Q3 needed the same easy install/upgrade stuff that didnt exist yet or it would be a support nightmare as most people prolly wouldnt have the latest drivers and the game wouldnt work right. I think that is a good example of going out of your way for a principal.
Sure. It just shows what a killer app can do. I think it also shows how much pain you'll endure in order not to be forced to use Direct3D:)
So again, if you think DX8 is an issue you havent appreciated how hard it was.
I remember the early days of GL only too well, and yes it was very hard to get working (Mesa 2.4 on Windows anyone?). But the signs at the time were that it was The Right Thing: not controlled by one vendor, clean API, open specs, easily extended, portable and easy to write for. Direct 3D was none of these. It may have improved but I can't afford the price of Microsoft's compiler or OS to see for myself.
And what makes you think this is an issue now? OpenGL has a wonderful extention mechanism. And my point is that the article, at least on this front, is FUD. So, hopefully you see my point now.
I do. DX 8 just worries me from a competitive point of view because by all accounts, it's damn good for Windows developers. And if it presents enough of a compelling developement platform, then there will be little reason to port to Linux - or worse, it will be harder because of feature set lockin. I suppose it's whether you want best of breed in each case, or a complete solution. There's a good presentation on Game Development in Linux linked from Linux Games which outlines these issues.
Oh well, back to work on my killer no-it-won't-be-ported-to-Windows-so-stop-asking simulator:)
You make some good points but I disagree with this:
- DX8 has nothing to do with anything. Several developers have been busting their ass for years to use OpenGL which has always been a uphill fight for PC games. There were no drivers, there were no cards, there was no to little support from Microsoft.
Compare apples to apples: D3D and OpenGL are what should be compared. And there's been a battle royal for developer mindshare between the two for a number of years now. Far from "busting their asses" for years, developers using OpenGL have had the same clean, portable and open API since day one.
I mean just think about the drivers issue, Carmack had to pay a guy to build a big diver bundle because if he didnt, the game would not have worked for anyone. Anyone does not mean us or any of the upper 10% who can go get our own stuff, but the masses. I mean he was commited, and knew he wasnt going to make any money as far as Linux was concerned, but wanted to do the right thing.
Don't know what your point is here, but id have done more to promote OpenGL as a viable platform on the PC than anyone else - period. Go and read John Carmack's famous Christmas Letter (~1997) about how long it took to port Quake 1 to GL and his not-so-fun experiences with Direct3D.
I think Linux and the community that surrounds it are a great idea. But if you dont do a reality check every
once in a while, linux will never climb out of the hole. Isnt that what you want?
I think Paul Ferris of Linux Today said it best. This is a paraphrase because I can't remember the link: "When Linus Torvalds first released Linux, it was viewed as a toy and few people in the commercial world took it seriously. The naysayers said it will never rival a commercial operating system. Now it runs a third of the Web and on a couple of million desktops.
When the FSF started work on gcc, commercial C compiler vendors for Unix laughed. Now there is hardly a market for compilers on the Unix platform."
At every stage of Linux's growth and development, critics have said "well, yeah so what, Linux can now do X but it will never do Y." The problem with this view is that history has shown otherwise in each and every case. Right now games are at that stage. Yes, Linux isn't the best games platform at the moment for a number of reasons.
..mainly because it's so totally different from anything else I've seen. Instead of a separate executable and support files, you get an archive which you load in Blender 2.x. From there it's press a key to play. The games have:
complex interaction with a full actor-based system
a built-in graphics environment (Blender itself)
scripting through python
sound through OpenAL
In just a few months, the concept has gone from crazy idea to "wow - they might just pull this off." I'm not sure whether it can really rival a dedicated game engine, but that doesn't matter. It's a different idea well implemented.
...because the State's monopoly on currency is a very important part of its control over citizens. As some posters have already pointed out, currency is just a promise that you can exchange for other goods and services. Barter is limited - few people in your neighbourhood are likely to swap what you're giving away for something they have that you want.
