* Posts by Destroy All Monsters

16005 publicly visible posts • joined 3 Jun 2008

How Google's Smart Compose for Gmail works – and did it fake its robo-caller demo?

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Holmes

Meanwhile, quanta mag got Judea Pearl on the horn

To Build Truly Intelligent Machines, Teach Them Cause and Effect

As much as I look into what’s being done with deep learning, I see they’re all stuck there on the level of associations. Curve fitting. That sounds like sacrilege, to say that all the impressive achievements of deep learning amount to just fitting a curve to data. From the point of view of the mathematical hierarchy, no matter how skillfully you manipulate the data and what you read into the data when you manipulate it, it’s still a curve-fitting exercise, albeit complex and nontrivial. ... I’m very impressed, because we did not expect that so many problems could be solved by pure curve fitting. It turns out they can. But I’m asking about the future — what next? Can you have a robot scientist that would plan an experiment and find new answers to pending scientific questions? That’s the next step.

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Re: Risky?

"No HAL, you are going down!"

Signal bugs, car hack antics, the Adobe flaw you may have missed, and much more

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Big Brother

Optional

With mid-term elections months away, opponents of the move are worried the cuts could make the US government and its electorate more vulnerable to online attacks from both foreign governments and private hackers.

Yet another example of Magical Hollywood Thinking that is fed to us daily like LSD in drinkwater.

1) How does a czar magically enhance the eletronic safety of US governemnt and electorate.

2) How, if you are not ready now, will you be ready in a a few months, czar or no czar? (Install Kaspersky on your voting machine! There is an XKCD on that.)

3) How would foreign governments target the electorate exactly? To accomplish what? The US is doing it regularly via loud announcements from the State Departments. Very effective, doesn't involve magical hacking.

4) Has the electorate and the US government ever been observed to be under attack to influence elections? Note that the media clownshow about "attacks on democracy by Russia" don't count, there is zilch hard info about any on this, only lolrandom statements by that abysmally corrupt non-governmental organization, the DNC and their hired "cyberanalysts".

US Congress mulls expanding copyright yet again – to 144 years

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It's completely irrelevant

Will people in 2067 still be listening to Bing Crosby sing White Christmas? Probably, yes. Cha-ching!

Will the US still exist in 2067? Probably not. Badum-tish.

And seriously, who cares about copyright for "sound recordings made between 1923 and 1972 except Mr Orlowski?

Just download the shit.

Astroboffins spy the most greedy black hole yet gobbling a Sun a day

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Re: Space is a time machine

Except, maybe one day, using gravitational waves.

These must have been redshifted fiercely, probably now undistinguishable from background noise.

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And maybe your behind does not exist even though you see it in the mirror?

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Re: Space is a time machine

However you cannot go further than 320000 years after "The Fireball From Nowhere Is Everywhere" (aka. "Big Bang") because of the Ionization alluded to in the article: The Universe was opaque till that moment due to high density of inonized hydrogen.

Astroboffins find most distant source of oxygen in the universe

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Re: tangent time

What are you talking about?

White holes? Really?

If you want bouncing universes, you go here.

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venture capital money being burned by startups

Poingnantly, most of this is fake money cooked by central banks, with corresponding unresolved opposite-sign debt floating around in government ledgers, similar to positive-energy matter having an opposite-sign unresolved "debt" floating around in its gravitational field, the whole summing to zero.

At least nobody is getting undeservedly rich off the gravitational field.

Oh, great, now there's a SECOND remote Rowhammer exploit

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Headmaster

Re: Remind me what memory ECC is for

Flipping one bit is hard. Flipping two bits in the same memory row at the same time is exponentially harder. Flipping three bits is exponentially harder again.

I have strong doubts about the correct usage of "exponentially" and/or about the exponent that would actually apply.

Super Cali goes ballistic: mugshot site atrocious

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Hmmmm

Sahar Sarid, Kishore Vidya Bhavnanie, Thomas Keesee, and David Usdan

When Trump says "they are not sending their best", he may not be half wrong.

America's forgotten space station and a mission tinged with urine, we salute you

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Re: I hope..

could have been used to feed hungry people

Today we have more "hungry people" than back then. Generally due to war and planned elimination, c.f. Yemen. Remember the Live Aid concerts from the 80s for aiding Ethiopian "famine"? Engineered famine.

We also have economic refugees and an infinite supply of more where these come from. The World's Most Important Graph says something about Whitey's destiny.

Pentagon on military data-nomming JEDI cloud mind trick: There can be only one (vendor)

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Big Brother

Muh Warfighters!

I think Gibbon wrote about Rome's plan to build a JUPITER single-vendor papyrus barn just before the whole house of cards collapsed, the money printing showed real consequences, immigrants invaded, juntas decided to take matters in their own hands, Neo-Judeans and Roman News Network hosts got crucified naked along the Via Appia and half of the empire decided to fuck off to the East.

