Path: ...!weretis.net!feeder9.news.weretis.net!panix!.POSTED.panix1.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: "Keith F. Lynch" <kfl@KeithLynch.net>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.fandom
Subject: Re: Things I never thought would appear
Date: Fri, 11 Oct 2024 02:31:32 -0000 (UTC)
Organization: United Individualist
Message-ID: <vea2m4$ihf$1@reader1.panix.com>
References: <lomggjdgr9uo147ijjh6kr3bhikg6hgfis@4ax.com>
Injection-Date: Fri, 11 Oct 2024 02:31:32 -0000 (UTC)
Injection-Info: reader1.panix.com; posting-host="panix1.panix.com:166.84.1.1";
	logging-data="18991"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@panix.com"
X-Newsreader: trn 4.0-test77 (Sep 1, 2010)
Bytes: 2136
Lines: 30

Joy Beeson <jbeeson@invalid.net.invalid> 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.