Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Wood Green Riot 45 Years ago this month
On 7th July, 45 years ago Britain's cities were hit with rioting. The "Soaraway Sun" published the following piece about a riot in Wood Green.
(The attached images were run through an AI engine to try and improve the legibility of the text. Oddly some engines struggle with text in images. So I've added the original images as attachments below)
A little more about the riot here on HoL.
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Sun 9 July 1981 front page.jpg, 957 KB -
Sun 9 July 1981 page.jpg, 747 KB
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Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by James Crossley
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Wondering where the heck Marplee lane was, I went to the image and found this gem :
What the AI has as "another shopkeeper's courage saved his business" was actually "another shopkeeper's courage landed him in hospital"!
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Admin for testingPermalink Reply by Hugh -
Yes, there’s no doubt that this pair of images is a good example of the current limitations of AI. I’m a bit perplexed by it. Time and time again AI fails to read text which is obvious to me and where it’s not obvious just makes it up. The letter I can understand: the former I can’t.
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Permalink Reply by WGDoug
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Which AI did you use? Google Gemini’s Nano Banana is usually pretty good with text.
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Admin for testingPermalink Reply by Hugh -
Thanks, Doug. I'll give that one a try. My experience so far has been that all of them fall over in various ways.
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Admin for testingPermalink Reply by Hugh -
I tried two variants of Nano Banana. The first required a £10 payment. The second was even more 'creative' than the engine I'd originally used. I'v e also tried using Topaz Gigapixel on Photoshop and that can't produce a legible copy either.
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That’s disappointing. I’ve never had it try to charge me, that might be new. Thanks for trying!
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What were the black youths rioting about?
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Admin for testingPermalink Reply by Hugh -
It was part of this.
On my way back from University, I unwittingly drove through Brixton as one riot was kicking off. With Ghost Town playing on the radio (yes really), stuck on the main road through Brixton, I watched something I'd never expected to see in my own country. What amazed me was the extent to which it seemed to be a spectator sport, with the pedestrian barriers whihc used to line to road pached with middle-aged and elderly 'spectators'.
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Sounds terrifying! The Tottenham riots were enough for me. The lawless thuggery and destruction of private property were appalling. Ordinarily, I would oppose it but I think we've got to the point where facial recognition technology is definitely needed in certain areas of London.
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Admin for testingPermalink Reply by Hugh -
I think because there were all these old ladies hanging over the pedestrian rails just watching, it was never very frightening. I just remember feeling very sad to be watching it.
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Remember seeing a TV news clip of a rioter/looter trying on a pair of looted trainers, found they didn't fit, threw them back and nicked another pair instead!
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