The ACLU and several other public interest groups have filed a brief with the Florida Supreme Court urging them to look into the use of automated facial recognition in criminal proceedings. In 2015, two undercover cops purchased $50 of crack cocaine from a Black man on a Jacksonville street. Instead of arresting him on the spot, one officer used an old phone to snap several … [Read more...] about The FACES of Justice
Green New Disaster
I've been meaning to write something about the "Green New Deal" for a while now, but it's been such a vague concept that I wasn't sure how to address it. Should I write about the letter to Congress signed by hundreds of environmental and liberal-leaning groups? Or maybe the Sunrise Movement's grand strategy? It would be pointless to write about some fringe version of the … [Read more...] about Green New Disaster
Model Justice — Starting Over
It's been a while since I wrote about my Model Justice project, which is an attempt to build a software model of certain aspects of the criminal justice system. In my last post on the subject, I explained why I was abandoning the Insight Maker systems modeling environment in favor of the Python general-purpose programming language. Since then, I've been slowly … [Read more...] about Model Justice — Starting Over
State of the Union 2019
I skipped reviewing the State of the Union speech last year, so I thought I'd give it a try this year, since I have to be awake for something else anyway.The official White House transcript wasn't up yet when I started this, so I'm using the Vox rush transcript of President Trump's notes. It's a little messy, so I've cleaned it up a little here and there and … [Read more...] about State of the Union 2019
Racist Algorithms
So the other day, according to someone named Ryan Saavedra, newly elected congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said that algorithms are racist:https://twitter.com/RealSaavedra/status/1087627739861897216 Socialist Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) claims that algorithms, which are driven by math, are racist-- Ryan Saavedra @RealSaavedra Ocasio-Cortez says a … [Read more...] about Racist Algorithms