Jdavis has said many times that demand increases to meet any upgrade to the board (just one of many times he’s said this) . Technically what would it take to meet any future demand for the SDMB (there has to be a wall somewhere where demand doesn’t outpace supply). What are the specs for the technology used to run the SDMB now? Please talk slowly and use small words.
Ps: if this is more of a IMHO, please feel free to move it.
A computer and some wires running into it. You are at the other end of those wires.
And to be more specific, more computer and fatter wires than any of us has even dreamt of asking the Reader to provide. Seriously, we’re taking carrier class here. Stuff that would make slashdot go “whoa” and even ebay go “not bad.”
Assuming the SDMB community is healthy, demand will ALWAYS increase. Furthermore, I think demand is likely to increase exponentially rather than in a linear manner. This makes it impossible to build a server that will support the SDMB FOREVER.
I don’t recall any particular post where the exact specs of the SDMB server have been given out, but I pieced together the impression from somewhere that the SDMB was running on a dual-Pentium III system. This may, of course, be totally wrong, and I invite correction.
No, that sounds right. It’s pretty spiffy and not at all elderly; was just installed fresh out of the box in November 2002.
By January 2003 we had eaten up all capacity and were right back where we started, to our everlasting surprise and shock. Jerry said, “I tole ya this would happen.” But even he was stunned at how quickly it happened. Apparently the more we have to offer, the more folks come running.
your humble TubaDiva
Administrator
It’s nice to be popular, but geez!
Maybe one of those early 1970s things for gas.
You know…even number in your UserID and you can post on MWF, odd number TThSa.
Sunday is just for the mods. We can call it ‘Go outside you losers’ day.
What do you think?
Well, if the UN population figures are to be believed, then we can’t keep growing forever. Within a decade or a few, the world population should reach a plateau at around 9 billion people. Some percentage of those folks are in the target audience for the Straight Dope, so we’ll have one of those S-shaped double exponential curves from biology, as the population of the SDMB expands to its maximum supportable size.
Now, for some estimates/figures: It’s a reasonable approximation to consider the SDMB to be drawing membership primarily from the United States, population 300 million. Once we’re drawing from the full population of the planet, assuming that the proportion of Dopers remains constant, we’ll have thirty times our current membership. Assuming that demand is linear in the number of members, and that Moore’s Law applies to all the aspects of the infrastructure needed to support the Board, a factor of thirty would be five doublings, meaning that the computers of seven and a half years from now would be adequate to meet the Dope’s increased needs due to population growth and expanded global coverage.
The biggest assumptions here are that the Dope has saturated or near-saturated its potential market in the States, and that demand is linear in the number of users. The first I suspect is incorrect, but I’m not sure how to gauge the market penetration of the Dope. As for the second, since conversations on the Board involve interactions between people, it might be more reasonable to model demand as quadratic in the number of members, which would double the time before Moore’s Law catches up.
As a (weak) upper bound, suppose that all humans are in the potential market for the Straight Dope, and that we’ll eventually saturate that potential market. We currently have 37422 members, which means an increase in membership by a factor of 2.410[sup]5[/sup]. Assumming qadratic demand, this is an increase of 5.810[sup]10[/sup] in demand. Taking the log base 2 of that, we have just under 36 doublings, which, assuming that Moore’s doubling time remains fixed at 18 months, means that the hamsters (by then, bionic, neuroimplanted, and with nanofiber fur) will finally catch up sometime in early 2057, by the latest.
So there’s hope.
**
Dude, I read that once and said out loud, “That is soooo ‘Soylent Green’”.
I dunno. . . Based on the apparent exponential rise in bannings lately (from what I percieved), just because our members in the rank and file are increasing doesn’t mean our average IQ pool will rise. But then again, you’re listening to a guy who quotes Charlton Heston movies? :dubious:
Tripler
“The Teeming Millions. . . its. . . its. . . it’s made of peeeooopplleeee!”
That depends on whether what you’re observing is secular or periodic, that is to say, whether it’s a real trend. Bannings always increase during the summer, and fall back again during the school year. So in order to detect a trend, you’d need at least a year of data, preferably several years.
Good point. But I could have sworn there were a helluvalotuva bannings in the “off season” this past year. Could be me though. . .
Begrudgingly, I have to admit that I still maintain my theory: Just cause we’re growing in numbers, won’t raise our IQs. Oh, sure we’ll have a larger knowledge base to work from, but we have to be smart enough to tap that keg of knowledge every now and then. . .
Tripler
And I’m all about tapping that keg of knowledge.