Thinking that computer generated art (or simply art done on a computer or with computer technology) is a closed minded approach to the fine arts. I think it is almost akin to the idea that the only "true" music is classical.
I just attended a very popular and interesting art exhibit at the Whitney museum in New York City a few weeks back (it's closed now, nor can I remember the name of the exhibit), and I will certainly tell you that at least in NYC people were not objected to the idea. Besides the computer graphics representation of certain images from history, there were three things that were done that can't be recreated with simply paint and canvas or sculpture:
Moving graphic image art; basically something akin to a screensaver, but art nonetheless.
Work with programmed LEDs behind a translucent filter that gave the impression of a 3D face; additionally, the image flickered and morphed - something traditional art cannot do.
SOUND art. Yes, you heard me right. They had 20+ stations set up where you would simply listen to a 0:20 - 23:00 loop. This is art whether or not you like it.
My two cents follows more or less what Frank Zappa said about music: If you create something and declare it as music/art, then it is. It is up to the critics to decide if they like it or not.
Too bad, there used to be an excellent website about a year and a half ago that had 213 out of the 240 (or thereabouts) episodes available for streaming download. Fox shut that place down, though... --
I can't tell you how many people I've worked with over the years who have either no idea on what or how to write multithreaded programs or they claim that they can, but in practice they end up writing code that isn't thread safe.
I can say that as a programmer, my value is significantly increased by being proficient in multithreaded programming (beyond Java, FWIW). If this article sparks any interest in people, do read further and practice, practice, practice! The people that I've interviewed in the past who have a strong working knowledge of multithreading get a lot of points in my book, and I'm sure other "aware" employers do the same.
Keep in mind, however, that just knowing how to launch a thread isn't enough. If your code isn't reentrant and thread safe, launching a thread isn't worth a damn.
From my personal experience, most higher-educated IT people usually aren't the best people for most jobs; they are just too "by the book" and not practical. My typical example is this: a database design might be required for a system that involves many related tables. By the book, you would normalize this system to the nth degree, thus having foreign keys all over the place. By the book, this is correct and wonderful and prevents redundant data. However, a massive speed improvement can be obtained by using redundant data in some places; a PhD or MBA (from several of my experiences) will argue this until they turn blue or quit. The fact that stood at the time to justify redundant data is that a) retrieval time was critical and the redundant data would make a large speed improvement and b) storage is cheap; the company could afford another few disks without blinking an eye.
Practical experience and knowledge versus "This is the way it was written in the Lieberman-Dostoyevsky-Chou book!"
Well, those AOL floppies aren't worth anything if that's what you're referring to..
At one point I used to work for a computer lab at a university around the time when the AOL floppies were coming out strong.. people would come up to me and ask why their file can't be read, and I'd look at the disk and shake my head...
If you remember Beagle Brothers from the old Apple ][ days, one of the little cartoons that they produced once was the two brothers talking about this exact issue.
Something along the lines of that single sided floppy drives were different. Apples, for example, read the bottom of the disk, while Ataris, for example, read the top side. Single sided disks are tested for one side to be reliable. So which side do they test?
It was funnier when I read it the first time with the semi-poorly drawn images of the two Beagle Brothers, but I think it was not so much what side was capable but more that the magnetic properties wouldn't bleed through to the other side (though it never happened with any of my floppies).
I really miss those days because the people were real people.
You're not kidding. I used to run a system from 1986 until about 1990 in northern NJ (201 area code) called Dronefone, and I have some wonderful memories from those days. One thing is that I even still maintain an excellent and very dear relationship with one of my users; he's been one of my best and dearest friends for years ever since the day that I voice answered my BBS line to tell whoever that it was going to be down for about 30 minutes.
I have every piece of software that I ever ran for my BBS and I have also archived most (if not all) of the data files (read: remaining email, message boards, etc) that existed on these systems. I intend to put it online at some point (even registered a URL), but it will be one hell of an archive organizational effort, not to mention the work converting it all to a readable format.
