If the ESA were to do that, the "I want to believe" crowd would just dismiss that as part of the disinformation.

Further, that would cost money. (If done with any real effort).

There was an outcry about NASA plans for a ~$50,000 USD book on the "Moon landing hoax". Nobody wants to divert money from serious work, just to allay the fears of the few.


People see important things in grilled-cheese sandwhiches and oil stains, that won't change. (Personally, I think our brains are primarily pattern-matching machines. This paredoila is a natural side-effect.)

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"Most physicists would rather attempt to describe the universe in ways which require no explanation. And since science can't *explain* anything - it can only
*describe* things - that's perfectly sensible. Somebody asks you, 'How come all the secretaries in your company are women?' You can say, 'Well, it's always been that way.' That's a way of not having to explain it. So in the same way, theories which don't require explanation tend to be the ones accepted by science, which is perfectly acceptable and the best way to make science work."
-Arno Penzias

-pzkpfw-
Point taken and well-reasoned it is.
I'm not sure that assisting the public's comprehension is not serious scientific work. But I agree wholeheartedly that every centavo that can be focused on obtaining data should be invested thusly. But the conversion of that data into information is also part of the total work that needs to be done.

Obdurate loonies will always be with us, thank God. They keep us sane. I look back at the evolution of this thread and realize for my part how much I would really like them to demonstrate that Mars was or is sustaining life. The fact that so much of the probe/explorer effort has been invested in exactly this question demonstrates that the serious science has yet to positively confirm or deny this.

But we (I) digress. The issue is how did these Hale .jpeg artifacts become so compelling to so many in the first place. There seems to be lots of bandwidth blown over this, which, although cheaper than spending Euros, still represents an investment. I have endured offline conversations with others who are no-slouch experts in digital imaging and these Hale compression artifacts are sufficiently unique to raise eyebrows if nothing else.

Can you direct me to another image set that displays .jpeg compression artifacts that look like these? This is a serious question; I'd really like to learn.

Thank you.

OR....
Could ESA not have done something like this for less that $US150.00?
(Found after punching "unique .jpeg compression artifacts" into Google)
----UnJPEG –isa perfect solution for design studios/publishing houses, designed to professionally recover images damaged by the JPEG compression. This effective product performs JPEG artifact and blotchy-look removal, median noise reduction, smooth image resizing, contrast and crispness control, as well as gives clarity and a real-life effect to pictures taken with digital cameras.----

WHOA....
The civilization was discovered at the bottom left of the Hale image. Does this have something to do with cumulation?
---with an average absolute error of about 5 values per pixels (i.e., ).

"The error is most noticeable in the bottom-left corner where the bottom-left pixel becomes darker than the pixel to its immediate right."----

(Wikipedia discussion on .jpeg artifact issues)

You're not, really. It's just the sentiment that you expressed that tickles me.. "ESA should do something". What then? Post an explanation on their website? You know the conspiracy nuts won't believe it. And even with those really willing to believe that what they're seeing might be caused by technical issues, it takes a lot of effort to analyze what they are asking, where their understanding goes wrong, which little tidbit of information makes the brain go *CLICK*. It's why teaching is such a difficult job, that can't just be taken over by computers. Not yet, anyway.

(just read your question about using the "jpg smoothing" tool...)

Now *that* would make the conspiracy/UFO crowd go nuts! "ESA HIDING UFOS FROM PICTURES WITH SECRET SOFTWARE!!11eleventy!!11".

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"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge" -- Charles Darwin
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Meet the OOONG TOE.

There's a reason it's called "lossy compression." You can further manipulate an image, but it never adds more information than was in the image already.

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I say there is an invisible elf in my backyard. How do you prove that I am wrong?

Disclaimer: Avatar is not an official NASA image and does not imply any specific interplanetary or interstellar capability.

The Leif Ericson Cruiser

Taking a rendered image ( that ESA image is a rendering based on a DEM with re-projected Orthoimage from HRSC - I've done it loads myself ) - then pulling out a tiny tiny amount of JPG compression and DEM artefacts and interpreting an entire civilisation is an act of pure fantasy. No debunking is required for pure bunk.


And HRSC data is typically 12 to 50 m/pixel. Have the proponents of this theory even attempted to find and look at the source material from HRSC ( such as the high res ND channel ) or other cameras with significantly higher resolution?

