Apple didn't 'play fair' in '84, if they had, the world might be running on Macintosh today. Jobs always tries to cut out any 3rd parties. The first thing he did when he returned as 'interim' CEO was to buy up all the really good 3rd party Macintosh computer makers like Power Computing and Motorola. The entire point of iTunes, the entire reason they are suffering the losses they are, is that every customer that purchases even one song from them must have either Apple licensed software or hardware to 'play fair' with the DRM.
Real time films? Not any time soon.
on
The State of OpenGL
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· Score: 3, Insightful
As TD who works in the computer graphics field, let me state that the technology required to render a Pixar film in 'Real Time' is far off and ridiculous. Just because OpenGL looks better does not mean that it can support the shader functions that Renderman utilizes, not to mention the Fur and cloth APIs. Also, the majority of shots in movies aren't even single comp shots they involve many rendered elements, which you still have to comp together. I'd be all for the guy talking about how OpenGL 2.0 will benefit the artists by allowing them to get more feedback about the quality of the shot they're working on without preview renders, but thinking that OGL could replace final renders any time soon is wrong. Perhaps we are geting to a place where we could render the original Toy Story realtime and a general viewing audience might not know the difference. Perhaps. But I remember some really great PRman shaders from the film that wouldn't be posible in the real time version.
I dunno, I decided to get 'serious' a while ago, and just converted an old laptop [Kaypro II] into a luggable desktop. It has everything I need, including a 10K RPM SCSI RAID, etc.. Also this finally put to rest the squabbles we used to get into at SIGGRAPH over who's laptop could render the fastest. OK, the solid steel reinforced frame puts it in at over 50 pounds, but I'm happy when I get where I'm goin. I know it's not for everyone, but I am not the 'I want to watch my own inflight movie, mew, mew, mew' type anyhow. It's great for going to conventions and being able to get some serious work done, not to mntion a great tribute to a great machine, long live Darth Vader's Lunchbox!
I was going to point to the Google link of the story, as I'm some people will do. But also remember the login/pass: slashdot1234/slashdot1234 to quickly log into a slashdot NY Times acct, which beats searching google for the other...
It came with the driver, but X win or KDE was so sluggish I thought I should install the actual nVidia river. Much like the M$ driver is slugish and crappy when youinstall windows.
I used to use Unix on a daily basis over a decade ago, and this week I decided to install linux. I was awed during the Fedora install at the relative ease of use, and the clean, professional GUI.
The feeling of awe ended when I tried to do something mundane, simply install an nVidia driver. I'm sorry, but the average person isn't going to want to open the inittab and edit it with vi. Also, if I can write a script to change run level why cant there be a menu for it in the GUI (KDE/Gnome), I mean I just kinda felt like not much had changed on a whole. Of course I don't want to get flamed, I mean I have only been a GUI using Linux user for about 48 hours, it's just I used to code fortran in vi, I don't think editing a cfg file should be standard operation in driver installation.
I understand that Knoppix is supposed to be great at working with hardware, from what I hear,but still, my experience leaves me feeling like not so much has changed in 10+ years, and Linux does not appear ready for household sub-100 IQ Nascar-lovin everyday use.
I would be the first to say that I would rather hold a book than one of these.. but with the ability to search entire books you've read, I don't care how weird, or uncomfortable it may be, I would buy one of these to just load up old books I have already read and have them available for search. Amazon.com's search inside a book implimentation is rather weak, and doesn't cover all their books, maybe in the future when you buy any book it can come with a password to download its contents to your E-Ink reader. I know some things like this are available now, but not for all books, certainly not Foucault.
It's interesting how they will turn to some open source alternatives for file distribution (Torrent), alleviating the strain from their network, but vehemently attack others who try to improve the gaming experience and lessen the strain from their network.
Does anyone else find it weird that the maker of the horribly insecure "paperless" Diebold voting machines is a massive Bush Campaign contributor?
In Ohio [he] told Republicans in a recent fund-raising letter that he is "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year."