If anyone who reads this message remembers by BBS, please feel free to drop me a line. When I get the archive up (or if you want bits and pieces that I've extracted), I'll let you know where to find it.
Personally, I feel that the older games are better because they had something which most games today don't: gameplay. By this, I mean that there is a simple task to be done that is fun and challenging, but doesn't require the memorization of key sequences and child-like reflexes. It's hard to explain, though I tried on my website to do so.
I have fond memories of Pong because it was the first video game I ever played. I wouldn't put it on a list except to be "Hey.. I can really date myself, you young whippersnappers!", but I wouldn't stop from putting Asteroids or Pac-Man on the list.
Some of my favorite games from the golden years are:
Pac-Man (who can argue?)
Asteroids (always loved that game)
Zoo Keeper (a true classic. very fast paced)
Robotron: 2084 (sound effects kicked ass)
Elevator Action (can't explain..)
The idea of being able to network some of these games (hopefully) will be awesome. I only hope that the network delays won't screw up the gameplay too bad. Heck, I'll contribute to the coding of the older games.
--
I can picture it now....
on
Cracking OSX
·
· Score: 4
Imagine a dialog that pops up with the side profile of a person's face with the typical audio cue of the Mac's "Eeep!" sound...
Hmm.. I always thought it would be a spiffy idea to sue Muse Software for releasing Castle Wolfenstein.. always made me want to run around a German castle shooting Nazi's with a stolen luger and wearing their clothes.. hmmm...
I've had the idea for the last few months that Windows XP is basically Windows with the Big Brother Plus! expansion pack added on. This stuff with the MP3s is absolutely ridiculous. However, since most people think Microsoft's brand of sphincter grease is simply dandy, this'll get out there and people will accept it blind-and-drooling.
However, all that they said is that their recording software wouldn't record MP3s at a higher rate than 56k. So this leaves one of two things. Either
You can still record things with 3rd party programs, and Microsoft is simply saying "Hey.. we didn't support it" leaving them scott free of any RIAA heat.
They actually put something into Windows XP that prevents you from ripping a CD without their software. Since they can't detect if a program is doing a conversion of wave data into an MP3 or simply calculating the spline of an extrapolated alpha curve, the only way that they could prevent you from doing MP3 encoding would be to prevent you from being able to rip CDs. However, if their software did have the capability, then isn't this a monopolistic hook in Windows XP? Hidden API? Probably not, but with this whole new licensing scheme that they have, it would certainly be preventing open source innovation.
Either way you cut it, I think it smells like rotten fish and I'll resist it as long as I possibly can.
"Database Programming: Qt 3.0 will include a platform- and database-independent API for
accessing SQL databases": KDE already has put significant resources towards a uniform
Database model, as has the GNOME project and even specific languages (DBI for perl,
f.e.). Why do we need or want, yet another splinter in the market?
I think I can take a stab at this by saying that they're possibly trying to compete with, or fill the diminishing market of, RogueWave DBTools. Before STL was a big part of C++, RogueWave was one of the primary distributors of 'STL-like' libraries and classes for C++. One of the packages they sell is DBTools, which provides a uniform interface to arbitrary SQL databses. It is a very helpful tool.
Ok, so KDE has some of this stuff in it. Not every user of Qt uses KDE. On my SPARC Solaris box, I don't use KDE, but I do have a few Qt apps.
This has already been done by (at least) the university I attended several years ago. During my last year at school, the web was just starting to catch on (1996) with "regular folk", and the professors were putting up all of the course material on the web. Granted there was no "Click here for education" button on the main university web site, but it was all there if you spent the time to click through department->professor->course information and notes.
Now the fact that it is MIT that is doing it (read: making it public knowledge) is cool, but its certainly nothing more than "we're a very prestiegeous university so...".
The two earliest 'cam's that I knew of were the Coffee Cam and the Fish Cam. I think there even used to be a hidden key sequence in Netscape to bring the Fish Cam up (something like Alt-Ctrl-Shift-F). If I remember correctly, the first ones were simply pages with Meta Refresh statements in them, and then once Netscape 1.1 came out (supported animated GIFs), they started doing things that way.
