I'm pretty sure Direct3D is a product of Microsoft and not OpenGL. That's why you have DirectX, Direct3D, and DirectSound...all on the MS home site. Carmack just uses whatever is best..and he's looking particularly at OpenGL 2.0 for its good performance in many aspects.
I wouldn't blame the world's destruction on a middle-aged computer graphics programmer.
I think people who do research on increasing maximum nuclear weapons yields deserve much more credit. Then again, there are also people who purposely buy up patents for clean technologies in order that they not be further researched and made into applications. Then again, there's tyrants and dictators who purposely starve their people in order to buy old russian tanks and rifles. There's also arms dealers, drug smugglers, coca farmers, poppy harvesters, and a million other TYPES of people who do more harm than middle-aged computer graphics programmers.
Or maybe you're one of the dozen teenagers who can't separate reality from fantasy and think playing violent video games _actually_ makes you violent in reality. If that's the case, then I just pity you.
Sorry, John, you're not responsible for the world's end. Though it would make a great resume builder.
I remember playing a DIKU MUD named Sojourn back in '93-'94. Incidentally, the lead designer of EverQuest, Brad McQuaid (sp?), played the same MUD. EverQuest is basically Sojourn with graphics, heh. Maybe that's why it got so boring so quick?
For the next generation of MMORPGs...look at MUSH-like games, where the players have greater and greater ability to alter their environment and create new sub-environments and sub-games within the game itself.
Everyone is entirely too nice, virtuous, and righteous. Even in the original series, Kirk was a daredevil, an out of bounds guy. TNG and TOS made numerous references to the sordid past of the human race, even going into the space age.
Whatever happened to the Klingon vs. UFP war that started when a bad first contact was made? Will the UFP and Romulans engage in a war? Will the Romulans have warp drive? (They shouldn't if this is their first sighting with the UFP and the writers know even a LITTLE bit about the Star Trek timeline)
The problem is not that the writers are stretching the time line in order to make the show more exciting. The problem is that they are completely fracturing the time line in order to make as many cameo appearances of alien aliens races that have already been seen in other series (mostly TNG..not even TOS). Their cameo appearances are too boring, if you ask me, to warrant a full and complete breaking of the time line. It warrants a _total_ suspension of knowledge about most of what we have already seen of Star Trek...and if you need to do that, you've already lost half of what is cool about Star Trek.
And, yes, TNG was the best series, but not because it had the most action or special effects or sexy characters. Its plots had the most depth, the most meaningful themes, and the most _conflict_. Conflict can come in non-action mediums, but I don't believe the writers of Enterprise know this.
Except that the majority of liberal arts classes in a University setting are not able to offer such dynamic discussion and exchanging of ideas as you have described.
I know and understand the exact sort of problem these people are encountering. I just graduated from a major East Coast research university in Chemical Engineering and I took exactly 6 courses in 'humanities and liberal arts'. Three were economic courses, if you could consider them true liberal arts classes.
But, a true Rennaissance man does not learn from the typical professor spouting knowledge like a pool of information and dutifully copying it down, in the vain hope that they interpret this as 'learning' and 'understanding'. From the liberal arts classes that I have taken or have heard about from fellow Engineers, most of these classes involve regurgitating the opinions and judgements of the professor in the form of a bloated essay containing very few of one's own opinions or creative ideas.
A real Renaissance person learns by exploration of the world, of history, of math & science, of politics, on their own terms. The problem is not the availability of information, but the motivation of interest in it.
If any Engineer wants to learn history or politics, all they need to do is pick up a few classic books on the topic. Ever read Adam's "Wealth of Nations" or Machievello's "The Prince"? These are books that are fundamental to modern economics and politics, books that are almost never read in a structured class because there's always that fancy new textbook that costs $75-100, but which says the same thing in baby-talk and with some pretty pictures.
Why learn political science from a guy who's never held office?
Why learn economics from a poor professor?
Want to better understand human nature? Studying sociology will only give you unproven theories made up by professors who write textbooks for a living. Go read "The Brothers Karamazoo".
Basically, my point is...to really understand and learn the liberal arts, to study human nature itself in order to become a better leader, a better communicator, a better businessman or entrepenuer, you can't listen to any ol' professor speak about something which someone else wrote in a textbook (the standard fare today). You need to either experience and experiment with it for yourself or read or speak to people who have done so. Countless classic books expound upon human nature and it hasn't changed since humans left Nature...so they're all still quite accurate.:)
Salis
Who has learned more about liberal arts by reading enlightening and interesting books (fiction & non-fiction) than in any ol' University setting
Blizzard had said that they wished to create an RTS where mass producing legions of units and rushing them against the enemy wasn't the primary (and only effective) strategy available. Well, I think, in that regard, that Blizzard has failed to make the combatting armies smaller and tactical decision making more important.
I say this from playing the WCIII beta for two months. Compared to Starcraft and WCII tactics, WCIII has similarly large armies and tactics, whereby you pump out, as fast as possible, as many units as you can and send them all in one clump towards the enemy. Of course, one produces a diverse type of army to counter any of the enemy's forces, but the resultant tactic still says the same. Push your army into the enemy's base and keep the guys coming.
With the large amount of hitpoints of most units, it is very hard to employ any effective defensive strategies. No longer can 12 archers (or any long rangers) all target one incoming melee and kill him before he reaches your defensive wall. No longer can cannon towers or other defensive structures play a significant role in actually defending your base. Employing a defensive position and constructing defensive structures along with an appropriate mix of units no longer even remotely effectively defends one's base.
My experiences come from playing against both skilled and newer players in the WCIII beta. I found that the skilled players employed the all crushing, mass producing rush of 80 guys as soon as possible. Unlike in SC or WCII, attempts to form concentrated defensive kill zones where the enemy would attack completely failed to even remotely repel an attack. Against the newer players, armies meeting midway in the field would often just hack at each other with little strategic input into their actions. It was hard both to control which units attacked another and what spells to fire off in the ensuing melee.
I look forward to the single player campaign, however, because, without the unescapable lag and the mad rushing, WCIII could be a great game.
I just wasn't all that impressed with the multiplayer, though. Sigh.
In high school, I had to memorize the entire TCA cycle & glycolysis _structures_ and mechanisms (all that was known at the time, ~90%). I also had to learn why it works the way it does..and what its purpose was.
In college, they made us do the same thing...except they never cared about structures or mechanisms...and they didn't go into details into why it works.
