It’s trivial for law enforcement to track your movement with ALPR cameras. Information feeds into a single database, paid for by law enforcement agencies, and they just connect the dots.
Ring camera footage requires law enforcement to get a warrant or for individuals to give consent to supply the footage.
Now tell me which system makes it easier for a cop to stalk their ex.
Not yet. Facical recognition in 2025 is where LPR was in 2010.
As the cost of compute and wireless communications continues to drop, facial recognition will be prolific. There are more limitations with cameras, but AI will make it easy to backtrack movement to a place where they get a clean shot that can identify you.
As an example, the transit authority in NYC Metro was able to plug existing security feeds from trains into Amazon Rekognition to count heads, which feeds their ticketing app — you can see which carriages are full. As time goes on, they’ll become able to track the breadcrumbs individuals from seat to platform. (If not already)
Detectives do this manually today. I was on a jury where the purse snatcher was followed by various cameras until he got on a bus. They pulled the bus passes and tracked his pass back to his girlfriend.
It does. But more like “the black male with the red hoodie is here”
They don’t say “hibf just walked into the 7-11” yet. The Feds probably have a system that can do that for car passengers traveling on “drug corridors” (ie. I95) today.
Less popular because it’s not feasible for many. I live in MN. Biking 20mi to work when it’s -10F and in 6” of fresh snow on top of the 12” received so far this season just isn’t something that’s safe to do.
Please don’t make it seem like it’s a “popularity” thing; it’s a necessity thing.
Finland is a cold country with similar population count and larger area. For national domestic trips, 55% of people there use cars[1]. For MN i only found stats for MN metro area, but I’d expect public transport to be more developed there. The car usage is still 83%[2].
I bet the local community plows the roads but not the bike infrastructure, though? I get why, people probably drive more than bike.
But, in Canada, there are local communities that plow bike infrastructure and locals bike in their deep winter.
It's a chicken or egg problem of building infrastructure for users and users demanding infrastructure. It's not some fact of nature that it's impossible. Different communities have different priorities. So, necessity is a bit strong of a word.
Hardly anyone lives in MN - half the poulation of New York City alone.
The vast majority of Americans live in cities. Half live in just 8 metro-areas, just as the vast majority of Europeans live in cities. Europe is far more dispersed though.
First paragraph: reasonable, if ignoring that access it not likely to be unrestricted willy-nilly.
Second paragraph: not as reasonable given that Amazon likely comply without issue with us intelligence, and sell the data to third parties, which the police could just buy (similar has been done) to avoid consent or legal obstacles.
Third paragraph: out of nowhere, focus on police. No mention of intelligence agency staff or say Amazon staff doing the same thing.
Out of nowhere? The entire comment is talking about law enforcement (police) and law enforcement agencies (police departments) purchasing access to commercially owned surveillance databases. No warrant is required to use them, and in some cases that access is indeed "unrestricted willy-nilly."
Ah, you mean like if we had some sort of knowledgeable, impartial third-party to grant the police permissions. They could, get this, "judge" whether the absolute bare minimum of evidence is likely to exist. So long as Flock didn't provide a way to circumvent an approval process like that, you could maybe reduce the instances of abusers stalking their victims to "acceptable" levels.
What do you think the chances are that we could invent a system like that? You don't think Flock and the police would find a way to circumvent it do you?
This is becoming less and less true. Trading with the US is unappealing because it is expensive (tariffs) and fraught with uncertainty. New trade deals are being forged as we speak between countries that were not even considering each other before Trump took office.
Nations realign slowly but there is no question they've all begun pivoting away from the US to various degrees, and they're unlikely to go back any time soon.
That may be, but our use of DB was 1/1000 of what we do in a month with OpenAI and the bill we racked up was $3,000 in 1 day. We talked with them and because we freaked out and deleted the widget (whatever the connectors are called) they didn't have logs for what we did, so they couldn't refund anything (they were willing). The fact that they couldn't find anything because we deleted whatever it was, that was weird, because they could certainly bill us. We're never using them again.
A lot of pornography is misogynistic. Not all, but a lot. It depicts women as objects to be used, it normalizes sexual violence and degradation, and it focuses mainly on male pleasure. You watch enough of it and you start to internalize these attitudes.
I've seen women complain about men putting their hands around their necks during sex because the men saw a man do it in porn. It's a rather upsetting trend.
