The GP2X makers have gone a long way since being accused of not understanding the GPL.
Actually, they still don't understand it. MPlayer is embedded in the GP2X firmware in a modified version (using the custom mpeg decoding hardware), but no source code for it has been released.
The reasons I didn't buy an iPod (I bought a Samsung 2GB flash mp3/ogg reader) are:
1. Couldn't care less about macs. 2. I don't want ANY UI, I just want to mount it as an external drive (either in windows or linux) and put stuff on it. 3. I couldn't care less about ITunes, I don't buy music online. I prefer to buy plain old CDs and rip them (in ogg format). 4. The clickwheel is actually the only interesting feature of the iPod. 5. The iPod is by far the most expensive player in the market, just because of the Apple brand. 6. I doesn't play the format I use most (ogg). 7. The 2GB apple nano is actually HUGE, despite the name.
All in all, I really can't see why iPod is so successful, given all the alternatives...
It doesn't really matters how it was developed; the source code is freely available under GPL. If someone feels they can do better, there is nothing stopping them.
It would be nice if/. posts could briefly introduce what the hell they're talking about... Me, I don't have the slightest idea of what pandora or last.fm are.
A clean and uncluttered interface was the key to Google's search success as well as being the key supplement to their ad brokering business.
No. The key was in its ability to find what you were looking for, leaving lots of irrelevant stuff out of the search result (while all other search engines required a lot of "narrowing", which was done adding more and more "AND" to the query).
Really, it has everything in a handheld game/media machine that a hacker-in-the-old-meaning could want. Except for one thing. The kernel source code.
Actually they didn't release the source code for other modified software either, including MPlayer and SDL (SDL is in the same state as the kernel, an early version, and MPlayer was never released).
I don't think garbage collection implies treating the programmer like an idiot. The programmer's attention is a finite resource that is often better spent on something other than memory management.
I have mixed feelings regarding garbage collection. Sure enough when people are learning how to write programs, it's far better to use a language garbage collection, so that one has to really understand what's happening. Also, having to manually keep track of your data can lead to cleaner code (I know one can write clean code in Java, too, but given the "lazy" nature of people (or the strict timeframes) this is really not too common).
On the other hand, your argument is painfully valid. The programmer's attention (and time) is a finite (and scarce) resource.
We develop documentation (manual, onlinehelp, etc.) and develop our content modular in XML, and publish it to different output formats (PDF, HTML, CHM, etc). In this case XML is an excellent format for storing content.
Ops, of course I should have been more clear. What I meant is that I don't think XML is meant (IMHO) to be used to store MASSIVE amounts of the kind of data you USUALLY store on a DB.
While it can be extremely useful to use XML to represent the data you just extracted from the DB (or the data you are about to insert), saying "we store data as XML natively" sounds to me just a silly marketing campaign.
Talking about native XML databases... My company can't find a decent one, preferably open source.
That's probably because an XML database is NOT a decent idea. XML is NOT meant to be used as a way to store data! Rather, it's a way to communicate data between entities.
Sadly, XML is a one of those words that have the magic power to make marketing people happy. So they put it everywhere. If that doesn't work, they just put more.
I know I'm going almost off-topic, but I think all slashdot readers should know that the much-discussed google-analytics scripts (see here) are included on every page on this site.
Ok, so the service works by adding a snippet of code into your web-pages. Then google registers when someone arrives on that page, where he came from, and lots of other data. So google watches everything, it knows what kind of people visits your site and thus knows a lot both about the site and about the visitors.
I know google has always been concerned about "legitimate" use of their data, but this is somehow frightening...
The ear-plug style headphones (Sony's and Apple's off the top of my head) are very good. Even if noise cancelling isn't built into them - they help substantially in blocking outside noises. That allows the listener to to listen to their music at whatever volume they want. They are really nice when in noisy environments (mowing the lawn and trimming, etc)...
I totally agree, they are not cheap, but your ears will thank you;-)
Personally, I don't "hate" MicroSoft. I just don't trust them.
For example, take the.net and C# stuff. It doesn't look all that bad, it has some great ideas. It's also semi-standardized by ECMA (see for example this and this) and there is also the open and free Mono initiative.
But I just don't trust MS anymore. After all, even the windows API was an ECMA standard, (here) but even so they kept changing and "extending" it to deliberately be sure that their implementation was the only working one (see wine, always running behind the newest stuff). So why should I spend my time to learn something that WILL be obsolete in a year or so (this is just ONE example)?
