The first real-time 3D engine I ever played or saw was Midwinter for the Amiga. It was released in 1989, 4 years before Doom, and featured flat-shaded polygon rendering in a true 3D environment. I just remember the environment being incredibly huge and immersive, and I spent many hours walking and skiing around desolate white landscapes.
All that was needed to run Doom was a 386 level PC (in low-detail mode) with a standard VGA videocard capable of rendering texture-mapped environments.
All texture mapping was done in software, which was even true of the Quake 1 and Quake 2 software renderers. So I'm not sure why they're attributing texture-mapping to the VGA hardware.
Other features of the Quake II engine, now known as id Tech 2, included colored lighting effects, and a new game model whereby game code was written in C and loaded from a DLL (Dynamic Link Library) rather than the original QuakeC scripting language. In layman's terms, this allowed for both software and OpenGL renders rather than one or the other, so if you didn't own a Voodoo videocard, you weren't necessarily out of luck.
Here the article is stating that by using native DLLs for game logic in Quake 2 instead of the Quake C used in Quake, Quake 2 could support both hardware and software rendering. The game logic has nothing whatsoever to do with the rendering.
The GoldSRC engine used by HalfLife was described as a "tweaked Quake engine". Tweaked? That's an incredibly massive understatement. Elsewhere I've read that id Software provided the Quake 2 sources to Vavle as part of the licensing, but they had modified the Quake 1 engine so heavily, and improved it so much, that use of Quake 2 source was unnecessary and probably nearly impossible due to so many changes to the Quake 1 architecture.
Otherwise it is an interesting, albeit lightweight, article.
Google voice provides unlimited incoming AND outgoing SMS for free. I've been using it on my blackberry because I have unlimited data, but no SMS plan (costs me 25 cents to send a single message). I'm not familiar with the AT&T plans, but if SMS packages are optional add-ons then they would certainly lose money as people realize they have unlimited texting through their google phone number.
8. Governments and aid organizations have a hard enough time getting food into the hands of people that need it in 3rd world countries, even with their massive distribution systems. Food is stolen, resold, or grabbed up by local thugs who leverage it to meet their own goals. How likely is it that the One Laptop Per Child's XOs would actually end up in the hands of children?
As a parent with 3 kids (6, 9 and 12 year olds) and 4 DSs (1 classic, 3 lites), I can say they aren't that durable at all. All 4 have broken at least once. And at the moment, only one is actually working, and it is one that I did a top LCD panel replacement myself. We've used the Nerf Armor, and even then the top screen of one of the units cracked after a typical drop onto the floor.
The lack of a physics keyboard would make the DS a non-starter for OLPC.
So much of this article's comparison revolves around an older model walkman (like not having auto-reverse). All the newer portable cassette players could detect the tape type automatically. Anyone that's used cassette tapes knows about the two indentations (one for each side) on the top edge of the tape that tell the deck not to record over the tape. For blank tapes the indentations are covered with a tab that can be broken off to make that side of the cassette "read only" (and we all know the trick of putting a piece of tape over it to make it recordable). The cassette standard defines a couple more indentations along the same edge of the tape that indicate what type of tape it uses (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Cassette_Write_Protect_IV.jpg).
So my point in saying all that is that even in the age of cassettes, many people didn't know (or have to know) about the types of magnetic media used.
The article didn't make any mention of Dolby NR, which was a selectable option most all Walkmans had.
It also misses the single biggest usability difference between cassettes and digital media. The crux of any comparison between the two is the difference between random and serial access to songs. Which brings in another cassette player tech - Blank Search.
I think the boy should have been given a Walkman from the heyday of the cassette era, instead of an earlier crappy model that I would have considered primitive even in 1988.
Generally, I think passwords should be represented by asterisks. When I remote access a machine (VNC), or log into a website that takes forever to POST and load the next page, then it certainly is useful.
However, one place that I think asterisks is really, really stupid is for entering a WPA / WEP key for Windows-managed wireless adapters. In OSX there is a checkbox that allows you to show the key you type. In windows it is DOUBLY stupid. First, entering in a 128 bit WEP key (26 chars) is a tedious error-prone process. So having it visible would be extremely helpful. There are very, very few people that could remember a 26 place hexadecimal number after seeing it only for a couple seconds, so I don't see this as a security risk. But the real stupidity is that Windows makes you enter it twice! Perhaps there is a process in which a WAP can be configured without actually having the WAP in range, but for me, I'm always setting up a connection interactively. Thus if I've entered the wrong key I will know immediately. So I'm really not sure why I have to enter a 26 place hex number, represented by asterisks, TWICE to connect to an AP.
