I don't think so. But this stuff is always in flux. I see irony as constructive - it intends to produce something. In the case of the author, writing from an ironic perspective was the best way to describe a feeling and emotion that would have been hard, if impossible, to capture otherwise.
Sarcasm is entirely destructive. It isn't comedy, and it isn't irony. I'm pigeonholing it into a very tight definition, but when sarcasm is used, it tends to be used as a way to put the person using it on a higher pedestal than whomever the sarcasm is directed at. I'm not sure if that makes sense, but think of times when someone acts in a sarcastic manner. It usually isn't funny, and it doesn't communicate a feeling, it's just meant to make a witty or kitschy point that is meant to bring the subject of the sarcasm down and elevate the person who is using sarcasm, his or her feeling of self worth.
Thanks again for writing this. You're writing about a feeling that I've experienced and can relate to, and I thought the piece was excellent. Great job.
Maybe I misunderstood this because of what books I have been reading lately, but I really enjoyed reading this piece as a piece of irony. Apparently the word irony, pre-14th century had more to do with an author writing an opinion he or she did not hold, as if he or she did hold it.
When I read this as if the author doesn't believe that life is wasting his time, but is being ironic, because the inherent flaw resides within himself, and not within life, then I find the piece to be a really, really interesting and an exposing and humble read.
I was really thinking about mobile in terms of hw acceleration and risks/benefits. See comments below.
Don't disagree that WebGL is faster at times, and more useful, just still a bit immature. And I started working on it about 2 years ago so I know WebGL has matured greatly in a short period of time, but until it reaches a mobile browser I still see it as a bit too early.
Then again you could take those same shaders from a WebGL program and port the game/logic to iOS and so that may be an inherent benefit I am missing out on.
Yeah sorry I was actually replying with a mobile centric view in mind. If you want to build something that "just works", it's better to strip down the geometry as much as possible and target canvas2d. The iOS implementation of canvas is hw accelerated, for example. However, you would not be able to target iOS for WebGL as of right now. So if you're looking to make something that is accessible, I would advice against WebGL. Do you disagree?
If you just want to draw images into a canvas I don't see any benefits to using WebGL. You just lose cross browser compatibility. Most browsers have hardware accelerated rendering of 2d canvases. If you want to create unique shader effects, like blurs or masks or whatever, then there is definitely an argument to be made about the use of webgl.
Is there anywhere you detail your methods? I'm currently finishing up an appearance based hand detection method for a class and would be interested to read about your methods.
I respectfully disagree with your use of low level, though I do understand your analogy about the pixelbuffer being like a frame buffer.
But he's actually using Javascript arrays which can get passed around inside a javascript VM, and do not have a set size. Not very "low level".
I spent a moment and changed the arrays to Float32Arrays which have set sizes and sit in memory without being fucked with by the VM and sped the demo up dramatically.
They also see that their product is an app store, and it is going to get eaten up in the next few years as desktop and mobile OSes converge around security models that will not let unsigned apps from outside the app store onto user devices. This is the same reason they are building out their platform on linux. It may be the largest change they will have to make as a company, to try and convert their entire business away from it's traditional roots as an app (game) store for windows, as windows 8 and further generations introduce tighter security and stricter requirements around app distribution.
The same goes for mac. I'm sure they realized the mac app store was going to kill their business on mac. In a few OS generations, unsigned apps will be unallowed except for the most power users.
Well, I'll try to keep my point simple. Our constant need to complain is corrosive. Visionary thinkers shaped our society for the next generation.
I didn't enjoy reading this since it was a large complain fest, and that is the corrosive thing that has made our government do nothing. If you imagine a future in which you have a government that is effective, that "does" things, somehow you are able to accomplish that goal. You need visionary thinkers, not complainers. And you have to offer up some idea of where you see the future of government, instead of complaining about how it does not do anything. The people who shaped our societies future knew the kind of society they wanted to live in. We rarely talk about what we want our society to look like, what we value as a society. Start talking about these things.
I agree with your assertions, and I'd like to bring a bit of rationale to this discussion rather than the "How can Apple be allowed to do this?" and other flamboyant language.
This is on Dropbox to fix, not Apple.
Imagine you provide a marketplace, and you curate that marketplace. And you say to customers who come to that marketplace "Don't worry, we're going to do everything we can to protect you from bad purchases". Then you say to sellers, "No deals behind closed doors. You want access to the marketplace? Sell out in public." Every time you use the iOS in app purchase API, Apple has a way to track the payment. Lets say the customer pays for a service inside of an app that never gets rendered. The customer can then contact Apple who can verify if the payment was processed, and can go about returning the customer's money while policing the marketplace. But if the purchase for a service rendered inside the app happens outside the app, then customers will have a much more difficult time getting recourse for making payments to a service provider (app maker) whose app doesn't work properly or doesn't provide the services that the user payed for.
Having said all that, Dropbox provided this API to developers. They should have built it to work inside these rules. They could let users create Dropbox accounts, they just would not be allowed to charge users from outside of an app for services that would then be rendered inside the app. It sucks, I know, but it's an important part of ensuring the quality of Apple's marketplace.
