I started reading slashdot a few years ago knowing relatively little about computers. I loved the articles, and the comments were even better.
I learned a lot about computers since then, partially through slashdot, but mostly through running Linux servers at home and doing a lot of programming. And doing google searches for whatever topic I was researching.
Now I can hardly stand to read slashdot. The subject matter is as interesting as ever, but the utter cluelessness of the editors is revolting.
How can an article bereft of any sort of analytical details make it onto slashdot? I'll tell you how, clueless editors.
I read a headline saying Oracle on Linux improves database performance and I am interested to learn more. I read the article and I find out that there is not a single shred of evidence supporting the claim that Linux had anything to do with the performance. They could have been running Linux before the change to oracle for all we know.
We are too smart and life is too short to waste time on bad journalism. I will be reading other hi-tech new sites from now on. Until slashdot gets a clue.
[...] What makes the iPod so hot in the consumer market is superior technology -- the first workable user interface on a digital music player. That's the reason why the premium has stuck, not the nifty form factor or funky colors.
As the previous poster implied, the above statement is completely wrong.
Many WOMEN do choose iPod exactly because of its shape and colors. My girlfriend did.
Hasn't anyone noticed that young women buy stylized cell phones? To them electronics are not gadgets they are accessories. If they aren't cute or cool, they aren't going to carry them around.
I don't think many male computer geeks consider that women buy electronics too. I haven't seen the numbers, but am willing to bet that more women buy iPods than men.
I for one would appreciate it if you could document a couple of those numbers since they are not obvious to me:
solar influx @earth = 1000W/M^2? I have seen a number of 150W/m^2 for average intensity of radiation for New Jersey over a year: http://geosun1.sjsu.edu/~dreed/130/lab10/2. html
solar overal system efficiency = 1 %? How is this number derived?
What about using the most obvious Nuclear Energy.. The sun?
Lee Raymond, CEO of Exxon, appeared on Charlie Rose on May 5 and in my opinion effectively debunked the solar power myth.
He said if you covered the entire state of New Jersey with solar panels, they would generate enough energy to supply only 10 gas stations. He went on to say that the proponents of alternative energy do not seem to appreciate the magnitude of the energy problem.
What really sucks is that Mary Mycio's article debunking the Chernobyl photos has so little verifiable information.
"They traveled in a Chornobyl car that picked them up in Kyiv." I'm sorry, who picked them up? What was their name? Or was this an untraceable Chornobyl ghost car?
"They organized their trip through a Kyiv travel agency", but what was the name of the agency? Can we get a quote from someone at the agency?
"Zone Administration personnel were in an uproar", but what were their names and what positions of authority do they hold? Why no direct quotes?
If we have become savvy enough not take take the Chernobyl diary at face value, then why should we believe the undocumented assertions in Mycio's article?
The article seems to be making the argument that a smaller format sensor won't be as sensitive as a larger sensor, but I'm not sure I buy this.
But that is exactly right.
The example he gives of buckets of water is flawed, since falling rain isn't *focused* like light is.
Sure it is, that's why rain comes in drops instead of sheets. Not that this has anything to do with the discussion.
Light entering a lens is just being focused on a smaller area.
Lenses can condense light or spread it out. This is called magnification and has nothing to do with focus. But again, this is of no consequence to the matter at hand.
There is a finite amount of light passing through a lens and hitting the CCD array. One can increase the number of sensors without increasing the physical dimensions of the array by making the sensors smaller. Since the size of the array is unchanged, the amount of light hitting it is unchanged. Since there are more sensors and the same amount of light, there is less light per sensor.
Some high end systems use a physically larger array to increase the number of sensors without decreasing the amount of light per sensor. This is analagous to using large film formats in order to capture images with greater detail.
The downside to bigger chips is that they are more expensive to manufacture.
Actually, it is important to match the quality of the lens to the resolution of the CCD. Too fine a lens will cause aliasing artifacts. This can be understood by the Nyquist Theorem.
