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I ran across it cruising through Freshmeat to see if there were any good 3D animation programs that I had missed.

Really, there's not much out there. Blender is the best and most capable, but (despite many advances) it's UI has a steep learing curve. But if you stick with it, you can do amazing stuff, and to be fair, the UI is way better than it used to be, and promises to only get better.

Anim8or is an Windows program by Steven Glanville. (It works fine under WINE.) It's free, but closed source, because Steve doesn't want to deal with people bugging him about unofficial releases - I understand the sentiment! It's a great modeller, and I think the scanline renderer is underrated, but the animation features are a weak - for example, it doesn't yet have IK. However, the next release promises to include it, so it's definately something worth watching.

Art of Illusion is an open source Java program by Peter Eastman, and I suspect that most people - if they've heard of it at all - know that it's a full-featured raytracer, but don't realize that it supports animation. The bones based animation uses a 'pin and drag' interface based on Animanium, and it's very cool. Unfortunately, you can only do animation via pose morphs in the current release, but the next version promises support bones animation on a seperate IK track. By the time 2.0 comes out, I think it'll be an excellent program for doing character animation.

There have been rumors that some day Björn Gustavsson's Wings3D would support animation, but so far, that's only rumor. Wings3D started out as an open source version of IzWare's Nendo modeller, but has in many ways surpassed Nendo since then, so it's possible...

Finally, there's Sascha Ledinsky's Java based JPatch program, a successor to Mike Clifton's now abandoned sPatch program. Although it's currently only a modeller (the beta should be ready by the end of the month), it has designs to support animation - sort of an open source version of Animation:Master. It may not look like there's much going on at the site, but I've had a chance to play with some of the development versions - it's worth keeping an eye on.

If anyone knows of any open source/non-commercial programs capable of producing character animation, I'd love to know about them!

Anyone is free to make their own implementation of a Java framework. There's an (outdated) list here of alternative implementations (and possibly more here as well).

For example, SableVM and Joeq are the first two that I found on Sourceforge (and there are several more).

So it's not really a question of "open sourcing Java" - because there are already open source implementations of Java (and a few commercial ones as well). It would be a question of Sun opening up their reference implementation of Java.

So the main advantage of opening up their reference implementation would be to focus the software community's efforts more on one Java implementation and to stop the fragmentation. People would still be free to develop their own Java compatible VM's & compilers, but it would provide less of an incentive for them to do that if there's one central, relatively community-oriented distribution.

I first heard of Jim Allen & his work on The Learning Channel and The History Channel. He finds the vast majority of what Plato described (including the huge rectangular plain) in Bolivia.

More than anything else, it's the atmosphere. IMO, the Max Payne games are the only solid examples of noir storytelling in videogame form.
As for what exactly is noir: "Dead giveaways of this genre are: narration in the first person, the loneliness of the hero (or more rarely, heroine) with no hope of redemption; a stubborn adherence to a code of honor in the face of depravity and evil (although noir is never condescendingly preachy); deadpan one-liners and morbid/stoic philosophy, usually delivered in a terse manner after violence or betrayal.[..]Noir has in recent years been succesfully blended with other genres and media, such as anime, fantasy, science fiction and computer games (e.g. Blade Runner, the Max Payne games and The Dresden Files). Also called hardboiled detective fiction." (from a copy of my post to another forum).
Noir is exemplified in the writings of Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett. It's a hard to define, and demanding genre, with literary fans. See also here for more definitions and related resources.

Great idea! That's what we do. ;) I'm involved in a startup called Listen Digital that's getting into both online distribution of live shows and onsite CD burning. We've got a store called Download Live Music that lets artists sell downloads of their show online right after it's over.

Basically, we're a bunch of guys who are sick of the whole top 40 shit and sick of the fact that a lot of great artists aren't able to support themselves in mainstream distribution channels. The main thing that we're interested in is creating a new form of production and distribution that's viable for local bands local bands who have great live shows and a dedicated fan base but haven't made it big yet, not just the Phish's and DMB's.

This USB keychain idea is going to be a fad. People going to check out small bands aren't going to want to drop $30 to get a recording of it, and even at larger ones, as geeky-cool as having a USB keychain with the band's logo on it may be, it doesn't have the same wide appeal of a high-fidelity CD recording with customized artwork. Quality-wise, unlike the uncited claim that 192 kbps audio is indistinguishable from CDs, there are plenty of studies that show otherwise.