The Aug. 14 letter from Walden O'Dell, chief executive of Diebold Inc. - who has become active in the re-election effort of President Bush - prompted Democrats this week to question the propriety of allowing O'Dell's company to calculate votes in the 2004 presidential election.
O'Dell attended a strategy pow-wow with wealthy Bush benefactors - known as Rangers and Pioneers - at the president's Crawford, Texas, ranch earlier this month. The next week, he penned invitations to a $1,000-a-plate fund-raiser to benefit the Ohio Republican Party's federal campaign fund - partially benefiting Bush - at his mansion in the Columbus suburb of Upper Arlington.
The letter went out the day before Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell, also a Republican, was set to qualify Diebold as one of three firms eligible to sell upgraded electronic voting machines to Ohio counties in time for the 2004 election.
Diebolds voting technology was actually put to the test by some security experts this year who found that:
- It was an "easy matter," they reported, to reprogram the access cards used by voters and vote multiple times.
- They were able to attach a keyboard to a voting terminal and change its vote count.
- And by exploiting a software flaw and using a modem, they were able to change votes from a remote location.
"Diebold, the machines' manufacturer, rushed to issue a self-congratulatory press release with the headline "Maryland Security Study Validates Diebold Election Systems Equipment for March Primary." The study's authors were shocked to see their findings spun so positively."
Here is a problem I had never thought about with open source initiatives. What happens when someone steals your source without obeying GPL or anything and turns it into a monster? It would have ben *MUCH* harder for the PhatBot authors to code their own Waste-like clustering P2P system. Perhaps they might not have even been able to do so. Instead they grab an open source app and use it to create something ilegal, and in this case even dangerous.
These are the same problems faced in the emulation field. Many open source emu programmers do not allow any game from the past 2-3 years to be played, mainly to appease the corporations that still make arcade titles (SNK etc). But people open up their source and release renegade versions of their own apps without their permission and in violation of GPL and everything, often packaging them with illegal arcade ROMs.
Because there aren't already enough government computers and agencies that don't understand file sharing and how not to leave their files on network shaes for all to see. At least now maybe the republicans will have a more standard and powerful search app that crossreferencs more machines than having to resort to going into "My Network Places" and just randomly clicking along to access other peoples personal files.
I would much rather purchase something that can cancel out noise from any source than from just a cpu. It would be a lot better to mount something between me and my computer. After all the CPU isnt the only noisy thing, I have noisy case fans, noisy 10K HDs, and noisy RAID array's. Not to mention, the "anti-noise gun's" on the market are mobile, meaning at any given time I can turn it to face my girlfriend.
That's just it, it was there when you were a kid. It was an integral part. Anything otherwise is like Lucas remaking old movies because technology gets better; it's kinda lame.
Yep, that's what I'm saying. These horrible slowdown problems were integral parts of the gameplay experience. The games were released to be played in such states, and though it was annoying, I wouldn't want it any other way. It's the "games in the wild" the way they were meant to be played.
Slowdown is an integral part of older consoles. Modern day emulators that can easily push these consoles with no slowdown at 60FPS impliment a technique to fake "slowdown." It's a lot easier to just grab a genesis emulator for your Dreamcast or Xbox than attempt a hardware mod like this.
I remember seeing an HDR display at siggraph, it was 30 times brighter than any commercially available display technology while producing a black that is 10 times darker. They used an array of bright LEDs behind the monitor.
..the ratio is 60,000:1 from the darkest to the lightest portion of the screen. Compare this to the 600:1 contrast ratio LCD monitors that are offered currently.
If you don't know anything about HDR, check out this information from Siggraph 2003. Soon, you may not want to render directly into the sun, you may go blind.
I know people like to post about dumb things they have heard sysadmins say, but the fact is, that to most of the people they deal with, they are speaking chinese anyway. I work in a high end facet of computer graphics, and there is a point where a problem can be so complicated you just do not want to waste the time talking about it to the end user. I have also worked as an A+ cert'd tech and sysadmin in the past.
You just make some shit up, in fact, sometimes we would just make shit up to crack each other up, or to see what we could get away with.