MS has done just about everything they could to make sure everybody would lose every bit of trust in their action. Some hate is just one of the consequences...
Actually there is a bunch of games in developement based on the D3 engine. They ALL look the same. Maybe it has something to do with the engine itself and the way it uses lights and bump maps etc.
OK but you still have to retain the whole geometry somewhere until the end of the processing, while scanline algorithms can process geometry in a pipeline way (i.e. read-render-discard)
Actually we don't use the bubble sort algorithm even if we have fast hardware, simply because it is inefficient. So we use quicksort and other n*logn algoritms.
There is no use for raytracing, simply because no matter how fast your hardware is, it will always be an inefficient algorithm. Its time complexity is quadratic and its space consuption is linear to the number of primitives. Other algorithms have linear time complexity and constant space consuption. So they are better, no matter what hardware you happen to have.
Bah. Raytracing is not required for good graphics. Pixar's Photorealistic RenderMan didn't even have raytracing until version 11, which came out *after* Monsters, Inc.
Raytracers can easily do hard shadows, reflection, refraction, and order-independent transparency. Today's rasterizers can do almost all that too: hard shadows (stencil shadows), and "good enough" reflections and refractions (using environment maps and shaders).
I totally agree with you. Ray tracing is a totally inefficient algorithm, especially because it ofter requires keeping in memory a good part of the geometry of the scene, while other algorithms can process geometry and discard it immediately.
I would rather see new cards implement something more useful, like curved surfaces processing and real displacement mapping.
Words come and go. A few years ago everybody would have said "don't ask me, check on Yahoo". Then it was "check on Altavista". Then "google for it". Do someone really think this will last forever?
This guy, for example, has a wonderful gallery of computer-generated art. The system he uses is used both to teach programming in a visual way, and to create some great art (some of which was exposed in various museums).
Slashdot Mirror
The GP2X makers have gone a long way since being accused of not understanding the GPL.
Actually, they still don't understand it. MPlayer is embedded in the GP2X firmware in a modified version (using the custom mpeg decoding hardware), but no source code for it has been released.
The reasons I didn't buy an iPod (I bought a Samsung 2GB flash mp3/ogg reader) are:
1. Couldn't care less about macs.
2. I don't want ANY UI, I just want to mount it as an external drive (either in windows or linux) and put stuff on it.
3. I couldn't care less about ITunes, I don't buy music online. I prefer to buy plain old CDs and rip them (in ogg format).
4. The clickwheel is actually the only interesting feature of the iPod.
5. The iPod is by far the most expensive player in the market, just because of the Apple brand.
6. I doesn't play the format I use most (ogg).
7. The 2GB apple nano is actually HUGE, despite the name.
All in all, I really can't see why iPod is so successful, given all the alternatives...
XGL [was] developed behind closed doors by Novell
It doesn't really matters how it was developed; the source code is freely available under GPL. If someone feels they can do better, there is nothing stopping them.
And when the guy with the BFG comes sneeking up, you get a garbage collection
There is no dynamic memory allocation in shaders.
It would be nice if /. posts could briefly introduce what the hell they're talking about...
Me, I don't have the slightest idea of what pandora or last.fm are.
A clean and uncluttered interface was the key to Google's search success as well as being the key supplement to their ad brokering business.
No. The key was in its ability to find what you were looking for, leaving lots of irrelevant stuff out of the search result (while all other search engines required a lot of "narrowing", which was done adding more and more "AND" to the query).
Really, it has everything in a handheld game/media machine that a hacker-in-the-old-meaning could want. Except for one thing. The kernel source code.
Actually they didn't release the source code for other modified software either, including MPlayer and SDL (SDL is in the same state as the kernel, an early version, and MPlayer was never released).
I don't think garbage collection implies treating the programmer like an idiot. The programmer's attention is a finite resource that is often better spent on something other than memory management.
I have mixed feelings regarding garbage collection. Sure enough when people are learning how to write programs, it's far better to use a language garbage collection, so that one has to really understand what's happening. Also, having to manually keep track of your data can lead to cleaner code (I know one can write clean code in Java, too, but given the "lazy" nature of people (or the strict timeframes) this is really not too common).
On the other hand, your argument is painfully valid. The programmer's attention (and time) is a finite (and scarce) resource.
We develop documentation (manual, onlinehelp, etc.) and develop our content modular in XML, and publish it to different output formats (PDF, HTML, CHM, etc). In this case XML is an excellent format for storing content.
