Right. Tell you what: lets give your local police a day off. I give you three hours before you wet your pants.
Do you call the police that often? Do you think that there are predatory packs of people just waiting for the chance to rape, murder and rob you at the first opportunity if only the mighty brave police force weren't standing guard to hold the savages back? Is that your world outlook?
Oh, you know, the people the Mexican government sends here deliberately.
To a degree, there is probably a bit of protection afforded by the threat of retribution.
That said crimes (particularly the "of desperation" types LEOs highlight) aren't committed with regard to "deterrence", which doesn't accomplish anything towards finding perps or helping victims, and definitely doesn't do anything about the real parasites of society, insulated behind lawyers and paper walls.
imagine if the police came and hauled away some guy who had robbed thousands of people of hundreds or thousands of dollars each, for instance by selling them fake courses in a fake university where he guaranteed that supposedly hand picked faculty would teach them the skills that would make them wealthy and successful in business, none of which had any relation to the truth. just kidding, that wouldn't happen.
The main thing that makes crime in higher population areas so much more appealing than crime in remote locations is the anonymity that large populations afford.
Someone driving up to your house in the remote location stands out like a sore thumb, everyone for miles might be looking at them wondering what they are up to and notice the exact make and model of the car/truck.
In the city, not so much.
The main deterrent to crime is not the prospect of punishment; its the prospect of being caught. In the case of your remote location, even if they get away with the goods, chances of being caught are much higher because their presence is more noticeable.
Yeah, your neighbors 2 miles down the road are sitting watching who is at your door, whereas the retired grandparents on my block who sit and watch everything which moves, 24/7 are missing all the action.
time was, I lived in a neighborhood of brownstones converted to 3 story apartment buildings, and my upstairs neighbor went out onto the back fire escape one day carrying his cat; and the police arrived ten minutes later, having gotten several calls from people across the alley concerned that he might be going to toss the cat off the fire escape. none of whom were visible from the outside, mind you.
I already mentioned the remote location as a primary reason (though it doesn't seem to slow down the tourist traffic much...) But then, it works both ways - that remote location also means you (As a criminal) have *more time* to take what you want, and you can be sloppy about it, because really - who is gonna hear you do it - the guy living 1/2 mile away?
So no, your argument falls flat... there is obviously something else keeping the criminals from being stupid.
It's all about risk and reward, and even the most common criminal is usually smart enough to make that calculation. The motivation and higher firearm possession/skill count out in the sticks will almost always push the calculus in favor of staying in town.
Higher firearm possession/skill count? You shoot a lot of people out there do you guys? You can't simultaneously argue that the cities are full of heavily armed gangsters who will jump out at you when you least expect it, and also the people in the cities are just too unfamiliar with guns.
GP is actually correct... Police are reactive, and unless you live next door to a busy police station, you can count on the lag time being greater than the time spent committing (individually) vast majority of crimes. In the vast majority of cases, it's about retribution (albeit justified retribution). At most, the protection is abstract (as in protection of society as a whole).
The one and only person you can count on to protect you is... you.
Now if you're a child or an invalid, your parents/family are supposed to fulfill that role as needed, but that's the only real exception.
As for your challenge? I live in the middle of nowhere. We only have the county sheriff, and they cover a *lot* of ground given their small manpower complement. Therefore, we take it on ourselves to protect ourselves. The reason we're not inundated with criminals is because a) we live remotely, but most importantly b) all of us out here are armed, and have no compunction against bearing deadly force on anyone dumb enough to commit a crime against persons or property.
Is it a perfect system? Of course not... but it's all we have, and IMHO, is still much preferable to living in a near- police/big-brother state that most densely-populated cities endure. In exchange for the freedom, we bear our own risks to an extent. *shrug*
Uh huh. Even many cop shows nowadays show the other side of policing; being out in the community, getting in touch with the citizens, getting a feel for what's happening, building relationships with everybody from grandmothers sitting in coffee shops to teenagers looking for random teenage thrills to hardcore gang members who view the right to defend their turf as just and noble, defusing tensions, investigating rumors, and generally doing preventive work.
