Completely agreed. I just posted similar on the last topic about patents - but it is worth saying here as well:
Eventually we will look back on copyright and patents like we now do on slavery. Slavery, too, was an important part of our economy, which was utterly immoral, and many understood it was wrong. Slavery just happens to have been a LOT worse. However, it will happen to copyright/patents, too. Then we can get on with society without their shackles.
You claim that patents protect people from corporations. This is false. I do not believe I need to go and prove this point - see the article linked above, or Google "Small Business Sued Patent," which I am sure will yield many relevant examples.
Of course, then you claim that somehow, I am advocating "crimes against humanity" by suggesting the above and a logical course of action given it. I think, at least; it isn't really clear where that comment came from. Assuming that, let me guess - you're one of those "Obama wants Death Panels" people?
Anyway, since I already responded to this post...
"People" in the corporate world (aka, "the entitled set") think they have a right to use people like their own personal lotto tickets and transfer someone else's value (intellectual property, e.g.) to themself or distribute it amongst "the group".
...which, in this case, is enabled by the fact that ownership of ideas is legally recognized. Take away patents, and anyone can use the ideas in question. No ability to transfer that which does not exist.
So if someone spends years doing R&D and creates something new, keeping it a secret is his only option then to keep it away from predators?
Old argument. We live in a brave new world here, buddy- China doesn't give a crap about your patent, anyway. Even if patents were enforceable in such a way as to remove that little issue from the picture, you just end up with a lot of people having patents to things they lack the capital to profit on. The result, which is currently the norm, is that the inventor(s) is payed a small sum (far below what the idea is 'worth'), and the buyer then proceeds to abuse the patent against society at large.
Not to mention all the patents granted for things which are still effectively secret, which is your argument for patents, right? "But it will make ideas open!" - nope, sorry, it didn't. Not sure what the use of them being publicly known is if they are not publicly usable, anyway...
Patents are an immoral construct which will be gone before the turn of the next century, just like copyright. People who supported them will be laughed at and likely scorned. Even if there was some justification to them, they are quickly becoming unworkable and costly, and even those who own them are realizing it. The internet, computers, and global industrialization are proving they are a flawed concept on almost every level. The times they are a changin'!
"You should be allowed to take an invention that has taken years of real hard R&D by some small inventor and copy it and hence he gets no reward for his hard work"
However, as we now see, patents essentially ensure that a small investor such as the one you mention could never manage to profit off his work, because he would be sued into oblivion for violating other patents. This is not a flaw in the patent system, it is a flaw in the concept of ideas being property. It needs abolished outright.
Also, no one has a right to profit. Get over that myth.
Ownership of ideas is ludicrous. Enforcement of such ownership is censorship, plain and simple. No one should be behind this kind of thing.
I have said it before, and I think people got the wrong message, but I will say it again: eventually we will look back on copyright and patents like we now do on slavery. Slavery, too, was an important part of our economy, which was utterly immoral, and many understood it was wrong. Slavery just happens to have been a LOT worse. However, it will happen to copyright/patents, too. Then we can get on with society without their shackles.
Selling the game online as a download, not selling it in stores in Australia, cutting any business ties with the country (as to avoid being sued), and letting the moral guardians suck an egg? Countries that wish to live in the middle ages should not have their laws respected.
"Pretty much everyone, including OSS software developers, desire the benefits of copyright."
Don't confuse the use of copyright with wanting copyright. A good number of open source developers use licenses to prevent their code from getting into copyrighted corporate products, but wouldn't object to just doing away with the whole system. I am one of them.
"I certainly don't see anything here that is so impossible he must be a scammer."
That's actually my biggest issue with it. I don't see anything in the video *at all* that can't be done with current technology, some good hardware, and very clean programming. The claims they are making do not seem to align with what is being shown, and indeed, the claims seem to be somewhat self-contradictory.
I don't think that a massive revolution in rendering is impossible (although it would almost certainly require new hardware, as video cards are optimized for the current system), I just do not believe these people have it, or anything near it. Quite the contrary, I believe this has all the hallmarks of some serious vaporware.
It is important to remember that when the current system arose, 3D was a very new field, and one regarded to a large extent as a toy. Now we have literally billions of dollars going into research - both public and private. I have to place the bar a bit higher than "cool video and big words" when it is only one group of people, in a world filled with movie execs, grad students, math professors, demo scene people, etc., claiming they have revolutionized it beyond recognition. That just doesn't happen in the real world.
