I'll second that! That is one feature that is sorely needed. Ditto for the browser. Fortunately, I set up an IMAP server down at work so at least the messages are the same between the two boots. But I still have to replicate the Filter Rules between both Thunderbirds. Very annoying.
I fail to see how such a generally linux-centric site can not see pitfalls in trusting a Microsoft employee to continue to develop something that works in linux and windows. I'm not giving up my python interpreter just yet.
Boy I wish Osama and crew put a system like this into place. It would've been a lot easier to fire a guided cruise missile up his ass, being able to track him no matter where he went and all. I mean, hooray for technology this can only possibly make the world better. Nothing bad can possibly come of this type of action.
* Associate relevant keywords with bookmarks * Natural language bookmarks search and ability to find bookmarks by specifying keywords that are then matched to bookmarks with synonymous keywords matched by wordnet or something similar * Natural language command and question framework, which internally utilizes a list of known questions and commands in a form like: 'User wishes to vist page (page).' 'User wishes (all|only) content [not] containing (contentdescription) to be (blocked|recomposed(exclusively|inclusiveonly)|all owed).' 'How do I find sites?' The program then takes user input, breaks down sentance structure and translates the sentance into one of the synonymous templates above, and plugs the parameters into each templates associated action function, returning the results. For example User enters 'I want all porn to be blocked.': Command gets translated into: 'User wishes (all) content containing (ai_recog_pornographicmaterial) to be (blocked).' which then gets passed to its registered function: content_permission_command(content_port ion,negated,content_recognition_function,action);
For ambiguous commands and questions have the system ask a question back about refinements to the command / question. OK, you get the idea now hopefully. * Perspective recompilation of a page (or set of relevant pages from your relevant bookmarks) which presents an answer to a proposed question in a hyperlinked natural language form, where terms relevant to the proposed perspective can be clicked on for further explanation. Like a local wiki recomposed from pages you are viewing to fit the perspective of the question it is answering. * MOST IMPORTANT ONE : don't do anything AI oriented automatically, make it optional let the people decide for themselves whether they want to use it.
I could be not very cool depending on if the patent situation associated with this "open code." If its heavily patented don't even read it, if you want real open systems.
Why has nobody made an embedded mozilla plugin for IE? Seriously, then everyone could layout their pages and have it work across the board. Also, it could install a shortcut to mozilla on the users desktop, and make a mozilla migration informational program. Beat IE at their own game!
They make the file format, so they can make money off of it. It is not in their best interest, to have a format that can be implemented better on a free platform. This is why they decide new features, to deprecate the superiority of the truly "open" alternatives.
Why do people keep implying that the quality of the free and open source software alternatives is equivalent to the mainstream commercial applications? With a few exceptions, it simply isn't true for any of the big name apps that matter. (Not coincidentally, those exceptions are the ones making serious inroads into the marketplace.)
Although, this is a completely domain specific topic, I'll go out on a limb and say in most cases open source software is at least up to par with closed source alternatives. People often tout missing features in open source software while ignoring the converse. Also, just because something isn't done in exactly the same way doesn't mean that a feature is missing. Open source isn't about emulating closed source, its about providing a viable niche filler with minimal investment.
In terms of usability -- and please understand that usability is everything outside of GeekWorld(TM) -- free software isn't even on the planet where Microsoft, Apple et al live. This was exemplified right here on Slashdot a few days ago, when an article slammed the GIMP for its non-standard interface amongst other things, and a zillion slashbots collectively put their heads in the sand and missed the point.
The GIMP bashing was a case of, "I learned photoshop and now I don't want to learn another new interface" crybaby syndrome. Most people that learn photoshop make a living off using photoshop and showing others how to use photoshop. They feel threatened when they see this new interface (because they are no longer experts with it), and naturally try to discredit it. A case in point: I was showing a couple of my creations to one of our guys that just so happens to be a "Photoshop expert", and as soon as I said that I used a free photoshop alternatve, he immediately got offended and said, "There is no free photoshop alternative." And he stuck with that rather adamently. He is not the only I talked to with this opinion. He is just the most recent one I remember. So given this common disposition, I completely understand every non-GIMP users disdain towards the "non-standard interface" (whatever thats supposed to mean anyways). I, personally, started with Photoshop, and I find the GIMP's interface to be far more natural, that is after you understand the extremely complex concept of right clicking.