As an engineer, that's bullsh!t. You start learning how enzymes _actually_ work, examining their active sites and methods of reducing enthalpy and increasing entropy, and you can understand how all functional enzymes work.
You learn control theory (non-linear) and can easily apply it to enzyme pathway feedback loops and regulatory mechanisms.
You learn heat and mass transport (good god, do we ever) and can apply it to concentration gradients in neurons, mitochondria, enzyme transporters, and general cell-signalling.
So instead of memorizing the names of a thousand enzymes, what they catalyze, and what order they come in (...and the order is defined by us in our minds...not in the body necessarily), engineers are more prone to _understand_ how and why it works on a very broad scale, enabling us to apply it to any enzyme, to any pathway, to any system.
I've taken some advanced biochem courses and I have never heard any discussion on the physical forces involved when enzymes catalyze reactions.
I needed to take a protein engineering course to get that.
And that's my rationale.
As far as data mining, I said if you wanted to be an exceptional data miner, you needed math. You can always take other people's algorithms, but sooner than later, you gotta roll your own. And that requires understanding.
Well, except for the rare athletic, daring, and adventurous ChemE (all three of them;), maybe being an Adventure Guide is out...
But ChemEs can do the rest!
Seriously, graduating with a ChemE degree, I can pick from four of the 'hot' jobs listed:
IP Lawyer, Bioinformatician, Fuel Cells, or Data Mining.
Really, data mining & bioinformatics are basically the same. Bioinformatics assumes you have a working knowledge of biology & biochemistry and can apply it to computer programming. But, it is much easier to learn biology than it is to learn data mining. But, without a very good mathematical background (Partial Diff Eqs, etc), you can kiss being an exceptional data miner out the window.
People underestimate the utility of mathematics.:(
I agree with you. I'm a Chemical Eng. and this press release reeks of unproven optimism. I'll be happy when they show me that the CO2 isn't transport limited from the quicklime or that the efficiency of 'extracting' the CO2 from calcium carbonate and 'sequestering' it under ground makes the process viable.
How do you sequester CO2 in the ground? If you react the CO2 with minerals to form some carbonate form, how much of the mineral would you need? If you took 1% of the CO2 from the atmosphere, would you need billions of tonnes of the mineral?
This press release is horribly scant on details when so many previous press releases have promised much, but delivered nothing.
Anaerobic bacteria live far below the surface of the earth, even where pressures are extradordinarily large. And...guess what...anaerobic bacteria create _heat_. Probably much more than conduction from the surface above. So are they measuring the conduction of heat that came from the surface 100 years ago...or just the amount of anaerobic bacteria that is in their soil sample.
What we would really need to see is their actual method of sampling and measurement taking. Too many possible inaccuracies.
Self-Assembly of nano-scale structures will most likely depend on random motion directed to create ordered structures. I know, in some biological systems, some transport molecules behave similarly. They have preferential regions on them (charged or whatnot) that will bind to specific areas in the surrounding structured matrix (some structural protein). When they move, by random motion, they have a chance of binding to the structure in a specific manner, forcing them to orient themselves in a specific direction. Then the binding releases and random motion propels them further on before binding again.
That's the basic gist, there's more I'm leaving out, of course.
But it's very interesting how biological systems already utilize random motion (37 degrees C = lots of random motion) to achieve nano-scale movement of proteins/etc.
Wil,
I loved the TNG Marathon played on TNN..the first time I ever watched the network for more than 15 seconds. The character segments in between were great too, but why on Earth did they make all of you run on that stupid treadmill? It was so distracting...and watching Michael Dorn get out of breathe wasn't exactly funny.
Re:there's an argument to be made....
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First, the Saudi Arabian government is a monarchy and while a minority of populace there are against the presence of the U.S and are more hostile to their current government, the majority of the people in Saudi Arabia are happy with their government (at least until last Tuesday..who knows what will happen now.) That means that our presence there is not shoring up an otherwise tyrannical government, which you infer. We are no more shoring up Saudi Arabia's government with our presence than we are in Italy or Turkey.
We DEFENDED Saudi Arabia from an OUTSIDE aggressor. They asked for help and got it. Of course, they have a valuable commodity, but they have never nor will ever just 'give' us oil because we defended them. It was in our interest to see that a truly depostic government (Saddam Hussein) does not obtain even more oil and more land. It was also in Saudi Arabia's interest as well.;)
Also: Straight from General Clark's mouth (he was a Corp commander in Desert Storm and was the NATO commander in Bosnia/Kosovo), he says that they stopped the attack before going into Bagdad because the President had defined the mission of the attack as the liberation of Kuwait and the repulsion of Iraqi forces out of the area. Once that was achieved, the President felt that the international coalition that he had formed was not built to support a siege of Bagdad and that once the mission was completed, the attack should be over.
A less nobler person would have continued the attack BECAUSE getting Saddam out of there would have been enormously gratifying for U.S interests, but OTHER nations might have disagreed. Thus, we put the coalition's interests above our own.
I consider supposed independent publications that reported from Serbia/Kosovo as suspect. NATO forces that went into the area after the Serb attacks into Kosovo had chilling stories of multiple mass graves and slaughtered peoples. I tend to believe individual accounts from soldiers than a publication with a possible agenda (like Serb propoganda...they used such publications extensively).
I'm ignoring your inquiry to South America because, prior to the 1970s, the CIA did a lot of manipulation there that the U.S Congress, when it found out, was very angry about and imposed very harsh restrictions on the actions of the CIA thereafter. The War on Drugs is as complex and deep as the newly waged 'War on Terrorism'. I'm not even going to begin to argue about it.
China is interesting in that they have 1.1-1.2 billion people and they really don't care at all about most of them. Unfortunately, the U.S has tried and failed to force them to treat their populace better. Repeat, they have TRIED AND FAILED to use FORCE.
So, by opening up trade, the U.S hopes to persuade and nudge China into a more population-friendly position of government policy. IF you can't push by gun, then you can pull by carrot.:)
Of course, the extra trade won't hurt, but the more economically China is dependent upon the U.S, the more they'll listen to us.
Re:there's an argument to be made....
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The UN makes a lot of resolutions that go ignored. That's not particularly uncommon.
So along the lines of terrorism, one should also include every act of war, every battle in every war, every revolution, and every racial attack that has ever happened in the U.S or in the world. I think that definition isn't narrowly defined enough. War is not terrorism, war is declared, as it was against Japan, and as Japan declared against us. That was not terrorism.
