What about soda fountains at McDonalds (or wherever you buy your greasy fat)? They charge you $1.25 for seventeen cents of syrup and some essentially free carbonated water.
Yes, but technically McDonald's has a monopoly on soda sales inside McDonald's restaurants.
Anyways, excluding the cost of running a McDonalds, shipping the soda, cups, etc etc. You get a margin of 86%. So your "outrageous counter example" is only 1 percent higher than MS's margins.. and you exclude all the other real costs of supplying Soda inside a McDonald's restaurant.
More interesting to me is the (fairly) recent innovation where traditional 3d graphics are used, but they are shaded and textured to look like cartoons/anime, e.g. Fear Effect, various Simpsons and Disney games.
It's called Cel-Shading.. and that's what this is. This is a redone Dragon's Lair, done in real 3d with cel-shaded graphics.
I'll be checking it out, and possibly (depends on if it's still as annoying as the old "hit UP *now*!" version).
By the way, it's not just for the xbox, it'll be available for the GameCube, the PS2, and the PC as well.
The best one i found is 3dsMAX its powerful yet easy to use. Not to metion a standard in the industry.
Um, which industry? The only industry that uses 3dsmax is the game industry. The television and film industry has standarized on Lightwave and Maya.
Lightwave is used primary for television. It's very heavily used for sci-fi shows (like SG1 and B5), made for TV movies like Beowulf, and commercials (The M&M commercials and Coca-cola polar bears for example).
Maya is used more in the film industry. For example, LotR used Maya exclusively.
So unless your goal is to make 3d models for video games, stay away from 3dsmax.
I don't see Sears blaming "pirates" on lower washing machine and refrigerator sales.
I spent 5 days downloading the latest Maytag Washing Machine. It was totally worth it.. I was able to get it 3 weeks before Sears had it!
My only problem is that my clothes are all pixelated now, and you can hear someone coughing when the dryer is on.
Maybe if they offered more in the box, I'd actually buy a Washing Machine. You know, like some behind the scenes extras, and maybe a biography of the Maytag Repair-Man.
Too many options is bad sometimes. I mean what would happen if a news oriented website were to give you the option of reading both regular news and satirical news on the same page?!
It's a *WELL* publicized fact that laptops use power management in order to extend battery life.
That reminds me, whenever I leave my computer alone for extended periods of time, like say 10 minutes, it turns off my screen. I didn't pay $2000 for a computer that can't even keep images on the screen for longer than 10 minutes without me babysitting it!
Overall: a massive win for Microsoft, who can restrict the release of its APIs to major commercial companies only.
Where does it say that? According to the ruling:
"Microsoft shall disclose to ISVs..., for the sole purpose of interoperating with a Windows Operating System Product, via the Microsoft Developer Network or similar mechanisms, the APIs and related Documentation that are used by Microsoft Middleware to interoperate with a Windows Operating System Product."
"The term APIs means the interfaces, including any associated callback interfaces, that Microsoft Middleware running on a Windows Operating System Product uses to call upon that Windows Operating System Product in order to obtain any services from that Windows Operating System Product."
"'ISV' means an entity other than Microsoft that is engaged in the development or marketing of software products."
I am an ISV.. I develop software products. Therefore MS must release APIs to me!
This settlement, as weak as it is, will directly aid and assist WINE.
Any user running Windows 2000 with Service Pack 3 is running exactly the same system that was evaluated"
Their test system had two 120Gig HDs full of fansubbed anime and was running at 100 cpu doing divx encodes ?
What's funny is that they're wrong about the version too. Read the article, it takes years to get CC certs... Win2kSP3 isn't the system that was evaluated, it was Win2k without ANY service packs installed.
Kinds makes the whole CC cert useless doesn't it? I mean we *know* that win2k without any service packs installed is vulnerable.. yet it's good enough for CC certs.
What if I decide to sell my company? The software I've developed is certainly an integral part of the value of my company. Would GPL require me to publish all of the modified source code if I sell the company?
No, but you'd have to send the modified source code to the new owners. Hell, that'd be a stipulation of the purchase anyway. No one is going to buy a custom software solution without getting A. support, or B. the source. When they purchase your company, they're obviously not going to get support, so they'd want the source. My company makes the same stipulation for any custom software we buy.
"You must provide support for as long as we're willing to pay for it. If you ever file for bankrupcy, you agree to send us the full source".
The whole idea is that you cannot pick up 10,000 cheap copies of Microsoft software when a company goes bankrupt, and then charge the full proce for it if you were reselling the MS products individually.
What? Of course you can. That's what bankrupcy liquidation sales are all about!
