that's what experts are for. the "average" judge doesn't know ballistics either but ballistics is still a science that judges use daily to convict murderers. because a judge doesn't know about a certain type of proof doesn't make it invalid.
if you're using streamripper or streamripper32, they simply use the metadata that comes down the stream to split the tracks. on most stations (only the ones WITH the metadata, don't forget) this works perfectly and splits the tracks exactly at the right time. Nice & Easy.
the separation doesn't come from detecting silence, it comes from winamp (or a supporting media player) TELLING the server that the track has changed, and what the data is for the new track. the server then sends this down in the stream along with the music and that's how you see what's playing.
now, on stations that have a lot of listeners, the metadata seems to start coming down AFTER the song actually starts, which cuts off the front of the song, and at the end of the track you hear 10-15 seconds of the next song. Club 977's stream does this VERY bad, for example.
other than resplitting the files and joining them again there doesn't seem to be any easy way to correct the mis-separation.
you could force the stream ripper to check the metadata every single second (if the software supports it) so that it will catch the new data as soon as it comes down, but if the server only updates this data every 15 seconds there is nothing you can do. if i were a server operator i would do this purely because it would make it difficult to cleanly rip my stream, something i think that i would like.
prman is faster because it is NOT a ray tracer, and that was my point, not that multiple scene files would speed things up. Ray tracing is very very slow in relation to scanline rendering, and scanline rendering is what prman does.
[ i should note here for the record that RenderMan is a 3D language standard, and PRMan is Pixar's implementation of a renderer based on this standard. When I say RenderMan however, I'm speaking of the software, not the language standard. ]
sure the functionality isn't there to have ONE scene file and create multiple frames (not that I know of anyway) but is having multiple scene files REALLY that bad?
I've used renderman and I've used pov-ray and renderman is where i spend all of my time now. Its just so much better, unless you really need ray tracing, and prman 11 includes raytracing and global illumination, so even then the only reason to use pov-ray is a financial one.
ask yourself if a single scene file is really more important than the speed an quality of your rendered images...
I bought a FANTASTIC backpack at yahoo corp HQ in sunnyvale. they have a Y! store there and the backpacks they have are the best i've ever used. EVER. in my LIFE.
if you're near there I say get one of those. I've had mine for two years now and it still looks new. i've not dropped it yet (and i'm not going to) but its a very good backpack with good stiff padding. i'm sure it could protect a laptop-dropping person from their own mistakes.
that's the beauty of open-source advocates. they state what everyone already knows then get modded up for being insightful. insightful. look up insight in the dictionary one day, its not what the mods here seem to think it is most of the time.
its you who is missing out, and you have only that logic to blame. winamp 5 kicks ass (kicks the llama's ass) and don't just take my word for it, read the thousands of other e-pinions out there.
have fun in winamp2 land.
(for those of you that don't know, you can choose the classic skin and the behavior/performance of winamp is EXACTLY like the unreleased winamp 2.99. - there really is no reason not to upgrade)
Things like this make me doubt the future of the human race.
the future is clear to me - in 20 years no one will be able to say anything for fear that it will offend someone.
currently you can't do/say anything that will offend someone, but what about the countless people that are not offended by an action? should we lower our society to suit the most sensitive and most irrational people, or should the majority win?
well the majority isn't winning anymore when it comes to things like this. the feelings of one person now override the feelings of millions of others, and even that is based on someone's word - they SAY they're feelings were hurt. its a good thing people don't lie for money... because then even the basis that someone's feelings are hurt could be labelled as a frivelous (sp?) lawsuit.
I agree that hateful and slanderous remarks should be removed from our collective conscience, but is attacking video games the way to do it? if the collective conscience of america wasn't already thinking of such things then they would have never made it into the game - the game is the symptom of racial slurs, not the cause, you fucking prats.
outside of the USA everyone makes fun of us Americans. do I care? no. should i? no. if someone makes an anti-america game do i give a flying patootie? hell no - its just a damn game.
so i say bring it on. hey foreigners, make lots of games that poke fun at americans: "hey, you gonna eat that untouched entire large super-supreme pizza," "now just wait a minizzle," "i'm 28 and i can't do long division anymore," "i've never voted, voting doesn't matter!!" and various other stupid (yet all too common) american sayings should be included. will we care? fuck no. we'll think its funny. I will anyway.
