Congress INVENTED the idea of 'unlawful enemy combatants' and then decided they had no protection as civilians and no protection as soldiers.
Declaring them some new invented thing, and then denying them all their rights is among the lowest things we've ever done as a country. Because now they can declare ANYONE ANYWHERE an 'enemy combatant' and pretend they have no rights or recourse to any law, civilian or military.
Think about it. Some of the people in custody are just ordinary people. They aren't self identifying as 'unlawful enemy combatants'. That's a label WE assigned to them completely arbitrarily. With no due process. They could pick up a peaceful baker on the streets of Iraq, declare him an 'unlawful enemy combatant' with no evidence, no proof, no representation, no trial in any court, and then toss him into a prison where "no law has jurisdiction".
That's fucking demented.
They are non-military citizens of a country. That makes them civilians. Full stop.
If we can capture and process high level drug 'lords' as ordinary civilians, despite effectively operating small mercenary armies there is no reason we can't manage the same thing for "terrorists".
I suppose perhaps they started their project before the age of Dosbox. I mean, you can even buy the original XCom's on Steam these days.
Yeah, I like dosbox as much as the next classic game fan, but you are way off base here. Still all kinds of glitches and stuff that affect lots of people (too fast, too slow, unsteady framerate issues, sound or graphics corruption -- joystick woes (not so much for xcom but lots of other titles); and spending hours teaking dosbox config files to try and resolve them is tiresome.
And as this is moddable, it sets the groundwork for being able to run a version with modern hi resolution graphics instead of dealing with upscalers and antialiasing as your only option to play with a window larger than 2.5".
Re:The new Firaxis title was surprisingly good....
on
OpenXcom 1.0 Released
·
· Score: 2
Also, the recent fireaxis xcom is nothing like the original.
Its different, but it captures the feel very well to me.
I like it, but again, it's more action oriented and less strategy. Unless you tell me that strategy is having a super soldier unable to carry more than one grenade per mission...
I agree, the changes to streamline things are significantly different - skill trees, and the restrictive inventory system for example. But... playing within the confines of that is still lots of strategy and tactics. You have to make some hard choices.
If you haven't tried the mods, there are some good ones out there. Warspace, the long war, second wave, etc. Add a lot more depth and variability and replay.
Re:The new Firaxis title was surprisingly good....
on
OpenXcom 1.0 Released
·
· Score: 1
EU feels far more like XCOM than Apocalypse ever did to me. As for 'zero replayability' try the mods.:)
They add a lot more variability and depth, and some of the re-balancing change the tactics... adds a lot of replayability.
You need a copy of the game to use this. This project is to resolve the difficulty running the original game on modern hardware, fix bugs in the original game, etc.
I've got several copies, the original, a CD re-release over 10 years ago that I could NEVER get to run properly due to speed issues, and it's outright incompatibility with using nvidia graphics cards; and I now own it on steam as well (but it came with Enemy Unknown and I haven't actually tried the steam one yet) -- I did get the re-release version working in DOSbox but it still had its issues etc. I wouldn't be surprised if the steam one has its flakiness as well... a proper modern remake is a good thing.
You're confusing different things. GOG and Steam are stores. If I make a movie, and then I sell the copyright to that movie, the new copyright holder can pull copies of that movie from store shelves, depending on the distribution deals they have with the stores that carry it
Actually no, odds are you can't pull something physical from shelves. The store will be able to sell that stock. All you can do is prevent any additional copies from being made.
Which is why nothing GoG/Steam did until the loss of the right to distribute was illegal, but they were unable to continue to distribute (make new copies) available for sale.
That was my point with respect to patents. If you licensed a patent, and the patent was sold, your use of the patent to that point is safe they can't go back after what you did with it in the past, but gong forward you may not be able to keep using the patent.
So if you used Tesla patents and produced some cars, those cars would be fine. But if Tesla then sold the patents, and your permission to use them is terminated, those original cars are still fine. But you may not be able to use the patents to build any new cars.
