Comment We had one in the St. Louis, MO area.... (Score 1) 169
but ours has the bonus of releasing radioactive waste!
Comment matrix (Score 4, Interesting) 55
Have you ever had a dream, Neo, that you were so sure was real? What if you were unable to wake from that dream? How would you know the difference between the dream world and the real world?
Ask Slashdot: What are the Costs of Switching Between Windows, MacOS, and Chrome? 66
UI changes, lost productivity, untransferrable knowledge... Long-time Slashdot reader theodp notes the folly of switching to an unfamiliar new environment to be "more productive"...
Champions of the switch often insist workers will be able to hit the ground running and get the same or even more work done from the get-go in the new unfamiliar environment because it's 'more productive', a conclusion often shaped by conventional wisdom or their 'gut' feeling. Decision makers may also mistake their own 'light-user experience' for universal experience and believe all platforms are fungible.
And while it's one thing for a business to delay their delivery dates and increase costs of by introducing a switch in computing environments that's of unquantified and possibly dubious value, how about when a switch in computing environments is made that affects schoolchildren's ability to learn for a period of time?
While a MacBook Neo is indeed cute, what might be the possible consequences of a decision to move 25,000 students off Windows and onto MacBook Neos...? Or even the impact on a single kid who moves from a MacBook school to a Windows or Chrome school (or whose home computing environment isn't aligned with their school). Or students whose teachers decide learning in their classrooms should now additionally require an understanding of the Minecraft computing platform/UI (used in over 40,000 school systems.). Learning Management Systems and now various AI Edtech tools used by schoolkids are also subject to change.
"Even if students and schools eventually benefit from a new platform, one wonders how much learning is lost during the switch," theodp asks, "and what the financial and educational ROI and payback period look like." Are there bigger problems than we realize? Share your own thoughts and experiences in the comments.
What are the costs of switching between Windows, MacOS, and Chrome?
And while it's one thing for a business to delay their delivery dates and increase costs of by introducing a switch in computing environments that's of unquantified and possibly dubious value, how about when a switch in computing environments is made that affects schoolchildren's ability to learn for a period of time?
While a MacBook Neo is indeed cute, what might be the possible consequences of a decision to move 25,000 students off Windows and onto MacBook Neos...? Or even the impact on a single kid who moves from a MacBook school to a Windows or Chrome school (or whose home computing environment isn't aligned with their school). Or students whose teachers decide learning in their classrooms should now additionally require an understanding of the Minecraft computing platform/UI (used in over 40,000 school systems.). Learning Management Systems and now various AI Edtech tools used by schoolkids are also subject to change.
"Even if students and schools eventually benefit from a new platform, one wonders how much learning is lost during the switch," theodp asks, "and what the financial and educational ROI and payback period look like." Are there bigger problems than we realize? Share your own thoughts and experiences in the comments.
What are the costs of switching between Windows, MacOS, and Chrome?
Comment Re:Neglected to remove alert (Score 1) 162
Right, this is an indictment of policing in America, not Flock.
This is an indication of a systemic failure. And a human failure. Both.
But be thankful that you have the system that you have. In China, 99.97% of people arrested are convicted. The police use torture systematically to obtain confessions. Sometimes female suspects will be imprisoned with known rapists.
Be thankful that we're even having a discussion about systemic failure with the Flock database error.
Comment Re:Neglected to remove alert (Score 1) 162
You're inserting advocacy research (which is not reality seeking) into a case where the facts are already pretty clear.
Comment Re:This didn't have to happen twice (Score 0) 162
About 20 are unarmed people.
About 8 of those unarmed people are actively attacking the police officer.
Of the remaining 12 -- some were escaping, some were attacking someone else, ..., and a proportion were genuinely innocent people.
This idea that "1/3" of people killed by strangers are killed by police is classic massaging the date, because almost every person who is killed or murdered is done so by someone they know.
The police are continually reforming. We need more reform. We also need a reality based discussion.
About 8 of those unarmed people are actively attacking the police officer.
Of the remaining 12 -- some were escaping, some were attacking someone else,
This idea that "1/3" of people killed by strangers are killed by police is classic massaging the date, because almost every person who is killed or murdered is done so by someone they know.
The police are continually reforming. We need more reform. We also need a reality based discussion.
Comment Re:what could possibly go wrong? (Score 2) 162
Data entry mistakes happen. What is worrying is that it wasn't corrected the first time she was pulled over. Also, the police should have issued an apology. It's the morally correct thing to do; however, I suspect they have legal advise specifically NOT to do this because of ambulance chasing lawyers. Nonetheless there is absolutely a systemic failure here that needs to be addressed.
