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[Trump] pretty much seems to be an open book. [...] With Trump, what you see is very much what you get.

What on earth have you been smoking?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

The analysis is all bullshit. Scott Adams is full of shit and possibly mentally deranged. The word "sad" is not what swung that primary election.

And "Priming" routinely fails all of the replications anyone tries for it. From your link: "Nobel laureate and psychologist Daniel Kahneman has called on priming researchers to check the robustness of their findings in an open letter to the community, claiming that priming has become a 'poster child for doubts about the integrity of psychological research.'"

Gee, "some random anonymous dude on the internet", that's a particularly cogent and persuasive argument you got there.

I happen to know that priming works because I use it.

As one of my AI lectures, I use a priming example that requires audience participation(*). It's always worked, never had it fail.

But again, who am I to argue? I'm just another "dude on the internet".

Here's a video of Derren Brown using priming as a sort of magic trick.

Priming is sort of like bullets. The fact that *you* don't believe in them doesn't mean that they don't work.

(*) As part of my argued position that AI is not based on hidden Markov models. HMMs are a fine construct and a fertile ground for research and innovation, but have nothing to do with AI.

I had a PDA back in those days. It was obvious to most everyone (except Microsoft, who completely missed the boat) that PDAs and phones were going to converge. The only question was if PDAs were going to pick up phone capability, or if phones were going to pick up PDA capability. Microsoft was in a position to make the former happen - they had vanquished Palm and controlled most of the PDA market with Windows CE/Mobile/their name of the year. But even when HP tried to make a WinCE PDA which could also make phone calls, Microsoft didn't lift a finger to help them.

Blackberry ended up taking the first step to adding general-purpose computing to a phone. Once they opened that floodgate, it was a race to see who could make their phone the most general general-purpose computer (except Microsoft, even though that was exactly what they were trying to do with PDAs - trying to port the Windows API to PDAs).

The only real contributions of the iPhone was lack of a physical keyboard - everyone else (except LG) was using a Blackberry-style keyboard, or a sliding keyboard, or a Palm Graffiti-style writing space. That was a huge bet by Apple, and the iPhone served as the proof of concept which green-lighted everyone else's touch-only on-screen keyboards most of them were already playing with in R&D. (The app ecosystem - instead of a handful of apps baked into the phone by the manufacturer - came later). A lot of the form and functionality people attribute to the iPhone actually came out first in the LG Prada, indicating the industry was already moving in that direction even when the iPhone hadn't yet seen the light of day.

There appears to be a choice between someone who is conniving and self serving, and someone who is nasty and under handed. Can you tell which is which?

I can tell which candidate is constantly appealing to bigotry and hate, implicitly (and not-so-implicitly) condoning violence and torture, and blaming all of the nation's problems on minorities and foreigners.

I can tell which candidate has actual experience in government, and which one seems to have learned everything he thinks he knows about government from watching "24".

I can tell which candidate has actual considered positions on issues, and which candidate is just making it up as he goes along (because hey, how hard can running a country be?)

I can tell which candidate is willing to engage in reasoned argument, and which one thinks that merely flinging childish personal insults is a sufficient form of debate.

I can tell which candidate is able to withstand criticism and adversity without getting thin-skinned and emotional, and which candidate can't go 30 minutes without responding to each and every criticism individually by lashing out wildly on Twitter.

I can tell which candidate the KKK and other hate groups are getting themselves excited over.

I don't think Hillary's an ideal candidate by any stretch of the imagination, but at least she's in the right ballpark. I'd expect her tenure as President to be much like Obama's, except with less panache, and that's fine with me. The idea of electing Trump to be president, OTOH, is about as appealing as the idea of hiring Twisty the Clown to entertain at my kids' birthday party.

Today has me thinking back to January when the GOP power brokers started to feel the heat. This video leaked; an establishment oligarch ranting about `our party.'

Not any more pal.

The dems had their chance with Bernie, but they did exactly what you'd expect people who own the status quo to do; coronate a status qou candidate. Trump supporters have been marginalized their entire lives and they are past caring; they know there are only a few years left before the statists criminalize them for effectively everything they have, do, say or believe. So the recycled stump speech lines Cruz had been trained to recite whenever someone pointed a camera at him did not play.

Today has me thinking about the Republican party gentry of Colorado and Wyoming: @cologop "We did it. #NeverTrump." How's that investigation going, boys? Figure out who `hacked' your twitter feed?

