Actually, GOCR works very well (100%) on the image-based text
that some sites use to prevent screen scrapping.
1. Download and save the image.
2. If it's a gif, convert it to a jpg.
gif2jpg -a tmp.gif
3. Reduce the colors to 2 (black & white).
djpeg -colors 2 -greyscale -dither none tmp.jpg tmp.pnm
4. If there is a border, crop it off.
pnmcut a b c d tmp.pnm > OCR.pnm
(The dimensions a,b,c,d can be determined by any tool that returns useful info about an image, in general remove 1 or 2 pixels from the edges to get rid of borders.)
5. OCR it.
gocr -n 1 OCR.pnm >> OCR.txt
Of course, this is all automated within the screen scraper, I just broke it out here to explain the steps.
For CAPTCHAs, you have to demorph the severely distorted images after step 4, before you OCR it. I'm still working on the demorpher, but it's about 50% accurate now. Basically, it unstretches long strings of pixels to the average of other strings of pixels in the x and y axis. Works even better if you determine the angle of the pixel sting and shrink on that, along with some rotation to the nearest x or y axis.
No matter how "clean burning" they are, cars still emit carbon dioxide. the equation is pretty simple: HC + O = H2O + CO2 plus some other garbage like NOx.
It's pretty arrogant to think that we can "manage our planet properly."
Shortly after Katrina ravaged the US, there was an article about attempts to mitigate hurricanes (and other weather control nonsense). The article stated that it would take the equivalent energy of an atom bomb being detonated every 24 seconds to counter the energy going into the hurricane from the warm surface water. And it would have to be the opposite, absorbing energy (or at least transferring it somewhere else), which we don't know how to do on such a scale.
In other words, the supertankers full of ice cubes to be scattered over the Gulf of Mexico in the path of the hurricane (one proposal), wouldn't have any effect. Same for the global warming mitigation proposals.
god help us if we're stupid enough to scatter dust in space to reduce the heat energy coming from the sun. What if we screw up? Anyone have a cosmic scale vacuum cleaner?
The Law of Unintended Consequences, colloquially expressed as DON'T FUCK WITH MOTHER NATURE, needs to be applied here.
If the Earth is warming up from natural causes and we try to stop that, it could be a real disaster (as opposed to "sky is falling" fake disasters).
WOW! Where's your store? I know how to get fucks like you fined up to $50,000 for refusing to complete a transaction.
And, you do have a contractual obligation to accept my VISA/MC if you are displaying the logo.
Stores around here who got "The Letter" know it was because of a complaint that I filed, and ALL of them still do business with me -- just no ID required.
Point of order. Most merchants around here (California) don't require a PIN or a signature for small amounts. I've been told that the current limit is $50.00 with either credit or debit cards.
Also, the parent poster didn't mention that those MC/VISA Merchant Manuals mention that there are fines up to $50,000 if the merchant refuses to complete a transaction for invalid reasons. I've mentioned that to a few merchants who suddenly didn't need to see my ID.
I always refuse to show ID. Usually, the manager is consulted and the clerk is told to complete the transaction. One shoe store refused and was fined a substantial amount, they won't tell me how much.
Just carry a binder with the Merchant Manuals with the relevant passages highlighted; they always come around when reminded of THEIR contractual obligations.
INAE, but isn't the dollar-value equivalent supposed to tell us if these various transportation technologies make sense?
In other words, if the car initially costs $100K and the total operating cost over 100K miles is $50K ($.50/mi.) then the cost per mile of transportation is $1.50/mi. That can be compared to roughly equivalent types of transportation such as taking the train, riding a bicycle, flying a helicopter, driving a gas or diesel car, etc. In other words, things that get us from point A to point B, granted with differing amounts of utility value, depending on what else you are trying to accomplish (get to/from a job, transport groceries, take kids to school).
The cost per mile also can be translated into an equivalent environmental cost.
Therefore, the $1.50/mi. electric car has a much higher environmental cost that the $0.10-$0.20/mi. bus. It also has a higher environmental cost that the equivalent, efficient (NOT SUV) gas/diesel car.