The Mozilla project's continued stubborn insistence that W3C standards are more important than being compatible with the browser used by 90+% of surfers, to the extent that their product does not work with a significant number of major web sites, is another fine example.
Well, I use Mozilla and have found that the number of websites that I cannot use, are far and few between. I have actually found more instances of Microsoft's browser not rendering pages correctly. Furthermore, the usage of non-standards compliant web-sites would only put more control in to the hands of the competition, because you would be letting them dictate the spec. Not a very good idea.
As my previous posts will tell you, I'm no apologist for megacorps, but you have to keep these things in perspective. $300 to an individual is a lot of money. $300 to a business is merely the cost of employing somebody useful for a few hours, and the associated overheads. If an alternative software product with poor usability or a missing feature cost those few hours, you've already justified buying the $300 product instead. If the freebie wastes that time twice, it just became a liability.
Ah, the accounting argument. This one I find most realistic. But people always fail to take into account the fact that sooner rather than later, you're going to have to purchase an upgrade or continue your support license. Most software upgrades, both open and closed source, take negligible time (with exceptions in both cases of course) to tweak the configuratios for an updated version. Is it really worth it to keep paying that $300, every year or so, even when you
No, the format is available. But it is absolutely under the control of Macromedia. So I would definetely not call it "open". Also, if I'm not mistaken they only make the previous version of the file spec available. SVG and SMIL are open on the other hand.
Our engines always start out this way. It is not practical to develop across multiple PC APIs or operating systems until the feature set is finalized or we're near to the release of a game. I'm sure that once we're close to releasing a game with this tech that we'll do our usual slate of ports (OpenGL, Linux, Mac, etc.) as per what makes sense based on market condtitions at the time.
This only applies to PC (and Mac) support for next gen console platforms and 64-bit processing are being built-in from the start.
Hope that helps you understand our process.
Mark Rein Epic Games Inc.
-----Original Message----- From: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx To: licensing@epicgames.com <licensing@epicgames.com> Sent: Sun May 23 16:13:39 2004 Subject: Unreal Engine 3 Feature Set Inquiry
Hello Sir or Madam, I am writing this email regarding your Unreal Engine 3 feature set. As this was the only point of contact accessible from your tech page, I would ask that you forward this to the appropriate department if you are not capable, or responsible, for the delivery of these types of answers. According to your unrealtech page for Unreal Engine 3 you state:
Unreal Engine 3 is a complete game development framework for next-generation consoles and DirectX9-equipped PC's, providing the vast array of core technologies, content creation tools, and support infrastructure required by top game developers.
In the past it seemed that your engines have benefitted from high levels of platform independance, but this new engine, as described, looks as if it would be specific to Microsoft based platforms and next-generation console devices. If you could please clarify on the following three points I would greatly appreciate it:
* Does the software still include an OpenGL renderer? * If yes, are there any limitations inherent in using it? * What are your plans for providing the engine on MacOS / Linux? * Do you plan on producing binaries to support AMD64, PPC, or any other PC based instruction sets?
I look forward to hearing your responses. Thank you for your time and cooperation.
Speaking of linux/unreal issues. Have you looked at the Unreal Engine 3 tech page?
Unreal Engine 3 is a complete game development framework for next-generation consoles and DirectX9-equipped PC's, providing the vast array of core technologies, content creation tools, and support infrastructure required by top game developers.
I mean wtf? Sure it looks nice, but are us linux users being betrayed here? I have always supported Epic, but I will fight them with every ounce of my life if they go to being windows only.
The only promising thing I see coming out of this is the SMIL 2.0 support. Macromedia Flash sucks. They have suboptimal support for the unices and Mozilla(they still haven't even released Flash 7), and they have persistently ignored questions on the topic. Hopefully, SMIL 2.0 will replace them soon.
Thanks for expressing a compassionate viewpoint. Now prepare yourself for the onslaught of PETA-hating vegetarian-bashing omnivores who make up the majority of Slashdot posters on subjects like this...
