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ambiate

1,194 karma · joined January 22, 2010

jonathan dot drouillard at gmail

interests: bioinformatics, math, programming

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ambiate··on Oculus Rift is Shipping
You can go really cheap: AMD 8300+$40 mobo/stock cooler +500w psu + gtx 970 + generic mouse/keyboard/monitor + $30 case + 8GB ram + $20 SSD and come out around ~$600.

For an upgradeable Intel solution with a decent SSD/HDD, 16GB of ram, huge case, and a hybrid water cooler: ~$945.

In my situation, I bought a 980ti, Corsair 750w PSU, GPU/CPU hybrid coolers, and new case. It was around ~950, but my older 2600k is keeping up with the times. I'm also doing neural networks/Vive game dev. I really wanted to wait for Nvidia to relase their Pascal line before buying a video card.

That makes my jump into VR/AI cost around 2k (~1000 PC components, ~900 Vive). Yet, a long awaited upgrade. My 4850 video card is from 2008 and could still play current games in lower settings/resolutions.

Side bar: because my GPU wasn't a reference board the hybrid cooler would not mount. I had to hacksaw my brand new card's heatsink and zip tie the fan back to it for the VRM/ram cooling. Anxiety was an understatement. Luckily, the 980ti idles at 75F now and maxes at 120F (from idle 120F/max 180F).

http://i.imgur.com/mgdPXwE.jpg

ambiate··on 3 months and 1M SSH attempts later
CFAA is very broad. "intentionally accesses a computer without authorization or exceeds authorized access, and thereby obtains— C) information from any protected computer;"

A court could see "ambiate was authorized to use the work printer for printing -- ambiate hacked the printer to find out the fax machine number and sent a fax" in an absurd world.

This random internet person was never authorized to access this public router. Even if its set to a default username/password. That's the broadness the CFAA.

Just because you set your password to 'password99', doesn't mean you get more protections than the person who leaves their Cisco router set to 'cisco'.

ambiate··on Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas Streaming Deer Cam
I love that the deer has figured out teleportation and the humans haven't figured out how to notice a deer.
ambiate··on 3 months and 1M SSH attempts later
15 years ago, that standard set used to be wget something from packetstormsecurity.org. If no wget: curl it. If no curl: just lynx it. else: move on to the next vulnerable server. Script kiddies were quite lazy back then. I feel old at thirty.
ambiate··on 3 months and 1M SSH attempts later
I plead the fifth. CFAA/RICO/Patriot Act.

My hint would be: before decentralized worms, there were IRC hubs. The 'owners' would typically use their native language for the various commands (I know English is used in more than the US, but..). Most of the time, they wouldn't even hide their host name on the IRC server.

I guess from a 'being legal' POV: anyone could infect themselves with the same root kit that's on a honeypot and find out quite a bit about the organizers.

ambiate··on 3 months and 1M SSH attempts later
Its interesting how many HN users seem to be missing the point of a honeypot. He set this up deliberately to understand the frequency/types of attacks on a random machine on the internet.

From my past experience, most of those CN computers are actually US zero day'd/patched running root kits/worms. It just happens to be that CN computers are more likely to be unpatched/running ancient software.

ambiate··on Ask HN: Who is hiring? (March 2016)
This is my dream job. Yet, offering a 65-75k salary for what is essentially a penta-glob of DBA/ops/programming/testing/manager positions is really weak.

