I doubt any image returned by space exploration in the next few thousand years will change our perspective on things as much as the Earthrise photographs from Apollo 8.
I really wish there was a web-cam on the moon. It would be so cool to see the Earth rotating from the Moon.
Microsoft has recently been sponsoring the Imagine Cup worldwide. The winners of the first stage each receive free copies of Microsoft Visual Studio.NET and Microsoft Office XP, plus an exclusive T-shirt.
"In the history of our country, diplomatic relationships with third world dictatorships have always been difficult. In such situations we usually have to deal with a ruling party leader who doesn't listen to the people, won't accept public criticism and only listens to those able to make large donations of money to the party. And the third world dictator isn't any better either."
When large companies such as Pixar decide to make a large decision like this, they will determine the price/performance ratios of all the available systems. The overall price includes the cost of all the systems including discounts, support/maintenance and the cost of changing over. Performance is measured using benchmark related to the required task. For PIXAR, this is the RenderMark(*).
Ultimately, each system will be reduced down to X dollars per RenderMark. The vendor with the most Rendermarks per dollar will be the winner.
At present, Apple has the most powerful systems. That isn't to say SGI, Sun or anyone else won't make an effort to catch up.
From: Sun Microsystems
Evaluating Rendering Performance
Pixar has developed a benchmark standard to produce a single metric that characterizes a computing system's rendering power. The larger the RenderMark, the greater the system's rendering capacity. The RenderMark is derived from the elapsed time of a set of four jobs that stress important aspects of rendering:
Ball. A ball with shading, nubs, and motion blur
Pixar. The Pixar logo that includes complex geometry and typesetting designed by Pixar's Typestry software
Magic. A RenderMan marketing poster depicting magician's hats and wands, including lots of texture-mapping
Bike Shop. A bicycle shop scene from Pixar's Red's Dream, where one of the biggest challenges is the number of spokes to render
From Computer Graphics World
A 1000 RenderMark CPU computes the same frame twice as fast as a 500 RenderMark CPU.) The first Toy Story (1995) used 50,000 RenderMarks for rendering; A Bug's Life (1998) needed 700,000 RenderMarks; and Toy Story 2 (1999) took 1.1 million. Monsters, Inc. re quired 2.5 million Render Marks, more than the first three films combined.
Current TLD require a fixed address for each domain name.
Mobile's by their nature are going to be wandering all over the place. Try telling your local drug dealer that he's got to give out his permanent name and address to ICANN.
... would be to put the network connection onto a quarantined sub-net where all the necessary virus removal tools were available. Once the machine was cleaned up, it would be allowed general network access again.
The use of these jet-engines was to power an entire office-block. These were the type of thing you'd expect to see on a fighter aeroplane. It sure looked impressive, with this huge blue flame shooting out the back of the engine.
Have a look at companies like SGI, Nvidia, Sun, Microsoft, Sun and IBM, and the OpenGL logo. All of these companies logos are either abstract shapes or just an rearrangement on the companies name.
I always thought SGI's chrome cube icon was the best, since it was the only one that used a 3D perspective view.
The sad truth is that technology changes too fast now. Almost monthly there are new discoveries, innovations, and products on the market that would make an encyclopedia out of date. Even on Discovery Channel, the reality TV medical documentaries now have a disclaimer "All medical procedures were current at the time of filming".
Looking at the old children's encyclopedias and you will see that many of the diagrams were simply hand drawn/annotated. Surfing the web and you will find any number of Powerpoint presentations, PDF files and MPEG movies of animations, CAT scans, X-rays, computer animations. There really isn't any way a single web site or even paper publication could compete.
The only market I could see would be for up to date indexing (ie. An intelligent Google which separated links into higher level concepts (eg. Google Mathematics, Google Cooking) so when you look for a pie slice, you don't get a statistics page, when you're looking for a cooking recipe and vice versa.
I see absolutely no reason for people to be listening to music while in any sort of educational institution.
As I work in large research lab/room in a education institution, I can explain this. Perhaps it's the way that some people are wired, but may of us seem to use the audio buffers in our brains to store temporary information about the tasks we're doing. If there are any sudden loud noises, then we lose track of whatever we're doing, and have to start over again. Such noises include slamming door, someone racking their printouts from the laser printer to get the sides lined up (that seems to get to everyone), slamming shut the papers trays of the laser printer, rummaging through filing cabinets (opening and slamming doors). The only way to shield yourself from this continuous barrage of random "audio spam" is to wear a set of headphones and play something calming.
