Absolutely Perfect Predictions
Keith Morrison
Man". It so happened that the scene on when I hit the channel is the
one where the bad guys scan Arnie's face (and, although not shown, Rachel
Ticotin's) and superimpose them on stunt doubles so their deaths can be
faked.
I bring this up because the prediction of the technology was dead perfect
on the money (okay, we can't do it live, but it's a matter of time). The
technique is the one that first received prominence when "The Crow" came
out but is going to be spectacularly on display come Thursday with the new
Matrix film. These days, you don't even know if the person who owns the
face is the one actually doing the action.
I bring this up because there have been some threads recently about stuff
being predicted by SF, but much of it is a close resemblance rather than
truly accurate.
So, any examples where the prediction has been dead on?
--
Keith
Peter
Keith Morrison wrote:
> I was flicking channels and happened to run across Arnie's "The Running
> Man". It so happened that the scene on when I hit the channel is the
> one where the bad guys scan Arnie's face (and, although not shown, Rachel
> Ticotin's) and superimpose them on stunt doubles so their deaths can be
> faked.
>
> I bring this up because the prediction of the technology was dead perfect
> on the money (okay, we can't do it live, but it's a matter of time). The
> technique is the one that first received prominence when "The Crow" came
> out but is going to be spectacularly on display come Thursday with the new
> Matrix film. These days, you don't even know if the person who owns the
> face is the one actually doing the action.
Here's a prediction for you. Within 5 years you will be able to appear
as any actor in any movie you wish.
The process will be simple. You will go to a serviced and have your face
scanned from all angles in a relatively small number (<2 dozen) of
facial expressions.
This 'facial map' will then be processed against the movie of your
choice... mapping your face to any face in the movie frame by frame. The
finished product will be a personalized movie. This will be available
initially for $1-2k, but will drop to $99.99 within 3 years of the first
commercially available product.
Of course... Identity theft will take on new meaning...
Goran UnreaL Krajnovic
> So, any examples where the prediction has been dead on?
Here's one which freaks me out: the recent SARS outbreak and Stephen King's
_The Stand_. Hopefully it will soon stop being a dead on (pun intended)
prediction...
--
UnreaL.
[ Standard disclaimers apply. Personal opinions only. May explode in fire. ]
James Nicoll
Goran UnreaL Krajnovic <unreal...@nospam.fly.srk.fer.hr> wrote:
>Keith Morrison <kei...@polarnet.ca> wrote:
>> So, any examples where the prediction has been dead on?
>
>Here's one which freaks me out: the recent SARS outbreak and Stephen King's
>_The Stand_. Hopefully it will soon stop being a dead on (pun intended)
>prediction...
There's a huge difference between a virulent airborne disease
with a 99.99+% kill rate and a not especially contagious disease with
a 20% fatality rate, even if a rational person would not want to catch
either one. For one thing, if SARS was Captain Trips, Toronto would be
free of Mel Lastman by now.
ObSF: _Some Will Not Die_, Algis Budrys.
--
"About this time, I started getting depressed. Probably the late
hour and the silence. I decided to put on some music.
Boy, that Billie Holiday can sing."
_Why I Hate Saturn_, Kyle Baker
Mark Hanson
message news:b9obcv$feed$1...@as201.hinet.hr...
> Keith Morrison <kei...@polarnet.ca> wrote:
> > So, any examples where the prediction has been dead on?
>
> Here's one which freaks me out: the recent SARS outbreak and Stephen
King's
> _The Stand_. Hopefully it will soon stop being a dead on (pun intended)
> prediction...
Why are you freaking yourself out? I'm wondering what the "dead on"
similarity is between a low-morbidity, 15-20% (albeit rising slightly)
mortality disease, and King's (I think) 100% morbidity, 99.9% mortality
superflu that just about depopulated the world in about a month?
Mark
Karl M Syring
Depends on your news sources. There seem to be some special
interest groups that push the SARS hysteria. I could imagine,
that you can impair the industrial production of the East Asian
nations this way, may be to stop the deflationary death spiral
in the Western industrial nations. Generally, the "disease as an
economic weapon" motive has been rarely used in fiction.
Karl M. Syring
Elf M. Sternberg
> Here's a prediction for you. Within 5 years you will be able to appear
> as any actor in any movie you wish.
Heh. In 1998 I wrote a storyset in 2008. In one scene, the
characters are watching a porn film made in the early 1990's. The
system, in real time, cleaned up the VHS-related artifacts, improved the
clarity to high-definition digital video, and removed every condom on
the screen.
Five years later, I don't think that prediction is that far off,
actually...
Elf
Goran UnreaL Krajnovic
> Why are you freaking yourself out? I'm wondering what the "dead on"
> similarity is between a low-morbidity, 15-20% (albeit rising slightly)
> mortality disease, and King's (I think) 100% morbidity, 99.9% mortality
> superflu that just about depopulated the world in about a month?
I did not intend my post to sound like I'm (literally) freaking out, I was
just expressing my concern over the spread of the disease. I don't read too
many foreign newsgroups and I'm not too familiar by the number of
the-end-of-the-world-is-nigh trolls, so my apologies if I sounded like that,
it was not intentional.
I agree that King's superflu was much stronger than SARS and I'm not
particularly worried about SARS as such - you won't (yet?) see me wearing a
breathing mask. However, the two viruses do seem to, at least to me, have
their similarities in the mode of spread.
The rate at which SARS spreads and watching the world trying to cope with
the virus does worry me in a what-if way. The virus does not really have to
have a 99.9% mortality rate to remind of superflu but it is interesting to
see reports of it come up in more and more places. However, if SARS had
been, say, twice as dangerous as it is, we'd be talking not only tighter
airport security, but much larger problems. That's the part which worries
me.
Goran UnreaL Krajnovic
> The system, in real time, cleaned up the VHS-related artifacts, improved
I don't think you'll ever be able to do that, real time or no real time. No
amount of neither magic nor sufficiently advanced technology will be able to
restore information which simply isn't recorded in the original material.
Current film restoration techniques [1] are, however, quite impressive,
although they can only salvage the information which is really in the
original film.
The only way you *might* be able to improve VHS to HDTV is to have a system
which would analyze a frame of VHS video, recognize it for what it is in 3D
space (e.g. a human face, a landscape, etc) and render the missing detail by
pure invention. For example, say the system is interpolating a frame from a
football match. The pitch on VHS will be a flat green colour with no detail.
The system might have a database which knows how grass looks like up close
and, through some seriously advanced AI, draw them over the flat green,
properly positioned, lit and shaded. The same for skin texture, cloth
texture, etc.
[1] An interesting read on the subject is an article about the restoration
done to the 1927 classic film _Metropolis_ at http://www.alpha-omega.de/
Mark Hanson
> I did not intend my post to sound like I'm (literally) freaking out, I was
> just expressing my concern over the spread of the disease. I don't read
too
> many foreign newsgroups and I'm not too familiar by the number of
> the-end-of-the-world-is-nigh trolls, so my apologies if I sounded like
that,
> it was not intentional.
I wouldn't call those people trolls; I'd merely suggest they pay too much
attention to the evening news.
> I agree that King's superflu was much stronger than SARS and I'm not
> particularly worried about SARS as such - you won't (yet?) see me wearing
a
> breathing mask. However, the two viruses do seem to, at least to me, have
> their similarities in the mode of spread.
>
> The rate at which SARS spreads and watching the world trying to cope with
> the virus does worry me in a what-if way. The virus does not really have
to
> have a 99.9% mortality rate to remind of superflu but it is interesting to
> see reports of it come up in more and more places. However, if SARS had
> been, say, twice as dangerous as it is, we'd be talking not only tighter
> airport security, but much larger problems. That's the part which worries
> me.
Okay, yeah, but if SARS was twice as dangerous, then we're still only
talking about twice a few thousand casualties, instead of merely a few
thousand casualties. Every year in the United States about 30,000 people die
of the *flu*, and yet nobody pays attention.
And the rate as which SARS seems to spread appears to be in direct
proportion to the quality of that country's medical and health
infrastructure. For example...China: crappy, third-world medical facilities
out in the countryside; SARS spreads rapidly. Toronto: state of the art
first-world health facilities; SARS mini-demic already over. That suggests
that the problem may not be with the disease (bad though it might be to
actually get it), but with the country it first spread in.
I'd also point out that "the world" isn't trying to cope with the virus,
since "the world" isn't particularly threatened by it -- assuming we're
talking about people in general, and not their overexcitable governments and
media outlets. I'll readily admit that I'd be somewhat worried if I lived in
Guong Dong or Hong Kong, but since I don't, worrying seems like more of a
waste of my time than anything else.
