> using hex can be a huge mental barrier for some.
While true, hexidecimal (hex) can also teach constant-bit-decoding / variable-bit-decoding and about permutations / combinations! The _interesting_ bit is how SIMILAR the code is.
To convert a hex number to decimal you can "peel" off the digits by div-mod. Essentially you are using a constant-bit-decoding -- every hex number has a fixed number of bits -- you divide the result by a constant "base" and peel off the digits in reverse order. The standard hex number is a permutation in that you DO allow duplicate digits.
Conversely, if you want to print the i'th "enumeration" of a Combination, that is, where duplicates are NOT allowed, instead of dividing by a constant "base" what you do instead is after every division you decrease the base by one.
I.e. Say you have 3 digits { A, B, C }. How many different ways can combine 2 of them?
i'th | Permutation | Combination 0: AA -n/a-// not a valid combination 1: AB AB 2: AC AC 3: BA BA 4: BB -n/a-// not a valid combination 5: BC BC 6: CA CA 7: CB CB 8: CC -n/a-// not a valid combination
With permutations there are: 3^2 = 9 possible states. With combinations there are: 3! = 6 possible states.
It is easy enough to extend this principal to hex. The fun part comes when given the i'th iteration then print off either the permutation or combination string! Here is a code fragment -- again look how much the code is almost identical:
// Also known as: itoa() ! void Constant_Bit_Decoding( int n, char * const pOutput_, const int nBase ) {
int d, r;// d = digit, r = remainer, n = the initial/new result.
char aDigits[] = "0123456789ABCDEF";// is constant
int nDigits = 0;// variable length output!
char *pDst = pOutput_;
if( nBase > 0 )
do
{
d = n / nBase;// nBase is constant
r = n % nBase;
n/= nBase;
*pDst++ = aDigits [ r ];
// Permutation: re-use all elements
nDigits++;
} while( n > 0 );
String_Reverse( pOutput_, nDigits );
*pDst = 0; }
// Print Combination enumeration! void Variable_Bit_Decoding( int n, char * const pOutput_, int nBase ) {
int d, r;
char aDigits[] = "0123456789ABCDEF";// modified!
int nDigits = nBase;// constant length output!
char *pDst = pOutput_;
if( nBase > 0 )
do
{
d = n / nBase;// nBase is variable!
r = n % nBase;
n/= nBase;
*pDst++ = aDigits[ r ];
// Combination: Remove 'r'th element
int nDigits = nBase - r - 1;
> NCSoft could rationalize that they just needed to find the right subject, rather than a different playstyle, to make an MMO popular in the Western market.
I disagree. Part of the problem is that NCSoft has traditionally had shitty UI design and implementation along with some bone-headed game design principles. (i.e. The retarded Shaman's Rookery jumping puzzle in Guild Wars 2 http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Shamans_Rookery )
I've been playing Guild Wars 2 for the last few weeks and the UI is such an ass-step backwards compared to other MMOs that the game is exceedingly frustrating because of it. They haven't learned that the bar has been significantly raised and they are being left behind. This is one of the _few_ things WoW did _right_.
There are 3 hurdles MMOs need to overcome:
* Tech * Good Game Design & Positive User Experience * UI
Almost everyone understands how to implement the tech now-a-days so that is (usually) a non-issue.
I believe User Interface plays a larger part in the success of a MMO then people give it credit for. Why? Because it is THE _primary_ interface with how one interacts with the game. If you are constantly fighting the game's UI are you really going to "put up with it in the hopes that the game is fun?" The answer is usually no. EVE Online suffers from this -- the game is fun -- BUT the learning curve is a fucking vertical cliff. Most people are not prepared to "learning a 2nd job" just to play the game to RELAX.
Good Game Design is not enough these days when there are other games that involved less grinding, and are more fun. GW2 is 50/50 hit/miss.
Here are some of the few things GW2 did RIGHT:
+ Shared XP and instanced-resources. No longer do you have to worry about somebody ninja-killing or ninja-looting. This encourages people to work together and help each other out -- as there is no penalty for doing so. I wish every MMO did this.
+ Another positive thing GW2 nailed was dynamic world events. Again, I wish every MMO did this.
+ No monthly fee! There is no pressure to "log on" this month because you are being nickled and dimed. You play whenever you want, anytime.
+ Fast patching system.
