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gltut / Documents / History of Graphics Hardware.xml
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<?dbhtml filename="History of Graphics Hardware.html" ?>
<title>History of PC Graphics Hardware</title>
<subtitle>A Programmer's View</subtitle>
<para>For those of you had the good fortune of not being graphics programmers during the
formative years of the development of consumer graphics hardware, what follows is a brief
history. Hopefully, it will give you some perspective on what has changed in the last 15
years or so, as well as an idea of how grateful you should be that you never had to suffer
through the early days.</para>
<title>Voodoo Magic</title>
<para>In the years 1995 and 1996, a number of graphics cards were released. Graphics
processing via specialized hardware on PC platforms was nothing new. What was new about
these cards was their ability to do 3D rasterization.</para>
<para>The most popular of these for that era was the Voodoo Graphics card from 3Dfx
Interactive. It was fast, powerful for its day, and provided high quality rendering
(again, for its day).</para>
<para>The functionality of this card was quite bare-bones from a modern perspective.
Obviously there was no concept of shaders of any kind. Indeed, it did not even have
vertex transformation; the Voodoo Graphics pipeline began with clip-space values. This
required the CPU to do vertex transformations. This hardware was effectively just a
triangle rasterizer.</para>
<para>That being said, it was quite good for its day. As inputs to its rasterization
pipeline, it took vertex inputs of a 4-dimensional clip-space position (though the
actual space was not necessarily the same as OpenGL's clip-space), a single RGBA color,
and a single three-dimensional texture coordinate. The hardware did not support 3D
textures; the extra component was in case the user wanted to do projective
<para>The texture coordinate was used to map into a single texture. The texture coordinate
and color interpolation was perspective-correct; in those days, that was a significant
selling point. The venerable Playstation 1 could not do perspective-correct
<para>The value fetched from the texture could be combined with the interpolated color using
one of three math functions: additions, multiplication, or linear interpolation based on
the texture's alpha value. The alpha of the output was controlled with a separate math
function, thus allowing the user to generate the alpha with different math than the RGB
portion of the output color. This was the sum total of its fragment processing.</para>
<para>It had framebuffer blending support. Its framebuffer could even support a destination
alpha value, though you had to give up having a depth buffer to get it. Probably not a
good tradeoff. Outside of that issue, its blending support was superior even to OpenGL
1.1. It could use different source and destination factors for the alpha component than
the RGB component; the old GL 1.1 forced the RGB and A to be blended with the same
factors. The blending was even performed with full 24-bit color precision and then
downsampled to the 16-bit precision of the output upon writing.</para>
<para>From a modern perspective, spoiled with our full programmability, this all looks
incredibly primitive. And, to some degree, it is. But compared to the pure CPU solutions
to 3D rendering of the day, the Voodoo Graphics card was a monster.</para>
<para>It's interesting to note that the simplicity of the fragment processing stage owes as
much to the lack of inputs as anything else. When the only values you have to work with
are the color from a texture lookup and the per-vertex interpolated color, there really
is not all that much you could do with them. Indeed, as we will see in the next phases of
hardware, increases in the complexity of the fragment processor was a reaction to
increasing the number of inputs <emphasis>to</emphasis> the fragment processor. When you
have more data to work with, you need more complex operations to make that data
<?dbhtml filename="History TNT.html" ?>
<title>Dynamite Combiners</title>
<para>The next phase of hardware came, not from 3Dfx, but from a new company, NVIDIA. While
3Dfx's Voodoo II was much more popular than NVIDIA's product, the NVIDIA Riva TNT
(released in 1998) was more interesting in terms of what it brought to the table for
<para>Like other graphics cards of the day, the TNT hardware had no vertex processing.
Vertex data was in clip-space, as normal, so the CPU had to do all of the transformation
and lighting. Where the TNT shone was in its fragment processing. The power of the TNT
is in it's name; TNT stands for <acronym>T</acronym>wi<acronym>N</acronym>
<acronym>T</acronym>exel. It could access from two textures at once. And while the
Voodoo II could do that as well, the TNT had much more flexibility to its fragment
processing pipeline.</para>
<para>In order to accommodate two textures, the vertex input was expanded. Two textures
meant two texture coordinates, since each texture coordinate was directly bound to a
particular texture. While they were allowing two of things, NVIDIA also allowed for two
per-vertex colors. The idea here has to do with lighting equations.</para>
<para>For regular diffuse lighting, the CPU-computed color would simply be dot(N, L),
possibly with attenuation applied. Indeed, it could be any complicated diffuse lighting
function, since it was all on the CPU. This diffuse light intensity would be multiplied
by the texture, which represented the diffuse absorption of the surface at that
<para>This becomes less useful if you want to add a specular term. The specular absorption
and diffuse absorption are not necessarily the same, after all. And while you may not
need to have a specular texture, you do not want to add the specular component to the
diffuse component <emphasis>before</emphasis> you multiply by their respective colors.
You want to do the addition afterwards.</para>
<para>This is simply not possible if you have only one per-vertex color. But it becomes
possible if you have two. One color is the diffuse lighting value. The other color is
the specular component. We multiply the first color by the diffuse color from the
texture, then add the second color as the specular reflectance.</para>
<para>Which brings us nicely to fragment processing. The TNT's fragment processor had 5
inputs: 2 colors sampled from textures, 2 colors interpolated from vertices, and a
single <quote>constant</quote> color. The latter, in modern parlance, is the equivalent
of a shader uniform value.</para>
<para>That's a lot of potential inputs. The solution NVIDIA came up with to produce a final
color was a bit of fixed functionality that NVIDIA calls texture combiners. It is
directly analogous to the OpenGL 1.1 fixed-function pipeline texture environment
concept, but with extensions for multiple textures and some TNT-specific
<para>The idea is that each texture has an <quote>environment</quote>. The environment is a
specific math function, such as addition, subtraction, multiplication, and linear
interpolation. The standard GL fixed-function pipeline only allowed the environment
functions to use as parameters the per-vertex color, the color sampled from that
particular texture, and a constant color. For multiple textures, the environments are
executed in sequence: the environment function for texture 0 executes, then for texture
1. The texture 1 environment used the output from texture 0 instead of the per-vertex
<para>NVIDIA's texture combiners augmented this significantly. The standard environment
functions were very limited in terms of operations. For example, the previous color
could be multiplied or added to the texture color, but it could not simply ignore the
texture color and multiply with the constant color instead. NVIDIA's texture combiners
could do this.</para>
<para>If you look at it from a hardware perspective, what texture combiners provide is a
two-opcode assembly language. The available registers for the language are two vertex
colors, a single uniform color, the current opcode's texture color, and a zero register.
There is also a single temporary register to hold the output from the first
<para>Graphics programmers, by this point, had gotten used to multipass-based algorithms.
After all, until TNT, that was the only way to apply multiple textures to a single
surface. And even with TNT, it had a pretty confining limit of two textures and two
<para>This was powerful, but quite limited. Two opcodes really was not enough.</para>
<para>The TNT cards also provided something else: 32-bit framebuffers and depth buffers.
While the Voodoo cards used high-precision math internally, they still wrote to 16-bit
framebuffers, using a technique called dithering to make them look like higher
precision. But dithering was nothing compared to actual high precision framebuffers. And
it did nothing for the depth buffer artifacts that a 16-bit depth buffer gave
<para>While the original TNT could do 32-bit, it lacked the memory and overall performance
to really show it off. That had to wait for the TNT2. Combined with product delays and
some poor strategic moves by 3Dfx, NVIDIA became one of the dominant players in the
consumer PC graphics card market. And that was cemented by their next card, which had
real power behind it.</para>
<title>Tile-Based Rendering</title>
<para>While all of this was going on, a small company called PowerVR released its Series
2 graphics chip. PowerVR's approach to rendering was fundamentally different from
the standard rendering pipeline.</para>
<para>They used what they called a <quote>deferred, tile-based renderer.</quote> The
idea is that they store all of the clip-space triangles in a buffer. Then, they sort
this buffer based on which triangles cover which areas of the screen. The output
screen is divided into a number of tiles of a fixed size. Say, 8x8 in size.</para>
<para>For each tile, the hardware finds the triangles that are within that tile's area.
