I can tell you this much: after struggling to get used to Blender after learning 3D Modeling on Maya, *I* am surprised Blender ranked well. Err, except it didn't do well. His final conclusion was: A good all around application first for freelance. Blender downside's is on interface, who is not today "industries" common (no drag & drop, poor intuitive tools,...) and structured / centralised documentations, so it's the best free all arround solution. (Emphasis in original)
Notice that this was also the only free solution. On top of that he acknowledges that the downside is the interface and documentation.
If Blender gets a revamp to its UI it could really be a contender.
Some people don't like blender's UI like some people don't like vi.
The thing you have to realize is that nowadays it's not vi vs. emacs. It's vi vs. the world. Blender is even worse than that.
I know vi. I know Emacs. I know Visual Studio. I know notepad. I much prefer to do quick edits on notepad. I do longer coding projects on emacs, visual studio or even eclipse. The only time I use vi is when I'm stranded on a command line with nothing else handy.
Likewise I know blender and I don't know any other 3d graphics tools except superficially. But even I can tell the interface is a piece of crap. Just to give you an idea, they implemented their own window manager and use focus-follows-mouse, which is a pain since you also have to use both hands for keyboard shortcuts. I mean, who in the last 20 years uses that? Yes, there are a handful of people out there, but when you have to explain to people that even their keyboard shortcuts and mouse doesn't work the same as any other application out there, you know that something is wrong.
The same time-saving workflow could be implemented with a better UI. Sometimes I think about going in and rewriting blender to use GTK or something, but from the little I've seen of the python interfaces I wouldn't be surprised if the blender code included OpenGL calls inline with the logic. Even the main developers must know how much the UI sucks, I bet it's just too messy to change it now.
Notice that nobody says that the workflow tools are bad, or that the keyboard shortcuts are bad. It just needs to be organized in a more intuitive way, with toolbars and other improvements. Yes, you would still be able to hit space to add an object, but you could also click on the mesh tool, or whatever.
I too work in a steel mill, and I have to recommend the Toughbooks. We've had a couple of them survive being dropped into vats of molten metal. The hard part was removing them from the steel slab afterwards as the oxy-fuel cutting torch set a bit of the magnesium casing on fire on one of them.
Boy, was that a strange meeting with the fire dept...
Okay, it'll take until 2010 to finish the station then NASA will use it only for five years before pulling out. With all due respect NASA, are you fucking nuts? It gets worse. The Space Shuttle is going to be retired in 2010 (upon completion of the ISS) and Orion won't start service to the ISS until late 2014. In the meantime they'll depend on the russians for moving people and cargo.
Yes, I am serious. Look it up yourself. Only governments can come up with these kind of plans.
Does the machine have older IDE connectors? Maybe the drivers are good enough to use the SATA drive but not during boot (bootloader, etc.). I had a similar problem once (granted, with NT4.0 IIRC). You could plug in a smaller old disk and use the SATA disk for all documents and programs if it doesn't bluescreen after boot.
Everyone will put down that they live at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave, and the servers will asplode! I wouldn't. Some clueless idiot at AT&T will sniff my connection and think I'm "hacking" a server at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave and send the DHS/FBI/CIA/MIB for me.
I admit, I haven't done a slipstream installation in years (and then just once), but can't you just make an install with all the drivers for all the hardware you sell and let windows autodetect and use the right one? You'd only need special installs for hardware that insists on installinng additional apps.
Even just having a slipstream prepared without the drivers should cut down your install time by an hour or so. Of course that's only useful if you do a lot of windows installs.
The tax bracket difference must be pretty huge for Sony to actually design and implement a hypervisor and virtualization system for the PS3 so it can run "Other OS" but not cripple the gaming and security aspects of the PS3. There's another less acknowledged reason. A some of the work put into cracking the xbox and 360 consoles was done by people who wanted to run Linux on them, which incidentally helped those running homebrew and piracy.
By giving the community a half-assed Linux environment, they quickly cut down on the number of people who would work on cracking the PS3. People who want the processing power of the Cell can already use it. People who want to run Linux just because can already do it. That leaves a smaller number of people who want to actually do something with it, and they can use a 360.