I noticed this on a work machine and read about it last week. Instead of trying to manually remove the extension (the Uninstall button is disabled for this one and only extension) I simply disabled it. Starting that same day, the machine (2.3 Ghz dual core Vista with 4 GB RAM) has begun locking up hard when using Firefox. This doesn't happen with IE or any other software. It locked up 5 times on me with Firefox within 1 hour, and has not locked up at all since then, as I have not used Firefox. It is abundantly clear the problem is related to Firefox, and the only thing I did with Firefox was disable the extension and restart.
Has anyone else experienced anything like this after disabling the.NET extension? I'm curious how deeply this extension hooks into the OS and if it is capable of freezing up the entire OS. Firefox, on its own, should not be capable of locking up the entire machine.
Just waiting for a deaf mute, a #1 hit rock star, an unemployed factory worker and a knocked up teen to come out of the woodwork to fight a demon that wears cowboy boots.
Here's what's ridiculous. I have a Blackberry, and do not have an SMS plan with my carrier, thus each text costs me 25 cents to send. Receiving SMS is free and unlimited. I have an unlimited data plan for Blackberry, so I simply send emails using the carrier email SMS gateways for "free". The only downside is that the recipient cannot directly reply to my message. Here's the stupid part. The amount of bandwidth, processing, and inter-service gateways my emails have to pass through must require at least 100 times the resources of sending an actual SMS. The final kicker is that even if I keep my actual message under 160 chars, they are usually broken up into more than one SMS message because of the header attached by the SMS gateway that contains my email address, etc.
The fear is the mortality rate. Sure, the "regular" flu kills 35000 a year, but that's a mortality rate of 0.1%. This flu, if it's like the 1918 H1N1, which we already know it is *not*, could be much higher. Even if it's a 1% mortality rate, this is alarmingly high. (Infect 100 million Americans, 1 million die.)
Actually it's not the mortality rate. We don't even know what the mortality rate is, because no-one knows how many people got sick with this in Mexico to result in the deaths. Only 16 deaths in Mexico have actually been proven to be the result of H1N1, and those 16 people had average delay of seven days before seeking medical treatment (in other words, they languished in illness for a whole week on average without any medical treatment at all).
The concern is that a lot of adults in their prime of life - those between 18 to 40 who are least likely to succumb to these kinds of infectious diseases - have died in Mexico. That is what scares the crap out of doctors. Yes, lots of people die from the flu every year, but the deaths are almost entirely comprised of geriatric individuals with compromised health and weak immune systems, who are typically already hospitalized or in nursing homes.
There is still a massive discrepancy as to why hundreds of healthy people died of something in Mexico (again, not even verified to be H1N1) and why people here in the US only see minor flu-like symptoms resulting in few days of taking it easy at home.
Because a true geek would not just want the LED to flash on and off symmetrically, but instead flash their name in Morse code. Try doing that with a 555.;)
"Researchers at the University of Southern Denmark have modified a Wiimote so that it can control an industrial lawn mower."
"It uses a standard Wiimote that communicates via Bluetooth to a computer and robotics module built into the mower."
So which is it? Did they actually modify a Wiimote or just use it as another HID via any of the myriad drivers out there? Would this be any more or less newsworthy if they used a wireless mouse, or a controller connected to the computer with *GASP* a wire?
I used to consume a couple liters of caffeinated beverages daily. 4 or 5 years ago my wife and I decided to switch completely to bottled water. There weren't really any health reasons to our decision - we just wanted to try it. I remember having headaches for a few days, and feeling lethargic, but the withdrawal wasn't too bad.
We still primarily drink bottled water, but when eating out I'll drink a tea or soft drink. The nice thing is that if I have extra work to do, or am driving on a long trip, I can drink a bottle of pop and it actually is a stimulant for me, as opposed to something my body relies on just to maintain the status quo.
The next time he makes a prediction locally, regardless of government acceptance or official response, people will listen. This isn't a good situation for him at all. Now if he makes a prediction he is bearing all the liability for problems that may occur (economic losses, panic, etc) if he is wrong. The best case is for the government to recognize that, although radon isn't a universal predictor of earthquake activity, perhaps it IS an indicator in that particular region. Thus if he sees the same behavior that preceded this last quake, the government, in an official capacity, can take proper measures. I don't think having everyone evacuate is a reasonable response, because the time frames are too nebulous. Those living in older residences, prone to extensive earthquake damage, could perhaps stay with friends or family temporarily. That is the type of reasonable recommendation a government can make, opposed to the automatic panic and exodus his next prediction will cause.
