Slashdot Mirror

The scanner could be used for input to
an artificial intelligence as designed by

Mentifex, author of an AI theory of mind
http://mind.sourceforge.net/theory5.html

explained in a walk-through diagram tour
http://mind.sourceforge.net/diagrams.html

implemented as free AI source code
http://mind.sourceforge.net/mind4th.html

composed of AI Algorithm Steps
http://mind.sourceforge.net/aisteps.html

published in the hardcopy AI4U textbook
http://visitware.com/AI4U/PODsales.html

The scanner could be used for input to
an artificial intelligence as designed by

Mentifex, author of an AI theory of mind
http://mind.sourceforge.net/theory5.html

explained in a walk-through diagram tour
http://mind.sourceforge.net/diagrams.html

implemented as free AI source code
http://mind.sourceforge.net/mind4th.html

composed of AI Algorithm Steps
http://mind.sourceforge.net/aisteps.html

published in the hardcopy AI4U textbook
http://visitware.com/AI4U/PODsales.html

The scanner could be used for input to
an artificial intelligence as designed by

Mentifex, author of an AI theory of mind
http://mind.sourceforge.net/theory5.html

explained in a walk-through diagram tour
http://mind.sourceforge.net/diagrams.html

implemented as free AI source code
http://mind.sourceforge.net/mind4th.html

composed of AI Algorithm Steps
http://mind.sourceforge.net/aisteps.html

published in the hardcopy AI4U textbook
http://visitware.com/AI4U/PODsales.html

The scanner could be used for input to
an artificial intelligence as designed by

Mentifex, author of an AI theory of mind
http://mind.sourceforge.net/theory5.html

explained in a walk-through diagram tour
http://mind.sourceforge.net/diagrams.html

implemented as free AI source code
http://mind.sourceforge.net/mind4th.html

composed of AI Algorithm Steps
http://mind.sourceforge.net/aisteps.html

published in the hardcopy AI4U textbook
http://visitware.com/AI4U/PODsales.html

I take it you are dead happy to see basically zero progress in software from now on.
What a twat.

Are you even listening?

The claim is not that creation is not necessary, but that the incentive to create is not necessary.

In other words, creation will continue to exist long after copyright. Can you get that through your head or will you continue to argue against a strawman?

Ofcourse we all know that without copyright, there would be no software at all.

There are two Gaim encryption plug-ins which are being actively developed. One is gaim-encryption ("Gaim-Encryption uses NSS to provide transparent RSA encryption as a Gaim plugin."), which is Gaim-only. The other is OTR, which can be used with any AIM client on Windows, Linux, or Mac (there is a plug-in for Gaim and a proxy server for other clients). I have both installed, but I have trouble getting my friends to use them, even the ones who use Gaim. Unforunately, Gaim does not support Trillian's encryption nor AIM's official client's encryption, and, as far as I know, no one is working on either.

eleven different mixers

Maybe you should actually learn something about Linux audio. ALSA is part of 2.6 kernels now and you only have one mixer - ALSA mixer.
 
What comes to Linux sound servers - JACK is a low latency audio server for pro-audio apps. It is the most advanced sound server on this planet. You can assign the output of any ALSA app to input of any ALSA app that supports Jack. This will be de-facto standard sound server and it runs on top of ALSA. Jack has also been ported to OS X and many pro-audio OS X users are using Jack and Linux pro-audio apps like Ardour.

Zimbra.

http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group _id=153217&package_id=170387

Freenet: http://freenet.sourceforge.net/index.php?page=faq# what

More people use it, more helpful it could be.

Algorithms for Artificial Intelligence include the Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) mind module.

The Human-Computer Interaction module is a two-way street between the AI Mind and the human user.

Mentifex AI Theory explains how the HCI module fits into a Theory of Cognitivity for artificial intelligence.

The Theory of Cognitivity is the theoretical basis for the Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) mind-module.