Mark
Magenta Sky
> Mark Hanson wrote on Mon, 12 May 2003 15:29:27 GMT:
>> "Goran UnreaL Krajnovic" <unreal...@nospam.fly.srk.fer.hr> wrote
>> in message news:b9obcv$feed$1...@as201.hinet.hr...
>>> Keith Morrison <kei...@polarnet.ca> wrote:
>>>> So, any examples where the prediction has been dead on?
>>>
>>> Here's one which freaks me out: the recent SARS outbreak and
>>> Stephen King's _The Stand_. Hopefully it will soon stop being a
>>> dead on (pun intended) prediction...
>>
>> Why are you freaking yourself out? I'm wondering what the "dead on"
>> similarity is between a low-morbidity, 15-20% (albeit rising
>> slightly) mortality disease, and King's (I think) 100% morbidity,
>> 99.9% mortality superflu that just about depopulated the world in
>> about a month?
>
> Depends on your news sources.
There's a news source that has reported 99.99% mortality rate
in less time that SARS has been in the news? Must be on Fox.
David Ball
<unreal...@nospam.fly.srk.fer.hr> wrote:
>Elf M. Sternberg <e...@drizzle.com> wrote:
>> The system, in real time, cleaned up the VHS-related artifacts, improved
>> the clarity to high-definition digital video, (...)
>
>I don't think you'll ever be able to do that, real time or no real time. No
>amount of neither magic nor sufficiently advanced technology will be able to
>restore information which simply isn't recorded in the original material.
>Current film restoration techniques [1] are, however, quite impressive,
>although they can only salvage the information which is really in the
>original film.
It might be able to get more information from adjacent frames and use
that in combination with what you described below. Also, once an
object was recognized, it could be stored as a 'hint' for later in the
video. Ideally, it would make a pass through the entire video,
building a database of objects before starting to display it. That
way, information that it was able to figure out later in the video
could be used at the beginning.
Given enough computing power and a large enough database of objects
that it recognizes, it could probably do a fairly good job. We're a
long way from that kind of computing power or software though.
Long before you see a system that can do this by itself, you'll
probably see a process similar to colorization where a human
identifies things for the computer and makes suggestions.
>
>The only way you *might* be able to improve VHS to HDTV is to have a system
>which would analyze a frame of VHS video, recognize it for what it is in 3D
>space (e.g. a human face, a landscape, etc) and render the missing detail by
>pure invention. For example, say the system is interpolating a frame from a
>football match. The pitch on VHS will be a flat green colour with no detail.
>The system might have a database which knows how grass looks like up close
>and, through some seriously advanced AI, draw them over the flat green,
>properly positioned, lit and shaded. The same for skin texture, cloth
>texture, etc.
>
>[1] An interesting read on the subject is an article about the restoration
>done to the 1927 classic film _Metropolis_ at http://www.alpha-omega.de/
-- David
David Ball
<magen...@SAFe-mail.net> wrote:
>There's a news source that has reported 99.99% mortality rate
>in less time that SARS has been in the news? Must be on Fox.
I vaguely recall hearing something like that. IIRC, it was in those
over 60 in one region of Asia.
-- David
Mark Atwood
>
> It might be able to get more information from adjacent frames and use
> that in combination with what you described below. Also, once an
> object was recognized, it could be stored as a 'hint' for later in the
> video. Ideally, it would make a pass through the entire video,
> building a database of objects before starting to display it. That
> way, information that it was able to figure out later in the video
> could be used at the beginning.
>
> Given enough computing power and a large enough database of objects
> that it recognizes, it could probably do a fairly good job. We're a
> long way from that kind of computing power or software though.
Not true.
We do this trick *already* for boosting the resolution of recorded
video images. As a bonus, it also gives you a 3D surface map. Just a
few years ago it was a CS lab trick. It's now starting to be deployed
for areal mapping applications.
It's slow, and it requires a lot of machoflops, but it does work well
with current MPI based supercomputers. And there are lots of
applications where people will spend some Serious Money to boost the
res of existing video, and to get a 3D map from it.
It's suspected, tho not known in the UNCL community, that the US NRO
worked out the same trick at least a decade previous, if not longer,
to boost the "resolution" of their overhead assets beyond what a back
of the envelope calculation says is possible.
--
Mark Atwood | When you do things right,
m...@pobox.com | people won't be sure you've done anything at all.
http://www.pobox.com/~mra
Karl M Syring
Hehe, someone tries to be ironic. To tell you the truth, all
Fox News affiliates now are seeking for Saddam and the
missing weapons of mass destruction.
Karl M. Syring
Kamil
<unreal...@nospam.fly.srk.fer.hr> wrote:
>Elf M. Sternberg <e...@drizzle.com> wrote:
>> The system, in real time, cleaned up the VHS-related artifacts, improved
>> the clarity to high-definition digital video, (...)
>
>I don't think you'll ever be able to do that, real time or no real time. No
>amount of neither magic nor sufficiently advanced technology will be able to
>restore information which simply isn't recorded in the original material.
>Current film restoration techniques [1] are, however, quite impressive,
>although they can only salvage the information which is really in the
>original film.
>
>The only way you *might* be able to improve VHS to HDTV is to have a system
>which would analyze a frame of VHS video, recognize it for what it is in 3D
>space (e.g. a human face, a landscape, etc) and render the missing detail by
>pure invention. For example, say the system is interpolating a frame from a
>football match. The pitch on VHS will be a flat green colour with no detail.
>The system might have a database which knows how grass looks like up close
>and, through some seriously advanced AI, draw them over the flat green,
>properly positioned, lit and shaded. The same for skin texture, cloth
>texture, etc.
1 If you can identify the 3d objects in 3d space and orient them ,
you can recover the detail or texture or even a motion texture from
many frames at many angles.
2) Once you have this information you can compute the all the fine
detail of an object, how the detail changes over time, lighting
conditions etc..
from this information we can render the 3d scene, we can also change
the action happening in the scene.
1 is a lot harder to do than 2, and may require AI.
We can do 2 already to a limited extent without 1, if we could do 1, 2
would be just an application of statistics. Better algorithims for 2
would be more efficant not make better textures, besides if 1existed
the problem space of 2 would be smaller.
For thoes interested in research papers on the subject here is a link
to Image Based View Synthesis by my former Prof, Dr. Martin Jägersand
http://www.cs.rochester.edu/u/jag/demos/demos.html
paper
http://www.cs.rochester.edu/u/jag/SimAct/viewsynth/viewsynthhtml.html
Sorry about the quality of sample images, the demo videos are not
available , this was done a while ago.
Kamil
Craig Richardson
<unreal...@nospam.fly.srk.fer.hr> wrote:
>Keith Morrison <kei...@polarnet.ca> wrote:
>> So, any examples where the prediction has been dead on?
>
>Here's one which freaks me out: the recent SARS outbreak and Stephen King's
>_The Stand_. Hopefully it will soon stop being a dead on (pun intended)
>prediction...
Also the Keanu Reeves vehicle "Johnny Mnemonic". The rioting Beijing
residents, all clad in surgical masks, was a nice eerie touch.
--Craig
--
Managing the Devil Rays is something like competing on "Iron Chef",
and having Chairman Kaga reveal a huge ziggurat of lint.
Gary Huckabay, Baseball Prospectus Online, August 21, 2002
Ian Montgomerie
wrote:
>On Mon, 12 May 2003 18:00:11 +0000 (UTC), Goran UnreaL Krajnovic
><unreal...@nospam.fly.srk.fer.hr> wrote:
>
>>Elf M. Sternberg <e...@drizzle.com> wrote:
>>> The system, in real time, cleaned up the VHS-related artifacts, improved
>>> the clarity to high-definition digital video, (...)
>>
>>I don't think you'll ever be able to do that, real time or no real time. No
>>amount of neither magic nor sufficiently advanced technology will be able to
>>restore information which simply isn't recorded in the original material.
>>Current film restoration techniques [1] are, however, quite impressive,
>>although they can only salvage the information which is really in the
>>original film.
>
>It might be able to get more information from adjacent frames and use
>that in combination with what you described below.
This is already possible. Motion-compensated deinterlacing with HD
upsampling. However, the previous poster is right - you can't apply
any reasonable image filtering techniques to make it look like it was
actually shot in HD. The fine detail is lost, and there are harsh
limits on how much of it you can interpolate back in (without
tremendous advancements in AI and Arbitrary Computing Power (TM)).
Keith Morrison
>>It might be able to get more information from adjacent frames and use
>>that in combination with what you described below.
