I saw something new in 3D displays today....
on
3D Monitor
·
· Score: 1
I'm at SIGGRAPH, and I've seen the Sharp 3D displays before and a lot of them here again... and they really suck. You get a headache just looking at them.
BUT... I saw an display, and the scientist who developed it, that uses an entirely different technology. And it created a rock-solid 3D display. Not a stereoscopic display... a 3D image. As you moved your head left and right you saw a different perspective on the image!
It uses some sort of lense system, rather than a mask like Sharp, that directs the the images to the different yes. In the case of the model they were showing, it was 9 different images per frame. Sucks for frame-rate of a game, but for other things it was pretty sweet.
You can stare it it pretty much indefinitely and it's not sensitive to where you stand or how you move your head. There is a slight blur as you move between the different spots where you see the angles, but that's only because there are only 9 images in that particular prototype. With more images, that goes away (I am told by the inventor).
The mfg was not clear, I think it was IBM. But they might just be using IBM LCDs. I have to go back and see... I was too stunned by the image quality and forgot to see who made it. Tomorrow, I'll go back to the expo and find out. It's really oustanding!
The current model is $20,000. Useful for scientific applications and such. In five years, it should be consumer level.
But before that, they will be making full theatrical projectors. They are already working on it and have made progress. It's real 3D without glasses that doesn't make your head or eyes hurt. The only problem... someone on the left side of the theater literally sees the action from a different angle than someone on the right. So the whole process of cinematogrphy has to be rethought to take that into consideration.
I have no idea what a "pontless cover letter" is, but sure as heck know what a pointless resume is. More tot he point, do you really want to work for a place that doesn't even have a clue?:)
We, for one, hire coders (and others) who have no prior work experience. In fact, that is my prefered choice. And I'll tell you why.
First, let me be clear... no prior work experience doesn't mean we hire people with no talent. It's just that we don't count of a long resume as an indication that someone is without merit. That's just laziness (or necessity, time being money in the hiring process).
What we look for is someone who knows what they are doing and can demonstrate that to is in their resume cover letter, and ultimately at one of our interviews. We won't ask any of the stupid Microsoft questions except to see if you've been to the web site that has the answers accumulated (grin). But we will put you through a tough interview that focues on your ability to write code. If you can do that, it's a walk in the park. If you can't, we'll both know it's not a match real quick. But we'll still take ya to lunch, our treat.;)
One thing I've learned over the last 15 years... a resume is a damn poor indication of someone's talent. Therefore, if you ever want to apply for a job with us, go ahead and incude a resume but be damn sure you spent the time to make a cover letter that sells yourself. This will probably be true of any place you try to get hired on. (isclaimer: I've never really had to send a resume or go on an interview, but I've interviewed and hired hundreds over the years. So I can only speak to my experience directly.
In my case, I read resumes only if the cover letter intrigues me. A good cover letter should skip the pretence ("Seeking growth opportunities where I can apply my extensive education in bladibla..."). Save it. Just tell me how you code your butt off doing the kinds of things we do, and it might be cool to see if there is something we're doing that you'd like to be part of. Some examples of the stuff you've done is a huge win. Talk the talk. You're cover letter is being read by coders.
For me, I also like to see what areas an applicant wants to learn more about. We strive to find raw talent and give them a chance to really learn in the trenches. We've trained a lot of coders and 3D Artists, fresh out of college (or still in college) and continue to today. It's fun, rewarding and a way for us to give back.
So, yes, there are places you can get a job without experience. And have a blast doing cool stuff at the same time. I think there should be more, personally.
We're even hiring now, if anyone's in the market, email me and I'll turn you onto the right place to inquire.
Haha... yeah... mentin terrorists to get your meal at KFC faster too. Hell, mention Terrorists to avoid paying your electric bill. Because we all know that TERRORISTS are everywhere! And they are gonna get us!
Oh great... we allow comments on patents like we have here. Almost all the comments here are based on what the story blurb said and not the actual patent text. Which is typical. Now you want the examiner has to get through all this garbage too?:)
Turns out I had this exact issue... I love my Apple Cinema Display 23 incher. Got one for home and one for work. Both hooked up to WinXP boxes (sorry Mac dudes... Apple makes a sweet, and I mean SWEET, LCD slab... but daddy's gotta eat).
