If you take the time to read the spec, you'll realize that a lot of what you think is old OpenGL HAS been scrapped. Most of the more complex and kludgy functionality (such as texture management, loading, and mapping) has either been completely revamped, or drawn into the new "programmable" interface (via pixel shaders). Furthermore, they've cleaned up many of the more annoying things (such as the many ways to create objects).
What they're planning to do is have a set of "compatability" functions, for people still using the OpenGL 1.3 standard, but make a "Pure OpenGL 2.0" subset of these commands, plus some new commands, to completely replace the functionality of OpenGL 1.3.
So, in the end, they've done almost what you've recommended in this message, but still with the OpenGL name on it. IIRC NVidia and other graphics corps are behind this as well.
Your arguments are valid, but don't be so quick to scrap the car when all it needs is a tire change and a few engine block repairs:-D
Re:why so negative towards xbox?
on
XBox Released
·
· Score: 2, Informative
Well, at least Sony had a good reason: Nintendo screwed them over.
This is fairly common knowledge, but I'll repeat it here. Sony was once Nintendo's partner when both were working on a CD-ROM Attachment to the Super Nintendo. But Nintendo went on to bluer waters, leaving Sony with a mostly functional CD-ROM/Gaming system. Sony is, of course, put out by this, so instead of deciding to sink the large funds they've put into the system, the add a main processor and archetecture around it, creating the Playstation.
So compared to Microsoft's entering of the arena, Sony's entrance would be considered downright accidental. Who knew it would become the most popular system of the day?
As many of my compatriots have already stated, there is no doubt that Games are art, or have the potential to be. The question for me is: What can Games do as an art, which is different from Movies and Books? The answer is simple, if not a little obvious: The if statement. Although it has been tried with interactive movies and Choose-your-own-adventure books, only in games have truly interactive stories come to some sort of life. The basic difference is the role of the viewer/reader/player in the story world. For both Movies and Books, the user is just a passive observer, seeing exactly what the artist wanted them to see. With games however, leeway is given; they become an active character in the story, which opens up whole new avenues of experience. Very few if any games have taken real advantage of these differences as of now. But I think (or hope perhaps) that as games become a little easier to develop (via more generalized code components) it will become a much more rich medium. For a first glimpse at this sort of thing, check out the 2001 Interactive Fiction Competition
That all depends on exactly why you are doing this. If you are doing this just to get practice on building a basic parser, then you probably want to look at some basic compiler books, or the documentation on the common lexical and parser generators (i.e. Flex and Bison). While that may be useful, remember that correct XML requires a little more work than just parsing (opening and closing tag names must match exactly, etc.). You probably want to read the w3c recommendation, or some annotated version if it.
Alternatively, if you just want to be able to read in XML, there are several free or GPL libraries out there already. The one I'm most familiar with is Xerces, the xml parser for the apache project. You can find it here.
If you are not a CS student, you probably want to make sure you're familiar with some of the basics (a set of languages, basic data structures, etc.) before taking on this sort of project. I'd recommend C++ and its Standard Template Library, but there are many other viable alternatives out there (e.g. C, Python, Java, etc.). There are lots of books which cover this, though none come to mind offhand. If any other reader would like to help, I'd be much obliged.
I hope some of this info helps, and I wish you luck.
This is not necessarily true. The contradiction you suggest implies that no power goes into the creation of the repulsion field. If the power used by the repulsion field is proportional to the weight of the object, then no paradox exists. If on the other hand, the power needed is constant, there is a paradox, since for some arbitrarily heavy object, the energy needed to lift it is less than that which it has in the higher position. Hope that helps.
Just look at www.fileplanet.com. They had (if not still do) a weird flash ad where a shadow passes over the whole web page. Pretty annoying if you ask me. I just want my demos!
What is say is mostly true, but what you are talking about isn't linux proper, but rather linux and all it's support software. At it's core, the design and implementation of the linux kernel and associated modules is quite masterful in the world of Operating Systems. But anything else, including the shell (Command Line or otherwise), compilers, window servers, tools, etc. are only software which run on Linux.
