Talk:664: Academia vs. Business

I'm not convinced the problem solved in the comic panels is the fast inverse square root in the title text, as the academia panel implies that it impacts queuing theory, and I'm not sure what fast inv sqrt has to do with queuing theory. -- 204.89.186.1 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Agreed. Fast inv sqrt is clearly referenced in the title text, but the problem in the comic is something else. Alpha (talk) 01:18, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

I think the example of fast inverse square is more about the bizarrely elegant simplicity of the solution, rather than something related to the solved problem in the comic. (If the above comments are about text that has since been changed, my apologies.)Tryc (talk) 20:57, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Actually 0x5f3759df is the mnagic number used in the fast inverse square root. Ref Wikipedia edokan 15:54, 23.08.2013 GMT+2

If this ever happened to me, I would quietly release the solution under the GNU license. My getting fired (possibly) is totally worth the public technological progress highly into the future. Greyson (talk) 13:29, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

The explanation is an interesting contrast to my interpretation. The meaning I got was that in academia, this discovery, like any new discovery, is interesting; but in business, this discovery has little practical application (apart from finishing what he was doing) so his boss didn't think twice about it. Maybe I'm too cynical.--18.215.1.155 01:23, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

Derailing the topic entirely, the old woman in the "Academia" panel seems to be a somewhat recurring character, complete with a semi-consistent personality. I propose "Bunhead" for future references. Anonymous17:39, 4 December 2013 (UTC)