For my World Civ. general education requirement, I took a manufacturing class called "History of Creativity". The final project could be anything of our choosing, but it had to be about something historical and carried out creatively.
People in past semesters had done 3-D renderings of the Parthenon, etc, but they had only generated still images. I figured I could use WorldCraft 2.0 which came with Half-Life to generate something historical that the user could walk around.
I started with the Globe theater. I dug up some sketches of the new and old buildings, and then set to work. About the time I was ready to start my first real attempt, we covered the Berlin Wall in class.
So, I quickly changed the focus from just walking through a historical monument, to trying to escape from East Berlin. Again, I did pleanty of research and put serveral historically accurate escape routes into the level. Added soldiers, automatic-firing machine guns, etc.
I wrote Valve and Sierra Software to asked them if they could help with the licensing issues, but I never heard back from them. So, with the help of a couple of cracks from www.megagames.com, I was able to put the whole 70MB game (after I removed all the uneccessary sounds and models from the.PAK file), and a webpage I made on the history of the Berlin Wall, on one CD, which I "lent" to my professor for grading. He loved it, gave me a 99 out of 100 on the project, and then returned the CD.
Now the ComSci and Engineering dept. are trying to create a way to use quicktime VR to simutate a walk around campus for new/prospective students. I'm trying to convince them to use something like this instead, and this article should help.
The death tax, as some call it, does not punish the rich. They hire estate managers who the find loop holes to pull the inheritance through unscathed.
A middle of the road family, who received a small amount from their parents will be hit hard. Don't forget that wealth rarely lasts three generationsin this society. Taxes won't really touch the rich, but they will touch the middle class.
Has anyone noticed something interesting? The complete lack of any voices proclaiming that December 31, 2000 is
the _real turn of the century? Odd huh? I haven't heard a single call to celebrate this formal milestone -- even as a
simple excuse to have another party!
Actually, Cuba is officially recognizing this New Year's as the turn of the millenium.
Sitting right next to Shawn Fanning was an independant musician Peter Breinholt. I personally don't like his music, but he's fairly popular in the region.
Anyway, he made a point that Napster is his alternative to Radio. He said that being indy means that he has no chance of radio time, and doesn't appreciate his competition (the labels) trying to shut down a potential distribution channel of his.
Sen. Orrin Hatch seemed to be very impressed with Fanning, and his "collaboration without litigation" speech. Still, everybody but Fanning at the hearing lauded the DMCA and the protection it grants corps to do business on the net.
It seems that people are always amazed at the quality of digital, but then it only points out the glaring short-comings of the media. The pictures of bullets going through apples, etc, we're shot with conventional film, at a much faster speed that 1/1000 of a second.
In fact, they've used electro-magneto shutters, to capture atomic bomb tests at a shutter speed of 1/1,000,000 of a sec.
I'm all for digital. It processes quicker, and is enviromentally clean, but whenever it hits a milestone, those who have never used the traditional media compare the two, and make us all look bad.
..to make sure that people buy the "free" software? I mean, if you bought and registered the OS, they can tell you "Oops, it won't work after three weeks." Otherwise, you have to rely on the net or word of mouth to be that informed.
People say the same thing about digital movies. They look too real.
We are used to seeing light projected through cells onto screens. Some say that film simulates the way the eye dissects images, so it looks better than digital.... Bunk.
People who probably wouldn't stop to help me on the side of the road, will take ten minutes to reply to my stupid newbie questions and walk me through how to compile my LAN driver.
They don't care what race I am, or who I am, for that matter, they just help because they're protected by their anonymity, just like I am.
As for social enlightenment, I can get all the info I want on the web, but what I listen to is my choice. I feel better informed thanks to the internet. You might disagree.
BTW, what would an English-Lit PhD know about the online community (said the French Lit Major).
Bob Young spoke at LinuxWorld Expo in San Jose earlier this year and took aim at Microsoft's "Innovations". He didn't mention M$, Bill Gates, or M$ Word or Excel, but he did mention a Redhat/Dell innovation of building a webserver into the kernel and breaking the hit/sec threshold.
