Here's the relevant part (sorry, editing on a phone isn't that easy...):

Now comes the fun part: modern hardware acceleration. I assume everybody already knows what OpenGL is. It’s not a library, there will never be one set of sources to alibGL.so. Each vendor is supposed to provide its ownlibGL.so. NVIDIA provides its own implementation of OpenGL and ships its ownlibGL.so, based on its implementations for Windows and OS X.

If you are running open-source drivers, yourlibGL.so implementation probably comes from Mesa. Mesa is many things, but one of the major things it provides that it is most famous for is its OpenGL implementation. It is an open-source implementation of the OpenGL API. Mesa itself has multiple backends for which it provides support. It has three CPU-based implementations: swrast (outdated and old, do not use it), softpipe (slow), llvmpipe (potentially fast). Mesa also has hardware-specific drivers. Intel supports Mesa and has built a number of drivers for their chipsets which are shipped inside Mesa. The radeon and nouveau drivers are also supported in Mesa, but are built on a different architecture: gallium.

I've wondered this before too. How does it all fit together. I found this very helpful: http://blog.mecheye.net/2012/06/the-linux-graphics-stack/#rendering-stack

I saw this headline and was worried about the Cheeto and Mountain Dew famines that would occur if a community of displaced Battlestar Galactica Gamers was unleashed upon this land.

Well, if you were talking to a geosat satellite, those are way out there in orbit. Fast electrically steerable antennas may allow comms with low earth orbit satellites, which would lower latency.

There are a lot of ways to look at hard, somewhat generic problems, like Sudoku. Have you seen the SAT problem? http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boolean_satisfiability_problem One way to consider it is like you describe - a set of simultaneous equations. Another way to consider it is to use the equations and some rules to draw a graph, then perform graph operations. NP problems are an active area of academic interest. It's generally not possible to know how hard these problems are before solving them, so if this technique can be more general than just Sudoku, that could be important.

Yes. This. In the same way, dumb folks are a complete turnoff, I don't care how good you look.

I've put this statement to the test.

Clearly, then, the solution is to install listening devices in everyone's homes.

That was my initial thought too. But the complaining worked, so more power to the complainers.

My interpretation was, "temperature variations caused by cosmic rays are influenced more by supernovae than by the Sun." I think it's similar to yours, but that the Sun and supernovae are causing cosmic rays to affect Earth's temperature. It probably infers what you're saying too.

The problem is generally not that men dislike women, sexism takes much more subtle forms than that. I'm in the military, another male dominated career field, and I've seen that it can be hard for women to try to just fit in and work if they're being singled out even in small ways. This post discusses it a bit:
http://therealkatie.net/blog/2012/mar/21/lighten-up/

There are times that I've thought one of my female coworker friends needs to "lighten up", and I've thought that about male coworkers too. But there are many times when I've seen that the women are correct, and that they've been singled out in an unfortunate way. It really turns them off to a field that needs a more equal gender balance, and that's too bad.

I think XZVF kinda hit it on the head, too.

I have a friend who was sued by the RIAA or one of their members. I don't know anything about it, except that he and a few others all decided to settle, and that they were all in college at the time. He's doing well now.

There have been a few news stories about the grandma who was sued, or the cute college coed that was sued, too. Not that I know them, but the people do exist.

Not to defend or disagree with your comment's parent, I've been thinking a bit about science belief/knowledge and relaized that there's a lot of science which I understtand logically but that I haven't witnessed firsthand. For instance, in physics labs I've proved a lot of physics to myself, and I "know" that bit of science. I've seen the curvature of earth and know that it's round. I've used an electron microscope (don't remember the type) and understand its function and now I "know" about atoms. Biology, on the other hand, is something I'm not terribly versed in. I totally believe that white and red blood cells exist, and that that's how our immune system works and how oxygen gets to our body parts, but I can't say that I "know" it to be true. I'm sure this sounds like a drunk college conversation, sorry. It'd be better but I'm driving and typing...

I totally agree, but never put it so well. Thank you.

Thanks for saying that. The summary is enough to enrage anybody, then I read the bill and the context and I was puzzled as to why anybody was making a big deal.

You do realize that the "dick smith" electronics store was sold to woolies in 1982? 60% in 1980, then the rest in 1982. Are you really talking about the store during the 70's? In addition, it does not make someone a hypocrite to behave in a different way to what the once did. Is the reformed alcoholic a hypocrite for wanting tighter alcohol regulation? You really haven't thought this through.