As many you have read recently, MSN has decided to no longer support older versions of their clients. Within their announcement, they mention that some third party applications may be affected. Trillian Pro 2.0, which is currently in beta, supports the latest and greatest MSN protocols. The free version of Trillian will be updated in time to reflect the new protocol as well. If we hear anything from Microsoft directly, or find out any more information, we will be sure to let you know first.
Thank you all for your support!
~The Cerulean Studios Team
Looks like Microsoft's plan isn't quite going to hold up. Though I'm moderately worried that Trillian may lose connectivity for Real-World reasons (read: they're gonna get sued).
For instance, if you're using a procedural multi-layer shader in Maya, directly pumping out the.ma file with a separate shader isn't a good idea. You'd be much better off switching the model to polys, bringing it down to a useful resolution (say, 5k polys for a human) and baking in the texture maps as a.tif (or whatever format) image file.
Save the whole kludge as a.x file, and you're done. Then again, this approach takes skill and time.
I don't have a camera available, so I'll just have to describe my rig.
Background: I'm from a chilly climate (Sierra Nevadas) and am used to an all-day temperature of around 40-60F. Since I now live in L.A., my poor wall-mounted air conditioner is running pretty much 24-7, and I've learned to live with the power bill. If you're not willing to foot the extra few bucks a month this costs, stop reading now.
Theory: A wall mounted AC unit pushes a whole lotta air. Cold air. If I could push this over my HSFs (Swiftech MCX370s), life would be good. Using some 3" ducting, this should be fairly easy, and leave enough AC for me to cool my apartment.
Execution: You need: 3" flexible Ducting (it's silver, and therefor looks cool.) Duct tape (Actually being used for a duct, imagine that!) a Dremel roto-thingamabob (for the sheet metal) and 3.4 kilos of patience.
Dremel a big fat hole in the side of your case, and attach one end of the ducting. The hole should be a little bigger than the ducting, so you can insert it and aim it at your proc(s).
Apply duct tape until stable.
Run the other end of the ducting to your AC unit/swamp cooler/fridge/whatever and duct-tape it to any convenient air output.
If you used enough duct-tape, you should have a pretty hefty cold-air flow over your CPU fans.
Results: I get an extra 5 degrees Celsius trimmed off of my CPU heat, and I get to run my HSFs in "quiet mode." Suddenly, my poor XPs can run a bit faster, and life is good.
As a CGI effects artist in training, (real training) I'm quite certain that this sequence must have some sort of serious mid-air explosions going on, as everything else is easily replicated with Image-Based Modeling and Lighting (Look for a film called Fiat Lux for an example of the lighting, the Matrix for Modeling.) As an effects artist (not to be confused with a modeler or an animator) those explosions will soon be under my job description.
The problem with explosions is that they are difficult to simulate (particles & volumetrics need to evolve a long way) and hard to composite in. Then again, they might just want to close down Sydney for the advertising buzz.
actually, my ratpadz mousing surface is much slicker than my desktop. this means that I don't have to worry about tearing up my mouse skatez, and I can move my Intellimouse with my breath. (note: that's "move", not "scare" or "kill". those take a few days of binge drinking.)
so yeah, in general practice you can use your optical mouse "barefoot", but not if you take your games (far too) seriously.
It's really important to have a good mouse, sure. But it's even more important to have the proper accessories. First off, you need to get some Mouse Skatez, which will drastically reduce the friction between your mouse and mousing surface. Speaking of the surface, I've used the fUnc 1030 surface, the Everglide Giganta, and the Ratpadz mousing surface. The first two are OK, but the Ratpadz surface is easily the best.
Those two items alone can make any mouse feel like it's made for professional gaming use.
I guess their message is that stealing is ok if it's being done For the Children(tm).
Stealing IS okay when it's done "for the children." Whenever I play GTA2, you'll frequently hear me yelling "Raaah! Take that, pig-f***er! This one's for the children! Raaah!"... It makes me feel kind of justified.
What manner of crap is this that is foisted upon us unsuspecting/.ers in the wee hours? Okay, the site couldn't handle a good ol' 5pm slashdotting, but why post it at all? It's meaningless drivel, less important than even an electronic, 802.12-enabled, linux-based, diesel-powered dog polisher. All this on top of the fact that/. is going to paid subscriptions... honestly, I'm losing my faith in geek-kind.
using a bunch of those 1U dual athlon rackmount boxes for this? seems like it would reduce the overall footprint by several orders of magnitude, as well as easily doubling (if not tripling) the power. comments, anyone?
...a new source of long-lasting, organic, romantic lighting fixtures:)
long-lasting? the little buggers only live 14 days as adults. and you thought changing a light bulb every few months was nasty...
-=phalkin=-
A dice like Cube has 8 tri-corners which equate to 24 corners, just as
6 x 4 equals 24 corners. Most everthing created has 4 corners and 4
walls existing between a top and bottom, ceiling and floor or 2 poles.
If you think a Cube has 6-sides, enter your Cube like bedroom and try
to lean on the ceiling or floor.
No human ahs a right to believe wrong, for that is evil. Educators
are evil for their outlawing of student's right to debate Nature's
Harmonic Time Cube Creation Principle.
Gene Ray
-------------------
Above is the answer from Gene Ray (sounds like a deadly weapon from buck rodgers) when i asked him "How many sides does a cube have?" What a friggin' nut.
-=p=-
(MOD THIS DOWN! WAY OFF TOPIC!)
