Joking aside, it usually is the USA (and UK) that shoot/destroy the world, and the rest of Europe/world that ends up paying for it either in hard valuta or in suffering. cfr Africa, South-East Asia, Balkan, Israel/Palestina, the Middle-East in general just to name a few in recent decade(s).
anytime someone farts in your general direction, you have to blow them up (or 'back to the stoneage') along with the country he/she is in, and in the end, it is Europe that has to pay the bills for your companies that 'rebuild' the country.
frankly, this idea is beginning to form rather harshly in the public opinion of a lot of Europeans.
That is in this day and age besides the point. While in the old days you HAD to do it manually, even in the age where early adapters had a 3dfx capable card, you still had to code your engine by hand (or rip one, since open source was not so available, nor the internet for that matter;-)) if you wanted to have some audience.
Those 64k demos also boggled the mind. The first pc intro I know of that used generation for both their textures as well as samples was Jizz from The Black Lotus.
Further propagated when their second intro called Stash (well, not their second, but the second with this technology) was released not long after Jizz.
Just ask yourself: if the scene is all about expressing yourself (and bragging in a meritocracy;-)), then WHY wouldn't you use the current limits of your machine to their fullest (including hardware in additional processors) to make something that is fun and easthetical eye-candy to watch?
Ofcourse it has more merit to code your engine by hand using software rendering, but why in god's name would you waste all that awesome power you have at your disposal? And even that 'more merit' part is fading, since 'everybody can do it' by now.
At least in the scene;-)
As for the 64KB disksize and 400MB memory hog at run-time... In the old days there were 2 reasons for a 64k demo competition to be just 64k: in real mode/v86 mode a segment is exactly that size; also, those big demos (800K+ ) were too big to get good exposure and fans if they had to pull it over their state of the art 4800 baud modems.:-) (also, I believe the 64k had to do something with competing with the C=64, Amiga and Atari scenes)
With the advent of a 386, and a program called pmode by Tran/Renaissance changed all that. Watcom (OpenWatcom nowadays) was the favorite scener's C++ compiler with its DOS4GW extender (several 100K to distribute along, where pmode/w was only a stub 13k big with LZSS compression of the PE).
Later (after DOS) the split was between accellerated and non accelerated demos. Ofcourse this was uneven competition:-).
However, the 64k intro scene could benefit greatly from this, resulting in beautiful intro's, that were still as small as that, but were far more enriched.
The 64k in memory was never a real requirement, because you could always allocate more memory for buffers (and the 0A000 segment for the videocard buffer was also included). It is with that limited amount of diskspace that you can do such great stuff that is the issue. There are limits to how much a compression algorithm can do to your final executable (data and all).
And therefore this is a great feat. 64K becomes 400MB... so what, can you code something that looks that cool and beautiful, including textures and music in that limited size?
Maybe for simple reasons, maybe just as simple as the 'new' scene spirit of sharing as opposed to the original hacker culture. More of a 'hippy commune' (hi Statix, ehm... alex;-)) act, but in the past big demo groups have released even their source code for next generations of sceners to learn from (ofcourse ripping is a fact:-().
In fact, there are a few other demo-authoring tools out there already. (Demopaja, smouse,...)
What makes this one so unique is that it allows you to make REALLY small demos, as opposed to the multi deca-mega-byte demos. It allows you to create small demos called intros. (all fitting in 64k).
The big trick is to GENERATE your data from parameters as opposed to loading the data from a file. (jpg, tga, gif, xm, mod, mp3, 3ds, iwo,...) Thus allowing to show something spectacular in such a small sized package. As for the commercial value of this: The other mentioned demo creation tools are also commercialised (at least some) as VJ tools for a videowall or related devices. This is not the case for this tool. Maybe shortsighted of me, but I do not see the commercial value of this product besides the obvious one: get the competition to pay for reaching your level of competence, but even still, then this is only scene related.
And as everyone knows: it is not the tools that make you good (but it helps), so I fear that if it is the intention of Farbraush to level the competitionfield (because it is all too easy for them to win competitions:-)), it still will be difficult for most groups to reach their level;-)
first off... Amidala was 14 yrs old in Ep I, Anakin was supposed to be around 10.
Just because in real life the actors differ about that much, it does not mean the characters they play do.
Same thing happened in ep IV, where both Luke and Leia are 16 years old (according to the script).
And secondly,
I too enjoyed reading the Zahn trilogy (although a translated version, since I am not a native English speaker and the english version is not available over here), but I would doubt that they would measure up on screen. Brilliant books make rarely good movies (for those who read the books).