Example of Negative User Experiences:
- MMOs suck because someone else ninja'd your name. At least in WoW you can use European glyphs with diacritics but in GW2 you are limited to ASCII characters. Even with being allowed to select a "first last" name option, MMO's are not interested in _streamlining_ what _players_ want -- the ability to identify with their characters - both during character creation and afterwards. We STILL are forced to play the idiotic "I registered my favorite nick name before you did!" in MMOs.
On the plus side, part of the charm of CoH was that players became deeply attached to characters that they could customize and look unique. GW2 is partially pushing the boundary here by giving people _some_ choices in looking unique with the (limited) dye'd colors more so then other MMOs.
- Your level is automatically downgraded per region if you are too high. This is one of those "Sounds good on paper, but shitty in practice" things. If a player is struggling to finish off a region they do not have the option of leveling up and coming back to it due to the idiotic "automatic level downgrade". ArenaNet's excuse is "We have no end game -- the whole game is challenging." I understand that logic but sadly GW2 becomes one boring grind-fest because of it.
- One example out of thousands of shitty UI in GW2. Whenever you play a different character it is listed first and all your characters are shuffled around. Diablo 3 did the same thing and everyone bitched at Blizzard to fix it. Which they did. How many YEARS have MMOs had to solve this -exact- problem and the dev's STILL don't "get it" with the common UI problems??
It is the _million_ little things of User Interface and User Experience
> what NCsoft doesn't realize is that at this point, we have just as much stake in the game as they do (some would argue more),
You are 100% correct. Sadly, business (& artists) just don't understand the aspect of "community".
The game without its players is just a ghost in code. Likewise, you could have the greatest movie ever, but without anyone seeing it, parody it, it wouldn't really mean anything.
Part of the problem is that we are moving into a new paradigm -- "Community Content Augmentation." Why do games that support user-made custom maps / levels tend to stick around YEARS after? Because people love to "play" in that particular universe.
i.e. Person X or Company Y produces a product. It is popular. The community _expands_ and _adds_ to it. Even more players buy the "product" because there is a _wealth_ of community content. In on sense "ownership" of the game has partially transferred to the community who bring extra value to it. Valve learnt this long ago when almost anyone could run a game server. The Steam Workshop is a fantastic modern way to help give what consumers what: more (original) content ! When you have a rating system then one can filter out the S/N.
Slashdot is the same paradigm. Anyone is allowed to add to the discussion. Ignoring the fact that trolls "subtract" from the discussion,/.'s wealth is the user content ALONG with the ability to filter / prioritize it.
Blizzard _partially_ understood the value of community when they allowed UI Mods. Now, some of the best mods are built into the game. That is a Win-Win for everyone.
Sadly, too many MMO companies just don't understand the value of community.
It would be interesting to have the facts from the other side of the story -- how much was the revenue, profit and expenses for CoH ?
If there ever was a bastard child between Turn-Based games and RTS it would be social toys such as FarmVille. Social games are a total perversion of good game design. They disrespect the player and the player's time in order to make a quick buck.
i.e. 1. There is no way to "win" at Farmville. 2. There is no way to give items to your friends in "social" "games".
The sooner this "genre" dies the sooner players can play GOOD games without all the microtransaction and In-Game Purchases bullshit.
Team Fortress 2 is the _right_ way to do it. The items & hats don't really give you that much of an advantage. Plus you can *gasp* trade for them, collect them, or craft them.
Thankfully, there is the open source jkdefrag now... http://www.kessels.com/jkdefrag/.. of course with SSDs defragging is slowlying becoming a moot point.;-)
> It is one one of the lighter ones though compared to older versions of Norton and McCrappy.
Exactly. For gamers it is "good enough" -- meaning it does the basics without doesn't grind your system to a halt like that crap Norton and McAfee used to do.
> You have to beat Microsoft Office ^H^H^H Outlook. FTFY. Office per say isn't the problem -- the integrated calendar / contacts of Exchange is the problem that sadly Open Source (OS) hasn't quite solved (yet).:-(
> is nothing compared to the productivity you'd give up to lose Excel. Having used Excel since before verison 5 ( http://www.cpearson.com/excel/versions.htm ) I find OpenOffice, sorry, Libre Office to be better in some ways and worse in others. LibreOffice is a perfectly fine replacement for Excel.
IMHO the main problem is Power Point which all the PHB seem to love. Maybe there is an OS replacement but I haven't seen one that will natively support.pptx properly.