>
> This is already possible. Motion-compensated deinterlacing with HD
> upsampling. However, the previous poster is right - you can't apply
> any reasonable image filtering techniques to make it look like it was
> actually shot in HD. The fine detail is lost, and there are harsh
> limits on how much of it you can interpolate back in (without
> tremendous advancements in AI and Arbitrary Computing Power (TM)).
What? You mean all those shows where they have an image that looks
like it was shot on the equivalent of a 0.25 megapixel camera and
ten seconds of snazzy computing later they've extracted details
at a resolution of about 0.5mm from about 300m away aren't realistic?
I am just shocked.
I'm waiting for a scene in any show where the Heroes are standing
behind the computer tech looking at a screen.
"It's a blobby shape in the driver's seat."
"Can you blow it up?"
(Tech looks at speaker funny and shrugs.) "O-kay. There you go.
Now it's a big blobby shape in the driver's seat."
--
Keith
Robert Whelan
Well, not so much "disease as an economic weapon" as "media inflation
of disease" as an economic weapon. I had the same idea myself.
Mark 'Kamikaze' Hughes
> What? You mean all those shows where they have an image that looks
> like it was shot on the equivalent of a 0.25 megapixel camera and
> ten seconds of snazzy computing later they've extracted details
> at a resolution of about 0.5mm from about 300m away aren't realistic?
Which is almost always done by blatantly using Photoshop to scale the
image down and blur it for the "before" version, then undo that for the
"after".
Maybe that's really what they're doing, in-character. It's not
actually video enhancement, it's computer techs doing a job security
scam.
--
<a href="http://kuoi.asui.uidaho.edu/~kamikaze/"> Mark Hughes </a>
"We remain convinced that this is the best defensive posture to adopt in
order to minimize casualties when the Great Old Ones return from beyond
the stars to eat our brains." -Charlie Stross, _The Concrete Jungle_
Steve Coltrin
> Elf M. Sternberg <e...@drizzle.com> wrote:
> > The system, in real time, cleaned up the VHS-related artifacts, improved
> > the clarity to high-definition digital video, (...)
>
> I don't think you'll ever be able to do that, real time or no real time.
Your own visual system does exactly that, 24/7 except when your eyes are
closed.
(The raw data produced by the retina is _crap_. Remember, the
light-sensitive cells are at the back, so photons have to make it
through axons, capillaries, and connective tissue before the money
shot. Outside the fovea, color-sensitive cells are almost as scarce
as honest politicians. And each eye has a honking big spot with
_zero_ photoseneitive cells.)
--
Steve Coltrin spco...@omcl.org WWVBF?
"When someone lights themselves on fire because they thought their TV
told them to, they're not going to grow up to be Mozart. Send them to
the back of the emergency room with a number and take a smoke break."
David Ball
>David Ball <db...@booksnbytes.com> writes:
>>
>> It might be able to get more information from adjacent frames and use
>> that in combination with what you described below. Also, once an
>> object was recognized, it could be stored as a 'hint' for later in the
>> video. Ideally, it would make a pass through the entire video,
>> building a database of objects before starting to display it. That
>> way, information that it was able to figure out later in the video
>> could be used at the beginning.
>>
>> Given enough computing power and a large enough database of objects
>> that it recognizes, it could probably do a fairly good job. We're a
>> long way from that kind of computing power or software though.
>
>Not true.
>
>We do this trick *already* for boosting the resolution of recorded
>video images.
Interesting!
Are you just talking about aerial mapping or something that can
recognize household objects from a typical quality VHS video alone?
How much computer does it take to run it. I was thinking of something
that could run on a typical household computer.
The stuff we're seeing in the latest CGI films still has a slight
cartoonish quality to it (IMHO), and the documentaries about how these
things are made seem to include lots of time with the actors being
extensively mapped in 3D and going through action sequences in special
suits that allow 3D mapping of many data points along the body while
they move.
> As a bonus, it also gives you a 3D surface map. Just a
>few years ago it was a CS lab trick. It's now starting to be deployed
>for areal mapping applications.
>
>It's slow, and it requires a lot of machoflops, but it does work well
>with current MPI based supercomputers. And there are lots of
>applications where people will spend some Serious Money to boost the
>res of existing video, and to get a 3D map from it.
>
>It's suspected, tho not known in the UNCL community, that the US NRO
>worked out the same trick at least a decade previous, if not longer,
>to boost the "resolution" of their overhead assets beyond what a back
>of the envelope calculation says is possible.
It sounds like the NRO computers are doing the interpretation of the
satellite photos and then producing a higher quality photo that
represents their best analysis/guess of what the original was. I would
think that they have to be very careful about setting the thresholds
where the computer decides it can reliably interpret an object.
I've read before that programs can actually recognize bad handwriting
better than a human. OTOH, if I was making strategic military
decisions, I think it would take me a while to be comfortable with a
program deciding that, what looked like a blob on the photo to me, was
probably a mobile ICBM launcher. I wonder if it produces different
versions of the enhanced photo that represent different confidence
levels of it's interpretations.
Whether it's for enhancing satellite photos or old vhs videos, this
sounds like a really interesting programming problem to be working on.
-- David
how...@brazee.net
On 12-May-2003, Karl M Syring <syr...@email.com> wrote:
> Depends on your news sources. There seem to be some special
> interest groups that push the SARS hysteria.
Sure, the news media.
>I could imagine,
> that you can impair the industrial production of the East Asian
> nations this way, may be to stop the deflationary death spiral
> in the Western industrial nations. Generally, the "disease as an
> economic weapon" motive has been rarely used in fiction.
Don't need it. The news does the job.
Michael Grosberg
>
> I'm waiting for a scene in any show where the Heroes are standing
> behind the computer tech looking at a screen.
>
> "It's a blobby shape in the driver's seat."
>
> "Can you blow it up?"
>
> (Tech looks at speaker funny and shrugs.) "O-kay. There you go.
> Now it's a big blobby shape in the driver's seat."
One of the things I liked the movie _Species_ for, is that they have
exactly such a scene. The pursuit team has found security camera
footage from the (ummm, motel? store?) where Eve was some hours
before. You see them standing around a computer, which has some
image-editing app running on a standard Windows OS (as opposed to
Hollywood's usual graphically-rich fantasy OS) and they're trying to
enhance the image. they do something liek a 50% zoom, sharpen it a
bit, and then the person at the computer says something in the line of
"well, that's the best I can do".
Peter
Keith Morrison wrote:
>
>
> What? You mean all those shows where they have an image that looks
> like it was shot on the equivalent of a 0.25 megapixel camera and
> ten seconds of snazzy computing later they've extracted details
> at a resolution of about 0.5mm from about 300m away aren't realistic?
>
> I am just shocked.
My personal favourites are when they zoom in on a shiny surface and
enlarge the REFLECTION!!! and this from a 7/11 security tape!!!
OR... from a recent CSI episode... a thumb passes QUICKLY in front of
the camera lens and they manage to enhance it to the point where they
can get the fingerprint!
AND then I have to argue the reality of all this with my brother in law
who believes that Forest Gump was a real person!
Karl M Syring
> begin Goran UnreaL Krajnovic <unreal...@nospam.fly.srk.fer.hr> writes:
>
>> Elf M. Sternberg <e...@drizzle.com> wrote:
>> > The system, in real time, cleaned up the VHS-related artifacts, improved
>> > the clarity to high-definition digital video, (...)
>>
>> I don't think you'll ever be able to do that, real time or no real time.
>
> Your own visual system does exactly that, 24/7 except when your eyes are
> closed.
>
> (The raw data produced by the retina is _crap_. Remember, the
> light-sensitive cells are at the back, so photons have to make it
> through axons, capillaries, and connective tissue before the money
> shot. Outside the fovea, color-sensitive cells are almost as scarce
> as honest politicians. And each eye has a honking big spot with
> _zero_ photoseneitive cells.)
This cries for circumventing the crappy audio-visual sensors
and go directly for the pleasure centers of the brain. Yuck,
now we have re-invented hallucinogenic drugs.
Karl M. Syring
James Nicoll
Karl M Syring
>
> On 12-May-2003, Karl M Syring <syr...@email.com> wrote:
>
>> Depends on your news sources. There seem to be some special
>> interest groups that push the SARS hysteria.
>
> Sure, the news media.
I am not sure, you always have to look at the flow of the money.
Look, if you are a bored investor, you could buy put options on
outfits that have production facilities in Hongkong/China. If
you can convince some reporters (I did not say "bribe") that
SARS is a big thing, you can make lots of money, even in the
dismal state of the money market.