Comment Re:what could possibly go wrong? (Score 2) 162
A mistake was still made, in that the entry should have been removed from the database the first time.
Comment Re:what could possibly go wrong? (Score 1) 162
PoliceViolenceReport -- an advocacy organization btw -- reports 2x fatal police incidents. So, since 2017, we have about 15 per year instead of 7. So you're way over your skiis. Did you read the "excellent data"?
And it isn't apples-to-apples. Because PoliceViolenceReport is measuring a different *thing*. We're no longer looking at just shootings, but other types of fatal incidents, such as the use of police vehicles.
The Washington Post reviewed shootings of unarmed individuals, and found 40% (!) were physically attacking the officer in question.
When it comes to HARMLESS people SHOT by policy, PoliceViolenceReport and the Washington Post agree.
That means that YOUR SOURCE agrees with the OP.
And it isn't apples-to-apples. Because PoliceViolenceReport is measuring a different *thing*. We're no longer looking at just shootings, but other types of fatal incidents, such as the use of police vehicles.
The Washington Post reviewed shootings of unarmed individuals, and found 40% (!) were physically attacking the officer in question.
When it comes to HARMLESS people SHOT by policy, PoliceViolenceReport and the Washington Post agree.
That means that YOUR SOURCE agrees with the OP.
Comment Re:what could possibly go wrong? (Score 1) 162
If there were really justice in this world
I get your point and I agree in principle.
they would both be facing a $100M lawsuit
$100M? Really?
Btw, if this were china, they have a 99.97% conviction rate. The police arrest someone. They are tortured until they confess. 3 in 1000 escape prison.
For all its flaws, be thankful that we live in a system that we have. A $100M lawsuit would not make it better, unless most of it went to pay defendants legal fees. We also need way more judges. Like 10x as many judges.
Comment Yes. (Score 1) 63
Flock is not a single police officer standing on a street corner. Flock is a network of continuous data collection from every perspective on every road and intersection. Flock is not a camera, it is an AI system that follows you precisely everywhere, it is a data dump without a court order. There is expectation that a police officer will NOT follow you everywhere without a court order just because he is paid from taxes and has nothing better to do, this is stalking.
Comment Blah! Blah! Blah! (Score 0) 138
Blah! Blah! Blah! Trump did something else moronic! Blah! Blah! Blah!
Comment It's really about the software and CPU, right? (Score 1) 215
It seems like the fight goes back and forth about "just cameras" vs "cameras + sensors", when all I can make of it is that the REAL answer lies in how good the hardware and software is processing the incoming data?
Tesla, for example, scrapped the cameras + lidar idea, largely out of frustration that both inputs often led to the computer interpreting the scene in conflicting ways. "Camera visual seems to indicate that's just a light pole on the side of the road but lidar image shows it may be a person starting to walk into the road." (Maybe that's a poor specific example, but I heard talks about it saying things along these lines were the struggle.)
If Waymo is arguing humans can only do so much with our eyes, so "superhuman levels of driving" require more? Again, it seems to me like more CPU power and better software is that "more"? Computers can do math FAR quicker than my brain can... and that's been true for decades. Superhuman levels of driving safely seem like they could happen with systems just using cameras OR systems collecting data from multiple sources?
Comment re: re-using a former data center (Score 1) 53
You're right, but the problem is going to be location in many cases. Would a former data center make a great public library? Technically, it might. But when it was built out in the middle of some farm land, where they originally got a good deal on the land by buying some farmers out who were willing to sell? Now, it might not make so much sense.
Or as an example closer to home for me? Our own city is fielding requests to construct data centers right now. There are rumors about our now closed-down steel plant being a potential site. Great for the guy who owns the property and wants to unload it. But a data center there would mean tearing out and removing an existing environment that was good for manufacturing. If you said ok -- no more steel made here but we could do cement, or process glass? That would be an equivalent replacement that would bring back the lost jobs. A data center really won't
Comment The "data center" hot topic... (Score 5, Informative) 53
Reality is? The places that allow new data centers where they interfere with the existing population are just going to wind up with regrets.
They remind me a bit of the battles over putting in new landfills/dumps. Everyone knows we need them, but it's always "not in my back yard"!
The thing is? The need for more data centers is questionable. If all this AI growth turns the corner and companies decide much of it was just overblown hype? Then those data centers will quickly wind back down again.
Even in "best case" scenarios, they don't employ many people once they're constructed, and they use large amounts of resources -- which tend to be sold at discounted rates as part of the deals struck when they move into an area. Everyone else gets stuck covering any losses by way of rate increases.
A landfill may smell bad, but it's not using up the lion's share of available electric power in my town or using a big portion of available clean water.
