ping_pong (u/ping_pong)

ping_pong commented on Tesseract OCR github.com/tesseract-ocr/... · Posted by u/tosh

ping_pong · 4 years ago

I used Tesseract almost 10 years ago to scan letters from a Words With Friends board. I was getting over 90% accuracy, but the letters with score values on them corrupted the letters and screwed up the detection. So I created a new "language" which Tesseract supports, that incorporated the score value corruption as part of the OCR translation. I got to over 98% accuracy with that which was about as good as I could get.

Overall I thought it was great and I wonder how good it would perform these days with 10 years of improvements!

ping_pong commented on Google Drive bans distribution of “misleading content” support.google.com/docs/a... · Posted by u/temp8964

crazygringo · 4 years ago

I see a lot of comments misinterpreting this.

First, it's not about private files, it's about distributing content.

Google isn't spying on your private files, but does scan them when you share them publicly. E.g. keep all the pirated movies you want on your Drive, and even give private access to friends, but the moment you make them publicly viewable Google scans them and limits access accordingly. So no, this isn't applying to your private diary or privately shared documents.

And second, to those who claim absolute free speech with no limits -- notice that the two main categories here are related to democracy and health. All our legal protections ultimately depend on a democratic foundation -- undo that with misinformation and you don't have anything anymore. Similarly, your rights don't matter much if you're dead. Companies aren't allowed to advertise rat poison as medicine and neither are you.

ping_pong · 4 years ago

You are assuming a professional is reading whatever the content is you are distributing and will make a rational, fair decision.

No.

It's going to be a minimum wage indentured Google servant that doesn't quite understand what they are reading but they have 17.5 seconds per case to make a decision. They will shoot first and ask questions later. What if the document is satire but they couldn't understand it? Oh well there goes one strike against your account, or maybe that's your third strike and now ALL your Google accounts are banned.

We already know what the appeals process is like. Unless you get it publicized on Hacker News et al, you won't get any chance to appeal.

ping_pong commented on Beyond “Fermi’s Paradox” XVI: What Is the “Dark Forest” Hypothesis? universetoday.com/149410/... · Posted by u/Hooke

AnIdiotOnTheNet · 4 years ago

1) I think you're underestimating the difficulty of accelerating any massive object to relativistic speeds, 2) doing so with enough accuracy to hit a relatively small moving target many light-years away is not exactly trivial, 3) a civilization with the capability to accelerate a massive object to relativistic speeds is probably also capable of building self-sufficient artificial habitats around its star, which is a lot of targets you'd have to take out for complete obliteration.

So in summation, I think defending against an incoming relativistic rock is at least as easy as using relativistic rocks to obliterate a distant civilization.

ping_pong · 4 years ago

You're definitely not thinking creatively enough.

You don't need to hit the planet directly with anything, all you need to do is destabilize the orbit of all the planets or even just the Earth itself. You could send a gravity wave for example, that would cause the Earth's near circular orbit to shift to a very eliptical orbit. The vast change in temperatures would kill all life on the planet, and then you could come and mine all the resources that you needed and leave.

ping_pong commented on Beyond “Fermi’s Paradox” XVI: What Is the “Dark Forest” Hypothesis? universetoday.com/149410/... · Posted by u/Hooke

evrydayhustling · 4 years ago

As other commenters have said, we can't take our own viewpoint as an example of what kinds of civilizations survive because our technological age is so young.

But IMO Dark Forest is bunk anyway, because it assumes that projecting power over interstellar distances is easier than defending yourself. That's not true within terrestrial history ... even though the arrival of colonists was massively disruptive to populations in (for example) the Americas, they couldn't have outright destroyed them. To survive, they had to trade and mingle with their neighbors, ultimately changing both cultures.

The sequels to The Three Body Problem kind of discuss this, and extend the dark forest idea to consider that any population that splits off from you is now a dark forest alien. I find that crazy xenophobic and ultimately an impractical black and white view of self vs other. On Earth, successful civilizations have been capable of trade and cultural exchange in addition to force.

ping_pong · 4 years ago

> On Earth, successful civilizations have been capable of trade and cultural exchange in addition to force.