I was going to make a smart-ass comment about it not having lame, but turns out that it does

Xawtv? TV Time is infinitely better for watching TV on Linux.

http://tvtime.sourceforge.net/

OS/2 runs under bochs. Though not very well. (I actually have a screenshot of OS/2 running in bochs from just a couple of weeks back.) You can find factory sealed copies of OS/2 warp v3 on eBay for very little money. I paid $9.99 +shipping for my factory sealed copy, which I bought 2+ years ago on eBay. OS/2 warp v4 still gets $75+ based on the auctions I've seen.

Personally, I buy cds and rip them at highest quality (huge mp3s)...

(Consider it if your mp3s are getting truly huge and your software supports flac...)

A new diagram at the end? How about three dozen AI diagrams?

AI Algorithms Steps are the latest in software design for open-source artificial intelligence (AI).

AI Theory of Mind opens the doorway for programmers to cash in and launch life-long careers in the burgeoning field of artificial intelligence.

Diagrams of Artificial Intelligence teach the theory behind the design of artificially intelligent software.

http://www.sourceforge.net/

Almost every reply seems to think that the only chips in existence are digital. If you are thinking of a digital design then, as the others said, FPGAs are the way to go - certainly for prototyping.

If you need an analogue device or want chip scale packaging of your device, then an asic would be more appropriate. It is possible that FPGAs are available in very small packages but I'm not very up on that.

If you're in Europe, the Europractice scheme provides access to Multi-Project Wafer (MPW) runs to reduce overall fabrication costs. They also provide the software and design kits that allow you to make your designs.

My price breakdown for a 10sqmm chip in the AMS C35B4 process (0.35um, 4 metal, 2 poly, high res) with 20 devices in CSOIC28 packages:

Full Europractice membership (annual): €900
Cadence IC package single license: €1800
Cadence IC package maintenance (might not be applicable for the first year): €1150
10sqmm of AMS C35B4 silicon @ €720/sqmm: €7200
20 packages @ €52/package: €1040

Total: €10,940 or €12,090

Non of the prices include any local taxes.

They also do low volume production, but I don't know anything about the pricing.

So how to bring that down? You could save €1800/€2950 on software by using free alternatives such as on this

Don't be influenced by your opinions of current design processes. We use a 0.35um process all the time. It's perfectly adequate for what we want to do - in fact in many ways it is better than smaller processes for us. You could save a lot of money by going to a coarser process such as the AMIS 0.7um (2 metal, 1 poly) at €360/sqmm or the AMIS 0.5um (3 metal, 1 poly) at €420/sqmm - both with a smaller minimum size at 8sqmm. Silicon cost would then be €2880 or €3360 compared to €7200. 8sqmm is quite a lot really.

Ultimately, you need to decide what you need. If you need analogue circuitry but don't need linear capacitors, go for the cheapest process. If you do need linear caps, you'll have to use a process with 2 poly layers. If you want digital as well, go for something finer and with more metal layers

Oh, and if you want to read up on elilo, check this out:

http://elilo.sourceforge.net/cgi-bin/blosxom

Difference between lilo and elilo: lilo boots from legacy BIOS machines, elilo boots from EFI machines.

When you can more easily install Debian and MythTV.

http://amicus.sourceforge.net/

Get AMICUS for MythTV on Debian. Just what you need and no more. Meant for new users and low end PCs. Easy to follow guide with menu driven script.

Forget all that MS hoopla. Now go get a decent Linux PVR!

Mine is just a FrankenPC P3-1ghz/512MB. I have it running GB-PVR, which has been working nicely, if a little quirky at times. The Hauppage PVR-150 does it's job well.
I have been playing around with MediaPortal a bit, although it's a bit too much for my system to handle, I think.
MythTV taxed my patience, and after much twiddling about with it, I've put it on the back burner for now in favor of the (gack) Windows based solutions.
I was recently given a 2.6GHz machine with a bad board in otherwise mint condition, so that's gonna be next in line one I order a replacement.

Do you also have an equivalent to xmms-kde for Amarok?

...except tunnel the native GUI via SSH with minimal effort.

You sure about that, homeslice?