Then it does all the usual scan conversion tricks and so forth. It even
automatically does per-pixel depth sorting for blending, which remains something of
a selling point (no more having to manually sort blended objects). After rendering
that tile, it moves on to the next. These operations can of course be executed in
parallel; you can have multiple tiles being rasterized at the same time.</para>
<para>The idea behind this is to avoid having large image buffers. You only need a few
8x8 depth buffers, so you can use very fast, on-chip memory for it. Rather than
having to deal with caches, DRAM, and large bandwidth memory channels, you just have
a small block of memory where you do all of your logic. You still need memory for
textures, the vertex buffer, and the output image, but your bandwidth needs can be
devoted to textures and the vertex buffer.</para>
<para>For a time, these cards were competitive with those from the other graphics chip
makers. However, the tile-based approach simply did not scale well with resolution
or geometry complexity. Also, they missed the geometry processing bandwagon, which
really hurt their standing. They fell farther and farther behind the other major
players, until they stopped making desktop parts altogether.</para>
<para>However, they may ultimately have the last laugh; unlike 3Dfx and so many others,
PowerVR still exists. They provided the GPU for the Sega Dreamcast console. And
while that console was a market failure, it did show where PowerVR's true strength
lay: embedded platforms.</para>
<para>Embedded platforms tend to play to their tile-based renderer's strengths. Memory,
particularly high-bandwidth memory, eats up power; having less memory means
longer-lasting mobile devices. Embedded devices tend to use smaller resolutions,
which their platform excels at. And with low resolutions, you are not trying to push
nearly as much geometry.</para>
<para>Thanks to these facts, PowerVR's graphics chips power the vast majority of mobile
platforms that have any 3D rendering in them. Just about every iPhone, Droid, iPad,
or similar device is running PowerVR technology. And that's a growth market these
<?dbhtml filename="History GeForce.html" ?>
<title>Vertices and Registers</title>
<para>The next stage in the evolution of graphics hardware again came from NVIDIA. While
3Dfx released competing cards, they were behind the curve. The NVIDIA GeForce 256 (not
to be confused with the GeForce GT250, a much more modern card), released in 1999,
provided something truly new: a vertex processing pipeline.</para>
<para>The OpenGL API has always defined a vertex processing pipeline (it was fixed-function
in those days rather than shader-based). And NVIDIA implemented it in their TNT-era
drivers on the CPU. But only with the GeForce 256 was this actually implemented in
hardware. And NVIDIA essentially built the entire OpenGL fixed-function vertex
processing pipeline directly into the GeForce hardware.</para>
<para>This was primarily a performance win. While it was important for the progress of
hardware, a less-well-known improvement of the early GeForce hardware was more important
to its future.</para>
<para>In the fragment processing pipeline, the texture environment stages were removed. In
their place was a more powerful mechanism, what NVIDIA called <quote>register
<para>The GeForce 256 provided 2 regular combiner stages. Each of these stages represented
up to four independent opcodes that operated over the register set. The opcodes could
result in multiple outputs, which could be written to two temporary registers.</para>
<para>What is interesting is that the register values are no longer limited to color values.
Instead, they are signed values, on the range [-1, 1]; they have 9 bits of precision or
so. While the initial color or texture values are on [0, 1], the actual opcodes
themselves can perform operations that generate negative values. Opcodes can even
scale/bias their inputs, which allow them to turn unsigned colors into signed
<para>Because of this, the GeForce 256 was the first hardware to be able to do true normal
mapping, without hacks or tricks. A single register combiner stage could do 2 3-vector
dot-products at a time. Textures could store normals by compressing them to a [0, 1]
range. The light direction could either be a constant or interpolated per-vertex in
texture space.</para>
<para>Now granted, this still was a primitive form of bump mapping. There was no way to
correct for tangent-space values with bitantent and tangents. But this was at least
something. And it really was the first step towards programmability; it showed that
textures could truly represent values other than colors.</para>
<para>There was also a single final combiner stage. This was a much more limited stage than
the regular combiner stages. It could do a linear interpolation operation and an
addition; this was designed specifically to implement OpenGL's fixed-function fog and
specular computations.</para>
<para>The register file consisted of two temporary registers, two per-vertex colors, two
texture colors, two uniform values, the zero register, and a few other values used for
OpenGL fixed-function fog operations. The color and texture registers were even
writeable, if you needed more temporaries.</para>
<para>There were a few other sundry additions to the hardware. Cube textures first came onto
the scene. Combined with the right texture coordinate computations (now in hardware),
you could have reflective surfaces much more easily. Anisotropic filtering and
multisampling also appeared at this time. The limits were relatively small; anisotropic
filtering was limited to 4x, while the maximum number of samples was restricted to two.
Compressed texture formats also appeared on the scene.</para>
<para>What we see thus far as we take steps towards true programmability is that increased
complexity in fragment processing starts pushing for other needs. The addition of a dot
product allows lighting computations to take place per-fragment. But you cannot have full
texture-space bump mapping because of the lack of a normal/binormal/tangent matrix to
transform vectors to texture space. Cubemaps allow you to do arbitrary reflections, but
computing reflection directions per-vertex requires interpolating reflection normals,
which does not work very well over large polygons.</para>
<para>This also saw the introduction of something called a rectangle texture. This texture
type is something of an odd duck that still remains in current day. It was a way of
creating a texture of arbitrary size; until then, textures were limited to powers of two
in size (though the sizes did not have to be the same). The texture coordinates for
rectangle textures are not normalized; they were in texture space values.</para>
<title>The GPU Divide</title>
<para>When NVIDIA released the GeForce 256, they coined the term <quote>Geometry
Processing Unit</quote> or <acronym>GPU</acronym>. Until this point, graphics
chips were called exactly that: graphics chips. The term GPU was intended by NVIDIA
to differentiate the GeForce from all of its competition, including the final cards
from 3Dfx.</para>
<para>Because the term was so reminiscent to CPUs, the term took over. Every graphics
chip is a GPU now, even ones released before the term came to exist.</para>
<para>In truth, the term GPU never really made much sense until the next stage, where
the first cards with actual programmability came onto the scene.</para>
<?dbhtml filename="History Radeon8500.html" ?>
<title>Programming at Last</title>
<para>How do you define a demarcation between non-programmable graphics chips and
programmable ones? We have seen that, even in the humble TNT days, there were a couple
of user-defined opcodes with several possible input values.</para>
<para>One way is to consider what programming is. Programming is not simply a mathematical
operation; programming needs conditional logic. Therefore, it is not unreasonable to say
that something is not truly programmable until there is the possibility of some form of
conditional logic.</para>
<para>And it is at this point where that first truly appears. It appears first in the
<emphasis>vertex</emphasis> pipeline rather than the fragment pipeline. This seems
odd until one realizes how crucial fragment operations are to overall performance. It
therefore makes sense to introduce heavy programmability in the less
performance-critical areas of hardware first.</para>
<para>The GeForce 3, released in 2001 (a mere 3 years after the TNT), was the first hardware
to provide this level of programmability. While GeForce 3 hardware did indeed have the
fixed-function vertex pipeline, it also had very flexible programmable pipeline. The
retaining of the fixed-function code was a performance need; the vertex shader was not
as fast as the fixed-function one.</para>
<para>Vertex shaders were pretty powerful, even in their first incarnation. While there was
no conditional branching, there was conditional logic, the equivalent of the ?:
operator. These vertex shaders exposed up to 128 <type>vec4</type> uniforms, up to 16
<type>vec4</type> inputs (still the modern limit), and could output 6
<type>vec4</type> outputs. Two of the outputs, intended for colors, were lower
precisions than the others. There was a hard limit of 128 opcodes. These vertex shaders
brought full swizzling support and a plethora of math operations.</para>
<para>The GeForce 3 also added up to two more textures, for a total of four textures per
triangle. They were hooked directly into certain per-vertex outputs, because the
per-fragment pipeline did not have real programmability yet.</para>
<para>At this point, the holy grail of programmability at the fragment level was dependent
texture access. That is, being able to access a texture, do some arbitrary computations
on it, and then access another texture with the result. The GeForce 3 had some
facilities for that, but they were not very good ones.</para>
<para>The GeForce 3 used 8 register combiner stages instead of the 2 that the earlier cards
used. Their register files were extended to support two extra texture colors and a few
more tricks. But the main change was something that, in OpenGL terminology, would be
called <quote>texture shaders.</quote></para>
<para>What texture shaders did was allow the user to, instead of accessing a texture,
perform a computation using that texture's texture unit. This was much like the old
texture environment functionality, except only for texture coordinates. The textures
were arranged in a sequence. And instead of accessing a texture, you could perform a
computation between that texture unit's coordinate and possibly the coordinate from the
previous texture shader operation, if there was one.</para>
<para>It was not very flexible functionality. It did allow for full texture-space bump
mapping, though. While the 8 register combiners were enough to do a full matrix
multiply, they were not powerful enough to normalize the resulting vector. However, you
could normalize a vector by accessing a special cubemap. The values of this cubemap
represented a normalized vector in the direction of the cubemap's given texture
<para>But using that required spending a total of 3 texture shader stages. Which meant you
get a bump map and a normalization cubemap only; there was no room for a diffuse map in
that pass. It also did not perform very well; the texture shader functions were quite
<para>True programmability came to the fragment shader from ATI, with the Radeon 8500,
released in late 2001.</para>
<para>The 8500's fragment shader architecture was pretty straightforward, and in terms of
programming, it is not too dissimilar to modern shader systems. Texture coordinates
would come in. They could either be used to fetch from a texture or be given directly as
inputs to the processing stage. Up to 6 textures could be used at once. Then, up to 8
opcodes, including a conditional operation, could be used. After that, the hardware
would repeat the process using registers written by the opcodes. Those registers could
feed texture accesses from the same group of textures used in the first pass. And then
another 8 opcodes would generate the output color.</para>
<para>It also had strong, but not full, swizzling support in the fragment shader. Register
combiners had very little support for swizzling.</para>
<para>This era of hardware was also the first to allow 3D textures. Though that was as much
a memory concern as anything else, since 3D textures take up lots of memory which was
not available on earlier cards. Depth comparison texturing was also made
<para>While the 8500 was a technological marvel, it was a flop in the market compared to the
GeForce 3 & 4. Indeed, this is a recurring theme of these eras: the card with the
more programmable hardware often tends to lose in its first iteration.</para>
<title>API Hell</title>
<para>This era is notable in what it did to graphics APIs. Consider the hardware
differences between the 8500 and the GeForce 3/4 in terms of fragment
<para>On the Direct3D front, things were not the best. Direct3D 8 promised a unified
shader development pipeline. That is, you could write a shader according to their
specifications and it would work on any D3D 8 hardware. And this was effectively
true. For vertex shaders, at least.</para>
<para>However, the D3D 8.0 pixel shader pipeline was nothing more than NVIDIA's register
combiners and texture shaders. There was no real abstraction of capabilities; the
D3D 8.0 pixel shaders simply took NVIDIA's hardware and made a shader language out
of it.</para>
<para>To provide support for the 8500's expanded fragment processing feature-set, there
was D3D 8.1. This version altered the pixel shader pipeline to match the
capabilities of the Radeon 8500. Fortunately, the 8500 would accept 8.0 shaders just
fine, since it was capable of doing everything the GeForce 3 could do. But no one
would mistake either shader specification for any kind of real abstraction.</para>
<para>Things were much worse on the OpenGL front. At least in D3D, you used the same
basic C++ API to provide shaders; the shaders themselves may have been different,
but the base API was the same. Not so in OpenGL land.</para>
<para>NVIDIA and ATI released entirely separate proprietary extensions for specifying
fragment shaders. NVIDIA's extensions built on the register combiner extension they
released with the GeForce 256. ATI's was brand new. They were completely
incompatible, and worse, they were not even string-based.</para>
<para>Imagine having to call a C++ function to write every opcode of a shader. Now
imagine having to call <emphasis>three</emphasis> functions to write each opcode.
