Smerity

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331.
A Design Primer via Games: DotA2 Character Art Guide(media.steampowered.com)
1 points by Smerity 14y ago|0 comments
332.
by Smerity 14y ago
Agreed, well designed but not amazing. I'd argue the elements don't need to be dynamic (and are commonly distracting if they are) but everything on that site feels constrained by the page layout. DotA2's "Spoils of War"[1] page feels like a
333.
by Smerity 14y ago
The neural network in this paper, an autoencoder, doesn't require labelled data. Autoencoders take high dimensional input, map it to a lower dimensional space and then try to recreate the original high dimensional input as closely as possib
334.
by Smerity 14y ago
In a more general response: I don't think what I stated obscures what's notable about the system, I feel I stated exactly what was notable and specifically avoided overstating it. Overhyping when it comes to machine learning and AI seems to
335.
by Smerity 14y ago
I replied by adding to my comment above as it wouldn't allow me to reply earlier. Reference that. tldr; High-level features generated by this unsupervised network are so high-level that one of them aligns with "has a face in the image", ano
336.
by Smerity 14y ago
The aim of the paper was to produce an unsupervised system that would generate high level features from noisy data. These high level features could then be used in supervised systems where labelled data is added. Thus, the paper is about us
337.
by Smerity 14y ago
I was going to make the same request. The singularity should be discussed where relevant, not added to everything. This paper is producing high level features from noisy data in an unsupervised fashion -- a human still needs to indicate the
338.
by Smerity 14y ago
Freedom of speech has many facets. I don't see this as being disingenuous at all as it literally did impinge on his choice of speech if he wanted to remain in the business relationship. This situation would be similar in nature to Microsoft
339.
by Smerity 14y ago
Congratulations on the impressive result. It seems you have a good product but the real change appears to be encouraging those who wouldn't use your system properly to improve their habits. I wish you could work out more concretely why the
340.
FBI told to copy seized Dotcom data and return it for his defense(nzherald.co.nz)
11 points by Smerity 14y ago|0 comments
341.
Password Security: Why salting with usernames is no good(smerity.com)
1 points by Smerity 14y ago|0 comments
342.
by Smerity 14y ago
I believe they mean hashed (as pointed out later in the article) but if it was encryption I'd disagree pretty strongly with the assertion it's safer than straight hashing. If you don't need the original password, hashing should be used, not
343.
by Smerity 14y ago
In general, you're not smarter than your compiler[1]. Even if you're smarter than your compiler it's usually not worth the readability trade-off. These sorts of optimisations only ever make sense if you're doing something incredibly intensi
344.
by Smerity 14y ago
The targeted attack does matter though, for the reason I pointed out above. I can produce a rainbow table offline before I compromise the targeted system as I know the username of my target. This is not possible if the salt is random. This
345.
by Smerity 14y ago
Hoping for competence is indeed flawed from both sides. I would hope users use distinct, random passwords for each site they visit and that developers store those passwords in a safe secure way. I also assume both sides won't listen to logi
346.
by Smerity 14y ago
I think we've reached a point with bcrypt that a good secure password system is within reach and comes with sane defaults and ease of use as features for most programming languages. If it's just an issue of getting the word out there, then
347.
by Smerity 14y ago
Please refer to my comment above. You can precompute a rainbow table if you know the username (trivial) and the method of hashing[1]. Whilst usernames as salts would increase security over no salt, it results in a potential exploit / vulner
348.
by Smerity 14y ago
I hear this commonly, so it is a good idea to clear it up. Usernames have lower entropy than a random salt and are predictable in many cases. People re-use usernames and some usernames are common. If your password system became common on th
349.
by Smerity 14y ago
"We were curious what would happen to our share price if our company did something incredibly stupid" The above comment might seem incredibly harsh, but really, there's no good excuse for a site this prominent to not have a salted, secure p
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by Smerity 14y ago
I too completed a Bachelor of Information Technology (BIT) though I more than completed the equivalent of a Bachelor of Computer Science & Technology (BCST). BIT at my university is a BCST Advanced with Honours thrown in (a year of rese
351.
by Smerity 14y ago
Considering PG didn't strike down the story I presume to think he expected it to leak out or didn't ask it to remain confidential. Re: "Semantic Scramble", this was/is used quite successfully in a university course I tutored. Students are s
352.
by Smerity 14y ago
To those having fun saying "pop", contribute value not onomatopoeia. The clearest message in PG's letter is simply "The startups that really get hosed are going to be the ones that have easy money ... So don't be that startup." If you have
353.
by Smerity 14y ago
The playability has improved greatly since the original DotA. The UI for DotA 2 has been tweaked to be far more friendly to the novice player. Items used to be one of the most confusing elements of the game and has been fixed by giving each
354.
by Smerity 14y ago
For the community generated content, Valve pays the creator twenty-five percent (25%) of the Adjusted Gross Revenue[1]. TF2 has already paid out $3.5 million to creators, so it's reasonable to assume the TF2 economy has rewarded Valve to th
355.
Like Team Fortress 2, Valve make DotA 2 free to play - revenue via in-game store(blog.dota2.com)
62 points by Smerity 14y ago|26 comments
356.
by Smerity 14y ago
I love this idea. Many tech companies have hackathons that run over a day or a weekend. Hackathons are a strange mix between R&D (any idea is on the table), lean startup (prove your assumptions through minimum work) and a work party. Wh
357.
by Smerity 14y ago
I posted this primarily as I didn't even know this podcast existed and this new episode was released recently and wasn't posted to HN (according to HN's dupe detection and my recollection of recent stories). Of course, this is selfish as we
358.
Kalzumeus (patio11) Podcast Ep. 2 with Amy Hoy: Pricing, Products, And Passion(kalzumeus.com)
84 points by Smerity 14y ago|11 comments
359.
by Smerity 14y ago
Thanks for providing the rough figures, it's quite rare to see numbers on things like support requests broken down to pricing tier but quite fascinating. Do you have any insights or intuitions as to the varying number of support requests? I
360.
by Smerity 14y ago
They state that there will be "code that activates automatically according to criteria you specify (e.g. SOPA returns)". I'd hope that includes the ability to activate only depending on the country of origin as well. Sadly for me, American

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