莎士比亞風格的 UUID

UUID 是個長 128 bits 的數字,轉成 16 進位也有 32 個字要記,對於人類記憶來說不太友善。

前幾天在 Hacker News 上看到的東西,把這 128 bits 的資訊轉成類莎士比亞的句子,相比前面 32 個 16 進位的數字來說好記不少:「uuid-readable」。

Generate Easy to Remember, Readable UUIDs, that are Shakespearean and Grammatically Correct Sentences

給的輸出範例包括了:

Loren Chariot Addy the Titbit of Cholame questioned Cele Garth Alda and 16 windy frogs

Drucill Hubert Lewse the Comer of Avera rejoices Fiann Craggy Florie and 5 hard trouts

Jacquette Brandt John the Pectus of Barnsdall doubted Glenn Gay Gregg and 12 noisy stoats

我不覺得有變簡單啊 XDDD 也許對於英文母語的人來說會簡單一些... 吧?

Facebook 的招募狀況

Facebook 的各種醜聞知道招募變難 (而且醜聞沒停過),但變得多困難則是第一次看到報導:「Facebook has struggled to hire talent since the Cambridge Analytica scandal, according to recruiters who worked there」。

新鮮人的接受從 85% 掉到 35%~55%,依據不同的學校而有差異:

Among top schools, Facebook’s acceptance rate for full-time positions offered to new graduates has fallen from an average of 85% for the 2017-2018 school year to between 35% and 55% as of December.

Among top schools, such as Stanford, Carnegie Mellon and Ivy League universities, Facebook’s acceptance rate for full-time positions offered to new graduates has fallen from an average of 85% for the 2017-2018 school year to between 35% and 55% as of December, according to former Facebook recruiters. The biggest decline came from Carnegie Mellon University, where the acceptance rate for new recruits dropped to 35%.

工程師則是從 90% 掉到 50%:

The company has seen a decline in its job offer acceptance rates to software engineer candidates from nearly 90% in late 2016 to almost 50% in early 2019.

Facebook 發言人 Anthony Harrison 否認,不過沒有給出說明:

After the publication of this story, Harrison contacted CNBC to say "these numbers are totally wrong."

Facebook disputed the accuracy of the recruiters' accounts, but declined to point out any specific points that were wrong.

Hacker News 上的討論也蠻有趣的:「https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19931977」,有不少其他的觀察。

AlphaGo 的開局庫分析

Facebook 上看到 Aja Huang 的訊息,介紹了 DeepMind 放出的新資料,由 AlphaGo 分析人類開局的各種勝率 (不是先前發表出來更凶的 AlphaZero,但不曉得是 AlphaGo Zero 還是 AlphaGo Master...)。

網站在 AlphaGo Teach: Discover new and creative ways of playing Go,盤面上的數字都是指黑棋勝率。

This tool provides analysis of 6,000 of the most popular opening sequences from the recent history of Go, using data from 231,000 human games and 75 games AlphaGo played against human players.

Explore the board and learn how AlphaGo's moves compare to those of professional and amateur players.

由於這是暴力法算出超大量的開局資料,而且是完整公佈在網路上,可以預料接下來的職業比賽,開局應該會參考這邊的資料進行修正...

Walmart 在賣場要導入機器人取代人類的工作了...

在「Walmart will soon have robots roaming the aisles in 50 stores」這邊看到 Walmart 要導入機器人取代人類的工作了,像是架上沒貨或是標籤錯誤或沒標的:

The robots go up and down the aisles, scanning for out-of-stock items, incorrect prices, and wrong or missing labels.

像是這樣的機器:

或是在掃描時更明顯的照片:

如果一直讓機器來換掉人類能做的事情,是不是有機會到後來就沒有工作需要做?如果當全世界都實行「無條件基本收入 (Unconditional Basic Income)」時,會不會愈來愈接近 Star Trek 裡面講到未來的經濟體系,沒有貨幣時情況?不曉得兩百年後會是什麼樣子...

用人力就可以達到離心機的效果...

看到「This Human-Powered Paper Centrifuge Is Pure Genius」這個設計真的很巧妙... 全文刊登在 nature biomedical engineering 上:「Hand-powered ultralow-cost paper centrifuge」。

起源來自於小時候的玩具 (我也有印象,但忘記中文叫什麼了...):

Here, we report an ultralow-cost (20 cents), lightweight (2 g), human-powered paper centrifuge (which we name ‘paperfuge’) designed on the basis of a theoretical model inspired by the fundamental mechanics of an ancient whirligig (or buzzer toy; 3,300 BC).