>Let's assume that we can take car, and make a copy of it (although it will still
>cost you about $2000 in raw materials). Let's also assume you could make a copy
>just using the "raw bistream" (or model) without having the car physically there
>to copy it. Now let's assume EVERY car company is horrified and decides to stop
>producing cars from that day forward.

>I see golden business oppertunities now -- while the old car monopolies are still
>crying over all the lost revenue, I start a company that creates custom designed
>cars -- I could create (or buy) a nice model, then hire people to customize
>these models for customers with special needs. You want a fifth wheel? You
>want a different dashboard layout? 6 gearbox instead of 5? A 2nd steering wheel?
>Special needs for specific handicaps?

Let's say you can design a custom car model in 6 months. How are you going to pay for your design team for those 6 months? Where a modern car company can spread out the cost of development over the sale of thousands or even millions of vehicles, you are going to have to get it all out of ONE. That's going to be a DAMN expensive car. I suspect you may end up with the ocassional rich patron but most people will just copy some existing design for $2000.

>Also, you'd be amazed what people will do for free, as long as it is fun (for them)
>and challenging to do. If people could create a new car model, and then create it
>(physically) you bet your ass TONS of people would do that JUST to drive their
>self designed dream car -- and some of those will give those designs away... free.

Sure. And in this highly hypothetical world it might actually work, because if we really could make things appear at will, then people would not have to work nearly as hard to produce goods.

But back here in the real world, digital content producers, even though they might love what they are doing, still have bills to pay. They need to get paid. Very few people are wealthy enough that they can dabble in what pleases them all day long for free.

>For example, I designed my own filesystem some years ago -- it was very enjoyable,
>and a lot of fun to get it working fast and correctly, and to add new features to
> it. See http://sourceforge.net/projects/smartfilesystem [sourceforge.net] (or
>look on wikipedia) -- it's a project I spend almost 2 years on, then gave away for free.

Presumably you had another source of income on which to live for those two years.

Hey, there is nothing wrong with people who WANT to make things and give them away for free. I'm not against that at all.

I'm against people who want to benefit from the fruits of the labors of people who DON'T want to give them away for free.

A man who works to produce something deserves to be able to sell the fruits of his labor at some price to people who want those fruits. It's not fair to consume the man's fruits for free if they weren't a gift to you.

Steve

In case of Slashdotting, break mirror
http://www.networkmirror.com/2SqNKxarnLb0hJVl/www% 2Ebigbruin%2Ecom/reviews05/review%2Ephp%3Fitem%3Ds aiteka250%26file%3D1%2Ehtml
(Mirrordot only mirrors the first page)

[Plug]
A free and OSS proggie for computer/cellphone Bluetooth stuff is Float's Mobile Agent
I run my computer from my phone with it :O)
[/plug]

At work, i use bblean. It has saved my sanity many a time.

Why is no-one mentioning BRLCAD (http://sourceforge.net/projects/brlcad/) ?

Some screenshots:
http://sourceforge.net/project/screenshots.php?gro up_id=105292

A sample script:
http://www.cobbaut.be/stok.sh.txt

Why is no-one mentioning BRLCAD (http://sourceforge.net/projects/brlcad/) ?

Some screenshots:
http://sourceforge.net/project/screenshots.php?gro up_id=105292

A sample script:
http://www.cobbaut.be/stok.sh.txt

I've been using DIA for some serious work and created quite a few UML, ERD and network topology diagrams with it for my employer, but, with experience, I never came to actually like it.

There are some things I like about DIA.

• The compatibility between the Windows and the Un*x versions has been a real enhancer when I had to have flowcharts made and modified between my brother who was on Windows through TurtoiseSVN and myself and another project member who are both (mostly) on Linux.
• It's open source.
• It works very transparantly and its file format is easy enough to parse and understand.

The things I dislike about DIA are more numerous, though. Just a few:

• Connection points on most, if not all, objects are too few.
• Not enough shapes.
• I can't count the number of times I've deleted an object while trying to delete a character, because I forgat to press Right-Arrow, Backspace instead of Delete.
• There's no way to indicate that two lines cross without touching, and it's also impossible to indicate the opposite.
• There's a lot of inconsistency in editing the shapes between shapesets.