Take a look at NT. At it's base, it has similar features to the Linux kernel. Yes, these are different implementations, and NT certianly has it's problems, but the main features (preemptive multitasking, protected memory, etc) are very similar. What you see visually as NT is just a pretty (or not) graphical shell put on top.
This can also be seen much more clearly in Mac OS X. At it's base, it's a BSD OS (Don't remember which one). Everything you see in the GUI is just a carefully engineered graphical abstraction of the OS. Do new users use Mac OS X? Of course.
Work has been done in Linux to make the distribution more user friendly, especially in the various window managers for X. But these are often designed for power users, with many shortcuts which sometimes need to be used. You see an obvious movement to prevent the systems behaviour from becomming too user friendly (just look at the screams when someone suggests getting rid of the startup message screen). True interface and visual design isn't as flashy of a job has making a cool looking window manager. Someday someone must take it upon themselves to recreate the Linux system's user interface before the users will be drawn in.
So to summarize: Linux as an OS may someday be accepted by users, since it's as good (if not better) an OS than the rest. But you are right in that the current user interface, created by programmers to be used by programmers, will not be tolerated by normal users, and must be partially recreated to fall into normal use.
Every food I've ever seen has at least some group of people who are "incompatable" (i.e. allergic) to it. Sugar, Chocolate, Nuts (my personal curse), all can make people quite ill in the right situations.
Not to say that Humans have done any better. Look at that whole Olestra spectacle, and try to say we're good at this:-)
Well, to be honest, electricity does not travel anywhere near the speed of light. If you look at the actual speed of the individual electrons in the wire, it is actually quite slow. What travels fast is the electric signal. You can think of the situation with a pipe full of water. If the pipe is full, and you start pumping water into one end, water will come out almost instantaniously on the other end.
So, let's assume that the electric signal goes at 2.6 x 10^8 meters/s (as the other poster mentioned). The amount of time you have given is about 4.76 x 10^-12. Multiply that together, and we get a distance of 1.24 x 10^-3 meters, or 1.24 millimeters. Given that the feature size of these transistors is less that 0.1 microns (micrometers), which is 1 x 10^-7 meters, you can see that the maximum distance it can travel in that short time is over 10000 (10^4) times as great than the distance it has to travel over the transistor. Thus it's quite possible to have a 210GHz transistor.
Actually, it was at one time considered against the constitution to levy taxes against the people, although it wasn't a free speech issue. If you check your US history, there is a famous supreme court case (Pollock, 1895) in which Taxes were deemed unconstitutional. Of course, congress just turned around and added the 16th amendment which made taxes constitutional:
"The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several states, and without regard to any census or enumeration."
So Opt-In is the nice and legal way to go, except as pertaining to Taxes:-)
What you're reffering to is the process of nuclear FUSION. Modern nuclear reactors are based on the concept of nuclear FISSION, which is a process where energy is released when a large atom is split into smaller atoms (and a few neutrons). Fusion is where two small atoms are fused together to get energy (and no, this isn't a conservation of energy problem). Much work has been done in the area of nuclear fusion, but as of yet a commercially viable fusion reactor has not been created.
However, a supernovae is not just any fusion reaction. All stars go through fusion their entire lives. It's what keeps them heated. But a supernovae happens when a star starts running out of fuel. I don't know the exact process (I'm sure someone around here does).
So while this supernovae-in-a-can is very cool, it's separate from energy generation as a whole.
My roommate last semester in colledge was at least a form of audiophile. Although his equipment was well around reasonable (he had the frugality representative of many technical profesions) he still complained of the strangest things. The most apparent was his complaint about mp3 audio. He said that there was always a 16KHz tone which always bugged him. I, on the other hand, had never heard it. So one day, we performed a small test.
At the local engineering lab, we hooked up the wave generator to a small speaker, adjusted it to the right volume, and started cranking up the Hertz. My hearing petered out around 14KHz. When we hit 16KHz, several of the nearby people were covering their ears in pain, while others (and myself) were completely unphazed.
Which brings me to my point. I theorize that those people who complain about the quality of audio equipment are probably those with the best hearing among us. Although there are probably a handful which are doing it just for the status symbol ("I have a 140K$ sound system. What do you have?"), I would assume most of them actually can make some sort of differentiation, leaving us people with poor hearing wondering what the heck the problem is.
