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There is an update to this with videos from the developer. The link is http://cleanerairforcities.blogspot.com/2008/08/new-green-city-for-china-dongtan-videos.html

I wonder if this is what Pete Shirley went to NVIDIA to do.

The article and some of the comments here have oft-repeated myths about ray tracing. For example, ray tracing algorithms are generally simpler than rasterization algorithms, not more complex--though they do require more processing power.

One commenter said this demo was limited to 3 rays per pixel. That may not be true. The article said each ray was limited to 3 bounces. That doesn't preclude firing multiple primary rays per pixel for antialiasing. From the images, though, it doesn't look like there's much antialiasing.

I'm also disappointed to read that it's still done with bajillions of polygons. One potential advantage of ray tracing is rendering smooth, curved surfaces. Few of the real-timers seem to attempt this though. Too bad, the savings in memory for the model could improve the transform and rendering times.

Other organised crime outfits. They have the most to gain, knowledge of the underground and the will to use extreme violence. It already happens, in fact. Although sometimes it's just because they're not very careful in their choice of prostitutes.

Seriously, it seems everyone is in agreement here on that the system is broken, so what can we do to change it? I hear some people say "revolution" or some sort of extreme action (riots, killing people, etc), but there has to be a better way. I'd like some good suggestions, writing letters apparently doesn't work.

15 simple suggestions.

It's not too-well publicized, but the Russian Business Network (AKA spammer filth) have been using (renting?) a large chunk of their botnet space to attack Georgia. Here's a bit of detail.

Maybe they just didn't have enough bandwidth to spam the planet AND take down Georgia's systems through a DOS.

It's because Obama is the Antichrist

oh, this has the making of a beautiful class action suit against RIAA

And then we'll hear all about how "the system works". I'm surprised that no one here blames the legal system that enables the likes of the RIAA - if the system is setup in such a way that some bully can take advantage of people, they eventually will.

You are being unfair. I spent an awful lot of time I didn't have writing an article about how the legal system has not been 'working' well on these cases and what needs to be done to make it a more level playing field. And most Slashdotters who have posted on the RIAA cases have been of the view that the system 'does not work'.

...as I listen to a local band cover the Grateful Dead.

You know, for years I touted the Grateful Dead as a band that was a pioneer in allowing the free taping and trading of their shows. Jerry was wise beyond his years saying that once they were done with a show it didn't matter what the fans did with it. In the years since his death (it seems like yesterday when I got word on IRC) the remaining members of the band have tightened the restrictions on the trading of their shows and now places like archive.org no longer distribute their shows in SBD format.

It's really disappointing that one of the leaders in the free music world and a band that shaped a movement in free access to some of their best music regressed towards a closed format. My favorite quote of the article linked above was, "Technically and policy-wise, it has been invigorating as you can probably appreciate. We have made changes in the past and we will make changes again."

While I have yet made it to the point of no return and have not yet stopped listening entirely, I have begun to support other bands that have room to grow upwards and don't seem to have plans to regress to the draconian limits imposed by the typical mainstream bands. If the Grateful Dead's remaining members continue to stomp on the traditions started by Jerry all those years ago, I will be forced to change my username, my personal domain, and my listening habits much to my great disappointment.

As for the fight going on with the RIAA. While I applaud people who are standing up to them for the rest of us, I really wonder if it will change anything. We are seeing a slow change in the tide (just like we did with other bullies like SCO) but it's really unfortunate that while the record companies are finally getting stepped on, the bands themselves -- especially bands who used to allow and encourage nearly unlimited use of their live material, are starting to bend to the commercial pressures that shouldn't exist.

I still go to live shows of bands that adhere to archaic distribution methods in the hopes that their growing fanbase might be able to change their closed stance (hey, it's happened!) but I mainly support only those bands that allow the free trading of at least some of their music (They Might Be Giants for example -- who are coming to Minneapolis in September and playing at First Ave for those of you interested, Dark Star Orchestra, etc).