There is nothing like having your boss tell you that he is getting errors, and you toss out the bait "Sounds like an ID 10 T error." And *BAM* he strikes "Yeah I had heard about those ID10T errors in {insert OS here}." [I'm sure you have asshole..]
Nothing quite like having the boss tell the other tech crew about how you helped him when he had an ID10T error either.
Why doesn't the RIAA just try to get the legislature to pass a bill wherein they are allowed to go door to door and check everyones "puters" for "illegal" downloaded music files. Oh wait.. that's basically what this would allow... If you aren't a criminal, you don't have anything to worry about. But then again, why would you be on a P2P network anyway, you criminal!
Here's what I want to know. Ok, you have a file accessible to the public that matches something copyritten. Oh well, what if you are sharing the files so that you can get to them from another location. Just because someone in the public has access to a file on your machine, doesn't mean they have the right to take it, and when they do, that doesn't mean you gave it to them. Correct?
Heh, you obviously didn't follow my link *to the giri giri FAQ*. Look under headings like "Why is SSF / Giri Giri so slow?" and "Why doesn't giri giri play audio?" to understand why I stated that there was still no decent Saturn emu. Though this is by far the best out there, and hats of to them!
Yeah, I used to run Yellow Dog Linux on PPC. What I mainly meant about Linux not being on Xbox2, was the comments about the ditching common components. If they resort to some proprietary flash mem bank instead of a HD or something weird, people are going to have to reverse engineer and write drivers, instead of just "finding" them.
Let's not forget that the speculation is that this will be a dual processor console.
The Sega Saturn was a console with multiple processors, and to this day there is no decent Saturn emulator. The hardware set-up of the Saturn made it one of the most difficult to emulate systems thus far, this has long been known/commented on/talked about.
Just because something runs on X processor, does not mean that even a computer with the same processor, or even 2-3 times the processing power can emulate it. The N64 had a 93.75MHz processor, and 3d hardware archaic by todays standards, but most PC N64 emulators list 1ghz+ processors in their requirements.
Slashdot Mirror
Apple didn't 'play fair' in '84, if they had, the world might be running on Macintosh today. Jobs always tries to cut out any 3rd parties. The first thing he did when he returned as 'interim' CEO was to buy up all the really good 3rd party Macintosh computer makers like Power Computing and Motorola. The entire point of iTunes, the entire reason they are suffering the losses they are, is that every customer that purchases even one song from them must have either Apple licensed software or hardware to 'play fair' with the DRM.
As TD who works in the computer graphics field, let me state that the technology required to render a Pixar film in 'Real Time' is far off and ridiculous. Just because OpenGL looks better does not mean that it can support the shader functions that Renderman utilizes, not to mention the Fur and cloth APIs. Also, the majority of shots in movies aren't even single comp shots they involve many rendered elements, which you still have to comp together. I'd be all for the guy talking about how OpenGL 2.0 will benefit the artists by allowing them to get more feedback about the quality of the shot they're working on without preview renders, but thinking that OGL could replace final renders any time soon is wrong. Perhaps we are geting to a place where we could render the original Toy Story realtime and a general viewing audience might not know the difference. Perhaps. But I remember some really great PRman shaders from the film that wouldn't be posible in the real time version.
I dunno, I decided to get 'serious' a while ago, and just converted an old laptop [Kaypro II] into a luggable desktop. It has everything I need, including a 10K RPM SCSI RAID, etc.. Also this finally put to rest the squabbles we used to get into at SIGGRAPH over who's laptop could render the fastest. OK, the solid steel reinforced frame puts it in at over 50 pounds, but I'm happy when I get where I'm goin. I know it's not for everyone, but I am not the 'I want to watch my own inflight movie, mew, mew, mew' type anyhow. It's great for going to conventions and being able to get some serious work done, not to mntion a great tribute to a great machine, long live Darth Vader's Lunchbox!
I was going to point to the Google link of the story, as I'm some people will do.
But also remember the login/pass: slashdot1234/slashdot1234 to quickly log into a slashdot NY Times acct, which beats searching google for the other...
It came with the driver, but X win or KDE was so sluggish I thought I should install the actual nVidia river. Much like the M$ driver is slugish and crappy when youinstall windows.
