幹壞事是進步最大的原動力
新版 50 英鎊的紙鈔將使用 Alan Turing 的頭像設計：「New face of the Bank of England's £50 note is revealed as Alan Turing」。
不知道要怎麼介紹 Alan Turing... 對於現代計算理論的貢獻、對於二戰盟軍的貢獻，以及對於人工智慧的貢獻都無與倫比，另外一方面，在 1952 年時因同性戀身份被定罪，1954 年時食用氰化物自殺過世，然後到了 2013 年議會爭論赦免的過程中，英國女皇決定直接行使赦免權。現在則是決定以他的頭像作為五十英鎊的人物。
既然靠這個圈子吃飯的，應該會蒐藏一張起來吧，紀念這位英雄...
在「Profiling Vim」這邊看到 Vim 上常見的效能問題，很多時候會覺得「慢」但不知道慢在哪邊的問題...
文章作者已經知道是開 Markdown 檔案時的問題，所以可以在開啟 Vim 後用下指令啟動 profiling，但如果是想要追蹤一開起來很慢的問題，可以看「對 Vim 啟動過程做效能分析」這篇的方式，直接在啟動時加上 --startuptime vim.log 這樣的語法，把 log 寫到 vim.log 裡面。
紐約時報的 The Privacy Project 分析了 Google 在這二十年來的 Privacy Policy (英文版)，可以看出網路廣告產業的變化，以及為什麼變得極力蒐集個資與使用者行為：「Google’s 4,000-Word Privacy Policy Is a Secret History of the Internet」。整篇看起來有點長，可以先看裡面的小標題，然後看一下列出來的條文差異，把不同時間的重點都列出來了。
最早期的轉變是「針對性」：
1999-2004
No longer talks about users ‘in aggregate’
1999 年的版本強調了整體性，後來因為針對性廣告而被拿掉：
1999
Google may share information about users with advertisers, business partners, sponsors, and other third parties. However, we only talk about our users in aggregate, not as individuals. For example, we may disclose how frequently the average Google user visits Google, or which other query words are most often used with the query word "Microsoft."
接下來的是蒐集的項目大幅增加，讓分析更準確：
2005-2011
Google shares more data for better targeting
然後是更多產品線互相使用使用者行為資訊：
2012-2017
Its complicated business requires a more complicated policy
接下來是因為法規而配合修改條文 (最有名的就是 GDPR)：
2018-PRESENT
Policy adjusts to meet stricter regulation
三月的時候加州大學系統 (UC) 因為 Elsevier 不接受 open access 的條件而公開宣佈不續約 (參考「加州大學宣佈不與 Elsevier 續約」)，後來 Elsevier 應該是試著看看有沒有機會繼續合作，所以在這段期間還是一直提供服務給加州大學系統。
前幾天在 Hacker News 上看到「Elsevier cuts off UC’s access to its academic journals (latimes.com)」，總算是確定要動手了：「In act of brinkmanship, a big publisher cuts off UC’s access to its academic journals」。
不過也不是直接拔掉，而是限制存取權，看不到新東西 (以 2019/01/01 為界)：
As of Wednesday, Elsevier cut off access by UC faculty, staff and students to articles published since Jan. 1 in 2,500 Elsevier journals, including respected medical publications such as Cell and the Lancet and a host of engineering and scientific journals. Access to most material published in 2018 and earlier remains in force.
UC 提出的商業模式是讓投稿者負擔費用，而存取者不需要負擔，與現有的商業模式剛好相反。UC 提出的模式鼓勵「知識的散佈」，而現有的商業模式則是反過來，希望透過知識的散佈而賺～大～錢～發～大～財～：
UC demanded that the new contract reflect the principle of open access — that work produced on its campuses be available to all outside readers, for free.
That was a direct challenge to the business model of Elsevier and other big academic publishers. Traditionally, the publishers accept papers for publication for free but charge steep subscription fees. UC is determined to operate under an alternative model, in which researchers pay to have their papers published but not for subscriptions.
