A pint of Guinness gets cheaper when it leaves Ireland

This article examines what happens to the price of the Guinness pint outside of Ireland.

In almost all cases, the price of a pint of Guinness gets cheaper when it leaves Ireland. In some cases the difference is enormous.

How an A.I. ‘Cat-and-Mouse Game’ Generates Believable Fake Photos

The New York Times is running a very fascinating article on the progress of the artificial intelligence and machine learning in both identifying and generating fake photos – How an A.I. ‘Cat-and-Mouse Game’ Generates Believable Fake Photos.   The above image shows the progress of the AI working against itself and learning from its own results – one part is trying to identify if the photo is fake or not, and the other part is trying to generate a fake photo which will pass the test.  When the test fails, the system learns, improves, and tries again.  Look at the last row of photos, which are super realistic and took the system between 10 to 18 days to learn how to generate.

But that’s not all.  It gets better, and I quote:

A second team of Nvidia researchers recently built a system that can automatically alter a street photo taken on a summer’s day so that it looks like a snowy winter scene. Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, have designed another that learns to convert horses into zebras and Monets into Van Goghs. DeepMind, a London-based A.I. lab owned by Google, is exploring technology that can generate its own videos. And Adobe is fashioning similar machine learning techniques with an eye toward pushing them into products like Photoshop, its popular image design tool.

Here are a few more photos that were generated:

This is remarkable.  But if you keep reading the article, you’ll quickly discover that there is even more to it.  What’s next in line after pictures?  You are correct: videos.  You better sit down before you watch this video, showing Obama’s lip sync:

So, can’t trust the TV.  Can’t trust the Internet.  Who do you trust?

The Global Airport Database

Global Airport Database – Arash Partow

The Global Airport Database is a collection of data about all (???) airports in the world, big and small.  It covers a total of 9,300 airports worldwide.

That’s pretty interesting.  For example, how many airports do you think there are in Cyprus?  Obviously, there is the Larnaca International Airport and Paphos International Airport.  Then, there is one in Nicosia, which is not functioning since the island was divided.  And there is one in Acrotiri on the British military base.  Four, right?   Well, the Global Airport Database has a total of 7 (!!!) entries for the country of Cyprus:

LCCC:N/A:N/A:NICOSIA ACC/FIC:CYPRUS:000:000:000:U:000:000:000:U:00000:0.000:0.000
LCLK:LCA:LARNACA:LARNACA:CYPRUS:034:052:030:N:033:037:029:E:00003:34.875:33.625
LCNC:N/A:N/A:NICOSIA:CYPRUS:000:000:000:U:000:000:000:U:00000:0.000:0.000
LCPH:PFO:PAPHOS INTERNATIONAL:PAPHOS:CYPRUS:034:043:004:N:032:029:008:E:00013:34.718:32.486
LCRA:AKT:AKROTIRI:AKROTIRI:CYPRUS:034:035:025:N:032:059:016:E:00024:34.590:32.988
LCRO:N/A:N/A:EPISKOPI:CYPRUS:000:000:000:U:000:000:000:U:00000:0.000:0.000
LCRR:N/A:N/A:NICOSIA:CYPRUS:000:000:000:U:000:000:000:U:00000:0.000:0.000

Larnaca and Paphos are there. The Akrotiri one is there too. Then we have 3 records for Nicosia. And one more for Episkopi. Hmm …

Database Popularity Index

Have a look at Red9’s Database Popularity Index, which is updated now on a monthly basis.  Last year I blogged about a similar study.

One thing that is still mind-boggling to me is the total number of different database engines – over 300!  I know there is a constant need for better and more powerful databases, but 300?  Sounds like too much to choose from.

One other thing that I find slightly surprising is the popularity of the Microsoft Access.  Really?  With so much to choose from, people still stay with Access?  What am I not getting here?

Epic Bitcoin Resource List

Anything you wanted to learn about blockchain and cryptocurrency in general, and Bitcoin in particular, you can find on this epic Bitcoint resource list.

Wow!  Even just reading the titles of the resources needs some time and dedication.