研究後發現離心速度可以到 125000rpm:

The paperfuge achieves speeds of 125,000 r.p.m. (and equivalent centrifugal forces of 30,000 g), with theoretical limits predicting 1,000,000 r.p.m.

對於無法買昂貴醫療器材的地區,這樣就有簡單但又頗有效的離心機做檢驗...

Amazon Polly 與 Amazon Lex:人機介面中的語音處理

AWS 這次推出的這兩個服務剛好成對:「Amazon Polly – Text to Speech in 47 Voices and 24 Languages」、「Amazon Lex – Build Conversational Voice & Text Interfaces」。

Amazon Polly 負責把文字唸出來變成語音,而 Amazon Lex 則是將語音辨識回文字,不過目前都還不支援中文... 但畢竟讓 user interface 這塊變得更親民了,算是基礎建設中服務,讓 startup 專心在產品本身上。

華盛頓郵報的歷史創舉:呼籲對告密者的求刑

英國衛報華盛頓郵報因報導 Snowden 事件而拿到 2014 年的普立茲獎後,華盛頓郵報正式公開立場,表達應該將 Snowden 弄回美國受審,而非現在大家在呼籲的特赦:「WashPost Makes History: First Paper to Call for Prosecution of Its Own Source (After Accepting Pulitzer)」。

In doing so, the Washington Post has achieved an ignominious feat in U.S. media history: the first-ever paper to explicitly editorialize for the criminal prosecution of its own source — one on whose back the paper won and eagerly accepted a Pulitzer Prize for Public Service. But even more staggering than this act of journalistic treachery against the paper’s own source are the claims made to justify it.

華盛頓郵報的說法更是無恥:

The complication is that Mr. Snowden did more than that. He also pilfered, and leaked, information about a separate overseas NSA Internet-monitoring program, PRISM, that was both clearly legal and not clearly threatening to privacy. (It was also not permanent; the law authorizing it expires next year.)

這從來就不是合法的問題,而是侵犯人權的問題,合法的事情在事後甚至被制定憲法修正案而推翻的事情多的是。美國的女性在 1920 年才擁有投票權 (透過「美國憲法第十九修正案」)。

第四權必須發揮應有的能力去推動政府往正確的方向前進。在拿到普立茲獎後以「合法」的角度來論述淪落為政府打手,墮落至此...

歐盟法院認為公開無線網路的營運者不需要對使用者的侵權行為負責

歐盟法院 (The Court of Justice of the European Union) 認為公開無線網路的營運者不需要對使用者的侵權行為負責:「EU Court: Open WiFi Operator Not Liable For Pirate Users」。

不過這是有一些前提的,法院認為應該要符合這幾個要件,營運方才不要負責。基本上完全沒有 filter 限制的無線網路會符合這些條件:

The Court further notes that in order for such ‘mere conduit’ services to be exempt from third party liability, three cumulative conditions must be met:

– The provider must not have initiated the transmission
– It must not have selected the recipient of the transmission
– It must neither have selected nor modified the information contained in the transmission.

帶這並不代表丟著不管,而是在發生後要求改善:

In an effort to strike a balance between protecting a service provider from third party liability and the rights of IP owners, the Court ruled that providers can be required to end infringement.

“[T]he directive does not preclude the copyright holder from seeking before a national authority or court to have such a service provider ordered to end, or prevent, any infringement of copyright committed by its customers,” the Court found.

One such measure could include the obtaining of an injunction which would force an operator to password-protect his open WiFi network in order to deter infringement.

但法院並不同意直接監控:

On a more positive note, the Court rejected the notion of monitoring networks for infringement or taking more aggressive actions where unnecessary.

“[T]he directive expressly rules out the adoption of a measure to monitor information transmitted via a given network. Similarly, a measure consisting in terminating the internet connection completely without considering the adoption of measures less restrictive of the connection provider’s freedom to conduct a business would not be capable of reconciling the abovementioned conflicting rights,” the Court concludes.

網路對現在的言論自由非常重要,所以只有在確認侵犯他人權益的情況下才採取必要措施,歐盟法院這樣判大概是覺得這樣吧...

Lyft 與通用汽車合作,將在今年推出無人駕駛計程車

在「GM, Lyft to Test Self-Driving Electric Taxis」這邊看到突破性的服務,Lyft通用汽車 (GM) 合作,將在今年推出無人駕駛計程車。

通用汽車的新聞稿在這:「GM and Lyft to Shape the Future of Mobility」。

這直接再度衝擊了整個行業... 這次行業裡面的「人」消失了。