"non-uniformed combatants" is a made up thing; they are civilians. Criminals perhaps, but if Iran invades your home town and starts
sorry somehow missed finishing that sentence.... and starts wrecking the place, and you resist, even with violence, and they capture you and take you into 'custody'. You are still a civilian. Even if they wanted to treat you as a soldier, that'd be fine too.
But to invent a new classification for the express purpose of depriving people of the rights you would extend civilians and soldiers is BULLSHIT.
These are non-US citizens (generally) & non-uniformed combatants.
"non-uniformed combatants" is a made up thing; they are civilians. Criminals perhaps, but if Iran invades your home town and starts
As such, they are afforded protection from neither the US Constitution
Why not? Isn't there something in there about 'all people'? I don't recall it being limited to American citizens?
I mean, granted we don't have authority to impose the constitution or justice system on foreign nationals in their own country -- but we did arrest them, and remove them from their country to territory we control. There's no reason they can't or shouldn't be extended to the rights of our justice system? Why shouldn't we? Would their trial be somehow unfair?
Additionally, most countries where the detainees originate are not signatories to the Geneva Convention, and thus the protections further do not apply to them.
It still applies to us stupid. Sure legally we aren't obligated by treaty but so what? Its the morally right thing to do, and there is certainly nothing in the treaty that PREVENTS us from extending them those protections? Why on earth would we desire NOT to extend them?
You make it sound like we'd like to give them fair trials, and we'd like to extend them rights but we can't. That's bullshit.
Maybe, or is it the just the case that uber drivers are just cherry picking the best fares. Living the dregs to cabbies, who are mandated to take them.
Eliminating the regulations would allow both the uber and taxis to skip them. Not sure how that makes life better for people who need a ride nobody wants to take them on?
Or is this a market will fix the problem situation? And anyone who wants a ride somewhere off the beaten path, so there is no chance of a return fare, or a short haul which is less profitable will have pay a premium to get service?
But that hearkens to the old days where cabbies simply refused fares outright, or would demand you pay double (ie pay a 'return fare') to make it worth their while.
I guess that would "solve" the problem. Not sure that's a good solution though.
For example, if you hold the copyright to a song and I pay you $10k to license that song in a movie, and then you sold the copyright to that song, the new owner can't turn around sue me for using the song in my movie.
All true. However, you might not be able to continue to sell copies of that movie.
It recently happened on GoG and Steam just recently for example; they each had a licenses to sell Fallout; Bethesda got rights to all the Fallout IP from Interplay, and Steam and GoG had to remove the games from the catalog; at least until they get a new licensing deal from Bethesda (which may or may not happen).
You'll also see it with movies etc where it gets REALLY stupid, where the company that holds the rights to the movie can't make a DVD release because they only have the rights to soundtrack/music for VHS. (Which is one reason you'll sometimes see a DVD release with an altered soundtrack)
It's correct that you, the account holder, are paying your own reward, but it's not so direct that it is paid out of interest+fees.
In that case, not using a rewards card means I'm paying for other peoples rewards, and not getting any myself; so I'm still ahead using a rewards card vs not using one.
Why do you think the bank actually works for you...
I have no such illusion. I am not a liability. They make money off me. I presume they take about 3% of everything I run through the card, less the 1% they send back to me... So, 2% is theirs.
If they had to choose between eating a few fraudulent charges, and losing me as a customer they'd eat the charges. So, no, I'm not being naive. I know exactly what I'm worth to them.
Here's how the cash rewards work. The CC company says "Hey, our Customers are stupid. They pay high interest rates to us for convince. How about we tell these sheep that they can get cash back, while we up their interest rate 1% to pay that cash back.
As I pay my balance off virtually all the time my rewards cash back far exceeds any interest payments and fees.
I guess its like the lottery -- a tax on people bad at math. Except unlike the lottery, I can win at this game. And do.
Lots of businesses do a cash discount. The only way you dont know about this is because you dont do cash transactions... your loss.
Most of the business I've dealt with that do a cash discount have nothing at all to do with credit card fees. They are simply committing tax evasion; as a cash transaction lets them avoid putting it on the books. Which is fine, but lets not pretend its because of big bad credit card companies.
