I've got a PIII 500 (128 Mb, 512K cache) that'll peak at around 8.75 hours per SETI work unit. Given that it was release before the G4, I'm not surprised that it takes about 1.5 times as long. I'm guessing they ran that test on their 500 MHz chip which is priced at something like $3500US (don't quote me on that). Given that price and the price of my machine (including peripherals), I think I'm getting around the same bang for my buck. Of course, SETI@home isn't exactly the be all and end all performance tests.
I can just see some poor soul calling 911 while they were still running Windows:
Caller: "Help, I'm being murdered!!!" Dispatcher: "I'm sorry. Your call has triggered an illegal operation. Please call back after the computer has been rebooted." Caller: "Could you *please* call tech support? This guy's stabbing me in the chest over here!" Dispatcher: (click)
> "Oracle8i Enterprise Edition Release 8.1.5 for Linus"
I wonder when they're going to make "Oracle8i Enterprise Edition Release 8.1.5 for Dave." Imagine commercial software designed with just me in mind. Oh, and don't forget to include the source!
Well, if you're starting from rest (i.e. zero kinetic energy), it's actually an infinite percent increase in KE, but that wasn't my point (besides, it's the *total* energy that's increased by just 0.005%). Consider this: accelerating a 1 kg object to 0.01c will require 4.5x10^12 joules of energy. To put things in perspective, that's 1,250,000 kilowatt hours. A typical household uses around 1000 kWh per month (that's a rough figure). So the energy needed to get that 1 kg block up to 6.5 million mph could power a dwelling for over 100 years! If you ask me, that's pretty impressive.
I think they've managed to get particles up pretty damn close to the speed of light in some of the high-energy accelerators (above 0.9c, though don't quote me on that). However, we're talking about protons and electrons here, and not a whole heck of a lot of them. It still takes a great deal of energy to reach those kinds of speeds even for a microamp electron beam, but it's no where near the kinds of energy needed to achieve 0.01c on a macroscopic scale. As you pointed out, the relative mass increase is pretty small, but that small increase represents a very impressive increase in kinetic energy.
I have to agree with jeff concerning this. Though I'm certainly not a Christian, I still think it's a shame that the most visible Christians tend to be those that feel the need to shove their religion in your face. It casts a poor light on the intelligent and respectable Christians who really do respect the beliefs of others. Those that would generalize all Christians based on the behaviour of the fanatics are not only viewing the issue with blinders on, but are really doing exactly the same thing as the fanatics: stepping all over someone else's beliefs and placing theirs right on top.
Next thing you know, we'll be seeing another "scientific study" unequivocably demonstrating that nearly 95% of all North American television watchers are not social outcasts or latent psychopaths.
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I've got a PIII 500 (128 Mb, 512K cache) that'll peak at around 8.75 hours per SETI work unit. Given that it was release before the G4, I'm not surprised that it takes about 1.5 times as long. I'm guessing they ran that test on their 500 MHz chip which is priced at something like $3500US (don't quote me on that). Given that price and the price of my machine (including peripherals), I think I'm getting around the same bang for my buck. Of course, SETI@home isn't exactly the be all and end all performance tests.
I can just see some poor soul calling 911 while they were still running Windows:
Caller: "Help, I'm being murdered!!!"
Dispatcher: "I'm sorry. Your call has triggered an illegal operation. Please call back after the computer has been rebooted."
Caller: "Could you *please* call tech support? This guy's stabbing me in the chest over here!"
Dispatcher: (click)
> "Oracle8i Enterprise Edition Release 8.1.5 for Linus"
I wonder when they're going to make "Oracle8i Enterprise Edition Release 8.1.5 for Dave." Imagine commercial software designed with just me in mind. Oh, and don't forget to include the source!
Dave
Well, if you're starting from rest (i.e. zero kinetic energy), it's actually an infinite percent increase in KE, but that wasn't my point (besides, it's the *total* energy that's increased by just 0.005%). Consider this: accelerating a 1 kg object to 0.01c will require 4.5x10^12 joules of energy. To put things in perspective, that's 1,250,000 kilowatt hours. A typical household uses around 1000 kWh per month (that's a rough figure). So the energy needed to get that 1 kg block up to 6.5 million mph could power a dwelling for over 100 years! If you ask me, that's pretty impressive.
I think they've managed to get particles up pretty damn close to the speed of light in some of the high-energy accelerators (above 0.9c, though don't quote me on that). However, we're talking about protons and electrons here, and not a whole heck of a lot of them. It still takes a great deal of energy to reach those kinds of speeds even for a microamp electron beam, but it's no where near the kinds of energy needed to
achieve 0.01c on a macroscopic scale. As you pointed out, the relative mass increase is pretty small, but that small increase represents a very impressive increase in kinetic energy.
I have to agree with jeff concerning this. Though I'm certainly not a Christian, I still think it's a shame that the most visible Christians tend to be those that feel the need to shove their religion in your face. It casts a poor light on the intelligent and respectable Christians who really do respect the beliefs of others. Those that would generalize all Christians based on the behaviour of the fanatics are not only viewing the issue with blinders on, but are really doing exactly the same thing as the fanatics: stepping all over someone else's beliefs and placing theirs right on top.
Next thing you know, we'll be seeing another "scientific study" unequivocably demonstrating that nearly 95% of all North American television watchers are not social outcasts or latent psychopaths.