|
Artificial intelligence systems have become increasingly well-adapted to a host of basic board games. Now, DeepMind is hoping to teach agents the art of collaboration using Diplomacy. Great: teach the AI how to be manipulative back-stabbers.
I *sucked* at that game - just not heartless enough for diplomacy, I guess.
|
|
|
|
|
I ported a framework for Diplomacy bots[^] to RSC. There's a very impressive bot by the name of Albert, so it'll be interesting to see what comes of this. The bot's author said he used Monte Carlo methods to determine its orders (moves), which (unless something has changed) is also how most bridge programs handle card play.
Short of using natural language, there needs to be a formal language to express things that typically arise during negotiations, and a group defined one for use by these bots. I thought about writing a bot but didn't want to get sidetracked. But I did manage to win back-to-back online games as Austria over 20 years ago. 🗡🗡 
EDIT: So far, they've used "no press" games, which have no communication between players. This is a far cry from the real thing, although there are some move conventions for proposing alliances.
modified 23-Jun-20 18:10pm.
|
|
|
|
|
Back in March, we reported that Microsoft was getting ready to kill off Skype for Windows 10. This week, it’s finally happening. Because it's been so long since the last Skype rewrite
|
|
|
|
|
It’s adding its Password Checkup tool to the Security Checkup dashboard Now all passwords will go through Google Search. If it returns less than a million entries, you're good to go.
OK, I may not have read the document completely 
|
|
|
|
|
Quote: The tool checks logins against a database of 4 billion leaked credentials, seeing if the password you’re typing in matches one that’s already leaked.
Ok... fine. Is more or less the same as Troy Hunt do with the HIBP service.
Quote: The company has access to billions of passwords and the scale to roll out Password Checkup to billions of users in a way that integrates with account security tools on which many people already rely.
Here starts to get scary... so if they get compromised, the hackers get the best bounty ever...
Quote: Figuring out how to let Password Checkup flag compromised credentials in a privacy-respecting way was a tough technical problem that required a combined effort from both Google and Stanford.
Google and privacy in the same sentence? Oh, Irony...
Quote: Google gets compromised logins from “multiple different sources and trusted partners,”
Like i.e. Oracle?
Quote: “We have an ethical policy that we will never pay criminals for stolen data,” he continued.
Of course not... you are the one selling the stolen data... 
Quote: But Google has an advantage in helping people with their passwords thanks to its massive scale. And tools like Password Checkup and the built-in password manager ladder up to a broader goal to make online security easier for users.
And the more the people use it, the more other data will they have for their "publicity matching" department...
Quote: “What I like security to be — and what I think [Password Checkup] is a good example of — is, ‘how do you make it easier for regular people to do the right thing?’”
Like the "Do no evil"? 
M.D.V.
If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about?
Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you
Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
|
|
|
|
|
The tool checks logins against a database of 4 billion leaked credentials, seeing if the password you’re typing in matches one that’s already leaked.
2 billion of those are mine, now what?
The other missing point is that many people have a throw away password they use for all those sites that insist on creating a password, Google being an offender. The best way to reduce problematic passwords is to stop requiring them for trivial reasons.
|
|
|
|
|
Whether you’re working or studying from home, you’re still using work devices, email addresses and systems. Getting attacked or compromised at home means other people in your organization are at risk as well. Will this be on the exam?
Not much new for us-folks, but might be worth sharing with the less techie folk at your sites.
|
|
|
|
|
Kent Sharkey wrote: Not much new for us-folks, but might be worth sharing with the less techie folk at your sites.
The ones close enough already know this because I have explained it to them several times, and even though, they don't always follow it.
Besides... yes, I think security updates are necessary, but looking at how windows 10 updates work... there are sometimes that you really don't know what is worst
(I know, I know... a ransomware or hacked device is worst than losing a couple of drivers)
The ones that are not close to me I have explained it too if the topic of the conversation got into this area, but looking at some of the answers I got... well, whatever...
M.D.V.
If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about?
Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you
Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
|
|
|
|
|
dotnet-monitor is an experimental tool that makes it easier to get access to diagnostics information in a dotnet process. Because telemetry is too valuable to leave just to Microsoft
|
|
|
|
|
|
Making secrets a first-class citizen in .NET Core "I've got a little secret, if you promise not to tell"
|
|
|
|
|
Kent Sharkey wrote: "I've got a little secret, if you promise not to tell"
A secret a little told is like a woman a little pregnant... is only a matter of time until everyone knows it.
M.D.V.
If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about?
Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you
Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
|
|
|
|
|
Microsoft says in a support document recently published that Outlook will fail to start for some users, automatically displaying an error prompting the users to repair some inbox files. Those "some users" really can't get a break, can they?
|
|
|
|
|
And yet another day in the paradise[^]
Oh, think twice... (before activating the windows update)
M.D.V.
If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about?
Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you
Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
|
|
|
|
|
Apple’s first ARM-based Mac will be available later this year Maybe they can bring back the PowerPC brand as well?
|
|
|
|
|
It's funny as IMHO Intel slowly becomes the Apple of the CPU market...
"The only place where Success comes before Work is in the dictionary." Vidal Sassoon, 1928 - 2012
|
|
|
|
|
They could have done worse than to migrate to the Power ISA.
I wonder how this will go. Having what was essentially their own CPU ISA didn't work out so well for HP. Itanium was always all about HP.
Then again, Apple's own-brand ARM CPUs are still ARM, so it's not all Mac-unique.
It's a 'bet the company'.... well, 'bet the desktop/laptop product range' move though. If successful it makes it harder to compare directly to PCs and PCs can't ever go there, no matter how good Windows-on-ARM gets. And if it goes badly, then no more Mac desktops/laptops. Which they'd hardly notice in revenue terms.
|
|
|
|
|
A team at Princeton University has built a hardware platform that allows different kinds of computer cores to fit together, allowing designers to customize systems in new ways. You take one from column A and one from column B
|
|
|
|
|
They are aware that Intel and AMD have already done this, right?
|
|
|
|
|
... and just about anybody that makes CPUs for mobile devices...
Software rusts. Simon Stephenson, ca 1994. So does this signature. me, 2012
|
|
|
|
|
Joe Woodbury wrote: They are aware that Intel and AMD have already done this, right?
Or just about anyone
... Or am I missing something essential here? System designers have used cores of varying ISAs since the day when the term "spooling" was invented: A separate subsystem for controlling a printer while the main CPU continued on other tasks ("Syncronous Peripheral Output On Line" = spool) - that was in the 1950s. The IBM 360 series had "channel processors" controlling interactive terminals to the point of running complete text editors without disturbing the main CPU, in the mid 1960s. The first vaxen emulated PDP-11 ISA in microcode, but later models utilized the LSI-11 in the DecWriter console terminal to execute PDP-11 code segments (unplug the console, and the CPU lost its ability to run PDP-11 code).
You could view a DMA chip (or module on a complex chip) as a simple CPU with it simple ISA. Any CUDA graphics card is a CPU with a not-so-simple ISA. Any physical disk with a cache has its own processor with its own ISA. ... And so on. Haven't we done this for generations?
This "platform" may be an attempt to create a "Strangler Jeans - One Size Fits All" kind of omnibus system where all sorts of cores with all sorts of ISAs can be interconnected over a single bus. You plug in your core into the bus that's for everyone. Isn't that a cornerstone in the PowerPC architecture?
You see the same thing in the ARM architecture, except that they have realized that you need at least two or three sizes (i.e. buses) to fit all needs.
These guys probably have some new twist that I don't understand because I am not a hardware expert. But seen from the outside, it is difficult to see the revolutionary aspect.
|
|
|
|
|
A quarter of businesses plan to move all of their applications to the cloud within a year, according to a new report from O’Reilly Media. It's all fun and games until the storm starts
|
|
|
|
|
And by cloud, we mean servers, so we're right.
It was either that or: a fifth of businesses will be bankrupt in a year. What's the Venn diagram?
|
|
|
|
|
Only in the clouds can you achieve true social distancing. 
|
|
|
|
|
One in four companies have no significant IP.
... or their managers are idiots 
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.
-- 6079 Smith W.
|
|
|
|
General 
News 
Suggestion 
Question 
Bug 
Answer 
Joke 
Praise 
Rant 
Admin 
Submit an article or tip
