Failure is generally a necessary part of the process of innovation. As long as we take valuable lessons away, we should not be afraid of or ashamed of failure. If we simply gave up every time we failed at something or didn't try unless we were 100% sure we wouldn't fail, we'd never get anywhere in science and technology.

The first test launch is actually just a few days away on May 20. You can watch it live at http://sail.planetary.org/miss....

I believe that hackerdom should commit itself to achieving the goal, before the next three decades are out, of landing a hacker on the moon and returning him safely to the Earth. We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in 2034 and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because we p0wn...

I always keep them. I once cashed in over $500 with about 8 years of saved pocket change.

strictfp can actually improve performance, depending on the CPU architecture and Java implementation. Think about it. If variables are stored in IEEE format and a different format is used for intermediate calculations, then there is converting going on and that takes time.

The difference in accuracy is not significant in any practical sense. The IEEE formats were designed so as to divy the bits up between the exponent and the significand in a way that works for nearly every application.

Its worth it for a Java developer to be aware of strictfp. We have all been sold on the slogan, "Write Once, Run Anywhere", but it really should be "Write Once, Run Anywhere...But Get Slightly Different Floating Point Results Unless You Use strictfp".

If you think that every language except Java implements IEEE-754 to the letter, you are sadly mistakenly. That fact is Java can be used just fine for floating point work in most applications.

This article should mention strictfp in the section on Java.

Do this mean I'm not going to get answer to this question on answers.com: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_do_you_know_when_its_time_to_poop