Karl M. Syring
Peter Meilinger
>Here's a prediction for you. Within 5 years you will be able to appear
>as any actor in any movie you wish.
>The process will be simple. You will go to a serviced and have your face
>scanned from all angles in a relatively small number (<2 dozen) of
>facial expressions.
>This 'facial map' will then be processed against the movie of your
>choice... mapping your face to any face in the movie frame by frame. The
>finished product will be a personalized movie. This will be available
>initially for $1-2k, but will drop to $99.99 within 3 years of the first
>commercially available product.
I think there'll be more of a market for porn movies starring your
favorite actresses performing whatever sex acts you want to see.
Some people would pay extra to have the acts appear to be performed
on them.
> Of course... Identity theft will take on new meaning...
Yeah. William C. Dietz dealt with this idea in one of his
books. I think it was "Matrix Man" or one of the sequels. It
was about a street journalist with a camera implanted in his
eye, set in the early to mid 21st century I think. There was
a piece of software that could perfectly mimic anyone, to
the point that computer experts couldn't tell it was a fake.
At the end of the book, when the software went public, Dietz
mentioned that there were at least two commercials out featuring
long-dead performers, and that the estates of said performers
were suing.
Pete
Simon Bivens
> as any actor in any movie you wish.
I don't doubt the technological feasibility, but I think intellectual
property squabbling will hold this back for years.
Si
Kamil
>OR... from a recent CSI episode... a thumb passes QUICKLY in front of
>the camera lens and they manage to enhance it to the point where they
>can get the fingerprint!
This may (long shot) be possible.
If we know the motion of an object exactly, removing motion blur can
have ammazing effects, to the point that the central region of photo
can sometimes be recoverded perfectly. In practice we have to rely on
photo itself to determain the motion of camera relative to the object
this limits the quality of the recovered image.
Kamil
Magenta Sky
Magenta Sky
Weekly World News, either. Why would anyone?
Magenta Sky
it is almost certainly inside the minimum focus possible for the lens.
In short, it's BS.
Craig Richardson
<kei...@polarnet.ca> wrote:
>I'm waiting for a scene in any show where the Heroes are standing
>behind the computer tech looking at a screen.
>
>"It's a blobby shape in the driver's seat."
>
>"Can you blow it up?"
>
>(Tech looks at speaker funny and shrugs.) "O-kay. There you go.
>Now it's a big blobby shape in the driver's seat."
What I want to see is the scene where Robert Redford has Dan Aykroyd
run his fancy interpolation software to get a readable license plate
out of three pixels on the original video - and when he does, it comes
up with a perfectly clear image, which is wrong.
David Cowie
>
> Here's a prediction for you. Within 5 years you will be able to appear
> as any actor in any movie you wish.
>
> The process will be simple. You will go to a serviced and have your face
> scanned from all angles in a relatively small number (<2 dozen) of
> facial expressions.
>
> This 'facial map' will then be processed against the movie of your
> choice... mapping your face to any face in the movie frame by frame. The
>
ObSF: Something like this is done in _Stand on Zanzibar_ by John
Brunner. One of the characters is watching TV, pushes a button, and his
face goes onto the face of people on TV. IIRC he's watching a news
broadcast, and he puts his face onto several other faces.
--
David Cowie david_cowie at lineone dot net
David Cowie
> either one. For one thing, if SARS was Captain Trips, Toronto would be
> free of Mel Lastman by now.
^^^^^^^^^^^
Who he? (or she?)
James Nicoll
David Cowie <see...@lineone.net> wrote:
>On Mon, 12 May 2003 10:41:23 -0400, James Nicoll wrote:
>
>> either one. For one thing, if SARS was Captain Trips, Toronto would be
>> free of Mel Lastman by now.
> ^^^^^^^^^^^
>Who he? (or she?)
The Mayor of Toronto. For reasons I won't go into, the municipal
level is where the political dregs of Ontario tend to collect but Mel
makes the news more often than the others, whether for sensitive comments
like
"What the hell do I want to go to Mombasa for?...I'm sort of
scared of going there... I see myself in a pot of boiling water with
all these natives dancing around me."
or (On the WHO)
"They don't know what they are talking about. Who did they talk to?
They've never even been to Toronto. They're located somewhere in Geneva."
James Nicoll
lal_truckee
> In article <b9obcv$feed$1...@as201.hinet.hr>,
> Goran UnreaL Krajnovic <unreal...@nospam.fly.srk.fer.hr> wrote:
>
>>Keith Morrison <kei...@polarnet.ca> wrote:
>>
>>>So, any examples where the prediction has been dead on?
>>
>>Here's one which freaks me out: the recent SARS outbreak and Stephen King's
>>_The Stand_. Hopefully it will soon stop being a dead on (pun intended)
>>prediction...
>
>
> with a 99.99+% kill rate and a not especially contagious disease with
> a 20% fatality rate, even if a rational person would not want to catch
> either one. For one thing, if SARS was Captain Trips, Toronto would be
> free of Mel Lastman by now.
Jerry Garcia was/is Captain Trips; so how does the Captain get rid of
the Mayor?
John Schilling
>Ian Montgomerie wrote:
>>>It might be able to get more information from adjacent frames and use
>>>that in combination with what you described below.
>> This is already possible. Motion-compensated deinterlacing with HD
>> upsampling. However, the previous poster is right - you can't apply
>> any reasonable image filtering techniques to make it look like it was
>> actually shot in HD. The fine detail is lost, and there are harsh
>> limits on how much of it you can interpolate back in (without
>> tremendous advancements in AI and Arbitrary Computing Power (TM)).
>What? You mean all those shows where they have an image that looks
>like it was shot on the equivalent of a 0.25 megapixel camera and
>ten seconds of snazzy computing later they've extracted details
>at a resolution of about 0.5mm from about 300m away aren't realistic?
But in most of those scenes, people are trying to recover evidence of
some sort. So the interpolation, be it a face or a fingerprint or a
license plate number, has to be *accurate*.
The example of automagically upgrading old porn to HDTV standards,
doesn't require accuracy, just plausibility. If the grainy image
of a face is turned into a clear, consistent, high-resolution face
(or whatever), nobody cares if the "restored" face actually matches
that of the original performer[1]. So there's room for clever
software to recognize what the grainy image is an image of, and
from its own knowledge of what faces (or whatever) look like
construct a high-resolution version consistent with what data is
available from the low-resolution image.
So AI, yes, or at least very good image recognition, and lots of
processing power, but no magic required.
And there's probably a story to be had in the cop/PI/whatever who
ignorantly runs security camera footage through such a system to
identify the suspect. Some people never will RTFM.
[1] If the audience does care because the performer is famous, there
is presumable a database of actual high-resolution imagery for the
software to map onto its interpolated model.
--
*John Schilling * "Anything worth doing, *
*Member:AIAA,NRA,ACLU,SAS,LP * is worth doing for money" *
*Chief Scientist & General Partner * -13th Rule of Acquisition *
*White Elephant Research, LLC * "There is no substitute *
*schi...@spock.usc.edu * for success" *
*661-951-9107 or 661-275-6795 * -58th Rule of Acquisition *
Mike Schilling
news:b9rsda$5nc$1...@spock.usc.edu...
>
> The example of automagically upgrading old porn to HDTV standards,
> doesn't require accuracy, just plausibility. If the grainy image
> of a face is turned into a clear, consistent, high-resolution face
> (or whatever), nobody cares if the "restored" face actually matches
> that of the original performer[1]. So there's room for clever
> software to recognize what the grainy image is an image of, and
> from its own knowledge of what faces (or whatever) look like
> construct a high-resolution version consistent with what data is
> available from the low-resolution image.
You could sell the software too, to create an infinitely extensible library
starring your favorite actress (or actor, as the case may be.)
Kamil
I didn't think of that.
Does anyone know how well can a computer restore an image inside the
image focus of a lens if one can take a lot of pictures of
calibration patterns at known distances with the lens?
>In short, it's BS.
Most likely yes.
Kamil
Keith Morrison
> The example of automagically upgrading old porn to HDTV standards,
> doesn't require accuracy, just plausibility. If the grainy image
> of a face is turned into a clear, consistent, high-resolution face
> (or whatever), nobody cares if the "restored" face actually matches
> that of the original performer[1]. So there's room for clever
> software to recognize what the grainy image is an image of, and
> from its own knowledge of what faces (or whatever) look like
> construct a high-resolution version consistent with what data is
> available from the low-resolution image.
>
> So AI, yes, or at least very good image recognition, and lots of
> processing power, but no magic required.