(which happened to LOTR for me as well. I found the movies to be a nice 'wow, new zealand looks sooo nice and pure' commercial that was kind of raping the visualisation of the ENTIRE (uncut) story I fantasized when I read the trilogy).
I didn't realize that the EU refunded the taxes. I always just thought that since they were levied, they never saw that money again, which would have levelled the field.
Actually, (here in Belgium at least) they do not REFUND taxes (except when it has been established that you paid too much in the first place)!
Income taxes are part of the personal taxes, which arrive in everybodies mailbox once a year by means of a brown envelope.
On the form inside this envelope, you have to declare what you have earned (which when you are employed by an employer they have been given by this employer as well), how much of your monthly (or in the case of workers: bi-weekly) salary has been prepaid through withholding by the employer.(who then has to forward money this to the taxes department in your name).
The rest of the form (multipage) deals with what you can bring in as tax deductables (morgage loans, other loans, value of your house when you'd have to rent it from somebody else,...) or additional earnings ( e.g.: you rent out your appartment to somebody else ) etc.
However, nothing of the VAT (Value Added Taxes, or in dutch BTW (belasting op de toegevoegde waarde)) can be recouperated by normal employees or workers.
VAT is not income tax (?)!
The year later, when the taxes have been processed, it is calculated whether you have pre-paid too much or too less in the previous year and are either refunded or required to pay the rest.
VAT on the other hand is when you buy a product (a TV, a loaf of bread,...) from a company or someone with a VAT-number (freelancers, self-employers, companies!). The product has a value. On it, there is (depending on the necessity of the product: basic need, luxury,...) a percentage of taxes added!
For instance, a TV of 300 EURO would have 21% added since it is a luxury product (or not anymore, since last year, donno;-))
This kind of tax however is paid by the customer in full when he/she buys the product/service from the vendor.
The vendor however (and this is where self-employers can recouperate taxes) must keep a bookkeeping of his VAT incoming and outgoing.
In the case of the TV, he would have to add 63 EURO on the received side. This is an amount he/she would have to pay to the taxes department of his government. However, on every puchase he/she/it makes for business purposes, they can deduct the VAT they have already paid on the vendor of those products/services from the amount they have to pay. Every quarter they would have to declare their balance with regard to VAT and pay up the remaining balance (effectively resetting the balance to 0) or file for a refunding (which they may deduct from the incoming of the next Q).
This is ofcourse not for everyone.
Hope this shed some light into why we look at US pays with such awe.
On average, a 'normal IT wage' is about 27000 EURO a year here in Belgium (according to the salary poll on vacature.com). Of which about 42% is prepaid in taxes and social security (pensions, sickness guarantees, unemployment... etc) and never reaches the bankaccounts of the employees. The employer on the other hand, when he pays the monthly salaries, needs to multiply this amount with nearly 1.8 and pay the extra 0.8 on social security extra's and 'patronale bijdragen' (taxes paid by the employer in your name for your work)
Re:How can they call this a Party!
on
Assembly '03
·
· Score: 2, Informative
maybe you should know a bit more about demoparties
the average scener (not some gamer) usually either doesn't sleep during the whole event, or in between compos. (and even then not a whole lot:-)) When they do sleep, it can be almost anywhere (on their keyboard, under the tables, in the isles, in the dorm, next to hifi-speaker systems,...).
as for the kitchen equipment. 4 days without food is not such an option (as if 4 days without sleep is;-)), and there are those who bring their entire refrigerators and electric stoves.
the whole issue with this is that such kitchen appliances take a lot more power than your average PC (or even hi-fi equipment). To lower the risk of power shortages, these appliances are banned from the party electric grid.
Re:Oooh the memories...
on
Assembly '03
·
· Score: 1
we've come a long way since second reality. however, I must agree that it were the reality demos by FC, cronologia/Cascada and Panic/FC that made me join the scene as well:-)
yesterday (15th of february), Marc Verwilgen (minister of justice) claimed that the prosecution of Napster-users or 'illegal downloaders of music' would get the lowest priority. So, even if the IFPI or its Belgian branch WOULD prosecute a forementioned user, the case wouldn't even make it to a court and get seponated right away.
However, as the whole legalisation of marihuana , the providers will be dealt with, and not the users. (so in the end, if were some lamo keeping your napster shut on the upstream and download everything you could get, you are safe. If you shared your own MP3's or your illegal collection, you will get burned as being of the second category: provider.