I've been reading David McCullough's "John Adams.", a biography of John Adams and a history of the times. Yes, a lot of people did not favor the American Revolutionary war, both before and during. They did so not because they disagreed with the reasons for fighting the war, but because they thought peace was possible between Britain and the American colonies.
Of course, the Loyalists were mostly the merchants and rich land owners with immense ties to Britain..they left soon after the Revolutionary War began. By the time the War was over, the vast majority of people in the U.S were happy of the outcome, glad to be free of Britain and under the sovereignty of their own states or commonwealths.
As for the Gulf, more Americans were casualties of friendly fire and disease in the field than from enemy fire as well. That's not uncommon in war, modern or past. To say the Americans tried to friendly fire the British is absurd, as it happened to their own troops as well to the same degree. Friendly Fire is something to be minimized to all possible ability, but not uncommon in any war.
Re:What can be done about terrorism?
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Taken from 'The Prince' eh? Machiavelli would be proud.
Re:there's an argument to be made....
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*woops..reposting for easier reading.*
You extract from over 60 years of American history what you think is representative of our government. Here is what I think:
The fact that we did not force our ideals of government on Kuwait once we liberated it contradicts your theory. What we did do was uphold their civilized form of government against the aggressive actions of a militant totalitarian government.
I can tell you do not live in a Western country, because you misconstrue what is so obviously not a breach of religious freedom. The pledge of allegiance (not 'swear') is a pledge of loyalty to our country, that is was created to protect the 'unalienable rights' of all its citizens that were given to them 'under God'. Ie, no man may take away those rights, because man did not give man those rights..they were given by God and can not be taken away. Those rights were listed under the 'Bill of Rights' and also mentioned within the Declaration of Independence (of the US) that all man have a right to 'life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness'.
You cite our bombing of Bagdad, Nagasaki, and Hiroshima as terrorism. The latter two caused the end of WWII, forcing Japan to surrender even though they would have continued the war and were prepared to repel a ground invasion of Japan with its home militia of 6+ million. Such a ground invasion would have costed at least a million lives on both sides of the battle. President Truman felt it worth the 100,000 dead to save 2 million lives. It was not a rash decision, I trust you, nor were the times and scope of action requiring any less of a historic act. WWII needed to be ended as Europe was already in ruin and an extended Pacific campaign could not be afforded. If Japan wished not to be bombed, they should have surrendered. Of course, it is sad that it had to come to that, but war is often sad.
The bombing of Bagdad was strategic and highly restricted and limited to military targets. On a previously unheard level of precision, the U.S minimized the deaths of Iraqi civilians and targetted only military installations and related infrastructure (power, fuel, ammo, communications, etc). _No Other Country Has Ever Been Able To Limit Civilian Casualties In Such A Manner.- The U.S spends billions of dollars on limiting civilian casualties in war. Can you say the same of other nations? The U.S does not seek terror on populaces, it seeks diplomatic and military leverage on _governments_ while trying to leave the citizens of that government with as few deaths as possible.
The mistakes the U.S have made pale in comparison to the mistakes our enemies have made, in scope of deaths and in immorality. Our mistakes rise from a lack of good information and a rashness in action, not in immoral intent. We've overcome those weaknesses in the recent past, taking our time to plan retaliatory strikes and gain international support. We never target civilians and we never fail to give peace a chance.
Give me an example of another nation whose behavior has been better than the U.S, in economic aid, in military protection, in leadership, in science and in the arts, and in freedoms and liberties that it gives its citizens. I will move there to live my life.
Howard Salis
I am not an Anonymous poster.
Re:there's an argument to be made....
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You extract from over 60 years of American history what you think is representative of our government. Here is what I think:
The fact that we did not force our ideals of government on Kuwait once we liberated it contradicts your theory. What we did do was uphold their civilized form of government against the aggressive actions of a militant totalitarian government.
I can tell you do not live in a Western country, because you misconstrue what is so obviously not a breach of religious freedom. The pledge of allegiance (not 'swear') is a pledge of loyalty to our country, that is was created to protect the 'unalienable rights' of all its citizens that were given to them 'under God'. Ie, no man may take away those rights, because man did not give man those rights..they were given by God and can not be taken away. Those rights were listed under the 'Bill of Rights' and also mentioned within the Declaration of Independence (of the US) that all man have a right to 'life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness'.
You cite our bombing of Bagdad, Nagasaki, and Hiroshima as terrorism. The latter two caused the end of WWII, forcing Japan to surrender even though they would have continued the war and were prepared to repel a ground invasion of Japan with its home militia of 6+ million. Such a ground invasion would have costed at least a million lives on both sides of the battle. President Truman felt it worth the 100,000 dead to save 2 million lives. It was not a rash decision, I trust you, nor were the times and scope of action requiring any less of a historic act. WWII needed to be ended as Europe was already in ruin and an extended Pacific campaign could not be afforded. If Japan wished not to be bombed, they should have surrendered. Of course, it is sad that it had to come to that, but war is often sad.
The bombing of Bagdad was strategic and highly restricted and limited to military targets. On a previously unheard level of precision, the U.S minimized the deaths of Iraqi civilians and targetted only military installations and related infrastructure (power, fuel, ammo, communications, etc). _No Other Country Has Ever Been Able To Limit Civilian Casualties In Such A Manner.- The U.S spends billions of dollars on limiting civilian casualties in war. Can you say the same of other nations? The U.S does not seek terror on populaces, it seeks diplomatic and military leverage on _governments_ while trying to leave the citizens of that government with as few deaths as possible.
The mistakes the U.S have made pale in comparison to the mistakes our enemies have made, in scope of deaths and in immorality. Our mistakes rise from a lack of good information and a rashness in action, not in immoral intent. We've overcome those weaknesses in the recent past, taking our time to plan retaliatory strikes and gain international support. We never target civilians and we never fail to give peace a chance.
Give me an example of another nation whose behavior has been better than the U.S, in economic aid, in military protection, in leadership, in science and in the arts, and in freedoms and liberties that it gives its citizens. I will move there to live my life.
Howard Salis
I am not an Anonymous poster.
They were hours away from Bagdad...a lot of the troops wanted to continue onwards though a lot of that is battle adrenaline, of course.
I don't know if the U.S has ground troops in Iraq, though they do enforce the no-fly zone.
They have air bases in Turkey & Italy from which they launch the fighters, fighters-bombers targetting Iraqi SAM/radar sites.
