Recent content by chroot

kolleamm, if your goal is to make in-game characters that pass the Turing test, via written language, you're going to have a pretty hard time of it.

Interesting thread! It is true that researchers had figured out 90% of the pieces of a modern neural net in the 1980's. It is true that most modern deep learning is just the same-ol' backpropagation. In some sense, it is true that modern AI is not all that modern. It is also true that computer...

Borek is right -- while game designers use the term "AI," they generally mean a pretty small set of techniques that are not really regarded academically as AI. The reasons are not very exciting. Real AI requires a lot of computing horsepower, and most video games run at 60 frames per second...

Hey Frenemy90210, Some older types of batteries could indeed be damaged by keeping them connected to a high voltage even after they had reached 100% charge. Some older batteries would simply lose capacity. It was even possible for a battery's electrolyte to decompose, causing gases to be...

I haven't stopped in here for a while now, but I'm very excited to see the new PF! I hope you all are well, and I hope to be around more in the future. :) - Warren

Well, I can't really abide by anyone telling someone else to learn Ada (specialized) or BASIC (dead) or Visual Basic (double dead)... Some of the most common programming languages in the world today are, in no particular order: C/C++ Python Java Ruby PHP Objective-C JavaScript If you're...

There isn't a single answer. There are many good languages in common use today. If you're trying to pick one for a project, you should tell us more about your project.

If you were to go with an open-source source alternative to MATLAB, I'd recommend Python and SciPy. It has many more features than MATLAB, though its syntax is not identical. (MATLAB's language is pretty awful, though, so this is a huge benefit.) Octave is a good suggestion if you specifically...

Spheres of matter are the most stable shapes when pitted against the relentless force of gravity. - Warren

Processor speed is really no longer a useful factor when choosing a computer, particularly a laptop computer. As processors have gotten faster, other bottlenecks have become apparent. Memory and disk bandwidth are now more important specs than processor speed. You'll find a computer with a...

Compared to modern languages, it's difficult to read, write, and maintain. Python uses NumPy, which is based on LAPACK, which is written in Fortran 90... so please bear in mind that I'm not suggesting that all Fortran code should be abandoned. I just think that, for casual users, languages...

Computer science makes pretty heavy use of some kinds of math, particularly discrete math, linear algebra, vector geometry, and the like. On the other hand, many pure math topics like real & complex analysis, abstract algebra, group theory, and differential geometry are not used at all. Have a...

Hey brucemitchell, Welcome to PF! You've asked a great question. These Type Ia supernovae are used as "standard candles" by astronomers, precisely because they always produce a predictable amount of energy. It turns out that more-massive stars actually evolve and die faster than less-massive...

I feel as though I've always been an engineer. I was attracted to Lego sets with pistons and motors as a child. I loved making science fair projects. To the dismay of my parents, I took everything apart -- clocks, power tools, appliances. Every now and then I even managed to put one back...

If you've decided to go through the trouble of re-implementing your programs in a modern language, don't go halfway! Visual Basic is a dying language, along with the rest of Microsoft's grubby attempts. FORTRAN has already been dead for decades. Python, along with libraries like numpy, scipy...