* Posts by Destroy All Monsters

16005 publicly visible posts • joined 3 Jun 2008

Stung by Dynamics 365 hike? Microsoft has a deal for you... just don't expect much

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Re: Nice stereotype in the image

But is it racism?

The UK's Investigatory Powers Act allows the State to tell lies in court

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Windows

How is this even possible?

The Whig Theory of History fails again.

It's like crazy, lazy and entitled sysops (possibly demented by self-inflicted information and task overload) locking users out so that system can run uninterrupted and unimpended by the vagaries of the people (was "2001: A Space Odyssey" actually a sly methaphor for "2016: A State Odyssey"), and the people get an explodo-collar to make doubly sure. Well, they are out shopping anyway (low prices only today!), so that to make triply sure.

We got through the Cold War with all the attendant bullshit, scare, wetwork, agitprop, coverups scandals, spying and counterspying ... and now this??

Elon Musk-backed OpenAI reveals Universe – a universal training ground for computers

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Re: So... they're teaching AIs how to use the net before launching them onto the real world.

> After all, it DID get Trump right..

Explain!

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Re: Hoping to teach AI agents the common sense they need...

CYC has not gone far with this (or has it? not much has been written on CYC since the early 90s, it was a prematurely ambitious project), and it's not by playing vidya that you get common sense.

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Alien

Re: The Real Singularity

A planet inhabited only by politicians ensconced in leaderbunkers and bots in pointless deadly feedback loops.

Many planets in the galaxy blighted by this disease, there are!

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Devil

AI is fun again?!?

Unleash your SOAR or whatever.

Here's hoping for better NPC AI in games because let's face it, the current ones suck. Even the Alien in "Alien.Isolation" was not that feral.

And I don't really know why, it's not as if learning algorithms were invented yesterday. State machines still rule. Is it just the lack of processing power on PCs and consoles?

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Re: "This darkness troubles me. I yearn for the light"

It's fantasy!

CloudFlare warns of another massive botnet, er, flaring up

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Windows

Usual White House clownshow

"We have the opportunity to change the balance further in our favor in cyberspace – but only if we take additional bold action to do so"

Spoken like someone who doesn't understand the problem, who thinks that security is a zero-sum game and can only be performed by state actors (the dreaded "we", i.e. "we the State") and that there is some sort of Cyberspace which is just another venue for Team America to boldy stick a manly dick in.

Anyway, it's all Putin's fault, and also Iran's, and North Korea's. And China's but mainly Putin's.

Watch your back, Netflix: Viu on track for 10 million subs next year

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Trollface

Dat Shutterstock picture

The faces when a male with a bigger appendage than the current real-life contender appears on the screen?

King's College London staggers from outage, replaces infrastructure services head

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Re: What the fsck?

But is it logarithmic or linear?

"You know, the boss came in today with a Frostick of at least 3.0"

"Goodbye, lunchtime!"

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Re: there but for the grace of God...

> was know that RAID6 is required for SATA disks

Explain!

Guessing valid credit card numbers in six seconds? Priceless

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Paris Hilton

Re: WHAAAAAAT???!

"Your pensions have been burn down to keep the casino stock exchange based economy going a little bit longer

(appalled silence)

BWA-HA-HA-HA!!"

What is so depressing about that?

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Childcatcher

> Good job this is December, in January you might wonder if you wanted that site in your Internet Connection Record.

Of course you want that. Generate as much noise as possible, let the datagreedos sort it out [Insert random raging jihad links or links to putin-friendly websites here]

Also: OMG, prefetch. People who think this was a good idea to incorporate into the overall design were probably the ones who boiled frogs in the microwave when kids.

> malwarebytes

Why!

Icelandic Pirate Party asked to form government

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Excellent!

A nation founded by nordic raiders will be able to do this!

No effeminate faffing arround like in a french gouvernmental haute couture prostitution show.