That doesn't solve saved games. People won't like having to get an extra had drive to back up their save, nor will they like loading screens that take hours.
Raytracing is quite a different situation. The issue with realtime raytracing is that it can make the lighting worse; unless you use a large number of rays (which can become prohibitive, especially with other lighting methods at work, which can complicate ray paths), it looks splotchy and staticy. It is far from impossible given current technology - you can forcibly enable it in some games, even - just not really that helpful when it comes to making a scene look better.
These people are playing up a complete change in rendering methodology. I am not sure if that is actually what they're providing; I'm very skeptical on that issue in itself. They haven't really explained how this works, and depending on the actual (claimed) implementation, it could really range from "inconvenient/not helpful" to "completely impossible, now or in the future." However, given some of what else was said in the video, and the general vagueness of their "technology," I lean towards it being a scam or vaporware.
Nothing they showed was revolutionary, nor did it display any traits unique to the system they have claimed to develop. An obvious use of such a system - destructible objects - is conspicuously absent from their demo. I'm not saying it is impossible, but I am saying that I think this is iffy.
Addendum. I watched the video (OK, skimmed it). As far as particles go, this doesn't look like it is actually intended to be a full particle system. Rather, some kind of hybrid, like particle effects are done now. So sure, that could be something new - but still, their claims are formed in a very misleading way, given this.
I did however notice an extremely questionable statement which makes me seriously suspect this is a scam.
5:45 - he makes the claim that real-world scanned objects can't be used in games because the resolution is too high. This is completely false. Game developers have scanned objects for a long time, and even more often, made extremely high resolution models on purpose. The models are then lowered in resolution down to a usable form, and the differences between the low-res and high-res models is compiled into a normal (bump) map. This is how almost all first person game textures are made these days. (The benefits of this process are mainly surrounding the better efficiency of textures in holding the depth data than polys, especially at varying distances where complex geometry results in extreme aliasing, and the fact that high-poly models cause serious issues with more advanced lighting schemes.) To make the claim this guy just did is highly suspect.
The "goal" of crazy people who don't actually understand computers has always been to make graphics (and sometimes logic) based on "atoms"/particles/etc. The problem is not that it can't be done - anyone who has ever used a 3D modeling program with fluid dynamics has that power right in front of them - the problem is that it can't realistically be done in real time with our technology. Hell, it can't realistically be done pre-rendered without a supercomputer.
So sure, it could make it '100,000 times better.' No one is really debating that, and it isn't news to anyone who knows the first thing about graphics. What would be news would be hardware that better supported it. Somehow, I don't think that's what we have here. Notice the lack of specifics as to what KIND of graphics they seek to improve.
Looks like the Australians just got scammed for 2 million.
Let me be the first to volunteer my city, Raleigh NC, for whatever kind of nuclear waste you want to store here. It can't really make it suck much more.
Hopefully it won't be horribly overtaxed, logged, tracked, and badly structured like most campus internet services. I actually trust the telcos more than I do universities when it comes to running a proper network.
Wow, complaining about modding? 'Slashbots'? Did you come up with that one yourself?
Oh wait. Of course not. I've only heard it a few hundred times before. Next time you accuse someone of 'repeating groupthink,' maybe you should at least attempt to hide your own lack of original thought.
The same "same government" republicans willing to let the US default over that matter are the ones backing this. They do not have your interests at heart, they don't want a small government: they're fascists and elitists, plain and simple. If you believe otherwise, please look more closely at their actions.
because their goal isn't to help innovation. Their goal, and I'd argue it has been this way from the start, is to help large corporations control the market. Even companies that lost out in megacorp-megacorp patent wars are still benefiting from the power they exercise over small businesses and startups, which lack the money and legal departments to fight patent lawsuit threats. This is why no one is calling for patent reform, even though it may at times seem logical. The lobbyists know exactly what they are doing. There will never be patent reform (or indeed what needs to happen, abolition of all IP) in the US, because the only thing keeping our economy afloat is the artificial control of the global market that they create.
The only thing that is going to happen is that our slow slide to irrelevance will continue, until we are a third world nation. The world isn't going to put up with the copyright and patent laws we force on them for much longer, and when European countries start to abolish IP, the US economy will collapse.
