Serious question: Do we have a word for people into technical or scientific things but who also have other interests and *aren't* socially inept?
This stereotyping is not so healthy; it makes people not tend to talk to or listen to us on other topics than technology. There seems to be plenty of discussion of socially-relevant topics on slashdot, so obviously the stereotype is false - but do we have a better word to describe those of us who don't fit it? Nerd-misfits, perhaps?
This just in: Lawyers for Reese's Peanut Butter Cups are rumored to be preparing a lawsuit against both parties in this case for infringing on their patented "Chocolate in my Peanut Butter" algorithm....
Yeah, I think she was installing some old version too. Sounds like 5.x or something.
But the word processor thing I think is a serious issue. I've tried WordPerfect, but the fonts come out very hard to read. Must be something I'm missing doing in X? (Or maybe it's a Word Perfect bug?) It also didn't support my old Epson printer, though everything else under Linux did, which was weird... can't think of any Windows apps that have to have their own drivers separate from Windows... I'd like to know to get it to work (at least the fonts) so I don't have to boot into Windows every time I need to word process, but on the other hand, the fact that it's hard to get a word processor going on Linux does support her point.
I tend to think some of her suggestions - like eliminating choices of desktops - are unnecessary overreactions and probably counterproductive (e.g. I think multiple desktops are more a competitive edge than a distraction.)
However, comments like "I can't get a word processor to work decently" are good points. It's not really gift horse syndrome to point out that people won't use something that doesn't seem to provide them certain basic functionality.
Actually, Pixar doesn't make modeling and animation tools. They make them on Irix. They just don't sell them to anyone.
What did you think Toystory was animated with? Maya?
I forget whether it was Softimage or proprietary stuff or a combination. Anyway, I realize every house writes their own proprietary software. I should have used the word "sell" - I was talking about software that Pixar as a software vendor makes for outside distribution, not software that Pixar as a studio makes for inhouse use only.
Obviously whether proprietary inhouse software of the major studios is ported to Linux has something to do with Linux becoming considered a more serious 3D platform; this is already going on. But at this point I think the thing that's really going to make the push is when we see the major commercially available 3D packages available for Linux.
I think the original poster was referring to rendering back-ends, not the modelling component of 3D software.
Since, s/he discusses modellers and animators working with flat-shaded and wire-framed models, it really sounds like s/he is talking about the interactive part of the process. (Since the rendering process definitely does involve textures) oh well... <shrug>
They used to make modelling software as well. Did they drop that?
Apparently. The only current product mentioned on Pixar's website is Renderman (and its accessory tools, such as RAT.) I don't really remember them doing a modeller.
Re:Linux on Titanic? Yep!
on
Linux in 3D
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· Score: 1
Digital Domain added a bunch of Linux boxes for Titanic rendering to meet deadline because the hardware was cheap. I believe they ultimately had both SGI/IRIX and Intel/Linux boxes in the render farm, and ported their proprietary IRIX renderer to Linux. (It's possible that it was actually Renderman and they got Pixar to do a custom Linux port for them; I forget exactly.)
Re:Annoying Ad Redirect
on
Linux in 3D
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· Score: 1
I've heard that
Titanic was rendered entirely in linux. Anyone else have support on this?
Digital Domain did use Linux for Titanic rendering. I'm pretty sure it was not "entirely" but I don't remember for sure. However, it was just the rendering, and was a pretty much isolated event. I believe DD just ported their proprietary renderer to Linux from IRIX. But Linux didn't appear for interactive 3D (i.e. modeling and animation) until much more recently, and even the renderers for mainstream packages (Maya, Renderman... )didn't appear until fairly recently. So the Titanic thing was just kind of an early blip on the 3D Linux radar screen.
A 'faster' video card won't help much here, as modelers and animators typically work with flat-shaded or wireframe models-- not fully-rendered scenes like in Quake III.
Huh? Most of the animators I know pore over what is the fastest video card for the money at a given moment. (I am one, but I don't pore much -g- ) True, most interactive modeling/animation involves working with flat-shaded or wireframe models. However, working with complex geometry in a scene or trying to view your movement requires as fast a card as you can get. Nowadays, it's practical to work with a $200 graphics card, which wasn't true 5 years ago. However, it's still the case that the faster card you can get the better.