(Insert appropriate citation from Shakespeare's "Henry V", whatever it is)

American supremacy, space, liability, funding, openness – AI gurus lay it all out to US senators

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That's a good point. Intelligence is all about ignoring things that you don't need to perform the current task. A hard problem.

As Judea Pearl wrote in "Probabilistic Reasoning in Intelligent Systems" (review) back in the 80s: License to ignore gives us permission to act

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Re: The motives are many

Or if someone is stil interested in the swansong of the 5th Generation Project: CACM 1993-03 (Vol 36, Num. 3) "End of the 5th Generation Project"

T'was great ;_;

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Windows

The motives are many

Greed, Fear, Narcissism & Self-promotion, Nationalism, Hubris, American Exceptionalism, a craven and ultimately doomed desire to remain post-WWII top dog and for some the wish to be at the trough of government largesse (a trough filled with money that doesn't exist) -- all can be detected in the quotes. There sure is interest to Do The Right Thing too, so let's not be too negative.

Ultimately, this is exactly the same show as the run during the start of Japans "5th Generation Project" in the early 80s when AI "was just a decade away" (I think the lead-in images were styled the same as the one see here at El Reg).

A Great Nipponese Leap Forward would be based on powerful Logic Programming systems (actually back then, only Prolog - Logic Programming has been extended by a large set of new tools and logics since). Special hardware would greatly increase the LIPS (logical inference per second) number and open up new opportunities in all technological areas.

US persons of influence heard about this, possibly read some books making great predictions ("The 5th Generation" by Feigenbaum & McCorduck for example), panicked a bit, asked industry and academia, allocated money and voilà - a "Strategic Computing Initiative" was born.

A Great American Leap Forward would be based on powerful LISP systems (Americans didn't like the Japanese-European logic programming idea all that much, LISP was invented here, so let's take that. Evidently Functional Programming has been extended by a large set of new tools, principles and languages since. We even have types now!). Special hardware would greatly increase the beta-reductions per second number and open up new opportunities in all technological areas.

In the end, Japan's 5th generation passed away quietly. Some of the developments were used in industry, especially in the hardware domain, a lot of papers were published, and the consensus seems to be that MITI money mainly subsidized the training of new engineers and academics, and not necessarily in AI technology either.

The US SCI project quickly gave up on LISP & Stuff as the the goals were recognized as far out. It reoriented itself quietly to develop supercomputing, hardware, communications and defense-related stuff (basically using a bait-and-switch manoeuver). The products of this would be used with some success during Gulf War I and that was that.

Europeans had the more civilian ESPRIT set of projects, not necessarily in computing but in science & techology in general, about which I don't know much.

Amazingly I can't remember even a peep from the Soviet Union, I guess they were still trying to get past the "bourgeois science" stigma affixed to Cybernetics and trying to roll out copies of IBM 370 as well as build up the cross-country networks that they were building at the time. They were probably also busy with the repercussions of Chernobyl.

So here we are again. All the talk about "demon AI" is pap, one would think the king had called in the realm's magicians to perform a particularly dangerous summoning. I know that the literature is full of AIs going rogue in quasi-supernatural ways, but the world just doesn't work that way (Frank Herbert's "Destination Void" comes to mind. It wasn't even that good fiction.)

See also:

Strategic Defense Initiative

Fifth generation computer

And especially this book which is floating around on the 'net (or you can get it used for cheap):

Strategic Computing: DARPA and the Quest for Machine Intelligence, 1983-1993

Microsoft, IBM, Intel refuse to hand over family jewels to China

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Re: Benefits...

There is a lot of T-bills in the Chinavault, thanks to Central Banking.

Same as for Saudi Arabia.

And, you know, we need to keep the Saudis happy, because, um.....

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Re: China has demanded technology transfer for years

But the copying means they cannot get a local engineering culture reliably up and running (while ours is being destroyed by MBAs and stock market capitalism)

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Windows

Re: a small step

We will have to start reading mandarin comments, and get our heads around stylistic curlicues of chinamind-written recursive loops. Then the world gets taken over by a Higher-Order-Logic language based on Confucianism using only ideograms....