All in all, DIA has made my live easier though. And also, I'm not exactly a fan of some of the Windows alternatives such as Smartdraw.

I've been using DIA for some serious work and created quite a few UML, ERD and network topology diagrams with it for my employer, but, with experience, I never came to actually like it.

There are some things I like about DIA.

• The compatibility between the Windows and the Un*x versions has been a real enhancer when I had to have flowcharts made and modified between my brother who was on Windows through TurtoiseSVN and myself and another project member who are both (mostly) on Linux.
• It's open source.
• It works very transparantly and its file format is easy enough to parse and understand.

The things I dislike about DIA are more numerous, though. Just a few:

• Connection points on most, if not all, objects are too few.
• Not enough shapes.
• I can't count the number of times I've deleted an object while trying to delete a character, because I forgat to press Right-Arrow, Backspace instead of Delete.
• There's no way to indicate that two lines cross without touching, and it's also impossible to indicate the opposite.
• There's a lot of inconsistency in editing the shapes between shapesets.

All in all, DIA has made my live easier though. And also, I'm not exactly a fan of some of the Windows alternatives such as Smartdraw.

is there anybody who has spent some time on X11 with a decent window manager who thinks that the Windows window manager is more useable?

More usable? No. Roughly equally usable? Yup. It takes some 3rd party software to get there, but if you're going to object to that then realize that pretty much any XWM you choose falls into "3rd party software" as well as most of the widgets and other software that you probably use on *nix.

And yes, I am a Unix C++ developer. But except for one position (my first, quite some time ago) all of my development work has been done on Windows workstations.

almost fake virtual desktops

Why are you "almost" faking virtual desktops? Why don't you get a program that does them for real? I have no experience w/ OS X, but for Windows I can recommend VirtuaWin and Deskwin. And they're both OSS too! I find VirtuaWin better -- more options, less incidences of lost apps, and less issues with apps that aren't responding well to desktop switching.

Want a decent shell? Cygwin gives it to you, in any flavor you could want. There's also MKS (we use it here), but I really recommend Cygwin if you can work around its wonkiness with the Windows drive structure (if we could freaking disable that we could ditch MKS... sigh). Want perl/python/etc? Nearly any you want are also available on Windows, both via Cygwin and in natively compiled versions.

Want other window manager nice-ities? Nearly anything you want for X is also available in Windows, for free, via 3rd party programs. All it takes is some Google searches.

What isn't mentioned is that this would probably ruin many small businesses who depend on open-source software because they can't afford large expensive distributions such as Oracle

Yeah, because no other similiar solutions exists. Right?

http://sopwith3.sourceforge.net/ a little offtopic, but this is the only Sopwith I've ever flown. It works on an 8086 too, the kind without a rotary engine, but you need a CGA card.

There's always Anthem.Net for those that like C# as well... ;) I think JSON is much lighter for data than using xml... since the syntax can be *much* lighter with json, especially for somewhat complex relationships, and data.

This has already been done: Six/Four

Tell me, would you? Would you spend, say, a million dollars to create something and then give it to the world for free?

I see golden business oppertunities now -- while the old car monopolies are still crying over all the lost revenue, I start a company that creates custom designed cars -- I could create (or buy) a nice model, then hire people to customize these models for customers with special needs. You want a fifth wheel? You want a different dashboard layout? 6 gearbox instead of 5? A 2nd steering wheel? Special needs for specific handicaps?

I could offer support options, perhaps it needs a special type of fuel, or maybe the automated pilot software needs a monthly subscription to stay up to date of the road layouts...

I could even give it away for free to create a lot of free advertising -- and then focus on my core business instead (which may not have anything to do with cars at all). Kinda like Walmart selling the hit CD's at bargain prices to attract people to their stores -- they don't care about the other stuff out there, they just want to lure you in -- very annoying if selling CD's is your core business, but that's how it works.

Also, you'd be amazed what people will do for free, as long as it is fun (for them) and challenging to do. If people could create a new car model, and then create it (physically) you bet your ass TONS of people would do that JUST to drive their self designed dream car -- and some of those will give those designs away... free.

