Unless I am REALLY missing something, it is next to impossible to go from a blurry distorted image to pin-sharp.
Actually it is possible. It has been done to uncover blurred out credit card numbers, for instance.
Also, in addition to the methods used in TFA, one can use fractal compression. This matches the 'shapes' in the image to individual fractals, and allows zooming in much further than originally possible without producing pixellation.
This is used routinely in the publishing business with low-resolution images, with programs such as this: http://www.ononesoftware.com/detail.php?prodLine_id=2.
So, at least in principle, there's no reason why the software can't do that.
I dislike working with Vista, it's counterproductive, when it should be more productive, and makes me feel less in control of what's going on in my PC; if something hangs, I haven't gotten the slightest clue. "Which obscure process now is behaving badly? Just when I reboot I get a "check for a sollution online", so halfly sell my soul to MS raping my bandwidth sending the dumpfiles to get a "no currently known sollution.".
Has anyone actually explored the functions available in Vista for the technically inclined? It's VASTLY better than XP.
Check under administrative tools....
Reliability & performance monitor - shows you the stability of the machine as a metric, along with applications installed/uninstalled, crashes etc indexed by day, so you can see at a glance what applications have dropped reliability. This also works for performance, so you can check how much cpu speed you lose after that install of McAfee crap. This alone should be enough to pique the interest of administrators.
In addition, the monitors are actually scripted, so you can create your own monitoring whatever you like, and even script aggregates for events or 'sensors' to make custom monitors that trigger on certain thresholds etc. I haven't seen that in XP, or Linux for that matter, though I've not used Linux for a couple of years - more power if it's got the equivilent, because to be honest, these are the kinds of things that we need more of in OS' - feedback.
There is also a half decent memory diagnostics tool built in... Even event viewer has been souped up.
Task manager has been pimped drastically. Click the performance monitor button and you can see nice ordered lists of processes by CPU (of course), memory, network and disc drive R/W usage, all in separate graphs at the top. Again, a simple thing that's very useful. Linux has had this tool for a while, but it doesn't really play many games so... you use what you need.
And if anyone is going to play games, Directx10 is vastly vastly better than dx9, and as dx9 on vista uses the new driver model and some of the shaders, even on a dx9 game with a dx9 card, it looks much better - 'cleaner' graphics with better shading - and seems to run faster than XP. Note I have an ati card - I've heard dx9 runs slightly slower on NVidia cards on Vista.
I hear lots of cries of "UAC Meeeeh" and I'm starting to wonder who these people on Slashdot are who install Vista and DON'T turn
off UAC - I would presume we don't need babysitting.
To be honest, I installed vista just to try it out, and expected it to be shit. I have been very surprised at how much more control I now have at the engines under the hood. It seems more responsive than XP - especially with drawing windows; bizarre considering you'd think Aero would be slower than XP's plane borders! How many of the people with problems with Vista are running it on legacy hardware, I wonder. I've heard the argument that an OS should use less resources and to a small extent I agree, and these people are catered for by running command script only on bootup - which you can do with Vista, or of course Linux, which is the king of all that, in a way. I don't know, I just haven't had any where near the problems with Vista that I had when XP came out, and I actually like what they've done with it. Certainly in day to day usage, I have more control. YMMV.
WHat's also at issue is that submitting a computer for repairs does not give the service people a blank check to read my email or browse through my vacation pictures.
My girlfriend's laptop was sent in to get a replacement screen. It took about a month or so for it to come back and, out of interest, I checked the event log to see what they had run.
It turned out that they had been running games and Skype at 3am, looking through Word files - including past CV's and even undeleting files and pictures. I was completely flabbergasted by the brazen cheek of these people, so I took screenshots of the event log, wrote down everything I could and then turned the laptop off.
The company tried to fob me off by saying that they had to test the new laptop screen, because of course you need to undelete files to do that. In addition, we were told by the company that the screen was fitted in the first few days of it arriving there, so presumably the rest of the time the laptop was at someone's house as an entertainment machine. So, she was without her only computer for someone else's entertainment.