Upgrading my work rig, I needed to KVM back and forth with the old one. So I got this puppy:
http://store.yahoo.com/kvm-switch/adcdvi-adc-ab. ht ml
You hook your PeeCee into it plus the two monitors. It does the DVI to ADC conversion for you... don't need apples dingleberry. Costs about $280.
It also switches the USB of the monitor's hub. Which, in my case, took care of keyboard and monitor. Doesn't seem to be any keyboard equivs of the switch key, but otherwise works okay. If you have one of those Microsoft keyboards iwth the pesky F Lock, be aware that'll reset every time you switch. Ick.
Still, it does it's thing well. And yes, it does the full resolution of the monitor... native 1920x1200.
I can't believe it. Someone actually recorded the fact that these things existed. Ok, I believe that. What got me was that one of my very first contributions to the net is there: Fantasy Roleplaying BBS (FRPBBS). I wrote that for the C64 and it was my first real "thing" if you know what I mean.
It lead more-or-less on a straight road to writing GemStone I, ][ and III, and thus the company I now run. But to see someone record that FRPBBS existed, brings a tear to my eye.:)
Yeah... we all have slashdot now... but I was flaming back in the day when 1 user online was the max and THATS THE WAY WE LIKED IT! (smile)
I'm a capitalist, I believe in making money from what I do. No question about it. The programming I do does not go for free. In fact, over the years I've been rather well compensated, especially in the good times.
But when I was just getting started... when I was just a "young programmer" I wrote software and gave it away for free. This was long before the idea of GPL and such (AFAIK). My first big give-away success was FRPBBS, a piece of C64 BBS software that was unique in that it focused around running online roleplaying sessions. Those were the days!
That part of my life was absolutely essential to what I do today. I know employ a goodly number of people and contribute to our economy. And I owe a lot of that to the early experiences, encouragement and sheer fun of being able to put my code "out there".
Shall we do away with the Olympics because all endevors should yield an immediate profit? Small minds fail to graps the big picture yet again.
I think it is safe to predict that this law will not stand the test of time. The year 2008 will roll around and there will be no such devices on cars in New Mexico. Expect it to be repealed in swift order.
Bottom line, people will just go out of state to buy a car. The hit to the local economy would be too great and that, my friend, is that.
It is amazing how poor most resume submissions are. They follow the common pattern, but in doing so manage to not stand out at all.
For example, people applying for art positions (like 3D artist) will send a resume but not a portfolio. What's up with that? I could not care less where they went to school, I only care what they can do.
The cover letter is by far the most import thing in most instances. It needs to say what the applicant is capable of. What they have done that is similar. And why they want to work for the company in question (which they should show some clue about).
Don't use "Resume Writer 2.0", just sit down and write something intelligent. Put yourself in the frame of mind of the person who has to wade through the huge influx of job seekers. Think about you would want to see in a resume/cover letter.
Some may wonder why they would go after Starchamber (I guess some relatively obscure online game) rather than, say, the EverQuests of the world. But this is the basic strategy of patent sniping: Go after really small guys who cannot and will not fight. Get them to license. Even do a deal where you trade licenses so it's zero-cost. The reason: If you have people already licensing your IP, then you give credibility to your claim. Weight.
Next step, move up the food chain. Keep trying to get more licenses so you are armored when it comes time to go after the big boys.
Secondly, you don't want to go after someone with obvious prior art.:)
My understanding is the patents are specific to casino games. Not sure why they went after Starchamber in particular.
I have yet to read the patents themselves... just the supposed letter. But we were doing this with CyberStrike in the early 80's, AirWarrior and BattleTech Online even earlier than CS. If it has to be a web site in play, rather than an online service (such as GEnie), then I imagine AirWarrior would qualify as Prior Art, no? It was on the web before CS and did the whole ranking thing too. Need to go see the application date of the patent(s) now.
I of course, must reserve judgement until I study the actual patents in question. It always hurts to do this, they are written to obfuscate. As a side note to the whole patent mess, I think plain english contract law concepts should be adopted for patent descriptions.
Well T3s and up usually come with a contract.:) Switching because "you wanna" ain't likely a viable option. And does nothing for when you yourself end up on these antispaming lists for no particular reason. Heck, people can even be malicious to work to get you on them. That's the worst.
