...That way, at least SOMEONE will set foot on Mars in my lifetime. I mean, jeez, Arthur C. Clarke thought we'd be to Saturn by now, and we probably would be if we'd kept up what we were doing in the 60's.
Ever gone into a studio to record? It's EXPENSIVE, and it takes a lot of work, much more work than what goes into any live performance. Artists should get money for their studio-recorded works just like their live works. The trick is, how can we integrate that into a P2P model?
I propose subscription-based P2P networks, where you can pay $x/month to download music files (preferably Q5 or higher OGGs) encoded straight from the digital masters.
Or here's an even better idea. I don't have a link, but I've read articles about the damage that hard limiting is doing to our music, and I'm inclined to agree. What if we could get OGGs of music that WASN'T hard-limited to be the "loudest CD out there"? I'd pay for THAT, to be able to hear music with actual dynamics again.
Put a locked-down box on windows-update.com that logs all the IP addresses it gets DOSed from, then trace them back to the actual users whose machines were compromised. Then revoke all of those users' XP licenses for being bloody stupid morons who don't know how to apply a patch.
There is an unlimited supply of power in the universe
Not so. The amount of power available in the universe is the difference between the area of the largest potential energy and the area of the least potential energy. When we generate electricity we move energy from areas of high potential energy (uranium, coal, etc.) to areas of low potential energy (our houses). This continues until the uranium has exactly as much potential energy as our house, at which point we can't do anything more. This will continue throughout the universe until the entire universe is one giant region of uniform energy. This is all suggested by the second law of thermodynamics.
Admittedly, this will be several trillion years in the future, and the human race will likely be extinct, or will have evolved into star children or whatever (for my favorite scenario, read "The Last Question" by Isaac Asimov). But you did say the universe has "unlimited" energy, which is false. And it never helps to be prepared. =D
Nah, it's just that drums are deceptively difficult. You think "nah, it can't be that hard, I'm just hitting stuff!" until you try to play completely different rhythms on your different limbs at the same time. And even that's not enough, you've gotta play all these rhythms with dynamics and musicality, too.
Thing is, it can take just as long to become a *good* drummer at it takes to become a good guitarist, bassist, etc. So does DDR, for that matter. Trust me, I used to think I didn't have enough coordination to be a drummer, but I kept at it 'cause it was fun, and it turns out I do have enough coordination. How 'bout that.
Oh, and I tried one of those drum set video games in an arcade once, absolutely nothing like the real thing, believe me.
What ever happened to Lucasarts' SCUMM games and Sierra's "Quests"? Nowadays it's all formulaic point-'n'-shoot games that are more geared toward people with twitch reflexes than toward people who actually like to use their brains occasionally.
A good SCUMM/Quest/Myst type game is what need need now more than anything. Today's games suck.
As long as I can run all those old Lucas games in ScummVM I'll be happy!
I've lived in Australia and the US...
on
Flavor vs. Flavour
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· Score: 1
I went there in 3rd grade, came back after 5th, those oh-so-critical years where you're learning how to spell. =( I had to re-learn how to spell both times. Thankfully, I'm now blessed with being bilingual in that regard.
Mine is definitely trying to be an underdog in a windows-centric world. My favorite CD ripper, CDex, is Windows-only, and I've been trying in vain to find something just as good under Linux to no avail. I've tried RipperX, which seems to work, except that it leaves off the ID3 tags on half of the tracks it rips, can't figure out why. OTOH, cdparanoia is awesome, I managed to get it to rip a CD that had an inch long CRACK in it.
Another thing is the double-edged sword of open-source software. I love being able to compile software specifically for my system, but I don't think it would kill developers to make a static binary for those who don't want to mess with a billion libraries. And sometimes software simply won't compile on my system for some odd reason, even though my system is definitely not unusual.
He might just have a sucky tripod. Those are very hard to deal with. A good tripod won't let you jerk the camera like that.