Once an aliased image is captured by the CCD, no amount of image processing can remove the artifacts. That is why high end digital cameras like the Nikon D1 contain an optical low-pass filter between the lens and the CCD that purposefully degrades the quality of the lens assembly.
You may have a point about the copyright issue, but I thought that posting a single definition to slashdot would fall under "fair use."
With regards to the 1913 excuse, you don't have a very good point because the definition in the 1993 10th edition Webster's Collegiate Dictionary isn't any better.
Webster's is the worst english language dictionary that people actually use. It is probably the most popular dictionary that people buy, too. And it succeeds soley on the basis of brand name recognition. Nobody ever bought Webster's because they compared it side by side with another dictionary and found it superior.
One should look at Random House, American Heritage, or Oxford English Dictionary before buying a dictionary.
I prefer American Heritage because it is wonderfully clear and reasonably priced. And there is free web-search, as shown in the grand-parent post.
From The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000:
subpoena
A writ requiring appearance in court to give testimony.
By comparison, the Webster's definition is redundant and wordy. It puzzles me that more people have not caught on that Webster's sucks.
American Heritage Dictionary search is free, too.
My vote: -1, Dangling Participle
on
Melting Europa
·
· Score: 1
After having contaminated Earth's Oceans, it seems that there are plans to send a probe...
Forget bias. I will settle for a sentence that makes any sort of sense.
I almost modded the parent down but decided to post instead, because I think that will be more effective in dispelling this nonsense.
Yes, Spirit places filters in front of the lens to capture different colors. But consumer cameras use filters too, with the difference that the filters are permanently attached to the CCD.
Fovean CCDs use a clever trick to stack Red, Green, and Blue sensitive sensors on top of each other, which basically gives it greater pixel density than a camera that uses a single layer, Bayer pattern of sensors. But the fovean is still basically using 3 fixed color filters.
Spirit, on the other hand, has 8 different filters. This gives it tremendous flexibility. Yes, it can only use one filter per exposure, but considering it is taking pictures of rocks and not dancing martians, it can use multiple exposures without worrying about the subject changing.
Also, Spirit (as hinted by the article) presumably sends exposure calibration info with each filter exposure. I mean, any EXIF capable consumer digital camera records exposure info, so let's assume for the sake of argument that this multi-million dollar imaging system has a similar, if not greater capability in that regard.
Assuming the illumination does not change between exposures, Nasa can use the exposure information to precisely calibrate the multiple exposures to the same levels before compositing.
Furthermore, in photos that contain the sun dial, Nasa can use the color chips and mirror to accurately estimate the color of the illumination. Combining this with multiple exposure using different filters, Nasa can accurately estimate the reflectance of the subject. Given the reflectances, Nasa could reconstruct an image in any color-space under any kind of illumination.
In summary, Spirit has all the tools it needs to capture images that could be reconstructed to show what a human eye would see on the surface of mars, or what a chunk of mars brought back to earth would look like to a human eye in earth's daylight.
But Nasa is mostly interested in capturing images that reveal the most information about the martian surface, and it is not hard to belive that those images might not be the same as what a human eye would perceive.
Well, if your boss's boss is an imbecile, too, then I agree with you, it's a tough road to hoe.
However, sometimes otherwise smart people make mistakes when they hire employees. Managers in particular are difficult to interview because managerial skills are intangible. Not until you see the manager in action will you be able to evaluate him thoroughly.
So it may be your boss's boss also thinks your manager is a problem and does not have enough ammunition to fire him yet. Your boss's boss is your ally in this situation, as I outlined in my article.
Tolerating incompetent workers at any level of the organization is "shortsighted foolishness."
If you have the support of your colleagues, which you may have noticed I said is important if you are going to do this, then they will be thanking you when you succeed in firing your boss.
If you succeed in promoting one of your colleagues to be a successful manager in place of the problem you got rid of, then your colleagues and your boss's boss will all thank you.
The only people who will fear you are the imbeciles. Maybe they will start looking for work elsewhere. Good.
If your organization is full of imbeciles, then you are right, this will not work. What I recommend in that situation is finding a new job.