For example, I designed my own filesystem some years ago -- it was very enjoyable, and a lot of fun to get it working fast and correctly, and to add new features to it. See http://sourceforge.net/projects/smartfilesystem (or look on wikipedia) -- it's a project I spend almost 2 years on, then gave away for free.

This has little or nothing to do with MySQL.

Why is Berkeley DB so popular? Because the folks there had the foresight to envision a need for a lightweight embedded transactional database engine. That was in the past. The only thing that really matters to any forward looking business, and that includes Oracle, is the future. What has Sleepycat been up to? A lightweight embedded XML database: DB XML. MySQL is not a threat, because the whole premise of what they are doing will soon be an anachronism. The current center of the IT universe is OASIS. Guess what kind of technology you need to play in that space? XML databases.

The F/OSS community is now left with only two real contenders: eXist and maybe QEXO. Both need stinkin' java. Neither does XML Schema validation. DB XML was the F/OSS communities most advanced native XML database. And Oracle just bought it.

This is a huge setback for F/OSS. If you don't understand the importance of distributed XML applications, you're just not going to understand this. If you do, you should be crying.

Other than that, I'll use Password Safe, thank you very much.

MAME is Maybe Also an MP3 Encoder, but more frequently known for its Multiple Arcade Machine Emulation abilities. I believe you're thinking of LAME.

I saw the Python... but I didn't see anyone mention Ruby yet. Yes, there are also SDL bindings for Ruby http://www.kmc.gr.jp/~ohai/rubysdl.en.html or http://rudl.sourceforge.net/. And even a Rubygame library (styled after pygame) which is starting to incorporate OpenGL too.

http://cl-sdl.sourceforge.net/ for CL-SDL. :-P

Populous and Powermonger ~ atmospheric early Peter Molyneux games. Loved the rain, the birds, the boats... Powermonger was beautiful (although not terribly entertaining in the long run).

Starflight I/II and Star Control II (as The Ur-Quan Masters) ~ they're very, very similar - except Starflight is older and technically more primitive, as well as more serious in tone than the often quite frivolous SC2. 2D space exploration games; artifacts, mysteries, diplomacy, banter, upgrading, mining *sigh*, trading, fighting, and a wee bit of strategy. Epic and very much not "on rails" - you decide on your own what to do when or whether to do it at all. Played on DOS, Amiga, Linux, Windows.

Mercenary: Escape from Targ/The Second City, Damocles, Mercenary III: The Dion Crisis ~ a series of 3D vector graphics space games (although most of the game takes place on the surface and inside buildings). Some annoyingly absurd puzzles, by hindsight (pick up cheese to fly faster). However, the sense of freedom, vastness and complexity they evoked was quite unusual by 80s standards, and there weren't many better games for the Commodore Plus/4 anyway. Played on Plus/4 (Mercenary), Amiga (others). Windows remake of the whole series.

On the less adventurous end of the space game spectrum: Elite, Freespace I/II, Freelancer, Wing Commander...

Ultima IV ~ A real world map, not just dungeons! Towns with trees and ponds and hidden nooks and crannies! Conversations! Secret islands and shrines hidden away in the mountains! Monsters that didn't just pop up out of nowhere! I liked this so much better than the maze-based "puzzle" RPGs of the time. And I really loved the cover art, at the time :). What a change from all the muscle-bound Conan-alikes and horned demons. Played on DOS. Ultima V ~ The NPCs had houses! You could harvest their crops! They really went to bed at night (though never complained if they found you sleeping in it)! Played on C 64.

Archon ~ most conveniently described as a chess-inspired strategy game with one-on-one combat and unicorns, goblins, banshees and other such mythological critters. Terribly good game, almost managed to feel more ancient-in-a-good-way than chess itself. If I ever wanted a coffee table with a built in video game, this would be it. Played on Atari 600/800XL, C 64, Amiga. Dunno if the remakes are any good.

(Net-)Hack. Played on DOS, Amiga, Windows, Linux, Psion...