Sure, there might be projects out there to crack the PS3 to run Linux without the hypervisor, but who has heard of them? That leaves only the homebrew and piracy crowds.
It's been a while since I signed up at the very beginning, but IIRC it took a couple of months for my signup to go into effect, as they can't just ask telemarketers to just stop on the net day.
The week before it was to go into effect, I got calls nonstop. I worked from home at the time so I got them all day and night. MCI was the worst, I got 4 calls in 24 hours. I even told them to put me on their do-not-call list, but they said it would take a week for that to work. Go figure. I got pretty mad on the last call, so maybe that's why they stopped.
So... I guess the question is whether you can sign back up before your number expires, or if they lowered the time it takes until telemarketers cannot call you anymore.
A Jedi can slice through a person with a light saber with no perceptible change to the momentum of the saber, so it seems likely that there is not a whole lot of tactile feedback in a "real" light saber either. But I don't think anyone is asking to feel cutting through somebody's neck. This isn't Postal 3 we're talking about.
You want to feel when your sword hits the other, when your opponent pushes against you, when you have to block because you were blocked and can feel your opponent moving his sword to counter. With a wiimote the light saber will go through anyway and you have to just watch the screen to know. In any case getting a hit on the body will probably count as a point right away, instead of having to actually slice through the body.
In Wii boxing you have a bit of this, as you don't feel the difference between a block and a miss. Granted it's not as important there, but it would be necessary in a fencing simulator. Also Wii boxing is much slower than a prequel-style light saber battle, so it's ok to wait until people hear the swoosh of the miss.
Then again, the wiimote's motion sensor only has 3 degrees of freedom so they aren't up to the task of a real fencing simulator anyway. You can only calculate roll/inclination when the wiimote is stable, and don't have a great read on the direction you start moving afterwards.
Chances are this will play like a one-handed wii boxing (very few preset moves) crossed with a twilight princess combat engine (can move around and swing your light saber in one of the preset moves), plus a wii-baseball-like pointing of the light saber while you hold it up. The wiimote will probably help immersion but it's not like you'll have to spend a month mastering your fencing reflexes.
Except then you lose any chance at automated match-making.
Think about starcraft and warcraft 3. If as a newbie you try to play a random game on starcraft battle-net chances are you'll be matched up against an insanely good player and the game would be no fun. On WC3, when you first start playing you might find the matches too easy, as you get matched up with beginners, but after a few games you'll quickly hit a level where people have a similar skill level as you do and games start to be fun and challenging without being discouraging.
Granted, you have some valid points, but you might as well track the stats without showing them to the user. Or simply count quitting as a forfeit. You couldn't do that with starcraft because of dialup/unstable connections, but these days it shouldn't be that much of a problem.
Completely random matchups will be a problem if you want any kid and grandma to be able to play against any random teenage gamer.
I seem to recall a shot of John Young at the controls of STS-1, wearing his reading glasses. Interesting.
Granted, John Young had flown 4 missions already, since the Gemini era (Gemini, Apollo command module and Apollo Lunar Module, having even walked on the moon). Even if his vision had deteriorated, he had a lot of experience to make up for it. Nasa probably wouldn't take that risk with a newbie pilot.
I also wonder how the mission profile influenced the decision. STS-1 didn't include sleeping or having to take off glasses or contacts. And he was not the pilot on that mission or STS-9. Also, on the Shuttle, you don't get any way to evacuate during an emergency, like you might on the ISS.
But still, You'd want your astronauts to start put in top physical form, even if thorough the years their body ages. I bet you he didn't use any kind of glasses during the Gemini era.
People's vision also tends to degrade over time. They are talking of 1 or 2 years of selection, plus 2 years of training before you even start. If you already need glasses, how is it going to be when you actually fly?
Second, glasses and contacts would be bad during takeoff (doing 6Gs I think?). Also in zero-G, putting on and removing contacts might be a problem.
Besides, if there is an emergency while people are sleeping and you need to evacuate or act quickly, you really don't want to wait for people to find their glasses or put on their contacts.
Maybe once they start hiring hundreds of people, most of whom don't have mission critical-jobs, their standards might be lowered, but in the meantime I don't see why risk it.
and you take a suicide pill N months after landing when your food supplies run out.