Re:there's an argument to be made....
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The U.S's primary source of oil is from Argentina, not the Middle East. However, Europe draws most of its oil from OPEC nations (of which Saudi Arabia is one of the most influential and which Iraq is not a member of). We went into the Gulf to protect Saudi Arabia and Kuwait (an Ally and Europe's partial supply of oil) and to prevent a known militant government from imposing its government on MORE civilized nations.
If we allowed Iraq to stay there we would send a precedent to the world that expansion by conquest is allowable and that we do not put our military might behind the words of our intent to protect civilized nations from militant governments.
As for our embargo and economic sanctions on Iraq, Saddam Hussein prevents his citizens from receiving any foreign aid any country tries to offer. The U.S, along with international humanitarian organizations like the Red Cross, have tried to alleviate the food shortages in Iraq to no avail. Hussein doesn't want his citizens to have food, to have liberty. The only way for us to help the citizens of Iraq is to wage war against Iraq and depose Saddam Hussein. But..that presents a contradiction which I'm sure you'll reply with, that we have to wage war on a nation to help the people of the nation. How can that be so? That is one reason why we stopped less than 75 miles from Bagdad in the Gulf war and why Saddam is still in power...
As for Vietnam & Korea, the ideals behind the interventing were sound, but the methods used to stop a communist government from imposing its government on a democractic one were limited by politicians enforcing a 'middle ground' strategy on the military leaders.
The military leaders could not use decisive force with which to accomplish their mission and the political leaders never fully stated with that mission truly was.
Was it a mistake to intervene on Korea or Vietnam? That's a debatable question, but the effects of the two wars did prove that the U.S was, in popular mood until the early 70's, willing to protect a government's right to have a democratic government.
Let's still remember that we still have U.S troops in Korea and that the only reason why North Korea would want to talk instead of fight to reunite Korea is because of those troops. Were they not there, N. Korea would have long ago attempted to assert military control over South Korea once more and would have probably won.
Let is also be known that the lifestyle of those in South Korea is much better than those in North Korea. Democracy & capitalism allows its citizens to have the potential to have a much better lifestyle than governments who practice communism, totalitarianism, or fascism. There are always exceptions to the rule, but lifestyles in democracies are always better than in other forms of government. Even more important, a democracy has the potential to allow its citizens to be educated and excel in science & technology very quickly and easily such that the nation can quickly become economically self-sufficient.
Look at Estonia as an example of such embracement.
While Korea & Vietnam aren't exactly good examples of the U.S's best efforts, they are examples of our best intentions. And, the U.S's military and political leaders now fully understand the mistakes made in Vietnam, especially, such that there will never be a military intervention again whose mission wasn't narrowly defined and whose tactics weren't constrained to minimize the risk of civilian casaulties and ensure success.
Look at Kosovo and Bosnia as further examples of military intervention that were successful in stabilizing a region using multilateral (NATO) support.
Howard Salis
Re:there's an argument to be made....
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All nations act upon their own self interests, it is true, but in no other place in history has a nation such as the United States of America had the benevolence and wisdom to intervene to stop the conquests of extremist, militants governments and NOT seek ownership of the land they fought to protect.
The U.S has either loaned or gifted hundreds of billions of dollars to countries who show the willingness or intent to create a government that we have deemed to be the most favorable to giving freedom to citizens around the globe, DEMOCRACY.
In Korea, in Vietnam, in the Gulf, we have protected the ideals of democracy from other forms of aggressive government and will ALWAYS do so in the future. This is beneficial for those governments we protect as they, in the long term, gain better standards of living than they formerly had, including the freedoms and rights that we, in the U.S, often take for granted.
Terrorism seeks to humiliate and disband our favored form of government. They view our ideals of liberty and freedoms of speech, religion, and press as DETRIMENTAL to their chosen form of government: Militant Religionism.
Islam is not a militant religion. They use it as an excuse for their own selfish desires. Be wary of any Muslim who says Allah allows him to kill civilians of his enemies for they are 'Satan', for if they read their own holy scripture, they would read that Jihad, holy war, restricts one's militant attacks to the enemy's armies ONLY and severely restricts one's attacks on women, children, and enemy property.
Other religions have historically been used as an excuse for military attacks and those attacks have been universally seen as immoral (the Crusades, the Inquisition, the Holocaust). These Islamic terrorists are no different. Their religious beliefs are not a valid cause for such immoral action.
Those who practice Islam are not be to blamed, but those who practice terror should be wiped from the face of the Earth.
I disagree with you. From the most active and able of the U.S's policy makers (diplomats, generals, and politicians) there has been widespread suggestion that the U.S will most likely form a multilateral group of nations that will squeeze non-democratic nations (non-civilized ones, like Afghanistan) into immediately ceasing their support of terrorism.
What is important is that they realize that just bombing the specific culprits of the attacks won't stop future attacks. The _entire_ civilized planet must work to stop the source of terrorism and prevent the training of new terrorists.
Terrorism acts against the interests of ALL civilized nations (non-democratic as well), including countries whose domestic policies aren't as civilized as Western countries would like (such as the People's Republic of China).
Even China has recognized the need to support the U.S in eliminating terrorism. Now THAT is a sure sign that any U.S counterattack will be fully supported by many nations that do not necessarily share our form of government or our standard of living.
With that, I doubt the U.S will act alone when support will be so freely given.
I'm a biochemical engineer with possible future opportunities to patent true innovation (something actually new *gasp*). The question lies in where is the line between the healthy protection of the work you've put into creating something new and the stifling of the creativity of the industry if you should patent your innovation and restrict its use in return for money.
I think anyone who creates something new and useful should receive full recognition and some payment for others' use of it, but how does one do this while letting future innovators build upon and improve your creation? If you restrict use too highly, you remove any possibility of someone else being able to improve upon what you have done. If you allow free access, you might receive some recognition, but companies will definately attempt to screw you over.
Now, insert the company or university I might be working for to further complicate the problem, and add a few lawyers to make it serious. What can an engineer do to make sure something he creates has patent restrictions that reflects his personal opinions or economic viewpoint. (It might be in the favor of the engineer to allow improvement upon the innovation.)
Slashdot Mirror
I was Warony, a level 40 Elven Cleric.
A long, long time ago...
I'm pretty sure Direct3D is a product of Microsoft and not OpenGL. That's why you have DirectX, Direct3D, and DirectSound...all on the MS home site. Carmack just uses whatever is best..and he's looking particularly at OpenGL 2.0 for its good performance in many aspects.
