It is a good comparison article. I find it interesting however that you chose to blockquote the only section that, when taken out of context, seems to support Direct3D over OpenGL with paragraphs starting with "... an OpenGL implementation is a complex piece of code." and "Direct3D didn't have these problems."
Breaking down the article section-by-section:
Portability: Is any debate possible here? OpenGL is portable, D3D is not. Period.
Ease of use: This section highlights the differences between the ease of use of each API. Points out that until recent versions, D3D was clumsy and hard to use. Attempts to point out that OpenGL is easier to use because the implementation manages the gory details but has to include some FUD about how this makes it more susceptible to implementation bugs that the user cannot fix. The user also cannot fix Direct3D bugs so I can't imagine how that's relevant and besides that, I'd rather trust the implementation to the people who should know the hardware inside and out and not some overworked entry level game programmer on an impossible to meet schedule. Also does accurately point out the problem with OpenGL forcing the use of P-buffers for a while, but at the behest of many programmers like John Carmack the problem was able to be fixed due to OpenGL's extensibility. Section basically describes the history of each API and ends with saying they're about the same.
Performance: Describes how OpenGL has actually had better performance with a proper implementation throughout its life as opposed to Direct3D which needs to switch to kernel-mode frequently (surprise, surprise). Only in D3D10 will this be fixed and performance should be about equal.
Structure: Describes how OpenGL's extensible nature allows new features to be implemented sooner. This part deserves extra quoting: "The advantage of OpenGL's inclusive, extensible approach is limited in practice, however, by the market dominance Direct3D has achieved. In recent years, games have rarely implemented features until Direct3D has supported them, and graphics cards vendors have been reluctant to implement features that current or upcoming versions of Direct3D will not support." Having one vendor without much competition has caused stagnation in the development of new graphics technologies. Wow, just great although no surprise there either.
Extensions: Points out that too many extensions can be a problem, but only temporarily as they are periodically standardized. That practice seems to make the most sense to me anyway: test out a bunch of cool new stuff and then pick the best or most practical of all of them and then move forward. Also points out that because of the differences in graphics hardware, Direct3D's single code path was little more than a trick to begin with. Nowadays both major card manufacturers have standardized their pixel shaders enough where both OpenGL and Direct3D have unified code paths.
Users: This section is really just more history about the two and ends up saying that the reason Direct3D is used as much as it is is not because of technical superiority (the two seem to be about the same with OpenGL's portability being the main difference), but because of tradition and Microsoft's unbelievable dominance of the operating system market.
Now I'm not an expert on the history of either standard but I'm inclined to believe the wiki article as it conforms to what I do know about the subject and the ways and reasons Microsoft software continues to be used. In any case, a little reading comprehension will show that the article is slightly slanted in the favor of OpenGL, not Direct3D as you seem to have attempted to imply with your careful selection of text to quote.
WINE is not an emulator. It is an implementation of the Windows API. As kfg said in a reply to your post, that makes WINE simply a different, and unfortunately incomplete, version of Windows.
Blizzard releases it's games nowadays for both Windows and Mac simultaneously (e.g. WoW). Does that make the Mac WoW client an emulation of the Windows one? No, it's a different implementation of the same thing.
It seems to me that Microsoft knows that WGA is going to do little against the true pirates that know what they're doing. Instead they have it randomly fail on people so they have to call in and confirm that they are allowed to use the software they already purchased.
It's quite clear there is only one solution to this. All passengers must remove all clothing at the security lines (without privacy panels - the TSA could be in on it too!!) and submit to a full x-ray and cavity search. Passengers will be escorted without clothing or personal effects to their gates in groups by no less than 10 soldiers in full battle gear. Once aboard the plane, passengers will be chained to their seats and the chains will not be removed for any reason for the duration of the flight. A standard issue paper gown will be distributed to passengers as they are leaving their destination airport.
Seriously, what. the. fuck? I'm convinced that at this point, terrorists aren't even bothering to come up with elaborate plans. They come up with a spur of the moment idea, send some unencrypted emails that manage to make a bee-line for the authorities and sit back and enjoy the mayhem we create for ourselves. We have to taste any food we bring on if they allow it at all? Like the parent said, not only would it not be hard to make an explosive that is not a fast acting deadly poison, but the person who is about to willingly and knowingly blow himself up is not going to care about a little poison so long as he is able to complete his task.
What scares me more than all this bullshit authoritarians come up with in their wet dreams, is that so many people believe it and can barely keep from tripping over themselves while they rush to throw their dignity away to who ever asks it as the price for "safety and security."
Basical principles of economics: supply and demand. We know there is a demand for drugs and that it's a strongly inelastic demand amongst the heavy users. The current problem is with supply, or logistics more accurately. It's easy and very inexpensive to grow/manufacture most drugs and countries with no laws against them produce enormous quantities of them. The "War on Drugs" has artificially reduced the supply and made it so difficult to distribute that the price has to be that high (well, higher than if it were perfectly legal to distribute anyway). It is very likely that legalizing drugs would create a huge surge in supply. While dealers could keep the price where it is now, all it would take is a few people to lower their price to have addicts flock to their wares instead. Follow this and jump forward a few months or years and I'd bet that most drugs would be a cheap, convenience like commodity. People could still grow their own, just like people could bake their own bread, but it's easier and possibly even cheaper to just go down to the market and buy a few ounces.