(My favourite is Peter Gabriel's "Steam" or USURA's "Open Your Mind" for 3D animation work).
Maybe I'm slightly autistic or something, but I've always found myself distracted by such information. Playing football on a playing field, and I'd find the wind turbulence patterns and the shadows of the clouds moving across the grass more interesting than the battle going on between two lumbering jocks at the centre of the field.
... but I'm sure I could stop drinking Cappachino throughout the day if I wanted to. I'm certain I could. It's just that I never seen the reason to quit yet - that's all.
A typical adult will require two litres of water a day to remain healthy. That amount is recommended by survivalist guide both for outdoors and natural disasters.
Florida state has a web calculator for you to work out your total water consumption:
There was a story some time back about a new housing development that was built, but had the restriction that no lawyers were allowed to buy any of the homes. The construction company feared that they would be sued if anything was wrong with any of the homes. This restriction was only discovered when a lawyer attempted to buy one of the homes. So he sued the company for discrimination.
Does this mean that projectors will get smaller, cheaper and more high quality?
Yes, but you will have to replace the colour filters every three months, otherwise the screen will go blurry, your Powerpoint presentations will jam and your warranty will be invalidated.
It got sold off to developers to build luxury flats for young professionals and retirees. See it all the time over here in the UK. In some places they are even closing down oversubscribed schools in popular areas in order to shuffle the kids to undersubscribed schools in deprived areas. Guess what happens to the school and playing fields - it gets converted into luxury flats with private parking.
Slashdot Mirror
I doubt any image returned by space exploration in the next few thousand years will change our perspective on things as much as the Earthrise photographs from Apollo 8.
I really wish there was a web-cam on the moon. It would be so cool to see the Earth rotating from the Moon.
Interesting... but I can't find the page where you can update/view your neighbours records. =
Microsoft has recently been sponsoring the Imagine Cup worldwide. The winners of the first stage each receive free copies of Microsoft Visual Studio .NET and Microsoft Office XP, plus an exclusive T-shirt.
Here is the UK Web site, Canadian Web site, and US Web site
Reminds me of a paragraph I once heard:
"In the history of our country, diplomatic relationships with third world dictatorships have always been difficult. In such situations we usually have to deal with a ruling party leader who doesn't listen to the people, won't accept public criticism and only listens to those able to make large donations of money to the party. And the third world dictator isn't any better either."
When large companies such as Pixar decide to make a large decision like this, they will determine the price/performance ratios of all the available systems. The overall price includes the cost of all the systems including discounts, support/maintenance and the cost of changing over. Performance is measured using benchmark related to the required task. For PIXAR, this is the RenderMark(*). Ultimately, each system will be reduced down to X dollars per RenderMark. The vendor with the most Rendermarks per dollar will be the winner.
At present, Apple has the most powerful systems. That isn't to say SGI, Sun or anyone else won't make an effort to catch up. From: Sun Microsystems
Evaluating Rendering Performance Pixar has developed a benchmark standard to produce a single metric that characterizes a computing system's rendering power. The larger the RenderMark, the greater the system's rendering capacity. The RenderMark is derived from the elapsed time of a set of four jobs that stress important aspects of rendering: Ball. A ball with shading, nubs, and motion blur Pixar. The Pixar logo that includes complex geometry and typesetting designed by Pixar's Typestry software Magic. A RenderMan marketing poster depicting magician's hats and wands, including lots of texture-mapping Bike Shop. A bicycle shop scene from Pixar's Red's Dream, where one of the biggest challenges is the number of spokes to render
From Computer Graphics World A 1000 RenderMark CPU computes the same frame twice as fast as a 500 RenderMark CPU.) The first Toy Story (1995) used 50,000 RenderMarks for rendering; A Bug's Life (1998) needed 700,000 RenderMarks; and Toy Story 2 (1999) took 1.1 million. Monsters, Inc. re quired 2.5 million Render Marks, more than the first three films combined.
Current TLD require a fixed address for each domain name.
Mobile's by their nature are going to be wandering all over the place. Try telling your local drug dealer that he's got to give out his permanent name and address to ICANN.
... would be to put the network connection onto a quarantined sub-net where all the necessary virus removal tools were available. Once the machine was cleaned up, it would be allowed general network access again.
It's a mis-spelling of oreo-density; how many portions of breakfast cereal you can get in a single serving.
