Direct2D and Direct3D are not being abandoned, they've been moved into the Windows 8 SDK along with other APIs that have replaced components of DirectX such as XAudio2. Microsoft is just retiring obsolete, deprecated, and unsupported APIs like DirectSound (replaced by XAudio2), DirectMusic, and DirectInput. More information is available at Where is the DirectX SDK?.
I've heard similar statements from many many different sources in academia. One of the most famous is Tom Lehrer's song "Lobachevsky", with its refrain:
Plagiarize,
Let no one else's work evade your eyes,
Remember why the good Lord made your eyes,
So don't shade your eyes,
But plagiarize, plagiarize, plagiarize...
Only be sure always to call it please, "research".
See how your representative voted here. Fortunately, my representative (The Honorable James Moran of Virginia's 8th District - that is, northern Virginia) voted against Tauzin-Dingell. If you don't know who your congresscritter is, you can find out here.
Lois has been putting books (and novellas) out regularly for almost two decades now. A complete bibliography is available at The Bujold Nexus. There is a large and vibrant fan community based out of that web site as well.
If you really want to future-proof (yes, that's an icky marketing term, but accurate!) your house's construction, in addition to running cat-5 (which can be used for POTS as well - RJ-11 plugs are mechanically and electrically compatible with RJ-45 sockets) run conduit through the walls. That allows you to easily run whatever cables you might require years down the road, much easier and cheaper than trying to fish wire through stud bays. Also, install a junction station in the basement, so you can easily connect and/or switch wall panels with signal sources.
If you're stringing wires now, run coax (cable tv) and speaker wires through the walls now, in addition to cat-5 and electrical service. A company whose name escapes me (but they have been featured on PBS's "This Old House" a couple of times) sells a cable bundle called "future-proof wiring" that includes a pair each of cat-3, cat-5, coax, fiber, and speaker wire, all bundled neatly together. It costs a lot, but the labor savings will probably make up the difference.
NVIDIA's GeForce3 does have a similar technology, which they use to implement DX8's npatches. In OpenGL the functionality is exposed through the GL_NV_evaluators extension, as demonstrated by the "bumpy shiny patch" demonstration program in the NVIDIA SDK.
Just because a card provides hardware support for a feature (such as npatches) does not mean that the software (eg games) that you're using is utilizing that hardware. I do not know of a single shipping title that's currently using npatches, and the GL_NV_evaluators extension was only released to developers a year ago. I would not consider addition or elimination of hardware support for npatches to be a deal-breaker when deciding what video card to buy, unless I was planning on writing software myself that utilizes that feature.
It's been my experience that the NVIDIA drivers are superior to the ATI drivers. I've been using an ELSA GLADIAC 920 GeForce3 board in my workstation for a year now, with the NVIDIA drivers, and have nothing but praise for both the hardware and software. I have had problems with the software drivers for the ATI RAGE LT Pro in my laptop computer.
Photoshop is the commercialization of the software developed to composit the special effects used by the movie The Abyss. So, therefore, it cannot predate 1989. As I recall, Photoshop first appeared sometime in early 1990.
WMPT (Maryland Public Television, available in Maryland (duh!) and the Washington, DC metro area) has been showing Robot Wars for at least three weeks now. It's on Saturdays at 11pm, between Red Dwarf and Dr. Who. They have a web site at www.mpt.org for more information.
NVIDIA has produced OpenGL extensions which expose all GeForce3 functionality, including stuff which DirectX 8 can't do (eg track matrices, vertex state programs). See the OpenGL extension specification document available at http://www.nvidia.com/developer.nsf for more information.
If they're so narrow-minded as to refuse service to the (large) segment of the population whose names just happen to contain an "objectionable" name as a substring, then they will find it difficult to obtain or grow market share, and therefore receive advertising revenue. So, I think this bozo will find it extremely difficult to make a living with these ridculous policies in effect.
I searched and found my father's PhD dissertation at Contentville, and he completed that in 1973! I also found a dissertation published in 1974 that I'm citing in my own thesis. When I finish, I will definitely be watching the copyright on it closely.
What about regulating the price of Windows as if it were a utility, subject to the same laws that regulate electricity or phone service? A friend of mine pointed this out to me, and the more I think about it the better I like it. The way this works is that the gov't fixes the profit margin (such as 10%) therefore effectively defining the price that Windows can be sold for. Anything bundled with Windows (eg Internet Explorer) becomes subject to these regulations. So, if MS decides that WordPerfect is gaining too much market share and they decide to bundle Word with Windows, they no longer control the price of Word - thereby providing a disincentive to bundle additional products into Windows so as to destroy a market.