Ahh, but that was years ago. Funny, that's only about 7 years ago, but it still feels like an eternity (in internet time, at least).
I just want to throw my 2 in by saying that when I was younger I used to have a nice HO scale set (even bought some nice DB Marklin trains when I was in Germany). I was happy with the rows of switches and how I could control one train.
Then I went to my family friend's house and saw the 7yr old's setup in their basement.
If you haven't been in the model railroading scene for the last 15-20 years (like myself), you would not believe what they can do today. Not only can the powerpack control several trains at once, but they can all run at different speeds and NOT by the voltage of the track; they regulate their speed by themselves (radio controlled) on a full voltage track! In addition, the modern marvels of 16-bit sound chips has added a new realism to railroading that blows me away. Granted, when I was younger I had a plastic billboard model that actually was a whistle when you pressed a button, but these things you can press a button and have the clickety-clack of the tracks going on.
There were a couple other things that amazed me, but I was impressed enough just by being able to run several trains at once without juggling different power packs.
And that he created us in his own image (thats what the bible says).
I've always enjoyed the line from Frank Zappa's "Dumb All Over" off of the "You Are What You Is" album (c. 1983)
It says in the book right here that God created us in his own image, and if we're dumb, then that means that God is dumb... and maybe a little ugly on the side..
Whether or not you believe in the quote, there is an interesting catch of logic here that at least makes you think a second. Zappa has also been quoted for the line "95% of the world is dumb". Maybe you think he is dumb. That's your right as a person (void in countries where free speech and thought are not permitted).
Slashdot Mirror
I just attended a very popular and interesting art exhibit at the Whitney museum in New York City a few weeks back (it's closed now, nor can I remember the name of the exhibit), and I will certainly tell you that at least in NYC people were not objected to the idea. Besides the computer graphics representation of certain images from history, there were three things that were done that can't be recreated with simply paint and canvas or sculpture:
My two cents follows more or less what Frank Zappa said about music: If you create something and declare it as music/art, then it is. It is up to the critics to decide if they like it or not.
--
Now I just hope they don't touch the MP3 newsgroups :-)
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If you want to get retro, you could always consider the US Army's version of Battlezone otherwise known as the Bradley Trainer.
--
Too bad, there used to be an excellent website about a year and a half ago that had 213 out of the 240 (or thereabouts) episodes available for streaming download. Fox shut that place down, though...
--
I can say that as a programmer, my value is significantly increased by being proficient in multithreaded programming (beyond Java, FWIW). If this article sparks any interest in people, do read further and practice, practice, practice! The people that I've interviewed in the past who have a strong working knowledge of multithreading get a lot of points in my book, and I'm sure other "aware" employers do the same.
Keep in mind, however, that just knowing how to launch a thread isn't enough. If your code isn't reentrant and thread safe, launching a thread isn't worth a damn.
Good article... now if I could only get to it ;-)
--
Well, 100x100 isn't that bad if you screen resolution is 2048x1536 ;-)
--
Practical experience and knowledge versus "This is the way it was written in the Lieberman-Dostoyevsky-Chou book!"
--
(ducking from rotten fruit being hurled at me)
--
At one point I used to work for a computer lab at a university around the time when the AOL floppies were coming out strong.. people would come up to me and ask why their file can't be read, and I'd look at the disk and shake my head...
--
With most Apple ][ emulators, you should be able use the Karateka found at ftp://ftp.apple.asimov.net/pub/apple_II/images/gam es/action/karateka.dsk.
--
Something along the lines of that single sided floppy drives were different. Apples, for example, read the bottom of the disk, while Ataris, for example, read the top side. Single sided disks are tested for one side to be reliable. So which side do they test?
It was funnier when I read it the first time with the semi-poorly drawn images of the two Beagle Brothers, but I think it was not so much what side was capable but more that the magnetic properties wouldn't bleed through to the other side (though it never happened with any of my floppies).