If we all keep up the pressure, from all angles, everyone -- including the bands that seem so hellbent on profits -- may come around, someday.

It counts because her disability severely limited her economic means, and the RIAA tried to use this fact to bulldoze her into a settlement.

Well said. These bullies especially like people who are defenseless. See, e.g., my article in the Judges Journal, "Large Recording Companies v. The Defenseless".

I haven't RTFAs (or not all of them anyway - have you?). But I'm struggling to see why she is described as "innocent, disabled". Does the validity of the case or the settlement depend on her being disabled?

Personally, I think it makes it a bit more disgusting that the completely innocent person you are torturing over a frivolous, nonexistent, totally unnecessary, case, happens to be a disabled single mother of a small child whose sole income is Social Security Disability. Here's some background.

There seem to be a few people who don't think it should matter at all. Those aren't my kind of people. I think people should have a heart.

Here are the documents pertaining to her counter-suit,
Anderson v. Atlantic.

One of the claims cites the RICO Act, which I can only imagine spells bad news for RIAA & mediasentry...

this was on hackaday first... And this isn't the first time that Slashdot has essentially copied their posts

I can see where you might think that, because the Slashdot post was not released until after hackaday. But the reality is that the story was on p2pnet.net before it was on hackaday, and it was on Recording Industry vs. The People first of all. Just because the Slashdot post comes out after it was published on hackaday doesn't mean it was 'copied' from hackaday; it just means the post was in the Firehose and on the editors' screens at Slashdot for awhile, before it was published.

[...] there are no software patents allowed in the UK.

That's what I was thinking, but upon checking found that a recent High Court decision might allow software patents after all. There's certainly a lot of confusion over the subject and an apparent disparity between the UK Patent Office and the European Patent Office. See the IPKat blog:

[...] the UK-IPO has highlighted Mr Justice Patten's decision of today [...] to overturn the UK-IPO's decision to refuse an application by Symbian, on the grounds that it consisted solely of a computer program.

The judge drew attention to the split between the attitudes of the UK-IPO and the EPO, since the EPO has already allowed the patent to be granted.

The blog post mostly echos the press release from the UK Patent Office, who plan to appeal due to the judge failing to apply the Aerotel/Macrossan test.

So it does seem that, medium to long-term, the BBC might have made a big mistake.

As for software patents in general, I believe the only way to truly be rid of the scourge is to get the US to declare software as unpatentable. The US government, and the lobbyists from its companies have tremendous power and influence around the world, and they are pushing hard for software patentability. Even though it's obviously a bad idea, and most software developers are strongly opposed to it, more countries seem to be considering it. No real sources for this last paragraph as it's only my opinion, take it or leave it. :)

Here's a conversation I found from a fedora discussion:

Non linear ogg editor/ screencast helper

Status: Proposed

Summary of idea: Still we are missing a good non linear editor for ogg videos. This can be a simple GUI based application to do non linear editing of ogg. Like cutting, mixing the videos. Adding still frames to the video etc. Though this is not a project to be finished within 2-3 months, but we should be able to have a basic application running to do simple edits. May be having feature of upload videos to fedoratv or integrate itself with recordmydesktop to get screencasts directly. I am looking for more ideas on this.

Contacts: KushalDas kushaldas AT fedoraproject {NOSPAM} DOT org

Notes: Recommended choice of language is Python or C

ValentTurkovic: I have 2 suggestions; First is to try and resurrect Diva Project who started as GSC project in 2006. Second is to work with Pitivi Project because it is on a good path and has ogg editing functionality and easy enough interface. To get an overview of this Diva Project rise and fall please read these two posts. UPDATE: There are two projects that look promissing: saya-videoeditor [2] and myvideoeditor [3]

So between these and Cinelerra's successor, Lumiera, I'm sure 4 years will be more than enough to have an actually usable professional Video Editor for Linux.

And I think that these 4 years will give Krita and GIMP the time they need to become full-featured and more user-friendly, respectively.

(And don't get me started on WINE, these guys are advancing fast!)