Why, was there a fact that wasn't checked? Moshe stated "I couldn't figure out how to turn off the GUI in OSX". Are you saying he's lying and that he really did figure it out?
The Wildlife Exploitation Society is reporting that an astonishing 17% of the Earth's surface remains untouched by man.
"17% is very wasteful. Native Americans used every part of the buffalo, the least we could do is use every part of our planet" stated the chapter president. Later this week he plans to find a remote area of Antarctica and pee on it. Bringing that number down to 16.9%
"God gave us the entire Earth, says so in the Bible. It's like spitting in his face if we don't use all that God gave us!" exclaimed one member.
To tell the truth, pretty much everyone's X setup is faulty. They compare X (as it's distributed with Redhat and mandrake etc) with Windows and OSX. But that's not a fair comparison. X runs at the same priority as every other application on a unix box. While both OSX and Windows run their GUI's at a higher priority.
renice -10 XFree86 and then talk to me about X being slow.
I just wish Redhat and mandrake etc defaulted to running X at -5 or -10 for workstation installs.. the difference is night and day.
Actually that's not true at all. Triangulation does work in 3 dimensions. Both the standard direction based triangulation, as well as distance based triangulation.
This deals with distance based triangulation, so I'll just touch on that.
This works by calculating the distance you are from each point in the triangle. (based on signal strength). Imagine you're in an elevator, in the dead center of the triangle. You're now on the same floor as each point.
Hypothetically, you are exactly 10meters away from each point. Now you hit down.. after a floor, you're exactly 20 meters away from each point. It is physically impossible for you to be on the same floor as the triangle and be exactly 20 meters away from each point, since 10 meters is dead center.
Now.. there's only one instance where distance-based triangulation doesn't work. If you can go above as well as below the triangle. If you're 20 meters away from each point, you've got to be in the exact middle, and down one floor.. However you can also be up one floor. So that breaks it. The only way to fix it is to move the triangle so that you can only be either above it or below it.
So put your APs on the ground floor and yes, indeed, triangulation works in 3 dimensions just fine.
(Directional triangulation doesn't have the negative-z limitation)
"Chimera (Mozilla using native widgets) is about as popular as Mozilla on OS X and it's only at 0.5."
And where do you get that? Everyone I've talked to says Chimera is very obviously beta software... no polish. You haven't any stats that show Chimera is even half as popular as Mozilla on OSX?
"Developers, pay heed! You must use native widgets or you are doomed to look bad everywhere! You can't just create a skin and expect it to look and feel right."
And yet Apple does just that. Quicktime, iCal, iChat, iTunes.. all Brushed Steel, not Aqua. IE 5.5 on the Mac sure as hell doesn't use native widgets either.
Microsoft does it too.. MS Office and WMP don't use the standard Win32 widgets.
There are millions of Office users out there that say Office looks good and definately "feels right".
Re:Bitch'n moan about the UI...
on
Blender Is GPL
·
· Score: 2
"People who find the UI difficult to use remind me of people who can't read sheet music bitching about how hard it is to play the violin."
As someone who used to teach Lightwave classes. I can say that the blender UI is truly abhorant.. and it's not "I just don't know how to use a 3d program".
I'm not talking about "it's too hard to use" I'm talking about "it isn't powerful enough", and therefore it's too hard to do what you want.
In lightwave you can set multiple points to the same Y value (for example) by simply selecting the points, and then using the numeric requestor. Blender has a numeric window, but it only works on 1 point at a time. You can't numerically modify more than one point at a time in blender like you can in Maya and Lightwave.
It's limitations like this that make Blender a big pain in the ass to use.
I've seen people say "Blender is difficult to use because it's powerful" Sorry, that doesn't cut it. Lightwave is soo much easier to use, and it's miles ahead in terms of power.
Hopefully now that Blender is GPL, people can begin to work on that.
"What if it's a new car, and you modify it so that it fails to comply with emission regulations?"
Then you can't drive it on city/state owned roads.. but you can still own it.. you can still drive it off-road.
There isn't a law that states you can't modify a car.. there's a law that states what condition your car must be in to be allowed to drive on certain roads.
Slashdot Mirror
What about soda fountains at McDonalds (or wherever you buy your greasy fat)? They charge you $1.25 for seventeen cents of syrup and some essentially free carbonated water.
Yes, but technically McDonald's has a monopoly on soda sales inside McDonald's restaurants.
Anyways, excluding the cost of running a McDonalds, shipping the soda, cups, etc etc. You get a margin of 86%. So your "outrageous counter example" is only 1 percent higher than MS's margins.. and you exclude all the other real costs of supplying Soda inside a McDonald's restaurant.