I believe you are not understanding the circumstances. For large organizations, rather than just "a dude in his bedroom", switching ISP is far from an easy matter. For example, it takes quite awhile to negotiate and impliment a T3 provider switch over. And it can be very disruptive and sometimes even costly depending on the circumstances.
We got hit by trigger happy spammer lists in the past too. It is absolutely detrimental to legit outfits. We could not even respond to many of the technical/billing support emails coming in. Or rather, the replies would simply never reach the user. Then, of course, we get another email, this time angry: "You $*&*!@# idiots, why don't you reply to my emails!"
So damn frustrating. Spammers are are sever drag on the web. I predict they will pretty much kill themselves off as they wage even more obnoxious war to get their spam int our in box. In the meantime, however, fine upstanding and valuable netitizens (ick, what a word!) get wholloped collatorally by those who are supposed to be helping. It's a sad state of affairs.
My wish list would include somone licensing (if necessary) and coming out with a CPU brick with more sensor and motor contacts. I think 6 of each would be ideal.:)
Okay, I could not care one tad bit less if I never see another lego Harry Potter set. But the loss of Mindstorm is nearly unbearable! The things people have done with this simple but effective robotics set eclips even more ambitious sets like the ER1. This is a sad day.
The problems with the web site are alllll IIS. In particular how it interfaces with Oracle, but not Oracle's fault. We've worked through a lot of them, but its like exercising demons. You never now if its gone really, you just wait to see if their head spins and pea soup hits the wall.
So Oracle is mission critical to our operation. But I hate their licensing structure enough that I'd love to go with something like MySQL. Reliability and speed are very important.
Does anyone have any option, backed by experience in the matter, on switching from Oracle to MySQL. A good or bad idea? Disregard cost of the actual switch. I'm looking at this from the standpoint of technical merit and capability.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm at SIGGRAPH, and I've seen the Sharp 3D displays before and a lot of them here again... and they really suck. You get a headache just looking at them.
BUT... I saw an display, and the scientist who developed it, that uses an entirely different technology. And it created a rock-solid 3D display. Not a stereoscopic display... a 3D image. As you moved your head left and right you saw a different perspective on the image!
It uses some sort of lense system, rather than a mask like Sharp, that directs the the images to the different yes. In the case of the model they were showing, it was 9 different images per frame. Sucks for frame-rate of a game, but for other things it was pretty sweet.
You can stare it it pretty much indefinitely and it's not sensitive to where you stand or how you move your head. There is a slight blur as you move between the different spots where you see the angles, but that's only because there are only 9 images in that particular prototype. With more images, that goes away (I am told by the inventor).
The mfg was not clear, I think it was IBM. But they might just be using IBM LCDs. I have to go back and see... I was too stunned by the image quality and forgot to see who made it. Tomorrow, I'll go back to the expo and find out. It's really oustanding!
The current model is $20,000. Useful for scientific applications and such. In five years, it should be consumer level.
But before that, they will be making full theatrical projectors. They are already working on it and have made progress. It's real 3D without glasses that doesn't make your head or eyes hurt. The only problem... someone on the left side of the theater literally sees the action from a different angle than someone on the right. So the whole process of cinematogrphy has to be rethought to take that into consideration.
I have no idea what a "pontless cover letter" is, but sure as heck know what a pointless resume is. More tot he point, do you really want to work for a place that doesn't even have a clue? :)
We, for one, hire coders (and others) who have no prior work experience. In fact, that is my prefered choice. And I'll tell you why.
;)
First, let me be clear... no prior work experience doesn't mean we hire people with no talent. It's just that we don't count of a long resume as an indication that someone is without merit. That's just laziness (or necessity, time being money in the hiring process).
What we look for is someone who knows what they are doing and can demonstrate that to is in their resume cover letter, and ultimately at one of our interviews. We won't ask any of the stupid Microsoft questions except to see if you've been to the web site that has the answers accumulated (grin). But we will put you through a tough interview that focues on your ability to write code. If you can do that, it's a walk in the park. If you can't, we'll both know it's not a match real quick. But we'll still take ya to lunch, our treat.
