The "world" started with the Big Bang, according to current established scientific knowledge. Of course, there are theories saying otherwise (like, there was never a beginning, or that there was something before the big bang etc.), but they are highly controversial. For the record, I don't fully belive in the classic big-bang-started-all scenario.
Also, if there is no proof whether higher entities exist or not, one has to consider BOTH possibilities when it comes to topics like evolution. However, in 99% of all cases, the possibility of a higher being is excluded. And this is just plain wrong, because this just ends in another dogmatic belief.
So, on one side there are the christian fundis telling us that god exists and everyone must accept this or else they will go to hell. on the other side, there are scientists explicitely excluding the possibility of the existence of God, saying "THIS is the truth, everything else is WRONG" (despite the absence of a proof).
ultimately, we should stop thinking about the bad bad christian/islam fundis when the topic "religion" appears. it can actually be a very interesting topic, as long as no one falls into stereotypes or dogmatic beliefs.
Hey, I didn't mean it this way. But look at the real process of accepting new ideas. The theory of self-correction often does not work, because some influential scientists with an ego bigger than Jupiter refuse to admit that their theories were wrong. Of course, there is no point in accepting everything that claims to be The Next Big Thing, but there are so many papers being killed because of several ultraconservative scientists. So, the only way to get rid of them is to wait until they die. It is morbid, you are right.
I forgot his name, but once I heard an excellent comment about the REAL progress in science:
"New theories do not get accepted because other scientists admit that the current ones are flawed. They get accepted because the scientists opposed to the new theories die out after a while, and the current theories with them."
"AT least the fundies don't try this horseshit on - either your stupid fairy tales are taken literally, or they're disregarded."
This is exactly the way fundis see things.
"Almighty being? Grow up."
So, where is the PROOF that such a being could not exist? Nobody knows why or how the world "started".
Interestingly, many creationists Slashdot is worrying about actually have a good point: there are far too many blind science-followers, taking CURRENT knowledge as a dogma, and considering unconventional possibilities like a higher intelligence that created the universe as a blasphemy - just like the church. Quite an irony, if one remembers that, among other things, science evolved because of the catholic church's plethora of dogmata. so, many creationists actually accept evolution, but reject the claim that it was all pure coincidence. WHAT is so incredibly bad about that? Oh, and don't even start with "scientific facts". There is NO proof for the impossibility of higher beings.
Since end of the 90s, the typical superheros like Superman, Wonder Woman etc. can no longer be counted as being from "our time", because they no longer fit in here. They fit perfectly in the second half of the 20th century, but it is a clear sign when people cannot imagine a Superman in its classical style to be hip today. The world changed, the classic heroes did not. One way how to do it right is Smallville: this is a Clark Kent that changed with the world.
I don't have enough traffic left to listen to a 30 MB MP3 file. Sorry.
However, the question remains unanswered: how to install XGL to use the propietary nvidia-glx drivers?
If Nat answers that in the MP3, sorry, can't listen to it, see above.
I can't use it, since I do have a Geforce 6600, and afaik I can't use XGL with the X.org server.
However, if I'm wrong, please post how it is possible to integrate XGL into an existing X.org server, so that I can use the nvidia glx module.
http://compression.ca/act/act-canterbury.html
RAR 2.x is easy to beat, RAR 3.x not, because it uses quite advanced PPM algorithms, which also explains the lack of speed.
German scientist Heim developed a strange theory in the 50ies of the 20th century. It would make it possible to manipulate gravity and reducing the objects mass to zero, allowing FTL travel. it does seem to be sincere, and not yet another magical star trek-science. anyone got more information about this one? is there real hope this one takes off?
How's that offspring doing?
I can't watch it here in Austria, so I'm curious if its good or not. Oh, I've read about some of its episodes, but this stuff with the Wraiths sounds kinda lame to me. Am I wrong?
Obviously, it is very difficult to add a new filesystem driver to Windows, since no specs are available. But what about a virtual drive? Daemon Tools emulates a DVD-ROM drive. Why can't we use this concept to circumvent the need for a driver? Develop a Windows Service which creates a virtual drive, lets say Drive X. In the Service, I can map Drive X to Partition Y. Obviously, I/O would not be as fast as with a native driver, but it should work, shouldnt it?
