Posted on 09/27/2012 9:45:53 PM PDT by Tex-Con-Man
(There is a lot preceding this section, but it's mostly about previous claims and counter claims regarding the Cold Case Posse. I start where he introduces the expert.)
...
As I examined patents and technical papers written on MRC compression, one name in particular seemed to pop up again and again — that of Ricardo de Queiroz.
Ricardo de Queiroz is one of the primary fathers of this entire technology.
The very first “mixed raster content” patent in the United States was granted to Leon Bottou and Yann Andre LeCun… But the 2nd, 4th, 5th, 7th, 8th, and 13th patents were granted to Ricardo de Queiroz and his team. That’s about half of the first dozen or so patents. And some of his team members and students have also gone on to further develop the technology.
In addition, Professor de Queiroz appears again and again as an author of the available technical papers on MRC compression.
Now there are certainly many other individuals who have contributed to the development of this technology; and several in particular have made really big contributions. But I decided, based on what I read in the patent filings and technical papers, that if I were going to contact one expert in the world on this particular technology, the person I would pick would be Ricardo de Queiroz.
So I contacted him. And Dr. de Queiroz was gracious enough to reply — for which I thank him. In clarifying what compression technology is capable of, he has rendered a genuine service to all who have held any interest in this controversy.
...
As strange as it may seem from our perspective, there are indeed rock solid conservatives that absolutely want to accept the common narrative regarding Barack's origin and documents. Ace of Spades and crew are prime examples of this. Tex-Con-Man has a weird obsession with this issue, but an examination of other things that he writes about would reveal that he is pretty conservative about other issues.
I do not understand why any conservative would want Obama to be right, and further more put in so much effort in attempts to demonstrate that Obama is right, but the facts are such do exist and do work to legitimize this shady character. It's a WTF situation for me, and believe me, I understand completely how anyone advocating for his legitimacy would engender suspicion amongst those of us who inquire into this issue.
I have no doubt that he has a Hawaiian birth certificate from 1961. I have doubts that what he presented is said document, and I suspect he has gone to great lengths to make sure no one can see what is on his actual and Original Hawaiian birth certificate document.
I suspect it indicates that he was not born in a facility where the facts can be verified. I suspect very strongly it lists his as an "at home birth." I suspect his mother was actually living with Relatives in North West Washington State, or Canada when he was born, and he ended up being born in Canada, with his Grandmother alleging he was born at home in Hawaii on his paperwork.
It seems like virtually every "birther thread" troll would keep repeating that there is no evidence that he ever told anyone he was born in Kenya. I would post several articles where people were reporting him as having been born in Kenya, but they would always brush them away as not being proof of anything, but now that his Dystel and Goderich bio, these people have all pretty much shut up on this point. Yes, Obama DID lead people to believe he was born in Kenya.
I personally do not think there is any reasonable evidence indicating he was born in Kenya, and I think it is far more likely that he was born in Hawaii than Kenya. However, I regard it as quite probable that he was born in Canada. That is where Stanley Ann's Aunt Eleanor Birkebeile Dunham was living at the time, and it makes perfect sense that a girl with an embarrassing pregnancy would be sent to live with a female relative.
I think Obama Sr's INS papers indicated that their plan was to give him up for adoption. Stanley Ann was supposed to come back sans baby, but I suspect she ran into trouble when she found out that nobody was likely to want a half black baby in 1961.
It smacked of an attempt to legitimize him which was beyond her role as a stater of the plain facts. It's was advocacy in my opinion, and it didn't smell right.
I have a theory about someone like ACE and those blogger types like him. In my opinion, he veers towards establishment quite a bit. More than he would like to admit. Not always but it’s a strong undercurrent. Right or wrong.
He’s a proprietor. It’s his house and the establishment (GOPe/Rats), the government (the people who can make your like miserable), and the vandals (Fogblowers, threats, etc.) have been merciless on this issue.
So someone like him, I think he either goes along to get along or just puts the issue on the back burner with no real thought or investigation.
Now someone like him might have an excuse. He’s just one guy. Who needs the aggravation. He just wants to write on political news of the day.