No. They have not. Because when you look at the best data - always but ALWAYS - the entire thing falls hugely to pieces.

Come on Billy - if you want to be taken seriously - provide links to orig. material.

Lossy compression achieves higher compression ratios than lossless compression because it throws away information that's unlikely to be important. The image now contains less information...it's gone, nothing you do can restore it. The resulting artifacts have certain common characteristics that allow post-processing like this to "remove" them, but the result is not guaranteed to be any closer to the original image...that post processing may remove genuine details, as well, or mutate JPEG artifacts into features less easily identifiable as such without removing them.

In some situations, these things may be useful, especially if given multiple images of an area to work from, or additional un-compressed data. Lacking such information, they can do more harm than good. NASA, the ESA, and the other agencies employ people who are experts in the field of image analysis and interpretation, and they are quite well equipped with the software needed to do their jobs.

Well absolutely no doubt you're right.
But being no stranger to performing my own 'experrymints', I downloaded several programs that promise to make my .jpeg images look like 35mm film and sure enough, not one of them did squat to reveal a lurking civilization on Mars.

For what it's worth, I really don't expect to be taken seriously out here because I am not a practitioner in your art, but just a very interested wonk who's really willing to learn more about this because I get just wired on the prospect of being able to get these Mars images right here in my silly little computer.

There are some really patient and educated people on this site who have squared me away about the Mars Express images; images which are astonishing. And when the wiseacres posted these 'civilization' shots, I was wanting very much to believe that ESA and all those hard-working folks had really hit the jackpot.

I'm sorry I don't have much more to contribute here, just my energy to keep playing around with these images, which doesn't amount to much I'll admit. But what I have discovered is the wealth of information that you people are willing to share, and that not every rocket-scientist is an unapproachable, stuck-up, snotty little over-educated snob. For me, that's like discovering a new civilization all in itself.

It just looks like enlarged pixellation to me. I see no buildings. It is nonsense.

Time for somebody to visit the marble store.

I think that is the general consensus, Matt.
But thank you for your contribution.

Let's see, next thing is off to the 'Yellow Pages' to look-up marble stores...

If they do confirm bacterial evidence, what size marble would you suggest buying?

How big of a "marble" can you swallow?

__________________
Very funny Scotty, now beam down my clothes.

Well, this has been fun.
Have a merry Christmas and a prosperous New Year, everyone.

I'm outta here. Learned lots of things I didn't need, but it serves me right for asking.

Of course there's no run-down city on Mars....yet. Just give us time.

WHOA!
We sure got lots of traffic. I just looked at the posts and views stats up at the top and we're right up there with the biggies.
Who'dathunkit?
What a kick!

Nertz. Something's happening to ATM.
Reviewed Fraser's decision to start closing-down various ATM threads for malarky. He's got a really good point and I'm on his side about it even though I may have been (may be?) one of the tweaks who brought this on.
But there's stuff in this thread I haven't had time to get into and leads and links I still want to explore.
Would someone please tell me how to use the search-engine so I can refer back here when the spirit moves me? Like, do I just type-in the name of the thread and it will come back even if it's not unlocked?
And where do I enter what..but maybe that's obvious..

I just don't want to lose this. I had way too much fun.

In the advanced search (the link is in the search box) you can search for a thread started by a person - that includes threads started by you!

I also keep a BAUT folder in my browsers' "favourites" and add some "threads of the week" to it, so I can quickly go to them.

You can also "subscribe" to threads, but I can't advise on them much.

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This is too good

Even if we don't agree on every detail, I think you're growing on me. You going to stick around, even irregularly?

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None to speak of

Just click your name, go to your profile, click statistics, and hit the "Find all threads started by.." link.

ETA: oops, how did I miss pzkpfw's post? And congrats in advance on your 1k post, pzkpfw. Use it well.

__________________
"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge" -- Charles Darwin
"Your right to hold an opinion is not being contested. Your expectation that it be taken seriously is." -- Jason Thompson
Meet the OOONG TOE.

Yo! - MoonMan -
Well of course I plan to check-in from time to time, but there's nothing more to be said here about this Crater Hale City drivel. I'm thinking about making en elegant print of the 'evidence' pictures and giving it to a looney friend of mine who rants about 'cover-ups' at every opportunity.
Would make a great Xmas present and could keep him going into 2009! (yar-har)

But it's just too cruel...or is it...?