This person is not being a troll. He/she is just being observant.
So exactly how does this help anything when you take into consideration the fact that A BUFFER OVERFLOW WORKS BY OVERFLOWING THE BUFFER INTO EXECUTABLE CODE SPACE, and then the overwritten bytes in the segment already marked as code are executed upon subsequent function call?
How much do you think you'd save that way? $20, maybe? GPUs are usually paired closely with the graphics memory subsystem. I'd guess that GPU + memory amounts to most of the cost of goods in higher end vid card.
The savings would be in less complicated setup. I wasn't suggesting getting rid of its memory, CPUs have caches and these would need a pretty damn good cache of its own.
At this point there isn't much of a market for massive parallel floating point (or integer) performance for anything but 3D graphics, much to the chagrin of CPU makers, so its not clear to me what incentive GPU makers have to produce a more general purpose and more commodified product.
Image/Video/Audio de/compression could easily utilize it. Future desktops with AI technologies especially neural nets could easily use it and experimentation in this area would be promoted because availability of capable hardware. Also, more high quality video/audio interactions would be possible without having to settle for retrofitted extensions to the current CPU model, which was designed more for logical execution than volume throughput anyways. The market isn't here for them because nobody has shown the market its full potential. Once it gets here, it will be here to stay. If we don't try to portray the GPU as the fad that it is, then we will just be relegating ourselves into technological stagnation because we wouldn't be exploring the other areas as quickly as we could otherwise.
Slashdot Mirror
Come on, everyone's doing it. Become a libertarian.
Lookie Microsoft patented the Shatter/Redux method.
I'll second that! That is one feature that is sorely needed. Ditto for the browser. Fortunately, I set up an IMAP server down at work so at least the messages are the same between the two boots. But I still have to replicate the Filter Rules between both Thunderbirds. Very annoying.
I got the same thing using 0.9.2. The only thing earth shattering about it, is the possibility of snatching people's keystrokes.
I fail to see how such a generally linux-centric site can not see pitfalls in trusting a Microsoft employee to continue to develop something that works in linux and windows. I'm not giving up my python interpreter just yet.
Boy I wish Osama and crew put a system like this into place. It would've been a lot easier to fire a guided cruise missile up his ass, being able to track him no matter where he went and all. I mean, hooray for technology this can only possibly make the world better. Nothing bad can possibly come of this type of action.
* Associate relevant keywords with bookmarksl owed).'t ion,negated ,content_recognition_function,action);
* Natural language bookmarks search and ability to find bookmarks by specifying keywords that are then matched to bookmarks with synonymous keywords matched by wordnet or something similar
* Natural language command and question framework, which internally utilizes a list of known questions and commands in a form like:
'User wishes to vist page (page).'
'User wishes (all|only) content [not] containing (contentdescription) to be (blocked|recomposed(exclusively|inclusiveonly)|al
'How do I find sites?'
The program then takes user input, breaks down sentance structure and translates the sentance into one of the synonymous templates above, and plugs the parameters into each templates associated action function, returning the results.
For example User enters 'I want all porn to be blocked.':
Command gets translated into:
'User wishes (all) content containing (ai_recog_pornographicmaterial) to be (blocked).'
which then gets passed to its registered function:
content_permission_command(content_por
For ambiguous commands and questions have the system ask a question back about refinements to the command / question. OK, you get the idea now hopefully.
* Perspective recompilation of a page (or set of relevant pages from your relevant bookmarks) which presents an answer to a proposed question in a hyperlinked natural language form, where terms relevant to the proposed perspective can be clicked on for further explanation. Like a local wiki recomposed from pages you are viewing to fit the perspective of the question it is answering.
* MOST IMPORTANT ONE : don't do anything AI oriented automatically, make it optional let the people decide for themselves whether they want to use it.
I -> It, ...on if the patent... -> ...on if there is a patent...
I could be not very cool depending on if the patent situation associated with this "open code." If its heavily patented don't even read it, if you want real open systems.
You can say to yourself, "Its only a Release Candidate. Maybe I should wait for the actual release to judge its stability."
