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Clearly the topic of whether sufficient computing power is ever reached needs to be approached carefully. We've just heard from another reader whose remarks prompt one last stab at the topic of the day.

Wisdom from the email ether:

I would caution so much optimism on the longevity of the new G5. In 1992 I my boss dropped off a 250 mb hard drive at my desk. His words: "you will never fill this baby up." Leaps in computing power is like a vacuum ...

My nephew and his pals make movies like my friends and I penciled-up cartoons when I was a kid. They have been at it since the iMac DV and iMove came out. I would bet that his generation will find something to eat up all that power.

And we totally agree, though there will be plenty of us left behind who won't mind a bit. Your editor plans to live as long as possible and doubts that even quantum leaps in computer technology will make it easier for us to write and post these articles. If we were making movies -- and we yet might! -- we'd get more out of a G5. For our purposes, the G5 is so advanced, one of the darned things might well last us for years, just like the editorial 8600 has done.

When we bought it, the idea was that three grand for a computer that did just about everything a computer could do five years ago was money well spent. With upgraded processor, RAM, and various hard drives, the 8600 has served us well. Considering that 450MHz (G3) is working so well for us, surely a dual 2GHz PowerMac G5 would feel like using a Viper to drive to the post office, and under those conditions, the V-10 would last a long, long time. We still want the hotrod, though, and driving it to the post office would be lots more fun than taking the truck.

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