"actual work"... "waste of bandwidth"... "frivolous"...
So now _Tridus_ is the one who should decide how bandwidth is used? I'm glad you don't work at my ISP!
It is pretty much useless to try to dictate "legitimate" uses of a school's bandwidth, because there is really no way to effectively distinguish between the good and bad applications' packets.
Any sysadmin worth his salt can cap users bandwidth off at a certain reasonable amount, like based on the upstream pipe and the number of users expected to need to use it simultaneously.
Unfortunately most sysadmins are either lazy or incompetant, hence mass bans of Napster.
I say, cheers to people writing programs to get around the bans. ________________________________
gl style syntax is the horrid syntax you can see in OpenGL, and now in OpenAL. Thing like 'alSource3f'. Game development world on PC has pretty much moved over to classes/interfaces for APIs.
besides the amount of code needed in each case. OpenGL is a state machine, and it's API reflects this. Most if not all hardware (graphics and sound) are all basically register-based state machines, so OpenGL and OpenAL resembles the hardware's characteristics more closely.
Also both are not hardware specific.
I stand corrected. How then do your game developers choose an API to use? Certainly ease of use and portability should play a role!
And as a game developer, I can tell you, we couldn't care less about the API porting across. If we publish on another platform, this takes a fair bit of cash anyway. A programmer to rewrite specific lowlevel code is hardly an issue.
But it doesn't have to be this way. Good programmers will not tie their code to a single platform or a single architecture, especially if they know their program is to be ported later. Writing to spec on a portable API means less money and effort will be needed when the program is eventually ported.
Having a cross-platform sound API is going to be a major timesaver. Perhaps EAX or A3D or DirectSound will be used as the "low-level" guts for the Windows version of OpenAL--who knows! ________________________________
I've just modified the test slightly to give better ratings to people. The way it previously was, was a little insulting. "Average Geek" now covers a wider range:) ________________________________
OK, so I'm responsible for the test... you can all boo me!
I'm working to expand the Slashdot Purity test into a 500-question test, but I need suggestions for questions, and some other ratings (yes, I agree, JonKatz wannabe and Microserf are both lame but I couldnt think of anything funnier)
If you have any suggestions email em to me! ________________________________
Unfortunately, most of the comics that people submitted are stupid, and totally without humor. Go browse the archives. I haven't found one that is even remotely funny or clever.
"90% of everything is crap." I forgot who said that, but it definitely applies to many sites where users submit the content. Let's hope it doesn't get this bad on Slashdot! ________________________________
They had the lone gunmen blabbering on about stock options and IPOs. Learn how to poke a little fun at yourselves, guys! ________________________________
Of course, the number 10,000 is only significant to those of us who use a base-10 numeric system as their preferred counting device.
I would guess that many of us geeks who reed/. are able to count and manipulate numbers more easily in octal or hex, making this story (number 023420 or 2710h) pretty meaningless. ________________________________
I typically will play as a female model if it will give me a competitive advantage, i.e. the bounding box for collisions is smaller, or the model is harder to see at great distances. ________________________________
As far as the Chinese government goes, it doesn't seem like there is much anyone can do about it if they don't live in China (and little anyone who lives there can really do abou it).
But the RIAA, MPAA, and other various "cartels" in the USA can be fought.
As it stands, the Linux DVD project is just a bunch of viewing tools, and filesystem and hardware drivers--not something the average Linux luser is going to be able to put together yet.
What will finally put the nail in the MPAA's coffin is a graphical, userland program that is simple to install, and comparible to the various Windows players out there. Get it into RedHat or one of the other distributions.
Think of it from the journalists' point of view: sure, we can mirror the source all over the place but face it, a bunch of source files is meaningless to a clueless reporter, or worse, to them it means hacker. A full-featured (at least professional looking) application that any luser can install and play DVDs out of the box would really get the point of this lawsuit across to the various journalists and shapers of public opinion.
If you are a bored coder looking for a project, please consider helping the Linux Video project! ________________________________
...remember that the USA government (and governments of many other nations) has a long history of censoring indiscriminately things it doesn't agree with. The various religious groups and corporations who control government think nothing of squashing anything they find offensive or against their interests. ________________________________
IANAL, but to the people who are listed in all of these lawsuits, make backups of everything you need and keep them in someplace secure, like a safe deposit box somewhere.
Even here in the good free USA, the government can and probably will barge into your homes, confiscate everything that looks technical, including your computers, CD's, discs, manuals, CD players, DVD players, etc. etc. They are under no obligation to return your stuff to you, even if you are eventually found not guilty!
Make sure you have backups of important stuff and possibly a computer you can use in the mean-time if they do raid you.
And if you do get raided, don't say a word to them without your attorney there. This should be obvious, but police and government agents can be very intimidating!
I took a look at the released linux drivers posted at Aureal's site and they seem to be violating the stock-GPL lisence they distribute it with!