I wouldn't stake my safety on a product named after a bunch of soldiers who hid inside a vessel until it had penetrated the opposition, then burst outwards to do their job.
1) People who knew they had a risk and could end up in jail but considered the crime necessary for their own well being.
2) People who were too full-of-themselves to think they would ever get caught.
also, idiots. {apologies for slandering idiots, who may or may not have criminal intent) every day the newspaper is full of crime stories where the perpetrator gets caught because he has his name tattooed on his forehead, or drives around the corner and runs a red light, or tries to break down the door of a store which is actually open at the time, etc. etc. etc.. this is, of course, over and above the crimes of passion, drunken spousal murders, etc. where they act completely on impulse and then just stand there blankly until the police take them away.
on a related note, the crimes the police have an effect on don't include the general white collar crimes, government corruption, etc. or course.
Dogs have been selectively bred, if unintentionally, to pick up on human signals. They are very, very good at it. They are among the few animals who are able interpret hand signals, and they know what pointing means without even needing training. They can follow a human gaze with ease. They can react to slight shifts in position of speed of motion that no human notices, including the person making them.
people with dogs or with close friends who have dogs can always tell you stories about the dogs picking up the message that you're going to take them out or conversely you're going to go to the vet before you move or say anything; related is their ability to recognize people they know approaching the door by their individual footsteps, before a human can even detect any footstep at all. I wonder if we would have the same abilities if we hadn't diverted a lot of them to language processing, to serve a similar function. I suspect yes. even cats get to recognize when a trip to the vet is coming and make themselves scarce.
So they're basically polygraphs on 4 legs with fur?
It's much worse than that.
Polygraph evidence is not readily admissible in court. Dog noses on the other hand...
see also the recent revelations over "hair identification" in court. even in things like fingerprint or dna identification, although the underlying physical situation might be individually identifying, in real life of course the analysts only identify a few key features, they don't really do an overlay of the suspect's prints over what was found on the crime scene and get an absolute identical line by line match, like on crime TV shows.
It wouldn't matter. Police dogs "alert" (sit down, or scratch, or something - anything the dog does can be an "alert") whenever and whenever the handler wants them too.
In one test, the researchers told the cops they wanted to test the dogs. They set up eights cans and told the handlers "there are drugs in can #1 and can #4, let's see how the dogs do". The dogs consistently alerted on can #1 and can #4. The drugs were in #6 and #8 - the officer's expectations matter more than where the contraband actually is.
don't know about that, but.. the estimate of police dogs' efficacy suffers from the obvious flaw of all such evaluations; you never know how many people don't get caught. Could be they only catch 1% of the targets. And as your example points out, estimates from experiments can never be 100% certain to replicate actual real life numbers.
Worst article ever? What next? Some lazy ass complains that he can not understand numbers in clock?
"The United States notwithstanding, most of the rest of the world has sensibly moved on to measurements based on factors of ten - centimeters, kilograms, and so on. But for some bizarre reason, people worldwide stubbornly refuse to move to a decimal time system. What the heck does 11:15pm mean, anyway? And noon - when in the world is that? I can't understand any of it. Why anyone insists on sticking with such an obtuse, arcane, and difficult-to-master system of time measurement is beyond my comprehension."
do places/organizations that use 24 hour time, like the military, have 24 hour watch faces or just use the same 12 hr thing? (actual question, not some sort of failed attempt at humor)
Wow, one strip that exemplifies almost everything that isn't funny about XKCD. It fits this article perfectly, which exemplifies everything that isn't worth reading about Slashdot.
I dont trust the car manufacturers with any data at all, not just mileage claims and pollution ratings.
I was bitterly disappointed to find Ford Galaxies no longer look like aircraft carriers and have 7 litre engines, despite being "500" to compete with the Fiat 500, and the Fiat 500 is now 1300cc, and not 500cc.
The manufacturers are a dishonest as the salesmen.
worse than that, the Dodge Intrepid could not carry even one fighter plane.
when i was a kid, i would drive a meteor and mom would drive a comet, and dad would drive a galaxy
An advanced civilization capable of sending such a beacon would have the ability to modulate the signal..That leaves a couple of possibilities, Natural phenomenon, or remnants of a dead civilization triggering some signal.