Wide spread adoption of pure electric or even hybrid vehicles won't happen until their total cost/mi. is comparable to what we already have.
On another note, as another poster has already pointed out, there is NO way to transfer that much energy through normal household circuits, to get a 5-minute charge. 50kWH in 5 minutes = 600kW. At 300VDC, that's 2,000A. So we're talking large bus bars or multiple 0000ga. cables. Not in a home, not now, not ever!
Plus, I don't care how efficient things are, you're still talking lots and lots of heat in a very short time period. In other technologies, the release of substantial amounts of heat in a short time period is commonly referred to as an EXPLOSION!
Read the WSJ today (02-15-07). WallyMart and their vendors are having lots of trouble with the implementation of their RFID systems. And it's not really the RFID part, it's the integration with inventory systems, etc. that is the real problem.
Meanwhile, Target and CVS are closing in on WallyMart. They are only a few percentage points away from WMs cost of sales and their COS is decreasing while WMs is increasing. Same issue of the WSJ.
I always give everyone my emergency number...911
I'm not trained or equipped to deal with emergencies, these people are.
All else can wait until my normal working hours start.
Many years ago, a wise man said to me, "I could have have a different job every day and never miss an hour of work." And so it has been.
I have a community association pool/tennis court key. I had to make a $100 deposit to get that key. You better damn well believe I'll NEVER lose that key.
A $1000 deposit on a laptop doesn't sound unreasonable to me.
The stealth bombers are scrambled, they're given the final coordinates to program into their smart bombs... then one of the navigators calls back, "Wait a minute guys, isn't that the White House?"
Needlessly plagarized from that famous movie quote, "the call is coming from inside the house."
Some ISPs do stop the bots. I recently helped a friend remove a porno emailing program from his computer. Why? Because Cox Cable had shut off his Internet access. They wouldn't restore it until we had closed EVERY port on the machine (except the few used for common Internet access).
I really don't believe the 1-in-4 figures. Of the hundreds of computers that I have worked on in the last few years, only TWO had anything resembling a bot on them. The usual problems are: somebody's "uncle" deleted a video driver, someone persists in using the power switch to shutoff the computer (VERY common, just needs the ol' chkdsk/bootfix), and Norton A/V. Wipe the HDD and re-install? Never needed IF you know what you are doing.
Car not running right? Do you yank the engine and install a new one when the throttle stop switch just needs a little tweak? If you do, I'd love to be your mechanic.
What many seem to be forgetting here, is that it only takes one source file to populate the P2P networks. And that happens fast!
It doesn't matter if that source comes from a rip, a cleaned version of a watermarked source, or a stolen source with the ID data still in it.
When it comes to removing the watermark, the amount of processing that may be needed is trivial compared to the available resources from a single P4, let alone multi-core or clusters. We truly have very low-cost supercomputers and clusters of supercomputers sitting under our desks.
Reminds me of those who rely on CAPTCHAs... easily, trivially defeated by OCR, whether silicon based or carbon based.
I believe in the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny, and Santa Claus. Does that make them real? Of course not.
Those that talk about "believing" or "disbelieving" in global warming are beginning to sound like the religious zealots. And we all know where that leads.
What if we were living in the ice age thousands of years ago when glaciers came down to the middle of the United States; and then those glaciers started to melt and recede. Was that human-caused global warming? I don't think so.
It is VERY poorly written.
My rule is, whenever I hit the first speed bump (mispellings, improper word usage "except" instead of "expect", poor grammar, illogical structure, etc.) in an article, I hit the back button.
My chopped and lowered Logitech 380SX just can't take those speed bumps, let alone my sorry gray matter.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, GOCR works very well (100%) on the image-based text that some sites use to prevent screen scrapping.