On those terms, no. If on the other hand you were to say: "and you take a suicide pill N months after landing if your food supplies run out." I'd do it. In a heartbeat. (Ok, I'd evaluate the mission first to see if that "if" is reasonable).
Trying to establish a permanent colony on Mars would be worth it, I think. Being part of the pioneering group, facing challenges, working on something important and influential. Hell Yes, I'd try it. Going just so some government can claim that "they" were the first to put a man on mars, no.
Having to take a suicide pill if all of our agricultural work fails, it should be a small risk compared to a micrometeorite strike, solar flare, orbital insertion failure, or once in mars, structural failure of the shelter, medical problems with regolith/mars dust, etc. I wouldn't like to depend on continued shipments from earth either
The hardest part would be the lag. No beer and no internet make Eponymous something something...
Are the IBM Lotus Symphony tools different from the embedded productivity tools delivered in IBM Lotus Notes v. 8?
* No. The tools have the same functionality but have different names:
. IBM Lotus Symphony was IBM Productivity tools
. Lotus Symphony Documents was Lotus Documents
. Lotus Symphony Spreadsheets was Lotus Spreadsheets
. Lotus Symphony Presentations was Lotus Presentations
I'm sure there's more than one lawyer in Manhattan that likes the GTA series. If any of you read this, send Rockstar a letter inviting them to use your name and likeness in the game. You get to put screenshots for publicity while at the same time stick it to Thompson.
Imagine the interviews. Jack Thompson claims the lawyer is him, then the camera cuts to you: No, it's me. Look at this screenshot. Here's a signed affidavit saying it's me!
Or one (top dog/oldest employee) said I won't do it and they threatened to fire him. The other two said, if you fire him we quit.
Having worked there for 10 years there would be enough personal loyalty for this. In fact, they would've watched the company being run into the ground. It would be interesting to hear their story.
Slashdot Mirror
A good all around application first for freelance. Blender downside's is on interface, who is not today "industries" common (no drag & drop, poor intuitive tools,...) and structured / centralised documentations, so it's the best free all arround solution. (Emphasis in original)
Notice that this was also the only free solution. On top of that he acknowledges that the downside is the interface and documentation.
If Blender gets a revamp to its UI it could really be a contender.
Some people don't like blender's UI like some people don't like vi.
The thing you have to realize is that nowadays it's not vi vs. emacs. It's vi vs. the world. Blender is even worse than that.I know vi. I know Emacs. I know Visual Studio. I know notepad. I much prefer to do quick edits on notepad. I do longer coding projects on emacs, visual studio or even eclipse. The only time I use vi is when I'm stranded on a command line with nothing else handy.
Likewise I know blender and I don't know any other 3d graphics tools except superficially. But even I can tell the interface is a piece of crap. Just to give you an idea, they implemented their own window manager and use focus-follows-mouse, which is a pain since you also have to use both hands for keyboard shortcuts. I mean, who in the last 20 years uses that? Yes, there are a handful of people out there, but when you have to explain to people that even their keyboard shortcuts and mouse doesn't work the same as any other application out there, you know that something is wrong.
The same time-saving workflow could be implemented with a better UI. Sometimes I think about going in and rewriting blender to use GTK or something, but from the little I've seen of the python interfaces I wouldn't be surprised if the blender code included OpenGL calls inline with the logic. Even the main developers must know how much the UI sucks, I bet it's just too messy to change it now.
Notice that nobody says that the workflow tools are bad, or that the keyboard shortcuts are bad. It just needs to be organized in a more intuitive way, with toolbars and other improvements. Yes, you would still be able to hit space to add an object, but you could also click on the mesh tool, or whatever.
Sorry everyone. That was a joke. A little too much Wikipedia on that one... and not enough smileys.
I mean, people thought the electronics would survive in a 2861 C (5182 F) metal vat??? Even the magnesium casing will melt lower than that.
Sorry about that. Carry on.
(And BTW, the magnesium casing can burn, but it's hard to do)
I too work in a steel mill, and I have to recommend the Toughbooks. We've had a couple of them survive being dropped into vats of molten metal. The hard part was removing them from the steel slab afterwards as the oxy-fuel cutting torch set a bit of the magnesium casing on fire on one of them.