Why has nobody made an embedded mozilla plugin for IE? Seriously, then everyone could layout their pages and have it work across the board. Also, it could install a shortcut to mozilla on the users desktop, and make a mozilla migration informational program. Beat IE at their own game!
What if he was cradling a gun in his hands, mumbling, "Myyy preeeciousss" while he was walking around. I bet he wouldn't get mugged then.
They make the file format, so they can make money off of it. It is not in their best interest, to have a format that can be implemented better on a free platform. This is why they decide new features, to deprecate the superiority of the truly "open" alternatives.
Why do people keep implying that the quality of the free and open source software alternatives is equivalent to the mainstream commercial applications? With a few exceptions, it simply isn't true for any of the big name apps that matter. (Not coincidentally, those exceptions are the ones making serious inroads into the marketplace.)
Although, this is a completely domain specific topic, I'll go out on a limb and say in most cases open source software is at least up to par with closed source alternatives. People often tout missing features in open source software while ignoring the converse. Also, just because something isn't done in exactly the same way doesn't mean that a feature is missing. Open source isn't about emulating closed source, its about providing a viable niche filler with minimal investment.
In terms of usability -- and please understand that usability is everything outside of GeekWorld(TM) -- free software isn't even on the planet where Microsoft, Apple et al live. This was exemplified right here on Slashdot a few days ago, when an article slammed the GIMP for its non-standard interface amongst other things, and a zillion slashbots collectively put their heads in the sand and missed the point.
The GIMP bashing was a case of, "I learned photoshop and now I don't want to learn another new interface" crybaby syndrome. Most people that learn photoshop make a living off using photoshop and showing others how to use photoshop. They feel threatened when they see this new interface (because they are no longer experts with it), and naturally try to discredit it. A case in point: I was showing a couple of my creations to one of our guys that just so happens to be a "Photoshop expert", and as soon as I said that I used a free photoshop alternatve, he immediately got offended and said, "There is no free photoshop alternative." And he stuck with that rather adamently. He is not the only I talked to with this opinion. He is just the most recent one I remember. So given this common disposition, I completely understand every non-GIMP users disdain towards the "non-standard interface" (whatever thats supposed to mean anyways). I, personally, started with Photoshop, and I find the GIMP's interface to be far more natural, that is after you understand the extremely complex concept of right clicking.
The Mozilla project's continued stubborn insistence that W3C standards are more important than being compatible with the browser used by 90+% of surfers, to the extent that their product does not work with a significant number of major web sites, is another fine example.
Well, I use Mozilla and have found that the number of websites that I cannot use, are far and few between. I have actually found more instances of Microsoft's browser not rendering pages correctly. Furthermore, the usage of non-standards compliant web-sites would only put more control in to the hands of the competition, because you would be letting them dictate the spec. Not a very good idea.
As my previous posts will tell you, I'm no apologist for megacorps, but you have to keep these things in perspective. $300 to an individual is a lot of money. $300 to a business is merely the cost of employing somebody useful for a few hours, and the associated overheads. If an alternative software product with poor usability or a missing feature cost those few hours, you've already justified buying the $300 product instead. If the freebie wastes that time twice, it just became a liability.
Ah, the accounting argument. This one I find most realistic. But people always fail to take into account the fact that sooner rather than later, you're going to have to purchase an upgrade or continue your support license. Most software upgrades, both open and closed source, take negligible time (with exceptions in both cases of course) to tweak the configuratios for an updated version. Is it really worth it to keep paying that $300, every year or so, even when you
No, the format is available. But it is absolutely under the control of Macromedia. So I would definetely not call it "open". Also, if I'm not mistaken they only make the previous version of the file spec available. SVG and SMIL are open on the other hand.
Well, here's the email I got from them:
From: "Mark Rein" <xxxxxxx@epicgames.com>
To: XXXXXXXXXXX
CC: "Jay Wilbur" <xxxxxxx@epicgames.com>
Content-Length: 1857
XXXXXXX,
Our engines always start out this way. It is not practical to develop across multiple PC APIs or operating systems until the feature set is finalized or we're near to the release of a game. I'm sure that once we're close to releasing a game with this tech that we'll do our usual slate of ports (OpenGL, Linux, Mac, etc.) as per what makes sense based on market condtitions at the time.