Space exploration is the last big frontier we've got for now. Face it: the life of slashdot average is often quite disappointing for him. Everything is trivial, so uninteresting. Nothing spectacular happens, one feels extremely small, economy degrades you to a customer, your dreams and fantasies are repeatedly destroyed. Escaping from this personal hell results in people hiking up to the Mount Everest. Is there anything valuable in going up there? It is a hell of an effort, but it is something BIG. That's the deal. Of course, not all humans behave this way, but what about the ones who do NOT want to give up their dreams and desires for new adventures? Yes, I know, the article does not postulate that, but it feels that way. It's the same as with adults telling a child that it is impossible for him to fly, no matter how hard he tries. Lindbergh didnt' buy it. See?:)
Re:Hmmm,. I wonder if it is very nVidia centric?
on
GPU Gems
·
· Score: 1
Currently GLslang is not an interesting option due to the fact that almost no drivers support it yet. HLSL, well, I dont use D3D, so its of no use for me. Cg is a valid choice I have if i want my shader code to work on my ti4400 and on my radeon9600. The only other option is to rewrite ALL shaders for both cards, which is a real pain in the ass (especially the fragment shader on the ti4400, which has to be constructed with NV texture shaders + register combiners). Fortunately, the ARB vertex programs are supported on both cards. Another option would be to rely solely on ARB vertex/fragment programs. Use Cg to create the ARB program code, optimize the code by hand, and there you go. However, I wonder if there is somebody who created an ATI profile. Since Cg is open source, it should be possible.
Re:Hmmm,. I wonder if it is very nVidia centric?
on
GPU Gems
·
· Score: 1
Dude, I'm using Cg. And i do have a RADEON 9600 PRO.
Wow, am I using some magic?
Or is it using the OpenGL ARB vertex/fragment program extensions?
So much for your hardware dependence.
Re:Hmmm,. I wonder if it is very nVidia centric?
on
GPU Gems
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Cg is still very useful if you intend to develop cross-platform shader-driven graphics apps. Plus, its also API-independent, which makes it the only viable alternative to rewriting all shaders for each API if you are about to write some API-independent graphics code.
Remember, GLSL support is still not widespread. Heck, even the ARB FPrograms arent supported on cards older than a radeon9500/geforceFX. If you do not want to develop half a dozen of different codepaths, use Cg.
The current crisis in the gaming industry does not surprise me. Today, games are primarily a product, not an entertainment. It costs a hell of a lot of money to develop a state-of-the-art game; this leads to a lack of creativity, since it is cheaper to rely on tried and true gameplay concepts than to innovate. With innovation, there is always the risk of people not accepting it. However, this leads to many similar games, people get used to this similarity, and become even less tolerant to new concepts. At the same time, the technology advances, games become more complex, costs raise etc.
I guess somewhere in there the industry lost the concept of joy. A game is.... well, a game!:) A game is supposed to be funny. I think things changed when the CEOs and lead designers in the game companies were no longer creative minds who created several games before (like Sid Meier), but managers and professional designers drilled to create "an economic and reliable video game product". And hey - I'm sick of playing games that feel primarily like a product, and not like a game.
I always wondered how one does come to code for a console. I can imagine that today people start at the PC, learning by doing. But what happens if the PC gaming market dies, and 3D PC cards become obsolete because no one plays at the PC? How is this supposed to help new programmers gain skills?
I mean, is there something like a free SDK for consoles? With emulator to test, just like it happens to be with cellphones? If not, how could I learn how to program for a PS2? I mean, I cannot imagine that Sony grants the newcomers enough time to gain the needed skills, do they?
You're wrong. It is not difficult to create 3D programs in Linux. Just use SDL or ClanLib and you're set. It is in fact just as easy as programming OpenGL in Windows. I'm doing this right now, coding OpenGL stuff in Anjuta, and it is doing very well. And, I have a Radeon 9600...
As for 3D hardware audio, you may be right. However, I dunno how the ALSA support for this is.
And, it is not true that DirectGraphics is light years ahead. See the features of OpenGL 1.5 and compare it with Direct3D9 - there is no "better" one, it's a draw.
According to the reports, the three countries will help their private sectors develop Linux, an open-source OS that can be copied and modified freely.
Dude, this is SLASHDOT. In Slashdot, EVERYONE knows what Linux is:)
I mean the look of the aliens. Have a look at most other scifi scenarios - most "aliens" look very human to me. Now, SG1 explains this very well: they ARE humans kidnapped thousands of years ago, some of them serving as hosts for a parasite with superpowers and genetic memory.
Now, please address the other issue:
Why does everyone speak English?! Its like if english would be a language widely used in the galaxy. This is plausible in far-future sets, but not when mankind just recently mastered FTL!
And no one can tell me that they learned the alien languages that quickly. Heck, it takes years to understand an ancient language on Earth - used by humans long ago. Now imagine if some aliens pass by. I bet it would take hundreds of years to establish a good communication between the species.
