The only reason he is given the light of day is because he managed to prove to the Bieberbach conjecture
You must mean "given the time of day". Professional mathematicians have better things to do than expose themselves to the Great Yellow Evil in the Sky.
Wonder how this will effect all the rampant pirating of our wares?
I'm sure it won't affect it at all, although it will probably affect the manufacture of devices it's played on.
For instance, right now you can buy a DVD player in the USA for $40, if not less, because the components to make one are so widely standardized they can be bought at rock-bottom prices.
If China enforces a new format to replace DVDs, they'll have to require manufacturers to build new devices to play the new format -- which won't be as cheap and won't sell as well, if at all.
It'll be little problem for pirate movie sellers to convert overseas movies to the new format, but it'll be harder for manufacturers to get people to buy the new players unless China goes door-to-door to retake people's region-free players.
If anything, widespread piracy will defeat China's effort to impose new standards, because the government won't be able to stop pirates from selling standard DVDs.
Like in most similar cases, you always have the option of burning your protected WMA files to an audio CD-R or CR-RW and then re-ripping them into iTunes as MP3 or AAC. It's not like it's the locked box Microsoft wishes it was.
SCO: Slashdot never told you what happened to your father. LINUX: They told me enough! They told me you killed him! SCO: No, Linux. I am your father! LINUX: NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
Pixar isn't primarily a rendering company, it's a movie studio.
Incorrect. Half the reason Pixar exists is to sell Renderman software, and half the reason they make movies is to showcase its cutting-edge technology.
Pixar's grabbed my attention for the past several years partly because they're constantly pushing the envelope in computer animation -- "Toy Story" was the first of its kind, "Bug's Life" had spectacular nature scenes, "Toy Story 2" was even better at animating humans than the first film, "Monsters, Inc." had hair, and "Finding Nemo" had water and even more realistic animals than before.
So, aside from being Pixar's first all-human(oid) cast of characters, where does "Incredibles" go that no movie has gone before? I'm surprised Slashdot hasn't been buzzing about whatever it is, which really makes me wonder if it's anything at all.
If you watched the DVD for "Spirited Away", you'll note that John Ratzenberger had a part in that one as well and Lasseter regards him as Pixar's unofficial good-luck charm. I say, why not -- it's a kind of easy treasure hunt, like spotting the "Toy Story" models they reuse in every film they make.
The trailer begins: "From the makers of 'Toy Story', 'Monsters, Inc.', and 'Finding Nemo'". It's like everybody forgot that "A Bug's Life" was released in there somewhere and made Pixar a ton of money as well. Yeah, I know it wasn't the success it could have been because "Antz" was released a month before, but still... surely Pixar believes they deserve some credit for it?
I dunno, maybe the fact that it's the only Pixar movie where the villain dies at the end is working against them, or something. I still think it's as good as any of Pixar's other outings, even if they don't.
You joke, but Peter Jackson actually is on record as saying he wants to re-release the LotR movies in HD-DVD format (in whichever format wins the forthcoming war) once he's done tackling "King Kong".
Whenever a new format appears, everything has to get moved to it. Whenever consumers demand more than what they have, they're given the option to pay for it. C'est la capitalism.
Patents are holding developments back. If you have an idea for a better mousetrap build it and sell it. If someone else copies your idea then you'll just have to improve it, or find a way to make it cheaper than them, or whatever.
In your scenario, if I invented a better mousetrap, I could never make money on it because all the big-factory mousetrap manufacturers could just copy my idea without paying me a single cent and proceed to sell it wherever they'd like.
In other words, there'd be no incentive for anybody to invent anything unless they worked for a corporation that could bring it to market fast enough to earn first-mover profits. It'd be the end of non-corporate innovation, period.
Computers of all kinds are making humans dumber in many areas. Most students cannot answer simple questions, like what is 7 times 8?
I'd like to say this is patent stereotyping, but I know better. I substituted for a junior high school math class last year, and had a really good time of it -- mostly because I gave the kids a hard time about their calculators. I would demonstrate sample algebra problems on the overhead projector, and when it came to crunch a few integers -- along the lines of 7 times 8 -- I'd ask the class to do it for me, and at once the entire room would whip out their calculators and punch the keys to get the answer.
