This is using the Doom 3 engine, correct? One of the problems with that engine is that it didn't support (or didn't use) any kind of indirect lighting (radiosity, etc.) in order to calculate all the lighting dynamically. That just doesn't work well in outdoor environments.
Is Q4 going to support some kind of indirect lighting for those outdoor areas? A static/dynamic hybrid might be interesting -- precalculated radiosity with real-time dynamic lighting "layered" on top.
My issue is with the practice of using the cheapest available goods and services because it results in other significant factors being marginalized or overlooked entirely.
I'm suspicious of bidding because the above is often the motive for using it. But when it's used to establish fair prices and otherwise create more efficient commerce, I'm all for it.
Maybe a good adjunct to this practice would be an online list of hospitals, etc. that are using this practice so potential patients are informed. I'm guessing they'd want to know this just like they'd like to know that the airliner they might be flying on is built with the cheapest possible parts and labor and maintained by the cheapest possible engineers.
Actually I think the article makes a good point about the value of US industries: US companies are now valued primarily by the value of their IP (true?) and that by giving IP to other countries for "free" through outsourcing and open source software we're lowering the overall value of US companies by lowering the value of IP in general. I don't completely agree with this claim because it seems like the article completely overlooks the value of IP generated through use of open source and outsourcing that couldn't otherwise be generated (and which might potentially be more valuable than any IP given up), but I do see some merit in the claim that by enabling foreign companies (via "free" IP) who have much lower operating costs than the US, we could make it much more difficult (in the short term, at least) for US companies and employees to compete with foreign entities -- hence lower valuations.
It's all a matter of perspective really: if you were an AOL shareholder this is the best possible thing that could have happened. Basically you got to trade in your vastly overinflated dot-com dollars for something much more realistically valued. Of course TW shareholders would have the opposite perspective. You've got to give Case credit for that - he really couldn't have swung a better deal for the AOL owners.
Recently I started outsourcing my dev work to India for $7.50/hr. But now I've found a Chatbox who'll do it for $0.02/hr if I hook him up with a Hyperthreading P4 workstation.
I'm really on the fence about this though: on one hand I feel like I have to outsource to survive in the US IT industry; on the other hand, I despise doing business with these Benedict Arnold CPUS...
I hope they use the old "Nobody pirates French music anyway" excuse, but barring that I'd like to see them just pull the product out of the French market.
Screw that. Give me a 50 GB hard drive that doesn't drop dead after 6 months and I'll pay a small fortune. Hell, I might even be willing throw in my left nut as a bonus.
In unrelated news - sourceforge announces the availability of a new open source 3d gaming engine providing "all the performance and quality of the latest generation of 3d games."
Very interesting. But I think that 3D OS management apps peaked with that mod where you could kill your processes by shooting them in Doom. Nothing since has even close...
I don't think you're giving people quite enough credit. For a lot of us it's not "we want it for free"; it's "we don't want to be taken advantage of by a monopoly and be made to pay $20 for something that's worth $5." Basically we've got whole industries out there which are trying to sell the horse and carriage when automobiles are already readily available, and are much more cost effective. When they find they can't do this, they try and outlaw the automobile to preserve their profits and monopoly status.
There's a lot of people out there who would happily pay fair prices for copyrighted materials, but won't do so when they feel like they're being abused and taken advantage of.
Until the entertainment industry acknowledges that superfluous packing materials, distribution costs, and $2000/night hotel rooms for Brittany Spears aren't a good use of consumers' money, we're going to be at a stalemate.
Seems to me that one possible way to counter "awareness" (assuming you'd want to) would be to pollute the databases. So if bankruptcies and multiple homicide convictions started showing up routinely and inappropriately in the databases checks, it might discredit the whole system. I don't really have that much of an issue with the current state of things, I just have an academic curiosity about whether it's possible or not to defeat or marginalize "awareness", and whether it's been tried.
Microsoft is basically using the same strategy with Sun that worked so well against Netscape. Basically they let Sun do a lot of the groundwork and innovating with Java/J2EE, etc. Then MS basically reimplemented it as C#/.NET with a few improvements (ostensibly after learning from Sun's mistakes), and now MS can throw more resources at their version than Sun can ever hope to. As a Java/J2EE and C#/.NET developer I find them very similar, but I just see Microsoft's solution improving at a faster pace than Sun's. From an idealistic standpoint I don't like it, but it's also hard to turn away from better technology.