Haiti: take it as the joke its meant to be, not as the money grubbing, attention-seeking opportunity you seem to think it is. If you get offended you are weak. why don't you get offended that Haitian language support was left entirely out of perl 5.8? oh wait, i know: no money to be won.
how weak, to pull a gun on someone, not to mention an unarmed someone. could he not win the arguement any other way? was his ego so easily bruised? how weak.
If you get an explicit email, how exactly do you show it to your boss, without looking guilty yourself?
why would you be showing your boss your spam?
* delete it upon arrival * use some spam filtering software of some sort, forward the spam to him/her * don't let your work email get onto the internet unless you're ready for lots of porn spam * virtually everyone gets porn spam, don't worry too much.
I overview the entire network, then overview the seperate systems, then go into intricate detail about everything i've done and why i've done it.
I do semi-detailed overviews to start because when I've needed documentation in the past, its been an emergency, and i've mostly needed it to know exactly what router X is connected to, basically how it is configured, and what it is used for, not the intricacies of the firmware pasted blatantly up front without any mention of what the router does.
do the documentation in HTML and hyperlink EVERYTHING that could possibly lead to a question or a footnote or any supplementary text. this is what hyperlinks are for but far too often i've seen network documentation handed to me as 5th generation photocopies that are near impossible to read. take your documentation to anyone that is covered by an NDA (if need be) and have them proofread your documentation. have him ask questions that he would ask if that network were handed over to him, and on his first day needed to find out why the WAN was down, but the wan router reported it as up.
then burn your documents on CD, and keep it close to your heart and any contractor that works for you.
that's what i do, but i'm paranoid. i've been the victim of poor or non-existant network documentation too many times to not be paranoid about it anymore.
inventory control is something to me that makes a lot of sense. people foamed at the mouth when RFID tags were to be put in clothes, but few realized that they're useless once they leave the store that owns the clothes. its just inventory control, to keep people from stealing said clothes.
farmers are doing it for more than just inventory control though, they're using it to easily determine which genetic lines produce the best milk producers, the best meat, etc. this is a good thing, it *should* lower the prices of milk and beef a bit, and it should improve the overall quality the steak on your table.
i'm all for this. technology for tracking isn't *all* bad.
you have to have a rebel backpack (your regular inventory doesn't count) and 1500 faction points before you get your reward. or so i've heard. I've also heard that they've taken out that message if you can't get the reward or there is no reward to give.
first you guys bitch about how its not out yet and to "release it already"
then you complain about its level of completeness when it is finally released. when does the madness end?
SWG is a community game, and in order for you to enjoy the game, you must actually take part of communities, and do things together. trust me, its far funner. there are VERY few pvp things to do in SWG unless you want to play on a battlefield. sure you can knock the guts out of someone easy in the cantina but what fun is that? none. that's why you're not having any fun.
the fact that everyone always waits for the next game to come out tells me that no one is happy with any current game. lets not even get into the fact that you take what is said on forums as the pulse of the entire community - which it simply isn't.
the true test of a game is its replayability. if you're constantly eyes on the horizon for the next game you can never really, truly enjoy the one you're playing. I still play Quakeworld and I still love it. I don't give a crap what's on the horizon, i play what is fun. SWG is fun. don't like it, then don't play it. i'm quite sick of the arsewipes that introduce themselves to me by sending a duel request.
PVP in SWG was an afterthought. I wish it was totally skipped. PvP ruins the game for me, so thank God i haven't taken a side in the "epic conflict" yet.
