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.
Not really.
I use Uber pretty regularly when traveling for a ride home from a night out. It's consistent, reliable, and I don't have to worry about the driver trying to take advantage of the fact that I might be unfamiliar with the area and possibly not in my most aware state :)
If it's cold, dark, whatever outside I can call an Uber via the app and know when they're arriving. I can see how long the expected delay is to plan wrapping things up accordingly.
My experience with Taxi's in most of the major US markets is that coverage is spotty, fares can be variable, credit-card acceptance is hit or miss, and the cars and drivers are generally sub-par.
Comparing taxi's to Uber is like comparing a model rocket to the Space X program.
I'm not from the US so my view on taxis might be different. Typically I call a number and they have someone there in 10 minutes. It's rare to be taken advantage of because they know you can make a complaint to the taxi company they work for. As for cash I don't think anyone here minds. If you don't have cash on you the taxi driver will stop at an ATM for you.
I've used Uber once and it was great but from my experience with taxis Uber isn't offering much extra.
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+.
Is it necessary to have used a service in order to comment on its policies? What if you just call a place and they are very rude, would it be ok to post that in a "review"?
I don't really see anything wrong with warning others that a hotel's policies are irregular and for people to be careful.
Just saying something such as "make sure you carefully read their terms before staying at this place or leaving a deposit, they are not standard and you could end up paying much more than you anticipated." might be justified, no?
Yes, I feel bad for the hotel, this could cripple their business, but it will probably make the news and encourage other hotels to review their policies. In the end the consumers (who are innocent) will be the ones who benefit from this.
That's true in a vacuum. However, the high rating they have is clearly unjustified since they have been extorting people to remove negative reviews. Some collective action against the gaming of the system is called for and, I think, ethical in this case. Try thinking of it from the perspective of their competitors that don't extort their customers.
Some collective action against the gaming of the system is called for
Oh, geeze. If gaming the system is bad, then stop gaming the system.
If someone really wanted to put the screws to these people, then they would find a patron who has actually had that $500 policy used against them, implicitly if nothing else. It would require some kind of investigative journalism to find an actual victim. But that's a lot more slow and boring than getting out the Internet pitchforks and just burning their online presence to the ground right now. (If we wait too long our anger might dissipate!)
I agree, posting fake reviews as an individual is as bad as what they are doing. I think the services should put a warning though. Something like this: "The reviews for this hotel may not be completely accurate according to some recent evidence and we are still investigating the case. Thank you for your understanding".
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.
Your words: "Our immediate response should be to post negative reviews based on the revelation that none of the other reviews are trustworthy."
You don't know anything about the quality of their online reviews. No, I mean it, you really don't: 5 minutes wasn't enough time for you to investigate this policy and see how long it's been in place. Perhaps this policy is brand new and hasn't affected any online reviews yet, which means "none of their other reviews are trustworthy" would be incorrect. [1] Yet you implore that we should have an "immediate response." Quick, before we have a chance to think this through!!!
There's nothing our primate lizard brains love better than collectively kicking the crap out of an enemy who can't fight back. That isn't something to be celebrated or encouraged.
Slow down, take a deep breath, and count to 10.
[1] Doing this research now doesn't excuse a call for an "immediate response."
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.
Our immediate response should be to post negative reviews
"Activism" reviews are what make most online reviews useless. Please don't do that. And those who already have today do nothing but undermine their own reputation.
While the ridiculous penalty claim is outrageous and likely illegal, and their behavior on Yelp is unacceptable, everyone should always take a moment to understand where they're coming from[1]: In this case their gripe seems to be guests who did not specifically select the hotel, knowing what it was about, but instead had the hotel selected for them as members of a wedding party. Their issue is those people then evaluate and rate the hotel based upon it not being another type of hotel.
It's kind of a fair gripe, isn't it? If your normal business suffers because of a secondary business, you need to reassess costs of the second business. Now threatening a fine is hamfisted and simply stupid, but I understand why they want to do something.
[1] “Be pitiful, for every man is fighting a hard battle.”
If the hotel is receiving consistently negative reviews from wedding parties which are unfairly harming their business, then they should stop allowing people to book weddings there. That would seem to be a far more legitimate solution to the problem.
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 specifically called for people to post negative reviews. How can someone review something they've never experienced?
Regarding the other reviews being disingenuous or skewed, note that this policy only apparently applies and has ever even been stated for wedding parties. Are wedding parties big users of Yelp? Is it a credible use case for a general hotel?
Imagine that you're a sushi place and everyone loves your fishy goodness. But then you are called to be the primary caterer of a conference center event, leading to dozens of terrible reviews by people who don't like fish. Should their "I don't like fish" reviews be placed side by side with people looking for a sushi place to eat? Is that useful for users of yelp? As a sushi eater, no, that would be terrible noise.
