That's what the author said, but I don't think there's much truth to it. Yes, a lot of us are socialized to want competition, but is it really what we want, or just what we were taught to want? I rode that bandwagon into my thirties before I realized what a lousy ride it was, and then I got off. I'm much happier since.
Into your 30s, and you don't have kids, obvoiously, which is sad. If you'd ever seen the way little girls and little boys play together you'd understand that it has very little to do with nurture. Little boy play is competitive, little girl play is cooperative and egalitarian. And that's in mixed households where you can't even say that the toy choice forced it upon them.
And your evidence that these different play styles are not due to social influences is that they are found in "mixed households"? Are you sure you have a scientific education?
Those that are criticizing the essay seem to be missing the points it makes. Primary among them is that males and females have different interests and therefore tend to pursue different careers which could account for a lot of the so-called gender gaps in the tech sector. And the author is right, there are relationships between personality traits and political leanings.
I thought engineers were supposed to understand correlation vs. causation. Google should really be investigating the author's bona fide engineering credentials, given his apparent lack of understanding of logic and statistics.
In addition to failing to consider real products, the Patent Office gives little weight to common sense and takes an extremely rigid approach to evaluating whether or not a patent application is obvious.
Yes, because of the constitutional requirement of due process: the Patent Office can't simply use gut feelings and hindsight, but have to support their conclusion that an invention is not new or is obvious with evidence in the form of prior art. You could just as validly complain that courts give little weight to common sense when judging someone to be guilty or not guilty, instead taking an extremely rigid approach that requires consideration of evidence, rather than whether the defendant "looks bad".
It's very easy to say, after the fact, that something is obvious. Most engineering students could diagram a simple internal combustion engine on a napkin. The question for the patent office is whether they can prove something to be obvious without relying on gut feelings and hindsight using information only found in the patent application. Sure, the "common sense" approach would be a lot faster, but so would finding defendants guilty because they aren't the "right" color.
The summary is further wrong in that the "article" they are associating with the message specifically is referring to a physical article (e.g., a sweater). When you read the decision by the Patent Trial and Appeal Board that essentially allowed this patent, it is clear that the "article" is "descriptive of an article to be procured, and [that] the article is associated with an event."
Yep, and yet the EFF's article states "The “article data” is simply additional information associated with an event." It sounds like they made the same mistake the Examiner did, and ignored the specification.
I was afraid of this kind of nonsense when the America Invents Act switched the US from "First to Invent" to "First to File" on March 16, 2013.
I guess if no one filed for a patent, *some* USPTO officers are interpreting applications preemptively as "the First to File". I'm hoping it's just a snafu, perhaps caused by the application bridging the transition between FtI to FtF.
No, first-to-file has nothing whatsoever to do with that, nor are Examiners "interpreting applications preemptively as the 'first to file'. First to file does away with a practice called an interference, where two inventors separately file applications on the same exact invention, and there's a mini-trial held to determine which one really invented it first. Even slight differences in the invention, and there's no interference proceeding: as a result, they typically only occur when two inventors work together, have a falling out, and then file identical applications. Out of half a million applications filed each year, there were 20 interference proceedings on average. And they were hideously expensive and time consuming. The change to first to file simply means that whichever of them filed first wins. It affects only those 20 applications a year.
And while I haven't done a prior art search or even reviewed the claims of this application, the file history is public on the USPTO's PAIR system. It was not only not automatically accepted, it was rejected twice by the Examiner, and then went to appeal before a board of three judges, who reversed the Examiner. There was no simple rubber stamping here.
Unless they are unsightly why bother? Just leave them be. You never know when they might be of use again at some point in the future.
The previous owner didn't run them properly, terminating at wall jacks. Instead, he drilled through the floor (or, in one bathroom, through tile) and left a couple feet of coax poking out. Very unsightly.
Regarding Democrats blocking the collection of accurate statistics on defensive use of firearms, I am my own source. I watched and listened to it happen in the 90s during the first two years of the Clinton presidency when the AWB was passed.
You: "the Dims blocked them by statute!"
Me: "What statute?"
You: "[shuffle shuffle] I mean, I totally remember it..."
You: "The UK banned guns and their violent crime rate doubled the next year!"
Me: "No, it didn't."
You: "[shuffle shuffle] Well, not the violent crime rate. Just the homicide rate. And not the next year, but 6 years later, during a massive global recession. And not doubled, but a 7% rise, which then fell when the economy improved 6 years later to the pre-recession, pre-gun ban levels."
Just as a tip, you'd gain a lot more credibility if, instead of shuffling around, you actually admitted that you were wrong in your earlier post.
"Cowboy movies aside, guns don't "save" anywhere near that number. For example, even if you take every police killing as justified and "saving lives", a theory easily disputed, that's still only around 1200 killings a year. Each of those killings would need to save dozens of lives in order to achieve the same ratio as hospitals' unintentional deaths:lives saved in order for your analogy to work."
The problem is the FBI is not allowed to collect those stats because the Dims blocked them by statute because the actual numbers put their arguments squarely in the toilet.
The entire US code is available online. Please cite this alleged statute.
