So, there's no need to explain that you can't make data up out of thin air and that it's impossible to really get more resolution out of an existing image. The same applies to out-of-focus images, under or over exposed images, etc. I mean, if you could do any of that you'd be able to do other cool things, like making an infinite-compression file compressor. Woah!
Anyway, while it's interesting that they trained the tool to "increase" resolution, I doubt it's a generally useful technique. I mean, look at the training pairs compared to the test data. I'd like to see what the results woul dbe if they switched the sets of training data - hi-rez-ify the carpet with the forest data and vice-versa. That would probably look... very artistic.
Since it costs about the same amount of money to lay one strand of fiber as it does to lay 10,000 strands, it seems somewhat obvious that immediately after a big fiber laying expansion that the amount of unused capacity would grossly exceed the amount used.
I mean, if all those fiber laying companies had laid just barely enough to meet current needs they'd have to go back and dig trenches again to create more bandwidth. That would be expensive. And dumb.
The situation is somewhat akin to looking at a newborn baby and saying "He's less than 5% of the size of a real man!" A-duh. Check back in 20 years and see how much of the fiber is still dark.
it's impossible to distinguish multi-unit dwellings from single family houses
the narrowest region you can search in is still really, really big (and in many places in Toronto, less desirable neighbourhoods are adjacent to more desirable ones, making it even tougher to figure out whether the house you're looking at is any good)
The listings are old
We bought a house just a week ago with an agent and she was great! She'd email us listings of houses only on the exact streets we specified, every day. MLS online simply doesn't have decent search capabilities, by design. Those features are only accessible to registered real estate agents who pay for the privledge.
If you want to buy a house, get an agent. Even if you don't have one the listing agent will get a chunk of the sale price anyway. With two kids to take care of and a busy job I have better things to do than hack at a slow MLS web server all day, every day. Not to mention that, as I said, the web site sucks. Hard. And most appallingly, it sucks hard BY DESIGN.
USB is good enough as is. I doubt anyone will notice the difference between current USB devices and USB 2.0 devices.
Plus, without Firewire support no one can use their flashy new DV digital camcorder to edit their home movies and will go buy an iMac instead. I mean, the average DV camcorder costs more than the PC needed to edit the footage with: a mid-range Canon DV camera is over $1,000 USD and I wouldn't spend more than that on a new PC (well, maybe that's 'cause I live in Canada and that's about $1,300 CDN, which gets you a lot of PC these days.)
Besides, Windows supports Firewire right now. I've used a Firewire PCMCIA card on my Win 2K laptop without any problems. Maybe this is a non-announcement...
It's got to be cheaper to buy a decent powered laptop instead of building some exotic box from scratch. If you want convienence, you'll have to pay for it one way or another.
http://www.compaqfactoryoutlet.com has some pretty decent machines for under $1,500. And you even get a 15" LCD monitor thown in to boot (i.e. the screen, for the sarcasm impaired).
The major difference is who runs the programs. Comp Eng is in the Engineering Faculty, so it has to have its curriculum approved by whatever the body is that approves Engineering curricula - the PEO or whomever. In Comp Eng your entire class takes nearly all the same classes until 4th year so there's a very different social atmosphere than CS. Other than that however, it's not that big a difference. I took comp eng and couldn't do a VHDL design to save my life. One of my ex-classmates now designs chips for a living. 3 work at Microsoft. One is a consultant. I'm a product manager at a software tools company. Your education, as many others have pointed out, has minimal bearing on what kind of job you end up doing professionally. Also note that I took one 4th year CS class (Graphics) and some of my classmates took up to 3 of them...
I personally liked the engineering background stuff like physics and the small amount of management science we were taught, but some people might like the bigger math focus and more theoretical CS aspects of a Comp Sci degree. Comp Sci is much more loosely structured, you take whatever classes you want after first year and there's less of a coherent sense of having a "class".
So, in summary, it's not so much the course content that's different, but how the courses are structured and who's in charge of things. I liked Comp Eng. Of course, I have two Chemical Engineers in the family, so I might be biased.
Slashdot Mirror
Anyway, while it's interesting that they trained the tool to "increase" resolution, I doubt it's a generally useful technique. I mean, look at the training pairs compared to the test data. I'd like to see what the results woul dbe if they switched the sets of training data - hi-rez-ify the carpet with the forest data and vice-versa. That would probably look... very artistic.
Really.
None whatsoever.
I mean, if all those fiber laying companies had laid just barely enough to meet current needs they'd have to go back and dig trenches again to create more bandwidth. That would be expensive. And dumb.
The situation is somewhat akin to looking at a newborn baby and saying "He's less than 5% of the size of a real man!" A-duh. Check back in 20 years and see how much of the fiber is still dark.
Yeah, the site works pretty well, except:
We bought a house just a week ago with an agent and she was great! She'd email us listings of houses only on the exact streets we specified, every day. MLS online simply doesn't have decent search capabilities, by design. Those features are only accessible to registered real estate agents who pay for the privledge.
If you want to buy a house, get an agent. Even if you don't have one the listing agent will get a chunk of the sale price anyway. With two kids to take care of and a busy job I have better things to do than hack at a slow MLS web server all day, every day. Not to mention that, as I said, the web site sucks. Hard. And most appallingly, it sucks hard BY DESIGN.
USB is good enough as is. I doubt anyone will notice the difference between current USB devices and USB 2.0 devices.
Plus, without Firewire support no one can use their flashy new DV digital camcorder to edit their home movies and will go buy an iMac instead. I mean, the average DV camcorder costs more than the PC needed to edit the footage with: a mid-range Canon DV camera is over $1,000 USD and I wouldn't spend more than that on a new PC (well, maybe that's 'cause I live in Canada and that's about $1,300 CDN, which gets you a lot of PC these days.)
Besides, Windows supports Firewire right now. I've used a Firewire PCMCIA card on my Win 2K laptop without any problems. Maybe this is a non-announcement...
http://www.compaqfactoryoutlet.com has some pretty decent machines for under $1,500. And you even get a 15" LCD monitor thown in to boot (i.e. the screen, for the sarcasm impaired).
I might as well chime in too...
I did Comp Eng at the U of Waterloo
The major difference is who runs the programs. Comp Eng is in the Engineering Faculty, so it has to have its curriculum approved by whatever the body is that approves Engineering curricula - the PEO or whomever. In Comp Eng your entire class takes nearly all the same classes until 4th year so there's a very different social atmosphere than CS. Other than that however, it's not that big a difference. I took comp eng and couldn't do a VHDL design to save my life. One of my ex-classmates now designs chips for a living. 3 work at Microsoft. One is a consultant. I'm a product manager at a software tools company. Your education, as many others have pointed out, has minimal bearing on what kind of job you end up doing professionally. Also note that I took one 4th year CS class (Graphics) and some of my classmates took up to 3 of them...
I personally liked the engineering background stuff like physics and the small amount of management science we were taught, but some people might like the bigger math focus and more theoretical CS aspects of a Comp Sci degree. Comp Sci is much more loosely structured, you take whatever classes you want after first year and there's less of a coherent sense of having a "class".
So, in summary, it's not so much the course content that's different, but how the courses are structured and who's in charge of things. I liked Comp Eng. Of course, I have two Chemical Engineers in the family, so I might be biased.