另外在 Hacker News 上的 comment 裡看到一些專案也正在進行，像是歐洲的「Plan S」也是在推動 open access：
The plan requires scientists and researchers who benefit from state-funded research organisations and institutions to publish their work in open repositories or in journals that are available to all by 2021.
另外「PubPub · Community Publishing」也是 open source 領域裡蠻有趣的計畫，後面看起來也有不少學術單位在支持。
先前 Cloudflare 就有先說明七月二日的 outage 是因為 regular expression 造成的 (ReDoS)，不過昨天發的文章更完整了，導致爆炸的 regular expression 都給出來了：「Details of the Cloudflare outage on July 2, 2019」。
ReDoS 不算是新的問題，但卻是不太好避免的問題，因為需要有經驗的工程師 (中過獎的工程師) 才比較容易知道哪些 regular expression 是有問題的... 另外就是有花時間研究 regular expression 演算法的工程師也比較容易避開。
也因次，ReDoS 算是這十年來大家在還的債，各家 framework 都因為這個問題改寫了不少 regular expression。
這次的重點在這串式子導致了 ReDoS：
(?:(?:\"|'|\]|\}|\\|\d|(?:nan|infinity|true|false|null|undefined|symbol|math)|\`|\-|\+)+[)]*;?((?:\s|-|~|!|{}|\|\||\+)*.*(?:.*=.*)))通常容易中獎的地方就是無限制字元與 * & + 連發的地方，後面這塊 )*.*(?:.*=.*))) 看起來就不太妙，果然在後面的分析也有提到：
The critical part is
.*(?:.*=.*).
以前應該是在 Formal language 裡學到的，在課堂裡面其實會學到不少業界常用工具的基礎理論...
好像是在 Twitter 上看到的，但一時間找不到是誰推的...
美國在 2010 年簽署的「Plain Writing Act of 2010」要求各種政府文件都必須用簡單的文字書寫，甚至還弄一個官方網站「Home | plainlanguage.gov」列出說明...
在網站裡面的「Use simple words and phrases」給了一個蠻長對應表，可以將一些艱澀的法律慣用詞彙換成平常常用的詞彙...
維基百科給的 Before & After 範例還蠻不錯的，在比較極端的情況下，讀起來的確輕鬆很多：
(Before) The amount of expenses reimbursed to a claimant under this subpart shall be reduced by any amount that the claimant receives from a collateral source. In cases in which a claimant receives reimbursement under this subpart for expenses that also will or may be reimbursed from another source, the claimant shall subrogate the United States to the claim for payment from the collateral source up to the amount for which the claimant was reimbursed under this subpart.
(After) If you get a payment from a collateral source, we will reduce our payment by the amount you get. If you get payments from us and from a collateral source for the same expenses, you must pay us back the amount we paid you.
前幾天 Blizzard 公佈的消息，DeepMind 的星海爭霸二 AI (AlphaStar) 將會透過 Blizzard 的 Battle.net 歐洲區伺服器跟人類對戰：「DeepMind Research on Ladder」。
Experimental versions of DeepMind’s StarCraft II agent, AlphaStar, will soon play a small number of games on the competitive ladder in Europe as part of ongoing research into AI.
預設是不會對到的，需要選擇參與：
If you would like the chance to help DeepMind with its research by matching against AlphaStar, you can opt in by clicking the “opt-in” button on the in-game popup window. You can alter your opt-in selection at any time by using the “DeepMind opt-in” button on the 1v1 Versus menu.
但你仍然不會知道對手是人還是 AI，而且如同一般對戰情況，這會影響到你的戰績：
For scientific test purposes, DeepMind will be benchmarking AlphaStar’s performance by playing anonymously during a series of blind trial matches. This means the StarCraft community will not know which matches AlphaStar is playing, to help ensure that all games are played under the same conditions. AlphaStar plays with built-in restrictions that the DeepMind team has defined in consultation with pro players. A win or a loss against AlphaStar will affect your MMR as normal.
okay，這樣大概知道為什麼只開放歐洲區了...