I know who hacked your fucking party.

* Wheel

I'd replace that with the second wheel.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

I had something for this!

I know what the next generation needs too!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Ok, technically this isn't a pocket gadget, but it is still a gadget.

Everything is modern life is supported by electricity. iPhones, AirConditioners, Mass Transportation, Warehouse Distribution Systems, New York City, Modern Factories, and yes even the financial sector.

Electricity is supported by the steam engine (and lot's of copper wire).

Whether it be coal fired, natural gas fired, oil fired, or a nuclear powered electric plant these are nothing more than giant steam engines. We boil water with coal, gas, oil, and nuclear fission to heat water to make steam to turn a turbine to make electricity. Yes, steam power supports modern life and even modern warfare. Thomas the Tank Engine lives on in our modern steam turbine systems even in aircraft carriers.

I wish I could say the most important gadget of all time was the hybrid nuclear/lithium ion battery that could power my city for 1 year on a single charge or solar power, wind power, or hydroelectric power, but alas it is not.

Unfortunately we need to dig stuff up and burn it, which over the long term of the planet isn't a sustainable concept. Eventually we will run out of things to dig up and burn, but I guess would genetically engineer trees to grow really fast and switch to wood/charcoal power.

I will give the final word to CIV4.
R.I.P. Leonard Nimoy

The Onion's Real Time News Show

Maybe I'm just an extra-capable nice guy with a long memory and experience in many different walks of life.

In short, you need to learn how to be an asshole. Eli the Computer Guy can help you with that problem.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_YaNGzplbE

There's really not much mechanical connection between the inside and outside doorknobs anymore. It used to be there was an iron shaft connecting the two but that made the lock vulnerable to a pipe wrench attack. On a modern door, if you hung a charcoal starter on a doorknob you would set the inside of the door (normally urethane or wood) on fire. At that point the outside would be getting hot but also smoking or bursting into flames. I wonder what would happen if you wired a large capacitor to a metal door knocker... everyone loves to use those things...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTw1lzxTAis

"I have to tighten up the graphics on level 3."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

according to this documentary. https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

The Man Made Climate Change agenda was constructed by international bankers in order so they could permanently tax your C02 output. Exhale c02? Too bad! Enjoy your tax! It will become the biggest scheme in the history of mankind thanks to repeater drone news outlets such as slashdot. The already discredited IPCC and the founder of the weather channel thinks it's horse shit

"Repeat a lie enough and it will become truth" - hitler

The trend towards the traditional "gap year" (spend Daddy's money for a year before going to college) has been on the decline in the UK since 2012 or so. Going to university is a more expensive proposition here than it used to be (though still a long way short of US levels and mostly loan-funded) and spending a year fannying around before getting it over with has lost some of the appeal. Plus, of course, the whole concept came in for some fairly relentless pisstaking.

There are still a fair few who take a year out of studying before going to university, but that's mostly for the purposes of working to earn money to help with fees and living costs. The traditional Gap Yah was mostly a product of the pre-recession years of plenty.

Nearly all modern smartphones are very fragile - they'll break very easily - and are a pain to repair.

True, but there are exceptions. Ever seen the Moto X Force? It can withstand some crazy shit, such as a 275 meter drop.

Get Billy Mays to use his stuff, it'll fix it. You may also get your clothes cleaned at the same time.

Tastes like ... despair? https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

You don't need to know (2) or (3) when actual immigration data from the USA into Canada can't even begin to corroborate the claim of (1). In fact, even the *TOTAL* number of people permanently residing in Canada who were born in the USA is only around half a million... which is barely a tenth of the number of people that said they would leave if Obama was re-elected. And that's the total number of Americans who've moved into Canada *EVER*... not just during Obama's run as president... and of course, there weren't any noteworthy spikes in immigration from the USA after the election either.

If you won't take my word for it... listen to what the Prime Minister has to say about it.

Yeah, I noticed this awhile back. And I got ticked off at Google when they made their last change to Maps a year or two ago, after they had royally messed up News a few years before that (and ignored unanimous user complaints on their feedback pages). So I tried Bing and Yahoo. Unfortunately, for the things I search for (linguistics and computational linguistics articles, programming hacks), neither Bing nor Yahoo was anywhere near as good as Google. So reluctantly, I went back to Google. https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Heh- it reminds me of their national anthem.

