Welcome to the fourteenth issue of De Programmatica Ipsum, dedicated to the subject of Minimalism. In this edition, Graham argues that we do not need more computing power than that of a 25 dollar computer nowadays, and Adrian explains why "complex" is better than "complicated."

When Apple introduced their new line of Power Mac G4 computers in 1999, they famously made much of their classification as a supercomputer under the export controls legislation in the United States at the time. Processors (whether CPUs, GPUs, or application-specific circuitry like TPUs or the T2 security processor in modern Macs) have become both faster and more parallelized since then. Many of the chips in a modern smartphone are much more powerful than the Motorola PowerPC 7400 that Apple claimed was weapons-grade.

Do you know the difference between "complex" and "complicated"? Most of us certainly mix both concepts, sometimes even several times a day. Spoiler alert: they do not mean what you think they mean.