I wouldn't blame the world's destruction on a middle-aged computer graphics programmer.
I think people who do research on increasing maximum nuclear weapons yields deserve much more credit. Then again, there are also people who purposely buy up patents for clean technologies in order that they not be further researched and made into applications. Then again, there's tyrants and dictators who purposely starve their people in order to buy old russian tanks and rifles. There's also arms dealers, drug smugglers, coca farmers, poppy harvesters, and a million other TYPES of people who do more harm than middle-aged computer graphics programmers.
Or maybe you're one of the dozen teenagers who can't separate reality from fantasy and think playing violent video games _actually_ makes you violent in reality. If that's the case, then I just pity you.
Sorry, John, you're not responsible for the world's end. Though it would make a great resume builder.
I remember playing a DIKU MUD named Sojourn back in '93-'94. Incidentally, the lead designer of EverQuest, Brad McQuaid (sp?), played the same MUD. EverQuest is basically Sojourn with graphics, heh. Maybe that's why it got so boring so quick?
For the next generation of MMORPGs...look at MUSH-like games, where the players have greater and greater ability to alter their environment and create new sub-environments and sub-games within the game itself.
Salis
Everyone is entirely too nice, virtuous, and righteous. Even in the original series, Kirk was a daredevil, an out of bounds guy. TNG and TOS made numerous references to the sordid past of the human race, even going into the space age.
Whatever happened to the Klingon vs. UFP war that started when a bad first contact was made? Will the UFP and Romulans engage in a war? Will the Romulans have warp drive? (They shouldn't if this is their first sighting with the UFP and the writers know even a LITTLE bit about the Star Trek timeline)
The problem is not that the writers are stretching the time line in order to make the show more exciting. The problem is that they are completely fracturing the time line in order to make as many cameo appearances of alien aliens races that have already been seen in other series (mostly TNG..not even TOS). Their cameo appearances are too boring, if you ask me, to warrant a full and complete breaking of the time line. It warrants a _total_ suspension of knowledge about most of what we have already seen of Star Trek...and if you need to do that, you've already lost half of what is cool about Star Trek.
And, yes, TNG was the best series, but not because it had the most action or special effects or sexy characters. Its plots had the most depth, the most meaningful themes, and the most _conflict_. Conflict can come in non-action mediums, but I don't believe the writers of Enterprise know this.
Salis
Except that the majority of liberal arts classes in a University setting are not able to offer such dynamic discussion and exchanging of ideas as you have described.
Go join a Book club.
Salis
Names, Names, Names. I'd rather remember ideas than names.
;)
Though, Karamazoo instead of Karamazov...that is pretty pathetic of me, heh.
And those who quibble over the spelling of Machievello need to reevalute their use of time in their short span of life.
Salis
I know and understand the exact sort of problem these people are encountering. I just graduated from a major East Coast research university in Chemical Engineering and I took exactly 6 courses in 'humanities and liberal arts'. Three were economic courses, if you could consider them true liberal arts classes.
:)
But, a true Rennaissance man does not learn from the typical professor spouting knowledge like a pool of information and dutifully copying it down, in the vain hope that they interpret this as 'learning' and 'understanding'. From the liberal arts classes that I have taken or have heard about from fellow Engineers, most of these classes involve regurgitating the opinions and judgements of the professor in the form of a bloated essay containing very few of one's own opinions or creative ideas.
A real Renaissance person learns by exploration of the world, of history, of math & science, of politics, on their own terms. The problem is not the availability of information, but the motivation of interest in it.
If any Engineer wants to learn history or politics, all they need to do is pick up a few classic books on the topic. Ever read Adam's "Wealth of Nations" or Machievello's "The Prince"? These are books that are fundamental to modern economics and politics, books that are almost never read in a structured class because there's always that fancy new textbook that costs $75-100, but which says the same thing in baby-talk and with some pretty pictures.
Why learn political science from a guy who's never held office?
Why learn economics from a poor professor?
Want to better understand human nature? Studying sociology will only give you unproven theories made up by professors who write textbooks for a living. Go read "The Brothers Karamazoo".
Basically, my point is...to really understand and learn the liberal arts, to study human nature itself in order to become a better leader, a better communicator, a better businessman or entrepenuer, you can't listen to any ol' professor speak about something which someone else wrote in a textbook (the standard fare today). You need to either experience and experiment with it for yourself or read or speak to people who have done so. Countless classic books expound upon human nature and it hasn't changed since humans left Nature...so they're all still quite accurate.
Salis
Who has learned more about liberal arts by reading enlightening and interesting books (fiction & non-fiction) than in any ol' University setting
Blizzard had said that they wished to create an RTS where mass producing legions of units and rushing them against the enemy wasn't the primary (and only effective) strategy available. Well, I think, in that regard, that Blizzard has failed to make the combatting armies smaller and tactical decision making more important.
I say this from playing the WCIII beta for two months. Compared to Starcraft and WCII tactics, WCIII has similarly large armies and tactics, whereby you pump out, as fast as possible, as many units as you can and send them all in one clump towards the enemy. Of course, one produces a diverse type of army to counter any of the enemy's forces, but the resultant tactic still says the same. Push your army into the enemy's base and keep the guys coming.
With the large amount of hitpoints of most units, it is very hard to employ any effective defensive strategies. No longer can 12 archers (or any long rangers) all target one incoming melee and kill him before he reaches your defensive wall. No longer can cannon towers or other defensive structures play a significant role in actually defending your base. Employing a defensive position and constructing defensive structures along with an appropriate mix of units no longer even remotely effectively defends one's base.
My experiences come from playing against both skilled and newer players in the WCIII beta. I found that the skilled players employed the all crushing, mass producing rush of 80 guys as soon as possible. Unlike in SC or WCII, attempts to form concentrated defensive kill zones where the enemy would attack completely failed to even remotely repel an attack. Against the newer players, armies meeting midway in the field would often just hack at each other with little strategic input into their actions. It was hard both to control which units attacked another and what spells to fire off in the ensuing melee.
I look forward to the single player campaign, however, because, without the unescapable lag and the mad rushing, WCIII could be a great game.
I just wasn't all that impressed with the multiplayer, though. Sigh.
There are two ways to learn biochemistry:
Analytically or through memorization...