I know Sun isn't all Java, but alot of their solutions incorporate it, and in the late 90s it gave them a real progressive presence that made them a major player in the whole Internet Boom.
These days I'm back to thinking of Sun as those guys who make Solaris and those workstations and servers that are kinda slow but still pretty cool.
Maybe they could apply this idea to the "real" world: How about a novelty item that looks (or is actually built into) something like a wristwatch or cell phone and contains a profile of you and your interests ("desperate college-aged male who likes light beer, Japanese pop music, Starbuck's, PS2 fighting games, and desperate college-aged females") and has a real-time display a bit like a compass showing your calculated affinity with the people around you who also have the device (using some sort of wireless tech). Likewise it could indicate interesting locations (based on who's there, special events, etc.) too. I have a hard time imagine something like that being anything besides a novelty, but who knows - it could be all the rage among high school and nightclub crowds. Hey, maybe it could tell me I might actually have a shot with that girl working at the counter in the local coffee shop, and then when I don't work up the nerve to say anything it'll start beeping and displaying insulting messages like "No wonder you're so desperate! Go back home to your cheap beer and video games and put me up on eBay."
I'm starting to believe that the SPAM problem is more of an educational issue now. I've used two different programs that have been highly effective against SPAM (spamnet and POPFile). I use POPFile exclusively now, and I've almost forgotten what SPAM is.
Yes, it's still a major problem for users out there (especially those using web-based clients), but there is highly effective technology out there to counter it. We don't need to launch costly and ungainly legal offensives against spammers - we already have software that can render them irrelevant.
Slashdot Mirror
So Microsoft has lost something like $378 already.
This is using the Doom 3 engine, correct? One of the problems with that engine is that it didn't support (or didn't use) any kind of indirect lighting (radiosity, etc.) in order to calculate all the lighting dynamically. That just doesn't work well in outdoor environments. Is Q4 going to support some kind of indirect lighting for those outdoor areas? A static/dynamic hybrid might be interesting -- precalculated radiosity with real-time dynamic lighting "layered" on top.
OK, the mice I can understand, but how do you get the men in the blender?
My issue is with the practice of using the cheapest available goods and services because it results in other significant factors being marginalized or overlooked entirely. I'm suspicious of bidding because the above is often the motive for using it. But when it's used to establish fair prices and otherwise create more efficient commerce, I'm all for it.
Maybe a good adjunct to this practice would be an online list of hospitals, etc. that are using this practice so potential patients are informed. I'm guessing they'd want to know this just like they'd like to know that the airliner they might be flying on is built with the cheapest possible parts and labor and maintained by the cheapest possible engineers.
I've just glimpsed the next wave of IT outsourcing, and I don't like it...
Actually I think the article makes a good point about the value of US industries: US companies are now valued primarily by the value of their IP (true?) and that by giving IP to other countries for "free" through outsourcing and open source software we're lowering the overall value of US companies by lowering the value of IP in general. I don't completely agree with this claim because it seems like the article completely overlooks the value of IP generated through use of open source and outsourcing that couldn't otherwise be generated (and which might potentially be more valuable than any IP given up), but I do see some merit in the claim that by enabling foreign companies (via "free" IP) who have much lower operating costs than the US, we could make it much more difficult (in the short term, at least) for US companies and employees to compete with foreign entities -- hence lower valuations.
It's all a matter of perspective really: if you were an AOL shareholder this is the best possible thing that could have happened. Basically you got to trade in your vastly overinflated dot-com dollars for something much more realistically valued. Of course TW shareholders would have the opposite perspective. You've got to give Case credit for that - he really couldn't have swung a better deal for the AOL owners.
Finally... what took them so long?
Hopefully this will work out better than their previous product "The Towel That Won't Get Things Dry".
Recently I started outsourcing my dev work to India for $7.50/hr. But now I've found a Chatbox who'll do it for $0.02/hr if I hook him up with a Hyperthreading P4 workstation. I'm really on the fence about this though: on one hand I feel like I have to outsource to survive in the US IT industry; on the other hand, I despise doing business with these Benedict Arnold CPUS...