Isn't that basically putting what's most important process into the ram disk to make it run extremely fast?
Issac Asimov - Nine Tomorrows
on
IT Olympics
·
· Score: 2
One of the short stories in Asimov's Nine Tomorrows dealt with future sporting events. One of the characters competed in a metalurgy event. this isn't that far from the mark.
If all you want is a certificate, go to a trade school, or cert. institute and be on your way. If that's what you need, kudos for you.
However, if what you want is a well-rounded, universal education (including some PE), go to a university.
Myself, I'm getting my degree in something totally unrelated to computers, but I am gathering work experience in the tech field. The fact that I'm not a ComSci major has not stopped me from landing high paying interships every summer. I intend to merge these two areas after graduating.
Example: If you study business, but have computer skills, you're more likely to get a higher paying job. If you study humanites, but have computer skills, you're more likely to get a higher paying job etc.
Even more personally, I'm not in school to make more money any more than most of you use Linux so that you can make more money. I'm here to learn, and to learn how to learn. Because of that I find myself catching on to things, including tech issues more painlessly than ever.
If open source is so big, why do articles--even in techie Linux magazines--always cite the same tired old examples: Perl, Apache, Linux kernel,
etc.
How about building a web server into the Kernel, as Redhat just did in a joint effort with Dell, and break the hits-per-second threshold of ALL operating systems?
At LinuxWorldExpo I asked Bob Young about how Open Source fits into Moore's Law. He replied that in the past, software has been holding back the hardware. For instance, there has been hardware too advanced to run our current code on. Now, with the speed of open source, we have software ready to run when the next generation of hardware is released.
Someone told me once that if you plot Moore's law with lines, instead of a curve, then we're at a junction of two of those lines. He was a huge M$ buff, so I didn't bother suggesting that Open Source is the advancement that will change our rate of advancement.
The most memorable zero-G liquid I ever saw was when that guy puked in Apollo 13. I'll never forget what barf look like in space (or at least in NASA's "Vomit Comet".
As a decent software developer, I relish the thought of
someone else questioning my techniques.
I'm returning to school after working at a large company.... I just finished introducing my replacement to the code I've spent the last few months writing/refining. I've never seen so many mistakes in my life - and it was my code!
The idea that large corps don't review their code explains why their click-wrap licenses claim they can't be held accountable for thebugs.
Do you guys really think that a 1.5-hour-long episode of the Simpsons would be funny after the first, maybe 45 minutes? I'm a big Simpsons fan (I even had Simpsons checks) and I had a Franco-Italien Cinema professor who could go on about the cartitian references and the social commentary in the show, but, really...
It reality this might wind up like a Money Python movie - a bunch of gut-busting sketches all tied together. Except that, with the Simpsons, one of their best techniques are the subtle plot twists that almost go unnoticed. The episode never starts out having anything to do with the actual plot. (Case in point.... Springville demolishes the Burns Casino, and the episode is about Homer teaching Flanders to live a little.)
Anyway, I just don't know if a longer, uncut Simpsons episode would really be entertaining. It will be interesting to see what it's rated though.
What was "Saving Private Ryan" rated up there? It's not a sarcastic question - I really don't know.
It seems to me that governing video games as movies (but with a different board than that MPAA) might be a good idea, but there would have to be a universal standard. What get's rated PG-13 in the US should be the same be it a game or a movie.
Of course, you could write a dissortation on the hypocrisy of the ratigns system.
Re:what a tease...No, No, No.
on
LinuxWorld
·
· Score: 1
M$ has deal with most of their manufacturers that they're paid per computer shipped - whether or not it has M$ installed. This makes it ard for anybody to move away from Windows. That's why if you buy from a vendor you pay more.
Finally something I'm actually qualified to speak on!
