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User: TheGavster

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  1. Re:VAX emulators on VAX Users See the Writing on the Wall · · Score: 1

    If I'm going to recode some emulator, I might as well recode that legacy app. Obviously, in cases where the source to the legacy app has been lost, the emulator might be the only option.

  2. Re:VAX emulators on VAX Users See the Writing on the Wall · · Score: 4, Informative

    The issue with transfering these aged systems to modern hardware under emulation is that people actually took time to optimize the programs, given the limited capabilities of the machines. Thus, emulators usually are not complete enough in their emulation to run the incredibly customized software properly.

  3. Re:cool beans on Will LOTR:ROTK Extended Edition Hit Cinemas? · · Score: 3, Funny

    Only if the theatre has toilets instead of seats, or holds an intermission ...

  4. Re:doom3 release date? on First Doom3 Tourney @ QuakeCon · · Score: 1

    Well, you can make some decent assuptions about how the game will play ... its a first-person shooter, with weapons and maps evolved from the previous Doom games, with touches of newer releases like UT2K4. I'd say if you're a high-ranked UT or Quake player, you'd have a better chance at the gold than, say, Counterstrike or Splinter Cell pro.

  5. Re:little has changed.. on Robots in Hospitals · · Score: 1

    But think of the entertainment value in doing a Roadrunner-esque 'pick up the highway lines and point them at a cliff'! But seriously, once we get some kind of inexpenisve e-paper/vinyl, you could use something as simple as the line-following robot if the floor could rearrange the lines. Drawing a path between two points that avoids stationary objects is easy, as is making something follow a line and stop whenever something moves in its way. Having something figure out a viable path on the run, however, is more complicated.

  6. Re:There is no prime directive... on Cassini Shatters Titan Theories · · Score: 1

    No, I'm saying that the people who pay the bills make the rules.

  7. Re:how long on Custom DVDs & Players For Academy Members · · Score: 1

    A 35mm movie has a resolution of around 3000 lines. Top-end cinema LCDs only hit around 1000 lines. Some movies are actually distributed digitally to capable theaters; they come in a massive array of hard drives that jacks into the system. Remember that in addition to 2 hours of near-lossless 1280x1024 video, you have 6 channels of lossless sound. The box is around the same size and weight as the cans for the same movie on film. Film is also a lot cheaper to set up.

    As for assembling movies, for a regular movie you get time to preview (and previews are GREAT), but for a sneak showing, you don't get any lead time to check; you need to do it right the first time. Our theater shows Bollywood movies for a number of Indian community groups; in addition to having no preview, you also don't get those friendly dots to tell you when to change projectors (general rule: screen goes black unnaturally long, motor on. Screen flashes white, change projectors)

  8. Re:watercooling on What Was Your Worst Computer Accident? · · Score: 1

    Definately a good idea to test the system rather intensly before putting real electronics in the case. They also recommend some form of silicone sealing spray to minimize the effects of leaks.

  9. Re:There is no prime directive... on Cassini Shatters Titan Theories · · Score: 2, Insightful

    look at the UN where power varies by country might; it is not a division of power where every voice is equally important
    Um ... if you think that the people of a tiny nation like Lesotho should have just as much sway over things as a populous nation such as Russia or Canada, I'm not sure what you're thinking. When the UN decides something, the effort to make it happen is going to come from global powers, not minor republics.

  10. Re:Probably gonna be redundant.. but.. on Custom DVDs & Players For Academy Members · · Score: 1

    OK, so we're going to take the device that it plays on and solder leads to the coils and guns on the tube. Then, based on data taken from here, we reconstruct the film pixel by pixel. For the audio, leads across speaker coils. At some point, there has to be a clean signal, or the person watching can't see it.

  11. Re:how long on Custom DVDs & Players For Academy Members · · Score: 1

    When I've dealt with sneak preview movies, the movie was delivered about half an hour before start time, and the delivery guy stayed with the movie the whole time. We then had to have the film back in the cans under his supervision immediately after the credits rolled. The movie company even said they were sending goons with NVGs (though they never showed). Day after release would be much easier, I would think.

  12. Re:I missed this I guess... on Photon Soup Update · · Score: 5, Informative

    Photons mapping is currently used on a small scale in some rendering engines to more accurately simulate light bounces. Its particularly useful at calculating caustics (light getting focused through a transparent medium) which can't be done by the less intensive radiosity systems. This experiment, however, seems to try to render using photon mapping exclusively. Nice idea, though not really practical at the present state of computing, given the graininess of the images and the amount of processing time. The Brazil rendering system (http://www.splutterfish.com/sf/sf_gen_page.php3?p rinter=1&page=brazil) for example, uses photon mapping on a much small scale (usually between 1-10M photons) in combination with raytracing to provide clear, realistic imagery (though not as technically perfect as this example)

  13. Re:As someone... on How Many TV Channels Will There Be In The Future? · · Score: 1

    I think you just described why some of these niche things are failing ... ad revenue can't really cover everything anymore, especially when people skip the ads half the time with TiVO.