Check out the threat posed by Taiwan.

I good piece of art is one where you can look back on it and say "this depicts how people were back then" or something. It speaks for them.

It's nice to know that you're so capable of defining what a "good peice of art" is when so many of the masters were unable to define it themselves. I'll agree that the art may speak to the viewer, but I'll stop shy of stating that the artist has absolute control over what I (or anyone else) might get from the art.

All art is like pornography, I may not be able to tell you what art may be, but I do know it when I see it.

Fuck if my theoretical [if I paid taxes] tax dollars went to the art it should at least represent me!

If you want art that represents you, then you'll have to make it yourself. I'm rather happy that some of my tax dollar goes to supporting artists and their work. Even if most of it does nothing for me, tghere's a lot worse the money could be going to, and the few things I truly like make the rest worth suffering through.

So then, what is "self-aware" [...]?

Very interesting (and complex) question. I've read some thought-provoking books on the subject, and seeing this interview and your post/question, it prompted me to re-read parts of some of them (thanks for 'ruining' my evening by the way - 2 hours ago I was going to sleep, now I'll be up for a few more hours studying...;).

I'm quoting (adding links if I find appropriate ones) the very good The Web of Life by Fritjof Capra. A great work, explaining and synthesising many theories found in other books (WoL's bibliography is probably responsible for a shelf's worth of my books), and converging on the central theme: what is life? Capra writes (author's emphasis unless stated otherwise):

[...] I shall use the term 'consciousness' to describe a level of mind, or cognition, that is characterized by self-awareness. Awareness of the environment, according to the Santiago theory, is a property of cognition at all levels of life. Self-awareness, as far as we know, is manifest only in higher animals, and fully unfolds in the human mind. As humans, we are not only aware of our environment, we are also aware of ourselves and our inner world. In other words, we are aware that we are aware. [...]

Capra explains the concepts with great clarity (often more understandable than the orignal works). I've excerpted some interesting bits from the pages following the above passage:

In the Santiago Theory, self-awareness is viewed as being closely tied to language, and the understanding of language is approached through a careful analysis of communication. This approach to understanding consciousness has been pioneered by Humberto Maturana [Autopoiesis and Cognition: The Realization of the Living].

Communication, according to Humberto Maturana [The Tree of Knowledge]], is not a transmission of information, but rather a coordination of behaviour between living organisms through mutual structual coupling. [...]

Linguistic communication requires a nervous system of considerable complexity, because it involves quite a lot of complex learning. [...]

[But] [e]ven very intricate forms of linguistic communication, such as the so-called 'language' of bees, are not yet language. According to Maturana, language arises when there is communication about communication [...] a coordination of coordination of behaviour. [...]

In human language, a vast space is opened up in which words serve as tokens for the linguistic coordination of action and are also used to create the notion of objects. [...]

Objects, then, in Maturana's view, are linguistic distinctions of linguistic distinctions, and once we have objects we can create abstract concept [...] by making distinctions of distinctions of distinctions [e.g. the height of an treestump we use and refer to as a 'table', hidden from view, beneath a table cloth]. [...]

Our linguistic distinctions, moreover, are not isolated but exist 'in the network of couplings that we continually weave through [languaging].' [The Tree of Knowledge]] Meaning arises as pattern of relationships among these distinctions, and thus we exist in a 'semantic domain' created by our languaging. And finally, self-awareness arises when we use the notion of an object and the associated abstract concepts to describe ourselves. [my emphasis] Thus the linguistic domain of human beings expands further to include reflectoin and consciousness. [...]

#6 Pirate (Piraat) n. Probably before 1300, in Kyng Alisaunder; earlier as a surname Pyrot (1254); borrowed from Old French Pirate, and directly from Latin pirata sailor (in Medieval Latin piratus sea robber, 1328) from Greek peirates brigand or pirate; literally, one who attacks, from peiran to attack, make a hostile attempt on, try, from peira trial, experience, an attempt, attack; see fear. The transferred meaning of a person who appropriates or reproduces the work or invention of another without right or permission is first recorded in 1701, in Defoe's works.