And what does the merchant do when they take a loss? Put prices up to compensate.
Yes.
You still end up paying. It's just obfuscated.
True, but you are paying for it too, so my portion is less than it otherwise would be if I had to pay for the fraud myself.
You're assuming the bank wont contest it, or charge you for the services. Also, the bank is not obliged to return interchange fees.
As opposed to the cash in your wallet when it gets lost or stolen. That's just gone.
Meanwhile I've disputed fraudulent charges a couple times in my life, and lately I've had the bank stop them or reverse them even before I've been involved.
With NFC on your card, a thief can take your card details without you even getting it out of your pocket because by design, the protocol will give out your name, expiry date and card no. to anything that asks for it. This can be done with off the shelf hardware. A thug doesn't even have to rob you, to rob you. In the end, cards cost more than risk with cash (which is negligible, lower if you consider the huge security flaw in NFC).
I don't disagree with you, about the abysmal security design.
And yet I know far far FAR more people who have lost their wallet with cash in it, or had it stolen than have EVER been the victim of NFC fraud.
Do health monitoring devices get priority access to electricity?
Well, yes, actually, to the extent that its possible. If a storm that knocks the electricity out by taking lines down everywhere, then absolutely the crews should prioritize hospitals.
While the electricity is out, and the hospital is running on batteries and generators, absolutely the health monitoring devices should get priority and the TVs in the break room and waiting areas turned off.
But under normal operations, none of that is required because there is usually enough electricity to satisfy everyone's needs. At least in developed countries.
Minimize the number of places you expose your CC numbers. Pay cash where feasible. Use debit cards ONLY at bank terminals. Be especially careful at restaurants and gas stations.
Or, if your in good standing with your bank, don't worry about it. The banks are good about fraudulent charges in the civilized world.
Difference being that a polite users of a phone CAN pretty trivially avoid responding to the notification until a suitable pause in the conversation or until the conversation is over.
Wearing glass -- it literally flashes in front of your eyes. "Not looking at it" is a lot more effort.
I use cash or checks for 99% of my purchases. That way I avoid this issue. I'm also an old guy so "Get off my lawn!"
Is it a real issue or a theoretical issue? I've seen a few fraudulent charges over the years, and the bank has never given me any greif over any of them.
Your solution of carrying cash exposes you to higher risk of direct loss or theft. And you lose the card rewards program.
As for cheques -- yeah, whatever, because those aren't stupidly easy to forge; and most people won't even take them anymore.
On the upside you have a smallish boost in privacy relating to your purchases. (locations, times, and amount spent)
Seems you've traded one set of small risks for another. Not sure that amounts to a real overall improvement though.
For that matter, I don't usually associate xkcd with randomly talking inanimate everyday objects to deliver punchlines. And stooping to one solely to deliver a bad pun... that's really why i didn't like it. It was just... lazy.
If Calvin and Hobbes had done the joke, it probably wouldn't have involved Calvin talking to a windmill either.
But yes, you disliked it, I enjoyed it, XKCD hopefully goes on.
"A thing that looks like but is technically not a big fan says that its not a big fan"? (literally) and doubles that up with the meaning that its not enthusiastic about the idea either (ie 'not a fan').
So its 'not a fan' and 'not a fan'. I got it. Its really not that funny or clever.
What's next week? A guinea pig goes on a diet and says its "not a pig"?:groan:
It's a matter of when, not if, the #1 match is innocent, but was in the same place at the same time as the actual perpetrator.
So take away facial recognition and what changes?
Basic old-school law enforcement: step 1: get a description of the perp from witnesses step 2: get a list of suspects -- find out who was there step 3: show the witnesses the suspects and see if they recognize the guy
If you were at the scene of the crime, and looked like the perp, odds are decent you are going to get busted. After all, they'll find some evidence you were there (because, well, you were), your trainpass will show you boarding, your cell phone will locate you to the scene, etc, etc. Then some eyewitness to the crime will pick your picture out of a gallery because, yes, you really do look enough like the perp, then what?
