i'm really sorry to disagree with you, but there is no such concept as truth in science. if science would be about truth, it would be religion. "there is a god" "but i don't see him" "but he is there".
we tend to take and observable object as a true thing. "that table is solid". but if you would look at it in more detail, you would see that it is made up of very small particles in such an arrangement that it appears solid to our touch, but is in fact extremely empty. there so much space inside a solid object, you can't even start to imagine. if you know that it is not a solid object after all, what use is it to describe it in a metafysical sense? what tryuth is there in the statement that the table is solid? the word solid has lost meaning.
when you read about the scientific method (which one are you referring to?), you will realise that science is progressing into a direction which aims to appropriately describe this world we live in.
i suggest you read some books bertrand russel, he can explain this stuff much better than me.
I think your argument is quite confused. There is no general confusion about the definition of the word "solid", and it is still used in science. Steel, for instance, is solid at STP. The fact (note that word) that it is made up of elementary particles and lots of empty space on a very small scale does nothing to alter that.
Despite Bertrand Russell's philosophical musings (philosophy is as far from science as religion) science is based on finding testable qualities in the observable universe. The cornerstone of the scientific process is repeatability, in other words other scientists must be able to verify the results of any given experiment. The utility of the entire activity is that by finding these "provable facts" we can make progress in understanding the universe and developing technology.
These facts can be very inconvenient to non-scientific interest groups. Look at the many defeats the Catholic Church has taken at the hands of science. No matter how they spin it, they have lost all claim to "absolute truth", by virtue of having been proved wrong, over and over - despite every pompous pronouncement by high church officials.
The Creationists will be in the same boat, sooner or later. Every shred of scientific evidence supports evolution in some form, not biological creation. (The Big Bang is another matter, and the precursor to the Big Bang is very possibly unknowable to science - therefore it will likely be the final bastion of tomorrow's religions.)
Science, it must be said, is a beautiful thing.:-)
What baffled me from the very beginning was how anyone (business, consumer, or just your average "armchair programmer") could get away with the dubious assertion that they would be somehow harmed by Internet Exploder simply being on the PC in the first place.
Let me clear this up for you. The claim was never that "the consumer" (whoever that might be;) would be harmed by IE (pronounced Aiiieeeeee BTW). The claim is that Microsoft engaged in illegal competition with Netscape by tying IE to it's existing Windows monopoly.
Aside from the relatively few Mb of space it takes up on disk (which might have been a problem back in the 256Mb days...what was that, six or seven years ago?...is next to trivial in the age of the multi-Gig hd -- heck, I've got more Mb's tied up in sound clips of different ways Homer Simpson can say "D'oh!" than IE uses!) you could just completely ignore the blasted thing altogether! As a browser you can view it as the greatest thing since buttered bread or the digital equivalent of the plague, but if there's a (significantly) better product out there then that product will eventually become the most popular (and thereby attain the coveted "market share") whether or not there's a "freebie" alternative.
It's not just that there was a "freebie" alternative - that alternative came bundled with Windows, preinstalled on every computer shipped. Netscape was only marginally better at the time, and the difference wasn't enough for most people to bother downloading and installing it. It didn't help that the trade press began trumpeting the "inevitable" triumph of IE over Netscape.
Plenty of 3rd-party programs rely on IE's COM objects to render HTML - to the point where having the IE COM object is an EXPECTED FEATURE of Windows.
Fine, so leave the COM object...just get rid of the browser interface.
Fact is, Microsoft used it's monopoly position in the market to gain an unfair advantage in the browser marketplace.
The real problem, of course, is that Microsoft was allowed to gain a monopoly in the first place... It would have been smarter to vote with our dollars for diversity in the OS segment.
So "integrated Java support" is a good thing? I thought integrating Java support at as low a level as possible was a bad thing...
I don't think the semantics change if you just say "Java support" rather than "integrated Java support". I think the "integrated" word snuck in due to Sun's respect for Microsoft marketing magic...;-)
Also, I didn't see any words about "at as low a level as possible", where did you come up with that?