In that case, I guess good hearing is sort of a curse. IMHO, Never being completely satisfied with a recorded version of a song, being forced to buy fantasically rare and expensive equipment, and so on seems like sort of a personal hell to me.
So, to summarize a final time, Don't knock all those audiophiles out there. We, literally, don't know what we're missing
Yes, in the same way that very few policemen ever have to fire their gun. Normally the threat is enough to dissuade an attacker/intruder. Most people who own guns and know the proper saftey procedures know this. The fact that the set of criminals who were killed in self defense was smaller than that of gun accidents is reasonably irrelevant, since most criminals will flee at the sight of a homeowner with a gun, while people who mishandle weapons will probably continue to do so until they get hurt/killed. It's just common sense that people are stupider when they belive their lives aren't in danger than when they belive they are.
There was a flood in a large city. As the water rose, everyone climbed onto the tops of their roofs. One particularly religous christian started praying
Later, his neighbour passes by with a small speedboat. "Hey," he says "Hop on in, and we'll get out of here."
"No" repiled the man "For I shall be saved by God"
The water continued to rise. Later, an emergency rescue boat passed by, and stopped by the man.
"Quick, get in!" says the captain "You have to get out of here. That water's ice cold!"
"Thank you very much," replied the man "but I still have faith that god will save me."
Once again the boat left. The water rose further and further, until the water was up to his neck, and he could barely stand on his roof anymore. A federal chopper came through, airlifting the remaining survivors.
"Come with me!" said the guy on the end of the rope "There's no way you can survive much longer!"
Sputtering and yelling over the noise of the chopper, the main replied "My faith shall bring me through! God shall save me!"
And so, the man dies. As part of the process, he is allowed to ask god a single question. He steps up to the blinding light and asks "God, why didn't you save me from that awful flood"?
"Hey," says god. "I sent you two boats and a helicopter. Don't come complaining to me now."
I'm another review-writer (for a company which shall remain nameless, for fairness sake). To a degree, I consider a game to have two halves at release: The actual game (the content, the theoretical structure), and the presentation (the actual code an implementation of the structure). Now, sometimes the first can be great, and the second part lousy. This normally results in a game which has a great concept, but has either stability problems, or control problems or whatnot. These are the games which many people thought COULD have been good, except for some small part. However, when the latter is good, but the former is terrible, the game often has no redeeming qualities. Who wants to play a bad game, even if it's as stable as a rock?
I consider Myst 3 to be one of the former (at least according to the text). While the graphics which are to be shown to you are brilliant, and most of the puzzles which they have a great, it still has a host of stability problems. But to be fair, I still think the actual game deserves to be mentioned as part of your review.
Also, from the standpoint of a reviewer, I played the game, and saw no apparent bugs. How am I supposed to rate a stability problem when I don't even see it?
Assuming your work contract keeps you in possession of your side projects (If it doesn't, why would you be working on it?) maybe you could talk to your company, and negotiate some sort of deal, where you sell the rights to sell your product to the company, and then your company sells it (with some of the money going to you) to the client. IANAL, and I don't know if this would create a conflict of interest anywhere, but it's an idea.
Save a life. Eat more cheese
Confusion over Big-O notation
on
Does P = NP?
·
· Score: 1
Many people are talking about how the conversion from NP form A to NP form B would be O(n^2), and the solution would be O(n^6), and thus the whole process would be O(n^8). This is unfortunately wrong. If I remember correctly from Descrete math, each of these are a single step in the function which first coverts to form B, then solves. The correct format is O(max(n^2, n^6)), which in this case is still O(n^6)!
Think of it this way: If we had something of O(n + n^5), as n got arbitrarily large, the n term would be practically negligable(sp?), and thus it could be rewritten O(n^5).