So I did the only appropriate thing: insisted they all put those crutches away, called them "pansies" (Monty Python-style accent inserted here), and demanded they do it in their heads or, if they couldn't manage that, on paper. Repeat for a few more classes.
I also corrected the eighth grade textbook's technique on double-checking your point-slope equations by drawing a graph, which was an idiotic way to do it when just plugging in values for your variables was infinitely more accurate.
I've decided that if I ever get to the point where I'm teaching jr. high or high school math full-time, I'm going to ban calculators from the room permanently and give them all weekly quizzes consisting of nothing but two-digit arithmetic problems so that they get over their fear of numbers and actually learn something. In my experience, a kid will never be able to grasp algebra if they can't handle times tables in their head.
The article itself mentions many other uses, including RC cars, digital cameras, etc...
To heck with that. I want to know if the technology scales well enough to be used in cars. If I could recharge my Walkman in thirty seconds, I'm sure it could recharge an electric automobile in the same time it takes me to fill up at BP-Amoco.
The code will take the same resources no matter who wrote it.
Wrong. Code to do the same job can have vastly different resource requirements, depending on how well-optimized it is.
You have to have code that does this SOMEWHERE, and the OS can't just do some magic to make it all go away.
True, but when the process is part of the basic OS you have many advantages of speed and resource consumption -- especially resource consumption, if the code you need to do a thing is already loaded into memory as soon as your OS starts up.
Y'know how IE usually loads faster than Mozilla or Opera on Windows? That's because most of the operating code for IE is loaded by Windows before you even start the browser.
You don't have to "eat up CPU time rerendering each page in miniature" if your OS can take a PNG or PDF snapshot of the page the first time it loads and convert that into a tiny thumbnail in a cache somewhere.
Looks like the problem isn't that the individual identified security flaws in the products, but that he devised and published exploits to take advantage of them.
The difference is analogous to an auto mechanic explaining why flipping a combination of switches will cause your ancient engine to spontaneously combust, and then actually flipping them to prove it to you.
sounds like something that will consume enormous amounts of CPU and memory, while at the same time causing the browser history to display about 75% less information on the screen, in 4 times the space.
I'd agree, if this weren't built using OS X Panther. This browser history map uses thumbnails (and if those thumbnails aren't resizable, they should be in the next version) and simple arrows, probably using the same basic technology as iPhoto 4 does. OS X handles resizable icons and thumbnails as part of the underlying OS; they probably didn't have to create nearly as much code as you might expect.
a more useful implementation could rely on intelligently excerpting web pages, and tracking things like "did I submit a form here" or "did I start a download from this page"... the things we're really trying to remember when visiting our browsing history.
If you submitted a form on page A, then page A+1 will usually indicate that you've done so in some way (at least if the UI designers did their job). I don't think it'll be that hard to deduce if you've downloaded a file from a particular page, either, since it's usually the visual thumbnail of the page you remember rather than the data you got after visiting it.
visual representations are often a crutch for when we simply cannot come up with anything else.
I hope you were using a text-only web browser and a command-line OS when you wrote that. If GUIs are a crutch, then nearly every computer user for the last twenty years is a permanent cripple.
Don't you think it's kind of telling that GUIs have required so many iterations and versions and still people havent managed to learn how to use a computer properly, they're still difficult to use and still people end up not being able to get them to do what they want.
Yet the terminal console is almost unchanged in 30 years. Hmmmm?
Actually, I find it more telling that most people haven't learned how to use a terminal console properly. They're still difficult to use and people end up not being able to get them to do what they want.
Your comment is akin to an old farmer complaining that the real reason agriculture is suffering is because nobody's harvesting grain with a sickle anymore.
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The only reason he is given the light of day is because he managed to prove to the Bieberbach conjecture
You must mean "given the time of day". Professional mathematicians have better things to do than expose themselves to the Great Yellow Evil in the Sky.
...what about DVD+R? Why the heck isn't Apple installing drives compatible with the "other" DVD standard?
I jumped on the CDR bandwagon a bit early, and god burned by it.
Perhaps if you hadn't been stealing music or archiving pr0n, God wouldn't have felt it necessary to smite you with fire for your actions.
erm. except 2.
And don't you find that a bit odd? *rimshot*
Wonder how this will effect all the rampant pirating of our wares?