I'm pretty sure the Java support is "modular", in the sense that you could remove it and the rest of the system would function. That Microsoft got away with it's very dubious assertion that IE couldn't be removed, no way, no how, without breaking Windows continues to baffle me...:-p
It's largely written with Java (proving for once and for all that there's no inherent performance gap for Java applications) and makes good use of the integrated Java support in JDS.
It's nice to see that Java is to the point where Sun will use it for desktop projects. It has taken a lot longer than some of us hoped, but certainly better late than never!
JDK/JRE 1.5 should bring additional significant performance improvements...
Mark may words boy, and mark them well, offshore outsourcing is going to be one of the biggest largescale disasters in the history of US business.
Great post!
The other disaster, besides the short-term business disasters due to project failure which I believe you're referring to here, is that by outsourcing our own American companies are paying to create a competitive workforce overseas. Guess what, India and other such countries will soon have more local ISVs to compete with U.S. ISVs. Combined with all the well-educated H1B visa holders heading home, there will be a strong trend away from U.S. created software. These companies should be especially effective at stealing (so to speak) the Asian markets, which should have been a giant growth market for American software companies.
Long term vision is not a strong point for most American management - as the whole outsourcing debacle makes blindingly clear.
For someone marked at informative, you sure as hell don't know the difference between DirectX and Direct3D. Doom 3 does rely on aspects of DirectX such as DirectInput and DirectSound on the PC.
Where did I say anything about Doom3 (or any other id engine) not using DirectX? Please cite.
The point of this topic, and my posts, relates to 3D graphics. Direct3D is part of DirectX, and as far as I'm aware, any new version of Direct3D has been incorporated in a full DirectX release or beta. Therefore, you are waiting on a new version of DirectX (not just Direct3D) for any new functionality to appear.
You are arguing against your own point. Since DirectX games have been ported successfully to both MacOS and Linux, there's really no reason to use OpenGL.
Er, just what do you think was used for the MacOS and Linux ports?
There are three different scenarios:
Use OpenGL for graphics in either your own game engine or a third party engine...then porting is almost trivial. (id Software uses this approach.)
Use a third-party engine that supports both DirectX and OpenGL, then as long as you use vendor supplied functionality switching is no problem. What is a problem is that if you extend the game engine with additional graphics effects, thus differentiating your game from the pack, you have to do it for both Direct3D and OpenGL.
Write your own game engine that wraps both Direct3D and OpenGL, and handle all the requisite hassles yourself.
Compare this to OpenGL, which is lagging so far behind that only rare titles take it seriously (Doom3 is the one that springs to mind).
Wow, you are very uninformed for someone who was rated +5 Insightful.
OpenGL exposes new 3D functionality much faster than DirectX, through the OpenGL extension mechanism. It may not be as convenient as having a "standardized" API (and OpenGL 2.0 will address as much of that issue as it can), but it is still better to be able to use new functionality immediately, rather than waiting for the next DirectX release (or worse yet beta) from Microsoft. NVIDIA's drivers even support all of this under Linux.
As to your "rare titles" comment, see my other post for top games using OpenGL. Also reflect on the fact that every id game plus all the games based on id engines (Heretic 1/2, RTCW/ET and many more) all use OpenGL exclusively.
And guess what, when id releases Doom3, I'm pretty sure it'll raise the bar again. Perhaps by then quite a few people will have shader-capable video cards.;-)
cross platform is the best way to go with game development? hah! maybe on consoles, but with the staggering price of game development now-days its almost too risky to do cross-platform development.
IMO, yes cross-platform is the way to go. If you use the right engine (Torque for instance), you get it for free, less the occasional support call.;-)
Look at some of the top games that have been cross-platform:
All id games
Baldur's Gate Series
Warcraft Series
Diablo Series
Sims Series
You Don't Know Jack Series
Age of Empires
Starcraft
Everquest
3-D Ultra Pinball: Thrillride
Microsoft Close Combat 2.0: A Bridge Too Far
Monopoly
Terminus
and many more...
