Programming down to the metal is fine and all, but it often unnecessarily complicates the application, forces developers to write a lot of very tedious code repeatedly, and prevents developers from concentrating on the business functionality of the application. I think AJAX is AJAX and that developers should use the technologies and patterns that they are most familiar with in order to be the most productive. Besides, they almost all support AJAX to some degree and usually abstract away all of the rote and boring JavaScript code so you usually don't need to bother with it and can spend your time concentrating on the problem at hand.
Fastmail, http://www.fastmail.fm/, has always been a popular IMAP service and includes POP and webmail access as well. You can get 2 GB of storage for around $40.00/year which is $3.33/month. Not to bad. I'm personally not a subscriber but I consider it every now and then.
They basically offer unlimited everything. I'm serving photo albums with full-res. digital pictures (family stuff if you're wondering) and the one time I ran out of space I simply asked for more and they happily gave it to me. Throughput isn't always the best, but it is fine for my needs.
This memo looks to me like it is simply the Solaris apps team complaining to whom ever will listen that the JRE for Solaris doesn't get the same attention as the JRE for Windows.
HelloWorld on Win2K using Sun's 1.4 JRE (1.4.1_01) takes up 4856K - little over a half of the memory required to run a similar app on Solaris (according to the memo.) I'm not claiming that this is spectacular, but the situation on Windows doesn't seem to be nearly as bad as it appears to be on Solaris. (Doing a quick test, the situation on Linux appears to be the same as on Solaris.)
The memo even states that things aren't as bad on Windows:
"5. Customers and Field Engineers Are Noticing the Problem
Following is an excerpt from Kevin Tay's e-mail to three Java aliases regarding a customer installation of a third-party product written in Java called Vitria. We see typical very large RSS numbers compared to a WinNT implementation combined with increased resource usage from Solaris7 to Solaris8:"
Sure, the JRE could use some improvements (maybe more than some.) However, the breadth of Java's standard and third-party APIs, especially in the web app space, combined with ease of development make it worth the performance and memory disadvantages to some (apparently quite a few) organizations.
Disclaimer: I code Java at work on Win32 and play around with PHP and Python at home.
Um, not quite. What is usually refered to as the DirecTivo box does no D/A-A/D coversion until sending a signal (MPEG decode) out to the TV. It records the raw MPEG 2 stream as it is received from the dish just as you described for the Dish PVR. DirecTivo has no quality level choices and records the audio that is provided by the dish (PCM, DD 5.1, etc.) Actually, it has two DirecTV tuners allowing you to record two shows while watching a pre-recorded third.
You are probably already aware of the extensive hacking that can be done to the Tivos so I won't go into the broadband options available.
What you are probably refering to is the standalone Tivo.
Not saying it is better or worse than the Dish PVR that you bought (which I'm not that familiar with).
Collision detection is a no-go too. It would require a feed-back mechanism (the card says: Ok, there was a collision, now what?) which would cause the card to stall. 3D hardware is good as output devices only - you get everything set up and then send it off to the card to render. Collision detection sounds nice because it is geometry based and 3D cards seem so good at doing things with geometry, but, the app is also doing a lot with geometry so it makes sense to do it in the app as well. Plus, collision detection can mean different things in different situations. Safer to leave it on the app side. Let the card worry about gettings out to the display as quickly and as nicely as possible
To look into the future of consumer 3D one might want to look at high-end companies like SGI. Their machines can do cool stuff with the various buffers (i.e. render into texture memory, mutliple, independently controllable paths, etc.)
Finally, in reference to nVidia vs. ATI. It seems that ATI has always scrambled to get competitive products to market (good marketing and channels though), whereas nVidia has been following a well-controlled technology curve and introducing innovative products (for the consumer market) that are well-rounded and work. Following this trend, I'll bet that in 6 months nVidia will have a good solid product with usefull features, but ATI and 3dfx will have products with quirky features and will be of questionable quality (how 3dfx could get away with saying that 16bpp is "good enough" and all we really need or want for so long is beyond me). Example: hardware T&L at the consumer level is truly useful (placing a major part of the rendering pipeline onto the card!!) whereas FSAA, which is very cool, is nothing more than oversampling. Technically, it can be done on any general-purpose 3D graphics which supports an accumulation buffer. I hope that 3dfx can do something useful besides pushing fill-rate, and I hope that ATI can come up with a truly powerful and timely product, but history doesn't bode well for these two. I'd love to be proven wrong by either company.
