Comment Re:Hard-wired DirectX? (Score 1) 199
Intel's Linux drivers are a lot slower than Windows drivers. Then again, they support more OpenGL extensions than Windows drivers.
Comment Re:Shatters Confidence of Control (Score 1) 411
Obama administration has denied more FOIA requests than Bush administration:
http://hotair.com/archives/2010/03/16/surprise-obama-administration-defies-more-foia-requests-than-bush-wh/
Comment Re:Hardware Acceleration and Benchmarks (Score 1) 172
I haven't done any benchmarking, but it is hardware accelerated. It also uses OpenGL Shading Language.
Comment Suggestions (Score 2, Informative) 117
Most of the tutorials are outdated and won't work in modern OpenGL core profile. Avoid tutorials that use glBegin(), glVertex(), glLight(), gluPerspective(), glMatrixMode(), glVertexPointer(), or learn just enough from them that you can create a context and draw stuff in Linux. After that you can adapt Windows-specific tutorials's code to Linux. I liked these tutorials:
http://sites.google.com/site/opengltutorialsbyaks/introduction-to-opengl-3-2---tutorial-01
http://www.opengl.org/wiki/Tutorial:_OpenGL_3.1_The_First_Triangle_(C%2B%2B/Win)
Comment Re:Binary blob ... eh? (Score 1) 461
> Intel's drivers are good
Their current Linux drivers are not good. I cannot use VBOs or shaders without crashing my system, and I have X4500HD which is supposed to be fast and support SM4. The Mesa driver implements OpenGL 2.0 and GLSL 1.10, both of which are outdated. Performance is also slower than in Windows.
Comment Re:My experience... (Score 1) 519
> My Bluetooth mouse at work occasionally lags behind, or sometimes stops moving for short whiles (even when it's not fallen
> asleep). I haven't ever seen this with Logitech's dedicated wireless devices.
My Logitech wireless mouse using proprietary protocol does this too.
Comment Re:2% were lost... (Score 1) 114
In this case the error was evenly distributed, because it was caused by bad UI design. The voters could pull off the card before they finished their voting process.
Finnish Court Dismisses E-Voting Result 114
wizzor writes in with a follow-up on the Finnish municipal election in which 2% of the votes were lost by a defective e-voting system, and which the Helsinki Administrative Court had found acceptable. Now the Supreme Administrative Court of Finland has rejected the election results (original in Finnish; bad Google translation here) and ordered the election to be re-run. The submitter adds, "Apparently 98% of the votes isn't enough to determine how the remaining 2% voted, after all."
Star Trek Sequel Already Planned 213
bowman9991 writes "Paramount Pictures are so confident about the box office potential of the upcoming Star Trek reboot directed by J. J. Abrams that they're already working on a sequel. They've hired Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman, and Damon Lindelof to write the screenplay. We're looking at a possible 2011 release for the next Star Trek movie with the same cast. Now that they've committed themselves, let's hope it lives up to expectations."
Comment Re:not free if you can't jailbreak (Score 1) 232
I suspected as much but when I checked out the zip, it's actually got all the level data there.
But their licence is not the same as the source's.
id Releases Open Source Wolfenstein 3D for the iPhone 232
An anonymous reader writes "id Software has released a port of the classic Wolfenstein FPS to the iPhone. Some of the coding was done by John Carmack himself, who also used original code combined with new code from Wolf3D Redux. The original code was open sourced years ago, and enthusiasts have been updating it, which made the port considerably easier for id. It's available in the iTunes App Store, but the source is available for free at id's website."
Carmack also posted a detailed writeup about the decision to bring Wolf3D to the iPhone, including design notes and a few snippets of code. At the end, he says, "I'm going back to Rage for a while, but I do expect Classic Doom to come fairly soon for the iPhone." Kotaku got a chance to try the game at GDC: "It's not just a good reproduction of the original, it seems better."
Journal Journal: Coding stuff
I wrote earlier that we are programming a MMORPG at the university. We now use Python and Panda3D to develop it. We demoed it at our university's lobby to masses two weeks ago and it gained interest.
RIAA Argument About Streaming To Be Streamed 92
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "You may recall that in an RIAA case, SONY BMG Music v. Tenenbaum, the district court ruled that an oral argument about the constitutionality of statutory damages could be streamed, and the RIAA has been fighting that with a petition for 'mandamus or prohibition' in the appeals court, which is opposed by the press. Interestingly, it now turns out that the appeals court's oral argument about the streaming will itself be recorded and then streamed. It is hard to imagine how a court which routinely streams its own oral arguments can rule that it is somehow inappropriate for similar oral arguments in the district court to be streamed as well."
Comment Re:Easy Peasy (Score 1) 466
I start timing my bootup when I hit the power button and I stop timing when wireless authenticates with the router. Currently my bootup time is 31 s. I'm using Eee PC 701 and Xubuntu 8.10 with custom kernel from kernel.org. I hope to see better bootup time with Xubuntu 9.04 and ext4.
Physics Experiments To Inspire Undergraduates? 249
PShardlow writes "I have recently been asked to propose two projects for a 1st year undergraduate teaching laboratory in the summer term this year. These are projects that a pair of students will spend 36 hours working on, and as such can be quite in-depth. A good project would include something they can build, something they can measure, and something they can calculate. Previous projects have included cloud chambers, a Jacobs ladder, a laser Doppler speed camera, laser sound detection, smoke rings, and physical random number generators. This is an opportunity to really inspire students into the joy that can be experimental physics — but it only works if we demonstrators propose interesting projects. So I ask the Slashdot community for suggestions of fascinating projects to do, things that are relevant to today's physics problems but could feasibly be completed by a pair of first-year undergraduates in 72 man hours."
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"If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed." -- Albert Einstein