Lets look at some numbers that I was able to find:
1200 police fatal shootings
7,459 (est) police non-fatal shooting incidents (the ratio appears to be around 230/37)
22,750 (at least) police brandishing/aiming firearms to arrest dangerous felon criminals (virtually every arrest)
Please cite your source. And you're begging the question with that last statistic - even assuming that police are pointing guns at people 22,750 times a year, who's to say that they were at all dangerous, or that even a single life was at risk?
Another way to look at this is look at countries like the UK. They banned guns and their violent crime rate doubled the next year.
I'd ask for a citation here, but we both know this is a blatant lie and you'll just delete this paragraph from any reply to this post. But in case anyone else is reading this post and is potentially misled, here is a chart of violent crime in the UK, from the UK's office for national statistics. Violent crime peaked in 1995, the year before the handgun ban, and has declined almost every year since. It never "doubled" as you claim. There was nothing true whatsoever in your post, and you should be ashamed to have submitted that made up tripe while simultaneously demanding citation of sources.
You have to read very closely, but unintended fatal shootings in the US from 2005-2010 resulted in 3800 deaths, or roughly 760 per year. As a frame of reference, approximately 250,000 people die from medical mistakes at hospitals every year, yet there aren't any politicians trying to ban hospitals or regulate doctors.
Terrible analogy: millions of people are saved by hospitals each year, so there's a significant positive gain. Cowboy movies aside, guns don't "save" anywhere near that number. For example, even if you take every police killing as justified and "saving lives", a theory easily disputed, that's still only around 1200 killings a year. Each of those killings would need to save dozens of lives in order to achieve the same ratio as hospitals' unintentional deaths:lives saved in order for your analogy to work.
Smart guns are a dumb idea trying to fix a problem that is much more effectively mitigated by proper education, training and proper storage of firearms (as evidenced by the fact that gun ownership is at an all time high, but accidental shootings are at nearly the lowest they have been ever). Smart guns tamper with and make less reliable the most effective self defense tool on the planet, potentially endangering the thousands of lives that are saved daily (every day hundreds of
citizens use their concealed carry to protect themselves or others, and police officers do the same).
Those two statements are contradictory. Smart guns prevent use by anyone other than the owner (at least temporarily, until a hack can be applied), eliminating both the possibility of small children playing with the gun and the possibility of a hostile person grabbing the gun away from your concealed carry citizen. The former can be avoided by properly locking up the gun (including removing ammunition and storing it separately, using a trigger lock and a safe, etc.), but then, properly locking up the gun makes it significantly less obtainable and therefore a less effective self defense tool, potentially endangering yada yada. In other words, your former "just lock it up" is belied by your latter "it must be immediately ready to fire at any second".
But aside from that, "proper education, training, and storage" would do nothing to prevent the gun from being used after taken away by a hostile actor. While the smart gun does address that potential.
And finally, the same argument - "it's a potential source of failure, making the gun less reliable" - was also used to argue against safeties, including drop safeties. Police initially refused to have drop safeties, because they were potential sources of failure. But now, they're widely accepted. There's no reason to dismiss smart guns as being forever unacceptable, merely because they're a potential source of failure, other than hypocrisy and fear of technology.
As with any tool in this imperfect world, there are accidents, misuse and abuse, but we must weigh the cost vs benefit of guns, something that the fascist progressives and Dims refuse to do (and have prevented the FBI from collecting statistics on; there is a very cynical reason that you can't find statistics on incidents where citizens save lives or property using their lawfully owned firearm, you can only find "gun deaths").
And this is simply an attempt to rewrite history. The NRA prevented the FBI from collecting statistics on firearm use, not progressives.
As a disclaimer, I use guns and have no problems with them, and am a strong believer in the second amendment. I also think that anyone other than a soldier in a foreign country who carries a gun in their daily life is a coward and a reckless idiot.
I like how you guys dont understand machine learning at all.
If an opinion is part of the input, it will still learn if that opinion has weight on the desired output.
Can we talk about the output now? or are you still going to ignorantly drool on the input?
If the desired output is, for instance, the chance that a parson will commit the crime again, then its going to be trained to output actual recidivism data, not someones opinion of it. The inputs are just clues of varying weights. The learning will not care if the input is negatively or positively correlated with the desired output. It will in fact determine if the input is negatively or positively correlated. Thats the point of machine learning.
You were so busy rushing to insult everyone else in this discussion that you neglected to read the article. This isn't machine learning, and doesn't use the actual recidivism data as an input. If it did, then yes, it would eventually learn to rate opinions lower. But it doesn't. It's just a mathematical algorithm on the inputs -
including opinion data - with no feedback loop.
Also, as an aside, if you're going to insult people and suggest they "don't understand machine learning at all," then you should probably re-read your post before you hit that submit button... Even if this was a machine learning system, it wouldn't output "actual recidivism data". It would output predicted recidivism data. The actual recidivism data is measurements which, as I noted above, would be an input.
but subjective ratings by guards who may well be racist
A whole lot of speculating going on right there.
Well, when the system uses inputs that explicitly include guards' opinions, and then it's output just happens to show a huge racial disparity that does not correspond to statistical reality, that speculation may just be right.