Moonsweeper and Beamrider ~ I never really understood why those weren't the most popular VCS games... 3D-looking 2D shooters, one smooth and pretty, the other confined to a grid not entirely unlike Tempest and with a growing number of enemies to predict, evade or shoot. Both quite atmospheric. Played on Atari 2600 and 7800.

Many "adventures", by which I used to mean "text adventures". In fact text adventures were among the first computer games I ever saw and I was fascinated by the freedom they seemed to grant the player: you could go where you want and issue any command you could think of. Neither was the case, but I had never used a computer before, was generally impress

It's basically a wrapper for SDL that makes it extremely easy to make games with Python. You could easily make a working 2D game with sound and decent physics in an evening if you are already familiar with the language. I'm a relative newb, and even I was able to make a basic pong/breakout type game in a few nights. :)

Or use PyOpenGL and you can make some 3D games.

.... But Google's had their AJAX Libraries opensource and available to the public for a LONG time (http://sourceforge.net/projects/goog-ajaxslt/). So Yahoo just got religated back to second-class. Nothing more to see here, move along. I for one, welcome my new google overlords.

You think PayPal for sourceforge projects can handle million dollar donations? I wish. :)

Wow, let's see here...

Master of Orion 2
Final Fantasy 8 & 10
Xenogears
Chrono Trigger
Mega Man 1, 2, & 3
X-COM
Starcraft
Star Control 2 (It's free now, and it even works on Linux!)
Master of Magic

Conclusion: For the most part, I enjoy console RPGs and turn-based strategy.

I probably blew most of my sophomore and junior years of high school on Star Control II. Even now I'll play through the whole thing.

Maybe you know, maybe you don't: Fred Ford and Paul Reiche III released the source a few years back, and it's being updated for modern systems as a open source project. Since Accolade / Infogrames / Atari / whoever-buys-them-next owns the trademark to "Star Control", it is now called "The Ur-Quan Masters". The project just released version 0.5 at the beginning of February, which you can find it on their sourceforge site. The project incorporates both the DOS version and the 3DO version -- so you can choose your music, spoken voice vs text, etc. Very nicely done.

Star Control 2 is one heck of a game. Exquisite sense of humor, great story about galaxy-wide genocide, ancient technology, and what not. Part 3 sucked, though. The "Melee" part of the game is also fun. It is being resurrected for contemporary Windows and Linux systems at http://sc2.sourceforge.net/.

Yes, EOB2 is definite the best of the trilogy. I still prefer Lands of Lore, though that might be because it's actually the first game of that type I've ever played. I remember when it's 20MB install seemed awfully huge on a 110MB hard drive...

By the way, most, if not all, of the VGA DOS games you mentioned can be played using the DOSBox emulator. With a decent computer and proper scaling (hq2x from a DOSBox patch does wonders for games that don't have a lot of scrolling) the games keep all their gameplay and look better than they ever did!

Well played, China. Well played.

I'm not sure how it's really "Well Played." It's a nice try, but I don't see anyone buying this. Pornography is *not* illegal in the US, despite what many people think of it. And we certainly don't setup nation-wide firewalls to enforce laws that we don't have. Nor do we raid and shutdown free speech projects like FreeNET, even if bad guys abuse it to spread illegal materials.

I don't think that our Chinese government friends really have any idea how Amercians will view their statements. They seem to think that they can control international disinformation in the same way they can their own country. Too bad that doesn't fly.

(Let's just hope they never figure out how to actually market something. If China managed to make themselves seem "good" in the eyes of the average joe, they'd have a lot more opportunity for misinformation.)

While I don't like this deal, the article does say it's not permanent - Intel has just bought itself an "exclusive" platform release for advanced features, which may/will be added for all platforms later. Honestly, it wouldn't surprise me to see a hack/patch to make the advanced features work on AMD, though that itself may be illegal.

The big problem I have with this deal is that Skype is the dominant player in the PC VoIP market right now, and many people don't know the alternatives like Google Talk, Gizmoproject, GAIM, etc. My wife even knows Skype and she's never used it.

What value does it add? Marketing for Intel.
What does Skype get? A lot of something green.