Slashdot Mirror
mind you, I wasn't linking it to 9/11 with that fart part!
No, that's not the way things go.
Joking aside, it usually is the USA (and UK) that shoot/destroy the world, and the rest of Europe/world that ends up paying for it either in hard valuta or in suffering.
cfr Africa, South-East Asia, Balkan, Israel/Palestina, the Middle-East in general just to name a few in recent decade(s).
anytime someone farts in your general direction, you have to blow them up (or 'back to the stoneage') along with the country he/she is in, and
in the end, it is Europe that has to pay the bills for your companies that 'rebuild' the country.
frankly, this idea is beginning to form rather harshly in the public opinion of a lot of Europeans.
kind regards
That is in this day and age besides the point. While in the old days you HAD to do it manually, even in the age where early adapters had a 3dfx capable card, you still had to code your engine by hand (or rip one, since open source was not so available, nor the internet for that matter ;-)) if you wanted to have some audience.
;-)), then WHY wouldn't you use the current limits of your machine to their fullest (including hardware in additional processors) to make something that is fun and easthetical eye-candy to watch?
;-)
:-) (also, I believe the 64k had to do something with competing with the C=64, Amiga and
:-).
... so what, can you code something that looks that cool and beautiful, including textures and music in that limited size?
Those 64k demos also boggled the mind. The first pc intro I know of that used generation for both their textures as well as samples was Jizz from The Black Lotus.
Further propagated when their second intro called Stash (well, not their second, but the second with this technology) was released not long after Jizz.
Just ask yourself: if the scene is all about expressing yourself (and bragging in a meritocracy
Ofcourse it has more merit to code your engine by hand using software rendering, but why in god's name would you waste all that awesome power you have at your disposal? And even that 'more merit' part is fading, since 'everybody can do it' by now.
At least in the scene
As for the 64KB disksize and 400MB memory hog at run-time... In the old days there were 2 reasons for a 64k demo competition to be just 64k: in real mode/v86 mode a segment is exactly that size; also, those big demos (800K+ ) were too big to get good exposure and fans if they had to pull it over their state of the art 4800 baud modems.
Atari scenes)
With the advent of a 386, and a program called pmode by Tran/Renaissance changed all that. Watcom (OpenWatcom nowadays) was the favorite scener's C++ compiler with its DOS4GW extender (several 100K to distribute along, where pmode/w was only a stub 13k big with LZSS compression of the PE).
Later (after DOS) the split was between accellerated and non accelerated demos. Ofcourse this was uneven competition
However, the 64k intro scene could benefit greatly from this, resulting in beautiful intro's, that were still as small as that, but were far more enriched.
The 64k in memory was never a real requirement, because you could always allocate more memory for buffers (and the 0A000 segment for the videocard buffer was also included). It is with that limited amount of diskspace that you can do such great stuff that is the issue. There are limits to how much a compression algorithm can do to your final executable (data and all).
And therefore this is a great feat. 64K becomes 400MB
Gongo / Green ^ openUDS
Ehm ... you seem to have missed out since before 1997 (where have you been the last 8 years? ;-))
...
opengl, directx, even demos that have versions for linux and windows (since wired'98 'Hard Rox' by skall)
try http://scene.org
Gongo / Green ^ openUDs
search on the farbraush site for other productions, or on pouet on farbraush productions (including the .produkt). Candytron, ...
both 64k demos (with a lot of generation) and full fledged demos are possible with this tool.
Gongo/Green ^ openUDS
Why they would do this?
... alex ;-)) act, but in the past big demo groups have released even their source code for next generations of sceners to learn from (ofcourse ripping is a fact :-().
...)
...) Thus allowing to show something spectacular in such a small sized package.
:-)), it still will be difficult for most groups to reach their level ;-)
Maybe for simple reasons, maybe just as simple as the 'new' scene spirit of sharing as opposed to the original hacker culture. More of a 'hippy commune' (hi Statix, ehm
In fact, there are a few other demo-authoring tools out there already. (Demopaja, smouse,
What makes this one so unique is that it allows you to make REALLY small demos, as opposed to the multi deca-mega-byte demos. It allows you to create small demos called intros. (all fitting in 64k).
The big trick is to GENERATE your data from parameters as opposed to loading the data from a file. (jpg, tga, gif, xm, mod, mp3, 3ds, iwo,
As for the commercial value of this: The other mentioned demo creation tools are also commercialised (at least some) as VJ tools for a videowall or related devices. This is not the case for this tool. Maybe shortsighted of me, but I do not see the commercial value of this product besides the obvious one: get the competition to pay for reaching your level of competence, but even still, then this is only scene related.