Its a matter of when, not if, someone who looks like the perp and was in the same place as the perp gets convicted.
Facial recognition isn't necessarily even going to make it worse.
Countless people have been arrested and some even convicted simply for being 'black' near where people crime was commited where the perp was witnessed to be 'black'.
Hell, facial recognition and video surveillance might actually be an improvement here.
RTFA. They don't need it. They KNOW they don't need it. They freely agreed they'd prefer a smaller, lighter, more practical civilian police vehicle like a BearCat but that costs $200,000 to $300,000. That 55,000 lb MRAP listing north of $700,000 only cost them a measly $5000 as army surplus.
Hell, even a police issue dodge ram, with typical law enforcement upgrades is going to cost an order of magnitude more than $5000.
OTOH, although they got the MRAP for $5k, its going to be a beast on gas, and god help them if or when they need to replace any parts on it.
I guess if they actually need something even lightly armored, if this thing runs for a year or three and they can turn around and sell it for 55,000 pounds of scrap metal after that they probably actually saved the taxpayers some money vs operating something else.
The news here isn't that the police are looking to arm themselves with military gear, its that they are on tight budgets and military surplus is overkill specs, but is a lot cheaper than suitable civilian gear.
Yet XKCD keeps producing great moments, which is why I keep reading it.
Agreed.
And the wordplay and the naivety in the 1378 was at least smile worthy.
Its not 'wordplay'; its a cheap pun. A big fan says its not a big fan. I really like XKCD, but that was terrible.
Even 1377 which you claim you didn't enjoy was at least a joke on a science level: creating a metaphor of the universe as an ecosystem and then noting that in ecosystems where the inhabitants are well camouflaged (explaining why we haven't found other alien civilizations) its because there are hostile predators; implying other alien civilizations are keeping their heads down for a good reason. I thought that was at least clever enough to be smile worthy.
Slashdot Mirror
Congress INVENTED the idea of 'unlawful enemy combatants' and then decided they had no protection as civilians and no protection as soldiers.
Declaring them some new invented thing, and then denying them all their rights is among the lowest things we've ever done as a country. Because now they can declare ANYONE ANYWHERE an 'enemy combatant' and pretend they have no rights or recourse to any law, civilian or military.
Think about it. Some of the people in custody are just ordinary people. They aren't self identifying as 'unlawful enemy combatants'. That's a label WE assigned to them completely arbitrarily. With no due process. They could pick up a peaceful baker on the streets of Iraq, declare him an 'unlawful enemy combatant' with no evidence, no proof, no representation, no trial in any court, and then toss him into a prison where "no law has jurisdiction".
That's fucking demented.
They are non-military citizens of a country. That makes them civilians. Full stop.
If we can capture and process high level drug 'lords' as ordinary civilians, despite effectively operating small mercenary armies there is no reason we can't manage the same thing for "terrorists".
I suppose perhaps they started their project before the age of Dosbox. I mean, you can even buy the original XCom's on Steam these days.
Yeah, I like dosbox as much as the next classic game fan, but you are way off base here. Still all kinds of glitches and stuff that affect lots of people (too fast, too slow, unsteady framerate issues, sound or graphics corruption -- joystick woes (not so much for xcom but lots of other titles); and spending hours teaking dosbox config files to try and resolve them is tiresome.
And as this is moddable, it sets the groundwork for being able to run a version with modern hi resolution graphics instead of dealing with upscalers and antialiasing as your only option to play with a window larger than 2.5".
Also, the recent fireaxis xcom is nothing like the original.
Its different, but it captures the feel very well to me.
I like it, but again, it's more action oriented and less strategy. Unless you tell me that strategy is having a super soldier unable to carry more than one grenade per mission...
I agree, the changes to streamline things are significantly different - skill trees, and the restrictive inventory system for example. But... playing within the confines of that is still lots of strategy and tactics. You have to make some hard choices.
If you haven't tried the mods, there are some good ones out there. Warspace, the long war, second wave, etc. Add a lot more depth and variability and replay.
