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Saturday, January 18, 2020

A Sense of Doubt blog post #1796 - WEEKLY HODGE PODGE for 2001.18



A Sense of Doubt blog post #1796 -  WEEKLY HODGE PODGE  for 2001.18

This Hodge Podge has been a long time coming.

Usually I curate better, but I am in a hurry, so only a little curating.

First, beautiful music.




https://science.slashdot.org/story/20/01/18/0554240/major-breakthrough-in-quantum-computing-shows-that-mip--re

Major Breakthrough In Quantum Computing Shows That MIP* = RE (arxiv.org)


Posted by EditorDavid  from the problem-sets dept.
Slashdot reader JoshuaZ writes:
In a major breakthrough in quantum computing it was shown that MIP* equals RE. MIP* is the set of problems that can be efficiently demonstrated to a classical computer interacting with multiple quantum computers with any amount of shared entanglement between the quantum computers. RE is the set of problems which are recursive; this is essentially all problems which can be computed.

This result comes through years of deep development of understanding interactive protocols, where one entity, a verifier, has much less computing power than another set of entities, provers, who wish to convince the verifier of the truth of a claim. In 1990, a major result was that a classical computer with a polynomial amount of time could be convince of any claim in PSPACE by interacting with an arbitrarily powerful classical computer. Here PSPACE is the set of problems solvable by a classical computer with a polynomial amount of space. Subsequent results showed that if one allowed a verifier able to interact with multiple provers, the verifier could be convinced of a solution of any problem in NEXPTIME, a class conjectured to be much larger than PSPACE. For a while, it was believed that in the quantum case, the set of problems might actually be smaller, since multiple quantum computers might be able to use their shared entangled qubits to "cheat" the verifier. However, this has turned out not just to not be the case, but the exact opposite: MIP* is not only large, it is about as large as a computable class can naturally be.

This result while a very big deal from a theoretical standpoint is unlikely to have any immediate applications since it supposes quantum computers with arbitrarily large amounts of computational power and infinite amounts of entanglement.

The paper in question is a 165 tour de force which includes incidentally showing that the The Connes embedding conjecture, a 50 year old major conjecture from the theory of operator algebras, is false.


https://developers.slashdot.org/story/20/01/18/0123210/slate-announces-list-of-the-30-most-evil-tech-companies

Slate Announces List of The 30 Most Evil Tech Companies (slate.com)




Posted by EditorDavid  from the naughty-not-nice dept.

An anonymous reader quotes Slate:
Separating out the meaningful threats from the noise is hard. Is Facebook really the danger to democracy it looks like? Is Uber really worse than the system it replaced? Isn't Amazon's same-day delivery worth it? Which harms are real and which are hypothetical? Has the techlash gotten it right? And which of these companies is really the worst? Which ones might be, well, evil?

We don't mean evil in the mustache-twirling, burn-the-world-from-a-secret-lair sense -- well, we mostly don't mean that -- but rather in the way Googlers once swore to avoid mission drift, respect their users, and spurn short-term profiteering, even though the company now regularly faces scandals in which it has violated its users' or workers' trust. We mean ills that outweigh conveniences. We mean temptations and poison pills and unanticipated outcomes.
Slate sent ballots to "a wide range of journalists, scholars, advocates, and others who have been thinking critically about technology for years," and reported that while America's big tech companies topped the list, "our respondents are deeply concerned about foreign companies dabbling in surveillance and A.I., as well as the domestic gunners that power the data-broker business."

But while there were some disagreements, Palantir still rose to #4 on the list because "almost everyone distrusts Peter Thiel."

Interestingly, their list ranks SpaceX at #17 (for potentially disrupting astronomy by clogging the sky with satellites) and ranks Tesla at #14 for "its troubled record of worker safety and its dubious claims that it will soon offer 'full self-driving' to customers who have already paid $7,000 for the promised add-on... Our respondents say the very real social good that Tesla has done by creating safe, zero-emission vehicles does not justify misdeeds, like apparent 'stealth recalls' of defects that appear to violate safety laws or the 19 unresolved Clean Air Act violations at its paint shop."

Slate's article includes its comprehensive list of the 30 most dangerous tech companies. But here's the top 10:
  1. Amazon
  2. Facebook
  3. Alphabet
  4. Palantir Technologies
  5. Uber
  6. Apple
  7. Microsoft
  8. Twitter
  9. ByteDance
  10. Exxon Mobil
There's also lots of familiar names higher up on the list, including both 8chan (#20) and Cloudflare (#21). 23andMe came in at #18, while Huawei was #11. Netflix does not appear anywhere on the list, but Disney ranks #15.

