Comment by AbrahamParangi
3 years ago
The most impressive thing is how dumb the Reddit comments are. Incorrect factual claim after incorrect factual claim. Confidently stated and widely upvoted.
Was it always like this? Were we, people always like this?
Have you read comments here? Confidently exclaiming that downscaling, gaussian blur, and taking a picture of screen showing that from far away can easily be restored by deconvolution...
> Confidently exclaiming that downscaling, gaussian blur, and taking a picture of screen showing that from far away can easily be restored by deconvolution...
I don't think HN (or Reddit) posters are arguing that deconvolution was actually being used, or that it would be practical to do so. Instead, they're just nitpicking about the technical correctness of this particular statement - "the (ir)reversibility of a perfect digital gaussian blur" - even if it doesn't affect the conclusion of the experiment.
It's just the standard nerd-sniping as seen in all tech communities... If the debate on whether you can "reverse a photo of a gaussian blur taken by a camera from the monitor" became hot enough, eventually someone may even spend a weekend to code a prototype to show how it actually works better than most people's imagination, with the solely purpose to win an argument on the Internet.
Except it’s not actually reversible with finite precision, which is sufficiently implied by “digital”.
1 reply →
Hah! Those were some of the comments on the original Reddit thread I was commenting on. Glad to see that confident ignorance is alive here too.
Nearly every forum is like that. It may even be related to Dunning Kruger, in that people who overestimate their knowledge are obviously going to feel knowledgeable on more things.
That said, Reddit is probably the worst place for it. I rarely read comments anymore there because of how 'dumb' they are. Worse, I feel like Reddit is like some self trained botnet at times. Go on any post, say 'blood is thicker than water', and without fail someone is going to tell you the original is 'blood of covenant is thicker than water of the womb.' This is of course incorrect, and the only place I've ever seen it is...Reddit. So people posting ridiculous things learning from people posting ridiculous things.
It happens here though, too, with the main difference being someone will usually correct you, and not be downvoted for doing so...