Yeah, I was just thinking that the Challenger event didn't affect me so much, but then I went and read the post from the timeline and had chills down my back.
I'll point people at this thread where much the same discussion was going on.
For windows, there is the very cool (and GPL'd)OpenFX that will server as a worthwhile inroduction to 3D. It has the added benefit of working with WINE. For Linux, the k-3d project appears to be moving along nicely (and despite the K in the name, it is a GTK+ app).
But I agree with lots of people here, this is another area that open source has a ways to go.
For non-Free(libre) software you can use Moray and POV-Ray for a nice cheap modeler / rendering combo. You can also pull down the BMRT tools from exluna, used properly they produce beautiful renderings, many people agree that they do a much better job than POV-Ray.
Half-Life's engine does this now, they have assorted spectator modes that allow first person, third person following, free flying mode and a map overview mode with little icons for each player. Valve software has also set up spectator mode proxy software that allows lots of people to watch a feed.(But you might already know that and be talking about something else).
The real trick would be taking multiple streams of this and editing it in with some good commentary. Think NFL style, with the replays, different camera angles, etc. You could probably do it on a low budget, just taking the time to make it flow and make it slightly interesting to someone that might be a gamer but not real familiar with CS. But you can't oversimplify, you alienate your core audience of hardcore gamers.
Server uptime and Server sending me the pages I want, with comments sorted in the order I set in my preferences and allowing me to contribute without sending me back to the front page when I hit reply are two different things.
Slashdot hasn't been down so much as it just hasn't been working right lately. And its a myriad of browsers across several operating systems.
Don't know if this would be enough, but I've seen something called MathPad for the Palm.
Hmm, on further reading it doesn't look like it is enough. Sure, you can enter equations algebraicly but no support for any kind of advanced notation.
Others have suggested some alternatives: Drawing the equations using one of the free tools for the Palm that exports image files, but then you'd have to re-enter the equation in another program for printed output or so it would be legible. Assorted portables that run software you want, whether it be a laptop running maths software or something that let you enter the equations (LaTex, MS Equation thingie, etc)
Or how about an email client program that logs into your POP mailboxes, downloads mail (without removing it from the mailbox), compares spam signatures and then proceeds to remove spam from the mailbox. Very useful for those of us who don't yet run our own mail servers.
Might be a little slower for those dial-up users, especially if they are being charged for connect time. But for people with a shell account (I'd love to set a cron job for every hour or so) and an ISP that is unwilling to run a filter, or someone with inexpensive connetivity who would like to reduce spam, it would be a beautiful solution.
One of Nielsen's famous complaints is that every web site should be compatible with the "Back" button - this is absurd, not even Slashdot is compatible with the Back button. Try posting a comment, hitting Preview, and then hitting back - Slashdot erases the contents of your comment window.
This is a function of your browser as much as it is Slashdot.
And Jakob is right from a useability standpoint, web pages are built within the GUI of the browser, they should be built to be compatible with the additional navigation offered by the browser. They shouldn't rely on it and they shouldn't ignore it.
Ashtech was big on using both systems together a while back but it didn't seem to catch on, at least here the big thing was RTK and Trimble did the best job marketing it.
I'm curious also about Pseudonym's statement about the geodetic systems, something doesn't seem right about that.
ESA has long considered a separate system that is under their control, they just don't trust us Yanks (and for good reason, if they are considering landing aircraft with the system).
But designing a system now has great advantages over a system designed in the '70s (GPS), especially if a wide range of civilian uses are taken into account. Everything from personal navigation devices, transportation uses, high reliability / availability use for aircraft and geodetic uses would be much easier with a system designed for them.
It has a W3C standards compatibility rendering mode, triggered by the proper DOCTYPE declaration. More info here and MS own pages on it (described as 'CSS Enhancements' by MS). From my perspective that is significant, though too long in coming.
You're right though, choice is good, more browsers are good, standards compliance is good.
You played the plot. Even the alien settings at the end fit pretty good. Brilliant game.
Widespread applications
on
Mapping Gravity
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
One way this is used is in high precision GPS land surveys. Since the GPS satellites orbit the center of earth's mass, the basic measurements don't reflect these changes in the earth's gravity field. But the traditional instruments used in surveying that were used to build most everything out there right now do reflect these variations. So they use something called a Geoid Model, a mathematical model that approximates the undulations in the gravity field. Previous geoid models were done with pretty sparse datapoints, leaving various small error and lots of confusion. With this, GPS will be even more useful for the land surveyor and related professoins.
Big deal, you say? Think of the existing physical infrastructure in a city. Now think of a new development that has to tie into the existing water, sewer, storm drainage and roadway systems. If you use GPS and don't take these things into account, you're going to take a chance on sewers that don't drain, storm drainage forming lakes and a general mess (not to mention lawsuits).
Not the typical/. fare but great stuff for those that measure land, play with math and lots of other physical sciences.