Slashdot Mirror
The "world" started with the Big Bang, according to current established scientific knowledge. Of course, there are theories saying otherwise (like, there was never a beginning, or that there was something before the big bang etc.), but they are highly controversial. For the record, I don't fully belive in the classic big-bang-started-all scenario.
Also, if there is no proof whether higher entities exist or not, one has to consider BOTH possibilities when it comes to topics like evolution. However, in 99% of all cases, the possibility of a higher being is excluded. And this is just plain wrong, because this just ends in another dogmatic belief.
So, on one side there are the christian fundis telling us that god exists and everyone must accept this or else they will go to hell. on the other side, there are scientists explicitely excluding the possibility of the existence of God, saying "THIS is the truth, everything else is WRONG" (despite the absence of a proof).
ultimately, we should stop thinking about the bad bad christian/islam fundis when the topic "religion" appears. it can actually be a very interesting topic, as long as no one falls into stereotypes or dogmatic beliefs.
Hey, I didn't mean it this way. But look at the real process of accepting new ideas. The theory of self-correction often does not work, because some influential scientists with an ego bigger than Jupiter refuse to admit that their theories were wrong. Of course, there is no point in accepting everything that claims to be The Next Big Thing, but there are so many papers being killed because of several ultraconservative scientists. So, the only way to get rid of them is to wait until they die. It is morbid, you are right.
I forgot his name, but once I heard an excellent comment about the REAL progress in science: "New theories do not get accepted because other scientists admit that the current ones are flawed. They get accepted because the scientists opposed to the new theories die out after a while, and the current theories with them."
"AT least the fundies don't try this horseshit on - either your stupid fairy tales are taken literally, or they're disregarded."
This is exactly the way fundis see things.
"Almighty being? Grow up."
So, where is the PROOF that such a being could not exist? Nobody knows why or how the world "started".
Interestingly, many creationists Slashdot is worrying about actually have a good point: there are far too many blind science-followers, taking CURRENT knowledge as a dogma, and considering unconventional possibilities like a higher intelligence that created the universe as a blasphemy - just like the church. Quite an irony, if one remembers that, among other things, science evolved because of the catholic church's plethora of dogmata. so, many creationists actually accept evolution, but reject the claim that it was all pure coincidence. WHAT is so incredibly bad about that?
Oh, and don't even start with "scientific facts". There is NO proof for the impossibility of higher beings.
Since end of the 90s, the typical superheros like Superman, Wonder Woman etc. can no longer be counted as being from "our time", because they no longer fit in here. They fit perfectly in the second half of the 20th century, but it is a clear sign when people cannot imagine a Superman in its classical style to be hip today. The world changed, the classic heroes did not. One way how to do it right is Smallville: this is a Clark Kent that changed with the world.
I don't have enough traffic left to listen to a 30 MB MP3 file. Sorry. However, the question remains unanswered: how to install XGL to use the propietary nvidia-glx drivers? If Nat answers that in the MP3, sorry, can't listen to it, see above.
I can't use it, since I do have a Geforce 6600, and afaik I can't use XGL with the X.org server. However, if I'm wrong, please post how it is possible to integrate XGL into an existing X.org server, so that I can use the nvidia glx module.
http://compression.ca/act/act-canterbury.html RAR 2.x is easy to beat, RAR 3.x not, because it uses quite advanced PPM algorithms, which also explains the lack of speed.
German scientist Heim developed a strange theory in the 50ies of the 20th century. It would make it possible to manipulate gravity and reducing the objects mass to zero, allowing FTL travel. it does seem to be sincere, and not yet another magical star trek-science. anyone got more information about this one? is there real hope this one takes off?
How's that offspring doing? I can't watch it here in Austria, so I'm curious if its good or not. Oh, I've read about some of its episodes, but this stuff with the Wraiths sounds kinda lame to me. Am I wrong?
SCO can sue you for using a patented limb design called "h-a-n-d".
Acme Working on Long-Term.... oh wait.
I for one welcome our new copy protection overlords.
Obviously, it is very difficult to add a new filesystem driver to Windows, since no specs are available.
But what about a virtual drive? Daemon Tools emulates a DVD-ROM drive. Why can't we use this concept to circumvent the need for a driver? Develop a Windows Service which creates a virtual drive, lets say Drive X. In the Service, I can map Drive X to Partition Y. Obviously, I/O would not be as fast as with a native driver, but it should work, shouldnt it?