No arguments from me on porn being misogynistic and aimed at men. However, it's not like men weren't creeps before porn was invented (saying this as a man). Look at history and there's endless examples of old men marrying 13 year olds, of sexual assault and harassment, etc... Perhaps I am wrong, but I don't see modern porn doing much in making that any better or worse. In fact, as porn has proliferated over the last 50 years, we have made progress in the things that people say porn degrades. Obviously correlation does not equal causation but it's worth thinking about.
Fair points, but the main difference with the state of 'modern' porn is that its accessible to young men during puberty (and earlier), via the internet.
Finding a Playboy magazine in the bushes wont radicalize a 13 year old, but watching BDSM or CNC at an age where you're beginning to form your sexual ideologies can't be healthy.
I completely agree that the intensity of porn that can be accessed at a young age is deeply concerning. I have two sons. If I found a playboy in their room at age 13 we would have a discussion but I wouldn't really care. However, if I walked in on them watching extremely hard core pornography I would be pretty concerned.
You're right — but all week when I've checked after some new bad numbers, the markets were up. But, sure, they'll be back in the black soon enough today.
Your point is good, I don't mean to undermine it, but because I work in this area I feel compelled to point out that depending on the type of Swift you're writing using NeoVim to write Swift is actually quite pleasant: https://www.swift.org/documentation/articles/zero-to-swift-n...
Probably best to keep your cats inside even if you do get another one, considering the devastating effect they have as an invasive species on local wildlife. [1]
This gets trotted right out every time someone mentions their cat being let outside, as if it were some sort of awful sin and thus makes the cat's owner totally wrong in any worry or complaint they have about their cat's safety outdoors. It's ridiculous, particularly when there's a very easy solution to cats hunting local birds: a collar with a little bell. It's nearly guaranteed to ruin their hunting.
That aside, you yourself, as a human, are an invasive species that kills tons of animals indirectly through your habits each year, should you thus be enclosed 24 hours a day? Cats killing off random birds. The ship of human intervention in the ecosystem has long since sailed, and blaming cat owners for a relatively tiny part of it is an absurdity in badly applied blame.
> a collar with a little bell. It's nearly guaranteed to ruin their hunting.
Unfortunately, that's not true. There was a study by some academics in Britain a few years° ago that showed effectively no difference in hunting success rates between belled and un-belled cats. The explanation is that cats are ambush predators, so once they (very quickly) learn how to stalk (they're moving slowly, anyway) without ringing the bell, their quarry doesn't hear the bell until they pounce, when it's (mostly) too late.
They were specifically looking at songbirds, as I recall. Maybe success rates for rodents are different - though that'd hardly be a good thing, because we generally want cats to kill mice and rats!
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[On reflection]: Based on where I remember I was living when I read it, this was over a decade ago. (Where does time go?) There may have been updates since.
While the misanthropy is compelling, and bell collars slightly reduce hunting success for (invasive, feral) cats, literally nothing else in your comment correct.
Concern for native birds and small mammals which are a keystone part of our ecosystems is not futile. They support literally everything required for human survival (carbon cycle, water, cycle, nitrogen cycle, pollination, sea dispersal, pollution control, etc) directly, and indirectly by their behaviors which have coevolved for millions of years. Invasive, feral cats, just like humans have only been here for a very short window of time, and while there are still native birds and mammals and plants left to care for, we can and should support them by minimizing the wonton carnage and death which we unleash each year. You’re probably aware that in North America alone feral cats kill between 10 and 30 billion native birds and small mammals a year. Euthanasia instead of trap neuter release is not a sailed ship. Planting native (human intervention) and undoing the lawns (human intervention) that have destroyed our native ecosystems is not a sailed ship. There is hope and it is exciting to work towards this in your own community and I hope you come to see that. The results (insects return, the soil enriches and traps carbon, and birds you've never seen before sing on your back porch in the morning) are nearly immediate and heartwarming
>You’re probably aware that in North America alone for all cats kill between 10 and 30 billion native birds and small mammals a year
and how many of those birds and mammals were old and ill and would be killed by other predators in similar situation in non-developed areas? Why didn't you specify that comparative number? May be because that would have shown that the cats are just doing the job of other predators pushed out by humans?