So the real question is has he taken the government's reaction as a personal slight, thus prompting him to use his new-found influence and fame next time around to operate above the government? This does present an interesting moral situation, especially due to the extensive negative repercussion he could face next time around if he is wrong.
Actually, the study shows that crabs avoid electrical shocks. Do they experience it as pain? Who knows. Considering that the nervous system uses electrical impulses to transmit information, an electrical shock directly affects and interferes with the nervous system.
I think the point in all this is to determine whether or not killing a crab by dropping it into a pot of boiling water is less ethical than killing it in some other manner. The problem I see is that electricity and boiling water are not at all the same. Maybe they don't have pain receptors for heat, thus, to them, their body basically stops working when boiled, and that's that. On the other hand, an electrical charge will definitely negatively affect their nervous system, regardless of pain receptors, temperature receptors, etc, and that would be something they would avoid, if just because they don't want their nervous system to act all haywire.
So really the study doesn't match the actual "inhumane" conditions enough to be able to bring about change in the treatment of these animals.
It's good to see Slashdot reporting on technological achievements of this magnitude. I can't wait to hear the next GUI tweak for some other application. Perhaps the repositioning of a button, or a change in the font size of some GUI element will be next.
Truly advancements of this sort can only be achieved by a think tank of the best minds Google could recruit from top universities.
Mod parent up. Any Turing-complete computing device, given enough memory and storage, can replicate anything this hardware can do. The capabilities, programming model, performance, etc, can all be determined exactly without requiring a physical model. In fact, it would be ridiculous for them to not have completely simulated the hardware before testing it.
Slashdot Mirror
The first real-time 3D engine I ever played or saw was Midwinter for the Amiga. It was released in 1989, 4 years before Doom, and featured flat-shaded polygon rendering in a true 3D environment. I just remember the environment being incredibly huge and immersive, and I spent many hours walking and skiing around desolate white landscapes.
Wikipedia article (which mentions nothing whatsoever about the game's technical aspects);
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midwinter_(video_game)
Screenshot of the 3D environment (Atari ST version):
http://www.mobygames.com/game/atari-st/midwinter/screenshots/gameShotId,362797/
Gamespot seems to be one of the few that actually recognize how groundbreaking this game was:
http://www.gamespot.com/gamespot/features/pc/unsung_heroes/sec2_10.html
There are a number of technical inaccuracies too.
All that was needed to run Doom was a 386 level PC (in low-detail mode) with a standard VGA videocard capable of rendering texture-mapped environments.
All texture mapping was done in software, which was even true of the Quake 1 and Quake 2 software renderers. So I'm not sure why they're attributing texture-mapping to the VGA hardware.
Other features of the Quake II engine, now known as id Tech 2, included colored lighting effects, and a new game model whereby game code was written in C and loaded from a DLL (Dynamic Link Library) rather than the original QuakeC scripting language. In layman's terms, this allowed for both software and OpenGL renders rather than one or the other, so if you didn't own a Voodoo videocard, you weren't necessarily out of luck.
Here the article is stating that by using native DLLs for game logic in Quake 2 instead of the Quake C used in Quake, Quake 2 could support both hardware and software rendering. The game logic has nothing whatsoever to do with the rendering.
The GoldSRC engine used by HalfLife was described as a "tweaked Quake engine". Tweaked? That's an incredibly massive understatement. Elsewhere I've read that id Software provided the Quake 2 sources to Vavle as part of the licensing, but they had modified the Quake 1 engine so heavily, and improved it so much, that use of Quake 2 source was unnecessary and probably nearly impossible due to so many changes to the Quake 1 architecture.
Otherwise it is an interesting, albeit lightweight, article.
Google voice provides unlimited incoming AND outgoing SMS for free. I've been using it on my blackberry because I have unlimited data, but no SMS plan (costs me 25 cents to send a single message). I'm not familiar with the AT&T plans, but if SMS packages are optional add-ons then they would certainly lose money as people realize they have unlimited texting through their google phone number.
8. Governments and aid organizations have a hard enough time getting food into the hands of people that need it in 3rd world countries, even with their massive distribution systems. Food is stolen, resold, or grabbed up by local thugs who leverage it to meet their own goals. How likely is it that the One Laptop Per Child's XOs would actually end up in the hands of children?
As a parent with 3 kids (6, 9 and 12 year olds) and 4 DSs (1 classic, 3 lites), I can say they aren't that durable at all. All 4 have broken at least once. And at the moment, only one is actually working, and it is one that I did a top LCD panel replacement myself. We've used the Nerf Armor, and even then the top screen of one of the units cracked after a typical drop onto the floor.