Freedom is always illegal: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... "Freedom is always illegal because the people who want power over you will always say: "Keeping what you earn is against the law, being armed is against the law, determining your own future is against the law""

I believe they provide a service. (Had to be the first to trot that out today)

But somebody has been advising this

Bender will take care of these attack-hipster liberals

But on a serious note. I think it's very interesting that I will in reasonable likelihood before I die have a 3d star map to look at with the planets that are confirmed habitable or at least a list of all exoplanet solar systems within 40 light years. That's pretty incredible.

my god, let's get back to what the _software_ aspect of the essay is.
Google relaunched maps in 2013 with two massive changes:
1. switch from pre-renderd tiles to vector-based client-side rendering (good for native maps app and network traffic)
2. heavy personalization ( watch this intro video from Google in 2013 to see the idea in extreme: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... )

So what did O'Beirne see and post? No, he did not see the place names and point of interest marks you will probably see at the same zoom level (esp. in your local area) - he posted a screenshot with the city names the big google correlation machine thinks is relevant to him. This is both good and bad imho. We're even deeper in our bubble and don't even see unwanted city areas on the maps (bad). But when we quickly want to find something relevant, it's great (assuming the relevance works).
Concerning the map design: I agree, the manually / traditionally done tiles had more semantic and cultural context and did in fact look more balanced and structured.
But they did not have any notion of intermediate Zoom levels, which is crucial on smaller screens. And they had a very ugly way to incrementally render on slow connections. If O'Beirne posted Videos instead of images the impression would have been different.

Overall I agree with his findings as long as you see Google Maps as a static map image (to print out). Which it isn't. Even if you see it, I do not agree with one of his findings: Streets that do not connect named places. The actual structure of cities and their wider surroundings did in fact change towards being form- and shapeless continuums of houses and streets. Many areas simply do not have structural centers any more that could be named, but are very relevant to the people living or working there. In addition, new streets are built to _not_ touch city centers but to avoid traffic there. The traditional map layout pattern of lines connecting dots (cities) does not represent the current metropolitan structures any more (and his screenshots were all metropolitan). Does anybody know good resources on the topic?

They certainly do.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Black sheriffs do.

When I read the headline, I immediately thought of this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

How bad would nuclear winter be is the question, the only study I've seen looked at a very small number of small nuclear weapons being released, if Russia or the US let off a lot of their nukes then we'd likely see > 99% people wiped out by starvation and hypothermia.

Nuclear winter - still possible but preventable: Alan Robock at TEDxHoboken - YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Kind of misses the point that Hinkley Point C is a boondoggle. I've been following it for a while since I'm actually a fan of nuclear power as well as renewables... and if you're interested there's a great summary about it here; https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

It doesn't hurt that Robert Llewellyn was Kryten in Red Dwarf...

Bitcoin is, as you point out, fully backtraceable.

I know who it's coming from, because I back traced it!

Look up Nuclear winter.

Nuclear winter is global. If Russia did release every nuke it had at the US, nearly all Russian people would also die because of the nuclear winter that would follow. Latest studies suggest that nuclear winter would last years, that could be years of near zero food being grown, total crop failure because crops need sunlight.

Nuclear Winter | Retro Report | The New York Times - YouTube

With Kent Brockman

Apple has been moving to end their Macintosh line of computers.

Evidence:
Dropped "Computers" from their original name.
No longer use the name "Macintosh", only the shortened "Mac".
Severely limited the Mac Pro line by eliminating any ability to add peripheries, i.e. requires PCIe SSD.

Apple makes decent products, while overpriced, still Mac OS X is a pleasure to work with. The documentation is a little cumbersome to begin understanding, but what documentation isn't? It was a shame that Apple relegated the Mac Pro to another unconfigurable machine. The iMac, Mac Mini are nice equipment for general use, but they don't allow for exotic hardware like oscilloscope input boards. USB isn't great for things that require precise timing information, like oscilloscopes, and I am not sure if Thunderbolt supports isochronous signals like Firewire does.

What really is devastating about Apple is that they abandoned hardware that they themselves invested to develop (PowerPC). Apple didn't use Intel until the switch in the mid aughts. It was always Motorola, and the PowerPC line buoyed Motorola until they sold their investment. Now with IBM licensing it out to companies like Freescale (oh snap, Freescale got sold to some Nederlander?), anyone can see what will happen to Apple.