In high school, I had to memorize the entire TCA cycle & glycolysis _structures_ and mechanisms (all that was known at the time, ~90%). I also had to learn why it works the way it does..and what its purpose was.
In college, they made us do the same thing...except they never cared about structures or mechanisms...and they didn't go into details into why it works.
As an engineer, that's bullsh!t. You start learning how enzymes _actually_ work, examining their active sites and methods of reducing enthalpy and increasing entropy, and you can understand how all functional enzymes work.
You learn control theory (non-linear) and can easily apply it to enzyme pathway feedback loops and regulatory mechanisms.
You learn heat and mass transport (good god, do we ever) and can apply it to concentration gradients in neurons, mitochondria, enzyme transporters, and general cell-signalling.
So instead of memorizing the names of a thousand enzymes, what they catalyze, and what order they come in (...and the order is defined by us in our minds...not in the body necessarily), engineers are more prone to _understand_ how and why it works on a very broad scale, enabling us to apply it to any enzyme, to any pathway, to any system.
I've taken some advanced biochem courses and I have never heard any discussion on the physical forces involved when enzymes catalyze reactions.
I needed to take a protein engineering course to get that.
And that's my rationale.
As far as data mining, I said if you wanted to be an exceptional data miner, you needed math. You can always take other people's algorithms, but sooner than later, you gotta roll your own. And that requires understanding.
Salis
Well, except for the rare athletic, daring, and adventurous ChemE (all three of them ;), maybe being an Adventure Guide is out...
:(
But ChemEs can do the rest!
Seriously, graduating with a ChemE degree, I can pick from four of the 'hot' jobs listed:
IP Lawyer, Bioinformatician, Fuel Cells, or Data Mining.
Really, data mining & bioinformatics are basically the same. Bioinformatics assumes you have a working knowledge of biology & biochemistry and can apply it to computer programming. But, it is much easier to learn biology than it is to learn data mining. But, without a very good mathematical background (Partial Diff Eqs, etc), you can kiss being an exceptional data miner out the window.
People underestimate the utility of mathematics.
Salis
I agree with you. I'm a Chemical Eng. and this press release reeks of unproven optimism. I'll be happy when they show me that the CO2 isn't transport limited from the quicklime or that the efficiency of 'extracting' the CO2 from calcium carbonate and 'sequestering' it under ground makes the process viable.
How do you sequester CO2 in the ground? If you react the CO2 with minerals to form some carbonate form, how much of the mineral would you need? If you took 1% of the CO2 from the atmosphere, would you need billions of tonnes of the mineral?
This press release is horribly scant on details when so many previous press releases have promised much, but delivered nothing.
Salis
Methane, hydrocarbons, sulfates, phosphates, etc
It's amazing what life will oxidize in order to gain energy...even if it's just enough to survive.
Salis
Anaerobic bacteria live far below the surface of the earth, even where pressures are extradordinarily large. And...guess what...anaerobic bacteria create _heat_. Probably much more than conduction from the surface above. So are they measuring the conduction of heat that came from the surface 100 years ago...or just the amount of anaerobic bacteria that is in their
soil sample.
What we would really need to see is their actual method of sampling and measurement taking. Too many possible inaccuracies.
Salis
Just expanding on something said before:
Self-Assembly of nano-scale structures will most likely depend on random motion directed to create ordered structures. I know, in some biological systems, some transport molecules behave similarly. They have preferential regions on them (charged or whatnot) that will bind to specific areas in the surrounding structured matrix (some structural protein). When they move, by random motion, they have a chance of binding to the structure in a specific manner, forcing them to orient themselves in a specific direction. Then the binding releases and random motion propels them further on before binding again.
That's the basic gist, there's more I'm leaving out, of course.
But it's very interesting how biological systems already utilize random motion (37 degrees C = lots of random motion) to achieve nano-scale movement of proteins/etc.
Hsalis
Wil,
I loved the TNG Marathon played on TNN..the first time I ever watched the network for more than 15 seconds. The character segments in between were great too, but why on Earth did they make all of you run on that stupid treadmill? It was so distracting...and watching Michael Dorn get out of breathe wasn't exactly funny.
First, the Saudi Arabian government is a monarchy and while a minority of populace there are against the presence of the U.S and are more hostile to their current government, the majority of the people in Saudi Arabia are happy with their government (at least until last Tuesday..who knows what will happen now.) That means that our presence there is not shoring up an otherwise tyrannical government, which you infer. We are no more shoring up Saudi Arabia's government with our presence than we are in Italy or Turkey.
;)
:)
We DEFENDED Saudi Arabia from an OUTSIDE aggressor. They asked for help and got it. Of course, they have a valuable commodity, but they have never nor will ever just 'give' us oil because we defended them. It was in our interest to see that a truly depostic government (Saddam Hussein) does not obtain even more oil and more land. It was also in Saudi Arabia's interest as well.
Also: Straight from General Clark's mouth (he was a Corp commander in Desert Storm and was the NATO commander in Bosnia/Kosovo), he says that they stopped the attack before going into Bagdad because the President had defined the mission of the attack as the liberation of Kuwait and the repulsion of Iraqi forces out of the area. Once that was achieved, the President felt that the international coalition that he had formed was not built to support a siege of Bagdad and that once the mission was completed, the attack should be over.
A less nobler person would have continued the attack BECAUSE getting Saddam out of there would have been enormously gratifying for U.S interests, but OTHER nations might have disagreed. Thus, we put the coalition's interests above our own.
I consider supposed independent publications that reported from Serbia/Kosovo as suspect. NATO forces that went into the area after the Serb attacks into Kosovo had chilling stories of multiple mass graves and slaughtered peoples. I tend to believe individual accounts from soldiers than a publication with a possible agenda (like Serb propoganda...they used such publications extensively).
I'm ignoring your inquiry to South America because, prior to the 1970s, the CIA did a lot of manipulation there that the U.S Congress, when it found out, was very angry about and imposed very harsh restrictions on the actions of the CIA thereafter. The War on Drugs is as complex and deep as the newly waged 'War on Terrorism'. I'm not even going to begin to argue about it.
China is interesting in that they have 1.1-1.2 billion people and they really don't care at all about most of them. Unfortunately, the U.S has tried and failed to force them to treat their populace better. Repeat, they have TRIED AND FAILED to use FORCE.
So, by opening up trade, the U.S hopes to persuade and nudge China into a more population-friendly position of government policy. IF you can't push by gun, then you can pull by carrot.