As long as there are 3d modelers out there, there will be OpenGL.
DirectX doesn't even support quads!
DirectX's lack of quad support kills you when you're working with NURBS.
More interesting to me is the (fairly) recent innovation where traditional 3d graphics are used, but they are shaded and textured to look like cartoons/anime, e.g. Fear Effect, various Simpsons and Disney games.
It's called Cel-Shading.. and that's what this is. This is a redone Dragon's Lair, done in real 3d with cel-shaded graphics.
I'll be checking it out, and possibly (depends on if it's still as annoying as the old "hit UP *now*!" version).
By the way, it's not just for the xbox, it'll be available for the GameCube, the PS2, and the PC as well.
The best one i found is 3dsMAX its powerful yet easy to use. Not to metion a standard in the industry.
Um, which industry? The only industry that uses 3dsmax is the game industry. The television and film industry has standarized on Lightwave and Maya.
Lightwave is used primary for television. It's very heavily used for sci-fi shows (like SG1 and B5), made for TV movies like Beowulf, and commercials (The M&M commercials and Coca-cola polar bears for example).
Maya is used more in the film industry. For example, LotR used Maya exclusively.
So unless your goal is to make 3d models for video games, stay away from 3dsmax.
I don't see Sears blaming "pirates" on lower washing machine and refrigerator sales.
I spent 5 days downloading the latest Maytag Washing Machine. It was totally worth it.. I was able to get it 3 weeks before Sears had it!
My only problem is that my clothes are all pixelated now, and you can hear someone coughing when the dryer is on.
Maybe if they offered more in the box, I'd actually buy a Washing Machine. You know, like some behind the scenes extras, and maybe a biography of the Maytag Repair-Man.
I think RH is limiting choice now.
Too many options is bad sometimes. I mean what would happen if a news oriented website were to give you the option of reading both regular news and satirical news on the same page?!
Oh wait..
It's a *WELL* publicized fact that laptops use power management in order to extend battery life.
That reminds me, whenever I leave my computer alone for extended periods of time, like say 10 minutes, it turns off my screen. I didn't pay $2000 for a computer that can't even keep images on the screen for longer than 10 minutes without me babysitting it!
Overall: a massive win for Microsoft, who can restrict the release of its APIs to major commercial companies only.
..., for the sole purpose of interoperating with a Windows Operating System Product, via the Microsoft Developer Network or similar mechanisms, the APIs and related Documentation that are used by Microsoft Middleware to interoperate with a Windows Operating System Product."
Where does it say that? According to the ruling:
"Microsoft shall disclose to ISVs
"The term APIs means the interfaces, including any associated callback interfaces, that Microsoft Middleware running on a Windows Operating System Product uses to call upon that Windows Operating System Product in order to obtain any services from that Windows Operating System Product."
"'ISV' means an entity other than Microsoft that is engaged in the development or marketing of software products."
I am an ISV.. I develop software products. Therefore MS must release APIs to me!
This settlement, as weak as it is, will directly aid and assist WINE.
As a side note, statistics say most new words are borne out of careless spelling mistakes.
Not to be confused with "careles speling mistaks". Which means something else entirely.
I'm at the point where I picture an anti-trust suit as being the last thing you'd want to wear on a blind date.
No, it's something you wear in a cleanroom.
Oh wait, that's an anti-static suit.
Any user running Windows 2000 with Service Pack 3 is running exactly the same system that was evaluated"
Their test system had two 120Gig HDs full of fansubbed anime and was running at 100 cpu doing divx encodes ?
What's funny is that they're wrong about the version too. Read the article, it takes years to get CC certs... Win2kSP3 isn't the system that was evaluated, it was Win2k without ANY service packs installed.
Kinds makes the whole CC cert useless doesn't it? I mean we *know* that win2k without any service packs installed is vulnerable.. yet it's good enough for CC certs.
Hey, that's 1 degree of seperation. That's business with dot net.
No, but you'd have to send the modified source code to the new owners. Hell, that'd be a stipulation of the purchase anyway. No one is going to buy a custom software solution without getting A. support, or B. the source. When they purchase your company, they're obviously not going to get support, so they'd want the source.
My company makes the same stipulation for any custom software we buy.
"You must provide support for as long as we're willing to pay for it. If you ever file for bankrupcy, you agree to send us the full source".
Pretty standard business practice.
What? Of course you can. That's what bankrupcy liquidation sales are all about!
