I'm sure something like that will come to pass in the near future. Engines that already use progressive mesh algorithms that scale the model down for the current processor could adapt that technology to be used in the collision detection as well, so maybe you have a polygon that scales down to 5,000 polygons for display, but 50 polygons for collision detection. Still a lot more expensive than doing a rectangular box vs rectangular box check, but within the realm of possibility.
I feel your pain, but you do realize the amount of computation involved in per-polygon collision detection? Its not that game programmers don't want to do this, its that even high-end computers (let alone the 'average' computer out there) just doesn't have the CPU available to calculate this in real time with a reasonable number of models onscreen.
Keep in mind that because of graphics card advances, the number of polygons used has been going up as well, so per-polygon collision detection is also a moving target.
Your post is not only total bullshit, but its insulting to Michael Abrash as well.
Michael Abrash worked at Microsoft before he worked at id Software. He went back to Microsoft after he left id Software (after Quake 1). He has worked there for YEARS. Do you think he would put up with working there for years if he was just a 'symbol' and not getting useful work done? Suggesting such is like slapping the guy in the face.
Your other suggestions indicate you're not familiar with the voracity in which Microsoft has been getting into gaming over the past few years. DirectX 8, other than being a Windows-only API, is GREAT. There are very few things that can be complained about (other than cross-platform support). This isn't DirectX 3 anymore.
Furthermore, Microsoft knows what it is doing with the X-Box. It WONT change. It might produce an XBox 2 in 5 years, but that's standard console practices these days.
Microsoft, no matter how evil you might portray them as, is smart enough to know that a console isn't a PC, and the X-Box has been handled accordingly. That's partially why every known game developer (and his/her mom) is currently signed up as an XBox developer, the only notable exceptions being Sony (for obvious reasons), Nintendo & its 2nd parties (for obvious reasons), and Squaresoft (who have been rumored for a long time to become an X-Box developer -- if they do that's a major coup and loss of de facto exclusivity for Sony).
Interestingly enough, a video version of the talk (in very bad quality real video..but the audio is good enough to hear what he's saying) has been available for months on Gamasutra. I remember watching it maybe back in October.
Abrash is a pretty good speaker, and I think the talk comes off a bit better in the video than as an article. The video is linked off of the page the article is now on, but here's the link anyway.
Re:They were spying on Bob Young!
on
Antitrust
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· Score: 1
Also, I thought the movie was fairly decent for a first shot at open source in hollywood.
First and probably last shot. This movie has done extremely poor boxoffice, its a complete flop. Hollywood, never one to really analyze such things, may just figure open source == bad business. In any case, I'm sure MGM won't go near any movies like this again with a ten foot pole...They'll just churn out some more James Bond and remakes of 60s/70s films. That's where the money is.
If this will have the same memory problems that have caused UltraServer after UltraServer to unexpectedly crash (often repeatedly) ala ebay, etc. And I wonder if you'll have to sign an NDA to get tech support.
Sigh, Sun used to be a good company, now they make Microsoft look like the 'good guys'.
I've read the acknowledgment, but its insufficient. Everywhere else in the source they represent it (via the copyright blocks) as if it was written by them, solely, when in fact large blocks are still verbatim from momusys.
Unfortunately for AOL, if they switched to Netscape 6 (their Mozilla based release), they'd probably lose a lot of customers.
I don't like web sites which require you to use a certain browser, but only the naive would suggest that Mozilla in its current state is a better browser than IE. And by that, I mean from the end-user's point of view -- not from the view of who supports standards better, etc (which Joe Average doesn't care about as long as the page loads on his browser).
A quick look at the two source code bases show that OpenDivx is heavily based on the MoMuSys MPEG4 distribution. They've made optimizations and a few improvements, but the lineage is clear.
Unfortunately, the OpenDivx people don't really give credit MoMuSys's work at all. All of the MoMuSys copyright blocks in the code have even been removed and replaced with OpenDivx comments. Being based on MoMuSys at least explains the licence rule that all derived products must comply to MPEG4, since that's a rule of the MoMuSys codebase as well.
In any case, the MoMuSys code seems to allow this type of reuse in its license, but cmon a little more credit from the OpenDivx people would be nice!! The comments in the code are TOTALLY misleading, stating that the Divx people were completely responsible for the code. These guys are the kings of taking other people's work are representing it as their own.
I'm not going to defend the specific companies involved with this...Of the three mentioned up top, for example, all of them have been guilty of some degree of security through obscurity in the past.
However, having a members-only club with sharing of information doesn't directly relate to security through obscurity. Saying that any closed source or hidden method of security is 'security through obscurity' just because its closed is a perversion of the term. Many closed systems actually have adequate security that wouldn't be compromised if the system were open.