But as Wexler’s reporting shows, some of the variables that COMPAS considers (and apparently considers quite strongly) are just as subjective as the process it was designed to replace. Questions like:
Based on the screener’s observations, is this person a suspected or admitted gang member?
And:
The New York State version of COMPAS uses two separate inputs to evaluate prison misconduct. One is the inmate’s official disciplinary record. The other is question 19, which asks the evaluator, “Does this person appear to have notable disciplinary issues?” ... An inmate’s disciplinary record can reflect past biases in the prison’s procedures, as when guards single out certain inmates or racial groups for harsh treatment. And question 19 explicitly asks for an evaluator’s opinion. The system can actually end up compounding and obscuring subjectivity.
By definition, you can't claim that system is objective when it calculates a number based on "an evaluator's opinion".
It's not that the AI or algorithm has a bias, but that it's trained or given inputs that have that bias. For example, in the parole system, the software was given inputs that included not just details of the crime and sentence, but subjective ratings by guards who may well be racist. As usual, garbage in leads to garbage out.
So you are saying that you would be ok promising someone five years of pay, then cutting them off after two if the congress says that funding has changed. Otherwise we are funding the army for five years.
You're begging the question.
In any case, I hope you don't depend on having a real job where you depend on the money so, as you have asserted is fair, you won't be harmed if they fire you on friday and refuse to pay you for the week.
There's a significant difference between "I promise to pay you for the next five years" and "I'm not paying you for the work you already did last week.
This supreme court would probably agreed with you. In 2002, they struck down a ban of virtual child porn (from the NYT:)
"Affirming that free speech principles apply with full force in the computer age, the Supreme Court today struck down provisions of a federal law that made it a crime to create, distribute or possess ''virtual'' child pornography that used computer images or young adults rather than actual children.
The law, the Child Pornography Prevention Act of 1996, ''prohibits speech that records no crime and creates no victims by its production,'' Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote for the majority in the court's latest decision upholding First Amendment protections online."
But in 2003, Congress passed the PROTECT Act, which incorporates many of the same provisions including prohibiting "computer-generated child pornography when (B) such visual depiction is a computer image or computer-generated image that is, or appears virtually indistinguishable from that of a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct" and "drawings, sculptures, and pictures of such drawings and sculptures depicting minors in actions or situations that meet the Miller test of being obscene, OR are engaged in sex acts that are deemed to meet the same obscene condition."
The justification for the first provision is that photorealistic renderings are indistinguishable from photos, and thus, without the subject child, prosecutors could never prove that something was a photo rather than a render, and pornographers would have an easy out. Okay, fine, but the second provision doesn't meet that justification, since a drawing or sculpture is not indistinguishable from a photo.
Anyway, it hasn't hit the Supreme Court yet, but a conviction has been upheld by the 4th circuit for possession of manga.
So, this woman is a total bitch who takes photos of their homes people list on Zillow and use them to make fun of the home owners because she personally finds large cookie cutter homes tasteless. What business is it of hers to get off on making fun of other people's lifestyles.
I think Zillow should have sued the worthless piece of human refuse so far into poverty she'd never see another dollar. I'm very disappointed that they backed off.
As a long time supporter of the EFF, I won't be donating anything to them for a long while.
... so, are you a realtor, or are you Zillow's in-house counsel, Christopher Poole?
Unfortunately, Zillow aren't going for Wagner under the terms of copyright infringement, they're going for them under the auspices of "Breaking the Terms of Service" of Zillow's website, as copying the photos from their site is explicitly called out as not allowed. However, as it is a "by using this service you agree to..." style EULA, which is shaky legal ground at the best of times, this would be an interesting challenge.
In other words, they're trying to forestall the fact that copyright law allows it by challenging it with contract law instead.
Nah, that's a loser at the outset, Wagner doesn't need (and may not have) an account on Zillow to access the photos - they're publicly accessible, without any need to agree to their ToS. For there to be a contract, there must be a mutual exchange of consideration - you agree to these terms in exchange for access to my site, etc. In this case, at least with regards to publicly accessible photos, there's no exchange - it's just "you agree to these terms, the end." That's an unenforceable contract.
Usual IANAL... I can see that this would be unlikely to win on a copyright basis. Though I could see one stretch in that the criticism is of the house in the photo - not on the merits of the photo itself.
That is an absolutely brilliant and nuanced argument, and the best I've seen on Slashdot or anywhere else on this topic. I think it likely fails because the counterargument is that it can be extended to, say, film, by saying that critics shouldn't be allowed to review movies, because they're criticizing the acting and script, rather than the cinematographic efforts of the camera operator. And yet, that's clearly fair use and inconsistent with 17 USC 107. I'd guess it would come down to something about how photography, in addition to being the efforts to take the picture, also includes the creative effort in choosing the subject.
I think that this is just plain stupid behavior on zillow's part.
One way that this might still be pursued legally is if the TOC for the site - as a contract - includes the term that you will not use images from the site for any / review purpose. As a result, you wouldn't be able to rely on a copyright defense - you'd be trying to fight a contract term (and I loathe TOCs and wish there was more on their validity or invalidity) instead.