Boy, was that a strange meeting with the fire dept...
Gotta wonder if they'll use the PS3's motion sensing controller to make up for it.
:)
Then again it's bluetooth anyway. They should just bite the bullet and include a Wiimote driver
Yes, I am serious. Look it up yourself. Only governments can come up with these kind of plans.
Does the machine have older IDE connectors? Maybe the drivers are good enough to use the SATA drive but not during boot (bootloader, etc.). I had a similar problem once (granted, with NT4.0 IIRC). You could plug in a smaller old disk and use the SATA disk for all documents and programs if it doesn't bluescreen after boot.
The other posibility would be Linux and a VM.
You might be able to write a quick launcher that does that. Something like:
//Not guaranteed to work, untested, etc.
#include <windows.h>
STARTUPINFO si;
ProcessInformation pi;
int main()
{
si.cb=sizeof(STARTUPINFO);
if(CreateProcess(NULL, "\"C:\\Program Files\\MyApp.exe\" -L -S", NULL, NULL, TRUE,
0,NULL,NULL,&ci,&pi)!=false)
{
SetProcessAffinityMask(pi.hProcess, 0x1);
WaitForSingleObject(pi.hProcess,INFINITY);
CloseHandle(pi.hProcess);
CloseHandle(pi.hThread);
}
}
My server stays at 1313 Mockingbird lane for now.
The ground water it contacted contains arsenic.
Sounds like they have bigger things to worry about than silly meteors.
I admit, I haven't done a slipstream installation in years (and then just once), but can't you just make an install with all the drivers for all the hardware you sell and let windows autodetect and use the right one? You'd only need special installs for hardware that insists on installinng additional apps.
Even just having a slipstream prepared without the drivers should cut down your install time by an hour or so. Of course that's only useful if you do a lot of windows installs.
By giving the community a half-assed Linux environment, they quickly cut down on the number of people who would work on cracking the PS3. People who want the processing power of the Cell can already use it. People who want to run Linux just because can already do it. That leaves a smaller number of people who want to actually do something with it, and they can use a 360.
Sure, there might be projects out there to crack the PS3 to run Linux without the hypervisor, but who has heard of them? That leaves only the homebrew and piracy crowds.
Truly, this story should be tagged storminateacup.
It's been a while since I signed up at the very beginning, but IIRC it took a couple of months for my signup to go into effect, as they can't just ask telemarketers to just stop on the net day.
The week before it was to go into effect, I got calls nonstop. I worked from home at the time so I got them all day and night. MCI was the worst, I got 4 calls in 24 hours. I even told them to put me on their do-not-call list, but they said it would take a week for that to work. Go figure. I got pretty mad on the last call, so maybe that's why they stopped.
So... I guess the question is whether you can sign back up before your number expires, or if they lowered the time it takes until telemarketers cannot call you anymore.
Being the first, you should've done:
In Soviet Union, TLD Owners Snub ICANN!
Works much better for this article.
All OpenGL implementations will see this hit.
All DirectX implementations not running fullscreen will see it too- just not as badly. [Citation needed]
You want to feel when your sword hits the other, when your opponent pushes against you, when you have to block because you were blocked and can feel your opponent moving his sword to counter. With a wiimote the light saber will go through anyway and you have to just watch the screen to know. In any case getting a hit on the body will probably count as a point right away, instead of having to actually slice through the body.
In Wii boxing you have a bit of this, as you don't feel the difference between a block and a miss. Granted it's not as important there, but it would be necessary in a fencing simulator. Also Wii boxing is much slower than a prequel-style light saber battle, so it's ok to wait until people hear the swoosh of the miss.
Then again, the wiimote's motion sensor only has 3 degrees of freedom so they aren't up to the task of a real fencing simulator anyway. You can only calculate roll/inclination when the wiimote is stable, and don't have a great read on the direction you start moving afterwards.
Chances are this will play like a one-handed wii boxing (very few preset moves) crossed with a twilight princess combat engine (can move around and swing your light saber in one of the preset moves), plus a wii-baseball-like pointing of the light saber while you hold it up. The wiimote will probably help immersion but it's not like you'll have to spend a month mastering your fencing reflexes.