The difficult part of human communication is that we each start out with a meaning, but have to code that into some sort of text. This text could be verbal or paralinguistic. The text is then transmitted (a vocal emission, a smile, a middle finger, etc), but it is up to the receiver, not the transmitter to find the original meaning. Most of the time the receiver uses their previous knowledge and understanding to circumlocute the meaning.
In programming it's the same. The only difference is that the compiler has no idea what you mean, only what you say. It can't see your grimace when it spams your own account with process confirmation notices, so it doesn't know it's doing anything wrong.
Any language will have this problem. English, more than most, especially American "English", is a mosaic of other languages and cultures. It gets worse with digital media and competing corporations trying to put their own version of jargon across (Refresh vs. Reload).
Personally, as someone who loves to learn and speak languages, I do not feel that having another tongue dominate the tech industry would be bad. However, given our American pride, would we be as quick as, say the Scandinavian countries, to learn someone else's language so we could compete in the Technology field? (Remember when they put up kilometre signs and people shot the daylights out of them?)
I've also heard, but it's not necessarily true, that a Japanese communiqué was dispatched that would have convinced the Americans not to bomb Hiroshima, but due to a double-entendre, the meaning did not get through.
I noticed in Europe that some language are very difficult to understand when they're shouted. English, and German are easier to hear over distances and through noise because of their hard consonants. French, while a beautiful language, is not easily understood when it's shouted.
Slashdot Mirror
People in past semesters had done 3-D renderings of the Parthenon, etc, but they had only generated still images. I figured I could use WorldCraft 2.0 which came with Half-Life to generate something historical that the user could walk around.
I started with the Globe theater. I dug up some sketches of the new and old buildings, and then set to work. About the time I was ready to start my first real attempt, we covered the Berlin Wall in class.
So, I quickly changed the focus from just walking through a historical monument, to trying to escape from East Berlin. Again, I did pleanty of research and put serveral historically accurate escape routes into the level. Added soldiers, automatic-firing machine guns, etc.
I wrote Valve and Sierra Software to asked them if they could help with the licensing issues, but I never heard back from them. So, with the help of a couple of cracks from www.megagames.com, I was able to put the whole 70MB game (after I removed all the uneccessary sounds and models from the .PAK file), and a webpage I made on the history of the Berlin Wall, on one CD, which I "lent" to my professor for grading. He loved it, gave me a 99 out of 100 on the project, and then returned the CD.
Now the ComSci and Engineering dept. are trying to create a way to use quicktime VR to simutate a walk around campus for new/prospective students. I'm trying to convince them to use something like this instead, and this article should help.
A middle of the road family, who received a small amount from their parents will be hit hard. Don't forget that wealth rarely lasts three generationsin this society. Taxes won't really touch the rich, but they will touch the middle class.
Actually, Cuba is officially recognizing this New Year's as the turn of the millenium.
Sen. Orrin Hatch seemed to be very impressed with Fanning, and his "collaboration without litigation" speech. Still, everybody but Fanning at the hearing lauded the DMCA and the protection it grants corps to do business on the net.
In fact, they've used electro-magneto shutters, to capture atomic bomb tests at a shutter speed of 1/1,000,000 of a sec.
I'm all for digital. It processes quicker, and is enviromentally clean, but whenever it hits a milestone, those who have never used the traditional media compare the two, and make us all look bad.
Just a thought.
We are used to seeing light projected through cells onto screens. Some say that film simulates the way the eye dissects images, so it looks better than digital.... Bunk.
It's the same in most entertainment industries. Remeber "Blair Witch Project"?
Or does this responsibility fall on the prior patent holder?
They don't care what race I am, or who I am, for that matter, they just help because they're protected by their anonymity, just like I am.
As for social enlightenment, I can get all the info I want on the web, but what I listen to is my choice. I feel better informed thanks to the internet. You might disagree.
BTW, what would an English-Lit PhD know about the online community (said the French Lit Major).
Isn't that basically putting what's most important process into the ram disk to make it run extremely fast?