You know what, John probably knew that cheating would be a problem and probably wasn't too concerned about it. Why you ask? First off, he has released two sequels (Q2 and Q3A) that are secure (honestly, have you tried Q2 or Q3A yet?) Secondly, perhaps his intention wasn't to provide a source base for more client-server games that had to worry about cheating. Maybe he just intended it for educational purposes. Or maybe he was hoping some cool VR projects would come out of it. Point is, we don't know what his intention was. All we do know is that he released it under GPL and people have to comply. If this means that no useful client-server game engines can come out of it, then so be it. Go BUY a newer game that is secure and more likely to be cheat-free, or take the Q1 source and do something neat and new with it (QuakeLives doesn't sound all that neat or new).
I don't know why you think nvidia cards are crap. I own Matrox, 3dfx and nvidia cards. They all have driver issues. Hell, all PC boards with new technology have driver issues.
As for comparing the nVidia chipset (or any PC based chipset) to the PSX2 - that's pretty pointless. The PSX2 isn't intended to be a general purpose graphics platform, it has to only run in one resolution (and a low one at that!) It's pretty easy to optimize given those circumstances (crap, the refrest rate is limited too). The GeForce has to perform under a variety of resolutions, refresh rates, and windowing environments. Plus, I have no doubt in my mind that by the time the PSX2 ships in volume (or shortly thereafter) PC boards will have surpassed it in speed and quality (even at higher resolutions). So the PSX2 may have an irrelevent lead for a month or two, but it will become old technology really quick - closed platforms are like that.
I look at it this way: nVidia has hired a lot of talent away from SGI. There wasn't a lot that surprised SGI engineers when it came to graphics technology. I doubt nVidia is going to be caught anytime soon with their pants around there ankles. (3dfx too, but I have less faith in them).
Don't get me wrong, the PSX2 looks like it will be a great gaming (and multimedia) platform. But will it make PC graphics irrelevent or blow the PC graphics platforms away? I don't think so.
I've used both DNAI/Covad (192/192 connection) and Pacbell/Pacbell (384/128 connection).
Pacbell is my current provider. DNAI/Covad was nice in that I got a flowpoint router and their infrastructure seemed more finely tuned (I got this through my wife's company so I have no idea how much it costed). The connection wasn't the fastest - but packet loss was low and it was consistant. They were also good about letting us know when they were going to be replacing routers, general downtime, etc.
With pacbell you get a dumb actel modem/bridge/whatever it is. So I've set up an old machine running linux to do my TCP/IP routing/NAT/serving/etc. I've also been seeing a bunch (around 10%) of packet loss when I'm playing games online. But my download speeds vary between 20 kbps to 80 kbps, which is way faster than what I saw whith the DNAI/Covad connection. Pacbell looks like it is also much cheaper than what I imagine DNAI was costing. But, pacbell seems to be pretty knowledgable about DNS and stuff, and are willing to work with you in setting up your own personal network (but make sure you get the enhanced version of their service).
As for ISPs, I keep hearing good things about Concentric. The people who come and install the stuff say that concentric has the nicest infrastructure. I don't know if there is any truth to this, it's just what I heard. I would have probably gone with them - but damn! Pacbell is SO cheap. However, if I were a commercial outfit and could afford it, I would definately have gone with an ISP like Concentric.
Home theater is the way to go. My wife refuses to go to a movie theater since we got our home theater. The last one we went to was Eyes Wide Shut opening night. The bitch behind us would not shut up ("Nicole would look so much better in a choker", "What imagery..." at the mask on the pillow scene, "Great way to start the movie!!!" at the first nude scene, "I'm so happy to asked me out", other inane comments, etc), we had to shhh her at least 6 time but they never stuck. She was so bad her date was even getting embarrased (she was middle-aged and I think drunk). This has been happening more and more to us when we go. I really want to see Blair Witch but am afraid it will be ruined by some asshole setting behind us.
So to all you kids who can't get into movies - it sucks anyways because there are too many jerks out there to make it enjoyable. Of course it would be nice if you had the choice....
Go with DVD and a dish. Ask for them for Christmas. And if you do have to go to the movies, give a shhh! to the people behind you for me.
They were just long rubber tubes (supposidly intended for medicinal purposes) tied at one end and attached to the lower half of a ball point pen casing on the other. You could get really long tubes, fill them with water and then wrap it around your body. The elasticity of the rubber would provide pretty serious water pressure. Only annoying thing was that you had to keep your finger over the nozzle, no trigger mechanism. But they were devestating in a water fight, like super soakers are today.
