He probably means unified shader model which is used on X360. Ie vertex and fragment shaders run on the same processors and this allows more freedom for the developer. (On a GPU for PCs there is currently a part dedicated to execute vertex shaders and one part for fragment shaders. Typically it can handle more fragment shaders than vertex shaders at the same time.)
Besides that there is the point that the X360 GPU sits right on the northbridge which gives it priority access to main memory. Instead of at the end of a interconnector bus as in a PC.
I believe it's mentioned in one of the discussions in those articles you linked but the fundamental problem is that you have one set of data - the game state, and a bunch of threads that work on this. In the end everything, user input, AI, physics and game rules will affect the game state. And some threads like graphics and sound read from this in order to find out what to show/play.
Now the problem is that you need to ensure that you can get a static view of the world when you begin a new iteration. So that you don't render objects from different world state times and similar.
One way to solve problems like this is mentioned in the Ars discussions that is the Timewarp discrete event simulation algorithm. It allows for multiple threads to simulate on the same data set and if threads get into a paradox it rolls their changes back and treat them together. Eg. you can use it to simulate a forest of trees which blow in the wind. Usually you can treat these as separate object and as such use separate threads for all of them. However sometimes two (or more) trees will collide and then you need to undo the simulation steps and figure out what happens.
In a way you start accessing the world data as a database instead of just a data struct. This adds some overhead but also allows you to handle conflics in a robust manner.
BTW the term dynamic thread management system is also know as a scheduler which manages processes in your OS. It's a well know and extremely well researched topic. There is even quite a lot of effort spent on researching how to make programs which essentially take over the OSes function to maximise efficiency on a platform. (Exokernels are an example of this.)
If you find that you want to add content then you can buy a HDD after you buy the core system as well. The final cost is the same as buying the big box from the start (but you won't get the other goodies in the big box like wireless controller and advanced AV pack).
Radial menues are IMHO way better than mouse gestures. For Firefox you can try RadialContext or Easy geastures. Personally I prefer the RadialContext plugin as I find that it's a bit cleaner.
The benefit you get from using radial menues instead of only gestures is that you actually get feedback as you perform the gesture. So if you can't remember the gesture then you can just right click and the menues will guide you through it. Once you know it you no longer need to look at the menues and only do the gesture directly.
I recommend those interested in gestures to take a look at it.
Well with Linux/OSS at least you have a choice, with Windows - not so much. And if you make a valuable contribution then I'm sure that you can get it rolled back into the official release and all of a sudden your new version is supported.
Besides, I'd like to see how often this is actually relevant. Most people don't customize their code, and those that do are typically capable of fixing it themselves.
In Sweden smoking has been banned in all restaurants and bars since this summer. So far I have to say I like it, but it takes some getting used to when you have been out and you don't stink of smoke as you come home. I guess women (or men) with long hair would be even more appreciative of this.
For me smoking in bars/night-clubs never really bothered me. Not the smell anyways. But it is nice that I'm now also saved from drunk idiots who fumble with lit cigarettes on the dance floor.
And in restaurants it's a god send! I absolutely hate it when I'm eating a nice (expensive) meal and someone decides to light up and stink up the place.
To be clear, I'm not glad smoking is banned because of risks with second hand smoking. I'm happy because of the smell and rude behaviour of some smokers (who now have to find new ways to be rude).
It hasn't been much of an issue here. Probably because the tobacco industry isn't as strong (and they don't dare to lobby as openly) and perhaps also because The Market isn't quite as worshipped here.
I second the recommendation of Videolan. It has added benefits of being minimal (I hate GUIs that take up more room than the movie being played) and low system requirements. Often I find that a computer that struggles with WMP or QTP can handle VLAN just fine.
For me I met more interesting people during university than at any other time in my life before that. And the best part is that people tend to gravitate towards their interest so you're much more likely to find good friends with similar interests at university than in school up to that point.
Personally I think the big risk of going only online is that you don't get a chance to develop your social skills. And you social skills are going to be much more important down the line then a lot of the stuff you learn in classes.
You don't have to do face detection on the realtime video in any case. You want to assert that the person isn't simply holding a 2D picture of the owner in front of the camera. That is a much easier problem than what you are proposing. And if they can do realtime face detection/recognision I wouldn't be surprised if they can do something like this as well.
Yes raytracing is pretty parallel. However it is a fundamentally different approach to rendering a 3d scene from rasterizing (what a typical GPU is optimised for). In simple terms rasterizing starts with the 3d scene and transforms and simplifies it until it is easy to draw as a 2d image. Raytracing OTOH starts from 2d image it needs and scans the 3d scene for information to fill each pixel with.
