
Jessica Fridrich Specializes in Problems That Only Seem Impossible to Solve - ksvs
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/16/science/16prof.html?em
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jgrahamc
She's the person behind the algorithm in this:
[http://www.jgc.org/blog/2008/02/tonight-im-going-to-write-
my...](http://www.jgc.org/blog/2008/02/tonight-im-going-to-write-myself-
aston.html)

And she was incredibly gracious when I emailed her and asked for assistance
and she publishes all her research on her web site
(<http://www.ws.binghamton.edu/fridrich/>). The stuff about identifying
digital cameras via sensor noise is really interesting.

~~~
_bn
jgrahamc, That is some very impressive stuff. Do you know of any good places
to start to get into image processing? (specifically the mathematical tricks
(DCT's and such))

~~~
jgrahamc
Short answer: No.

I didn't know anything about image processing at all until I read her paper.
It took my quite a while to get to grips with all the terminology and ideas. I
actually went through that paper line by line as I built my code and looked up
every term I didn't understand on Wikipedia and then used links from there to
understand what it was all about.

One thing that she needs to be commended on is the clarity of that paper. I
was able to follow it and implement her algorithm starting from zero
knowledge. She then provided me with the actual images that she had used so
that I could verify that my implementation worked.

As with anything I'd suggest finding a project that inspires you and the
inspiration will be enough motivation to make you learn anything.

------
david927
I thought it was interesting that her name is Jessica -- that's not a Czech
name and there's no equivalent. So I looked her up and she was born George
(Jiri) Fridrich. She's a transsexual. (Not that there's anything wrong with
that. Just interesting.)

~~~
jgrahamc
I'm surprised to see this getting voted up; seems like pure gossip.

If anyone on HN wants a detailed list of _my_ sexual activities my contact
information is in my profile. Otherwise I'd be happier if you just looked at
my code and writing.

~~~
ksvs
Someone changing their gender is not a _sexual activity._ There was nothing
salacious about david927's comment. If anything it is an interesting
sociological data point, given the small number of prominent women in math and
science.

~~~
sethg
Sexual reassignment surgery is not a sexual activity, but it is part of
someone's medical history, and I think it is in poor taste to gossip about
someone's medical history. If Ms. Fridrich had been hospitalized for
depression as a teenager, would that also be suitable for discussing on HN?

------
Eliezer
Good work, Jessica! Now build an AI.

~~~
DaniFong
Eliezer, do you think AI is likely to be built, or emergent? I was thinking
the other day that the internet (and the services and people who interact with
it) are collectively gaining towards sentience: it has memory (archive.org),
recall (search), self-awareness (various part of the internet inspecting the
internet is _like_ introspection), even something that you might call emotion,
or motivation. It seems like an AI is as likely to emerge by accident, as an
entity interacting and viewing it's environment (on the internet) as it is
likely to be built from the ground up.

~~~
randomwalker
Eliezer has repeatedly expressed his strong view that "emergence" is crap. You
may not agree with it, but at least do a cursory search to see if he's already
answered your question before you ask him.

[http://letmegooglethatforyou.com/?q=emergent+site%3Aovercomi...](http://letmegooglethatforyou.com/?q=emergent+site%3Aovercomingbias.com)

~~~
JesseAldridge
+1 for the link

-2 for being a dick

------
cakeface
Don't most of the fastest 'cubers use the petras method
(<http://lar5.com/cube/>) nowdays?

~~~
sharkbrainguy
Petrus, and I don't think so, although it has been a LONG time since I
checked.

Last I checked most of the fastest were still using fridrich based methods.
The most common modifications being, double insertion in the F2L stage
(solving two corner-edge pairs with one look) and orienting the last-layer
edges while solving the last corner-edge pair of the first two layers, this
increases the chances of a "one-look" last layer ( there are only 270 unique
positions at that stage ).

Some of the fastest are using petrus based methods, but I would say they're
strongly outnumbered by fridrich users.