The lack of a physics keyboard would make the DS a non-starter for OLPC.
but students will be sharing code - plain text - not RTF or HTML or Word files
I'm with you on Word files being binary, but RTF and HTML are both plain text.
So much of this article's comparison revolves around an older model walkman (like not having auto-reverse). All the newer portable cassette players could detect the tape type automatically. Anyone that's used cassette tapes knows about the two indentations (one for each side) on the top edge of the tape that tell the deck not to record over the tape. For blank tapes the indentations are covered with a tab that can be broken off to make that side of the cassette "read only" (and we all know the trick of putting a piece of tape over it to make it recordable). The cassette standard defines a couple more indentations along the same edge of the tape that indicate what type of tape it uses (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Cassette_Write_Protect_IV.jpg).
So my point in saying all that is that even in the age of cassettes, many people didn't know (or have to know) about the types of magnetic media used.
The article didn't make any mention of Dolby NR, which was a selectable option most all Walkmans had.
It also misses the single biggest usability difference between cassettes and digital media. The crux of any comparison between the two is the difference between random and serial access to songs. Which brings in another cassette player tech - Blank Search.
I think the boy should have been given a Walkman from the heyday of the cassette era, instead of an earlier crappy model that I would have considered primitive even in 1988.
Generally, I think passwords should be represented by asterisks. When I remote access a machine (VNC), or log into a website that takes forever to POST and load the next page, then it certainly is useful.
However, one place that I think asterisks is really, really stupid is for entering a WPA / WEP key for Windows-managed wireless adapters. In OSX there is a checkbox that allows you to show the key you type. In windows it is DOUBLY stupid. First, entering in a 128 bit WEP key (26 chars) is a tedious error-prone process. So having it visible would be extremely helpful. There are very, very few people that could remember a 26 place hexadecimal number after seeing it only for a couple seconds, so I don't see this as a security risk. But the real stupidity is that Windows makes you enter it twice! Perhaps there is a process in which a WAP can be configured without actually having the WAP in range, but for me, I'm always setting up a connection interactively. Thus if I've entered the wrong key I will know immediately. So I'm really not sure why I have to enter a 26 place hex number, represented by asterisks, TWICE to connect to an AP.
Novel: Check
Excellent thesis topic: Check
Accolades from fellow CS geeks: Check
Impressive on resume: Check
Realistically useful: Uncheck
I noticed this on a work machine and read about it last week. Instead of trying to manually remove the extension (the Uninstall button is disabled for this one and only extension) I simply disabled it. Starting that same day, the machine (2.3 Ghz dual core Vista with 4 GB RAM) has begun locking up hard when using Firefox. This doesn't happen with IE or any other software. It locked up 5 times on me with Firefox within 1 hour, and has not locked up at all since then, as I have not used Firefox. It is abundantly clear the problem is related to Firefox, and the only thing I did with Firefox was disable the extension and restart.
Has anyone else experienced anything like this after disabling the .NET extension? I'm curious how deeply this extension hooks into the OS and if it is capable of freezing up the entire OS. Firefox, on its own, should not be capable of locking up the entire machine.
"No, it's not running Linux"
I hate it when people to conclusions. Obviously, it is running linux, just with an XP-themed window manager.
Just waiting for a deaf mute, a #1 hit rock star, an unemployed factory worker and a knocked up teen to come out of the woodwork to fight a demon that wears cowboy boots.
Here's what's ridiculous. I have a Blackberry, and do not have an SMS plan with my carrier, thus each text costs me 25 cents to send. Receiving SMS is free and unlimited. I have an unlimited data plan for Blackberry, so I simply send emails using the carrier email SMS gateways for "free". The only downside is that the recipient cannot directly reply to my message. Here's the stupid part. The amount of bandwidth, processing, and inter-service gateways my emails have to pass through must require at least 100 times the resources of sending an actual SMS. The final kicker is that even if I keep my actual message under 160 chars, they are usually broken up into more than one SMS message because of the header attached by the SMS gateway that contains my email address, etc.
The fear is the mortality rate. Sure, the "regular" flu kills 35000 a year, but that's a mortality rate of 0.1%. This flu, if it's like the 1918 H1N1, which we already know it is *not*, could be much higher. Even if it's a 1% mortality rate, this is alarmingly high. (Infect 100 million Americans, 1 million die.)