Again, a good thought, but these images were all publicly available on the site, without any need to, say, create an account or agree to be bound by the TOS terms. In other words, a contract claim doesn't apply, because the contract was never actually formed. Zillow can say, "if you want to access my website, you agree to be bound by these terms," but if they also allow people to access the website freely, then there's no additional consideration paid by the person they're accusing of breaking the terms, and with no exchange of consideration, there's no contract.
Too bad I had mod points yesterday instead of today, I'd upvote you.
Thank you. Honestly, I feel a little bad for Zillow (having used them only a couple months ago in buying my house). They've got a brand new general counsel who only started there a month ago, and who, as his first public action, proverbially sets fire to their front lawn. Between the fact that Wagner is obviously in the right, legally, and that she's an absolutely perfect defendant - JHU grad student, humorous in exactly the politically right ways, with a great "local girl makes good" backstory - this is a case that everyone from the EFF to Popehat to NYCL to giant law firms with pro bono departments will be slavering over. "Goliath extractive real estate middle-man attacks sweet, funny grad student" is the sort of case you hope they keep appealing all the way to the Supreme Court at every loss.
The only thing that sounds questionable to me is the parody angle. Why would you choose to defend your work as parody unless you were deliberately imitating a copyrighted work? That's the thing that just doesn't quite mesh with what I would expect in this kind of situation.
Probably because you're not a lawyer (or rather, she's not a lawyer).
You're right, it's not parody. It is, however, review, commentary, and educational material, and protected by Fair Use beyond any doubt.
Yeeeaaahh.... unfortunately, and specially because of the comments on the matter, I don’t think Wagner has a chance here.
Well, not that I know a whole lot on law, but afaik, fair use only has a chance if she didn’t admit that she was turning a profit on it (directly or indirectly).
Respectfully, that's about as 100% wrong as it's possible to be, and even a moment's thought can provide thousands of counterexamples of entities who claim fair use defense from copyright infringement, and yet make a profit. For example, there's Siskel and Ebert, who used clips from movies in reviewing them, and certainly commercially profited from their show. There's the New York Times Review of Books, which includes snippets, and sells both subscriptions and advertising. There's Gizmodo, there's YouTube Let's Play videos, there's Metacritic, there's Rotten Tomatoes, there's the Onion's AVClub, etc., etc. There are literally thousands and thousands of entities that provide critical commentary and review of creative works, without requiring licenses from the works' authors, and most of them even make a profit.
You're right in one part:
And the thing is... for parodies and satire in fair use, the content infringed must be the direct target of it. Subtle difference, but Wagner wasn’t making satire or parody of the photographers’ work, Zillow’s service, or something in the effect of a criticism of cultural tendency. She was using the work done by others to make... architectural criticism, was it?
That is absolutely true, and the headline is wrong. Wagner's work is not a work of parody. However, it's also absolutely irrelevant, because Wagner's work is a work of architectural criticism. 17 USC 107 codifies Fair Use, and states:
Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 106 and 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright.
Criticism is expressly included - even moreso than parody, which really falls under commentary. Wagner's posts are also teaching - while undeniably humorous, they are also undeniably educational about various aspects of architecture.
IAAL, and in particular, an IP lawyer, and frankly, I can't see any way in which Zillow has a claim.
Despite the noise that the vocal minority is making over this, I think you will find that most folks, if asked (assuming no one could find out the answer) would support a completed ban on Muslims in the country.
Naturally, most folks are simply afraid of being a racist or other "ist" word.
Honestly, I do not know understand why it is an issue to dislike someone because they are Muslim. It's not like disliking a person because they are brown, or black or whatever color.
Islam is a religion and an ideology. It is reasonable to not like a person based on what they choose to believe?
Sure, it's reasonable to not like them. Your feelings are your own, and you're welcome to them. Where it becomes a problem is where the government steps in and starts enforcing someone's feelings by banning people having a particular religious belief from entering the country. I understand you dislike them, and I'm not particularly fond of them either, but that doesn't mean we should throw out the Constitution. What does it say about us, as a nation, if we're willing to sacrifice our founding principles at the drop of a hat?
Want to ban muslims? Then go pass a Constitutional amendment repealing or amending the first amendment to remove the free exercise clause. If you can convince the majority of the population of 2/3rds of the states, then you can have your ban. Until then, you'll have to just have your hate.
What evidence are you basing your judgment that there will be fewer deaths and injuries caused by the car stopping than by it continuing? There are risks to both after all.
Well, there's a 100% history of fatalities in this situation when the car didn't stop.:)
* Why didn't the car slow down if you have your hands off the wheel for more then 5+ minutes?
Because that would kill more people that what it does now.
Only if the people behind him are not paying attention, and then, isn't it "not paying attention" that kills people? I'm not saying the autopilot should slam on the brakes (though that might wake the driver up), but if it stops accelerating and gently coasts down to a stop while flashing its hazard lights, that seems to be the proper failure mode. Saying "no, the car needs to keep driving at 75 mph forever because it may be being tailgated by someone who's sleeping" seems to remove responsibility from all other drivers.
Slashdot Mirror
I was WRONG , read it INCORRECTLY, bu he has been outed internally and they are basically trashing him now.
What's his name? Ironically, the Google does nothing.