Why do people get so upset about the monthly subscription price for MMORPGs? By paying that price you get monthly updates that include new content, bug fixes, balancing changes, etc. The fact of the matter is, due to the nature of a massively multiplayer online role playing game, is that they require massive amounts of bandwidth, electricity, and support personnel to run the massive server clusters. You expect companies to just swallow that cost until they go bankrupt and everyone has to go find a new game? I really don't think $15 per month is asking a lot. Hell, I'd pay more for my favorite MMO.
Even if you only play an hour a day, it comes out to about $0.50/day. You're whining about fifty cents? I'd wager that you could walk around downtown of any city and find that much change on the ground. If you threw in asking people for a quarter, you could make enough money to pay for the game for a month. There are plenty of people who play 5-8 hours a day - they're looking at between $0.06 and $0.10 per day.
$15 per month is not a lot of money for anyone that can afford to have a powerful enough computer to run a modern game. Even if you're 16 working at the local retailer for $7.50/hr, that's only 2 hours of work per month for many, many hours of entertainment. If it's not worth it to you then fine, don't play. The rest of us understand that it's not enough money to worry about and it's necessary in the first place. Personally, I'll continue enjoying paying for 3 EVE-Online accounts because even $45/mo is not enough for me to worry about and the convenience of running 3 characters at once far outweighs the cost. I'm sure there are plenty of people who think I'm crazy for that. I understand that they don't have the same point of view as I do and I accept that. You should too.
What a crock of shit. Since when is socializing on myspace critically important?
The GP did not say that socializing on myspace specifically was important, just that it is in general - something we know to be true.
Just because you expected it doesn't mean it's wrong. Actually socalizing IN PERSON is far more critically important than wasting time on myspace or other so called social sites.
And just because it isn't wrong, doesn't mean it's completely right. I would agree that socializing in person is the most important form of the activity. However, if you're suggesting that social networking websites are replacing such interaction, I challenge you to show me a mall, movie theater, arcade, park, restaurant, etc. that is not occupied by a large number of people - teenagers in particular - socializing with one another.
This is the fundamental thing that I think many people (the older generations of people who are uncomfortable with computers and the Internet, in my experience) are missing: Computers, the Internet, games, social networking sites, etc. are not replacing basic face-to-face interaction. They are merely supplementing it. As humans, we are inherently social beings. Only the most introverted of us do not crave interaction on some level with others. As best as I can see, these new avenues of communication are allowing the current generation of teenagers to be more social than ever. And as technology seems to push us closer and closer to ubiquitous, instant communication with any other human being on the planet, I think being comfortable and familiar with such constant noise (as you and I might see it) is going to be very important.
Just look at what has happened with cellphones: If you don't have one, people are annoyed with you because "it's so hard to get in touch with you." And if you do have one that malfunctions frequently (like I do) or just are not one to be taken hostage by someone else's need to contact you (like me), then they are annoyed with you because "you never answer your phone. >:( It's so hard to get in touch with you!" It drives me crazy but my younger brother (only be a few years even!) is inseparable from his phone and it's rare for me to see him not talking with one of his friends. Being such a social being then as he is, is it any surprise that he gets along so well with complete strangers and has such extensive networking skills that his own small business has expanded rapidly entirely without paid advertisement? If you ask me, learning new methods of communicating and learning is not "waisting time."
Outside of fighting, you were stuck trading, mining, and building.
Absolutely, in the same sense that Doom, outside of fighting, was just running to the next area and picking up powerups. Perhaps it just caters to players with a longer attention span that want to feel like they are accomplishing something (even if it is in a virtual world) - like every MMORPG.
One of the nice things about EVE is that you can focus almost exclusively on one type of gameplay that you like. Want to mine and build stuff? Go ahead! In most other games if you wanted to do this, you'd have to be a fighter as well to go get experience and materials to support your skills and craft. In EVE, skill training is real world time based, not play time based. So to mine, you just need to train up to pilot a mining ship and use some mining lasers. Now personally, I don't really understand why you would want to mine all day long (even though I do have a mining/building character to build ammo and ships for myself), but again, there's no reason why I should ever have to bother with that. You can be entirely self sufficient by only fighting, making money through running missions or whatever, and buy all of your equipment off the market.
So in that sense, it's no different from Doom. Between fighting, it's just traveling to the next solar system and maybe stopping to buy some 'powerups' along the way... it just takes quite a bit longer on the traveling part:) But for many of us, the extra wait is worth it to fight other players in an environment that can take quite a bit of skill beyond just keeping your crosshairs over your enemy while you unload a clip.
Works in Cedega (possibly Wine too but I couldn't say).
You must have an extremely small game collection if that's your reaction to a Windows game. Don't get me wrong, games are **the only** reason I still have a Windows partition; but I guess I just like computer games too much to stubbornly refuse to use a crappy operating system on principle alone.
This is not just watching "some people play EVE." These are quick, 5-on-5, tournament style battles between alliances. I really don't see any difference between that and watching a physical sporting event. "Watching people play EVE" sounds like "watching football players practice for the game," which is not what this is.
If you haven't or don't play EVE, it might be hard for you to enjoy (unless you just like watching space ships blow each other up;). For those of us that do play, it's fun to have open in another window to watch the alliances we fight with every day get their asses handed to them by a relatively unknown one.
That might be true, I don't know to be honest because I always give rw permissions anyway since I like to check my code in;) As far as I remember though, the time I screwed that up I was able to check-out my project (a read-only operation) fine - it was when I tried to commit my changes that it threw the permission denied error.
Right, because taking the opinion of clueless idiots is always a good idea.
He said he read the entire manual and still couldn't figure out the most basic of SVN operations? His reading comprehension skills must be so handicapped that I find it difficult to believe he managed to get a wordpress blog running. I downloaded, compiled, and installed subversion without reading the manual and then skimmed over the documentation to get it running.
