Your Tax Dollars at Work

[murphylawson]

Of course there are lazy people, and then there are people like me, who want to donate, but really can't, for various reasons, mine is that I'm 15.

[saltmummy626]

It should be mentioned in this context, however, that I recently managed to figure out a potentially workable method for parallelizing the server so that it can distribute its load over multiple CPUs, and that would also, to a very large extent, take care of the performance problems associated with map-loading. It would be quite some work involved in it, but assuming that I can make it work, I expect the server to be able to scale very well over multiple CPUs. A 4-way SMP system (e.g. a simple computer using a 4-core CPU) would then, I expect, be able to host somewhere between 1500-2000 users; and it should be able to continue scaling rather well with added CPUs.

That reminds me of how some scientists used 16 playstation 3's to figure out how black holes work. back on topic though, good to see the money is going to work. was a little irked by the fact that the announcement wasnt anything to do with an update. but still, it is important to know what that money is going for.

p.s. buy yourselves some pizza. we wont mind.

[Alamarian]

That reminds me of how some scientists used 16 playstation 3's to figure out how black holes work.

They used it to simulate a collision between black holes. We really haven't the foggiest idea how black holes work. Like gravity, we can observe the effects but we don't know the "why" behind either force.

[Brackwell]

There's an easy way to figure out how black holes work. Scientists must find a willing and suicidal person to fly into one.

[mvgulik]

There's an easy way to figure out how black holes work. Scientists must find a willing and suicidal person to fly into one.

Finding a suicidal nut case is never a real problem. Keeping him/her alive until they can actually be dropped into it one might be a bigger problem. (in more ways than one. grin)
---
PS3 Gravity Grid

[loftar]

Keeping him/her alive until they can actually be dropped into it one might be a bigger problem.

Getting the information back from within the black hole just might be the biggest problem of them all, though. ;)

[exewu]

Just wait till it radiates it off? :p
Also for the observer in the black hole it would seem like he never actually gets sucked inside.

edit: radiate is a bad word, picks of hypothetical particles and unbalances them so they get radiated away would be closer to the truth I guess? I'm not a physicist though

[Uriel]

mhm, fun topic q; but gravitation of the black hole would destroyed everything to pieces before it could go near it - I may be wrong, but last time I studied about this it was a long time ago.

[mvgulik]

Also for the observer in the black hole it would seem like he never actually gets sucked inside.
... I'm not a physicist though

? I think your mixing different points of view.

mhm, fun topic q; but gravitation of the black hole would destroyed everything to pieces before it could go near it - I may be wrong, but last time I studied about this it was a long time ago.

Depends on what you classify as being the black hole. The singularity. I would think so. For the Event Horizon, not necessarily.

[Alamarian]

Just wait till it radiates it off? :p
Also for the observer in the black hole it would seem like he never actually gets sucked inside.

To the best of my understanding, this is not correct. Time dilation would make the process take a great deal of time for an outside observer but the victim would experience it in "normal" time.

edit: radiate is a bad word, picks of hypothetical particles and unbalances them so they get radiated away would be closer to the truth I guess? I'm not a physicist though

Hawking's Radiation is what you are looking for. If the theory is correct, it would cause black holes to lose quantum information, thus losing mass, and eventually disappear. This is called "black hole evaporation." A fairly non-fancy term for a usually tongue-twisting field. Of course, the expected rate of loss means a fairly small black hole will last longer than the current age of the universe. And then some. Then some more. Plus extra. And another little bit.