That's what the author said, but I don't think there's much truth to it. Yes, a lot of us are socialized to want competition, but is it really what we want, or just what we were taught to want? I rode that bandwagon into my thirties before I realized what a lousy ride it was, and then I got off. I'm much happier since.
Into your 30s, and you don't have kids, obvoiously, which is sad. If you'd ever seen the way little girls and little boys play together you'd understand that it has very little to do with nurture. Little boy play is competitive, little girl play is cooperative and egalitarian. And that's in mixed households where you can't even say that the toy choice forced it upon them.
And your evidence that these different play styles are not due to social influences is that they are found in "mixed households"? Are you sure you have a scientific education?
Those that are criticizing the essay seem to be missing the points it makes. Primary among them is that males and females have different interests and therefore tend to pursue different careers which could account for a lot of the so-called gender gaps in the tech sector. And the author is right, there are relationships between personality traits and political leanings.
I thought engineers were supposed to understand correlation vs. causation. Google should really be investigating the author's bona fide engineering credentials, given his apparent lack of understanding of logic and statistics.
In addition to failing to consider real products, the Patent Office gives little weight to common sense and takes an extremely rigid approach to evaluating whether or not a patent application is obvious.
Yes, because of the constitutional requirement of due process: the Patent Office can't simply use gut feelings and hindsight, but have to support their conclusion that an invention is not new or is obvious with evidence in the form of prior art. You could just as validly complain that courts give little weight to common sense when judging someone to be guilty or not guilty, instead taking an extremely rigid approach that requires consideration of evidence, rather than whether the defendant "looks bad".
It's very easy to say, after the fact, that something is obvious. Most engineering students could diagram a simple internal combustion engine on a napkin. The question for the patent office is whether they can prove something to be obvious without relying on gut feelings and hindsight using information only found in the patent application. Sure, the "common sense" approach would be a lot faster, but so would finding defendants guilty because they aren't the "right" color.
The summary is further wrong in that the "article" they are associating with the message specifically is referring to a physical article (e.g., a sweater). When you read the decision by the Patent Trial and Appeal Board that essentially allowed this patent, it is clear that the "article" is "descriptive of an article to be procured, and [that] the article is associated with an event."
Yep, and yet the EFF's article states "The “article data” is simply additional information associated with an event." It sounds like they made the same mistake the Examiner did, and ignored the specification.
I was afraid of this kind of nonsense when the America Invents Act switched the US from "First to Invent" to "First to File" on March 16, 2013.
I guess if no one filed for a patent, *some* USPTO officers are interpreting applications preemptively as "the First to File". I'm hoping it's just a snafu, perhaps caused by the application bridging the transition between FtI to FtF.
No, first-to-file has nothing whatsoever to do with that, nor are Examiners "interpreting applications preemptively as the 'first to file'. First to file does away with a practice called an interference, where two inventors separately file applications on the same exact invention, and there's a mini-trial held to determine which one really invented it first. Even slight differences in the invention, and there's no interference proceeding: as a result, they typically only occur when two inventors work together, have a falling out, and then file identical applications. Out of half a million applications filed each year, there were 20 interference proceedings on average. And they were hideously expensive and time consuming. The change to first to file simply means that whichever of them filed first wins. It affects only those 20 applications a year.
And while I haven't done a prior art search or even reviewed the claims of this application, the file history is public on the USPTO's PAIR system. It was not only not automatically accepted, it was rejected twice by the Examiner, and then went to appeal before a board of three judges, who reversed the Examiner. There was no simple rubber stamping here.
Unless they are unsightly why bother? Just leave them be. You never know when they might be of use again at some point in the future.
The previous owner didn't run them properly, terminating at wall jacks. Instead, he drilled through the floor (or, in one bathroom, through tile) and left a couple feet of coax poking out. Very unsightly.
Regarding Democrats blocking the collection of accurate statistics on defensive use of firearms, I am my own source. I watched and listened to it happen in the 90s during the first two years of the Clinton presidency when the AWB was passed.
You: "the Dims blocked them by statute!"
Me: "What statute?"
You: "[shuffle shuffle] I mean, I totally remember it..."
Regarding the UK violence stat, sorry it didn't quite double, it went from 11% to 18%. http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-DJ-K...
You: "The UK banned guns and their violent crime rate doubled the next year!"
Me: "No, it didn't."
You: "[shuffle shuffle] Well, not the violent crime rate. Just the homicide rate. And not the next year, but 6 years later, during a massive global recession. And not doubled, but a 7% rise, which then fell when the economy improved 6 years later to the pre-recession, pre-gun ban levels."
Just as a tip, you'd gain a lot more credibility if, instead of shuffling around, you actually admitted that you were wrong in your earlier post.
"Cowboy movies aside, guns don't "save" anywhere near that number. For example, even if you take every police killing as justified and "saving lives", a theory easily disputed, that's still only around 1200 killings a year. Each of those killings would need to save dozens of lives in order to achieve the same ratio as hospitals' unintentional deaths:lives saved in order for your analogy to work."
Please cite your source.
http://killedbypolice.net/.
Your turn:
The problem is the FBI is not allowed to collect those stats because the Dims blocked them by statute because the actual numbers put their arguments squarely in the toilet.
The entire US code is available online. Please cite this alleged statute.