I don't know about you, but I'm behind Napster, the DeCSS guys, and any of the other companies being sued by the MPAA and RIAA. This is NOT because I wan't free music, and it is NOT because I think that things like Napster are perfectly morally legit. The fact is, with the advent of Napster-like peer-to-peer file sharing, the world has changed. However many lawsuits the MPAA has put in it's way, DeCSS and Napster have both opened a pandoras box, which cannot be closed by any amount of paperwork. I believe that these programs are not the death knell of Intellectual Property, but another step in the evolution of the internet. There are ways for the RIAA, MPAA, and individual artists to make money, coexisting with this new trend. But these lawsuits are trying to stop progress in its tracks. I want to see the MPAA and RIAA lose, simply because I want to see what happens next.
You got it. I'm from berkeley, and yes, the same thing happened to me. The so called "Bandwidth cap" is reported to be yet another excuse, administrative jargon for "We don't know what the hell is going on". I got this info from one of the local campus computer people (RCCs for you berklyans). Just annoys the hell out of me that they don't have the guts to say "Hey, we don't know what's going on, but we're working on it". arrrgh.
Well, I can't speak for your school personally, but I know that my school is only using Napster as an excuse. You see, right around the time of the Yahoo DDoS attacks, my schools server went dog slow. The school's admin's knee-jerk reaction was to blame anything which was reported to cause a bandwidth drain, namely Napster. However, even after kicking the top 50 bandwidth users from the network, they still couldn't fix, or figure out, the problem. But they continue to blame Napster even to this day. Check your connection after the shut down (oops, I mean after the "removal of copyrighted material"), and check it. I'll bet it doesn't change one iota.
If you want to read an example of how things can be made easier, read the book Hard Drive by David Pouge. Despite its obvious Macintosh influence (author was editor for a big Macintosh mag), it shows a good example of how a powerful speech engine would help. For example, an instruction like "Merge all the code up to last week, then forward it to all the project members" takes a heck of a lot less time to say than to actually do.
Slashdot Mirror
If you take the time to read the spec, you'll realize that a lot of what you think is old OpenGL HAS been scrapped. Most of the more complex and kludgy functionality (such as texture management, loading, and mapping) has either been completely revamped, or drawn into the new "programmable" interface (via pixel shaders). Furthermore, they've cleaned up many of the more annoying things (such as the many ways to create objects).
:-D
What they're planning to do is have a set of "compatability" functions, for people still using the OpenGL 1.3 standard, but make a "Pure OpenGL 2.0" subset of these commands, plus some new commands, to completely replace the functionality of OpenGL 1.3.
So, in the end, they've done almost what you've recommended in this message, but still with the OpenGL name on it. IIRC NVidia and other graphics corps are behind this as well.
Your arguments are valid, but don't be so quick to scrap the car when all it needs is a tire change and a few engine block repairs
Well, at least Sony had a good reason: Nintendo screwed them over.
This is fairly common knowledge, but I'll repeat it here. Sony was once Nintendo's partner when both were working on a CD-ROM Attachment to the Super Nintendo. But Nintendo went on to bluer waters, leaving Sony with a mostly functional CD-ROM/Gaming system. Sony is, of course, put out by this, so instead of deciding to sink the large funds they've put into the system, the add a main processor and archetecture around it, creating the Playstation.
So compared to Microsoft's entering of the arena, Sony's entrance would be considered downright accidental. Who knew it would become the most popular system of the day?
As many of my compatriots have already stated, there is no doubt that Games are art, or have the potential to be. The question for me is: What can Games do as an art, which is different from Movies and Books? The answer is simple, if not a little obvious: The if statement. Although it has been tried with interactive movies and Choose-your-own-adventure books, only in games have truly interactive stories come to some sort of life. The basic difference is the role of the viewer/reader/player in the story world. For both Movies and Books, the user is just a passive observer, seeing exactly what the artist wanted them to see. With games however, leeway is given; they become an active character in the story, which opens up whole new avenues of experience. Very few if any games have taken real advantage of these differences as of now. But I think (or hope perhaps) that as games become a little easier to develop (via more generalized code components) it will become a much more rich medium. For a first glimpse at this sort of thing, check out the 2001 Interactive Fiction Competition
Perhaps we coiuld call the group Computer Proffessionals United?
Just my ($1)/50
That all depends on exactly why you are doing this. If you are doing this just to get practice on building a basic parser, then you probably want to look at some basic compiler books, or the documentation on the common lexical and parser generators (i.e. Flex and Bison). While that may be useful, remember that correct XML requires a little more work than just parsing (opening and closing tag names must match exactly, etc.). You probably want to read the w3c recommendation, or some annotated version if it.