So, anyway, we both threatened them with court action over invasion of privacy - I mean just looking through CVs is bad enough without undeleting stuff.
Despite being as awkward as they possibly could be, we did get a free laptop out of it!:D
By the way, this was the biggest computer repair company in the UK - the one all the insurance companies send your computers to. Food for thought.
In fact, it's arguable that the original purpose of religion was to provide explanations for natural phenomena that were unexplainable at the time. Yes, originally. Originally it was thought magical sky people made the crops go bad and people to fall ill. Religion has been moving the goalposts ever since.
Science in no way affects spirituality. If anything, it enhances it. It has the opposite effect on religions.
China is not 50 years behind the times. 50 years ago, getting into space with the current materials was very difficult. Now, the world has access to cheap, powerful computing, high tech materials, and plenty of easily available research on all aspects of the problems space poses. All a country needs is the economy and the will. China's economy economy is booming...
There was a study done a while back where some people lifted little finger weights, some did nothing, and some imagined lifting finger weights.
The people actually doing the weights increased strength by 30% or so (IIRC), and the people imagining it increased by 20%, with no effect for the controls. Apparently it stengthens the nerve pathways that control the muscle, thereby allowing stronger signals to get through.
So, there ya go, imagination can make you stronger!:D
Thats true, it did. I think the iPod way of synching is a bit weird, but thats just my opinion and nothing else.
However, the Point of backing up your files is exactly that - for backup! I have all my music on my iriver & my computer, and listen to both. If either goes down, I have a backup - whereas with itunes, you don't, because AIUI, you can't copy back from the player, so it will delete all your tunes when you synch to it. I also wont tell you it's gonna do that!
Correct me if I'm wrong!
IMHO, all this guff makes it a bit awkward to use as a roaming copy of your music, and really, is unnecessary in inconvieniencing (if thats a word) - purely there to appease the recording industries - and not really stopping the piracy it was meant to.
Well as I said - to back up your tunes!
Besides which, as the grandparent said, you can use most other HD players to store files on. I understand this is possible with an ipod, but what a load of hassle
I have an iriver and I can just plug in and transfer.
Realisticly much more music is ripped from the net than other people's HD players... How many mates do u have with HD players anyway?
The DMCA lock in in iPods is in some way justifiable, as at the least it proves you can piss off people who want to rip files...
*Ahem*
Hang on, why the hell would you want to stop people from copying music back off it!? Its still got the 'protection' and it means you cant back up your tunes on it.
In a way, having such draconian 'protection' ensures courts can use it as an example of how all HD players *should* lock you down - proving that the other player are 'not cooperating' with the **AA industries...
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So, at least in principle, there's no reason why the software can't do that.
Has anyone actually explored the functions available in Vista for the technically inclined? It's VASTLY better than XP. Check under administrative tools....
Reliability & performance monitor - shows you the stability of the machine as a metric, along with applications installed/uninstalled, crashes etc indexed by day, so you can see at a glance what applications have dropped reliability. This also works for performance, so you can check how much cpu speed you lose after that install of McAfee crap. This alone should be enough to pique the interest of administrators.
In addition, the monitors are actually scripted, so you can create your own monitoring whatever you like, and even script aggregates for events or 'sensors' to make custom monitors that trigger on certain thresholds etc. I haven't seen that in XP, or Linux for that matter, though I've not used Linux for a couple of years - more power if it's got the equivilent, because to be honest, these are the kinds of things that we need more of in OS' - feedback.
There is also a half decent memory diagnostics tool built in... Even event viewer has been souped up.
Task manager has been pimped drastically. Click the performance monitor button and you can see nice ordered lists of processes by CPU (of course), memory, network and disc drive R/W usage, all in separate graphs at the top. Again, a simple thing that's very useful. Linux has had this tool for a while, but it doesn't really play many games so... you use what you need.
And if anyone is going to play games, Directx10 is vastly vastly better than dx9, and as dx9 on vista uses the new driver model and some of the shaders, even on a dx9 game with a dx9 card, it looks much better - 'cleaner' graphics with better shading - and seems to run faster than XP. Note I have an ati card - I've heard dx9 runs slightly slower on NVidia cards on Vista.