I bet you're one of those people who says evolution is a religion, because it runs against religion. The fact is, neither of us are scientists. I am not qualified to make the thesis you, for whatever reason, want, and neither are you to evaluate its merit. If you want to be, go into the field. Nothing is stopping you. I am sure they will be very happy to hear you repeating the rhetoric of the oil-funded lobby groups, but if you have a point, you shouldn't have any issue making it. Right?
Until then, you pretty much have to either agree with those who know more than you say. I am not a geologist or anything in a related field. I am in the process of becoming a chemical engineer. However, even I know enough to see that the data backing up global warming is at the very least correlation, and the theory behind it is quite sound. Something is going on, and you wringing your hands that it is "religion" to see a connection isn't helping anyone solve any problems. In fact, it could end up hurting everyone.
Ranting and goalpost moving on slashdot isn't going to make anyone take you more seriously. In fact, I suspect the opposite is going to happen, as global warming 'deniers' are already a joke among those with a clue, as much as intelligent design advocates. So please. Do something constructive, or leave it to the professionals.
He practically founded the movement during the last election, and his son is its current ringleader. The guy doesn't care about personal rights. Not one bit. Look at his stances on abortion and gay rights if you really want to know. He has a lot of rhetoric about leaving things to the states, but ultimately that means repealing the few protections that the federal government gives citizens, and letting states like Arizona implement whatever unconstitutional laws they like. Balkanization of the US, which has been a fairly stable republic since the civil war, isn't a noble or liberal goal in any sense.
This is coming from someone who actually supported Ron Paul, until the Tea Party arose and I saw what him and his kin actually support. No more. I am a party-line Democrat until the Republicans show they actually care about anyone other than the christian elite.
Slashdot Mirror
Given this is Fox, they will most likely attempt to avoid evolution as much as humanly possible, or present "other theories" along with it.
Completely agreed. I just posted similar on the last topic about patents - but it is worth saying here as well:
Eventually we will look back on copyright and patents like we now do on slavery. Slavery, too, was an important part of our economy, which was utterly immoral, and many understood it was wrong. Slavery just happens to have been a LOT worse. However, it will happen to copyright/patents, too. Then we can get on with society without their shackles.
You claim that patents protect people from corporations. This is false. I do not believe I need to go and prove this point - see the article linked above, or Google "Small Business Sued Patent," which I am sure will yield many relevant examples.
...which, in this case, is enabled by the fact that ownership of ideas is legally recognized. Take away patents, and anyone can use the ideas in question. No ability to transfer that which does not exist.
Of course, then you claim that somehow, I am advocating "crimes against humanity" by suggesting the above and a logical course of action given it. I think, at least; it isn't really clear where that comment came from. Assuming that, let me guess - you're one of those "Obama wants Death Panels" people?
Anyway, since I already responded to this post...
"People" in the corporate world (aka, "the entitled set") think they have a right to use people like their own personal lotto tickets and transfer someone else's value (intellectual property, e.g.) to themself or distribute it amongst "the group".
So if someone spends years doing R&D and creates something new, keeping it a secret is his only option then to keep it away from predators?
Old argument. We live in a brave new world here, buddy- China doesn't give a crap about your patent, anyway. Even if patents were enforceable in such a way as to remove that little issue from the picture, you just end up with a lot of people having patents to things they lack the capital to profit on. The result, which is currently the norm, is that the inventor(s) is payed a small sum (far below what the idea is 'worth'), and the buyer then proceeds to abuse the patent against society at large.
Not to mention all the patents granted for things which are still effectively secret, which is your argument for patents, right? "But it will make ideas open!" - nope, sorry, it didn't. Not sure what the use of them being publicly known is if they are not publicly usable, anyway...
Patents are an immoral construct which will be gone before the turn of the next century, just like copyright. People who supported them will be laughed at and likely scorned. Even if there was some justification to them, they are quickly becoming unworkable and costly, and even those who own them are realizing it. The internet, computers, and global industrialization are proving they are a flawed concept on almost every level. The times they are a changin'!