Using most of the tools, its very akin to a scan the barcode at a cash register job and look at the results. It is when the scanner beeps in error, that the experience you pay for comes into play. Not to mention, the cost of living in Houston isn't exactly cheap.

ambiate··on Oculus Rift: Available for pre-order
2016 Q3/Q4's new fancy toy may not be a RiftV2 and may have a minimum requirement of a Pascal GPU or Skylake/Broadwell-e CPU. Its just a really horrible time to buy computer hardware right now.
ambiate··on Oculus Rift: Available for pre-order
If you're not an early adopter enthusiast: it may not be a great idea to purchase this right now. You will probably need a PC upgrade to match your new $675 toy. The new generation of Intel/Nvidia is right around the corner. Don't dig yourself into a hole where you buy current flagship and need to upgrade it 9 months down the road from now for Q4's toy.
ambiate··on Oculus Rift Pre-Orders to Open on January 6
http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/videocard/

That is pretty damning on the amount of users with a 970/780ti/980/980ti/titan x. My 560ti plays most games at a decent resolution in mid-settings at 144hz. It is hard to validate a $400 replacement for non-time consuming entertainment.

Note: a 970 is in the top 6 -- http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/high_end_gpus.html

ambiate··on Oculus Rift Pre-Orders to Open on January 6
Here are my thoughts on the situation:

1) First generation devices are usually flops/riddled with bugs, but usually exploitable if you don't upgrade firmware/etc.

2) I would probably need to buy a 980TI ($600) or Titan X ($1k) to make up for my i7-2600k's failure. (I want a Titan X for deep convolution neural networks anyways).

3) Nvidia is on the verge of releasing their Pascal architecture. The Titan X was just recently released (Mar '15?). While it is a powerhouse, the pascal base Titan may come with 12-16GB of memory and a 10-20% speed increase.

4) Intel is near release on their broadwell-e platform which should be able to consume 40 pci-e lanes (like haswell-e). No word yet on if they plan on being able to use 40 pci-e lanes with skylake.

Summary: In 1 years time, there will be a base Pascal Titan that outperforms the Maxwell Titan X, a new ~$500 CPU that will be on par with the current $1000 CPU, and an assortment of VR options available. As much as it pains me, unless I see a Titan X for $600-800 on craigslist, I'm going to wait this one out.

ambiate··on How to Raise a Scientist in the Xbox Age
Big thanks to John Carmack (and team) for Quake1 modding and replying to my emails. It was a gateway drug.
ambiate··on Dark patterns in action
I sadly got bit today. I bought a Freedompop hotspot. After entering my billing information, and after the processing screen, a screen showed an offer for a $30 phone.

I intended to click Skip, but my mind clicked Accept this offer, because it was the primary button. Its a $30 loss, but inevitably, I will save hundreds with the hotspot.

After the accept this offer, there was no confirmation, just finished the processing screen with no way to cancel the order.

ambiate··on How to Fix Everything: Spending a few days at iFixit
The appliance industry has it figured out. The parts are so discrete and they control the finite supply. Not worth counterfeiting/cloning, because there are too many models/factors. In fact, they won't make replacement parts for pieces they know will last longer than the warranty.

Serviceman Jim can find a belt/board for your 1987 washing machine and have it delivered in 2 hours for $90.

Serviceman Jim says to scrap that 2015 washing machine and buy the 2016 model. The company knows about that recurring problem that every household with that model has, but they're not recalling it.

HVAC unit, fridges, dishwashers, washing machine, dryer, vacuums, etc. I recall there being small businesses with overflowing stock for repair parts for all of these items. Its so much easier to just throw away the item and replace it. Its the age of recyclable electronics, and I can't wait to get an 'iPhone7t multiplied.'

It just saddens me in the age of 'we need more STEM.'

ambiate··on Things universities should do to rein in costs
My uni offers summer classes, but mostly for intro classes. This means if you transfer in or are a second year student, you have slim pickings in the summer offering.

I would have gladly attended 90% of my classes in the summer had they been offered to students. Especially, those mid-tier classes that are only offered in Spring or Fall. IE: intro1 (Fa, Sp, Sum1, Sum2) -> intro2 (Fa, Sp, Sum1, Sum2) -> mid-tier class (Spring only) -> opens up 10 classes.

ambiate··on Zenefits launches free payroll software for small businesses
How does Zenefits handle if a Employer paid check does not match the Zenefits charged amount? ie: reconciliation portion.

