stu2b50's recent activity
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Comment on Everyone says Libra, Facebook's planned cryptocurrency, should be heavily regulated. But nobody seems to know how - including Facebook. in ~tech
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Comment on How would trade and economics work in a space opera setting with FTL travel but no FTL communication? in ~hobbies
stu2b50 Link I will say that these aren't necessarily correlated. Quantum computing can factor large primes, and do the discrete log problem, so there goes RSA and El Gamal (and certain versions of...What if quantum computing is widespread in your setting, rendering most forms of encryption obsolete?
I will say that these aren't necessarily correlated. Quantum computing can factor large primes, and do the discrete log problem, so there goes RSA and El Gamal (and certain versions of diffie-helman), but that doesn't mean AES is broken, and there are both asymmetrical and key exchange algorithms resistant to quantum computing today.
In general, neither factoring large primes nor the discrete log problem have been proven to be NP-hard, and in fact generally people believe that they're not, since no NP-hard problem has been proven to be solvable in polynomial time with a quantum computer.
3 votes -
Comment on Epic Games supports Blender Foundation with $1.2 million Epic MegaGrant in ~tech
stu2b50 Link Parent It's not price gouging in an elastic, luxury market. They have effectively a luxury/professional electronics brand, and they price for it. As you said; if you don't want to pay the price, there's...It's not price gouging in an elastic, luxury market. They have effectively a luxury/professional electronics brand, and they price for it. As you said; if you don't want to pay the price, there's plenty of alternatives to go around.
If you compare a same spec and don't factor "flagships" then usually they are outrageous
Then you're not comparing the same product. A macbook pro is going to cost a fuckload more than a 10 lb gaming laptop made of plastic, for obvious reasons.
MacBook Air is priced 1099$ for a 1.6GHz Dual-core i5 8th gen, it's way too expensive.
Again, you're not comparing it within it's actual peers. Let's look at a comparative windows laptop, with the same weight and form factor. In this case, the LG Gram
https://www.amazon.com/LG-Gram-Thin-Light-Laptop/dp/B078WSX4QL
It's $950 for a dual core i5.
If you don't need something this light and small, then don't buy it. It's not for you. Doesn't mean it's price gouging, especially when everyone else prices around the same.
I've personally never tried MacOs development and most likely never will because spending a lot of money for a computer I'd only use for that is something I want to never support.
I don't mean it that way. OSX is a Unix system, and Unix systems are king. It's not about developing apps, it's about developing anything. Linux or OSX, that's your choices. Windows is a godawful development platform. And OSX has a better (imo) user experience than the Linux desktop environments.
4 votes -
Comment on 6 ways AI is making an impact on video games in ~games
stu2b50 Link Well, they're just wrong lol. Traditionally, AI is about agents making rational decisions in an environment. The "game dev" definition they used, "AI is any computer process that’s driving...AI purists don’t consider the AI that works under the hood of video games to be "true AI," which is trained from real-world data to make decisions about the world around it
Well, they're just wrong lol. Traditionally, AI is about agents making rational decisions in an environment. The "game dev" definition they used, "AI is any computer process that’s driving decision-making by an agent" is a pretty solid one, and good on them for having a real basis when talking about "AI".
Then they have this bullet point though
"We can rebuild you": AI can improve the look of old games
Aw, c'mon, that doesn't fit your own definition. What part of ESRGAN involves an agent, in an environment, making decisions? If you really want to stretch it you can say the discriminator, but obviously this is going into "
machine learningNEURAL NETWORKS = AI".A side note:
Training AI to identify something new based on previous examples is a major field of modern computer science and often called machine learning.
Modern? Linear regression was studied by Gauss in 1909 :(, that's before computers existed. And a "neural network" is, in the end, a bunch of linear functions of the form z = wx + b, put into typically relu, which is just relu(x) = max(x, 0), and fed into more layers. Fitting linear lines is what machine learning is all about.
2 votes -
Comment on Epic Games supports Blender Foundation with $1.2 million Epic MegaGrant in ~tech
stu2b50 Link Parent Mildly tangential, but is it just me or are Epic's "bad" items like an order of magnitude worse than Apple's? Poor repair policies are the only thing I'd really say is "bad". For price, Apple can...Mildly tangential, but is it just me or are Epic's "bad" items like an order of magnitude worse than Apple's? Poor repair policies are the only thing I'd really say is "bad".
