Comments on: 279: TZ Discussion – Death by Flying Tire

By: Jon

Jon — Sun, 10 May 2015 03:44:27 +0000

I checked out that Robocraft game Cody is obsessed with and I’m quite impressed by the physics simulation. When you lose pieces of your craft the new center of mass and recoil and everything what what you feels about right.

Normally I see detailed physics like this only in single player games where you don’t need to synchronize the physics between the client and server, or in multiplayer games where they just punt on the problem and only detailed physics for things where it doesn’t matter if all the clients aren’t in sync, an example being ragdolls, explosions, etc. Since they don’t effect gameplay they can punt on the problem of keeping all clients together.

I really wonder how they got it work as well as they did in for a twitch based multiplayer game like this. Not an easy problem!

By: Justin

Justin — Sat, 02 May 2015 00:28:29 +0000

@all – Thanks very much for the backup. This is the most I’ve been righter than Jason in one show! It feels good 😉

(See what I did there)

By: Simon Wielens

Simon Wielens — Fri, 01 May 2015 17:48:15 +0000

I have to agree with himself, it’s definitely an Irish colloquialism 🙂
Also I think this might have been what Justin was talking about with the transfer of memory http://www.radiolab.org/story/goo-and-you/

By: Nicholas Murray

Nicholas Murray — Fri, 01 May 2015 09:38:56 +0000

Only half way through the podcast but I have to say, as an Irish person, Justin is correct about the Himself saying. In my understanding it’s used to underline the importance of the person to the conversation, as in, “..and then the man Himself arrived”.

By: Jason

Jason — Fri, 24 Apr 2015 16:34:34 +0000

@Joe – Very cool. Thanks so much for the great explanation!

By: Joe

Joe — Fri, 24 Apr 2015 15:14:54 +0000

Justin is correct, it is possible to inherit learned behaviors, but Jason is also correct, in that the DNA is not changed (in every study that I’ve come across on inherited learned behaviors). An example with mice: http://www.nature.com/neuro/journal/v17/n1/full/nn.3594.html

This is an extension of behavioral epigenetics — the idea is that life experiences sometimes change the way genes are expressed (through mechanisms like DNA methylation and modification of histones), and it turns out that sometimes those changes can be inherited.

Also it is possible to insert new DNA sequences into cells, through enzymes like reverse transcriptase (some viruses do this) although I’ve never heard of anyone proving inherited behaviors due to this mechanism. Theoretically it’s possible, though 🙂

By: John Humphrey

John Humphrey — Fri, 24 Apr 2015 06:24:03 +0000

Regarding time with kids. Making time for kids? Study says quality trumps quantity

By: Justin

Justin — Wed, 22 Apr 2015 19:36:21 +0000

@jason Check this out, written by a UK tech reporter: https://twitter.com/TechCityUK/status/586476304578572288

“#Google have announced the launch of their #DigitalGarage project in Leeds to help tech entrepreneurs, find out more: “

By: Justin

Justin — Wed, 22 Apr 2015 19:32:07 +0000

@Jason as I’ve said before in the UK we think of a company as a group so we say “Google have done xyz” and in the US you think of a company as an entity so you say “Google has done xyz”…

By: Jason

Jason — Wed, 22 Apr 2015 16:58:24 +0000

@nethy – Okay, fine, we’ll let Justin off the hook for speaking Middle English or Old Irish or whatever, but what’s with the “Google have” in place of the “Google has”? Don’t tell me that’s acceptable, but just old-timey. 😉

By: Justin

Justin — Wed, 22 Apr 2015 16:03:15 +0000

@nethy Do you mean “himself” 🙂

By: nethy

nethy — Wed, 22 Apr 2015 15:41:52 +0000

It is an Irish expression. It’s a little old-timey and culchie but begorrah, I have to side with Justin. 😉

It’s kind of used as an ironically complimentary pronoun. It’s like calling to someone as His Eminence.