One of the short stories in Asimov's Nine Tomorrows dealt with future sporting events. One of the characters competed in a metalurgy event. this isn't that far from the mark.
However, if what you want is a well-rounded, universal education (including some PE), go to a university.
Myself, I'm getting my degree in something totally unrelated to computers, but I am gathering work experience in the tech field. The fact that I'm not a ComSci major has not stopped me from landing high paying interships every summer. I intend to merge these two areas after graduating.
Example: If you study business, but have computer skills, you're more likely to get a higher paying job. If you study humanites, but have computer skills, you're more likely to get a higher paying job etc.
Even more personally, I'm not in school to make more money any more than most of you use Linux so that you can make more money. I'm here to learn, and to learn how to learn. Because of that I find myself catching on to things, including tech issues more painlessly than ever.
How about building a web server into the Kernel, as Redhat just did in a joint effort with Dell, and break the hits-per-second threshold of ALL operating systems?
Someone told me once that if you plot Moore's law with lines, instead of a curve, then we're at a junction of two of those lines. He was a huge M$ buff, so I didn't bother suggesting that Open Source is the advancement that will change our rate of advancement.
The most memorable zero-G liquid I ever saw was when that guy puked in Apollo 13. I'll never forget what barf look like in space (or at least in NASA's "Vomit Comet".
I'm returning to school after working at a large company.... I just finished introducing my replacement to the code I've spent the last few months writing/refining. I've never seen so many mistakes in my life - and it was my code!
The idea that large corps don't review their code explains why their click-wrap licenses claim they can't be held accountable for thebugs.
It reality this might wind up like a Money Python movie - a bunch of gut-busting sketches all tied together. Except that, with the Simpsons, one of their best techniques are the subtle plot twists that almost go unnoticed. The episode never starts out having anything to do with the actual plot. (Case in point.... Springville demolishes the Burns Casino, and the episode is about Homer teaching Flanders to live a little.)
Anyway, I just don't know if a longer, uncut Simpsons episode would really be entertaining. It will be interesting to see what it's rated though.
Will wonders, er...romors never cease?
Isn't this where we get "Vote Early, Vote Often" from?
....would apply for this, and if so, would he even put Daikatana on his resumé.
What was "Saving Private Ryan" rated up there? It's not a sarcastic question - I really don't know.
It seems to me that governing video games as movies (but with a different board than that MPAA) might be a good idea, but there would have to be a universal standard. What get's rated PG-13 in the US should be the same be it a game or a movie.
Of course, you could write a dissortation on the hypocrisy of the ratigns system.
M$ has deal with most of their manufacturers that they're paid per computer shipped - whether or not it has M$ installed. This makes it ard for anybody to move away from Windows. That's why if you buy from a vendor you pay more.
The difficult part of human communication is that we each start out with a meaning, but have to code that into some sort of text. This text could be verbal or paralinguistic. The text is then transmitted (a vocal emission, a smile, a middle finger, etc), but it is up to the receiver, not the transmitter to find the original meaning. Most of the time the receiver uses their previous knowledge and understanding to circumlocute the meaning.
In programming it's the same. The only difference is that the compiler has no idea what you mean, only what you say. It can't see your grimace when it spams your own account with process confirmation notices, so it doesn't know it's doing anything wrong.
Any language will have this problem. English, more than most, especially American "English", is a mosaic of other languages and cultures. It gets worse with digital media and competing corporations trying to put their own version of jargon across (Refresh vs. Reload).
Personally, as someone who loves to learn and speak languages, I do not feel that having another tongue dominate the tech industry would be bad. However, given our American pride, would we be as quick as, say the Scandinavian countries, to learn someone else's language so we could compete in the Technology field? (Remember when they put up kilometre signs and people shot the daylights out of them?)
I noticed in Europe that some language are very difficult to understand when they're shouted. English, and German are easier to hear over distances and through noise because of their hard consonants. French, while a beautiful language, is not easily understood when it's shouted.