When Covid-19 first appeared, I wrote about exponential growth. It’s why pandemics happen. Conditions change faster than anyone expects, so they get out of control.
All exponential growth tapers off, eventually. Sometimes it plateaus, sometimes it goes down to small or zero. Sometimes there are hills and valleys. Covid is doing that now.
TurtleSoft also began exponentially. Sales of our estimating software tripled annually over the first few years. Then it flattened for a few years, then shrank by 50% a couple times after Apple Computer almost died. Goldenseal created another spurt of exponential up, followed by a second slow ebb.
When this blog started, we expected to quickly update our accounting software to 64-bit, and see a third spurt of exponential growth. Maybe even bigger than the first two. After ten years of struggle, now we just want to finally finish the project. Then see whatever happens.
Meanwhile, the series of hottest-ever months continues. Last winter it was bad news for TurtleSoft users: great weather for outdoor work, so the usual spurt of stuck-indoors programming didn’t happen. Now it’s good news. AC + Computer > Sweat + Heat Stroke + Garden.
For me, the scariest part of climate change is the chance it also goes exponential. That happens when there’s positive feedback. For example, extra heat causes wildfires, vegetation loss and melting of permafrost, which increases CO2 and methane and heat. Repeat and multiply.
From ice cores and sediments, there’s evidence of large, rapid climate changes in the past: some in just a single decade. Life will be very interesting if we’re headed into one of those now.
Dennis Kolva
Programming Director
TurtleSoft.com
