I wasn't arguing for racial profiling, I was simply stating that race has to factor in to behavioral profiling at airports when we are trying to prevent terrorist attacks similar to what Al Qaida and similar groups pulled off and is trying to pull off.
Racial profiling is wrong. What I said was, in effect, if you have a 25 year old man who appears to be from the Middle East who is acting suspiciously in an airport, and you have a 25 year old Caucasian who appears to be from the Northeast (let's say he's wearing a I
As I said, I'm not arguing at all for racial profiling - that's different; that's closer to the example you gave - "That guy is black but he's driving an expensive car. He probably stole the car" - what I'm talking about is allowing race to factor into our behavioral profiles. If it doesn't, we have inefficient profiles. The problem is that many in our country are too afraid of allowing race to factor in that we pick more inefficient ways to try and stop terrorism (body scanners, etc.). How you prevent racial profiling is by teaching proper behavioral profiling as well as tolerance and diversity. But, you cannot behaviorally profile well without factoring in demographics, which in the case of counterterrorism in the U.S. in airports, means factoring in race.
You're mostly correct, it isn't, necessarily. However, under the auspices of fighting terrorism of the 9/11 / Al Qaida sort, race has to factor in to behavioral profiling. I say race but really mean demographics (which usually includes race). We know that people who are more likely to perform the type of terrorist attacks that we are supposedly trying to prevent are most likely from a particular region of the world. That does not mean you ignore other people at all but to not try and filter your behavioral profiling based on race/ethnicity is cognitively inefficient. Does this idea offend people? Yes, it does but I've formally studied psychology and behavior for many years now and this is the most efficient, most effective way to process people with the goal of reducing terrorist acts. If we were in Ireland, talking about the IRA or in Africa talking about acts of terrorism there or even in Israel, the story would be different and race would not factor in as much. Unfortunately it does here in this circumstance, otherwise we are tying the hands of behavioral profilers and are better off with "McGuards in front of expensive scanners."
For example, here's a quote from a research article about profiling in counterterrorism: "Although behavioral profiling has not received much empirical scrutiny and has become even more controversial since passage of the Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act (2001; see section 215), the technique remains a tool of law enforcement. Profiling has also garnered the attention of forensic psychologists, whose knowledge of human behavior and methodological expertise lend themselves to collaboration with law enforcement (Kocsis, 2003; Winerman, 2004; Woodworth & Porter, 2002). Profiling involves the construction of a demographic and psychological template of an individual who has committed or might commit a crime, such as terrorism. For example, the political ideology of American terrorists has been linked to their demographic and tactical characteristics; right-wing terrorists tend to be relatively uneducated and underemployed white males, who reside in rural areas and are networked nationally (Smith & Morgan, 1994)." (Source: Stevens, M. J. (2005), What is terrorism and can psychology do anything to prevent it?. Behavioral Sciences & the Law, 23: 507–526. doi: 10.1002/bsl.652 )
This means that demographics (race, socioeconomic status, age, weight, etc) have to be part of effective behavioral profiling. Yes, it would be great if we could leave race or religion or sex or whatever out of behavior, but it is not possible.
By the way, the TSA was not "entirely [a] Republican invention." It had broad bipartisan support and it's Senate sponsor was a Democrat (Ernest Hollings).
Except that if it's a government agency and the government funds a lot of research (NSF, NIH, etc.), isn't the government already establishing what is factual? It's very easy to fund or not fund research that will likely say or not say what you want. Facts can also be established by perr-review, which sounds better than it is in practice (don't get me wrong, it's great for the most part but if you ever want to do or interpret something differently, it's really hard to get it past peer-review). Even though this would be a separate department, much of the funding goes back to the government. Now, if it was a non-profit with no government or business ties, it would be more reliable.