Meanwhile, Hyperreal Amounts of "Money": Has Our Government Spent $21 Trillion Of Our Money Without Telling Us? (That's ten times the annual GDP of the UK, how is that even possible?)

US senators ask FTC to investigate Google's Location imbroglio

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Re: Its the lowest-hanging-fruit that always 'does you in'

Give it up, Product!

Kaspersky Lab's move from Russia to Switzerland fails to save it from Dutch oven

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Kasperspanic!

Putin_personally_installing_Kaspersky_Antivirus_while_smiling_in_an_avuncular_way_at_the_camera.jpg

Airbus windscreen fell out at 32,000 feet

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Trollface

Doomraker!

Reports from the Chengdu Daily and elsewhere tell us that the disintegrating window injured the co-pilot and a member of cabin crew, de-pressurised the plane and led to the captain quickly descending.

...hopefully while still being inside the plane.

Boffins build a 2D 'quantum walk' that's not a computer, but could still blow them away

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Headmaster

In the quantum world, superposition (the property of quanta that they may exist in a superposition of multiple states at once until the waveform is collapsed)

Actually, it's the property of SYSTEMS to exist in a "superposition" (a complex-valued probability distribution aka "the wavefunction") until the waveform is collapsed enough information has been extracted from the system so that superposition is no longer apparent.

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Headmaster

quantum physics / collapsing waveforms is really about finding out what universe you happen to be in.

Absolutely not. There is only one universe, crazy idea slingers, lazy cranks and publicity hounds notwithstanding. It's just that information is "soft" (it's just partially constrained) for small systems that one does not have much information about (note that "small distance" has nothing to do with it; separation could be in time, too for example).

Get over yourselves: Life in the multiverse could be commonplace

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Headmaster

We don't even know what's going on, but we do computer simulations of it

A universe containing life like ours is probably more common in the multiverse than previously thought, according to new theoretical studies.

Sadly the multiverse is a part of pulp fiction and about as solid science as Star Trek time-travel wormholes. It's a way to avoid having to solve the hard problems while feeling pretty good about it.

The idea of multiple universes existing in parallel has gained traction in the last few decades

This is a mistaken belief that is generated by looking at the flashy dubious papers, lavishly illustrated popular science output and sellable bookware. There is not even a consenseus on what the Multiverse is (the interpretations range from Everett Multiverses (a new universe on each decoherence, an incoherent idea if there ever was one) to Linde Multiverses (one infinite universe with many domains) to Guth Multiverses (eternal inflation with universe bubbles) to String Landscape Multiverses (I don't even know in what the Stringoverse Landscape lives).

The Degenerated Science that is the Multiverse (soon to be merged with SJW-ness into the Multicultiverse, I imagine) is deservedly ripped at the Multiverse Mania part of Peter Woit's Blog.

In particular, we read: New Year’s Multiverse, January 2017 and from 15 Years of Multiverse Mania, January 2018:

Back in 2003-4 I never would have believed that the subject would end up in the state it finds itself in now. With the LHC results removing the last remaining hope for observational evidence relevant to string theory unification, what we’ve been seeing the last few years has been a concerted campaign to avoid admitting failure by the destructive tactic of trying to change the usual conception of testable science. Two examples of this from last week were discussed here, and today there’s a third effort along the same lines, Quantum Multiverses, by Hartle. Unlike the others, this one includes material on the interpretation of quantum mechanics one may or may not agree with, but of no relevance to the fundamental problem of not having a predictive theory that can be tested. ....

.... A good place to look for information about the current state of string landscape [one special form of the multiple interpretations of the "Multiverse"] calculations is at the website for this workshop. The idea that the problems of this subject can be solved by “modern techniques in data science” seems to me absurd, but for a different point of view, look at the slides of Michael Douglas. For something more sensible, try the talk by Frederik Denef, which describes some of the fundamental intractable problems:

-> You don’t have a complete theory, with only some non-perturbative corrections known, no systematic understanding of these.

-> Dine-Seiberg Problem: When corrections can be computed, they are not important, and when they are important, they cannot be computed.

-> Measure Problem: Whenever a landscape measure is strongly predictive, it is wrong, and when it’s not, we don’t know if it’s right.

-> Tractability Problem: Whenever a low energy property is selective enough to single out a few vacua, finding these vacua is intractable.

Denef does make some very interesting comments about where modern techniques in data science might actually be useful: dealing not with the landscape of string vacua, but with the huge landscape of string theory papers (e.g. the 15,000 papers that refer to the Maldacena paper).

S/MIME artists: EFAIL email app flaws menace PGP-encrypted chats

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Windows

Wuh?