Btw, the cats kill up to 4 billion birds annually. At the same time 3.5 billion birds die hitting glass of the buildings. Cats kill old/ill. The birds hitting building aren't majority old/ill. Thus killings by cats are mostly beneficial to the bird species while glass buildings make tremendous damage to the bird species.
What evidence do you have that the birds killed by cats are mainly old or ill?
Cats being an invasive species in most places on earth means that most bird species have not evolved with them as a natural predator, and so are at an innate disadvantage.
And yes, birds hitting man made structures is a major problem. There can be two bad things at once. Just because there are two bad things doesn't mean we give up tackling one or the other.
>What evidence do you have that the birds killed by cats are mainly old or ill?
it is well established pattern of predation in the Nature. Again, you specified the total number without providing the old/ill number. The relation of those numbers can completely change the conclusion, and i can only wonder why you didn't provide the old/ill number.
>Cats being an invasive species in most places on earth
What planet "earth" you're talking about? On the 3rd planet from Sun the wild cats are practically everywhere. And in the places where there are no cats, there are still similar predators - ferrets, foxes, etc.
>And yes, birds hitting man made structures is a major problem. There can be two bad things at once.
No 2 bad things here. Predation by cats is natural, and thus mostly good, in the Nature-way, for the species being predated upon. The man made structures are really bad as i described in my previous comment. Yet somehow you want to tackle the first and not the second.
The burden of proof is on the one making the claim.
I claimed billions of birds are killed each year by cats and provided a source (and there exist many more).
> Again, you specified the total number without providing the old/ill number. The relation of those numbers can completely change the conclusion, and i can only wonder why you didn't provide the old/ill number.
You claimed they kill mainly the sick and old birds but provide no sources for this claim, then attack my source for not containing the proof you failed to provide.
> On the 3rd planet from Sun the wild cats are practically everywhere.
So are rats. Would you call them a native species in places like Hawaii? No, neither are cats.
> somehow you want to tackle the first and not the second
Because this thread is about cats, not buildings. This is just changing the subject when your argument won’t stand up to scrutiny.
The word natural is doing a lot of lifting here. I think we are talking past each other because we don’t have the same framework for understanding how ecosystems work. Predation by an invasive species is not natural in the sense that the species did not coevolve. It seems we don’t agree that cats are an invasive species or even on the definition of an invasive species
There is very little natural in the unnatural environment of the human developed areas. That train has long left the station. That includes the natural predators. With those natural predators gone, cats are doing the job of those predators. Whether you call the cats invasive or not - the label doesn't matter in that situation, somebody has got to do the job.
And the main invasive species is humans. The humans invade and change the environment, and the cats are actually natural in that new environment.
> At the same time 3.5 billion birds die hitting glass of the buildings.
Do you have a citation for this? Are you comparing North American cat deaths to worldwide building collisions? Estimates I'm seeing of North American center around 600 million, a far cry from deaths due to cats.
No, they are about the same. The 3.5 billion is the top estimate similar to how 4 billion is top estimate for killed by cats. The lower estimates in both cases around 1 billion something.
FWIW 3.5 billion is not the top estimate, although I'm not sure how to interpret the way the estimate is stated ("annual mortality may be minimally 1.28 billion–3.46 billion or as high as 1.92 billion–5.19 billion"). What does it mean to have a range for each end of the range? The author only quotes the absolute lowest number from the study in press about it (see https://www.lehighvalleynews.com/environment-science/3-5-mil...), but maybe is just preferring to be conservative.
You're allowed to let your cat outside and kill nature, but you aren't allowed to be mad when nature fights back. The double standard with which people treat feral dogs/cats (treating kill shelters for overpopulation as an awful sin) versus how they treat snakes and alligators (go into the woods and kill them on sight just for existing) makes me nauseous.
>You're allowed to let your cat outside and kill nature, but you aren't allowed to be mad when nature fights back.
Feel free to smugly tell me that same thing whenever some animal or human you love is killed off by some element of nature. Its also hypocritical: Your comfortable, modern existence is absolutely, wholly the product of a colossal bending and crushing of nature to human will that let you sit at a laptop or on your phone and complain about people who simply recognize this practical reality in a more direct and basic context.
Also, I have no problem with culling feral cats and dogs if their populations can't also be controlled with more humane things like sterilization campaigns. Why let them starve and suffer pointlessly?