While some have characterized SCO's action towards Linux users as extortion, none have documented that possibility.
IANAL, but I google. I found the Hobb's Act: Extortion By Force, Violence, or Fear.
There are four criteria for the Hobb's Act:
Did the defendant induce or attempt to induce the victim to give up property or property rights?
Did the defendant use or attempt to use the victim's reasonable fear of physical injury or economic harm in order to induce the victim's consent to give up property?
Did the defendant's conduct actually or potentially obstruct, delay, or affect interstate or foreign commerce in any (realistic) way or degree?
Was the defendant's actual or threatened use of force, violence or fear wrongful?
Criteria 1 and 2 are clearly met, as SCO is attempting to use Linux users' fear of lawsuits to collect license fees. But that in itself is not criminal.
It appears to me that condition 3 is also met, because SCO's threats to Linux user's can potentially have a great threat on interstate commerce. Linux servers comprise a large portion of all commercial webservers. The need to license all of these could have a broad impact on e-commerce.
Is SCO's threat of lawsuits against Linux users wrongful? It is if they have no right to the property they are claiming. Given that SCO has released the disputed property under the GPL, they have no legal right to it and therefore no right to collect license fees for it.
The interesting thing is that extortion is a criminal offense. People could go to jail for this.
Learning to cope with a manger who does not allow sufficient time for gathering requirements, design, or testing is a defensive strategy. The pro-active worker will realize that such a manager is incompetent and fire him.
Here are some strategies for firing your boss that I have seen work:
1. Undermine him. If your colleagues are all convinced your boss is incompetent then you can collectively pound on him. Petition him for more time to do your job right. If he gives in, then he is learning and maybe not so dumb after all. If he continues, then you can collectively proceed to step 2.
2. Go around him. If you can make an ally of a senior employee, such as the CTO, and convince him that your boss is incompetent then you are home free. It's just a matter of time before he is fired.
3. Smack him around. Be nice to your boss when nobody else is around. But in meetings, especially when his superiors are present, bring up a concern that your group could do much better work if a better process were in place. You are setting a trap. If your boss makes the mistake of defending the current process, you have to be ready to convince everyone in the room that the current process is amateur, foolish, and symptomatic of an incompetent manager. In order to pull this off, you will need to be much smarter than him, be able to refer to successful development projects in your other jobs, and perhaps have a few allies in the room who can do the same.
If a group of programmers succeeds in firing their boss, it is very likely that their new boss will be selected from their own ranks. This can be a positive step forward for the group. Work together to find someone who understands process and is also skilled at diplomacy.
I've also found that the S/N ratio on most consumer quality PC sound cards leaves something to be desired. Most low-end sound cards have a S/N ration of around 90 dB, which is completely unacceptable for even the weekend audiophile. I think I'll stick with my PC for gaming and web browsing and use REAL stereo components for my music listening needs.
Consider the possibility of an external D/A converter with USB audio. Get better S/N than your CD player's analog out.
I drag myself to classes and through projects, and it all seems really pointless...
It seems that way because you are correct, your CS education is really pointless.
The exercises you perform in CS classes have very little to do with real world programming projects. The emphasis in CS classes is on algorithms, when in fact algorithm development plays a very small role in most real projects.
Rather, the people who are successful programmers have mastered several programming tools and have learned, through experience working on sizable projects, how to combat complexity. They have learned effective design patterns, probably through experience reading and implementing real world code.
I remember one of my CS classes when I had to implement an X Windows application that simulated logic circuitry. It took me forever to get it right. But looking back I now realize that my biggest problem was not with algorithms or data structures, the supposed cornerstones of the class. My biggest problem was that I barely new the C programming language and I didn't know how to use Emacs effectively. So things that would have taken me 0 time with a little more knowledge were taking me forever.
Most programming just ain't that hard. But effective programming does require a massive amount of esoteric knowledge. If you are a reasonably clever person you can and will be an effective programmer if you learn practical skills and just keep soaking up little details. No single detail will be very difficult to learn or understand, but the more of them you know the better programmer you will be.