#6 Pirate (Piraat) n. Probably before 1300, in Kyng Alisaunder; earlier as a surname Pyrot (1254); borrowed from Old French Pirate, and directly from Latin pirata sailor (in Medieval Latin piratus sea robber, 1328) from Greek peirates brigand or pirate; literally, one who attacks, from peiran to attack, make a hostile attempt on, try, from peira trial, experience, an attempt, attack; see fear. The transferred meaning of a person who appropriates or reproduces the work or invention of another without right or permission is first recorded in 1701, in Defoe's works.

... which I've always thought was a toddler guard in The Village for kids!

Meanwhile, the prophet Isaiah speaks of "One dwelling above the circle of the Earth." The Hebrew word translated as "circle" can also mean "ball" or "sphere". Note that a sphere is the only shape that looks like a circle from any angle. And for all you folks out there that wish to nitpick, yes, the Earth is actually an oblate spheroid, being slightly flattened at the poles. It still looks round from space... and Isaiah didn't need to go there to find that out. Isaiah's writings date back to approximately 800 to 850 B.C.E., by the way.

A pizza is also a circle, yet it's flat. In the bible, it talks about someone (David?) having a dream where he climbs the highest tree in the world and sees the entire world at once. Also, Jesus and the devil go to the tallest mountain and the devil shows him all the kingdoms of the world at once. You can't do that with a sphere no matter how far away you are. The only way you can see the entire earth at once from a high vantage point is if it's flat.

The bible also talks about the earth being on pillars, and that those pillars shake when there's an earthquake.

Oh, and speaking of writings that go back... check out what Buddha said and did some 800 years before Jesus was around, and then what Jesus supposedly said and did 800 years after Buddha. Who copied whom?

...this?

I'm always looking for suggestions too...

Disclaimer: My friend wrote the song, so check him out if you like it.

Now that is wierd..never seen that before.

One of the technologies swept wings are being replaced with is thrust vectoring, which allows the plane to change the direction of the engine exaust, this allows a plane with a good pilot/computer to have extreme manuverability compared to normal aircraft.

The F-22 has up/down thrust vectoring, the X-31 has full directional controls, as well as the Su-35(or 37, not sure). One trick ive seen the Su do is to vector the thrust upwards as far as it will go, while pulling back on the stick, which turns so rapidly that for a short time the plane flies backwards...the vectoring also helps with nearly instant recovery of the insuing stall.

Upon some further googling, I found some info on the X-44 MANTA project, which is a modified F22 with uses thrust vectoring to completely replace almost all control surfaces (still in concept stage) X-44 Concept Drawing

just reading the article one of my butt cheeks was falling asleep:P

I suggest upgrading to four asses, that way only 25% will be affected.

Read Deuteronomy. In most cases, you rape someone and you get stoned. Only when the chick isn't pledged to be married do you avoid a stoning, and you get the bonus that you can marry the rapee and you can't get divorced.

You're right about the Babel story. My mistake. I must have been thinking of something else entirely.

You know, I can pick various other scriptures and watch the bible bash itself. Like numerous "nobody has ever seen God and lived" compared with "Moses spoke with God face to face, as a man talks to his friend". 100% contradiction. The Bible is full of them. What about all those promises God gave but never fulfilled? I don't agree with all of these (many are subject to how you interpret them, but many more aren't) but check them out yourself.

And, if you're in the reading mood, compare Buddha and Jesus. Buddha lived some 800 years before Jesus. Funny, then, that Jesus has a life story almost 100% identical to Buddha and taught almost identical teachings! If I didn't know any better, I'd be tempted to say that Jesus copied everything Buddha did!

Tim: That's the most foul, cruel, and bad-tempered rodent you ever set eyes on!
Robin: You tit! I soiled my armour I was so scared!
Tim: Look, that rabbit's got a vicious streak a mile wide! It's a killer!

As one of the aforementioned conspiracy folks, just because crackpots and lunatics say it too doesn't mean it can't be true. A few years ago I never would have imagined that an atrocity committed by Saudis and Afghans would be used to justify seizing Iraq's oil, yet here we are.

The Lie Big Enough principle is eminently plausible. Diebold could be relying that the vast majority of reasonable people (like you) are unable to believe anyone would be audacious enough to sell shoddily rigged voting machines.