Breitbart was only beginning to see the light. I’m sure Sheriff Joe’s investigation was a turning point for him. He finally would of had a place to hang his hat. A starting point backup by an authority that he could have run with and I really believe he would have.
The Breitbarts of the world are few and far between.
It’s the followers, who think that just because others have ducked means that there is nothing there. IE. if Ace, Michelle, Rush won’t talk about it there must me nothing there.
So the followers follow. All cult like.
Yes, I know that computers don't "guess." When I start to type an address and my mail program automatically fills in the last names, it's not "guessing" either, it's performing some sort of programmed operation. I was using "guess" as a sort of anthropomorphic metaphor that I thought would be clear. Let's say "attempts to construct the proper result based on incomplete information," then.
And certainly OCR can decode an 'R' as well as any other letter. But first it has to recognize that it's a letter to be decoded.
Even if it was an error, why render in a cruder format? The letter "A" is rendered in four times the pixel resolution of the "R".
The point is that it's not rendered as a letter at all. The software recognized that the 'B', 'A', 'A', 'C', and 'K' were letters and processed them accordingly. For whatever reason (we'd have to see whatever they scanned to know why), it failed to recogize the 'R' as a letter and so treated it as part of the background image. It's not a coincidence that its pixels are the same size as the green ones.
When the document get's printed, all characters end up being in the same resolution and bit depth, so these sort of discontinuities will not be noticed on paper.
Are you saying that if I printed the posted birth certificate PDF, the 'R' and the other letters would all look the same?
Why would they copy just one letter? How many birth certificates are likely to have the word "Barack" in them?
Well, his original certificate, for one. I forget whether you're one of the people who think there's no original Hawaiian certificate at all. But even if there isn't, "BAR" wouldn't be a hard combination to find (Barbara, Barry, Barney).
Upon rendering, everything is an image.
For whatever reason (we'd have to see whatever they scanned to know why),
Great plan! I'm all for it. Why haven't we seen the original?
it failed to recogize the 'R' as a letter and so treated it as part of the background image.
Yeah, I got the theory, i'm just suspicious of it's plausibility.
It's not a coincidence that its pixels are the same size as the green ones.
That observation is not helping your argument at all. The Green Background hash pattern is known not to be normal on Hawaiian birth certificates of that era. It shouldn't be in the background at all, let alone have a typewritten "R" on top of it.
Are you saying that if I printed the posted birth certificate PDF, the 'R' and the other letters would all look the same?
i'm saying they will all be printed in the same resolution. The pixel size will translate to printer dots per inch. Printers do not have different sized pixels. They have one size, and the characters will be printed with that size, and they will be represented within the bit depth characteristics of the printer. If it isn't clear to you what i'm saying then just skip it. It's not important.
Well, his original certificate, for one. I forget whether you're one of the people who think there's no original Hawaiian certificate at all. But even if there isn't, "BAR" wouldn't be a hard combination to find (Barbara, Barry, Barney).
I firmly believe he has some sort of birth certificate document from 1961. I suspect it is not a normal one. As for "Bar" being easy to find, to find it you must open a birth certificate file possessing that same type font with such a name in it. It may or may not be convenient to find it and open it. It may be more convenient to just grab a couple of bits from documents already on your desk, and already using the correct type font.
This is in an area where solid predictions as to what someone else will do cannot be made. It could be done one way or the other, but there is no evidence that all people will always do it the same way.
Ace follows Allahpundit and Ed Morrissey like a puppy dog. When they came out against it,(after the birth announcements surfaced) Ace partook of the subsequent preference cascade.
I told him yesterday that he simply got his opinion on the issue from them. He was not pleased with my comments. I have been sending him Emails since 2008, and he simply has no interest in looking at anything which does not fit his adopted narrative.
All such efforts to sway his opinion regarding Obama’s eligibility are labeled “Conspiracy theories” and reason with you he won’t.
Well, there ya go. A personal voucher for the guy's professional skill.
I didn't post the excerpt upthread to knock Tim Selaty in any way. It was a response the another post. I don't have a dog in this hunt.
