HN user
Though it's probably the best way for now, I don't think it will last. Just like there's a market for 'mouse jigglers' to keep online status in the workplace... there will be automations for sale that will take GenAI output as input, and mimic all the natural mistakes and progress a human would make in writing a document.
This reminded me of a hack/cheat someone implemented for a video game called Rust (Rust is a multiplayer survival FPS where players can build bases). The game has code locks on doors, 0000-9999. What the person did was isolate the network packet sending one attempt at the code lock, and the using networking tools and a bit of automation, sent a stream of all possible permutations towards the server. Apparently people who were in the vicinity of a person employing this cheat heard a steady stream of beeps (each attempt did a short beep noise), and then inevitably the combination was found and the lock was cracked... if I recall correctly it took less than 6 minutes for it to go through all attempts and gain access to another player's base, and their treasures. After the developers heard of it, they implemented rate limiting and a small amount of 'shock' damage to the player to resolve the issue.
Saying they 'ignored' it is quite generous, considering the former CEO essentially blamed the pilots (source: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2021-11-16/are-boein...).
Here's an excerpt from the article...
--- “No, again, we provide all the information that’s needed to safely fly our airplanes,” he answered.
Bartiromo pressed: But was that information available to the pilots? “Yeah, that’s part of the training manual, it’s an existing procedure,” Muilenburg said.
“Oh, I see,” she said. But in fact, MCAS wasn’t in the manual, unless you counted the glossary, which defined the term but didn’t explain what the software did. ---
A safety critical feature that can down a plane if not disabled in time... tucked away in a glossary.
The documentary 'Downfall: The Case Against Boeing' goes into great detail about the whole ordeal.
This is a downright misleading website.
Tag line: "Find awesome free illustration packs for all your projects."
The first pack I clicked on (https://www.vektors.pro/illustration-packs/open-source-illus...)
Contains at least 3 trademarks(Nintendo, Marvel, and Sega), and you'd be opening yourself up to a lawsuit if you used them in a commercial endeavor.
Wow. How did I not know about this. Works great! Thank you!
A lot of questions came to mind when I read this bit of the article,
"If you want to find a particular item in a list with N items classically, you need to check all N items—N evaluations—because the item you are searching for could be the last in the list. (If you are sure that the item is in the list, the correct number of evaluations is N-1, but this does not matter much here.) This means searching through an unsorted database with N entries takes—classically—N steps. However, with Grover’s quantum algorithm—which can be viewed as a quantum random walk—it takes √(N) steps. It allows for the same quadric speedup as the quantum random walk. For large databases—lists with big N— this can mean a lot fewer evaluations."
As odd as quantum computers are, I couldn't figure out how you could evaluate static values in a database that were never evaluated... the answer was, it can't.
From Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grover%27s_algorithm) "The database is not represented explicitly. Instead, an oracle is invoked to evaluate an item by its index. Reading a full data-base item by item and converting it into such a representation may take a lot longer than Grover's search."
In essence, you need a completely new database with quantum capable representations. Even with this trade-off, I could imagine 'big data' adapting this type of workflow once quantum computers become viable.
Because the 'stranger' has a voice recording and a signed contract of what he confesses on behalf of the deceased.
They're all so fantastic! Thank you!!
I'd be stoked to download your collection for new wallpapers - are you able to share via a cloud file sharing platform? Thank you for considering.
http://nvidia-research-mingyuliu.com/gaugan/
The demo is fun! Thanks for sharing!
Because you may of had zero access rather than some, for example a web dev who wouldn't click on an .exe but would open an .html file without a second thought. More access isn't necessarily always the end goal either.
It's not so much why someone would choose this over that, as it is what attack vectors are added to which surface. Why wouldn't a bad actor be willing to jump back into a leaky sandbox?
https://www.pcworld.com/article/2933478/m-disc-optical-media...
Any thoughts on these? If HN doesn't disapprove, you could buy these/burn your blog on them, and send them around the world. The simpler the format, the better.
I bought an Alienware that cost 4300$ last year, and that's after 900$ in savings.
The computer arrived in a box that had 2 handle sized holes in it and I could see the computer directly exposed from the outside without the box being open. It had shipment dust and debris INSIDE THE BOX. It's the saddest, cheapest, most sorry ass excuse for a shipment I've ever seen. I took pictures, I couldn't believe it.
Then I booted it up and was inundated with Dell pre-installed software. Wiped the thing clean, got a Win10 ISO directly from MS and called it a day. This will be the last Dell I ever buy. Lesson learned.
(On a much smaller scale) - I had a plasma ball toy as a kid, the kind you put your finger on and the electricity arcs to your finger. One day I broke the glass housing. Curious what would happen, I plugged it in - the radio in the kitchen AND the TV in the living room both simultaneously wouldn't run when the broken plasma bulb was plugged in. I did this several times as a prank on unsuspecting family members and then the unit burned out/wouldn't turn on. I still don't know how dangerous this was to do(if at all).
scrcpy : https://github.com/Genymobile/scrcpy
This application provides display and control of Android devices connected on USB (or over TCP/IP). It does not require any root access. It works on GNU/Linux, Windows and MacOS.