Alternatively, if you just want to be able to read in XML, there are several free or GPL libraries out there already. The one I'm most familiar with is Xerces, the xml parser for the apache project. You can find it here.
If you are not a CS student, you probably want to make sure you're familiar with some of the basics (a set of languages, basic data structures, etc.) before taking on this sort of project. I'd recommend C++ and its Standard Template Library, but there are many other viable alternatives out there (e.g. C, Python, Java, etc.). There are lots of books which cover this, though none come to mind offhand. If any other reader would like to help, I'd be much obliged.
I hope some of this info helps, and I wish you luck.
"As we start this yearly meeting of the... BZZZZT! General Protection Fault! Please press both cheeks and forehead to reset..."
So, Three Code Reds and a SirCam later, the question just begs to be asked:
Who's calling Whose code "Potentially Viral"?
This is not necessarily true. The contradiction you suggest implies that no power goes into the creation of the repulsion field. If the power used by the repulsion field is proportional to the weight of the object, then no paradox exists. If on the other hand, the power needed is constant, there is a paradox, since for some arbitrarily heavy object, the energy needed to lift it is less than that which it has in the higher position. Hope that helps.
...
take robe
open pocket
take anagesic
Speaking of which, I have a headache...
Save a life. Eat more cheese
Just look at www.fileplanet.com. They had (if not still do) a weird flash ad where a shadow passes over the whole web page. Pretty annoying if you ask me. I just want my demos!
Save a life. Eat more cheese
What is say is mostly true, but what you are talking about isn't linux proper, but rather linux and all it's support software. At it's core, the design and implementation of the linux kernel and associated modules is quite masterful in the world of Operating Systems. But anything else, including the shell (Command Line or otherwise), compilers, window servers, tools, etc. are only software which run on Linux.
Take a look at NT. At it's base, it has similar features to the Linux kernel. Yes, these are different implementations, and NT certianly has it's problems, but the main features (preemptive multitasking, protected memory, etc) are very similar. What you see visually as NT is just a pretty (or not) graphical shell put on top.
This can also be seen much more clearly in Mac OS X. At it's base, it's a BSD OS (Don't remember which one). Everything you see in the GUI is just a carefully engineered graphical abstraction of the OS. Do new users use Mac OS X? Of course.
Work has been done in Linux to make the distribution more user friendly, especially in the various window managers for X. But these are often designed for power users, with many shortcuts which sometimes need to be used. You see an obvious movement to prevent the systems behaviour from becomming too user friendly (just look at the screams when someone suggests getting rid of the startup message screen). True interface and visual design isn't as flashy of a job has making a cool looking window manager. Someday someone must take it upon themselves to recreate the Linux system's user interface before the users will be drawn in.
So to summarize: Linux as an OS may someday be accepted by users, since it's as good (if not better) an OS than the rest. But you are right in that the current user interface, created by programmers to be used by programmers, will not be tolerated by normal users, and must be partially recreated to fall into normal use.
Save a life. Eat more cheese
Every food I've ever seen has at least some group of people who are "incompatable" (i.e. allergic) to it. Sugar, Chocolate, Nuts (my personal curse), all can make people quite ill in the right situations.
:-)
Not to say that Humans have done any better. Look at that whole Olestra spectacle, and try to say we're good at this
Save a life. Eat more cheese
Well, to be honest, electricity does not travel anywhere near the speed of light. If you look at the actual speed of the individual electrons in the wire, it is actually quite slow. What travels fast is the electric signal. You can think of the situation with a pipe full of water. If the pipe is full, and you start pumping water into one end, water will come out almost instantaniously on the other end.
So, let's assume that the electric signal goes at 2.6 x 10^8 meters/s (as the other poster mentioned). The amount of time you have given is about 4.76 x 10^-12. Multiply that together, and we get a distance of 1.24 x 10^-3 meters, or 1.24 millimeters. Given that the feature size of these transistors is less that 0.1 microns (micrometers), which is 1 x 10^-7 meters, you can see that the maximum distance it can travel in that short time is over 10000 (10^4) times as great than the distance it has to travel over the transistor. Thus it's quite possible to have a 210GHz transistor.
