Nice in theory, but impossible in practise. The most profitable land for agriculture is always that which has a constant water table, so farmers are reluctant to give that land up. This leaves land close to the sea, in river flood plains or up on hills. As the latter will always have already been built upon, this only leaves land close to the sea or in floodplains.
There has been so much growth, that all of the high land has been built upon, and now the only place to build is in the flood plain of the Thames. So planners have no choice to build developments they know will be flooded and isolated should there be a severe storm.
BionicFX Harnesses Power of Graphics Cards for Audio Processing Programming uses GPU as Audio Effect Processor
BionicFX announced a technology for music production that turns NVIDIA video cards into audio effects processors. Audio Video Exchange (AVEX) converts digital audio into graphics data, and then performs effect calculations using the 3D architecture of the GPU. The latest video cards from NVIDIA are capable of more than 40 gigaflops of processing power compared to less than 6 gigaflops on Intel and AMD CPUs.
BionicReverb, the first effect to use AVEX, will debut at Winter NAMM Conference in January 2005. BionicReverb is an impulse response reverberation effect that runs as a plug-in inside VST compatible multi-track recording software. The audio effect is generated by combining an impulse response file with digital audio. Impulse response files are created by firing a starter pistol inside a location, such as Carnegie Hall, and recording the echoing sound waves. Combining the two files through mathematical convolution is a CPU intensive process that is reduced by moving expensive calculations onto the GPU.
AVEX works by transforming audio streams into the structure and colors of graphics data. The graphics data is processed on the video card by pixel or fragment shaders that run audio effect algorithms, which read and write to textures in video memory. The final calculations are retrieved from off-screen buffers and decoded into audio.
While Nvidia may be happy that these guys are using their hardware, they may be worried that these companies start mangling their own software in order for it to run on a GPU and end up doing things that will only break as graphics technology changes.
Therefore it is much safer for Nvidia to design hardware that processes audio directly.
And besides, why shouldn't audio be treated in the same way as textures? There would be many benefits if an API such as OpenAL could be implemented in hardware. All the sound files in a game could be preloaded into audio memory, along with repeat/random/play once flags, and have the programmer simply set the location of sound sources and of the listener. And this would fit neatly into a scene-graph representation.
The distribution of gwbasic and basica was probably more to compete against the home computers of the time. I was still programming on an Atari 800XL back in 1986, simply because the PC clones back at that time (8 MHz) only had CGA graphics.
Back in those days, every magazine from Byte to Personal Computer World, and all the home computer magazines had science, encryption (implement DES crypt on your TRS-80!) and game programming articles.
The selling point of early home computers was "teach yourself programming at home in your own time".
Once people started connecting 80 column printers to their computers, the next killer apps were "maintain your own address lists" and "write your own newsletters".
At the same time, as modems became affordable, then people were able to send/receive E-mail from their local BBS. Then services like AOL and Telecom Gold allowed people to send/receive E-mail nationally.
Each cassette typically had a play/recording speed of 300 baud. So a 32K program would take around 15 minutes to load.
And you hoped that your tape would never stretch or shrink due to usage or changing weather conditions. Not forgetting having to maintain a log of where the tape counter was when each program was saved to tape.
How would you put voice-over-ip into a word processing document?
The same way you would put streamed video on a webpage. You'll have some tiny embedded object that lists the application to be run and the file path/url to open.
For voice-over-ip, you would have the application and the telephone address/number of the person/company to be dialed.
Because it is people who persevere to turn their dreams into reality are the one who advance knowledge and civilisation, and that it's the people who say that things will never work or catch on are the ones who hold civilisation back.
People said that trains could never travel more than 30 miles because all the air would be pushed to the back of the carriage.
People said that airplanes could never travel faster than the speed of sound because the vibrations would pull the machine apart.
The effects of hurricane Katrina will give property developers and city officials the excuse to invoke the urban blight and eminent domain legislation and reclaim the land for more profitable purposes. The main barrier to the regeneration of deprived areas is always street crime. Now, with the all the civilians out of the way, they can use whatever force is necessary.
Would this be any different from writing to/from flashcard memory or a microdrive card?
802.11g has speed of 20 - 54 Mbits/second, or around 2.5 - 7 Mbytes/second.
Since a compressed JPEG image is around 400Kbytes, you could easy take and send a picture within a second. Even an uncompressed image might only take a second. Compare that speed to a flashcard which takes several seconds to save a compressed JPEG image.
