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Comment There's different types of video (Score 2) 52

Teslas, BMW's, Rivian, and Mercedes have cameras all around the vehicle that are always on, and if a security incident is detected they will save the video from a few minutes before the incident to right after the incident.

A quick search shows that Tesla theft (by example) is 90% to 99% lower than the national average, and I assume the other types are similar.

People do not stop stealing cars because of cameras. But I guess Flock is desperate for some good press, so we get propaganda lies now.

People do not steal cars because of *flock* cameras, they are always on, and the data is available to law enforcement with no oversight.

Personal vehicles save video locally, and it's only used when an actual crime is committed.

I'm in favor of public surveillance that's kept local to whichever user, in the manner of a ring doorbell video (if that were kept local, which it is not). It prevents crime without violating rights - the burglar shouldn't have been on the property to begin with.

This leads to an interesting thought. Flock is a company that keeps videos across the country and tracks vehicles, and soon to include facial recognition. Flock cameras would be entirely acceptable if the video were "owned" by someone local to the actual camera, so that police would have to query the owner to get a video.

I'm not sure who the "owner" would be in this case, but hypothetically if the camera were on the telephone pole outside of a house, if we consider the video owned by the property owner then the possibility of a rights violation would go down precipitously.

Just a thought, and an under-developed one.

We need new ideas to help solve new problems, here is one to chew on.

Comment Science denier, anyone? (Score 0, Troll) 82

The reasonable conclusion is that the Greens are more intelligent than you. ... And I think that's probably the worst insult I've ever used on Slashdot *pats self on back

A couple of things about the issue.

Firstly, it's usually explained using insult and hyperbole. That's not a way to get others on your side. There's an old saying "it's not enough to be correct, you also have to be effective". It's usually used on... wait for it... nerds, who are typically very smart but cannot communicate well, and who fall back on insults when they cannot communicate well.

Secondly, for some reason no one wants to debate the issue. The mantra is "the science is settled", which isn't really how science works, but there are STILL gaping logical holes in the entire edifice that no one wants to clear up. Such as: other than rising global temperatures, the theory hasn't made testable predictions of any consequence that have actually come true. For example, in 2005 after Katrina, someone noted that "due to climate change, hurricanes will become stronger and more frequent", and then we had about a decade of no major hurricanes.

Thirdly, and this is the one that really bothers me: even if the science is settled, even if the conclusions are correct, climate change does not indicate what should be done. I've reviewed probably two or three dozen experiments aiming to mitigate the effects over the years, they ALL had the best of intentions, and they've ALL failed, sometimes spectacularly, and always adding more CO2 to the atmosphere than if we had done nothing.

In the meantime, since 2000 when Al Gore brought the issue into the public eye, I've seen the rise of solar panel farms, windmills are everywhere in the midwest, and we've gone from about 2% renewable (year 2000, mostly hydropower, and discounting wood) to about 30% today (also discounting wood). New technology is taken up at an exponential rate, so expect those numbers to rise faster in the near future.

Several technologies have been developed that we're right on the edge of deploying (carbon capture by electrolysis, fusion energy generation, robotic labor (various companies)) or in the middle of deploying (EVs, various companies) that should help enormously.

And finally, the issue has become political. The premier maker of EVs, the one who made EVs that people want to buy, is vilified by the political side that wants you to believe in climate change. A sect of that side wants to replace capitalism with communism, even though the resource utilization of that model is one third to one half of what we have today, and would slow down the innovation and advancement that might help us solve the issue.

But if you're not on board, you're a science denier.

It took 40 years to convince everyone that smoking was bad for us, now we have to endure the people who think they're right and have to insult us because we don't believe them.

Stop badgering us about it, it's not about science it's about economics, and it won't be a problem in a decade or two.

(Note for the observant: This post is rife with observable trends and verifiable facts, so expect the other side to downvote it into oblivion, because that's the way to convince people.)

Comment Re:First Amendment (Score 2) 131

There is a reason why its not enforced, it is exceptionally hard to prove AND generally doesn't rise to criminal activity. Politicians lie all the time in Advertisements. All sides do it. It isn't new, or one side is better than the other.

A politician can say they are in favor of the new "don't kill puppies and kittens" law, that also has a bit that allows them to send millions to their buddies at the "don't kill puppies and kitten NGO" and doesn't save a single puppy or kitten. And if you oppose it, you hate puppies and kittens and want to kill them. Its all a lie, wrapped up in emotional language. What can I do to stop it? Who do I call? And why do they hate puppies and kittens?