Now along comes encryption, fast enough desktop PCs to perform such encryption and a connection to the Internet. Bingo: all of a sudden people can trade with other people anywhere else in the world, using secure channels and valid e-units of currency (including but certainly not limited to e-gold). Lots of advantages: untaxable, untraceable and divisible down to the smallest fraction. The current disadvantage is that State organs like the US Treasury don't like it much and will start cracking down in whatever ways they can.
The very best demos have good design, good code, fantastic original art and great soundtracks. The productions are nearly always done for love not money which gives them a quality that you won't get in many commercial productions. This also means they can be a bit more fragile though. Try scouring:
Some demos are classic "real-time" calculated, others have to fit within a size limit like 64k, still others are wirtten in Java. A study of the scene as a whole would show you some interesting trends e.g. the move to hardware accelerated effects over the last couple of years.
He's a loner who's given it all to the job, and gotten no thanks for it. His personal life has gone to hell; he's brave and incorruptible despite living and working in a sea of wusses, back-stabbers and thieves. Seagal... playing Orin Boyd, the stand-up renegade cop nobody can control, who gets exiled to the city's most corrupt precinct after single-handedly rescuing the Vice President of the U.S. from assassins....Boyd discovers something is rotten in
the Detroit PD and sets out -- with the help of co-star DMX -- to set it right.
What happened to the SPOILER WARNING tagline? Now I know the whole plot! Have some mercy please Jon...
Don't look in Computer Science - too many of the types you don't want. Rather see if you can't find second or third-year engineers with some programming experience. At the varsity I was at, a goodly proportion of engineers realised that the field wasn't for them halfway through the course. They were engineering-minded certainly, but some were already seduced by the ease of software development vs. hardware development, others just didn't want to pursue it full time.
The point is: look here first. You'll get bright people with some programming experience, maybe some exposure to numerical analysis of real-world data and precious little purism.
Great troll this one - subtle and seemingly well-argued. If however, this is a serious comment then one need only point to the more relevant figures regarding OSS:
Apache - ~%62 global market share
DNS and Bind - er ~100% market share
Perl, Python, PHP, Zope, Postgresql and MySQL
sendmail - probably touches every piece of externally routed email on the planet
Linux - fastest growing OS in 2000 according to IDC
The Internet itself
All of these apps and architectures can be classified as OSS. And to claim Mozilla as a failure is disingenuous at best since it was crippled for the first year or so of its existence by its dependence on non-free libraries.
Damn. You know you're responding to a troll when you get to the end of a reply and you've just quoted all the facts and figures at the Open Source website for the fiftieth time.
As a resident of another country - also a so-called democracy - I've been watching with positive alarm as US citizens' rights get further and further eroded by big business interests. Any advice for the rest of the world's geeks? Should we just be pumping out code and documentation that makes a mockery of US Law? Or are there more direct ways of voicing our concerns?
...then read the excellent history Stalingrad by Anthony Beevor, Penguin Books - ISBN 0140249850 (0140284583 in the USA). It draws on a lot of previously-unavailable Russian material including briefs, letters home, diaries and recently-opened Soviet archives.
Easily one of the most outstanding histories of the battle and its context I've ever read.
He describes a similar scenario in Anarchism Triumphant which is an interesting - if a little flawed - look at intellectual property and free software.
Then there's 9892454959483. This one is the source code for Microsoft Word. In addition to being "copyrighted," this one is a trade secret. That means if you take this number from Microsoft and give it to anyone else you can be punished.
Lastly, there's 588832161316. It doesn't do anything, it's just the square of 767354. As far as I know, it isn't owned by anybody under any of these rubrics. Yet.
When I first read this I laughed at the concept of a stream of numbers being copyrightable. But that is of course the current case. Of course it would be even more ridiculous that a naturally-occuring prime would be so subversive, wouldn't it?
It means that slashdot is just as much a spineless
corporate puppet as everyone thought it was.
One the one hand I see where this guy/gal is coming from. Slashdot seems to have sold out. For Malda and Co. to fight the Scientologists would generate major press both against Scientologists and that laughable piece of legislation called the DMCA. Just imagine:
Slashdot Takes Stand Against Both Scientology and DMCA
Geeks Put Oft-touted Ideology To the Test
Open Source Site puts money where mouth is in DMCA wrangle
But another part of me agrees with the blurb. It really isn't worth the time and trouble and lawyers' (more than one:) fees to fight something posted anonymously - especially if the Co$ decide they would like to go after the real poster and subpoena the IP or something.