I think i could fly an RC copter around all day if i had the money to do it. i don't think that would ever get old.
why haven't you updated the pages in a while - i'm SURE local news places would pay good money to have you be around when news events are happening, or the occaisional car crash or bank robbery or whatever. these may not happen where you are but you could pay for a hobby like this very easily via the news media.
anyway keep it up - i wanna see that page updated soon. great stuff there, needs more.
girls like girl things and boys like boy things. overall this is where things are, where they're going to stay, and where they should be.
girls like gay men because most gay men think along the same lines as most women.
men like girl gamers because most girl gamers think along the same lines as men.
i for one don't care that there aren't many women in gaming - let them do what they want, i'll do what i want. my girlfriend (and my friends who are women) don't try to get me to learn hairstyling or try to teach me the intricate details of fingernail painting, or try to get me to watch sex in the city all the time. i, conversely, don't try to get them to help me work on my car or play any of the games i play.
why some men want to have a woman that thinks like them is beyond me - i love that my girlfriend spends a lot of money on silly porcelain dolls and frilly house decorations. i don't understand it, but i don't go around trying to recruit women that think like me, or try to convince her that my way (the mans way) is better. She also never tries to get me to watch any program on lifetime, or anything like that. we each love that the other is filling the role that their chromasomes have given them, and enjoying it.
I for one like the variety that comes with the presence of a woman. i don't want to date someone that knows a lot about computers, and i don't want to date someone that plays a lot of games. I want to date someone that does girly things - things that I don't do. And thankfully my girlfriend wants a man who does manly things and wants nothing to do with girly things.
most men like women who are women, and most women like men who are men.
what's wrong with that? let women do their thing, they let me play games and i have no desire to add a woman into my gaming. if she wants in on her own accord, perfect! if she doesn't, perfect!
my point is that there are few women in gaming for the same reason that there are few men working in beauty salons. most woman that work in a beauty salon want more men in there, and most male gamers want more women to game with, but the reason why its not happening is clear: most men don't *want* do do hair, and most women don't *want* to play games.
Why do you host at a place without dual power companies providing power?
Why do you host at a place without dual redundant A/C on EACH power provider?
Why do you host at a place without dual redundant power generators?
Just how "essential" is the stuff you're hosting?
How is it important that you're "on leave from [your] Gov't job"?? That's no excuse (if it was meant to be) for not jumping on top of that HUGE MASSIVE INSANELY rediculous situation your servers are in right now, and taking the steps to fix it the very first day you started at that job.
in fairness maybe you started today, but i think somehow that you've had time to fix this before now.
if its role playing, and you create your own character, then you can't possibly be out of role, because its your role. I can see this arguement holding water if you were playing an already established role, but for the most part, you don't. To put it in SWG terms, if you were playing Luke, Leia, or Han, I could see someone getting angry with you if you strayed out of line.
If its your own character, then its your own role and you can't escape it or betray it. That, to me, is the beauty of online role playing games. The universe you're in becomes much more than what you've already seen.
To me, those that complain are the ones that are really, really hardcore, those that demand that you talk in your characters native tongue, and not English, for example. Yes you exist, yes I respect your opinion, but there's a bell curve here, and you're on the edge, and that means you ain't ever gonna get your way, so long as the curve stays where it is. The converse of this in in your guys' favor though, because the people that don't even play according to the universe are few and far between also. What lies in between (the middle of the curve) is what exists in Online RPG's.
RPGs are however they are because the majority of people play the game in that way. That means that the majority of the people playing are happy with it that way. You've been outvoted. Take it or leave it.
Slashdot Mirror
that's what experts are for. the "average" judge doesn't know ballistics either but ballistics is still a science that judges use daily to convict murderers. because a judge doesn't know about a certain type of proof doesn't make it invalid.
if you're using streamripper or streamripper32, they simply use the metadata that comes down the stream to split the tracks. on most stations (only the ones WITH the metadata, don't forget) this works perfectly and splits the tracks exactly at the right time. Nice & Easy.
the separation doesn't come from detecting silence, it comes from winamp (or a supporting media player) TELLING the server that the track has changed, and what the data is for the new track. the server then sends this down in the stream along with the music and that's how you see what's playing.
