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Custom Corolla

Personally I like cars ? , not just to drive them wherever I want, but also because of how they make me feel, powerfull and flexible at the same time. Being a tech guy I have customised most of my cars, primarily from an entertainment perspective but also visually. As with one of my first cars, a Toyota Corolla 98 E11 hatchback, I was inspired by the legendary (in my opinion) Corolla WRC 97-99.

Before and after customising

I enjoy browsing car databases that simplify comparison, provide complete inventory and specifications are important when you are on the lookout for a new car or just want to review what new hot features are available.

I prefer these (in addition to traditional second hand markets):

A while ago I also postet my custom dipped Mini Cooper S, remeber?

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The social groups of AI

Looking into AI, there are vast aspects of how to build a thinking machine. Who’s working with this, and how they pursue their goal of making thinking machines, can be categorised to social groups, or tribes, according to Toby Walsh in his book; Android Dreams.

The learners. Just as we humans learn, the computers must too. It can be supervised, semi-supervised and unsupervised. They can be divided in the following groups:

  • symbolists; logics, using inductive reasoning to determine the cause A of a result B
  • connectionists; neuroscience inspired, learning from continuous signals interconnected, e.g, Deep Learning
  • evolutionaries; finding the best computational model, e.g., inspired by “the survival of the fittest” theory
  • Bayesians; statistical approach, probability theory of the Bayes theorem
  • analogises; other spaces, where observed problems can be used to solve others

The reasoners, such as the rules of thought, knowledge and uncertainty, orchestrated to fit a purpose.

The robotics, making computers create their perception of the real world, using cameras, microphones, and other data sources. In a way, combining reasoning and learning.

The linguists, making computers learn our language and how we communicate.

Common for all tribes are that they can be defines as botht neats (mathematical precision) and scruffies (by chance, great chance).

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FireEye (Mandiant) Flare and Commando VMs

Started playing with the freely available VMs from FireEye. Seems like nice Windows based alternatives to Kali and Parrot OS for at least basic pentesting and forensics tools. Personally I like Kali for its sustainability in the market, frequent updates and tools arsenal. However Parrot has grown on me with its sleek design.

Anyways, it seems FireEye got a lot from acquiring Mandiant a while ago. The Redline toolkit is quite nice, so it will be interesting to see how these two plays out:

Commando VM is for penetration testing, see Github.

Flare VM is for malware analysis.