Pixar has not, however, released modeling, or animation tools.
That's because they don't make any for any platform, or at least nothing major. They are known for Renderman, their renderer.
In fact, as far as I'm aware, Houdini and
Blender are among the very few 3D 'suites' out there for Linux. No 3DS Max, no Lightwave, no
ElectricImage... not much is being done on the 'graphics workstation' side of the equation.
Yes there is. Maya, the most popular 3D app used by high-end studios, is in the process of being ported to Linux, as well as to OSX. (I believe the renderer is already released for Linux.) Softimage XSI, another highend app, is also in the process of being ported.
When the Maya port is fully there, 3D on Linux will really start to be more widely usable.
Well, google searches for "Linux video capture" turn up a fair amount of clues; which cards can be used with Video4Linux and so on... but I'm wondering if there is a specific reason you need to use Linux? Can you get away with something under Windows? Sure, all things being equal I'd rather do it under Linux too, but, unfortunately Linux is a little behind the curve when it comes to serious video capture.. you'll likely find more readily available options if you can go with some version of Win32.
On the other hand, since you don't need to crank through realtime capture and editing, the available Linux solutions might work for you. But I'm curious whether or not you actually need to limit yourself in terms of OS.
Microsoft writeth: At this point, the decrypted music is available to applications and plug-ins that can intercept the music, leaving it susceptible to hacking.
Hacking music? Isn't that like dancing about architecture?
Amazing how certain misused-in-the-first-place terminology gets around... wonder what they'll think of next...
the 3D companies are probably asking themselves right now if the artists that use their products are the type of people to use Linux. I think that 3D artists are the most likly to use Linux with the exception of the fleets of hackers who already do. If you have ever used a powerful 3D application you know that they are very complex. Learning Linux is a small price to pay for reliability a magnatude higher than NT.
I wouldn't worry about that part... the same 3D artists who've been using IRIX for years won't have any problem with Linux. From the animation user's POV, they're identical. The students where I work are 3D animators - we have a bunch of IRIX machines and one of our servers runs Linux - they can't tell the difference. To me, the sysadmin, there are differences, but for what they need to do - if they know one of the two, they know the other.
On the other hand, people who have only used WinNT find the transition to any UNIX a little frightening. But there's such a long history of IRIX in the 3D world, that most 3D artists are at least used to the idea.
I live in Los Angeles, and there are plenty of hilly parts of the city where the cell phone reception totally drops out. So I don't think that would really be a reliable solution...
I think the concern about using cloning as means to create a "superior race" is not really about the practicalities of doing it on a mass scale in the immediate future - though a separate ethical concern is that cloning in the "experimental stages" can result in diseased, deformed, and stillborn children. However, the "genetic superiority" concerns are more that:
a) The more we "build-to-order" children with certain characteristics, the more these genetic characteristics become perceived as "valuable" - and other characteristics become "undesirable." This can lead to a whole host of societal problems, the most extreme being genocide.
b) A few decades ago, computers, for example, were gigantic, prohibitively expensive, and totally impractical to produce on a large scale. But, where there's marketability, new technologies tend to become much cheaper and more practical on a mass scale. So the idea that it's impractical to do much societal damage with cloning today doesn't do much to assuage people's fears.
It's been said that it's a good idea that people don't live forever, because if they did, when evil totalitarian leaaders came to power, they'd stay in power forever.
There are of course controversies over who is an "evil" leader and who isn't. But, for example, the Lenin clone wouldn't just be a specimen for research - the guy would actually be running around in society. Of course that can happen in the course of normal genetics anyway, but, would you really *want* to initiate a genetic clone of Lenin? (And as the allededly most well-preserved of the trio - discounting the "wax dummy" theory - he might be the most likely candidate, give or take the effects several decades of embalming... )
I think the real problem is that people associate cloning with genetic engineering, and have been watching too many movies where the evil
scientist creates a race of super whatevers that wipe out all of us puny humans.
Yeah, there was a movie about 60 years ago like that, starring a guy named Adolf Hitler. And there have been recent others, in the Balkans, etc. Clearly humans' fascination with "genetic superiority" isn't limited to the movies and can lead to horrifying ends - and that's why a lot of people find the idea of cloning very disturbing.
