I'm a CS major at UT Dallas and I use half.com for a lot of my book purchasing. Also, for required non-CS classes (like government, history, english, etc..), I'll never write in the textbooks and keep them in good condition, and then sell them on half.com. I recently sold my $60 history book for $50. I win, the buyer wins. You can also get a lot of your textbooks on there really cheap, and if not, at least at a discount.
Also, for books you don't care about, look for softcover editions (physics, math, and CS books are usually hardback). As long as you can keep them in good condition, they'll last just as long as hardback books.
As for my core CS classes, I'll end up keeping those books because I use them and I'm sure I'll use them in the future.
I wonder if Madonna had this, when she married her British husband and all of a sudden thought she was English as well.
-Vic
Re:Fundamental problem with most exercise...
on
Hackers On Atkins
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
I couldn't agree more. I'm a Freshman college student, and when I came to college, I realized I was overweight (6'2" 238lbs), and the idea of the Freshman 15 wasn't too appeasing. So, I decided to change that. Now, every morning I wake up at 530, go to the gym, and run for 30 minutes (at 6mph, thats 3 miles or about 530 calories) and thats before I've eaten breakfast. Then, throughout the day, I watch my caloric intake (I keep it under 2000), and then at night, I work out again. At night I'll do another 3 miles, and usually 30 minutes on the stairstepper, which can get 700 calories. Thats 1760 calories of working out. It is easy to loose a pound a day. In fact, in the 2 months I've been at college, I've lost 32lbs.
The key is motivation and you have to push yourself. It is not easy (especially for those of you who don't like waking up early). I have no pity for fat or obese people, even if they do have a disease that forces them to overeat or whatever that crap is. So stick with it, and loose the weight. No fancy diets (whatever this new south beach diet is, I have no idea), just low calories and exercise. Do it.
I would have to disagree. One of the best games ever made, in my opinion, is Deus Ex, which took me about 45 hours to beat, even on easy mode. It set up an incredible story, there are tons of secrets and its incredibly non-linear. I much rather play it than a lot of the trash being made today.
Anyway, I think games are overpriced, so when I spend $50 bucks for a game, it better be a nice long game with an excellent story and high replay ability. I spent $20 on Deus Ex (I went out and bought it after I saw Tom Hall give a speech on game design and included Deus Ex), and its probably the best $20 I've spent on a game (next to Unreal Tournament).
I didn't read the entire article (skimmed it), and I'm only 19, but I've been playing online games for probably 7-8 years now (started with Doom, which I guess was very basic, but still had multiplayer, nonetheless). I think that it is the communities that online games have to offer.
The first online (truely online) game I got involved in was Quake II, which was badass. People were friendly, there was a great community, id is just a cool company, etc. Then I had a little hiatus, and came back in the Unreal Tournament days. Again, another incredible game with an incredible community. I joined a clan with an average player age or 35. Obviously, a bunch of adults playing a game makes it *much* more enjoyable than a bunch of 13 year olds. Adults can get stuff done, pay for stuff, and instill a sense of maturity in all the players. I also thought the UT community was really friendly as well. Tons of maps being made, we had *many* friends in other clans, Epic, again, is a cool company that supports the community (see the 1 million dollar contest they are supporting right now).
However, after that, it started to decline. The UT community pretty much stayed the same, but I started to play other FPS games, like Soldier of Fortune 2, and Return to Castle Wolfenstein, and a few others. The communities for these games were horrible. Just a ton of whiney, immature, 13 year olds who cause a ton of trouble in servers. Clans don't work (my friends started one and it failed miserably whereas the UT clan I'm in has been around for more than 3 years).
So...when the communities of games improve, the online games will improve. (Also, in case you couldn't tell, this is entirely from playing FPS's since thats all I play, but I hear its the same for RPG and RTS games).
Read all about it on waxy.org. They managed to raise a surprisngly large amount of money for the kid (something like 3grand). Pretty interesting. They even got in contact with the kid.
I attend UTD which has been called the MIT of the south. Started in 1969 by the founders of Texas Instruments, it originally started as a PhD school only, and then moved to graduate only, and now is an undergrad and postgrad school too. It was just given 300 million dollars to play around with (the most any public university has ever been given, I believe), and has an incredible business and engineering school. I wouldn't be surprised if you see UTD a lot higher up on that list 10 years from now.