Heh, me too. Friends and family think I'm a freak. They might be right. Now I can say "Hey, there are at least two other people that read/. that do the same thing". Not sure of what benefit that is though...
I did some informal testing with a 2.4 GHz cordless phone and some 802.11b wireless gear and didn't see any effect at all on the wireless link when the cordless phone was used around the equipment.
lambash isn't a word. You might have intended to use lambast, although bash would have worked just as well.
Otherwise, some good points but there are some holes. Dreamcast was much the same, although a slower computer a few years back. And they didn't do anything with that advantage.
I'm imagining a loose cluster of meteors that hit here and there and created legends everywhere.
The biggest hole is the lack of craters in the area they are supposed to be, archeologists have been all over that area trying to prove or disprove the story from the Bible.
Of course, it is best balanced with Mr. Hoff's interview, as they seem to have different ideas on how much everyone contributed, the language and technical communication barriers were definately there.
I don't think the Slashdot crowd realizes what 11Mbps means with this wireless stuff because they haven't used it, tested it and played with it.
11Mbps is the optimum 'media' transport speed. As these things operate in half-duplex mode, effective is half that. Add your overhead and error correcting and you have an effective rate of closer to 3 or 4 Mbps. When you're close to the Access Point. Move a little farther, find a wall or microwave oven and it is even lower.
A proper 10Mbps LAN does feel faster than these cards unless you're using them as a gateway to your 1.5 Mbps cablemodem. Corporations (the ones that are surviving these tough times anyway) are going to be happier with the higher speed stuff(until they realize security should be an option).
But thats all the better for those at home that want to chill on the couch and net-surf with the laptop. Prices on the 'slow' stuff are going to drop further and in the end, you're right, they are perfectly useable speeds as is.
Once Woody becomes the stable, official latest version of Debian, won't Sid move to testing and a new nickname for unstable be agreed upon?
I was under the impression that the labels stable, testing and unstable referred to three different current stages of the Debian release cycle, while the labels Potato, Woody, and Sid referred to specific targeted releases.
actually, if you visit #debian make sure you read the little description thing for that channel, the gurus there can be quite nasty if you're asking the same question that the last 40 people asked. But other than that yes they are quite helpful.
Sodom/Gommorah are a good fit, having occurred around 2000 BCE and having the requisite fire from heaven reference.
One I don't see mentioned is the Tower of Babel, where people were caused to disperse and to separate into language groups. One chronology lists that date as being 2200-2000 BCE. Of course, the problem with this one is no mention of 'fire from Heaven' or any such thing.
I'd doubt that it was the crossing of the Red Sea or whatever, that is placed about 1500 BCE, well after these craters are supposed to have been formed.
Aside from the nick and the sig, calling
133MB/s 'measly' is absurd. Sure, compared to servers that cost an order of magnitude higher than these do, it is a little slow. But comparted to 100 Mb Ethernet, it is pretty fast. For specific applications it is definately useable.
And RF problems? How about24 CPUs in a 3u package, using a similar concept?
But for a troll, its nicely done. Several detailed replies, even I couldn't resist!
Yeah, I've gotten pretty good replacing the Alt-Tab with Ctrl-Tab, bonus points cause it works on the Linux version of Opera also. Opera has it's own memory problems though, seems to like lots of it on Win2K.
I learned the power of *nix when I ran out of room on the Linux partition on a dual boot machine. I cleaned off one of the unused Windows Partitions, formatted it, moved/tmp and/var over, set up my symlinks and suddenly had plenty of space.
Sure, I can probably move My Documents and/Windows/Temp without rebooting and too much application reconfiguration but what about/Program Files? When I get low on space again and decide to move/usr/local or some such thing it will be transparent. I'd have to reinstall the applications under Windows (and thats as much an application issue as an OS issue).
Slashdot Mirror
I think you're right.
For windows, there is the very cool (and GPL'd)OpenFX that will server as a worthwhile inroduction to 3D. It has the added benefit of working with WINE. For Linux, the k-3d project appears to be moving along nicely (and despite the K in the name, it is a GTK+ app).
But I agree with lots of people here, this is another area that open source has a ways to go.
For non-Free(libre) software you can use Moray and POV-Ray for a nice cheap modeler / rendering combo. You can also pull down the BMRT tools from exluna, used properly they produce beautiful renderings, many people agree that they do a much better job than POV-Ray.
The real trick would be taking multiple streams of this and editing it in with some good commentary. Think NFL style, with the replays, different camera angles, etc. You could probably do it on a low budget, just taking the time to make it flow and make it slightly interesting to someone that might be a gamer but not real familiar with CS. But you can't oversimplify, you alienate your core audience of hardcore gamers.
Slashdot hasn't been down so much as it just hasn't been working right lately. And its a myriad of browsers across several operating systems.
Hmm, on further reading it doesn't look like it is enough. Sure, you can enter equations algebraicly but no support for any kind of advanced notation.