So, this Meme Coin Law isn't going to do anything useful except for "Owning " someone somewhere for political points. Puppies and Kittens.

Comment Re:First Amendment (Score 1) 131

You can shout "Fire" in a theater. There is no such prohibition anywhere. Especially if there is a fire. What you can't do, which doesn't fall into 1st Amendment arena, is causing panic without cause. That has VERY specific legal criteria that must be met. "Narrowly tailored".

And people can lie in advertising, and do all the time. There are a whole bunch of hoops that one must jump through to bring such a charge against the advertiser, specifically to protect 1st Amendment rights. There are, indeed very NARROW and TAILORED precedents that are designed to PROTECT 1st Amendment rights.

You're the kind of person the 1st Amendment Auditors love to target. They are annoying, but also operating legally, as much as that upsets people.

Comment Re:First Amendment (Score 0) 131

Crying "Bullshit" does not make your case, it literally says exactly what's going on, you are emotionally responding to things you don't like.

You can claim all the stuff you want to claim, and that doesn't make it right simply because you cried "BULLSHIT".

And yes, a business plan is a first amendment right. If it is a pyramid scheme, then go after that, it is already illegal. Meme coins are just modern Digital BeanieBabies. I know plenty of people who spent enormous amounts on those (and similar pop culture items), and then are left holding mostly worthless trinkets.

Sorry, but just because some Karen (Newsom here) says "There ought to be a law" doesn't mean there should be a law.

Comment Re: GrapheneOS (Score 1) 57

One of the reasons I got on the OnePlus bandwagon years ago, was the ability to put CyanogenMod on it. Then the idiots there thought they could literally take on Google head on, and experienced on of the greatest blunders short of land wars in Asia and Sicilian with death on the line, without first immunizing against iocane.

My only hope right now, is Starlink/Spacex/Testa/xAI creates a whole new ecosphere for communications. Crossing my fingers Starship becomes fully operational sooner than later. Its the only real threat to Google and is likely big enough to take whatever Google tosses at them. Fingers Crossed.

FU to Micorslop, Google, Cell Phone INC (especially T-Maybe), Apple, etc, and their continued inshitification of everything.

Comment Distributed responsibility and transparency (Score 4, Interesting) 286

This is an example of one of the legitimate challenges facing the increased integration of AI into warfare.

The more fundamental problem is distributed responsibility and lack of transparency.

Until recently, drone strikes required a long sequence of command decisions, starting with intel gathering, analysis, decision, orders, and remote command of the device. No one is directly responsible when something goes wrong, the failure is distributed among many players with the result that no one has to bear the consequences.

For example, the "collateral murder" incident, where apache helicopters gunned down civilians and journalists.

In normal situations, we have Derek Chauvin, who was an individual who caused the death of one man. He went to trial, the evidence was examined, and guilt was assigned. Trials are more-or-less held in the public light, and journalists and interested parties can examine court records and in some cases reanalyze evidence (not all physical evidence is kept or available, but for example, DNA evidence can sometimes be reexamined).

That's how it's supposed to happen.

Contrast that with erroneously ordered drone strikes that hit civilians instead of legitimate targets.

I suppose the biggest, most egregious example would be George Bush taking the country to war because Saddam Hussein had "weapons of mass destruction", and of course one were found, and the security services swore up and down that they told him there were none, but he stated "well, the message didn't get through".

And skated responsibility. Completely.

To bring this closer to home, software engineers implement all sorts of insecure, inconvenient, and privacy violating features with no moral pushback. Even if it's completely obvious that something is an anti-feature, people do it because a) their job depends on it, and b) it's someone else's decision. And if there's a breech and ten million social security numbers get made public, the company simply fixes the problem and continues. No responsibility is assigned.

I was satisfied to see videos of the "narco terrorist" boats get destroyed, and then the survivors killed. Not the actual killing, but just knowing that the event was recorded and analyzed in the public sphere, and there was a conversation about it, and it was investigated. That seems like it was handled the right way.

Death is permanent, it can't be undone. If we're going to kill people, regardless of whether it's AI or anything else, it should be transparent and put into the public discourse.

No one is assigned blame for screwing up, that's the more fundamental problem.

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