Imagine the security guards closing up for the night, switching off the lights, and suddenly hordes of tattered hermit researchers emerging from everywhere to get to work on it all. :^)

Yeah your comparisons link is seriously outdated (cicra 2001) and only compares mta descriptions. It is neither indepth nor does it touch on the features that existed at the time. With statements like "Add to this sendmail's renowned inefficiency" or "Postfix is quite flexible in its configuration file, but not to the extent of Exim" this document can't be anything more then a abstract draft written up for basic filler in attempt to sell a book idea to publishers.

This wouldn't have been a good comparison at the time it was written let alone now. Next time try googling a little harder perhaps you would have found this link: http://www.geocities.com/mailsoftware42/ or heck google it for yourself here http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF -8&q=MTA+comparison&btnG=Google+Search

You're also talking about the still-semi-obscure JPEG 2000 standard/codec
Well lossless JPEG2000s look identical to lossless PNGs, but thats kinda the point. For lossless compression, PNG is the way to go. The fact is, for almost every common purpose, lossy compression is more than good enough.

You should stay away from lossy compression if you modify the images frequently. Other than that, it really makes no discernable difference. Really.

Consider these two images : A and B.

Now, one of these is the original, and the other has been converted into a bitmap, then back into a (quality setting 95) jpg 50 times, using

for i in `seq 50`; do convert rhi.jpg rhi.png; convert -quality 95 rhi.png rhi.jpg; done

Care to tell me which one is which?

(And quick, before my geocities bandwidth gets totally snarfed)

You're also talking about the still-semi-obscure JPEG 2000 standard/codec
Well lossless JPEG2000s look identical to lossless PNGs, but thats kinda the point. For lossless compression, PNG is the way to go. The fact is, for almost every common purpose, lossy compression is more than good enough.

You should stay away from lossy compression if you modify the images frequently. Other than that, it really makes no discernable difference. Really.

Consider these two images : A and B.

Now, one of these is the original, and the other has been converted into a bitmap, then back into a (quality setting 95) jpg 50 times, using

for i in `seq 50`; do convert rhi.jpg rhi.png; convert -quality 95 rhi.png rhi.jpg; done

Care to tell me which one is which?

(And quick, before my geocities bandwidth gets totally snarfed)

There is the distro just for you! Take a look at Jesux

Which reminds me, have a look at the Ford Prefect

http://www.geocities.com/duanenavarre/PRISM-HDSS.h tm

http://www.aprilisinc.com/holographic_storage.htm

Peace !
Ex-MislTech

http://www.geocities.com/duanenavarre/PRISM-HDSS.h tm

http://www.aprilisinc.com/holographic_storage.htm

Peace !
Ex-MislTech

The revolutionary physician who supervised America's first public asylum.

A novelist in the first half of the 19th century.

Yes, there were two.

You just can't take *BSD seriously when its fronted by losers like these. Would you buy software from them? I don't think so! You BSD groupies need to find some sexy girls like her ! I mean just look at this girl ! Doesn't she excite you? I know this little hottie puts me in need of a cold shower! This guy looks like he is about to cream his pants standing next to such a fox . As you can see, no man can resist this sexy little minx . I mean are you telling me you wouldn't like to get your hands on this ass ?!

With sexy chicks like the lovely Lt. Gay Ellis you could have people queuing up to buy open source products. Could you really refuse to buy a copy of Linux if she told you to? Come on, you must admit she is better than an overweight deamon or a gay looking goat ! Don't you wish you could get one of these ? Personally I know I would give my right arm to get this close to such a divine beauty !

Join the campaign for more cute open source purple-haired moonbabes today!
--

I use XMMS, and that works fine. Also, I have Redhat 9 on the hard drive (DSL on CD), and the sound works ok in that too.

Now, I have tried to get older Redhat's to recognize sound cards, and had problems, so I can see where the author is coming from, more or less.

Obviously iMac needs more MHz than last september's models, but I don't see G5s there until fall. Also, the GPUs definitely need bumping (currently 4MX low or 5200 high).

But more important is the PowerMac G5, also stagnant for the past 6 months. Everyone is looking for exactly one number: 2.5 GHz. Bumping the low-end mobo to PCI-X and ditching the FX5200 would also be nice.