I hear lots of cries of "UAC Meeeeh" and I'm starting to wonder who these people on Slashdot are who install Vista and DON'T turn off UAC - I would presume we don't need babysitting.
To be honest, I installed vista just to try it out, and expected it to be shit. I have been very surprised at how much more control I now have at the engines under the hood. It seems more responsive than XP - especially with drawing windows; bizarre considering you'd think Aero would be slower than XP's plane borders! How many of the people with problems with Vista are running it on legacy hardware, I wonder. I've heard the argument that an OS should use less resources and to a small extent I agree, and these people are catered for by running command script only on bootup - which you can do with Vista, or of course Linux, which is the king of all that, in a way. I don't know, I just haven't had any where near the problems with Vista that I had when XP came out, and I actually like what they've done with it. Certainly in day to day usage, I have more control. YMMV.
Vista home premium includes DVD burning software, picture management software, music tools, backup software, etc.
WHat's also at issue is that submitting a computer for repairs does not give the service people a blank check to read my email or browse through my vacation pictures.
:D
My girlfriend's laptop was sent in to get a replacement screen. It took about a month or so for it to come back and, out of interest, I checked the event log to see what they had run.
It turned out that they had been running games and Skype at 3am, looking through Word files - including past CV's and even undeleting files and pictures. I was completely flabbergasted by the brazen cheek of these people, so I took screenshots of the event log, wrote down everything I could and then turned the laptop off.
The company tried to fob me off by saying that they had to test the new laptop screen, because of course you need to undelete files to do that. In addition, we were told by the company that the screen was fitted in the first few days of it arriving there, so presumably the rest of the time the laptop was at someone's house as an entertainment machine. So, she was without her only computer for someone else's entertainment.
So, anyway, we both threatened them with court action over invasion of privacy - I mean just looking through CVs is bad enough without undeleting stuff. Despite being as awkward as they possibly could be, we did get a free laptop out of it!
By the way, this was the biggest computer repair company in the UK - the one all the insurance companies send your computers to. Food for thought.
China is not 50 years behind the times. 50 years ago, getting into space with the current materials was very difficult. Now, the world has access to cheap, powerful computing, high tech materials, and plenty of easily available research on all aspects of the problems space poses. All a country needs is the economy and the will. China's economy economy is booming...
There was a study done a while back where some people lifted little finger weights, some did nothing, and some imagined lifting finger weights. The people actually doing the weights increased strength by 30% or so (IIRC), and the people imagining it increased by 20%, with no effect for the controls. Apparently it stengthens the nerve pathways that control the muscle, thereby allowing stronger signals to get through. So, there ya go, imagination can make you stronger! :D
Thats true, it did. I think the iPod way of synching is a bit weird, but thats just my opinion and nothing else.
However, the Point of backing up your files is exactly that - for backup!
I have all my music on my iriver & my computer, and listen to both. If either goes down, I have a backup - whereas with itunes, you don't, because AIUI, you can't copy back from the player, so it will delete all your tunes when you synch to it. I also wont tell you it's gonna do that!
Correct me if I'm wrong!
IMHO, all this guff makes it a bit awkward to use as a roaming copy of your music, and really, is unnecessary in inconvieniencing (if thats a word) - purely there to appease the recording industries - and not really stopping the piracy it was meant to.
Well as I said - to back up your tunes! Besides which, as the grandparent said, you can use most other HD players to store files on. I understand this is possible with an ipod, but what a load of hassle I have an iriver and I can just plug in and transfer. Realisticly much more music is ripped from the net than other people's HD players... How many mates do u have with HD players anyway?
The DMCA lock in in iPods is in some way justifiable, as at the least it proves you can piss off people who want to rip files...
*Ahem*
Hang on, why the hell would you want to stop people from copying music back off it!? Its still got the 'protection' and it means you cant back up your tunes on it.
In a way, having such draconian 'protection' ensures courts can use it as an example of how all HD players *should* lock you down - proving that the other player are 'not cooperating' with the **AA industries...