>
> And there's probably a story to be had in the cop/PI/whatever who
> ignorantly runs security camera footage through such a system to
> identify the suspect. Some people never will RTFM.
The Year: 2025
The Place: A City in America
DETECTIVE: Well, based on the analysis of the camera footage, the
killer was either Marilyn Monroe or Humphrey Bogart.
--
Keith
how...@brazee.net
On 13-May-2003, "Magenta Sky" <magen...@SAFe-mail.net> wrote:
> If the thumb is close enough for the camera to resolve a fingerprint,
> it is almost certainly inside the minimum focus possible for the lens.
> In short, it's BS.
When I was a child, I had the fantasy that you could "fix" an out of focus
photo by looking at it with the right lens.
how...@brazee.net
On 13-May-2003, schi...@spock.usc.edu (John Schilling) wrote:
> The example of automagically upgrading old porn to HDTV standards,
> doesn't require accuracy, just plausibility. If the grainy image
> of a face is turned into a clear, consistent, high-resolution face
> (or whatever), nobody cares if the "restored" face actually matches
> that of the original performer[1]. So there's room for clever
> software to recognize what the grainy image is an image of, and
> from its own knowledge of what faces (or whatever) look like
> construct a high-resolution version consistent with what data is
> available from the low-resolution image.
And mistakes can be made. There's the famous case of a colorized movie
where Frank Sinatra has brown eyes.
But you're describing exactly what happens with colorized movies. More
knowledgeable software will remember Sinatra's eye color, as well as the
porn star's mole, and twitch.
What is interesting to contemplate is what happens when they can make
realistic snuff or kiddie porn movies without using children. I don't
think we prosecute anime kiddie porn - what happens when you have to do
research to determine whether a real child was used?
Karl M Syring
> What is interesting to contemplate is what happens when they can make
> realistic snuff or kiddie porn movies without using children. I don't
> think we prosecute anime kiddie porn - what happens when you have to do
> research to determine whether a real child was used?
Does not matter, just send the sickos to an isolated
institution. Should solve the problem, if it really exists.
Karl M. Syring
Magenta Sky
It's a common misconception. Unfortunately, it's entirely untrue.
Mark Atwood
> >
> > When I was a child, I had the fantasy that you could "fix" an out of
> > focus photo by looking at it with the right lens.
>
> It's a common misconception. Unfortunately, it's entirely untrue.
What if the medium the photo is, is, holographic, and/or stores the
orientation of the rays where they hit it?
--
Mark Atwood | When you do things right,
m...@pobox.com | people won't be sure you've done anything at all.
http://www.pobox.com/~mra
Magenta Sky
> "Magenta Sky" <magen...@SAFe-mail.net> writes:
>>>
>>> When I was a child, I had the fantasy that you could "fix" an out of
>>> focus photo by looking at it with the right lens.
>>
>> It's a common misconception. Unfortunately, it's entirely untrue.
>
> What if the medium the photo is, is, holographic, and/or stores the
> orientation of the rays where they hit it?
Can holographs *be* out of focus? I have no idea. In any event
holographs are an entirely different medium, with entirely different
technical standards, so it might well be possible. Certainly isn't
for normal photographs, though.
David Johnston
>
> how...@brazee.net wrote on Wed, 14 May 2003 11:56:40 GMT:
> > What is interesting to contemplate is what happens when they can make
> > realistic snuff or kiddie porn movies without using children. I don't
> > think we prosecute anime kiddie porn - what happens when you have to do
> > research to determine whether a real child was used?
>
> Does not matter, just send the sickos to an isolated
> institution.
Difficult to do when they haven't done anything to be
incarcerated for.
>Should solve the problem, if it really exists.
Excuse me? Did you just wonder whether pedophilia really exists?
Mark Atwood
> Karl M Syring wrote:
> >
> > Does not matter, just send the sickos to an isolated
> > institution.
> Difficult to do when they haven't done anything to be
> incarcerated for.
>
> >Should solve the problem, if it really exists.
> Excuse me? Did you just wonder whether pedophilia really exists?
Some people's IQ's drop into negative ranges when anything bordering
this subject comes up. We just saw a classic example.
I suspect some sort of bioneurlogical damage caused by hormonal changes
of breeding, myself.
The next step is the second order attack, where the unthinkers attack
the people who point out the idiocy of their initial frenzy.
Peter Meilinger
>Karl M Syring wrote:
>>
>> how...@brazee.net wrote on Wed, 14 May 2003 11:56:40 GMT:
>> > What is interesting to contemplate is what happens when they can make
>> > realistic snuff or kiddie porn movies without using children. I don't
>> > think we prosecute anime kiddie porn - what happens when you have to do
>> > research to determine whether a real child was used?
>>
>> Does not matter, just send the sickos to an isolated
>> institution.
>Difficult to do when they haven't done anything to be
>incarcerated for.
Yeah. And if someone's mind is made up about fake kiddie porn, which
I can certainly understand though maybe not agree with, then what
about fake snuff films? If someone produces films using either
actors or CGI to portray death for sickos to get off on, do we
send them to jail just like we would if they were actually killing
people and filming it? And if we do that, shouldn't we lock up
half of Hollywood?
>>Should solve the problem, if it really exists.
>Excuse me? Did you just wonder whether pedophilia really exists?
I read it as "if fake kiddie porn is a problem." It's definitely
something that the courts have had to deal with before - didn't
one guy get locked up for having pictures of nude adults with
the faces of children superimposed on them? And lord knows there
seems to be a market for women who are of legal age but look
much younger.
Pete
Steve Holland
If there is a point source in the picture then an out-of-focus
image can be fixed.
==========================================================================
To find out who and where I am look at:
http://www.nd.edu/~sholland/index.html
"Only so many songs can be sung with two lips, two lungs, and one tongue."
==========================================================================
James Nicoll
Peter Meilinger <mell...@bu.edu> wrote:
>
>Yeah. And if someone's mind is made up about fake kiddie porn, which
>I can certainly understand though maybe not agree with, then what
>about fake snuff films?
one sense? I mean, the body count in X2 has to be in the triple digits
but as I understand it namby pamply actor coddling rules [2] no longer allow
actual deaths as part of a production, no doubt inconveniencing John
Landis no end.
James Nicoll
1: and a complete absense of real snuff films, if I recall the endless
discussions on afu.
2: Former Stage Manager. While I thought _A Mighty Wind_ was mostly mean
spirited, I liked the bit where the SM slapped the idiot producer. Every
SM has moments like that.
Peter Meilinger
>In article <b9u2o8$f8i$2...@news3.bu.edu>,
>Peter Meilinger <mell...@bu.edu> wrote:
>>
>>Yeah. And if someone's mind is made up about fake kiddie porn, which
>>I can certainly understand though maybe not agree with, then what
>>about fake snuff films?
>
> Aren't there already a ton of fake snuff films [1] in at least
>one sense? I mean, the body count in X2 has to be in the triple digits
Yep. And you'd have a hard time separating the two in court. You
can define snuff films as "for the purposes of sexual gratification,"
but good luck getting that to hold up if you're not actually
killing people.
And if you are killing people, well, that's already illegal
and generally frowned upon.
>but as I understand it namby pamply actor coddling rules [2] no longer allow
>actual deaths as part of a production, no doubt inconveniencing John
>Landis no end.
>1: and a complete absense of real snuff films, if I recall the endless
>discussions on afu.
That's what I recall, too. I'm sure someone out there's made death
videos for their own enjoyment, but it seems to be a private thing.
I vaguely recall stories about a husband and wife team of serial
killers who taped their torture sessions, though. It was thought
that copies of those tapes might have gotten out to people with
similar tastes. I know I read it in a "real" news source, but that
doesn't mean it's true.
Pete
Karl M Syring
Seems to be highly overblown in the US, where it is
used in political campaigns or neo-crusades.
Karl M. Syring
James Nicoll
That's almost certainly Paul Teale and Karla Homolka. There
was an earlier case, the so-called Moors Murders, where tape recordings
were made.
Mike Schilling
news:b9u3jo$78b$1...@panix2.panix.com...
> Aren't there already a ton of fake snuff films [1] in at least
> one sense?
>
> discussions on afu.
I see bum-fighting films as R-rated snuff films. No deaths, but serious
injuries.
David Bilek
>In article <b9u4m8$smo$2...@news3.bu.edu>,
>Peter Meilinger <mell...@bu.edu> wrote:
>>
>>That's what I recall, too. I'm sure someone out there's made death
>>videos for their own enjoyment, but it seems to be a private thing.
