As for the speed, like I've said, the network could have had something to do with it.
For the compile options, I used the same set at home, with the same compiler. The fast-math flag is turned off in both cases. I checked, because I was surprised. I spent several hours going through docs and man pages, checking (and manually configuring) every option. I couldn't find any difference outside the chip.
I only read two of the reviews (Ace and Tom), but I know one of them mentions dual processor capability as a feature that is (or should be?) seriously considered.
Most people are only concerned with speed in their benchmarks. I switched from Intel to AMD a few years ago, for cost reasons. I started running physical simulations of wave propogations for class and lo! what do I find? The P2-300 and K6-2 300 chips produced different results! They were close, but not the same. (For those who understand this: I was using a fourth order Runge-Kutta integration with initial conditions that used a lot of exponentials.) The AMD chips actually produced more stable results: roundoff errors were more accurate more of the time! The results also came through substantially faster, but I don't know how much of that was processor, and how much was two different levels of overhead. (The school's machines were on a network, mine weren't. Both were RedHat 5.1.)
Bottom line: AMD produced better numbers, and it produced them faster. I have yet to see an official benchmark that looked at accuracy, but maybe they should.
Accelerator physicists don't "assume" the particles go at about the speed of light. If they went at any speed that wasn't immeasurably close to c, the accelerators wouldn't work. The things these people accomplish never ceases to amaze me. Go to any website like http://www.cern.ch and take a look at what's going on.
This only prevents you from accelerating past the speed of light. If a massive particle is created with a speed above that of light, it would be unable to travel slower than a photon. These are called tachyons. However, there is no experimental evidence of these particles. Some people are still looking, but most theorists agree they don't exist.
Is anyone else concerned by this? First off, the gyroscopic effects already mentioned would be real, and prominent. Richard Feynman used to put a flywheel in a suitcase and give it to a bellhop as a practical joke. (The suitcase would almost fly out of the poor sap's hand at the first corner.)
Secondly, angular momentum is conserved. If you get enough flywheels spinning with the proper orientation, you could (in theory) have a serious effect on the Earth's rotation. They'd have to be spinning pretty bloody fast and be aligned just right, but it's possible. What happens when the factory ships a truckload of these? I hope they design two models, with spins oriented anti-parallel...
If you're staying at home anyway, you might as well order from Future Shop in Canada. The Canadian exchange is always better on electronics and media. I paid $99 Canadian for the X-Files box set.
I don't know how much shipping charges are, but I doubt they're enough to offset the saving from the currency exchange.
"Especially since this is the the second(?) season after the "full disclosure" 2-part episode which was supposed to answer all the questions."
The show's production staff didn't say it would answer all questions, the Fox marketing people did. 1013 has taken a lot of criticism over someone else's mistake. In fact, they said it WOULDN'T answer all questions before it hit the air. They said it would answer a lot, and it did.
In terms of your other comments on long-term plot, Mulder knows what happened to his sister, and CSM's identity has been (almost) wrapped up. There's a question of whether or not he's Mulder's father, but that's it.
Before I get flames from people saying "He is!", this is what we know: he claimed to be Mulder's father after making sure Mulder couldn't read his mind ("Biogenesis"/"6th Extinction"/"Amor Fati"), and Diana Fowley believed CSM was his father (same three-part episode). There was some circumstantial evidence back in seasons 2 and 3, but nothing concrete.
The show intended to use more of Krycek, but Nick Lea was busy in Australia with other work. Chris Carter promised we'd see him this season (after the premier) though. If that's true, he'll be there on Sunday.
"TV actors sign a five-year contract with a two-year renewal option."
In this case, Chris Carter and David Duchovny are (now) signing on a year-by-year basis, but Gillian Anderson has been signed to season 8 for a number of years. As it stands, none of them are required to return for a ninth season. Based on statements I've heard in the past, it could mean all three walk at the end of this season, dealing only with movies.
Fox has expressed interest in running the show without Mulder and Scully, to overwhelmingly negative fan response. Some will still give it a chance, but most have little hope for the show's future without the stars that define it.
I agree. I should say I'm an avid X-Files fan, though. (I've seen every episode broadcast to date.) I think the show has been getting tired for the last couple of seasons. Going Mulderless for most of a season should force the writers to break new ground. It could breathe new life into the show before the movie franchise resumes.
