I wonder if a statistics-based cheating detection system could work in more of the esports style games? Chess.com seems to have a pretty good method to detect cheaters based on analysis of post-game data: https://www.chess.com/article/view/chess-com-fair-play-and-c...
Even in something like an FPS, if player movements or action patterns could be compared to normal patterns, it would be incredibly obvious who is cheating regardless of HOW the player managed to cheat.
Even something as elaborate as a full AI-powered robot that physically hit the keys could be detected when it made a move that was not within the patterns of human players.
Of course, the cat and mouse game then becomes more about the cheat algorithms learning to act more human to avoid detection, but they have a long way to go. Plus, each time they have to adjust and become more human, the less and less of an advantage the cheater has!
I just recently watched an old episode of The Screensavers from 2002 where Kevin Rose talked about potential spam abuse of computers connected to the internet with the service enabled.
Thanks for mentioning mermaid.js. I am bookmarking this and excited to try it.
I’ve always loved https://sequencediagram.org for creating sequence diagrams with text (highly recommend btw), but have also wanted to create other diagram types in a similar manner. Mermaid.js looks super intriguing.
Yes, I was thinking the same. I am super curious about what functionality in this could be used for sound generation.
It even looks like a full synthesizer. When I first saw the pictures, I thought it was some weird version of an EMS VCS 3 synth — which coincidentally is also from 1969!
Super intriguing. I don't really know much about FPGAs, but the idea of using them to essentially clone old gaming system CPUs is flat out awesome. I assume that theoretically this would be identical to original hardware, unlike emulating it in software?
This Pocket device looks like a well made product. I wish all the best to this endeavor -- if nothing else just for helping preserve gaming history and letting people (more accurately) play older games.
"Identical" is a really strong word. The original Gameboy had all sorts of quirks due to the low price target of the device and the technical limitations of the time. The way the bits are tossed around inside will be very similar to the original hardware, and programming it will be roughly identical (it'd have to be to run all the old games accurately and at the same speed), but all the interfaces to the real world will be quite different.
This thing has HD color output...that's definitely not identical, but it's not a bad thing. The audio output is also a modern signal path...we probably wouldn't want it to be the same whiny/noisy output as the original at this price. And, oddly, some people do what's called a "prosound mod" on original GameBoys to clean it up a bit and obtain better frequency response, though I think that's silly...I just embrace all the quirks and accept that it's how GameBoy music sounds, if I wanted pristine I'd use my 24-bit 192KHz interface on my computer that's like a million times more powerful.
I think the cool thing about projects like this (and I'm excited about several of them) is that we get devices that we don't worry about dying, that remind us strongly of the ones we grew up with or enjoy tinkering with because of their limitations. Even if they aren't identical. If you really want identical, just buy a GameBoy. You can get original ones in good working condition for cheaper than this (though you might have to go through a few to get one that's actually in good working condition without screen problems...I bought like five on eBay to end up with two in mostly good shape, but the one with the best screen has also developed dead vertical lines since I've had it, but total spent was probably less than $200, including shipping).
The idea of creating computers out of virtual objects has always fascinated me since I first saw someone do it in Minecraft.
It really brings up some interesting scenarios that I like to day dream about sometimes.
For instance, in a real world simulation, you could build a processor with a gazillion transistors because you don’t have to worry about the same physical limitations like size or heat. Could it take an input and compute an output faster than something in the real world?
Would you be bound by the speed of light in the virtual world? You control the physics in your virtual world, so technically nothing prevents it right? Information can travel faster than the speed of light relative to your virtual objects. Say you model the earth at 1:1 scale in the simulation and have avatars on complete opposite sides of earth. They could exchange messages faster than they could in the real world since the information wouldn’t have to physically travel across physical space. (e.g. send message directly to memory address X instead of sending light through fiber optic physics simulator).
Essentially, in a simulation of the physical world that has tweaked physics, could information be processed faster than the processor running the simulation?
Is there some sort of conservation of energy law, but for information?
The information would "appear" to be processed "faster" to the digital system merely because the digital system would have no memory of there being a moment in between its current state and the next computed state. Even supposing that it's possible for there to be a subjective experience of a computer: this goes in to physical time and psychological time and whether the two bear a strict relation, as well as the relative nature of time in physical space.