But behavior profiling gets you sued here in America for violating civil liberties. It also gets you the label of racist. That's why the government is willing to do much more invasive things that are much less effective. It's not politically correct to perform behavioral profiles because you start the profiles based on what people look like and then all the sudden you are discriminating. Behavior profiling transcends race but for airport screening, race is one of the most helpful places to start, unfortunately. Racism is bad but political correctness results in a lot of needless complexity. It would be far better and cheaper to higher a few good profilers to scan airports rather than waste millions of dollars on machines of questionable efficacy.
Who decided that these are arms? Could they not be legs? What about just appendages? Maybe what we call arms are really the Milky Way's hair. If that were the case it might just throw all of our understanding of cosmology out the proverbial window.
Re:Perl - the COBOL of scripting languages
on
Perl 5.14 Released
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· Score: 1
That's why I am learning Perl instead of Python right now. I've done some Bash scripting but I'm trying to branch out a bit. My scripting needs are not huge, mostly neuroimaging-related stuff, but Perl seemed better as a bash++ environment (like you put it) than Python. I wanted to learn Python (I still will, just later) but I had two individuals independently recommend Perl for my needs rather than Python.
Perl might be a bit antiquated and awkward but it's the right tool for a number of jobs.
I installed Debian in a virtual machine recently to try it out. The current release looks a lot like Ubuntu (before the Unity interface). In fact, without looking closely you could just assume it was Ubuntu.
Yes, France does, or at least did in 2007 when I was there. I was selected (along with a number of other men) for a frisk. Women were waved through. I know I must have looked like a threat with my pasty American skin.
I know, I was just having a little fun. Like I said, I haven't read the book so I can't comment on the quality of its writing. I've just heard more positive things about it than negative, once people separate out their dislike of Scientology from the writing. Maybe it is poorly written and I'd have to question Mitt Romney's taste in novels. I don't know though without reading it myself and it's way down on my reading list - at the bottom.:)
Why. We Mormons can't like science fiction? Orson Scott Card or Brandon Sanderson (I know he writes fantasy and not science fiction) might disagree. Dune is one of my favorite books. Most of my favorite books, like the stereotypical geek's, are sci fi or fantasy. I can't say I've read Battlefield Earth but from what I've heard it's quite an enjoyable novel. Who cares if it's written by L. Ron Hubbard. I don't agree with the political views or lifestyle of John Lennon but I enjoy his music. I don't agree with a lot of Ayn Rand's philosophy but I can appreciate her novels (they are written very well).
We're on a news for nerds/geeks site and a politician gets criticized for liking science fiction, even if it's by the founder of Scientology?
Using that same example and extending it a bit, this also applies to Pres. George W. Bush's intellectual capacity. He and Karl Rove would have book reading contests (Pres. Bush read a lot already, it was just a competition that the two built up). Based on the books that Pres. Bush read (e.g., The nonfiction ran from biographies of Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Carnegie, Mark Twain, Babe Ruth, King Leopold, William Jennings Bryan, Huey Long, LBJ and Genghis Khan to Andrew Roberts's "A History of the English Speaking Peoples Since 1900," James L. Swanson's "Manhunt," and Nathaniel Philbrick's "Mayflower." Besides eight Travis McGee novels by John D. MacDonald, Mr. Bush tackled Michael Crichton's "Next," Vince Flynn's "Executive Power," Stephen Hunter's "Point of Impact," and Albert Camus's "The Stranger," among others.), we can extend your surmise of Gingrich to Pres. Bush: "He clearly is a sharp man."
It's a bit of a straw man to point out Utah's liquor laws. Alcohol has nothing to do with free speech. In any case, Utah has opened up a lot recently with its alcohol practices.
Exactly. I almost never install software in Linux if it isn't in a repository. There are exceptions of course because I do neuroimaging work and use programs that aren't in repositories but the Mac App Store is just a controlled repository. It's a good thing for developers too, if you accept personal experience. I've spent a lot more money in the Mac App Store than I have previously on Mac applications because the applications are easy to access and easy to install.
