domain:pedestrianobservations.com
Rov_Scam
1d ago
naraburns
nihil supernum
1d ago
It's sad that there's this misapprehension that girls are being kidnapped by abusers, when a huge number of runaway girls (something like 20%-40% in most studies) are fleeing sexual abuse in the home.
Right--I've seen other studies suggesting that a majority (perhaps more than 70%) of runaway girls experience some kind of sexual abuse, but I don't have access to the study to see whether they distinguish based on when and where that abuse occurred (i.e. prior to running away, or as a result of it).
Also, no small number of teens run away from home because they are addicted to drugs and their parents are trying to stop them from using. It really is an extremely multifaceted problem.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
1d ago
And none of them will fix errors like 'pubic law'. It won't notice when 'losses of profits' should be 'losses or profits'. It won't call out a date of 20008.
4bpp
Now I am become a Helpful, Honest and Harmless Assistant, the destroyer of jobs
1d ago
the US doesn't officially recognize dual citizenship
What is this supposed to mean? The US allows dual citizenship explicitly, and there is no shortage of official US government material acknowledging this possibility and even outlining special rules surrounding it. How much more recognising can you get than writing "U.S. dual nationals owe allegiance to both the United States and the foreign country (or countries, if they are nationals of more than one). " in official communication?
naraburns
nihil supernum
1d ago
Sure, you might start here. Some tidbits:
In effect, the more disrupted the family, the greater the likelihood of running away. Youth living with both biological parents were least likely to run away, followed by those with at least one nonbiological parent, those with single mothers, and those in other family structures.
...
The finding that females were more likely than males to run away was unexpected given results from prior research showing that males are more likely than females to have spent the night in a shelter, public place, abandoned building, outside, underground, or in a stranger’s home. In that study, however, youth were not asked directly if they had run away, and some may have had other reasons for being away from home, such as family homelessness. It also is possible that female runaways are more likely to stay in locations not included as response options in that study, such as with a friend or acquaintance (sometimes known as “couch surfing”). Although perhaps less dangerous than other destinations, couch surfing still constitutes a risky environment for youth. Future research should investigate gender differences in patterns and contexts of runaway behavior.
In other words, there is some information available, but for the most part researchers aren't drawing the lines we're drawing here, which is what I mean when I suggest that the statistics on these things conflate a great many complicated and distinguishable events.
VoxelVexillologist
Multidimensional Radical Centrist
1d ago
Software spell check (on early computers at least) required a cute algorithm --- the Bloom filter --- to work reasonably efficiently. Actually checking each typed word against the whole dictionary wasn't (and likely isn't) practical, but a statistical guess of correctness is good enough.
Throwaway05
1d ago
I think it is probably worth thinking about how in the U.S. we are on the receiving end of a very successfully propaganda apparatus arguing that working hard and having pride in your job is stupid and pointless. Sure it's generally framed in something like "working for the man" or "capitalism sucks" but it is very successful, and past generations with similar views (ex: hippies) had quite a bit of pride in the endeavors they actually got up to which helped avoid this.
It's killing what makes America... America (and yes for the right excess immigration without cultural assimilation isn't helping).
I remember the days where you were more likely than not to find a helpful worker in a retail store. Those days are gone.
People have no pride in themselves or desire for excellence. It's sad.
In medicine it gets very gross because doctors still have that vibe but a lot of nurses do not and the ones who become NPs are often the worst. I've stayed late hundreds of times because I had the right skillset, I didn't want the night team to get swamped and so on. NPs just walk off.
VoxelVexillologist
Multidimensional Radical Centrist
1d ago
Interestingly enough, using a computer is a mitigating circumstance, doing the same without a computer, network etc carries a penalty of two to 15 years.
At first glance this sounds wrong, but I'm not sure I'm actually upset that trying to "lure a child" IRL (effectively) is considered worse than typing into the Ethernet on a keyboard.