That's what using those APIs was like.</para>
<para>Things were better on vertex shaders. NVIDIA initially released a vertex shader
extension, as did ATI. NVIDIA's was string-based, but ATI's version was like their
fragment shader. Fortunately, this state of affairs did not last long; the OpenGL
ARB came along with their own vertex shader extension. This was not GLSL, but an
assembly like language based on NVIDIA's extension.</para>
<para>It would take much longer for the fragment shader disparity to be worked
<?dbhtml filename="History GeForceFX.html" ?>
<para>The Radeon 9700 was the 8500's successor. It improved on the 8500 somewhat. The vertex
shader gained real conditional branching logic. Some of the limits were also relaxed;
the number of available outputs and uniforms increased. The fragment shader's
architecture remained effectively the same; the 9700 simply increased the limits. There
were 8 textures available and 16 opcodes, and it could perform 4 passes over this
<para>The GeForce FX, released in 2003, was a substantial improvement, both over the GeForce
3/4 and over the 9700 in terms of fragment processing. NVIDIA took a different approach
to their fragment shaders; their fragment processor worked not entirely unlike modern
shader processors do.</para>
<para>It read an instruction, which could be a math operation, conditional branch (they had
actual branches in fragment shading), or texture lookup instruction. It then executed
that instruction. The texture lookup could be from a set of 8 textures. And then it
repeated this process on the next instruction. It was doing math computations in a way
not entirely unlike a traditional CPU.</para>
<para>There was no real concept of a dependent texture access for the GeForce FX. The inputs
to the fragment pipeline were simply the texture coordinates and colors from the vertex
stage. If you used a texture coordinate to access a texture, it was fine with that. If
you did some computations with them and then accessed a texture, it was just as fine
with that. It was completely generic.</para>
<para>It also failed in the marketplace. This was due primarily to its lateness and its poor
performance in high-precision computation operations. The FX was optimized for doing
16-bit math computations in its fragment shader; while it <emphasis>could</emphasis> do
32-bit math, it was half as fast when doing this. But Direct3D 9's shaders did not allow
the user to specify the precision of computations; the specification required at least
24-bits of precision. To match this, NVIDIA had no choice but to force 32-bit math on
all D3D 9 applications, making them run much slower than their ATI counterparts (the
9700 always used 24-bit precision math).</para>
<para>Things were no better in OpenGL land. The two competing unified fragment processing
APIs, GLSL and an assembly-like fragment shader, did not have precision specifications
either. Only NVIDIA's proprietary extension for fragment shaders provided that, and
developers were less likely to use it. Especially with the head start that the 9700
gained in the market by the FX being released late.</para>
<para>It performs so poorly in the market that NVIDIA dropped the FX name for the next
hardware revision. The GeForce 6 improved its 32-bit performance to the point where it
was competitive with the ATI equivalents.</para>
<para>This level of hardware saw the gaining of a number of different features. sRGB
textures and framebuffers appeared, as did floating-point textures. Blending support for
floating-point framebuffers was somewhat spotty; some hardware could do it only for
16-bit floating-point, some could not do it at all. The restrictions of power-of-two
texture sizes was also lifted, to varying degrees. None of ATI's hardware of this era
fully supported this when used with mipmapping, but NVIDIA's hardware from the GeForce 6
and above did.</para>
<para>The ability to access textures from vertex shaders was also introduced in this series
of hardware. Vertex texture accesses uses a separate list of textures from those bound
for fragment shaders. Only four textures could be accessed from a vertex shader, while 8
textures was normal for fragment shaders.</para>
<para>Render to texture also became generally available at this time, though this was more
of an API issue (neither OpenGL nor Direct3D allowed textures to be used as render
targets before this point) than hardware functionality. That is not to say that hardware
had no role to play. Textures are often not stored as linear arrays of memory the way
they are loaded with <function>glTexImage</function>. They are usually stored in a
swizzled format, where 2D or 3D blocks of texture data are stored sequentially. Thus,
rendering to a texture required either the ability to render directly to swizzled
formats or the ability to read textures that are stored in unswizzled formats.</para>
<para>More than just render to texture was introduced. What was also introduced was the
ability to render to multiple textures or buffers at one time. The number of renderable
buffers was generally limited to 4 across all hardware platforms.</para>
<title>Rise of the Compilers</title>
<para>Microsoft put their foot down after the fiasco with D3D 8's fragment shaders. They
wanted a single standard that all hardware makers would support. While this lead to
the FX's performance failings, it also meant that compilers were becoming very
important to shader performance.</para>
<para>In order to have a real abstraction, you need compilers that are able to take the
abstract language and map it to very different kinds of hardware. With Direct3D and
OpenGL providing standards for shading languages, compiler quality started to become
vital for performance.</para>
<para>OpenGL moved whole-heartedly, and perhaps incautiously, into the realm of
compilers when the OpenGL ARB embraced GLSL, a C-style language. They developed this
language to the exclusion of all others.</para>
<para>In Direct3D land, Microsoft developed the High-Level Shading Language, HLSL. But
the base shading languages used by Direct3D 9 were still the assembly-like shading
languages. HLSL was compiled by a Microsoft-developed compiler into the assembly
languages, which were fed to Direct3D.</para>
<para>With compilers and semi-real languages with actual logic constructs, a new field
started to arise: General Programming GPU or <acronym>GPGPU</acronym>. The idea was
to use a GPU to do non-rendering tasks. It started around this era, but the
applications were limited due to the nature of hardware. Only fairly recently, with
the advent of special languages and APIs (OpenCL, for example) that are designed for
GPGPU tasks, has GPGPU started to really move into its own. Indeed, in the most
recent hardware era, hardware makers have added features to GPUs that have
somewhat... dubious uses in the field of graphics, but substantial uses in GPGPU
<?dbhtml filename="History Unified.html" ?>
<title>Modern Unification</title>
<para>Welcome to the modern era. All of the examples in this book are designed on and for
this era of hardware, though some of them could run on older ones with some alteration.
The release of the Radeon HD 2000 and GeForce 8000 series cards in 2006 represented
unification in more ways than one.</para>
<para>With the prior generations, fragment hardware had certain platform-specific
peculiarities. While the API kinks were mostly ironed out with the development of proper
shading languages, there were still differences in the behavior of hardware. While 4
dependent texture accesses were sufficient for most applications, naive use of shading
languages could get you in trouble on ATI hardware.</para>
<para>With this generation, neither side really offered any real functionality difference.
There are still differences between the hardware lines, and certainly in terms of
performance. But the functionality differences have never been more blurred than they
were with this revision.</para>
<para>Another form of unification was that both NVIDIA and ATI moved to a unified shader
architecture. In all prior generations, fragment shaders and vertex shaders were
fundamentally different hardware. Even when they started doing the same kinds of things,
such as accessing textures, they were both using different physical hardware to do so.
This led to some inefficiencies.</para>
<para>Deferred rendering probably gives the most explicit illustration of the problem. The
first pass, the creation of the g-buffers, is a very vertex-shader-intensive activity.
While the fragment shader can be somewhat complex, doing several texture fetches to
compute various material parameters, the vertex shader is where much of the real work is
done. Lots of vertices come through the shader, and if there are any complex
transformations, they will happen here.</para>
<para>The second pass is a <emphasis>very</emphasis> fragment shader intensive pass. Each
light layer is comprised of exactly 4 vertices. Vertices that can be provided directly
in clip-space. From then on, the fragment shader is what is being worked. It performs
all of the complex lighting calculations necessary for the various rendering techniques.