Except then you lose any chance at automated match-making.
Think about starcraft and warcraft 3. If as a newbie you try to play a random game on starcraft battle-net chances are you'll be matched up against an insanely good player and the game would be no fun. On WC3, when you first start playing you might find the matches too easy, as you get matched up with beginners, but after a few games you'll quickly hit a level where people have a similar skill level as you do and games start to be fun and challenging without being discouraging.
Granted, you have some valid points, but you might as well track the stats without showing them to the user. Or simply count quitting as a forfeit. You couldn't do that with starcraft because of dialup/unstable connections, but these days it shouldn't be that much of a problem.
Completely random matchups will be a problem if you want any kid and grandma to be able to play against any random teenage gamer.
Granted, John Young had flown 4 missions already, since the Gemini era (Gemini, Apollo command module and Apollo Lunar Module, having even walked on the moon). Even if his vision had deteriorated, he had a lot of experience to make up for it. Nasa probably wouldn't take that risk with a newbie pilot.
I also wonder how the mission profile influenced the decision. STS-1 didn't include sleeping or having to take off glasses or contacts. And he was not the pilot on that mission or STS-9. Also, on the Shuttle, you don't get any way to evacuate during an emergency, like you might on the ISS.
But still, You'd want your astronauts to start put in top physical form, even if thorough the years their body ages. I bet you he didn't use any kind of glasses during the Gemini era.
People's vision also tends to degrade over time. They are talking of 1 or 2 years of selection, plus 2 years of training before you even start. If you already need glasses, how is it going to be when you actually fly?
Second, glasses and contacts would be bad during takeoff (doing 6Gs I think?). Also in zero-G, putting on and removing contacts might be a problem.
Besides, if there is an emergency while people are sleeping and you need to evacuate or act quickly, you really don't want to wait for people to find their glasses or put on their contacts.
Maybe once they start hiring hundreds of people, most of whom don't have mission critical-jobs, their standards might be lowered, but in the meantime I don't see why risk it.
and you take a suicide pill N months after landing when your food supplies run out.
On those terms, no. If on the other hand you were to say: "and you take a suicide pill N months after landing if your food supplies run out." I'd do it. In a heartbeat. (Ok, I'd evaluate the mission first to see if that "if" is reasonable).
Trying to establish a permanent colony on Mars would be worth it, I think. Being part of the pioneering group, facing challenges, working on something important and influential. Hell Yes, I'd try it. Going just so some government can claim that "they" were the first to put a man on mars, no.
Having to take a suicide pill if all of our agricultural work fails, it should be a small risk compared to a micrometeorite strike, solar flare, orbital insertion failure, or once in mars, structural failure of the shelter, medical problems with regolith/mars dust, etc. I wouldn't like to depend on continued shipments from earth either
The hardest part would be the lag. No beer and no internet make Eponymous something something...
From their general FAQs:
Are the IBM Lotus Symphony tools different from the embedded productivity tools delivered in IBM Lotus Notes v. 8?
* No. The tools have the same functionality but have different names:
. IBM Lotus Symphony was IBM Productivity tools
. Lotus Symphony Documents was Lotus Documents
. Lotus Symphony Spreadsheets was Lotus Spreadsheets
. Lotus Symphony Presentations was Lotus Presentations
I'm sure there's more than one lawyer in Manhattan that likes the GTA series. If any of you read this, send Rockstar a letter inviting them to use your name and likeness in the game. You get to put screenshots for publicity while at the same time stick it to Thompson.
Imagine the interviews. Jack Thompson claims the lawyer is him, then the camera cuts to you: No, it's me. Look at this screenshot. Here's a signed affidavit saying it's me!
Pity I'm not a lawyer, I'd go for it.
will be a for-profit venture without the emphasis on profit.
Quick! When's the IPO?!?
Or one (top dog/oldest employee) said I won't do it and they threatened to fire him. The other two said, if you fire him we quit.
Having worked there for 10 years there would be enough personal loyalty for this. In fact, they would've watched the company being run into the ground. It would be interesting to hear their story.