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Objective-C is a caricature of Smalltalk, combining all the disadvantages of C with only few of the advantages of Smalltalk. It also lacks pretty much all the advantages of Java: Objective-C is not type-safe, it does not provide runtime safety, it does not provide sandboxing, and it does not allow you to safely load extension modules.

C++ started out as a simple set of fixes to problems in C, and for the first few years, it was a pretty good tool. That's why it won over Objective-C, which came out around the same time. Eventually, C++ bloated beyond recognition, while Objective-C stagnated from disuse, and that's the state we're still in. There are still a few valid use cases for C++, but I see none for Objective-C.

What should you use then? As far as languages that you can realistically use, I think the best ones around are C#, Go, Python, and Ruby. There is nothing (zero) new ideas in those languages compared to what's been available for decades and their implementations are mediocre and bloated at best. The evolution of programming languages has been a big, fat disappointment.

Oh, I’m all for equal treatment. I say they have just as much right to build a mosque there as Americans have to picket it and draw caricatures of their self-proclaimed prophet, Muhammad (who we already know is a liar since he also claimed to be illiterate but managed to write a book, which should make him sort of the opposite of being illiterate, by definition).

So, as soon as Muslims (at the very least, American Muslims) can come to some sort of semi-official general agreement that freedom of speech is not something that true followers of Islam punish with beheadings, I’ll be much more acquiescent to their desire to build a mosque a few yards from where a few of their loony nutjobs killed a bunch of my fellow Americans.

providing laws, police, military, legislature, courts,

Here is part of the answer. The meaning of "government step-in" appears to be different to different people. For some the acts of creating and framing, that is, legislating a market is too much government involvement. For others they are essential guarantees for working, free markets. Some Americans do tend to think quite black-and-white about the issue which can be seen from the caricatural usage of Jesus metaphors.

Not really. Having tried both, I actually found making corporate Java programs to be a _lot_ less stress.

It's not just the deadlines, it's also, well, let's just say that unless you work for some incredibly shitty boss (and you should probably quit then), in corporate jobs you're a lot less likely to have a constant stream of change requests right until the deadline and in fact even past the deadline. We tend to make a fuss when the client wants another field on a mask or such, but few people have a clue what it's like to have Mr Designer come up with great ideas that turn the whole engine on its head.

Also in a corporate database and Java job you may (or may not) have to deal with code that is properly structured and has automated testcases. If you're lucky, comments too. In fact, in some places it may even be enforced. And the need for ugly hacks is also a bit less present. In the games industry you have code written by people straight off college, who never had to write anything over 1000 lines and half of them still think that structure, refactoring or the rest of the theory is something that lazy old has-beens invented to make themselves look busy. If you're unlucky, it'll be code from someone who even thinks he has something to prove. If you're _really_ unlucky it will be script code from some hapless designer who got shanghaied into writing scripts because "everyone knows" scripts are teh easy stuff and game design stuff and no need to waste a real programmer on. Also, not only you'll have to deal with some obscure hack that might be there just to deal with the idiosyncrasies of some obscure driver version from 2005, but it's undocumented and everyone who even knew about it or the condition has long ago burned out and left, so you're left guessing if it's horrible code or necessary. Also, it's been written under terrible time pressure, so not only it's funky code the kind that gets produced on a Sunday evening after a 100 hour week and lots of skipped sleep, but nobody had the time to "waste" with comments, refactoring, test cases, etc.

And so on, and so forth.

Plus, I guess there's the sheer frustration about the creative part. In business a usecase may be dumb but ultimately you have to fit what the client wants done. You can argue about usability or fonts (and lose badly,) but that's about it. In games you may well have played a hundred games in that genre and actually understand better than Mr Designer why that idea is dumb and has failed before. He's not omniscient, and especially for games which get developed more out of "well, let's try genre Y because it sells better" he may actually be designing something he doesn't understand, or even hates. Just look at all the featured copied badly between games, because someone didn't even understand why they're there. Now imagine that you actually do know, and have read the interviews from the designer of the game you're trying to copy, and know full well that what you're asked to implement is a horrible caricature of it. But nobody's listening to you.

Me.
That's not what creativity is.

but the output is algorithmic with a bit of randomness thrown in.

And who's to say that's not what creativity is?

To you, a pair of slanted eyes is a feature, while the pattern of veins on the retina is a detail to be ignored.

To a robot, arms and legs are a feature, while the pattern of orifices and protruberances on a face is a detail to be ignored.

In the video, the robot drew boobs on the girl and a penis on the guy! Given the nature of the drawing, I suspect that the robot is really just remotely-controlled arms with an artist looking through the video camera.

Or...maybe the one on the womens side always draws boobs and the one on the mens side always draws penis's. Just a thought.

I'm not sure if this is a hoax, or just a typically poor piece of journalism that misrepresents the intentions of the engineers. Either way the term "caricature" is wildly misused. It's not even representing the people standing in front of it in the correct pose, it's just geometric stick figures...with boobs/penis.

I can't go in there; that doesn't look anything like me!

"The idea is novel, but the output is algorithmic with a bit of randomness thrown in."

Agreed, these are as creative as filling in blank spots in your data with the result of dice rolls. As a robotics project its fine, but it'd be the least efficient use of my loo time. I'd rather go use the wc, come back, and then watch the apparatus draw things.

A caricature is easily identifiable as a deliberate distortion of its subject's features. These images are vague sketches of image-captured outlines, with some randomness thrown in.

Even rudimentary drawing robots like these are examples of artificial creativity.

Setting aside how ridiculous "artificial creativity" is, there is nothing to back up the article's assertion of creativity. The idea is novel, but the output is algorithmic with a bit of randomness thrown in.

Apparently.