EU feels far more like XCOM than Apocalypse ever did to me. As for 'zero replayability' try the mods. :)
They add a lot more variability and depth, and some of the re-balancing change the tactics... adds a lot of replayability.
.... you could just buy XCom.
You need a copy of the game to use this. This project is to resolve the difficulty running the original game on modern hardware, fix bugs in the original game, etc.
I've got several copies, the original, a CD re-release over 10 years ago that I could NEVER get to run properly due to speed issues, and it's outright incompatibility with using nvidia graphics cards; and I now own it on steam as well (but it came with Enemy Unknown and I haven't actually tried the steam one yet) -- I did get the re-release version working in DOSbox but it still had its issues etc. I wouldn't be surprised if the steam one has its flakiness as well... a proper modern remake is a good thing.
The art assets are from the original game; you actually need to have a copy of xcom to play. This is for people who want to play XCOM.
Upping the resolution is a fine idea though, and as the game is moddable, you probably can up the resolution, and include all new artwork.
You're confusing different things. GOG and Steam are stores. If I make a movie, and then I sell the copyright to that movie, the new copyright holder can pull copies of that movie from store shelves, depending on the distribution deals they have with the stores that carry it
Actually no, odds are you can't pull something physical from shelves. The store will be able to sell that stock. All you can do is prevent any additional copies from being made.
Which is why nothing GoG/Steam did until the loss of the right to distribute was illegal, but they were unable to continue to distribute (make new copies) available for sale.
That was my point with respect to patents. If you licensed a patent, and the patent was sold, your use of the patent to that point is safe they can't go back after what you did with it in the past, but gong forward you may not be able to keep using the patent.
So if you used Tesla patents and produced some cars, those cars would be fine. But if Tesla then sold the patents, and your permission to use them is terminated, those original cars are still fine. But you may not be able to use the patents to build any new cars.
"non-uniformed combatants" is a made up thing; they are civilians. Criminals perhaps, but if Iran invades your home town and starts
sorry somehow missed finishing that sentence. ... and starts wrecking the place, and you resist, even with violence, and they capture you and take you into 'custody'. You are still a civilian. Even if they wanted to treat you as a soldier, that'd be fine too.
But to invent a new classification for the express purpose of depriving people of the rights you would extend civilians and soldiers is BULLSHIT.
These are non-US citizens (generally) & non-uniformed combatants.
"non-uniformed combatants" is a made up thing; they are civilians. Criminals perhaps, but if Iran invades your home town and starts
As such, they are afforded protection from neither the US Constitution
Why not? Isn't there something in there about 'all people'? I don't recall it being limited to American citizens?
I mean, granted we don't have authority to impose the constitution or justice system on foreign nationals in their own country -- but we did arrest them, and remove them from their country to territory we control. There's no reason they can't or shouldn't be extended to the rights of our justice system? Why shouldn't we? Would their trial be somehow unfair?
Additionally, most countries where the detainees originate are not signatories to the Geneva Convention, and thus the protections further do not apply to them.
It still applies to us stupid. Sure legally we aren't obligated by treaty but so what? Its the morally right thing to do, and there is certainly nothing in the treaty that PREVENTS us from extending them those protections? Why on earth would we desire NOT to extend them?
You make it sound like we'd like to give them fair trials, and we'd like to extend them rights but we can't. That's bullshit.
Maybe, or is it the just the case that uber drivers are just cherry picking the best fares. Living the dregs to cabbies, who are mandated to take them.
Eliminating the regulations would allow both the uber and taxis to skip them. Not sure how that makes life better for people who need a ride nobody wants to take them on?
Or is this a market will fix the problem situation? And anyone who wants a ride somewhere off the beaten path, so there is no chance of a return fare, or a short haul which is less profitable will have pay a premium to get service?
But that hearkens to the old days where cabbies simply refused fares outright, or would demand you pay double (ie pay a 'return fare') to make it worth their while.
I guess that would "solve" the problem. Not sure that's a good solution though.
For example, if you hold the copyright to a song and I pay you $10k to license that song in a movie, and then you sold the copyright to that song, the new owner can't turn around sue me for using the song in my movie.