Here's a conversation I found from a fedora discussion:

Non linear ogg editor/ screencast helper

Status: Proposed

Summary of idea: Still we are missing a good non linear editor for ogg videos. This can be a simple GUI based application to do non linear editing of ogg. Like cutting, mixing the videos. Adding still frames to the video etc. Though this is not a project to be finished within 2-3 months, but we should be able to have a basic application running to do simple edits. May be having feature of upload videos to fedoratv or integrate itself with recordmydesktop to get screencasts directly. I am looking for more ideas on this.

Contacts: KushalDas kushaldas AT fedoraproject {NOSPAM} DOT org

Notes: Recommended choice of language is Python or C

ValentTurkovic: I have 2 suggestions; First is to try and resurrect Diva Project who started as GSC project in 2006. Second is to work with Pitivi Project because it is on a good path and has ogg editing functionality and easy enough interface. To get an overview of this Diva Project rise and fall please read these two posts. UPDATE: There are two projects that look promissing: saya-videoeditor [2] and myvideoeditor [3]

So between these and Cinelerra's successor, Lumiera, I'm sure 4 years will be more than enough to have an actually usable professional Video Editor for Linux.

And I think that these 4 years will give Krita and GIMP the time they need to become full-featured and more user-friendly, respectively.

(And don't get me started on WINE, these guys are advancing fast!)

As outlined here, "[...] you have to assume a 27% Crazification Factor in any population." The margin of error of the poll surely accounts for the relatively high crazification on this issue.

Solves a whole lot more than you give it credit for, and I speak from firsthand knowledge. The other posters have effectively rebutted your assertion, so I'll just leave you with my blogs:

Volt914
Electrojeep

And note, I get my electricity from wind power, so zero carbon emissions from my conversions.

Solves a whole lot more than you give it credit for, and I speak from firsthand knowledge. The other posters have effectively rebutted your assertion, so I'll just leave you with my blogs:

Volt914
Electrojeep

And note, I get my electricity from wind power, so zero carbon emissions from my conversions.

Again, you insinuated that the President does not have anything to do with the budget. You can weasel your way with some narrower definition, but that's simple dishonesty.

The President does set the budget. The Congress negotiates with him and ratifies it, and then it becomes law.

The budget is entirely the responsibility of Congress

Congress approves the budget, it's drawn up by the executive.

Nope. It's fully Congress' responsibility.

In fact, during the early days of the Tour the bike was more important than the rider. This machine over man mentality may have contributed to the doping culture prevalent in cycling today (do anything to make the bike look good...). Read more on this here: http://thesportsacademics.blogspot.com/2008/07/against-john-henry-machine-over-man-on.html

Check out Greenhouse Games. This is an effort by the Penny Arcade guys to reach out to indie or niche game developers and put them on a non-suck digital distribution platform. By non-suck, I mean, it's easier to buy the game from them than it is to pirate it. They only do one featured game a month, and for the two months it's been around, I have bought both games and both ran flawlessly.

And you know what? I'm a Linux user.

That's right, both of the high-quality games that have been released there have had Linux, Windows and Mac versions. When I brought this up on the forums they said, basically, "We can't do this for every game, but we are seeking out games that run on more than one platform."

I actually wrote a review online for the first game, which was Penny Arcade's own Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness. In the review I touch on how great Greenhouse is. I have a lot of hope for this distributor.

On the other hand, is there anyone in their right mind who thinks that Google will be as valuable after 30 years as Apple has proven to be?

Yeah - me. I have 10% of my net worth in Google and here's why.

It all comes down to how strong their market advantage is. Apple currently offer the best high-end phone around, but will it be the best each year for the next 30 years? I doubt it.

Meanwhile there's a good chance Google will be search king year-in, year-out for the next 30 years.

Think I'm wrong? Put your money where your mouth is and short Google.