I beg to differ. Just ask John Carmack. Don't you think he does it as a labor of love? I think so. I think there are plenty of programmers to work on closed source applications because they love it. Or take programmers who work on closed source during the day at work and contribute to open source at home. I know I do.
Blind users or users with very limited seeing. That is also what the ALT attribute (there is no such thing as an ALT tag) is used for, to provide information about the image to the screen reader they are using. So, yes, the ALT attribute is used for things other than text browsers.
For example, why is Flash so bad for the web? Simple: say you have a blind user. How on earth are they supposed to navigate a Flash site when there are no ALT attributes to guide them and their screen readers can't "read" a.swf file.
Wow, this is incredible. My fathers company, epicsoftware.com actually had an idea similar to this back in 1994 (or 95) when Doom I was at the height of its popularity. My fathers company is located in Houston, TX, which is about 4 hours away from where iD software is located (Mesquite, TX). Thus, my dad and his lead programmer went up to iD, spoke with Jay Wilbur and John Carmack about the idea. If I remember correctly, they thought it was a cool idea too. In their prototype, instead of a bike, they used a treadmill in which walking on the treadmill would move you through the Doom level. A prototype was developed and semi worked, but iD soon gave up on the idea (I believe, it might have been epic). Nevertheless, it was really cool.
Also, this was when I was 9 or 10 (8 or 9 years ago), so I don't recall everything, but it was cool.
On each of the pages, there are % Minorities and % Women for each company. Why?! Why should this matter. Is this not racist or sexist? Certainly if there was a % White, it would be considered so. Why should the color of a persons skin or their sex be considered over how well they perform their job?
You didn't specify if she was interested in learning how to program graphics, or just make pretty pictures. Personally, I would rather program them rather than just make them in a program like Lightwave or other 3D package.
First, if she wants to learn to program graphics, I suggest she visit my site, openglforums.com. I think its a pretty good resource on OpenGL programming.
However, if your wife just wants to make pretty graphics, there are a few free or inexpensive programs available. For example, there is Blender 3D (for Linux), or MilkShape 3D (for Windows). The latter is about $25-30USD, and well worth the money.
I didn't read the article, but a lot of people think that IE5 for Windows is the same as IE5 for Mac. IE5 for Mac is actually a decent browser because it was headed up by a guy at Microsoft who pays attention to the standards set by the W3C (I forget his last name, but I think it starts with a T). IE5 for the Mac is as good as Mozilla for Windows. They are both awesome browsers. Unfortunately, IE Anything for Windows sucks.
In America, *most* DJ's suck. However, there are a few DJ's (mainly on the rock stations) that are pretty funny (Walton & Johnson from Rock 101 in Houston come to mind). Sometimes CD's just get boring to listen to, especially if its the same songs repeated forever. The radio at least gives me some variety.
Joking aside, I hope, and know that OpenGL will never die. Several reasons:
Ease of use. With Direct3D, you have to set up all of that Win32 specific crap. Its a pain in the ass. You have to memorize all of those silly structure names and such (don't quiz me as I don't know any of them). With OpenGL, in VC++, you just have to include the right libraries (opengl32.lib, glu32.lib and glut32.lib) and your set to go. I'm pretty sure its similar on Linux.
Cross platform. Direct3D doesn't run on other platforms (yeah, there's probably a project or two on sourceforge to prove me otherwise), but in general, you don't have to install any fancy things to get OpenGL working on multiple computers. In fact, if you use the GLUT (although deprecated, it has its uses) library, then theorhetically, you should only have to recompile the application to have it run on a specific platform.
John Carmack. Face it, the mans incredible. He's literally changed the face of graphics, but I'm sure everyone already knew that;).
The general API is nicer looking. To me, and I'm sure a lot of other people, code aesthetics is very important. OpenGL uses simple, yet intuitive function names. I want my object to be 100% red, and 50% blue, and 0% green, simple, I must use the glColor3f(1.0f, 0.5f, 0.0f); function (gl - the library, Color - main identifier, 3f - takes 3 floats as arguments). I'm not sure of the function in Direct3D, but I'm sure its not as nice looking.