Lets look at some numbers that I was able to find:
1200 police fatal shootings 7,459 (est) police non-fatal shooting incidents (the ratio appears to be around 230/37) 22,750 (at least) police brandishing/aiming firearms to arrest dangerous felon criminals (virtually every arrest)
Please cite your source. And you're begging the question with that last statistic - even assuming that police are pointing guns at people 22,750 times a year, who's to say that they were at all dangerous, or that even a single life was at risk?
Another way to look at this is look at countries like the UK. They banned guns and their violent crime rate doubled the next year.
I'd ask for a citation here, but we both know this is a blatant lie and you'll just delete this paragraph from any reply to this post. But in case anyone else is reading this post and is potentially misled, here is a chart of violent crime in the UK, from the UK's office for national statistics. Violent crime peaked in 1995, the year before the handgun ban, and has declined almost every year since. It never "doubled" as you claim. There was nothing true whatsoever in your post, and you should be ashamed to have submitted that made up tripe while simultaneously demanding citation of sources.
You have to read very closely, but unintended fatal shootings in the US from 2005-2010 resulted in 3800 deaths, or roughly 760 per year. As a frame of reference, approximately 250,000 people die from medical mistakes at hospitals every year, yet there aren't any politicians trying to ban hospitals or regulate doctors.
Terrible analogy: millions of people are saved by hospitals each year, so there's a significant positive gain. Cowboy movies aside, guns don't "save" anywhere near that number. For example, even if you take every police killing as justified and "saving lives", a theory easily disputed, that's still only around 1200 killings a year. Each of those killings would need to save dozens of lives in order to achieve the same ratio as hospitals' unintentional deaths:lives saved in order for your analogy to work.
Smart guns are a dumb idea trying to fix a problem that is much more effectively mitigated by proper education, training and proper storage of firearms (as evidenced by the fact that gun ownership is at an all time high, but accidental shootings are at nearly the lowest they have been ever). Smart guns tamper with and make less reliable the most effective self defense tool on the planet, potentially endangering the thousands of lives that are saved daily (every day hundreds of citizens use their concealed carry to protect themselves or others, and police officers do the same).
Those two statements are contradictory. Smart guns prevent use by anyone other than the owner (at least temporarily, until a hack can be applied), eliminating both the possibility of small children playing with the gun and the possibility of a hostile person grabbing the gun away from your concealed carry citizen. The former can be avoided by properly locking up the gun (including removing ammunition and storing it separately, using a trigger lock and a safe, etc.), but then, properly locking up the gun makes it significantly less obtainable and therefore a less effective self defense tool, potentially endangering yada yada. In other words, your former "just lock it up" is belied by your latter "it must be immediately ready to fire at any second".
But aside from that, "proper education, training, and storage" would do nothing to prevent the gun from being used after taken away by a hostile actor. While the smart gun does address that potential.
And finally, the same argument - "it's a potential source of failure, making the gun less reliable" - was also used to argue against safeties, including drop safeties. Police initially refused to have drop safeties, because they were potential sources of failure. But now, they're widely accepted. There's no reason to dismiss smart guns as being forever unacceptable, merely because they're a potential source of failure, other than hypocrisy and fear of technology.
As with any tool in this imperfect world, there are accidents, misuse and abuse, but we must weigh the cost vs benefit of guns, something that the fascist progressives and Dims refuse to do (and have prevented the FBI from collecting statistics on; there is a very cynical reason that you can't find statistics on incidents where citizens save lives or property using their lawfully owned firearm, you can only find "gun deaths").
And this is simply an attempt to rewrite history. The NRA prevented the FBI from collecting statistics on firearm use, not progressives.
As a disclaimer, I use guns and have no problems with them, and am a strong believer in the second amendment. I also think that anyone other than a soldier in a foreign country who carries a gun in their daily life is a coward and a reckless idiot.
I like how you guys dont understand machine learning at all.
If an opinion is part of the input, it will still learn if that opinion has weight on the desired output.
Can we talk about the output now? or are you still going to ignorantly drool on the input?
If the desired output is, for instance, the chance that a parson will commit the crime again, then its going to be trained to output actual recidivism data, not someones opinion of it. The inputs are just clues of varying weights. The learning will not care if the input is negatively or positively correlated with the desired output. It will in fact determine if the input is negatively or positively correlated. Thats the point of machine learning.
You were so busy rushing to insult everyone else in this discussion that you neglected to read the article. This isn't machine learning, and doesn't use the actual recidivism data as an input. If it did, then yes, it would eventually learn to rate opinions lower. But it doesn't. It's just a mathematical algorithm on the inputs - including opinion data - with no feedback loop.
Also, as an aside, if you're going to insult people and suggest they "don't understand machine learning at all," then you should probably re-read your post before you hit that submit button... Even if this was a machine learning system, it wouldn't output "actual recidivism data". It would output predicted recidivism data. The actual recidivism data is measurements which, as I noted above, would be an input.
HTH, HAND.
but subjective ratings by guards who may well be racist
A whole lot of speculating going on right there.
Well, when the system uses inputs that explicitly include guards' opinions, and then it's output just happens to show a huge racial disparity that does not correspond to statistical reality, that speculation may just be right.