See any successful games there?;-) And even Microsoft is smart enough to do it, while trying to lock everyone else into Windows/DirectX. Pretty funny, actually...
so how are they going to feel developing for an os unproven in game development with users who are used to getting everything for free? (dont worry, i love linux, but i just dont think we should lie to ourselves)
If they get the port essentially for free, and provide it as an "unsupported" extra, they will get a ton of good press on Usenet, the web and so on, from alpha geeks. Look at the reception Baldur's Gate games get here on Slashdot. That's worth it right there!:-)
Beyond3D has put up an article based on Microsoft's games developers presentations given at Meltdown
I could care less about this functionality being exposed through a proprietary API.
My question is: when will it be available in OpenGL 2.x?:-)
Cross platform is the best way to go with game development...and OpenGL is the only game in town for cross-platform 3D graphics. It is also the official 3D API for Macintosh.
Excuse me, but are you referring to the Apollo program as "useless"? If so, you are a fool.
In terms of long-term scientific and technological returns, the Apollo program in particular, and NASA in general have been some of the most well-spent gummint dollars in history.
It is also very hard to put a value on even one smart child who is inspired to do something great. I have never seen anything more inspirational in my life than the first man setting foot on the moon.
Such an orbit will not be stable. Whilst the Moon does not have anything which qualifies as an "atmosphere" it does have mountains and differing densities of crust. Also you have Earth's gravity to add in.
It doesn't have to be stable. Once launched, the craft would use it's own (let's say) 1/100 g. drive to maintain a proper orbit as it gains altitude and speed. Eventually, it'll be ready for a gravity well maneuver with Earth, and it's off!
BTW, the Earth's gravity at the distance of the Moon is about 1/3600 of a g (the inverse square law strikes again). The difference in the Earth's gravity between one side of the moon and the other might be significant over a long period of time, but wouldn't be an issue with an actively guided craft such as we're discussing, other than as part of it's nav program.
Hmm. At least as far as Linux goes, plenty of people have had lots of trouble with random lockups using nf2 motherboards. The VIA chipsets are generally well supported in Linux.
Hmm again.;-) I've been running RH9 on this Asus A7N8X MB, XP 2600+, 512 MB RAM, using the NVIDIA-supplied unified driver. It's never crashed a single time over the last 10 months or so. It is on 24/7, though it is rebooted occaisionally for GameOS, er, I mean Windows XP. Of course, I don't overclock - it might affect stability. I run quite a bit of development software including Netbeans and Eclipse under Linux. I've also been doing lots of OpenGL development lately with gcc, and the fully accelerated drivers for my GeForce ti4600 work flawlessly. I really couldn't be happier.
The amd64 is only for Unix users that can bootstrap a compiler and know how to use it. This is changing rapidly and there is atleast one distribution that will work -- FreeBSD-5.2. (Should be a distro by Christmas.) Still if all you want to do is run binaries, get an ecconomy processor! I don't see Microsoft coming out with a 64bit system anytime soon. So for those lusers it may not be all that 'futureproof'.
Actually Windows XP for AMD64 (64 bit version) is supposed to ship sometime next year. Later than AMD wanted (I'm sure Intel is leaning hard on Microsoft), but better late than never.
In my case, I'd primarily be running Linux most likely. I may take a look at BSD if it's not dead by then (JUST KIDDING!:). My true object of lust, though, is a G5...not so much because of the hardware, but because of the OS and software development environment. It may take a while to swing that though...and the AMD64 laptops look like they'll be very tempting as well.
I've been told, by a former floormate who claimed to work for the NSA (which was, in and of itself, dubious enough, but that's not a conversation for here or now:), that the NSA has little-to-no jurisdiction over civilians - rather, they're concerned with outsiders.
Most opponents to this idea don't consider that they are talking about realigning NASA in the direction of achieving this one big mission instead of the aimless direction it has been moving if for quite awhile. Not more money, just applying existing resources in a specific direction.
I see a few reasons why the Moon might be a better idea.