All true. However, you might not be able to continue to sell copies of that movie.
It recently happened on GoG and Steam just recently for example; they each had a licenses to sell Fallout; Bethesda got rights to all the Fallout IP from Interplay, and Steam and GoG had to remove the games from the catalog; at least until they get a new licensing deal from Bethesda (which may or may not happen).
You'll also see it with movies etc where it gets REALLY stupid, where the company that holds the rights to the movie can't make a DVD release because they only have the rights to soundtrack/music for VHS. (Which is one reason you'll sometimes see a DVD release with an altered soundtrack)
It's correct that you, the account holder, are paying your own reward, but it's not so direct that it is paid out of interest+fees.
In that case, not using a rewards card means I'm paying for other peoples rewards, and not getting any myself; so I'm still ahead using a rewards card vs not using one.
Why do you think the bank actually works for you...
I have no such illusion. I am not a liability. They make money off me. I presume they take about 3% of everything I run through the card, less the 1% they send back to me... So, 2% is theirs.
If they had to choose between eating a few fraudulent charges, and losing me as a customer they'd eat the charges. So, no, I'm not being naive. I know exactly what I'm worth to them.
Here's how the cash rewards work. The CC company says "Hey, our Customers are stupid. They pay high interest rates to us for convince. How about we tell these sheep that they can get cash back, while we up their interest rate 1% to pay that cash back.
As I pay my balance off virtually all the time my rewards cash back far exceeds any interest payments and fees.
I guess its like the lottery -- a tax on people bad at math. Except unlike the lottery, I can win at this game. And do.
Lots of businesses do a cash discount. The only way you dont know about this is because you dont do cash transactions... your loss.
Most of the business I've dealt with that do a cash discount have nothing at all to do with credit card fees. They are simply committing tax evasion; as a cash transaction lets them avoid putting it on the books. Which is fine, but lets not pretend its because of big bad credit card companies.
And what does the merchant do when they take a loss? Put prices up to compensate.
Yes.
You still end up paying. It's just obfuscated.
True, but you are paying for it too, so my portion is less than it otherwise would be if I had to pay for the fraud myself.
You're assuming the bank wont contest it, or charge you for the services. Also, the bank is not obliged to return interchange fees.
As opposed to the cash in your wallet when it gets lost or stolen. That's just gone.
Meanwhile I've disputed fraudulent charges a couple times in my life, and lately I've had the bank stop them or reverse them even before I've been involved.
With NFC on your card, a thief can take your card details without you even getting it out of your pocket because by design, the protocol will give out your name, expiry date and card no. to anything that asks for it. This can be done with off the shelf hardware. A thug doesn't even have to rob you, to rob you. In the end, cards cost more than risk with cash (which is negligible, lower if you consider the huge security flaw in NFC).
I don't disagree with you, about the abysmal security design.
And yet I know far far FAR more people who have lost their wallet with cash in it, or had it stolen than have EVER been the victim of NFC fraud.
Do health monitoring devices get priority access to electricity?
Well, yes, actually, to the extent that its possible. If a storm that knocks the electricity out by taking lines down everywhere, then absolutely the crews should prioritize hospitals.
While the electricity is out, and the hospital is running on batteries and generators, absolutely the health monitoring devices should get priority and the TVs in the break room and waiting areas turned off.
But under normal operations, none of that is required because there is usually enough electricity to satisfy everyone's needs. At least in developed countries.
Minimize the number of places you expose your CC numbers. Pay cash where feasible. Use debit cards ONLY at bank terminals. Be especially careful at restaurants and gas stations.
Or, if your in good standing with your bank, don't worry about it. The banks are good about fraudulent charges in the civilized world.
But that's true of a phone, too.
Difference being that a polite users of a phone CAN pretty trivially avoid responding to the notification until a suitable pause in the conversation or until the conversation is over.
Wearing glass -- it literally flashes in front of your eyes. "Not looking at it" is a lot more effort.
I use cash or checks for 99% of my purchases. That way I avoid this issue. I'm also an old guy so "Get off my lawn!"