And as everyone knows: it is not the tools that make you good (but it helps), so I fear that if it is the intention of Farbraush to level the competitionfield (because it is all too easy for them to win competitions
Gongo / Green ^ openUDS
Because they can then draw more expressiveness and emotions in those eyes. It's as simple as that!
first off ... Amidala was 14 yrs old in Ep I, Anakin was supposed to be around 10.
:-)
Just because in real life the actors differ about that much, it does not mean the characters they play do.
Same thing happened in ep IV, where both Luke and Leia are 16 years old (according to the script).
And secondly,
I too enjoyed reading the Zahn trilogy (although a translated version, since I am not a native English speaker and the english version is not available over here), but I would doubt that they would measure up on screen. Brilliant books make rarely good movies (for those who read the books).
(which happened to LOTR for me as well. I found the movies to be a nice 'wow, new zealand looks sooo nice and pure' commercial that was kind of raping the visualisation of the ENTIRE (uncut) story I fantasized when I read the trilogy).
just my 2 cts
Actually, (here in Belgium at least) they do not REFUND taxes (except when it has been established that you paid too much in the first place)!
Income taxes are part of the personal taxes, which arrive in everybodies mailbox once a year by means of a brown envelope.
On the form inside this envelope, you have to declare what you have earned (which when you are employed by an employer they have been given by this employer as well), how much of your monthly (or in the case of workers: bi-weekly) salary has been prepaid through withholding by the employer.(who then has to forward money this to the taxes department in your name).
The rest of the form (multipage) deals with what you can bring in as tax deductables (morgage loans, other loans, value of your house when you'd have to rent it from somebody else,
However, nothing of the VAT (Value Added Taxes, or in dutch BTW (belasting op de toegevoegde waarde)) can be recouperated by normal employees or workers.
VAT is not income tax (?)!
The year later, when the taxes have been processed, it is calculated whether you have pre-paid too much or too less in the previous year and are either refunded or required to pay the rest.
VAT on the other hand is when you buy a product (a TV, a loaf of bread,
For instance, a TV of 300 EURO would have 21% added since it is a luxury product (or not anymore, since last year, donno
This kind of tax however is paid by the customer in full when he/she buys the product/service from the vendor.
The vendor however (and this is where self-employers can recouperate taxes) must keep a bookkeeping of his VAT incoming and outgoing.
In the case of the TV, he would have to add 63 EURO on the received side. This is an amount he/she would have to pay to the taxes department of his government. However, on every puchase he/she/it makes for business purposes, they can deduct the VAT they have already paid on the vendor of those products/services from the amount they have to pay. Every quarter they would have to declare their balance with regard to VAT and pay up the remaining balance (effectively resetting the balance to 0) or file for a refunding (which they may deduct from the incoming of the next Q).
This is ofcourse not for everyone.
Hope this shed some light into why we look at US pays with such awe.
On average, a 'normal IT wage' is about 27000 EURO a year here in Belgium (according to the salary poll on vacature.com). Of which about 42% is prepaid in taxes and social security (pensions, sickness guarantees, unemployment
maybe you should know a bit more about demoparties
the average scener (not some gamer) usually :-)) When they do sleep, it can be almost anywhere (on their keyboard, under the tables, in the isles, in the dorm, next to hifi-speaker systems, ...).
either doesn't sleep during the whole event, or in between compos. (and even then not a whole lot
as for the kitchen equipment. 4 days without food is not such an option (as if 4 days without sleep is ;-)), and there are those who bring their entire refrigerators and electric stoves.
the whole issue with this is that such kitchen appliances take a lot more power than your average PC (or even hi-fi equipment). To lower the risk of power shortages, these appliances are banned from the party electric grid.
we've come a long way since second reality. however, I must agree that it were the reality demos by FC, cronologia/Cascada and Panic/FC that made me join the scene as well :-)
yesterday (15th of february), Marc Verwilgen (minister of justice) claimed that the prosecution of Napster-users or 'illegal downloaders of music' would get the lowest priority. So, even if the IFPI or its Belgian branch WOULD prosecute a forementioned user, the case wouldn't even make it to a court and get seponated right away. However, as the whole legalisation of marihuana , the providers will be dealt with, and not the users. (so in the end, if were some lamo keeping your napster shut on the upstream and download everything you could get, you are safe. If you shared your own MP3's or your illegal collection, you will get burned as being of the second category: provider.