Why has nobody mentioned the price drop on the XP-Box that was announced today? http://news.com.com/2100-1043_3-5181043.html
I hope they use the old "Nobody pirates French music anyway" excuse, but barring that I'd like to see them just pull the product out of the French market.
"Just keep pouring more gas on the fire and maybe it'll go out..."
yeah, but just think what you could do with three of them...
Screw that. Give me a 50 GB hard drive that doesn't drop dead after 6 months and I'll pay a small fortune. Hell, I might even be willing throw in my left nut as a bonus.
In unrelated news - sourceforge announces the availability of a new open source 3d gaming engine providing "all the performance and quality of the latest generation of 3d games."
Very interesting. But I think that 3D OS management apps peaked with that mod where you could kill your processes by shooting them in Doom. Nothing since has even close...
So where's the p2p version of this software? Seriously...
I don't think you're giving people quite enough credit. For a lot of us it's not "we want it for free"; it's "we don't want to be taken advantage of by a monopoly and be made to pay $20 for something that's worth $5." Basically we've got whole industries out there which are trying to sell the horse and carriage when automobiles are already readily available, and are much more cost effective. When they find they can't do this, they try and outlaw the automobile to preserve their profits and monopoly status. There's a lot of people out there who would happily pay fair prices for copyrighted materials, but won't do so when they feel like they're being abused and taken advantage of. Until the entertainment industry acknowledges that superfluous packing materials, distribution costs, and $2000/night hotel rooms for Brittany Spears aren't a good use of consumers' money, we're going to be at a stalemate.
I wonder if they'll be sending it as straight binary or xml.
Seems to me that one possible way to counter "awareness" (assuming you'd want to) would be to pollute the databases. So if bankruptcies and multiple homicide convictions started showing up routinely and inappropriately in the databases checks, it might discredit the whole system. I don't really have that much of an issue with the current state of things, I just have an academic curiosity about whether it's possible or not to defeat or marginalize "awareness", and whether it's been tried.
Microsoft is basically using the same strategy with Sun that worked so well against Netscape. Basically they let Sun do a lot of the groundwork and innovating with Java/J2EE, etc. Then MS basically reimplemented it as C#/.NET with a few improvements (ostensibly after learning from Sun's mistakes), and now MS can throw more resources at their version than Sun can ever hope to. As a Java/J2EE and C#/.NET developer I find them very similar, but I just see Microsoft's solution improving at a faster pace than Sun's. From an idealistic standpoint I don't like it, but it's also hard to turn away from better technology. I know Sun isn't all Java, but alot of their solutions incorporate it, and in the late 90s it gave them a real progressive presence that made them a major player in the whole Internet Boom. These days I'm back to thinking of Sun as those guys who make Solaris and those workstations and servers that are kinda slow but still pretty cool.
Maybe they could apply this idea to the "real" world: How about a novelty item that looks (or is actually built into) something like a wristwatch or cell phone and contains a profile of you and your interests ("desperate college-aged male who likes light beer, Japanese pop music, Starbuck's, PS2 fighting games, and desperate college-aged females") and has a real-time display a bit like a compass showing your calculated affinity with the people around you who also have the device (using some sort of wireless tech). Likewise it could indicate interesting locations (based on who's there, special events, etc.) too. I have a hard time imagine something like that being anything besides a novelty, but who knows - it could be all the rage among high school and nightclub crowds. Hey, maybe it could tell me I might actually have a shot with that girl working at the counter in the local coffee shop, and then when I don't work up the nerve to say anything it'll start beeping and displaying insulting messages like "No wonder you're so desperate! Go back home to your cheap beer and video games and put me up on eBay."
I'm starting to believe that the SPAM problem is more of an educational issue now. I've used two different programs that have been highly effective against SPAM (spamnet and POPFile). I use POPFile exclusively now, and I've almost forgotten what SPAM is. Yes, it's still a major problem for users out there (especially those using web-based clients), but there is highly effective technology out there to counter it. We don't need to launch costly and ungainly legal offensives against spammers - we already have software that can render them irrelevant.