Here's my theory
rather than evolving to communicate by sound waves in the atmosphere, they communicate by radio waves. so this is just one of their PA systems at a big outdoor concert feeding back.
Does not have to be a whole civilization sanctioned signal. It could be some "aliens are out there" nut over there who detected a weak signal from Earth, but nobody believes him, and now his is beaming a signal towards us, hoping someone will respond to him, proving his point. Using off-the-shelf parts or devices available there, mind you.
> Aliens that are advanced enough to signal us with that kind of power aren't going to find us advanced enough to be worth talking to
A highly developed civilization does not always imply rationality, as most of us understand it. Case in point: a real non-zero possibility that Trump can be the next president.
Occam's razor suggests that this transmission will translate to "for God's sake, not Trump"
, they'll just come and do their studies and if they happen to kill humanity with their research techniques, that's just a necessary part of research, no big loss.
So...an advanced ET research team wouldn't know that negligently wiping out the dominant life form on the planet they want to study might alter their results?
what makes you think they'll recognize us as dominant? we're clearly some sort of parasite which is infesting the dominant life form, which is internal combustion vehicles.
Slashdot Mirror
Right. Tell you what: lets give your local police a day off. I give you three hours before you wet your pants.
Do you call the police that often? Do you think that there are predatory packs of people just waiting for the chance to rape, murder and rob you at the first opportunity if only the mighty brave police force weren't standing guard to hold the savages back? Is that your world outlook?
Oh, you know, the people the Mexican government sends here deliberately.
To a degree, there is probably a bit of protection afforded by the threat of retribution. That said crimes (particularly the "of desperation" types LEOs highlight) aren't committed with regard to "deterrence", which doesn't accomplish anything towards finding perps or helping victims, and definitely doesn't do anything about the real parasites of society, insulated behind lawyers and paper walls.
imagine if the police came and hauled away some guy who had robbed thousands of people of hundreds or thousands of dollars each, for instance by selling them fake courses in a fake university where he guaranteed that supposedly hand picked faculty would teach them the skills that would make them wealthy and successful in business, none of which had any relation to the truth. just kidding, that wouldn't happen.
The main thing that makes crime in higher population areas so much more appealing than crime in remote locations is the anonymity that large populations afford.
Someone driving up to your house in the remote location stands out like a sore thumb, everyone for miles might be looking at them wondering what they are up to and notice the exact make and model of the car/truck.
In the city, not so much.
The main deterrent to crime is not the prospect of punishment; its the prospect of being caught. In the case of your remote location, even if they get away with the goods, chances of being caught are much higher because their presence is more noticeable.
Yeah, your neighbors 2 miles down the road are sitting watching who is at your door, whereas the retired grandparents on my block who sit and watch everything which moves, 24/7 are missing all the action.
time was, I lived in a neighborhood of brownstones converted to 3 story apartment buildings, and my upstairs neighbor went out onto the back fire escape one day carrying his cat; and the police arrived ten minutes later, having gotten several calls from people across the alley concerned that he might be going to toss the cat off the fire escape. none of whom were visible from the outside, mind you.
I already mentioned the remote location as a primary reason (though it doesn't seem to slow down the tourist traffic much...) But then, it works both ways - that remote location also means you (As a criminal) have *more time* to take what you want, and you can be sloppy about it, because really - who is gonna hear you do it - the guy living 1/2 mile away?
So no, your argument falls flat... there is obviously something else keeping the criminals from being stupid.
It's all about risk and reward, and even the most common criminal is usually smart enough to make that calculation. The motivation and higher firearm possession/skill count out in the sticks will almost always push the calculus in favor of staying in town.
Higher firearm possession/skill count? You shoot a lot of people out there do you guys?
You can't simultaneously argue that the cities are full of heavily armed gangsters who will jump out at you when you least expect it, and also the people in the cities are just too unfamiliar with guns.
