From: kfl@KeithLynch.net   
      
   Joy Beeson  wrote:   
   > A computer farm that occupies an entire building and has its own   
   > nuclear generator.   
      
   I've never heard of a computer with its own nuclear generator (not   
   counting space probes powered by RTGs).  But there's nothing new about   
   computers filling a building and consuming vast amounts of electricity.   
      
   What is new is that computers are enormously more powerful.  One of the   
   best illustrations of that is this list of years:   
      
   1400 1706 1949 1958 1961 1973 1983 1987 1989 1997 1999 2002 2011 2022   
      
   The Nth term is when pi was first calculated to 10^N places.  The   
   third term is 1949 because that's when pi was calculated to 1000   
   decimal places (using a desktop electromechanical calculator).  The   
   sixth term is 1973 because that's when a computer calculated in to a   
   million places.  A billion places in 1989, a trillion in 2002, and   
   currently the record is 202 trillion.  Print that many digits in   
   books, they would fill a very large library.   
      
   > I knew the mini-skirt would come back -- styles always come back --   
   > but this time around it's old, wrinkled-up women who are the early   
   > adopters.   
      
   Styles are associated with the generations who were young when they   
   were popular.  As such, people tend to look old in old movies, even   
   if they were young at the time.   
   --   
   Keith F. Lynch - http://keithlynch.net/   
   Please see http://keithlynch.net/email.html before emailing me.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)