Save a life. Eat more cheese
Actually, it was at one time considered against the constitution to levy taxes against the people, although it wasn't a free speech issue. If you check your US history, there is a famous supreme court case (Pollock, 1895) in which Taxes were deemed unconstitutional. Of course, congress just turned around and added the 16th amendment which made taxes constitutional:
:-)
"The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several states, and without regard to any census or enumeration."
So Opt-In is the nice and legal way to go, except as pertaining to Taxes
Save a life. Eat more cheese
What you're reffering to is the process of nuclear FUSION. Modern nuclear reactors are based on the concept of nuclear FISSION, which is a process where energy is released when a large atom is split into smaller atoms (and a few neutrons). Fusion is where two small atoms are fused together to get energy (and no, this isn't a conservation of energy problem). Much work has been done in the area of nuclear fusion, but as of yet a commercially viable fusion reactor has not been created.
However, a supernovae is not just any fusion reaction. All stars go through fusion their entire lives. It's what keeps them heated. But a supernovae happens when a star starts running out of fuel. I don't know the exact process (I'm sure someone around here does).
So while this supernovae-in-a-can is very cool, it's separate from energy generation as a whole.
Save a life. Eat more cheese
My roommate last semester in colledge was at least a form of audiophile. Although his equipment was well around reasonable (he had the frugality representative of many technical profesions) he still complained of the strangest things. The most apparent was his complaint about mp3 audio. He said that there was always a 16KHz tone which always bugged him. I, on the other hand, had never heard it. So one day, we performed a small test.
At the local engineering lab, we hooked up the wave generator to a small speaker, adjusted it to the right volume, and started cranking up the Hertz. My hearing petered out around 14KHz. When we hit 16KHz, several of the nearby people were covering their ears in pain, while others (and myself) were completely unphazed.
Which brings me to my point. I theorize that those people who complain about the quality of audio equipment are probably those with the best hearing among us. Although there are probably a handful which are doing it just for the status symbol ("I have a 140K$ sound system. What do you have?"), I would assume most of them actually can make some sort of differentiation, leaving us people with poor hearing wondering what the heck the problem is.
In that case, I guess good hearing is sort of a curse. IMHO, Never being completely satisfied with a recorded version of a song, being forced to buy fantasically rare and expensive equipment, and so on seems like sort of a personal hell to me.
So, to summarize a final time, Don't knock all those audiophiles out there. We, literally, don't know what we're missing
Save a life. Eat more cheese
Yes, in the same way that very few policemen ever have to fire their gun. Normally the threat is enough to dissuade an attacker/intruder. Most people who own guns and know the proper saftey procedures know this. The fact that the set of criminals who were killed in self defense was smaller than that of gun accidents is reasonably irrelevant, since most criminals will flee at the sight of a homeowner with a gun, while people who mishandle weapons will probably continue to do so until they get hurt/killed. It's just common sense that people are stupider when they belive their lives aren't in danger than when they belive they are.
Save a life. Eat more cheese
There was a flood in a large city. As the water rose, everyone climbed onto the tops of their roofs. One particularly religous christian started praying
Later, his neighbour passes by with a small speedboat. "Hey," he says "Hop on in, and we'll get out of here."
"No" repiled the man "For I shall be saved by God"
The water continued to rise. Later, an emergency rescue boat passed by, and stopped by the man.
"Quick, get in!" says the captain "You have to get out of here. That water's ice cold!"
"Thank you very much," replied the man "but I still have faith that god will save me."
Once again the boat left. The water rose further and further, until the water was up to his neck, and he could barely stand on his roof anymore. A federal chopper came through, airlifting the remaining survivors.
"Come with me!" said the guy on the end of the rope "There's no way you can survive much longer!"
Sputtering and yelling over the noise of the chopper, the main replied "My faith shall bring me through! God shall save me!"
And so, the man dies. As part of the process, he is allowed to ask god a single question. He steps up to the blinding light and asks "God, why didn't you save me from that awful flood"?