now, on stations that have a lot of listeners, the metadata seems to start coming down AFTER the song actually starts, which cuts off the front of the song, and at the end of the track you hear 10-15 seconds of the next song. Club 977's stream does this VERY bad, for example.
other than resplitting the files and joining them again there doesn't seem to be any easy way to correct the mis-separation.
you could force the stream ripper to check the metadata every single second (if the software supports it) so that it will catch the new data as soon as it comes down, but if the server only updates this data every 15 seconds there is nothing you can do. if i were a server operator i would do this purely because it would make it difficult to cleanly rip my stream, something i think that i would like.
IIRC, copper conducts heat better than silver...
Heat sinks are made of aluminum, which tells me that aluminum has the best heat conductivity to cost ratio. why don't they use aluminum?
this will matter a lot more to me when i own a computer.
yes i know this.
prman is faster because it is NOT a ray tracer, and that was my point, not that multiple scene files would speed things up. Ray tracing is very very slow in relation to scanline rendering, and scanline rendering is what prman does.
[ i should note here for the record that RenderMan is a 3D language standard, and PRMan is Pixar's implementation of a renderer based on this standard. When I say RenderMan however, I'm speaking of the software, not the language standard. ]
sure the functionality isn't there to have ONE scene file and create multiple frames (not that I know of anyway) but is having multiple scene files REALLY that bad?
I've used renderman and I've used pov-ray and renderman is where i spend all of my time now. Its just so much better, unless you really need ray tracing, and prman 11 includes raytracing and global illumination, so even then the only reason to use pov-ray is a financial one.
ask yourself if a single scene file is really more important than the speed an quality of your rendered images...
I bought a FANTASTIC backpack at yahoo corp HQ in sunnyvale. they have a Y! store there and the backpacks they have are the best i've ever used. EVER. in my LIFE.
if you're near there I say get one of those. I've had mine for two years now and it still looks new. i've not dropped it yet (and i'm not going to) but its a very good backpack with good stiff padding. i'm sure it could protect a laptop-dropping person from their own mistakes.
that's the beauty of open-source advocates. they state what everyone already knows then get modded up for being insightful. insightful. look up insight in the dictionary one day, its not what the mods here seem to think it is most of the time.
Winamp 5 has features that winamp 2 doesn't have, so you'll miss out on those, but you'll never know because you're too chicken to upgrade.
do whatever the hell you want, why you guys are afraid to upgrade is fucking beyond me.
wow what an excellent bit of logic there.
its you who is missing out, and you have only that logic to blame. winamp 5 kicks ass (kicks the llama's ass) and don't just take my word for it, read the thousands of other e-pinions out there.
have fun in winamp2 land.
(for those of you that don't know, you can choose the classic skin and the behavior/performance of winamp is EXACTLY like the unreleased winamp 2.99. - there really is no reason not to upgrade)
Things like this make me doubt the future of the human race.
... because then even the basis that someone's feelings are hurt could be labelled as a frivelous (sp?) lawsuit.
the future is clear to me - in 20 years no one will be able to say anything for fear that it will offend someone.
currently you can't do/say anything that will offend someone, but what about the countless people that are not offended by an action? should we lower our society to suit the most sensitive and most irrational people, or should the majority win?
well the majority isn't winning anymore when it comes to things like this. the feelings of one person now override the feelings of millions of others, and even that is based on someone's word - they SAY they're feelings were hurt. its a good thing people don't lie for money
I agree that hateful and slanderous remarks should be removed from our collective conscience, but is attacking video games the way to do it? if the collective conscience of america wasn't already thinking of such things then they would have never made it into the game - the game is the symptom of racial slurs, not the cause, you fucking prats.
outside of the USA everyone makes fun of us Americans. do I care? no. should i? no. if someone makes an anti-america game do i give a flying patootie? hell no - its just a damn game.
so i say bring it on. hey foreigners, make lots of games that poke fun at americans: "hey, you gonna eat that untouched entire large super-supreme pizza," "now just wait a minizzle," "i'm 28 and i can't do long division anymore," "i've never voted, voting doesn't matter!!" and various other stupid (yet all too common) american sayings should be included. will we care? fuck no. we'll think its funny. I will anyway.
