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User: peter303

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  1. SIGGRAPH jobs lists on Getting Into the Games Industry Isn't Easy · · Score: 1

    I get these monthly emails of job openings from SIGGRAPH and they run into the hundreds. They include other types of graphics too, but a fair number of games stuff. Some are more artistic and others are more software, but a decent games person should know some of the other side.

  2. costs a billion dollars on A New Kind of OS · · Score: 1

    A mjor operating system makeover costs a billion dollars (unless you are MicroSoft where it costs five). Examples include Apples incorporation of NextStep, MicroSoft Vista, NT, etc. If you valuate the millions of "free" hours spent contributing to Linux, the Linux OS companies, and installation labeor over the years, thats effectively a billion too. Plus there are the expensive failures like OS/2 and BeOS.
    The cost is probably why we rarely see totally new OSes and mostly tinkering with old ones.

  3. decline of academic standards on Star Trek PhD Thesis Wins Academic Prize · · Score: 1

    This is just another notch in the continuing decline of academic standards. Just like a large fraction of California students cant pass a sixth grade level math test and are refused graduation, all the way up to third rate college professors.

  4. replace sound stages with rich backgrounds on Original Star Trek Getting CGI Makeover · · Score: 1

    One of the chinziest things about the ST was these planet surface scenes
    on a sound stages with cheap plaster rocks and coloured lights. They
    could matt out the actors and superimpose a richer appearing planet surface.

  5. garage-envy? on HP Baited With Cutouts of Founders · · Score: 1

    I'm under the impression Sun is one of the rare billion dollar Palo Alto companies that did not start in a garage :-) HP, Apple, and Google did. Yahoo started in a trailer (Stanford put up lots of trailers after the 1989 earthquake closed 1/4 of the buildings.) Sun started in a grad student's office. I forget where CISCO's first office was.

  6. "make my day" law on Neuroscientist Halts Research to Stop Extremists · · Score: 1

    My state has a "make my day law" that says you can use violent force to stop parties who appear to be using violent force on your property. This law doesnt always stop the D/A from pressing charges. Even when the D/A tries to prosecute the property owner, juries routinely side with the defendent.

  7. the "magic refrigerator" on Heroic IT Dept Less Likely to Steal... Lunches? · · Score: 1

    The guy who steals alot of stuff from our fridge calls it the "magic refrigerator". Its a constant war to keep these sociopaths from doing this.

  8. warez textbooks on Ad-supported Textbooks Are Here · · Score: 1

    Some years ago I read about websites of scanned in textbooks. Some guys in Asia hire cheap labor to scan entire textbook, then charge modest fee for download. Can be profitable in as little as one hundred downloads.
    Has anyone else heard of this?

  9. sitting on cash is bad on Discussing a Private Buyout of Microsoft · · Score: 1

    If a company has cash in the bank rather than investing in its own operations, it is not as efficient at generating profit as it could be. Plus it should be borrowing money to invest. There is some function based on borrowing interest rates and corporate return-on-investment that says the optimum amount of money to borrow. Any compnay sitting on cash is not at the optimum point.

    In the 1980s it was a popular practice to buy cash companies, reorganize them to have them borrowing money. A lot of oil companies were reorganized this way. It appears this trend has resurfaced in 2000s.

  10. US mothballed half its space missions on China and Russia to Launch Joint Mars Mission · · Score: 4, Interesting

    HASA has either suspended or cancelled outright nearly half of its space probe missions due to cost constraints. These compete against the Shuttle Return To Space, the new Orion manned spacecraft, ISS construction, and the presidential Return to the Moon and Mars initiatives. So its nice other countries are picking up the slack.

  11. Re:manufacturing efficiency of carbon fibre? on Video Projector on a Chip? · · Score: 1

    Silly argument. Engineers have been making buildings and roads from silica for millennia. And that has no bearing on nanotech costs just like your carbon analogy.

  12. Yippee: two 20th century icons join forces on Apple Settles Creative Lawsuit for $100 Million · · Score: 1

    What are arguably the two most creative forces in the 20th century- one revolutionized computers, the other rock music- are now going to work together, due sharing a company name. Hopefully together they comquer the out-moded 20th century mechanisms of distributing music, and come up with great solution for the 21st for getting music into hands of fans and compensating the musicians.