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Programming down to the metal is fine and all, but it often unnecessarily complicates the application, forces developers to write a lot of very tedious code repeatedly, and prevents developers from concentrating on the business functionality of the application. I think AJAX is AJAX and that developers should use the technologies and patterns that they are most familiar with in order to be the most productive. Besides, they almost all support AJAX to some degree and usually abstract away all of the rote and boring JavaScript code so you usually don't need to bother with it and can spend your time concentrating on the problem at hand.
;)
Fastmail, http://www.fastmail.fm/, has always been a popular IMAP service and includes POP and webmail access as well. You can get 2 GB of storage for around $40.00/year which is $3.33/month. Not to bad. I'm personally not a subscriber but I consider it every now and then.
They basically offer unlimited everything. I'm serving photo albums with full-res. digital pictures (family stuff if you're wondering) and the one time I ran out of space I simply asked for more and they happily gave it to me. Throughput isn't always the best, but it is fine for my needs.
All this from a guy who couldn't keep his last million dollar investment on the road
But I'm sure he has things figured out this time.
This memo looks to me like it is simply the Solaris apps team complaining to whom ever will listen that the JRE for Solaris doesn't get the same attention as the JRE for Windows.
HelloWorld on Win2K using Sun's 1.4 JRE (1.4.1_01) takes up 4856K - little over a half of the memory required to run a similar app on Solaris (according to the memo.) I'm not claiming that this is spectacular, but the situation on Windows doesn't seem to be nearly as bad as it appears to be on Solaris. (Doing a quick test, the situation on Linux appears to be the same as on Solaris.)
The memo even states that things aren't as bad on Windows:
"5. Customers and Field Engineers Are Noticing the Problem
Following is an excerpt from Kevin Tay's e-mail to three Java aliases regarding a customer installation of a third-party product written in Java called Vitria. We see typical very large RSS numbers compared to a WinNT implementation combined with increased resource usage from Solaris7 to Solaris8:"
Sure, the JRE could use some improvements (maybe more than some.) However, the breadth of Java's standard and third-party APIs, especially in the web app space, combined with ease of development make it worth the performance and memory disadvantages to some (apparently quite a few) organizations.
Disclaimer: I code Java at work on Win32 and play around with PHP and Python at home.
-Aaron
Um, not quite. What is usually refered to as the DirecTivo box does no D/A-A/D coversion until sending a signal (MPEG decode) out to the TV. It records the raw MPEG 2 stream as it is received from the dish just as you described for the Dish PVR. DirecTivo has no quality level choices and records the audio that is provided by the dish (PCM, DD 5.1, etc.) Actually, it has two DirecTV tuners allowing you to record two shows while watching a pre-recorded third.
You are probably already aware of the extensive hacking that can be done to the Tivos so I won't go into the broadband options available.
What you are probably refering to is the standalone Tivo.
Not saying it is better or worse than the Dish PVR that you bought (which I'm not that familiar with).
Collision detection is a no-go too. It would require a feed-back mechanism (the card says: Ok, there was a collision, now what?) which would cause the card to stall. 3D hardware is good as output devices only - you get everything set up and then send it off to the card to render. Collision detection sounds nice because it is geometry based and 3D cards seem so good at doing things with geometry, but, the app is also doing a lot with geometry so it makes sense to do it in the app as well. Plus, collision detection can mean different things in different situations. Safer to leave it on the app side. Let the card worry about gettings out to the display as quickly and as nicely as possible
To look into the future of consumer 3D one might want to look at high-end companies like SGI. Their machines can do cool stuff with the various buffers (i.e. render into texture memory, mutliple, independently controllable paths, etc.)
Finally, in reference to nVidia vs. ATI. It seems that ATI has always scrambled to get competitive products to market (good marketing and channels though), whereas nVidia has been following a well-controlled technology curve and introducing innovative products (for the consumer market) that are well-rounded and work. Following this trend, I'll bet that in 6 months nVidia will have a good solid product with usefull features, but ATI and 3dfx will have products with quirky features and will be of questionable quality (how 3dfx could get away with saying that 16bpp is "good enough" and all we really need or want for so long is beyond me). Example: hardware T&L at the consumer level is truly useful (placing a major part of the rendering pipeline onto the card!!) whereas FSAA, which is very cool, is nothing more than oversampling. Technically, it can be done on any general-purpose 3D graphics which supports an accumulation buffer. I hope that 3dfx can do something useful besides pushing fill-rate, and I hope that ATI can come up with a truly powerful and timely product, but history doesn't bode well for these two. I'd love to be proven wrong by either company.