One thing I've learned over the last 15 years... a resume is a damn poor indication of someone's talent. Therefore, if you ever want to apply for a job with us, go ahead and incude a resume but be damn sure you spent the time to make a cover letter that sells yourself. This will probably be true of any place you try to get hired on. (isclaimer: I've never really had to send a resume or go on an interview, but I've interviewed and hired hundreds over the years. So I can only speak to my experience directly.
In my case, I read resumes only if the cover letter intrigues me. A good cover letter should skip the pretence ("Seeking growth opportunities where I can apply my extensive education in bladibla..."). Save it. Just tell me how you code your butt off doing the kinds of things we do, and it might be cool to see if there is something we're doing that you'd like to be part of. Some examples of the stuff you've done is a huge win. Talk the talk. You're cover letter is being read by coders.
For me, I also like to see what areas an applicant wants to learn more about. We strive to find raw talent and give them a chance to really learn in the trenches. We've trained a lot of coders and 3D Artists, fresh out of college (or still in college) and continue to today. It's fun, rewarding and a way for us to give back.
So, yes, there are places you can get a job without experience. And have a blast doing cool stuff at the same time. I think there should be more, personally.
We're even hiring now, if anyone's in the market, email me and I'll turn you onto the right place to inquire.
Haha... yeah... mentin terrorists to get your meal at KFC faster too. Hell, mention Terrorists to avoid paying your electric bill. Because we all know that TERRORISTS are everywhere! And they are gonna get us!
Oh great... we allow comments on patents like we have here. Almost all the comments here are based on what the story blurb said and not the actual patent text. Which is typical. Now you want the examiner has to get through all this garbage too? :)
Turns out I had this exact issue... I love my Apple Cinema Display 23 incher. Got one for home and one for work. Both hooked up to WinXP boxes (sorry Mac dudes... Apple makes a sweet, and I mean SWEET, LCD slab... but daddy's gotta eat).
. ht ml
Upgrading my work rig, I needed to KVM back and forth with the old one. So I got this puppy:
http://store.yahoo.com/kvm-switch/adcdvi-adc-ab
You hook your PeeCee into it plus the two monitors. It does the DVI to ADC conversion for you... don't need apples dingleberry. Costs about $280.
It also switches the USB of the monitor's hub. Which, in my case, took care of keyboard and monitor. Doesn't seem to be any keyboard equivs of the switch key, but otherwise works okay. If you have one of those Microsoft keyboards iwth the pesky F Lock, be aware that'll reset every time you switch. Ick.
Still, it does it's thing well. And yes, it does the full resolution of the monitor... native 1920x1200.
-- David
I can't believe it. Someone actually recorded the fact that these things existed. Ok, I believe that. What got me was that one of my very first contributions to the net is there: Fantasy Roleplaying BBS (FRPBBS). I wrote that for the C64 and it was my first real "thing" if you know what I mean.
:)
It lead more-or-less on a straight road to writing GemStone I, ][ and III, and thus the company I now run. But to see someone record that FRPBBS existed, brings a tear to my eye.
Yeah... we all have slashdot now... but I was flaming back in the day when 1 user online was the max and THATS THE WAY WE LIKED IT! (smile)
Now this would be good for combat, specops. And, my favorite.... Airsoft!
In that context, I was refering to the amature athletes.
I'm a capitalist, I believe in making money from what I do. No question about it. The programming I do does not go for free. In fact, over the years I've been rather well compensated, especially in the good times.
But when I was just getting started... when I was just a "young programmer" I wrote software and gave it away for free. This was long before the idea of GPL and such (AFAIK). My first big give-away success was FRPBBS, a piece of C64 BBS software that was unique in that it focused around running online roleplaying sessions. Those were the days!
That part of my life was absolutely essential to what I do today. I know employ a goodly number of people and contribute to our economy. And I owe a lot of that to the early experiences, encouragement and sheer fun of being able to put my code "out there".
Shall we do away with the Olympics because all endevors should yield an immediate profit? Small minds fail to graps the big picture yet again.
I think it is safe to predict that this law will not stand the test of time. The year 2008 will roll around and there will be no such devices on cars in New Mexico. Expect it to be repealed in swift order.
Bottom line, people will just go out of state to buy a car. The hit to the local economy would be too great and that, my friend, is that.
Why would an artist not send a portfolio? Because they don't intend to get the job or have nothing to show.