Of course, the unfortunate thing is that the Lone Gunmen spin-off was supposed to become a mid-season replacement if The X-Files got renewed. I'm looking forward to that more than season 8.
David Duchovny said he'd only sign if he got to write and direct more often. He's done this twice before, with "The Unnatural" (alien baseball player) and "Hollywood A.D." (guest starring Tea Leoni and Garry Shandling). This may or may not be a good thing, depending on which fan you talk to.
When I posted this, there were several people wondering if Microsoft could use this to claim patent violation against rpm. They weren't posting in this thread, but they were posting.
Microsoft filed in November 1997. I'm not sure about the apt dates, but the dates on the files ate Debian's site seem to be later than that (but before MS's patent was awarded in October 1999.)
"Maximum RPM" was published in February 1997, so prior art on rpm is established and rock-solid, should anything arise.
This is part of the premise. I haven't read the article yet, but I did a term paper on the spooky action (aka EPR paradox) last term. That's half of the picture.
The other half is that the two "entangled" particles have a state which allows someone who reads one particle's state to know EXACTLY what state the other particle is in.
You're familiar with the pop contests that put pictures under the cap right? Imagine a contest with two pictures that form a winning pair. Now, assume the you have a large collection of these pairs. You can split the pairs in order, sending one picture to "Alice", and the second to "Bob". When Alice looks under her liner, she knows exactly which picture Bob has.
This system allows you to generate your encrpytion and decryption keys on-the-fly, while entanglement itself includes conclusive proof that someone "checked under the cap" while the picture was en route.
This seems like a far more likely (and practical) use of the entanglement property then IBM's teleportation from a few years ago. (That was for only a small number of particles at a given time. It was really more of a replication that destroyed the original.)
Globally, yes a flat Universe is Euclidean. Locally, however, the space is still warped by the presence of matter. So, you need non-Euclidean geometry to explain things like Mercury's perihelion shift, but not for explaining how the Universe works overall.
A "remnant" of the Big Bang is something that hasn't interacted with a lot since the Big Bang. These photons in the microwave background just stay out there, while other collections of particles (like the Earth) have changed dramatically. The only thing that really affects the background is the size of the Universe, and there's no direct interaction involved there.
Saying the Universe is "saddle shaped", "flat", and "curved" are primarily theoretical right now. When we use these terms, the picture that springs to mind is some two-dimensional surface in a three dimensional space. However, our Universe has (roughly) four dimensions. (Well, some theories have more, but they're all more than three.)
What we really mean by this is that the equations describing the "shape" of the Universe are analogous to the equations that describe flat, curved, and saddle-shaped 2D surfaces in 3D space. It's a relationship like the one between a circle and a sphere, or a square and a cube: there are some strong similarities, but the two are quite distinct. The bottom line is, the Universe follows non-Euclidean geometry (ie. geometry not discovered by the math God Euclid). For more info, I suggest books for the layperson on General Relativity. (Or, if you are so inclined, a full GR test like "Gravitation" by Misner, Thorne, and Wheeler.)
These are the books we covered in Comparitive Literature 342: Introduction to Science Fiction. (Who decided to abbreviate that as CLit, anyway?) - Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley - The Time Machine, by H. G. Wells - assorted Asimov short stories - We, by Yevgeny Zamyatin (inspired 1984, but was better) - Neuromancer, by William Gibson - The Dispossessed, by Ursula K. LeGuin - The Futurological Congress, by Stainislaw Lem - Ubik, by Philip K. Dick - Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury - R.U.R., by the brothers Capek - Last Human, by Doug Naylor (a Red Dwarf book)
The following books should have been on the list, but weren't: - Ringworld or Protector, by Larry Niven (I prefer Protector, but Ringworld is easier to understand if you haven't read other Niven books in the Known Space series) - anything by Douglas Adams (Hitchhiker's Guide or Dirk Gently) - The Stainless Steel Rat books - Dune, but that might want to wait until your daughter's a bit older.
Other good books on Feynman are "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman" and "What Do You Care What Other People Think?" These are sort of autobiographical. Close friends compiled his anecdotes as accurately as possible. These books were also the basis of "Infinity", a surprisingly good movie starring and directed by Matthew Broderick.
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As for the speed, like I've said, the network could have had something to do with it.