The error: permission denied on db/transactions/1-1.txn. And I can't figure out what it means. What permissions? Who's trying to access that? Why is it necessary? Why doesn't my user have those permissions when I attributed everything correctly?
Can't figure out what it means? WTF? Either this guy is from Windows where you don't deal with permissions because you're always an administrator or he has absolutely no business setting up a server of any kind. I got that same error the first time I setup subversion through the Apache module. I immediately said "Oops, forgot to give the apache user write access to that directory, duh." So sorry that every program doesn't have a 2,000 page section in its manual covering the basics of its host operating system.
I've never used either of those repository management programs he speaks of since they are completely unnecessary given how easy it is to manage an FSFS based Subversion repository, but I'm going to go out on a limb here and say they'll work perfectly for every other user.
Creating a Subversion repository is an incredibly simple task. The svnadmin utility, provided with Subversion, has a subcommand for doing just that. To create a new repository, just run:
$ svnadmin create/path/to/repos
No, it's not that simple, and no it's not 'just run'. Where should the repositories reside? What are some normal defaults for this sort of situation? What do the authors recommend? What should the permissions of the repository paths be? What should the permissions of the repository root folder be? It's never 'just run'.
Actually it is that simple. That command has never failed to create a repository when I used it, and it was a simple matter of double checking the permissions afterwards and are of course easily fixed with a recursive chmod. What are some normal defaults? What do the authors recommend? I thought you read the manual asshole: The shockingly labeled "Choosing a Repository Layout" section. What should the permissions be? Umm, maybe the most restrictive ones necessary for operation, like they are or should be for every program in existence. If you're running it through the Apache module and want to commit changes and therefore write to the filesystem, perhaps the user Apache runs as needs, oh I don't know, write permissions.
Subversion has worked flawlessly and exactly according to the published documentation in every single instance I have used it. The only problems that have ever occurred in relation to it were of my own mistakes (not giving the apache user access, etc.). Given that I find it very hard to believe that someone able to comprehend a revision control system could fail so completely at such a simple task, I find it more likely that this asshole just hates Subversion because it's different and is/becoming more popular than his system of choice.
At least I'll know not to believe a single word from Sebastien Reid if I'm ever linked to his "tech blog" again.
Something will have change, eventually - space, food, and energy are not limitless.
This is true, but I think the people that are always complaining that we're not planning for the future enough are forgetting that most people don't think that way. Most people don't care about things that may become a problem within their lifetime, and even fewer are concerned about more distant problems. These are the same people who complain about us spending money on space exploration and study, or highly theoretical (in the layman's sense) science.
People won't care about these issues until they become a very real problem for them and thus, there won't but much support for solving those problems until that time. Look on the bright side though: we're quite good at solving problems when the need is strong enough, and as our general levels of technology and understanding increase, the time it takes to find new solutions decreases. Is it incredibly foolish and dangerous to put off that work until these issues become a threat? Of course, but until then all we can do is try to convince people of the importance of not waiting. If we can't do that, well, like PackMan97 said, "We'll muddle our way through."
But somehow, people (who are not doctors) are sure that Schiavo could not have recovered, despite some DOCTORS not being certain. But if people were to admit they were wrong, they would have to live with the guilt. I guess that is why they are so adamnant about it.
Actually, I think it has more to do with the results of her autopsy. From the linked article (emphasis added):
Examination of Schiavo's nervous system revealed extensive injury. The brain itself weighed 615 g, only half the weight expected for a female of her age, height, and weight. Microscopic examination revealed extensive damage to nearly all brain regions, including the cerebral cortex, the thalami, the basal ganglia, the hippocampus, the cerebellum, and the midbrain.
Anyone with a basic understanding of human anatomy and physiology could comprehend that even minor damage to all those brain regions listed would seriously handicap a person, let alone "extensive damage." If Schiavo could have "recovered" (not likely since most of her brain matter had been replaced by CSF), her continued existence would have been a sick joke.
The damage was, in the words of Thogmartin, "irreversible, and no amount of therapy or treatment would have regenerated the massive loss of neurons."
It appears that the chief medical examiner agrees.
The MPAA ratings are not government-mandated, nor are there any laws requiring theaters to uphold them. If this is "censorship," then so is the ESRB itself.
That depends on what you mean by government-mandated. Ferderally, no they are not. However, in Tennessee at least, it is state law that you must be 18 years of age to purchase a ticket for a rated R movie and you must be 21 to purchase more than one ticket.
I really hate laws like that because, as usual, they only hurt the law abiding citizens. I remember one time that I asked my parents if I could go see a rated R movie and take my younger brother with me (I was 19 and he was 17 at the time). They had already seen the movie themselves and said it was okay. When we got to the theater however, they would not let me have more than one ticket and my brother couldn't buy one himself, even though we were both of the MPAA recommended age and had our parents' permission. Now we of course could have done what every other underage kid does and either get someone over 21 to buy the tickets or just buy tickets for a PG-13 movie and go to the R show instead. But being brought up to be responsible individuals and not wanting to break the big scary law, we went home instead.
Arbitrary rules and laws like that just seem to reward misbehavior and punish those that follow them. It's ridiculous for government to regulate moral values in the first place, but to do so in a way that encourages immoral behavior is so absurd that it would be funny if it wasn't sad.
It's almost like he's saying the Earth is screwed, so let's get off this hunk of rock.
