Hello...hello...hello...is there anybody out there? Just nod if you can hear me...is there anyone home?
[pedantic mode on] I believe the correct lyric is 'is there anybody in there?'. 'Is there anybody out there' features in other songs onn the wall but not 'comfortably numb'.[pedantic mode off]
Programmability Comes into Vogue
While 2004 marks the infancy of good 3D graphics on compute-constrained handhelds, it will also see the move to programmability on desktops, which as a category finally has enough graphics-engine heft to merit such a transition.
"In the last 18 months there's been a lot of activity on the desktop side toward making the [graphics] hardware programmable,"10 explains Neil Trevett, who has expertise in desktop graphics as a senior vice president at chip maker 3Dlabs, and also is a key contributor on the embedded side as chairman of the OpenGL ES working group. "A graphics chip is increasingly becoming like a CPU: It's multithreaded, it has virtual memory, it has intertask security, and it's programmable in a C-like language. The only difference is that graphics ICs are very parallel (as opposed to the main microprocessor), which is required so they can execute graphics more efficiently."
Enter the OpenGL Shading Language, also known as OpenGL 2.0 (see figure 1).11 Due to hit the streets in a few months, the release will bring high-level shading programmability to OpenGL. It will expose a very C-like API and provide software developers with access to a wealth of graphics operations.
Standard OpenGL offers a fixed set of functionality. This limitation has been forced by the fact that lots of compute power is required just to get polygons up on the screen. Now that graphics boards and ICs are powerful enough to off-load 3D processing from the main microprocessor (aka Pentium), however, OpenGL 2.0 is able to let programmers do things more flexibly without fear of bogging down the computer.
Accordingly, 2.0 will provide programmable alternatives to some of the fixed functions currently available. For example, programmers will have the ability to explicitly get into the nuts and bolts of things like vertex processing and fragment processing. This will allow them to revamp things according to their own needs or to tune performance for specific hardware configurations.
OpenGL 2.0 implements what's called a direct-compile model--that is, 2.0-compliant drivers will ship with built-in compilers. This means that a given graphics hardware/driver combination will take its OpenGL source code and compile it directly into machine code that runs on the graphics hardware. (The compilers themselves will be supplied by the individual graphics chip vendors.)
"Over the next year or two, I think you're going to see a whole range of applications that use your graphics board as a supercomputer,"12 Trevett says enthusiastically.
Realtime Rendering on the Horizon
The turn toward programmability comes at a time when professional graphics developers are poised to make major advances. Consider that, currently, animated films are produced using large render farms--huge collections of workstations that crunch polygons to create a movie's individual frames. Because so much compute power is required, render farms usually run offline, taking a day's work and turning it into frames overnight so it's ready when the animators return in the morning.
Recently, says Trevett, there's been interest from the photorealistic community in using newfound graphics programmability for doing movies such as "Toy Story" (2001) in realtime. "That's the dream everyone is going for,"13 he says. The goal is to take industrial-strength software--like the Renderman package that "Toy Story" producer Pixar uses--and accelerate it on graphics chips via programmability.
The result would be that far fewer workstations would be needed to render a movie, and the cost-per-frame of rendering would come down significantly.
Longer term, Trevett doesn't think that graphics software will stand still. "We haven't reached a stable state yet, either in the algorithms or the hardware," he says. "I think in 20 years we'll look back and be amazed at how primitive things were. The software community is still doing tremendously innovative work. This speaks to the fundamental market driver behind 3D graphics."14
Most immediately, software developers can access
A 100 watt lightbulb, run for 1 hour, uses 100watt/hours. Run for 10 hours, it uses 1kilowatt/hour (kWh), which is precisely the unit used in figuring out most electric bills.
Yes, the unit used in working out electricity is kWh which is kiloWatthour not kiloWatt/hour which is a measurement of energy.
W=J/s h=360s k=1000
so we see that: kWh = 1000*(J/s)*(360s) = 360000J
Your parent's analogy was correct for what he was describing (your incorrect kW/h) and your analogy is correct for kWh, but not for what you were describing (kW/h).
Perhaps you will think twice before taking a pedantic tone next time. Run along now;)
The idea is that this is a completely different way of getting fusion power to the alternatives, and is worthy of research because we dont know how it is going to work exactly
The Office has finished now, two series and a christmas special. Gervais and Merchant felt that they wanted to leave it on a high note and that a third series would just dpil it, which I am tended to agree with, but the christmas special was just golden.
Currently I cant think of any big comedys I watch, maybe it's because I dont watch much tv at uni so get behind. Did you get 'The League of Gentlemen' over there? What about 'Red Dwarf'. I heard there was an american re-make that didn't do so well in the us, but perhaps you got the originals?
There is one program that I do watch which is hilarious which is Harry Hill's TV burp, but because it is absed on British TV I wouldn't have thaught you'd get it over there as it wuld be relavent (apart fromthe corrie jokes)
So it's been a bit bland recently:( oh well, it might pick up soon
Linux still has to clean up the user experience before it'll be a real desktop alternative to Windows. (or even MacOSX)
I'm not so sure if that is true, perhaps all you need is for people to be aware that it does the same job as, but is not the same as windows. Of course this means that people have to get some experiance using linux, and these growing pains have to happen some time. It all depends on how it is marketed really.
This is going to be really wierd/difficult when she grows up telling her that half of her organs come from someone else, a dead somone else. I wouldn't know how I'd react to hearing somthing like that.
Wow
The package popularity-contest is 42nd on the list with 18 less installs than the top packages, so how did these 18 people submit thier scores to the popularity contest?