OTOH there is now a large community of pissed-off web site owners, emulator coders and cartoonists with a single purpose. It amazes me that people still try to discredit, annoy or rip off people on the Net with technical abilities. Like it or not the law is actually quite secondary in these cases. The more common reaction for annoyed techies is to go for the quick expose along with incriminating evidence and character assassination.
Just as I think any kind of community spirit on the Net is gone, some little slimeball pops up and proves me wrong with the reaction he provokes.
Doing a find and replace on some of Miguel's quotes gives a result that looks remarkably similar to a Microsoft Java press release I read a few years back.
"We're making it so you can write services in the Java environment and bring them to the (Windows) platforms, as well as do the reverse," said Gates.
"We think Java looks sweet," Gates continued. "Sun is supporting Java for creating network services. But we will let these services become available to Windows."
Boot. Foot. Other. Funny.
If you want to carry on where Feynman left off...
on
Quantum Computers
·
· Score: 2
...Feynman's notes are still available (from the Feynman link):
Papers, 1933-1988. Feynman's correspondence, course and lecture notes, talks, speeches, publications, manuscripts, working notes and calculations and commentary on the work of others are all included in this extensive collection.
Don't do it please. Resist the temptation now! Python is not a Mickey Mouse language. We get useful work done with it so don't introduce any jokes like this at your next speaking appointment.
One a slightly less childish note (or perhaps not) I was fantasising about the potential of the EBEDA Public License (Everything But The Evil Double A's Public License). Wouldn't it give you a warm feeling to read that BeOpen Labs had taken legal action against Disney for using Python? viz.:
"Our client has advised us that as a member of the MPAA, you are forbidden to use the Python programming language in any shape or form anywhere in your organisation."
I know it's petty and childish but then is so is the current scenario:
Python released under GPL by hackers
Disney uses Python to help create next movie
Disney sues hackers for wanting to watch same Disney movie on DVD
Although both are focused on specific events and companies, they give good background information on the industry.
Kernel source throws doubt on these claims...
on
The Dot in .mars
·
· Score: 2
From net/ipv4/tcp_timer.c:
/* Increase the timeout each time we retransmit. Note that we do not increase the rtt estimate. rto is initialized from rtt, but increases here. Jacobson (SIGCOMM 88) suggests that doubling rto each time is the least we can get away with.
In KA9Q, Karn uses this for the first few times, and then goes to quadratic. netBSD doubles, but only goes up to 64, and clamps at 1 to 64 sec afterwards. Note that 120 sec is defined in the protocol as the maximum possible RTT. I guess
we'll have to use something other than TCP to talk to the University of Mars.
PAWS allows us longer timeouts and large windows, so once implemented ftp to mars will work nicely. We will have to fix * the 120 second clamps though!*/
These activities bear out Shannon's claim that he was more motivated by curiosity than usefulness. In his words "I just wondered how things were put together."
Nowdays his curiosity could easily land him in trouble. Figuring out how things are put together seems to be a big no-no in the US today. Gee, you might discover all sorts of things big companies don't want you to know - like how crappy is their encyption, how stupid their blocking software, or how lame their security.
When I clicked through, the first banner ad was a Unicef-Please-Donate-Money-to-Save-The-Children-Fu nd.
Pretty impressive really. Anyone who might feel a twinge of conscience when following a link to a $600 video card they're thinking of buying is almost immediately comforted with a charity banner where they can assuage said conscience.
Minor quibble about the download page - I found the order of things screwy: libraries should come first, then players and tools, front-ends and whatnot, then player plugins, then language bindings. No doubt there's a good reason for the current order of things but I found it confusing.
Slashdot Mirror
Sure. It just shows what a killer app can do. I think it also shows how much pain you'll endure in order not to be forced to use Direct3D :)
So again, if you think DX8 is an issue you havent appreciated how hard it was.