> Linux isn't being ignored because it's bad - it's being ignored because it does not contain a worthwhile replacement to the jobs people are already doing That is exactly right. If someone were to focus on Enterprise Linux providing all the functionality and apps that the full Office + Exchange does then businesses would switch over to Linux.
> the cost of a $90 Windows license is nothing compared to the productivity you'd give Apologies to whoever recently posted this link but that is not quite true. For a "small business" the costs of licenses add up that could be used towards upgrading / replacing machines.
> but IP itself in and of itself is not an obstruction to progress.
You want to try to tell that to Carmack who has an algorithm named after him (Carmack's Reverse) that he independently invented and he CAN'T use it due to idiotic IP laws.
We were prepared to use a two-pass algorithm that gave equivalent results at a speed hit, but we negotiated the deal with Creative so that we were able to use the zfail method without having to actually pay any cash. It was tempting to take a stand and say that our products were never going to use any advanced Creative/3dlabs products because of their position on patenting gaming software algorithms, but that would only have hurt the users. "
So again, what are you smoking by claiming "IP itself in and of itself is not an obstruction to progress."
I'll probably get down voted but I would rather point out the dangers of what Feynman called "Cargo Cult Science"...
> What if the physics of a distant galaxy is different from the one around here? It is. Wake me up when Scientists have discovered the strong-intergalactic and weak-intergalactic force, let alone White Holes.
> We can now see more or less to the edge of the observable Universe Again, another assumption. There is no "edge". You keep assuming a linear Euclidean space/time. That is akin to asking "What happened 'before' the beginning of the universe. There was NO BEFORE."
Any contrary view that doesn't fit into the presupposed current dogma is ignored. ( http://electric-cosmos.org/arp.htm ) Ergo, the "Age" of the Universe is significantly off by ~7 billion years because Scientists are making some pretty major incomplete assumptions about red-shift and don't understand the Cycle of the Universes. The fact that the Mayan estimated the age of the universe at 16 billion years (which is slightly more accurate) then the SWAG (scientific wild-ass guess) of the current 13.7 billion year old estimate of Science ( http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/media/060915/index.html ) should say something.
> Unless we discover infinite speeds Again, that is an assumption. You don't *need* infinite speeds for FTL travel. You are limiting your thinking to moving in space-time, but it is also possible to move in the reciprocal time-space. The *analogy* of the classic "worm hole" is a good example.
> then we would fill it in a few millennia - but if that was possible odds are someone else would have done it already. 1) I don't think you realize just HOW big space is, 2) The Universe ALREADY IS populated. We've only searched a TINY, TINY, TINY fraction of the physical dimension again using assumptions of what we THINK the properties of alien life would be. This story of using hairspray is proof of this idiocracy.
You'll have proof of this in ~20 years that we are not alone.
> So we will forever know (through observation and direct contact) only very, very small part of the Universe. Again, another assumption. My advice is that there are two words one should remove from ones vocab: never and forever, because sooner or later, one or the other tends to get proven wrong.
> But it does not mean we are absolutely powerless to comprehend it. Agreed. Science is the process (journey) of removing ignorance one at a time.
> You underestimate the amount of thought that was,is and will be spent on the assumption in question. No I do not. You are underestimating ALL *your* *assumptions* AND the implications.
UNTIL we have *physically* BEEN there Scientists need to be honest and act with integrity "We.. just.. don't.. know." It is fine to make implications but being married to Scientific dogma only leads to a rather rude divorce when new facts are discovered.
The first step towards knowledge is to admit "I don't know."
> Sharing code and designs predates computers by many years, hell, in many ways, it goes back to the begining of recorded history.
That is correct. The basis of civilization is built upon sharing. We shared (copied) ideas and technology: wheel, mathematics, education, language, philosophy, science, etc. By doing so EVERYONE benefits. The philosophy is WIN-WIN.
Conversely closed source is an archaic greed based philosophy - WIN-LOSE.
Money is a great motivator and provides nice incentive BUT at some point it is no longer enough. At the end of the day the "Right Thing" to do is to share, not maintain artificial illusions of power and control.
Function temperature provides hints to the compiler on what code should be inlined.
The back-end of a compiler has a lot of room for generating optimal code IF it understands the target hardware. i.e. Minimizing register spill is extremely important on x86 with its lack of GP registers, reordering instructions to minimize pipeline stalls, known when/where to issue read/write barriers, etc.