On the first topic, if you can stomach having to reformat a PDF, the "No Free Lunch in Machine Learning" guy wrote a paper on thermodynamics and psychological time:
On the second one... I think it's more interesting to think if there's a theory of relativity for computation. Imagine if two systems were updating one another's state but were separated by physical distance. Wouldn't you have to hold the state of one to only update when it a receives a message from the other, for the systems to "experience" instantaneous communication? That would mean there would be a third system for whom time would have to pass to transfer the message and compute it in such a way that the amount of updating required for the receiving systems are minimal.
Maybe we have to guarantee that at least one system has to experience time more slowly than the others, to compute the information necessary for instanaeity to be true for the communicating systems.
As far as we know, there is no way to compress reality. The smallest full simulation of a thing is the thing itself.
That means the real world simulation would be as big as the real world. To exchange messages from one side to another means the information has to travel from some point in the physical network to another. Although the nodes may be closer in the physical network than in the virtual world, taking less time, that can't be true for any two nodes.
On average, a full simulation of something will be as physically large as the thing itself, and the distance information has to travel is on average the same virtually and physically.
What if it's not a full simulation? Then you can break those rules. I can draw two galaxies and a spaceship that travels between them in seconds therefore achieving your premise.
Can a restricted simulation ever be computationally faster than a reality/a full simulation? My intuition says no. I can't think of a source.
could information be processed faster than the processor running the simulation?
No. Whatever you do to process the information could always be done faster if you did it directly on a computer without the overhead of the simulation itself.
> Essentially, in a simulation of the physical world that has tweaked physics, could information be processed faster than the processor running the simulation?
Nope, the simulator has to run it still - how would the simulation update anything unless being told to by the processor running the simulation?
Great article that brought back some fond memories of the Sega Channel. As a young teenager when we got it, I was in awe of the technology and wondered how it worked and why something like it didn’t exist for the computer. Not having to tie up a phone line AND it was even faster! Loading it up for the first time really felt like it was magic and world-changing.
Interestingly enough, later on when cable modems came out in my city, you still had to use a phone line for the up channel. The Sega Channel still seemed superior to what PCs had and always wondered how they pulled it off. So, it’s neat today learning how it worked!
The Sega Channel was definitely too late though. The Genesis was old and I swear it seemed like the PlayStation came out a short few weeks after we got it. Of course, that was its own type of magic that felt world-changing when powering it on the first time. ;)
To be honest, I think he is more of a musician’s musician and a bit hard to “get”.
Outside the artistic creativity itself, I find his music more enjoyable by recognizing the craftsmanship and musicianship required to create his unique sounds and rhythms. Once you realize it’s not just random noises, perhaps some of the songs may speak to you like I found.
If you have ever tried creating electronic music with drum machines, synthesizers, midi loopers, etc, it would be a lot easier to appreciate his music I think.
Maybe similar to say, free jazz? If you don’t appreciate or understand the nuances, I doubt you’d enjoy listening to it.
I’m on mobile or I’d research, but I’m sure there are some great videos on YouTube explaining some of his or similar techniques?
>If you have ever tried creating electronic music with drum machines, synthesizers, midi loopers, etc, it would be a lot easier to appreciate his music I think.
Or if you merely like to listen to electronic music, like hundreds of millions of people around the world?
Seems like your comment comes from someone for whom "real" music is rock, jazz, etc, and they assume everybody starts like that.
But in electronic there are far more niche genres than Aphex Twin's. He was left of field in the semi-mainstream, not across the board.
Yeah he's IDM not EDM, IDM is a older term from the 90s they called it "intelligent dance music" because it uses the tools of dance music but just like you could dance to Duke Ellington but nobody danced to Charlie Parker you can't exactly dance to music as complex as his but it enjoyable listening for sure.
> Yeah he's IDM not EDM, IDM is a older term from the 90s they called it "intelligent dance music"
AKA "beard stroking music" in the D&B world.
It's music that doesn't energize people and get them on the dance floor. Go see a IDM/"experimental/"beard stroking" DJ live, all you see are a bunch of young male hipsters standing around stroking their beards, commenting on the uniqueness of the "interplay".
Sounds very similar to the reasoning behind the "shoegaze" genre name. All of the above of which I'm a big fan! Guess I like heady music, more recently have seen IDM described as braindance as well.
I think the brandance name came about when replhex records tried to re-brand the genera to get away from the smugness of calling your favored music 'intelligent.' That said, I definitely see the IDM label around more than Brandance.
It's also commonly laughed at in the UK. We typically see it as an Americanism that is a sort-of catch-all for different genres of electronic music. When Aphex first came out it was under the genre/banner of "Braindance" (remember that? :)). He has used quite a few genres since, though.