Exactly on minute after you establish an internet connection the real launcher that sits in your taskbar phones home to send
your personal data under the pretence of updating your real viewer.
Err, that's Real Networks - not the same company as Macromedia - or did I miss something?
After reading the linked Bugtraq post, exactly which plugin Neal Krawetz means is still unclear - at least to me. There are two types of "Shockwave": the type created in Director (.dcr files) and the type created in Flash (.swf files.) There are also two types of plugins: the Flash-only shockwave plugin (Macromedia calls this the "Macromedia Flash Player" on their website) and the plugin that can play both Director dcr and Flash swf files. (Macromedia calls this one the "Macromedia Shockwave Player" on their site.) This latter plugin isn't available for every platform (Linux is one of the platforms for which it is still not available.)
So, from the fact that Neal mentions running it on Linux, I'm pretty sure he means the regular Flash player is vulnerable... but how about the other Shockwave plugin - the one that plays both Flash and Director files? Since he only refers to crashing it with SWF files, it's not clear to me whether he means the other plugin is vulnerable - and if it is, could it be crashed with a DCR file?
As I recall, both Betacam and Betacam-SP were component recording formats, with the difference being in the grade of tape.
Yes that's about right. True, analog betcam isn't exactly considered current technology anymore, but there are plenty of them still around; I certainly wouldn't think of it as obsolete... they were current up until just a few years ago, whereas Betamax died out in the early 80's...
I think moonboy knows what he means, but many of the replies to his post are confused. Betamax was a consumer-level competitor to VHS, and it did look better and have smaller tapes. However, the format used in commercial production is Betacam, which is an entirely different format. (Both were brought to us by Sony, both use cassettes that look about the same, however, they are entirely different animals.)
Sounds like the makings of the old Bell Telephone monopoly, which eventually had to be broken up.
Except, I believe Bell was regulated by the FCC (Federal Communications Commission), not the FTC, wasn't it? That can make a difference. (Meaning, I think the FTC is more likely to allow monopolistic situations than the FCC.)
IANAL, but, I believe that's not really consistent with the Home Recording Act, at least in the US. The Home Recording Act, as I understand it, authorizes you to make copies of media you have purchased for personal use, for backup, etc. Things like taping a CD to play in your car are allowed. True, you can't redistribute the copies you make, but that wasn't the issue being discussed in the article.
IANAL, but, under the Home Recording Act, I believe you'd be entitled to find someone with a record player, digitize your LP into your computer, and burn a CD of it. Granted, this is probably not what you'd want to do, given the sound quality of the LP and the nuisance of digging up a record player. But I believe you legally can. With a less-outmoded technology than phonographs, this example makes more sense, but the LP happens to be what the article's author owns in this case. The Home Recording Act was designed to allow you to have more than one copy of recordings you own, but I don't think it forces the record companies to help you do it.
As to the software example: I don't believe companies are giving version upgrades because they feel compelled by intellectual property law; it's a marketing decision. Think about competitive upgrades - you haven't bought Company A's product yet, but they'll give you the new one at a reduced price to get you to switch from Company B's brand so that they can make more money off you later.
So, I don't think the law gets us anywhere in this case. I think it's more a marketing thing... it does make you wonder why record company marketing execs never came out with "Own this LP? upgrade to CD!" Or maybe they did and I missed it, or maybe they were just too arrogant (surprise) and decided they could get away with getting everyone to buy things twice.
But obviously, as we move away from physical media as the means of distribution, things change. Think of the MP3.com situation/court-case, in which you have to insert the CD as a "dongle" to prove ownership, and then you can listen to it as data anyplace. Legally, the RIAA and MPAA can run these things through courts forever; even if a court case finishes, a new one will start over a different variant. The change, I think, will finally occur when the RIAA/MPAA marketing people get their heads around the idea that this can be used to their advantage, and they simply aren't going to survive in the digital age expecting consumers to buy recordings in the form of physical objects multiple times.
Reminds me of Markwatch,
a web trademark-monitoring service with an, um, entertaining website.
You've probably seen Markwatch's bots, breather and snorkel, all over your weblogs... I have a student on a server at the college where I work who wrote a short story that mentions a Coke machine - they're all over it... how efficient...