Still, it suprises me that they didn't get a quicker ray tracer than that since I seem to remember reading about realtime raytracers on 3d accelerated hardware. Because while the approaches to rendering differ between these methods the fundamental tools are the same, ie linear algebra.
Look at the ArsTechnica (un)review mentioned in the threads. WinXPTE CAN handle non-printed handwriting. If it can handle complex calligraphy I don't know but it can handle handwriting. (BTW the reviewer at Ars misunderstood this at first, and so you have to look at the end where he revices some of his findings.)
If you read some tablePC blogs/sites then it seems like there are actually a few voice recognision systems that are very capable of understanding your voice.
It also seems like voice regoc. is not such a good input method as it tends to annoy people around you.
Wow, it's just facinating haw incorrect this post is. It just seems like there's no point in even beginning to correct it, but you could start with the other posters suggestion not to confuse Java Applets and PHP server-based CGI.
Wasn't it Walmart that was using WiFi POS systems without encryption before? So that you could park your car in the parking lot, start up your laptop and harvest CC numbers all day long.
It may require that you move the camera around the head a bit. That would take care of this problem. (And might actually make it more secure than similar systems such as iris-scan. Since the iris is pretty 2d anyways.)
True, having a way to correctly confirm your identity on Wiki would seem like "a good thing". I guess Amazon has an idea here with their "Real Name" scheme, where you can let them create your username by supplying your credit card information.
It would be best if you could add other forms of credentials though.
Because a compact flash card (even non micro drives) are on the scale of 10 times larger than memory stick duo?
Incidently they do not have 10 times the capacity nor 1/10th the price.
Of the devices I own which use memory the majority (PDA, mobile phone and PSP) use memory stick. (The PDA uses non-duo sticks as well.) My cameras take SD and compact flash. So I have to own a bunch of formats anyways.
I wouldn't consider "kulturnyheterna" (trans: culture-news) to be a news program. Or rather I wouldn't look on it for political commentary any more than I'd look on the sports for the same.
I don't live in the US so I can't give you any specifics. However perhaps you could use your current SIM or just buy the cheapest phone with pre-paid sim you can find?
Do research for which MIDP phone is best for you. Specifically what java extentions you want to use. Eg JSR-82 is Java Bluetooth, without it you can't use Bluetooth on your phone from MIPD (something which pissed me off when I got my SE T630).
For me the SE k750i was a good choice. In Sweden you can get it for $300-ish without SIM. That's a high-end phone though so I bet that there are cheaper ones too. And I'm not sure how well it'd work in the US (it's triple-band GSM 900/1800/1900 FWIW).
For Sony-Ericsson you need to go to their developer web to get full specifications for what they actually support. I imagine the same is true for many other manufacturers.
Quite simply, programmers are treated poorly in many situations because they're viewed as expendable.
So, unionizing changes that how, exactly?
By grouping together people it becomes easier (or even possible) to make the situation better for all programmers.
Now I realise that the idea of thinking of a group of poeple goes against the American "ME ME ME!" thinking; but by being to egoistic you are making things worse for yourself in the long run. Becuase when it comes down to it you can always find someone that is willing to work for less than you are. And guess what, that means you lose.
Furthermore I don't think you'll see as much extreme unionising in the developer community as with other more "blue collar" workplaces. Even in Sweden (the land of rabid communists and islamic fundamentalist according to Fox) there are a lot of non-unionised developers. Just as you state most people in those occupations have more education and are in general less likely to take some crap than others. But even those that don't get some benefits from unions.
Basically you get someone that is trying to help you when the shit hits the fan. If you get in legal problems with an employer they can help you. If you want help with getting a job (how to act on interviews etc) they can help you. They also help you organise for unemployment pay and pension.
Now you can do all that yourself, but it can also be worth not dealing with it.
Besides, if a company uses the "It's too expensive here, feel sorry for us!" excuse to outsource they are going to outsource anyways. For some reason outsourcing seems most popular in the US which is not the most expensive place to employ people in. Companies in Europe seem to understand that the bottom line on the paper is not necessarily the best way to measure productivity.
Of course, since the market isn't mature enough yet for big developers that means that it's time for home-brewers to step up to the plate.
BTW that you can't download programs is not the fault of MIDP/J2ME. It's because your operator has crippled the phone. I can install midlets on my SE K750i both from memory stick and by drag-n-dropping over Bluetooth.
For a small developer it would problably make more sense to target a few of the best selling phones instead of eveyone. I bet those consumers are more likely to get games as well.
Slashdot Mirror
He probably means unified shader model which is used on X360. Ie vertex and fragment shaders run on the same processors and this allows more freedom for the developer. (On a GPU for PCs there is currently a part dedicated to execute vertex shaders and one part for fragment shaders. Typically it can handle more fragment shaders than vertex shaders at the same time.)