1. Download and save the image.
2. If it's a gif, convert it to a jpg.
gif2jpg -a tmp.gif
3. Reduce the colors to 2 (black & white).
djpeg -colors 2 -greyscale -dither none tmp.jpg tmp.pnm
4. If there is a border, crop it off.
pnmcut a b c d tmp.pnm > OCR.pnm
(The dimensions a,b,c,d can be determined by any tool that returns useful info about an image, in general remove 1 or 2 pixels from the edges to get rid of borders.)
5. OCR it.
gocr -n 1 OCR.pnm >> OCR.txt
Of course, this is all automated within the screen scraper, I just broke it out here to explain the steps.
For CAPTCHAs, you have to demorph the severely distorted images after step 4, before you OCR it. I'm still working on the demorpher, but it's about 50% accurate now. Basically, it unstretches long strings of pixels to the average of other strings of pixels in the x and y axis. Works even better if you determine the angle of the pixel sting and shrink on that, along with some rotation to the nearest x or y axis.
Geeeze dude. I really feel sorry for you. Get another job real quick man.
No matter how "clean burning" they are, cars still emit carbon dioxide. the equation is pretty simple: HC + O = H2O + CO2 plus some other garbage like NOx.
It's pretty arrogant to think that we can "manage our planet properly." Shortly after Katrina ravaged the US, there was an article about attempts to mitigate hurricanes (and other weather control nonsense). The article stated that it would take the equivalent energy of an atom bomb being detonated every 24 seconds to counter the energy going into the hurricane from the warm surface water. And it would have to be the opposite, absorbing energy (or at least transferring it somewhere else), which we don't know how to do on such a scale. In other words, the supertankers full of ice cubes to be scattered over the Gulf of Mexico in the path of the hurricane (one proposal), wouldn't have any effect. Same for the global warming mitigation proposals. god help us if we're stupid enough to scatter dust in space to reduce the heat energy coming from the sun. What if we screw up? Anyone have a cosmic scale vacuum cleaner?
The Law of Unintended Consequences, colloquially expressed as DON'T FUCK WITH MOTHER NATURE, needs to be applied here. If the Earth is warming up from natural causes and we try to stop that, it could be a real disaster (as opposed to "sky is falling" fake disasters).
So can I start my own library? Does the Distributed Library Project qualify as a "public library" under the copyright laws?
You're both off by quite a bit. ATT sells T1 for $350 these days. Contractually, you get FULL capacity 24/7.
WOW! Where's your store? I know how to get fucks like you fined up to $50,000 for refusing to complete a transaction. And, you do have a contractual obligation to accept my VISA/MC if you are displaying the logo. Stores around here who got "The Letter" know it was because of a complaint that I filed, and ALL of them still do business with me -- just no ID required.
Point of order. Most merchants around here (California) don't require a PIN or a signature for small amounts. I've been told that the current limit is $50.00 with either credit or debit cards.
Also, the parent poster didn't mention that those MC/VISA Merchant Manuals mention that there are fines up to $50,000 if the merchant refuses to complete a transaction for invalid reasons. I've mentioned that to a few merchants who suddenly didn't need to see my ID. I always refuse to show ID. Usually, the manager is consulted and the clerk is told to complete the transaction. One shoe store refused and was fined a substantial amount, they won't tell me how much. Just carry a binder with the Merchant Manuals with the relevant passages highlighted; they always come around when reminded of THEIR contractual obligations.
INAE, but isn't the dollar-value equivalent supposed to tell us if these various transportation technologies make sense? In other words, if the car initially costs $100K and the total operating cost over 100K miles is $50K ($.50/mi.) then the cost per mile of transportation is $1.50/mi. That can be compared to roughly equivalent types of transportation such as taking the train, riding a bicycle, flying a helicopter, driving a gas or diesel car, etc. In other words, things that get us from point A to point B, granted with differing amounts of utility value, depending on what else you are trying to accomplish (get to/from a job, transport groceries, take kids to school). The cost per mile also can be translated into an equivalent environmental cost. Therefore, the $1.50/mi. electric car has a much higher environmental cost that the $0.10-$0.20/mi. bus. It also has a higher environmental cost that the equivalent, efficient (NOT SUV) gas/diesel car. Wide spread adoption of pure electric or even hybrid vehicles won't happen until their total cost/mi. is comparable to what we already have. On another note, as another poster has already pointed out, there is NO way to transfer that much energy through normal household circuits, to get a 5-minute charge. 50kWH in 5 minutes = 600kW. At 300VDC, that's 2,000A. So we're talking large bus bars or multiple 0000ga. cables. Not in a home, not now, not ever! Plus, I don't care how efficient things are, you're still talking lots and lots of heat in a very short time period. In other technologies, the release of substantial amounts of heat in a short time period is commonly referred to as an EXPLOSION!