The driver is released in the form of a single C "wrapper" file that links with the main portion of the driver, which is binary-only. Does this seem to any of you to be a sneaky way to say they are delivering source, but in fact are not?
IANAL, but from what I have always believed the GPL meant, you can't link GPL code with binary-only modules.
Can anyone knowledgable comment on this? ________________________________
This is why we will never see anything open-source come out of Microsoft. The idea of releasing source code in order to create a better program is utterly foreign to Bill Gates. He just doesn't get it.
The whole interview stinks of this pompous "What's mine is mine!" attitude, which is what has made him and Microsoft what it is today. ________________________________
These are robust, time-tested tools for creating software. If a better way existed to manage projects we (programmers in general) would probably have it by now.
I was just recently a member of a team that converted a very large project from Microsoft's hideous Visual Studio project (.dsp) files to autoconf, automake, and make. Why was this done? Because it's easier to use, more flexible (try telling MSVC to run lex and yacc and then compile the output files, using only.dsp files! HA!), and opens the program up to porting to other platforms.
Now on the other hand, if all "Software Carpentry" wants is versions of autoconf and make ported to python, well, I guess it's not that silly, but why would you want to do that? The source code for these programs is extremely portable already. Implementing them in Python gains you nothing.
Slashdot Mirror
"actual work"... "waste of bandwidth"... "frivolous"...
So now _Tridus_ is the one who should decide how bandwidth is used? I'm glad you don't work at my ISP!
It is pretty much useless to try to dictate "legitimate" uses of a school's bandwidth, because there is really no way to effectively distinguish between the good and bad applications' packets.
Any sysadmin worth his salt can cap users bandwidth off at a certain reasonable amount, like based on the upstream pipe and the number of users expected to need to use it simultaneously.
Unfortunately most sysadmins are either lazy or incompetant, hence mass bans of Napster.
I say, cheers to people writing programs to get around the bans.
________________________________
Tax dollars started the ARPA net, provide education, and, if you live in a halfway civilized country, free health insurance.
s/civilized/socialist/
________________________________
gl style syntax is the horrid syntax you can see in OpenGL, and now in OpenAL. Thing like 'alSource3f'. Game development world on PC has pretty much moved over to classes/interfaces for APIs.
Well, I don't really see much difference between
glBegin (GL_TRIANGLES);
glVertex (0,0,0);
glVertex (1,1,0);
glVertex (2,0,0);
glEnd ();
and:
v = &buffer.vertexes[0];
v->x = 0; v->y = 0; v->z = 0; v++;
v->x = 1; v->y = 1; v->z = 0; v++;
v->x = 2; v->y = 0; v->z = 0;
c = &buffer.commands;
c->operation = DRAW_TRIANGLE;
c->vertexes[0] = 0;
x->vertexes[1] = 1;
c->vertexes[2] = 2;
IssueExecuteBuffer (buffer);
besides the amount of code needed in each case. OpenGL is a state machine, and it's API reflects this. Most if not all hardware (graphics and sound) are all basically register-based state machines, so OpenGL and OpenAL resembles the hardware's characteristics more closely.
Also both are not hardware specific.
I stand corrected. How then do your game developers choose an API to use? Certainly ease of use and portability should play a role!
And as a game developer, I can tell you, we couldn't care less about the API porting across. If we publish on another platform, this takes a fair bit of cash anyway. A programmer to rewrite specific lowlevel code is hardly an issue.
But it doesn't have to be this way. Good programmers will not tie their code to a single platform or a single architecture, especially if they know their program is to be ported later. Writing to spec on a portable API means less money and effort will be needed when the program is eventually ported.
Having a cross-platform sound API is going to be a major timesaver. Perhaps EAX or A3D or DirectSound will be used as the "low-level" guts for the Windows version of OpenAL--who knows!
________________________________
Instead of just moderating you down as a troll, I've chosen to respond to this one.
Now WHY do we need a totally new API? Because it's hip to use the totally outdated gl style syntax?
Please explain what "gl style syntax" is and what exactly is outdated about it.
A3D and EAX are here. They are far more well featured. Have had bugs hammered out of them for a long time. This are PROVEN APIs.
Neither of them are open or cross-platform, and AFAIK they are both hardware-specific. This makes them pretty useless to game developers.
As a game developer, why would I want to write to an API supported on only one kind of hardware or one platform? Talk about primitive!
Hopefully A3D and EAX will go the way of RRedline and Glide.
________________________________
I've just modified the test slightly to give better ratings to people. The way it previously was, was a little insulting. "Average Geek" now covers a wider range :)
________________________________
OK, so I'm responsible for the test... you can all boo me!
I'm working to expand the Slashdot Purity test into a 500-question test, but I need suggestions for questions, and some other ratings (yes, I agree, JonKatz wannabe and Microserf are both lame but I couldnt think of anything funnier)
If you have any suggestions email em to me!