  13. embryo still discarded on New Hope for Stem Cell Research · · Score: 1

    Unfortunately any sane potential parent would consider an embryo with even a single cell taken and its outer membrane penetrated not to be as good as untouched embryo and not use it.

    This method has been proposed for very early genetic screening. In practice a missing cell is not noticed in an embryo.

  14. manufacturing efficiency of carbon fibre? on Video Projector on a Chip? · · Score: 2, Informative

    The largest silicon chips approach a billion devices at a cost of $0.0001 cent per device. What is the manufacturing efficiency of carbon fibre?

  15. passports soon required for mexico and canada on E-Passport In the Works · · Score: 1

    I recall the date is Dec. 31, 2006, though there might be exceptions for a few miles across the border.

  16. RFID passports have foil covers on E-Passport In the Works · · Score: 1

    The RFID passtports have to be opened to be read due to protective foil covers. However, here's still alleged advantages of chip compared to a magnetic stripe. Foil covers wont prevent a hotel or bank from reading the chip.

  17. what about food shortages? on Biofuel Production to Cause Water Shortages? · · Score: 1

    I've been reading some people worrying biofuels may compete with food agriculture and result less food reserves and higher food prices. "Lets see, do I eat or drive today?" Some of us geezers remember world wheat shortages in the 1970s and 1980s. I dont know if it was inferior farming methods or periodic famines in communist countries that drove this, but havent heard about serious world wide grain shortages in some time. This in spite that China has now become a net food importer and has really increased its consumption less efficient meat products.

  18. AI at SIGGRAPH on Poker Driving Artificial Intelligence Research · · Score: 1

    I was at the 2006 Boston SIGGRAPH (graphics convention) earlier this month. There were several talks about AI in graphics, particularly video games. The idea was to give game characters more automony. First, you wouldnt have to explicity program every possible scenario- they could make a good guess how to behave. Second, you could avoid predictable repetition. The characters could try something different each time.

  19. $30 billion dollars a bed on ISS Construction Resumes · · Score: 1

    Expensive space dorm in my opinion: $90 billion for three inhabitants. (It was cut to two after the Columbia accident to lessen re-supply needs, but is back to three. Two are needed for minimal maintenance.)

  20. my auto accident on Morphine Relief Without Addiction? · · Score: 1

    I used a morphine derivative for eight days after an auto-accident and did not become addicted. In fact, I wanted off, because it made me too sleepy.

  21. the computer is both the cause and the cure on Korea's Online Aggression a Taste of the Future? · · Score: 1

    In a similar way the computer facilitates plagarism and also detects it, cyber-agression can be detected and supposed by logging and publishing who does what to whom.

  22. USA high school cyber-bullying on Korea's Online Aggression a Taste of the Future? · · Score: 1

    I've read many articles about high school click cyber-bullying.
    In pre-computer days it would have been gossip and shunning.
    Now its cyber-gossip that everyone can read.
    In the flesh the worst is restrained when the bully gets immediate feedback
    from the victims suffering or they come to fisticuffs.
    However these checks are lacking online, and bullies may go further.

  23. new optical delay line memories on The Future & History of the User Interface · · Score: 1

    There are proposals for photonic fiber loops.
    These can hold some obscene amount of storage, like 10^16 bits or something.

    Old technologies re-appear in new forms.

  24. remember tv radiation scare on Kids with Cell Phones, How Young is Too Young? · · Score: 1

    Back in the 50s and 60s some scientists were afraid the radiation from television tubes would harm children watching TV all day. Now we know from how the boomers turned out!

  25. pluton in geology on IAU Proposes 3 New Planets · · Score: 1

    A "pluton" is a geologic term for a volcanic deposit made below the earth's surface, compared to volcanic deposits made above the earth's surface. Most granite mountains such as the Sierra Nevada are plutons. The name comes from the Roman god of the underworld. In the early decades of geology there was a fierce debate as to whether rocks were Neptunian (percipitated from water) or Plutonic (volcanic). It turns out there are geologic processes of both kinds- now called sedimentary and igneous.

    Since pluton is not a commonly used term, I dont think borrowing it in astronomy will matter too much.