The use of these jet-engines was to power an entire office-block. These were the type of thing you'd expect to see on a fighter aeroplane. It sure looked impressive, with this huge blue flame shooting out the back of the engine.
There was a program on the Discovery channel. They had these jet-engine powered generators that could run for 2-3 days non-stop.
But you know and I know that it will eventually be used for evil.
Wait till the RIAA hear that they're storing the world's largest MP3 and p0rn collections.
For a moment, I thought this title read "Bombcar's review of Implementing CIFS from Apprentice Hell.'
Have a look at companies like SGI, Nvidia, Sun, Microsoft, Sun and IBM, and the OpenGL logo. All of these companies logos are either abstract shapes or just an rearrangement on the companies name.
I always thought SGI's chrome cube icon was the best, since it was the only one that used a 3D perspective view.
You can buy one if you want to. Have a look at Arcade Clearance and at Arcade Depot
If I had a good salary and owned my own space, I'd probably buy one of these for a conversation piece.
Yes, if they are this accurate in predicting the long-term future, they must have already made a fortune trading on the stock market.
The sad truth is that technology changes too fast now. Almost monthly there are new discoveries, innovations, and products on the market that would make an encyclopedia out of date. Even on Discovery Channel, the reality TV medical documentaries now have a disclaimer "All medical procedures were current at the time of filming".
Looking at the old children's encyclopedias and you will see that many of the diagrams were simply hand drawn/annotated. Surfing the web and you will find any number of Powerpoint presentations, PDF files and MPEG movies of animations, CAT scans, X-rays, computer animations. There really isn't any way a single web site or even paper publication could compete.
The only market I could see would be for up to date indexing (ie. An intelligent Google which separated links into higher level concepts (eg. Google Mathematics, Google Cooking) so when you look for a pie slice, you don't get a statistics page, when you're looking for a cooking recipe and vice versa.
Sent: Send reinforcements, we're going to advance
Received: Send three and four pence, we're going to a dance
Sent: We need to be supplied with a palette of 70 survivalist kits
Received: We need to be supplied with a palette of 70's revivalist kits
Try dropping a whiteboard pen into a metal trash can - that's much more effective. Especially when next to a student who's sleeping.
I see absolutely no reason for people to be listening to music while in any sort of educational institution.
As I work in large research lab/room in a education institution, I can explain this. Perhaps it's the way that some people are wired, but may of us seem to use the audio buffers in our brains to store temporary information about the tasks we're doing. If there are any sudden loud noises, then we lose track of whatever we're doing, and have to start over again. Such noises include slamming door, someone racking their printouts from the laser printer to get the sides lined up (that seems to get to everyone), slamming shut the papers trays of the laser printer, rummaging through filing cabinets (opening and slamming doors). The only way to shield yourself from this continuous barrage of random "audio spam" is to wear a set of headphones and play something calming. (My favourite is Peter Gabriel's "Steam" or USURA's "Open Your Mind" for 3D animation work).
Maybe I'm slightly autistic or something, but I've always found myself distracted by such information. Playing football on a playing field, and I'd find the wind turbulence patterns and the shadows of the clouds moving across the grass more interesting than the battle going on between two lumbering jocks at the centre of the field.
... but I'm sure I could stop drinking Cappachino throughout the day if I wanted to. I'm certain I could. It's just that I never seen the reason to quit yet - that's all.
A typical adult will require two litres of water a day to remain healthy. That amount is recommended by survivalist guide both for outdoors and natural disasters.
Florida state has a web calculator for you to work out your total water consumption:
There's another one by South Central Texas Regional Water Planning Group
There was a story some time back about a new housing development that was built, but had the restriction that no lawyers were allowed to buy any of the homes. The construction company feared that they would be sued if anything was wrong with any of the homes. This restriction was only discovered when a lawyer attempted to buy one of the homes. So he sued the company for discrimination.
Does this mean that projectors will get smaller, cheaper and more high quality?
Yes, but you will have to replace the colour filters every three months, otherwise the screen will go blurry, your Powerpoint presentations will jam and your warranty will be invalidated.
Hmmm... but what are the other 3MB used for? :)
Multiple camera views with surround sound, DVD intro's and trailers for upcoming features.
(what ever happened to the good ole outdoors?)
It got sold off to developers to build luxury flats for young professionals and retirees. See it all the time over here in the UK. In some places they are even closing down oversubscribed schools in popular areas in order to shuffle the kids to undersubscribed schools in deprived areas. Guess what happens to the school and playing fields - it gets converted into luxury flats with private parking.