The vulnerability comes in two parts: an HTML exfiltration attack that would allow an attacker to send the target an email with malformed HTML code. The HTML code would then be able to trick the victim's client into trying to load a URL with the unencrypted message contained in plain text. The attacker would then simply need to view the URL request to see the decoded message.

I suppose the attacker sends a message that he intercepted earlier and of which he doesn't have the plaintext. But then the attack assumes a HTML reader with very specific faults, which somehow decrypts embedded data found in the HTML (why!), then is so utterly confused by the surrounding non-HTML that it pumps the decrypted back out over the Internet? A very specific fault.

Robo-callers, robo-cops, robo-runners, robo-car crashes, and more

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Re: 5 year old?

..what are we gonna do now?

Buy guns. Lots of guns.

First SpaceX Falcon 9 Block 5 rocket lobs comms sat into orbit

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Paris Hilton

Re: It's people!

There are rockets that carry dead humans into orbit?

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Trollface

Hyperreality and the Complete Loss of Mental Coordinates.

We know the van Allen Belt is actually a impenetrable human-zapping radiation shield wall and that the Moon doesn't even exist, which is why ISS action has to be filmed 24/7 in the starless studio. If ISS were real, it would be hidden behind nanochemical chemtrails in any case.

Also, system engineering and its history is completely fake, particularly to "engineers" that have come out of modern educational dens and that Just Want to Code.

Sort your spending habits out, UK Ministry of Defence told over £20bn black hole

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I love the smell of Austerity in the morning.

One day this budget will tank.

Don't try and beat AI, merge with it says chess champ Garry Kasparov

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Windows

Stanislaw Lem wrote about this in 1964

In 1964: Summa Technologiae

The book is a bit of a slog though.

Cisco cancels all YouTube ads, then conceals cancellation

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Paris Hilton

American puritanism?

Pretending to be the über-virtuous policeman who can afford to burn witchesdeclare others as lacking sufficient morals and thus untouchable or worse - while being a true player for whom the ends justify the means, especially if the ends are a fistful of dollars .... I wonder where that attitude comes from.

US Congress finally emits all 3,000 Russian 'troll' Facebook ads. Let's take a look at some

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Devil

Hah!

So I went I checked whether Oliver North might already be under suspicion of being a Russian Asset. I didn't find anything but it can't be long now, though it would be hilarious if he were declared an Iranian asset instead.

Instead, I found this blast from the past, directly from the completely mentalesteemed, broadsheeted, truthfully reporting Jewish-tradition-upholding, desperately Putin-Nazi fighting New York Times back from November 2017:

He’s a Member of Congress. The Kremlin Likes Him So Much It Gave Him a Code Name.

The following year, the California Republican became even more valuable, assuming the chairmanship of the Foreign Affairs subcommittee that oversees Russia policy. He sailed to re-election again and again, even as he developed ties to Vladimir V. Putin’s Russia.

Ties with Putin while on the Foreign Affairs subcommitee? It's a scandal.

I don't know why Murricans think anyone needs to be trolled in their derelict homeland.

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Holmes

Well, it's just about FEAR

So that fearsome "Russian Troll Factory".... just a channer in a Moscow apartment? With "Interneat Ressearch Agency" written with a felt pen on door bell button.

Possibly not even in Moscow.

Seeing what the "Intelligence Community" latey comes up with in the "transparently engineered crap that would make Stalin wince in embarrassement" department, I fear this is all too likely.

Score one for the bats and badgers! Apple bins €850m Irish bit barn bid

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Headmaster

Re: Evidence?

> Ecologic Data Centres

Nowadays you can really sell anything

I wonder whether that "renewable energy" talk does even make sense, I suspect you could fill the datacenter with oil about 50 times just to build the goods that go into it, then do it again after 3 years when the upgrade cycle hits.

Might as well throw in a jijawatt nuke or two, it would preclude having to build those windmills.

It's Galileo Groundhog Day! You can keep asking the same question, but it won't change the answer

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Big Brother

Re: Can you still buy...

These won't help if you need to "send a message" to Assad because he's being naughty gassing children on White Helmet TV.

Microsoft programming chief to devs: Tell us where Windows hurt you

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Windows

No

"We believe every developer will become an AI developer. You don't need to learn new programming languages."

Most developers can't even do a single programming language nor find their own arse in the bright light of faddish, incidental, consultancy-enabling complexity. What should they do with AI?

Pain Point #1: Get rid of all the Windows in the enterprise and replace with manageable, understandable, staid Unix machinery. The decision makers of the battling Unix Consortia of the early 90s should get the shark tank treatment for that.

Pain Point #2: Uncloud all applications.

Pain Point #3: XFCE-level of GUI should be enough for everyone.

DeepMind: Get a load of our rat-like AI. 'Ere, look. It solves mazes and stuff

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Re: The Quantum State .... where this is that and also able to be anything else completely different

That's how it works jake.

