I just had a look as well. The proposed solution is a linked list of linked lists isn't it? Perhaps this is the bit the kids are stumbling over.

Perhaps the kids' teachers taught them the other things and not sparse arrays. It's pretty hard to program something when you have no experience and the only clue you have to program is the title of the data structure.

Your argument is flawed. First you use the word "hippies" in a derogatory way to evoke emotion. This is demonstrated by your entire post. So, from the start I can see your argument is on weak ground -- if the argument was solid you would not need to resort to such tactics.

In the case of the Canadian government lying to get the protesters away... yeah, great example. At least the so called (in your words) "hippies" have seemed to have some ethics and morals! The Canadian government in your example: they were the ones who acted like fuckwits and "buffoons".

Same thing with the college campuses. They dismiss people's concerns and values and just do what the fuck they want.

Who are you to dictate people's beliefs and their values? You're as bad as the idiots in the two examples you gave. Grow up and learn some respect. Falling back onto lies, loaded words ('"hippies" that all have dreadlocks, are stupid and buffoons') and other such juvenile and transparent actions to that just demonstrate your ignorance, lack of empathy and unstable stance makes me think that you are the one who needs some guidance. Your glee at governments and organisations to say one thing and then do another is... actually, I won't say what I was going to. It's sad and pathetic.

I agree. The outcome from lottery machines is way too predictable and that's why I'm a billionaire having never worked a day in my life.

I dunno about you, but if someone farted in my face while I was sleeping I'd probably wake up as well.

Could you perhaps find a synonym for effete? I'm asking this with the utmost sincerity because looking at your post history I think that your use of the word has become, well, effete.

TL;DR... TH;DR Too Hard, Didn't React

I guess I was looking at it more from the point of view of "how/why things are done" rather than the end effect (e.g. how linked lists -- yes, a very basic concept -- actually work rather than just knowing what it does; this, perhaps, provides insight into what algorithms are appropriate to use. Another example that came immediately to mind when reading the article was memory management: most students, for some reason, struggle with pointers; if they knew how things worked at a lower level [without even this shallow abstraction] perhaps they'd realise that they're not mysterious and it's simple indirection... maybe then handling memory would be easier... I'm not going to go on with examples of object oriented and other paradigms -- that can obviously be implemented in plain C -- because I hope that my point that understanding what happens underneath the abstraction is, maybe, valuable can be expressed by these simple examples given.)

I think it is still relevant. Perhaps using a spear is the best way (I really don't know because I haven't ever had to kill one). Let's see, we have a) a spear; and b) a firearm. They both kill the poor cat (that's the abstraction... the cat will die). But understanding how the firearm kills and how the spear kills might help choose the correct or most appropriate weapon given the circumstances.

A spear kills by piercing into the cat in an area that will lead to death (this needs further knowledge but I will assume that for a clean and quick kill that a firearm will require that same knowledge). A spear can be used two ways: a) you can throw it at the cat and hope for the best; or b) you can aim it at the cat as it attacks and let its momentum carry it onto the spear, driving the shaft deep into where you want it (can't do that with a gun). With the spear I guess you have to jump out of the way -- especially in the second case -- but the spear, hopefully, remains embedded in the cat further hampering its mobility (and who knows, maybe its aggression will refocus onto the spear instead of on the hunter).

A firearm will kill by penetration into flesh as well. Depending on the firearm and characteristics of the projectile it might rely on transferred energy as well. The momentum of the kitty probably plays little part in the end result though -- except that its mobility is not restricted by something inside itself rather than a spear that's banging against the ground and the trees around it, hampering further attack). The kitty cat will probably respond in anger towards what it perceives as the source of the pain -- the shooter -- rather than the spear that is embedded in it and flapping around while the kitty is in its death throes.

Also, depending on the firearm maybe it's not as nice as a spear for preserving the integrity of the cat's coat... perhaps a single entry wound and a mass of internal damage is better than blowing kitty's face off completely (again, depends on the actual weapon used but this still demonstrates the point that knowing the abstraction is worthwhile).

Sigh. Poor cat.

Anyway, I'm not disagreeing with you either. Not entirely. What I disagree with is that not knowing details is not important (and I get the feeling that you don't believe that either, so I'm not really responding to you but the wider audience).

The stuff in that article isn't really about C++; it's about knowing how to program when the abstractions of higher level languages are not available. In other words, if you can program masterfully in C and are mediocre in ASM then C++ really shouldn't be a big hurdle. But, I don't think people these days learn the fundamentals first.

Ugh... substitute "trials" with "memory"... grrr.. i.e. more trials with less memory will more closely resemble the original observation; more trials with more memory will more closely resemble the noise in the observation.

You're correct, but aren't the robots:

a) observing the scene;
b) recreating the scene/trajectory as they see it; and
c) watching again and repeating

?

1) In the case of unlimited trials what will happen is that fewer clusters will be formed because the robots will follow the "average" trajectory of noise
2) In the case of limited trials more clusters will form (and they will be closer to the original trajectory because the amount of noise contributing to the trajectory is less) and the trajectories they follow will more closely resemble the original "course"

Maybe I'm missing something important. I'll read the paper again.

No, they showed that what their algorithm produced is what they designed the algorithm to do.

There is no fitness function or anything.

It's just... I'm not sure how to explain it. You can't form a hypothesis, develop and algorithm to mimic that hypothesis and then draw any conclusions because the algorithm does what it was designed to do. That just begs the question, as I initially said, and shows nothing.

How does it gel with the summary? I.e. how much memory do ants have -- none, 12 steps (maybe alcoholic ones do?), or unlimited? Do ants follow pheremones (unlike the robots in the summary, article and paper)?

Ok, I just read the how draft paper and I need to apologise: it's worse than I thought :/

Further, "diversity" is not the same as species abundance (and number of clusters doesn't play a part at all, and to a lesser extent neither does the size of the clusters unless there is some kind of boundary). I don't have the data but I wonder if the people running this -- what is it anyway? it's not an experiment, surely -- computer program realise that.