18 Apr
2002
18 Apr
'02
2:04 a.m.
At 08:43 AM 4/18/02 -0400, you wrote:
From: Cameron Kaiser
<spectre(a)stockholm.ptloma.edu>
Feh! Too common, everyone has a few many don't use them.
First it should be dimensionless, those are weird enough. If not then
like DB (DeciBell) which will give it a log or exponential character though
I'd be interested in seeing other oddly shaped numbers.
A possible name? Calcula with a range of values from microcalcula
(watch calc or smaller) to Kilo or maybe megacalcula(Sage! or other beast).
A great idea, but "calcula" has too many syllables. How about "ambit",
which
means the bounds or limits of a place or district, or a sphere of action,
expression, or influence? Then as Allison projected, we could have mega-ambit,
micro-ambit, 0.1 ambit, or 10 ambit as necessary.
Then we have to come up with the unity ambit (or whatever we choose) machine,
just like the VAX 11/780 was the gold standard for a 1 mip machine. I'm sure
that this part will be the most difficult given the broad range of this
group's
tastes. Something between a Babbage engine and an Apple I would be my guess.
A good check for the quality of the equation would be to verify that the
number
increases properly with the various machines over the years...
--tom
If a
formula for determining classic computer cool factor gets finalized,
I'd like to create a calculator script on the VCF website so that people
can enter their parameters and have their score automatically computed.
We need a unit or label for this number.
The neuron.