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Deep Learning Enables You to Hide Screen When Your Boss Is Approaching
- ikeboy 10y agoQuestion: will this post help or hurt them when they're trying to get another job in the deep learning field?
- MaulingMonkey 10y agoYes ;)
- amelius 10y agoIt will hurt them because now there are more people who have knowledge of DL.
- d33 10y agoAre you sure that's how it works? If you only had one programmer capable of creating websites, would we have internet the way it is today?
- xyzabhinav 10y agoWow awesone
- marricks 10y agoSeems like this could get pretty annoying with false positives... but awesome idea nonetheless.
- BatFastard 10y agoCan also be used for wives when they walk in on you doing something like ah.. reading "Dear Abby"
- emodendroket 10y agoAssuming you read Dear Abby with your pants on, I suppose.
- Maerin 10y agoNothing to see here. Just jerking off to some lines of code.
- bbcbasic 10y agoOr if your mum walks in. Probability is higher that a given "event" is by someone still living with their parents.
- thedangler 10y agoCouldn't you use face recognition and skip the deep learning part. I was playing with the Sonos Python API and I found one where if the camera spotted an office worker it played their theme music. It used some face recognition API. But good work nonetheless
- reachtarunhere 10y agoExactly my point. I don't think DL really gives any significant advantage in this case.
- mmjaa 10y agoI don't think that was the point of the article .. more to give him some way of learning DL on the job ..
- cobbzilla 10y agoi remember many old-school DOS games featured a "boss key". with a single key-press, the screen would instantly hide the game and show some innocuous "business app" instead. this is taking it to a whole new level. i love it
- CodeWriter23 10y agoHeh, one time the boss walked back into the lab, looked at one of my workmates computers and said "Ah, I see you're running lookbusy" (for the younger amongst us, lookbusy was a program that would intercept a hot key and display a fake Lotus 123 spreadsheet on your screen)
- rafinha 10y agoOk people need to start writing articles on what deep learning rather cannot do ;)
- pakl 10y agoPeople do write those, and even propose viable alternatives, but those articles don't get upvoted as much ;)
- jsjohnst 10y agoAm I the only one who thinks, gee, can't we just do actual work at the place we are being paid to "work" and not goof off needing something like this? I get it, people need downtime every now and then. How about doing something that's different, but still benefits the company? Maybe I'm just getting old, but it really bothers me how much I see coworkers on Facebook, or worse, especially as most of them are the ones who barely put in an 8hr day.
- taeric 10y agoGood luck defining what is "different, but still benefits the company." In particular, I'd wager there is someone that has found or done something on facebook that was worth more than a typical day of most people's work. Hell, a typical good day.
- downandout 10y agoIf this bothers you and your bosses, a much more effective approach than trying to physically catch them would be to simply either block Facebook or write something that logs the amount of time people are spending on the corporate network browsing those types of sites. Tell everyone that these wasted time stats will be baked into their performance reviews. Voila - you now have a fun-free workplace.
- SapphireSun 10y agoOr people just use their phones instead but the atmosphere is somewhat poisoned. :)
- jsjohnst 10y agoIt's more often in meetings that I see it, people on their phone randomly flicking through their Facebook feed rather than participating. My personal thought is, if you're that bored, then excuse yourself from the meeting and do something else.
- bbcbasic 10y agoYep people will leave: the good people.
- mynameisbahaa 10y agoyour boss may notice that the cursor isn't blinking since you are using an image!
- lx0741 10y agoFunny now you could watch porn at work!
- shade23 10y agoWouldn't the workplace have a problem if an employee has a camera up which records 24x7 or atleast till he is at work. Sidenote : don't desk Webcams have a recording red light?
- chipperyman573 10y agoThis camera didn't seem to, and that'd be easy to disable with software (or a screwdriver)
- robinduckett 10y agoWhen I worked at a thankless "startup", I set up a Pi Camera pointed out of the window from my desk that was next to the window. It was setup to take a picture every five minutes of the trees whilst the office was closed. One of my colleagues took exception to this when he came in about ten minutes earlier than I (not that he could tell it was using the camera, or even what it was doing) that he thought it a great idea to rip the camera out of the pi by the ribbon and pull the SD card out when it was on. When I discovered the smashed up pi in the morning, I asked who broke my pi and explained that I was capturing a time lapse of the window. He told me I should have asked permission before recording people in the office. My initial reaction was to have a go at him, tell him he was responsible for any costs, tell him that he was overreacting and that he is in a room with literally 45 laptop cameras pointing at him daily, but he remained resolute that he was in the right and I was some kind of perv. The only image my pi camera captured that wasn't the window was a single frame of his angry face as he ripped apart the delicate ribbons and wires plugged into the pi. That job was pretty bad in most respects, and I finally got out of it to go contract professionally, but there are a few bad memories that linger.