Four vertices generate literally millions of fragments, depending on the rendering
<para>In prior hardware generations, in the first pass, there would be fragment shaders
going to waste, as they would process fragments faster than the vertex shaders could
deliver triangles. In the second pass, the reverse happens, only even moreso. Four
vertex shader executions, and then all of those vertex shaders would be completely
useless. All of those parallel computational units would go to waste.</para>
<para>Both NVIDIA and ATI devised hardware such that the computational elements were
separated from their particular kind of computations. All shader hardware could be used
for vertices, fragments, or geometry shaders (new in this generation). This would be
changed on demand, based on the resource load. This makes deferred rendering in
particular much more efficient; the second pass is able to use almost all of the
available shader resources for lighting operations.</para>
<para>This unified shader approach also means that every shader stage has essentially the
same capabilities. The standard for the maximum texture count is 16, which is plenty
enough for doing just about anything. This is applied equally to all shader types, so
vertex shaders have the same number of textures available as fragment shaders.</para>
<para>This smoothed out a great many things. Shaders gained quite a few new features.
Uniform buffers became available. Shaders could perform computations directly on integer
values. Unlike every generation before, all of these features were parceled out to all
types of shaders equally.</para>
<para>Along with unified shaders came a long list of various and sundry improvements to
non-shader hardware. These include, but are not limited to:</para>
<para>Floating-point blending was worked out fully. Hardware of this era supports
full 32-bit floating point blending, though for performance reasons you're still
advised to use the lowest precision you can get away with.</para>
<para>Arbitrary texture swizzling as a direct part of texture sampling parameters,
rather than in the shader itself.</para>
<para>Integer texture formats, to compliment the shader's ability to use integer
<para>Array textures.</para>
<para>Various other limitations were expanded as well.</para>
<para>This was not the end of hardware evolution; there has been hardware released in
recent years The Radeon HD 5000 and GeForce GT 400 series and above have increased
rendering features. They're just not as big of a difference compared to what came
<para>One of the biggest new feature in this hardware is tessellation, the ability to
take triangles output from a vertex shader and split them into new triangles based
on arbitrary (mostly) shader logic. This sounds like what geometry shaders can do,
but it is different.</para>
<para>Tessellation is actually something that ATI toyed around with for years. The
Radeon 9700 had tessellation support with something they called PN triangles. This
was very automated and not particularly useful. The entire Radeon HD 2000-4000 cards
included tessellation features as well. These were pre-vertex shader, while the
current version comes post-vertex shader.</para>
<para>In the older form, the vertex shader would serve double duty. An incoming triangle
would be broken down into many triangles. The vertex shader would then have to
compute the per-vertex attributes for each of the new triangles, based on the old
attributes and which vertex in the new series of vertices is being computed. Then it
would do its normal transformation and other operations on those attributes.</para>
<para>The current form introduces two new shader stages. The first, immediately after
the vertex shader, controls how much tessellation happens on a particular primitive.
The tessellation happens, splitting the single primitive into multiple primitives.
The next stage determines how to compute the new positions, normals, etc of the
primitive, based on the values of the primitive being tessellated. The geometry
shader still exists; it is executed after the final tessellation shader
<para>Another feature is the ability to have a shader arbitrarily read
<emphasis>and</emphasis> write to images in textures. This is not merely
sampling from a texture; it uses a different interface (no filtering), and it means
very different things. This form of image data access breaks many of the rules
around OpenGL, and it is very easy to use the feature wrongly.</para>
<para>These are not covered in this book for a few reasons. First, there is not as much
hardware out there that supports it (though this is increasing daily). Sticking to
OpenGL 3.3 meant casting a wider net; requiring OpenGL 4.2 would have meant fewer
people could run those tutorials.</para>
<para>Second, these features are quite complicated to use. Any discussion of
tessellation would require discussing tessellation algorithms, which are all quite
complicated. Any discussion of image reading/writing would require talking about
shader hardware at a level of depth that is well beyond the beginner level. These
are useful features, to be sure, but they are also very complex features.</para>


text:
The appearance of advertisements and product information on this site does not constitute an endorsement by Equipment World Magazine, and Equipment World Magazine has not investigated the claims made by any advertiser. Product information is based solely on material received from suppliers.
Anver Vacuum Tube Lifting SystemsEvery Anver VT Vacuum Tube Lifting System includes a pad attachment specifically chosen by our applications engineers from hundreds of vacuum pad styles and sizes to achieve optimum tube lifting performance. Additional pad attachments are readily available and are easily interchangeable to suit your lifting requirements. A wide assortment of vacuum pad attachments makes an Anver VT System ideal for lifting a variety of loads. The Quick Disconnect option makes changing the pad attachment a snap. Every Anver VT Tube Lift system...
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subset: commoncrawl


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I want to complain about this content:
Concerned small business owners in Pakefield contacted Mr Blizzard with their concerns, and as a result he's contributed his thoughts on the issue. I don't see how this is jumping on the bandwagon.
Wednesday, November 14, 2012
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text:
Bada Bing: 19th and Lynn streets, Rosslyn.
Big Cheese Truck: Crystal City, Arlington, location TBA.
Cap Mac: Metro Center (12th and G sts., NW).
Curbside Cupcakes: Pinky One: First stop: 12th Street and New York Avenue, Northwest; Second stop: Franklin Square (13th and K sts., NW); Third stop: Dupont (N St. and Connecticut Avenue, NW); Fourth stop: Farragut Square (17th and K sts., NW).
Pinky Two: First stop: Chinatown (Seventh and G sts., NW); Second stop: 19th and L streets, Northwest; Third stop: 17th and L streets, Northwest; Fourth stop: 13th and L streets, Northwest.
DC Empanadas: Franklin Square (13th and K sts., NW) with traditional beef and chicken empanadas, Mexican hot chocolate, sandwich cookies, and more.
DC Pie Truck: Franklin Square (13th and K sts., NW).
DC Slices: M Street and New Jersey Avenue, Southeast.
EatWonky: Farragut Square (17th and K sts., NW).
El Floridano: Capitol South Metro (First and D sts., SE) with pan con lechon, curried green lentil soup, and more.
Fojol Bros.: 11th and G streets, Northwest, with a lunch special for couples.
Pedro and Vinny's: 15th and K streets, Northwest.
Porc Mobile: Farragut Square (17th and K sts., NW) with pulled pork, vegan joes and smoky joes, a free truffle for ladies, and more.
Red Hook Lobster Truck: Farragut Square (17th and K sts., NW) with a free meal upgrade for first time customers.
Sâuçá: Marco Polo: Ninth and North Stuart streets, Arlington; Pangea: 24th and M streets, Northwest; Saucalito: L'Enfant (Seventh St. and Maryland Ave., SW). First 250 customers get a free Valentine's Day cookie.
Sidewalk Sweets: First stop: Navy Yard (roughly New Jersey Ave. and M St., SE); Second stop: Eastern Market (Eighth and D sts., SE). Special Valentine's cupcakes for sale.
Solar Crepes: Ninth and North Stuart streets, Ballston.
Sweet Bites Truck: Farragut Square (17th and K sts., NW).
Sweet Flow Mobile: 24th and M streets, Northwest. Afternoon stop at George Washington University, location TBA.
Taco Carrito: 900 North Stuart Street (btw. North Ninth St. and Wilson Blvd.), Arlington, from 11:30 to 1:30.
Tasty Kabob: Cart one: 1525 Wilson Boulevard (next to Safeway and Lynne St.), Arlington, from 11 to 3. Cart two: 1735 North Lynne Street (between 19th St. and Wilson Blvd.), Arlington, from 11 to 3.
Takorean: Franklin Square (13th and K sts., NW).
Yellow Vendor: 12th and F streets, Northwest.
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text:
A big bounce, ounce by ounce, as gold takes off
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
NEW YORK (AP) — For what is normally a sleepy month, there are so many customers at the Gold Standard, a New York company that buys jewelry, that it feels like Christmas in August. Uncle Ben's Pawn Shop in Cleveland has never seen a rush like this.
Welcome to the new American gold rush. The price of gold is on a remarkable run, setting a record seemingly every other day. Stomach-churning volatility in the stock market this month has only made investors covet gold more.
Some want it as a safe investment for turbulent times. What worries some investors is that many others are buying simply because the price is rising and they want to make money fast.
"Is gold the next bubble?" asks Bill DiRocco, a golf company manager in Overland Park, Kan., who shifted 10 percent of his portfolio earlier this year into an investment fund that tracks the price of gold. He stopped buying because the price kept rising.
In October 2007, it sold for about $740 an ounce. A little over a year later, it rose above $1,000 for the first time. This past March, it began rocketing up. On Wednesday, it traded at $1,795 an ounce, just shy of last week's record of $1,801.
Meanwhile, stocks, despite rising sharply in the last two and a half years, are only slightly higher in price than they were a decade ago. Since hitting a record high in October 2007, the Standard & Poor's 500 index is down 23 percent.
Gold hits a sweet spot among the elements: It's rare, but not too rare. It's chemically stable; all the gold ever mined is still around. And it can be divided into small amounts without losing its properties.
Ultimately, though, gold is valuable because we all agree it is. It was used around the world as a currency for thousands of years, and then it gave value to paper currencies for a couple of hundred more.
Now, in a time of turmoil, from the credit downgrade and debate over raising the debt limit in the U.S. to the growing financial crisis in Europe to worries of slow growth across the globe, gold is dazzling investors.
Since the financial crisis in 2008, central banks around the world have bought gold as a hedge against their foreign currency holdings. Earlier this month, South Korea announced it had bought gold for the first time in more than 10 years.
The last time gold prices rose so precipitously was a few years after President Richard Nixon ended a decades-long fixed relationship between the value of the dollar and the value of gold.
In those days, the price of gold was fixed at about $35 an ounce. And many foreign currencies were pegged to the dollar. Gold gave the dollar its value, and the dollar gave everything else value.