  14. Re:None on How Many TV Channels Will There Be In The Future? · · Score: 1

    You're assuming that newspapers will stay DRM free ... imagine a world where you have to have a personalized reader that decrypts the newspaper for you, so that you can't share one with the guy next to you on the train (what kind of communist needs to share a newspaper, anyway, they'll ask us)

  15. Re:Consumer A/V devices suck! on Remote Controls On The March · · Score: 1

    You can solve the inputs issue by running everything through a common box that has 1 remote; ie, your cable tuner, dish reciever, VCR, DVD, LD, hifi, etc, all send their audio and video to inputs on the one box, which then outputs to your monitors (your TV, your amp, etc) so that you only have to set the where each device sends its signal to and gets its input from once, after that you're just switching modes on the selector. Obviously, you've still got channel selection and power state on the various devices, but the issue of syncing up audio, video, volume, etc on all your devices is gone.

  16. Re:Welcome to last week on China Deploys IPv9 Network · · Score: 1

    The same could be said for WinAmp5, the skins of WinAmp3 overlayed on the clearly superior engine of WinAmp2.

  17. Re:Hmmmmm.... on Show Me The Money - Microsoft Money Vs. Quicken · · Score: 4, Funny

    Especially a creepy bug ... I mean, its this pudgy guy in spandex following children around. It portrays an accurate representation of the spyware you pick up with MS web products, but I wouldn't think they'd market that as a feature ...

  18. Re:Another space station dying of neglect? on ISS Gyro Fixed Via Spacewalk · · Score: 2

    I think the idea of manned missions preparing for an asteroid strike is more along the lines of either evacuation or having colonies up before the strike, so that the species survives.

  19. Re:Chinese economic growth on ISS Gyro Fixed Via Spacewalk · · Score: 1

    The reason for this is not some magic, but because China has vastly lower labor costs. To some extent, this is because China uses a huge amount of slave labor.

    Finally, someone realizes that China is adavancing economically not because of something that they've figured out, but because of something that the rest of the world dropped hundreds of years ago. The secret to the Chinese economy is not brilliant leaders or new techniques, but simply abominable human rights abuses. Once we're done clearing out the Middle East, might be a good idea to send an ultimatum down on Red China to the effect of 'get the children out of the factories and start paying your workers a living wage'.

  20. Re:Replace? on MPAA Names Dan Glickman To Replace Jack Valenti · · Score: 2, Interesting

    The thing that gets me is they *are* salaried. Yet the MPAA propoganda-mercials make it sound like pirating the movie takes away from them. The basic labor gets a salary, the star has a contract. No matter what the take of of the movie is, they get paid the same. The only people who lose when a movie sucks are those responsible, the people in charge. Seems a fair enough system to me.

  21. Re:I suppose it's time? on Microsoft Patents Grouped Taskbar Buttons · · Score: 1

    You don't seem to be getting the point of modern legislation. From the lawmaker's point of view, the bribes from the major corporations are just icing on the cake; the real money comes in all the extra clients available once they leave government service. If you had a sane body of law, there wouldn't be much work for legal wizards (like how simpler computer systems have aleviated the need for general computer wizards in some cases)

  22. Re:it's a flaw in the constitution on Does A Pentium 4 Need A Weapons License? · · Score: 1

    Kim Robinson touched on this in his Mars trilogy ... a city which produced some of the best (for the people) legislators had to draw straws to force someone to go each year, because no one really wanted to go.

  23. Re:I tought... on Does A Pentium 4 Need A Weapons License? · · Score: 1

    ... except that the Earth Simulator was made out of American-designed chips fabbed in Europe. Something like the Earth Simulator is what the export restrictions are going to prevent; someone ordering a big batch of little processors to build a supercomputer.

  24. Re:Rediculous on SQL, XML, and the Relational Database Model · · Score: 1

    I love how people bash SQL for not following the model, when in my experience SQL follows reality (isn't that the real key here?) better than the model.

  25. Re:Wedding Celebrations on Disney Launches Fireworks With Compressed Air · · Score: 1

    I think that the real problem was the automatic weapons fire ... I'm really wondering how there aren't more dead terrorists if part of the wedding is shooting bullets in place of throwing rice ...