One of the major features / problems in C is that arrays = pointers. This is a MAJOR headache WRT to optimizations in a C compiler. In a "clean" language without pointers the compiler is able to strongly infer a lot of assertions; once you throw pointers in the mix the potential for optimizations goes right out the window since the compiler is no longer able to "pre-calculate" offsets.
The lack of strong type inference in C also limits its optimizations.
The LISP / Haskell guys don't have pointers and as such they force the burden on the compiler to "churn" through the type inference system in order to generate optimal code. This leads to a smaller, cleaner compiler, at the expense of a developer needing tons of RAM and CPU to just get the same level optimization a C compiler can do in half the time.
At the end of the day it is all about instruction ordering and caching. Keeping track at what time are what variables "live" and where.
Slashdot Mirror
Exactly.
If they are "losing" money due to "piracy" then why does Piracy NEVER show up on the balance books for EACH movie?
> using hex can be a huge mental barrier for some.
While true, hexidecimal (hex) can also teach constant-bit-decoding / variable-bit-decoding and about permutations / combinations! The _interesting_ bit is how SIMILAR the code is.
As we all know:
Decimal numbers go: 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, ... 19, 20, 21, ... 99, 100, 101, ...
Hex numbers go: 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, A, B, C, D, E, F, 10, 11, 12, ... 19, 1A, 1B, 1C, 1D, 1E, 1F, 20, ... FF, 100, 101, ...
To convert a hex number to decimal you can "peel" off the digits by div-mod. Essentially you are using a constant-bit-decoding -- every hex number has a fixed number of bits -- you divide the result by a constant "base" and peel off the digits in reverse order. The standard hex number is a permutation in that you DO allow duplicate digits.
Conversely, if you want to print the i'th "enumeration" of a Combination, that is, where duplicates are NOT allowed, instead of dividing by a constant "base" what you do instead is after every division you decrease the base by one.
I.e. Say you have 3 digits { A, B, C }. How many different ways can combine 2 of them?
i'th | Permutation | Combination // not a valid combination // not a valid combination // not a valid combination
0: AA -n/a-
1: AB AB
2: AC AC
3: BA BA
4: BB -n/a-
5: BC BC
6: CA CA
7: CB CB
8: CC -n/a-
With permutations there are: 3^2 = 9 possible states.
With combinations there are: 3! = 6 possible states.
It is easy enough to extend this principal to hex. The fun part comes when given the i'th iteration then print off either the permutation or combination string! Here is a code fragment -- again look how much the code is almost identical:
> Shouldn't they still need offices in North America to support them?
ArenaNet, who developed Guild War 2, is in Washington
Paragon Studios, who developed CoH, was in California.
> NCSoft could rationalize that they just needed to find the right subject, rather than a different playstyle, to make an MMO popular in the Western market.
I disagree. Part of the problem is that NCSoft has traditionally had shitty UI design and implementation along with some bone-headed game design principles. (i.e. The retarded Shaman's Rookery jumping puzzle in Guild Wars 2 http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Shamans_Rookery )
I've been playing Guild Wars 2 for the last few weeks and the UI is such an ass-step backwards compared to other MMOs that the game is exceedingly frustrating because of it. They haven't learned that the bar has been significantly raised and they are being left behind. This is one of the _few_ things WoW did _right_.
There are 3 hurdles MMOs need to overcome:
* Tech
* Good Game Design & Positive User Experience
* UI
Almost everyone understands how to implement the tech now-a-days so that is (usually) a non-issue.
I believe User Interface plays a larger part in the success of a MMO then people give it credit for. Why? Because it is THE _primary_ interface with how one interacts with the game. If you are constantly fighting the game's UI are you really going to "put up with it in the hopes that the game is fun?" The answer is usually no. EVE Online suffers from this -- the game is fun -- BUT the learning curve is a fucking vertical cliff. Most people are not prepared to "learning a 2nd job" just to play the game to RELAX.
Good Game Design is not enough these days when there are other games that involved less grinding, and are more fun. GW2 is 50/50 hit/miss.
Here are some of the few things GW2 did RIGHT:
+ Shared XP and instanced-resources. No longer do you have to worry about somebody ninja-killing or ninja-looting. This encourages people to work together and help each other out -- as there is no penalty for doing so. I wish every MMO did this.