Of course, the extra trade won't hurt, but the more economically China is dependent upon the U.S, the more they'll listen to us.
The UN makes a lot of resolutions that go ignored. That's not particularly uncommon.
So along the lines of terrorism, one should also include every act of war, every battle in every war, every revolution, and every racial attack that has ever happened in the U.S or in the world. I think that definition isn't narrowly defined enough. War is not terrorism, war is declared, as it was against Japan, and as Japan declared against us. That was not terrorism.
I've been reading David McCullough's "John Adams.", a biography of John Adams and a history of the times. Yes, a lot of people did not favor the American Revolutionary war, both before and during. They did so not because they disagreed with the reasons for fighting the war, but because they thought peace was possible between Britain and the American colonies.
Of course, the Loyalists were mostly the merchants and rich land owners with immense ties to Britain..they left soon after the Revolutionary War began. By the time the War was over, the vast majority of people in the U.S were happy of the outcome, glad to be free of Britain and under the sovereignty of their own states or commonwealths.
As for the Gulf, more Americans were casualties of friendly fire and disease in the field than from enemy fire as well. That's not uncommon in war, modern or past. To say the Americans tried to friendly fire the British is absurd, as it happened to their own troops as well to the same degree. Friendly Fire is something to be minimized to all possible ability, but not uncommon in any war.
Taken from 'The Prince' eh? Machiavelli would be proud.
*woops..reposting for easier reading.*
You extract from over 60 years of American history what you think is representative of our government. Here is what I think:
The fact that we did not force our ideals of government on Kuwait once we liberated it contradicts your theory. What we did do was uphold their civilized form of government against the aggressive actions of a militant totalitarian government.
I can tell you do not live in a Western country, because you misconstrue what is so obviously not a breach of religious freedom. The pledge of allegiance (not 'swear') is a pledge of loyalty to our country, that is was created to protect the 'unalienable rights' of all its citizens that were given to them 'under God'. Ie, no man may take away those rights, because man did not give man those rights..they were given by God and can not be taken away. Those rights were listed under the 'Bill of Rights' and also mentioned within the Declaration of Independence (of the US) that all man have a right to 'life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness'.
You cite our bombing of Bagdad, Nagasaki, and Hiroshima as terrorism. The latter two caused the end of WWII, forcing Japan to surrender even though they would have continued the war and were prepared to repel a ground invasion of Japan with its home militia of 6+ million. Such a ground invasion would have costed at least a million lives on both sides of the battle. President Truman felt it worth the 100,000 dead to save 2 million lives. It was not a rash decision, I trust you, nor were the times and scope of action requiring any less of a historic act. WWII needed to be ended as Europe was already in ruin and an extended Pacific campaign could not be afforded. If Japan wished not to be bombed, they should have surrendered. Of course, it is sad that it had to come to that, but war is often sad.
The bombing of Bagdad was strategic and highly restricted and limited to military targets. On a previously unheard level of precision, the U.S minimized the deaths of Iraqi civilians and targetted only military installations and related infrastructure (power, fuel, ammo, communications, etc). _No Other Country Has Ever Been Able To Limit Civilian Casualties In Such A Manner.- The U.S spends billions of dollars on limiting civilian casualties in war. Can you say the same of other nations? The U.S does not seek terror on populaces, it seeks diplomatic and military leverage on _governments_ while trying to leave the citizens of that government with as few deaths as possible.
The mistakes the U.S have made pale in comparison to the mistakes our enemies have made, in scope of deaths and in immorality. Our mistakes rise from a lack of good information and a rashness in action, not in immoral intent. We've overcome those weaknesses in the recent past, taking our time to plan retaliatory strikes and gain international support. We never target civilians and we never fail to give peace a chance.
Give me an example of another nation whose behavior has been better than the U.S, in economic aid, in military protection, in leadership, in science and in the arts, and in freedoms and liberties that it gives its citizens. I will move there to live my life.
Howard Salis
I am not an Anonymous poster.
You extract from over 60 years of American history what you think is representative of our government. Here is what I think: The fact that we did not force our ideals of government on Kuwait once we liberated it contradicts your theory. What we did do was uphold their civilized form of government against the aggressive actions of a militant totalitarian government. I can tell you do not live in a Western country, because you misconstrue what is so obviously not a breach of religious freedom. The pledge of allegiance (not 'swear') is a pledge of loyalty to our country, that is was created to protect the 'unalienable rights' of all its citizens that were given to them 'under God'. Ie, no man may take away those rights, because man did not give man those rights..they were given by God and can not be taken away. Those rights were listed under the 'Bill of Rights' and also mentioned within the Declaration of Independence (of the US) that all man have a right to 'life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness'. You cite our bombing of Bagdad, Nagasaki, and Hiroshima as terrorism. The latter two caused the end of WWII, forcing Japan to surrender even though they would have continued the war and were prepared to repel a ground invasion of Japan with its home militia of 6+ million. Such a ground invasion would have costed at least a million lives on both sides of the battle. President Truman felt it worth the 100,000 dead to save 2 million lives. It was not a rash decision, I trust you, nor were the times and scope of action requiring any less of a historic act. WWII needed to be ended as Europe was already in ruin and an extended Pacific campaign could not be afforded. If Japan wished not to be bombed, they should have surrendered. Of course, it is sad that it had to come to that, but war is often sad. The bombing of Bagdad was strategic and highly restricted and limited to military targets. On a previously unheard level of precision, the U.S minimized the deaths of Iraqi civilians and targetted only military installations and related infrastructure (power, fuel, ammo, communications, etc). _No Other Country Has Ever Been Able To Limit Civilian Casualties In Such A Manner.- The U.S spends billions of dollars on limiting civilian casualties in war. Can you say the same of other nations? The U.S does not seek terror on populaces, it seeks diplomatic and military leverage on _governments_ while trying to leave the citizens of that government with as few deaths as possible. The mistakes the U.S have made pale in comparison to the mistakes our enemies have made, in scope of deaths and in immorality. Our mistakes rise from a lack of good information and a rashness in action, not in immoral intent. We've overcome those weaknesses in the recent past, taking our time to plan retaliatory strikes and gain international support. We never target civilians and we never fail to give peace a chance. Give me an example of another nation whose behavior has been better than the U.S, in economic aid, in military protection, in leadership, in science and in the arts, and in freedoms and liberties that it gives its citizens. I will move there to live my life. Howard Salis I am not an Anonymous poster.