- juskrey 10y agoSorry, as someone who worked with faces, I can't believe this has no false negatives
- DodgyEggplant 10y ago(1) This is a clever implementation. Maybe with a mobile camera it can be even more convenient to use? (2) True knowledge work requires breaks, and can not be measured with simple metrics like "boss watch what on screen" or "lines of code" (3) Even true knowledge workers can get into a non productive youtube loop, and sometimes external influence helps to prevent procrastination (4) If your relationship with the boss is based on these types of system, you better look for another place where you are respected 360 for your contribution (5) We should respect people that can not easily find interesting work or bosses that respect you (6) Communication, context and respect are always better than authority, hierarchy, and politics. Alas, humans can be very good at both
- jpttsn 10y ago(6) Not always
- klue07 10y agoReminds me of: http://pcottle.github.io/MSOutlookit/ http://pcottle.github.io/MSOutlookit/ http://pcottle.github.io/MSWorddit/ http://pcottle.github.io/MSWorddit/ http://codereddit.com http://codereddit.com
- xyzzy4 10y agoI wish they would just pass a law banning office spaces without doors.
- stephengillie 10y agoA door isn't that helpful when everyone can just ping you on Slack anyway. And it's not like you can close the app for a while, because then people think you're unresponsive and unhelpful. Especially when 1/3 of your team is remote.
- atomwaffel 10y agoBut I can mentally snooze a Slack notification for three minutes or so, enough to neatly tuck away everything in my head and reach a state where I can more easily resume what I was doing. That doesn't work as well when I have someone breathing down my neck who "just wants a really quick word".
- metaphor 10y agoI can deal with not having doors, but that call-center-meets-assembly-line layout with seats intended to be filled by engineers actually gave me the chills to learn that they really do exist. I supposed the application wouldn't do me any good: working at a place like that, I'd sooner fire myself!
- spraak 10y agoAs a linguist, I really appreciate reading/hearing people write/speak in a non-Native language, as the constructions are really interesting, and while I don't intend to laugh at anyone, sometimes amusing: > Perhaps I am the one who possesses the face image of the most boss in the world. I must have it more than his parents. :)
- stephengillie 10y agoWhat fascinates me is watching the communication of concepts shift in different languages - watching people map the concept from one language to another as they translate the concept. And then sometimes a concept might have a dedicated word or means of expression, meaning the translation is asymmetric in length. In a way, it's like porting a program, from one language which supports ternary operations, to a language that does not have ternary operations - and having to manually write out the ternary operation as an if-then-else statement.
- spraak 10y agoI've had some really laughable times in Thailand in regard to this. Google Translate is really horrible at Thai <-> English, where both English and Thai speakers are left in confusion and usually laughter. Some examples: someone was telling me about the fresh mountain air, Google Translate showed 'drug scene' (I asked them for clarification and no, they weren't talking about drugs); another idiom which I didn't find out what it means, but 'eye twitching' was what Google Translate was giving, though the person didn't really mean their eye was twitching..
- nightcracker 10y agoFor those unaware, 'spraak' is 'speech' in Dutch.
- spraak 10y agoHehe good catch! (and also 'language' in Norwegian)
- ridanaz12 10y agoAmazing now you could watch porn at work!
- stretchwithme 10y agoIsn't this situation the reason handheld devices were invented?
- cocktailpeanuts 10y agoIn a real world, you actually want to do this when __anyone__ is passing by. You don't want to be seen as a slacker by your boss, but you also don't want to be seen as a slacker by your colleagues. In which case, this is actually a much easier problem to solve since all you need to do is detect any motion (instead of all this convoluted--although hilarious--deep learning task). This is like the story where some government tried to come up with a super high-tech pen that works in the space (because regular pens don't work in zero gravity environment) when the final answer was just a pencil. So the lesson here is: there are many ways to solve a problem, and if you don't know what problem you're trying to solve and you don't know your customer well enough, you will end up wasting a lot of resource doing something totally unnecessary. (But it was a fun blog post! Kudos for that)
- mynameisbahaa 10y agodidn't you watch the movie "3 idiots" ? pencils didn't work well in outer space too! from:https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fact-or-fiction-nasa-spen/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fact-or-fiction-n... "Originally, NASA astronauts, like the Soviet cosmonauts, used pencils, according to NASA historians. In fact, NASA ordered 34 mechanical pencils from Houston's Tycam Engineering Manufacturing, Inc., in 1965. They paid $4,382.50 or $128.89 per pencil. When these prices became public, there was an outcry and NASA scrambled to find something cheaper for the astronauts to use. Pencils may not have been the best choice anyway. The tips flaked and broke off, drifting in microgravity where they could potentially harm an astronaut or equipment. And pencils are flammable--a quality NASA wanted to avoid in onboard objects after the Apollo 1 fire."
- DiabloD3 10y agoAnd thus the invention of the Fisher Space Pen. http://www.spacepen.com/ http://www.spacepen.com/ Rubber that, under the pressure inside of the ink cart, is liquid, but when finally written onto paper, becomes solid instantly and cannot be smeared. I've had one for years, and it is the smoothest and best pen I've ever owned.
