Thursday, March 11, 2010

The limits of parallelism

I think it was Gene Amdahl who observed that no matter how much parallelism you throw at a problem, the inevitable sequential bits will always limit how fast your program will run.

Clare has discovered the universal truth of this observation today in Wells. The electrician has to finish his new wiring before the plasterer can hide it all in the wall before the plumber can install the sink and washing machine and ... so it goes on. We're apparently at step 1.5 but at least the water has been turned on for the evening. Cooking however will not be possible this coming weekend.

Alex and myself will visit tomorrow (Friday) for a weekend of fixing and unpacking - a cold season version of camping at Glastonbury. We'll do a lot of eating out and sharing (sequentially) the one functioning bathroom.

The cat is looking forwards to it wonderfully, I have never seen him so skittish.

In the spirit of Imelda Marcos I celebrated events this evening by buying two more pairs of shoes: one for business casual (next week at work) and a posher pair of black shoes to go with the new suit (maybe the week after).

All you folk out there who are enjoying the labour pains around our new dwelling - shame on you!

Don't you know that Schadenfreude is so last season?