For example, do you know how to use tag files in emacs? Do you know about bounds checkers like electric fence? Do you know scripting languages like Perl or Python and when to use them? Do you use automatic documentation generation programs like doxygen? Have you bought and read every book written by Richard W. Stevens (if Richard W. Stevens had written about physics, then physics would be easy)? Do you know the importance of designing simple interfaces, or are you going to learn that several years down the road after noticing that all your large projects have gotten totally out of control? The list goes on and on, and as maybe you can see I am still learning, and that is really the point, programming is constant learning. Unfortunately your school probably taught you very little of what you need to know.
My main advice to you is to think of a simple computer program that you would like to implement and do it. Find the time. Finish it. Release it to your friends, see what they think. Was it fun? I though so.
Ok, say you have 1000+ cameras emitting 30 frames/second worth of 640x480 grayscale video...and you have to store it indefinitely.
...
Retrieval, though, can be essentially arbitrarily slow. Reliability should be good enough to not be annoying long term. Is there a solution that: has 8 TB/day storage capacity, can handle the 90 MB/s write speed, and lets you save some bucks on the (slow) read side?"
Yes, it's called video tape. You can buy it at KMart.
Good job, moderators. Don't moderate up my comment. It's just the only informative comment that has been posted for this article.
Oh, and keep the Smellovision comments coming, please.
P.S. Love the Slashdot paragraph formatting.
Re:I can't imagine this working out
on
Immersive HDTV
·
· Score: 1
Forget nextgen, Britney Spears announced back in June that she will be releasing an immersive video later this year on current game consoles using Enroute's FirstPerson Video.
The hardware requirements for delivering immersive video are not that great, and the bandwidth requirements are probably do-able using DVD as the delivery media.
There are several companies working on immersive video right now and there have been for several years. The biggest problem they face is parallax.
I have been reading about 1 article every sixth months for the last 5 years that talks about a particular immersive video company as if it invented the idea.
The truth is there are several companies who have been attempting to bring immersive video to consumers for several years now. Some of them are:
The first and most successful immersive video system AFAIK is Disney' Circle Vision theater in Tomorrowland, which has been open since 1971.
The biggest problems in delivering immersive video are bandwidth, resolution, frame rate, and parallax. Selection of delivery media affects the bandwidth problem which of course is related to frame rate and resolution.
The parallax problem arises in multiple camera solutions. Basically, in order to seemlessly mosaic images from multiple cameras, they have to have the same nodal points or the objects in the scene need to be very far away. Single camera solutions (using specially shaped mirrors) suffer from low resolution. Multiple camera solutions that use mirrors, such as Disney's Circle Vision system, can achieve low parallax but tend to have a limited verticle coverage.
If you can event a wide angle lens that places its nodal points behind the image plane then there is a valuable patent waiting for you.
Slashdot Mirror
I started reading slashdot a few years ago knowing relatively little about computers. I loved the articles, and the comments were even better.
I learned a lot about computers since then, partially through slashdot, but mostly through running Linux servers at home and doing a lot of programming. And doing google searches for whatever topic I was researching.
Now I can hardly stand to read slashdot. The subject matter is as interesting as ever, but the utter cluelessness of the editors is revolting.
How can an article bereft of any sort of analytical details make it onto slashdot? I'll tell you how, clueless editors.
I read a headline saying Oracle on Linux improves database performance and I am interested to learn more. I read the article and I find out that there is not a single shred of evidence supporting the claim that Linux had anything to do with the performance. They could have been running Linux before the change to oracle for all we know.
We are too smart and life is too short to waste time on bad journalism. I will be reading other hi-tech new sites from now on. Until slashdot gets a clue.
As the previous poster implied, the above statement is completely wrong.
Many WOMEN do choose iPod exactly because of its shape and colors. My girlfriend did.
Hasn't anyone noticed that young women buy stylized cell phones? To them electronics are not gadgets they are accessories. If they aren't cute or cool, they aren't going to carry them around.
I don't think many male computer geeks consider that women buy electronics too. I haven't seen the numbers, but am willing to bet that more women buy iPods than men.