For the compile options, I used the same set at home, with the same compiler. The fast-math flag is turned off in both cases. I checked, because I was surprised. I spent several hours going through docs and man pages, checking (and manually configuring) every option. I couldn't find any difference outside the chip.
I think that's why he used the past tense.
I only read two of the reviews (Ace and Tom), but I know one of them mentions dual processor capability as a feature that is (or should be?) seriously considered.
It was mentioned, but it's not here yet.
Most people are only concerned with speed in their benchmarks. I switched from Intel to AMD a few years ago, for cost reasons. I started running physical simulations of wave propogations for class and lo! what do I find? The P2-300 and K6-2 300 chips produced different results! They were close, but not the same. (For those who understand this: I was using a fourth order Runge-Kutta integration with initial conditions that used a lot of exponentials.) The AMD chips actually produced more stable results: roundoff errors were more accurate more of the time! The results also came through substantially faster, but I don't know how much of that was processor, and how much was two different levels of overhead. (The school's machines were on a network, mine weren't. Both were RedHat 5.1.)
Bottom line: AMD produced better numbers, and it produced them faster. I have yet to see an official benchmark that looked at accuracy, but maybe they should.
Accelerator physicists don't "assume" the particles go at about the speed of light. If they went at any speed that wasn't immeasurably close to c, the accelerators wouldn't work. The things these people accomplish never ceases to amaze me. Go to any website like http://www.cern.ch and take a look at what's going on.
This only prevents you from accelerating past the speed of light. If a massive particle is created with a speed above that of light, it would be unable to travel slower than a photon. These are called tachyons. However, there is no experimental evidence of these particles. Some people are still looking, but most theorists agree they don't exist.
Is anyone else concerned by this? First off, the gyroscopic effects already mentioned would be real, and prominent. Richard Feynman used to put a flywheel in a suitcase and give it to a bellhop as a practical joke. (The suitcase would almost fly out of the poor sap's hand at the first corner.)
Secondly, angular momentum is conserved. If you get enough flywheels spinning with the proper orientation, you could (in theory) have a serious effect on the Earth's rotation. They'd have to be spinning pretty bloody fast and be aligned just right, but it's possible. What happens when the factory ships a truckload of these? I hope they design two models, with spins oriented anti-parallel...
This message assumes you are in the USA:
If you're staying at home anyway, you might as well order from Future Shop in Canada. The Canadian exchange is always better on electronics and media. I paid $99 Canadian for the X-Files box set.
I don't know how much shipping charges are, but I doubt they're enough to offset the saving from the currency exchange.
"Especially since this is the the second(?) season after the "full disclosure" 2-part episode which was supposed to answer all the questions."
The show's production staff didn't say it would answer all questions, the Fox marketing people did. 1013 has taken a lot of criticism over someone else's mistake. In fact, they said it WOULDN'T answer all questions before it hit the air. They said it would answer a lot, and it did.
In terms of your other comments on long-term plot, Mulder knows what happened to his sister, and CSM's identity has been (almost) wrapped up. There's a question of whether or not he's Mulder's father, but that's it.
Before I get flames from people saying "He is!", this is what we know: he claimed to be Mulder's father after making sure Mulder couldn't read his mind ("Biogenesis"/"6th Extinction"/"Amor Fati"), and Diana Fowley believed CSM was his father (same three-part episode). There was some circumstantial evidence back in seasons 2 and 3, but nothing concrete.
The show intended to use more of Krycek, but Nick Lea was busy in Australia with other work. Chris Carter promised we'd see him this season (after the premier) though. If that's true, he'll be there on Sunday.
"TV actors sign a five-year contract with a two-year renewal option."
In this case, Chris Carter and David Duchovny are (now) signing on a year-by-year basis, but Gillian Anderson has been signed to season 8 for a number of years. As it stands, none of them are required to return for a ninth season. Based on statements I've heard in the past, it could mean all three walk at the end of this season, dealing only with movies.
Fox has expressed interest in running the show without Mulder and Scully, to overwhelmingly negative fan response. Some will still give it a chance, but most have little hope for the show's future without the stars that define it.
I agree. I should say I'm an avid X-Files fan, though. (I've seen every episode broadcast to date.) I think the show has been getting tired for the last couple of seasons. Going Mulderless for most of a season should force the writers to break new ground. It could breathe new life into the show before the movie franchise resumes.