>>I vaguely recall stories about a husband and wife team of serial
>>killers who taped their torture sessions, though. It was thought
>>that copies of those tapes might have gotten out to people with
>>similar tastes. I know I read it in a "real" news source, but that
>>doesn't mean it's true.
>
> That's almost certainly Paul Teale and Karla Homolka. There
>was an earlier case, the so-called Moors Murders, where tape recordings
>were made.
(I thought it was Paul Bernardo?)
Anyway, their videotapes qualify as "snuff films" by any definition
that doesn't render the term meaningless. So there have been "real"
snuff films. I was living in Toronto at the time and it sickens me
that Homolka got off so lightly simply because she is a woman. That's
disgusting.
"Lets give her 12 years for being a depraved child rapist and serial
killer! What? Yeah, it's not a lot, but she's a chick!"
Which reminds me... isn't Homolka getting out in about a year? Has
that ever gotten any play in the press there? She better watch her
back when she gets out.
ObSF: Mother of Storms.
Any SF novel that reminds me of the Bernardo case is something I don't
need to re-read. _Kaleidoscope Century_ would be almost any other
author's most unpleasant novel, but not so Barnes. Now that's an
achievement.
-David
Beowulf Bolt
>
> Anyway, their videotapes qualify as "snuff films" by any definition
> that doesn't render the term meaningless. So there have been "real"
> snuff films. I was living in Toronto at the time and it sickens me
> that Homolka got off so lightly simply because she is a woman. That's
> disgusting.
>
> "Lets give her 12 years for being a depraved child rapist and serial
> killer! What? Yeah, it's not a lot, but she's a chick!"
As I recall, the relative lightness of her sentence was in exchange
for her testimony against Paul. She may have been regarded as more of
an accessory than active participant because of her gender, otoh.
Having Paul's lawyer turn over the snuff tapes is what really exposed
her for what she was. Too bad the cops hadn't found those particular
items *before* her trial...
Biff
--
-------------------------------------------------------------------
"Me? Lady, I'm your worst nightmare - a pumpkin with a gun.
[...] Euminides this! " - Mervyn, the Sandman #66
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Steve Holland
> David Bilek wrote:
> > Anyway, their videotapes qualify as "snuff films" by any definition
> > that doesn't render the term meaningless. So there have been "real"
> > snuff films. I was living in Toronto at the time and it sickens me
> > that Homolka got off so lightly simply because she is a woman. That's
> > disgusting.
> > "Lets give her 12 years for being a depraved child rapist and serial
> > killer! What? Yeah, it's not a lot, but she's a chick!"
> As I recall, the relative lightness of her sentence was in
> exchange for her testimony against Paul.
The light sentence was solely because of a plea bargain. She got
off with twelve years in exchange for testifying against Bernardo.
The reason that the prosecutors did this was that they had not solid
evidence against Bernardo. They either got one of them put away for
life or ran the risk of not getting a conviction for either. The film
of the murders was not found until after the plea bargain had been
made. Had it been found earlier it is almost certain that both of
them would have received life sentences.
Htn963
Kiddie porn and child abuse *are* big problems in the US. No reaction
to it can be overblown
And it's funny to hear that coming from one whose country has such a guilt
complex that blood and Nazi allusions are even banned from computer and video
games.
Hmm, and otherwise, we've not quite become as jaded and decadent as you
old world continental fellows. Didn't I hear that possession (but not
production) of kiddie porn is not a prosecutable offense in Sweden?
.
--
Ht
|Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore
never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
--John Donne, "Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions"|
Htn963
> And lord knows there
>seems to be a market for women who are of legal age but look
>much younger.
Like Alyson Hannigan?
Htn963
>What is interesting to contemplate is what happens when they can make
>realistic snuff or kiddie porn movies without using children.
They already are, depending on how liberal your definition of "realistic"
is.
>I don't think we prosecute anime kiddie porn
I've noticed this tendency times and again in games. The adventure game
_Blade Runner_ has an option for the protagonist, a grizzled veteran cop, to
have a romance with a 14 year old; one of the romance options in _Baldur's Gate
2_ is a whiny elf child with the maturity level less than that of my 10 year
old niece; one of the latter Tomb Raider games features Lara Croft at 16 years
old...and coincidentally, one of its executive producers was prosecuted for
sexual indiscretion with a minor.
>- what happens when you have to do
>research to determine whether a real child was used?
It is a intriguing legal issue that hasn't been definitely resolved yet.
I suspect the Supreme Court will eventually deal with it in a vague and
half-baked fashion like it did for pornography and abortion.
Magenta Sky
> "Magenta Sky" <magen...@SAFe-mail.net> writes:
>> how...@brazee.net wrote:
>>> On 13-May-2003, "Magenta Sky" <magen...@SAFe-mail.net> wrote:
>
>>>> If the thumb is close enough for the camera to resolve a
>>>> fingerprint, it is almost certainly inside the minimum focus
>>>> possible for the lens. In short, it's BS.
>
>>> When I was a child, I had the fantasy that you could "fix" an out of
>>> focus photo by looking at it with the right lens.
>
>> It's a common misconception. Unfortunately, it's entirely untrue.
>
> If there is a point source in the picture then an out-of-focus
> image can be fixed.
>
is capable of producing out of focus holographs, other than,
perhaps, for artistic reasons.
Magenta Sky
> Yeah. And if someone's mind is made up about fake kiddie porn, which
> I can certainly understand though maybe not agree with, then what
> about fake snuff films?
Not to put too fine a point to it, but how is a "fake snuff film" different
from, say, the average Bruce Willis film? The entire *point* of "snuff"
films is that it isn't fake. "Fake snuff film" is impossible, by definition.
>>> Should solve the problem, if it really exists.
>
>> Excuse me? Did you just wonder whether pedophilia really exists?
>
> I read it as "if fake kiddie porn is a problem." It's definitely
> something that the courts have had to deal with before - didn't
> one guy get locked up for having pictures of nude adults with
> the faces of children superimposed on them? And lord knows there
> seems to be a market for women who are of legal age but look
> much younger.
>
Congress, in its infinite wisdom, made fake kiddie porn as illegal
as real kiddie porn. IIRC, the SCOTUS spanked them for it,
since the only constitutional basis for banning real kiddie porn
was harm to real children.
Magenta Sky
are alleged (not one of which has ever produced a single jury
conviction).
Magenta Sky
> In article <b9u4m8$smo$2...@news3.bu.edu>,
> Peter Meilinger <mell...@bu.edu> wrote:
>>
>> That's what I recall, too. I'm sure someone out there's made death
>> videos for their own enjoyment, but it seems to be a private thing.
>> I vaguely recall stories about a husband and wife team of serial
>> killers who taped their torture sessions, though. It was thought
>> that copies of those tapes might have gotten out to people with
>> similar tastes. I know I read it in a "real" news source, but that
>> doesn't mean it's true.
>
> That's almost certainly Paul Teale and Karla Homolka. There
> was an earlier case, the so-called Moors Murders, where tape
> recordings were made.
Didn't Manson tape the Biana killing?
Magenta Sky
> Kiddie porn and child abuse *are* big problems in the US. No
> reaction to it can be overblown
Only in that the biggest collection of it belongs to the US Postal
Inspection Service, and the biggest purveyors of it are agents
of same. It *is* overblown, for purely political reasons.
Child abuse is a completely different issue, and it's entirely dishonest
of you to try to inject it into this discussion.
Not that I'm surprised, coming from you, and with a Godwin violation
in the next paragraph.
>
Magenta Sky
> Peter Meilinger wrote:
>
>> And lord knows there
>> seems to be a market for women who are of legal age but look
>> much younger.
>
> Like Alyson Hannigan?
She doesn't look under age in the least. Younger, perhaps, than
she is, but not in the least _under_ age.
Magenta Sky
> It is a intriguing legal issue that hasn't been definitely
> resolved yet. I suspect the Supreme Court will eventually deal with
> it in a vague and half-baked fashion like it did for pornography and
> abortion.
>
They already have. It's no surprise you know nothing about it.
Timothy McDaniel
David Bilek <dbi...@attbi.com> wrote:
>Anyway, [Bernardo and Homolka's] videotapes qualify as "snuff films"
>by any definition that doesn't render the term meaningless.
<http://www.snopes.com/horrors/madmen/snuff.htm> says that
theybernardo and Homolka didn't tape the actual murders, "just" the
tortures. They cite other cases where the people abducted were
murdered, and while the torture was tapes, the murders were not.
The alt.folklore.urban newsgroup has discussed snuff films many times.