Did Microsoft have a choice?
https://www.statista.com/statistics/266136/global-market-sha...
Towards the end of the article was the question I had all along reading it:
"Where was mind when the universe was born? And what sustained the universe for the billions of years before we came to be? He nonetheless bravely offers us a lovely, chilling paradox: At the heart of everything is a question, not an answer. When we peer down into the deepest recesses of matter or at the farthest edge of the universe, we see, finally, our own puzzled face looking back at us."
Can someone explain how his 'answer' is chilling or lovely? It's fine if he wants to offer his own pet theory of reality, but to give a cop out answer to its most fundamental question doesn't go far to support it.
Self-hosted DNS solution with an easy setup and a nice web GUI to manage it.
I'm just in awe that we're coordinating events world wide based on particle interactions one of which originated billions of light years away. That we're able to understand a little more about the vast space we live in because of it, the human cooperation, the technology, the amount of curiosity it took to get here, it's beautiful.
Rough edges in KeePass?
I don't think you'll find a 'quick hack' but what you're asking is definitely possible as a project.
Check this video out for ideas(guy used ML/servo controlled squirt gun to get rid of squirrels from his bird house) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPgqfnKG_T4
I've had SP a few times, more often on the couch than in bed for some reason. A friend that has these experiences very often gave me his pro tip for dealing with them, as soon as you realize you're having SP, simply use all of your will to bend your index finger, the second you get your finger to bend, you snap out of it. Worked for me the few times I've had to use it, and it gives you something to focus on at the same time.
People building automated vehicle algorithms must have their hands full, I can't even begin to think how you'd wrangle the amount of noise that exists in the real world. Then you have to imagine all the ways that a system can be exploited in the ways that it's supposed to function. How does it handle a road side advertisement with a stop sign? A cardboard cutout of a person next to the side of the road? All the reflective materials and their individual properties? I know a lot of it is radar related so it's not just image processing, but I can imagine a lot of ways that could be fooled and go wrong as well.
Your comment reminded me of this: https://notepad-plus-plus.org/news/notepad-7.3.3-fix-cia-hac...
I doubt this was intentional at first, but the fact that they don't want to fix it is very fishy.
A lot of great ideas in this thread!! I've automated quite a few work tasks over the years(just as fun IMO) but the ones I've done for 'fun fun' are...
- I played an online survival game and the server I played on had a live web based map that you could look at, the server chat activity was also visible on this online map and no one playing on the server could tell if anyone was listening in, the problem was that the text disappeared every few seconds - so I made a script to check if the site changed at all(passively listening for the js event, scrape the text, upload it to my private server via FTP and I setup a webpage that any of my friends could logon to to get the full details(with various sorting/filtering options as needed, nothing over the top, and updated every 30 seconds) this helped me and my clan tremendously because it gave us a deep insight into all the alliances, who raided who at which times, then we'd use this edge to make new allies and we eventually completely crushed the top clan of 18+ people with our smaller group of three.
- Ran a gaming server for a year or so and I automated checking who had previous bans on steam for any game(it was some online service, don't remember which), got their SteamIDs off of server logs, performed the check, and if certain values showed up on the page it would log the query page to a screenshot(to get a full picture of their activity in case of dispute), log their SteamIDs in a list and the ones who got red flagged got banned nightly.
- 2 MMORPGs(one top down game, and one 3D game), got to max level on the 2D game without playing a minute of a new character after script was done(python, image recognition, basic evaluation of status/reaction) and returning to a character with plenty of loot when getting home after a day at work was a lot of fun. (some of my purist gaming friends don't agree, but we all get our kicks differently) - I never traded to not affect the economy, was done as a learning challenge, and the results didn't matter a whole lot. Quit playing pretty much right after 'beating' the challenge.
- Polls, multiple personalities, statistical variance.. the whole 9 yards..
- Photoshop workflows, and a few other 'art' related programs. I can only do something manually for so long before I'm itching to script it.
- Web scrapers of all kinds, several image scrapers, one which filled a folder with results from a keyword of your choosing.. another one is classifieds scraper which notifies you when something you're looking for appears, done by indexing current status of the sub category you're interested in, run a diff, pop the older ones, stores all time stamps/ID's/URLs, browses to the new ads and gets relevant fields, formats them all in an XLS sheet for friendlier and ad free browsing(with links to images).
- Text manipulation for a big keyword project that spanned months, ended up with lots of great data, some of which is no longer available accuracy wise.
- Scripts to check the status of and update common applications silently and over the home network. Other scripts to check the status of all devices on the network, the 'health' of various services etc..