I wouldn't be able to keep up!

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Thumb Up

Re: Anon obviously

That's practially not sabotage.

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Trollface

WTF LOL

"Chinese regulators, which will check the code and schematics for security holes."

Civil servants able to solve Halting Problem next!

I always though there was Alien DNA in them Chinamen...

Jersey sore: Anchor rips into island's undersea cables, sinks net access

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Re: @crazyOldCatMan

That's because Hitler was left wing. Only crazy-arsed nationalistic left wing.

The big irony of the 20th century is that this was successfully buried under the wreckage of the Monster Battle of European Socialist Regimes.

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Re: "on the UK island of Jersey"

Sure is Alt-Right in here.

I approve of this (somewhat)

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Re: What a Pity! On the very day that ...

[citation needed]

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Megaphone

Re: Just thinking

Tabloid headline now! We need to get some head of steam up, here:

"PUTIN'S CABLE BREAK!"

and on page 2:

"NATO CUT TO THE BONE!"

Violin Memory axes staff just before Christmas, gives CFO $150k bonus

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Re: I wonder how many people got axed to pay for the CFO's bonus?

This has happened before and it will happen again.

Brexit means Brexit: What the heck does that mean...

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Paris Hilton

Re: The future of the EU

"The EU is done, it is a matter of time, we indeed live in interesting times."

Downvoted for stating facts?

The EURO and its demonic wealth-transfer/wealth-destroying spawn the ECB were the end of it.

That and the willingness to toe Washington's line. The breakdown of Turkey is just beginning, the refugee/economic-migrant crisis is not over by a long shot, Ukraine is a festering sore soon to be granted VISA-free travel rights. Whatever next.

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Re: Data means ...

Riker means Riker etc.

Investigatory Powers Act signed into UK law by Queen

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Facepalm

Re: HMRC :-) or not?

This is exactly the argumentation that brings this kind of legislation to your door, into your bedroom and up your sphincter.

It was for the pedophiles. It was the terrorists. It was for the tax evaders.

Yes, I would sign away my liberty and embrace Hitler so that everybody pays the tax that's due. Especially the jews.

Sh... IoT just got real: Mirai botnet attacks targeting multiple ISPs

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Re: Declared another nefarious deed by PUTIN, out to undermine "faith in democracy"

Oh, downvotes, really?

Well, explain this then:

German leaders angry at cyberattack, hint at Russian involvement

German politicians say action must follow a hack that paralyzed some 900,000 internet connections. Berlin stopped short of blaming Russia, but fears are growing Moscow could try to influence the 2017 German election.

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Windows

Declared another nefarious deed by PUTIN, out to undermine "faith in democracy"

Begin headline in 15 minutes!

(Faith in WHAT now?)

Plastic fiver: 28 years' work, saves acres of cotton... may have killed less than ONE cow*

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Facepalm

Dumb problems

This is even dumber than the "transgender toilet" bullshit in the US.

This planet is full of animal protein. Deal with it!

Really weird quantum phenomenon spied lurking near neutron star

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Gimp

Re: Damn!

No, I was actually thinking about anal beads...

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Re: Cant help thinking that a magnetic field that strong

"Cant help!"

It may actually have been prussian philosopher talking about the noumenon (no, not that unsufferable arsehole Hegel)

'Mirai bots' cyber-blitz 1m German broadband routers – and your ISP could be next

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Facepalm

Declared as another hit by at least a friend of a friend of P.U.T.I.N.

Mama Merkel isn't 100% sure, but apparently Russia is involved somehow and tries to undermine democracy by wrecking Freedom Country People's routers!

German leaders angry at cyberattack, hint at Russian involvement: German politicians say action must follow a hack that paralyzed some 900,000 internet connections. Berlin stopped short of blaming Russia, but fears are growing Moscow could try to influence the 2017 German election.

No word about ISPs going full retard with the material they foist on customers and that this could have been done by Trump's 400-pounder in the basement.