"You should be allowed to take an invention that has taken years of real hard R&D by some small inventor and copy it and hence he gets no reward for his hard work"
However, as we now see, patents essentially ensure that a small investor such as the one you mention could never manage to profit off his work, because he would be sued into oblivion for violating other patents. This is not a flaw in the patent system, it is a flaw in the concept of ideas being property. It needs abolished outright.
Also, no one has a right to profit. Get over that myth.
Ownership of ideas is ludicrous. Enforcement of such ownership is censorship, plain and simple. No one should be behind this kind of thing.
I have said it before, and I think people got the wrong message, but I will say it again: eventually we will look back on copyright and patents like we now do on slavery. Slavery, too, was an important part of our economy, which was utterly immoral, and many understood it was wrong. Slavery just happens to have been a LOT worse. However, it will happen to copyright/patents, too. Then we can get on with society without their shackles.
Selling the game online as a download, not selling it in stores in Australia, cutting any business ties with the country (as to avoid being sued), and letting the moral guardians suck an egg? Countries that wish to live in the middle ages should not have their laws respected.
"Oh, right, it's News Corp.... so it must be evil."
Yeah, I guess all that spying, hacking, manipulation of global politics, extortion, bribery... isn't really a big problem. They're fair and balanced!
"Pretty much everyone, including OSS software developers, desire the benefits of copyright."
Don't confuse the use of copyright with wanting copyright. A good number of open source developers use licenses to prevent their code from getting into copyrighted corporate products, but wouldn't object to just doing away with the whole system. I am one of them.
Boy are you going to be pissed when you get into college. Ever hear of webassign?
Don't be too sad. This is Missouri, after all.
Please, learn something about constitutional law. The level of ignorance in this topic is astounding.
The market always makes the best choice. However, it is best for the rich who own the big players in the market, not for the workers or consumers.
Gah! Always leave out Dwarf Fortress from the list! What does the media have against it?
/sarcasm
"I certainly don't see anything here that is so impossible he must be a scammer."
That's actually my biggest issue with it. I don't see anything in the video *at all* that can't be done with current technology, some good hardware, and very clean programming. The claims they are making do not seem to align with what is being shown, and indeed, the claims seem to be somewhat self-contradictory.
I don't think that a massive revolution in rendering is impossible (although it would almost certainly require new hardware, as video cards are optimized for the current system), I just do not believe these people have it, or anything near it. Quite the contrary, I believe this has all the hallmarks of some serious vaporware.
It is important to remember that when the current system arose, 3D was a very new field, and one regarded to a large extent as a toy. Now we have literally billions of dollars going into research - both public and private. I have to place the bar a bit higher than "cool video and big words" when it is only one group of people, in a world filled with movie execs, grad students, math professors, demo scene people, etc., claiming they have revolutionized it beyond recognition. That just doesn't happen in the real world.
That doesn't solve saved games. People won't like having to get an extra had drive to back up their save, nor will they like loading screens that take hours.
Raytracing is quite a different situation. The issue with realtime raytracing is that it can make the lighting worse; unless you use a large number of rays (which can become prohibitive, especially with other lighting methods at work, which can complicate ray paths), it looks splotchy and staticy. It is far from impossible given current technology - you can forcibly enable it in some games, even - just not really that helpful when it comes to making a scene look better.
These people are playing up a complete change in rendering methodology. I am not sure if that is actually what they're providing; I'm very skeptical on that issue in itself. They haven't really explained how this works, and depending on the actual (claimed) implementation, it could really range from "inconvenient/not helpful" to "completely impossible, now or in the future." However, given some of what else was said in the video, and the general vagueness of their "technology," I lean towards it being a scam or vaporware.
Nothing they showed was revolutionary, nor did it display any traits unique to the system they have claimed to develop. An obvious use of such a system - destructible objects - is conspicuously absent from their demo. I'm not saying it is impossible, but I am saying that I think this is iffy.
Addendum. I watched the video (OK, skimmed it). As far as particles go, this doesn't look like it is actually intended to be a full particle system. Rather, some kind of hybrid, like particle effects are done now. So sure, that could be something new - but still, their claims are formed in a very misleading way, given this.
I did however notice an extremely questionable statement which makes me seriously suspect this is a scam.