I haven't heard the audio, I'm in a computer lab, but if it's as bad as described by another poster, that's just inexcusable. That's what the VU meters on the sides of the camera are for.
That said, raytracing would be a pretty useful feature for blender, but only optionally, on a per-object or per-light-source basis. Reflection maps and shadow maps have enough of a speed advantage over the raytraced equivalents that it's well-worth the sacrifice in visual quality. Even Pixar tries to stay away from raytracing as much as possible.
I'd also appreciate RenderMan-style shaders. While I have yet to find a material I can't emulate fairly convincingly using Blender's materials, the ugly hacks I've had to do to get them make me think shaders would be a tad easier for some of the stranger materials.
On a side note, I think the GameBlender part of it should be ditched or at least made into a separate program. I used Blender for rendering from the start (even bought a C-key, this was back at version 1.5 or so). When they added gameblender, I was mad, 'cause they started completely neglecting the rendering features, which were what I had used Blender for in the first place. I eventually stopped following Blender, and I imagine several other people who couldn't care less about GameBlender did as well. I wasn't suprised when NaN went bankrupt, that's what they got for abandoning their original audience.
Now that Blender is OSS, hopefully we'll see more features added to the rendering side. I'd jump in and code the features I want myself if I were a programmer. Unfortunately, I'm much too visual to be one, so I gotta sit around and hope someone thinks like me.
Blender is designed to be fast more than anything, it was originally written as in-house software for a 3D studio where the deadlines are usually along the lines of yesterday. POV-Ray is designed as a hobbyist's tool, it is nowhere NEAR fast enough to be used in a production environment.
And yes, I have used Blender in a production environment, I used it to make an introductory animation for a live video production. Lots of volumetric lighting and lens flares, rendered with an alpha channel for compositing over live video during production. I designed the animation in a couple days, which is less time than it would have taken POV to RENDER it, not to mention actually design the scene in the first place.
TVs are actually analogx525, at least in NTSC (PAL is something like 600 lines, I forget, since I don't work with it). Due to the way color is added, horizontal resolution is limited to about 720, which is why that's the resolution we work with when we digitize NTSC video.
Some of the 525 lines don't carry picture info and are cut off by your TV. They occasionally carry program information, or in some cases, Macrovision stuff designed to fool the auto gain correction on your VCR. In any case, the lines that aren't recorded end up making 480 a good vertical resolution to use for digital NTSC video.
Quite the opposite experience for me. After I compiled my own kernel, this thing boots and runs like greased lightning compared to windows running on the other partition. In fact, I've only booted to windows *once* since I started "dual booting" and that was to burn a CD, and ONLY because I didn't have time to set up CD burner software under Linux.
On the kernel that came with my distro, everything runs about the same speed as windows. NOTHING that I've used runs slower than in Windows.
And broadband internet recommended. When will people realize that we want te be able to access CONTENT quickly and efficiently, not watch the super spiffy animation you made in a plugin that I can't copy-paste text from?
This reminds me of the Dilbert cartoon where Dilbert gets the voice recognition software, and Wally gets jealous and says "Well at least I won't work for hours then accidentally DELETE a FILE!"
Advertising keeps Slashdot free. It keeps TV free, it keeps the radio free. Admittedly, the last two I can live without, but you'll have to pay a LOT more to access all of your favorite web sites if commercial speech is banned. Not to mention that advertising sells whatever product YOU are working on. What happens when your product doesn't sell 'cause nobody's heard of it? And don't tell me it can get by just on word of mouth.
Slashdot Mirror
...That way, at least SOMEONE will set foot on Mars in my lifetime. I mean, jeez, Arthur C. Clarke thought we'd be to Saturn by now, and we probably would be if we'd kept up what we were doing in the 60's.