Then the U.S. began running a trade deficit, and dollars piled up abroad. Central banks could redeem dollars for gold. But it was a poorly kept secret that the U.S. didn't have enough gold to cash out every dollar in circulation.
To head off a rush, Nixon "closed the gold window," essentially saying that confidence in the U.S. government, not gold, gives the dollar its value. Gold and the dollar began to rise and fall freely, and gold earned its place as protection against the falling dollar when confidence lags.
As inflation worsened later in the 1970s and dollars were worth less, the price of gold took off. Gold hit its high in 1980 — $850 an ounce, or more than $2,300 in today's dollars.
This time is different because gold is rallying against all currencies, not just the dollar, says Jim Grant, editor of Grant's Interest Rate Observer.
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text:
CoffeeScript, Facebook, and Futon
By Jason on Jul 11, 2011
Starting today, all Iris Couch accounts have several new features.
We support CoffeeScript.
Our founding mantra is "orthodox CouchDB"; however, I've bent the rules, backporting from Apache CouchDB trunk, keeping parity with Couchbase Single Server.
Here is a simple CoffeeScript design document, formatted for clarity.
{ "_id" : "_design/coffee_app"
, "language": "coffeescript"
, "shows" : { "hello_world": "(doc) -> 'Hello, #{doc._id}!'" }
, "filters" : { "has_foo" : "(doc) -> doc.foo" }
, "views":
{ "foo": { "map" : "(doc) ->
if doc.foo
emit(doc.foo, 1)"
, "reduce": "(keys, values, rereduce) ->
sum = 0
for x in values
sum = sum + x
Mobile Futon
- Get out your iPhone or Android.
- Go to Futon: https://example.iriscouch.com/_utils/
- Nice, isn't it? That is Dale Harvey's Mobile Futon.
You can disable Mobile Futon by clicking the Configuration link in Futon. Under httpd, set mobile_futon to
Sammy Futon
We heard the rumors too: an elusive "alternative Futon." It has neither name nor master. Some say it evolved from proper Futon. Others say "devolved" would be more accurate.
In any case, we've captured a live specimen, installed it alongside its cousin, and named it Sammy Futon to sound adorable.
You can enable Sammy Futon by clicking the Configuration link in Futon. Under httpd, set sammy_futon to
Facebook Authentication
Iris Couch now supports Ocasta Labs's excellent Facebook Authentication module. Your users can log in to your application using their Facebook account.
This is not quite turn-key. (What can I say? It's Facebook.) To use CouchDB Facebook authentication, visit the Configuration link in Futon, and input your information in the [fb] section. See Martin's documention, under Configuration.
If you have feedback or issues, please let us know at the Iris Couch Get Satisfaction forum, or email firstname.lastname@example.com.
Other people wrote this code; we simply take the credit. We are grateful to the following people for their inspiring CouchDB projects.
- Jan Lehnardt at Couchbase, for implementing CoffeeScript support
- Martin Higham at Ocasta Labs, and Sander Dijkhuis for Facebook authentication; and Ed Moore at Ocasta Labs for helping me understand it all
- Dale Harvey at Couchbase, for Mobile Futon
- Benjamin Young, Dale Harvey (both at Couchbase), Sam Bisbee, and Mikeal Rogers (now at Yammer) for Sammy Futon


text:
The Marine 250 is designed for inland waterway use and features a unique thermo-formed foam case that provides additional protection for the kit's contents. A versatile mounting system lets you mount the kit in a variety of ways for easy access in mid-voyage. The kit contains a wide array of medications to treat pain, inflammation, and common allergies, it also comes with an Instant cold pack to manage swelling of fractures and sprains. SAM Finger Splints plus a wide variety of wraps and bandages to immobilize fractures and provide support are also included.
With supplies organized into injury-specific pockets, anyone can give fast and effective first aid. The Comprehensive Guide to Marine Medicine by Eric A. Weiss, M.D, is the most up-to-date information on marine and travel medicine. Guide includes: "Weiss Advice" improvised techniques; "When to Worry", 50+ techniques recommended prescription medications; medical supplies for extended expeditions. The Marine 250 Kit is ideal for Cabin Cruisers, Jet Ski's Lake Houses, Pontoons and Water Ski Boats. Kit weighs 1 lb. 7.5 oz. (666 g) and measures 9" x 6" x 4.5"" (22.9 x 15.2 x 11.4 cm). The Marine 250 Kit is designed for group sizes of 1 to 6 people on a day trip. Kit has first aid supplies to deal with bleeding, blisters and burns, fractures and sprains, wound care and medications.


text: Lady Eagle Spikers Sweep Colfax Visiting Colfax came into the Bonner Gym last week with an undefeated girls volleyball record but the Del Oro Lady Eagles proved to be rude hosts in notching a three-game sweep of the Falcons. Receiving 10 kills from Stephanie Solich and six via Morgan Lees, the Lady Eagles posted a 26-24, 25-15, 25-23 win. Both Solich and Amy Heyn also served nine points each for the winners. In last weekend's Craft Tournament at Oak Ridge, the Lady Eagles defeated Lodi; Pioneer, of Woodland; and Redwood, of Larkspur, to win its pool, but then fell 2-0 to Rocklin in the semi-final round. In the win over Redwood, Del Oro notched scores of 25-14 and 25-23 with Lees netting eight kills and Solich six. In the dig department, Morgan Hentschke led the way with three. Del Oro will host El Dorado today, Thursday, Sept. 15, at 6 p.m. and then next Tuesday entertain Bella Vista, also at 6 p.m. Del Oro Frosh Girls Win Carmichael Tournament Del Oro's girls frosh volleyball team swept through five straight opponents last Saturday to win the Carmichael Freshman Tournament played last Saturday. On their way to the title, Del Oro defeated Capital Christian, 2-0; Ponderosa, 2-0; Bear River, 2-1; Center, 2-0; and Bear River again in the finals, 2-1. In the pool play win over Bear River, both Taylor Moore and Audrey Stoddard led the way with six kills apiece while Maci Pingree totaled five assists. Pacing Del Oro's win over Capital Christian were Stoddard, Melissa Maneatis and Lida Landre, all with three kills apiece; while Paige Tomasini, with seven digs, and Maneatis, with five, led the way in the title win over Bear River.


text:
Yesterday, Selena tweeted to some of her closest friends to thank them for supporting her after she won Glamour's Woman of the Year award.
Here's what she posted:
"Awww thanks to @RyanSeacrest and @TaylorSwift13 for helping me to make my @glamourmag #woty award so special."
But there was no mention of her boyfriend Justin Bieber. Fans are wondering if Sel left Justin out of the tweet on purpose! They thought she might have done it because of a potential Jelena split. Hmm...
Either way, on November 18th, both Justin Bieber and Selena Gomez are invited to attend the American Music Awards.
Do you think Selena left Justin out on purpose?
Source: Bop & Tiger Beat


text:
Posted November 27, 2013, 4:05 pm
Ice fishing season is almost here
Looking for that perfect gift for the angler or hunter on your Christmas list? If so, a Utah fishing or hunting license might be the answer. These licenses make great Christmas gifts. And they're easy to buy.
A fishing license is a Christmas gift that keeps giving.
Photo courtesy of Troy Johnson
Judi Tutorow, wildlife licensing coordinator for the Division of Wildlife Resources, says winter is a great time to give a license as a gift. "It won't be long before some of the state's waters start to ice over," she says. "When that happens, another ice fishing season will be underway."
And Tutorow says there's still a chance to get out and hunt. "Several hunting seasons," she says, "including the cottontail rabbit, chukar partridge and snowshoe hare seasons, run through most of the winter."
Where to get one
The easiest way to buy a fishing or hunting license is at the DWR's website. The licenses are also available at DWR offices and from 320 fishing and hunting license agents across Utah.
Combination licenses — which allow the license holder to fish and hunt small game — are also available at the same locations and at the website.
Order early
If you buy a license at the website, you can have it mailed to you (so you can wrap it and give it as a gift). Or you can have the license mailed directly to the person you're buying it for.
It usually takes about five days for the license to arrive in the mail.
Utah resident license and permit costs are as follows:
They're good for 365 days
In addition to enjoying the outdoors in 2014, the person you give the license to will receive an added bonus — they won't have to wait until Jan. 1 to use it. Utah fishing and hunting licenses are 365-day licenses. That means they're good for 365 days from the day you buy one.
For example, if you buy a license on Dec. 12, 2013, the person you give it to can use it immediately. And they can continue using it through Dec. 11, 2014.
(One note: hunting and combination licenses do not include a deer or elk permit and do not allow someone to hunt deer or elk. Hunters can apply for a 2014 general buck deer permit in February. General elk permits will be available by mid summer on a first-come, first-served basis.)
They're easy to buy
Tutorow says buying a license for someone is easy. "About the only information you need to provide is the person's name, height, weight, eye color, hair color, date of birth, address and phone number," she says.
If you buy a hunting or combination license from a license agent or the DWR's website, you must also supply the person's "blue card" number. This number verifies that the person you're buying the license for has completed a DWR-approved hunter education course. The course is required for anyone born after Dec. 31, 1965 who wants to hunt in Utah.
If you buy a fishing or hunting license at a DWR office, you don't need the person's blue card number. "Using the computers at our offices," Tutorow says, "we can verify that the person you're buying the permit for has completed hunter education."