I used to use Unix on a daily basis over a decade ago, and this week I decided to install linux. I was awed during the Fedora install at the relative ease of use, and the clean, professional GUI.
The feeling of awe ended when I tried to do something mundane, simply install an nVidia driver. I'm sorry, but the average person isn't going to want to open the inittab and edit it with vi. Also, if I can write a script to change run level why cant there be a menu for it in the GUI (KDE/Gnome), I mean I just kinda felt like not much had changed on a whole. Of course I don't want to get flamed, I mean I have only been a GUI using Linux user for about 48 hours, it's just I used to code fortran in vi, I don't think editing a cfg file should be standard operation in driver installation.
I understand that Knoppix is supposed to be great at working with hardware, from what I hear,but still, my experience leaves me feeling like not so much has changed in 10+ years, and Linux does not appear ready for household sub-100 IQ Nascar-lovin everyday use.
I would be the first to say that I would rather hold a book than one of these.. but with the ability to search entire books you've read, I don't care how weird, or uncomfortable it may be, I would buy one of these to just load up old books I have already read and have them available for search. Amazon.com's search inside a book implimentation is rather weak, and doesn't cover all their books, maybe in the future when you buy any book it can come with a password to download its contents to your E-Ink reader. I know some things like this are available now, but not for all books, certainly not Foucault.
It's interesting how they will turn to some open source alternatives for file distribution (Torrent), alleviating the strain from their network, but vehemently attack others who try to improve the gaming experience and lessen the strain from their network.
Does anyone else find it weird that the maker of the horribly insecure "paperless" Diebold voting machines is a massive Bush Campaign contributor?
In Ohio [he] told Republicans in a recent fund-raising letter that he is "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year."
The Aug. 14 letter from Walden O'Dell, chief executive of Diebold Inc. - who has become active in the re-election effort of President Bush - prompted Democrats this week to question the propriety of allowing O'Dell's company to calculate votes in the 2004 presidential election.
O'Dell attended a strategy pow-wow with wealthy Bush benefactors - known as Rangers and Pioneers - at the president's Crawford, Texas, ranch earlier this month. The next week, he penned invitations to a $1,000-a-plate fund-raiser to benefit the Ohio Republican Party's federal campaign fund - partially benefiting Bush - at his mansion in the Columbus suburb of Upper Arlington.
The letter went out the day before Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell, also a Republican, was set to qualify Diebold as one of three firms eligible to sell upgraded electronic voting machines to Ohio counties in time for the 2004 election.
[Link to the story quoted above]
Diebolds voting technology was actually put to the test by some security experts this year who found that:
- It was an "easy matter," they reported, to reprogram the access cards used by voters and vote multiple times.
- They were able to attach a keyboard to a voting terminal and change its vote count.
- And by exploiting a software flaw and using a modem, they were able to change votes from a remote location.
"Diebold, the machines' manufacturer, rushed to issue a self-congratulatory press release with the headline "Maryland Security Study Validates Diebold Election Systems Equipment for March Primary." The study's authors were shocked to see their findings spun so positively."
What about languages that don't have direct translations for key words like "security hole", "patch", "bug", "unstable" and "hotfix"?
Here is a problem I had never thought about with open source initiatives. What happens when someone steals your source without obeying GPL or anything and turns it into a monster? It would have ben *MUCH* harder for the PhatBot authors to code their own Waste-like clustering P2P system. Perhaps they might not have even been able to do so. Instead they grab an open source app and use it to create something ilegal, and in this case even dangerous.
These are the same problems faced in the emulation field. Many open source emu programmers do not allow any game from the past 2-3 years to be played, mainly to appease the corporations that still make arcade titles (SNK etc). But people open up their source and release renegade versions of their own apps without their permission and in violation of GPL and everything, often packaging them with illegal arcade ROMs.
One more thing to lose. I can't wait for the day when I need tweasers and a magnifying glass to replace a HD.
