polartx

Reminds me of the Leap Motion I preordered

This is exactly what has happened with the same junk science tech that “Shotspotter” uses. There are recorded incidents of police leaning on support staff to alter the location of a potential detection. And their junk science software is closed source. So when they are involved in a case, the defense has subpoena their source code and voila! Shotspotter is dropped from the prosecution’s exhibit list. You see Shotspotter can’t afford to have their code scrutinized. Have you figured out why? (Junk science)

Because “political work” is an oxymoron

I got tired of hearing the same spiel about how dangerous motorcycles are, so I used a stencil to airbrush “organ donor” on the side of my helmet along with my blood type.

Thanks. That indeed was one of the questions I had in my mind--"what changes once a diagnosis or label has been affixed?"

thanks so much for sharing this.

I’d like to piggyback on your comment to get your (and broader audiences) opinion on a situation I’m facing:

I’ve recently learned my 5 year old is exhibiting behavior problems in kindergarten. His teacher has put the notion in his mother’s head that he may have autism and has provided his mother a fast track referral to have him tested/diagnosed. I feel strongly that he does not have autism; aside from being disruptive in class he doesn’t have any other characteristics—-he is very verbal, social, doesn’t avoid eye contact or physical contact. I’ve spoken to his Sunday school teachers, daycare workers, etc and they were incredulous that he potentially has autism.

‘Well if he doesn’t have it what’s the harm in having him tested at a facility that specializes in pediatric autism? If you’re right they’ll easily determine he’s not autistic, right?’ Is the question I can imagine being asked at my reluctance to consent to the testing and diagnostics. Frankly, I’m suspicious of the (potential) conflict of incentives that a clinic specializing in pediatric autism may have; I positive diagnosis is only good for business in the way that a men’s clinic is incentivized to find every patient that walks through their door has low testosterone. Especially considering the subjectivity and ‘spectrum’ that falls under the blanket term ‘autism’.

On a scale from likely to incredibly unlikely, how rooted in reality would you characterize my concerns? Also what harm, if any would come from a false positive diagnosis? Would it outweigh the harm of a person being an undiagnosed, high functioning person with autism?

The weakest link of the proposed technology like this is guaranteed fallibility of the folks using it, ie the judicial system and the asymmetric power dynamic against those it supposedly serves.

This is a very common scenario: a sheriffs deputy holds a biased belief against an individual. Said deputy selects and overfits data from systems like this to obtain a warrant against said individual. Individual is arrested and enters the meat grinder that is the justice system where hundreds of experienced indifferent agents and millions of dollars are put to work to support that deputies biased accusation. That original bad actor can now disengage and go about their life. Meanwhile, our Individual must spend a fortune on legal defense to prove their innocence. Individual loses time, money, peace, and reputation pursuing the best case realistic scenario—having charges dismissed (though indefinitely tainting their record). The more realistic scenario is individual is unjustly punished to some degree through plea agreements or trial (if they can afford it) which could easily ruin the rest of their life.

I’m not on the ACAB extreme, I just personally know many law enforcement officers and work in the industry adjacent to the justice system.

Access logs are meaningless when police are only accountable to themselves and unions shield them from any disciple of their wrongdoings

I was an infoseek.com man myself, but we probably still could have been friends.

Melodramatic much?

Or if the build quality of their vehicles was not up to par with US regulation or the quality standards the US market is accustomed to..which seems very possible given the connotations generally shared domestically around the phrase “made in china”

I would assume so since much of the code seems to have been stolen in the first place