The Lagrange station idea has the same problem as all space stations - what happens when the next X28+ solar flare happens to be pointed at the Earth? At least you can be safely underground on the Moon.
The Moon offers the possibility of a self-sustaining colony, which is much less likely with a station.
The idea of a lunar colony is, I believe, much more appealing to the American public than "yet another [white elephant] space station".
The Chinese are going to the Moon, are we just going to leave it to them? What if they do find signficant, recoverable water there?
Despite his rhetoric, our grandfathers never founded a colony on the Moon.
Aside from all that, the Moon isn't bad at all as a launching point to the planets. You only need enough booster, catapult (thanks again, Heinlein!) or combination of the two to get into a couple-kilometer orbit. Then, you can use an efficient, low thrust engine, as are finally becoming available today, to go from there. That is a far cry from launching from the Earth's surface, though perhaps not quite as optimal as a Lagrange station.
I do agree with his points regarding NASA's vehicle programs - they need to design some innovative new vehicles (or better yet, private enterprise does!). IMO what we need most is massive heavy lift capabilities...
Here is a link the famous Buzz Aldrin "punch" video wherein he punches some moron who calls him a liar about having ever been to the moon. Posted for your enjoyment.
Nice left for a 72 year old guy!
(BTW, don't forget that this idiot also called him a "coward".)
The best part, though was the epilogue: "The Los Angeles County District Attorney's office has declined to file charges.". Sometimes, there is justice in the world.:-)
Slashdot Mirror
we tend to take and observable object as a true thing. "that table is solid". but if you would look at it in more detail, you would see that it is made up of very small particles in such an arrangement that it appears solid to our touch, but is in fact extremely empty. there so much space inside a solid object, you can't even start to imagine. if you know that it is not a solid object after all, what use is it to describe it in a metafysical sense? what tryuth is there in the statement that the table is solid? the word solid has lost meaning.
when you read about the scientific method (which one are you referring to?), you will realise that science is progressing into a direction which aims to appropriately describe this world we live in.
i suggest you read some books bertrand russel, he can explain this stuff much better than me.
I think your argument is quite confused. There is no general confusion about the definition of the word "solid", and it is still used in science. Steel, for instance, is solid at STP. The fact (note that word) that it is made up of elementary particles and lots of empty space on a very small scale does nothing to alter that.
Despite Bertrand Russell's philosophical musings (philosophy is as far from science as religion) science is based on finding testable qualities in the observable universe. The cornerstone of the scientific process is repeatability, in other words other scientists must be able to verify the results of any given experiment. The utility of the entire activity is that by finding these "provable facts" we can make progress in understanding the universe and developing technology.
These facts can be very inconvenient to non-scientific interest groups. Look at the many defeats the Catholic Church has taken at the hands of science. No matter how they spin it, they have lost all claim to "absolute truth", by virtue of having been proved wrong, over and over - despite every pompous pronouncement by high church officials.
The Creationists will be in the same boat, sooner or later. Every shred of scientific evidence supports evolution in some form, not biological creation. (The Big Bang is another matter, and the precursor to the Big Bang is very possibly unknowable to science - therefore it will likely be the final bastion of tomorrow's religions.)
Science, it must be said, is a beautiful thing. :-)
Let me clear this up for you. The claim was never that "the consumer" (whoever that might be;) would be harmed by IE (pronounced Aiiieeeeee BTW). The claim is that Microsoft engaged in illegal competition with Netscape by tying IE to it's existing Windows monopoly.
Aside from the relatively few Mb of space it takes up on disk (which might have been a problem back in the 256Mb days...what was that, six or seven years ago?...is next to trivial in the age of the multi-Gig hd -- heck, I've got more Mb's tied up in sound clips of different ways Homer Simpson can say "D'oh!" than IE uses!) you could just completely ignore the blasted thing altogether! As a browser you can view it as the greatest thing since buttered bread or the digital equivalent of the plague, but if there's a (significantly) better product out there then that product will eventually become the most popular (and thereby attain the coveted "market share") whether or not there's a "freebie" alternative.