+ Another positive thing GW2 nailed was dynamic world events. Again, I wish every MMO did this.
+ No monthly fee! There is no pressure to "log on" this month because you are being nickled and dimed. You play whenever you want, anytime.
+ Fast patching system.
Example of Negative User Experiences:
- MMOs suck because someone else ninja'd your name. At least in WoW you can use European glyphs with diacritics but in GW2 you are limited to ASCII characters. Even with being allowed to select a "first last" name option, MMO's are not interested in _streamlining_ what _players_ want -- the ability to identify with their characters - both during character creation and afterwards. We STILL are forced to play the idiotic "I registered my favorite nick name before you did!" in MMOs.
On the plus side, part of the charm of CoH was that players became deeply attached to characters that they could customize and look unique. GW2 is partially pushing the boundary here by giving people _some_ choices in looking unique with the (limited) dye'd colors more so then other MMOs.
- Your level is automatically downgraded per region if you are too high. This is one of those "Sounds good on paper, but shitty in practice" things. If a player is struggling to finish off a region they do not have the option of leveling up and coming back to it due to the idiotic "automatic level downgrade". ArenaNet's excuse is "We have no end game -- the whole game is challenging." I understand that logic but sadly GW2 becomes one boring grind-fest because of it.
- One example out of thousands of shitty UI in GW2. Whenever you play a different character it is listed first and all your characters are shuffled around. Diablo 3 did the same thing and everyone bitched at Blizzard to fix it. Which they did. How many YEARS have MMOs had to solve this -exact- problem and the dev's STILL don't "get it" with the common UI problems??
It is the _million_ little things of User Interface and User Experience
> what NCsoft doesn't realize is that at this point, we have just as much stake in the game as they do (some would argue more),
You are 100% correct. Sadly, business (& artists) just don't understand the aspect of "community".
The game without its players is just a ghost in code. Likewise, you could have the greatest movie ever, but without anyone seeing it, parody it, it wouldn't really mean anything.
Part of the problem is that we are moving into a new paradigm -- "Community Content Augmentation." Why do games that support user-made custom maps / levels tend to stick around YEARS after? Because people love to "play" in that particular universe.
i.e. Person X or Company Y produces a product. It is popular. The community _expands_ and _adds_ to it. Even more players buy the "product" because there is a _wealth_ of community content. In on sense "ownership" of the game has partially transferred to the community who bring extra value to it. Valve learnt this long ago when almost anyone could run a game server. The Steam Workshop is a fantastic modern way to help give what consumers what: more (original) content ! When you have a rating system then one can filter out the S/N.
Slashdot is the same paradigm. Anyone is allowed to add to the discussion. Ignoring the fact that trolls "subtract" from the discussion, /.'s wealth is the user content ALONG with the ability to filter / prioritize it.
Blizzard _partially_ understood the value of community when they allowed UI Mods. Now, some of the best mods are built into the game. That is a Win-Win for everyone.
Sadly, too many MMO companies just don't understand the value of community.
It would be interesting to have the facts from the other side of the story -- how much was the revenue, profit and expenses for CoH ?
/sarcasm Uh, right, because clearly _what_ planet you die on is an indicator of intelligence or psychology. Oh wait, it is not.
Indeed.
History of Google vs Yahoo homepage over the years ...
http://img361.imageshack.us/img361/443/yahoovsgoogle1996to2005ys4.png
Google focused on doing one thing extremely well. Yahoo is a perfect example of the bloated web 2.0 in search of monetization.
/sarcasm Everyone listen to the anonymous coward -- clearly a plain text file has a virus!
Maybe one of these days he'll have some balls to link to a _working_ hosts file that we all can use.
Isn't that the point of kids? So you have someone to look after you when you get old? ;-) I jest, I jest.
> They pioneered casual gaming
Social "Games" are neither Social nor Games. They "pioneered" casual game the same way casino's "pioneered" The Skinner Box. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operant_conditioning_chamber )
If there ever was a bastard child between Turn-Based games and RTS it would be social toys such as FarmVille. Social games are a total perversion of good game design. They disrespect the player and the player's time in order to make a quick buck.
i.e.
1. There is no way to "win" at Farmville.
2. There is no way to give items to your friends in "social" "games".
The sooner this "genre" dies the sooner players can play GOOD games without all the microtransaction and In-Game Purchases bullshit.