GP is actually correct... Police are reactive, and unless you live next door to a busy police station, you can count on the lag time being greater than the time spent committing (individually) vast majority of crimes. In the vast majority of cases, it's about retribution (albeit justified retribution). At most, the protection is abstract (as in protection of society as a whole).
The one and only person you can count on to protect you is... you.
Now if you're a child or an invalid, your parents/family are supposed to fulfill that role as needed, but that's the only real exception.
As for your challenge? I live in the middle of nowhere. We only have the county sheriff, and they cover a *lot* of ground given their small manpower complement. Therefore, we take it on ourselves to protect ourselves. The reason we're not inundated with criminals is because a) we live remotely, but most importantly b) all of us out here are armed, and have no compunction against bearing deadly force on anyone dumb enough to commit a crime against persons or property.
Is it a perfect system? Of course not... but it's all we have, and IMHO, is still much preferable to living in a near- police/big-brother state that most densely-populated cities endure. In exchange for the freedom, we bear our own risks to an extent. *shrug*
Uh huh. Even many cop shows nowadays show the other side of policing; being out in the community, getting in touch with the citizens, getting a feel for what's happening, building relationships with everybody from grandmothers sitting in coffee shops to teenagers looking for random teenage thrills to hardcore gang members who view the right to defend their turf as just and noble, defusing tensions, investigating rumors, and generally doing preventive work.
You really are a pathetic troll.
Could he be speaking of Trollhattan? Are Saabs built by slaves?
I live in a country you don't even dare visit. What you consider horrible crime I consider a normal day. But I'm happy here. Beats being a slave.
But enough about Hell.
No one. Protection is a myth.
I got a box of Trojans that says otherwise.
I wouldn't stake my safety on a product named after a bunch of soldiers who hid inside a vessel until it had penetrated the opposition, then burst outwards to do their job.
Who do you think is going to protect you in your little suburban house?
No one. Protection is a myth.
God will. and/or Jesus. Or maybe Satan, I suppose.
Two kinds of people in jail:
1) People who knew they had a risk and could end up in jail but considered the crime necessary for their own well being. 2) People who were too full-of-themselves to think they would ever get caught.
also, idiots. {apologies for slandering idiots, who may or may not have criminal intent) every day the newspaper is full of crime stories where the perpetrator gets caught because he has his name tattooed on his forehead, or drives around the corner and runs a red light, or tries to break down the door of a store which is actually open at the time, etc. etc. etc.. this is, of course, over and above the crimes of passion, drunken spousal murders, etc. where they act completely on impulse and then just stand there blankly until the police take them away.
on a related note, the crimes the police have an effect on don't include the general white collar crimes, government corruption, etc. or course.
Dogs have been selectively bred, if unintentionally, to pick up on human signals. They are very, very good at it. They are among the few animals who are able interpret hand signals, and they know what pointing means without even needing training. They can follow a human gaze with ease. They can react to slight shifts in position of speed of motion that no human notices, including the person making them.
people with dogs or with close friends who have dogs can always tell you stories about the dogs picking up the message that you're going to take them out or conversely you're going to go to the vet before you move or say anything; related is their ability to recognize people they know approaching the door by their individual footsteps, before a human can even detect any footstep at all. I wonder if we would have the same abilities if we hadn't diverted a lot of them to language processing, to serve a similar function. I suspect yes.
even cats get to recognize when a trip to the vet is coming and make themselves scarce.
So they're basically polygraphs on 4 legs with fur?
It's much worse than that.
Polygraph evidence is not readily admissible in court. Dog noses on the other hand...
see also the recent revelations over "hair identification" in court.
even in things like fingerprint or dna identification, although the underlying physical situation might be individually identifying, in real life of course the analysts only identify a few key features, they don't really do an overlay of the suspect's prints over what was found on the crime scene and get an absolute identical line by line match, like on crime TV shows.
It wouldn't matter. Police dogs "alert" (sit down, or scratch, or something - anything the dog does can be an "alert") whenever and whenever the handler wants them too.
