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ShotSpotter requests to be held in contempt rather than disclose its methodology

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Re: ShotSpotter requests to be held in contempt rather than disclose its methodology

#311

Post by ALittleLight »

hiptobecubic wrote: post #309
ALittleLight wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, then it must be racism keeping white people out of the NBA, right? Maybe not intentional racism, but the outcome is racist. Or Jewish people are overrepresented in Congress - I'm not saying it's some kind of intentional cabal, but you can't deny that it's a "racist outcome". Very few Chinese and Japanese people, per capita, are arrested for violent crime in the US. Is this because the police intentionally avoid a…

Honestly I do think it's racism that ultimately is responsible for the demographics of professional sports in the US. The system is powered by people and people do not consider all the players in the same way, e.g. https://www.brookings.edu/blog/how-we-rise/2020/03/06/march-... . That's without getting into the socio-economic factors that lead people to pursue sports as a career rather than playing in school and then…

Your link is completely unrelated to the claim that racism is responsible for the demographics of sports. It discusses the tendency of athletes with dark skin to be described as big and strong and light skinned athletes to be described as smart or knowledgeable.

The issue is that black people are overrepresented in the NBA. This is a "racist outcome" per the language of an ancestor comment. Is it because the league is prejudiced against white people and keeping them out? Prejudiced against black people and expressing the prejudice, for some reason, by admitting more black players to the league? Or, could it possibly be that black people are just more likely to be good at basketball? Black people are ~15% of the US population and ~75% of the NBA. Must be an awful lot of racism there...

Re: ShotSpotter requests to be held in contempt rather than disclose its methodology

#312

Post by SilasX »

shadowgovt wrote: post #301
SilasX wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Searching a car and catching a criminal always makes them look better than just searching a car. [1]And I’m not sure how your point, if you have one beyond making yourself look smart, relates to the broader issue of whether shotspotter was the only evidence, which was the focus of that comment. And if you’re economizing on time, I can assure that a better use of it would be to answer the challenge you kept dodging (o…

Sorry, I'm not sure where you're picking up "outrage" from my comment. You were asserting "It would be really expensive and low-yield to pull over everyone in the vicinity of a gunshot" and I was asking 'for whom?' I don't see how incentives are aligned for that to be expensive at all for the person doing the pulling over, and I tend to evaluate people's behavior on the assumption that, all other things being equal,…

>Sorry, I'm not sure where you're picking up "outrage" from my comment.

It wasn't in that comment, it was in the premise of all your previous posts that it is outrag^W^W^W^W^W suboptimal for someone to be pulled over and eventually arrested for DUI when the original instigating cause was a false positive for gunfire.

IOW, the entire reason you're talking about this case, is because they did not pull over everyone in the vicinity but prioritized those that were more likely to be committing crime, based on other signals. That's how we got to this case to begin with! And yet, I'm having to remind you that you're arguing with yourself.

Do you consider it too much to ask that you remember the context of what you're talking about? And for others not have to remind you?

Also, thanks for the confirmation that you don't have a substantive answer to the substantive question, "what probability threshold is appropriate for police to enter in preparation for an active shooter" -- I had always assumed your comment was bad-faith to begin with. Especially when you deny that comments such as these are expressing something similar to outrage:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32259925

Re: ShotSpotter requests to be held in contempt rather than disclose its methodology

#313

Post by danuker »

nickysielicki wrote: post #157
thethirdone wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your link does not support that assertion. It states that MLAT is used for planes without ADS-B and that it only matches the precision of ADS-B.

Sorry, was going off memory. Thanks for calling me out.

Hats off for graciously accepting cold feedback!

Sometimes my HN replies sound more like compiler errors.

Re: ShotSpotter requests to be held in contempt rather than disclose its methodology

#315

Post by kbenson »

fastball wrote: post #275
kbenson wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, as that would be a purposeful misinterpretation of the intent of the original poster, if it was obvious they didn't mean it to be interpreted that way. Even if the response that used it differently was meant to make a valid point (I believe it was, as they expanded on it later), the way they used minority did nothing to help that point and instead caused unnecessary contention. It would have been far more effecti…

To me it read less like misinterpretation and more like reframing.

Eh, I don't think that actually changes my point. Even as a reframing, when looked at with respect to how well it communicated its point and fostered understanding and discussion of that point, it was poorly executed.

Re: ShotSpotter requests to be held in contempt rather than disclose its methodology

#317

Post by solardev »

hiptobecubic wrote: post #303
YLE118 wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An egregious example from the first link: Police said ShotSpotter, a surveillance system that uses hidden microphone sensors to detect the sound and location of gunshots, generated an alert for that time and place. Except that’s not entirely true, according to recent court filings. That night, 19 ShotSpotter sensors detected a percussive sound at 11:46 p.m. and determined the location to be 5700 South Lake Shore Driv…

What I don't understand about this is what basis they could possibly have for making such a correction? The data is X, their algorithm says Y about it. Are they just claiming that "analysts" are better at triangulating than whatever their algorithm is? It's not like image classification, where it's at least plausible that a person can meaningfully "correct mistakes."

Their profit depends on pleasing the police departments that make these requests. They probably thought nobody would ever find out or care, which is why they sued to keep journalists quiet.

Re: ShotSpotter requests to be held in contempt rather than disclose its methodology

#318

Post by pxmpxm »

bergenty wrote: post #264
pxmpxm wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The explanation I had in mind was more directed to the narrative over reality when it comes to shotspotter, rather than the mechanics of structural poverty incentives that invariably drive people toward illicit income that's fraught with violence. We've had 50+ years of various great society type programs that are designed with negative net-of-transfers earned income gradient, and those were squarely aimed at racial…

When there has been a continuous stream of “bigot master plots” it understandably becomes hard to distinguish conspiracy from conscientious intent. If you look at the current situation without any of the prior historical context it does bring up the question of how does law enforcement deal with this situation because their historical actions have led to a catch 22 situation where action or inaction is vilified. Mayb…

Certainly a prudent, rational idea. However my sneaking suspicion is that the recent attention to the former of the two has was designed for a completely different objective; a betting man would posit we'll be having this discussion again in 2024:

https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=b...

Re: ShotSpotter requests to be held in contempt rather than disclose its methodology

#319

Post by fastball »

hiptobecubic wrote: post #299
fastball wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But if that person was already committing crimes in their house you're not creating crimes out of thin air, just pretext.

The police cannot just randomly search you and then say "Hey look! We found something so it's fine."

I agree that real probable cause should be required, but if they do find something they're still not creating crimes out of thin air.

Re: ShotSpotter requests to be held in contempt rather than disclose its methodology

#320

Post by jjeaff »

Gibbon1 wrote: post #261
jjeaff wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My guess is that they don't want to reveal their methods because they are still crude and obvious.

Don't want to reveal their methods cause patent infringement.

If they are patented then the methods are already public.
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