That's what British taxpayers are paying for? If I lived in the UK, that article alone would be sufficient reason for me to consider emigrating! Maybe that's why Scotland wants to be independent? :)
Plant something other than grass. Seriously. I'm experimenting with yarrow in some problem areas on our property: a hot dry and sandy septic bed and some embankments with crappy soil. Yarrow can be mowed much less frequently, looks amazing (better than grass), grows on any soil, chokes out weeds, and doesn't need watering. For shady areas I'm having good results with periwinkle.
Periwinkle may be invasive but it's also easy to control, similar to English Ivy. It does great in shade and is an attractive option to plant (or allow to self-propagate) under large evergreens ... as an alternative to doing nothing and just having dead grass there like most people do.
I agree but it depends what you want the surface for. If you don't care about using it for outdoor stuff like sports, kids playing, picnics, etc., then ivy is totally the way to go. Periwinkle is nice. The ultimate in hardy and tenacious but also potentially invasive is English ivy. Not sure what to grow in warmer climates but visit a garden centre and you'll be set.
But when other countries have tried to loosen their drug enforcement policies it is the US that has historically leaned against them very hard with the big sticks of trade sanctions and development aid.
"By 2030, the benefits of these three sets of sector policies would include 94,000 premature deaths avoided annually and GDP growth of $1.8 trillion-$2.6 trillion per year," according to the report. "The policies would avoid 8.5 gigatons of CO2-equivalent and almost 16 billion kilowatt-hours of energy saved, roughly equivalent to taking 2 billion cars off the road. Together, these implementing these policies could represent about 30 percent of the total reduction needed in 2030 to limit global warming to 2 degrees Celsius."
Who benefits from climate reform? Rich People.
-people with beach front property.
-Green energy producers whose products are otherwise not economically viable.
-People with "green" businesses that can sell Rec credits.
Who is harmed? Poor people.
-Higher fuel prices
-Higher food prices (fuel is the big input, and warming creates more farmland-- think Canada and Siberia)
Wow. Just a raft of unfounded assumptions there. For example, warming won't necessarily create farmland in Canada (much of the topsoil in Canada is very poor anyway) but will certainly destroy vast amounts of farmlands in warmer countries ... along with devastating the oceans as a food supply (via acidification). Everyone loses with a warming climate.
If the OP works for the company or is a stock promoter it might break some rules. Talking about your own investments (even hyping them) is not against any rules. The Internet is awash in stock forums.
From what you describe, WP was totally correct to ban your organization. Your business model was to inject commercial links into articles. The fact that you think you provided some value in exchange is pretty much irrelevant.
I think you misread it - I said we have putted links in Reference fields (below article) to articles that were placed on our customers websites. The articles itself were quality, well researched and with images etc. Then we would do quality edit and add value to Wikipedia. If this is not quality editing then Wikipedia should ban hundreds of most active editors right away as this is only way full time editors can make money from working for Wikipedia...
Back in the early 1970s the Canadian navy tested a small hydrofoil ship for antisubmarine work and coastal patrol. It could travel at 60 knots. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMCS_Bras_d'Or_(FHE_400) At the time it was the fastest unarmed naval vessel in the world.
Some of this is disturbing and some is not. I don't know why the article makes a big deal out of predictive policing and it's roots in counter-insurgency. Putting police officers where crime is likely to happen is just good management. More power to them. I could care less whether the software was developed for Fallujah. Why would you want to put police resources where they're not needed?
Haha, this is funny. I'm one of the co-founders of PredPol, the startup that makes the predictive policing software LA uses. I think it's a stretch to call anything I wrote in my dorm military grade, but I suppose I'll take that as a compliment. For the record, the DoD called us once asking if some of the models we use to predict crime could be used to predict IED locations, but nothing major ever came of it as far as I know. Also, I live in Santa Clara not Fallujah.
P.S. PredPol predicts crime using only the time, place, and type of past crimes using some simple statistical models. All that is public information for municipalities in the US.
And anyway, even if the LAPD may not be using anything more sophisticated than PredPol with growing their CCTV array, they will in the future. Think of it like this: right now the data is stored. In 5-10 years it will be cross correlated and profiles will be built on everybody. Thanks to the efficiency, the definition of crime will be expanded. Look at Singapore's law against gum wrappers. Look at local laws against homeless blankets. More to the point - the sites you surf can be cross correlated with the places you visit to indicate a reasonable belief that you may harm your kids and they will be taken away after you've been aubpoenaed in court.
20-30 years from now: court cases initiated by computer and suggested to the DA, based on cross correlated databases. Theories built and presented against you by the eloquent lawyer, with the jury thinking, "yeah this cant be all a coincidence." And a vastly expanded private prison complex.
All in all maybe not a bad thing, but people arent used to living like robots.
Not only is omarforgotpwd right, but the article is completely wrong with regard to predictive policing. It was invented by the LAPD w/ the help UCLA researchers in 2008. It is not the result of military research, and was not used by the military until recently. LAPD has repeatedly been credited with it since 2008.. and I was not able to find a single link that backed up the article's claim that it came from the military.
And the program is far from futuristic. Basically, if a certain type of crime has happened in an area recently, the LAPD patrols the area more often. Big deal.
I don't really have much to say about the rest of the article, but just thought it was funny they mentioned my startup and quoted one my cofounders.
I will say though, based on my experience working with the LAPD, that there is significant red tape around everything. For example I know cops have wanted traffic camera footage for a while but are not allowed access.
There are all kinds of horrific things you can do with technology. We just have to make sure nobody builds them. I'll do my part.
Using Baysian type on data is very damaging on society, for those with strong maths:
We'll move from causality( we noticed you are stocking up on baking powder, lets chat) to inference (according to our data there is 85% chance you are not compliant - w/o a cause).
One outcome: The populace will be demotivated to do anything, just to be safe.
It forces people to worry about fitting the profile of someone who would be more likely than others to do something wrong. Maybe because you live in a certain neighborhood, or recently started biking to work, or have parents who are migrants from Eastern Europe, that thing moves the needle from a 4% chance to a 5% mean chance of committing a list of crimes and triggers police interest.
Not doing anything wrong ceases to be good enough.
Maybe they could index the civil liberties in neighborhoods or states by an index like that. Move them from stop-and-frisk through no-knock and so on to martial law.
I wonder if the information they are collecting can be just as useful to the bad actors (particularly the government). As in "Oh look there's still an open bakery in this sector! Let's start shelling."
