Being from Kanuckistan (Canada), I pretty much disagree with pudge on everything, as a matter of principle. Still, as long as he doesn't abuse his position as an editor to mod-bomb opposing points of view to oblivion, it's better to have these "discussions" out in the open, where we're forced to not only express our side, but to defend it by force of logic.
It's funny how everyone criticizes Canada for being socialist, but it's the US who is currently engaged in "privatizing profits, socializing losses" by bailing out banks and Wall Street. I'm sure it would be the same for health care - if a large HMO were about to go bust, they'd get a bail-out package, but the average taxpayer can piss up a rope for all the good it will do.
It's the same thing with the current tilt toward fascism in the US. How much longer before "your papers, please" becomes the norm for everything, as if that will somehow offset the damage done by a foreign policy that is making the US the #1 threat to world security?
the world is changing. In terms of purchasing power parity, China's economy is now #2 after the US - and we'll probably see them surpass the US within a few years in terms of PPP, and in absolute terms before 2050. Of course, if the recession is as severe as some are predicting, or there's a massive swing away from the greenback, the US decline will be much quicker.
Go work for Microsoft or Google, instead, where they would agree with your market-based and Enron-like non-solutions for everything.
Bit of a cheap shot? While pudge and I disagree on a lot ^W ^W almost everything, it's all in good fun. "Go work for Microsoft" - that's LOW!;-0
I mean, let's face it... if pudge WERE to go work for Microsoft, he'd re-implement VistaME in perl... which, come to think of it, all things considered, can't be any worse than it is now...
(Yes, it's Friday and I'm feeling generous today. I'm trying to end one of the worst weeks in years on a positive note after having to put my dog down, 2 arguments with government lawyers who are trying to duck a court appearance next week to justify their errors to a judge, AND the latest attempt from my asshole landlord to scam me for $15k.)
Money spent on health care instead of war means healthier people, who are able to pay more in taxes since they can work longer, they're not off sick, etc - health care is an investment in people that pays dividends...
Medical costs are the #1 reason for bankruptcy of people who HAVE health insurance. The co-pays, the deductibles, etc., break the bank. People who don't have to go bankrupt, quiot their jobs and end up on medicaid to get health care will continue to contribute rather than drain the system
A public medical system means an even playing field for all businesses. Look at the cost problems GM is having - GM is not a car manufacturer any more - it's a pension/medical benefits company that happens to make cars on the side.
Do a search - the states have the right (and many states have exercised this right) to eliminated the "right" of a jury trial for crimes with jail terms of 6 months or less.
What usually happens is that when they get around to writing up this law in its' final form, they'll create 2 offenses - one with 3 years, and one with 6 months or less - then they'll charge you with the 3-year offense, and "let" you plead down to the 6-month-or-less.
In other jurisdictions, this is known as a "dual-mode offense".
The only way to stop this sort of crap is to ban the practice of plea bargains.
the Supreme Court has ruled that if imprisonment is for six months or less, trial by jury is not required, meaning a state may choose whether or not to permit trial by jury in such cases.
How many people will be so intimidated by the whole process that they'll just accept whatever plea is offered?
Ditto those who don't have the several thousand dollars to hire a lawyer?
Ditto those who don't have the courage to tell the prosecutor "go fuck yourself - see you in court, numnuts - and you'd better have LOTS of proof..."
Ditto those who don't want to "rock the boat"
Ditto those who can't afford to take time off work.
When a case goes to trial, even when you win, you usually end up losing. Its not like the other side has any "skin in the game." They still get paid, win or lose. Justice? Not for us.
Read the summary - misdemeanor. In other words, if the prosecdution decides to ask for no more than 6 months jail time, or just for a fine, no right to a jury trial for you!
The link works fine if, instead of clicking on it, you cut-n-paste it into a new browser tab. Here's what you get, if you can't be arsed to go to the trouble:
Monday, March 17, 2008
Identifying Manipulated Images
New tools that analyze the lighting in images help spot tampering.