Can you cite where that "information" came from?
https://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2017/07/05/algorithms-replace-your-biases-with-someone-elses-biases/:
But as Wexler’s reporting shows, some of the variables that COMPAS considers (and apparently considers quite strongly) are just as subjective as the process it was designed to replace. Questions like:
Based on the screener’s observations, is this person a suspected or admitted gang member?
And:
The New York State version of COMPAS uses two separate inputs to evaluate prison misconduct. One is the inmate’s official disciplinary record. The other is question 19, which asks the evaluator, “Does this person appear to have notable disciplinary issues?”
... An inmate’s disciplinary record can reflect past biases in the prison’s procedures, as when guards single out certain inmates or racial groups for harsh treatment. And question 19 explicitly asks for an evaluator’s opinion. The system can actually end up compounding and obscuring subjectivity.
By definition, you can't claim that system is objective when it calculates a number based on "an evaluator's opinion".
It's not that the AI or algorithm has a bias, but that it's trained or given inputs that have that bias. For example, in the parole system, the software was given inputs that included not just details of the crime and sentence, but subjective ratings by guards who may well be racist. As usual, garbage in leads to garbage out.
So you are saying that you would be ok promising someone five years of pay, then cutting them off after two if the congress says that funding has changed. Otherwise we are funding the army for five years.
You're begging the question.
In any case, I hope you don't depend on having a real job where you depend on the money so, as you have asserted is fair, you won't be harmed if they fire you on friday and refuse to pay you for the week.
There's a significant difference between "I promise to pay you for the next five years" and "I'm not paying you for the work you already did last week.
This supreme court would probably agreed with you. In 2002, they struck down a ban of virtual child porn (from the NYT:)
"Affirming that free speech principles apply with full force in the computer age, the Supreme Court today struck down provisions of a federal law that made it a crime to create, distribute or possess ''virtual'' child pornography that used computer images or young adults rather than actual children.
The law, the Child Pornography Prevention Act of 1996, ''prohibits speech that records no crime and creates no victims by its production,'' Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote for the majority in the court's latest decision upholding First Amendment protections online."
But in 2003, Congress passed the PROTECT Act, which incorporates many of the same provisions including prohibiting "computer-generated child pornography when (B) such visual depiction is a computer image or computer-generated image that is, or appears virtually indistinguishable from that of a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct" and "drawings, sculptures, and pictures of such drawings and sculptures depicting minors in actions or situations that meet the Miller test of being obscene, OR are engaged in sex acts that are deemed to meet the same obscene condition."
The justification for the first provision is that photorealistic renderings are indistinguishable from photos, and thus, without the subject child, prosecutors could never prove that something was a photo rather than a render, and pornographers would have an easy out. Okay, fine, but the second provision doesn't meet that justification, since a drawing or sculpture is not indistinguishable from a photo.
Anyway, it hasn't hit the Supreme Court yet, but a conviction has been upheld by the 4th circuit for possession of manga.
So, this woman is a total bitch who takes photos of their homes people list on Zillow and use them to make fun of the home owners because she personally finds large cookie cutter homes tasteless. What business is it of hers to get off on making fun of other people's lifestyles.
I think Zillow should have sued the worthless piece of human refuse so far into poverty she'd never see another dollar. I'm very disappointed that they backed off.
As a long time supporter of the EFF, I won't be donating anything to them for a long while.
... so, are you a realtor, or are you Zillow's in-house counsel, Christopher Poole?
Unfortunately, Zillow aren't going for Wagner under the terms of copyright infringement, they're going for them under the auspices of "Breaking the Terms of Service" of Zillow's website, as copying the photos from their site is explicitly called out as not allowed. However, as it is a "by using this service you agree to..." style EULA, which is shaky legal ground at the best of times, this would be an interesting challenge.
In other words, they're trying to forestall the fact that copyright law allows it by challenging it with contract law instead.
Nah, that's a loser at the outset, Wagner doesn't need (and may not have) an account on Zillow to access the photos - they're publicly accessible, without any need to agree to their ToS. For there to be a contract, there must be a mutual exchange of consideration - you agree to these terms in exchange for access to my site, etc. In this case, at least with regards to publicly accessible photos, there's no exchange - it's just "you agree to these terms, the end." That's an unenforceable contract.
Usual IANAL... I can see that this would be unlikely to win on a copyright basis. Though I could see one stretch in that the criticism is of the house in the photo - not on the merits of the photo itself.
That is an absolutely brilliant and nuanced argument, and the best I've seen on Slashdot or anywhere else on this topic. I think it likely fails because the counterargument is that it can be extended to, say, film, by saying that critics shouldn't be allowed to review movies, because they're criticizing the acting and script, rather than the cinematographic efforts of the camera operator. And yet, that's clearly fair use and inconsistent with 17 USC 107. I'd guess it would come down to something about how photography, in addition to being the efforts to take the picture, also includes the creative effort in choosing the subject.
I think that this is just plain stupid behavior on zillow's part.
One way that this might still be pursued legally is if the TOC for the site - as a contract - includes the term that you will not use images from the site for any / review purpose. As a result, you wouldn't be able to rely on a copyright defense - you'd be trying to fight a contract term (and I loathe TOCs and wish there was more on their validity or invalidity) instead.