Employee X terminated, check is $22.8k instead of $23k.

Employee Y has three policies for a single benefit, but only two get paid through the employer.

Is this all automagically handled by the UI in a simple 'SSN or Policy' amount does not match for these three records, how do you want to apply the $30? 'No record found for Employee X, reason for non-payment?' Does Zenefits handle managing/forwarding that to all to the carriers?

(disclaimer: I work in insurance)

ambiate··on Study finds improved self-regulation in kindergartners who wait a year to enroll
I've provided a link to the skills a kindergartener is expected to know in Texas. The most interesting one to me: 'counting from 20 to 0 backwards.' It touched my indexing heart when they included 0.

http://tea.texas.gov/uploadedFiles/Curriculum/Texas_Essentia...

ambiate··on Classic Nintendo Games Are NP-Hard (2012)
From a player perspective, Zelda is harder due to: --Larger world with set of objectives which must be completed in some order. IE: You need the bow, before you get the lance, before you get the ice wand. A program could endlessly wander in the wrong temple for centuries before it decided it exhausted the whole area. (Not to mention the hidden walls/areas). ++Mario levels are completed in a mostly linear fashion (ignoring the short cuts).

--Limited resources. Bombs, arrows, etc. ++Mario can always jump/squish, and fireballs are infinite.

--Game changes as items are acquired. A block may be liftable in phase3 of the game, but not in phase1/2. An area may drown you in phase1-4, but may be swimmable in phase5. ++Mario death is always death.

My number one reminder why Zelda would be harder is that temple where most of the walls/floors are bombable and drop you back to the bottom (except one). A computer learning without manual training of some sort would be very interesting to watch.

ambiate··on Too much of the research process is now shrouded by the opaque use of computers
I don't know why this is getting down voted.

I've come across near duplicates of this code and its always "that's how we did it after punch cards."

ambiate··on Jeff Dean explains TensorFlow [video]
Sometimes creativity is the only thing holding people back from exploiting the natural insects of the web.

Case in point, ever wonder why those captchas include street addresses or 'pick the shape with a hole in it?' Spoiler: you're building training data and validating training data.

How else can we silently retrieve training data?

ambiate··on Firesheep
I believe so.

I still remember being in the local uni's lab over wifi and firesheep had ~80 entries for facebook/gmail/etc. Click a profile and hijack their session.

ambiate··on How Space Cadet pinball won the Windows desktop
I am very thankful for Hover and Pinball. They made me want a faster and less buggy computer. This resulted in wonderful mishaps -- deleting Win system files, recovering into Vector Linux, trying Win 3.11 for WG, and finally ending up in Win98 SE. All the in between is free knowledge. All due to Hover running at 3FPS on my Cirrus Logic onboard gpu/100mhz cpu.

In my heart, the reason for Hover -- to plant a seed forging low level algorithm programmers.

ambiate··on The Texas Biker Gang Shoot-Out
I have lived in Waco for 5+ years. Never experienced a 'biker gang' or heard of biker related violence here.

I had my run with the law that disenchanted me. I saw a city worker stealing mail. I was laughed at by the police officer and almost charged for wrongfully calling 911. City worker tried slamming their car door in my face while I was talking to the officer, and the officer laughed again. I just walked away at that point.

The head of the grand jury is obvious bias. The imprisonments for 'being present' are insane. A blanket bail that is an unreasonable amount is odd. The false propaganda that biker gangs from all over the USA were flooding towards Waco with terrorist weapons was just a blatant lie.

Tip or not, why was full swat basically waiting in the parking lot before the event? Any other day, they wouldn't care if a few <insert anything not living in Hewitt> picked each other off in the parking lot. If they had a feeling something was going down, why not be proactive instead of reactive?

House taxes rise, school budgets cut, service cuts, and dodgy press release guy gets a promotion. yay. At least Baylor made a new shiny stadium to distract the general population.