Slashdot Mirror
Quote: Hi Folks,
As many you have read recently, MSN has decided to no longer support older versions of their clients. Within their announcement, they mention that some third party applications may be affected. Trillian Pro 2.0, which is currently in beta, supports the latest and greatest MSN protocols. The free version of Trillian will be updated in time to reflect the new protocol as well. If we hear anything from Microsoft directly, or find out any more information, we will be sure to let you know first.
Thank you all for your support!
~The Cerulean Studios Team
Looks like Microsoft's plan isn't quite going to hold up. Though I'm moderately worried that Trillian may lose connectivity for Real-World reasons (read: they're gonna get sued).
Why yes. Yes it is.
Wasn't that the bogus sci-fi show that only survived for 3 episodes?
Get drunk before you install EULA'd software.
In the case of microsoft products, this is fairly natural behavior anyway.
If you have a dream and it's a musical, you probably need to work out some sexual issues.
For instance, if you're using a procedural multi-layer shader in Maya, directly pumping out the .ma file with a separate shader isn't a good idea. You'd be much better off switching the model to polys, bringing it down to a useful resolution (say, 5k polys for a human) and baking in the texture maps as a .tif (or whatever format) image file.
.x file, and you're done. Then again, this approach takes skill and time.
Save the whole kludge as a
Always clearly and concisely comment your code.
I don't have a camera available, so I'll just have to describe my rig.
Background: I'm from a chilly climate (Sierra Nevadas) and am used to an all-day temperature of around 40-60F. Since I now live in L.A., my poor wall-mounted air conditioner is running pretty much 24-7, and I've learned to live with the power bill. If you're not willing to foot the extra few bucks a month this costs, stop reading now.
Theory: A wall mounted AC unit pushes a whole lotta air. Cold air. If I could push this over my HSFs (Swiftech MCX370s), life would be good. Using some 3" ducting, this should be fairly easy, and leave enough AC for me to cool my apartment.
Execution: You need: 3" flexible Ducting (it's silver, and therefor looks cool.) Duct tape (Actually being used for a duct, imagine that!) a Dremel roto-thingamabob (for the sheet metal) and 3.4 kilos of patience.
Dremel a big fat hole in the side of your case, and attach one end of the ducting. The hole should be a little bigger than the ducting, so you can insert it and aim it at your proc(s).
Apply duct tape until stable.
Run the other end of the ducting to your AC unit/swamp cooler/fridge/whatever and duct-tape it to any convenient air output.
If you used enough duct-tape, you should have a pretty hefty cold-air flow over your CPU fans.
Results: I get an extra 5 degrees Celsius trimmed off of my CPU heat, and I get to run my HSFs in "quiet mode." Suddenly, my poor XPs can run a bit faster, and life is good.
As a matter of fact, I do. The explosion itself was real, but the ripple effect was composited cg.
As a CGI effects artist in training, (real training) I'm quite certain that this sequence must have some sort of serious mid-air explosions going on, as everything else is easily replicated with Image-Based Modeling and Lighting (Look for a film called Fiat Lux for an example of the lighting, the Matrix for Modeling.) As an effects artist (not to be confused with a modeler or an animator) those explosions will soon be under my job description. The problem with explosions is that they are difficult to simulate (particles & volumetrics need to evolve a long way) and hard to composite in. Then again, they might just want to close down Sydney for the advertising buzz.
actually, my ratpadz mousing surface is much slicker than my desktop. this means that I don't have to worry about tearing up my mouse skatez, and I can move my Intellimouse with my breath. (note: that's "move", not "scare" or "kill". those take a few days of binge drinking.)
so yeah, in general practice you can use your optical mouse "barefoot", but not if you take your games (far too) seriously.
It's really important to have a good mouse, sure. But it's even more important to have the proper accessories. First off, you need to get some Mouse Skatez, which will drastically reduce the friction between your mouse and mousing surface. Speaking of the surface, I've used the fUnc 1030 surface, the Everglide Giganta, and the Ratpadz mousing surface. The first two are OK, but the Ratpadz surface is easily the best.
Those two items alone can make any mouse feel like it's made for professional gaming use.
Stealing IS okay when it's done "for the children." Whenever I play GTA2, you'll frequently hear me yelling "Raaah! Take that, pig-f***er! This one's for the children! Raaah!" ... It makes me feel kind of justified.
What manner of crap is this that is foisted upon us unsuspecting /.ers in the wee hours? Okay, the site couldn't handle a good ol' 5pm slashdotting, but why post it at all? It's meaningless drivel, less important than even an electronic, 802.12-enabled, linux-based, diesel-powered dog polisher. All this on top of the fact that /. is going to paid subscriptions... honestly, I'm losing my faith in geek-kind.
using a bunch of those 1U dual athlon rackmount boxes for this? seems like it would reduce the overall footprint by several orders of magnitude, as well as easily doubling (if not tripling) the power. comments, anyone?
...a new source of long-lasting, organic, romantic lighting fixtures :)
long-lasting? the little buggers only live 14 days as adults. and you thought changing a light bulb every few months was nasty...
-=phalkin=-
A dice like Cube has 8 tri-corners which equate to 24 corners, just as 6 x 4 equals 24 corners. Most everthing created has 4 corners and 4 walls existing between a top and bottom, ceiling and floor or 2 poles. If you think a Cube has 6-sides, enter your Cube like bedroom and try to lean on the ceiling or floor. No human ahs a right to believe wrong, for that is evil. Educators are evil for their outlawing of student's right to debate Nature's Harmonic Time Cube Creation Principle. Gene Ray ------------------- Above is the answer from Gene Ray (sounds like a deadly weapon from buck rodgers) when i asked him "How many sides does a cube have?" What a friggin' nut. -=p=- (MOD THIS DOWN! WAY OFF TOPIC!)