Ever gone into a studio to record? It's EXPENSIVE, and it takes a lot of work, much more work than what goes into any live performance. Artists should get money for their studio-recorded works just like their live works. The trick is, how can we integrate that into a P2P model? I propose subscription-based P2P networks, where you can pay $x/month to download music files (preferably Q5 or higher OGGs) encoded straight from the digital masters. Or here's an even better idea. I don't have a link, but I've read articles about the damage that hard limiting is doing to our music, and I'm inclined to agree. What if we could get OGGs of music that WASN'T hard-limited to be the "loudest CD out there"? I'd pay for THAT, to be able to hear music with actual dynamics again.
Put a locked-down box on windows-update.com that logs all the IP addresses it gets DOSed from, then trace them back to the actual users whose machines were compromised. Then revoke all of those users' XP licenses for being bloody stupid morons who don't know how to apply a patch.
It *always* helps to be prepared.Man, I make it through a whole posts without any embarrassing typos and I don't even proofread the last sentence...
Well, it doesn't help that Arnold's campaign slogan is "Vote for me if you want to live."
There is an unlimited supply of power in the universe
Not so. The amount of power available in the universe is the difference between the area of the largest potential energy and the area of the least potential energy. When we generate electricity we move energy from areas of high potential energy (uranium, coal, etc.) to areas of low potential energy (our houses). This continues until the uranium has exactly as much potential energy as our house, at which point we can't do anything more. This will continue throughout the universe until the entire universe is one giant region of uniform energy. This is all suggested by the second law of thermodynamics.
Admittedly, this will be several trillion years in the future, and the human race will likely be extinct, or will have evolved into star children or whatever (for my favorite scenario, read "The Last Question" by Isaac Asimov). But you did say the universe has "unlimited" energy, which is false. And it never helps to be prepared. =D
Nah, it's just that drums are deceptively difficult. You think "nah, it can't be that hard, I'm just hitting stuff!" until you try to play completely different rhythms on your different limbs at the same time. And even that's not enough, you've gotta play all these rhythms with dynamics and musicality, too.
Thing is, it can take just as long to become a *good* drummer at it takes to become a good guitarist, bassist, etc. So does DDR, for that matter. Trust me, I used to think I didn't have enough coordination to be a drummer, but I kept at it 'cause it was fun, and it turns out I do have enough coordination. How 'bout that.
Oh, and I tried one of those drum set video games in an arcade once, absolutely nothing like the real thing, believe me.
I pick intelligent and sweet-smelling. Why bother with strong when the most you'll ever have to lift is your computer monitor?
Oh boy, it's getting to the point where we have more cowbells being used for music than on cows. Heck, I even have one on my drum set.
What ever happened to Lucasarts' SCUMM games and Sierra's "Quests"? Nowadays it's all formulaic point-'n'-shoot games that are more geared toward people with twitch reflexes than toward people who actually like to use their brains occasionally.
A good SCUMM/Quest/Myst type game is what need need now more than anything. Today's games suck.
As long as I can run all those old Lucas games in ScummVM I'll be happy!
I went there in 3rd grade, came back after 5th, those oh-so-critical years where you're learning how to spell. =( I had to re-learn how to spell both times. Thankfully, I'm now blessed with being bilingual in that regard.
Mine is definitely trying to be an underdog in a windows-centric world. My favorite CD ripper, CDex, is Windows-only, and I've been trying in vain to find something just as good under Linux to no avail. I've tried RipperX, which seems to work, except that it leaves off the ID3 tags on half of the tracks it rips, can't figure out why. OTOH, cdparanoia is awesome, I managed to get it to rip a CD that had an inch long CRACK in it.
Another thing is the double-edged sword of open-source software. I love being able to compile software specifically for my system, but I don't think it would kill developers to make a static binary for those who don't want to mess with a billion libraries. And sometimes software simply won't compile on my system for some odd reason, even though my system is definitely not unusual.
I keep my cell phone encased in lead.
He might just have a sucky tripod. Those are very hard to deal with. A good tripod won't let you jerk the camera like that.
I haven't heard the audio, I'm in a computer lab, but if it's as bad as described by another poster, that's just inexcusable. That's what the VU meters on the sides of the camera are for.
