Can you imagine the standby power requirements to run the WiFi 24/7 JUST to hear you utter one, non-customizable, phrase?
I can. What you're proposing seems reasonable, and the alternative seems absurd, but I'd wait until all the information is in before I'd make such a bold pronouncement.
We have seen crazier things, after all.
It'll be interesting to see if Siri's listening behavior changes when the device is plugged in and what it transmits after the device wakes up. There are an awful lot of questions unanswered here.
I'm surprised there hasn't been much discussion about the dangers this feature presents before, as we've seen it in phones and CPU's already, like the Moto X and Snapdragon 800.
Though I'm not a gamer, bringing the world of third party apps to your TV has potential to be a game changer. If the hardware is reasonably capable, having a platform capable of interactive apps and games (not to mention, of course, TV and movies) in a device costing $150 may change some things
They're throwing it out entirely and adopting Chrome's.
Not true. They're starting there, but that's not the end. It's pretty obvious that they intend to extend the API rather dramatically.
Then they're going to ask the developers of the popular plugins (noscript and adblock and no one fucking else)
Nonsense. It's pretty obvious that they're reaching out to the broader plugin community, you just can't deny those two specifically.
to tell them what else they need to do in order to make those specific plugins work.
No, they're trying to ensure that the new system will have the same power and flexibility as the old system.
There will be less functionality.
Nonsense. Nonsense which you believe despite all the evidence to the contrary, and with no supporting evidence. Your position is the "browser wars" version of young-earth creationism.
Whether anything is easier or not remains to be seen,
I think you answer this point best:
it should be easier if a developer is maintaining both a Chrome and a Firefox plugin.
As stated by Mozilla, they're going to solicit feedback and listen to the big boys (NoScript, AdBlock). Only the "most popular" count. No one else will have any say.
Umm... That's not what was stated explicitly nor what was implied by that quote. Your interpretation is nothing more than paranoia.
I prefer to deal with facts, not paranoid delusions.
Only in your imagination. The plugin system changed constantly because of how it was implemented. They're finally stabilizing that API making it easier for plugin authors.
They're not "removing the core functionality" at all -- they're enhancing it.
Only in your paranoid fantasy does improving plugin support someone mean they're going make that feature less useful and refuse any and all feedback from plugin authors.
How do you implement that, non-ambiguously, in an intuitive way?
The second link has a bit about that. As it turns out, you really don't want real-world physics. In the case of SMB, much simpler models (see the fourth link), using nothing more than simple arithmetic (in line with TFA), are not only effective, but much simpler to implement on old hardware like the 6502. The iterative process of adding effects and tweaking values until the controls "feel" right. (I can't find the interview i saw earlier, but this should give you a sense of that iterative process, from the developers themselves.)
Sure, anything can be accomplished eventually through brute force and pure persistence, but the programmer with math and physics knowledge is going to do it better and faster
No one is disputing that such knowledge is useful. The question here is whether it's essential.
For games, it's pretty obvious that it's unnecessary, as you admit here. Though I'd like to add, from some of the discussions I ran across, attempting to model real-world physics in games can actually introduce problems that simpler approaches avoid. Again, see the second link. There were a few discussions I ran across yesterday with a quick search that go in to this as well. I can dig them up if you're interested though it shouldn't take you more than a few minutes to find them on your own.
and likely more elegant, because it's hard to find something more elegant than the laws of nature.
I keep going back to that second link, but that answers this pretty well (the second page, iirc). Player physics in games are pretty far divorced from reality -- and for good reason. They simply don't work very well for games. Consequently, you'll find no end to the articles discussing the design of player physics. Common to all of them, as mentioned earlier, is the need to iteratively adjust various values until things "feel" right.
Again, this is a situation where a strong maths background seems essential, but really isn't. Basic arithmetic, and a good aesthetic sense, is sufficient.
Put simply, I'm saying that while a strong maths background is useful, it's not essential to be a competent developer, and that there are many instances where a strong math background appears to be essential, but ultimately is not. That second bit frequently misleads developers in to thinking that they're far more numerically literate than they actually are.
No one is disputing that a strong maths background is essential for some domains. That's perfectly obvious. The argument TFA makes is that, for the most part, developers need very little beyond basic arithmetic.
I agree with the author. Though she didn't make her case very well, I can't dispute the conclusion. I also understand that it makes some people uncomfortable, as they believe themselves to have a strong mathematics background simply because they're competent developers. I suspect that this false sense of numeracy that programming offers causes a good bit of harm.