It's not a one of a kind, in the sense that the folk music community has known all along about Woody's alternative lyrics to the song. In fact Woody wrote several additional verses, as this link shows. Considering the state of politics back in the 1950's and 1960's, it's not surprising that these lyrics were not widely published (or performed). In fact, I know of some musicians in my own community today who refuse to sing these verses because of concern that they would offend some members of the audience.

/Don

I call bullshirt on this. Link a document that proves this outrageous statement.

Bullshirt right back at you.

From this link:

Here you may see the close correlation between CO2 and Temperature variation in planet history. You may find that recent CO2 concentration level of 375 ppm is much higher than any value in the previous 450,000 years, and that the rate of increase of CO2 with time is about 100 times higher than any other rate of increase in the recorded history.

They can drill ice cores from the Antartic to precisely detail changes in the earths climate and CO2 levels in the atmosphere for the past 500,000 years.

I'm sure there are more many other articles around. NOVA did an excellent show on this as well. I'm stating something that is generally accepted in the scientific community (outside of those scientists counsulting to Bush - they are the minority).

From this link

Here you may see the close correlation between CO2 and Temperature variation in planet history. You may find that recent CO2 concentration level of 375 ppm is much higher than any value in the previous 450,000 years, and that the rate of increase of CO2 with time is about 100 times higher than any other rate of increase in the recorded history.

This is not a minority opinion, and there is general consensus in the scientific community that this is the case.

They can drill ice cores from the Antartic to precisely detail changes in the earths climate and CO2 levels in the atmosphere for the past 500,000 years.

I'm stating something that is a leading theory of atmospheric science.

Cultivating the ocean deserts with iron has to be, food calorie for food calorie, far less destructive than what is going on in the name of agriculture in the rainforests -- and most probably far less destructive than any agricultural practice going on now in the name of civilization. Moreover, the sort of cultural and social changes resulting from an oceanic desert frontier are far more conducive to moving agriculture off-planet entirely, which is where technological civilization belongs. Indeed, if one wants to have a real and sustainable impact on global climate change, the best thing to do is just that: leave Earth to the hunter-gatherers.

Cultivating the ocean deserts with iron has to be, food calorie for food calorie, far less destructive than what is going on in the name of agriculture in the rainforests -- and most probably far less destructive than any agricultural practice going on now in the name of civilization. Moreover, the sort of cultural and social changes resulting from an oceanic desert frontier are far more conducive to moving agriculture off-planet entirely, which is where technological civilization belongs. Indeed, if one wants to have a real and sustainable impact on global climate change, the best thing to do is just that: leave Earth to the hunter-gatherers.

ClearChannel is whining to the FCC about XM Radio's recent foray into localized traffic and weather reports."

Clear Channel contends that patiotism demands that traffic reports only recommend right turns and not any of those pro-Dixie Chicks, gay marriage-ing, terr'ist aiding lefty turns.

As for the weather, well, Clear Channel says it's sunny days with n'ary a terr'ist in the skies for all God's chilluns under GW Bush, and there'll be pie in the sky when you die , and you that ain't got rich wealthy parents who provide and protect him / And high office relations , you can join the army, if you fail .

But I saw you don't need a weather man/ To know which way the wind blows . I say pretty soon it's a hard rain's a-gonna fall

Cause I say the airwaves don't belong to a company in Texas, I say that this land belongs to you and me.

And I hope my playlist here (figurtively) kills Fascists

Here are just a few glaring omissions from their catalog...

No previous experience with these sites, but I ran across a good site that details the different DVD-by-mail companies in Canada: http://www.geocities.com/oberstnwt/DVD/RentalHome. html You might find some info there.

To continue the information overload...

There's a GBA port of Elite available at http://www.geocities.com/quirky_2k1/. Pretty damn cool, especially if you have a flash rom card.

Yep, when I first started playing SC2 I thought that they completely ripped off Starflight and its sequel, but SC2 was just so good that you couldn't help but love it.

When the guys at Toys for Bob started their sourceforge remake of SC2, I emailed them and asked them about the connection. They responded that starflight was inspiration for SC2, and that the lead designer for SF (Greg Johnson, also of Toejam and Earl fame) and Paul of Toys for Bob had been good friends for a while. Greg Johnson did some voice acting on the 3DO version of SC2, so there's obvioulsy a connection.