Again, a good thought, but these images were all publicly available on the site, without any need to, say, create an account or agree to be bound by the TOS terms. In other words, a contract claim doesn't apply, because the contract was never actually formed. Zillow can say, "if you want to access my website, you agree to be bound by these terms," but if they also allow people to access the website freely, then there's no additional consideration paid by the person they're accusing of breaking the terms, and with no exchange of consideration, there's no contract.
Too bad I had mod points yesterday instead of today, I'd upvote you.
Thank you. Honestly, I feel a little bad for Zillow (having used them only a couple months ago in buying my house). They've got a brand new general counsel who only started there a month ago, and who, as his first public action, proverbially sets fire to their front lawn. Between the fact that Wagner is obviously in the right, legally, and that she's an absolutely perfect defendant - JHU grad student, humorous in exactly the politically right ways, with a great "local girl makes good" backstory - this is a case that everyone from the EFF to Popehat to NYCL to giant law firms with pro bono departments will be slavering over. "Goliath extractive real estate middle-man attacks sweet, funny grad student" is the sort of case you hope they keep appealing all the way to the Supreme Court at every loss.
The only thing that sounds questionable to me is the parody angle. Why would you choose to defend your work as parody unless you were deliberately imitating a copyrighted work? That's the thing that just doesn't quite mesh with what I would expect in this kind of situation.
Probably because you're not a lawyer (or rather, she's not a lawyer).
You're right, it's not parody. It is, however, review, commentary, and educational material, and protected by Fair Use beyond any doubt.
Yeeeaaahh.... unfortunately, and specially because of the comments on the matter, I don’t think Wagner has a chance here.
Well, not that I know a whole lot on law, but afaik, fair use only has a chance if she didn’t admit that she was turning a profit on it (directly or indirectly).
Respectfully, that's about as 100% wrong as it's possible to be, and even a moment's thought can provide thousands of counterexamples of entities who claim fair use defense from copyright infringement, and yet make a profit. For example, there's Siskel and Ebert, who used clips from movies in reviewing them, and certainly commercially profited from their show. There's the New York Times Review of Books, which includes snippets, and sells both subscriptions and advertising. There's Gizmodo, there's YouTube Let's Play videos, there's Metacritic, there's Rotten Tomatoes, there's the Onion's AVClub, etc., etc. There are literally thousands and thousands of entities that provide critical commentary and review of creative works, without requiring licenses from the works' authors, and most of them even make a profit.
You're right in one part:
And the thing is... for parodies and satire in fair use, the content infringed must be the direct target of it. Subtle difference, but Wagner wasn’t making satire or parody of the photographers’ work, Zillow’s service, or something in the effect of a criticism of cultural tendency. She was using the work done by others to make... architectural criticism, was it?
That is absolutely true, and the headline is wrong. Wagner's work is not a work of parody. However, it's also absolutely irrelevant, because Wagner's work is a work of architectural criticism. 17 USC 107 codifies Fair Use, and states:
Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 106 and 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright.
Criticism is expressly included - even moreso than parody, which really falls under commentary. Wagner's posts are also teaching - while undeniably humorous, they are also undeniably educational about various aspects of architecture.
IAAL, and in particular, an IP lawyer, and frankly, I can't see any way in which Zillow has a claim.
Despite the noise that the vocal minority is making over this, I think you will find that most folks, if asked (assuming no one could find out the answer) would support a completed ban on Muslims in the country. Naturally, most folks are simply afraid of being a racist or other "ist" word.
Honestly, I do not know understand why it is an issue to dislike someone because they are Muslim. It's not like disliking a person because they are brown, or black or whatever color. Islam is a religion and an ideology. It is reasonable to not like a person based on what they choose to believe?
Sure, it's reasonable to not like them. Your feelings are your own, and you're welcome to them. Where it becomes a problem is where the government steps in and starts enforcing someone's feelings by banning people having a particular religious belief from entering the country. I understand you dislike them, and I'm not particularly fond of them either, but that doesn't mean we should throw out the Constitution. What does it say about us, as a nation, if we're willing to sacrifice our founding principles at the drop of a hat?
Want to ban muslims? Then go pass a Constitutional amendment repealing or amending the first amendment to remove the free exercise clause. If you can convince the majority of the population of 2/3rds of the states, then you can have your ban. Until then, you'll have to just have your hate.
What evidence are you basing your judgment that there will be fewer deaths and injuries caused by the car stopping than by it continuing? There are risks to both after all.
Well, there's a 100% history of fatalities in this situation when the car didn't stop. :)
* Why didn't the car slow down if you have your hands off the wheel for more then 5+ minutes?
Because that would kill more people that what it does now.
Only if the people behind him are not paying attention, and then, isn't it "not paying attention" that kills people? I'm not saying the autopilot should slam on the brakes (though that might wake the driver up), but if it stops accelerating and gently coasts down to a stop while flashing its hazard lights, that seems to be the proper failure mode. Saying "no, the car needs to keep driving at 75 mph forever because it may be being tailgated by someone who's sleeping" seems to remove responsibility from all other drivers.