I'm in Japan now...:-)

And I gotta tell y'all, it's heaven on earth in terms of internet speeds.
Canada is a third world backwater country in terms of computer education, etc.
(as I routinely point out on my blog, if you are interested: :-))
http://cdneducation.blogspot.com/

Despite endless meetings, pleading, shouting, handwringing, rational thought, reasoned presentations, factfilled speeches, etc.,
it all falls on deaf ears. School administrators are worse than computer illiterate...most of them are computer phobic.
Politicians are just as bad, if not worse. And both are in league with the devil (i.e. MS/Bill G.), due to the excellent brainwashing/marketing/greasing palm techniques of M$ buying politicians, school administrations, etc.

My bet is that Japan/Korea (and soon China, etc.) will continue to improve and eventually outmanoever the clowns in charge (i.e. illiterate/corrupt politicians/CEOs, etc.) in the West.

You believe the Russian President or any of their officials. They will tell the world anything to justify their aggression. At least read the Georgian's side http://georgiamfa.blogspot.com/2008/08/q-georgian-genocide.html before making statements. Truth is always the first casualty of war. Unless their statements are verified by independent observers they can not be accepted as being true.

Let us all be correct in the terminology here. It is not Russian Invasion, but Russian Retaliation. It was Georgia, with support from USA and Israel, who first initiated the attack against Russian peace keepers. In my opinion, it is dangerous to have the US as an enemy but fatal to have as a friend. I encourage everybody to read the articles at WSWS for a good analysis.

http://xymphora.blogspot.com/2008/08/is-there-anything-you-wouldnt-believe.html

I'm sorry, but I can't help mulling over the preposterousness of the FBI's case against Bruce Ivins. The anthrax attack was made with state-of-the-art - let me correct myself, beyond-state-of-the-art - weaponized anthrax. The Russians couldn't have made it, the Chinese couldn't have made it, hell, even the Iraqis (ha!) couldn't have made it. Only one tiny group of people in the world could have made it, a handful of scientists at . . . Fort Detrick. I hate to even bring it up, but developing this expertise is completely illegal under treaties signed and ratified by the American government. The main point is that the manufacturing process needed to make this stuff was beyond the ability of anyone other than a tiny number of American scientists, and Bruce Ivins wasn't one of them.

The case against Ivins is based entirely on (questionable) DNA analysis which is said to prove that he had custody of a flask of the base anthrax material from which the weaponized powder was made. How do we get from anthrax spores to weaponized powder? According to the FBI, Ivins made it all by himself in his spare time at night.

Ivins was an immunologist. He worked on vaccines. He had neither the expertise - remember, it is beyond-state-of-the-art - nor the equipment to turn the spores into weaponized anthrax. It is as if he was trained as an accountant and the FBI told us his night-time hobby was brain surgery. Or better, manufacturing gasoline out of crude oil in the oil refinery he built in his lab, without anybody noticing. Or better, manufacturing gasoline out of crude oil in the oil refinery he built in his lab, using beyond-state-of-the-art refining techniques developed over years of experimentation, without anybody noticing.

And yet, we're told he must have done it, as he had custody of the flask. Others, some of whom were part of a team that actually had made beyond-state-of-the-art weaponized anthrax based on years of (illegal) experiments using the most sophisticated equipment and techniques, also had access to the contents of the flask, but they have been 'ruled out'. Somehow Ivins, without training in the right field, the proper equipment, years of (illegal) experiments, and a team of scientists, turned the contents of his flask into beyond-state-of-the-art weaponized anthrax in his spare time at night without anybody noticing. On top of this, he did it without getting any of the notoriously hard-to-contain spores on himself or his car or his home. If you believe this, is there anything you wouldn't believe? I have a bridge in Brooklyn I'd like to sell you.

Surely it's a conspiracy! Apparently not.
They just do not have good enough data for the whole region:
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/08/where-is-georgia-on-google-maps.html

I've been following this on an excellent site of Dr. Meryl Nass - highly recommended. Also, might suggest anyone to read this article.

Thanks for your excellent post.