I'm sure it won't affect it at all, although it will probably affect the manufacture of devices it's played on.
For instance, right now you can buy a DVD player in the USA for $40, if not less, because the components to make one are so widely standardized they can be bought at rock-bottom prices.
If China enforces a new format to replace DVDs, they'll have to require manufacturers to build new devices to play the new format -- which won't be as cheap and won't sell as well, if at all.
It'll be little problem for pirate movie sellers to convert overseas movies to the new format, but it'll be harder for manufacturers to get people to buy the new players unless China goes door-to-door to retake people's region-free players.
If anything, widespread piracy will defeat China's effort to impose new standards, because the government won't be able to stop pirates from selling standard DVDs.
The Jitc version of PearPC runs approximately 1/10-1/15 slower than a real mac.
That's mighty impressive, unless you actually meant "runs approximately 1/10 - 1/15 as fast as a real Mac".
Sorry to niggle, but it's a big difference in meaning.
... but I wish iTunes would support WMA.
Like in most similar cases, you always have the option of burning your protected WMA files to an audio CD-R or CR-RW and then re-ripping them into iTunes as MP3 or AAC. It's not like it's the locked box Microsoft wishes it was.
SCO: Slashdot never told you what happened to your father.
LINUX: They told me enough! They told me you killed him!
SCO: No, Linux. I am your father!
LINUX: NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
Pixar isn't primarily a rendering company, it's a movie studio.
Incorrect. Half the reason Pixar exists is to sell Renderman software, and half the reason they make movies is to showcase its cutting-edge technology.
Pixar's grabbed my attention for the past several years partly because they're constantly pushing the envelope in computer animation -- "Toy Story" was the first of its kind, "Bug's Life" had spectacular nature scenes, "Toy Story 2" was even better at animating humans than the first film, "Monsters, Inc." had hair, and "Finding Nemo" had water and even more realistic animals than before.
So, aside from being Pixar's first all-human(oid) cast of characters, where does "Incredibles" go that no movie has gone before? I'm surprised Slashdot hasn't been buzzing about whatever it is, which really makes me wonder if it's anything at all.
If you watched the DVD for "Spirited Away", you'll note that John Ratzenberger had a part in that one as well and Lasseter regards him as Pixar's unofficial good-luck charm. I say, why not -- it's a kind of easy treasure hunt, like spotting the "Toy Story" models they reuse in every film they make.
The trailer begins: "From the makers of 'Toy Story', 'Monsters, Inc.', and 'Finding Nemo'". It's like everybody forgot that "A Bug's Life" was released in there somewhere and made Pixar a ton of money as well. Yeah, I know it wasn't the success it could have been because "Antz" was released a month before, but still... surely Pixar believes they deserve some credit for it?
I dunno, maybe the fact that it's the only Pixar movie where the villain dies at the end is working against them, or something. I still think it's as good as any of Pixar's other outings, even if they don't.
Myself, I thought of Strong Bad....
You joke, but Peter Jackson actually is on record as saying he wants to re-release the LotR movies in HD-DVD format (in whichever format wins the forthcoming war) once he's done tackling "King Kong".
Whenever a new format appears, everything has to get moved to it. Whenever consumers demand more than what they have, they're given the option to pay for it. C'est la capitalism.
Patents are holding developments back. If you have an idea for a better mousetrap build it and sell it. If someone else copies your idea then you'll just have to improve it, or find a way to make it cheaper than them, or whatever.
In your scenario, if I invented a better mousetrap, I could never make money on it because all the big-factory mousetrap manufacturers could just copy my idea without paying me a single cent and proceed to sell it wherever they'd like.
In other words, there'd be no incentive for anybody to invent anything unless they worked for a corporation that could bring it to market fast enough to earn first-mover profits. It'd be the end of non-corporate innovation, period.
Computers of all kinds are making humans dumber in many areas. Most students cannot answer simple questions, like what is 7 times 8?
I'd like to say this is patent stereotyping, but I know better. I substituted for a junior high school math class last year, and had a really good time of it -- mostly because I gave the kids a hard time about their calculators. I would demonstrate sample algebra problems on the overhead projector, and when it came to crunch a few integers -- along the lines of 7 times 8 -- I'd ask the class to do it for me, and at once the entire room would whip out their calculators and punch the keys to get the answer.
