Monday, June 09, 2008

which are real? which are rendered?

source: http://www.blender.org/features-gallery/gallery/art-gallery/

Young Lady
Maciej Kotlinski
Blender Render

Grapes
Lucas Veber
Blender Render
Football Stadium
Krzysztof Nowacki (gucias)
Blender Render

Spring
Andy Goralczyk
Blender Render

Tribute to John Lennon
Daniel Thul
Indigo Render
The Eggs
Enrico Cerica
Yafray Render

Waiting
Zoltan Miklosi
Blender Render
Land Rover Beach Scene
Simon Kindler
Yafray Render

Watch
Hans Packet
Blender Render
NONE are real; ALL are rendered using open source 3D Blender software




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Big Buck Bunny: CC-licensed animated short made with free/open animation tool Blender

Source: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/306815275/big-buck-bunny-cclic.html

Mike sez, "To show off the open-source animation program Blender, a small team just finished a great ten-minute cartoon, 'Big Buck Bunny.' They were funded by foundation support and pre-orders of the DVD by the Blender community. What's more, the whole thing is Creative Commons-licensed, and all the files for the animation are available. Here in Worcester MA, our local TV station took advantage of the licensing and broadcast the thing last night in prime time." Link (Thanks, Mike!)


Big Buck Bunny from Blender Foundation on Vimeo.

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Do Loose Lips Sink Ships?

Source: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/AVc/~3/304522703/do-loose-lips-s.html

Yes, I am sure they do when it comes to war and certainly there are many aspects of business where confidentiality is important.

But in a post on the Union Square Ventures weblog, my partner Brad notes that there is a high correlation between how open an entrepreneur is with the market and how successful they are.

Brad says:

I noticed that, at least anecdotally, there was a correlation between how open entrepreneurs were with us and their ultimate success. Simply put the entrepreneurs who are aggressively open in describing their plans seem to do better than the ones who are cagey. There is absolutely no data underneath this observation. It is just my sense after meeting hundreds of entrepreneurs over 15 years as a VC.

and he goes on to suggest that:

an entrepreneur should be open with everyone, and that they will get the most value out of being open with the people who are most knowledgeable about the particular problem they are trying to solve. The people most knowledgeable about a problem are also the ones best positioned to compete with the entrepreneur, so the entrepreneur has more to gain and more to lose by being open with these people. From one perspective, the risks and rewards of being open are perfectly balanced. Every insight comes at the cost of another potential competitor, but that calculus leaves out the whole problem of execution. If an entrepreneur is incrementally more prepared to execute on an idea that the person they are sharing it with, they should still gain even if they engage in an open (and equal) exchange with a potential competitor.

I think that last point is the clincher. "If an entrepreneur is incrementally more prepared (should it be equipped?) to execute on an idea" then they should be as open as possible. It's an interesting suggestion and worthy of debate. Which is exactly what is going on in the comments to Brad's post on the USV blog.

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Samsung's i900 Omnia gets official, hands-on treatment

Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/307716765/

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One of Samsung's worst kept secrets (if we can even call it that) has finally been "announced" by the company, and we're guessing the timing here isn't coincidental. Nevertheless, the Windows Mobile 6.1-powered i900 Omnia features quad-band GSM / GPRS / EDGE support, 7.2Mbps HSDPA, a built-in accelerometer, WiFi module, USB port, FM tuner, Bluetooth, 3.2-inch 400 x 240 resolution display and a 5-megapixel camera (with smile detection and geotagging). An 8GB and 16GB version will soon be available, and prospective buyers can expect to see Sammy's own TouchWiz user interface loaded on. Reportedly, the handset will be available later this month in undisclosed areas of the globe (probably after being showcased at CommunicAsia), while Europe is expected to see it in July. Hands-on photos await you in the read link.
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World's fastest: IBM's Roadrunner supercomputer breaks petaflop barrier using Cell and Opteron processors

Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/307852657/


When you're looking to set a record this is how you do it. Not only has IBM's Roadrunner supercomputer come on-line, it's now the world's fastest -- twice as fast as the old BluGene/L champ -- and churning through 1.026 quadrillion calculations per second. The $133 million supercomputer achieved the milestone with the help of 12,960 "improved" Cell processors (yes, like those powering your PS3) and a smaller number of AMD Opteron processors -- 116,640 processor cores in total. Unfortunately (or fortunately depending upon your perspective), Roadrunner is for military use only so you'll have to solve the traveling salesman problem on your own time. While not quite into Exaflop territory, we're definitely on the way.
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