Sorry, dood, but I call complete and utter BS on the FBI's fairy tale. Try perusing this outstanding site by a most knowledgeable individual and also read this excellent article.

Once upon a time, way back when I worked in Seattle, there was this clown of a police chief named Fitzsimons. Everytime someone was murdered, without any investigation whatsoever, Fitzsimons would proclaim the murder to be drug-related.

Of course, it turned out in 9 out of 10 times to be an unrelated homicide of some sort - but the damage had already been done to the hapless victim's reputation.

FYI: That sorry ass police chief left Seattle to join the faculty of the FBI Academy at Quantico.....wonder what lessons he taught the feebs (bet it had something to do with pinning unsolved murders on unfortunate suicides......)

Wasn't there a post here on /. last year about the RIAA actively avoiding Harvard because of its legal talent and financial ability to fight? I always thought that epitomized this corporate bullying.

Yes. Like all schoolyard bullies they are cowards, and fear those who are
not afraid
to fight
back.

Wasn't there a post here on /. last year about the RIAA actively avoiding Harvard because of its legal talent and financial ability to fight? I always thought that epitomized this corporate bullying.

Yes. Like all schoolyard bullies they are cowards, and fear those who are
not afraid
to fight
back.

Wasn't there a post here on /. last year about the RIAA actively avoiding Harvard because of its legal talent and financial ability to fight? I always thought that epitomized this corporate bullying.

Yes. Like all schoolyard bullies they are cowards, and fear those who are
not afraid
to fight
back.

Add sodium.

Water on its own? Boiler explosions are amazing. The almost instantaneous expansion of the steam from 150 to 180 pounds per square inch of atmospheric pressure produced a terrific force, which was usually violent enough to rip the firebox sheets and tear the entire locomotive boiler off of the locomotive frames. The effect was pretty much like a rocket taking off and exploding. Boilers were sometimes hurled hundreds of feet away. http://small-leavedshamrock.blogspot.com/2008/05/1892-pottsville-train-explosion-how-why.html

If Google can assert its legal terms just by publishing them (on something less than its homepage), then users can assert their own terms of privacy protection just by publishing them! What do you think? --Ben http://hack-igations.blogspot.com/2008/05/google-privacy-policy-terms-of-service.html [This is not legal advice for anyone, just a topic for public discussion.]

If Google can assert its legal terms just by publishing them (on something less than its homepage), then users can assert their own terms of privacy protection just by publishing them! What do you think? --Ben http://hack-igations.blogspot.com/2008/05/google-privacy-policy-terms-of-service.html [This is not legal advice for anyone, just a topic for public discussion.]

I stick to virtualbox.

That's probably fine for you but not an answer for businesses that need features of VMWare that VirtualBox doesn't offer.... like the ability to migrate VM's or even the ability to make simple branched snapshots. I've actually played with VirtualBox quite a bit in the past week or two and I've found that it lacks many features compared to my old VMWare 5.5.

I've been evalutating whether to upgrade to VMWare 6.0 (well 6.5 beta now) and whether or not VirtualBox will serve my needs as just a power user. Basically, I'm not unhappy with the what I get for free with VirtualBox but I definitely am beginning to see more and more value in the $99 upgrade to the latest VMWare.

And no, I don't have the time (and probably not the expertise) to personally add the dozen or so features that I've noticed in casual use are missing from VirtualBox compared to VMWare to the OSS code. If you're doing anything other than the simplest use of VM's, you'll eventually run into limitations with VirtualBox. This might change in the future, but VirtualBox is way far behind the pack feature-wise of the for-pay VM's.

From the point of view of the employer: If you want to boost your claim that you own stuff like social net contacts, then post lots of notices telling employees that you own it and that they agree. http://hack-igations.blogspot.com/2008/06/employee-imtexte-mailvoicecomputerinter.html --Ben [But if you need legal advice on this, you need to talk to your lawyer.]