Edit: Oh yeah, the current 'Waco Warrant Roundup' posted names of everyone with known warrants in the county. They're pulling over everyone and running warrant searches. Seems unlawful. I got pulled over and warrant checked because of 'loose articles in truckbed'. It was a bloody tie down strap that was hooked to the truck.

ambiate··on I’m Ahmed. Except I’m Not Brown
I do not really have this association due to the events that took place with the ping scenario. I just assumed they felt they were doing the right thing and negating any side effects from something that was misunderstood.

The flute situation on the other hand seems like an almost personal attack, but that's just petty nonsense that quickly fades with time.

My wife's scenario (and various others) still has an impact to this day.

ambiate··on I’m Ahmed. Except I’m Not Brown
In my very similar case, I was suspended and subsequently offered to be sued or to quit school by the school board in my Mississippi hometown (100-200k pop). It was in 11th grade in 2002-2003. My mother was not even involved. I quit, because we were a poor family raking in $600/mo. Sue was an unfathomable word. Things worked out for me, but that's dumb luck.

My criminal case? I ran the ping -t from a windows cmd prompt to see if an IRC server (I administrated) had rebooted. Screenshot evidence of my hardship on their servers and the 'attack' on my own server could not be argued.

My earlier suspension (1064 pop town in MS) was for bringing a flute made from cane to school. It was a project item for art where we had to make a musical instrument. The cane was considered a physical assault device. I was suspended, had to walk home, and faced 3 months of Saturday school. My art teacher was the one who claimed it was a weapon.

My wife was driven home by the school principal (alone at 14) in the first town because she 'appeared drugged', and no parents were there and she was left on the porch. She was given a Benadryl for allergies. She was suspended afterwards.

ambiate··on Insufficient Sleep Is a Public Health Epidemic
My friend recommended this long path for me. I laughed and asked what the end solution was: CPAP.

I ventured to craigslist and bought a used one for $100. I bought new gear off amazon. Google search led to the keystrokes to change the pressure myself. Few tweaks and I wake well rested rather than sleepy. Previously, I could sleep for 12 hours and still feel tired.

Friend is still waiting for their appointment to receive their machine two months later.

ambiate··on How Does Voxel Quest Work Now?
I can't help but see a Final Fantasy Tactics clone.
ambiate··on Ask HN: Anxiety is limiting my enjoyment of a wonderful career. Can you relate?
My solution has been a healthy dose of being outward about my awkwardness/anxiety. In a meeting two days ago, the consultant wanted to shake hands and I had to warn them about the puddle they were going to encounter in that brief handshake. Afterwards, I let them know I would gladly donate my body if they found a way to harvest energy from anxious sweat. A good (albeit sometimes awkward) laugh is still a laugh.

When I feel bad about my performance, I try to look at my past achievements. I used to just do projects and disconnect once they had completed. Now, I have a small archive of pieces of code I can look at where I feel I genuinely improved as a programmer or had an 'aha' moment.

Recall, the intersection of technology and medicine fields is not simple. Both fields are expanding and adapting on a daily basis. The amount of expertise required just to hone a single skill (potentially extinct!) is a lifetime's achievement. Do you really believe you have already peaked and this is it? Believe me, there is so much more to come! Maybe you're not the all-knowing-expert-guru, but aren't you aspiring to reach that point?

Just relax. You'll be fine. Even if they found out, and it turns out you were an impostor, do you really believe you're going to get fired? You're already trained and in the field. You're being an impostor of what you're actually doing on a daily basis? Seems ridiculous.

ambiate··on JQuery hacked
It is already gone, but noted: https://twitter.com/jquery/status/514811609752289281
ambiate··on Learn Lisp the Hard Way
Why would he put up a public repository if he did not want the format copied?

Zed A. Shaw created project Learn X The Hard Way 2011-08-29 22:06:48 UTC This is a skeleton book project that makes it easier to start working on a "Learn X The Hard Way"...

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