Read the WSJ today (02-15-07). WallyMart and their vendors are having lots of trouble with the implementation of their RFID systems. And it's not really the RFID part, it's the integration with inventory systems, etc. that is the real problem. Meanwhile, Target and CVS are closing in on WallyMart. They are only a few percentage points away from WMs cost of sales and their COS is decreasing while WMs is increasing. Same issue of the WSJ.
I always give everyone my emergency number ...911
I'm not trained or equipped to deal with emergencies, these people are.
All else can wait until my normal working hours start.
Many years ago, a wise man said to me, "I could have have a different job every day and never miss an hour of work." And so it has been.
Agreed. She was lucky. "Luck is when preparation meets opportunity" -somebody intelligent said that, damned if I know who.
I have a community association pool/tennis court key. I had to make a $100 deposit to get that key. You better damn well believe I'll NEVER lose that key. A $1000 deposit on a laptop doesn't sound unreasonable to me.
The stealth bombers are scrambled, they're given the final coordinates to program into their smart bombs... then one of the navigators calls back, "Wait a minute guys, isn't that the White House?" Needlessly plagarized from that famous movie quote, "the call is coming from inside the house."
Some ISPs do stop the bots. I recently helped a friend remove a porno emailing program from his computer. Why? Because Cox Cable had shut off his Internet access. They wouldn't restore it until we had closed EVERY port on the machine (except the few used for common Internet access). I really don't believe the 1-in-4 figures. Of the hundreds of computers that I have worked on in the last few years, only TWO had anything resembling a bot on them. The usual problems are: somebody's "uncle" deleted a video driver, someone persists in using the power switch to shutoff the computer (VERY common, just needs the ol' chkdsk/bootfix), and Norton A/V. Wipe the HDD and re-install? Never needed IF you know what you are doing. Car not running right? Do you yank the engine and install a new one when the throttle stop switch just needs a little tweak? If you do, I'd love to be your mechanic.
What many seem to be forgetting here, is that it only takes one source file to populate the P2P networks. And that happens fast! It doesn't matter if that source comes from a rip, a cleaned version of a watermarked source, or a stolen source with the ID data still in it. When it comes to removing the watermark, the amount of processing that may be needed is trivial compared to the available resources from a single P4, let alone multi-core or clusters. We truly have very low-cost supercomputers and clusters of supercomputers sitting under our desks. Reminds me of those who rely on CAPTCHAs... easily, trivially defeated by OCR, whether silicon based or carbon based.
Not compared to an electric heat pump which may be up to 300% efficient!
I believe in the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny, and Santa Claus. Does that make them real? Of course not.
Those that talk about "believing" or "disbelieving" in global warming are beginning to sound like the religious zealots. And we all know where that leads.
What if we were living in the ice age thousands of years ago when glaciers came down to the middle of the United States; and then those glaciers started to melt and recede. Was that human-caused global warming? I don't think so.
Wait a minute! Who said marriages were supposed to last?
My, my, my, aren't we jealous.
In Japan, you get a controlling interest with 35%.
It is VERY poorly written. My rule is, whenever I hit the first speed bump (mispellings, improper word usage "except" instead of "expect", poor grammar, illogical structure, etc.) in an article, I hit the back button. My chopped and lowered Logitech 380SX just can't take those speed bumps, let alone my sorry gray matter.
Agree with you 100%. I've been using email to SMS for 7 years now and it fills all of my notification needs and is dependable.