The rule-of-thumb they have is "if you run out of film, you stop the
action until you go get more" -- that is, filming is one of your
goals (along with, presumably, the death bit).
Mind you, other reputable sources have broader definitions.
<http://www.snopes.com/horrors/madmen/snuff.htm> includes "Likewise,
claims that the filmmaker must have had no other motivation than the
production of the film should be dismissed. A psychopath who tortures
and murders solely to satisfy his personal demons but who videotapes
the event to create a reliveable record of the experience has produced
a snuff film." (But that doesn't strictly apply to the above
deinition: Snopes has "no other motivation", but the AFU definition is
that it is one of the goals.) They go for the definition of
Kerekes and Slater, authors of Killing for Culture, the bible on
the snuff film rumor:
Snuff films depict the killing of a human being -- a human
sacrifice (without the aid of special effects or other
trickery) perpetuated [sic] for the medium of film and
circulated amongst a jaded few for the purpose of
entertainment.
--
Tim McDaniel, tm...@panix.com; tm...@us.ibm.com is my work address
Timothy McDaniel
Htn963 <htn...@cs.com> wrote:
>Kiddie porn and child abuse *are* big problems in the US.
>No reaction to it can be overblown
Every human being on Earth needs to be exterminated,
just to stop that horror.
Bill Snyder
McDaniel) wrote:
>In article <20030514175358...@mb-m24.news.cs.com>,
>Htn963 <htn...@cs.com> wrote:
>>Kiddie porn and child abuse *are* big problems in the US.
>>No reaction to it can be overblown
>
>Every human being on Earth needs to be exterminated,
>just to stop that horror.
*All* of them? But then who'll buy all those snuff films?
--
Bill Snyder [This space unintentionally left blank.]
Craig Richardson
Watching "Buffy" requires a lot of disbelief suspension. Not so much
about hellmouths, vampires, demons and the like, but that any of the
characters except Giles actually are the age they claim to be...
--Craig
--
Managing the Devil Rays is something like competing on "Iron Chef",
and having Chairman Kaga reveal a huge ziggurat of lint.
Gary Huckabay, Baseball Prospectus Online, August 21, 2002
Stephen Burns
David Bilek wrote:
>
> Which reminds me... isn't Homolka getting out in about a year? Has
> that ever gotten any play in the press there? She better watch her
> back when she gets out.
>
I don't recall hearing too much about Homolka's release lately, but
there were a number of stories in the press when photos showing
Homolka's relatively cushy living conditions were published.
Coincidentally, Stephen Williams, author of _Invisible Darkness: The
Strange Case of Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka_, has recently gotten in
trouble for posting some information from Bernardo's trial on the web.
Stephen Burns
how...@brazee.net
On 14-May-2003, David Johnston <rgo...@telusplanet.net> wrote:
> > > What is interesting to contemplate is what happens when they can make
> > > realistic snuff or kiddie porn movies without using children. I
> > > don't
> > > think we prosecute anime kiddie porn - what happens when you have to
> > > do
> > > research to determine whether a real child was used?
> >
> > Does not matter, just send the sickos to an isolated
> > institution.
>
> Difficult to do when they haven't done anything to be
> incarcerated for.
>
> >Should solve the problem, if it really exists.
>
> Excuse me? Did you just wonder whether pedophilia really exists?
The question is whether watching realistic pedophilic fake pictures is
really a problem. We watch realistic murder on TV all the time.
David M. Palmer
<hol...@origo.phys.au.dk> wrote:
> "Magenta Sky" <magen...@SAFe-mail.net> writes:
> > how...@brazee.net wrote:
> > > On 13-May-2003, "Magenta Sky" <magen...@SAFe-mail.net> wrote:
>
> > > When I was a child, I had the fantasy that you could "fix" an out of
> > > focus photo by looking at it with the right lens.
>
> > It's a common misconception. Unfortunately, it's entirely untrue.
>
> If there is a point source in the picture then an out-of-focus
> image can be fixed.
An out-of-focus image can be improved. But there is a limit based on
how much information there is in the picture--how many levels of
luminance and chrominance can be distinguished per pixel or unit area,
and how many pixels the blur circle covers vs. how many pixels
resolution elements you want to end up with.
If somebody has their thumb partially in front of the lens as they are
shooting with a focus many feet away (as in the CSI episode) then there
is no way to get a fingerprint out of the image.
What I really like is when they have a picture showing a person three
pixels tall, and they hit the 'enhance button' and you can recognize
the face, and see that he hadn't shaved that morning.
--
David M. Palmer dmpa...@email.com (formerly @clark.net, @ematic.com)
Keith F. Lynch
> If there is a point source in the picture then an out-of-focus
> image can be fixed.
No it can't, unless the point source is the *only* thing in the
picture. The phase information is lost. Without it, deconvolution
generally doesn't give a unique result.
With the phase information, it ought to be possible to do pretty much
anything. This is the case in sound recordings, for instance. It
ought to be possible to take a piece of music, deconvolve out the
echoes from the walls, and convolve it into the music hall of your
choice. I haven't heard whether anyone has done this.
Or have your stereo adjust itself to compensate for the distorting
effects of the speakers and the room, and produce sound absolutely
indistinguishable from a live performance, even if you have crappy
speakers and a room with terrible accoustics. This too ought to be
possible today.
Unfortunately, the frequency of light is far too high to be able to
directly capture phase information. But once we have 10^16 Hz A/D and
D/A converters, it ought to be possible to have *true* windows on a
computer, i.e. an image utterly indistinguishable from one seen through
an ordinary window. Out of focus? Put on your glasses!
Of course a 10^16 Hz A/D will burn up disk space like a backhoe
shoveling crates of DVDs into a furnace. But once we're able to
conveniently store a mole of bits, it shouldn't be a problem.
--
Keith F. Lynch - k...@keithlynch.net - http://keithlynch.net/
I always welcome replies to my e-mail, postings, and web pages, but
unsolicited bulk e-mail (spam) is not acceptable. Please do not send me
HTML, "rich text," or attachments, as all such email is discarded unread.
Mark Reichert
> I bring this up because the prediction of the technology was dead perfect
> on the money (okay, we can't do it live, but it's a matter of time). The
> technique is the one that first received prominence when "The Crow" came
> out but is going to be spectacularly on display come Thursday with the new
> Matrix film. These days, you don't even know if the person who owns the
> face is the one actually doing the action.
Read Connie Willis' "Remake".
Keith Morrison
> What is interesting to contemplate is what happens when they can make
> realistic snuff or kiddie porn movies without using children. I don't
> think we prosecute anime kiddie porn - what happens when you have to do
> research to determine whether a real child was used?
It's already covered. There are already laws on the books (or at least
being written) to make virtual kiddie porn illegal.
An episode of Law and Order:SVU touched on the subject when a porn
distributor was using MagicSoft(tm) graphics to "de-age" nude models
so as to produce porn that looked like teenagers but was demonstrably
based on adults.
--
Keith
Keith Morrison
>> Aren't there already a ton of fake snuff films [1] in at least
>>one sense? I mean, the body count in X2 has to be in the triple digits
>
> Yep. And you'd have a hard time separating the two in court. You
> can define snuff films as "for the purposes of sexual gratification,"
> but good luck getting that to hold up if you're not actually
> killing people.
>
> And if you are killing people, well, that's already illegal
> and generally frowned upon.
Not a problem. You just avoid showing the bodies, call it "unit
degradation" and it's good to go on CNN.
--
Keith
Bill Bogen
> Man". It so happened that the scene on when I hit the channel is the
> one where the bad guys scan Arnie's face (and, although not shown, Rachel
> Ticotin's) and superimpose them on stunt doubles so their deaths can be
> faked.
>
> I bring this up because the prediction of the technology was dead perfect
> on the money (okay, we can't do it live, but it's a matter of time). The
> technique is the one that first received prominence when "The Crow" came
> out but is going to be spectacularly on display come Thursday with the new
> Matrix film. These days, you don't even know if the person who owns the
> face is the one actually doing the action.
>
> being predicted by SF, but much of it is a close resemblance rather than
> truly accurate.
>
> So, any examples where the prediction has been dead on?
I think that 'Ralph 124C41+', by Hugo Gernsback, 1929, predicted channel surfing.
how...@brazee.net
On 14-May-2003, "Magenta Sky" <magen...@SAFe-mail.net> wrote:
> > When I was a child, I had the fantasy that you could "fix" an out of
> > focus photo by looking at it with the right lens.
>
> It's a common misconception. Unfortunately, it's entirely untrue.
I imagine so - for children. I said it was a fantasy.