For price, Apple can price their shit as expensively as they want. I don't see how that harms the consumer or anyone else. Just don't buy it if it's out of your range. And I actually don't think their products are that overpriced. For the laptops, compared to other laptops with the same form factor (i.e XPS, Zenbooks) they are a good 100-200 more. Not trivial, but not incredible either. iPhones and the other flagships are basically the same price at this point.
For something a developer, for instance, will be heavily using for the next 3 years, if you amortize the cost it's completely irrelevant. OSX is a great OS for software dev. If you're comfortable with it.
7 votes -
Comment on A small notebook for a system administrator in ~comp
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Comment on DeepMind's StarCraft II AI "AlphaStar" will play some games anonymously on the Europe competitive ladder against opt-in opponents in ~games
stu2b50 Link Parent They can't really do that. They learn from at least a few hundred thousand samples. If you set the learning rate to be so high the weights would adjust from a few games with players it wouldn't...They can't really do that. They learn from at least a few hundred thousand samples. If you set the learning rate to be so high the weights would adjust from a few games with players it wouldn't even get close to converge.
Remember, in the end it's just gradient descent, not magic.
6 votes -
Comment on Buy Nintendo Switch now or wait for new release? in ~games
stu2b50 Link Parent The switch does have Bluetooth hardware, that's how the controllers are connected. The adapters convert 9 mm jack to Bluetooth back to 9mm jack. So naturally it'll work on anything with a jack for...The switch does have Bluetooth hardware, that's how the controllers are connected.
The adapters convert 9 mm jack to Bluetooth back to 9mm jack. So naturally it'll work on anything with a jack for input. But the Switch natively has a Bluetooth chip.
2 votes -
Comment on Buy Nintendo Switch now or wait for new release? in ~games
stu2b50 Link Parent Headset is purely a software issue. If you homebrew Linux, you can use Bluetooth headphones. In fact, that use to be the only way to get audio, since they didn't figure out how to output to...Headset is purely a software issue. If you homebrew Linux, you can use Bluetooth headphones. In fact, that use to be the only way to get audio, since they didn't figure out how to output to speakers for a while.
2 votes -
Comment on RSA was an important milestone in the development of secure communications, but the last two decades of cryptographic research have rendered it obsolete. in ~comp
stu2b50 Link Parent The thing is, why use RSA when there are other alternatives that just do better? For asymmetric, you have the ellipsoid based methods as well as el gamal, that don't suffer from the issues...The thing is, why use RSA when there are other alternatives that just do better? For asymmetric, you have the ellipsoid based methods as well as el gamal, that don't suffer from the issues outlined in the article. Already the usage of RSA is decreasing. TLS, for instance, no longer supports the old RSA based handshake, because it suffered from replay attacks.
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Comment on Creator of "DeepNude" releases it as GPL licensed Open Source Software after previously taking it down in ~comp
stu2b50 Link Parent That. It defines the architecture of the networks, and there's a relatively basic CLI that takes in an image and runs the network on it. The model checkpoints aren't included (though other people...Is it the software to create and train the neural net
That. It defines the architecture of the networks, and there's a relatively basic CLI that takes in an image and runs the network on it. The model checkpoints aren't included (though other people reverse engineered them).
It of course doesn't have the training data, and I doubt it's anywhere near a terabyte. From the readme, the pix2pix instance that masks bodies was trained on paired data where they manually drew circles on boobs in photoshop, and I doubt they had an army of slave laborers to do that.
6 votes -
Comment on Creator of "DeepNude" releases it as GPL licensed Open Source Software after previously taking it down in ~comp
stu2b50 Link Parent To play devil's advocate, there were already replications on Github before they released, which was probably a motivating factor. If someone wanted it for nefarious or non-nenfarious reasons, they...To play devil's advocate, there were already replications on Github before they released, which was probably a motivating factor. If someone wanted it for nefarious or non-nenfarious reasons, they already had it. Releasing their version shouldn't cause more harm now, since it already exists in the wild
And can be beneficial. I was curious on how they managed such good results without paired data (which is obv impossible). They ostensible released to help other people doing work in the field.
3 votes -
Comment on Creator of "DeepNude" releases it as GPL licensed Open Source Software after previously taking it down in ~comp
stu2b50 Link Parent Neither of these upload to the internet. This is very bare-bones, it doesn't even include the model checkpoints. It just has the models and a basic CLI for running it on an image.Neither of these upload to the internet. This is very bare-bones, it doesn't even include the model checkpoints. It just has the models and a basic CLI for running it on an image.
