Goto

Collaborating Authors

 Pampas


Musk cuts Starlink access for Russian forces - giving Ukraine an edge at the front

BBC News

Evidence is mounting that Elon Musk's decision to deny Russian forces access to his Starlink satellite-based internet service has blunted Moscow's advance, caused confusion among Russian soldiers and handed an advantage to Ukraine's defenders. And what can Ukraine's military achieve in the meantime? The Russians lost their ability to control the field, a Ukrainian drone operator who goes by the callsign Giovanni told us. I think they lost 50% of their capacity for offence, he said. That's what the numbers show.





Scaling Laws for Hyperparameter Optimization

Neural Information Processing Systems

Hyperparameter optimization is an important subfield of machine learning that focuses on tuning the hyperparameters of a chosen algorithm to achieve peak performance. Recently, there has been a stream of methods that tackle the issue of hyperparameter optimization, however, most of the methods do not exploit the dominant power law nature of learning curves for Bayesian optimization. In this work, we propose Deep Power Laws (DPL), an ensemble of neural network models conditioned to yield predictions that follow a power-law scaling pattern. Our method dynamically decides which configurations to pause and train incre-mentally by making use of gray-box evaluations.



Is the Rat War Over?

The New Yorker

Is the Rat War Over? In New York, a rat czar and new methods have brought down complaints. We may even be ready to appreciate the creatures. Rats were leaving Manhattan, hurrying across the bridges in single-file lines. Some went to Westchester, some to Brooklyn. It was the pandemic, and the rats, which had been living off the nourishing trash of New York's densest borough for generations, were as panicked about the closure of restaurants as we were. People were eating three meals a day at home, and the rats were hungry. At least that was the story going around.



Windscribe review: Despite the annoyances, it has the right idea

Engadget

The first step is always to figure out how easy or hard the VPN is to use. Windscribe and other VPNs are important tools, but you'll never use them if the UI gets in the way. I tested Windscribe's desktop apps on Windows and Mac, its mobile apps on iOS and Android and its Chrome and Firefox browser extensions. To start with, let me say that installing Windscribe is a breeze no matter where you do it. The downloaders and installers handle their own business, only requiring you to grant a few permissions. The apps arrive on your system ready to use out of the box.


Who died in 2025? Notable deaths of the year

BBC News

The first non-European Pope in more than 1,000 years, the Oscar-winning star of Annie Hall and The Godfather, a soul legend and one of the world's most famous designers - here are some of the well-known faces no longer with us. Among those we remember are Hollywood stars Robert Redford, Diane Keaton and Gene Hackman, and theatrical dames Joan Plowright and Patricia Routledge. Robert Redford's acting career spanned more than 50 films and won him an Oscar as a director. For many filmgoers though, he was simply the best-looking cinema star in the world - once described as a chunk of Mount Rushmore levered into stonewashed denims. As well as leading roles in hits such as All The President's Men, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and The Way We Were, Redford also launched the Sundance Film Festival to champion independent filmmakers. Los-Angeles-born Keaton shot to fame with her role in The Godfather, but enjoyed a long creative partnership with Woody Allen. Annie Hall, a comedy based on their off-screen relationship, earned her a Best Actress Oscar and they collaborated on several other films. She was nominated for three further Oscars - all in the best actress category - for her work in Something's Gotta Give, Marvin's Room and Reds. BASIL! - the unmistakable sound of Sybil Fawlty admonishing her pompous and incompetent husband, is probably how Prunella Scales will best be remembered. Apart from starring in sitcom Fawlty Towers, she played many other roles on screen and stage, including Queen Elizabeth II in Alan Bennett's play, A Question of Attribution.