Others have suggested some alternatives: Drawing the equations using one of the free tools for the Palm that exports image files, but then you'd have to re-enter the equation in another program for printed output or so it would be legible. Assorted portables that run software you want, whether it be a laptop running maths software or something that let you enter the equations (LaTex, MS Equation thingie, etc)
I would suggest perl, as it can be made to work on those other operating systems.
But I don't know about the Psion...
Might be a little slower for those dial-up users, especially if they are being charged for connect time. But for people with a shell account (I'd love to set a cron job for every hour or so) and an ISP that is unwilling to run a filter, or someone with inexpensive connetivity who would like to reduce spam, it would be a beautiful solution.
And Jakob is right from a useability standpoint, web pages are built within the GUI of the browser, they should be built to be compatible with the additional navigation offered by the browser. They shouldn't rely on it and they shouldn't ignore it.
I'm curious also about Pseudonym's statement about the geodetic systems, something doesn't seem right about that.
ESA has long considered a separate system that is under their control, they just don't trust us Yanks (and for good reason, if they are considering landing aircraft with the system).
But designing a system now has great advantages over a system designed in the '70s (GPS), especially if a wide range of civilian uses are taken into account. Everything from personal navigation devices, transportation uses, high reliability / availability use for aircraft and geodetic uses would be much easier with a system designed for them.
You're right though, choice is good, more browsers are good, standards compliance is good.
You played the plot. Even the alien settings at the end fit pretty good. Brilliant game.
Big deal, you say? Think of the existing physical infrastructure in a city. Now think of a new development that has to tie into the existing water, sewer, storm drainage and roadway systems. If you use GPS and don't take these things into account, you're going to take a chance on sewers that don't drain, storm drainage forming lakes and a general mess (not to mention lawsuits).
Not the typical
Heh, me too. Friends and family think I'm a freak. They might be right. Now I can say "Hey, there are at least two other people that read /. that do the same thing". Not sure of what benefit that is though...
I did some informal testing with a 2.4 GHz cordless phone and some 802.11b wireless gear and didn't see any effect at all on the wireless link when the cordless phone was used around the equipment.
Otherwise, some good points but there are some holes. Dreamcast was much the same, although a slower computer a few years back. And they didn't do anything with that advantage.
I'm imagining a loose cluster of meteors that hit here and there and created legends everywhere.
The biggest hole is the lack of craters in the area they are supposed to be, archeologists have been all over that area trying to prove or disprove the story from the Bible.
Of course, it is best balanced with Mr. Hoff's interview, as they seem to have different ideas on how much everyone contributed, the language and technical communication barriers were definately there.
11Mbps is the optimum 'media' transport speed. As these things operate in half-duplex mode, effective is half that. Add your overhead and error correcting and you have an effective rate of closer to 3 or 4 Mbps. When you're close to the Access Point. Move a little farther, find a wall or microwave oven and it is even lower.
A proper 10Mbps LAN does feel faster than these cards unless you're using them as a gateway to your 1.5 Mbps cablemodem. Corporations (the ones that are surviving these tough times anyway) are going to be happier with the higher speed stuff(until they realize security should be an option).
But thats all the better for those at home that want to chill on the couch and net-surf with the laptop. Prices on the 'slow' stuff are going to drop further and in the end, you're right, they are perfectly useable speeds as is.
http://www.debian.org/doc/FAQ/ch-ftparchives.html# s-codenames explains it a litle better, Sid is always unstable but the other names stick to a specific release of Debian.
I was under the impression that the labels stable, testing and unstable referred to three different current stages of the Debian release cycle, while the labels Potato, Woody, and Sid referred to specific targeted releases.
actually, if you visit #debian make sure you read the little description thing for that channel, the gurus there can be quite nasty if you're asking the same question that the last 40 people asked. But other than that yes they are quite helpful.
One I don't see mentioned is the Tower of Babel, where people were caused to disperse and to separate into language groups. One chronology lists that date as being 2200-2000 BCE. Of course, the problem with this one is no mention of 'fire from Heaven' or any such thing.
I'd doubt that it was the crossing of the Red Sea or whatever, that is placed about 1500 BCE, well after these craters are supposed to have been formed.
Aside from the nick and the sig, calling 133MB/s 'measly' is absurd. Sure, compared to servers that cost an order of magnitude higher than these do, it is a little slow. But comparted to 100 Mb Ethernet, it is pretty fast. For specific applications it is definately useable.
And RF problems? How about24 CPUs in a 3u package, using a similar concept?
But for a troll, its nicely done. Several detailed replies, even I couldn't resist!
Yeah, I've gotten pretty good replacing the Alt-Tab with Ctrl-Tab, bonus points cause it works on the Linux version of Opera also. Opera has it's own memory problems though, seems to like lots of it on Win2K.
Sure, I can probably move My Documents and /Windows/Temp without rebooting and too much application reconfiguration but what about /Program Files? When I get low on space again and decide to move /usr/local or some such thing it will be transparent. I'd have to reinstall the applications under Windows (and thats as much an application issue as an OS issue).