Haiti: take it as the joke its meant to be, not as the money grubbing, attention-seeking opportunity you seem to think it is. If you get offended you are weak. why don't you get offended that Haitian language support was left entirely out of perl 5.8? oh wait, i know: no money to be won.
"who needs courage, when you've got a gun?"
how weak, to pull a gun on someone, not to mention an unarmed someone. could he not win the arguement any other way? was his ego so easily bruised? how weak.
If you get an explicit email, how exactly do you show it to your boss, without looking guilty yourself?
why would you be showing your boss your spam?
* delete it upon arrival
* use some spam filtering software of some sort, forward the spam to him/her
* don't let your work email get onto the internet unless you're ready for lots of porn spam
* virtually everyone gets porn spam, don't worry too much.
I played the leaked alpha, and I loved it. It scared the crap out of me, and half the monsters weren't even 'activated', and didn't attack.
no one who has played the alpha would bicker about it. those of us who have, know how good it can potentially be.
I overview the entire network, then overview the seperate systems, then go into intricate detail about everything i've done and why i've done it.
I do semi-detailed overviews to start because when I've needed documentation in the past, its been an emergency, and i've mostly needed it to know exactly what router X is connected to, basically how it is configured, and what it is used for, not the intricacies of the firmware pasted blatantly up front without any mention of what the router does.
do the documentation in HTML and hyperlink EVERYTHING that could possibly lead to a question or a footnote or any supplementary text. this is what hyperlinks are for but far too often i've seen network documentation handed to me as 5th generation photocopies that are near impossible to read. take your documentation to anyone that is covered by an NDA (if need be) and have them proofread your documentation. have him ask questions that he would ask if that network were handed over to him, and on his first day needed to find out why the WAN was down, but the wan router reported it as up.
then burn your documents on CD, and keep it close to your heart and any contractor that works for you.
that's what i do, but i'm paranoid. i've been the victim of poor or non-existant network documentation too many times to not be paranoid about it anymore.
no. q3radiant was built with quake3arena in mind. not home design.
inventory control is something to me that makes a lot of sense. people foamed at the mouth when RFID tags were to be put in clothes, but few realized that they're useless once they leave the store that owns the clothes. its just inventory control, to keep people from stealing said clothes.
farmers are doing it for more than just inventory control though, they're using it to easily determine which genetic lines produce the best milk producers, the best meat, etc. this is a good thing, it *should* lower the prices of milk and beef a bit, and it should improve the overall quality the steak on your table.
i'm all for this. technology for tracking isn't *all* bad.
don't like it, don't pay it. right now there are people willing to pay (me included) so it looks like soon everyone will be.
I'm okay with it, but it would be nicer if they gave the software away for free also.
you have to have a rebel backpack (your regular inventory doesn't count) and 1500 faction points before you get your reward. or so i've heard. I've also heard that they've taken out that message if you can't get the reward or there is no reward to give.
first you guys bitch about how its not out yet and to "release it already"
then you complain about its level of completeness when it is finally released. when does the madness end?
pvp sucks.
if you want to pvp, play quake.
SWG is a community game, and in order for you to enjoy the game, you must actually take part of communities, and do things together. trust me, its far funner. there are VERY few pvp things to do in SWG unless you want to play on a battlefield. sure you can knock the guts out of someone easy in the cantina but what fun is that? none. that's why you're not having any fun.
the fact that everyone always waits for the next game to come out tells me that no one is happy with any current game. lets not even get into the fact that you take what is said on forums as the pulse of the entire community - which it simply isn't.
the true test of a game is its replayability. if you're constantly eyes on the horizon for the next game you can never really, truly enjoy the one you're playing. I still play Quakeworld and I still love it. I don't give a crap what's on the horizon, i play what is fun. SWG is fun. don't like it, then don't play it. i'm quite sick of the arsewipes that introduce themselves to me by sending a duel request.