So now we're going to have this kind of thing for sound files??? Oh good - bots downloading all the music students' work constantly... er uh, does this thing respect robots.txt files?? (and if it does, then what good is it... um, scratch that question....)
1960's Mechanical Technology seems to work OK
on
eLection '04
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· Score: 2
Where I grew up on the east coast, voting was done using mechanical voting machines. You entered the booth, and pulled levers for each candidate, which put an X in that candidate's box. If you made a mistake, you could simply move the lever back to its unchecked position and pull the right one. I'm pretty sure it wouldn't let you vote twice for the same race or question. You could visually see who you had voted for easily on the entire ballot. When you were done voting, you pulled a big lever which registered your votes, cleared the ballot, reset the levers, and opened the curtain. Evidently, each machine gave election officials a tally at the end of the day of all its votes. I never heard of any problems, and AFAIK they still use them.
In the early 1990's, I moved to California, so now I vote with the Untrusty Punchcard System, which has always seemed incredibly primitive and inaccurate to me. (I'm always afraid I'm going to screw up voting on the last proposition and will have to get a new ballot and start over. Even worse, it's really hard to verify visually that you have punched your card correctly at all, which is of course part of what bit the Florida Buchanan voters.)
With all the discussion in this thread about:
Punchcards - primitive and error-prone
Computer voting - hi-tech and error/fraud-prone
Should we consider a middleground - mechanical technology?
Since this thread has incorporated both the issues
of student (grad/undergrad) and faculty work:
In many film depts. for example, the university explicitly owns copyright on work created. My undergrad college sold a video piece I had worked on (and which I and my collaborators had contributed our own money toward making, and received no compensation for other than course credit). So I was very cautious when I selected my graduate school to make sure the students/faculty owned their own work at the school I chose.
I am now faculty at my former graduate school (an art school with a film dept.), and although students/faculty still own our own work, ambiguous issues still come up constantly. For example, software vendors sometimes require that they can use student images to promote their product in exchange for giving the school a software donation. Does that mean that any specific student would be required to allow his/her images to be used by a software vendor against his/her will or without his/her knowledge, or only that the school will dig up *somebody* whose images can be used. On the other hand, the school has its own preferences regarding which students' work will be given to the vendor, since the images used promotionally will be representing the school in addition to the vendor.
So it is definitely a slippery issue, even in the arts.
Slashdot Mirror
Do we have a word for people into technical or scientific things but who also have other interests and *aren't* socially inept?
This stereotyping is not so healthy; it makes people not tend to talk to or listen to us on other topics than technology. There seems to be plenty of discussion of socially-relevant topics on slashdot, so obviously the stereotype is false - but do we have a better word to describe those of us who don't fit it? Nerd-misfits, perhaps?
This just in: Lawyers for Reese's Peanut Butter Cups are rumored to be preparing a lawsuit against both parties in this case for infringing on their patented "Chocolate in my Peanut Butter" algorithm....
But the word processor thing I think is a serious issue. I've tried WordPerfect, but the fonts come out very hard to read. Must be something I'm missing doing in X? (Or maybe it's a Word Perfect bug?) It also didn't support my old Epson printer, though everything else under Linux did, which was weird... can't think of any Windows apps that have to have their own drivers separate from Windows... I'd like to know to get it to work (at least the fonts) so I don't have to boot into Windows every time I need to word process, but on the other hand, the fact that it's hard to get a word processor going on Linux does support her point.
I tend to think some of her suggestions - like eliminating choices of desktops - are unnecessary overreactions and probably counterproductive (e.g. I think multiple desktops are more a competitive edge than a distraction.) However, comments like "I can't get a word processor to work decently" are good points. It's not really gift horse syndrome to point out that people won't use something that doesn't seem to provide them certain basic functionality.
I forget whether it was Softimage or proprietary stuff or a combination. Anyway, I realize every house writes their own proprietary software. I should have used the word "sell" - I was talking about software that Pixar as a software vendor makes for outside distribution, not software that Pixar as a studio makes for inhouse use only.
Obviously whether proprietary inhouse software of the major studios is ported to Linux has something to do with Linux becoming considered a more serious 3D platform; this is already going on. But at this point I think the thing that's really going to make the push is when we see the major commercially available 3D packages available for Linux.