To summarize:
I love OpenGL and everything about it. I know it will never die. Its an incredible API, and although its slow to update, I'm sure OpenGL2.0 will kick ass.
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I'm a CS major at UT Dallas and I use half.com for a lot of my book purchasing. Also, for required non-CS classes (like government, history, english, etc..), I'll never write in the textbooks and keep them in good condition, and then sell them on half.com. I recently sold my $60 history book for $50. I win, the buyer wins. You can also get a lot of your textbooks on there really cheap, and if not, at least at a discount.
Also, for books you don't care about, look for softcover editions (physics, math, and CS books are usually hardback). As long as you can keep them in good condition, they'll last just as long as hardback books.
As for my core CS classes, I'll end up keeping those books because I use them and I'm sure I'll use them in the future.
-Vic
I wonder if Madonna had this, when she married her British husband and all of a sudden thought she was English as well.
-Vic
I couldn't agree more. I'm a Freshman college student, and when I came to college, I realized I was overweight (6'2" 238lbs), and the idea of the Freshman 15 wasn't too appeasing. So, I decided to change that. Now, every morning I wake up at 530, go to the gym, and run for 30 minutes (at 6mph, thats 3 miles or about 530 calories) and thats before I've eaten breakfast. Then, throughout the day, I watch my caloric intake (I keep it under 2000), and then at night, I work out again. At night I'll do another 3 miles, and usually 30 minutes on the stairstepper, which can get 700 calories. Thats 1760 calories of working out. It is easy to loose a pound a day. In fact, in the 2 months I've been at college, I've lost 32lbs.
The key is motivation and you have to push yourself. It is not easy (especially for those of you who don't like waking up early). I have no pity for fat or obese people, even if they do have a disease that forces them to overeat or whatever that crap is. So stick with it, and loose the weight. No fancy diets (whatever this new south beach diet is, I have no idea), just low calories and exercise. Do it.
-Vic
Probably because it was the first, or at least the first one that combined function with style extremely well.
-Vic
I would have to disagree. One of the best games ever made, in my opinion, is Deus Ex, which took me about 45 hours to beat, even on easy mode. It set up an incredible story, there are tons of secrets and its incredibly non-linear. I much rather play it than a lot of the trash being made today.
Anyway, I think games are overpriced, so when I spend $50 bucks for a game, it better be a nice long game with an excellent story and high replay ability. I spent $20 on Deus Ex (I went out and bought it after I saw Tom Hall give a speech on game design and included Deus Ex), and its probably the best $20 I've spent on a game (next to Unreal Tournament).
-Vic
I didn't read the entire article (skimmed it), and I'm only 19, but I've been playing online games for probably 7-8 years now (started with Doom, which I guess was very basic, but still had multiplayer, nonetheless). I think that it is the communities that online games have to offer.
The first online (truely online) game I got involved in was Quake II, which was badass. People were friendly, there was a great community, id is just a cool company, etc. Then I had a little hiatus, and came back in the Unreal Tournament days. Again, another incredible game with an incredible community. I joined a clan with an average player age or 35. Obviously, a bunch of adults playing a game makes it *much* more enjoyable than a bunch of 13 year olds. Adults can get stuff done, pay for stuff, and instill a sense of maturity in all the players. I also thought the UT community was really friendly as well. Tons of maps being made, we had *many* friends in other clans, Epic, again, is a cool company that supports the community (see the 1 million dollar contest they are supporting right now).
However, after that, it started to decline. The UT community pretty much stayed the same, but I started to play other FPS games, like Soldier of Fortune 2, and Return to Castle Wolfenstein, and a few others. The communities for these games were horrible. Just a ton of whiney, immature, 13 year olds who cause a ton of trouble in servers. Clans don't work (my friends started one and it failed miserably whereas the UT clan I'm in has been around for more than 3 years).
So...when the communities of games improve, the online games will improve. (Also, in case you couldn't tell, this is entirely from playing FPS's since thats all I play, but I hear its the same for RPG and RTS games).
-Vic
Read all about it on waxy.org. They managed to raise a surprisngly large amount of money for the kid (something like 3grand). Pretty interesting. They even got in contact with the kid.
