2018 archive
No Place To Hide 0
The man told the family he had audio recordings from inside their house. He sent back the files and indeed, they were the family’s conversations, Danielle said.
(snip)
In a statement to KIRO, Amazon said, “Echo woke up due to a word in background conversation sounding like ‘Alexa.’ Then, the subsequent conversation was heard as a ‘send message’ request. At which point, Alexa said out loud ‘To whom?’ At which point, the background conversation was interpreted as a name in the customer’s contact list. Alexa then asked out loud, ‘[contact name], right?’ Alexa then interpreted background conversation as ‘right.’ As unlikely as this string of events is, we are evaluating options to make this case even less likely.”
And this surprises you how?
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
Politeness is child’s play.
(snip)
The man and woman “heard a pop” and discovered their son had shot himself in the head, according to search warrants for the apartment and the car.
QOTD 0
Robert van Gulik:
Unbidden advice is never welcome.
van Gulik, Robert, The Chinese Maze Murders (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1997), p. 43.
We Are Marching to Dystopia, Dystopia, Dystopia,
We Are Marching to Dystopia, Dystopia Today
0
Jay Bookman. Just read it.
A Sign of the Times 0
Follow the link for a thoughtful, well reasoned, and sourced article taking down a gun nut apologist, one lie at a time.
Droning On 0
I noted these charges several months ago. Now comes the reckoning:
Cole Kelley pleaded guilty Tuesday to a gross misdemeanor charge of reckless endangerment, acknowledging he “flew a drone in a manner that caused a likelihood of harm to persons or property,” court records say.
The story goes on to report that he was given a suspended sentence, fined, and banned from future dronings on.
Arms and the Boy 0
Solomon Jones looks at the spate of school shootings and reflects on the white privilege to bear arms. A snippet:
Until America is willing to confront these obvious truths, we won’t be able to solve the scourge of school shootings. Because acknowledging that white males in non-urban environments are most likely to commit school shootings would require America to abandon its most treasured stereotypes. . . .
In a country that has long portrayed city-dwelling people of color as the main purveyors of violence, that kind of acknowledgement would require a fundamental reshaping of who we are. America would have to profile white suburban males with the same fervor it does urban males of color. Police officers would have to claim they fear for their lives in the presence of white rural men and boys. The veil of suspicion that drapes over the lives of males of color would have to be extended to white males, as well.
Do please read the rest.
“That Toddlin’ Town” 0
Josh Marshall muses on the relationship between Donald Trump’s history in the New York real estate market and his behavior as President. A snippet:
It’s a long, thoughtful piece that is well worth a look.