Slashback: Summer, Sail, Sex Offenders

Slashback this evening brings you updates on recent and ongoing stories about the lost (or just possibly not lost) solar sail launched earlier this week, Website tagging (this time client-side), Google's Summer of Code, and more -- read on for the details.

A new definition for optimism. Rei writes "According to a weblog entry from the Planetary Society, it appears that Cosmos 1 - the world's first controlled solar-sail spacecraft - has been found. The data is still tentative, but they have detected evidence of the spacecraft's signal in multiple tracking stations. There is a chance that it is in the wrong orbit, but it appears to be up there. This is after it was reported that the Volna rocket that launched it lost an engine after 83 seconds, and many had assumed that the craft was lost."

The power of the tag can only grow with time. An Anonymous reader writes "Saw your coverage of YubNub - I've been playing with a similar tool for a while that might interest your readers. It's called Ambedo and works in a way that you can tag search engines or bookmarks with a bookmarklet (you can also enter them manually if you want to). These are then added to you own tag directory. You then access these tags by typing them in a search box -- but all the matching is done client-side in javascript. It also has nice features like matching IP addresses, domain names, FedEx packages, calculator in the search box and so on."

If you like it so much, why don'tcha marry it? Mad Merlin writes "Groklaw has an interview with Chris DiBona of Google with regards to their Summer of Code program (as previously covered here). When asked why Google is doing the SoC program, Chris responds, 'It is simple: We love open source. A great number of Googlers have and are donating their 20% time to the open source efforts that we're doing.'"

Just kidding! scotty777 writes "Japan plans to give up its bid to have the world's first nuclear fusion reactor built in Aomori Prefecture. Japan Today reports the government decision, which means that the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) site decision can be made. Japan Times reports that the government announced the decision by saying 'it plans to back down [from the Aomori site proposal] if the European Union stands firm on bringing the project to Cadarache, in southern France.'"

Surely this won't cause any controversy. davenaffis writes "Here's a little site I developed that uses Google Maps to map sex offenders. Only Washington, D.C. data is available right now, but I'll be adding more states soon."

Comments

A map too far?

[Sv-Manowar]

Being able to plot the home locations of sex offenders on a map, as if they were tire-fitting chains or restaurants, is one step too far for me. I can see the logical extension from the things the Chicago Crime maps were achieving, but its really data that shouldn't be made accessible in such a contextless and simple manner. There could be people on the list for any number of reasons (not just the most serious offences..) who suffer greatly due to a 'Find your local sex offender' site.

I wouldn't be surprised if google maps chose to pull their data from being used by this site in such a way, it certainly wouldn't look good if anything unsavoury occurred. I'm all for cool and nifty uses of google maps, but this just doesn't seem tasteful.

Re:A map too far?

[Nasarius]

Allowing parents to know if sexual predators live in their neighborhood is probably a good thing.

Why? What good can possibly be done with this information? Maybe you'll be excessively paranoid about your kids when they're out, but what good does that do anyone? Lock up the real criminals longer, don't bother with crap like this that encourages paranoia and lynch mobs.

Re:A map too far?

[radiumsoup]

Not at all too far - in fact, I think we should expand on this idea. I want a map of everyone who has stolen a car. I like my car, I don't want to move into a neighborhood where a former car theif lives. You know he'll (or she'll) just go right back out and steal my car UNLESS they're on a searchable map. You've done it once, you'll do it again.

Oh, and I want a map of everyone who has back taxes yet to pay - you know they want to steal my car along with the car theif to pay some of those back taxes.

Don't forget the people who have late library books - they're cleptos, and just want to take my garden gnomes out front...

Mapping this kind of thing isn't a detternt - look at how many registered sex offenders there are. And it doesn't help parents to "make good decisions", either - if you aren't watching your kids enough already, it doesn't matter if there's a sex offender *LIVING* nearby... if something happens, you are partly responsible for not being prepared and educating your kids, and keeping track of them, and following up when they say they're giong to a friend's house...

Parents need to be prepared for the worst, but having a list like this will only make it possible for these people to be punished while they're not in prison or on parole or probation by some holier-than-thou zealot with a shotgun and too much Bud Light in his system. Click and shoot.

The Culture Wars

[Anonymous Coward]

The culture wars may turn literal.

Imagine this:

People from conservative websites search liberal websites for anyone admitting that they have smoked pot. They compile a database of who said they smoked pot, linking the person's name, the person's address, and the comment(s) where the person admitted to smoking pot.

Now liberals respond. To take revenge, they categorize the different types of beliefs held by conservatives, and begin compiling a database of people, evidence, addresses.

Hostilities rise. If you live in a tower, a grid of condos, anywhere where there are a lot of people- stories start to spread, and people take sides.

Agreed, it's unjust without context

[DoctaWatson]

What happens when a teenage boy gets convicted of Statutory rape because his girlfriends's dad walked in on them making hanky panky? Is he just another blip on the map- presumably a target for vigilantes or a scapegoat for community demagogues?

What happens when two consenting homosexual adults get railroaded by some backwater anti-sodomy laws? Now the ignorant have a map to the house for vandalism and hate crime intimidation?

Without context these maps have huge potential to inflict harm upon innocent people. These are just two of the examples that come off the top of my head.

Re:Sex Offender boogeyman

[KenFury]

Quick story; friend of mine went out to a bar, met some girl and had sex with her. Turns out she was 16, god only know how a 16 year old got into a bar where everyone is 21 or over. Anyways, he got charged with rape and spend over 10k getting out of the charges.

Re:Three things

[Deliberate_Bastard]

Oh, looky, the plural of "anecdote" has suddenly become "data"!

Look, genius. It's not okay if even one person gets hurt because of this. Not. Okay.

And that's true no matter what he or she has done. Because there is an appropriate penalty for what they have done, and that is to be administered according to law, by a court.

Not by some yahoo like you who thinks that he is qualified to unilaterally judge what other people deserve.

Re:Sex offenders have no rights?

[thegrassyknowl]

Their set of rights is smaller than yours or mine. Why? They'd done the time. Their rights and liberty have been deprived as punishment. You do realise the seriousness of your thinking? For any offence where there is a court ordered conviction (and that can mean repeatedly unpaid parking tickets that a court will eventually enforce) then you would have a smaller set of rights than others. Once you commit a sex crime (or are convicted of ANY felony) you lose the majority of your rights.

So you don't believe that the rehabilitation system works then. Certainly you lose your rights for the duration of the applied sentence, but once you are released and your parole period is up you are once more deemed to be an up-standing, reputable member of society.