加州從今年七月開始，禁止 AI 偽裝成人類 (前幾天也有一些新聞在報導)：「A California law now means chatbots have to disclose they’re not human」，對應的法條在「Bill Text - SB-1001 Bots: disclosure」這邊可以看到：
17941. (a) It shall be unlawful for any person to use a bot to communicate or interact with another person in California online, with the intent to mislead the other person about its artificial identity for the purpose of knowingly deceiving the person about the content of the communication in order to incentivize a purchase or sale of goods or services in a commercial transaction or to influence a vote in an election. A person using a bot shall not be liable under this section if the person discloses that it is a bot.
(b) The disclosure required by this section shall be clear, conspicuous, and reasonably designed to inform persons with whom the bot communicates or interacts that it is a bot.
而加州是 Blizzard Entertainment 的總部...
法條上面對「online platform」有設計排除條款，不過如果只算星海二的人數，有可能不到這個豁免限制... 所以得避開而改用歐洲區來測試？
(c) “Online platform” means any public-facing Internet Web site, Web application, or digital application, including a social network or publication, that has 10,000,000 or more unique monthly United States visitors or users for a majority of months during the preceding 12 months.
(c) This chapter does not impose a duty on service providers of online platforms, including, but not limited to, Web hosting and Internet service providers.
美國軍方應該是超級關注這個議題，相較於 AlphaGo 或是 AlphaZero 是資訊完全透明的遊戲，這次要踏入非對稱資訊的遊戲。
如果在這個領域上有成果的話，可以預期未來的戰爭 (yeah 實體戰爭) 會開始大量採用 AI 了...
Fabrice Bellard 跑去寫了一套 JavaScript engine 出來：「QuickJS」。
以 ES2019 當底實做的 JS engine：
Almost complete ES2019 support including modules, asynchronous generators and full Annex B support (legacy web compatibility).
測試的部份也過了：
Passes 100% of the ECMAScript Test Suite.
在大小的部份，比起其他的 engine (與 package) 來說的確是小很多，不過 190KB 這個大小對於 embedded system 來說還是有點微妙 (但對於想要包 JS engine 進去用的人應該是頗開心的)：
Small and easily embeddable: just a few C files, no external dependency, 190 KiB of x86 code for a simple hello world program.
中央社跟華視新聞網都有 feed 可以訂閱 (參考「中央社 RSS資訊服務 訂閱」與「華視新聞網 - RSS訂閱」)，但都不是全文 (公視新聞網的反而就直接提供全文了，不需要另外處理)，在 Bazqux (一個 feed reader) 裡面讀起來頗麻煩的，想要把這些 feed 轉成有全文的 feed...
這東西不算難寫 (最重要的部份用 Readability 當關鍵字，很多程式語言裡都有 library 可以用)，但總是想看看有沒有現成的服務可以直接用，就找到「Free Full RSS」這個了，把本來的 feed 網址丟進去，出來的就是轉成全文的網址了...
目前看起來還 ok，不知道穩定性如何，用一陣子再說...
Amazon Elasticsearch Service 提供 14 天免費的 hourly snapshot：「Amazon Elasticsearch Service increases data protection with automated hourly snapshots at no extra charge」。
Amazon Elasticsearch Service has increased its snapshot frequency from daily to hourly, providing more granular recovery points. If you need to restore your cluster, you now have numerous, recent snapshots to choose from. These automated snapshots are retained for 14 days at no extra charge.
不過這是 5.3+ 版本才有，舊版只有 daily：
- For domains running Elasticsearch 5.3 and later, Amazon ES takes hourly automated snapshots and retains up to 336 of them for 14 days.
- For domains running Elasticsearch 5.1 and earlier, Amazon ES takes daily automated snapshots (during the hour you specify) and retains up to 14 of them for 30 days.
In both cases, the service stores the snapshots in a preconfigured Amazon S3 bucket at no additional charge. You can use these automated snapshots to restore domains.
算是方便管理...