Last week I attended a talk by Dr Irina Higgins from Artificial Intelligence company DeepMind. It was a fascinating look at how their AI works, and how it is trained. Terence Eden is on Mastodon@edentIf you've ever played a video game online, it is likely you've been training an Artificial Intelligence agent without realising it.Ethical?❤️ 7💬 4🔁 020:06 - Thu 09 March 2017 Part of the problem is…
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Update! The source-code for this app can be found at https://github.com/edent/TweeView Many years ago, I created a threaded conversation viewer for fledgling social network App.net. It was a unique way to flow through a conversation without having to be constrained by the linear vertical scroll of the typical web browser. App.net died - and I never found a reasonable way to recreate it for…
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Here's a simple bash one-liner to convert mixed-case filenames into Title Case: rename 's/(\S+)/\u\L$1/g' * This forces the file extension to lower-case as well. Use rename -n to test the command without changing anything on the filesystem. (Adapted from this PerlMonks FAQ.) Background I have a bunch of inconsistently named files like: HERE COMES THE SUN.mp3 hey jude.mp3 The lOng and…
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Walking back from work yesterday, I noticed an unusual set of chuggers - those faux-cheerful folk who try to stop you in the street asking for money. They were fundraising for Unicef. Rather than handing out flyers they were carrying high-tech VR headsets! Using the headset, I was able to take a virtual tour of a Unicef aid drop. As with all 360 experiences, it takes a little getting used…
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The ultra secure messaging app, Signal, requires a mobile phone number in order to sign up to it. This, as my friend Tom Morris, points out, is madness. People don't own mobile phone numbers. They are rented from mobile operators. Yes, you may be able to move "your" number between a limited set of providers - but it ultimately doesn't belong to you. An operator can unilaterally take your number…
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Twitter has recently improved the accessibility of its site. When uploading an image, a user can add alt text - a short description of the image for people with visual impairments. Here's an example: Terence Eden is on Mastodon@edentThis is a test to see if alt-text in images is searchable on Twitter.alpaca omnithorp pic.x.com/jhgcsaxpkd❤️ 1💬 0🔁 010:37 - Sun 19 February 2017 If you take a look…
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I've found an interesting, but low severity, way for a malicious user to selectively deny access to specific GitHub issues and Pull Requests. This doesn't affect the whole site - just targeted pages. It doesn't require elevated permissions, nor any special skills. This is just GitHub punching itself in the face. Here's how it works. An attacker creates thousands of comments in their own…
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C-3P0 doesn't have a schnoz. The degloved terminator has a bleak hole where his snout should be. Both the Jetson's Rosie and Futurama's Bender are arhinotic. The robot sat in front of me was different. The RoboThespian is an imposing chunk of metal. LEDs blink as servomotors whine. The exposed wiring twists as the arms flex in a crude approximation of humanity. But the face... Oh! The face! A…
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Is email dead? I don't think so - but I know lots of people who either don't have an email account or deliberately don't check it. And why should they? Is email a requirement for modern life? All the major chat apps - WhatsApp, Line, Signal, Wire, Skype - only require a mobile phone number. Hey presto I can communicate with anyone around the world. No email required. But, suppose I wish to…
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It is a little masochistic to dwell on one's mistakes. I doubt anyone thinks that I am perfect (not even my mother!) - but I think talking about our mistake serves a useful purpose. It's healthy for us to discuss our failings, and hopefully helps people from following in our footsteps. After last week's success with making solid apple juice, I thought I'd try my hand at "spherification". A way …
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Good news! is being relaunched with a slew of new features which frees it up from its previous shackles. What is .tel Your address book is probably a mausoleum - stuffed with the rotting corpses of long dead phone numbers. Perhaps you took my business card back in 2002, duly entered it on your Palm Pilot, and never spoke to me again. That address book entry has a phone number I've not used…
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This is a quick guide on how to upgrade your Shamu from CyanogenMod to LineageOS. Download everything In order to upgrade, you'll need to download the experimental and the nightly build. These can be downloaded from https://download.lineageos.org/shamu. Store them in the root of your SD card Flash Experimental If you need to know how to access recovery, you can find the information at…
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