They were hours away from Bagdad...a lot of the troops wanted to continue onwards though a lot of that is battle adrenaline, of course.
I don't know if the U.S has ground troops in Iraq, though they do enforce the no-fly zone.
They have air bases in Turkey & Italy from which they launch the fighters, fighters-bombers targetting Iraqi SAM/radar sites.
The U.S's primary source of oil is from Argentina, not the Middle East. However, Europe draws most of its oil from OPEC nations (of which Saudi Arabia is one of the most influential and which Iraq is not a member of). We went into the Gulf to protect Saudi Arabia and Kuwait (an Ally and Europe's partial supply of oil) and to prevent a known militant government from imposing its government on MORE civilized nations.
If we allowed Iraq to stay there we would send a precedent to the world that expansion by conquest is allowable and that we do not put our military might behind the words of our intent to protect civilized nations from militant governments.
As for our embargo and economic sanctions on Iraq, Saddam Hussein prevents his citizens from receiving any foreign aid any country tries to offer. The U.S, along with international humanitarian organizations like the Red Cross, have tried to alleviate the food shortages in Iraq to no avail. Hussein doesn't want his citizens to have food, to have liberty. The only way for us to help the citizens of Iraq is to wage war against Iraq and depose Saddam Hussein. But..that presents a contradiction which I'm sure you'll reply with, that we have to wage war on a nation to help the people of the nation. How can that be so? That is one reason why we stopped less than 75 miles from Bagdad in the Gulf war and why Saddam is still in power...
As for Vietnam & Korea, the ideals behind the interventing were sound, but the methods used to stop a communist government from imposing its government on a democractic one were limited by politicians enforcing a 'middle ground' strategy on the military leaders.
The military leaders could not use decisive force with which to accomplish their mission and the political leaders never fully stated with that mission truly was.
Was it a mistake to intervene on Korea or Vietnam? That's a debatable question, but the effects of the two wars did prove that the U.S was, in popular mood until the early 70's, willing to protect a government's right to have a democratic government.
Let's still remember that we still have U.S troops in Korea and that the only reason why North Korea would want to talk instead of fight to reunite Korea is because of those troops. Were they not there, N. Korea would have long ago attempted to assert military control over South Korea once more and would have probably won.
Let is also be known that the lifestyle of those in South Korea is much better than those in North Korea. Democracy & capitalism allows its citizens to have the potential to have a much better lifestyle than governments who practice communism, totalitarianism, or fascism. There are always exceptions to the rule, but lifestyles in democracies are always better than in other forms of government. Even more important, a democracy has the potential to allow its citizens to be educated and excel in science & technology very quickly and easily such that the nation can quickly become economically self-sufficient.
Look at Estonia as an example of such embracement.
While Korea & Vietnam aren't exactly good examples of the U.S's best efforts, they are examples of our best intentions. And, the U.S's military and political leaders now fully understand the mistakes made in Vietnam, especially, such that there will never be a military intervention again whose mission wasn't narrowly defined and whose tactics weren't constrained to minimize the risk of civilian casaulties and ensure success.
Look at Kosovo and Bosnia as further examples of military intervention that were successful in stabilizing a region using multilateral (NATO) support.
Howard Salis
All nations act upon their own self interests, it is true, but in no other place in history has a nation such as the United States of America had the benevolence and wisdom to intervene to stop the conquests of extremist, militants governments and NOT seek ownership of the land they fought to protect.
The U.S has either loaned or gifted hundreds of billions of dollars to countries who show the willingness or intent to create a government that we have deemed to be the most favorable to giving freedom to citizens around the globe, DEMOCRACY.
In Korea, in Vietnam, in the Gulf, we have protected the ideals of democracy from other forms of aggressive government and will ALWAYS do so in the future. This is beneficial for those governments we protect as they, in the long term, gain better standards of living than they formerly had, including the freedoms and rights that we, in the U.S, often take for granted.
Terrorism seeks to humiliate and disband our favored form of government. They view our ideals of liberty and freedoms of speech, religion, and press as DETRIMENTAL to their chosen form of government: Militant Religionism.
Islam is not a militant religion. They use it as an excuse for their own selfish desires. Be wary of any Muslim who says Allah allows him to kill civilians of his enemies for they are 'Satan', for if they read their own holy scripture, they would read that Jihad, holy war, restricts one's militant attacks to the enemy's armies ONLY and severely restricts one's attacks on women, children, and enemy property.
Other religions have historically been used as an excuse for military attacks and those attacks have been universally seen as immoral (the Crusades, the Inquisition, the Holocaust). These Islamic terrorists are no different. Their religious beliefs are not a valid cause for such immoral action.
Those who practice Islam are not be to blamed, but those who practice terror should be wiped from the face of the Earth.
Howard Salis
I disagree with you. From the most active and able of the U.S's policy makers (diplomats, generals, and politicians) there has been widespread suggestion that the U.S will most likely form a multilateral group of nations that will squeeze non-democratic nations (non-civilized ones, like Afghanistan) into immediately ceasing their support of terrorism.
What is important is that they realize that just bombing the specific culprits of the attacks won't stop future attacks. The _entire_ civilized planet must work to stop the source of terrorism and prevent the training of new terrorists.
Terrorism acts against the interests of ALL civilized nations (non-democratic as well), including countries whose domestic policies aren't as civilized as Western countries would like (such as the People's Republic of China).
Even China has recognized the need to support the U.S in eliminating terrorism. Now THAT is a sure sign that any U.S counterattack will be fully supported by many nations that do not necessarily share our form of government or our standard of living.
With that, I doubt the U.S will act alone when support will be so freely given.
Howard Salis
I'm a biochemical engineer with possible future opportunities to patent true innovation (something actually new *gasp*). The question lies in where is the line between the healthy protection of the work you've put into creating something new and the stifling of the creativity of the industry if you should patent your innovation and restrict its use in return for money.
I think anyone who creates something new and useful should receive full recognition and some payment for others' use of it, but how does one do this while letting future innovators build upon and improve your creation? If you restrict use too highly, you remove any possibility of someone else being able to improve upon what you have done. If you allow free access, you might receive some recognition, but companies will definately attempt to screw you over.
Now, insert the company or university I might be working for to further complicate the problem, and add a few lawyers to make it serious. What can an engineer do to make sure something he creates has patent restrictions that reflects his personal opinions or economic viewpoint. (It might be in the favor of the engineer to allow improvement upon the innovation.)
Salis