Apple needs to move from a consumer company into an R&D provider and technology licensor. They've already invested in new technologies like USB, Firewire, OpenCL and more that have gained massive acceptance and use. It's not like they don't have the funds, but they don't have much time to 'work' things out. The 90's saw the near-end of Apple, and it can happen again. (Of course, if Apple did this then they would be in direct competition with IBM...man.)

As you say Apple is "more interested in converting people to iOS...than convincing them to get new Mac...laptops." The MacBook is a competitor against the iPad. Which OS has more control over consumers, iOS or OS X? Apple wants to get rid of Macintosh, it has been a poor performer since the beginning, so they see the iPhone and iPad as the future of their "computer" line while venturing into already held market territory, the Apple Car - what?.

Apple really needs a new marketing approach to their Macintosh line. They haven't advertised any Mac since their "Think Different" and anti-Intel bunnymen campaigns. In fact, I can't remember any Macintosh advertisement since the iTunes jargon began. (Forgot...After the switch, that's when all the "Mac v. PC" ads started, but of course those ads stopped all the Pentium vs. PPC argument.)

From the first consumer available supercomputer to the same configuration available from any after-market PC supplier. Apple has gone from "Think Different" to "Same Thing".

Apple has been moving to end their Macintosh line of computers.

Evidence:
Dropped "Computers" from their original name.
No longer use the name "Macintosh", only the shortened "Mac".
Severely limited the Mac Pro line by eliminating any ability to add peripheries, i.e. requires PCIe SSD.

Apple makes decent products, while overpriced, still Mac OS X is a pleasure to work with. The documentation is a little cumbersome to begin understanding, but what documentation isn't? It was a shame that Apple relegated the Mac Pro to another unconfigurable machine. The iMac, Mac Mini are nice equipment for general use, but they don't allow for exotic hardware like oscilloscope input boards. USB isn't great for things that require precise timing information, like oscilloscopes, and I am not sure if Thunderbolt supports isochronous signals like Firewire does.

What really is devastating about Apple is that they abandoned hardware that they themselves invested to develop (PowerPC). Apple didn't use Intel until the switch in the mid aughts. It was always Motorola, and the PowerPC line buoyed Motorola until they sold their investment. Now with IBM licensing it out to companies like Freescale (oh snap, Freescale got sold to some Nederlander?), anyone can see what will happen to Apple.

Apple needs to move from a consumer company into an R&D provider and technology licensor. They've already invested in new technologies like USB, Firewire, OpenCL and more that have gained massive acceptance and use. It's not like they don't have the funds, but they don't have much time to 'work' things out. The 90's saw the near-end of Apple, and it can happen again. (Of course, if Apple did this then they would be in direct competition with IBM...man.)

As you say Apple is "more interested in converting people to iOS...than convincing them to get new Mac...laptops." The MacBook is a competitor against the iPad. Which OS has more control over consumers, iOS or OS X? Apple wants to get rid of Macintosh, it has been a poor performer since the beginning, so they see the iPhone and iPad as the future of their "computer" line while venturing into already held market territory, the Apple Car - what?.

Apple really needs a new marketing approach to their Macintosh line. They haven't advertised any Mac since their "Think Different" and anti-Intel bunnymen campaigns. In fact, I can't remember any Macintosh advertisement since the iTunes jargon began. (Forgot...After the switch, that's when all the "Mac v. PC" ads started, but of course those ads stopped all the Pentium vs. PPC argument.)

From the first consumer available supercomputer to the same configuration available from any after-market PC supplier. Apple has gone from "Think Different" to "Same Thing".

Apple has been moving to end their Macintosh line of computers.

Evidence:
Dropped "Computers" from their original name.
No longer use the name "Macintosh", only the shortened "Mac".
Severely limited the Mac Pro line by eliminating any ability to add peripheries, i.e. requires PCIe SSD.

Apple makes decent products, while overpriced, still Mac OS X is a pleasure to work with. The documentation is a little cumbersome to begin understanding, but what documentation isn't? It was a shame that Apple relegated the Mac Pro to another unconfigurable machine. The iMac, Mac Mini are nice equipment for general use, but they don't allow for exotic hardware like oscilloscope input boards. USB isn't great for things that require precise timing information, like oscilloscopes, and I am not sure if Thunderbolt supports isochronous signals like Firewire does.