So I did the only appropriate thing: insisted they all put those crutches away, called them "pansies" (Monty Python-style accent inserted here), and demanded they do it in their heads or, if they couldn't manage that, on paper. Repeat for a few more classes.
I also corrected the eighth grade textbook's technique on double-checking your point-slope equations by drawing a graph, which was an idiotic way to do it when just plugging in values for your variables was infinitely more accurate.
I've decided that if I ever get to the point where I'm teaching jr. high or high school math full-time, I'm going to ban calculators from the room permanently and give them all weekly quizzes consisting of nothing but two-digit arithmetic problems so that they get over their fear of numbers and actually learn something. In my experience, a kid will never be able to grasp algebra if they can't handle times tables in their head.
Stopping people hiding information does not force them to have your values.
Well, it does if their values include hiding information from other people.
Aliens, an invasion and Bruce Campbell? They might aswell rename this 'Duke Nukem: The Movie'.
You mean it'll be under development for half a decade and never get past the "vaporscript" stage?
The article itself mentions many other uses, including RC cars, digital cameras, etc...
To heck with that. I want to know if the technology scales well enough to be used in cars. If I could recharge my Walkman in thirty seconds, I'm sure it could recharge an electric automobile in the same time it takes me to fill up at BP-Amoco.
The code will take the same resources no matter who wrote it.
Wrong. Code to do the same job can have vastly different resource requirements, depending on how well-optimized it is.
You have to have code that does this SOMEWHERE, and the OS can't just do some magic to make it all go away.
True, but when the process is part of the basic OS you have many advantages of speed and resource consumption -- especially resource consumption, if the code you need to do a thing is already loaded into memory as soon as your OS starts up.
Y'know how IE usually loads faster than Mozilla or Opera on Windows? That's because most of the operating code for IE is loaded by Windows before you even start the browser.
You don't have to "eat up CPU time rerendering each page in miniature" if your OS can take a PNG or PDF snapshot of the page the first time it loads and convert that into a tiny thumbnail in a cache somewhere.
Unfortunately, it appears that expertise in French law is lacking here at slashdot.
You must be new here. On Slashdot, everyone is a legal expert in everything.
Looks like the problem isn't that the individual identified security flaws in the products, but that he devised and published exploits to take advantage of them.
The difference is analogous to an auto mechanic explaining why flipping a combination of switches will cause your ancient engine to spontaneously combust, and then actually flipping them to prove it to you.
sounds like something that will consume enormous amounts of CPU and memory, while at the same time causing the browser history to display about 75% less information on the screen, in 4 times the space.
I'd agree, if this weren't built using OS X Panther. This browser history map uses thumbnails (and if those thumbnails aren't resizable, they should be in the next version) and simple arrows, probably using the same basic technology as iPhoto 4 does. OS X handles resizable icons and thumbnails as part of the underlying OS; they probably didn't have to create nearly as much code as you might expect.
a more useful implementation could rely on intelligently excerpting web pages, and tracking things like "did I submit a form here" or "did I start a download from this page"... the things we're really trying to remember when visiting our browsing history.
If you submitted a form on page A, then page A+1 will usually indicate that you've done so in some way (at least if the UI designers did their job). I don't think it'll be that hard to deduce if you've downloaded a file from a particular page, either, since it's usually the visual thumbnail of the page you remember rather than the data you got after visiting it.
visual representations are often a crutch for when we simply cannot come up with anything else.
I hope you were using a text-only web browser and a command-line OS when you wrote that. If GUIs are a crutch, then nearly every computer user for the last twenty years is a permanent cripple.
Don't you think it's kind of telling that GUIs have required so many iterations and versions and still people havent managed to learn how to use a computer properly, they're still difficult to use and still people end up not being able to get them to do what they want.
Yet the terminal console is almost unchanged in 30 years. Hmmmm?
Actually, I find it more telling that most people haven't learned how to use a terminal console properly. They're still difficult to use and people end up not being able to get them to do what they want.
Your comment is akin to an old farmer complaining that the real reason agriculture is suffering is because nobody's harvesting grain with a sickle anymore.
Heck, I've had "very small memory" myself since about... um, since... wait a minute...
What was the question again?