Instead of using experienced gained by international aid agencies like the Red Cross, Microsoft is being asked to develop software to help reunite families. Maybe its simply a web page with name indexing, but it doesn't seem to make sense to have to wait several weeks to get a reliable system up and running.
* Wingman has joined #intelligentdesign * AlphaHelix has joined #intelligentdesign * MutatedTaxon has joined #intelligentdesign <Wingman> hi <AlphaHelix> hi Wingman <MutatedTaxon> morning Wingman <Wingman> finished my project at work today <Wingman> the boss upstairs asked me to design something that could fly <AlphaHelix> =O= <MutatedTaxon> awesome <Wingman> so I knew it would have to be something small with wings <Wingman> but I didn't what to do for eyes <AlphaHelix> hundreds and thousands:) <Wingman> tahts what I did, compound eyes <MutatedTaxon> l33t <Wingman> 4000 on each side <MutatedTaxon> w00t <AlphaHelix> what about a couple of eyes on the back of the head? <Wingman> thought about that too <Wingman> got three <Wingman> good to have a spare <AlphaHalix> lol <MutatedTaxon> does it walk? <Wingman> Its got six legs with feet <Wingman> so it can jump up and start flying if anything comes too close <Wingman> and it can even land upside down on a ceiling or roof <MutatedTaxon> h4x0r sk1llz <Wingman> and it will eat absolutely anything <AlphaHelix> no way!!!! <Wingman> it regurgitates its stomach acid on anything tasty <Wingman> and sucks it back up <AlphaHelix> Yuck! <AlphaHelix> what are you going to call it? <Wingman> The Fly <Wingman> cos it flies, gettit? * MutatedTaxon has quit IRC (Quit: Leaving) * AlphaHelix has quit IRC (Quit: Leaving) * Wingman has quit IRC (Quit: Leaving)
The electronics controlling the fuel ignition system will have all signals from the dashboard to the engine encrypted. Any attempts to reverse engineer this will be a violation of the DMCA legislation, Any violators wil be subjected to a large fine, have their car confiscated, and be required to write an essay saying why grand theft auto is bad.
EA just bought Renderware and are now killing it, in an attempt to break Rockstar games.
I'm curious - how exactly are EA killing RenderWare?
I can understand why EA might dislike Rockstar games - but they would also be attempting to kill off 400+ other developers.
What the industry needs is a free and open source suite of tools and engine components that nobody can buy, but that anyone can use.
Why? If someone has the skill, knowledge and experience to build a cutting edge game engine and level editor shouldn't they be rewarded for their efforts?
A better way would be for the little companies to bundle their games together into a single pack of maybe 10+ games.
Not only would this increase their chances of getting on the shop shelves, it would help to reduce distribution costs.
The lander sits on four legs, much like a small version of the original landers that brought astronauts to the moon. The squat, compact unit has a few tiny jump boosters protruding below and on its sides and looks nothing like an actual penguin.
In that situation, I'd prefer the Loot-1-Get-As-Many-As-You-Can-Carry-Home-Without-B eing-Shot offer.
Although, giving the danger of the floodwaters being contaminated from overflowing sewers and septic tanks, there's as much chance of being killed from disease as from sudden lead poisoning.
You could always have one conventional launch that places a "mother" satellite into orbit. This would move to the correct orbital plane, test and release the mini-sat and then move to the next orbital position, ready for the next mini-sat.
Secondly, If you just build over the water, then you will have a city built upon an inherintly unstable foundation i.e. A large cavern underground. Would you want to be in an office building that is built over a city sized hole in the ground?
When you build skyscrapers or bridges, you don't just build on top of the ground soil, you dig your foundations piles deep into the groundrock below. Then you use these to build your structure. If you look at any coastal city with skyscrapers, you will see that they excavate underground for many reasons, including in order to seal the foundations from groundwater leakage and to provide underground services (car parks, metro systems, storage, communications).
Many Scottish cities were built in a similar way. Edinburgh was built on seven hills - the Victorians basically built high streets that spanned each valley, with the empty space being used as storage basements for the high street departments stores, and also as an underground rail service to deliver goods direct by train from London to the stores.
During the cold war, radio antennae were designed to be retracted underground in antipication of a nuclear strike, and to have a motor strong enough to push their way through several foot of rubble after the blast
If you could combine this concept with a wind power generator, you could have more a resilient network - Suppose cell phone towers could have a wind speed monitor and shutdown if the wind speed exceeded a certain limit, rather than wait to be knocked down in a blizzard or a storm?