What really is devastating about Apple is that they abandoned hardware that they themselves invested to develop (PowerPC). Apple didn't use Intel until the switch in the mid aughts. It was always Motorola, and the PowerPC line buoyed Motorola until they sold their investment. Now with IBM licensing it out to companies like Freescale (oh snap, Freescale got sold to some Nederlander?), anyone can see what will happen to Apple.

Apple needs to move from a consumer company into an R&D provider and technology licensor. They've already invested in new technologies like USB, Firewire, OpenCL and more that have gained massive acceptance and use. It's not like they don't have the funds, but they don't have much time to 'work' things out. The 90's saw the near-end of Apple, and it can happen again. (Of course, if Apple did this then they would be in direct competition with IBM...man.)

As you say Apple is "more interested in converting people to iOS...than convincing them to get new Mac...laptops." The MacBook is a competitor against the iPad. Which OS has more control over consumers, iOS or OS X? Apple wants to get rid of Macintosh, it has been a poor performer since the beginning, so they see the iPhone and iPad as the future of their "computer" line while venturing into already held market territory, the Apple Car - what?.

Apple really needs a new marketing approach to their Macintosh line. They haven't advertised any Mac since their "Think Different" and anti-Intel bunnymen campaigns. In fact, I can't remember any Macintosh advertisement since the iTunes jargon began. (Forgot...After the switch, that's when all the "Mac v. PC" ads started, but of course those ads stopped all the Pentium vs. PPC argument.)

From the first consumer available supercomputer to the same configuration available from any after-market PC supplier. Apple has gone from "Think Different" to "Same Thing".

Apple has been moving to end their Macintosh line of computers.

Evidence:
Dropped "Computers" from their original name.
No longer use the name "Macintosh", only the shortened "Mac".
Severely limited the Mac Pro line by eliminating any ability to add peripheries, i.e. requires PCIe SSD.

Apple makes decent products, while overpriced, still Mac OS X is a pleasure to work with. The documentation is a little cumbersome to begin understanding, but what documentation isn't? It was a shame that Apple relegated the Mac Pro to another unconfigurable machine. The iMac, Mac Mini are nice equipment for general use, but they don't allow for exotic hardware like oscilloscope input boards. USB isn't great for things that require precise timing information, like oscilloscopes, and I am not sure if Thunderbolt supports isochronous signals like Firewire does.

What really is devastating about Apple is that they abandoned hardware that they themselves invested to develop (PowerPC). Apple didn't use Intel until the switch in the mid aughts. It was always Motorola, and the PowerPC line buoyed Motorola until they sold their investment. Now with IBM licensing it out to companies like Freescale (oh snap, Freescale got sold to some Nederlander?), anyone can see what will happen to Apple.

Apple needs to move from a consumer company into an R&D provider and technology licensor. They've already invested in new technologies like USB, Firewire, OpenCL and more that have gained massive acceptance and use. It's not like they don't have the funds, but they don't have much time to 'work' things out. The 90's saw the near-end of Apple, and it can happen again. (Of course, if Apple did this then they would be in direct competition with IBM...man.)

As you say Apple is "more interested in converting people to iOS...than convincing them to get new Mac...laptops." The MacBook is a competitor against the iPad. Which OS has more control over consumers, iOS or OS X? Apple wants to get rid of Macintosh, it has been a poor performer since the beginning, so they see the iPhone and iPad as the future of their "computer" line while venturing into already held market territory, the Apple Car - what?.

Apple really needs a new marketing approach to their Macintosh line. They haven't advertised any Mac since their "Think Different" and anti-Intel bunnymen campaigns. In fact, I can't remember any Macintosh advertisement since the iTunes jargon began. (Forgot...After the switch, that's when all the "Mac v. PC" ads started, but of course those ads stopped all the Pentium vs. PPC argument.)

From the first consumer available supercomputer to the same configuration available from any after-market PC supplier. Apple has gone from "Think Different" to "Same Thing".

Apple has been moving to end their Macintosh line of computers.

Evidence:
Dropped "Computers" from their original name.
No longer use the name "Macintosh", only the shortened "Mac".
Severely limited the Mac Pro line by eliminating any ability to add peripheries, i.e. requires PCIe SSD.

Apple makes decent products, while overpriced, still Mac OS X is a pleasure to work with. The documentation is a little cumbersome to begin understanding, but what documentation isn't? It was a shame that Apple relegated the Mac Pro to another unconfigurable machine. The iMac, Mac Mini are nice equipment for general use, but they don't allow for exotic hardware like oscilloscope input boards. USB isn't great for things that require precise timing information, like oscilloscopes, and I am not sure if Thunderbolt supports isochronous signals like Firewire does.

