Since you seem to know what you are talking about, you really should have known better than to say that "the reason a laser is more dangerous than a light bulb is because the laser is a higher frequency".
With your vast experience and knowledge, you clearly were using that as an attempt to appeal to the uneducated readers. You know better and should speak precisely if you wish to not be bashed as an apparent idiot.
Keep in mind that OpenGL does not itself directly support scene graphs. The modelview matrix stack can easily be used to implement scene graphs, but OpenGL defines no data structure for actually representing a scene graph.
I'm just nitpicking though. Your point is a good one: just because you can code an entire application as a bunch of shaders, doesn't mean it makes sense to.
Why is it that on slashdot, when we discuss consoles, it always degenerates into talk about which will 'win'? The arguments are always about how the better hardware doesn't matter if the games aren't good, or how one console will lose in the market because it is too expensive, or if the cell is too hard to program.
Who cares whether you will personally buy it, and why? Who cares whether it will fail or be a big splash.
This is slashdot. Home of nerds and people interested in technology for technologies sake. Why do we never talk about how great the hardware is, on its own terms?
The games may suck, but technologically speaking, a console may have awesome graphics capabilities. Why don't we talk about the relative pros and cons at a level appropriate for slashdot?
Let me try to get this started. Could somebody with a good understanding of the hardware explain the true pros and cons of the various consoles? If programmers get good at coding for the cell, what will it be good at? I've never heard an any mention of anything about the revolution other than its controller. What sort of hardware does it have under the hood?
You might argue that "who cares if it has twice the fill rate, its the games that matter". My response to that is: This is slashdot. We aren't playing games. We are discussing technology. Lets discuss the technology!
This isn't magic and it isn't some kind of mechanical device. It is chemistry. The entire suit will not become a concrete coccoon because you tap him on the back. Rather, the area near where you hit, so the shoulder and maybe part of the neck and arm and upper torso, that is the only part that would harden. Furthermore, it will soften up again soon as the slap is over.
Though that would be cool if the whole thing became a concrete shell instantly. That would probably help in more catastrophic crashes.
Laws cannot be 'wrong'. Newton's laws of motion are not 'wrong'. They are merely descriptions of what we experimentally observe. F = MA did not stop being 'true' just because it was discovered that they do not accurately describe what happens when we approach the speed of light. We merely learn the limits of the laws, and when they do and do not apply.
You would need to define "near" to make the claim that near light speed is impossible, based on energy considerations. How near is "near"? Maybe.9c is too fast to attain, but how about.8?
So following your line of reasoning, we have a semantic error in our usage of the term 'steal'. We do not 'steal software', rather, we 'steal the right to control distribution'. Maybe stealing the right to control distribution is morally on par with stealing anything else, but it still is a fundamentally different category of crime compared to, say, stealing a car.
If you want to make the argument that it is wrong to illegally copy software, go right ahead. It is intolerable, however, to convince people it is wrong to copy software by using the argument that it is 'stealing', implicitly or explicitly making the comparison to, say, shoplifting.
The crusade against piracy would be far more effective if language wasn't used deceptively. I'll stop putting up strawmen arguments when you say what you mean. Is that fair?
Stealing is stealing, but in what possibly way is copying software stealing? (I remind you we are speaking morally, not legally).
It seems to me that the reason it is wrong to steal is because the rightful owner no longer has his object after you steal it. I am honestly curious, how is copying stealing?
I would say that copyright violations are wrong precisely because it is rude and disrespectful. It is bad to be rude and disrespectful, but it certainly isn't stealing.
Microsoft research publishes a great deal of research papers every year. These innovations are free for everybody to read and learn about.
Whether or not microsoft actually gets around to using any of these ideas in their products is beside the point: research is being done and the results are being published.
funny how you should point out that it needs to be quoted properly, and then proceed to quote it wrongly!! Here is how it really goes.
This land is my land, It isn't your land, I've got a shot gun, and you don't have one, If you don't get off, I'll blow your head off, This land is private property!
There are serious problems with User Friendly quite aside from whether it is funny, quite aside from taste, and completely unrelated to opinion.
User Friendly is OBJECTIVELY worthless.
Their artwork is drawn in MS paint, and is low quality (objectively).
Furthermore, the plot is nothing more than last week's slashdot headlines, framed as if to seem original or maybe insightful. In fact, user friendly is a troll.
I can speak on this matter with authority, as I purchased every user friendly collection, so that I could carefully read it and make sure that yes, it is not worth my time.
Would you care to enlighten me as to what exactly ray tracing brings to the table, above and beyond what we already get from a state of the art GPU?
Only thing I can think of is that ray tracing would allow us to replace complicated hacks for shadows and reflections with a more natural implementation, but I can't imagine how this will usher in a new era of gaming.
>And all around people make more fission plants, >very stupid indeed
I thought that we use fission rather than fusion not due to stupidity, but because the technology for fusion power plants doesn't exist yet. Have I been misinformed?
For all intents and purposes, we have to believe in arithmetic.
But I certainly don't believe in ordinary addition as some kind of unfallible, absolute truth. To believe in mathematics (or anything that is the product of pure reason) like that would involve believing unquestioningly in one's own sanity, who can be sure of that?
Slashdot Mirror
Since you seem to know what you are talking about, you really should
have known better than to say that "the reason a laser is more dangerous
than a light bulb is because the laser is a higher frequency".
With your vast experience and knowledge, you clearly were using that as an
attempt to appeal to the uneducated readers. You know better and should
speak precisely if you wish to not be bashed as an apparent idiot.
Keep in mind that OpenGL does not itself directly support scene graphs.
