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.
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.
Excellent article... At first I wasn't sure whether it was serious or not. I guess many have gotten into the trap of complaining that they don't work like a robot in a robot factory. I have gotten more than once into it ;)
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.
The OED defines sarcasm as 'a sharp, bitter, or cutting expression or remark; a bitter gibe or taunt'. Irony is often used in a sarcastic remark, but it's generally the cheap sort of irony - 'Well done, genius' in response to a stupid error - rather than the more literary sort, which when particularly well-developed we call satire.
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.
Depends what you want to create I guess. Didn't Google show a 10x performance improvement for a 2D demo when done in WebGL compared to when it's done in canvas a Google I/O or two ago?
Plus, what do you mean by "most browsers"? Are you referring to IE? That's only included in IE9 and IE10, which is like what - 10% of the browser market? You can't include IE6-IE8 in that. So you're only getting about 10% extra market when you're thinking about creating a 2D web game as opposed to a WebGL game, but you lose a 10x performance improvement.
As for mobile browsers - do 2D web games get good performance on mobile? Is anyone even thinking about playing 2D web games on their mobile devices? I assume that even if they work okay, that's still only in the "high-end/latest" mobile devices, which is just a part of the whole smartphone/tablet market.
EDIT: Found it. They show the Microsoft fish demo at 1000 fish with canvas 2D, and then a WebGL version of it with 10,000 fish:
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.
I disagree. You can very often just drop in webgl2d[0] into your Canvas based app and in most browsers see a performance boost, often a significant one.
WebGL-2D isn't even close to being a "drop in" replacement for Canvas 2D. It's still nifty though.
A closer alternative is https://github.com/phoboslab/Ejecta. That's using OpenGL ES 2, not WebGL, so there'd be some work to get it running with WebGL.
We can really do crazy effect with GLSL, easily and efficiently (with Canvas2D, we could use Canvas' ImageData for these effects but it is definitely less efficient).
For the compatibility, I would say it's getting better now, only IE is the browser which support Canvas but not WebGL.
But yes, if Canvas2d is enough for your needs, it's ok. Actually it would be interesting to inject a Canvas2d into glsl.js to add some cool effects on it :) I'm working on it!
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?
AFAIK, Safari only supports WebGL on the desktop, and behind a debug flag. I'd venture to say that Mobile Safari is more of an important browser at this point than old versions of IE.
"Most browsers have hardware accelerated rendering of 2d canvases."
Actually, you'd be surprised. For most users all the rendering is done on the CPU. The major exceptions are IE and Firefox (with non-blacklisted drivers) on Windows Vista or newer.
You're probably right. I was under the impression that Chrome wasn't shipping Skia GL on desktop yet, but my info could be way out of date; I haven't checked recently.
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.
This was my initial thought, too. They're in a real pickle though: Is their long-term strategy really to build a platform/ecosystem to compete with Apple, Microsoft, Amazon AND Google? Because that's quite a crowded field, but if they don't build that ecosystem, Steam as a separate line of business for Valve seems like it would have its days numbered.
Only way I can see them getting around that and competing succesfully is if they offer a console-like appliance, which still seems like a huge departure and risk.
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.
What should society look like? I'll take a stab at it.
We should value compassion and authentic relationships, rather than talking in the language of power. We should get the f over ourselves, and especially value those that do, as they're more likely to be trusted with positions of power since they have a level of self-knowledge that many do not. We should stop obsessing over meaningless things like money and get on with doing what we, personally, need to do. We should stop accepting the disgustingly low level of national discourse that pervades the mainstream media and move towards talking like adults. We should stop living in a reactionary, fear-based mode, especially with regard to terrorism. We should stop being obsessed with work in a vain attempt to define ourselves.
In short, we should take responsibility for our lives as humans and the impact we have on everyone around us. Currently, there's too much of an incentive to act like an asshole.
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.
I fully appreciate and support Apple's efforts to protect the App Store from all potential abuses, but I'm not selling anything outside of the App Store, nor am I directing anyone to purchase something outside of the App Store.
Users who are directed to Dropbox via my app are not asked to purchase anything. They are not made aware that there is anything to purchase. They are only told that "Dropbox is a free service that lets you transfer files". They create an account and it just works, and they never have to think about Dropbox or their Dropbox account again.
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.
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.