Seen this group at international CAD conference
in Atlanta. This work was a show stopper when
demonstrated, but was in effect one card
in a deck of very innovative blends of
visualisation and modeling.
Showman like crowd pleasers in this piece were
spatial/ambient noises --- cows mooing etc;-),
and... yes rocket launcher action.
Cheers,
Andrew
However, there was also interesting stuff wrt
actually getting the CAD model in and down
converting to the different set of constraints.
Also, the use of prerendering for the lighting.
You cannot go past AUCTeX. When combined with reftex, bibtex, and ghostview or xdvi set to watch the output, you have a superior system for entering LaTeX marked up text.
AUCTeX itself is a replacement for the default TeX modes in emacs. It helps you by balancing environment delimters, knowing the syntax of macros and environments prompting you (e.g., you can make the \ an electric key), indenting LaTeX source, controlling the compile process, etc.
You can try searching for a file like auctex-9.9p.tgz on your favourite archive. It is pretty easy to install. It is also an interesting piece of emacs lisp, making much use of hooks for the various LaTeX styles and packages. You can therefore, get into hacking emacs lisp to match your hacked LaTeX class files which can be quite rewarding.
Reftex is another emacs minor mode to assist you with labels and references in your LaTeX source, including bibtex citations. Its highlights are automatic generation of labels, outline modes for quickly retrieving labels, and a good system for using regular expression search when selecting entries from your bibtex databases.
Not the case. Of course all ecosystems are somewhat isolated, but to imagine that this renders there inhabitants "weak" is a distortion of the process of evolution. In a nutshell: ecosystems evolve not just the individual species within them. Any ecosystem is a large and complex solution to an unique set of problems. Within any such large and complex solution there will be points that are easily exploited by aggressive newcomers. This is not to say there is something wrong with the ecosystem.
In any case, one of the interesting points about the Australian ecosystem is that it has not been isolated from all placental mammals. This is not the reason (as the poster suggests) for low energy use marsupials and reptiles predominating. The standout example is the bat. Given pig like animals evolved into whales and apes into humans, over the past few million years, it is implausible that "superior" placental mammals such as bats would not have evolved into niches in the Australian ecosystem unless the marsupials had some advantage.
In the Australian ecosystem energy efficient marsupials have proven to be the superior solution over _evolutionary time_. In the short term placental mammals will disturb the balance of the system, but there is already evidence that these animals are adapting to Australian conditions. In particular, rabbits with smaller litters. How long before they are competing directly with the more highly atuned marsupial reproductive system?
Except off course that the marsupial tiger is a native of Australia, and one of the very few mammalian predators.
In fact, Tim Flannery (author of the Future Eaters) goes so far as to suggest that the Australian ecosystem is in bad need of predators to replace those made extinct. His two suggestions being the reintroduction of Tasmanian Devils to compete/consume foxes, and also Komono dragons to replace the great reptilian predators lost early in human settlement.
Slashdot Mirror
Seen this group at international CAD conference
;-),
... yes rocket launcher action.
in Atlanta. This work was a show stopper when
demonstrated, but was in effect one card
in a deck of very innovative blends of
visualisation and modeling.
Showman like crowd pleasers in this piece were
spatial/ambient noises --- cows mooing etc
and
Cheers,
Andrew
However, there was also interesting stuff wrt
actually getting the CAD model in and down
converting to the different set of constraints.
Also, the use of prerendering for the lighting.
You cannot go past AUCTeX. When combined with reftex, bibtex, and ghostview or xdvi set to watch the output, you have a superior system for entering LaTeX marked up text.
AUCTeX itself is a replacement for the default TeX modes in emacs. It helps you by balancing environment delimters, knowing the syntax of macros and environments prompting you (e.g., you can make the \ an electric key), indenting LaTeX source, controlling the compile process, etc.
You can try searching for a file like auctex-9.9p.tgz on your favourite archive. It is pretty easy to install. It is also an interesting piece of emacs lisp, making much use of hooks for the various LaTeX styles and packages. You can therefore, get into hacking emacs lisp to match your hacked LaTeX class files which can be quite rewarding.
Reftex is another emacs minor mode to assist you with labels and references in your LaTeX source, including bibtex citations. Its highlights are automatic generation of labels, outline modes for quickly retrieving labels, and a good system for using regular expression search when selecting entries from your bibtex databases.
Not the case. Of course all ecosystems are somewhat isolated, but to imagine that this renders there inhabitants "weak" is a distortion of the process of evolution. In a nutshell: ecosystems evolve not just the individual species within them. Any ecosystem is a large and complex solution to an unique set of problems. Within any such large and complex solution there will be points that are easily exploited by aggressive newcomers. This is not to say there is something wrong with the ecosystem.
In any case, one of the interesting points about the Australian ecosystem is that it has not been isolated from all placental mammals. This is not the reason (as the poster suggests) for low energy use marsupials and reptiles predominating. The standout example is the bat. Given pig like animals evolved into whales and apes into humans, over the past few million years, it is implausible that "superior" placental mammals such as bats would not have evolved into niches in the Australian ecosystem unless the marsupials had some advantage.
In the Australian ecosystem energy efficient marsupials have proven to be the superior solution over _evolutionary time_. In the short term placental mammals will disturb the balance of the system, but there is already evidence that these animals are adapting to Australian conditions. In particular, rabbits with smaller litters. How long before they are competing directly with the more highly atuned marsupial reproductive system?
Except off course that the marsupial tiger is a native of Australia, and one of the very few mammalian predators.
In fact, Tim Flannery (author of the Future Eaters) goes so far as to suggest that the Australian ecosystem is in bad need of predators to replace those made extinct. His two suggestions being the reintroduction of Tasmanian Devils to compete/consume foxes, and also Komono dragons to replace the great reptilian predators lost early in human settlement.