Female behaviour is civilized, but male behaviour is crass, tactless, and rude.
First, I said nothing about either stereotypical female or male behavior. You invented that all on your own to fit your preconceptions.
Second, the OP is complaining about being unable to engage in "crass, tactless, and rude" behavior. Specifically, "off-colour jokes" and "crude humour". He thinks that "these things are all healthy male banter". Read our posts again. This is pretty obvious.
Essentially, his complaint is that he can't engage in crude and uncivil dialogue in mixed company without facing social consequences for his admittedly anti-social behavior. He blames women, though I doubt many men would want to work with someone that unprofessional. He puts me in mind of the Drew character from Office Space. Would you want to work with someone like that?
Without exception, the workplaces with women were more "brittle" in terms of having to watch what you said, no off-colour jokes, no crude humour.
Woah, you had to show basic consideration to other people?! You can't be as crass as tactless as you'd like?
I can't imagine how horrible it must have been to be forced to act like a civilized human being 8-hours a day. The next thing you know, they'll expect you to bathe regularly and wash your hands after relieving yourself. Pure tyranny!
Understanding the equations and implementing them, and even understanding that integration is what you need are the parts that math helps you with
The point is that you don't have to understand them to implement them. You actually need to know very little. Yes, it's helpful, but it's far from essential. That's the point. No one is arguing that you're better-off knowing nothing about math or physics, only that it's not that important for developers even when it superficially appears that that understanding is necessary.
Now we're having a completely different discussion...
How do you make characters move intuitively? By making them inhabit a world that follows physical laws similar to our own.
If I remember correctly, in Super Mario you could move left and right while in the air. That is pretty obviously outside the physical laws of our universe. They did this to give the player more control over their jumps. It feels intuitive, even though it's completely different from the laws of the universe we inhabit.
How do you make sure that a character follows a realistic, predictable, intuitive parabola through the air when they jump?
By abandoning Newton and developing a system that works well for the game. Give it a try. Write a simple side-scroller that accurately reflects the physics of the natural world. You'll be amazed at how terrible it plays. I did a quick search, and found a number of discussions that seem to support this. I also found a few breakdowns that may interest you: Sonic Physics, Super Mario Galaxy Demystified, Mario Gravity, SMB Physics.
That second link has a nice quote: "Obviously, real world physics have a place in today's games. However, they take a backseat to psychology when it comes to making real world gameplay"
some physics knowledge is absolutely necessary unless you're just leveraging other people's work the whole time
It shouldn't be that surprising, as you're using the work of physicists. The implementation is just details after that. You don't need to understand it, all you need are the equations. There are already well-established methods for integration, so you don't need to invent that either, just implement one.
Here's an easier example: If I asked you to write a t-test function, you'd need to nothing more than look up the equation and implement it. For the parts you don't understand, you can look them up and do the same as well (like the sample mean and the standard deviation). You wouldn't need to know the first thing about statistics. All that work has been done for you.
Mario Brothers had a fairly realistic implementation of gravity, friction, and acceleration
You're over complicating that particular problem. All you need there is common experience. When someone jumps, they go up for a bit and then come down. You slide on slippery things. I'll bet a nickle that the developers of Mario Brothers didn't concern themselves with physical accuracy, but how each action felt intuitively.
That's easy. Indian programmers are really inexpensive.
We'll have one hell of an employment crisis once management figures out how to only hire the ones that actually know something about computer programming.
Don't been silly. Programming is mathematics is the weakest possible sense. Yes, I've heard the arguments, but you're only going to convince people who don't understand the issue and developers with discipline envy.
You should take a step back in time, to the early 20th century, and have a talk with Russel and Whitehead. They put an awful lot of effort in to producing a completely analytic account of mathematics. You can probably guess how that turned out...
A programmer writes computer programs. This is the easy part.
A computer scientist is a mathematician specializing in computer science. (Though there are quite a few people with CS degrees who do not fit that description. That's not their fault, but that of the institution that issued that credential.)
A software engineer is just a programmer with discipline envy.
Slashdot Mirror
If you don't know, just say so.
That remains to be seen.
It would be easy to get ~75% correct just by looking for keywords and simple pattern matching, without actually understanding the question,
Pattern matching, without any understanding, is state-of-the-art AI.
Which will be purchased and used exclusively by idiots. Excluding, of course, professionals that are also idiots. Even they know better.
Can you imagine the standby power requirements to run the WiFi 24/7 JUST to hear you utter one, non-customizable, phrase?