Team Fortress 2 is the _right_ way to do it. The items & hats don't really give you that much of an advantage. Plus you can *gasp* trade for them, collect them, or craft them.
More like stories need a "dislike" or mod option: -1 EditorTooLazy
I sadly concur. /. has become a joke (of its former glory.)
Let some of us who are karma capped double check the stories OR allow us to post a SUMMARY of all the comments.
> A good hosts file will be more effective in the long run than any AV software you install :-)
FTFY.
i.e.
http://winhelp2002.mvps.org/hosts.htm
> I remember how under Windows NT, the only method of defragmenting the filesystem was to reformat and start over, unless you bought Norton.
Did you miss Diskeeper? :-) (Because Windows NT 3.51 did't even have an API for moving data clusters.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disk_Defragmenter_(Windows)
Thankfully, there is the open source jkdefrag now ... .. of course with SSDs defragging is slowlying becoming a moot point. ;-)
http://www.kessels.com/jkdefrag/
> It is one one of the lighter ones though compared to older versions of Norton and McCrappy.
Exactly. For gamers it is "good enough" -- meaning it does the basics without doesn't grind your system to a halt like that crap Norton and McAfee used to do.
> What's next, Ms paint found to be inferior to Photoshop in comprehensive image-editing software test?
You may jest but at least this guy would disagree ;-)
How to paint the MONA LISA with MS PAINT
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uk2sPl_Z7ZU
> You have to beat Microsoft Office ^H^H^H Outlook. :-(
FTFY. Office per say isn't the problem -- the integrated calendar / contacts of Exchange is the problem that sadly Open Source (OS) hasn't quite solved (yet).
> is nothing compared to the productivity you'd give up to lose Excel.
Having used Excel since before verison 5 ( http://www.cpearson.com/excel/versions.htm ) I find OpenOffice, sorry, Libre Office to be better in some ways and worse in others. LibreOffice is a perfectly fine replacement for Excel.
IMHO the main problem is Power Point which all the PHB seem to love. Maybe there is an OS replacement but I haven't seen one that will natively support .pptx properly.
> Linux isn't being ignored because it's bad - it's being ignored because it does not contain a worthwhile replacement to the jobs people are already doing
That is exactly right. If someone were to focus on Enterprise Linux providing all the functionality and apps that the full Office + Exchange does then businesses would switch over to Linux.
> the cost of a $90 Windows license is nothing compared to the productivity you'd give
Apologies to whoever recently posted this link but that is not quite true. For a "small business" the costs of licenses add up that could be used towards upgrading / replacing machines.
"Newsmaker: Rockin' on without Microsoft"
http://news.cnet.com/2008-1082_3-5065859.html
> far too many of the people who call themselves "skeptics" are in fact not skeptics at all
Sadly yes. :-/ The correct term is Pseudo-Skeptic or Irrational Rationalists.
i.e. see Sofka's excellent "Myths of Skepticism" whitepaper.
http://homepages.rpi.edu/~sofkam/papers/skeptik.html
or Wu's very interesting essay which despite it being on a different topic altogether lays out the problems of pseudoskeptics.
http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/Introduction.htm
Great quote BTW !
> but IP itself in and of itself is not an obstruction to progress.
You want to try to tell that to Carmack who has an algorithm named after him (Carmack's Reverse) that he independently invented and he CAN'T use it due to idiotic IP laws.
* Description of his notes independently (re)discovering the algorithm
http://wayback.archive.org/web/jsp/Interstitial.jsp?seconds=5&date=1233022175000&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdeveloper.nvidia.com%2Fattach%2F6832&target=http%3A%2F%2Fweb.archive.org%2Fweb%2F20090127020935%2Fhttp%3A%2F%2Fdeveloper.nvidia.com%2Fattach%2F6832
The patent in question:
* http://www.google.com/patents/US6384822
Quoting John Carmack:
* http://techreport.com/news/7113/creative-patents-carmack-reverse
So again, what are you smoking by claiming "IP itself in and of itself is not an obstruction to progress."
> You know what else civilization requires? An economic model.
Citation.
Hint: When was money invented.
> Copyright is the working model for digital media that allows creators to get paid for their work.
Want to tell that to the Fashion Industry?
http://www.ted.com/talks/johanna_blakley_lessons_from_fashion_s_free_culture.html
I'll probably get down voted but I would rather point out the dangers of what Feynman called "Cargo Cult Science" ...