PVP in SWG was an afterthought. I wish it was totally skipped. PvP ruins the game for me, so thank God i haven't taken a side in the "epic conflict" yet.
Hardware:
I'd say that anything you've ever needed in the past, you will need in the future. You answered your own question on this part.
Software:
I have no idea.
NICE!
I think i could fly an RC copter around all day if i had the money to do it. i don't think that would ever get old.
why haven't you updated the pages in a while - i'm SURE local news places would pay good money to have you be around when news events are happening, or the occaisional car crash or bank robbery or whatever. these may not happen where you are but you could pay for a hobby like this very easily via the news media.
anyway keep it up - i wanna see that page updated soon. great stuff there, needs more.
girls like girl things and boys like boy things. overall this is where things are, where they're going to stay, and where they should be.
girls like gay men because most gay men think along the same lines as most women.
men like girl gamers because most girl gamers think along the same lines as men.
i for one don't care that there aren't many women in gaming - let them do what they want, i'll do what i want. my girlfriend (and my friends who are women) don't try to get me to learn hairstyling or try to teach me the intricate details of fingernail painting, or try to get me to watch sex in the city all the time. i, conversely, don't try to get them to help me work on my car or play any of the games i play.
why some men want to have a woman that thinks like them is beyond me - i love that my girlfriend spends a lot of money on silly porcelain dolls and frilly house decorations. i don't understand it, but i don't go around trying to recruit women that think like me, or try to convince her that my way (the mans way) is better. She also never tries to get me to watch any program on lifetime, or anything like that. we each love that the other is filling the role that their chromasomes have given them, and enjoying it.
I for one like the variety that comes with the presence of a woman. i don't want to date someone that knows a lot about computers, and i don't want to date someone that plays a lot of games. I want to date someone that does girly things - things that I don't do. And thankfully my girlfriend wants a man who does manly things and wants nothing to do with girly things.
most men like women who are women, and most women like men who are men.
what's wrong with that? let women do their thing, they let me play games and i have no desire to add a woman into my gaming. if she wants in on her own accord, perfect! if she doesn't, perfect!
my point is that there are few women in gaming for the same reason that there are few men working in beauty salons. most woman that work in a beauty salon want more men in there, and most male gamers want more women to game with, but the reason why its not happening is clear: most men don't *want* do do hair, and most women don't *want* to play games.
You should have thought of this LONG before now.
Why do you host at a place without dual power companies providing power?
Why do you host at a place without dual redundant A/C on EACH power provider?
Why do you host at a place without dual redundant power generators?
Just how "essential" is the stuff you're hosting?
How is it important that you're "on leave from [your] Gov't job"?? That's no excuse (if it was meant to be) for not jumping on top of that HUGE MASSIVE INSANELY rediculous situation your servers are in right now, and taking the steps to fix it the very first day you started at that job.
in fairness maybe you started today, but i think somehow that you've had time to fix this before now.
if its role playing, and you create your own character, then you can't possibly be out of role, because its your role. I can see this arguement holding water if you were playing an already established role, but for the most part, you don't. To put it in SWG terms, if you were playing Luke, Leia, or Han, I could see someone getting angry with you if you strayed out of line.
If its your own character, then its your own role and you can't escape it or betray it. That, to me, is the beauty of online role playing games. The universe you're in becomes much more than what you've already seen.
To me, those that complain are the ones that are really, really hardcore, those that demand that you talk in your characters native tongue, and not English, for example. Yes you exist, yes I respect your opinion, but there's a bell curve here, and you're on the edge, and that means you ain't ever gonna get your way, so long as the curve stays where it is. The converse of this in in your guys' favor though, because the people that don't even play according to the universe are few and far between also. What lies in between (the middle of the curve) is what exists in Online RPG's.
RPGs are however they are because the majority of people play the game in that way. That means that the majority of the people playing are happy with it that way. You've been outvoted. Take it or leave it.