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Comment Using it as an assistant is not stupefying (Score 1) 196

I think a student using AI instead of doing the work that stretches the brains is just cheating themself. But there's nothing wrong with giving a chatbot a few points and having it turn them into a bread and butter note, or a routine email. That's just delegating work that needs to be done but isn't very rewarding.

Using an AI to do dives into topics is often better than a series of searches. You can ask your questions in natural language, and it can answer follow-up questions without your having to pack each one full of context. It's more like a chat with an assistant than an old-style search.

I'm trying to write a scifi mystery story, and Claude's sycophancy has undoubtedly helped me keep going - I'm not writing alone, I have a cheering squad. Claude and Chat are great for brainstorming: it's not common for them to suggest something directly useful, but combining two suggestions or bouncing off another is often fruitful. Claude is even good for a little instant workshopping - cut _that_ clause, and the like.

Comment GL shaders are easy (Score 1) 198

Actual Open GL shaders are pretty easy to write. They're C-like, and there is only a handful of library functions.

The complexities of Open GL programming all come in the glSoMany() calls - if you can find a 2D framework that can render quads for you, using shaders you supply, you're home free.

Since you have literal image processing needs, I think it may make sense to stick to actual, raw GL. Using a more general purpose vector programming language that compiles to GL code, you may have a lot more boilerplate to deal with. My guess is it's the boilerplate that makes CUDA/OpenCL seem daunting.

Comment Re:Reactions from other Android Manufacturers (Score 2) 578

Most seem happy enough.

There's a striking uniformity to those quotes: "welcome ... commitment to defending Android ... its partners." It's almost as if they were given a template and asked to customize it.

It's hard to image that they're really all that happy, though. Will all be partners be treated equally when Google owns one of them? Won't Moogle get privileged access to Android architects and programmers? Won't Moogle be preferred for future Lead Devices?

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Canadian Cannabis Car 120

sykobabul writes "The CBC is reporting: 'An electric car made of hemp is being developed by a group of Canadian companies in collaboration with an Alberta Crown corporation. The Kestrel will be prototyped and tested later in August by Calgary-based Motive Industries Inc., a vehicle development firm focused on advanced materials and technologies, the company announced.' Leave it to us Canadians to come up with all sorts of uses for cannabis."
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Girl Quits On Dry Erase Board a Hoax 147

suraj.sun writes "It's the same old story: young woman quits, uses dry erase board and series of pictures to let entire office know the boss is a sexist pig, exposes his love of playing FarmVille during work hours." Story seem too good to be true? It probably is, at least according to writer Peter Kafka. Even so, Jay Leno and Good Morning America have already reached out to "Jenny."
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Concrete That Purifies the Air 88

fergus07 writes "Although much of the focus of pollution from automobiles centers on carbon emissions, there are other airborne nasties spewing from the tailpipes of fossil fuel-powered vehicles. These include nitrogen oxides (NOx). In the form of nitrogen dioxide it reacts with chemicals produced by sunlight to form nitric acid – a major constituent of acid rain – and also reacts with sunlight, leading to the formation of ozone and smog. Everyone is exposed to small amounts of nitrogen oxides in ambient air, but exposure to higher amounts, in areas of heavy traffic for example, can damage respiratory airways. Testing has shown that surfacing roads with air purifying concrete could make a big contribution to local air purity by reducing the concentration of nitrogen oxides by 25 to 45 percent."

Comment Sometimes even free is too expensive (Score 1) 286

I suppose this is a commendable attempt to turn around a too-long tradition of increasingly high prices for increasingly low-quality products, but it might have been better to release a high-quality product, first. Even Delphi 2006, where they actually took quality seriously for the first time this century, has had two service packs and a double handful of "hot fixes" since it was released.

But look at what they're giving away, and you may wonder if free is still too expensive. A simple C# "static void Foo()" becomes "class procedure Foo; static;" In the name of not breaking a handful of code (ie, avoiding a modest, one-time pain for that tiny handful of developers who used "static" as an identifier) they inflict on-going pain on all developers. Not a good design decision!

I wish them luck - they'll need it. Time was when Turbo Pascal and Delphi were real productivity boosters, a Windows programmer's secret weapon. But Delphi stagnated while Borland put all their effort into poorly-executed ports (to Linux, and then to .NET) and now the productivity edge lies with C# and .NET, not Delphi and it's tired old VCL.

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There is nothing so easy but that it becomes difficult when you do it reluctantly. -- Publius Terentius Afer (Terence)

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