It's not just that there was a "freebie" alternative - that alternative came bundled with Windows, preinstalled on every computer shipped. Netscape was only marginally better at the time, and the difference wasn't enough for most people to bother downloading and installing it. It didn't help that the trade press began trumpeting the "inevitable" triumph of IE over Netscape.
A good analogy might be
Or not.
Fine, so leave the COM object...just get rid of the browser interface.
Fact is, Microsoft used it's monopoly position in the market to gain an unfair advantage in the browser marketplace.
The real problem, of course, is that Microsoft was allowed to gain a monopoly in the first place... It would have been smarter to vote with our dollars for diversity in the OS segment.
Ah well, at least it's starting to happen now! :-)
Which orifice it happens to apply to is only obvious through context, for instance:
Shut your spamhole!
That's equally acceptable...and you'll keep 'em guessing that way... ;-)
I don't think the semantics change if you just say "Java support" rather than "integrated Java support". I think the "integrated" word snuck in due to Sun's respect for Microsoft marketing magic... ;-)
Also, I didn't see any words about "at as low a level as possible", where did you come up with that?
I'm pretty sure the Java support is "modular", in the sense that you could remove it and the rest of the system would function. That Microsoft got away with it's very dubious assertion that IE couldn't be removed, no way, no how, without breaking Windows continues to baffle me... :-p
Stick it in your spamhole, pal!
Perfect...
It's largely written with Java (proving for once and for all that there's no inherent performance gap for Java applications) and makes good use of the integrated Java support in JDS.
It's nice to see that Java is to the point where Sun will use it for desktop projects. It has taken a lot longer than some of us hoped, but certainly better late than never!
JDK/JRE 1.5 should bring additional significant performance improvements...
Great post!
The other disaster, besides the short-term business disasters due to project failure which I believe you're referring to here, is that by outsourcing our own American companies are paying to create a competitive workforce overseas. Guess what, India and other such countries will soon have more local ISVs to compete with U.S. ISVs. Combined with all the well-educated H1B visa holders heading home, there will be a strong trend away from U.S. created software. These companies should be especially effective at stealing (so to speak) the Asian markets, which should have been a giant growth market for American software companies.
Long term vision is not a strong point for most American management - as the whole outsourcing debacle makes blindingly clear.
Where did I say anything about Doom3 (or any other id engine) not using DirectX? Please cite.
The point of this topic, and my posts, relates to 3D graphics. Direct3D is part of DirectX, and as far as I'm aware, any new version of Direct3D has been incorporated in a full DirectX release or beta. Therefore, you are waiting on a new version of DirectX (not just Direct3D) for any new functionality to appear.
I hope this cleared things up for you. ;-)
Er, just what do you think was used for the MacOS and Linux ports?
There are three different scenarios:
Which makes the most sense to you?
Sorry 'bout that... ;-)
[empty list]
and the list goes on and on.
So, AC, your theory is that these companies are all stupid?
Could I please see your figures showing that the Mac ports weren't profitable?
Didn't think so... :-P
Wow, you are very uninformed for someone who was rated +5 Insightful.
OpenGL exposes new 3D functionality much faster than DirectX, through the OpenGL extension mechanism. It may not be as convenient as having a "standardized" API (and OpenGL 2.0 will address as much of that issue as it can), but it is still better to be able to use new functionality immediately, rather than waiting for the next DirectX release (or worse yet beta) from Microsoft. NVIDIA's drivers even support all of this under Linux.
As to your "rare titles" comment, see my other post for top games using OpenGL. Also reflect on the fact that every id game plus all the games based on id engines (Heretic 1/2, RTCW/ET and many more) all use OpenGL exclusively.
And guess what, when id releases Doom3, I'm pretty sure it'll raise the bar again. Perhaps by then quite a few people will have shader-capable video cards. ;-)
For more correct information about OpenGL, feel free to check out the official OpenGL website.