On Friday I printed the second draft of my NaNoWriMo project for the missus to read. She's about halfway through it, and so far the feedback has been guardedly positive. She's consistently said that it is neither boring nor cringe (my primary and secondary worries about it, respectively) and that the prose is, for the most part, very readable.
Eetan
1d ago
Who are they?
Average and representative members of Homo sapiens species, who see "milling around" - walking or standing doing nothing - as the best thing in life.
The hope of making few bucks while standing around is just a bonus.
Botond173
1d ago
including romantically involved peers
If that includes people over the age of 18 then we're largely talking about the same thing. I imagine most of these people aren't pimps and they definitely don't think of themselves as sexual predators either way. If any stats are available about this general subject I'd be interested in them.
Browser
1d ago
I feel like they're blowing their load too early on the Newsom stuff. If the pivot came closer to a primary cycle I'd back it but I feel like he's giving himself too long acting like this without getting boring, cancelled or both
Eetan
1d ago
No cybersecurity expert should be worth this PR disaster.
Optics! Think about the optics!
Maybe they feel that in modern time, when scandals come and go with lighting speed, when public with attention span of gnat stops caring once last hour's breaking news rolls out of screen, worrying about "optics" is no more necessary.
Maybe they are right.
VoxelVexillologist
Multidimensional Radical Centrist
1d ago
As an example, deployed US soldiers and others stationed in allied nations often get processed by the American (UCMJ, as appropriate) justice system. It's obviously unfortunate when it happens, and sometimes leads to local protests and upset local officials, but at the high level neither side sees it as worth ending the arrangement (historically, "better US troops than Soviet ones", I'm sure). See the death of Harry Dunn in the UK and various incidents in Okinawa and Germany.
I'm not here to defend the process, merely to note that it happens.
WhiningCoil
Ghost of Quokka's Future
1d ago
It's all fun and games until they've H1B'd critical infrastructure you didn't even realize existed. Oh the things I've seen...
It's one thing to laugh and joke about Meta or Microsoft enshittifying everything thanks to H1B value extraction. But you have no idea the enshittification that's coming in areas that desperately require a high trust, conscientious workforce.
ThomasdelVasto
Κύριε, ποίησόν με ὄργανον τῆς ἀγάπης σου
1d ago
Ok fair. I'm just a big softie and I get sad when people get banned. But I appreciate the job you do.
The press release claims they were charged with "Luring a Child with Computer for Sex Act". Likely NRS 201.560 1b, 4a. One to ten years, same as for statutory sexual seduction. Interestingly enough, using a computer is a mitigating circumstance, doing the same without a computer, network etc carries a penalty of two to 15 years.
So the cops posed as 15yo's or younger. Grown men going for sex with 15yo's is bad. I mean, it could be that the cops only implicitly mentioned their supposed age, as in, "I was $AGE when $EVENT happened", but otherwise I have no problem with this sting as far as I can tell. Depending on the specific circumstances, I think that a minimum sentence of a year is a bit harsh though. If a 15yo manages to get on tinder, she will likely find some adult guy willing to fuck her in very short order if she does not mention her age. Doing the same as a sting, with the only difference being that you mention the age will likely catch a steady supply of guys without changing the situation of the real minors one bit.
Of course, it could also be that these men were grooming what they thought to be 8yo's on Roblox or whatever, but cynically, that would be a lot more work per person caught, and also be a lot more impressive, so they would mention it in the press release.
--
The left will of course make hay with this story. Trump's handling of the Epstein case is already suspicious as fuck, so the narrative "MAGA leadership believes important people get to fuck 14yo's" is already there. Add to that the Israel connection, where the narrative of the left is that the US is bending over backwards to give Israel whatever they want. "Trump supports Israel murdering kids in Gaza, so why would he not support them raping kids in Vegas" or something.
Of course, the people who claim that Jews have an undue amount of influence will also make hay with this story. Jews ritually murdering Christian babies would probably fit better into their traditional narratives, but Jewish men getting away with sexual misconduct -- especially against minors -- is still a juicy story for their side.