She says license agents can't verify — via computer — that someone has completed hunter education.
"If you buy a hunting or combination license from a license agent," she says, "you'll have to give the agent the person's blue card number."
For more information about Utah fishing and hunting licenses, call the nearest Division of Wildlife Resources office or the DWR's Salt Lake City office at 801-538-4700.
Beavers in Utah
Building guzzlers in Utah's Newfoundland Mountains
Gila monsters — Creatures of legends and misconceptions


text:
- Homepage >
- News Archives >
- Article
Behind the Scenes - A Day Behind the Help Desk
December 26, 2009
Story Highlights
CAMP BONDSTEEL, KOSOVO - "What do we do with printers that don\'t work'" "How often is the shared network backed-up'" and "Where are you guys at with my Help Desk ticket'"
These are just a handful of the questions heard Nov. 21-- a relatively slow day -- at the G6 Help Desk with Spc. Thomas Kok.
Kok works as a Help Desk administrator for G6, Information Technology.
"Saturdays are usually pretty slow, unless there is a VTC (Video Teleconference) or conference," Kok said. "We have to set them up and have visuals on them."
Since KFOR 12's arrival at Camp Bondsteel, the G6 has been busy. Shared network access and linking to those folders, and non-secured internet protocol router (NIPR) and secured internet protocol router (SIPR) account access are some of the most common customer problems.
One of the early problems the G6 found, during its transition with KFOR 11, was that the shared network folder had already been closed. But people still needed access to the information in it. When the problem finally was resolved, everyone had access to their information, once permissions were granted.
Next, some NIPR/SIPR accounts were not made, or made in error, and still needed to be set up. Unfortunately, this is not a simple process.
"NIPR/SIPR machines not working and needing to be moved are our primary focus," Kok said. "There is plenty of paperwork and training to be in charge of an AO (Area of Operation) of SIPR machines to make sure they are where they should be, that they are not being moved and that they are accounted for."
On the morning of Nov. 21, the Help Desk had an issue with a SIPR machine not letting a person in and the day before they had an issue with a SIPR machine that was not active or accredited with an Information Assurance Security Officer (IASO). This machine was mission essential to that department, but nothing could be done since the ISO training and packets were not completed and would not be completed until Wednesday. The account access was needed much sooner than Wednesday.
"Everything has a process, a policy to follow, and many things need a couple days to find a resolution or a work-around," Kok said.
Completely finishing and closing a Help Desk ticket is not the easiest process. Most tickets come through the G6's Help Desk, but some come through Network Service Center (NSC), more commonly known as "119." NSC is a contracted company that works here at Camp Bondsteel with the G6, and conducts work that goes beyond the maintenance level.
The life of a Help Desk ticket is quite long. Once the call is placed to 119, it is sent to Kok; if Kok receives the call, he will place the ticket. Kok may then make an office visit or call to verify the problem or gather more information. The ticket is then sent with full information and justification to the G6 approving officials, which is usually Staff Sgt. Brad Turck, NCOIC of G6, to be approved or denied; it is then sent to NSC to be approved or denied, and then sent back to Kok to work on. Some tickets make a full circle back to Kok to be corrected if they were not submitted correctly, and then back through the same chains again.
During the day spent with the Help Desk, people came in to drop off certificates of completion for data and computer training, to ask if their cell phone agreement is on file and to ask if their office's tickets are being worked. A few people actually stopped in "just to say hi," and some just to steal candy from the candy dish. Phones rang with questions about prior tickets being completed, links not working on public Web sites and getting Common Access Card (CAC) readers for laptops, just to name a few.
As Kok showed me around the different offices and the areas that G6 work out of, we were stopped a number of times - everyone had a question about something that needed to be fixed, moved or changed:
"How often is the shared network backed up'"
"Do you know why I can't get my database to burn correctly'"
"Have you been able to work on a fix for my document'"
"Can we move printers around the room' Not even if we change jacks'"
"What do we do with all these extra printers that don't work'"
A lot of equipment was found in offices that wasn't needed or didn't work. Some equipment was never even used, but was never turned in. No one knows what to do with those items.
"The system is not smooth," Turck said, "we are developing relationships with other departments including supply, NSC and Tier 3."
Tier 3 is a contractor that looks at all equipment when it is not working and decides if it can be repaired. If it can be, they work on it.
The Help Desk receives and maintains forms for many different requests, including requests for Share Point, Network Share, VTC, and for new NIPR/SIPR accounts.
VTC and conference rooms are also requested and set up through the Help Desk. Requests must be made 72 hours in advance so the G6 can contact Heidelberg, Germany, for coordinating purposes. All conference information is required by Army Europe because all VTCs require secured lines.
The G6 is currently setting up and monitoring three VTCs a week. That process includes setting up equipment for the rooms and providing support should any issues occur.
Between setting equipment up, making sure it is working, answering every question imaginable and running to different offices to verify problems and help when they can, members of the G6 keep great attitudes and high spirits.
Even though it seems that the Help Desk's job should get easier as time goes by and everyone on base gets set up, it is not. Next on the "to do" list is loading hard drive encrypting software on approximately 1,200 computers and a lifecycle replacement on all old SIPR machines.
Although the Help Desk is usually open from 0730-1930, Monday through Friday, and 0800-1700 on Saturday's, members of the G6 often find themselves working odd hours.
"We are always on call," Kok said, "We have even received calls in the middle of the night."


text:
Things to see and do - Lyons-la-Forêt
Leaving for France
Nearby hotels
Hotel Du Grand Cerf & Spa from94 €Book
Les Maisons de La Licorne from128 €Book
Hostellerie du Domaine Saint Paul from70 €Book
Les Lions De Beauclerc :
Nearby tourist site
Nearby Restaurants
Le Bistrot du Grand Cerf
Cotation :
Type de cuisine : Traditional cuisine
La Licorne Royale
Cotation :
Type de cuisine : Modern cuisine
Les Lions de Beauclerc
Cotation :
Type de cuisine : Traditional cuisine
Les Lions De Beauclerc
Les Lions De Beauclerc
Address : 7 Rue De L'hôtel De Ville F - 27480 Lyons-la-Forêt
from : 71.25 EURBook
The Lions de Beauclerc is situated in the heart of the historic village of Lyons la ForêT. At the Lions de Beauclerc you will discover a refined and warm decor. There are six bedrooms, each decorated in a different style using antique furniture. All have their own high-quality bathroom. In the Lions de Beauclerc restaurant you will find delicious food prepared with fresh local ingredients served in a charming, cosy atmosphere. Choose from sweet or savoury pancakes or a choice of daily specials. There are two dining rooms with a total capacity of 75, both of which can be booked for private parties; we will be happy to create a special menu to suite your taste and budget. Next to the restaurant you will find our antique shop, which offers a select choice of jewelry, silver, porcelain, clocks, paintings and 17th, 18th and 19th century furniture. Whilst rarity and authenticity are both priorities, the quality and intrinsic beauty of each piece is paramount.
Useful Information
- Address : 7 Rue De L'hôtel De Ville F - 27480 Lyons-la-Forêt27480Lyons-la-Forêt
Main services
- Restaurant
- Non-smoking rooms
- Animals allowed


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Last month's column focused on layout of steps. With that as a backdrop, here are some suggestions about forming steps. There are four basic types of steps: straight, tiered, curved, and cantilevered. Rises and runs can be patterned, plain, or any combination, so there's a lot to consider.
Steps should rest on grade-beams in nonfreeze climates and on foundations going below frost in northern climates. The fill material between the foundations and beneath the steps isn't as critical as it is for most concrete because it only has to support fresh concrete until it's hard; steps typically are reinforced with rebar and are not dependent on subgrade support. The subgrade should be placed to provide a minimum 6 inches of concrete where the bottom of the risers meet the treads. This is the critical location, both for strength and to provide sufficient cover for reinforcing steel.
The step forms shown here are tiered and cantilevered with texture formliners included in both the cantilever and the inset section.
Credit: Joe Nasvik
With the advent of impact drill-drivers, more contractors today are using screws to hold forms together. These tools make it easy to drive screws—both in and out. Using screws makes it easy to make adjustments to forms because they are quicker and forms are not jolted as they are with nails. Many contractors still prefer double-headed nails, but I recommend screws.
Steve VandeWater, manager of decorative concrete sales for Builders Concrete and Supply, Noblesville, Ind., prefers supporting step forms with steel stakes, especially where concrete flows around the stake. Even though contractors typically pull stakes and fill holes while concrete is still fresh, large stake holes segregate aggregate, causing weakened planes that can result in cracks. VandeWater adds that when the subgrade is loose, wood stakes are more stable and may be the best choice.
The material used to form the risers depends on the type of step being formed. For straight risers, 2x4, 2x6, or 2x8 lumber commonly is used while wood or composite siding or plywood is used for curved riser forms. VandeWater suggests cutting a 45-degree angle on the bottom of riser boards so the entire tread below can be floated and finished. He also holds the elevation of the lower riser edge about 1/4 to 3/8 inch higher than the tread so he can strike-off the concrete and hand-float the tread to the correct elevation.
For cantilevered steps, depending on the depth of the cantilevered nosing, the inset can be accomplished by inserting formliners (for patterning), polyfoam board, or expansion joint material in the bottom portion of the riser.