________________________________
Unfortunately, most of the comics that people submitted are stupid, and totally without humor. Go browse the archives. I haven't found one that is even remotely funny or clever.
"90% of everything is crap." I forgot who said that, but it definitely applies to many sites where users submit the content. Let's hope it doesn't get this bad on Slashdot!
________________________________
They had the lone gunmen blabbering on about stock options and IPOs. Learn how to poke a little fun at yourselves, guys!
________________________________
So, with a name like Joshua, will it finally let me nuke the Russians?
________________________________
Of course, the number 10,000 is only significant to those of us who use a base-10 numeric system as their preferred counting device.
/. are able to count and manipulate numbers more easily in octal or hex, making this story (number 023420 or 2710h) pretty meaningless.
I would guess that many of us geeks who reed
________________________________
I typically will play as a female model if it will give me a competitive advantage, i.e. the bounding box for collisions is smaller, or the model is harder to see at great distances.
________________________________
As far as the Chinese government goes, it doesn't seem like there is much anyone can do about it if they don't live in China (and little anyone who lives there can really do abou it).
But the RIAA, MPAA, and other various "cartels" in the USA can be fought.
As it stands, the Linux DVD project is just a bunch of viewing tools, and filesystem and hardware drivers--not something the average Linux luser is going to be able to put together yet.
What will finally put the nail in the MPAA's coffin is a graphical, userland program that is simple to install, and comparible to the various Windows players out there. Get it into RedHat or one of the other distributions.
Think of it from the journalists' point of view: sure, we can mirror the source all over the place but face it, a bunch of source files is meaningless to a clueless reporter, or worse, to them it means hacker. A full-featured (at least professional looking) application that any luser can install and play DVDs out of the box would really get the point of this lawsuit across to the various journalists and shapers of public opinion.
If you are a bored coder looking for a project, please consider helping the Linux Video project!
________________________________
Wonder if these guys have ever heard of plain old HTML like the rest of the universe.
Down with style sheets!
________________________________
Check the so-called-CNN link before you moderate up. He is a TROLL.
________________________________
He means, Windowmaker lacks all the eyecandy and useless bloat found in most modern window managers like Enlightenment.
Oh, and modern window managers are not used for anything besides taking screenshots of your desktop.
________________________________
correct.
________________________________
...remember that the USA government (and governments of many other nations) has a long history of censoring indiscriminately things it doesn't agree with. The various religious groups and corporations who control government think nothing of squashing anything they find offensive or against their interests.
________________________________
They should call themselves: b1tChn00g1tZ4nDl33t455b45tRdZf0rM3r1YKn0Wn4Zl0pht
________________________________
IANAL, but to the people who are listed in all of these lawsuits, make backups of everything you need and keep them in someplace secure, like a safe deposit box somewhere.
Even here in the good free USA, the government can and probably will barge into your homes, confiscate everything that looks technical, including your computers, CD's, discs, manuals, CD players, DVD players, etc. etc. They are under no obligation to return your stuff to you, even if you are eventually found not guilty!
Make sure you have backups of important stuff and possibly a computer you can use in the mean-time if they do raid you.
And if you do get raided, don't say a word to them without your attorney there. This should be obvious, but police and government agents can be very intimidating!
________________________________
The link is in the body of this article! That's why I replied to it. linux.aureal.com
________________________________
I took a look at the released linux drivers posted at Aureal's site and they seem to be violating the stock-GPL lisence they distribute it with!
The driver is released in the form of a single C "wrapper" file that links with the main portion of the driver, which is binary-only. Does this seem to any of you to be a sneaky way to say they are delivering source, but in fact are not?
IANAL, but from what I have always believed the GPL meant, you can't link GPL code with binary-only modules.
Can anyone knowledgable comment on this?
________________________________
This is why we will never see anything open-source come out of Microsoft. The idea of releasing source code in order to create a better program is utterly foreign to Bill Gates. He just doesn't get it.
The whole interview stinks of this pompous "What's mine is mine!" attitude, which is what has made him and Microsoft what it is today.
________________________________
There are binary tarballs available:
linux.aureal.com
I haven't tried them yet, though.
________________________________
Someone needs to put an end to anonymous posting.
________________________________
Replace autoconf?
.dsp files! HA!), and opens the program up to porting to other platforms.
Replace make?????
These are robust, time-tested tools for creating software. If a better way existed to manage projects we (programmers in general) would probably have it by now.
I was just recently a member of a team that converted a very large project from Microsoft's hideous Visual Studio project (.dsp) files to autoconf, automake, and make. Why was this done? Because it's easier to use, more flexible (try telling MSVC to run lex and yacc and then compile the output files, using only
Now on the other hand, if all "Software Carpentry" wants is versions of autoconf and make ported to python, well, I guess it's not that silly, but why would you want to do that? The source code for these programs is extremely portable already. Implementing them in Python gains you nothing.
________________________________