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Reminds me of this: http://xkcd.com/664/

The alt-text is sobering. How many ground-breaking ideas are put into everyday appliances?

For every 0x5f375a86 we learn about, there are thousands we never see. </quote>

I'd say 0x5f375a86/10000 ~ 160000 (known) / 1 (never see) is a highly optimistic ratio.

I'm not sure if you're joking, but that hex number isn't a count. It's a reference to a specific instance of an elegant solution to a problem (the fast reciprocal square root function from Quake).

For those who are curious, Wikipedia has a fascinating explanation, and the C code in question:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_inverse_square_root

There is a vast amount of work done in the cubicle-land that never gets outside of the legal walls.

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