Slashdot Mirror
I'll be able to get the computer to select the spam I want to see from the spam I don't
[pedantic mode on] I believe the correct lyric is 'is there anybody in there?'. 'Is there anybody out there' features in other songs onn the wall but not 'comfortably numb'.[pedantic mode off]
[Insert some ill educated outsourcing comment here]
Programmability Comes into Vogue While 2004 marks the infancy of good 3D graphics on compute-constrained handhelds, it will also see the move to programmability on desktops, which as a category finally has enough graphics-engine heft to merit such a transition. "In the last 18 months there's been a lot of activity on the desktop side toward making the [graphics] hardware programmable,"10 explains Neil Trevett, who has expertise in desktop graphics as a senior vice president at chip maker 3Dlabs, and also is a key contributor on the embedded side as chairman of the OpenGL ES working group. "A graphics chip is increasingly becoming like a CPU: It's multithreaded, it has virtual memory, it has intertask security, and it's programmable in a C-like language. The only difference is that graphics ICs are very parallel (as opposed to the main microprocessor), which is required so they can execute graphics more efficiently." Enter the OpenGL Shading Language, also known as OpenGL 2.0 (see figure 1).11 Due to hit the streets in a few months, the release will bring high-level shading programmability to OpenGL. It will expose a very C-like API and provide software developers with access to a wealth of graphics operations. Standard OpenGL offers a fixed set of functionality. This limitation has been forced by the fact that lots of compute power is required just to get polygons up on the screen. Now that graphics boards and ICs are powerful enough to off-load 3D processing from the main microprocessor (aka Pentium), however, OpenGL 2.0 is able to let programmers do things more flexibly without fear of bogging down the computer. Accordingly, 2.0 will provide programmable alternatives to some of the fixed functions currently available. For example, programmers will have the ability to explicitly get into the nuts and bolts of things like vertex processing and fragment processing. This will allow them to revamp things according to their own needs or to tune performance for specific hardware configurations. OpenGL 2.0 implements what's called a direct-compile model--that is, 2.0-compliant drivers will ship with built-in compilers. This means that a given graphics hardware/driver combination will take its OpenGL source code and compile it directly into machine code that runs on the graphics hardware. (The compilers themselves will be supplied by the individual graphics chip vendors.) "Over the next year or two, I think you're going to see a whole range of applications that use your graphics board as a supercomputer,"12 Trevett says enthusiastically. Realtime Rendering on the Horizon The turn toward programmability comes at a time when professional graphics developers are poised to make major advances. Consider that, currently, animated films are produced using large render farms--huge collections of workstations that crunch polygons to create a movie's individual frames. Because so much compute power is required, render farms usually run offline, taking a day's work and turning it into frames overnight so it's ready when the animators return in the morning. Recently, says Trevett, there's been interest from the photorealistic community in using newfound graphics programmability for doing movies such as "Toy Story" (2001) in realtime. "That's the dream everyone is going for,"13 he says. The goal is to take industrial-strength software--like the Renderman package that "Toy Story" producer Pixar uses--and accelerate it on graphics chips via programmability. The result would be that far fewer workstations would be needed to render a movie, and the cost-per-frame of rendering would come down significantly. Longer term, Trevett doesn't think that graphics software will stand still. "We haven't reached a stable state yet, either in the algorithms or the hardware," he says. "I think in 20 years we'll look back and be amazed at how primitive things were. The software community is still doing tremendously innovative work. This speaks to the fundamental market driver behind 3D graphics."14 Most immediately, software developers can access
Ok, I will be less tactful this time. The above statement is wrong
what would be correct would be:
Yes, the unit used in working out electricity is kWh which is kiloWatthour not kiloWatt/hour which is a measurement of energy.
W=J/sh=360s
k=1000
so we see that:
kWh = 1000*(J/s)*(360s) = 360000J
Your parent's analogy was correct for what he was describing (your incorrect kW/h) and your analogy is correct for kWh, but not for what you were describing (kW/h).
Perhaps you will think twice before taking a pedantic tone next time. Run along now ;)
pure genius
Careful lads, this one sound like a northerner, don't let your cars out of your sight
It's not too much of a worry. There's only about 6 people in manchester with telephones. They only just got fire you know
that they only give us the video in .asx format
The idea is that this is a completely different way of getting fusion power to the alternatives, and is worthy of research because we dont know how it is going to work exactly
The Office has finished now, two series and a christmas special. Gervais and Merchant felt that they wanted to leave it on a high note and that a third series would just dpil it, which I am tended to agree with, but the christmas special was just golden. Currently I cant think of any big comedys I watch, maybe it's because I dont watch much tv at uni so get behind. Did you get 'The League of Gentlemen' over there? What about 'Red Dwarf'. I heard there was an american re-make that didn't do so well in the us, but perhaps you got the originals? There is one program that I do watch which is hilarious which is Harry Hill's TV burp, but because it is absed on British TV I wouldn't have thaught you'd get it over there as it wuld be relavent (apart fromthe corrie jokes) So it's been a bit bland recently :( oh well, it might pick up soon
You're not still using keyb/mouse combo are you? Get out of the past
This is going to be really wierd/difficult when she grows up telling her that half of her organs come from someone else, a dead somone else. I wouldn't know how I'd react to hearing somthing like that. Wow
The package popularity-contest is 42nd on the list with 18 less installs than the top packages, so how did these 18 people submit thier scores to the popularity contest?
My local's twice the age
We've seen this before ages ago:
0 24 9&mode=thread&tid=185
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/12/16/142