Umm, it is. I could easily list off a million and one doomsday circumstances, but I'll stick with the one that's nearly guaranteed to occur: the death of our sun. Eventually the Earth will be incinerated by the sun and long before that living on Earth will be less than practical. Assuming we survive the extremely long time it will take for that to happen, we had better be able to leave Earth or the blip of humankind's existence will be over. Given that we will eventually need to leave Earth, why not start now? I'm not saying we should drop everything we're doing and work only towards space colonization, but we should continue researching it and exploring the possibilities.
I think, considering we could be here for a very very long time, the better solution is to develop technology or philosophies dedicated to helping us live where we are.
Yes, we are going to be here for a very, very long time. Advancing technology and cultivating the popular drive towards space will take a long time. But we'll never get to that point if we never try, will we? Researching the possibility of efficient space travel and colonization does not have to exclude researching things to help us on Earth. In fact, it's more than likely that research into technology supporting the colonization of other planets will dramatically improve things on Earth. Just as an example, finding a planet with an existing environment similar to that of Earth and just waiting for humans to arrive is unlikely and thus, we'll need some form of terraforming technology. If we have that kind of technology and understanding of its use and effects on a planetary environment, why would we not be able to apply the same principles to "repairing" Earth? If we can create an amenable atmosphere on another planet, surely we can cure the evil global warming that is bound to annihilate us all...
Can't just give up on Earth...we have no other options no matter how many sci-fi shows we watch.
Again, exploring space does not mean "giving up on Earth" and I don't understand why everytime this topic comes up an enormous number of people repeat this idea. An easily identifiable analogy (hey, every good argument needs one right?;) to this is early seafaring explorers. They weren't "giving up" on their homelands; they were simply exploring, looking for new lands of opportunity and resources. Europeans colonizing the Americas didn't cause massive stagnation in Europe. Instead it led to a surge of growth in population, technology, ideas and philosophies, and resource utilization. Why would colonizing Mars, for example, be any different?
Finally, to conclude my rant, I must comment on the "no matter how many sci-fi shows we watch" bit. You're implying that space exploration can't be done or at least will never be at the level pervasive in science fiction. Any rational person must admit that this is a very real possibility, but why does that have to be the end of the discussion? Where is your hope, your dreams, your imagination, your willpower? None of the major advances that changed human existence just happened or were made by people just trying to live within contemporary bounds. Why didn't Edison strive only to improve the design of fuel-based lamps instead of creating a working lightbulb? Why didn't the Wright brothers try to improve existing transportation instead of achieving an entirely new method?
I'm quite sure that in both cases, the majority of people thought these new ideas absurd. In that, I realize that such views on the future are quite common but I just cannot understand them. Skepticism is a good thing and we should use it to keep our imaginations in check, but it's foolish to go too far and believe things will never change and thus extinguish the hope for a better future.
Isn't wine an environment that wraps around Win32 executables?
No, Wine is an implementation of the Windows API. When a program calls a Windows API function, the appropriate Wine shared object is called instead of a Windows DLL. This is what the GP meant by his comment about Qt: You could easily implement the Qt API and then substitute your version for the official one so as to have the Qt app load yours at runtime. The wine program itself is a program loader, designed to properly load an execute a binary compiled for Windows.
You can probably find out more here in a more detailed and accurate form:)
It is the same question. If there are no more disapearances there, there is no need for any consideration of unusual circumstances. Unusual circumstances are only needed to explain unusual numbers of disapearances, and there aren't any. Looking for extraordinary explanations of ordinary statistics is unscientific and pointless.
Let's suppose that it's not unusual for five people to disappear at a particular train station every year (they "disappear" in the sense that they are running away and are last seen there). At a second train station many miles away there are also five people disappearing every year, on average. However, in actuality those people going missing at the second station are actually kidnapped. Of course since five people disappearing is not unusual, you would not care to investigate this at all? Even if many suggested that there may be some foul play involved?
You could easily come up with many more similar scenarios to illustrate my point. Not investigating mysteries, even if just to dispel the myth surrounding them, is what is unscientific.
So sure, there may be absolutely nothing extraordinary about the Bermuda Triangle and there may be no more disappearances there than anywhere else. If there are unusual circumstances surrounding all or nearly all of those that do take place there though, does that not suggest that there may be something interesting to look at?
Let me illustrate. When Clinton was president the US had a surplus. Over the next handful of years the govt not only squandered that surplus but got itself into massive debt. On top of all that there were terrorist attacks, two wars, and a long and painful occupation of a another country costing 300 billion dollars (which is surely under accounted).
Now you might think that something like would have had some effect on the economy. Maybe it would effect unemployment, maybe the stock market, maybe the strength of the dollar, maybe the interest rates, maybe the rate of savings, maybe consumer spending, maybe business spending. Some effect, any effect at all.
Nope. Nothing. Nada. Zilch. Zip. You can spend money like a drunken sailor, grow the size of the govt, wage war, squander your savings and dig yourself into debt, spend hundreds of billions of dollars one non productive warfare and there is no effect whatsoever.
Yes, well fortunately we don't (yet) live in a country where the government has absolute control over the economy. That is actually one of the benefits of having a free market: its efficient functions are not dependent on support from the government.
Of course, it's not a completely isolated system and there have indeed been changes in the economy that are likely a result of government activity, at least in part. Throughout the Bush administration I've heard people complain about unemployment and others about high interest rates. The value of the dollar actually is decreasing. As you may recall, after the September 11 attacks there was a lot of concern that people would not spend as much due to their concerns about their safety and the actions of their government.