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- surajx 10y agoAny decent face recognition library would have done the job. But i guess the intention was to learn DL, and use it also as a marketing tool. Well done and really good presentation.
- amelius 10y agoI'm looking for an implementation which warns me whenever I'm slouching. Could I use the same code for that purpose?
- ZeroFries 10y agoThere are some devices for that. Eg: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/gobackbone/backbone-the-smart-easy-way-to-a-healthy-back https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/gobackbone/backbone-the...
- leonatan 10y agoWhile this is a fun project, the ultimate conclusion here should be: if you feel uncomfortable in you job or browsing the internet near your boss, it's time to move to a different job. I understand this is not a privilege possible by everyone, those that can should exercise it.
- tscs37 10y agoApplied Deep Learning in the Wild.
- dajohnson89 10y agoI hate the idea of my boss looking at my screen. I'll browse reddit or watch YouTube videos or check on my sports team whenever I want. If you have a problem with my productivity, let's talk about it. Otherwise, respect my fucking privacy. I'm an adult and a professional.
- libeclipse 10y agoTo be fair, and I'm speaking as an outsider here since I'm relatively young and haven't had any experience in your industry, employees are paid per hour, which means that your firm has bought your time for that hour. You can't really use that time to do your own stuff. That's just the way I see it. Someone correct me if I'm wrong and this sort of thing is normal.
- bbcbasic 10y agoSometimes you need a break. That's all. It would be more ideal if companies recognised that and we can stop all the pretence.
- dogma1138 10y agoTrue if you are packing peanuts, but in reality there is so much downtime that you often don't have job responsibilities 100% of the time. If you doing creative work or any work that requires thinking you also need mental breaks. Reddit and YouTube also have plenty of work related material. And lastly most people in the tech sector are not hourly employees we have global contracts where they are legal for a reason; if I'm staying an extra hour or opening my laptop over the weekend because that's when I got some inspiration or finally cam up with a solution I see no problem if I want to read the news for 15 min at 10am in the morning.
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- NicoJuicy 10y ago
- Vinnl 10y agoNext step: make it open http://www.hackertyper.com/ http://www.hackertyper.com/
- sogen 10y agoFavorited just for the effort :)
- falcolas 10y agoChanging what's on your screen won't help much when your boss has access to your internet logs, and potentially remote access to your computer... (Yes, these are both still things in startups today)
- adventurer 10y agoI don't think people realize how sophisticated network security software is and how easy it is use. There is a good chance you're being watched and what you do is in a weekly or monthly report. Certain things you do send a notification to admins or your boss.
- tfigment 10y agoIndeed. My company has Remote Desktop/SSH logging systems and I've been trying to get audit reports for my team. Basically reports to see when security/IT infra is reviewing this material but hasn't been going anywhere. I'm sure they like watching but don't like being watched themselves. Recently they turned on blocks for a large number of sites like box, dropbox, google drive, slideshare, youtube, sourceforge, .... Someone might share company IP on the internet so lock it down. I think its just blind application of default rules but I've had no luck in getting even more reasonable stuff like sourceforge reversed yet. I'm worried it will be bitbucket and github next because they can be used to share files who needs that right?
- webreac 10y agoI always have an ssh tunnel toward squid running on my scaleway server (3.6€ per month). The portable version of firefox allows me to avoid the enterprise policy that prohibit customizing proxy in chrome.
- jlarocco 10y agoDepending on how serious your company is about network security, it's entirely possible they MITM all secure connections. Especially something really suspicious like a persistent SSH tunnel to a scaleway server. I don't even understand why you'd go through all the effort. It's a silly position to put yourself in. If the IT policy bothers you that much, talk to somebody about changing it or find another job.
- golemotron 10y agoInstead of full face recognition can't you just recognize pointy hair?
- id122015 10y agoWhich "The Office" episode did you inspire from: Episode with "the password"? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8GxqvnQyaxs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8GxqvnQyaxs Or episode with"the spy " ? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INbuofE_hms https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INbuofE_hms
- rixrax 10y agoThis reminds me of a 'boss proximity meter' that we made while in college. Now; this was the early days of when Bluetooth started to appear on mobile phones. What we did as interns was to have a SW on desktop that alerted you when bosses Bluetooth enabled phone started to approach your cubicle. That was a lot of fun! And mostly of novelty value of course! And I did learn a thing or too about BT in the process... :)
- kjikjjkhj 10y ago> A Spaniard asked me once to give me the "carpet", which made no sense in the context. He meant to say "file folder" ("la carpeta" in Spanish), hoping the Normans had brought the equivalent French word to England and save him a lookup in the dictionary. This is classical Spanish bullshit. They just make shit up. And they take the same approach with pretty much everything else. Particularly at work. Source: take a wild guess. Also, I used to teach English.
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- dang 10y agoWe've banned this and a related account for repeatedly violating the Hacker News guidelines despite requests to stop. Please don't create accounts to break the site guidelines with. We detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13249787 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13249787 and marked it off-topic.