That's why random internet people can post comments on webzines.

So when can you get in the first self-driving car? GM says 2019. Mobileye says 2021. Waymo says 2018 – yes, this year

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Big Brother

Re: Taxis

I'd seriously consider leaving the airport on foot.

You would probably have to get through the Diversity Zone. Good luck. Take this Armored Waymo, it has twin Belgian-Made SAW mounted on the roof for added safety.

Congress vs Facebook: Great soap opera TV, but don't expect big results

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Facepalm

Re: "#5. The default OS installed on every new PC is Linux not Win-10"

Which distro, RedHat? From one quasi-monopoly to another?

You know, "monopoly" actually has a well-defined meaning. You cannot just randomly shove it into a phrase to signal disagreement with Red Hat distro.

Scrap London cops' 'racially biased' gang database – campaigners

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Intel CEO Brian is a man living on the edge

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Certainly...

By 2020, every stone will generate GigaBytes/hour of data, especially if wrung for blood.

(Also, Intel Architecture ... will it be with us for ever?)

JEDI mind tricks: Brakes slammed on Pentagon's multibillion cloud deal

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Big Brother

Meanwhile smoking mushrooms

Now taking bets on where an attack by "Iranian Assets", complete with passports, will take place in the Homeland, because you gotta justify dat bombing.

I says it will be the West Coast this time. Seattle has nice skyscrapers.

Adobe, 'hyper personalisation' and your privacy

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the Shell station near me has MINI-TV's mounted in the pumps that PLAY ADS while you're dispensing fuel

Yeah, directly underneath the "please switch off your GSM for your safety" sign.

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Pint

Re: "People are buying experiences, not products"

Yeah, it's how these idiots think. Why are we (collectively) ALLOWING them to "define the future" FOR us?

Max Zorin had a chance, but that eejit from the UK foiled his ingenious plan. "Responsibility to Protect", go figure.

No Union Jack icon, WTF is with this webzine?

Windows Notepad fixed after 33 years: Now it finally handles Unix, Mac OS line endings

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Windows

"I fart in your general direction"

"This has been a major annoyance for developers, IT Pros, administrators, and end users throughout the community"

Yes Microsoft.

It's Notepad. One of the shittest programs of the known universe, might have been hot on 8-bit "32 KiB free" computers.

I can understand the laughing disdain for "end users throughout the community", they are just deplorables to be herded into the milking shed.

But "Developers" and "IT Pros"? Please.

Where to find dark matter? $34m says go look 2km under Canada

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Trollface

Looking for a set of Dark Matter particles via tiny vibrations....

...and then they detected a Vibranium lode!

Zombie Cambridge Analytica told 'death' can't save it from the law

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Re: Fob off is a very polite way of describing it

So a MOAF (Mother of All Fob Offs) got dropped on him?

IT systems still in limbo as UK.gov departments await Brexit policy – MPs

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Thumb Down

Re: One viable option

remind them that the election was heavily influenced by the same Russian meddling that got the US the current Cheeto in office

Troll and Liar.

"Heavily influenced" has a meaning. And it is not the one you are using here.

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Windows

Re: Harmsworth (Viscount Rothermere) of the Daily Mail. Quite the ominous name.

leaves his French Chateau

By Harry and Boy George!!

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Windows

Re: Industry should learn from this innovative approach

It's called Agile, isn't it?

Seriously.

This sounds like Usual Waterfall to me, with run-of-the-mill rapids.

Every software thing has been like this ever. Management skill resides in whether they succeed in averting the turbine inlet at the end of the intended projectdeathmarch and pulling in mo'money for the late changes.

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Paris Hilton

"The spending watchdog"

The spending watchdog

I can only picture John Bull's companion animal, living the high life probably getting premium caviar-laced dogfood in select outlets of the financial district.

Waymo van prang, self-driving cars still suck, AI research jobs, and more

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Re: Kalman Filtering

Apparently, Kalman filtering was knitted into the Apollo computer.

I dunno. A trajectory control problem where there is not even a beetle around, just gravity, an engine and a fat fuel tank, is something different than navigating the jungle that is a road where humans roam and you can get arse-crazy news from the lidar at any moment.

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Holmes

As I put it, I've been trying to automate myself out of job since I was a teen.

Don't worry. The future is full of incomprehensible JavaScript coding horrors that need to be re-engineered into staid and boring Java code. There is lots of work out there yet.

Silicon can now reconfigure itself with just a jolt of electricity

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Re: more likely

No.

Microsoft's latest Windows 10 update downs Chrome, Cortana

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Paris Hilton

Apps including "Hey Cortana" and Google Chrome hang

So it's the Windows "Bye Cortana & Google Chrome Hang From Lampposts" edition?