From a technological standpoint, there are many reasons why I feel excited and lucky to be alive during this time in history. But smarter safer transportation, spearheaded by companies like Google and Uber, tops the list.
You're regurgitating a common narrative about online witch hunts. While I agree that they're unethical, that's clearly not what's happening here. The comments that have superseded yours in this thread echo that sentiment. The other commenters and I agree that if an organization creates a public policy, people should be able to criticize the group on the basis of that policy. It's as simple as that.
How can someone review something they've never experienced?
I'm calling for people to comment on the facts of a public policy posted by the hotel. No more, no less. If you interpreted this as a call to post dishonest or mean comments, you were reading into it the wrong the way.
Please take a look at my response to danielweber. I'm not advocating that people post fake reviews. I'm saying that we should point out only what we know: some of the other reviews may be disingenuous because of the $500 fine. This is a public policy posted on their website. It's a simple matter of fact, not opinions.
You misinterpreted my comment. Yes, it would be unacceptable to lie and say that we've all visited the hotel, but that's not what I'm advocating. I specifically said "based on the revelation that none of the other reviews are trustworthy." This isn't simply based on an article I've read. It's a public policy posted by the hotel.
I'm suggesting that people comment on a public policy. No more, no less.
After reading this article, I'm surprised to see that the guest house still has a high rating on Yelp and Google+. Our immediate response should be to post negative reviews based on the revelation that none of the other reviews are trustworthy.
EDIT: Yelp rating is no longer high, but there's still TripAdvisor and Google+.
This is very cool. I just compiled the source and it seems to be exactly what I'm looking for. I get an "undefined is not a function" error, though, when I try to import a key or send a message. I'll hang in there and wait for fixes or maybe try to contribute myself. Seems like the best option available at the moment.
Interesting post. As someone who thought GPG (more or less) encrypted messages with public keys and decrypted them with private ones, I enjoyed learning how the software actually works at a high level.
As an aside, I recently set up encrypted email for my Mac's desktop Mail client using the GPG Suite. I want to set up my friends with secure email, too, but none of us really use Mail; we prefer web mail. I haven't been able to find good browser plugins for GPG. (WebPG for Chrome looks promising except for a major bug that prevents messages from being sent; I reported this issue.)
Can anyone recommend good solutions for bringing GPG to Gmail in the browser? I want something that's easy enough my non-technical friends will be willing to use it for everyday conversations.
Interesting fact to consider about free will as it relates to philosophy and religion: A god can have free will and predict the future, but he (or she or it) can't do both. If you can predict exactly what will happen at any point in time, you don't have the ability to change it. And absolute free will prevents you from predicting the future.
It's actually well understood which landscape features contribute to or prevent crime. Things like sidewalks and bright street lamps have a positive effect (no surprise there). Bushes, certain fences and other objects that obstruct the view from the road can have a negative effect. As a reporter I once did a ride-along with a police sergeant who took it upon himself to cut a set of hedges (with the property owner's permission, of course) that helped facilitate drug deals and prostitution.
The point is, I wonder if the machine learning approach used here is overly complex. After all, the set of environmental factors affecting crime is so well understood and thoroughly researched that you could focus on detecting tried-and-true things such as sidewalks. This would entail applying a clear set of rules instead of using the relatively unsupervised approach with training data. To be fair, ML is a complicated subject and I'm not an expert; maybe their approach draws heavily on these things.
EDIT: I understand that perception, rather than the actual crime rate, is the focus of this research. Still, there seems to be a tight correlation between the features that are known to be dangerous and those that appear sketchy. The major ones - an absence of lights, few walkways, etc. - are obvious to most pedestrians.
Thanks for reading and offering feedback. I agree that web searches alone are variable, but some health care companies consider the data in aggregate, along with other factors, to develop profiles of patients. Here's one example of an insurance company using online browsing data to set insurance rates and policies: http://www.cnbc.com/id/101586404
Using callbacks appropriately is the biggest point, I think.
On a related side note, I've started using the Chrome Web Inspector as my only text editor for front end development. It's great because you can map it to your project folder, make edits directly and harness the power of breakpoints, along with the network, console and performance tabs, without constantly switching windows. Breakpoints, in particular, make it much easier to work with callbacks in JS. (I do miss the nice syntax highlighting of Sublime, but Chrome's dev tools provides more powerful features for JS development IMO.)
With all due respect, that's a hipster-like perspective. Those of us who are attending Hope shouldn't see ourselves as part of an in-crowd and shut others out. People in the security / tech communities are spreading word of this talk because it's important and relevant to them. As the other commenter pointed out, it's great for Hope to sell more tickets and receive broader support.
Hate speech can be a good thing. When someone verbalizes hatred, he or she gives us a chance to push back and question underlying prejudices. This is always better than a heckler's veto of racist or sexist ideas. Drowning out the hurtful speech doesn't address the root causes of ignorance, fear and anger.
Personal health recording systems like this one are most useful for reporting symptoms to health care providers. In the event of a flu or a running injury, I like being able to tell my doctor exactly when, where and how the problem started.
It's also smart to record the data yourself instead of sharing it with a health tracking app. With due respect to those projects, I draw a line at sharing specific and private health information. I've arrived at this personal stance after weighing the benefits of information sharing against the risks of my data being leaked, mishandled or mined.