--
You're not kidding. I used to run a system from 1986 until about 1990 in northern NJ (201 area code) called Dronefone, and I have some wonderful memories from those days. One thing is that I even still maintain an excellent and very dear relationship with one of my users; he's been one of my best and dearest friends for years ever since the day that I voice answered my BBS line to tell whoever that it was going to be down for about 30 minutes.
I have every piece of software that I ever ran for my BBS and I have also archived most (if not all) of the data files (read: remaining email, message boards, etc) that existed on these systems. I intend to put it online at some point (even registered a URL), but it will be one hell of an archive organizational effort, not to mention the work converting it all to a readable format.
If anyone who reads this message remembers by BBS, please feel free to drop me a line. When I get the archive up (or if you want bits and pieces that I've extracted), I'll let you know where to find it.
-Drone
Proprietor of Dronefone ('86 - '90)
--
I have fond memories of Pong because it was the first video game I ever played. I wouldn't put it on a list except to be "Hey.. I can really date myself, you young whippersnappers!", but I wouldn't stop from putting Asteroids or Pac-Man on the list.
Some of my favorite games from the golden years are:
The idea of being able to network some of these games (hopefully) will be awesome. I only hope that the network delays won't screw up the gameplay too bad. Heck, I'll contribute to the coding of the older games.
--
Your Mac has been hacked! (OK)
Hmmm.. prefer that sound over Sosumi..
--
"Something big is going to happen... something wonderful!"
(ok, maybe not quite the scene from 2001, but what the heck...)
--
Will take 80 seconds to open....
Schnapps! (Press U to use)
>hic!<
--
However, all that they said is that their recording software wouldn't record MP3s at a higher rate than 56k. So this leaves one of two things. Either
Either way you cut it, I think it smells like rotten fish and I'll resist it as long as I possibly can.
--
I think I can take a stab at this by saying that they're possibly trying to compete with, or fill the diminishing market of, RogueWave DBTools. Before STL was a big part of C++, RogueWave was one of the primary distributors of 'STL-like' libraries and classes for C++. One of the packages they sell is DBTools, which provides a uniform interface to arbitrary SQL databses. It is a very helpful tool.
Ok, so KDE has some of this stuff in it. Not every user of Qt uses KDE. On my SPARC Solaris box, I don't use KDE, but I do have a few Qt apps.
--
Now the fact that it is MIT that is doing it (read: making it public knowledge) is cool, but its certainly nothing more than "we're a very prestiegeous university so...".
my two cents...
--
I thought it was gone; it doesn't work on my SPARC Solaris 4.76 version of Netscape...
--
Ahh, but that was years ago. Funny, that's only about 7 years ago, but it still feels like an eternity (in internet time, at least).
--
Then I went to my family friend's house and saw the 7yr old's setup in their basement.
If you haven't been in the model railroading scene for the last 15-20 years (like myself), you would not believe what they can do today. Not only can the powerpack control several trains at once, but they can all run at different speeds and NOT by the voltage of the track; they regulate their speed by themselves (radio controlled) on a full voltage track! In addition, the modern marvels of 16-bit sound chips has added a new realism to railroading that blows me away. Granted, when I was younger I had a plastic billboard model that actually was a whistle when you pressed a button, but these things you can press a button and have the clickety-clack of the tracks going on.
There were a couple other things that amazed me, but I was impressed enough just by being able to run several trains at once without juggling different power packs.
>sigh<
--
I've always enjoyed the line from Frank Zappa's "Dumb All Over" off of the "You Are What You Is" album (c. 1983)
Whether or not you believe in the quote, there is an interesting catch of logic here that at least makes you think a second. Zappa has also been quoted for the line "95% of the world is dumb". Maybe you think he is dumb. That's your right as a person (void in countries where free speech and thought are not permitted).--
Yes, those were the good ol' days. Now I can't stand more than 30 seconds on modern games without knowing 300 secret moves.
--
My Adam needs an Amiga.
--