Forget about what monstrosities we have done to other human civilizations throughout history. Instead, think about what we have done to animals. We have hunted many animals out of existence, or we have farmed them and made them basically the equivalent of the Matrix, sources of energy and food.

We are trying to eradicate mosquitoes for crying out loud, and entire species, without giving it a second thought. I will use insecticide to kill today entire colonies of ants without blinking.

All it takes is for one advanced alien civilisation to come across us and deem us the equivalent of their mosquitoes to eradicate us and take all the resources from the Earth. That's the whole point of the Dark Forest theory. If there's an infinite number of civilisations out there, and one of them is so advanced that we are insects to them, why wouldn't they just exterminate us, or use us as food?

ping_pong commented on Google Drive bans distribution of “misleading content” support.google.com/docs/a... · Posted by u/temp8964

ping_pong · 4 years ago

So now, a minimum wage drone at Google, or even worse an AI, will be able to shut down my entire account because they perceived my document that I'm sharing as "misinformation"? That's pretty fucking scary.

ping_pong commented on Ask HN: Failed project you spent 15 hours/week for 5 years on? · Posted by u/TimTheTinker

ping_pong · 4 years ago

I took a year off and for fun, I spent 40 hours a week for 9 months on a website that used OCR and other packages for some games. It generated around $15/month in ad revenue, just enough to pay for my EC2 instance at the time. I kept it around but at some point the ad revenue I made dropped like a rock by 90% so I shut it down. It was fun nonetheless and I learned a lot, but it was not successful by any measure.

ping_pong commented on Dividend Cripples Saudi Aramco oilprice.com/Energy/Energ... · Posted by u/syncsynchalt

JumpCrisscross · 4 years ago

> What is the separation between the Saudi government and MbS

Nothing. The KSA is an absolute monarchy. L’etat, c’est il.

ping_pong · 4 years ago

So it really is just a way for them to suck out the cash flow of Aramco and leave nothing but a husk for external investors?

ping_pong commented on Burden of post-Covid-19 syndrome and implications for healthcare planning journals.plos.org/plosone... · Posted by u/infodocket

c6401 · 4 years ago

Given it was in the US at least in December 2019 if not earlier according to the NIH retrospective serology study it doesn't seem to be completely impossible. https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/nih-study-offe... Also similar Italian serology study by National Cancer Institute showed that sars-cov-2 was circulating in Italy as early as September 2019. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-italy-...

ping_pong · 4 years ago

No. It's impossible. There was no outbreak in Osaka. A disease as virulent as Covid with only a single person infected is not likely at all.

ping_pong commented on Dividend Cripples Saudi Aramco oilprice.com/Energy/Energ... · Posted by u/syncsynchalt

paxys · 4 years ago

Straight from the most trusted source of news & opinion in the investment world – oilprice.com.

Aramco's dividend basically entirely goes to the Saudi government, which owns 98.5% of the company. It is still comfortably the largest oil company in the world, and is investing hundreds of billions in operations over the next few years. Here's a much more objective status report on the company – https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-07-07/saudi-ara....

ping_pong · 4 years ago

What is the separation between the Saudi government and MbS. Is it essentially the same and is it the case of MbS monetizing Aramco at the expense of the investors?

ping_pong commented on Dividend Cripples Saudi Aramco oilprice.com/Energy/Energ... · Posted by u/syncsynchalt

moralestapia · 4 years ago

I can't feel bad for them.

I lived there for four years (at KAUST), I am deeply familiar with the country and its people. The Saudis are nice and well-intended, but a few bad apples spoil the bunch.

I left after my 4yo daughter was kidnapped(!) when I refused to sign some papers regarding my work situation. I am not making this up. The kidnapping was carried away by an Australian professor and a couple American guys working there, but when I tried to look for help I was horrified that this seemed to be business as usual and no one even batted an eye, no jurisdiction. Fortunately, we are safe now and doing better than ever, but, what a story.

Until they fix many of these things it will be very hard for them to establish a thriving economy.

ping_pong · 4 years ago

American Dad has 2 episodes dedicated to showing that Saudi Arabia is the worst place in the world. Your story just reinforces that idea.