In one test, the researchers told the cops they wanted to test the dogs. They set up eights cans and told the handlers "there are drugs in can #1 and can #4, let's see how the dogs do". The dogs consistently alerted on can #1 and can #4. The drugs were in #6 and #8 - the officer's expectations matter more than where the contraband actually is.
See also:
http://illinoistimes.com/artic...
https://www.washingtonpost.com...
don't know about that, but.. the estimate of police dogs' efficacy suffers from the obvious flaw of all such evaluations; you never know how many people don't get caught. Could be they only catch 1% of the targets. And as your example points out, estimates from experiments can never be 100% certain to replicate actual real life numbers.
looking for somebody they can anally probe
We've traced the call... it's coming from inside the house!!!
It depends.
There are 24 hour analog faced clocks, but mostly they use digital clocks as they are easier to read.
aha, talk about overlooking the obvious, i never thought of that, thanks.
Worst article ever? What next? Some lazy ass complains that he can not understand numbers in clock?
"The United States notwithstanding, most of the rest of the world has sensibly moved on to measurements based on factors of ten - centimeters, kilograms, and so on. But for some bizarre reason, people worldwide stubbornly refuse to move to a decimal time system. What the heck does 11:15pm mean, anyway? And noon - when in the world is that? I can't understand any of it. Why anyone insists on sticking with such an obtuse, arcane, and difficult-to-master system of time measurement is beyond my comprehension."
do places/organizations that use 24 hour time, like the military, have 24 hour watch faces or just use the same 12 hr thing? (actual question, not some sort of failed attempt at humor)
Wow, one strip that exemplifies almost everything that isn't funny about XKCD. It fits this article perfectly, which exemplifies everything that isn't worth reading about Slashdot.
and, extrapolating the above to your post...
I dont trust the car manufacturers with any data at all, not just mileage claims and pollution ratings.
I was bitterly disappointed to find Ford Galaxies no longer look like aircraft carriers and have 7 litre engines, despite being "500" to compete with the Fiat 500, and the Fiat 500 is now 1300cc, and not 500cc.
The manufacturers are a dishonest as the salesmen.
For those who don't know, a Ford Galaxy is supposed to look like this: http://pinthiscars.com/image-post/334-67-ford-galaxie-4-door-wallpaper-4.jpg.html#gal_post_334_67-ford-galaxie-4-door-wallpaper-4.jpg
worse than that, the Dodge Intrepid could not carry even one fighter plane.
when i was a kid, i would drive a meteor and mom would drive a comet, and dad would drive a galaxy
They have laws against estigation, in or out. Watch yourself, primitive bag-of-mostly-water.
tell that to the bears
An advanced civilization capable of sending such a beacon would have the ability to modulate the signal..That leaves a couple of possibilities, Natural phenomenon, or remnants of a dead civilization triggering some signal.
Here's my theory
rather than evolving to communicate by sound waves in the atmosphere, they communicate by radio waves. so this is just one of their PA systems at a big outdoor concert feeding back.
Does not have to be a whole civilization sanctioned signal. It could be some "aliens are out there" nut over there who detected a weak signal from Earth, but nobody believes him, and now his is beaming a signal towards us, hoping someone will respond to him, proving his point. Using off-the-shelf parts or devices available there, mind you.
their version of a The Outer Limits episode.
> Aliens that are advanced enough to signal us with that kind of power aren't going to find us advanced enough to be worth talking to
A highly developed civilization does not always imply rationality, as most of us understand it. Case in point: a real non-zero possibility that Trump can be the next president.
Occam's razor suggests that this transmission will translate to "for God's sake, not Trump"
, they'll just come and do their studies and if they happen to kill humanity with their research techniques, that's just a necessary part of research, no big loss.
So...an advanced ET research team wouldn't know that negligently wiping out the dominant life form on the planet they want to study might alter their results?
what makes you think they'll recognize us as dominant? we're clearly some sort of parasite which is infesting the dominant life form, which is internal combustion vehicles.
Which Prime Directive are you referring to? Was that the Federation Prime Directive, the Klingon Prime Directive, or the Borg Prime Directive?
We'll be fine. Assimilated, but fine.
but i don't want my ass laminated;