When forming between walls or other flat surfaces (such as plywood) where you will be able to mark riser locations, positioning risers is easy. Set riser boards to the marks and fasten them to the walls or side boards. If steps are longer than 4 feet, install stringers to support risers and keep stair lines straight. Stringers should support both the top and bottom of each riser board (refer to the diagram). Joe Fettig, owner of Fettig Concrete, Newberg, Ore., uses turnbuckles, which are available at construction supply stores. This makes it easy to support and adjust the bottom riser position.
Carpenters build structures to last but concrete contractors who build step forms want solid construction that can be easily and quickly dismantled to facilitate concrete finishing. Regardless of the method you use, it's wise to take your time building step forms. Check and recheck your elevations. It's easier and cheaper to do it right the first time than to do it again later.
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The new system eliminates seams, improves the architectural finish, and significantly...
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The Boston Globe's story about shrinking coach legroom on several big U.S. airlines generated a lot of coverage in travel media outlets. As The Globe reported, WestJet has joined the ranks of United (which started it all), American, Delta, Frontier, and JetBlue in tightening up regular coach seating in order to install a few rows with extra-legroom—and extra-fee—seats.
The question for business travelers is not whether those extra-legroom seats are a good deal; the additional cost is generally reasonable. The question is whether corporate travel policies cover the extra fees. And here, I've been surprised to read that lots of companies don't cover them.
To me, that's inexplicable. Contrary to some uninformed public opinion, business travel isn't a paid vacation. Business travelers are expected to represent their companies during what are often long days of high-pressure situations, and to travel to and from distant destinations on their own time. While I can understand a corporation's reluctance to pay for exorbitantly priced first-class tickets, it seems to me that corporations owe their business travelers any reasonably-priced alternative to the miseries of conventional coach travel. And conventional coach travel is a miserable—even demeaning—experience. Anthropometric data show that today's typical coach seats are too small to accommodate Americans comfortably. Although the for-fee alternative doesn't solve the problem completely—even with extra legroom, those coach seats are still too narrow—the option helps take at least some of the discomfort out of coach travel.
Unfortunately, this development is a zero-sum game. If you pay more, you get a better product, but if you don't pay extra, you get a product that's inferior. Business travelers who pay for their own travel are free to use the new extra-legroom option, and I'm sure many do. As for the others, I can only suggest that professionals who travel under tight corporate policies ask their companies to rethink their positions. It's a matter of fairness and respect.
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NEW RELEASE USB CARD, Sonic Shuffle by Domenico Sciajno
An innovative, interactive release featuring music created from a graphic score by Domenico Sciajno performed by a 48-member electronic orchestra, with some of the most remarkable musicians in the electro-acoustic and experimental music field:
Yasuhiro Morinaga, Carlos "Zingaro", David Brown, Francesco Giomi, Franz Hautzinger, Chris Brown, Lawrence English, Toshimaru Nakamura, Phill Niblock, Frank Bretschneider, Gunter Müller, Oren Ambarchi, Lionel Marchetti, Kim Cascone, Asmus Tietchens, Ivan Zavada, Vladislav Delay, Alvin Curran, Daniel Schorno, Michael J. Schumacher, Elliott Sharp, Philippe Petit, Kazuyuki Kishino, Lukas Ligeti, Thomas Ankersmit, Lucio Capece, Dj Olive Gregor Asch, Cat Hope, Robin Fox, David Chiesa, John Duncan, Constantine Katsiris, Matthew Ostrowsky, Yannis Kyriakides, Tim Hodgkinson, Marc Behrens, Gert-Jan Prins, Anne La Berge, Anthea Caddy, Nikos Veliotis, Benoit Maubrey, Tom Recchion, Luciano Chessa, Thomas Lehn, Idrioema, Zimoun, Axel Dörner, Laurent Dailleau
A specially designed, hard PVC box holds a USB memory support shaped like a playing card containing:
- 48 sound files: the sonic/musical creations specifically recorded by the aforementioned musicians that constitute the musical sources played and conducted by users at their own discretion.
- A user-customizable application (Mac and Windows) that allows the user to reform and manipulate the performances of the score, creating a different experience on each listen.
[posted 4 June 2014]
NEW RELEASE BOOK, Designing Sound For Health and Wellbeing by Brown, Grierson, Jelinek, Macarow, Samartzis, Weiland and Winter.
Designing Sound for Health and Wellbeing investigates ways in which sound and music compositions can ease the stress and anxiety of patients located in a hospital Emergency Department. The aim of this collaborative research project, comprising a team of composers, art producers and historians, writers, emergency medicine practitioners and health psychology researchers, was to test the function of environmental and electroacoustic music compositions especially produced for patients in the Emergency Department of St Vincent's Hospital Melbourne. The research and findings of this project provide new knowledge of the impact and use of sound and music in Emergency Medicine and the physical effect of sound and musical compositions on human health in general.
The DSHW book provides an overview of my recent doctoral research project and is saturated with photographs by myself and John Billan that capture the Emergency Department in a forensic-style. My co-authors are: Elizabeth Grierson, George Jelinek, Keely Macarow, Philip Samartzis, Tracey Weiland and Craig Winter.
[posted 11 April 2013]
NEW RELEASE LP, Sieve by Helium Clench
Shadows gather under cardboard where animal dreams and cello bows struggle to hold off electricity. Sounds of bells are rushed, entangled with rain, through measly slots between tightly crosshatched wires. This fabricates perforated fragments of seeing. These fragments adhere in the air to form a soft abrasive paper, fancied by the remote ones.
As a duo Tim Catlin and David Brown come together as Helium Clench and boast long histories in the Melbourne and international avant-garde music world. Both have independently developed a fascination with microtonal sound through Catlins construction of harmonic overtone guitars and alternatively tuned metal rod instruments, and in Browns case through his explorations using the quartertone bass guitar. Sieve, their first duo recording is a studio-based project that amalgamates electroacoustic strategies, bowed objects and processed acoustic and electric instruments. Initial recordings focused on improvisational processes along with bowing of acoustic instruments and found objects, whilst other recordings utilized electronically processed electric guitar beds. All of these recordings were then subject to rigorous studio production techniques to shape the final compositions.
[posted 11 April 2013]
NEW RELEASE CD, Moonish by culture of un
Parched twigs muster fish with odd utterances. The hinterland lost in rattled strings scrapes through a season of make it up lunacy. The outputs of the wood-turners fashionings embarrass him, condemned to life as fossils, undiscovered till when? Reflective as wetlands, caught in stone and magnetic tape they pilfer each others constituents till unrecognisable to themselves.
A meeting of musical opposites congeal into an organic whole.
The tempered tonalities of Abrahams piano mesh with the atonalities of Browns prepared guitar and utensils. Through concentrated listening and the implementation of conventional and extended instrumental techniques the resultant tones and textures pull at and morph into each other creating a mysterious sonic world, half here, half there.
With combined extensive histories in jazz, improvisation, pop and rock music Chris Abrahams and David Brown together are: culture of un.
[posted 13 June 2012]


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Game designer, level designer, & creator/project leader of the Mass Effect: Unification mod for Star Wars: Battlefront II.
- Incredible graphics, runs well on full settings on weaker systems.
- Very smart squad and enemy A.I.
- Awe-inspiring soundtrack.
- Story continues to be extremely intense, thrilling, suspenseful, and emotional.
- Gameplay is even greater and more immersive than preceding game's.
- Cover system is much improved over that of the preceding game.
- Occasional bug with getting stuck in objects.
- Small handful of plot-holes or unexplained phenomena.
- Fantastic, intense, deep, thrilling, emotional story.
- Huge sprawl of weapons.
- Thousands of algorithms and choices that change gameplay elements.
- Difficult gameplay, but also not difficult at the same time.
- Gameplay is very immersive.
- Aggravating overheating bug.
- Graphics are totally unoptimized.
- Textures seem low-res.
- Music tracks can be buggy.
- Squad A.I. is unintelligent at times.
No reviews were found matching the criteria specified. We suggest you try the review list with no filter applied, to browse all available. Join now to share your own content, we welcome creators and consumers alike and look forward to your comments.


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Find a Dealer
Please use the links identified to find a dealer for our Zero Turn Riding Mowers category. The link will use your Zip Code and Distance selection above to provide your results.
Use our Cub Cadet dealer locator to find a snow thrower or lawn mower dealer near you.
Enter your location information and product information below to find independent Cub Cadet dealers in your area.


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211 is here to help you find the right community and social services.
You can dial 2-1-1 to speak to an Information & Referral Specialist, or search our online community resource directory.
Search for information on:
• Financial & social assistance
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• and much more...
Find programs and services in your area
Click the Search box to search the online Resource Directory.


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The Oceanside City Council approved labor contracts with two employee groups during Wednesday's council meeting.
The contracts, with the Oceanside Police Officers Association non-sworn workers and the Management Employees of the City of Oceanside, freeze salaries for one to two years and include a cap on city health-care reimbursements.
Council members unanimously approved the agreements without discussion, and also OK'd a compensation plan for unrepresented workers that includes a slight increase in what the city contributes toward their health-insurance costs. Officials said the change, expected to cost about $102,000 this fiscal year, was to make the contribution consistent with what the city gives its other workers.
A contract with the Oceanside City Employees Association was withdrawn from the agenda because it hadn't been ratified by the employees association.
City may dissolve its waste commission
The Oceanside City Council asked city staff on Wednesday to come up with a plan to dissolve the Integrated Waste Commission.