3DSM costs a couple grand more than Blender, too.
That said, raytracing would be a pretty useful feature for blender, but only optionally, on a per-object or per-light-source basis. Reflection maps and shadow maps have enough of a speed advantage over the raytraced equivalents that it's well-worth the sacrifice in visual quality. Even Pixar tries to stay away from raytracing as much as possible.
I'd also appreciate RenderMan-style shaders. While I have yet to find a material I can't emulate fairly convincingly using Blender's materials, the ugly hacks I've had to do to get them make me think shaders would be a tad easier for some of the stranger materials.
On a side note, I think the GameBlender part of it should be ditched or at least made into a separate program. I used Blender for rendering from the start (even bought a C-key, this was back at version 1.5 or so). When they added gameblender, I was mad, 'cause they started completely neglecting the rendering features, which were what I had used Blender for in the first place. I eventually stopped following Blender, and I imagine several other people who couldn't care less about GameBlender did as well. I wasn't suprised when NaN went bankrupt, that's what they got for abandoning their original audience.
Now that Blender is OSS, hopefully we'll see more features added to the rendering side. I'd jump in and code the features I want myself if I were a programmer. Unfortunately, I'm much too visual to be one, so I gotta sit around and hope someone thinks like me.
POV-Ray is a RAYTRACER.
Blender is a SCANLINE RENDERER.
Blender is designed to be fast more than anything, it was originally written as in-house software for a 3D studio where the deadlines are usually along the lines of yesterday. POV-Ray is designed as a hobbyist's tool, it is nowhere NEAR fast enough to be used in a production environment.
And yes, I have used Blender in a production environment, I used it to make an introductory animation for a live video production. Lots of volumetric lighting and lens flares, rendered with an alpha channel for compositing over live video during production. I designed the animation in a couple days, which is less time than it would have taken POV to RENDER it, not to mention actually design the scene in the first place.
My dad and I are flying into it. =D
Busiest airspace in the world for a week, even busier than O'Hare, possibly.
Well, I lied, we're actually going to a nearby airport. We're not that crazy.
TVs are actually analogx525, at least in NTSC (PAL is something like 600 lines, I forget, since I don't work with it). Due to the way color is added, horizontal resolution is limited to about 720, which is why that's the resolution we work with when we digitize NTSC video.
Some of the 525 lines don't carry picture info and are cut off by your TV. They occasionally carry program information, or in some cases, Macrovision stuff designed to fool the auto gain correction on your VCR. In any case, the lines that aren't recorded end up making 480 a good vertical resolution to use for digital NTSC video.
Quite the opposite experience for me. After I compiled my own kernel, this thing boots and runs like greased lightning compared to windows running on the other partition. In fact, I've only booted to windows *once* since I started "dual booting" and that was to burn a CD, and ONLY because I didn't have time to set up CD burner software under Linux. On the kernel that came with my distro, everything runs about the same speed as windows. NOTHING that I've used runs slower than in Windows.
And broadband internet recommended. When will people realize that we want te be able to access CONTENT quickly and efficiently, not watch the super spiffy animation you made in a plugin that I can't copy-paste text from?
Wow, you're right. Okay, never mind, mod me -1 Stupid.
This reminds me of the Dilbert cartoon where Dilbert gets the voice recognition software, and Wally gets jealous and says "Well at least I won't work for hours then accidentally DELETE a FILE!"
Just send them Sen. Hatch's computer nuker program. Then you don't even have to pay the Pyromaniac.
???
Profit!
Advertising keeps Slashdot free. It keeps TV free, it keeps the radio free. Admittedly, the last two I can live without, but you'll have to pay a LOT more to access all of your favorite web sites if commercial speech is banned. Not to mention that advertising sells whatever product YOU are working on. What happens when your product doesn't sell 'cause nobody's heard of it? And don't tell me it can get by just on word of mouth.
It's a lot harder to have a throw-away phone number than an email address. Thank you Hotmail!