In any case, those that believe strongly in the free market would tell you that government should have only indirect effects on economics - the effects that come about from forcing people to change their habits. This displays and important point: Economics is not junk science, it's a social science. Just like other important social sciences like history, psychology, education, communications, etc., economics is not bound by laws as in physical sciences where outside influences will affect the outcome. Instead they rely much more on correlations and trends in human behavior which is very hard, if not impossible, to predict. You set up a very bizarre strawman to attack economics through in the form of government stupidity. However, the fact is that government is only one peice of the human puzzle that forms our economic interactions.
First, what makes you think that having two jobs are mututally exclusive? Maybe he works at the computer lab during the day and delivers pizzas in the evening (of course I see no evidence that he does so anyway - the pizza link was him talking about the place he thinks has the best pizza, not about him delivering it).
Second, what makes you think working in pizza delivery or a computer lab precludes one from also being a certified lawyer? My dad is a lawyer in the state of Tennessee and he's never once practiced it; he teaches accounting courses at a university.
Anyway, just wanted to point out that you've provided no evidence to suggest that ninewands is in fact not a lawyer.
Out of curiosity, what the hell are you babbling about?
Last I checked, there are only two Independents in all of Congress. Even if they are both (L|l)ibertarians, they can't do much to disallow what the rest of the government wants. There may be "libertarians" in the other parties but they are in a very small minority.
In any case, I find in extremely unlikely that any libertarian supports, in whole, the Patriot Act or larger government. If they do, I would suggest that they may need to re-indentify themselves. Find a different scape goat for your problems, say Viet D. Dinh or Michael Chertoff, the authors of the Patriot Act.
OT but @ your sig: unzip;strip;touch;finger;mount;fsck;more;yes;unmou nt;sleep
You're using the sequential separator there instead of a conditional... so what happens if any of the above fail? Could lead to some interesting situations for several of those in particular to fail...
Slashdot Mirror
Breaking down the article section-by-section:
- Portability: Is any debate possible here? OpenGL is portable, D3D is not. Period.
- Ease of use: This section highlights the differences between the ease of use of each API. Points out that until recent versions, D3D was clumsy and hard to use. Attempts to point out that OpenGL is easier to use because the implementation manages the gory details but has to include some FUD about how this makes it more susceptible to implementation bugs that the user cannot fix. The user also cannot fix Direct3D bugs so I can't imagine how that's relevant and besides that, I'd rather trust the implementation to the people who should know the hardware inside and out and not some overworked entry level game programmer on an impossible to meet schedule. Also does accurately point out the problem with OpenGL forcing the use of P-buffers for a while, but at the behest of many programmers like John Carmack the problem was able to be fixed due to OpenGL's extensibility. Section basically describes the history of each API and ends with saying they're about the same.
- Performance: Describes how OpenGL has actually had better performance with a proper implementation throughout its life as opposed to Direct3D which needs to switch to kernel-mode frequently (surprise, surprise). Only in D3D10 will this be fixed and performance should be about equal.
- Structure: Describes how OpenGL's extensible nature allows new features to be implemented sooner. This part deserves extra quoting: "The advantage of OpenGL's inclusive, extensible approach is limited in practice, however, by the market dominance Direct3D has achieved. In recent years, games have rarely implemented features until Direct3D has supported them, and graphics cards vendors have been reluctant to implement features that current or upcoming versions of Direct3D will not support." Having one vendor without much competition has caused stagnation in the development of new graphics technologies. Wow, just great although no surprise there either.
- Extensions: Points out that too many extensions can be a problem, but only temporarily as they are periodically standardized. That practice seems to make the most sense to me anyway: test out a bunch of cool new stuff and then pick the best or most practical of all of them and then move forward. Also points out that because of the differences in graphics hardware, Direct3D's single code path was little more than a trick to begin with. Nowadays both major card manufacturers have standardized their pixel shaders enough where both OpenGL and Direct3D have unified code paths.
- Users: This section is really just more history about the two and ends up saying that the reason Direct3D is used as much as it is is not because of technical superiority (the two seem to be about the same with OpenGL's portability being the main difference), but because of tradition and Microsoft's unbelievable dominance of the operating system market.
Now I'm not an expert on the history of either standard but I'm inclined to believe the wiki article as it conforms to what I do know about the subject and the ways and reasons Microsoft software continues to be used. In any case, a little reading comprehension will show that the article is slightly slanted in the favor of OpenGL, not Direct3D as you seem to have attempted to imply with your careful selection of text to quote.WINE is not an emulator. It is an implementation of the Windows API. As kfg said in a reply to your post, that makes WINE simply a different, and unfortunately incomplete, version of Windows.
Blizzard releases it's games nowadays for both Windows and Mac simultaneously (e.g. WoW). Does that make the Mac WoW client an emulation of the Windows one? No, it's a different implementation of the same thing.
It seems to me that Microsoft knows that WGA is going to do little against the true pirates that know what they're doing. Instead they have it randomly fail on people so they have to call in and confirm that they are allowed to use the software they already purchased.
A little random enforcement can go a long way.
It's quite clear there is only one solution to this. All passengers must remove all clothing at the security lines (without privacy panels - the TSA could be in on it too!!) and submit to a full x-ray and cavity search. Passengers will be escorted without clothing or personal effects to their gates in groups by no less than 10 soldiers in full battle gear. Once aboard the plane, passengers will be chained to their seats and the chains will not be removed for any reason for the duration of the flight. A standard issue paper gown will be distributed to passengers as they are leaving their destination airport.