- Backups.. file manipulations..(data, names, inserting metadata, reading metadata from thousands files, indexing the results and subsequently performing actions to the files based on the metadata)
- Some hardware quirks that I ended up fixing with scripts which automated devcon.exe actions and that ran on boot.
- Online dating, top three spots constantly, and yes, more eyeballs on your profile means more first contact from the ladies. The profile was meticulously written and re-written based on performance(contact stats), with ad copy type hooks intertwined, my record day was 17 new messages.
If you're in Canada you can follow the instructions here for CanadaPost, https://www.canadapost.ca/web/en/kb/details.page?article=how...
The comment in full:
Veronika Hubeny: I applaud your heroism in standing up for what you believe in! I know well the shaky feeling and subsequent exhilarated and heartwarmed contentment in the knowledge of having done the right thing, and I think that doing so has become more crucial than ever. Your behavior was inspiring and I’m glad that many of those inspired shared their gratitude with you.
I guess that, being the subject of the incident, it might be worthwhile to offer my perspective, which to my surprise is rather more atypical than I had hitherto realized, but which I hope might perhaps provide some encouragement to all those who feel put off by the present situation — especially to those who feel drawn to science yet dissuaded from following their hearts’ calling. (For posterity I also feel compelled to correct a point about the physics — as a physicist I can’t help myself wink emoticon;-) — but since I realize that that was entirely beside the point of the post, I’ll only do so at the very end…)
You may be amazed to hear it, but during this panel session I genuinely did not feel affronted or discriminated by the moderator’s behavior. It seemed more amusing to see him try posing a question in a way that at the same time tried answering it. It’s true that this made the question a bit of a moving target for me (and therefore harder to address coherently), but I don’t a-priori assume that the incident was rooted in sexism. Maybe I’m too naive, but I simply gave him the benefit of doubt that he was so excited by the newly-learned idea of the duality that he couldn’t resist, and that the same might have occurred had the panelist been a male instead of me. So it didn’t bother me.
In fact, even though in my entire academic career I was in an environment where women were in striking minority (and as a student often the only woman in the class), I never felt discriminated against or thwarted in my calling. The feeling was rather one of camaraderie: the challenges to unravel the deepest mysteries of the universe, the thrill in understanding another tiny bit of this grand puzzle, and the sheer wonder at how beautifully the physics hangs together, put us all in the same boat, so to speak. In retrospect I think I was fortunate in being amongst like-minded physicists who were not only great but gracious and earnest in their love of science. But when I eventually did start coming across others who were not of the same caliber, they somehow seemed insignificant.
I had early on decided that I like physics so much that I’d be quite willing to give up quite a bit of other comforts for it, but perhaps having made that decision and bracing oneself, then made the actual “discomforts” not only more bearable, but genuinely less discomforting. I think the subjective severity of a lot of these issues can be greatly influenced by one’s mindset, one’s psychology. If you allow yourself to enjoy the beautiful things that really matter, if you don’t let social or peer pressure dissuade you from pursuing a field which appeals to you, then no pettiness or childishness or boorishness that you encounter can harm you so much.
Please understand that I’m not trying to say that sexism in science is a myth. It is real and we should all aspire to diminish it. But I am trying to say that it need not pose as much of an impediment as you might fear and that you might be in more control over its influence yourself than you might think. Just as you put up with long lines to see a great show, or with sore feet or mosquitos to have a great hike etc., the annoyance of otherwise abominable behavior diminishes in the larger perspective of doing something you really enjoy.
OK, so now to the physics (sorry): First, what you refer to as the “two theories of string theory that seem to contradict one another” are actually two ‘dual’ descriptions of the same physics, which while curiously different in rather amazing ways, are completely consistent with each other (one using the language of string theory, the other of a field theory). Second, I cannot take credit for inventing this holographic (so-called AdS/CFT) correspondence — I have worked on understanding how it works at a deeper level, but the AdS/CFT was originated by Juan Maldacena in 1997.
Once again, let me stress my appreciation, Marilee, of how you bravely stood up for your principles and values! Well done!
There was a story a while back about a team of people working out of a garage who were bleaching lower denominations and printing a higher value note onto the bleached paper. Higher end inkjets are quite capable, the 'feel' was the biggest issue.
Veronika Hubeny(the physicist who got interrupted) replied to the incident,
https://www.facebook.com/marilee.talkington/posts/1015505138...
Very humble woman.
The solution to your solution could then be to generate new faces programmatically in an automated fashion.
One tactic could simply be combining faces(in some offline version of something like: http://www.morphthing.com/, no affiliation).
Another method could be targeted and non-detrimental manipulation of facial constructs. I could imagine using liquefaction filters designed to operate within a perceptually acceptable range for a human while working towards the the goal of gaining enough change to be new in the eye of the facial recognition algorithms.
Still a worthy effort by OkCupid, they'll scrape off the bottom this way.