"Hey," says god. "I sent you two boats and a helicopter. Don't come complaining to me now."
Save a life. Eat more cheese
I'm another review-writer (for a company which shall remain nameless, for fairness sake). To a degree, I consider a game to have two halves at release: The actual game (the content, the theoretical structure), and the presentation (the actual code an implementation of the structure). Now, sometimes the first can be great, and the second part lousy. This normally results in a game which has a great concept, but has either stability problems, or control problems or whatnot. These are the games which many people thought COULD have been good, except for some small part. However, when the latter is good, but the former is terrible, the game often has no redeeming qualities. Who wants to play a bad game, even if it's as stable as a rock?
I consider Myst 3 to be one of the former (at least according to the text). While the graphics which are to be shown to you are brilliant, and most of the puzzles which they have a great, it still has a host of stability problems. But to be fair, I still think the actual game deserves to be mentioned as part of your review.
Also, from the standpoint of a reviewer, I played the game, and saw no apparent bugs. How am I supposed to rate a stability problem when I don't even see it?
Save a life. Eat more cheese
Assuming your work contract keeps you in possession of your side projects (If it doesn't, why would you be working on it?) maybe you could talk to your company, and negotiate some sort of deal, where you sell the rights to sell your product to the company, and then your company sells it (with some of the money going to you) to the client. IANAL, and I don't know if this would create a conflict of interest anywhere, but it's an idea.
Save a life. Eat more cheese
Many people are talking about how the conversion from NP form A to NP form B would be O(n^2), and the solution would be O(n^6), and thus the whole process would be O(n^8). This is unfortunately wrong. If I remember correctly from Descrete math, each of these are a single step in the function which first coverts to form B, then solves. The correct format is O(max(n^2, n^6)), which in this case is still O(n^6)!
Think of it this way: If we had something of O(n + n^5), as n got arbitrarily large, the n term would be practically negligable(sp?), and thus it could be rewritten O(n^5).
Hope this clears up the issue.
Save a life. Eat more cheese
I don't know about you, but I'm behind Napster, the DeCSS guys, and any of the other companies being sued by the MPAA and RIAA. This is NOT because I wan't free music, and it is NOT because I think that things like Napster are perfectly morally legit. The fact is, with the advent of Napster-like peer-to-peer file sharing, the world has changed. However many lawsuits the MPAA has put in it's way, DeCSS and Napster have both opened a pandoras box, which cannot be closed by any amount of paperwork. I believe that these programs are not the death knell of Intellectual Property, but another step in the evolution of the internet. There are ways for the RIAA, MPAA, and individual artists to make money, coexisting with this new trend. But these lawsuits are trying to stop progress in its tracks. I want to see the MPAA and RIAA lose, simply because I want to see what happens next.
Save a life. Eat more cheese
You got it. I'm from berkeley, and yes, the same thing happened to me. The so called "Bandwidth cap" is reported to be yet another excuse, administrative jargon for "We don't know what the hell is going on". I got this info from one of the local campus computer people (RCCs for you berklyans). Just annoys the hell out of me that they don't have the guts to say "Hey, we don't know what's going on, but we're working on it". arrrgh.
-Naerbnic
Save a life. Eat more cheese
Well, I can't speak for your school personally, but I know that my school is only using Napster as an excuse. You see, right around the time of the Yahoo DDoS attacks, my schools server went dog slow. The school's admin's knee-jerk reaction was to blame anything which was reported to cause a bandwidth drain, namely Napster. However, even after kicking the top 50 bandwidth users from the network, they still couldn't fix, or figure out, the problem. But they continue to blame Napster even to this day. Check your connection after the shut down (oops, I mean after the "removal of copyrighted material"), and check it. I'll bet it doesn't change one iota.
- Naerbnic
Save a life. Eat more cheese
If you want to read an example of how things can be made easier, read the book Hard Drive by David Pouge. Despite its obvious Macintosh influence (author was editor for a big Macintosh mag), it shows a good example of how a powerful speech engine would help. For example, an instruction like "Merge all the code up to last week, then forward it to all the project members" takes a heck of a lot less time to say than to actually do.
Save a life. Eat more cheese.
Save a life. Eat more cheese