By Erica Naone
Photo-editing software gets more sophisticated all the time, allowing users to alter pictures in ways both fun and fraudulent. Last month, for example, a photo of Tibetan antelope roaming alongside a high-speed train was revealed to be a fake, according to the Wall Street Journal, after having been published by China's state-run news agency. Researchers are working on a variety of digital forensics tools, including those that analyze the lighting in an image, in hopes of making it easier to catch such manipulations.
Tools that analyze lighting are particularly useful because "lighting is hard to fake" without leaving a trace, says Micah Kimo Johnson, a researcher in the brain- and cognitive-sciences department at MIT, whose work includes designing tools for digital forensics. As a result, even frauds that look good to the naked eye are likely to contain inconsistencies that can be picked up by software.
Many fraudulent images are created by combining parts of two or more photographs into a single image. When the parts are combined, the combination can sometimes be spotted by variations in the lighting conditions within the image. An observant person might notice such variations, Johnson says; however, "people are pretty insensitive to lighting." Software tools are useful, he says, because they can help quantify lighting irregularities--they can give solid information during evaluations of images submitted as evidence in court, for example--and because they can analyze more complicated lighting conditions than the human eye can. Johnson notes that in many indoor environments, there are dozens of light sources, including lightbulbs and windows. Each light source contributes to the complexity of the overall lighting in the image.
Johnson's tool, which requires an expert user, works by modeling the lighting in the image based on clues garnered from various surfaces within the image. (It works best for images that contain surfaces of a fairly uniform color.) The user indicates the surface he wants to consider, and the program returns a set of coefficients to a complex equation that represents the surrounding lighting environment as a whole. That set of numbers can then be compared with results from other surfaces in the image. If the results fall outside a certain variance, the user can flag the image as possibly manipulated.
Hany Farid, a professor of computer science at Dartmouth College, who collaborated with Johnson in designing the tool and is a leader in the field of digital forensics, says that "for tampering, there's no silver button." Different manipulations will be spotted by different tools, he points out. As a result, Farid says, there's a need for a variety of tools that can help experts detect manipulated images and can give a solid rationale for why those images have been flagged.
Neal Krawetz, who owns a computer consulting firm called Hacker Factor, presented his own image-analysis tools last month at the Black Hat 2008 conference in Washington, DC. Among his tools was one that looks for the light direction in an image. The tool focuses on an individual pixel and finds the lightest of the surrounding pixels. It assumes that light is coming from that direction, and it processes the image according to that assumption, color-coding it based on light sources. While the results are noisy, Krawetz says, they can be used to spot disparities in lighting. He says that his tool, which has not been peer-reviewed, is meant as an aid for average people who want to consider whether an image has been manipulated--for example, people curious about content that they find online.
Cynthia Baron, associate director of digital media programs at N
I threw it in because it was representative of all that went bad with Borland. It was the best example I could think of of a company losing focus, hyping the crap out of a product, and then having the nerve to introduce something that in no way, shape or manner resembled the hype - to the very group that would be the most likely to recognize they were being had.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, we could probably sell tickets ...
Being from Kanuckistan (Canada), I pretty much disagree with pudge on everything, as a matter of principle. Still, as long as he doesn't abuse his position as an editor to mod-bomb opposing points of view to oblivion, it's better to have these "discussions" out in the open, where we're forced to not only express our side, but to defend it by force of logic.
It's funny how everyone criticizes Canada for being socialist, but it's the US who is currently engaged in "privatizing profits, socializing losses" by bailing out banks and Wall Street. I'm sure it would be the same for health care - if a large HMO were about to go bust, they'd get a bail-out package, but the average taxpayer can piss up a rope for all the good it will do.
It's the same thing with the current tilt toward fascism in the US. How much longer before "your papers, please" becomes the norm for everything, as if that will somehow offset the damage done by a foreign policy that is making the US the #1 threat to world security?
the world is changing. In terms of purchasing power parity, China's economy is now #2 after the US - and we'll probably see them surpass the US within a few years in terms of PPP, and in absolute terms before 2050. Of course, if the recession is as severe as some are predicting, or there's a massive swing away from the greenback, the US decline will be much quicker.
To put it into geek-speak, "We could tell you, but then we'd have to reiserize you."