I'm not sure if it's effective to "force" them to sign the document but this is a common way to deal with suicidal individuals from a mental health perspective. You get people to sign a form, even just one you scribbled out right there, or give a verbal commitment to not kill themselves until the next time you see them, when you get the commitment again. It works for most people. Most people really don't want to kill themselves, they want to end pain or maybe even cause pain but few people who attempt suicide want to do it. They consider it because they believe it's their only realistic option for dealing with their problems. This is generally true in America, I don't know if it's the case in other parts of the world.
Unfortunately, it looks like many people are missing the humor in the redundancy and superfluously of your redundant comment. The thing that bugs me about automatic ATM machines is having to set and remember a personal PIN number.
Lol. Thanks for pointing out the vagueness of the syntactic structure of my sentence. Yeah, that could have been phrased better.:) It's like the old joke: "One night I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got in my pajamas, I don't know!"
Having driven through states or at least areas of states with the speed limit at 80 (or higher) I can attest that most people on the roads do not drive that fast. They maybe go 75. If we increased our speed limits up to 80 or 85, I really don't think people would go much faster, at least not for a number of years. Yes, some would still go faster but 85 in a car is quite fast and not a lot of people are really comfortable at that speed.
I heard that Osama had been killed a week ago on MSNBC. Most were saying it was this morning/late last night but there have been a few conflicting reports.
I'm a big Apple fan and love almost all things Apple but speculative Apple stories like this are ridiculous for a "news" site. I know it's about "engaging the community" and ad impressions and all that but it seems better to just cover the news when it happens rather than the speculations before it happens. Then we end up with an intelligent conversation about what X means rather than wild conjectures about what the future might hold for our favorite/least favorite tech company./end karma bleeding rant
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I wasn't arguing for racial profiling, I was simply stating that race has to factor in to behavioral profiling at airports when we are trying to prevent terrorist attacks similar to what Al Qaida and similar groups pulled off and is trying to pull off.
Racial profiling is wrong. What I said was, in effect, if you have a 25 year old man who appears to be from the Middle East who is acting suspiciously in an airport, and you have a 25 year old Caucasian who appears to be from the Northeast (let's say he's wearing a I
As I said, I'm not arguing at all for racial profiling - that's different; that's closer to the example you gave - "That guy is black but he's driving an expensive car. He probably stole the car" - what I'm talking about is allowing race to factor into our behavioral profiles. If it doesn't, we have inefficient profiles. The problem is that many in our country are too afraid of allowing race to factor in that we pick more inefficient ways to try and stop terrorism (body scanners, etc.). How you prevent racial profiling is by teaching proper behavioral profiling as well as tolerance and diversity. But, you cannot behaviorally profile well without factoring in demographics, which in the case of counterterrorism in the U.S. in airports, means factoring in race.
You're mostly correct, it isn't, necessarily. However, under the auspices of fighting terrorism of the 9/11 / Al Qaida sort, race has to factor in to behavioral profiling. I say race but really mean demographics (which usually includes race). We know that people who are more likely to perform the type of terrorist attacks that we are supposedly trying to prevent are most likely from a particular region of the world. That does not mean you ignore other people at all but to not try and filter your behavioral profiling based on race/ethnicity is cognitively inefficient. Does this idea offend people? Yes, it does but I've formally studied psychology and behavior for many years now and this is the most efficient, most effective way to process people with the goal of reducing terrorist acts. If we were in Ireland, talking about the IRA or in Africa talking about acts of terrorism there or even in Israel, the story would be different and race would not factor in as much. Unfortunately it does here in this circumstance, otherwise we are tying the hands of behavioral profilers and are better off with "McGuards in front of expensive scanners."