Michael Stemper
>On Mon, 12 May 2003 12:42:32 +0000, Peter wrote:
>> Here's a prediction for you. Within 5 years you will be able to appear
>> as any actor in any movie you wish.
>> This 'facial map' will then be processed against the movie of your
>> choice... mapping your face to any face in the movie frame by frame. The
>>
>ObSF: Something like this is done in _Stand on Zanzibar_ by John
>Brunner. One of the characters is watching TV, pushes a button, and his
>face goes onto the face of people on TV. IIRC he's watching a news
>broadcast, and he puts his face onto several other faces.
That was called "homimage", if I recall correctly. It was a fairly common
TV attachment. However, you didn't need to push a button, it was on by
default. Also, the main character (Don?) didn't have one, he just used
his room-mate's default settings. Led to some cognitive dissonance when
he saw a TV without homimage, since the default faces of "Mr. and Mrs.
Everywhere" didn't match what he was used to -- black man and Scandanavian
woman.
--
Michael F. Stemper
#include <Standard_Disclaimer>
The FAQ for rec.arts.sf.written is at:
http://www.geocities.com/evelynleeper/sf-written.htm
Please read it before posting.
Michael Stemper
>Of course a 10^16 Hz A/D will burn up disk space like a backhoe
>shoveling crates of DVDs into a furnace.
I just wanted to say that I really like that simile.
> But once we're able to
>conveniently store a mole of bits, it shouldn't be a problem.
A mole. Now, that's scary. I think that that might be the point at which
Moore's "Law" stops.
Peter Meilinger
>Peter Meilinger wrote:
>> And lord knows there
>>seems to be a market for women who are of legal age but look
>>much younger.
> Like Alyson Hannigan?
She sometimes looks younger than her actual age, but I was referring
to women who look like minors. Alyson could probably pull that look
off - clothed, at least - but to my knowledge has never tried to do
so.
Hell, on Buffy they're supposedly trying to make her look like a
21 year old, without much success.
Pete
Peter Meilinger
>Peter Meilinger wrote:
>> Yeah. And if someone's mind is made up about fake kiddie porn, which
>> I can certainly understand though maybe not agree with, then what
>> about fake snuff films?
>Not to put too fine a point to it, but how is a "fake snuff film" different
>from, say, the average Bruce Willis film?
Well, yeah. Which is pretty much what I said in the part you snipped.
>The entire *point* of "snuff"
>films is that it isn't fake. "Fake snuff film" is impossible, by definition.
I don't think so. If I'm a sleazy film maker and I have a market for
real snuff films, I could most likely fool most of my customers
into thinking a faked death is real. If I'm producing something
that might as well have come out of Hollywood, but my customers
are reacting to it like it's real death, am I committing a crime?
>> I read it as "if fake kiddie porn is a problem." It's definitely
>> something that the courts have had to deal with before - didn't
>> one guy get locked up for having pictures of nude adults with
>> the faces of children superimposed on them? And lord knows there
>> seems to be a market for women who are of legal age but look
>> much younger.
>>
>Congress, in its infinite wisdom, made fake kiddie porn as illegal
>as real kiddie porn. IIRC, the SCOTUS spanked them for it,
>since the only constitutional basis for banning real kiddie porn
>was harm to real children.
Makes sense to me, though I can't say I like it very much.
Pete
Karl M Syring
> On Wed, 14 May 2003 22:59:08 +0000 (UTC), tm...@panix.com (Timothy
> McDaniel) wrote:
>
>>In article <20030514175358...@mb-m24.news.cs.com>,
>>Htn963 <htn...@cs.com> wrote:
>>>Kiddie porn and child abuse *are* big problems in the US.
>>>No reaction to it can be overblown
>>
>>Every human being on Earth needs to be exterminated,
>>just to stop that horror.
>
> *All* of them? But then who'll buy all those snuff films?
That will be clandestine organizations of all kind. There was a
short note that AK uses porn to encode steganographic messages
into the images.
Karl M. Syring
Derek Bell
> Depends on your news sources. There seem to be some special
> interest groups that push the SARS hysteria.
Hmmm... I've read stories where the news was sanitised by the
household computer to make it *less* depressing, but I've never met
the opposite prediction yet!
Derek
Derek Bell
> Hehe, someone tries to be ironic. To tell you the truth, all
> Fox News affiliates now are seeking for Saddam and the
> missing weapons of mass destruction.
They'll turn up in _Harry Potter and the weapons of mass destruction_! ;-)
Derek
Karl M Syring
As already I wrote: If you have a lot of put options, it is a
valid strategy to bribe messenger who should bring the bad
news on a certain date. Highly visible acts of destruction
will be reserved for the far future, iff the stocks have
somewhat recovered.
Today in Evil Overlord mode
Karl M. Syring
Htn963
>Htn963 wrote:
>
>> It is a intriguing legal issue that hasn't been definitely
>> resolved yet. I suspect the Supreme Court will eventually deal with
>> it in a vague and half-baked fashion like it did for pornography and
>> abortion.
>>
>They already have.
Cite?
>It's no surprise you know nothing about it.
I'm fortunate to have you here to instruct me.
--
Ht
|Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore
never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
--John Donne, "Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions"|
Htn963
Is that what you told the judge? And did it work?
(Sorry, folks, I couldn't resist.)
Htn963
>Htn963 wrote:
>
>> Kiddie porn and child abuse *are* big problems in the US. No
>> reaction to it can be overblown
>
>Only in that the biggest collection of it belongs to the US Postal
>Inspection Service, and the biggest purveyors of it are agents
>of same.
So? Narcotic agents sell drugs.
>It *is* overblown, for purely political reasons.
But not for moral reasons.
>Child abuse is a completely different issue, and it's entirely dishonest
>of you to try to inject it into this discussion.
Er, no, kiddie porn is a form of child abuse. Which is the main reason
it's illegal to begin with.
>Not that I'm surprised, coming from you, and with a Godwin violation
>in the next paragraph.
You seem to be taking everything I said rather personally, Sunset. Is
there something you want to tell us?:)
My previous reference to Nazis cultural references in Germany as an
example of an overblown political reaction isn't within Godwin's jurisdiction
because it wasn't meant to be ad hominem. It might have been if I had said to
Karl something to the effect: "Your statements have no worth because you're a
Nazi pedophile."
Htn963
>On Wed, 14 May 2003 15:10:35 -0700, "Magenta Sky"
><magen...@SAFe-mail.net> wrote:
>
>>Htn963 wrote:
>>> Peter Meilinger wrote:
>>>
>>>> And lord knows there
>>>> seems to be a market for women who are of legal age but look
>>>> much younger.
>>>
>>> Like Alyson Hannigan?
>>
>>She doesn't look under age in the least. Younger, perhaps, than
>>she is, but not in the least _under_ age.
>
>Watching "Buffy" requires a lot of disbelief suspension. Not so much
>about hellmouths, vampires, demons and the like, but that any of the
>characters except Giles actually are the age they claim to be...
I have long come to the conclusion that Craig Richardson's contribution to
me is negative, but he's just sick in the head about Hannigan and not an
immoral pervert.
Buffy, Cordelia, Xander indeed look older than they claimed to be, but
Willow is definitely the exception in reverse.
:)
Magenta Sky
> I have long come to the conclusion that Craig Richardson's
> contribution to me is negative, but he's just sick in the head about
> Hannigan and not an immoral pervert.
>
I have long come to the conclusion that you are not worth the
air you breath.
Magenta Sky
> On Wed, 14 May 2003 15:10:35 -0700, "Magenta Sky"
> <magen...@SAFe-mail.net> wrote:
>
>> Htn963 wrote:
>>> Peter Meilinger wrote:
>>>
>>>> And lord knows there
>>>> seems to be a market for women who are of legal age but look
>>>> much younger.
>>>
>>> Like Alyson Hannigan?
>>
>> She doesn't look under age in the least. Younger, perhaps, than
>> she is, but not in the least _under_ age.
>
> Watching "Buffy" requires a lot of disbelief suspension. Not so much
> about hellmouths, vampires, demons and the like, but that any of the
> characters except Giles actually are the age they claim to be...
>
Magenta Sky
> how...@brazee.net wrote:
>
>> What is interesting to contemplate is what happens when they can make
>> realistic snuff or kiddie porn movies without using children. I
>> don't think we prosecute anime kiddie porn - what happens when you
>> have to do research to determine whether a real child was used?
>
> It's already covered. There are already laws on the books (or at
> least being written) to make virtual kiddie porn illegal.
And they've been struck down by the Supreme Court, IIRC.