Of course, the unfortunate thing is that the Lone Gunmen spin-off was supposed to become a mid-season replacement if The X-Files got renewed. I'm looking forward to that more than season 8.
David Duchovny said he'd only sign if he got to write and direct more often. He's done this twice before, with "The Unnatural" (alien baseball player) and "Hollywood A.D." (guest starring Tea Leoni and Garry Shandling). This may or may not be a good thing, depending on which fan you talk to.
When I posted this, there were several people wondering if Microsoft could use this to claim patent violation against rpm. They weren't posting in this thread, but they were posting.
Microsoft filed in November 1997. I'm not sure about the apt dates, but the dates on the files ate Debian's site seem to be later than that (but before MS's patent was awarded in October 1999.)
"Maximum RPM" was published in February 1997, so prior art on rpm is established and rock-solid, should anything arise.
This is part of the premise. I haven't read the article yet, but I did a term paper on the spooky action (aka EPR paradox) last term. That's half of the picture.
The other half is that the two "entangled" particles have a state which allows someone who reads one particle's state to know EXACTLY what state the other particle is in.
You're familiar with the pop contests that put pictures under the cap right? Imagine a contest with two pictures that form a winning pair. Now, assume the you have a large collection of these pairs. You can split the pairs in order, sending one picture to "Alice", and the second to "Bob". When Alice looks under her liner, she knows exactly which picture Bob has.
This system allows you to generate your encrpytion and decryption keys on-the-fly, while entanglement itself includes conclusive proof that someone "checked under the cap" while the picture was en route.
This seems like a far more likely (and practical) use of the entanglement property then IBM's teleportation from a few years ago. (That was for only a small number of particles at a given time. It was really more of a replication that destroyed the original.)
Globally, yes a flat Universe is Euclidean. Locally, however, the space is still warped by the presence of matter. So, you need non-Euclidean geometry to explain things like Mercury's perihelion shift, but not for explaining how the Universe works overall.
A "remnant" of the Big Bang is something that hasn't interacted with a lot since the Big Bang. These photons in the microwave background just stay out there, while other collections of particles (like the Earth) have changed dramatically. The only thing that really affects the background is the size of the Universe, and there's no direct interaction involved there.
Saying the Universe is "saddle shaped", "flat", and "curved" are primarily theoretical right now. When we use these terms, the picture that springs to mind is some two-dimensional surface in a three dimensional space. However, our Universe has (roughly) four dimensions. (Well, some theories have more, but they're all more than three.)
What we really mean by this is that the equations describing the "shape" of the Universe are analogous to the equations that describe flat, curved, and saddle-shaped 2D surfaces in 3D space. It's a relationship like the one between a circle and a sphere, or a square and a cube: there are some strong similarities, but the two are quite distinct. The bottom line is, the Universe follows non-Euclidean geometry (ie. geometry not discovered by the math God Euclid). For more info, I suggest books for the layperson on General Relativity. (Or, if you are so inclined, a full GR test like "Gravitation" by Misner, Thorne, and Wheeler.)
These are the books we covered in Comparitive Literature 342: Introduction to Science Fiction. (Who decided to abbreviate that as CLit, anyway?)
- Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley
- The Time Machine, by H. G. Wells
- assorted Asimov short stories
- We, by Yevgeny Zamyatin (inspired 1984, but was better)
- Neuromancer, by William Gibson
- The Dispossessed, by Ursula K. LeGuin
- The Futurological Congress, by Stainislaw Lem
- Ubik, by Philip K. Dick
- Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury
- R.U.R., by the brothers Capek
- Last Human, by Doug Naylor (a Red Dwarf book)
The following books should have been on the list, but weren't:
- Ringworld or Protector, by Larry Niven (I prefer Protector, but Ringworld is easier to understand if you haven't read other Niven books in the Known Space series)
- anything by Douglas Adams (Hitchhiker's Guide or Dirk Gently)
- The Stainless Steel Rat books
- Dune, but that might want to wait until your daughter's a bit older.
Other good books on Feynman are "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman" and "What Do You Care What Other People Think?" These are sort of autobiographical. Close friends compiled his anecdotes as accurately as possible. These books were also the basis of "Infinity", a surprisingly good movie starring and directed by Matthew Broderick.