https://twitter.com/MarkRober/status/1075767629703372800
Lesson: donât make prank videos. Lesson two: donât watch prank videos.
So, it turns out the extended cuts of the LOTR movies were completely color-corrected from their theatrical cuts. Hereâs a thread showing how they look side-by-side, and itâs pretty interesting to see what does and doesnât work.
Not sure if this has been posted or not, but here is a 24.9-billion-pixel photo from the Oriental Pearl Tower in Shanghai. This is both amazingly cool, and super scary. You can literally zoom in on a personâs face from miles away.
http://sh-meet.bigpixel.cn/?from=groupmessage&isappinstalled=0
Edited to fix that the photo was taken from the top of a building and not a satellite.
Pretty sure thatâs just from the top of a building, not a satellite.
Why do you find it scary?
Youâre right, it was actually taken from the Oriental Pearl Tower in Shanghai. For some reason, the article I read said it was taken from a satellite.
Itâs scary because this really shows off the surveillance technologies that governments have and can use against people. Big Brother is watching you from miles and miles away.
That is not what this shows. It shows a good example of giga-photo techniques. Thatâs where you take lots of photos with a zoom camera and stitch them together. Think of it as the panorama function on your phone, but way more so.
Itâs not government surveillance technology, itâs technology and techniques anyone can purchase for purposes of entertainment and promotion: http://www.omegabrandess.com/products/Gigapan/GigaPan-EPIC-ProV
It is very not-useful for surveillance, as it takes hours to take a single image like this, and maybe days worth of computer time to crunch it together into a single image like this.
You know what is better for surveillance? CCTV cameras. For long range viewing, any camera with a zoom lens.
This is not scary. You are scared about the wrong things.
Iâm still uneasy about any technology that lets people view me from miles and miles away. Itâs one thing to know this technology exists in theory, itâs another to see an actual example of it.
Itâs called a telescope. Invented literally hundreds of years ago. How can a telescope, or a camera with a zoom lens, be something you only knew about theoretically, and real life examples of it make you uneasy?
Either youâre being intentionally obtuse, pedantic, or just an ass.
Itâs the level of distance and detail that I only knew about theoretically. But since youâre the expert on what I should and shouldnât be creeped out about, Iâll just go and let you continue on with your god-complex.
No, Iâm really not being intentionally obtuse. You said this was government surveillance technology, and I pointed out it was commercially available, both in terms of the hardware and software required to put it together.
Once I pointed that out to you, I presumed youâd feel differently about it. Itâs just a camera with a zoom lens being pointed in lots of directions.
I didnât mean to say this shouldnât creep you out because telescopes and zoom lenses canât be used for creepy purposes, I mean this example of zoom lenses shouldnât creep you out because it isnât being used for government surveillance.
If this is the first time youâve ever seen an example of a zoom lens on a camera taking a photo of someone from a long way away? Well, I think in this case youâre just mistaken. You know all wildlife photography uses lenses like this? Every photo youâve ever seen of a bird in flight uses lenses with, probably, higher levels of zoom than this photo.
In this case it feels like you are being intentionally obtuse, and not acknowledging that this is super old and super common technology.
Do you believe this poll?
I was going to post this in he Wrestling thread, but this Wrestle Kingdom ad is made by Tobyfox and itâs pretty great.
Itâs true though isnât it? Last I knew most political polling was done through old school wired telephones and only old people have wired phones so the demographics are inherently skewed.
Not for a number of years now, at least, for reputable political polling. These days, itâs more common for polling companies to dial in to mobile-phone-only exchanges and use those results combined with traditional landline polling, of course with some statistical weighting to ensure consistency of results. Many others(including, most notably, Rasmussen) use online polling as well. Depending on the poll, sometimes field workers are also sent out to get opinions on the ground.
Still might be skewed older because I seriously donât know anyone under 35 who actually answers their phone unless itâs from a very small list of known numbers. I suppose the weighting can account for that though.
Did anyone know that a local leftist youtube explainy man donoteat01 also has an article on how to fix the subway? You do now.