Anyone who has played 'nethack' will know the visual and auditory effects of applying a cursed unicorn horn or drinking a "Potion of Hallucination" anywhere in dungeon, and the possibly fatal effects.
And anyone who has played 'falconseye', an isometric user interface for 'nethack' will note that these effects are implemented both visually and accoustically.
To quote 'nethack': "You hear an attorney jingling in the distance"
Yes, it doesn't take that long to learn how to move around in the UI and find the alternative software that Linux runs. It's just different. People don't have enough time to eat, sleep, pay attention to their kids, or take their garbage cans in... They aren't going to have the time to install, adapt, and change the habits they learned using Windows for the past 15-20 years.
Make that 10 years. Most developers and users didn't consider Windows seriously until Windows 95/NT came out. Up to then, developers tended to write their own seperate user interfaces.
And before then, users and developers worked on home computer systems like the Atari ST, Amiga, and Sinclair QL. For a couple of years (1986-1988) these computers had the edge over the IBM PC in terms of user interface.Atari ST's were still in use at my university up to the mid 1990's.
Currently with Windows, users with broadband access have to constantly worry whether any spyware has been installed from the Internet while they have been web-surfing/installing updates to run new hardware, and so have to spend time running file scanners, firewall, and virus removal software.
With the Linux system, there's less need to worry spyware, but more has to be spent getting non-server hardware devices to work (getting a webcam to work properly took me 1 week in Internet research, rpm installation and rebooting).
Slashdot Mirror
Nice in theory, but impossible in practise. The most profitable land for agriculture is always that which has a constant water table, so farmers are reluctant to give that land up. This leaves land close to the sea, in river flood plains or up on hills. As the latter will always have already been built upon, this only leaves land close to the sea or in floodplains.
... Holistic approach to flood plain building.
That's the housing problem around the London area
There has been so much growth, that all of the high land has been built upon, and now the only place to build is in the flood plain of the Thames. So planners have no choice to build developments they know will be flooded and isolated should there be a severe storm.
There have been a few sound musicians who have been looking at using GPU's for processing audio.
BionicFX Harnesses Power of Graphics Cards for Audio Processing
Programming uses GPU as Audio Effect Processor
BionicFX announced a technology for music production that turns NVIDIA video cards into audio effects processors. Audio Video Exchange (AVEX) converts digital audio into graphics data, and then performs effect calculations using the 3D architecture of the GPU. The latest video cards from NVIDIA are capable of more than 40 gigaflops of processing power compared to less than 6 gigaflops on Intel and AMD CPUs.
BionicReverb, the first effect to use AVEX, will debut at Winter NAMM Conference in January 2005. BionicReverb is an impulse response reverberation effect that runs as a plug-in inside VST compatible multi-track recording software. The audio effect is generated by combining an impulse response file with digital audio. Impulse response files are created by firing a starter pistol inside a location, such as Carnegie Hall, and recording the echoing sound waves. Combining the two files through mathematical convolution is a CPU intensive process that is reduced by moving expensive calculations onto the GPU.
AVEX works by transforming audio streams into the structure and colors of graphics data. The graphics data is processed on the video card by pixel or fragment shaders that run audio effect algorithms, which read and write to textures in video memory. The final calculations are retrieved from off-screen buffers and decoded into audio.
While Nvidia may be happy that these guys are using their hardware, they may be worried that these companies start mangling their own software in order for it to run on a GPU and end up doing things that will only break as graphics technology changes.
Therefore it is much safer for Nvidia to design hardware that processes audio directly.
And besides, why shouldn't audio be treated in the same way as textures? There would be many benefits if an API such as OpenAL could be implemented in hardware. All the sound files in a game could be preloaded into audio memory, along with repeat/random/play once flags, and have the programmer simply set the location of sound sources and of the listener. And this would fit neatly into a scene-graph representation.
The distribution of gwbasic and basica was probably more to compete against the home computers of the time. I was still programming on an Atari 800XL back in 1986, simply because the PC clones back at that time (8 MHz) only had CGA graphics.
Back in those days, every magazine from Byte to Personal Computer World, and all the home computer magazines had science, encryption (implement DES crypt on your TRS-80!) and game programming articles.