I doubt Nvidia did anything special on the hardware side to allow MX's to run in these systems. To the best of my knowledge, the only support Nvidia needed to provide was a driver for MacOS.
The mouse is fine, what I dont understand is why they are using the ATI Mobility and not a Geforce 2 Go. Here it shows the Mobilty consumes more power when in use than an ATI Mobility. And the Geforce2 chip leaves the Mobility in the dust when in comes to performance.
The #1 reason is that the GeForce 2 go is not available right now. Or, rather, was no available when these PowerBooks went into production.
You won't see GeForce-2-go laptops for sale until this spring, at the earliest.
Secondarily, Apple has a close relationship with ATI. ATI is the primary video card OEM for Apple systems, desktop & laptop and has been for quite a while. I'm sure this played a part.
In any case, Apple recently announced some desktops based on the GeForce 2 MX, so I wouldn't be that surprised to see laptops based on the GeForce 2 go, when its actually available.
I can't understand why anyone would want just one mouse button, but that's not the point. The point is that, in the context of using X, one mouse button is just not cutting it. The original posting was about LinuxPPC, and so it was actually a pretty pertinent observation.
I personally prefer multiple mouse buttons (my current mouse has 5, count 'em, 5 on a PC), but there's plenty of people who think one is enough. In any case, its not the PowerBook's job
to conform to X standards. It was designed for MacOS...so calling it 'crippled' is a bit unfair.
In any case, this is a situation where it would be in Linux/OSS's intrest to adapt...If not now, then sometime in the near future...Are there any window managers that make a point of working well with on a single mouse button? (I am not asking rhetorically here, I don't know the answer.) It seems like it would be a good way to get the Maccies to give Linux more of a shot.
The one button vs many button issue isn't as 'solved' as many people think. A lot of people who are considered user interface experts claim that one button is really all you need, and adding more just creates contextual confusion for the user. Rumor has it that Steve Jobs, despite NeXTStep, is a one-button-believe.
This isn't as much of an issue with desktop macs these days since you can use virtually any USB mouse with them. Of course, since the OS and Apps are really designed for the one-button view of the world, you're stuck assigning hot-key like actions to the other mouse buttons.
(For the record, I use a Razer Boomslang, which has 5 buttons + wheel, so don't flame me saying one button mice suck:)
Celeron is an Intel chip. Its basically the same as a Pentium 3 (and previously P2), with half the cache but the cache running at full clockspeed.
You were probably using a K6, which in the P2 era was comparable to the P2 Celerons.
Re:JonKatz knows his technology...
on
'Thirteen Days'
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· Score: 2
Why do you bother to post when you have no idea what you are talking about? Film stock DOES contain more information than is meant to be displayed on screen, and VERY OFTEN includes the boom. It IS a projectionist error.
I hate Jon Katz as much as the next guy, but please don't post unless you know you are right (and in this case I, as well as any other film buff, knows you are dead wrong), and also moderators: please don't mod him up unless you know he is right.
A lot of the resentment towards spam is not based on the level of spam today, but of years past. Don't get me wrong...spam is still undoubtably a problem. But it seems to me there's far less spam today than in the past. There's likely a number of factors as to why this is true: new laws, less tolerance for spam from ISPs, the emergence of spam-block blacklists, and companies realizing that blanket, undirected spamming is not a very effective way to market to customers, etc. Nevertheless, many of us have such strong feelings towards spam that were cultivated in the days when you couldn't open an email box anywhere on the net without getting 70 spam mails a day. Hitting the delete key 70 times in one day IS kind of a big deal, especially when you need to go and manually sort through the useful mail from the crap. (And no, I've never found an automatic mail filter that I've been completely pleased with).
Another issue that I have with spam, that I'm sure many people share, is that I miss the days when I could use my actual email address on Usenet or other internet forums, or give it out freely in the hopes that people that wanted to reach me for legitimate purposes and discussion could.
Sorry, but I stand by my statement. When it comes to standard dialup ISPs, they usually don't know or care what OS you are using. This is not such a case. When it comes to ISP service that require special hardware (and often drivers), MANY ISPs require you to have Windows or they won't come and install at your location (and MANY won't let you self install either). For example, despite the fact that Linux supports PPPoE, there are many DSL providers that insist you have a Windows 9X box or Mac box or no DSL for you.
In cases such as this it is usually possible to install a Win9x partition or standalone machine, let them do the install, then change it over to the OS of your choice when they leave...But that doesn't change the fact that the ISP requires you to use a certain OS up-front, and the requirement exists because they don't want to support alternative OSes, not because of deals with Microsoft.
