Comments for Thudfactor

Comment on Dawkins & Archbishop to have a “civilized discussion.” by Fred

Fred — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 17:20:17 +0000

I was very briefly a member of a skeptics club back in college, but I stopped going in part because it became immediately clear that skepticism was belief for a lot of people, and maybe even about punishing the dumb, backward people who’d forced their irrational beliefs on them earlier. That’s not to say that theists don’t do this, and that someone can’t have had a terrible childhood because of orthodoxy forced upon them, but the feeling that they were in it to somehow “even the score” never really sat well with me.

Though I do kind of wish I’d stuck around with the club long enough to have dinner with James Randi. I got to hear him speak, but not hang out afterward.

Comment on Authoritative Parenting by Karan

Karan — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 22:55:06 +0000

I think that what I take away from Tommy Jordan’s parenting style is a lesson for me in how I don’t want to parent. Many of the practices I employed as a mom were based on what I didn’t want to see myself doing. Shooting a lap top stands with that list. Other than that…some people don’t seem to get what it means to post on the internet. I hope he knows that now.

Comment on This is why I shop online by c1QfUgcGY0

c1QfUgcGY0 — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 03:07:02 +0000

Sounds like a job for the “dot pitch” specification?

Comment on Authoritative Parenting by gls

gls — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 15:50:14 +0000

Authoritarian parenting confuses control with teaching, which is, after all, the primary job of a parent (after feeding, clothing, and housing). An authoritarian parent will say, “That’ll teach ya!” when in fact it won’t.

These three styles are also applied in educational psychology to classroom management. Teachers who tend to be more authoritarian tend to be less effective, I think, because they too miss out on “teachable moments” (a lovely eduspeak catch-phrase of the day), thinking that the only thing they’re required to teach is their particular subject’s content. As such, students don’t learn how to control impulses or how to deal with distractions constructively; they only learn to use their old methods in ways the teacher won’t notice. Authoritarian classroom management teaches kids only to avoid getting caught.
gls recently posted..Teachable Moments

Comment on Authoritative Parenting by thudfactor

thudfactor — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 14:06:48 +0000

Thanks, Mom!

Comment on Authoritative Parenting by Sarah Williams

Sarah Williams — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 14:03:01 +0000

I am so proud of John as a parent. You can take that two ways, either and both of which would be alright with me.

Comment on On not having to pay much attention by Fred

Fred — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 14:37:33 +0000

Yeah, I find myself in largely the same position: with some fundamental problems with Obama’s first four years and a waning (but not extinguished) enthusiasm for his Presidency…but also with the understanding that the current crop of Republicans offer no alternative beyond “No healthcare! No gay people! More money for rich people!” If I thought the opposition to Obama was anything more than “he’s a Democrat (and, y’know, black),” I might have some respect for the GOP, even if I generally disagree with them on policy. Then again, if I thought the support for Obama was more than a tepid “yay, he’s our guy” — if, that is, there was both support and constructive criticism coming from both sides — I might have more respect for the Democrats.

Comment on On not having to pay much attention by Beth

Beth — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 01:46:08 +0000

I’ve been trying to compare this primary season to what it was like four years ago … when the Obama v Clinton rhetoric seemed just as heated. But there’s definitely a difference. In 2008, I was going to vote for whichever candidate won the democratic nomination. Four years later, a republican in-law told me tonite he’d vote for Obama if Gingrich was the nominee. Yeah, the two primary seasons aren’t exactly comparable!

Comment on People are dropping Flash like a bad habit by Richk

Richk — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 18:36:05 +0000

Thanks for the reply. Please understand, my intention is not to bash HTML5 stack, nor is it to champion Flash as the” be all end all”. Both are viable approaches depending on what you are trying to achieve. To suggest that Adobe is backing away from Flash is not accurate. They are shifting away from the Flash runtime, especially on mobile. I think this is a good thing. Using Flash, specifically AS3 to build content, is much more robust than JavaScript and its primitive prototype inheritance model. Although both are based off of ECMA script, AS3 is closer to a real language and IMO is easier to maintain. To be honest, if I were able to use a language like AS3 or C# for creating HTML5 content, than I wouldn’t even care that much about the Flash runtime.

As far as the desktop browser, Flash really is still king for complex games. This is what my company produces, and switching to HTML5 is not even an option for some of these titles, unless we were willing to dumb them down considerably. Even you admitted that for some projects you would have to sacrifice some immersive qualities in order to make the transition.

“It does no good to resolve the task at hand using tools that will be obsolete in relatively short order.”

C’mon, this is conjecture. Besides, the Flash IDE is just one of many tools available. There is IntelliJ, FDT, Flash Develop, Adobe Flash Builder. Also, I stand behind the proposition to choose a tool/platform by the task at hand. If I am given a project that requires an immersive 3D experience with physics, such as a first person shooter with many levels, I am going to evaluate building it in Unity3D or maybe even Flash. Or better yet, build it in Unity and publish to Flash molehill. There are growing options out there today to use a single codebase (in theory) and publish natively or to Flash runtime.

The point is HTML5 is not always going to cut it for all projects and while many believe Flash will be dead very soon, I just don’t see this happening. The focus is changing, but it is not dying. While HTML5 has many pros, like anything it has its fair share of cons.

Thanks!

Comment on People are dropping Flash like a bad habit by thudfactor

thudfactor — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 09:26:00 +0000

I have at least two projects myself that would be very difficult to achieve in HTML5 right now; others have had to sacrifice some immersive qualities in order to make the transition. But, as I said, the list of kinds of projects where Flash is an appropriate solution has been dramatically narrowed, and that is not good for the platform.

You do have to think about more than the “task at hand” when developing for the web world. Flash is not just the production tool but also the player and the code maintenance tool. So you have to think both about the skill set of the people who will be maintaining the code as well as the future of the platform. It does no good to resolve the task at hand using tools that will be obsolete in relatively short order.

This concern has become more pressing since I wrote this — Adobe seems to be backing away from Flash pretty rapidly themselves.

HTML5 will be a standard once it is finalized. That will take some years. I think you may have conflated differing definitions of “standard.”