The humor in the Starflight series is also similar, if much more subdued and not as overt. Still, if you enjoyed SC2 and are willing to endure some pixelation and the hassle of getting it to run in DosBox or something, the starflight series is still quite a playable game. Great plot too.

this fan site and Underdogs should get you started.

This would be hilarious if it were not the sort of thing I do all the time.

Basically, if the engine will fit under the hood of the car (and often times, even if it won't), somebody has mounted it thusly. The only real problem is adapting the output of the engine to the transmissions, which can be done using adapter kits from Kennedy Engines and others.

The coolest I've seen is the guy who got his '65 Beetle running with a 1.2l Mazda Wankel Rotary engine. Nice looking car, and 160 hp is pretty good for a car in the 2500 lb region.

Incidentally and to get back on topic, EIO is a surplus electronics shop and hobbiest mecca. They've got a LOT of older LCDs that they pull and sell with instructions, information and forums FULL of smart folks that know how to access older displays. Five years ago, they were the first company to retail a 6" backlit LCD for under $100. That LCD looked great in my van's media center back when I was a dilletante college student with time to burn.

It's got information on where to get panels, and where to get controllers. You might be able to match your panel to something in the list, and even though you can't use the controller in the laptop, maybe you can find a controller that would work from one of the manufacturers listed

http://www.geocities.com/p9019/lcdpanel

What, you mean something like this

WARNING: This will be offensive to anyone who has ever been offended by anything, view at your own peril. But take comfort that it's on a free geocities site, so it will be /.ed out of existence in about 0.1ns.

Don't worry--I'm sure Ashcroft and company are hard at work on a national database to be checked against a swipe of your National ID (a.k.a. "standardized driver's license or state ID") when you board any public transporation. At that point, known terrorist (or deadbeat dads, or those with unpaid parking tickets, or people with questionable political affiliations) can be arrested and searched.

In about ten years, we'll have an internal passport system for air, land, and sea transport that would have made Soviet Russia proud.

Where I live (Birmingham, Al) they've erected several signs over the interstates. The signs are ment to warn drivers of potential problems with the roads (traffic accidents, ice, immenent meteor strike, etc). I've been kinda curious as to how they worked since they put them up (so that I might have a little fun with them).

example

so yeah... if anyone knows about them then let me know :)

1. Odd initial launch lineup: TRUE. Both of the lower G5s had bad price/performance.
2. drastically reduced expansion options: TRUE. On a tower that size, I'd want more bays.
3. Saggy GPUs: TRUE. FX5200 is weak.
4. Product overlap: MAYBE. I still want a pizzabox Mac [geocities.com] though.
5. MHz stagnation relapse: TRUE. Where's the 2500s?
6. 1st gen issues haven't been fixed: TRUE. not enough independent peripheral busses, low-end G5 still uses Yikes-esque PCI mobo.
7. Regaining trust is hard: TRUE. Apple needs to reach out to the business market.
8. the 3GHz gap: TRUE. Steve said it. We're waiting for it.

I believe Total Uninstall does exactly what you want. A warning though, for most programs, you do not really want to monitor all changes manually, that's just a lot of work. And that's why there are such things as installers in the first place.

A good way to start if you're running your own mailserver is to use an internal IP-based blacklist such as the one found here. It's incomplete due to Geocities limitations but send e-mail to that account and the guy running it will send you the whole file. It's a list that he's been compiling now for more than a year of IP blocks, mostly class Bs, that have virtually no useful SMTP traffic and should be completely cut off. This generally consists of the vast majority of Chinese, Korean and Brazillian DULs.

We've been able to effectively stop about 50% of the spam using these lists and save resources and bandwidth. What's left is to start RBL'ing the domestic DUL IP space (Comcast, SWBell, Bellsouth, etc.) on a class B-level until the ISPs start cracking down on their rogue users.

haha then you'll enjoy this - check it out my sonata 120mm air intake with 6 1/2 chrome filter, chrome handles, and an 8 port network switch in the top of the thing (two of the ports come out of the back). i 3 my case :D (please ignore the quasedila in the background)