Because there aren't already enough government computers and agencies that don't understand file sharing and how not to leave their files on network shaes for all to see. At least now maybe the republicans will have a more standard and powerful search app that crossreferencs more machines than having to resort to going into "My Network Places" and just randomly clicking along to access other peoples personal files.
I would much rather purchase something that can cancel out noise from any source than from just a cpu. It would be a lot better to mount something between me and my computer. After all the CPU isnt the only noisy thing, I have noisy case fans, noisy 10K HDs, and noisy RAID array's. Not to mention, the "anti-noise gun's" on the market are mobile, meaning at any given time I can turn it to face my girlfriend.
That's just it, it was there when you were a kid. It was an integral part. Anything otherwise is like Lucas remaking old movies because technology gets better; it's kinda lame.
Yep, that's what I'm saying. These horrible slowdown problems were integral parts of the gameplay experience. The games were released to be played in such states, and though it was annoying, I wouldn't want it any other way. It's the "games in the wild" the way they were meant to be played.
Slowdown is an integral part of older consoles. Modern day emulators that can easily push these consoles with no slowdown at 60FPS impliment a technique to fake "slowdown." It's a lot easier to just grab a genesis emulator for your Dreamcast or Xbox than attempt a hardware mod like this.
I remember seeing an HDR display at siggraph, it was 30 times brighter than any commercially available display technology while producing a black that is 10 times darker. They used an array of bright LEDs behind the monitor.
..the ratio is 60,000:1 from the darkest to the lightest portion of the screen. Compare this to the 600:1 contrast ratio LCD monitors that are offered currently.
If you don't know anything about HDR, check out this information from Siggraph 2003.
Soon, you may not want to render directly into the sun, you may go blind.
I know people like to post about dumb things they have heard sysadmins say, but the fact is, that to most of the people they deal with, they are speaking chinese anyway. I work in a high end facet of computer graphics, and there is a point where a problem can be so complicated you just do not want to waste the time talking about it to the end user. I have also worked as an A+ cert'd tech and sysadmin in the past.
You just make some shit up, in fact, sometimes we would just make shit up to crack each other up, or to see what we could get away with.
There is nothing like having your boss tell you that he is getting errors, and you toss out the bait "Sounds like an ID 10 T error." And *BAM* he strikes "Yeah I had heard about those ID10T errors in {insert OS here}." [I'm sure you have asshole..]
Nothing quite like having the boss tell the other tech crew about how you helped him when he had an ID10T error either.
Why doesn't the RIAA just try to get the legislature to pass a bill wherein they are allowed to go door to door and check everyones "puters" for "illegal" downloaded music files. Oh wait.. that's basically what this would allow... If you aren't a criminal, you don't have anything to worry about. But then again, why would you be on a P2P network anyway, you criminal!
Here's what I want to know. Ok, you have a file accessible to the public that matches something copyritten. Oh well, what if you are sharing the files so that you can get to them from another location. Just because someone in the public has access to a file on your machine, doesn't mean they have the right to take it, and when they do, that doesn't mean you gave it to them. Correct?
Maybe "Integration with operating system" would help.
Heh, you obviously didn't follow my link *to the giri giri FAQ*. Look under headings like "Why is SSF / Giri Giri so slow?" and "Why doesn't giri giri play audio?" to understand why I stated that there was still no decent Saturn emu. Though this is by far the best out there, and hats of to them!
Yeah, I used to run Yellow Dog Linux on PPC. What I mainly meant about Linux not being on Xbox2, was the comments about the ditching common components. If they resort to some proprietary flash mem bank instead of a HD or something weird, people are going to have to reverse engineer and write drivers, instead of just "finding" them.
Let's not forget that the speculation is that this will be a dual processor console.
The Sega Saturn was a console with multiple processors, and to this day there is no decent Saturn emulator. The hardware set-up of the Saturn made it one of the most difficult to emulate systems thus far, this has long been known/commented on/talked about.
Just because something runs on X processor, does not mean that even a computer with the same processor, or even 2-3 times the processing power can emulate it. The N64 had a 93.75MHz processor, and 3d hardware archaic by todays standards, but most PC N64 emulators list 1ghz+ processors in their requirements.