I remember the early days of GL only too well, and yes it was very hard to get working (Mesa 2.4 on Windows anyone?). But the signs at the time were that it was The Right Thing: not controlled by one vendor, clean API, open specs, easily extended, portable and easy to write for. Direct 3D was none of these. It may have improved but I can't afford the price of Microsoft's compiler or OS to see for myself.
And what makes you think this is an issue now? OpenGL has a wonderful extention mechanism. And my point is that the article, at least on this front, is FUD. So, hopefully you see my point now.
I do. DX 8 just worries me from a competitive point of view because by all accounts, it's damn good for Windows developers. And if it presents enough of a compelling developement platform, then there will be little reason to port to Linux - or worse, it will be harder because of feature set lockin. I suppose it's whether you want best of breed in each case, or a complete solution. There's a good presentation on Game Development in Linux linked from Linux Games which outlines these issues.
Oh well, back to work on my killer no-it-won't-be-ported-to-Windows-so-stop-asking simulator :)
No kidding. That's why I called it an archive.
- DX8 has nothing to do with anything. Several developers have been busting their ass for years to use OpenGL which has always been a uphill fight for PC games. There were no drivers, there were no cards, there was no to little support from Microsoft.
Compare apples to apples: D3D and OpenGL are what should be compared. And there's been a battle royal for developer mindshare between the two for a number of years now. Far from "busting their asses" for years, developers using OpenGL have had the same clean, portable and open API since day one.
I mean just think about the drivers issue, Carmack had to pay a guy to build a big diver bundle because if he didnt, the game would not have worked for anyone. Anyone does not mean us or any of the upper 10% who can go get our own stuff, but the masses. I mean he was commited, and knew he wasnt going to make any money as far as Linux was concerned, but wanted to do the right thing.
Don't know what your point is here, but id have done more to promote OpenGL as a viable platform on the PC than anyone else - period. Go and read John Carmack's famous Christmas Letter (~1997) about how long it took to port Quake 1 to GL and his not-so-fun experiences with Direct3D.
I think Linux and the community that surrounds it are a great idea. But if you dont do a reality check every once in a while, linux will never climb out of the hole. Isnt that what you want?
I think Paul Ferris of Linux Today said it best. This is a paraphrase because I can't remember the link: "When Linus Torvalds first released Linux, it was viewed as a toy and few people in the commercial world took it seriously. The naysayers said it will never rival a commercial operating system. Now it runs a third of the Web and on a couple of million desktops. When the FSF started work on gcc, commercial C compiler vendors for Unix laughed. Now there is hardly a market for compilers on the Unix platform."
At every stage of Linux's growth and development, critics have said "well, yeah so what, Linux can now do X but it will never do Y." The problem with this view is that history has shown otherwise in each and every case. Right now games are at that stage. Yes, Linux isn't the best games platform at the moment for a number of reasons.
But it won't take long to get there.
In just a few months, the concept has gone from crazy idea to "wow - they might just pull this off." I'm not sure whether it can really rival a dedicated game engine, but that doesn't matter. It's a different idea well implemented.
Now along comes encryption, fast enough desktop PCs to perform such encryption and a connection to the Internet. Bingo: all of a sudden people can trade with other people anywhere else in the world, using secure channels and valid e-units of currency (including but certainly not limited to e-gold). Lots of advantages: untaxable, untraceable and divisible down to the smallest fraction. The current disadvantage is that State organs like the US Treasury don't like it much and will start cracking down in whatever ways they can.
- CFX Web
- Scene.org - especially the viewing tips section
- Assembly 2K
Some demos are classic "real-time" calculated, others have to fit within a size limit like 64k, still others are wirtten in Java. A study of the scene as a whole would show you some interesting trends e.g. the move to hardware accelerated effects over the last couple of years.He's a loner who's given it all to the job, and gotten no thanks for it. His personal life has gone to hell; he's brave and incorruptible despite living and working in a sea of wusses, back-stabbers and thieves. Seagal ... playing Orin Boyd, the stand-up renegade cop nobody can control, who gets exiled to the city's most corrupt precinct after single-handedly rescuing the Vice President of the U.S. from assassins. ...Boyd discovers something is rotten in
the Detroit PD and sets out -- with the help of co-star DMX -- to set it right.