But it's easy and cheap to "send" a portfolio... just provide a link to a web site. Not very costly to do that. :)
It is amazing how poor most resume submissions are. They follow the common pattern, but in doing so manage to not stand out at all.
For example, people applying for art positions (like 3D artist) will send a resume but not a portfolio. What's up with that? I could not care less where they went to school, I only care what they can do.
The cover letter is by far the most import thing in most instances. It needs to say what the applicant is capable of. What they have done that is similar. And why they want to work for the company in question (which they should show some clue about).
Don't use "Resume Writer 2.0", just sit down and write something intelligent. Put yourself in the frame of mind of the person who has to wade through the huge influx of job seekers. Think about you would want to see in a resume/cover letter.
Some may wonder why they would go after Starchamber (I guess some relatively obscure online game) rather than, say, the EverQuests of the world. But this is the basic strategy of patent sniping: Go after really small guys who cannot and will not fight. Get them to license. Even do a deal where you trade licenses so it's zero-cost. The reason: If you have people already licensing your IP, then you give credibility to your claim. Weight.
:)
Next step, move up the food chain. Keep trying to get more licenses so you are armored when it comes time to go after the big boys.
Secondly, you don't want to go after someone with obvious prior art.
My understanding is the patents are specific to casino games. Not sure why they went after Starchamber in particular.
I have yet to read the patents themselves... just the supposed letter. But we were doing this with CyberStrike in the early 80's, AirWarrior and BattleTech Online even earlier than CS. If it has to be a web site in play, rather than an online service (such as GEnie), then I imagine AirWarrior would qualify as Prior Art, no? It was on the web before CS and did the whole ranking thing too. Need to go see the application date of the patent(s) now.
I of course, must reserve judgement until I study the actual patents in question. It always hurts to do this, they are written to obfuscate. As a side note to the whole patent mess, I think plain english contract law concepts should be adopted for patent descriptions.
Well T3s and up usually come with a contract. :) Switching because "you wanna" ain't likely a viable option. And does nothing for when you yourself end up on these antispaming lists for no particular reason. Heck, people can even be malicious to work to get you on them. That's the worst.
I believe you are not understanding the circumstances. For large organizations, rather than just "a dude in his bedroom", switching ISP is far from an easy matter. For example, it takes quite awhile to negotiate and impliment a T3 provider switch over. And it can be very disruptive and sometimes even costly depending on the circumstances.
We got hit by trigger happy spammer lists in the past too. It is absolutely detrimental to legit outfits. We could not even respond to many of the technical/billing support emails coming in. Or rather, the replies would simply never reach the user. Then, of course, we get another email, this time angry: "You $*&*!@# idiots, why don't you reply to my emails!"
So damn frustrating. Spammers are are sever drag on the web. I predict they will pretty much kill themselves off as they wage even more obnoxious war to get their spam int our in box. In the meantime, however, fine upstanding and valuable netitizens (ick, what a word!) get wholloped collatorally by those who are supposed to be helping. It's a sad state of affairs.
Wow cool! This stuff looks great. Has more inputs/output capability than Mindstorm too. Wonderful! Thank you.
My wish list would include somone licensing (if necessary) and coming out with a CPU brick with more sensor and motor contacts. I think 6 of each would be ideal. :)
I've done a fair bit of buying old lego kits off of eBay myself. Especially for the pneumatic parts.
Okay, I could not care one tad bit less if I never see another lego Harry Potter set. But the loss of Mindstorm is nearly unbearable! The things people have done with this simple but effective robotics set eclips even more ambitious sets like the ER1. This is a sad day.
SCO must be behind this somehow!
Well I just placed an order for one. I guess I'm a doufus who gets lazy about backups at home. We'll see how this works!
The problems with the web site are alllll IIS. In particular how it interfaces with Oracle, but not Oracle's fault. We've worked through a lot of them, but its like exercising demons. You never now if its gone really, you just wait to see if their head spins and pea soup hits the wall.
So Oracle is mission critical to our operation. But I hate their licensing structure enough that I'd love to go with something like MySQL. Reliability and speed are very important.
Does anyone have any option, backed by experience in the matter, on switching from Oracle to MySQL. A good or bad idea? Disregard cost of the actual switch. I'm looking at this from the standpoint of technical merit and capability.