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How I failed to replicate an $86M project in 1 line of code

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Re: How I failed to replicate an $86M project in 1 line of code

#5
The first article points out the inefficiency and does a good job of replicating some basic functionality. It's basically saying "with this starting pointing, the performance is not as good, but we could probably make it a lot better without spending $86 mil"

IMO, this one is saying "I'm gonna push the starting point even further back and complain about someone making a suggestion about inefficiencies."

But that's the internet I guess.

Re: How I failed to replicate an $86M project in 1 line of code

#6
The post starts with a false premise that:

"[a medium post has been] doing the rounds the last few days, describing how an automated license plate recognition (ALPR) system being developed for the Australian Victoria Police could just use the open-source ALPR system OpenALPR instead"

The original post was pretty much a tech demo, and noted a bunch of issues. I think the point was that an ALPR project shouldn't really cost $86M.

ALPR is a well studied problem, there are a number of commercial solutions. I've no doubt there are even a number of solutions already deployed in Australia. Such systems are routinely used, for example, to monitor the speed of traffic (see Traffic master).

And as the original post showed, there are even open source solutions to the problem that work pretty well.

So yea... $86M seems like a lot when there are probably off the shelf systems you can buy at a much lower cost...

Re: How I failed to replicate an $86M project in 1 line of code

#7
post #5

The first article points out the inefficiency and does a good job of replicating some basic functionality. It's basically saying "with this starting pointing, the performance is not as good, but we could probably make it a lot better without spending $86 mil" IMO, this one is saying "I'm gonna push the starting point even further back and complain about someone making a suggestion about inefficiencies." But that's th…

http://bit.ly/2urhLeM

Re: How I failed to replicate an $86M project in 1 line of code

#8
Two problems:

1. You've shown the success of OpenALPR isn't perfect, but I'm sure the closed source alternative isn't perfect either. It might be better, but is it $86 million better?

2. If we spent $86 million on developing OpenALPR, it would be an incredible product that everyone could use, without paying so much to the overhead of an executive structure.

Re: How I failed to replicate an $86M project in 1 line of code

#9
I agree with this article more. Yes, $86M is sure expensive with lots of efficiencies. But the first one is oversimplifying the technical aspect, which is missing the point on the sources of inefficiencies. The project can't be using openALPR at its current level and it is hopeless to use it as a starting point to get decent accuracy.

Re: How I failed to replicate an $86M project in 1 line of code

#10
post #6

The post starts with a false premise that: "[a medium post has been] doing the rounds the last few days, describing how an automated license plate recognition (ALPR) system being developed for the Australian Victoria Police could just use the open-source ALPR system OpenALPR instead" The original post was pretty much a tech demo, and noted a bunch of issues. I think the point was that an ALPR project shouldn't really…

The Victorian police system was first running in cars on public roads in 2012. No doubt there are plenty of solutions available today that have been developed since then, but they probably weren't considered at the time. That $86m has covered development of the software and hardware and at least six years of running costs for the program. So yea, I'm sure $86m sounds like a lot when you compare it to some random piece of software that does a small portion of the project.
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