You know what, John probably knew that cheating would be a problem and probably wasn't too concerned about it. Why you ask? First off, he has released two sequels (Q2 and Q3A) that are secure (honestly, have you tried Q2 or Q3A yet?) Secondly, perhaps his intention wasn't to provide a source base for more client-server games that had to worry about cheating. Maybe he just intended it for educational purposes. Or maybe he was hoping some cool VR projects would come out of it. Point is, we don't know what his intention was. All we do know is that he released it under GPL and people have to comply. If this means that no useful client-server game engines can come out of it, then so be it. Go BUY a newer game that is secure and more likely to be cheat-free, or take the Q1 source and do something neat and new with it (QuakeLives doesn't sound all that neat or new).
I don't know why you think nvidia cards are crap. I own Matrox, 3dfx and nvidia cards. They all have driver issues. Hell, all PC boards with new technology have driver issues.
As for comparing the nVidia chipset (or any PC based chipset) to the PSX2 - that's pretty pointless. The PSX2 isn't intended to be a general purpose graphics platform, it has to only run in one resolution (and a low one at that!) It's pretty easy to optimize given those circumstances (crap, the refrest rate is limited too). The GeForce has to perform under a variety of resolutions, refresh rates, and windowing environments. Plus, I have no doubt in my mind that by the time the PSX2 ships in volume (or shortly thereafter) PC boards will have surpassed it in speed and quality (even at higher resolutions). So the PSX2 may have an irrelevent lead for a month or two, but it will become old technology really quick - closed platforms are like that.
I look at it this way: nVidia has hired a lot of talent away from SGI. There wasn't a lot that surprised SGI engineers when it came to graphics technology. I doubt nVidia is going to be caught anytime soon with their pants around there ankles.
(3dfx too, but I have less faith in them).
Don't get me wrong, the PSX2 looks like it will be a great gaming (and multimedia) platform. But will it make PC graphics irrelevent or blow the PC graphics platforms away? I don't think so.
I've used both DNAI/Covad (192/192 connection) and Pacbell/Pacbell (384/128 connection).
Pacbell is my current provider. DNAI/Covad was nice in that I got a flowpoint router and their infrastructure seemed more finely tuned (I got this through my wife's company so I have no idea how much it costed). The connection wasn't the fastest - but packet loss was low and it was consistant. They were also good about letting us know when they were going to be replacing routers, general downtime, etc.
With pacbell you get a dumb actel modem/bridge/whatever it is. So I've set up an old machine running linux to do my TCP/IP routing/NAT/serving/etc. I've also been seeing a bunch (around 10%) of packet loss when I'm playing games online. But my download speeds vary between 20 kbps to 80 kbps, which is way faster than what I saw whith the DNAI/Covad connection. Pacbell looks like it is also much cheaper than what I imagine DNAI was costing. But, pacbell seems to be pretty knowledgable about DNS and stuff, and are willing to work with you in setting up your own personal network (but make sure you get the enhanced version of their service).
As for ISPs, I keep hearing good things about Concentric. The people who come and install the stuff say that concentric has the nicest infrastructure. I don't know if there is any truth to this, it's just what I heard. I would have probably gone with them - but damn! Pacbell is SO cheap. However, if I were a commercial outfit and could afford it, I would definately have gone with an ISP like Concentric.
-Aaron
Home theater is the way to go. My wife refuses to go to a movie theater since we got our home theater. The last one we went to was Eyes Wide Shut opening night. The bitch behind us would not shut up ("Nicole would look so much better in a choker", "What imagery..." at the mask on the pillow scene, "Great way to start the movie!!!" at the first nude scene, "I'm so happy to asked me out", other inane comments, etc), we had to shhh her at least 6 time but they never stuck. She was so bad her date was even getting embarrased (she was middle-aged and I think drunk). This has been happening more and more to us when we go. I really want to see Blair Witch but am afraid it will be ruined by some asshole setting behind us.
So to all you kids who can't get into movies - it sucks anyways because there are too many jerks out there to make it enjoyable. Of course it would be nice if you had the choice....
Go with DVD and a dish. Ask for them for Christmas. And if you do have to go to the movies, give a shhh! to the people behind you for me.
They were just long rubber tubes (supposidly intended for medicinal purposes) tied at one end and attached to the lower half of a ball point pen casing on the other. You could get really long tubes, fill them with water and then wrap it around your body. The elasticity of the rubber would provide pretty serious water pressure. Only annoying thing was that you had to keep your finger over the nozzle, no trigger mechanism. But they were devestating in a water fight, like super soakers are today.