-Vic
I attend UTD which has been called the MIT of the south. Started in 1969 by the founders of Texas Instruments, it originally started as a PhD school only, and then moved to graduate only, and now is an undergrad and postgrad school too. It was just given 300 million dollars to play around with (the most any public university has ever been given, I believe), and has an incredible business and engineering school. I wouldn't be surprised if you see UTD a lot higher up on that list 10 years from now.
-Vic
"...female vulva/vagina..."
;)
As opposed to the male vulva/vagina?
-Vic
Pretty much the same article on CNN, but a little nicer format with less intrusive ads: CNN's article
-Vic
"It's not done as a labour of love."
I beg to differ. Just ask John Carmack. Don't you think he does it as a labor of love? I think so. I think there are plenty of programmers to work on closed source applications because they love it. Or take programmers who work on closed source during the day at work and contribute to open source at home. I know I do.
-Vic
Hmm, in my client, Mozilla, it works just fine. Perhaps you should upgrade ;)
-Vic
My own of course. Its clean, table-less, and is valid XHTML1.0 Strict.
-Vic
Blind users or users with very limited seeing. That is also what the ALT attribute (there is no such thing as an ALT tag) is used for, to provide information about the image to the screen reader they are using. So, yes, the ALT attribute is used for things other than text browsers.
.swf file.
For example, why is Flash so bad for the web? Simple: say you have a blind user. How on earth are they supposed to navigate a Flash site when there are no ALT attributes to guide them and their screen readers can't "read" a
That's just one example I am familiar with.
-Vic
Heh, not vinegar, but salad dressing. And you call yourself a nerd! Hah! ;)
-Vic
Good thing my computer at school sucks so much that it locks up when those ad's appear, or I'd be in some serious shit.
-Vic
Its Carmack. How could you get that one wrong?
'nuff said.
Wow, this is incredible. My fathers company, epicsoftware.com actually had an idea similar to this back in 1994 (or 95) when Doom I was at the height of its popularity. My fathers company is located in Houston, TX, which is about 4 hours away from where iD software is located (Mesquite, TX). Thus, my dad and his lead programmer went up to iD, spoke with Jay Wilbur and John Carmack about the idea. If I remember correctly, they thought it was a cool idea too. In their prototype, instead of a bike, they used a treadmill in which walking on the treadmill would move you through the Doom level. A prototype was developed and semi worked, but iD soon gave up on the idea (I believe, it might have been epic). Nevertheless, it was really cool.
Also, this was when I was 9 or 10 (8 or 9 years ago), so I don't recall everything, but it was cool.
-Vic
On each of the pages, there are % Minorities and % Women for each company. Why?! Why should this matter. Is this not racist or sexist? Certainly if there was a % White, it would be considered so. Why should the color of a persons skin or their sex be considered over how well they perform their job?
-Vic
You didn't specify if she was interested in learning how to program graphics, or just make pretty pictures. Personally, I would rather program them rather than just make them in a program like Lightwave or other 3D package.
First, if she wants to learn to program graphics, I suggest she visit my site, openglforums.com. I think its a pretty good resource on OpenGL programming.
However, if your wife just wants to make pretty graphics, there are a few free or inexpensive programs available. For example, there is Blender 3D (for Linux), or MilkShape 3D (for Windows). The latter is about $25-30USD, and well worth the money.
Hope this helps.
-Vic
Mozilla 1.0 - http://mozilla.org
-Vic
I didn't read the article, but a lot of people think that IE5 for Windows is the same as IE5 for Mac. IE5 for Mac is actually a decent browser because it was headed up by a guy at Microsoft who pays attention to the standards set by the W3C (I forget his last name, but I think it starts with a T). IE5 for the Mac is as good as Mozilla for Windows. They are both awesome browsers. Unfortunately, IE Anything for Windows sucks.
-Vic
In America, *most* DJ's suck. However, there are a few DJ's (mainly on the rock stations) that are pretty funny (Walton & Johnson from Rock 101 in Houston come to mind). Sometimes CD's just get boring to listen to, especially if its the same songs repeated forever. The radio at least gives me some variety.
-Vic
Joking aside, I hope, and know that OpenGL will never die. Several reasons:
To summarize:
I love OpenGL and everything about it. I know it will never die. Its an incredible API, and although its slow to update, I'm sure OpenGL2.0 will kick ass.
-Vic