Is it a real issue or a theoretical issue? I've seen a few fraudulent charges over the years, and the bank has never given me any greif over any of them.
Your solution of carrying cash exposes you to higher risk of direct loss or theft. And you lose the card rewards program.
As for cheques -- yeah, whatever, because those aren't stupidly easy to forge; and most people won't even take them anymore.
On the upside you have a smallish boost in privacy relating to your purchases. (locations, times, and amount spent)
Seems you've traded one set of small risks for another. Not sure that amounts to a real overall improvement though.
a talking windmill.
For that matter, I don't usually associate xkcd with randomly talking inanimate everyday objects to deliver punchlines. And stooping to one solely to deliver a bad pun... that's really why i didn't like it. It was just... lazy.
If Calvin and Hobbes had done the joke, it probably wouldn't have involved Calvin talking to a windmill either.
But yes, you disliked it, I enjoyed it, XKCD hopefully goes on.
For sure.
Windmills do not make great fans.
Right so ...
"A thing that looks like but is technically not a big fan says that its not a big fan"? (literally) and doubles that up with the meaning that its not enthusiastic about the idea either (ie 'not a fan').
So its 'not a fan' and 'not a fan'. I got it. Its really not that funny or clever.
What's next week? A guinea pig goes on a diet and says its "not a pig"? :groan:
It's a matter of when, not if, the #1 match is innocent, but was in the same place at the same time as the actual perpetrator.
So take away facial recognition and what changes?
Basic old-school law enforcement:
step 1: get a description of the perp from witnesses
step 2: get a list of suspects -- find out who was there
step 3: show the witnesses the suspects and see if they recognize the guy
If you were at the scene of the crime, and looked like the perp, odds are decent you are going to get busted. After all, they'll find some evidence you were there (because, well, you were), your trainpass will show you boarding, your cell phone will locate you to the scene, etc, etc. Then some eyewitness to the crime will pick your picture out of a gallery because, yes, you really do look enough like the perp, then what?
Its a matter of when, not if, someone who looks like the perp and was in the same place as the perp gets convicted.
Facial recognition isn't necessarily even going to make it worse.
Countless people have been arrested and some even convicted simply for being 'black' near where people crime was commited where the perp was witnessed to be 'black'.
Hell, facial recognition and video surveillance might actually be an improvement here.
If law enforcement needs this type of equipment,
RTFA. They don't need it. They KNOW they don't need it. They freely agreed they'd prefer a smaller, lighter, more practical civilian police vehicle like a BearCat but that costs $200,000 to $300,000. That 55,000 lb MRAP listing north of $700,000 only cost them a measly $5000 as army surplus.
Hell, even a police issue dodge ram, with typical law enforcement upgrades is going to cost an order of magnitude more than $5000.
OTOH, although they got the MRAP for $5k, its going to be a beast on gas, and god help them if or when they need to replace any parts on it.
I guess if they actually need something even lightly armored, if this thing runs for a year or three and they can turn around and sell it for 55,000 pounds of scrap metal after that they probably actually saved the taxpayers some money vs operating something else.
The news here isn't that the police are looking to arm themselves with military gear, its that they are on tight budgets and military surplus is overkill specs, but is a lot cheaper than suitable civilian gear.
Yet XKCD keeps producing great moments, which is why I keep reading it.
Agreed.
And the wordplay and the naivety in the 1378 was at least smile worthy.
Its not 'wordplay'; its a cheap pun. A big fan says its not a big fan. I really like XKCD, but that was terrible.
Even 1377 which you claim you didn't enjoy was at least a joke on a science level: creating a metaphor of the universe as an ecosystem and then noting that in ecosystems where the inhabitants are well camouflaged (explaining why we haven't found other alien civilizations) its because there are hostile predators; implying other alien civilizations are keeping their heads down for a good reason. I thought that was at least clever enough to be smile worthy.
xkcd has a lot of great moments but this week is not one of them:
xkcd.com/1378/
Even Garfield would be ashamed. (They'd still do it, but they'd know deep down it was bad.)