Why, was there a fact that wasn't checked? Moshe stated "I couldn't figure out how to turn off the GUI in OSX". Are you saying he's lying and that he really did figure it out?
The Wildlife Exploitation Society is reporting that an astonishing 17% of the Earth's surface remains untouched by man.
"17% is very wasteful. Native Americans used every part of the buffalo, the least we could do is use every part of our planet" stated the chapter president. Later this week he plans to find a remote area of Antarctica and pee on it. Bringing that number down to 16.9%
"God gave us the entire Earth, says so in the Bible. It's like spitting in his face if we don't use all that God gave us!" exclaimed one member.
Perhaps your setup is faulty.
To tell the truth, pretty much everyone's X setup is faulty. They compare X (as it's distributed with Redhat and mandrake etc) with Windows and OSX.
But that's not a fair comparison. X runs at the same priority as every other application on a unix box. While both OSX and Windows run their GUI's at a higher priority.
renice -10 XFree86 and then talk to me about X being slow.
I just wish Redhat and mandrake etc defaulted to running X at -5 or -10 for workstation installs.. the difference is night and day.
Make it even smaller by doing this:
/usr/bin/perl /p
cp
and editing your shabang to be #!/p
if qmail-send can't talk with qmail-spawn (or a few other processes) it simply quits with the error:
cannot start: hath the daemon spawn no fire?
We've banned the usage of qmail because of it. Any software package that prints out unhelpful errors like that doesn't belong on our servers.
Actually that's not true at all. Triangulation does work in 3 dimensions. Both the standard direction based triangulation, as well as distance based triangulation.
This deals with distance based triangulation, so I'll just touch on that.
This works by calculating the distance you are from each point in the triangle. (based on signal strength). Imagine you're in an elevator, in the dead center of the triangle. You're now on the same floor as each point.
Hypothetically, you are exactly 10meters away from each point. Now you hit down.. after a floor, you're exactly 20 meters away from each point. It is physically impossible for you to be on the same floor as the triangle and be exactly 20 meters away from each point, since 10 meters is dead center.
Now.. there's only one instance where distance-based triangulation doesn't work. If you can go above as well as below the triangle. If you're 20 meters away from each point, you've got to be in the exact middle, and down one floor.. However you can also be up one floor. So that breaks it. The only way to fix it is to move the triangle so that you can only be either above it or below it.
So put your APs on the ground floor and yes, indeed, triangulation works in 3 dimensions just fine.
(Directional triangulation doesn't have the negative-z limitation)
"What's to stop a page from tagging a really huge file, hosted on someone *else's* server as a "prefetch" item"
What's to stop them from doing it now? With iframes?
"Chimera (Mozilla using native widgets) is about as popular as Mozilla on OS X and it's only at 0.5."
And where do you get that? Everyone I've talked to says Chimera is very obviously beta software... no polish. You haven't any stats that show Chimera is even half as popular as Mozilla on OSX?
"Developers, pay heed! You must use native widgets or you are doomed to look bad everywhere! You can't just create a skin and expect it to look and feel right."
And yet Apple does just that. Quicktime, iCal, iChat, iTunes.. all Brushed Steel, not Aqua. IE 5.5 on the Mac sure as hell doesn't use native widgets either.
Microsoft does it too.. MS Office and WMP don't use the standard Win32 widgets.
There are millions of Office users out there that say Office looks good and definately "feels right".
"People who find the UI difficult to use remind me of people who can't read sheet music bitching about how hard it is to play the violin."
As someone who used to teach Lightwave classes. I can say that the blender UI is truly abhorant.. and it's not "I just don't know how to use a 3d program".
I'm not talking about "it's too hard to use" I'm talking about "it isn't powerful enough", and therefore it's too hard to do what you want.
In lightwave you can set multiple points to the same Y value (for example) by simply selecting the points, and then using the numeric requestor. Blender has a numeric window, but it only works on 1 point at a time. You can't numerically modify more than one point at a time in blender like you can in Maya and Lightwave.
It's limitations like this that make Blender a big pain in the ass to use.
I've seen people say "Blender is difficult to use because it's powerful" Sorry, that doesn't cut it. Lightwave is soo much easier to use, and it's miles ahead in terms of power.
Hopefully now that Blender is GPL, people can begin to work on that.
I'm not supposed to tell anyone.. it told me that it should be our little secret.
"What if it's a new car, and you modify it so that it fails to comply with emission regulations?"
Then you can't drive it on city/state owned roads.. but you can still own it.. you can still drive it off-road.
There isn't a law that states you can't modify a car.. there's a law that states what condition your car must be in to be allowed to drive on certain roads.