Actually it's not the mortality rate. We don't even know what the mortality rate is, because no-one knows how many people got sick with this in Mexico to result in the deaths. Only 16 deaths in Mexico have actually been proven to be the result of H1N1, and those 16 people had average delay of seven days before seeking medical treatment (in other words, they languished in illness for a whole week on average without any medical treatment at all).
The concern is that a lot of adults in their prime of life - those between 18 to 40 who are least likely to succumb to these kinds of infectious diseases - have died in Mexico. That is what scares the crap out of doctors. Yes, lots of people die from the flu every year, but the deaths are almost entirely comprised of geriatric individuals with compromised health and weak immune systems, who are typically already hospitalized or in nursing homes.
There is still a massive discrepancy as to why hundreds of healthy people died of something in Mexico (again, not even verified to be H1N1) and why people here in the US only see minor flu-like symptoms resulting in few days of taking it easy at home.
Because a true geek would not just want the LED to flash on and off symmetrically, but instead flash their name in Morse code. Try doing that with a 555. ;)
Release date is May 3 2009 at 16:00 GMT.
"Researchers at the University of Southern Denmark have modified a Wiimote so that it can control an industrial lawn mower."
"It uses a standard Wiimote that communicates via Bluetooth to a computer and robotics module built into the mower."
So which is it? Did they actually modify a Wiimote or just use it as another HID via any of the myriad drivers out there? Would this be any more or less newsworthy if they used a wireless mouse, or a controller connected to the computer with *GASP* a wire?
I used to consume a couple liters of caffeinated beverages daily. 4 or 5 years ago my wife and I decided to switch completely to bottled water. There weren't really any health reasons to our decision - we just wanted to try it. I remember having headaches for a few days, and feeling lethargic, but the withdrawal wasn't too bad.
We still primarily drink bottled water, but when eating out I'll drink a tea or soft drink. The nice thing is that if I have extra work to do, or am driving on a long trip, I can drink a bottle of pop and it actually is a stimulant for me, as opposed to something my body relies on just to maintain the status quo.
The next time he makes a prediction locally, regardless of government acceptance or official response, people will listen. This isn't a good situation for him at all. Now if he makes a prediction he is bearing all the liability for problems that may occur (economic losses, panic, etc) if he is wrong. The best case is for the government to recognize that, although radon isn't a universal predictor of earthquake activity, perhaps it IS an indicator in that particular region. Thus if he sees the same behavior that preceded this last quake, the government, in an official capacity, can take proper measures. I don't think having everyone evacuate is a reasonable response, because the time frames are too nebulous. Those living in older residences, prone to extensive earthquake damage, could perhaps stay with friends or family temporarily. That is the type of reasonable recommendation a government can make, opposed to the automatic panic and exodus his next prediction will cause.
So the real question is has he taken the government's reaction as a personal slight, thus prompting him to use his new-found influence and fame next time around to operate above the government? This does present an interesting moral situation, especially due to the extensive negative repercussion he could face next time around if he is wrong.
AmigaOS 1.0 did that
Click. Click. Click. Click. Click.
In reference to the parent, gp, ggp, etc. Either I'm reading the alternate-reality edition of Slashdot, or y'all are warming up for Wednesday.
Actually, the study shows that crabs avoid electrical shocks. Do they experience it as pain? Who knows. Considering that the nervous system uses electrical impulses to transmit information, an electrical shock directly affects and interferes with the nervous system.
I think the point in all this is to determine whether or not killing a crab by dropping it into a pot of boiling water is less ethical than killing it in some other manner. The problem I see is that electricity and boiling water are not at all the same. Maybe they don't have pain receptors for heat, thus, to them, their body basically stops working when boiled, and that's that. On the other hand, an electrical charge will definitely negatively affect their nervous system, regardless of pain receptors, temperature receptors, etc, and that would be something they would avoid, if just because they don't want their nervous system to act all haywire.
So really the study doesn't match the actual "inhumane" conditions enough to be able to bring about change in the treatment of these animals.
It's good to see Slashdot reporting on technological achievements of this magnitude. I can't wait to hear the next GUI tweak for some other application. Perhaps the repositioning of a button, or a change in the font size of some GUI element will be next.
Truly advancements of this sort can only be achieved by a think tank of the best minds Google could recruit from top universities.
Mod parent up. Any Turing-complete computing device, given enough memory and storage, can replicate anything this hardware can do. The capabilities, programming model, performance, etc, can all be determined exactly without requiring a physical model. In fact, it would be ridiculous for them to not have completely simulated the hardware before testing it.
Perhaps, if he embedded a touch panel in there too.