In any case, the burden of proof is on you to show that there's a deal between the company and Microsoft. I might have believed that two years ago, but with all the anti-trust scrutiny Microsoft is under, I don't think they are stupid enough to enter into competition-lockout deals right now.
I have no idea whether or not MS paid anyone off, but the fact is that quite a few ISPs and other companies 'cut off paying users' who don't use Windows.
The #1 reason isn't Microsoft payoffs but support costs. It costs money to train and/or hire people that can properly support alternate operating systems..And, since Microsoft Windows has a ridiculous share of the desktop market share, it would often cost more for the company to bother supporting an alt-OS than they would make back by sales/fees from the people using alt-OSes.
And..while it seems that a company with common sense should just allow people with alt-OSes to use their products, if possible, and just refuse support, hardly any do this. My guess is they fear that people with unsupported systems will still seek support, and the overhead from driving them away will cost them.
That might be a concern if major prizes were being awarded. However, with all due respect to Open Sound System and tummy, I can't imagine any of the people in charge of the kernel rigging the date just to win this pool.
Particularly since, if they are in a position to do this (Linus, Alan Cox, etc) I'm sure they could all just request free copies of what the prizes are anyway.
huh? Considering that legally manufactured drugs would benefit from economies of scale in manufacture and distribution, the legal drugs would be available for far cheaper than the illegal ones.
The tax on legal drugs would be tiny compared to the large overheads involved with illegal drugs -- consider the cost of getting drugs over the boarder (the illegal way), the cost of bribing cops and other officials, etc, etc.
Re:Innovative, but not new :)
on
"Traffic"
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· Score: 1
It is a remake, in the same way that horrible movie "Point of No Return" was a remake of La Femme Nikita.
The names and locations have changed but the plot is essentially the same, almost every character has a counterpart, it uses the same pseudo-documentary-style, and the overall message behind it is the same.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm sure something like that will come to pass in the near future. Engines that already use progressive mesh algorithms that scale the model down for the current processor could adapt that technology to be used in the collision detection as well, so maybe you have a polygon that scales down to 5,000 polygons for display, but 50 polygons for collision detection. Still a lot more expensive than doing a rectangular box vs rectangular box check, but within the realm of possibility.
Keep in mind that because of graphics card advances, the number of polygons used has been going up as well, so per-polygon collision detection is also a moving target.
Michael Abrash worked at Microsoft before he worked at id Software. He went back to Microsoft after he left id Software (after Quake 1). He has worked there for YEARS. Do you think he would put up with working there for years if he was just a 'symbol' and not getting useful work done? Suggesting such is like slapping the guy in the face.
Your other suggestions indicate you're not familiar with the voracity in which Microsoft has been getting into gaming over the past few years. DirectX 8, other than being a Windows-only API, is GREAT. There are very few things that can be complained about (other than cross-platform support). This isn't DirectX 3 anymore.
Furthermore, Microsoft knows what it is doing with the X-Box. It WONT change. It might produce an XBox 2 in 5 years, but that's standard console practices these days.
Microsoft, no matter how evil you might portray them as, is smart enough to know that a console isn't a PC, and the X-Box has been handled accordingly. That's partially why every known game developer (and his/her mom) is currently signed up as an XBox developer, the only notable exceptions being Sony (for obvious reasons), Nintendo & its 2nd parties (for obvious reasons), and Squaresoft (who have been rumored for a long time to become an X-Box developer -- if they do that's a major coup and loss of de facto exclusivity for Sony).
Abrash is a pretty good speaker, and I think the talk comes off a bit better in the video than as an article. The video is linked off of the page the article is now on, but here's the link anyway.
First and probably last shot. This movie has done extremely poor boxoffice, its a complete flop. Hollywood, never one to really analyze such things, may just figure open source == bad business. In any case, I'm sure MGM won't go near any movies like this again with a ten foot pole...They'll just churn out some more James Bond and remakes of 60s/70s films. That's where the money is.
Sigh, Sun used to be a good company, now they make Microsoft look like the 'good guys'.
Also sounds pretty illegal in many US states.
I've read the acknowledgment, but its insufficient. Everywhere else in the source they represent it (via the copyright blocks) as if it was written by them, solely, when in fact large blocks are still verbatim from momusys.
I don't like web sites which require you to use a certain browser, but only the naive would suggest that Mozilla in its current state is a better browser than IE. And by that, I mean from the end-user's point of view -- not from the view of who supports standards better, etc (which Joe Average doesn't care about as long as the page loads on his browser).
Unfortunately, the OpenDivx people don't really give credit MoMuSys's work at all. All of the MoMuSys copyright blocks in the code have even been removed and replaced with OpenDivx comments. Being based on MoMuSys at least explains the licence rule that all derived products must comply to MPEG4, since that's a rule of the MoMuSys codebase as well.