And Oracle was #19. "It takes a lot to make me feel like Google is being victimized by a bully," wrote Cory Doctorow, "but Oracle managed it."


NO MORE ROBOCALLS!!!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/robo-calls-are-unstoppable-why-your-phone-wont-quit-ringing/2019/03/15/a4d553b8-44ef-11e9-8aab-95b8d80a1e4f_story.html

WE GO THE UNIVERSE WRONG

https://science.slashdot.org/story/19/11/09/0449227/what-shape-is-the-universe-a-new-study-suggests-weve-got-it-all-wrong

What Shape Is the Universe? A New Study Suggests We've Got It All Wrong (quantamagazine.org)




Posted by EditorDavid  from the flat-universe-society dept.

An anonymous reader quotes Quanta magazine:A provocative paper published in the journal Nature Astronomy argues that the universe may curve around and close in on itself like a sphere, rather than lying flat like a sheet of paper as the standard theory of cosmology predicts. The authors reanalyzed a major cosmological data set and concluded that the data favors a closed universe with 99% certainty — even as other evidence suggests the universe is flat.



also.......................................

Are we alone?

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/alone-in-a-crowded-milky-way/


IN BRIEF

  • Basic extrapolations suggest that if there are other spacefaring civilizations in the Milky Way, they could spread across the entire galaxy with surprising speed. Why, then, have we found no irrefutable evidence of aliens visiting Earth?
  • Popular answers to this puzzle—that we are alone, that interstellar travel is impossible, that aliens are hiding from us—all rest on assumptions that verge on implausibility.
  • The most likely explanation for Earth's apparent solitude may be that galactic settlement occurs in waves and that our species has arisen on an out-of-the-way planet during a local lull in interstellar exploration.






























drawing of brown deer on cave wall

https://www.wired.com/story/cave-with-oldest-story-ever-recorded/

This Cave Contains the Oldest Story Ever Recorded
Archaeologists say the 43,900-year-old cave painting might also include the oldest known religious images.




https://www.wired.com/story/nextmind-noninvasive-brain-computer-interface/


Mind Control for the Masses—No Implant Needed
A wave of startups wants to make brain-computer interfaces accessible without needing surgery. Just strap on the device and think.



FAR SIDE IS BACK!!!!!!!!!!!!



https://nerdist.com/article/gary-larsons-the-far-side-cartoon-coming-back/


Gary Larson said goodbye to fans and the absurdist universe of The Far Side with his final comic on January 1, 1995, and since then the real world has done everything it can to live up to the inanity of his iconic comic strip. Unfortunately, the foolishness of 2019 isn’t nearly as enjoyable as sentient chickens and oversized suburban bugs. Now, the 21st century might be getting both of those creatures—along with aliens, cavemen, clever cows, and women with beehive hairdos—because for the first time in almost two decades, the cartoon’s official webpage has been updated. And unless this joke is on all of us, The Far Side will soon be returning.
After sitting dormant since 1999, The Far Side‘s webpage was updated suddenly and without warning (which we first learned about at The Daily Cartoonist). It features a new cartoon of an explorer using a blowtorch to melt some of the strip’s most iconic characters from a large block of ice. Below it reads, “Uncommon, unreal, and (soon-to-be) unfrozen. A new online era of The Far Side is coming!” Since the cartoon itself is signed by Larson, it certainly appears he will be returning with all new comics for the first time in almost 25 years.
BAD PILOT




http://www.bad-pilot.com/













Climate change: Study shows 'off the charts' melting of Greenland's ice sheet - CNN

 A friend shared this next bit. On what SG1 shows did Star Trek actors appear?

SG1 eps with Star Trek actors

The actor who played Quark was in SG1 season 1 episode 7
.-----------------------------------------------------------------
The actor who played Lt. Barclay was in SG1 season 2 episode 4
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The actor who played Odo was in SG1 season 4 episode 2
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
The actress who played Counselor Troi was in Stargate SG-1 season 4 episode 7
---------------------------------------------------------------
The actor who played Q was in Stargate SG1
season 5. episodes 3,4,11,14.
Season 6. episode 11.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
The actor who played Doctor Phlox in Enterprise was in SG1 season 6 episode 8.
------------------------------------------------------------
The actress who played T'Pol was in
SG1 season 7 episode 10
season 8 episode 9.
--------------------------------------------------------
The actor who played The Grand Nagus Zek was in season 9 episode 4
________________________________
The actor who played Worf's brother Kurn was in
Season 9 episodes 8,11 & 18.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
The Actor who played the Holographic Doctor
was in Stargate SG1
season 7. episodes 18, 20
season 9. episodes 9, 17,
Seasons 10. episodes 1,2, 14.
____________________________________













Well written
and name to follow Seerat Sohi!!