IMO, yes cross-platform is the way to go. If you use the right engine (Torque for instance), you get it for free, less the occasional support call. ;-)
Look at some of the top games that have been cross-platform:
See any successful games there? ;-) And even Microsoft is smart enough to do it, while trying to lock everyone else into Windows/DirectX. Pretty funny, actually...
so how are they going to feel developing for an os unproven in game development with users who are used to getting everything for free? (dont worry, i love linux, but i just dont think we should lie to ourselves)
If they get the port essentially for free, and provide it as an "unsupported" extra, they will get a ton of good press on Usenet, the web and so on, from alpha geeks. Look at the reception Baldur's Gate games get here on Slashdot. That's worth it right there! :-)
Is there any sort of OpenGL support for PS2? Maybe PS3 will make the jump...
I could care less about this functionality being exposed through a proprietary API.
My question is: when will it be available in OpenGL 2.x? :-)
Cross platform is the best way to go with game development...and OpenGL is the only game in town for cross-platform 3D graphics. It is also the official 3D API for Macintosh.
Excuse me, but are you referring to the Apollo program as "useless"? If so, you are a fool.
In terms of long-term scientific and technological returns, the Apollo program in particular, and NASA in general have been some of the most well-spent gummint dollars in history.
It is also very hard to put a value on even one smart child who is inspired to do something great. I have never seen anything more inspirational in my life than the first man setting foot on the moon.
It doesn't have to be stable. Once launched, the craft would use it's own (let's say) 1/100 g. drive to maintain a proper orbit as it gains altitude and speed. Eventually, it'll be ready for a gravity well maneuver with Earth, and it's off!
BTW, the Earth's gravity at the distance of the Moon is about 1/3600 of a g (the inverse square law strikes again). The difference in the Earth's gravity between one side of the moon and the other might be significant over a long period of time, but wouldn't be an issue with an actively guided craft such as we're discussing, other than as part of it's nav program.
Hope you found it of interest!
True, but Antarctica is a terrible interplanetary launch pad. Keep your eye on the ball please. ;-)
Hmm again. ;-) I've been running RH9 on this Asus A7N8X MB, XP 2600+, 512 MB RAM, using the NVIDIA-supplied unified driver. It's never crashed a single time over the last 10 months or so. It is on 24/7, though it is rebooted occaisionally for GameOS, er, I mean Windows XP. Of course, I don't overclock - it might affect stability. I run quite a bit of development software including Netbeans and Eclipse under Linux. I've also been doing lots of OpenGL development lately with gcc, and the fully accelerated drivers for my GeForce ti4600 work flawlessly. I really couldn't be happier.
Anecdotal, but true. :-)
Actually Windows XP for AMD64 (64 bit version) is supposed to ship sometime next year. Later than AMD wanted (I'm sure Intel is leaning hard on Microsoft), but better late than never.
In my case, I'd primarily be running Linux most likely. I may take a look at BSD if it's not dead by then (JUST KIDDING!:). My true object of lust, though, is a G5...not so much because of the hardware, but because of the OS and software development environment. It may take a while to swing that though...and the AMD64 laptops look like they'll be very tempting as well.
My post was intended to be humorous, mainly. ;-)
Yah, he also posted a Yahoo e-mail address which I'm guessing the NSA just might be able to penetrate... ;-)
and everything else there is to know about him..
Wow, I had no idea the NSA is that good!
I see a few reasons why the Moon might be a better idea.
Aside from all that, the Moon isn't bad at all as a launching point to the planets. You only need enough booster, catapult (thanks again, Heinlein!) or combination of the two to get into a couple-kilometer orbit. Then, you can use an efficient, low thrust engine, as are finally becoming available today, to go from there. That is a far cry from launching from the Earth's surface, though perhaps not quite as optimal as a Lagrange station.
I do agree with his points regarding NASA's vehicle programs - they need to design some innovative new vehicles (or better yet, private enterprise does!). IMO what we need most is massive heavy lift capabilities...
Nice left for a 72 year old guy!
(BTW, don't forget that this idiot also called him a "coward".)
The best part, though was the epilogue: "The Los Angeles County District Attorney's office has declined to file charges.". Sometimes, there is justice in the world. :-)