What happened to the SPOILER WARNING tagline? Now I know the whole plot! Have some mercy please Jon...
The point is: look here first. You'll get bright people with some programming experience, maybe some exposure to numerical analysis of real-world data and precious little purism.
I've just checked their news page and the team seem to be alive and well and signing copies of the program at SourceForge.
All of these apps and architectures can be classified as OSS. And to claim Mozilla as a failure is disingenuous at best since it was crippled for the first year or so of its existence by its dependence on non-free libraries.
Damn. You know you're responding to a troll when you get to the end of a reply and you've just quoted all the facts and figures at the Open Source website for the fiftieth time.
Easily one of the most outstanding histories of the battle and its context I've ever read.
Then there's 9892454959483. This one is the source code for Microsoft Word. In addition to being "copyrighted," this one is a trade secret. That means if you take this number from Microsoft and give it to anyone else you can be punished. Lastly, there's 588832161316. It doesn't do anything, it's just the square of 767354. As far as I know, it isn't owned by anybody under any of these rubrics. Yet.
When I first read this I laughed at the concept of a stream of numbers being copyrightable. But that is of course the current case. Of course it would be even more ridiculous that a naturally-occuring prime would be so subversive, wouldn't it?
It means that slashdot is just as much a spineless corporate puppet as everyone thought it was.
One the one hand I see where this guy/gal is coming from. Slashdot seems to have sold out. For Malda and Co. to fight the Scientologists would generate major press both against Scientologists and that laughable piece of legislation called the DMCA. Just imagine:
Slashdot Takes Stand Against Both Scientology and DMCA
Geeks Put Oft-touted Ideology To the Test
Open Source Site puts money where mouth is in DMCA wrangle
But another part of me agrees with the blurb. It really isn't worth the time and trouble and lawyers' (more than one :) fees to fight something posted anonymously - especially if the Co$ decide they would like to go after the real poster and subpoena the IP or something.
Just as I think any kind of community spirit on the Net is gone, some little slimeball pops up and proves me wrong with the reaction he provokes.
"We're making it so you can write services in the Java environment and bring them to the (Windows) platforms, as well as do the reverse," said Gates. "We think Java looks sweet," Gates continued. "Sun is supporting Java for creating network services. But we will let these services become available to Windows."
Boot. Foot. Other. Funny.
Papers, 1933-1988. Feynman's correspondence, course and lecture notes, talks, speeches, publications, manuscripts, working notes and calculations and commentary on the work of others are all included in this extensive collection.
Collection size: 91 boxes, 39 linear ft.
That's a big twinkie.
One a slightly less childish note (or perhaps not) I was fantasising about the potential of the EBEDA Public License (Everything But The Evil Double A's Public License). Wouldn't it give you a warm feeling to read that BeOpen Labs had taken legal action against Disney for using Python? viz.:
"Our client has advised us that as a member of the MPAA, you are forbidden to use the Python programming language in any shape or form anywhere in your organisation."
I know it's petty and childish but then is so is the current scenario:
Sigh.
If you're still boycotting Amazon and/or don't feel like buying it, Hackers is available from this link here courtesy of Project Gutenberg.
Liver transplant victim: Eeeaghurghargh!
wife: Ah well - it's all for the good of the country isn't it?
Although both are focused on specific events and companies, they give good background information on the industry.
These activities bear out Shannon's claim that he was more motivated by curiosity than usefulness. In his words "I just wondered how things were put together."
Nowdays his curiosity could easily land him in trouble. Figuring out how things are put together seems to be a big no-no in the US today. Gee, you might discover all sorts of things big companies don't want you to know - like how crappy is their encyption, how stupid their blocking software, or how lame their security.
Pretty impressive really. Anyone who might feel a twinge of conscience when following a link to a $600 video card they're thinking of buying is almost immediately comforted with a charity banner where they can assuage said conscience.
Minor quibble about the download page - I found the order of things screwy: libraries should come first, then players and tools, front-ends and whatnot, then player plugins, then language bindings. No doubt there's a good reason for the current order of things but I found it confusing.