On part of the Israeli guy, this seems a major failure of judgement. I mean, that guy was in fucking Vegas, and could not be arsed to hire a hooker who at least claimed to be 18? The obvious solution on Trump's and Nethanyahu's part would have been to just let him get convicted to the minimum sentence and put on probation after half a year. No cybersecurity expert should be worth this PR disaster.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
1d ago
It's sad that there's this misapprehension that girls are being kidnapped by abusers, when a huge number of runaway girls (something like 20%-40% in most studies) are fleeing sexual abuse in the home.
AfterEpictetus
1d ago
I work for a software consultancy that has recently gone heavily for building an "AI accelerator" for clients.
Full disclosure, I just moved from GPU based image generation (non-AI) to embedded, I'm trying desperately to avoid working on the AI projects. Take my comment with a big grain of salt, as I'm definitely biased.
They are definitely useful. Mostly as a way for executives to summarize and interrogate quarterly reports. They're probably going to replace several data analysis teams whose jobs have been building Power BI dashboard for the past 10 years.
The hype cycle is definitely real, but most clients have wanted the chat bots built as a box checking exercise, and have no idea what they actually want out of it (based on in-depth conversations with people on the AI accelerator teams). I expect the trough of disillusionment to hit hard and cancel most of these projects.
theincompetencetheorist
1d ago
I'm not deeply plugged in to the industry, nor the research, nor the subculture, but it seems like the substantive value increase per watt is rapidly diminishing. If that's true, and there aren't any efficiency improvements hiding around the next corner, it seems like we may be entering the through of disillusionment soon.
Well there seems not enough money is being spent on trying to reduce the power use of inference. A startup that work with silicon for inference tried that can't raise funding enough to retain their engineering teams. Like something is off if companies that try to solve the concrete problem can't get funded but other companies lights stacks of cash on fire to subsidize model usage just to capture market share. The whole thing looks bonkers to me!
naraburns
nihil supernum
1d ago
Either way, whenever teenage girls or boys run away from home, I'm assuming it's usually done on the initiative and with the support of an older man who's usually interested in her sexually, who may or may not be a pimp in reality.
This is definitely not true. Most runaways are going solo, or with the assistance of peers (including romantically involved peers). Pimps and predators are real, but far from common.
theincompetencetheorist
1d ago
How about proofreading a long document? You can get LLMs to go through page by page and check for errors like sate instead of state, pubic instead of public, dependent vs dependant...
Spellcheckers and grammar checkers have been a thing for ages in word processors, without throwing massive amounts of compute at it.
JTarrou
1d ago
Your source is Shaun King? Talcum X hisself?
The rest is pretty bog-standard conspiratorial huffing. You could pull some police-blotter item on literally any group in the world and construct some bullshit secret conspiracy. Of course, with Da Jooos, there's always some genius like Shaun King to get things started.
As I understand, his reading here is that (1) this case provides evidence that the US government and criminal justice system puts higher value on Israeli intelligence interests over prosecution of pederasts, and are willing and able to engage in perversions of justice and coordinate gaslighting of any public observers to implement this preference; (2) for the "there is nothing particularly fishy about Epstein" theory, the assumption that the above conjunction is wrong is load-bearing. The argument generally is one of compounding implausibility - "Epstein worked for Israeli intelligence" is an extraordinary claim, as is "the USG first sabotaged any legal means to stop him, and then killed him or arranged for him to kill himself when it could no longer be delayed", as is "the USG apparatus successfully conspired to maintain official denial the aforementioned facts", so a theory that requires the three of them to hold is extraordinary indeed - unless the three statements are not in fact independent, in which case the resulting probability may in the extreme case just almost equal the probability of the single proposition of "Epstein worked for Israeli intelligence" alone, which looks a lot better when weighed off against the "series of unfortunate events" null hypothesis.
tl;dr: his posited comparison is that in both cases, the USG had a tradeoff between "help Israeli intel" and "prosecute pedos" and chose the former.
More options
Context Copy link