For example, here's a quote from a research article about profiling in counterterrorism: "Although behavioral profiling has not received much empirical scrutiny and has become even more controversial since passage of the Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act (2001; see section 215), the technique remains a tool of law enforcement. Profiling has also garnered the attention of forensic psychologists, whose knowledge of human behavior and methodological expertise lend themselves to collaboration with law enforcement (Kocsis, 2003; Winerman, 2004; Woodworth & Porter, 2002). Profiling involves the construction of a demographic and psychological template of an individual who has committed or might commit a crime, such as terrorism. For example, the political ideology of American terrorists has been linked to their demographic and tactical characteristics; right-wing terrorists tend to be relatively uneducated and underemployed white males, who reside in rural areas and are networked nationally (Smith & Morgan, 1994)." (Source: Stevens, M. J. (2005), What is terrorism and can psychology do anything to prevent it?. Behavioral Sciences & the Law, 23: 507–526. doi: 10.1002/bsl.652 )
This means that demographics (race, socioeconomic status, age, weight, etc) have to be part of effective behavioral profiling. Yes, it would be great if we could leave race or religion or sex or whatever out of behavior, but it is not possible. By the way, the TSA was not "entirely [a] Republican invention." It had broad bipartisan support and it's Senate sponsor was a Democrat (Ernest Hollings).
Except that if it's a government agency and the government funds a lot of research (NSF, NIH, etc.), isn't the government already establishing what is factual? It's very easy to fund or not fund research that will likely say or not say what you want. Facts can also be established by perr-review, which sounds better than it is in practice (don't get me wrong, it's great for the most part but if you ever want to do or interpret something differently, it's really hard to get it past peer-review). Even though this would be a separate department, much of the funding goes back to the government. Now, if it was a non-profit with no government or business ties, it would be more reliable.
But behavior profiling gets you sued here in America for violating civil liberties. It also gets you the label of racist. That's why the government is willing to do much more invasive things that are much less effective. It's not politically correct to perform behavioral profiles because you start the profiles based on what people look like and then all the sudden you are discriminating. Behavior profiling transcends race but for airport screening, race is one of the most helpful places to start, unfortunately. Racism is bad but political correctness results in a lot of needless complexity. It would be far better and cheaper to higher a few good profilers to scan airports rather than waste millions of dollars on machines of questionable efficacy.
Who decided that these are arms? Could they not be legs? What about just appendages? Maybe what we call arms are really the Milky Way's hair. If that were the case it might just throw all of our understanding of cosmology out the proverbial window.
That's why I am learning Perl instead of Python right now. I've done some Bash scripting but I'm trying to branch out a bit. My scripting needs are not huge, mostly neuroimaging-related stuff, but Perl seemed better as a bash++ environment (like you put it) than Python. I wanted to learn Python (I still will, just later) but I had two individuals independently recommend Perl for my needs rather than Python.
Perl might be a bit antiquated and awkward but it's the right tool for a number of jobs.
I installed Debian in a virtual machine recently to try it out. The current release looks a lot like Ubuntu (before the Unity interface). In fact, without looking closely you could just assume it was Ubuntu.
Yes, France does, or at least did in 2007 when I was there. I was selected (along with a number of other men) for a frisk. Women were waved through. I know I must have looked like a threat with my pasty American skin.
I know, I was just having a little fun. Like I said, I haven't read the book so I can't comment on the quality of its writing. I've just heard more positive things about it than negative, once people separate out their dislike of Scientology from the writing. Maybe it is poorly written and I'd have to question Mitt Romney's taste in novels. I don't know though without reading it myself and it's way down on my reading list - at the bottom. :)
Why. We Mormons can't like science fiction? Orson Scott Card or Brandon Sanderson (I know he writes fantasy and not science fiction) might disagree. Dune is one of my favorite books. Most of my favorite books, like the stereotypical geek's, are sci fi or fantasy. I can't say I've read Battlefield Earth but from what I've heard it's quite an enjoyable novel. Who cares if it's written by L. Ron Hubbard. I don't agree with the political views or lifestyle of John Lennon but I enjoy his music. I don't agree with a lot of Ayn Rand's philosophy but I can appreciate her novels (they are written very well).