Besides that there is the point that the X360 GPU sits right on the northbridge which gives it priority access to main memory. Instead of at the end of a interconnector bus as in a PC.
But games will still be made to run on computers of today... Which is the point of having a static set of hardware to aim for.
I believe it's mentioned in one of the discussions in those articles you linked but the fundamental problem is that you have one set of data - the game state, and a bunch of threads that work on this. In the end everything, user input, AI, physics and game rules will affect the game state. And some threads like graphics and sound read from this in order to find out what to show/play.
Now the problem is that you need to ensure that you can get a static view of the world when you begin a new iteration. So that you don't render objects from different world state times and similar.
One way to solve problems like this is mentioned in the Ars discussions that is the Timewarp discrete event simulation algorithm. It allows for multiple threads to simulate on the same data set and if threads get into a paradox it rolls their changes back and treat them together. Eg. you can use it to simulate a forest of trees which blow in the wind. Usually you can treat these as separate object and as such use separate threads for all of them. However sometimes two (or more) trees will collide and then you need to undo the simulation steps and figure out what happens.
In a way you start accessing the world data as a database instead of just a data struct. This adds some overhead but also allows you to handle conflics in a robust manner.
BTW the term dynamic thread management system is also know as a scheduler which manages processes in your OS. It's a well know and extremely well researched topic. There is even quite a lot of effort spent on researching how to make programs which essentially take over the OSes function to maximise efficiency on a platform. (Exokernels are an example of this.)
If you find that you want to add content then you can buy a HDD after you buy the core system as well. The final cost is the same as buying the big box from the start (but you won't get the other goodies in the big box like wireless controller and advanced AV pack).
Radial menues are IMHO way better than mouse gestures. For Firefox you can try RadialContext or Easy geastures. Personally I prefer the RadialContext plugin as I find that it's a bit cleaner.
The benefit you get from using radial menues instead of only gestures is that you actually get feedback as you perform the gesture. So if you can't remember the gesture then you can just right click and the menues will guide you through it. Once you know it you no longer need to look at the menues and only do the gesture directly.
I recommend those interested in gestures to take a look at it.
Well with Linux/OSS at least you have a choice, with Windows - not so much. And if you make a valuable contribution then I'm sure that you can get it rolled back into the official release and all of a sudden your new version is supported.
Besides, I'd like to see how often this is actually relevant. Most people don't customize their code, and those that do are typically capable of fixing it themselves.
It's just a straw-man attack att OSS.
Your problem is that your 1.2.3 steps should be more like
. html and come back when you have some coherent complaints.
1. Promorial soup
2. for billions of years do:
a. random mutate
b. destroy bad mutations
3. People!!!!
Then read http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/faqs-evolution
In Sweden smoking has been banned in all restaurants and bars since this summer. So far I have to say I like it, but it takes some getting used to when you have been out and you don't stink of smoke as you come home. I guess women (or men) with long hair would be even more appreciative of this.
For me smoking in bars/night-clubs never really bothered me. Not the smell anyways. But it is nice that I'm now also saved from drunk idiots who fumble with lit cigarettes on the dance floor.
And in restaurants it's a god send! I absolutely hate it when I'm eating a nice (expensive) meal and someone decides to light up and stink up the place.
To be clear, I'm not glad smoking is banned because of risks with second hand smoking. I'm happy because of the smell and rude behaviour of some smokers (who now have to find new ways to be rude).
It hasn't been much of an issue here. Probably because the tobacco industry isn't as strong (and they don't dare to lobby as openly) and perhaps also because The Market isn't quite as worshipped here.
I second the recommendation of Videolan. It has added benefits of being minimal (I hate GUIs that take up more room than the movie being played) and low system requirements. Often I find that a computer that struggles with WMP or QTP can handle VLAN just fine.
If you go to a crappy university perhaps.
For me I met more interesting people during university than at any other time in my life before that. And the best part is that people tend to gravitate towards their interest so you're much more likely to find good friends with similar interests at university than in school up to that point.
Personally I think the big risk of going only online is that you don't get a chance to develop your social skills. And you social skills are going to be much more important down the line then a lot of the stuff you learn in classes.
Not really, I've seen demos for things like this.
You don't have to do face detection on the realtime video in any case. You want to assert that the person isn't simply holding a 2D picture of the owner in front of the camera. That is a much easier problem than what you are proposing. And if they can do realtime face detection/recognision I wouldn't be surprised if they can do something like this as well.
Yes raytracing is pretty parallel. However it is a fundamentally different approach to rendering a 3d scene from rasterizing (what a typical GPU is optimised for). In simple terms rasterizing starts with the 3d scene and transforms and simplifies it until it is easy to draw as a 2d image. Raytracing OTOH starts from 2d image it needs and scans the 3d scene for information to fill each pixel with.