There was always the Sinclair QL (Quantum Leap). That used microdrives (not the flash memory kind). The best picture I could find is here.
The selling point of early home computers was "teach yourself programming at home in your own time".
Once people started connecting 80 column printers to their computers, the next killer apps were "maintain your own address lists" and "write your own newsletters".
At the same time, as modems became affordable, then people were able to send/receive E-mail from their local BBS. Then services like AOL and Telecom Gold allowed people to send/receive E-mail nationally.
Atari Cassette Recorder
Sharp MZ80K
ZX Spectrum +2
Each cassette typically had a play/recording speed of 300 baud. So a 32K program would take around 15 minutes to load.
And you hoped that your tape would never stretch or shrink due to usage or changing weather conditions. Not forgetting having to maintain a log of where the tape counter was when each program was saved to tape.
How would you put voice-over-ip into a word processing document?
The same way you would put streamed video on a webpage. You'll have some tiny embedded object that lists the application to be run and the file path/url to open.
For voice-over-ip, you would have the application and the telephone address/number of the person/company to be dialed.
Because it is people who persevere to turn their dreams into reality are the one who advance knowledge and civilisation, and that it's the people who say that things will never work or catch on are the ones who hold civilisation back.
People said that trains could never travel more than 30 miles because all the air would be pushed to the back of the carriage.
People said that airplanes could never travel faster than the speed of sound because the vibrations would pull the machine apart.
And in seven days, it will be Khannot Day.
Is that a surprise? The most desirable areas of real estate are on the coast, epecially hills, dockland areas and beach fronts (See Dodgers Stadium, Kelo vs. City of New London, London Docklands etc...)
The effects of hurricane Katrina will give property developers and city officials the excuse to invoke the urban blight and eminent domain legislation and reclaim the land for more profitable purposes. The main barrier to the regeneration of deprived areas is always street crime. Now, with the all the civilians out of the way, they can use whatever force is necessary.
Would this be any different from writing to/from flashcard memory or a microdrive card?
802.11g has speed of 20 - 54 Mbits/second, or around 2.5 - 7 Mbytes/second.
Since a compressed JPEG image is around 400Kbytes, you could easy take and send a picture within a second. Even an uncompressed image might only take a second. Compare that speed to a flashcard which takes several seconds to save a compressed JPEG image.
The Canadian Red Cross already have used such technology in previous relief operations.
Restoring Family Links Program
Read this article
in the LA Times.
Instead of using experienced gained by international aid agencies like the Red Cross, Microsoft is being asked to develop software to help reunite families.
Maybe its simply a web page with name indexing, but it doesn't seem to make sense to have to wait several weeks to get a reliable system up and running.
* Wingman has joined #intelligentdesign
* AlphaHelix has joined #intelligentdesign
* MutatedTaxon has joined #intelligentdesign
<Wingman> hi
<AlphaHelix> hi Wingman
<MutatedTaxon> morning Wingman
<Wingman> finished my project at work today
<Wingman> the boss upstairs asked me to design something that could fly
<AlphaHelix> =O=
<MutatedTaxon> awesome
<Wingman> so I knew it would have to be something small with wings
<Wingman> but I didn't what to do for eyes
<AlphaHelix> hundreds and thousands
<Wingman> tahts what I did, compound eyes
<MutatedTaxon> l33t
<Wingman> 4000 on each side
<MutatedTaxon> w00t
<AlphaHelix> what about a couple of eyes on the back of the head?
<Wingman> thought about that too
<Wingman> got three
<Wingman> good to have a spare
<AlphaHalix> lol
<MutatedTaxon> does it walk?
<Wingman> Its got six legs with feet
<Wingman> so it can jump up and start flying if anything comes too close
<Wingman> and it can even land upside down on a ceiling or roof
<MutatedTaxon> h4x0r sk1llz
<Wingman> and it will eat absolutely anything
<AlphaHelix> no way!!!!
<Wingman> it regurgitates its stomach acid on anything tasty
<Wingman> and sucks it back up
<AlphaHelix> Yuck!
<AlphaHelix> what are you going to call it?
<Wingman> The Fly
<Wingman> cos it flies, gettit?
* MutatedTaxon has quit IRC (Quit: Leaving)
* AlphaHelix has quit IRC (Quit: Leaving)
* Wingman has quit IRC (Quit: Leaving)
The electronics controlling the fuel ignition system will have all signals from the dashboard to the engine encrypted. Any attempts to reverse engineer this will be a violation of the DMCA legislation, Any violators wil be subjected to a large fine, have their car confiscated, and be required to write an essay saying why grand theft auto is bad.