I for one would appreciate it if you could document a couple of those numbers since they are not obvious to me:
. html
solar influx @earth = 1000W/M^2? I have seen a number of 150W/m^2 for average intensity of radiation for New Jersey over a year:
http://geosun1.sjsu.edu/~dreed/130/lab10/2
solar overal system efficiency = 1 %? How is this number derived?
Otherwise, very interesting post indeed!
No, this is the beginning of the end of journalism.
What about using the most obvious Nuclear Energy.. The sun?
Lee Raymond, CEO of Exxon, appeared on Charlie Rose on May 5 and in my opinion effectively debunked the solar power myth.
He said if you covered the entire state of New Jersey with solar panels, they would generate enough energy to supply only 10 gas stations. He went on to say that the proponents of alternative energy do not seem to appreciate the magnitude of the energy problem.
What really sucks is that Mary Mycio's article debunking the Chernobyl photos has so little
verifiable information.
"They traveled in a Chornobyl car that picked them up in Kyiv." I'm sorry, who picked them up? What was their name? Or was this an untraceable Chornobyl ghost car?
"They organized their trip through a Kyiv travel agency", but what was the name of the agency? Can we get a quote from someone at the agency?
"Zone Administration personnel were in an uproar", but what were their names and what positions of authority do they hold? Why no direct quotes?
If we have become savvy enough not take take the Chernobyl diary at face value, then why should we believe the undocumented assertions in Mycio's article?
No! :-)
But that is exactly right.
Sure it is, that's why rain comes in drops instead of sheets. Not that this has anything to do with the discussion.
Lenses can condense light or spread it out. This is called magnification and has nothing to do with focus. But again, this is of no consequence to the matter at hand.
There is a finite amount of light passing through a lens and hitting the CCD array. One can increase the number of sensors without increasing the physical dimensions of the array by making the sensors smaller. Since the size of the array is unchanged, the amount of light hitting it is unchanged. Since there are more sensors and the same amount of light, there is less light per sensor.
Some high end systems use a physically larger array to increase the number of sensors without decreasing the amount of light per sensor. This is analagous to using large film formats in order to capture images with greater detail.
The downside to bigger chips is that they are more expensive to manufacture.
Actually, it is important to match the quality of the lens to the resolution of the CCD. Too fine a lens will cause aliasing artifacts. This can be understood by the Nyquist Theorem.
Once an aliased image is captured by the CCD, no amount of image processing can remove the artifacts. That is why high end digital cameras like the Nikon D1 contain an optical low-pass filter between the lens and the CCD that purposefully degrades the quality of the lens assembly.
You may have a point about the copyright issue, but I thought that posting a single definition to slashdot would fall under "fair use."
With regards to the 1913 excuse, you don't have a very good point because the definition in the 1993 10th edition Webster's Collegiate Dictionary isn't any better.
Webster's is the worst english language dictionary that people actually use. It is probably the most popular dictionary that people buy, too. And it succeeds soley on the basis of brand name recognition. Nobody ever bought Webster's because they compared it side by side with another dictionary and found it superior.
One should look at Random House, American Heritage, or Oxford English Dictionary before buying a dictionary.
I prefer American Heritage because it is wonderfully clear and reasonably priced. And there is free web-search, as shown in the grand-parent post.
From The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000:
subpoena A writ requiring appearance in court to give testimony. By comparison, the Webster's definition is redundant and wordy. It puzzles me that more people have not caught on that Webster's sucks. American Heritage Dictionary search is free, too.Forget bias. I will settle for a sentence that makes any sort of sense.
I almost modded the parent down but decided to post instead, because I think that will be more effective in dispelling this nonsense.
Yes, Spirit places filters in front of the lens to capture different colors. But consumer cameras use filters too, with the difference that the filters are permanently attached to the CCD.
Fovean CCDs use a clever trick to stack Red, Green, and Blue sensitive sensors on top of each other, which basically gives it greater pixel density than a camera that uses a single layer, Bayer pattern of sensors. But the fovean is still basically using 3 fixed color filters.