What really is devastating about Apple is that they abandoned hardware that they themselves invested to develop (PowerPC). Apple didn't use Intel until the switch in the mid aughts. It was always Motorola, and the PowerPC line buoyed Motorola until they sold their investment. Now with IBM licensing it out to companies like Freescale (oh snap, Freescale got sold to some Nederlander?), anyone can see what will happen to Apple.

Apple needs to move from a consumer company into an R&D provider and technology licensor. They've already invested in new technologies like USB, Firewire, OpenCL and more that have gained massive acceptance and use. It's not like they don't have the funds, but they don't have much time to 'work' things out. The 90's saw the near-end of Apple, and it can happen again. (Of course, if Apple did this then they would be in direct competition with IBM...man.)

As you say Apple is "more interested in converting people to iOS...than convincing them to get new Mac...laptops." The MacBook is a competitor against the iPad. Which OS has more control over consumers, iOS or OS X? Apple wants to get rid of Macintosh, it has been a poor performer since the beginning, so they see the iPhone and iPad as the future of their "computer" line while venturing into already held market territory, the Apple Car - what?.

Apple really needs a new marketing approach to their Macintosh line. They haven't advertised any Mac since their "Think Different" and anti-Intel bunnymen campaigns. In fact, I can't remember any Macintosh advertisement since the iTunes jargon began. (Forgot...After the switch, that's when all the "Mac v. PC" ads started, but of course those ads stopped all the Pentium vs. PPC argument.)

From the first consumer available supercomputer to the same configuration available from any after-market PC supplier. Apple has gone from "Think Different" to "Same Thing".

Turn right HERE!

And the police fingerprints are still good enough to be used to defeat the best fingerprint scanners. There's been no noticeable improvement in the technology since the paper on defeating it was published in 2002.

                https://cryptome.org/gummy.htm

The crack was confirmed by MythBusters in 2011.

                https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

There has been no basic change in the technology. Fingerprint scanners are still trivially beaten.

I suggest you look again.

                                        http://www.cnet.com/news/judge...

And there was also this case, of people at a Senator's pigeon shoot. There was apparently no prosecution.

                                    https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

That FAA policy you're citing has not been tested in court. These cases while they may not have set binding precedent, certainly provided useful legal reasoning for other judges to use.

I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Yeah, astonishing that people are ready to replace a car every 5 to 10 years (for no financial benefit) and a plane or ship or power plant runs 30, 50, or 100 years.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new...

A 19-year-old woman called Massachusetts police about a drone peeking through her second-story window at 3 a.m. -- and was told no laws had been violated.

Um, no.

If you click through the stories, this is the one that's being referred to. There's even a video.

But here's the thing ... all the video shows is a flashing light. You can't even hear it. I imagine her eyes were better than her cell phone camera at night vision and so there was something there, but there's no evidence whatsoever of it "peeking through her window" here. There's not even any evidence that it had a camera.

If that was a quadcopter and it was close -- it was a tiny toy one, and the tiny ones that have cameras have cameras that are even crappier than the one in her phone. So if it was taking pictures -- they're probably just as revealing as the one she took of it, and there's no evidence that pictures were taken at all.

And going even beyond how crappily the cameras work at night, this guy made a video showing how close you have to be to see anything -- and he's doing it with high end gear and it's daytime except when he uses the *really* expensive non-hobbyist multicopter with an IR camera. He has to be really, really close to even recognize somebody with his high end gear -- like ten feet away, close enough that it wouldn't be stealthy at all.

If the police said that no laws were violated, what they probably really said is that "there's no evidence that a law was violated". Simply having it over your yard doesn't break the law, just like a 747 flying over your yard doesn't break the law. Actually doing peeping tom stuff -- *that's actually against the law*, but there's no evidence that happened. Also, the article says nothing of "peeping" -- that was added by the other article, and then it got upgraded to "peeping tom" by the /. story.

I occasionally fly mine at night around my house. Not usually at 3am because I'm asleep by then, but 10pm, sure. Usually it's to test some repairs or something that I did. If it has a camera, there's no point in hooking it up or turning it on because the images will look like the video in the article, and I'm not there to take pictures anyway -- I'm to test something or just toodle around. There's nothing nefarious about it.

But all in all ... I don't see evidence of anybody doing any peeping tom stuff here.