I can. What you're proposing seems reasonable, and the alternative seems absurd, but I'd wait until all the information is in before I'd make such a bold pronouncement.
We have seen crazier things, after all.
It'll be interesting to see if Siri's listening behavior changes when the device is plugged in and what it transmits after the device wakes up. There are an awful lot of questions unanswered here.
I'm surprised there hasn't been much discussion about the dangers this feature presents before, as we've seen it in phones and CPU's already, like the Moto X and Snapdragon 800.
Time will tell.
Though I'm not a gamer, bringing the world of third party apps to your TV has potential to be a game changer. If the hardware is reasonably capable, having a platform capable of interactive apps and games (not to mention, of course, TV and movies) in a device costing $150 may change some things
Ouya, Roku, etc.
They're not stabilizing anything.
Nonsense.
They're throwing it out entirely and adopting Chrome's.
Not true. They're starting there, but that's not the end. It's pretty obvious that they intend to extend the API rather dramatically.
Then they're going to ask the developers of the popular plugins (noscript and adblock and no one fucking else)
Nonsense. It's pretty obvious that they're reaching out to the broader plugin community, you just can't deny those two specifically.
to tell them what else they need to do in order to make those specific plugins work.
No, they're trying to ensure that the new system will have the same power and flexibility as the old system.
There will be less functionality.
Nonsense. Nonsense which you believe despite all the evidence to the contrary, and with no supporting evidence. Your position is the "browser wars" version of young-earth creationism.
Whether anything is easier or not remains to be seen,
I think you answer this point best:
it should be easier if a developer is maintaining both a Chrome and a Firefox plugin.
As stated by Mozilla, they're going to solicit feedback and listen to the big boys (NoScript, AdBlock). Only the "most popular" count. No one else will have any say.
Umm... That's not what was stated explicitly nor what was implied by that quote. Your interpretation is nothing more than paranoia.
I prefer to deal with facts, not paranoid delusions.
How does that contradict anything I've said? On the contrary, it seems to contradict you're initial and subsequent assertions.
At least you're trying. Now go troll somewhere else.
That's very obviously not true. Had you read the article instead of just the uninformed comments, you'd know that.
No, it does not.
That's not even a little bit true.
Only in your imagination. The plugin system changed constantly because of how it was implemented. They're finally stabilizing that API making it easier for plugin authors.
They're not "removing the core functionality" at all -- they're enhancing it.
Only in your paranoid fantasy does improving plugin support someone mean they're going make that feature less useful and refuse any and all feedback from plugin authors.
You're confused.
They don't actually know. The best you can hope for are some empty platitudes.
You're arguing against a position I'm clearly not advocating. I'm not sure what you hope to accomplish?
How do you implement that, non-ambiguously, in an intuitive way?
The second link has a bit about that. As it turns out, you really don't want real-world physics. In the case of SMB, much simpler models (see the fourth link), using nothing more than simple arithmetic (in line with TFA), are not only effective, but much simpler to implement on old hardware like the 6502. The iterative process of adding effects and tweaking values until the controls "feel" right. (I can't find the interview i saw earlier, but this should give you a sense of that iterative process, from the developers themselves.)
Sure, anything can be accomplished eventually through brute force and pure persistence, but the programmer with math and physics knowledge is going to do it better and faster
No one is disputing that such knowledge is useful. The question here is whether it's essential.
For games, it's pretty obvious that it's unnecessary, as you admit here. Though I'd like to add, from some of the discussions I ran across, attempting to model real-world physics in games can actually introduce problems that simpler approaches avoid. Again, see the second link. There were a few discussions I ran across yesterday with a quick search that go in to this as well. I can dig them up if you're interested though it shouldn't take you more than a few minutes to find them on your own.
and likely more elegant, because it's hard to find something more elegant than the laws of nature.
I keep going back to that second link, but that answers this pretty well (the second page, iirc). Player physics in games are pretty far divorced from reality -- and for good reason. They simply don't work very well for games. Consequently, you'll find no end to the articles discussing the design of player physics. Common to all of them, as mentioned earlier, is the need to iteratively adjust various values until things "feel" right.
Again, this is a situation where a strong maths background seems essential, but really isn't. Basic arithmetic, and a good aesthetic sense, is sufficient.
Well, that's my fault. I wasn't terribly clear.
Put simply, I'm saying that while a strong maths background is useful, it's not essential to be a competent developer, and that there are many instances where a strong math background appears to be essential, but ultimately is not. That second bit frequently misleads developers in to thinking that they're far more numerically literate than they actually are.