SPORTS

https://sports.yahoo.com/nba-missed-mark-by-suspending-wizards-guard-isaiah-thomas-for-incident-with-fan-001630903.html?src=rss

Imagine calling someone a “b----” on Twitter and watching that person emerge from your phone to pop up right beside you, not to insult or injure you, but to have a face-to-face conversation.
That was what Washington Wizards guard Isaiah Thomas did Saturday, when a 76ers fan was overtaken by his desire for a free Wendy’s Frosty (valued at approximately 99 cents) and repeatedly called Thomas a b---- after he declined to miss the back-to-back free throws that would have awarded the crowd at the Wells Fargo Center a coupon for a cup of ice cream that — I’ll take the liberty of assuming — would not make anyone froth at the mouth in regular circumstances.






 MOVING AN NFL TEAM FOR A ROAD GAME - THE DETROIT LIONS FEATURED

https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/28319553/six-days-go-how-nfl-team-gets-moved-every-road-game


https://tech.slashdot.org/story/19/10/18/2345209/air-force-finally-retires-8-inch-floppies-from-missile-launch-control-system

Air Force Finally Retires 8-Inch Floppies From Missile Launch Control System (arstechnica.com)


Posted by BeauHD  from the old-vs-new dept.

Five years after CBS publicized the fact that the Air Force still used eight-inch floppy disks to store data critical to operating the Air Force's intercontinental ballistic missile command, the aerial and space warfare service branch decided it was time to officially retire them. Ars Technica reports:The system, once called the Strategic Air Command Digital Network (SACDIN), relied on IBM Series/1 computers installed by the Air Force at Minuteman II missile sites in the 1960s and 1970s. Despite the contention by the Air Force at the time of the 60 Minutes report that the archaic hardware offered a cybersecurity advantage, the service has completed an upgrade to what is now known as the Strategic Automated Command and Control System (SACCS), as Defense News reports. SAACS is an upgrade that swaps the floppy disk system for what Lt. Col. Jason Rossi, commander of the Air Force's 595th Strategic Communications Squadron, described as a "highly secure solid state digital storage solution." The floppy drives were fully retired in June.

But the IBM Series/1 computers remain, in part because of their reliability and security. And it's not clear whether other upgrades to "modernize" the system have been completed. Air Force officials have acknowledged network upgrades that have enhanced the speed and capacity of SACCS' communications systems, and a Government Accountability Office report in 2016 noted that the Air Force planned to "update its data storage solutions, port expansion processors, portable terminals, and desktop terminals by the end of fiscal year 2017." But it's not clear how much of that has been completed.

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/19/12/06/2116243/deepfake-porn-is-evolving-to-give-people-total-control-over-womens-bodies

Deepfake Porn Is Evolving To Give People Total Control Over Women's Bodies (vice.com)




Posted by BeauHD  from the new-kind-of-nonconsensual-pornography dept.

samleecole shares a report from Motherboard:A lineup of female celebrities stand in front of you. Their faces move, smile, and blink as you move around them. They're fully nude, hairless, waiting for you to decide what you'll do to them as you peruse a menu of sex positions. This isn't just another deepfake porn video, or the kind of interactive, 3D-generated porn Motherboard reported on last month, but a hybrid of both which gives people even more control of women's virtual bodies. This new type of nonconsensual porn uses custom 3D models that can be articulated and animated, which are then made to look exactly like specific celebrities with deepfaked faces. Until recently, deepfake porn consisted of taking the face of a person -- usually a celebrity, almost always a woman -- and swapping it on to the face of an adult performer in an existing porn video. With this method, a user can make a 3D avatar with a generic face, capture footage of it performing any kind of sexual act, then run that video through an algorithm that swaps the generic face with a real person's.

I am going to try to keep up with weekly HODGE PODGE. There's certainly no shortage of content.

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- Days ago = 1659 days ago

- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 2001.18 - 10:10

- New note - On 1807.06, I ceased daily transmission of my Hey Mom feature after three years of daily conversations. I plan to continue Hey Mom posts at least twice per week but will continue to post the days since ("Days Ago") count on my blog each day. The blog entry numbering in the title has changed to reflect total Sense of Doubt posts since I began the blog on 0705.04, which include Hey Mom posts, Daily Bowie posts, and Sense of Doubt posts. Hey Mom posts will still be numbered sequentially. New Hey Mom posts will use the same format as all the other Hey Mom posts; all other posts will feature this format seen here.
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