You comments are dead on. However, in some cases, like the NYC subway, the govt. subsidy makes riding the subway win-win. It is cheaper for the city to pay a little to keep the subway fare down than to pay a whole lot to maintain the roads. Either way, its tax payer money. I read a great story about electric cars in London called, "Electric Car Finds its Niche" at http://economicefficiency.blogspot.com/2008/08/electric-car-finds-its-niche.html

Here it is: http://musicformaniacs.blogspot.com/2008/08/whos-down-with-lhc-yeah-you-know-me.html

No kidding! I was in Shanghai in January for 5 days. I felt like I had smoked 5 cigars by the time I woke up, and no I don't smoke. What they really need to do is put green roofs on as many buildings as they can. I read a great article about how they are trying to do that called, "Green Roofs in China, Helping Beijing Breathe" found here: http://cleanerairforcities.blogspot.com/2008/06/green-roofs-in-china-helping-beijing.html

Some reading material... http://www.anenglishmanscastle.com/archives/003995.html
http://www.globalwarming.org/node/388
http://climatescience.blogspot.com/2008/06/historic-co2-level-data-deception.html
http://antigreen.blogspot.com/
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/1806245/posts
Once you see the REAL data you figure out that CO2 is not causing a crisis/

Some reading material... http://www.anenglishmanscastle.com/archives/003995.html
http://www.globalwarming.org/node/388
http://climatescience.blogspot.com/2008/06/historic-co2-level-data-deception.html
http://antigreen.blogspot.com/
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/1806245/posts
Once you see the REAL data you figure out that CO2 is not causing a crisis/

Google has a specific policy of not trapping users' data, so you can back up almost any data you have at Google. Here are some helpful links:

How to back up almost any Google service:
http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2007/12/creating-backup-for-your-google-account.html
http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/not-trapping-users-data-good/

Backup a Blogger blog:
http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2007/02/how-to-backup-blogger-blog.html

Backup Google bookmarks:
http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2007/06/export-your-google-bookmarks.html

Backup your Gmail with getmail:
http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/backup-gmail-in-linux-with-getmail/

Google has a specific policy of not trapping users' data, so you can back up almost any data you have at Google. Here are some helpful links:

How to back up almost any Google service:
http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2007/12/creating-backup-for-your-google-account.html
http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/not-trapping-users-data-good/

Backup a Blogger blog:
http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2007/02/how-to-backup-blogger-blog.html

Backup Google bookmarks:
http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2007/06/export-your-google-bookmarks.html

Backup your Gmail with getmail:
http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/backup-gmail-in-linux-with-getmail/

Google has a specific policy of not trapping users' data, so you can back up almost any data you have at Google. Here are some helpful links:

How to back up almost any Google service:
http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2007/12/creating-backup-for-your-google-account.html
http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/not-trapping-users-data-good/

Backup a Blogger blog:
http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2007/02/how-to-backup-blogger-blog.html

Backup Google bookmarks:
http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2007/06/export-your-google-bookmarks.html

Backup your Gmail with getmail:
http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/backup-gmail-in-linux-with-getmail/

I heard the 2008 Olympics were not held. John Titor told me so. Maybe that was an alternate timeline. Divergence is a bitch.

"But Google solutions tend to at least support established open standards."

Oh really?. You must have a new definition of 'standards'.

This attack seems well-coordinated enough that it had to have been planned for some time. The claimed provocation of Georgia's incursion into South Ossetia -- a breakway province that is, after all, recognized as Georgian territory -- is probably just pretext.

So there is some oil pipeline, some warning to NATO, some indirect linkage to Middle Eastern policy...
Standard international policy gordian knot.
We should send Paris Hilton as an envoy. Because all that hotness would cool things considerably, no?

But Google solutions tend to at least support established open standards.

That is: You can archive your Gmail account via IMAP.

You might have to rejigger some of your tags to end up with a folder structure in your IMAP archive
Otherwise it'll just be all your mail in one folder.

http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2007/10/nested-folders-in-gmail.html
 
/Unless Gmail has changed something since that was written.
//Personally, I don't consider tags a replacement for folders