2 votes -
Comment on Creator of "DeepNude" releases it as GPL licensed Open Source Software after previously taking it down in ~comp
stu2b50 Link It is amusing to go on the issues page and see people who clearly have no idea what they're doing, like "It runs but does nothing" (it literally spit out an error and you copy pasted it into the...It is amusing to go on the issues page and see people who clearly have no idea what they're doing, like "It runs but does nothing" (it literally spit out an error and you copy pasted it into the issue box) and "no module named cv2" (maybe try installing opencv2?).
HM I wonder why these people are so interested in running this.
21 votes -
34 votes
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Comment on What's a question you genuinely don't know the answer to? in ~talk
stu2b50 Link Parent What if I told you we "discovered" a way to divide by 0? That's not too hard. Just set x/0 = infinity. Then you have the Projective Extended Real Number Line...What if I told you we "discovered" a way to divide by 0? That's not too hard. Just set x/0 = infinity. Then you have the Projective Extended Real Number Line (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Projectively_extended_real_line). Now, you probably don't want to do anything under this set since it's not even close to a field.
Mathematical operations can't be "impossible", because humans define the results of mathematical operations. You can always make something equal something. It just may result in something not very useful.
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Comment on What's a question you genuinely don't know the answer to? in ~talk
stu2b50 Link Parent That assumes that there is some underlying "true" math that we try to recover, like in a natural science. But there isn't. Math is completely human made, and its properties are determined and...That assumes that there is some underlying "true" math that we try to recover, like in a natural science.
But there isn't. Math is completely human made, and its properties are determined and derived from axioms.
So with imaginery numbers, their name is somewhat misleading. You can't take the square root of negative numbers not because there's some inherent property in the universe that says so, but because when you do so it changes the properties of the system of numbers you are using. For that matter, the complex numbers actually do function fairly well. But you can 100% take the square root of negative numbers, because that's something humans define.
Maybe a more useful example is dividing by 0. It's often something people say is "impossible". But it's not "impossible" so much as not useful. You CAN create a system of numbers where division by 0 is valid. The extended real number line and Riemann sphere are examples of this. But, when you do so the set of numbers you are using are no longer rings let alone fields, which is pretty bad, since it means that many useful properties like associativity are no longer valid.
Also, we 100% know what irrational numbers are. We know PI with 100% accuracy and precision. The fact that there is no finite or repeating decimal representation doesn't mean we don't know the number.
11 votes -
Comment on Democratic Debate #1 Thread in ~news
stu2b50 Link Parent The thing is, the elimination of private healthcare will decrease the price of public healthcare. You need pool wealthier, healthy people with low risk alongside lower income and/or people with...The thing is, the elimination of private healthcare will decrease the price of public healthcare. You need pool wealthier, healthy people with low risk alongside lower income and/or people with preexisting conditions so that the latter's prices will go down comparatively.
That was the reason Obamacare had the individual mandate.
Personally, I don't think public only would be very popular in the general election, but there ARE reasons people push for it.
1 vote -
Comment on Reddit has quarantined /r/The_Donald in ~tech
stu2b50 Link Parent There was a post a while ago about Facebook, which contracts actual humans to moderate, and about how those moderators were literally dying -- one of them actually died on the job.There was a post a while ago about Facebook, which contracts actual humans to moderate, and about how those moderators were literally dying -- one of them actually died on the job.
6 votes -
Comment on Reddit has quarantined /r/The_Donald in ~tech
stu2b50 Link Parent I really wonder why people with just abject hatred of a platform, that believe its run by fascist communist censoring lizards, also seem to exclusively stay on said platform and refuse to leave it.I really wonder why people with just abject hatred of a platform, that believe its run by fascist communist censoring lizards, also seem to exclusively stay on said platform and refuse to leave it.
21 votes
I think an important technical detail to libra is just how it works. Unlike Bitcoin or Ethereum, it uses neither proof of work nor proof of stake. Instead, it's just byzantine fault tolerance with agreed validators. Which makes sense; PoS is still shaky in its foundations, PoW has it's obvious issues, and I doubted a company like FB wanted to deal with either. So unlike either, which promise complete decentralization (though, how true that is for either is up for debate, considering Ethereum devs rolling back hacks), Libra doesn't.