To be honest, I think he is more of a musician’s musician and a bit hard to “get” ? Not in the UK - I would say Selected Ambient Works vol 1 is one of the best records of the '90s. Still stands up very well today.
I listened off and on for decades and it never really "clicked". Then at some point in time, well into my adult life, I realized that I was quietly obsessed with Aphex Twin tracks and listened to them all the time. Broadly speaking, I think it's just about paying attention to details.
For example in SAW2 trk1 "cliffs" there's kind of a "peak and drop" moment. It's implemented as a very small shift in phasing between two voices, one which was lagging the other begins leading the other. And maybe Although it's barely audible the feeling of the track changes from... maybe a wistful reverie on a solitary walk on an ocean clifftop in the breeze and sun of a late-summer afternoon... to something more "unblocked", like joyfully running down a hill to home.
That kind of detail -- "Tempo" as a feeling, not just a BPM, accomplished by changing other stuff besides pitch and average loudness of notes. It is the sort of thing that one attends to when rehearsing with a good symphony conductor or a chamber-group coach. Or with a music teacher, e.g. "play through the measure to here [drawn out slightly]". You might be instructed to play something "scherzando", playfully, or "andante", leisurely. And God help you if you play something "lightly" instead of "playfully", or "dragging" rather than "stately", or vice versa! Rendering subtle emotional nuance through soundmaking tools is certainly learnable, and you get to learn Italian/Russian cursing for free.
Or "The oboes here are cats, there's a cat in heat and the oboes are meowing around. Then the bassoon comes in and it's like a pregnant cat and it's not so excitable". That one came from a world-class Boston Symphony musician, and it's absolutely serious.
Really good musicians play with sound. Sometimes they do things for the lols. Music being about pattern matching, good musicians also play with the listener's sense of expectation and fulfullment. Good musicians do with sound what good lovers do with touch. Good musicians do with sound what good comedians do with concepts.
There are lots of good musicians in the world, and many don't have good recordings. Afx is one who managed to make a pretty good musical career out of his artistic vision, which seems rare. It's nice that it's easy to find recordings and people who've heard those recordings, and there's always something new to hear in them.
An example of the expectations thing: An absolutely beautiful melody buried under much louder boring/aversive voices. It's impossible to focus on the melody so it leaves you wanting more. Related to this is the "bass drop" and the idk "fake-out bass drop", maybe. I think "teasing" / "trolling" / "ruining or messing with expectations" is something that seems pretty characteristic of Aphex Twin tracks.
I think enjoying "challenging listens" is really just about exposure and mindfulness. Truly listening to all music helps. And playing music, only because it forces you to pay attention to what actually makes things sound the way they do. And paying attention to the sounds of the world around you, and how sounds are modified by the environment. And listening to the same recording over and over agin, to build familiarity.
Personally, I became a total afx fanboy over decades, and it was an incremental and slow process. I was thoroughly and extensively trained in classical music through high school; I mostly just listened to Drukqs for the piano and endured the other stuff. In college I ate acid more often than usual; it was general knowledge that "listening to Aphex Twin... enhances your trip, it's like hacking your brain or something" and then you got on with the rest of your life. And then one day I found myself dissecting the auditory nuances of why I liked something, or why something seemed like a deliberate choice to irritate the listener.
I think appreciating nuance is just something that comes with age, in that experience of the fullest range and detail of human experience comes with age. And also appreciation of a wider range of qualia, just like stinky cheese is something one usually does not appreciate immediately.
Also, it's instructive to watch musicians playing, and see how they communicate with visuals, body cues, and sound. Chamber groups are good. Some bush-league music festivals are good, after the main day is over sometimes the professional musicians jam with each other for the lols, or sit in on another group's late night set.
How does one develop a passion to be that nuanced and specific with his craft? I can't find anything that motivates me in my life beyond mindlessly scrolling through youtube videos.
Even in something like an FPS, if player movements or action patterns could be compared to normal patterns, it would be incredibly obvious who is cheating regardless of HOW the player managed to cheat.
Even something as elaborate as a full AI-powered robot that physically hit the keys could be detected when it made a move that was not within the patterns of human players.
Of course, the cat and mouse game then becomes more about the cheat algorithms learning to act more human to avoid detection, but they have a long way to go. Plus, each time they have to adjust and become more human, the less and less of an advantage the cheater has!