Meltdown Lipp et al., 2018 I’m writing this approximately one week ahead of when you get to read it, so it’s entirely possible by this time that you’ve already heard more than you can stand about Meltdown and Spectre! Behind the news headlines though, there’s a lot of good information in the accompanying papers, and … Continue reading Meltdown
Author: adriancolyer
Venture Partner with Accel in London, author of 'The Morning Paper'
One model to learn them all
One model to learn them all Kaiser et al., arXiv 2017 You almost certainly have an abstract conception of a banana in your head. Suppose you ask me if I’d like anything to eat. I can say the word ‘banana’ (such that you hear it spoken), send you a text message whereby you see (and … Continue reading One model to learn them all
Emergent complexity via multi-agent competition
Emergent complexity via multi-agent competition Bansal et al., Open AI TR, 2017 (See also this Open AI blog post on ‘Competitive self-play’). Today’s action takes place in 3D worlds with simulated physics (using the MuJoCo framework). There are two types of agents, ants: And humanoids: These learn to play against each other (ant vs ant, … Continue reading Emergent complexity via multi-agent competition
Mastering chess and shogi by self-play with a general reinforcement learning algorithm
Mastering chess and shogi by self-play with a general reinforcement learning algorithm Silver et al., arXiv 2017 We looked at AlphaGo Zero last year (and the first generation of AlphaGo before that), but this December 2017 update is still fascinating in its own right. Recall that AlphaGo Zero learned to play Go with only knowledge … Continue reading Mastering chess and shogi by self-play with a general reinforcement learning algorithm
The case for learned index structures – Part II
The case for learned index structures Kraska et al., arXiv Dec. 2017 Yesterday we looked at the big idea of using learned models in place of hand-coded algorithms for select components of systems software, focusing on indexing within analytical databases. Today we’ll be taking a closer look at range, point, and existence indexes built using … Continue reading The case for learned index structures – Part II
The case for learned index structures – part I
The case for learned index structures Kraska et al., arXiv Dec. 2017 Welcome to another year of papers on The Morning Paper. With the rate of progress in our field at the moment, I can’t wait to see what 2018 has in store for us! Two years ago, I started 2016 with a series of … Continue reading The case for learned index structures – part I
End of term
We’ve reached the end of term again and it’s time for me to take a few weeks off to recharge my brain, reorganise & refill my paper backlog, and get ready for 2018! I’ve been reading and summarising a computer science research paper every weekday for over three years now. The knowledge I’ve gained has … Continue reading End of term
Bolt: anonymous payment channels for decentralized currencies – Part II
Bolt: anonymous payment channels for decentralized currencies Green and Miers et al., CCS’17 Yesterday we spent some time looking at what payment channels are, their role in helping Bitcoin to scale by taking some of the load off of the chain, and some payment channels constructions such as direct channels, indirect channels via an intermediary, … Continue reading Bolt: anonymous payment channels for decentralized currencies – Part II
Bolt: anonymous payment channels for decentralized currencies – part I
Bolt: anonymous payment channels for decentralized currencies Green and Miers et al., CCS’17 In which I tried not to rant. But did end up ranting just a little bit... The world of blockchains and cryptocurrencies seems to be growing at quite a pace. Yesterday we looked at Solidus, which provides confidentiality for transactions taking place … Continue reading Bolt: anonymous payment channels for decentralized currencies – part I
Solidus: confidential distributed ledger transactions using PVORM
Solidus: confidential distributed ledger transactions via PVORM Cecchetti et al., CCS’17 Tokens on blockchains can be used to represent assets, and the ledger provides trade settlement on-chain. In a straightforward public blockchain, pseudonyms and transaction values are all publicly visible. Uncovering the true identities behind the pseudonyms becomes a real possibility (‘A fistful of Bitcoins’). … Continue reading Solidus: confidential distributed ledger transactions using PVORM
the morning paper 