They would also be subject to the equal-access laws. If Compaq decides that their customers would rather use Netscape instead of IE, MS would be required to provide Compaq with equal access to the Windows desktop.
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Direct2D and Direct3D are not being abandoned, they've been moved into the Windows 8 SDK along with other APIs that have replaced components of DirectX such as XAudio2. Microsoft is just retiring obsolete, deprecated, and unsupported APIs like DirectSound (replaced by XAudio2), DirectMusic, and DirectInput. More information is available at Where is the DirectX SDK?.
Plagiarize,
Let no one else's work evade your eyes,
Remember why the good Lord made your eyes,
So don't shade your eyes,
But plagiarize, plagiarize, plagiarize...
Only be sure always to call it please, "research".
The full lyrics are available at http://members.aol.com/quentncree/lehrer/lobachev. htm. Buying one of Tom Lehrer's CDs is highly recommended, he's an extremely funny songwriter!
See how your representative voted here. Fortunately, my representative (The Honorable James Moran of Virginia's 8th District - that is, northern Virginia) voted against Tauzin-Dingell. If you don't know who your congresscritter is, you can find out here.
Lois has been putting books (and novellas) out regularly for almost two decades now. A complete bibliography is available at The Bujold Nexus. There is a large and vibrant fan community based out of that web site as well.
If you really want to future-proof (yes, that's an icky marketing term, but accurate!) your house's construction, in addition to running cat-5 (which can be used for POTS as well - RJ-11 plugs are mechanically and electrically compatible with RJ-45 sockets) run conduit through the walls. That allows you to easily run whatever cables you might require years down the road, much easier and cheaper than trying to fish wire through stud bays. Also, install a junction station in the basement, so you can easily connect and/or switch wall panels with signal sources.
If you're stringing wires now, run coax (cable tv) and speaker wires through the walls now, in addition to cat-5 and electrical service. A company whose name escapes me (but they have been featured on PBS's "This Old House" a couple of times) sells a cable bundle called "future-proof wiring" that includes a pair each of cat-3, cat-5, coax, fiber, and speaker wire, all bundled neatly together. It costs a lot, but the labor savings will probably make up the difference.
Just because a card provides hardware support for a feature (such as npatches) does not mean that the software (eg games) that you're using is utilizing that hardware. I do not know of a single shipping title that's currently using npatches, and the GL_NV_evaluators extension was only released to developers a year ago. I would not consider addition or elimination of hardware support for npatches to be a deal-breaker when deciding what video card to buy, unless I was planning on writing software myself that utilizes that feature.
It's been my experience that the NVIDIA drivers are superior to the ATI drivers. I've been using an ELSA GLADIAC 920 GeForce3 board in my workstation for a year now, with the NVIDIA drivers, and have nothing but praise for both the hardware and software. I have had problems with the software drivers for the ATI RAGE LT Pro in my laptop computer.
Photoshop is the commercialization of the software developed to composit the special effects used by the movie The Abyss. So, therefore, it cannot predate 1989. As I recall, Photoshop first appeared sometime in early 1990.
WMPT (Maryland Public Television, available in Maryland (duh!) and the Washington, DC metro area) has been showing Robot Wars for at least three weeks now. It's on Saturdays at 11pm, between Red Dwarf and Dr. Who. They have a web site at www.mpt.org for more information.
NVIDIA has produced OpenGL extensions which expose all GeForce3 functionality, including stuff which DirectX 8 can't do (eg track matrices, vertex state programs). See the OpenGL extension specification document available at http://www.nvidia.com/developer.nsf for more information.
If they're so narrow-minded as to refuse service to the (large) segment of the population whose names just happen to contain an "objectionable" name as a substring, then they will find it difficult to obtain or grow market share, and therefore receive advertising revenue. So, I think this bozo will find it extremely difficult to make a living with these ridculous policies in effect.
I searched and found my father's PhD dissertation at Contentville, and he completed that in 1973! I also found a dissertation published in 1974 that I'm citing in my own thesis. When I finish, I will definitely be watching the copyright on it closely.
They would also be subject to the equal-access laws. If Compaq decides that their customers would rather use Netscape instead of IE, MS would be required to provide Compaq with equal access to the Windows desktop.