Since, s/he discusses modellers and animators working with flat-shaded and wire-framed models, it really sounds like s/he is talking about the interactive part of the process. (Since the rendering process definitely does involve textures) oh well... <shrug>
They used to make modelling software as well. Did they drop that?
Apparently. The only current product mentioned on Pixar's website is Renderman (and its accessory tools, such as RAT.) I don't really remember them doing a modeller.
Digital Domain added a bunch of Linux boxes for Titanic rendering to meet deadline because the hardware was cheap. I believe they ultimately had both SGI/IRIX and Intel/Linux boxes in the render farm, and ported their proprietary IRIX renderer to Linux. (It's possible that it was actually Renderman and they got Pixar to do a custom Linux port for them; I forget exactly.)
Digital Domain did use Linux for Titanic rendering. I'm pretty sure it was not "entirely" but I don't remember for sure. However, it was just the rendering, and was a pretty much isolated event. I believe DD just ported their proprietary renderer to Linux from IRIX. But Linux didn't appear for interactive 3D (i.e. modeling and animation) until much more recently, and even the renderers for mainstream packages (Maya, Renderman... )didn't appear until fairly recently. So the Titanic thing was just kind of an early blip on the 3D Linux radar screen.
Huh? Most of the animators I know pore over what is the fastest video card for the money at a given moment. (I am one, but I don't pore much -g- ) True, most interactive modeling/animation involves working with flat-shaded or wireframe models. However, working with complex geometry in a scene or trying to view your movement requires as fast a card as you can get. Nowadays, it's practical to work with a $200 graphics card, which wasn't true 5 years ago. However, it's still the case that the faster card you can get the better.
Pixar has not, however, released modeling, or animation tools.
That's because they don't make any for any platform, or at least nothing major. They are known for Renderman, their renderer.
In fact, as far as I'm aware, Houdini and Blender are among the very few 3D 'suites' out there for Linux. No 3DS Max, no Lightwave, no ElectricImage... not much is being done on the 'graphics workstation' side of the equation.
Yes there is. Maya, the most popular 3D app used by high-end studios, is in the process of being ported to Linux, as well as to OSX. (I believe the renderer is already released for Linux.) Softimage XSI, another highend app, is also in the process of being ported.
When the Maya port is fully there, 3D on Linux will really start to be more widely usable.
On the other hand, since you don't need to crank through realtime capture and editing, the available Linux solutions might work for you. But I'm curious whether or not you actually need to limit yourself in terms of OS.
At this point, the decrypted music is available to applications and plug-ins that can intercept the music, leaving it susceptible to hacking.
Hacking music? Isn't that like dancing about architecture?
Amazing how certain misused-in-the-first-place terminology gets around... wonder what they'll think of next...
I wouldn't worry about that part... the same 3D artists who've been using IRIX for years won't have any problem with Linux. From the animation user's POV, they're identical. The students where I work are 3D animators - we have a bunch of IRIX machines and one of our servers runs Linux - they can't tell the difference. To me, the sysadmin, there are differences, but for what they need to do - if they know one of the two, they know the other.
On the other hand, people who have only used WinNT find the transition to any UNIX a little frightening. But there's such a long history of IRIX in the 3D world, that most 3D artists are at least used to the idea.
I live in Los Angeles, and there are plenty of hilly parts of the city where the cell phone reception totally drops out. So I don't think that would really be a reliable solution...
a) The more we "build-to-order" children with certain characteristics, the more these genetic characteristics become perceived as "valuable" - and other characteristics become "undesirable." This can lead to a whole host of societal problems, the most extreme being genocide.
b) A few decades ago, computers, for example, were gigantic, prohibitively expensive, and totally impractical to produce on a large scale. But, where there's marketability, new technologies tend to become much cheaper and more practical on a mass scale. So the idea that it's impractical to do much societal damage with cloning today doesn't do much to assuage people's fears.
There are of course controversies over who is an "evil" leader and who isn't. But, for example, the Lenin clone wouldn't just be a specimen for research - the guy would actually be running around in society. Of course that can happen in the course of normal genetics anyway, but, would you really *want* to initiate a genetic clone of Lenin? (And as the allededly most well-preserved of the trio - discounting the "wax dummy" theory - he might be the most likely candidate, give or take the effects several decades of embalming... )
Yeah, there was a movie about 60 years ago like that, starring a guy named Adolf Hitler. And there have been recent others, in the Balkans, etc. Clearly humans' fascination with "genetic superiority" isn't limited to the movies and can lead to horrifying ends - and that's why a lot of people find the idea of cloning very disturbing.