Seriously, what. the. fuck? I'm convinced that at this point, terrorists aren't even bothering to come up with elaborate plans. They come up with a spur of the moment idea, send some unencrypted emails that manage to make a bee-line for the authorities and sit back and enjoy the mayhem we create for ourselves. We have to taste any food we bring on if they allow it at all? Like the parent said, not only would it not be hard to make an explosive that is not a fast acting deadly poison, but the person who is about to willingly and knowingly blow himself up is not going to care about a little poison so long as he is able to complete his task.
What scares me more than all this bullshit authoritarians come up with in their wet dreams, is that so many people believe it and can barely keep from tripping over themselves while they rush to throw their dignity away to who ever asks it as the price for "safety and security."
Basical principles of economics: supply and demand. We know there is a demand for drugs and that it's a strongly inelastic demand amongst the heavy users. The current problem is with supply, or logistics more accurately. It's easy and very inexpensive to grow/manufacture most drugs and countries with no laws against them produce enormous quantities of them. The "War on Drugs" has artificially reduced the supply and made it so difficult to distribute that the price has to be that high (well, higher than if it were perfectly legal to distribute anyway). It is very likely that legalizing drugs would create a huge surge in supply. While dealers could keep the price where it is now, all it would take is a few people to lower their price to have addicts flock to their wares instead. Follow this and jump forward a few months or years and I'd bet that most drugs would be a cheap, convenience like commodity. People could still grow their own, just like people could bake their own bread, but it's easier and possibly even cheaper to just go down to the market and buy a few ounces.
Why do people get so upset about the monthly subscription price for MMORPGs? By paying that price you get monthly updates that include new content, bug fixes, balancing changes, etc. The fact of the matter is, due to the nature of a massively multiplayer online role playing game, is that they require massive amounts of bandwidth, electricity, and support personnel to run the massive server clusters. You expect companies to just swallow that cost until they go bankrupt and everyone has to go find a new game? I really don't think $15 per month is asking a lot. Hell, I'd pay more for my favorite MMO.
Even if you only play an hour a day, it comes out to about $0.50/day. You're whining about fifty cents? I'd wager that you could walk around downtown of any city and find that much change on the ground. If you threw in asking people for a quarter, you could make enough money to pay for the game for a month. There are plenty of people who play 5-8 hours a day - they're looking at between $0.06 and $0.10 per day.
$15 per month is not a lot of money for anyone that can afford to have a powerful enough computer to run a modern game. Even if you're 16 working at the local retailer for $7.50/hr, that's only 2 hours of work per month for many, many hours of entertainment. If it's not worth it to you then fine, don't play. The rest of us understand that it's not enough money to worry about and it's necessary in the first place. Personally, I'll continue enjoying paying for 3 EVE-Online accounts because even $45/mo is not enough for me to worry about and the convenience of running 3 characters at once far outweighs the cost. I'm sure there are plenty of people who think I'm crazy for that. I understand that they don't have the same point of view as I do and I accept that. You should too.
This is the fundamental thing that I think many people (the older generations of people who are uncomfortable with computers and the Internet, in my experience) are missing: Computers, the Internet, games, social networking sites, etc. are not replacing basic face-to-face interaction. They are merely supplementing it. As humans, we are inherently social beings. Only the most introverted of us do not crave interaction on some level with others. As best as I can see, these new avenues of communication are allowing the current generation of teenagers to be more social than ever. And as technology seems to push us closer and closer to ubiquitous, instant communication with any other human being on the planet, I think being comfortable and familiar with such constant noise (as you and I might see it) is going to be very important.
Just look at what has happened with cellphones: If you don't have one, people are annoyed with you because "it's so hard to get in touch with you." And if you do have one that malfunctions frequently (like I do) or just are not one to be taken hostage by someone else's need to contact you (like me), then they are annoyed with you because "you never answer your phone. >:( It's so hard to get in touch with you!" It drives me crazy but my younger brother (only be a few years even!) is inseparable from his phone and it's rare for me to see him not talking with one of his friends. Being such a social being then as he is, is it any surprise that he gets along so well with complete strangers and has such extensive networking skills that his own small business has expanded rapidly entirely without paid advertisement? If you ask me, learning new methods of communicating and learning is not "waisting time."
One of the nice things about EVE is that you can focus almost exclusively on one type of gameplay that you like. Want to mine and build stuff? Go ahead! In most other games if you wanted to do this, you'd have to be a fighter as well to go get experience and materials to support your skills and craft. In EVE, skill training is real world time based, not play time based. So to mine, you just need to train up to pilot a mining ship and use some mining lasers. Now personally, I don't really understand why you would want to mine all day long (even though I do have a mining/building character to build ammo and ships for myself), but again, there's no reason why I should ever have to bother with that. You can be entirely self sufficient by only fighting, making money through running missions or whatever, and buy all of your equipment off the market.
So in that sense, it's no different from Doom. Between fighting, it's just traveling to the next solar system and maybe stopping to buy some 'powerups' along the way... it just takes quite a bit longer on the traveling part
Works in Cedega (possibly Wine too but I couldn't say).
You must have an extremely small game collection if that's your reaction to a Windows game. Don't get me wrong, games are **the only** reason I still have a Windows partition; but I guess I just like computer games too much to stubbornly refuse to use a crappy operating system on principle alone.
This is not just watching "some people play EVE." These are quick, 5-on-5, tournament style battles between alliances. I really don't see any difference between that and watching a physical sporting event. "Watching people play EVE" sounds like "watching football players practice for the game," which is not what this is.
;). For those of us that do play, it's fun to have open in another window to watch the alliances we fight with every day get their asses handed to them by a relatively unknown one.