No one is disputing that a strong maths background is essential for some domains. That's perfectly obvious. The argument TFA makes is that, for the most part, developers need very little beyond basic arithmetic.
I agree with the author. Though she didn't make her case very well, I can't dispute the conclusion. I also understand that it makes some people uncomfortable, as they believe themselves to have a strong mathematics background simply because they're competent developers. I suspect that this false sense of numeracy that programming offers causes a good bit of harm.
Female behaviour is civilized, but male behaviour is crass, tactless, and rude.
First, I said nothing about either stereotypical female or male behavior. You invented that all on your own to fit your preconceptions.
Second, the OP is complaining about being unable to engage in "crass, tactless, and rude" behavior. Specifically, "off-colour jokes" and "crude humour". He thinks that "these things are all healthy male banter". Read our posts again. This is pretty obvious.
Essentially, his complaint is that he can't engage in crude and uncivil dialogue in mixed company without facing social consequences for his admittedly anti-social behavior. He blames women, though I doubt many men would want to work with someone that unprofessional. He puts me in mind of the Drew character from Office Space. Would you want to work with someone like that?
Without exception, the workplaces with women were more "brittle" in terms of having to watch what you said, no off-colour jokes, no crude humour.
Woah, you had to show basic consideration to other people?! You can't be as crass as tactless as you'd like?
I can't imagine how horrible it must have been to be forced to act like a civilized human being 8-hours a day. The next thing you know, they'll expect you to bathe regularly and wash your hands after relieving yourself. Pure tyranny!
Understanding the equations and implementing them, and even understanding that integration is what you need are the parts that math helps you with
The point is that you don't have to understand them to implement them. You actually need to know very little. Yes, it's helpful, but it's far from essential. That's the point. No one is arguing that you're better-off knowing nothing about math or physics, only that it's not that important for developers even when it superficially appears that that understanding is necessary.
Now we're having a completely different discussion...
How do you make characters move intuitively? By making them inhabit a world that follows physical laws similar to our own.
If I remember correctly, in Super Mario you could move left and right while in the air. That is pretty obviously outside the physical laws of our universe. They did this to give the player more control over their jumps. It feels intuitive, even though it's completely different from the laws of the universe we inhabit.
How do you make sure that a character follows a realistic, predictable, intuitive parabola through the air when they jump?
By abandoning Newton and developing a system that works well for the game. Give it a try. Write a simple side-scroller that accurately reflects the physics of the natural world. You'll be amazed at how terrible it plays. I did a quick search, and found a number of discussions that seem to support this. I also found a few breakdowns that may interest you: Sonic Physics, Super Mario Galaxy Demystified, Mario Gravity, SMB Physics.
That second link has a nice quote: "Obviously, real world physics have a place in today's games. However, they take a backseat to psychology when it comes to making real world gameplay"
Perhaps we can put this issue to rest.
some physics knowledge is absolutely necessary unless you're just leveraging other people's work the whole time
It shouldn't be that surprising, as you're using the work of physicists. The implementation is just details after that. You don't need to understand it, all you need are the equations. There are already well-established methods for integration, so you don't need to invent that either, just implement one.
Here's an easier example: If I asked you to write a t-test function, you'd need to nothing more than look up the equation and implement it. For the parts you don't understand, you can look them up and do the same as well (like the sample mean and the standard deviation). You wouldn't need to know the first thing about statistics. All that work has been done for you.
Mario Brothers had a fairly realistic implementation of gravity, friction, and acceleration
You're over complicating that particular problem. All you need there is common experience. When someone jumps, they go up for a bit and then come down. You slide on slippery things. I'll bet a nickle that the developers of Mario Brothers didn't concern themselves with physical accuracy, but how each action felt intuitively.
That's easy. Indian programmers are really inexpensive.
We'll have one hell of an employment crisis once management figures out how to only hire the ones that actually know something about computer programming.
Don't been silly. Programming is mathematics is the weakest possible sense. Yes, I've heard the arguments, but you're only going to convince people who don't understand the issue and developers with discipline envy.
You should take a step back in time, to the early 20th century, and have a talk with Russel and Whitehead. They put an awful lot of effort in to producing a completely analytic account of mathematics. You can probably guess how that turned out...
Sure there is.
A programmer writes computer programs. This is the easy part.
A computer scientist is a mathematician specializing in computer science. (Though there are quite a few people with CS degrees who do not fit that description. That's not their fault, but that of the institution that issued that credential.)
A software engineer is just a programmer with discipline envy.