In any case, the MoMuSys code seems to allow this type of reuse in its license, but cmon a little more credit from the OpenDivx people would be nice!! The comments in the code are TOTALLY misleading, stating that the Divx people were completely responsible for the code. These guys are the kings of taking other people's work are representing it as their own.
However, having a members-only club with sharing of information doesn't directly relate to security through obscurity. Saying that any closed source or hidden method of security is 'security through obscurity' just because its closed is a perversion of the term. Many closed systems actually have adequate security that wouldn't be compromised if the system were open.
I doubt Nvidia did anything special on the hardware side to allow MX's to run in these systems. To the best of my knowledge, the only support Nvidia needed to provide was a driver for MacOS.
The #1 reason is that the GeForce 2 go is not available right now. Or, rather, was no available when these PowerBooks went into production.
You won't see GeForce-2-go laptops for sale until this spring, at the earliest.
Secondarily, Apple has a close relationship with ATI. ATI is the primary video card OEM for Apple systems, desktop & laptop and has been for quite a while. I'm sure this played a part.
In any case, Apple recently announced some desktops based on the GeForce 2 MX, so I wouldn't be that surprised to see laptops based on the GeForce 2 go, when its actually available.
I personally prefer multiple mouse buttons (my current mouse has 5, count 'em, 5 on a PC), but there's plenty of people who think one is enough. In any case, its not the PowerBook's job to conform to X standards. It was designed for MacOS...so calling it 'crippled' is a bit unfair.
In any case, this is a situation where it would be in Linux/OSS's intrest to adapt...If not now, then sometime in the near future...Are there any window managers that make a point of working well with on a single mouse button? (I am not asking rhetorically here, I don't know the answer.) It seems like it would be a good way to get the Maccies to give Linux more of a shot.
The one button vs many button issue isn't as 'solved' as many people think. A lot of people who are considered user interface experts claim that one button is really all you need, and adding more just creates contextual confusion for the user. Rumor has it that Steve Jobs, despite NeXTStep, is a one-button-believe.
This isn't as much of an issue with desktop macs these days since you can use virtually any USB mouse with them. Of course, since the OS and Apps are really designed for the one-button view of the world, you're stuck assigning hot-key like actions to the other mouse buttons.
(For the record, I use a Razer Boomslang, which has 5 buttons + wheel, so don't flame me saying one button mice suck :)
You were probably using a K6, which in the P2 era was comparable to the P2 Celerons.
I hate Jon Katz as much as the next guy, but please don't post unless you know you are right (and in this case I, as well as any other film buff, knows you are dead wrong), and also moderators: please don't mod him up unless you know he is right.
Another issue that I have with spam, that I'm sure many people share, is that I miss the days when I could use my actual email address on Usenet or other internet forums, or give it out freely in the hopes that people that wanted to reach me for legitimate purposes and discussion could.
In cases such as this it is usually possible to install a Win9x partition or standalone machine, let them do the install, then change it over to the OS of your choice when they leave...But that doesn't change the fact that the ISP requires you to use a certain OS up-front, and the requirement exists because they don't want to support alternative OSes, not because of deals with Microsoft.
In any case, the burden of proof is on you to show that there's a deal between the company and Microsoft. I might have believed that two years ago, but with all the anti-trust scrutiny Microsoft is under, I don't think they are stupid enough to enter into competition-lockout deals right now.
The #1 reason isn't Microsoft payoffs but support costs. It costs money to train and/or hire people that can properly support alternate operating systems..And, since Microsoft Windows has a ridiculous share of the desktop market share, it would often cost more for the company to bother supporting an alt-OS than they would make back by sales/fees from the people using alt-OSes.
And..while it seems that a company with common sense should just allow people with alt-OSes to use their products, if possible, and just refuse support, hardly any do this. My guess is they fear that people with unsupported systems will still seek support, and the overhead from driving them away will cost them.
Full Discloser!!
That might be a concern if major prizes were being awarded. However, with all due respect to Open Sound System and tummy, I can't imagine any of the people in charge of the kernel rigging the date just to win this pool. Particularly since, if they are in a position to do this (Linus, Alan Cox, etc) I'm sure they could all just request free copies of what the prizes are anyway.
So Apple has 99% of the consumer computer market now? They must be having one hell of a quarter...
The tax on legal drugs would be tiny compared to the large overheads involved with illegal drugs -- consider the cost of getting drugs over the boarder (the illegal way), the cost of bribing cops and other officials, etc, etc.
The names and locations have changed but the plot is essentially the same, almost every character has a counterpart, it uses the same pseudo-documentary-style, and the overall message behind it is the same.