Phil Henshaw wrote: > The question is about when there are lots of uncontested resources at first > vs. when things have to switch to negotiating the use of contested > resources. In the latter case users can eek out a fraction more by > learning to coordinate their independent complex systems, or just do time > sharing, or do some improbable transformative synergy to move the problem to > another scale. In the former case unlimited resources and no negotiation > means life is simple. Think of each operating system as a line at the grocery store. Even if one of the checkers is slow or a customer can't find her wallet in her purse, or there is someone buying booze that needs an approval from a manager, there can be another queue without that problem. That doesn't necessarily help any given individual who's already committed to a line, but in aggregate it does help everyone to have more lines. There's also the possibility of super-linear speedups (or synergies). For example, cash-only lines.
Marcus ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
