I'm not so sure about that. There's no reason why the CPU or any other device in a normal PC would fail. Programs like Prime 95 require over a year of CPU time for testing a single number for primality. If the algorithm and code is correct, then the only problem with calculating huge amounts of decimals of PI is that it'll require more and more disk swapping as you go along.
Actually, a distributed project for calculating PI decimals would be interesting (unfortunately not very realistic though as it's the kind of task that would be extremely hard to parallelize for separate units).
You could beat this record with a home computer and some time. Download PiFast and get running. The record for a home computer is 13 billion digits, in 500 hours. On a state-of-the-art overclocked P4 with 2 gigs of RAM, I'm pretty sure you could beat the 1.24 trillion world record within a nominal time. I mean, just in case you feel like you have lots of money to waste.
That's a very low temperature. If I remember correctly, there are ceramic composites that become superconducting at temperatures far over 100 K.
A movie? Depends...
on
Prey
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Indeed, Spielberg did a fantastic job with Jurassic Park. But the movie based on Sphere (which in my opinion is Crichton's best book) was a disaster. Although I haven't read Prey, I bet it'll be possible to make a great movie out of it, if only given to the right producers. Slim chance. I will certainly don't take for granted that such a movie turns out good....
To make an imaginary world become interesting and even remotely immersive, I think, beyond the fact that there has to be a level of general plausibility, the key is the details and scientific consistency.
While everything doesn't have to be explained, it's still fiction, I, myself, just don't enjoy the random-gadget-does-a-random-thing kind of tech that's presented in science fiction all too often. No, there should be explanations for things. If a high-tech Foo has a weird Bar decoration, I want to feel that it's not just a random visual conceptuation by an author, art director or whatever, I want science fiction to be plausible, and for it to be plausible, things have must a cause. In good science fiction literature, the author should put in explanations and clarifications to the fictional stuff exactly the same way that he/she'd put in explanations to more regular matters. Yeah, when I'm reading science fiction, I don't want to get the impression that the made-up widgets are separate from the familiar widgets in some way, I want to get the impression that the characters use the stuff like everyday items.
Don't get me wrong though, there certainly has to be a fair amount of things left out to the perceiver's imagination. For this, I believe it's important that there are lots of details. Excellent example: Star Wars. Indeed, the fans have done a lot more than Lucas himself in explaining the behaviours of creatures and tech of the technology, but still, the Star Wars galaxy is thoroughly filled with details that make it look plausible if not realistic. Okay, Star Wars has lots of random-gadgets, contradicting what I wrote previously. But then, Star Wars isn't really good science fiction, more like good science fantasy or space opera:) And the most important bit is that the fundamental things are explained.
Packing the source code along with commercial distributions of software is an excellent idea, and it's really a shame that it doesn't happen. It looks to me like the company would benefit the most from such a solution - for one thing, they could leave patch-making to the community and needs for support would possibly decrease.
GPL and things alike aren't the whole truth, either. If the source code is licenced such that it may only be modified in private and not get distributed, this will of course not promote OS, but it will be a great thing for the users, as they can fix bugs and add features for their needs.
As a fine example of OS commercial software, look at the editing communities for id Software's games. Granted, Doom, Quake and Quake II don't really have any great commercial value any more. Case is, though, that the release of these games' source codes have sported heaps of enhancements to the game engines and helped preserved the communities, resulting in a fantastic respect for John Carmack and id Software.
Slashdot Mirror
Just when you think Phoenix has saved you thousands of precious CPU cycles over Mozilla, something like this pops up and fills the hole. Doh!
...but when will it be ready for us Klingons?
he sets off an avalanche and puts himself right ahead of it so that he gets buried alive
Sounds like studying spam by giving out your e-mail address in an EFNet warez channel...
Or submitting a story with a link to the site you run off your DSL connection to Slashdot, and then trying to surf the 'net...
You can compress ALL of Pi in a couple of hundreds of bytes. Just make a program that uses a simple algorithm to calculate Pi ad infinitum.
So where does the CD-ROM go?
This new thing doesn't have one built-in?
Also check out Pi at Eric Weisstein's World of Mathematics.
I'm not so sure about that. There's no reason why the CPU or any other device in a normal PC would fail. Programs like Prime 95 require over a year of CPU time for testing a single number for primality. If the algorithm and code is correct, then the only problem with calculating huge amounts of decimals of PI is that it'll require more and more disk swapping as you go along.
Actually, a distributed project for calculating PI decimals would be interesting (unfortunately not very realistic though as it's the kind of task that would be extremely hard to parallelize for separate units).
You could beat this record with a home computer and some time. Download PiFast and get running. The record for a home computer is 13 billion digits, in 500 hours. On a state-of-the-art overclocked P4 with 2 gigs of RAM, I'm pretty sure you could beat the 1.24 trillion world record within a nominal time. I mean, just in case you feel like you have lots of money to waste.
That's a very low temperature. If I remember correctly, there are ceramic composites that become superconducting at temperatures far over 100 K.
Indeed, Spielberg did a fantastic job with Jurassic Park. But the movie based on Sphere (which in my opinion is Crichton's best book) was a disaster. Although I haven't read Prey, I bet it'll be possible to make a great movie out of it, if only given to the right producers. Slim chance. I will certainly don't take for granted that such a movie turns out good....
To make an imaginary world become interesting and even remotely immersive, I think, beyond the fact that there has to be a level of general plausibility, the key is the details and scientific consistency.
:) And the most important bit is that the fundamental things are explained.
While everything doesn't have to be explained, it's still fiction, I, myself, just don't enjoy the random-gadget-does-a-random-thing kind of tech that's presented in science fiction all too often. No, there should be explanations for things. If a high-tech Foo has a weird Bar decoration, I want to feel that it's not just a random visual conceptuation by an author, art director or whatever, I want science fiction to be plausible, and for it to be plausible, things have must a cause. In good science fiction literature, the author should put in explanations and clarifications to the fictional stuff exactly the same way that he/she'd put in explanations to more regular matters. Yeah, when I'm reading science fiction, I don't want to get the impression that the made-up widgets are separate from the familiar widgets in some way, I want to get the impression that the characters use the stuff like everyday items.
Don't get me wrong though, there certainly has to be a fair amount of things left out to the perceiver's imagination. For this, I believe it's important that there are lots of details. Excellent example: Star Wars. Indeed, the fans have done a lot more than Lucas himself in explaining the behaviours of creatures and tech of the technology, but still, the Star Wars galaxy is thoroughly filled with details that make it look plausible if not realistic. Okay, Star Wars has lots of random-gadgets, contradicting what I wrote previously. But then, Star Wars isn't really good science fiction, more like good science fantasy or space opera
</random_irrational_rant>
Packing the source code along with commercial distributions of software is an excellent idea, and it's really a shame that it doesn't happen. It looks to me like the company would benefit the most from such a solution - for one thing, they could leave patch-making to the community and needs for support would possibly decrease.
GPL and things alike aren't the whole truth, either. If the source code is licenced such that it may only be modified in private and not get distributed, this will of course not promote OS, but it will be a great thing for the users, as they can fix bugs and add features for their needs.
As a fine example of OS commercial software, look at the editing communities for id Software's games. Granted, Doom, Quake and Quake II don't really have any great commercial value any more. Case is, though, that the release of these games' source codes have sported heaps of enhancements to the game engines and helped preserved the communities, resulting in a fantastic respect for John Carmack and id Software.