Of course, the images it drew didn't even appear to be caricatures, only a random-looking image of the vague outline of a person, with circles for representing the boobs for women (and, if I ever met a women with boobs up on her shoulders, I'd probably run for my life) and a crudely drawn schlong and meatballs for men. It's like they had a 3-year-old spend 5 minutes looking at a copy of Playboy and Playgirl and having the child draw what they thought they saw.

Plus, if I gotta take a piss, no way I'm standing still long enough for that glacially-slow robotic arm to draw anything.

Do you really want films & books about nothing but outsized caricatures of humanity as characters, or filled with people who we are so utterly incapable of identifying with that they might as well be aliens from a civilization antithetical to our own?

We call that Atlas Shrugged.

Since when is it "narcissism" to "see" bits of ourselves in characters we read about, or see in film?

Audience identification with characters in artistic works is as old as the media those artistic works have been presented in. Those works with the most timeless, universal themes are generally considered to be some of the best, most durable & long-lasting works - in other words, the ones which MANY people can "see" bits of themselves in.

Empathetic characters are nothing to be scared of or ashamed of. Do you really want films & books about nothing but outsized caricatures of humanity as characters, or filled with people who we are so utterly incapable of identifying with that they might as well be aliens from a civilization antithetical to our own? Because those types of stories might be fun one-trick ponies, but the thought of them doesn't hold much appeal for me.

...not saying the death penalty its right, just saying the US isn't all like the worlds caricature of Texas. Aside from their ridiculous school text book mandates, neither is all of Texas for that matter.

I don't think we mostly have a caricature of Texas or much idea of what it's like as distinct from the rest of the US. Caricatures of the US / USians, sure, but not of each US region.

And you have the death penalty in the US - which you tend to otherwise use for inconsequential stuff mostly?

Yeah we in the US tend to use the death penalty all willy nilly, mainly on those who put long term planning into their well thought out murders. But I'm sure you didn' t know any of the victims so you personally could say those crimes were inconsequential.

...not saying the death penalty its right, just saying the US isn't all like the worlds caricature of Texas. Aside from their ridiculous school text book mandates, neither is all of Texas for that matter.

Except the reviewer has got the worst, I mean absolute worse, voice for doing reviews. He doesn't modulate his voice at all; it's that same dull, nasal-sounding voice. I got through about five minutes before I turned it off.

What might not be obvious at first is that it's a caricature named Mr. Plinkett. It's supposed to be a slovenly old man who borders on senile and psychotic. They do this to add some additional humor and characterization to the reviews, otherwise you're basically going to be listening to some nasally nerd nitpicking details. It takes a little getting used to but if you've only watched five minutes I encourage you to give it another shot with the knowledge that the voice is satire.

That said, the Star Wars reviews do suffer a little bit from a skit-based "subplot" wherein the Plinkett character has kidnapped a hooker and kept her in the basement. We think he's going to kill her but instead he shows her the prequels as torture. It's supposed to be funny but it's mostly cringeworthy. His Star Trek reviews don't have any of this and I think they're the better for it.

A happy day for freedom-loving Marylanders and Americans in general.

But a sad loss for power tripping pigs.

Pigs. Cute. How very 70's revolutionary of you. Are you wearing bellbottoms, or do you always talk like some dumbass caricature of the Weathermen?

I think this ruling is fantastic, because I think it properly rolls back police power. But I also think that people that consider cops "pigs" are morons. There are good cops and bad cops, and there are far more of the former than the later. I'm a staunch advocate of minimal government and self defense, and I've even gone to court to (successfully) fight a traffic ticket, but I'd hate to live in a society without police.

The problem is the discrepancy between what the Tea Party claims as its official beliefs (small government, less taxes) and what the Tea Party actually believes (Obama is a Socialist Marxist fascist dictator who worships Hitler and Allah and wants to take all the rich people's money away and give it to all the poor people and sell us all out to the world government).

That isn't what the Tea Party movement actually believes. That is a minority viewpoint that is overplayed by the media to discredit the movement and neutralize its effectiveness. The conservative news outlets like Fox play up this caricature of the movement while the liberal news outlets use the provided caricature to tear it to shreds--it's kind of like a straw man, only behind the scenes it's the same oligarchy setting it up and tearing it down. The official beliefs are by and large what the Tea Party movement is actually about; you just don't get to see it because that isn't where the cameras are pointed.

I am in agreement with the stated goals of the Tea Party, but any group that has Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin as its unofficial spokespeople is not a group I would ever want to associate with.

Painting Glenn Beck as a Tea Party guy is a brilliant move by our plutocratic overlords. His popularity with the group, if I'm not mistaken, took off when he made a turnabout regarding Ron Paul, someone who really does represent Tea Party ideals--in fact, it was Ron Paul supporters who popularized modern-day tea parties. Fox latched on to and perverted the idea, using Beck and others to push their own agenda and to de-fang the movement from making any changes that would benefit average Americans over corporations and the political class.

Paul himself has said exactly what you did: that Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin ought not to be spokesmen for the movement, and that people who listen to them are being taken for a ride.

Regardless, the damage is done and the Tea Party movement has very little respect. What may save the movement despite itself is the continued recession despite numerous bailouts. Word has it that Democrats are in trouble come November, and there are lots of Republican candidates running on the Tea Party staple of small government. The fierce primary election infighting between them and the more established Republicans gives me hope that the party may be forcefully reformed from the big-government warmongering monster it's become.

There is a big difference between phones being generally piss-poor at doing Flash and the vendor banning it entirely.

In the first case, the individual can choose to avoid bad technology. In the latter, the individual has no choice.

Steve is acting like every caricature of Bill Gates ever created. THAT is not a "tempest in a teacup".

If Flash were really that bad, then Steve could simply allow Adobe to hoist itself on it's own petard.