kafkaIncarnate

The reason for Go was that much of the research was based on AI algorithms like Monte-Carlo.

What was "solved" with AlphaGo was using deep learning machine learning which are effectively black boxes. There was a certain assumption in the question for AI researchers academically that it would be an understood algorithm as an AI agent like a Prolog application, not a brute forced model. That's still not the case that we have a "solved" strategy and all we can do is watch it play as if it is a deaf mute player.

So there still is no "tic-tac-toe" known winning strategy to Go or anything.

That doesn't make AlphaGo any less impressive or any less practical, but it even has its own readout issues. It can't even read ladders without hard coding it in, for instance, because it becomes a long enough depth search. This is one of the first things a newbie would learn.

It's just a 19x19 board, so it was always known if you could read all the possible outcomes you could see all the possibilities and win. This is just looking at all possible outcomes and picking the best one, not knowing how to play. Creating models of data that is 2, 3, or even 4+ dimensions is always possible, just depends on how much computing power you can throw at it. The created models are essentially aggregate simplifications to play quicker.

Generalized intelligence is so much different. You have to define the problems themselves that you are trying to solve, figure out what the variables are, and solve it. Then you have to operate and run the machinery to create those experiments. Outside of a scenario that you've taken actual physical territory as an intelligence, I can't see how it would get there (think Terminator or BSG, doesn't have to be malicious but they'd have to be in control of the physical area autonomously).

But the hardest part is defining the problems independently given the sheer number of problems they'd need to define second to second just to solve basic tasks, and they'd likely have millions of variables with millions of possible values.

Yeah that's a lot better. Don't get me wrong, I love playfulness, especially in documentation. It's just that before you even really know what a product is or does it seemed like it was worded like "don't even try to figure out what we are doing here and execute untrusted code" or something, haha.

I totally understood what you were trying to do, I just think if I interpreted it that way at first, others might as well. I at least had your other stuff to go off of to eventually get me to figure it out, whereas people encountering your page on the internet wouldn't. Was just trying to help :)

Initially, I was pretty thoroughly perplexed by what this actually did since all I did was click the original link and didn't even see this post text. I figured it out through mostly the 2017 link above. I have a pretty good idea now and see its value.

That being said, when looking at your actual website initially with no context, I couldn't really figure out what it did. My first instinct was to hit the "Docs" button.

The "Don't README" header and the just download my code and run it and figure out how it works later mantra with regard to an end-to-end encryption software (or software in general) was very off-putting to me. I actually wasn't very interested in figuring out what your software did at that point, as it just was flashing red-flag in my head. Was it malware? Was it really end-to-end encrypted?

Just a suggestion, you might want to reword some of that front landing page of the Docs page. I understand your wanting to convey that it "just works", but you might want to convey a bit better somehow what exactly what is just working in the first place, and do so in a way that isn't screaming "don't try to figure out how it's working". Maybe also advertise a bit more clearly that it's open source.

The whole "unless you really want to" is a little weird, too. Every end-to-end encryption software you use you should understand fully what encryption is being used, especially when targeting developers handling core secrets for major organizations or what have you.

I'm pretty sure his about is word salad. /s

But seriously it doesn't make much sense to me, but that actually might be a comprehension problem on my part. It does sound very trolly. Thanks for warning me :)

I really liked my System76 laptop until the AC adapter died. I looked around on their site to buy accessories and it wasn't there. Eventually I found you have to open a support ticket to get a replacement.

Not only did it take multiple days for them to respond (me without laptop), their resolution was to attach an invoice for one despite me asking for two. I didn't want to open a new ticket so I just looked online for an AC that had the same voltage/amp/etc and head, then ordered three. I have multiple desks...

The three arrived approximately a week before the one they sent out.

Also, you can't actually open these the way they've glued them shut inside by attaching the heatsink to the outer case. Might be a manufacturing defect but definitely can't open mine after unscrewing the bottom.

Never buying a System76 laptop again after this thing dies.

Debian and Fedora have always been my two recommended distros for people. They are the upstream providers of the packages for most distros, and in the case of Ubuntu it has always been a bad choice.

Even from day one, forking Debian and breaking a bunch of packages as they went off on their own, then years later going oops how do we fix this Daddy Debian? Adding Amazon to their search by default in Unity initially. Creating a new desktop protocol to replace X11 rather than work with the Wayland teams so they could rush to ship their phone that nobody wanted.

Canonical is just a good marketing company. They want to do things their way and screw over as many Linux developers as they can to get their way.

Python2.7 is still maintained.

If you mean my software I mentioned if something breaks I'm still required to fix it. I just doubt that will happen at this point and have other tasks to do.

I had a similar problem with the YouTube plugin for Kodi recently. Turned out to be some weird Python 3.10 regression that took over a month to fix.

For ProtonVPN you can also use the OpenVPN config files they provide to avoid any Python client issues. Ironically I have a Bash script written around that to generate individual ovpn files as needed from the zip for myself.

That's what Python2.7 is and why every major proprietary product won't adopt anything else. It's also why it won't go away.

All of my Python 2.6-2.7 scripts haven't been touched in 10 years in production and they aren't likely to ever be updated. I actually now refuse to write new Python that isn't compatible with both 2&3 for this reason. Python3 refuses to stabilize.

That's also definitely true for universities with enough reputation and infrastructure to score large contracts/grants with private sector corporations (or mega US defense contractors).

I also know of a couple of chemistry professors and one is new and his PhD was overseas in Saudi Arabia and he basically said it was just large scale brute force data analysis and discovery of chemicals in Python with a small amount of lab work to prepare the datasets. Basically there's a huge pipeline for this sort of work to discover new chemicals in labs, get a PhD out of it, but it's all just sort of an engine that functions to brute force the chemical possibilities not real meaningful research. I never asked but I assume the results just get fed into a pharma company or something.

Then you have those chemists on the opposite end, ready to retire, who are working on cold fusion because why not it's interesting to study even if it goes nowhere.

Our whole society has kind of turned into a giant web of a machine that can't be untangled without ripping everything apart. Some of it is stupider than others, but most of it is kind of a bullshit layer on top of a bullshit layer. We obviously see that in IT as well, with marketing tools that are just wrappers for simple underlying tech that anyone could set up. Sometimes there is significant value added, sometimes there is none (or even negative value).

I don't know where I'm going with this so I'm going to stop typing.

> This incentive structure distorts research. What to do about it? I'm not exactly sure but having university administrations who see research as a means to make money, rather than an end in itself, is not the way.

A lot of the reasons of this distortion is due to the lack of funding from government in state universities which keeps going down as the cost of running a university keeps going up. Because of the rising costs, things get pushed to extremes and the accountants/administrators are put between a rock and a hard place.

Depending on the university in question, it might not be just about "making money" but just not shutting the university down and trying to swim upstream in a never-ending battle.