We're on a news for nerds/geeks site and a politician gets criticized for liking science fiction, even if it's by the founder of Scientology?
Using that same example and extending it a bit, this also applies to Pres. George W. Bush's intellectual capacity. He and Karl Rove would have book reading contests (Pres. Bush read a lot already, it was just a competition that the two built up). Based on the books that Pres. Bush read (e.g., The nonfiction ran from biographies of Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Carnegie, Mark Twain, Babe Ruth, King Leopold, William Jennings Bryan, Huey Long, LBJ and Genghis Khan to Andrew Roberts's "A History of the English Speaking Peoples Since 1900," James L. Swanson's "Manhunt," and Nathaniel Philbrick's "Mayflower." Besides eight Travis McGee novels by John D. MacDonald, Mr. Bush tackled Michael Crichton's "Next," Vince Flynn's "Executive Power," Stephen Hunter's "Point of Impact," and Albert Camus's "The Stranger," among others.), we can extend your surmise of Gingrich to Pres. Bush: "He clearly is a sharp man."
More info: http://sec.online.wsj.com/article/SB123025595706634689.html#printMode
It's a bit of a straw man to point out Utah's liquor laws. Alcohol has nothing to do with free speech. In any case, Utah has opened up a lot recently with its alcohol practices.
Then you don't know Utah. Utah is one of the strongest supporters of free speech.
Shhh, some people don't believe there is anything outside the U.S. We don't want to shatter their delusions on the jagged rocks of reality. ;)
This is Slashdot. Don't bring logic into an argument when it interferes with people hating/loving Apple/Google.
Exactly. I almost never install software in Linux if it isn't in a repository. There are exceptions of course because I do neuroimaging work and use programs that aren't in repositories but the Mac App Store is just a controlled repository. It's a good thing for developers too, if you accept personal experience. I've spent a lot more money in the Mac App Store than I have previously on Mac applications because the applications are easy to access and easy to install.
I'm not sure if it's effective to "force" them to sign the document but this is a common way to deal with suicidal individuals from a mental health perspective. You get people to sign a form, even just one you scribbled out right there, or give a verbal commitment to not kill themselves until the next time you see them, when you get the commitment again. It works for most people. Most people really don't want to kill themselves, they want to end pain or maybe even cause pain but few people who attempt suicide want to do it. They consider it because they believe it's their only realistic option for dealing with their problems. This is generally true in America, I don't know if it's the case in other parts of the world.
Okay, I was exaggerating. Maybe only a few are missing your humor but there sure are a lot of people writing ATM machine.
Unfortunately, it looks like many people are missing the humor in the redundancy and superfluously of your redundant comment. The thing that bugs me about automatic ATM machines is having to set and remember a personal PIN number.
Lol. Thanks for pointing out the vagueness of the syntactic structure of my sentence. Yeah, that could have been phrased better. :) It's like the old joke: "One night I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got in my pajamas, I don't know!"
Having driven through states or at least areas of states with the speed limit at 80 (or higher) I can attest that most people on the roads do not drive that fast. They maybe go 75. If we increased our speed limits up to 80 or 85, I really don't think people would go much faster, at least not for a number of years. Yes, some would still go faster but 85 in a car is quite fast and not a lot of people are really comfortable at that speed.
I heard that Osama had been killed a week ago on MSNBC. Most were saying it was this morning/late last night but there have been a few conflicting reports.
I'm a big Apple fan and love almost all things Apple but speculative Apple stories like this are ridiculous for a "news" site. I know it's about "engaging the community" and ad impressions and all that but it seems better to just cover the news when it happens rather than the speculations before it happens. Then we end up with an intelligent conversation about what X means rather than wild conjectures about what the future might hold for our favorite/least favorite tech company. /end karma bleeding rant
And posts on Slashdot. ;)
Nice false dichotomy. Maybe it's a real message and true. Maybe it's a phony message but still true. All are possible.