Still, it suprises me that they didn't get a quicker ray tracer than that since I seem to remember reading about realtime raytracers on 3d accelerated hardware. Because while the approaches to rendering differ between these methods the fundamental tools are the same, ie linear algebra.
Look at the ArsTechnica (un)review mentioned in the threads. WinXPTE CAN handle non-printed handwriting. If it can handle complex calligraphy I don't know but it can handle handwriting. (BTW the reviewer at Ars misunderstood this at first, and so you have to look at the end where he revices some of his findings.)
If you read some tablePC blogs/sites then it seems like there are actually a few voice recognision systems that are very capable of understanding your voice.
It also seems like voice regoc. is not such a good input method as it tends to annoy people around you.
Now this is a pet-peeve of mine... But why on earth did you write picassa (sic) with double "s" when you in the link below spelled it correctly?
Wow, it's just facinating haw incorrect this post is. It just seems like there's no point in even beginning to correct it, but you could start with the other posters suggestion not to confuse Java Applets and PHP server-based CGI.
Wasn't it Walmart that was using WiFi POS systems without encryption before? So that you could park your car in the parking lot, start up your laptop and harvest CC numbers all day long.
It may require that you move the camera around the head a bit. That would take care of this problem. (And might actually make it more secure than similar systems such as iris-scan. Since the iris is pretty 2d anyways.)
Nah, it'll never get off the ground.
True, having a way to correctly confirm your identity on Wiki would seem like "a good thing". I guess Amazon has an idea here with their "Real Name" scheme, where you can let them create your username by supplying your credit card information.
It would be best if you could add other forms of credentials though.
Because a compact flash card (even non micro drives) are on the scale of 10 times larger than memory stick duo?
Incidently they do not have 10 times the capacity nor 1/10th the price.
Of the devices I own which use memory the majority (PDA, mobile phone and PSP) use memory stick. (The PDA uses non-duo sticks as well.) My cameras take SD and compact flash. So I have to own a bunch of formats anyways.
I wouldn't consider "kulturnyheterna" (trans: culture-news) to be a news program. Or rather I wouldn't look on it for political commentary any more than I'd look on the sports for the same.
I don't live in the US so I can't give you any specifics. However perhaps you could use your current SIM or just buy the cheapest phone with pre-paid sim you can find?
Do research for which MIDP phone is best for you. Specifically what java extentions you want to use. Eg JSR-82 is Java Bluetooth, without it you can't use Bluetooth on your phone from MIPD (something which pissed me off when I got my SE T630).
For me the SE k750i was a good choice. In Sweden you can get it for $300-ish without SIM. That's a high-end phone though so I bet that there are cheaper ones too. And I'm not sure how well it'd work in the US (it's triple-band GSM 900/1800/1900 FWIW).
For Sony-Ericsson you need to go to their developer web to get full specifications for what they actually support. I imagine the same is true for many other manufacturers.
By grouping together people it becomes easier (or even possible) to make the situation better for all programmers.
Now I realise that the idea of thinking of a group of poeple goes against the American "ME ME ME!" thinking; but by being to egoistic you are making things worse for yourself in the long run. Becuase when it comes down to it you can always find someone that is willing to work for less than you are. And guess what, that means you lose.
Furthermore I don't think you'll see as much extreme unionising in the developer community as with other more "blue collar" workplaces. Even in Sweden (the land of rabid communists and islamic fundamentalist according to Fox) there are a lot of non-unionised developers. Just as you state most people in those occupations have more education and are in general less likely to take some crap than others. But even those that don't get some benefits from unions.
Basically you get someone that is trying to help you when the shit hits the fan. If you get in legal problems with an employer they can help you. If you want help with getting a job (how to act on interviews etc) they can help you. They also help you organise for unemployment pay and pension.
Now you can do all that yourself, but it can also be worth not dealing with it.
Besides, if a company uses the "It's too expensive here, feel sorry for us!" excuse to outsource they are going to outsource anyways. For some reason outsourcing seems most popular in the US which is not the most expensive place to employ people in. Companies in Europe seem to understand that the bottom line on the paper is not necessarily the best way to measure productivity.
I guess it's the "Me me me!" thing again.
Of course, since the market isn't mature enough yet for big developers that means that it's time for home-brewers to step up to the plate.
BTW that you can't download programs is not the fault of MIDP/J2ME. It's because your operator has crippled the phone. I can install midlets on my SE K750i both from memory stick and by drag-n-dropping over Bluetooth.
For a small developer it would problably make more sense to target a few of the best selling phones instead of eveyone. I bet those consumers are more likely to get games as well.