The seven-member advisory panel makes recommendations to the council on policies ranging from solid waste disposal to recycling services and hazardous substances disposal.
Council members voted 3 to 2, with Councilwoman Esther Sanchez and Mayor Jim Wood opposed.
Councilman Jack Feller, who proposed the idea, said eliminating the panel and wrapping its work into the Utilities Commission would streamline policymaking.
Sanchez said it would reduce public input on waste matters. "I've not heard one good reason why we should be doing this," she said.


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So, when I got my first Android device I created a google account. I used it for two years with my old device. Now I got S3 and I have questions. Has Google Sync copied any App Data from my old device to my S3? And how can I reset the whole sync process and start on clean? Thanks in advance.
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Top Definition
A failperiment is a failed experiment.
The shitfuck didn't go well, it exploded and my clothes burned ....I almost died, what a failperiment!!
af Zeodyne 16. december 2009
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switchblade knife laws arkansas
switchblade knife laws arkansas
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switchblade knife laws arkansas
Environmental Laws In Arkansas
By: Chris C Ducker |
The environmental laws in Arkansas are consistent with national environmental laws as well as those passed locally in Arkansas.
read more
Arkansas DWI Laws Have Changed!
By: Brad J. Williams |
Effective July 31, 2009, Arkansas' DWI laws became harsher on first time offenders. The installation of an interlock device is now mandatory before a person may get their license back.
read more
Automatic Knife
By: Knives Switchblade |
Definition - any knife with a blade that pops out, at push of a button, is considered as an automatic knife or switchblade knife (same thing). That's the law. One can go to jail for carrying such thing without authorization.
read more
Automatic Knife Novices points to consider
By: Knives Switchblade |
Definition – any knife with a blade that pops out, at push of a button, is considered as an automatic knife or switchblade knife (same thing). That's the law. One can go to jail for carrying such thing without authorization. Again, as far as the law is concern, it has to be a button or a concealed/hidden firing system
read more
Flights to Arkansas
By: Debayan Sen |
Travel Tips
Tourists from all over the world travel Arizona generally for fishing, exploring and hunting. More than hundreds of cheap airline tickets Arkansas are booked due to its beautiful wildlife sceneries. The Little Rock National Airportand the Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport are the two major airports of Arkansas.
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Arkansas Public Records?
By: Andy Wong |
Broadband Internet
Copies of Arkansas public records County Department license, and may at any time.
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Arcteryx Switchblade Backpack: The backpack for the Urban Professional
By: Terry Bennett |
The Arcteryx switchblade backpack is what "Arc'teryx" themselves call an "Urban commuter" backpack. It is, in my opinion, the best laptop / business backpack that I have ever come across.
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Environmental laws in LOUISIANA
By: Chris C Ducker |
The skyrocketing rates of manufacturing and the proliferation of harmful practices has led to increased levels of pollution. Managing environmental pollutants with a view to preserving natural resources has long been a legislative matter.
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Romantic Destinations in Arkansas
By: saad |
If you are looking to avoid the herd, you need to find those special little places around the country. Romantic destinations in Arkansas should do just the trick.
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CNA Programs in Arkansas
By: Lisa smith |
Nursing career may be new to you but it is not new in context of the career opportunities one may avail after completion of his/her high school graduation. Nursing has been in high demands since the origin of the training programs. It is still increasing despite of the fact that a number of schools have opened in the state or Arkansas and this is not only the truth in this state, all the states in
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The Use of Biomass in Arkansas
By: Curtis Cox |
You might not be familiar with biomass and the potential that it has to provide energy to the world, but if you live in Arkansas, you might want to read up on how biomass could affect you positively in the next few years. The use of biomass in Arkansas is small right now, but has the potential to be one of the largest resources the United States has ever seen in terms of energy created through thi
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Whitetail Bowhunting in Arkansas
By: David F. Hugo |
Arkansas, known as the Natural State, is a prime destination for whitetail bow hunting. Herd conservation practices have resulted in a very large population of these illusive creatures that makes hunting them one of the highlights of the fall and winter months. Archery season opens the first day of October and ends the last day of February, providing hunters with the longest season for hunting of any game in the state.
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Arkansas Destination Attraction
By: Dr.Mike Boucher |
Arkansas is a unique destination comprised of diverse landscapes, intriguing history, and exciting things to do. A host of excellent Arkansas attractions draw tourists from all around the world to explore and discover an important part of America's deep south. Vast and sweeping natural regions and exciting urban areas offer tourists a diverse state with a huge number of activities. Some of the bes
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Arkansas Car Accident Statistics
By: Sara Goldstein |
Personal injury
Every year, thousands of people are injured or killed as the result of a car accident in Arkansas, and in many cases the accident was not the fault of the injured party or the deceased victim. In 2008, more than 600 people lost their lives as the result of a car crash in Arkansas, with thousands of others suffering serious or permanent injuries.
read more
Best CD Rates in Arkansas
By: Mack Peter |
In Arkansas many financial institutions are operating from the last many years. All these financial institutions have their own CD rates that are offered to the customers. Each and every financial institution strives to give the best rates to attract the maximum number of investors.
read more
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What does getting an epidural feel like??
I'm terrified of needles and anything like it, so I'm just wondering if it's really worth it? I know quite a few people who say it wore of before they were done giving birth, or it was very uncomfortable and they wish they didn't get it. I guess my concern is feeling it? Do you know its there if you move? I always hate getting IV's in my arm because I can never move right because it hurts and feels weird. Is the epidural the same way?
Posted: 08/13/2012 by molliemrichard
Mom Answers
Sort by: best answers | most recent answers
1 - 10 of 10 answers
Didn't feel a thing! Took all the pain away! Was great!posted 08/15/2012 by ilovebil
Didn't hurt at all. I had no issues with the actual epi, but my pump broke twice...at 6cm and 9/10cm, so honestly, I can tell you, REAL labor is NOT for the faint of heart...I went through REAL contractions for 30 minutes at each of the 2 stages listed above and I would never do that for all 10 stages...hope that helps!posted 08/16/2012 by hb1stbaby
Epidurals are AMAZING!! You only feel al little poke & some pressure when it's inserted. Then it's taped to your back, it doesn't move around at all. It makes labor enjoyable instead of miserable. I will be having another, best thing I ever did!posted 08/14/2012 by a BabyCenter Member
thank you all for your answers :] it helps hearing from people who've been through itposted 08/16/2012 by molliemrichard
ah, that sucks!!! I don't think I could do it without him in there. I could barely get my finger pricked at the doctor on my last visit without having a panic attack, and on my next visit they will be doing more blood work...So having a needle in my back just...blah! Were you able to move with ease, or was there tugging?posted 08/14/2012 by molliemrichard
Well I guess if they allow him in there I might try it. I'm just such a wuss when it comes to them >.< which is funny considering I have 6 tattoos and I had my lip and nose pierced. I dont get why those didnt bother me at all but this does. Thank you :]posted 08/14/2012 by molliemrichard
And, I leaned into my husbands chest while it was inserted. It was over in a minute & then a huge gush of relief came & stayed.posted 08/14/2012 by a BabyCenter Member
You sound just like me huni. It is just the initial insert that hurts or is uncomfortable. Most of it is just in our head. Just dont look at the tools they are using and you'll be a little better. Perhaps ur dr. will allow ur spouse to be there. You wont be able to move much so dont worry about any tugging. i am not looking forward to the application process when i have my next baby, but that will not stop me from getting.. i had a very relaxed labor and even slept in between contractions :)posted 08/14/2012 by a BabyCenter Member
Oh dear lol.. i am too terrified to get tattoos or piercing.. but best of luck to you!posted 08/14/2012 by a BabyCenter Member
I am terrified of needles also and always dreaded getting blookwrk done. I had the epidural and i have to tell you it was the worst part of my entire labor. You can fell the needle going through your back and lots of pressure on your spine. It only took a few minutes to apply and my spouse wasnt allowed in the room while i got it. I would get it again though because it helped me have a very relaxed delivery and i cant imagine it being more painful than giving birth without it.posted 08/14/2012 by a BabyCenter Member
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montezooma wrote:That is strange that in 1967 or so they would put Space Mountain on the map. It looks like a really cool concept for Space Mountain. They must have really side stepped this project for several years since it didn't finally open until 1976.
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Elle Macpherson's drug smuggler loverElle Macpherson's new boyfriend is a convicted cocaine smuggler.
The 44-year-old supermodel began dating British-born Brian Burgess, 56, after his removals firm Aussie Man and Van helped her move house earlier this year.
It has been revealed Burgess spent four years in an Australian jail after he was convicted of attempting to smuggle 2kg of cocaine into the country from America in 1996.
Aussie Man and Van manager John Hess confirmed Burgess' drug conviction, but insists he has now put the episode behind him.
Hess said: "That's all in the past. This guy spends most of his time counselling people with drug and alcohol addictions."
Burgess was deported back to England after he had served his sentence, leaving behind his wife Jennifer and their three young children.
Speaking at the time, Jennifer said: "He was always a good dad. Unfortunately he lost the plot for a long time."
Burgess emigrated to Australia aged 17 and quickly found work as an airline sales manager.
However, his life spiralled out of control when he lost his job. He started drinking alcohol heavily, using cocaine and developed eating disorder bulimia.
He eventually lost his £600,000 home and racked up drug debts of almost £20,000.
During his trial, Burgess told the court he had been a regular cocaine user in the seven months prior to his arrest.
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