EA just bought Renderware and are now killing it, in an attempt to break Rockstar games.
I'm curious - how exactly are EA killing RenderWare?
I can understand why EA might dislike Rockstar games - but they would also be attempting to kill off 400+ other developers.
What the industry needs is a free and open source suite of tools and engine components that nobody can buy, but that anyone can use.
Why? If someone has the skill, knowledge and experience to build a cutting edge game engine and level editor shouldn't they be rewarded for their efforts?
A better way would be for the little companies to bundle their games together into a single pack of maybe 10+ games.
Not only would this increase their chances of getting on the shop shelves, it would help to reduce distribution costs.
One application might be to automatically generate a set of rules from a standard text document, and convert these into parsing code.
But I'm sure this has already been done.
The lander sits on four legs, much like a small version of the original landers that brought astronauts to the moon. The squat, compact unit has a few tiny jump boosters protruding below and on its sides and looks nothing like an actual penguin.
Perhaps it looks like the Moon hooper from Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons made by Century 21 (Not the real-estate people).
I'm curious - was Orwell's "1984" translated into Arabic? I tried a Google search and couldn't find anything.
In that situation, I'd prefer the Loot-1-Get-As-Many-As-You-Can-Carry-Home-Without-B eing-Shot offer.
Although, giving the danger of the floodwaters being contaminated from overflowing sewers and septic tanks, there's as much chance of being killed from disease as from sudden lead poisoning.
You could always have one conventional launch that places a "mother" satellite into orbit. This would move to the correct orbital plane, test and release the mini-sat and then move to the next orbital position, ready for the next mini-sat.
Secondly, If you just build over the water, then you will have a city built upon an inherintly unstable foundation i.e. A large cavern underground. Would you want to be in an office building that is built over a city sized hole in the ground?
When you build skyscrapers or bridges, you don't just build on top of the ground soil, you dig your foundations piles deep into the groundrock below. Then you use these to build your structure. If you look at any coastal city with skyscrapers, you will see that they excavate underground for many reasons, including in order to seal the foundations from groundwater leakage and to provide underground services (car parks, metro systems, storage, communications).
Many Scottish cities were built in a similar way. Edinburgh was built on seven hills - the Victorians basically built high streets that spanned each valley, with the empty space being used as storage basements for the high street departments stores, and also as an underground rail service to deliver goods direct by train from London to the stores.
During the cold war, radio antennae were designed to be retracted underground in antipication of a nuclear strike, and to have a motor strong enough to push their way through several foot of rubble after the blast
If you could combine this concept with a wind power generator, you could have more a resilient network - Suppose cell phone towers could have a wind speed monitor and shutdown if the wind speed exceeded a certain limit, rather than wait to be knocked down in a blizzard or a storm?
Anyone who has played 'nethack' will know the visual and auditory effects of applying a cursed unicorn horn or drinking a "Potion of Hallucination" anywhere in dungeon, and the possibly fatal effects.
And anyone who has played 'falconseye', an isometric user interface for 'nethack' will note that these effects are implemented both visually and accoustically.
To quote 'nethack':
"You hear an attorney jingling in the distance"
Yes, it doesn't take that long to learn how to move around in the UI and find the alternative software that Linux runs. It's just different. People don't have enough time to eat, sleep, pay attention to their kids, or take their garbage cans in... They aren't going to have the time to install, adapt, and change the habits they learned using Windows for the past 15-20 years.
Make that 10 years. Most developers and users didn't consider Windows seriously until Windows 95/NT came out. Up to then, developers tended to write their own seperate user interfaces.
And before then, users and developers worked on home computer systems like the Atari ST, Amiga, and Sinclair QL. For a couple of years (1986-1988) these computers had the edge over the IBM PC in terms of user interface.Atari ST's were still in use at my university up to the mid 1990's.
Currently with Windows, users with broadband access have to constantly worry whether any spyware has been installed from the Internet while they have been web-surfing/installing updates to run new hardware, and so have to spend time running file scanners, firewall, and virus removal software.
With the Linux system, there's less need to worry spyware, but more has to be spent getting non-server hardware devices to work (getting a webcam to work properly took me 1 week in Internet research, rpm installation and rebooting).