>Probably best to keep your cats inside even if you do get another one, considering the devastating effect they have as an invasive species on local wildlife. [1]
You're posting an article by the Smithsonian department employing that felon convicted for animal cruelty toward cats.
Wrt. the article itself - it has pretty much no scientific merits as, not surprisingly given the authors' agenda, the article has an obvious fundamental flaw disqualifying it from science - it doesn't specify how many of that wildlife killed by cats were old/ill who would be anyway killed by other predators if it were a natural setting and not a developed area where the only predators left are cats.
If we to believe the article's total numbers then it would really mean what the cats are just doing the job of other predators pushed out by humans. Killing the old/ill birds, reptiles, mammals by predators is good for those birds, reptiles, mammals species. (and around humans say an old/ill bird not killed by cats would become a dead bird and a food for rats or something like this)
You’re just stating a trait of animal predation. Predation often eliminates the weakest animals in a population. The point is that invasive species by definition of invasive predate in a way that their prey has not had adequate evolutionary space to adapt to because they are introduced. All the words in that sentence have precise definitions in ecology and I don’t think we share the same framework or definitions
If your cat actually eats what they kill (ours did) it's not nicer for the environment to turn forest into farmland to grow corn to feed chickens to turn into cat food. You're just pushing the environmental impact somewhere you can't see it.
> We estimate that free-ranging domestic cats kill 1.3–4.0 billion birds and 6.3–22.3 billion mammals annually.
I don't understand how to marry the point you're trying to make to this. Cats are an invasive species to most small animals, and should be kept from accessing them.
In addition to the havoc they wreak on local small animal populations, outdoor cats live shorter lives than their indoor counterparts.
Realistically, in much of the US both urban and rural, cats are as much a part of the wildlife as whatever animal purists actually want to call wildlife. You can spay, neuter, domesticate, and indoor them as much as humans are capable of doing; but they breed like, well, cats, and they deeply want the freedom of being outside. Most modern dogs would not survive if humans didn't intervene in their survival; but the vast majority of cats would. Humans don't generally actively participate in inciting cat breeding like we do with dogs; in fact, we try to stop it as much as we can. What you're describing is just... nature. Its harsh, its brutal, but cats are a very natural part of our ecosystem.
Even the term "domesticated cat" is a partial, minor misnomer [1]. They aren't really domesticated in the same way dogs are. They're wild animals, who's wild behavior just happens to be kinda chill and mesh well with humans.
Cats do live longer when you keep them inside. Humans would also live longer if we kept them in a prison for their entire life, feeding them a nutritionally perfect slurry. Not sure why its relevant to the discussion.
They’re willfully ignoring the facts and indulging in emotional projection. Domestic cats aren’t wild animals, they’re pets. Letting them roam outdoors is irresponsible both to local ecosystems and to the cats themselves.
Many dogs will run right out the door if left to their own devices, but somehow this is not ok while the same behavior for cats is. Very strange.
I think they're pointing out also that humans themselves are an invasive species. They've killed wildlife and converted fertile land to monocultures. Letting humans roam outdoors tends to be irresponsible to local ecosystems.
You could try thinking about it. Buying cat food at the store isn't magic. It comes from somewhere.
Cats can eat the wildlife in your yard. Or, you could have wildlife in your yard, and offset the calories by growing them on more farmland somewhere else.
The only difference in the second scenario is that you don't see the extra acre of woods — along with all the lizards and birds that would live there — getting turned into soybeans.
"Feral Cats are wild-living variant of the common pet cat, introduced to Hawai‘i by Europeans. Feral cats have established populations on all eight of the main Hawaiian Islands and contribute to widespread ecological disruptions that threaten native Hawaiian wildlife. Feral cats are one of the most devastating predators of Hawai‘i’s unique wildlife. In addition to direct predation, feral cats also spread a potentially lethal parasite (Toxoplasma gondii) that contaminates terrestrial, freshwater, and marine environments and has been shown to negatively impact birds and mammals – including humans."
Most pet food is made from waste from producing human food. E.g. offal. So I'm not sure pet food accounts for any significant loss of wild land on its own.
Ring camera footage requires law enforcement to get a warrant or for individuals to give consent to supply the footage.
Now tell me which system makes it easier for a cop to stalk their ex.