Daily Bytes

The Programmers Stone

This one came from href="http://blog.portugalmail.pt/K/archive/000158.html#000158">Sergio’s
Blog and it’s a must-read. Only had time to read the first
chapter. Will read the remaining tonight. This says it all:

References
Adams, Scott
The Dilbert Future
Boxtree
ISBN 0-7522-1118-8

Very funny and perceptive. A lot of nonsense is talked about Adams.
Some say that he has failed to champion the cause of cubicle
dwellers. As far as I know, he has never claimed to be the cubicle
dwellers’ champion - just a very funny cartoonist. Others say that
he is a terrible, cynical person. This is because he documents
workplace stupidity with staggering accuracy. All of the pomposity,
dishonesty, bullying and ritualism is there. The end section of
this book, about affirmations etc. should make your hair stand on
end.

From href="http://www.reciprocality.org/Reciprocality/r0/">www.reciprocality.org.

Natural Voices

AT&T has the best Text-to-Speech engine i have ever seen (or
heard in this case). Just try the demo.

From href="http://www.naturalvoices.att.com/demos/">www.naturalvoices.att.com.

Massive Attack

One of the mosts awaited scenes featured in href="http://us.imdb.com/Title?0167261">The Two Towers will be
the href="http://www.glyphweb.com/arda/b/battleofthehornburg.html">Battle
of the Hornburg, also known as the Battle of href="http://www.glyphweb.com/arda/h/helmsdeep.html">Helm’s
Deep. In this epic battle, href="http://us.imdb.com/Name?Jackson,%20Peter">Peter Jackson
had to recreate 50,000 fighters. He was aided in this task by a
software piece called Massive. The big difference between Massive
and older solutions for creating digital crowds is the use of
Articial Intelligence instead of simple physical interactions
(pool-table-level physics).

Although this will be a major battle, Massive will really be put
to test in the third chapter of the LOTR:

In Return of the King, the final film in the Lord of
the Rings trilogy, the climactic battle—yes, the Battle of Helm’s
Deep is just a run-up—is rumored to employ more than 100,000
characters.

See Also:

href="http://www.deathstarinc.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=240">
Another Article on Massive

From href="http://www.popsci.com/popsci/science/article/0,12543,390918-1,00.html">
www.popsci.com.