Andy, it might seem like I'm laying it in for you, but I'm really not. Seriously, I'm joking about my RAEG.

But managers don't push to advance the state of the art or create tension or any of that. Managers know that pushing gets them a bonus. So push that habitrail of nerds TO THE MAX. They should enjoy it, right? They're nerds after all. And we all know nerds aren't people.

And like I said, this is a misapplication/misunderstanding of the triangle, which is why it seems the triangle doesn't apply. I think what you're looking for is some variant of Moore's Law in this case, NOT the triangle.

But if your neighbor could have even bought that new hotsy-totsy specced laptop a decade ago, how much do you think it would have cost him/her at that time?

It would have been crezzzy expensive wouldn't it?

Could you even buy a multicore, 64bit laptop in 2004? Geez, I don't even remember what was available then. Did we even have laptops that could address 8GB of memory like are available today(usually at a discount)?

(I've mined my own REAL life experiences for my depictions of the situations. No names here, but like Dragnet, events were true.)