Spirit, on the other hand, has 8 different filters. This gives it tremendous flexibility. Yes, it can only use one filter per exposure, but considering it is taking pictures of rocks and not dancing martians, it can use multiple exposures without worrying about the subject changing.
Also, Spirit (as hinted by the article) presumably sends exposure calibration info with each filter exposure. I mean, any EXIF capable consumer digital camera records exposure info, so let's assume for the sake of argument that this multi-million dollar imaging system has a similar, if not greater capability in that regard.
Assuming the illumination does not change between exposures, Nasa can use the exposure information to precisely calibrate the multiple exposures to the same levels before compositing.
Furthermore, in photos that contain the sun dial, Nasa can use the color chips and mirror to accurately estimate the color of the illumination. Combining this with multiple exposure using different filters, Nasa can accurately estimate the reflectance of the subject. Given the reflectances, Nasa could reconstruct an image in any color-space under any kind of illumination.
In summary, Spirit has all the tools it needs to capture images that could be reconstructed to show what a human eye would see on the surface of mars, or what a chunk of mars brought back to earth would look like to a human eye in earth's daylight.
But Nasa is mostly interested in capturing images that reveal the most information about the martian surface, and it is not hard to belive that those images might not be the same as what a human eye would perceive.
Well, if your boss's boss is an imbecile, too, then I agree with you, it's a tough road to hoe.
However, sometimes otherwise smart people make mistakes when they hire employees. Managers in particular are difficult to interview because managerial skills are intangible. Not until you see the manager in action will you be able to evaluate him thoroughly.
So it may be your boss's boss also thinks your manager is a problem and does not have enough ammunition to fire him yet. Your boss's boss is your ally in this situation, as I outlined in my article.
Tolerating incompetent workers at any level of the organization is "shortsighted foolishness."
If you have the support of your colleagues, which you may have noticed I said is important if you are going to do this, then they will be thanking you when you succeed in firing your boss.
If you succeed in promoting one of your colleagues to be a successful manager in place of the problem you got rid of, then your colleagues and your boss's boss will all thank you.
The only people who will fear you are the imbeciles. Maybe they will start looking for work elsewhere. Good.
If your organization is full of imbeciles, then you are right, this will not work. What I recommend in that situation is finding a new job.
While some have characterized SCO's action towards Linux users as extortion, none have documented that possibility.
IANAL, but I google. I found the Hobb's Act: Extortion By Force, Violence, or Fear.
There are four criteria for the Hobb's Act:
Criteria 1 and 2 are clearly met, as SCO is attempting to use Linux users' fear of lawsuits to collect license fees. But that in itself is not criminal.
It appears to me that condition 3 is also met, because SCO's threats to Linux user's can potentially have a great threat on interstate commerce. Linux servers comprise a large portion of all commercial webservers. The need to license all of these could have a broad impact on e-commerce.
Is SCO's threat of lawsuits against Linux users wrongful? It is if they have no right to the property they are claiming. Given that SCO has released the disputed property under the GPL, they have no legal right to it and therefore no right to collect license fees for it.
The interesting thing is that extortion is a criminal offense. People could go to jail for this.
Learning to cope with a manger who does not allow sufficient time for gathering requirements, design, or testing is a defensive strategy. The pro-active worker will realize that such a manager is incompetent and fire him.
Here are some strategies for firing your boss that I have seen work:
1. Undermine him. If your colleagues are all convinced your boss is incompetent then you can collectively pound on him. Petition him for more time to do your job right. If he gives in, then he is learning and maybe not so dumb after all. If he continues, then you can collectively proceed to step 2.
2. Go around him. If you can make an ally of a senior employee, such as the CTO, and convince him that your boss is incompetent then you are home free. It's just a matter of time before he is fired.
3. Smack him around. Be nice to your boss when nobody else is around. But in meetings, especially when his superiors are present, bring up a concern that your group could do much better work if a better process were in place. You are setting a trap. If your boss makes the mistake of defending the current process, you have to be ready to convince everyone in the room that the current process is amateur, foolish, and symptomatic of an incompetent manager. In order to pull this off, you will need to be much smarter than him, be able to refer to successful development projects in your other jobs, and perhaps have a few allies in the room who can do the same.
