull this off:
Follow-up: If we look at Google IMAGES of spades vs shovels, we find that most shovels are shown as having sharp points, whereas most spades are shown as having flat edges. But again that makes us wonder how we’re supposed to DIG using a wide flat point, whereas we’re supposed to SHOVEL using a curved pointed tool? It simply makes no sense.
This does however explain why human management of our one, sole planet is going so well. We can’t even agree on the name of a tool— or a spot on a deck of cards. ;D
“but I thought a spade is something small enough to be held with one hand, and if you use two hands and maybe a foot to dig with it, it’s a shovel. Am I misinformed?”
Yes… and no, as was I until I happened across a definition. Almost.
The information I first came across was that a spade is a digging device of any size that is used to dig— thus the pointed end. A shovel is generally intended to scoop and move things. Although in general I suspect the term shovel has come to be generally recognized to include both.
However on researching them today (because of your post, congrats. ;D) I find that there are differing and even contradictory definitions of shovels and spades, depending on where one looks… which makes the definition itself uncertain. Some state spades have square sharp ends, while others point out that the pointed spade makes it easier to dig. Other sites say shovels can have pointed ends and are used to dig… but in that case why are they called “shovels”? Most people know the primary purpose of a shovel is to ‘shovel’ material from one area to another. Whereas a garden spade is used primarily for digging, no matter what its size.
As stated, the definition is somewhat uncertain.
I do however, know for a certainty the difference between a spade and a club. Except…
I really like this site for making the issue itself humorously and perfectly unclear:
How did a plain comic strip become yet another political commentary? Seriously people, can you not just enjoy life… and let others do the same? Please, confine your political obsessions to the political strips.
Not to split hairs, but in this particular strip he got everything wrong… kinda.
“Coder” and “Programmer” can be synonymous, but in the absolute sense the Programmer is the one who designs the logic of the code, and the Coder is the one who writes the code based on the Programmer’s design.
A Geek isn’t necessarily tech-oriented.
A Systems Analyst evaluates system validity. Engineers design systems.
A developer (brains) is several steps above a key puncher (manual labor).
And to top it off… he’s using a spade, not a shovel. ;D
He should have been able to tell it was Tyr from the smell…