If you haven't or don't play EVE, it might be hard for you to enjoy (unless you just like watching space ships blow each other up
That might be true, I don't know to be honest because I always give rw permissions anyway since I like to check my code in ;) As far as I remember though, the time I screwed that up I was able to check-out my project (a read-only operation) fine - it was when I tried to commit my changes that it threw the permission denied error.
He said he read the entire manual and still couldn't figure out the most basic of SVN operations? His reading comprehension skills must be so handicapped that I find it difficult to believe he managed to get a wordpress blog running. I downloaded, compiled, and installed subversion without reading the manual and then skimmed over the documentation to get it running. Can't figure out what it means? WTF? Either this guy is from Windows where you don't deal with permissions because you're always an administrator or he has absolutely no business setting up a server of any kind. I got that same error the first time I setup subversion through the Apache module. I immediately said "Oops, forgot to give the apache user write access to that directory, duh." So sorry that every program doesn't have a 2,000 page section in its manual covering the basics of its host operating system.
I've never used either of those repository management programs he speaks of since they are completely unnecessary given how easy it is to manage an FSFS based Subversion repository, but I'm going to go out on a limb here and say they'll work perfectly for every other user.
Actually it is that simple. That command has never failed to create a repository when I used it, and it was a simple matter of double checking the permissions afterwards and are of course easily fixed with a recursive chmod. What are some normal defaults? What do the authors recommend? I thought you read the manual asshole: The shockingly labeled "Choosing a Repository Layout" section. What should the permissions be? Umm, maybe the most restrictive ones necessary for operation, like they are or should be for every program in existence. If you're running it through the Apache module and want to commit changes and therefore write to the filesystem, perhaps the user Apache runs as needs, oh I don't know, write permissions.
Subversion has worked flawlessly and exactly according to the published documentation in every single instance I have used it. The only problems that have ever occurred in relation to it were of my own mistakes (not giving the apache user access, etc.). Given that I find it very hard to believe that someone able to comprehend a revision control system could fail so completely at such a simple task, I find it more likely that this asshole just hates Subversion because it's different and is/becoming more popular than his system of choice.
At least I'll know not to believe a single word from Sebastien Reid if I'm ever linked to his "tech blog" again.
People won't care about these issues until they become a very real problem for them and thus, there won't but much support for solving those problems until that time. Look on the bright side though: we're quite good at solving problems when the need is strong enough, and as our general levels of technology and understanding increase, the time it takes to find new solutions decreases. Is it incredibly foolish and dangerous to put off that work until these issues become a threat? Of course, but until then all we can do is try to convince people of the importance of not waiting. If we can't do that, well, like PackMan97 said, "We'll muddle our way through."
It appears that the chief medical examiner agrees.
I really hate laws like that because, as usual, they only hurt the law abiding citizens. I remember one time that I asked my parents if I could go see a rated R movie and take my younger brother with me (I was 19 and he was 17 at the time). They had already seen the movie themselves and said it was okay. When we got to the theater however, they would not let me have more than one ticket and my brother couldn't buy one himself, even though we were both of the MPAA recommended age and had our parents' permission. Now we of course could have done what every other underage kid does and either get someone over 21 to buy the tickets or just buy tickets for a PG-13 movie and go to the R show instead. But being brought up to be responsible individuals and not wanting to break the big scary law, we went home instead.
Arbitrary rules and laws like that just seem to reward misbehavior and punish those that follow them. It's ridiculous for government to regulate moral values in the first place, but to do so in a way that encourages immoral behavior is so absurd that it would be funny if it wasn't sad.
It's almost like he's saying the Earth is screwed, so let's get off this hunk of rock.
;) to this is early seafaring explorers. They weren't "giving up" on their homelands; they were simply exploring, looking for new lands of opportunity and resources. Europeans colonizing the Americas didn't cause massive stagnation in Europe. Instead it led to a surge of growth in population, technology, ideas and philosophies, and resource utilization. Why would colonizing Mars, for example, be any different?
Umm, it is. I could easily list off a million and one doomsday circumstances, but I'll stick with the one that's nearly guaranteed to occur: the death of our sun. Eventually the Earth will be incinerated by the sun and long before that living on Earth will be less than practical. Assuming we survive the extremely long time it will take for that to happen, we had better be able to leave Earth or the blip of humankind's existence will be over. Given that we will eventually need to leave Earth, why not start now? I'm not saying we should drop everything we're doing and work only towards space colonization, but we should continue researching it and exploring the possibilities.
I think, considering we could be here for a very very long time, the better solution is to develop technology or philosophies dedicated to helping us live where we are.
Yes, we are going to be here for a very, very long time. Advancing technology and cultivating the popular drive towards space will take a long time. But we'll never get to that point if we never try, will we? Researching the possibility of efficient space travel and colonization does not have to exclude researching things to help us on Earth. In fact, it's more than likely that research into technology supporting the colonization of other planets will dramatically improve things on Earth. Just as an example, finding a planet with an existing environment similar to that of Earth and just waiting for humans to arrive is unlikely and thus, we'll need some form of terraforming technology. If we have that kind of technology and understanding of its use and effects on a planetary environment, why would we not be able to apply the same principles to "repairing" Earth? If we can create an amenable atmosphere on another planet, surely we can cure the evil global warming that is bound to annihilate us all...
Can't just give up on Earth...we have no other options no matter how many sci-fi shows we watch.
Again, exploring space does not mean "giving up on Earth" and I don't understand why everytime this topic comes up an enormous number of people repeat this idea. An easily identifiable analogy (hey, every good argument needs one right?