If a group of programmers succeeds in firing their boss, it is very likely that their new boss will be selected from their own ranks. This can be a positive step forward for the group. Work together to find someone who understands process and is also skilled at diplomacy.
Apple has a BSD solution. It's called OS X.
Consider the possibility of an external D/A converter with USB audio. Get better S/N than your CD player's analog out.
Audiophiles use external D/A converters anyway.
The obvious use for excess CPU power in a portable computer is speech recognition. Also requires lots of memory.
For those about to dock, we salute you!
It seems that way because you are correct, your CS education is really pointless.
The exercises you perform in CS classes have very little to do with real world programming projects. The emphasis in CS classes is on algorithms, when in fact algorithm development plays a very small role in most real projects.
Rather, the people who are successful programmers have mastered several programming tools and have learned, through experience working on sizable projects, how to combat complexity. They have learned effective design patterns, probably through experience reading and implementing real world code.
I remember one of my CS classes when I had to implement an X Windows application that simulated logic circuitry. It took me forever to get it right. But looking back I now realize that my biggest problem was not with algorithms or data structures, the supposed cornerstones of the class. My biggest problem was that I barely new the C programming language and I didn't know how to use Emacs effectively. So things that would have taken me 0 time with a little more knowledge were taking me forever.
Most programming just ain't that hard. But effective programming does require a massive amount of esoteric knowledge. If you are a reasonably clever person you can and will be an effective programmer if you learn practical skills and just keep soaking up little details. No single detail will be very difficult to learn or understand, but the more of them you know the better programmer you will be.
For example, do you know how to use tag files in emacs? Do you know about bounds checkers like electric fence? Do you know scripting languages like Perl or Python and when to use them? Do you use automatic documentation generation programs like doxygen? Have you bought and read every book written by Richard W. Stevens (if Richard W. Stevens had written about physics, then physics would be easy)? Do you know the importance of designing simple interfaces, or are you going to learn that several years down the road after noticing that all your large projects have gotten totally out of control? The list goes on and on, and as maybe you can see I am still learning, and that is really the point, programming is constant learning. Unfortunately your school probably taught you very little of what you need to know.
My main advice to you is to think of a simple computer program that you would like to implement and do it. Find the time. Finish it. Release it to your friends, see what they think. Was it fun? I though so.
Good luck.
- fearlessfreddy
Yes, it's called video tape. You can buy it at KMart.
Good job, moderators. Don't moderate up my comment. It's just the only informative comment that has been posted for this article.
Oh, and keep the Smellovision comments coming, please.
P.S. Love the Slashdot paragraph formatting.
Forget nextgen, Britney Spears announced back in June that she will be releasing an immersive video later this year on current game consoles using Enroute's FirstPerson Video.
The hardware requirements for delivering immersive video are not that great, and the bandwidth requirements are probably do-able using DVD as the delivery media.
There are several companies working on immersive video right now and there have been for several years. The biggest problem they face is parallax.
The truth is there are several companies who have been attempting to bring immersive video to consumers for several years now. Some of them are:
Be Here
Immersive Media
Imove
Ipix
Enroute
The first and most successful immersive video system AFAIK is Disney' Circle Vision theater in Tomorrowland, which has been open since 1971.
The biggest problems in delivering immersive video are bandwidth, resolution, frame rate, and parallax. Selection of delivery media affects the bandwidth problem which of course is related to frame rate and resolution.
The parallax problem arises in multiple camera solutions. Basically, in order to seemlessly mosaic images from multiple cameras, they have to have the same nodal points or the objects in the scene need to be very far away. Single camera solutions (using specially shaped mirrors) suffer from low resolution. Multiple camera solutions that use mirrors, such as Disney's Circle Vision system, can achieve low parallax but tend to have a limited verticle coverage.
If you can event a wide angle lens that places its nodal points behind the image plane then there is a valuable patent waiting for you.