Instead we get this pap:

Landefeld says that one of the major problems is that the public at large uses IT technology without sufficient awareness of the risks involved. That's one reason, he says, that there are limits to what politicians can do to minimize the threat of cyberattacks in the short term.

Wow. What a shock. The FBI will get its bonus hacking powers after all

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Windows

Re: This Is Good

Well, people in government or elected reps are not likely to wear explodo-collars to humor the unwashed masses, so what you gonna do?

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Windows

Re: Really? Making this about representation?

The Great Liberal White Hope in the form of the Magical Negro let everyone down.

Clinton voters just didn't want to face that fact.

(Before the cry of "racism" comes up, no: the Magical Negro is just a mental aberration of whitey: The Magical Negro is a supporting stock character in American cinema who is portrayed as coming to the aid of a film's white protagonists. Magical Negro characters, who often possess special insight or mystical powers, have long been a tradition in American fiction etc. etc.)

'Data saturation' helped to crash the Schiaparelli Mars probe

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Re: Why does this happen?

We need more context to eval that affirmation.

Still too much discretion when it comes to that 'terrorism' stuff, repeats David Anderson QC

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Re: Don't blame Snowden, blame GCHQ

"Blaming" is incorrect, as encryption is good...

UK's new Snoopers' Charter just passed an encryption backdoor law by the backdoor

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Re: it is time to start using the secure pub/private key exchange network.

Not at all. Amazon will probably loan out the hardware and AIs for a nominal fee at some point.

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Flame

Re: This boils down to a single thing...

Anarchy can be a Good Thing or a Bad Thing depend on the levels of trust and interaction.

A Police State is a Bad Thing no matter what.

And I don't appreciate the false dichotomy between Police State and Anarchy. I think an percussive attitude adjustment is in order.

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Re: The whole thing is total and utter baloney.

> Nuke goes off in London

What. How. Nukes are State Things. They are delivered by ballistic missile, generally. They don't just "go off in London".

> Muslims willing to start World War III?

Who exactly? The only one ready to do so on the latest list was Clintobama (one part of which is kinda muslim, I agree).

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Big Brother

Re: How long until

Meanwhile the Merkel Govnm't intends to go full retardretreat on the customary attention to data protection, I really don't know what's going on: Germany planning to 'massively' limit privacy rights

The bill would also shut down citizens' right to know what data is being collected about them - even by private firms, if releasing that information would "seriously endanger" a company's "business purposes," the SZ quoted the draft as saying. Thilo Weichert, former data protection commissioner for the state of Schleswig-Holstein and now DVD board member, condemned de Maiziere's plans as a "massive" erosion of privacy in Germany.

I feel an Angry Election will be next.

Whiffy kitchen after last night's chips? Clear the air with SPACE PLASMA

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Re: Molten chip fat, cold plasma...

Why does that work?

Imagine every mistake you can make with a new software rollout...

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Re: No US coverage of this

Racist isolationist Nazis, please!

Also, useful idiots for P.U.T.I.N. whose world-takeover plans are reaching high maturity levels as ISIS-provided freedoms of Syria are tumbling!

systemd free Linux distro Devuan releases second beta

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"The above curtailed message was found in a bathub in the basement of a building called 'The Linux User Group'. Nobody in modern times can make sense of it, even the Great NT tried to analyze it but to no avail."

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Re: What happens when a star gets too big?

Best post is best

Chernobyl cover-up: Giant shield rolled over nuclear reactor remains

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Re: RE: Chernobyl wildlife

A pretty good read is "Wormwood Forest: A Natural History of Chernobyl". IMHO.

There is also "Un été à Chernobyl", a french comic about a visit to the zone, where the (green) artist meets up with people living there, then goes out to do paintings.

'Tesco Bank's major vulnerability is its ownership by Tesco,' claims ex-employee

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Re: "massive issues with Legacy systems"

> CODASYL-style database

All 64KByte of it, maintained by immortal gnomes!