On Wed, 2012-06-27 at 19:24 -0700, Paul Turner wrote:
> +#define LOAD_AVG_MAX_N 516 /* number of full periods it takes to produce max */

y=sqrt(sqrt(sqrt(sqrt(sqrt(0.5)))))
l(1/1024)/l(y)
319.99999999999999998938
1024*y^320
.99999999999999998976

So after only 320 periods the contribution of the term is too small to
matter.