> What if the physics of a distant galaxy is different from the one around here?
It is. Wake me up when Scientists have discovered the strong-intergalactic and weak-intergalactic force, let alone White Holes.
> We can now see more or less to the edge of the observable Universe
Again, another assumption. There is no "edge". You keep assuming a linear Euclidean space/time. That is akin to asking "What happened 'before' the beginning of the universe. There was NO BEFORE."
Any contrary view that doesn't fit into the presupposed current dogma is ignored. ( http://electric-cosmos.org/arp.htm ) Ergo, the "Age" of the Universe is significantly off by ~7 billion years because Scientists are making some pretty major incomplete assumptions about red-shift and don't understand the Cycle of the Universes. The fact that the Mayan estimated the age of the universe at 16 billion years (which is slightly more accurate) then the SWAG (scientific wild-ass guess) of the current 13.7 billion year old estimate of Science ( http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/media/060915/index.html ) should say something.
> Unless we discover infinite speeds
Again, that is an assumption. You don't *need* infinite speeds for FTL travel. You are limiting your thinking to moving in space-time, but it is also possible to move in the reciprocal time-space. The *analogy* of the classic "worm hole" is a good example.
> then we would fill it in a few millennia - but if that was possible odds are someone else would have done it already.
1) I don't think you realize just HOW big space is,
2) The Universe ALREADY IS populated. We've only searched a TINY, TINY, TINY fraction of the physical dimension again using assumptions of what we THINK the properties of alien life would be. This story of using hairspray is proof of this idiocracy.
You'll have proof of this in ~20 years that we are not alone.
> So we will forever know (through observation and direct contact) only very, very small part of the Universe.
Again, another assumption. My advice is that there are two words one should remove from ones vocab: never and forever, because sooner or later, one or the other tends to get proven wrong.
> But it does not mean we are absolutely powerless to comprehend it.
Agreed. Science is the process (journey) of removing ignorance one at a time.
> You underestimate the amount of thought that was,is and will be spent on the assumption in question.
No I do not. You are underestimating ALL *your* *assumptions* AND the implications.
UNTIL we have *physically* BEEN there Scientists need to be honest and act with integrity "We .. just .. don't .. know." It is fine to make implications but being married to Scientific dogma only leads to a rather rude divorce when new facts are discovered.
The first step towards knowledge is to admit "I don't know."
> Sharing code and designs predates computers by many years, hell, in many ways, it goes back to the begining of recorded history.
That is correct. The basis of civilization is built upon sharing. We shared (copied) ideas and technology: wheel, mathematics, education, language, philosophy, science, etc. By doing so EVERYONE benefits. The philosophy is WIN-WIN.
Conversely closed source is an archaic greed based philosophy - WIN-LOSE.
Money is a great motivator and provides nice incentive BUT at some point it is no longer enough. At the end of the day the "Right Thing" to do is to share, not maintain artificial illusions of power and control.
> Physics and chemistry work virtually the same way everywhere.
That is a pretty BIG assumption considering Scientists only know about %0.0000001 of the universe.
> C can't really be hugely optimized either,
You've never worked on a C/C++ compiler have you? :-)
C most definitely can be sped up. Why do you think we even have the "restrict" keyword?
http://cellperformance.beyond3d.com/articles/2006/05/demystifying-the-restrict-keyword.html
Function temperature provides hints to the compiler on what code should be inlined.
The back-end of a compiler has a lot of room for generating optimal code IF it understands the target hardware. i.e. Minimizing register spill is extremely important on x86 with its lack of GP registers, reordering instructions to minimize pipeline stalls, known when/where to issue read/write barriers, etc.
One of the major features / problems in C is that arrays = pointers. This is a MAJOR headache WRT to optimizations in a C compiler. In a "clean" language without pointers the compiler is able to strongly infer a lot of assertions; once you throw pointers in the mix the potential for optimizations goes right out the window since the compiler is no longer able to "pre-calculate" offsets.
The lack of strong type inference in C also limits its optimizations.
The LISP / Haskell guys don't have pointers and as such they force the burden on the compiler to "churn" through the type inference system in order to generate optimal code. This leads to a smaller, cleaner compiler, at the expense of a developer needing tons of RAM and CPU to just get the same level optimization a C compiler can do in half the time.
At the end of the day it is all about instruction ordering and caching. Keeping track at what time are what variables "live" and where.