The modelview matrix stack can easily be used to implement scene graphs,
but OpenGL defines no data structure for actually representing a scene graph.
I'm just nitpicking though. Your point is a good one: just because you can code an entire application as a bunch of shaders, doesn't mean it makes sense to.
Why is it that on slashdot, when we discuss consoles, it always degenerates into talk about which will
'win'? The arguments are always about how the better hardware doesn't matter if the games aren't good,
or how one console will lose in the market because it is too expensive, or if the cell is too hard
to program.
Who cares whether you will personally buy it, and why?
Who cares whether it will fail or be a big splash.
This is slashdot. Home of nerds and people interested in technology for technologies sake.
Why do we never talk about how great the hardware is, on its own terms?
The games may suck, but technologically speaking, a console may have awesome graphics capabilities.
Why don't we talk about the relative pros and cons at a level appropriate for slashdot?
Let me try to get this started.
Could somebody with a good understanding of the hardware explain the true pros and cons of the various
consoles? If programmers get good at coding for the cell, what will it be good at?
I've never heard an any mention of anything about the revolution other than its controller.
What sort of hardware does it have under the hood?
You might argue that "who cares if it has twice the fill rate, its the games that matter".
My response to that is: This is slashdot. We aren't playing games. We are discussing technology.
Lets discuss the technology!
This isn't magic and it isn't some kind of mechanical device.
It is chemistry. The entire suit will not become a concrete coccoon because you tap him on the back.
Rather, the area near where you hit, so the shoulder and maybe part of the neck and arm and upper torso,
that is the only part that would harden. Furthermore, it will soften up again soon as the slap is over.
Though that would be cool if the whole thing became a concrete shell instantly. That would probably
help in more catastrophic crashes.
Pointing out a common but hideous spelling error is not a troll.
It is ridiculous that you said rediculous.
LOL.
This is slashdot.
On slashdot, that word is spelled 'rediculous'.
When will slashdot learn how to spell ridiculous?
It is ridiculous to spell ridiculous as rediculous.
Laws cannot be 'wrong'. Newton's laws of motion are not 'wrong'.
They are merely descriptions of what we experimentally observe.
F = MA did not stop being 'true' just because it was discovered that they do not accurately describe
what happens when we approach the speed of light.
We merely learn the limits of the laws, and when they do and do not apply.
You would need to define "near" to make the claim that near light speed is impossible, based on energy .9c is too fast to attain, but how about .8?
considerations. How near is "near"?
Maybe
So following your line of reasoning, we have a semantic error in our usage of the term 'steal'.
We do not 'steal software', rather, we 'steal the right to control distribution'.
Maybe stealing the right to control distribution is morally on par with stealing anything else,
but it still is a fundamentally different category of crime compared to, say, stealing a car.
If you want to make the argument that it is wrong to illegally copy software, go right ahead.
It is intolerable, however, to convince people it is wrong to copy software by using the argument
that it is 'stealing', implicitly or explicitly making the comparison to, say, shoplifting.
The crusade against piracy would be far more effective if language wasn't used deceptively.
I'll stop putting up strawmen arguments when you say what you mean. Is that fair?
Stealing is stealing, but in what possibly way is copying software stealing? (I remind you we are speaking
morally, not legally).
It seems to me that the reason it is wrong to steal is because the rightful owner no longer has his
object after you steal it. I am honestly curious, how is copying stealing?
I would say that copyright violations are wrong precisely because it is rude and disrespectful.
It is bad to be rude and disrespectful, but it certainly isn't stealing.
I find your spelling of the word ridiculeous(sic) to be even more ridiculous than the usual
slashdot spelling of the word rediculous.
Secand Prost.
Microsoft research publishes a great deal of research papers every year.
These innovations are free for everybody to read and learn about.
Whether or not microsoft actually gets around to using any of these ideas in their products is beside
the point: research is being done and the results are being published.
funny how you should point out that it needs to be quoted properly, and then proceed to quote
it wrongly!!
Here is how it really goes.
This land is my land,
It isn't your land,
I've got a shot gun,
and you don't have one,
If you don't get off,
I'll blow your head off,
This land is private property!
No. They don't make use of the GPU at all. That, in fact, is the whole point: a software only renderer.
There are serious problems with User Friendly quite aside from whether it is funny, quite aside from taste, and completely unrelated to opinion.
User Friendly is OBJECTIVELY worthless.
Their artwork is drawn in MS paint, and is low quality (objectively).
Furthermore, the plot is nothing more than last week's slashdot headlines, framed as if to seem original or maybe insightful. In fact, user friendly is a troll.
I can speak on this matter with authority, as I purchased every user friendly collection, so that I could carefully read it and make sure that yes, it is not worth my time.
You should learn how to spell Berkeley.
Would you care to enlighten me as to what exactly ray tracing brings to the table, above and beyond what we already get from a state of the art GPU?
Only thing I can think of is that ray tracing would
allow us to replace complicated hacks for shadows
and reflections with a more natural implementation, but I can't imagine how this will usher in a new era of gaming.
I am made out of subatomic particles.
fist!
>And all around people make more fission plants, >very stupid indeed
I thought that we use fission rather than fusion not due to stupidity, but because the technology for fusion power plants doesn't exist yet. Have I been misinformed?
I will tell you why hamsters are so cute.
Hamster eyes are rainbow crystals that serve as a gateway between this reality and another hidden reality that you can access only through hamsters.
For all intents and purposes, we have to believe in arithmetic.
But I certainly don't believe in ordinary addition as some kind of unfallible, absolute truth. To believe in mathematics (or anything that is the product of pure reason) like that would involve believing unquestioningly in one's own sanity, who can be sure of that?