Err, that's Real Networks - not the same company as Macromedia - or did I miss something?
So, from the fact that Neal mentions running it on Linux, I'm pretty sure he means the regular Flash player is vulnerable... but how about the other Shockwave plugin - the one that plays both Flash and Director files? Since he only refers to crashing it with SWF files, it's not clear to me whether he means the other plugin is vulnerable - and if it is, could it be crashed with a DCR file?
Yes that's about right. True, analog betcam isn't exactly considered current technology anymore, but there are plenty of them still around; I certainly wouldn't think of it as obsolete... they were current up until just a few years ago, whereas Betamax died out in the early 80's...
Betamax is obsolete, but Betacam is still around.
Sounds like the makings of the old Bell Telephone monopoly, which eventually had to be broken up. Except, I believe Bell was regulated by the FCC (Federal Communications Commission), not the FTC, wasn't it? That can make a difference. (Meaning, I think the FTC is more likely to allow monopolistic situations than the FCC.)
IANAL, but, I believe that's not really consistent with the Home Recording Act, at least in the US. The Home Recording Act, as I understand it, authorizes you to make copies of media you have purchased for personal use, for backup, etc. Things like taping a CD to play in your car are allowed. True, you can't redistribute the copies you make, but that wasn't the issue being discussed in the article.
As to the software example: I don't believe companies are giving version upgrades because they feel compelled by intellectual property law; it's a marketing decision. Think about competitive upgrades - you haven't bought Company A's product yet, but they'll give you the new one at a reduced price to get you to switch from Company B's brand so that they can make more money off you later.
So, I don't think the law gets us anywhere in this case. I think it's more a marketing thing... it does make you wonder why record company marketing execs never came out with "Own this LP? upgrade to CD!" Or maybe they did and I missed it, or maybe they were just too arrogant (surprise) and decided they could get away with getting everyone to buy things twice.
But obviously, as we move away from physical media as the means of distribution, things change. Think of the MP3.com situation/court-case, in which you have to insert the CD as a "dongle" to prove ownership, and then you can listen to it as data anyplace. Legally, the RIAA and MPAA can run these things through courts forever; even if a court case finishes, a new one will start over a different variant. The change, I think, will finally occur when the RIAA/MPAA marketing people get their heads around the idea that this can be used to their advantage, and they simply aren't going to survive in the digital age expecting consumers to buy recordings in the form of physical objects multiple times.
So now we're going to have this kind of thing for sound files??? Oh good - bots downloading all the music students' work constantly... er uh, does this thing respect robots.txt files?? (and if it does, then what good is it... um, scratch that question....)
In the early 1990's, I moved to California, so now I vote with the Untrusty Punchcard System, which has always seemed incredibly primitive and inaccurate to me. (I'm always afraid I'm going to screw up voting on the last proposition and will have to get a new ballot and start over. Even worse, it's really hard to verify visually that you have punched your card correctly at all, which is of course part of what bit the Florida Buchanan voters.)
With all the discussion in this thread about:
Punchcards - primitive and error-prone
Computer voting - hi-tech and error/fraud-prone
Should we consider a middleground - mechanical technology?
In many film depts. for example, the university explicitly owns copyright on work created. My undergrad college sold a video piece I had worked on (and which I and my collaborators had contributed our own money toward making, and received no compensation for other than course credit). So I was very cautious when I selected my graduate school to make sure the students/faculty owned their own work at the school I chose.
I am now faculty at my former graduate school (an art school with a film dept.), and although students/faculty still own our own work, ambiguous issues still come up constantly. For example, software vendors sometimes require that they can use student images to promote their product in exchange for giving the school a software donation. Does that mean that any specific student would be required to allow his/her images to be used by a software vendor against his/her will or without his/her knowledge, or only that the school will dig up *somebody* whose images can be used. On the other hand, the school has its own preferences regarding which students' work will be given to the vendor, since the images used promotionally will be representing the school in addition to the vendor.
So it is definitely a slippery issue, even in the arts.