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Submission + - Software Combines Thousands of Online Images Into One That Represents Them All (gizmag.com) 1

Zothecula writes: If you're trying to find out what the common features of tabby cats are, a Google image search will likely yield more results than you'd ever have the time or inclination to look over. New software created at the University of California, Berkeley, however, is designed to make such quests considerably easier. Known as AverageExplorer, it searches out thousands of images of a given subject, then amalgamates them into one composite "average" image.

Submission + - Machine Vision Reveals Previously Unknown Influences Between Great Artists

KentuckyFC writes: Art experts look for influences between great masters by studying the artist’s use of space, texture, form, shape, colour and so on. They may also consider the subject matter, brushstrokes, meaning, historical context and myriad other factors. So it's easy to imagine that today's primitive machine vision techniques have little to add. Not so. Using a new technique for classifying objects in images, a team of computer scientists and art experts have compared more than 1700 paintings from over 60 artists dating from the early 15th century to the late 20 the century. They've developed an algorithm that has used these classifications to find many well known influences between artists, such as the well known influence of Pablo Picasso and George Braque on the Austrian symbolist painter Gustav Klimt, the influence of the French romantic Delacroix on the French impressionist Bazille, the Norwegian painter Munch’s influence on the German painter Beckmann and Degas’ influence on Caillebotte. But the algorithm also discovered connections that art historians have never noticed (judge the comparisons for yourself). In particular, the algorithm points out that Norman Rockwell’s Shuffleton’s Barber Shop painted in 1950 is remarkably similar to Frederic Bazille’s Studio 9 Rue de la Condamine painted 80 years before.

Submission + - City of Munich is considering to switch back from Linux to Windows (golem.de)

Golem.de writes: The vice-mayor of Munich Josef Schmid wants a group of experts to analyse the use of Linux in the municipality. According to Schmid, there have been multiple complaints about the lack of interoperability with other city and government administrations. There have also been doubts that the city is lowering costs by using FOSS. Munichs project Limux was started ten years ago. The city wanted to reduce its budget by switching to Linux and FOSS intead of upgrading to newer versions of Microsoft's Windows and Office products. At the end of last year almost all of the 15000 workstations in the municipality were using OSS.

Submission + - Daimler's solution for annoying out-of-office email: delete it

AmiMoJo writes: Sure, you can set an out-of-office auto-reply to let others know they shouldn't email you, but that doesn't usually stop the messages; you may still have to handle those urgent-but-not-really requests while you're on vacation. That's not a problem if you work at Daimler, though. The German automaker recently installed software that not only auto-replies to email sent while staff is away, but deletes it outright.

Comment Much more dangerous than regular van. (Score 0) 435

loading it with explosives and using it as a guided missile. This last concern is the only one that I considered a real issue, but even that is not significantly more dangerous than loading up a regular van full of explosives with a timer, then setting the timer to explode before you leave the vehicle next to a school

I see that much more dangerous because the criminal doesn't have to overcome the fear of getting caught in the vehicle with that load, or getting caught by cameras as he leaves.
And he doesn't have to stop or park somewhere. And he doesn't need any timer, just a remote to command the explosion, whenever he wants, even before target if things don't go as he wishes.

Comment Little-known facts about digital sound alterations (Score 1) 502

The onboard sound card has ZERO effect on the quality of the audio. The bits are traveling directly, unmolested from the application generating them to the amplifiers in the speakers.

That's what I thought for a long time and then I discovered that I was wrong (so you are - no offence).

Digital sound can be altered on the way between application and the DAC interpretation, even with TosLink (optical).

Have a look about the clock jitter problem, or phase noise :

Some refs here (with more links inside), here, and here.

Comment Just a name list - legal loop hole - suggestion (Score 1) 276

Then I suggest they set up a second list where particular individuals would be listed as "can actually fly despite name on no-fly".

So if a Todd Smith has his name put on no-fly list for some reasons, an other Todd Smith would be able to ask thorough check and have his identification put on the do-fly so he would no longer be banned from flying.

Comment What about tetrachromate women ? (Score 3, Interesting) 176

If it can match colors up to 94% of "nature's true palette" , maybe it could be used to display a test for tetrachromate people ?

I always wanted to make such a test, but I was quite difficult with real pigments.

I hope some application will try to make such a test, it would be amazing !

Comment Energy - Thyroid condition - People at restaurant (Score 0) 625

For quite a long time I thought that, no matter what, if you eat less energy than your body needs, you will loose weight.

Then I learned about this "Thyroid condition" case...

In that case, even when people eat less than their body really needs, the body will stockpile the fat, to the point that the person can't sustain her functions and will faint.
So, those people don't have a lot of choice if they don't want to faint, they need to eat more.

How many "Thyroid condition" do we have in the population ?
I don't know. Anyone has some information ?
I guess that's not very common.

But usually I see fat people at self-service restaurant with :
=> delicatessen
=> meat, sauce and hydrocarbs
=> pastry
for every single meal!

While I usually take:
=> various raw vegetables without sauce
=> not always meat, but at least one vegetables (fries not excluded but once a week at most)
=> yogourt, fruit or occasional pastry
Guess what ? My weight is stable since over 20 years ( +/- 500g at most), and I'm rather slim.

That's why I show now mercy at all for fat people.
The vast majority of them eat too much, I can see that everywhere.

Comment Re:Wait a sec (Score 4, Insightful) 772

[..] you can believe that this particular theory is the right one [...]

This is not a belief, since I wouldn't say that I *believe* that it is the right one, no...

I would rather say that I'm convinced and that I agree with the reasoning of this theory, given the facts and using logic.

And it is by far the best, and in fact the only one that is still valid and was reinforced during a century of observations, also with predictions comforted by new observations.
There is no other theory left about evolution, and this one was remarkable for its scientific validation.

With all those facts and observations, if you still have doubts, then you must also have some about any theory, even wonder is Earth is flat or not, who knows ?
And have absolute doubt, question even reality...
You can, if you want.

BTW, "believe" might be an ambiguous word in English, like "Free" (Libre or Gratis?), this can be confusing for some people.
Do they say "believe" for "having the belief" - with faith - or just "thinking it's right and valid" - no faith needed - as it can be used casually.
Mixing the two is really confusing.

Comment Advantage of Video talking head (Score 1) 293

As soon as I saw his eyebrows and glasses, I figured out the video wasn't worth watching.

This actually saves time, even when you compare with text only media.

One must filter information according to prejudices that one have on the physical aspect of the Narrator...

It is only shallow people who do not judge by appearances
Oscar Wilde

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