This is common, it's somewhat frustrating, but I've found that my way to deal with it has been to let others pad their credentials. It's a waste of time for me to worry about, it would be like worrying about the weather day-to-day when the issue is really climate change. i.e. this is a cultural problem that cannot be solved on a micro level.
We really want to build and sell stuff that our team has built, it's not about my ego, it's not about the self, we just want to build cool things that people want to use. I have had some very deep conversations with the person I work with and we relate in the sense that we don't care for this incessant ego-building that goes on in the world and especially around college. It doesn't serve you well in a lot of cases to have a large ego. Of course that's an over simplification, but the egos are rampant at college and I don't want anything to do with it.
Let them pad their credentials, while you go build something great and don't give a shit about that.
This is an appropriate place as any. WE have an ambitious start up idea to launch loaves of bread into space so that they will re-enter as toast, perfectly cooked to perfection and delivered right to your door.
This article goes along with, "What you could do if you were Apple and had their cash", and other greats like, "What you could do if you were a genie".
Leslie sharpe is an ethnographer who wrote a whole book on organ donation after studying the topic called Strange Harvest. This article speaks to a lot of unnecessary and selfish criticism of organ donation practices. Doctors work very hard to ensure the patient is brain dead. There are a lot of reasons covered in the book about why it would make sense for doctors not to notify family members of what is about to happen to the dead body. The number one reason is that organ donation usually comes about from traumatic death, and it is often very difficult for the families to accept that the person truely is dead. Furthermore, the closer to death you can harvest the organs, the higher likelihood that the organ transplant will succeed. If the family has a decision in what happens to the dead body they might try to delay the process as they grieve and as they try to come to terms with the body truly being dead, and this can hurt the likelihood of success for organ transplantation.
Ah I see, I was tremendously confused by the site. The site itself does not actually explain any of this, and I am not a user who actively follows this stuff. So when I clicked on the site I saw a bunch of frameworks, with no understanding of how they were linked, or what their purpose was. I hope you can see how I was confused. And the title of the HN post does not link to what the actual purpose of the frameworks is, i.e. a set of tools for flash exporting to html. I felt like the site did not provide any of this context. That explains a lot. Thanks.
I find this absolutely startling:
"It’s well known that many college students use Adderall to give themselves an extra edge for getting work done whether they’re prescribed or not ... Furthermore, a 2009 study on non-medical use (defined as use of a prescription drug without a doctor’s order) of Adderall among full-time college students showed that subjects aged 18 to 22 were twice as likely as their counterparts, who were not full-time college students, to have used Adderall."
Along with:
"Stephanie Lee found her freshman year of college unusually difficult. She had trouble adjusting to the levels of stress she encountered."
And:
"Without Adderall, you might feel bored by your math homework or unable to focus on the multiple steps needed to reach a solution, but on Adderall you might literally feel like you’re in love with math."
So many people are taking this drug to deal with the fact that they cannot handle the type of work, or the stress. I find it fascinating that people have come to assume that the problem is with them because they find the work uninteresting, or they find school stressful, and not because that is how the systems (colleges) and the work (math, science) are designed. Instead of telling people how they are not designed properly for the work, perhaps we should take some time to reflect on how the work is repetitive and not creative, and not fulfilling, and that is perhaps the issue.
Note: I do think math and science and intellectual work can be creative when at a high level. But at a learning level you're treated more like a machine designed to learn and repeat.
I was recently chatting with another student about how classes here are just becoming increasingly demanding. In looking at computer science classes as an example, the complexity of even the basic computer science classes has grown with time, and nothing has been removed. Every one of our professors expects us to spend 10-15 hours per week just on their class. And it's obviously not possible. Instead of trying to find ways to optimize time, people are trying to optimize their minds to be something that is not creative, but rather very much like a machine. College is not designed around passionate work, it is designed to be a grind on you and force you to do a lot of work you hate. Every four months you take all the previous work you did and throw it out and start over. How is any part of that designed to be gratifying? I don't necessarily share entirely positive views of college. It's an institution designed to meld and mold people to fit into our economic model.
I have spent some time thinking about this trend and have come to the conclusion that it could be a real damage to creativity and individuality when you can medicate your mind into a machine.
Agree on the no controversy. I went looking to make a chat icon for a project about a week ago, and looked on dribbble to see some ideas before I started. Chat icons all looked the same. I found examples that looked nearly identical to the hipChat icon and did something similar in my own icon. Never heard of hipChat but the logo is not original or unthought of. I can't see a problem here.
Sarcasm is entirely destructive. It isn't comedy, and it isn't irony. I'm pigeonholing it into a very tight definition, but when sarcasm is used, it tends to be used as a way to put the person using it on a higher pedestal than whomever the sarcasm is directed at. I'm not sure if that makes sense, but think of times when someone acts in a sarcastic manner. It usually isn't funny, and it doesn't communicate a feeling, it's just meant to make a witty or kitschy point that is meant to bring the subject of the sarcasm down and elevate the person who is using sarcasm, his or her feeling of self worth.