Space exploration is the last big frontier we've got for now. :)
Face it: the life of slashdot average is often quite disappointing for him. Everything is trivial, so uninteresting. Nothing spectacular happens, one feels extremely small, economy degrades you to a customer, your dreams and fantasies are repeatedly destroyed. Escaping from this personal hell results in people hiking up to the Mount Everest. Is there anything valuable in going up there? It is a hell of an effort, but it is something BIG. That's the deal.
Of course, not all humans behave this way, but what about the ones who do NOT want to give up their dreams and desires for new adventures? Yes, I know, the article does not postulate that, but it feels that way. It's the same as with adults telling a child that it is impossible for him to fly, no matter how hard he tries.
Lindbergh didnt' buy it. See?
Currently GLslang is not an interesting option due to the fact that almost no drivers support it yet.
HLSL, well, I dont use D3D, so its of no use for me.
Cg is a valid choice I have if i want my shader code to work on my ti4400 and on my radeon9600. The only other option is to rewrite ALL shaders for both cards, which is a real pain in the ass (especially the fragment shader on the ti4400, which has to be constructed with NV texture shaders + register combiners). Fortunately, the ARB vertex programs are supported on both cards.
Another option would be to rely solely on ARB vertex/fragment programs. Use Cg to create the ARB program code, optimize the code by hand, and there you go.
However, I wonder if there is somebody who created an ATI profile. Since Cg is open source, it should be possible.
Dude, I'm using Cg. And i do have a RADEON 9600 PRO. Wow, am I using some magic? Or is it using the OpenGL ARB vertex/fragment program extensions? So much for your hardware dependence.
Cg is still very useful if you intend to develop cross-platform shader-driven graphics apps. Plus, its also API-independent, which makes it the only viable alternative to rewriting all shaders for each API if you are about to write some API-independent graphics code. Remember, GLSL support is still not widespread. Heck, even the ARB FPrograms arent supported on cards older than a radeon9500/geforceFX. If you do not want to develop half a dozen of different codepaths, use Cg.
Uh... yes. I meant "supposed to be fun". Thanks :)
The current crisis in the gaming industry does not surprise me. Today, games are primarily a product, not an entertainment. It costs a hell of a lot of money to develop a state-of-the-art game; this leads to a lack of creativity, since it is cheaper to rely on tried and true gameplay concepts than to innovate. With innovation, there is always the risk of people not accepting it. However, this leads to many similar games, people get used to this similarity, and become even less tolerant to new concepts. At the same time, the technology advances, games become more complex, costs raise etc. I guess somewhere in there the industry lost the concept of joy. A game is .... well, a game! :) A game is supposed to be funny. I think things changed when the CEOs and lead designers in the game companies were no longer creative minds who created several games before (like Sid Meier), but managers and professional designers drilled to create "an economic and reliable video game product". And hey - I'm sick of playing games that feel primarily like a product, and not like a game.
DirectX 1 wasnt called that way, it was the "Game SDK" or something, but not DirectX 1. DirectX 4 never existed.
I always wondered how one does come to code for a console. I can imagine that today people start at the PC, learning by doing. But what happens if the PC gaming market dies, and 3D PC cards become obsolete because no one plays at the PC? How is this supposed to help new programmers gain skills? I mean, is there something like a free SDK for consoles? With emulator to test, just like it happens to be with cellphones? If not, how could I learn how to program for a PS2? I mean, I cannot imagine that Sony grants the newcomers enough time to gain the needed skills, do they?
You're wrong. It is not difficult to create 3D programs in Linux. Just use SDL or ClanLib and you're set. It is in fact just as easy as programming OpenGL in Windows. I'm doing this right now, coding OpenGL stuff in Anjuta, and it is doing very well. And, I have a Radeon 9600...
As for 3D hardware audio, you may be right. However, I dunno how the ALSA support for this is.
And, it is not true that DirectGraphics is light years ahead. See the features of OpenGL 1.5 and compare it with Direct3D9 - there is no "better" one, it's a draw.
According to the reports, the three countries will help their private sectors develop Linux, an open-source OS that can be copied and modified freely. Dude, this is SLASHDOT. In Slashdot, EVERYONE knows what Linux is :)
I mean the look of the aliens. Have a look at most other scifi scenarios - most "aliens" look very human to me. Now, SG1 explains this very well: they ARE humans kidnapped thousands of years ago, some of them serving as hosts for a parasite with superpowers and genetic memory. Now, please address the other issue: Why does everyone speak English?! Its like if english would be a language widely used in the galaxy. This is plausible in far-future sets, but not when mankind just recently mastered FTL! And no one can tell me that they learned the alien languages that quickly. Heck, it takes years to understand an ancient language on Earth - used by humans long ago. Now imagine if some aliens pass by. I bet it would take hundreds of years to establish a good communication between the species.