Posts by Roguetech

Let's make the coppers wear cameras! That'll make the ba... Oh. No sodding difference

Re: Really?

Link for the study referenced:

https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/bitstream/handle/1810/260710/Ariel_et_al-Journal_of_Criminal_Justice_and_Behavior-AM.pdf?sequence=1

The differences between the two studies are stark. In the study with this article, DC police were selected based on some arbitrary criteria (including whether they had scheduled leave and either an administrator or beat-cop). They only compared the non-camera control group to the those wearing cameras. And use of the camera was essentially voluntary ("[they] shall start... as soon as a call is initiated... or at the beginning of any self-initiated police action").

In the Cambridge study you reference, EVERY officer in the departments either wore cameras or not (based on duty shift). In addition to comparing to the control groups, they also looked at overall department-wide effect (across seven different departments). And use of the cameras was compulsory and continuous. Also, of course, Cambridge University is widely recognized as a top-notch research facility, at least when compared to the mayor's office of Washington DC (specifically, "Office of the City Administrator's Office of Performance Management").

There have been demonstrated effects.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/10/08/us/patrick-harmon-utah-police-shooting/index.html

http://abc7ny.com/nypd-releases-bodycam-footage-of-deadly-police-shooting/2416650/

http://abc7.com/officers-video-records-own-shooting/2295253/

So the question isn't **if** they help, rather... well, why the hell police still commit abuses even knowing it's being recorded (at least, when the police don't turn them off for their beatings or "lose" the recording). It's not a hard question to answer, unless you're a Republican.

Health quango: Booze 'evidence' not Puritan enough, do us another

Re: Why can't academics simply tell the truth

Mon-ay. Even eggheads need to eat, and they weren't merely being paid for the report, but they got paid to make the change... "[The change] carries some extra costs as changing the base case means updating the whole report." And to be blunt, the initial report probably contains biased assumptions.

It's not right, but this is what happens when mixing government with science (which is at times unavoidable). It's not like they just completely fabricated data to say global warming is a hoax, so... judge the system, not the people.

> We categorically refute the claim that PHE in any way attempted to influence or pressure Sheffield University on their research work to inform the alcohol guidelines.

Wow. Caught red-handed, demanding and getting a change without any scientific basis. They even PAID MORE MONEY to have it changed. And, now, they deny deny deny, but it's in black and white. On the bright side, even if they're fired, send them across the pond... Trump will hire them.

US chief spook: Look, we only want to spy on 6.66 billion of you

How disingenuous. He claims they can legally harvest the data "pursuant to section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act", but "internet companies only give agents access to their data when 'lawfully required to do so' ", which, according to him, is always.

Longer, stronger love starts online, finds 19,000-marriage study

Misrepresented

"For those wondering which online venues generated the most matches, e-Harmony and match.com were streets ahead of Yahoo! and PoF.com"

Strictly speaking, this is true in that eHarmony and Match "generated" more matches, however, that doesn't mean they were more satisfied. It most probably means that eHarmony and Match have more members. The study states:

In some cases, a given mean difference in a pairwise comparison based on a relatively large sample size

(e.g., eHarmony vs. Match) reaches statistical significance even though a nominally larger mean difference in a pairwise comparison involving fewer observations (e.g., eHarmony vs. Plenty of Fish) does not reach statistical significance

So eHarmony is statistically better than Match based on marital satisfaction, but PoF is just too dinky to tell. Also, Yahoo! (Yahoo! Personals) no longer exists, and Yahoo! now uses Match.

Also, note that of the authors, one is an advisor to eHarmony, one is married to an advisor to eHarmony and one is a former director of eHarmony.

Re: I've been using "the internet" (whatever that is) ...

Oh, I assumed they got married in "real-life" and just met online.

No links for eHarmony and Yahoo!, but a link for PoF?

Forget tax bills, here's how Google is really taking us all for a ride

What a load of bollocks!

Imagine where you have two Gmails. One sucks, is "free" and is actually called Hotmail. Another is alright (at best) but costs money and is called Outlook. A third is called Gmail, pretty good, and is "free". A fourth is alright, free, and is called Thunderbird. A fifth [etc....] The one that the consumers considers the best value is the one that the consumer will use. That's called competition.

I agree it's sad that since everything has moved to ad-based cloud services, there's no competition in the market. Or to be more clear, I would, if it weren't a complete delusional fantasy spawned by a FREE AD-SUPPORTED media site.

The entire concept that content providers are forcing consumers to have unlimited access to the internet is completely ludicrous. Limited access plans are common, and becoming the norm with mobile access. I am unaware of how it's content providers and not service providers who are forcing unlimited access onto consumers, nor am I really clear on how it hurts. The cost for internet is almost completely overhead, and is therefore distributed equally. The amount or duration of usage is pretty much equal. Person A uses the internet for porn for an half-hour, and downloads 100MB, compared to Person B who uses the internet for 3 hours playing a game, and downloads 500MB, are actually equal. They both used the internet once. Nonetheless, even though I don't understand how the author thinks that the days of pay-as-you-go service plans were better, they are certainly welcome to use a pay-as-you-go service, since Google, et. al., have been unsuccessful in completely destroying the internet access industry.

Although I'm completely confused as to the point, I have a suspicion it's that there's no tax on free products, despite the fact that someone is paying for them, and that Google makes loads and loads of money. If that's the point, then the article could have skipped all the bull, fantasy, misinformation and outright lies, and just said, "We should tax Google and other corporations."