Well, yes and no. I'm a little confused now by exactly what you mean by "render." On screen or when printed, everything is ultimately just an arrangement of dots. But as I'm sure you know, with a vector graphic the computer "knows" what shape it's drawing. (Can I say "knows" metaphorically without an objection that a computer doesn't really know anything?) Similarly, software trying to do OCR "knows" where the text is and in some circumstances creates a different image for it, aka renders it differently.
Why haven't we seen the original?
They haven't told me any more than they've told you. :)
I am a software developer, and I understand what the article is saying and agree with it. I never thought that analyzing PDFs was a good way to investigate anything.
The fact that Obama’s own publicist said for years in Obama’s bio that he was born in Kenya speaks volumes. I really don’t understand why people aren’t hammering Obama on these bios every signle day.
“That observation is not helping your argument at all. The Green Background hash pattern is known not to be normal on Hawaiian birth certificates of that era. It shouldn’t be in the background at all, let alone have a typewritten “R” on top of it.”
If they scan the paper copy of the BC into a computer at the DOH and print that onto green security paper, or if they just put the book containing the BC on top of the copier and print that on to green security paper, won’t the security paper’s pattern appear to have an “R” on it?
Add atty Larry Klayman to your list...his case is still alive in the State of Florida.
Which was my point. The dots per inch (and degree of color resolution. AKA bit depth ) is fixed, and it is a characteristic of the display device.
But as I'm sure you know, with a vector graphic the computer "knows" what shape it's drawing. (Can I say "knows" metaphorically without an objection that a computer doesn't really know anything?)
Vector graphics are merely a series of lines, curves, etc between points with various support instructions such as fill, etc. They are first drawn in computer memory, and then before they are rendered, they are converted to a pixel pattern, i.e. an "image" for the display device.
Similarly, software trying to do OCR "knows" where the text is and in some circumstances creates a different image for it, aka renders it differently.
It "knows" where is text that it has decoded. It doesn't "know" where text is that it has not or cannot decode. Your argument is that it can decode a "B" an "A", miss an "R" , but then get the next "A","C,"and "K" without any problem. This sounds like a Deus ex machina sort of claim if you ask me. (Literally)
Pardon me if I find it dubious. It is odd that such a mistake just happens to be on a name which is virtually guaranteed to not be findable in a complete form anywhere else in their database.
Did the “R” mess up on both the father’s name and the son’s?
That is a very good point. Not it is not. It is all in the same resolution. That tends to indicate the name was not pasted together. If it were, you would expect both names to have the same sort of flaw.
Upon examining it though, it brings another point to mind. The Checkbox with an "X" in it is in the same resolution as most of the other letters, yet if OCR is going to fail, it will most assuredly be on that "X" that is crookedly on the checkbox. (Just under the Child's name "Barack")
I also notice that the letters making up the fathers names are not exact copies of the letters making up the son's name. What that means is that the process treated those letters as images, not as Ascii characters. One of the compression methods is to substitute a specific token image for all representations of the same letter (Takes one byte instead of several hundred.) That is obviously not occurring here. The letters are being treated exactly as if they were images.
It still makes no sense why the pixel resolution and bit depth change from one letter to another. Even if you assume it was some sort of error, it makes no sense. The "X" not quite aligned up on the checkbox should have been an OCR error, and it wasn't handled the same way as was that "R".
What about the very top of the “l” in “male”, the “g” in “Single”, the “p” in “Triplet”, the comma in the DOB (compared to the comma in box 7c after “Honolulu”), the “M” in “P.M.”. Aren’t they all at the same resolution as the green background and the “R” in “BARACK”?
Look at box 6c “Name of Hospital or Institution” are all the letters at the same resolution?
Look at the “K” in Kenya versus the “K”s in “Kapiolani” or “Kalanianaola”. Notice when a letter is very close to or touching a graphic element its resolution is the same as the graphic element.
So since we are unwilling to admit there are unexplained anomolies here, then we must conclude therefore that all is well? OK, your work here is done Dr. Queiroz, you may pick up your check at the desk before you leave Obama headquarters.
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