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On 19/05/2010 9:20 AM, Invisible wrote:
> I always assumed that 1 billion = 1 million million.
That changed in 1975 when Denis Healey announced that the treasury would
adopt the US billion thenceforth.
How old were you then?
--
Best Regards,
Stephen
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Invisible <voi### [at] dev null> wrote:
> The solution, of course, is to simply never use the word "billion".
Use "milliard" instead. And a thousand milliards is a thousand milliards.
--
- Warp
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>>> Why not, what would you suggest?
>>
>> Firstly I would suggest that we no longer _need_ character encodings for
>> *control codes*. But more importantly, I would suggest that we shouldn't
>> still be using 60-year old technology.
>
> How long have we been using levers, wheels, pulleys etc.? Do you think
> we should change everything every ten years or so.
Yes, but levers, wheels, pulleys, etc are *useful*. Assigning character
codes to things that aren't characters isn't.
>> But hey, who gives a fig what *I* think?
>
> Well it is up to you to make suggestions that are worth listening to.
I doubt that's going to work.
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On 19/05/2010 1:00 PM, Invisible wrote:
>
> Yes, but levers, wheels, pulleys, etc are *useful*. Assigning character
> codes to things that aren't characters isn't.
>
So is a rubber (eraser)
>>> But hey, who gives a fig what *I* think?
>>
>> Well it is up to you to make suggestions that are worth listening to.
>
> I doubt that's going to work.
That's your problem. ;-)
--
Best Regards,
Stephen
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4bf3ae8a@news.povray.org...
> Note in some languages/countries they have two separate words for 10e9 and
> 10e12, so there is no such confusion.
>
There are strange countries in the world aren't they? ;-)
Marc
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>> Now if I could figure out what a typical MIPS rating for a normal PC
>> today is, I'd have something dissimilar to compare it to. :-}
<snip>
> By running many jobs concurrently we make full use of the machine. If I could
> port POVRAY to our mainframe, I'm sure it would be slower than most current PCs.
> But cpu intensive work is not what the mainframe does best.
I've always been tempted to try povray on one of our mainframes even if
it was running from within linux on ZOs.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_on_zSeries)
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Verm <a@b> wrote:
> >> Now if I could figure out what a typical MIPS rating for a normal PC
> >> today is, I'd have something dissimilar to compare it to. :-}
> <snip>
> > By running many jobs concurrently we make full use of the machine. If I could
> > port POVRAY to our mainframe, I'm sure it would be slower than most current PCs.
> > But cpu intensive work is not what the mainframe does best.
>
> I've always been tempted to try povray on one of our mainframes even if
> it was running from within linux on ZOs.
> (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_on_zSeries)
So have I. Whenever I get time I would like to install zLinux in a test lpar to
see how well it runs. Of course the first app I would try to port would be
povray. Unfortunately getting the spare time is the hard part. I no sooner get
done with one project and two are stacked in the queue. Oh well, maybe someday.
Isaac
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scott wrote:
> separate words for 10e9 and 10e12, so there is no such confusion.
And chinese uses steps of 10e5 or so, rather than 10e3. My wife always has
to spend several seconds mentally adjusting any number over 1000 she heard
about, because (for example) 10,000 and 100,000 have their own words in chinese.
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
Ada - the programming language trying to avoid
you literally shooting yourself in the foot.
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>>>> But hey, who gives a fig what *I* think?
>>>
>>> Well it is up to you to make suggestions that are worth listening to.
>>
>> I doubt that's going to work.
>
> That's your problem. ;-)
As with so much in life, it seems...
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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>> I think the "real" difference between a desktop and a server is
>> probably fault-tolerance.
>
> Yep. And when downtime starts costing you thousands of dollars per
> second, you start doing things like having two independent entirely
> separate power companies supplying the power to your building, along
> with several independent ways of getting to your networks, including
> both satellite and land lines, as well as several leased lines
> guaranteed not to be in physical proximity and terminated in different
> states.
>
> Now, maybe a large bomb in the building or an airliner crashing into it
> would have taken it out, so they're probably behind the times compared
> to (say) google, but it was pretty impressive for 20 years ago.
Fortunately, my employer does not need to go to such lengths. ;-)
Dealing with *one* ISP is quite hard enough... (And then there's the
fact that in the UK there is only one IP carrier. Unless you happen to
live in London.)
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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