This only applies to PC (and Mac) support for next gen console platforms and 64-bit processing are being built-in from the start.
Hope that helps you understand our process.
Mark Rein
Epic Games Inc.
-----Original Message-----
From: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
To: licensing@epicgames.com <licensing@epicgames.com>
Sent: Sun May 23 16:13:39 2004
Subject: Unreal Engine 3 Feature Set Inquiry
Hello Sir or Madam,
I am writing this email regarding your Unreal Engine 3 feature set. As this was the only point of contact accessible from your tech page, I would ask that you forward this to the appropriate department if you are not capable, or responsible, for the delivery of these types of answers. According to your unrealtech page for Unreal Engine 3 you state:
Unreal Engine 3 is a complete game development framework for next-generation consoles and DirectX9-equipped PC's, providing the vast array of core technologies, content creation tools, and support infrastructure required by top game developers.
In the past it seemed that your engines have benefitted from high levels of platform independance, but this new engine, as described, looks as if it would be specific to Microsoft based platforms and next-generation console devices. If you could please clarify on the following three points I would greatly appreciate it:
* Does the software still include an OpenGL renderer?
* If yes, are there any limitations inherent in using it?
* What are your plans for providing the engine on MacOS / Linux?
* Do you plan on producing binaries to support AMD64, PPC, or any other PC based instruction sets?
I look forward to hearing your responses. Thank you for your time and cooperation.
Sincerely,
xxxxxxxx
Speaking of linux/unreal issues. Have you looked at the Unreal Engine 3 tech page?
Unreal Engine 3 is a complete game development framework for next-generation consoles and DirectX9-equipped PC's, providing the vast array of core technologies, content creation tools, and support infrastructure required by top game developers.
I mean wtf? Sure it looks nice, but are us linux users being betrayed here? I have always supported Epic, but I will fight them with every ounce of my life if they go to being windows only.
The only promising thing I see coming out of this is the SMIL 2.0 support. Macromedia Flash sucks. They have suboptimal support for the unices and Mozilla(they still haven't even released Flash 7), and they have persistently ignored questions on the topic. Hopefully, SMIL 2.0 will replace them soon.
Because it encourages adoption of open formats, thereby preventing lock in.
Thanks for expressing a compassionate viewpoint. Now prepare yourself for the onslaught of PETA-hating vegetarian-bashing omnivores who make up the majority of Slashdot posters on subjects like this...
This person is not being a troll. He/she is just being observant.
Mad cow disease is bad enough, but MAD CAR disease? Its a plot by Al Qaeda I tells ya!
So exactly how does this help anything when you take into consideration the fact that A BUFFER OVERFLOW WORKS BY OVERFLOWING THE BUFFER INTO EXECUTABLE CODE SPACE, and then the overwritten bytes in the segment already marked as code are executed upon subsequent function call?
As far as hardware goes does anybody have any thoughts on the Osprey 100.
This will only help Microsoft not hurt. Its still promoting their server solutions.
How much do you think you'd save that way? $20, maybe? GPUs are usually paired closely with the graphics memory subsystem. I'd guess that GPU + memory amounts to most of the cost of goods in higher end vid card.
The savings would be in less complicated setup. I wasn't suggesting getting rid of its memory, CPUs have caches and these would need a pretty damn good cache of its own.
At this point there isn't much of a market for massive parallel floating point (or integer) performance for anything but 3D graphics, much to the chagrin of CPU makers, so its not clear to me what incentive GPU makers have to produce a more general purpose and more commodified product.
Image/Video/Audio de/compression could easily utilize it. Future desktops with AI technologies especially neural nets could easily use it and experimentation in this area would be promoted because availability of capable hardware. Also, more high quality video/audio interactions would be possible without having to settle for retrofitted extensions to the current CPU model, which was designed more for logical execution than volume throughput anyways. The market isn't here for them because nobody has shown the market its full potential. Once it gets here, it will be here to stay. If we don't try to portray the GPU as the fad that it is, then we will just be relegating ourselves into technological stagnation because we wouldn't be exploring the other areas as quickly as we could otherwise.