Bit of a cheap shot? While pudge and I disagree on a lot ^W ^W almost everything, it's all in good fun. "Go work for Microsoft" - that's LOW! ;-0
I mean, let's face it ... if pudge WERE to go work for Microsoft, he'd re-implement VistaME in perl ... which, come to think of it, all things considered, can't be any worse than it is now ...
(Yes, it's Friday and I'm feeling generous today. I'm trying to end one of the worst weeks in years on a positive note after having to put my dog down, 2 arguments with government lawyers who are trying to duck a court appearance next week to justify their errors to a judge, AND the latest attempt from my asshole landlord to scam me for $15k.)
Just a few points:
No - the domain was abandonned for almost a year when I looked it up for the hell of it, so I scooped it up.
Yeah, but making it legal to download will take all the fun out of it ...
Really? So all those people who were living here at the time didn't have any impact?
And what about the vikings from 10 centuries ago who explored Newfoundland? We probably have them to thank for the Newfoundland dog.
"I surrender!"
Nah, just fire a couple of slugs made out of McBridenium (one of the densest materials known to mankind) at their head.
(I'd say aim for their heart or brains, but the existence of either is questionable.)
Then salt their remains with something even more toxic than calcium - O'Garanic Acid.
Then invoke the same spell that successfully cast out the demon Pretenderle - say "linux linux linux".
we're saving the smurf names for the blue dwarfs.
Do a search - the states have the right (and many states have exercised this right) to eliminated the "right" of a jury trial for crimes with jail terms of 6 months or less.
What usually happens is that when they get around to writing up this law in its' final form, they'll create 2 offenses - one with 3 years, and one with 6 months or less - then they'll charge you with the 3-year offense, and "let" you plead down to the 6-month-or-less.
In other jurisdictions, this is known as a "dual-mode offense".
The only way to stop this sort of crap is to ban the practice of plea bargains.
Poster wrote:
The supreme court disagrees with you:
How many people will be so intimidated by the whole process that they'll just accept whatever plea is offered?
Ditto those who don't have the several thousand dollars to hire a lawyer?
Ditto those who don't have the courage to tell the prosecutor "go fuck yourself - see you in court, numnuts - and you'd better have LOTS of proof ..."
Ditto those who don't want to "rock the boat"
Ditto those who can't afford to take time off work.
When a case goes to trial, even when you win, you usually end up losing. Its not like the other side has any "skin in the game." They still get paid, win or lose. Justice? Not for us.
Read the summary - misdemeanor. In other words, if the prosecdution decides to ask for no more than 6 months jail time, or just for a fine, no right to a jury trial for you!
What it means is that the **AA, seeing the writing on the wall, is going to BLAME CANADA!
This time it will be Bush who accidently says into a live microphopne "We start bombing in 15 minutes."
He'll tell the voters "We're liberating all our oil from their commie socialist rule."
Plus, now that Canadian Tire money is worth more than the US Dollar ... what has he got to lose?
I guess it's the "new pink".
So shave your head. It worked for Patrick Stewart.
I guess you didn't get the memo - The fed is now bailing out the banks, no matter how much bad shit they did. Just ask Bear Sterns.
The link works fine if, instead of clicking on it, you cut-n-paste it into a new browser tab. Here's what you get, if you can't be arsed to go to the trouble:
I threw it in because it was representative of all that went bad with Borland. It was the best example I could think of of a company losing focus, hyping the crap out of a product, and then having the nerve to introduce something that in no way, shape or manner resembled the hype - to the very group that would be the most likely to recognize they were being had.
Not a smart move ...
All they have to do is import the technology from China - the "other place" that wants to do the same thing ...
Please remind me again what's the difference between the "land of the free" and "dirty commie bastards".
If we could do a "Terminator" and go back over the last 4 decades and just shoot the people responsible for:
Not all atheists believe the universe "always existed" and "always will".
That requires that time is linear, has always been so, and always will be so.
For example, if time is another dimension, then it too can disappear in the next "Big Crunch".
Or it can be a closed loop ...
I seem to remember someone else saying "I did not have sex with that woman!"