5:45 - he makes the claim that real-world scanned objects can't be used in games because the resolution is too high. This is completely false. Game developers have scanned objects for a long time, and even more often, made extremely high resolution models on purpose. The models are then lowered in resolution down to a usable form, and the differences between the low-res and high-res models is compiled into a normal (bump) map. This is how almost all first person game textures are made these days. (The benefits of this process are mainly surrounding the better efficiency of textures in holding the depth data than polys, especially at varying distances where complex geometry results in extreme aliasing, and the fact that high-poly models cause serious issues with more advanced lighting schemes.) To make the claim this guy just did is highly suspect.
The "goal" of crazy people who don't actually understand computers has always been to make graphics (and sometimes logic) based on "atoms"/particles/etc. The problem is not that it can't be done - anyone who has ever used a 3D modeling program with fluid dynamics has that power right in front of them - the problem is that it can't realistically be done in real time with our technology. Hell, it can't realistically be done pre-rendered without a supercomputer.
So sure, it could make it '100,000 times better.' No one is really debating that, and it isn't news to anyone who knows the first thing about graphics. What would be news would be hardware that better supported it. Somehow, I don't think that's what we have here. Notice the lack of specifics as to what KIND of graphics they seek to improve.
Looks like the Australians just got scammed for 2 million.
Let me be the first to volunteer my city, Raleigh NC, for whatever kind of nuclear waste you want to store here. It can't really make it suck much more.
Hopefully it won't be horribly overtaxed, logged, tracked, and badly structured like most campus internet services. I actually trust the telcos more than I do universities when it comes to running a proper network.
Wow, complaining about modding? 'Slashbots'? Did you come up with that one yourself?
Oh wait. Of course not. I've only heard it a few hundred times before. Next time you accuse someone of 'repeating groupthink,' maybe you should at least attempt to hide your own lack of original thought.
The same "same government" republicans willing to let the US default over that matter are the ones backing this. They do not have your interests at heart, they don't want a small government: they're fascists and elitists, plain and simple. If you believe otherwise, please look more closely at their actions.
because their goal isn't to help innovation. Their goal, and I'd argue it has been this way from the start, is to help large corporations control the market. Even companies that lost out in megacorp-megacorp patent wars are still benefiting from the power they exercise over small businesses and startups, which lack the money and legal departments to fight patent lawsuit threats. This is why no one is calling for patent reform, even though it may at times seem logical. The lobbyists know exactly what they are doing. There will never be patent reform (or indeed what needs to happen, abolition of all IP) in the US, because the only thing keeping our economy afloat is the artificial control of the global market that they create.
The only thing that is going to happen is that our slow slide to irrelevance will continue, until we are a third world nation. The world isn't going to put up with the copyright and patent laws we force on them for much longer, and when European countries start to abolish IP, the US economy will collapse.
I bet you're one of those people who says evolution is a religion, because it runs against religion. The fact is, neither of us are scientists. I am not qualified to make the thesis you, for whatever reason, want, and neither are you to evaluate its merit. If you want to be, go into the field. Nothing is stopping you. I am sure they will be very happy to hear you repeating the rhetoric of the oil-funded lobby groups, but if you have a point, you shouldn't have any issue making it. Right?
Until then, you pretty much have to either agree with those who know more than you say. I am not a geologist or anything in a related field. I am in the process of becoming a chemical engineer. However, even I know enough to see that the data backing up global warming is at the very least correlation, and the theory behind it is quite sound. Something is going on, and you wringing your hands that it is "religion" to see a connection isn't helping anyone solve any problems. In fact, it could end up hurting everyone.
Ranting and goalpost moving on slashdot isn't going to make anyone take you more seriously. In fact, I suspect the opposite is going to happen, as global warming 'deniers' are already a joke among those with a clue, as much as intelligent design advocates. So please. Do something constructive, or leave it to the professionals.
He practically founded the movement during the last election, and his son is its current ringleader. The guy doesn't care about personal rights. Not one bit. Look at his stances on abortion and gay rights if you really want to know. He has a lot of rhetoric about leaving things to the states, but ultimately that means repealing the few protections that the federal government gives citizens, and letting states like Arizona implement whatever unconstitutional laws they like. Balkanization of the US, which has been a fairly stable republic since the civil war, isn't a noble or liberal goal in any sense.
This is coming from someone who actually supported Ron Paul, until the Tea Party arose and I saw what him and his kin actually support. No more. I am a party-line Democrat until the Republicans show they actually care about anyone other than the christian elite.