Ops, of course I should have been more clear. What I meant is that I don't think XML is meant (IMHO) to be used to store MASSIVE amounts of the kind of data you USUALLY store on a DB.
While it can be extremely useful to use XML to represent the data you just extracted from the DB (or the data you are about to insert), saying "we store data as XML natively" sounds to me just a silly marketing campaign.
Talking about native XML databases... My company can't find a decent one, preferably open source.
That's probably because an XML database is NOT a decent idea. XML is NOT meant to be used as a way to store data! Rather, it's a way to communicate data between entities.
Sadly, XML is a one of those words that have the magic power to make marketing people happy. So they put it everywhere. If that doesn't work, they just put more.
Of course Google and Slashdot are big friends.
For that reason EVERY slashdot page includes the much-discussed google-analytics scripts (see here) are included on every page on this site.
Just check a page source code...
I know I'm going almost off-topic, but I think all slashdot readers should know that the much-discussed google-analytics scripts (see here) are included on every page on this site.
Check the page source and see for yourself.
Ok, so the service works by adding a snippet of code into your web-pages. Then google registers when someone arrives on that page, where he came from, and lots of other data. So google watches everything, it knows what kind of people visits your site and thus knows a lot both about the site and about the visitors.
I know google has always been concerned about "legitimate" use of their data, but this is somehow frightening...
The ear-plug style headphones (Sony's and Apple's off the top of my head) are very good. Even if noise cancelling isn't built into them - they help substantially in blocking outside noises. That allows the listener to to listen to their music at whatever volume they want. They are really nice when in noisy environments (mowing the lawn and trimming, etc)...
;-)
I totally agree, they are not cheap, but your ears will thank you
hm, correct link is
this.
It is to the Gizmo Project as AIM is to Jabber.
h tmlrel=url2html-22255http://www.gizmoproject.com/g izmo-end-user.html>).
BTW, Gizmo uses open standards, but is not open itself (see ahref=http://www.gizmoproject.com/gizmo-end-user.
SIP will (probably) be incorporated into the next gnomeMeeting release.
Personally, I don't "hate" MicroSoft. I just don't trust them.
.net and C# stuff. It doesn't look all that bad, it has some great ideas. It's also semi-standardized by ECMA (see for example this and this) and there is also the open and free Mono initiative.
For example, take the
But I just don't trust MS anymore. After all, even the windows API was an ECMA standard, (here) but even so they kept changing and "extending" it to deliberately be sure that their implementation was the only working one (see wine, always running behind the newest stuff). So why should I spend my time to learn something that WILL be obsolete in a year or so (this is just ONE example)?
MS has done just about everything they could to make sure everybody would lose every bit of trust in their action. Some hate is just one of the consequences...
Actually there is a bunch of games in developement based on the D3 engine. They ALL look the same. Maybe it has something to do with the engine itself and the way it uses lights and bump maps etc.
China and India should work together to dominate the world's tech industry, bringing together Chinese hardware with Indian software.
That's true. They could, and they should.
OK but you still have to retain the whole geometry somewhere until the end of the processing, while scanline algorithms can process geometry in a pipeline way (i.e. read-render-discard)
Actually we don't use the bubble sort algorithm even if we have fast hardware, simply because it is inefficient. So we use quicksort and other n*logn algoritms.
There is no use for raytracing, simply because no matter how fast your hardware is, it will always be an inefficient algorithm. Its time complexity is quadratic and its space consuption is linear to the number of primitives. Other algorithms have linear time complexity and constant space consuption. So they are better, no matter what hardware you happen to have.
Bah. Raytracing is not required for good graphics. Pixar's Photorealistic RenderMan didn't even have raytracing until version 11, which came out *after* Monsters, Inc.
Raytracers can easily do hard shadows, reflection, refraction, and order-independent transparency. Today's rasterizers can do almost all that too: hard shadows (stencil shadows), and "good enough" reflections and refractions (using environment maps and shaders).
I totally agree with you. Ray tracing is a totally inefficient algorithm, especially because it ofter requires keeping in memory a good part of the geometry of the scene, while other algorithms can process geometry and discard it immediately.
I would rather see new cards implement something more useful, like curved surfaces processing and real displacement mapping.
Words come and go. A few years ago everybody would have said "don't ask me, check on Yahoo". Then it was "check on Altavista". Then "google for it". Do someone really think this will last forever?
This guy, for example, has a wonderful gallery of computer-generated art. The system he uses is used both to teach programming in a visual way, and to create some great art (some of which was exposed in various museums).