Finally, to conclude my rant, I must comment on the "no matter how many sci-fi shows we watch" bit. You're implying that space exploration can't be done or at least will never be at the level pervasive in science fiction. Any rational person must admit that this is a very real possibility, but why does that have to be the end of the discussion? Where is your hope, your dreams, your imagination, your willpower? None of the major advances that changed human existence just happened or were made by people just trying to live within contemporary bounds. Why didn't Edison strive only to improve the design of fuel-based lamps instead of creating a working lightbulb? Why didn't the Wright brothers try to improve existing transportation instead of achieving an entirely new method?
I'm quite sure that in both cases, the majority of people thought these new ideas absurd. In that, I realize that such views on the future are quite common but I just cannot understand them. Skepticism is a good thing and we should use it to keep our imaginations in check, but it's foolish to go too far and believe things will never change and thus extinguish the hope for a better future.
Isn't wine an environment that wraps around Win32 executables?
:)
No, Wine is an implementation of the Windows API. When a program calls a Windows API function, the appropriate Wine shared object is called instead of a Windows DLL. This is what the GP meant by his comment about Qt: You could easily implement the Qt API and then substitute your version for the official one so as to have the Qt app load yours at runtime. The wine program itself is a program loader, designed to properly load an execute a binary compiled for Windows.
You can probably find out more here in a more detailed and accurate form
It is the same question. If there are no more disapearances there, there is no need for any consideration of unusual circumstances. Unusual circumstances are only needed to explain unusual numbers of disapearances, and there aren't any. Looking for extraordinary explanations of ordinary statistics is unscientific and pointless.
Let's suppose that it's not unusual for five people to disappear at a particular train station every year (they "disappear" in the sense that they are running away and are last seen there). At a second train station many miles away there are also five people disappearing every year, on average. However, in actuality those people going missing at the second station are actually kidnapped. Of course since five people disappearing is not unusual, you would not care to investigate this at all? Even if many suggested that there may be some foul play involved?
You could easily come up with many more similar scenarios to illustrate my point. Not investigating mysteries, even if just to dispel the myth surrounding them, is what is unscientific.
So sure, there may be absolutely nothing extraordinary about the Bermuda Triangle and there may be no more disappearances there than anywhere else. If there are unusual circumstances surrounding all or nearly all of those that do take place there though, does that not suggest that there may be something interesting to look at?
Maybe it's pirates! Arrr!
I believe the correct term is Godwin's Law.
Let me illustrate. When Clinton was president the US had a surplus. Over the next handful of years the govt not only squandered that surplus but got itself into massive debt. On top of all that there were terrorist attacks, two wars, and a long and painful occupation of a another country costing 300 billion dollars (which is surely under accounted).
Now you might think that something like would have had some effect on the economy. Maybe it would effect unemployment, maybe the stock market, maybe the strength of the dollar, maybe the interest rates, maybe the rate of savings, maybe consumer spending, maybe business spending. Some effect, any effect at all.
Nope. Nothing. Nada. Zilch. Zip. You can spend money like a drunken sailor, grow the size of the govt, wage war, squander your savings and dig yourself into debt, spend hundreds of billions of dollars one non productive warfare and there is no effect whatsoever.
Yes, well fortunately we don't (yet) live in a country where the government has absolute control over the economy. That is actually one of the benefits of having a free market: its efficient functions are not dependent on support from the government.
Of course, it's not a completely isolated system and there have indeed been changes in the economy that are likely a result of government activity, at least in part. Throughout the Bush administration I've heard people complain about unemployment and others about high interest rates. The value of the dollar actually is decreasing. As you may recall, after the September 11 attacks there was a lot of concern that people would not spend as much due to their concerns about their safety and the actions of their government.
In any case, those that believe strongly in the free market would tell you that government should have only indirect effects on economics - the effects that come about from forcing people to change their habits. This displays and important point: Economics is not junk science, it's a social science. Just like other important social sciences like history, psychology, education, communications, etc., economics is not bound by laws as in physical sciences where outside influences will affect the outcome. Instead they rely much more on correlations and trends in human behavior which is very hard, if not impossible, to predict. You set up a very bizarre strawman to attack economics through in the form of government stupidity. However, the fact is that government is only one peice of the human puzzle that forms our economic interactions.
First, what makes you think that having two jobs are mututally exclusive? Maybe he works at the computer lab during the day and delivers pizzas in the evening (of course I see no evidence that he does so anyway - the pizza link was him talking about the place he thinks has the best pizza, not about him delivering it).
Second, what makes you think working in pizza delivery or a computer lab precludes one from also being a certified lawyer? My dad is a lawyer in the state of Tennessee and he's never once practiced it; he teaches accounting courses at a university.
Anyway, just wanted to point out that you've provided no evidence to suggest that ninewands is in fact not a lawyer.
This just in: Experts are reporting that too much water can kill you and that too little can as well!
More at 11...
Out of curiosity, what the hell are you babbling about?
Last I checked, there are only two Independents in all of Congress. Even if they are both (L|l)ibertarians, they can't do much to disallow what the rest of the government wants. There may be "libertarians" in the other parties but they are in a very small minority.
In any case, I find in extremely unlikely that any libertarian supports, in whole, the Patriot Act or larger government. If they do, I would suggest that they may need to re-indentify themselves. Find a different scape goat for your problems, say Viet D. Dinh or Michael Chertoff, the authors of the Patriot Act.
As the Prophets Parker and Stone have taught us: "Freedom costs a buck o' five."
OT but @ your sig: unzip;strip;touch;finger;mount;fsck;more;yes;unmou nt;sleep
You're using the sequential separator there instead of a conditional... so what happens if any of the above fail? Could lead to some interesting situations for several of those in particular to fail...