The solution is of course to simply stop serving a niche food at the conference center, just as this hotel should stop doing weddings.
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.
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.
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.
As a member of the E2E team, is it possible to provide some insight into the state of the project? Is there any kind of estimate as to when it might appear on the chrome store?
As vague as is may sound, once we feel it's ready. The development is active, but there is still a lot of work to make the project release-ready. You might help too - we started accepting external contributions recently and the project is covered by the bug bounty.
Very disappointed after tracking down[1] and doing:
alias rot13="tr '[A-Za-z]' '[N-ZA-Mn-za-m]'"
and still only getting gibberish out the other end of the pipe (lame pun intended). I thought you were talking about stuff like Xrrc lbhe ybirq bar cyrnfrq.
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.
Just like to point out that this has been debated much over many, many years, and that this view is not the consensus (there being no consensus). See the following for a good summary of a slightly stronger version of the claim (omniscience implies that there is no free will for anyone), as well as various objections: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/free-will-foreknowledge/
Why cannot God have free will and "dictate" (and thereby predict) the future? (The situation becomes different when multiple entities possess free will.)
Depends on your definition of God. If it includes perfect and omniscient, then that being can't make any decisions. They've already been made for him / her. That god is an automaton.
Or alternatively, s/he has "already" made all decisions outside of time/at the moment time began. From this point of view, any being that is both omniscient and omnipotent cannot change his/her mind, if said being changes over time, this implies s/he will make decisions now based on how s/he will feel about things later, after taking her/his own evolution into account.
I'm sure we're not saying anything that hasn't been said literally millions of times before half-drunk at countless frat parties.
> From this point of view, any being that is both omniscient and omnipotent cannot change his/her mind, if said being changes over time, this implies s/he will make decisions now based on how s/he will feel about things later, after taking her/his own evolution into account.
You see, the problem is that people think of the evolution of an omniscient deity as a strict linear progression from cause to effect, but actually it's more like a great big ball of wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey... stuff.
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.
Things like sidewalks and bright street lamps have a positive effect (no surprise there).
There may be some surprise there.
The correlation between street lighting and safety is not obvious.
"In 2008, PG&E Corp., the San Francisco-based energy company, reviewed the research and found 'either that there is no link between lighting and crime, or that any link is too subtle or complex to have been evident in the data.'"
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
That article says nothing about "using online browsing data to set insurance rates and policies."
To start with, every insurance company develops a statistical model of each and every customer. Non-smokers get lower rates than smokers. Life insurance depends on age. That's how insurance companies must work.
That article says that some insurance companies use more than just risk factors in order to determine the price, but also information like market power (or lack thereof) for your market segment. For example, poor or immigrant people may not have the time or knowledge to look for alternative companies, so an insurance company may offer an initially low price to get lock-in, then raise it after a few years to be above the price needed for actuarial reasons.
It doesn't talk about online browsing data, and it doesn't talk about personalized factors other than the expected aggregate demographic modeling.
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.
Although I think you're right, that is definitely not what's happening on Stormfront. There's nobody "pushing back", just racist people talking together.
> There's nobody "pushing back", just racist people talking together.
Not quite, "... Two weeks ago, the boneheads thought they’d got their man. For a decade, the pseudonym “Andy Fleming” has been troubling Australia’s far right and neo-Nazis – “boneheads” to their opponents –
by writing about them. His blog Slack Bastard carries the work of a man who has acquired enormous amounts of intelligence, so much so that it rivals police knowledge. ..." [0]
Yeah, I agree with this. On the internet it's so easy to get sucked into an echo chamber and completely cloister oneself in some belief system or another. Then every other perspective is the foolish mainstream media who are only there to feed the sheeple or some agenda of the enemy. I think these echo chambers breed/cater to a sort of messianic paranoia.
Don't forget that organizations like Stormfront give people purpose, something people often struggle to find in places like Montana.
We all want to be part of something bigger. Some turn to open source, contribute to the community. Others build wild conspiracy theories and focus their energies in that.
Suburban or rural communities more specifically where finding people to collaborate on projects can be harder, especially for things that are more of a niche interest.
In a place like New York City where literally everything is going on, you can throw a rock and hit something interesting. In rural Montana your options are severely limited, and if you're not happy with the local offering, or what you can sponge off the internet, you're going to be pretty lonely.
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.
>> "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."
I agree but recently I read that doctors tend to completely discount this type of data provided by a patient as they can't verify it's accuracy (did the patient collect the data correctly) and it would be risky to base their diagnosis on it.
Even if that is the case I think it can be very useful for people with chronic conditions. They can find out ways to minimise their pain through this kind of tracking/trial and error which a doctor would never have the time to do.
