jcd11235

I see you still don't understand the difference between a single observation and a trend. So posting that only 2% of mass shootings are committed with AR-15s does not recognize a trend? We also know that in very recent school shootings the most fatalities came because of pistols. Are you going there next? Source ("I'm feeling lucky" Google result for ar-15 mass shootings) Math tutoring available. Only $6! per hour! First lesson: Factorials!

I see you still don't understand the difference between a single observation and a trend. Math tutoring available. Only $6! per hour! First lesson: Factorials!

Yes, more yahoo wannabes with guns making challenges to troubled teens who feel desperate and need help. Not everyone thinks it's a good idea to have the police state you describe. Escalating he situation is rarely a good idea in the civilian world. Math tutoring available. Only $6! per hour! First lesson: Factorials!

The easy access makes it MUCH more likely someone can act on a really bad idea before any intervention can occur. The rest helps ensure that carnage is maximized. Math tutoring available. Only $6! per hour! First lesson: Factorials!

Simple answer: demographics. It's a simple answer, to be sure. It just doesn't match the question asked. Math tutoring available. Only $6! per hour! First lesson: Factorials!

After 9/11, we implemented security theatre for public air travel. But, to paraphrase Randall, the most under-appreciated component of our road air safety system is that most people aren't murderers. That's how it's always been. Math tutoring available. Only $6! per hour! First lesson: Factorials!

Counterargument Math tutoring available. Only $6! per hour! First lesson: Factorials!

You have an interesting & unusual definition of proof. Math tutoring available. Only $6! per hour! First lesson: Factorials!

Fair enough. > As a former soldier … Me too. 13B, A-Bttry 1/8 FA, 25ID. I don't find that my military experience offers any special insight, compared to experience gained elsewhere. > … banning assault looking weapons is silly. … Damn. I stand corrected. It comes in handy right here. No, it's not silly. The form factor of assault weapons makes their users more effective potential killers, all else equal. There's a reason modern combat rifles are typically shorter than the muskets used by the Colonial Army. Would you really be indifferent between a semi-automatic rifle of the same dimensions & weight of a revolutionary musket and an AR-15 in a close combat situation? I know I wouldn't. > I have no problem with a formal system of transference not > unlike that of an automobile. Sounds reasonable. > Training - the course for those who don't have any training is > a bit of a joke (2 days). Extend the training & require annual > re-quals with a minimum of marksman. Sounds a lot like a well-organized militia to which I once belonged. I could go along with that. > There are some states that allow one with a DD-214 in the > past 20 years … I seriously know AF & Navy folks that saw a > weapon in basic with annual re-quals and that was about it. Agreed. Not everyone was a Lightfighter! In general, I tend to think if someone has a particular skillset, it should not be too burdensome to demonstrate that skillset. > Even uniform unarmed patrol in schools has served as a > deterrence. So I've heard. Again, seems reasonable, assuming they are adequately trained (school specific training). > Metal detectors + campus security … I admit not clicking the link, but I'm mostly okay with metal detectors and campus security. I really don't like the idea of metal detectors, but they might be a fact of life. > There's plenty of police officers … Hmmm … I can't go along with this one. Most of the situations an in-school security officer is likely to encounter are going to be better solved with the techniques of a school counselor, not a law enforcement officer. Until our nation's law enforcement officers can do a much better job exercising restraint and policing themselves, I'm not inclined to support posting police at schools, off-duty or otherwise. The problem is that anything we do at the school level is a band-aid (unless it prevents the intent). It doesn't do anything to stop mass shootings in general. It just moves them (maybe). At the end of the day, the nation has to have a conversation about our national gun fetish. Math tutoring available. Only $6! per hour! First lesson: Factorials!

Knee-jerk reaction? Seriously? Are you really that out of touch with reality? We've allowed the same stupid shit to keep happening over and over, for many years. If we finally pass some reasonable gun legislation, you can rest easy knowing that it was anything but a knee-jerk reaction. Math tutoring available. Only $6! per hour! First lesson: Factorials!

Laws against murder haven't eliminated murder completely. You support their repeal, correct? Math tutoring available. Only $6! per hour! First lesson: Factorials!

For all practical purposes, no gun purchase legislation is enforceable at the state level, because we have freedom of interstate travel. That in no way implies that the same legislation at the federal level would be equally unenforceable. Math tutoring available. Only $6! per hour! First lesson: Factorials!

Are you seriously claiming form factor is not an important attribute of a gun? Math tutoring available. Only $6! per hour! First lesson: Factorials!

Correct. We typically don't like wasting time with nonsensical actions. The chain of events leading to school/mass shootings needs to be broken long before the shooter arrives for the final act. Math tutoring available. Only $6! per hour! First lesson: Factorials!

Are Eric Rudolph or Tim McVeigh still available? There's nothing special about veterans that especially qualifies them to protect civilians in a non-combat zone. Given the number of school/mass shooters who kill themselves, it seems naïve to believe the threat of being shot would frighten them into inaction. Math tutoring available. Only $6! per hour! First lesson: Factorials!

Yes, that ability can be turned off. Why would you believe otherwise? The functionality that allows (or not, in my case) messaging is distinct from Siri listening for and responding to "Hey Siri, …" voice commands. Turning of the ability to send and receive messages means no text message is sent if I say, "Hey Siri, text Bob 'It's you're turn to buy beer.'" Math tutoring available. Only $6! per hour! First lesson: Factorials!

The two substantially different standards of evidence your post implies you have for Comrade Trump vs. HRC is very telling of your biases. Math tutoring available. Only $6! per hour! First lesson: Factorials!

The Apple HomePod is the first device I've ever pre-ordered. It promises to address an audio problem of which I've been painfully aware for 22.5 years: Properties of the listening room play a huge role in sound quality, and quickly become the limiting factor of any sound quality improvement efforts. Many years ago, in my younger days as a soldier, I assembled what was, at least in my small rectangular barracks room, a fantastic sounding home audio system costing several thousand dollars. That system had early implementations of digital signal processing and room acoustics correction, but both were very limited, and they didn't work in conjunction with each other. (That was before I realized my money would be better spent on altitude.) After leaving the military, my new listening area was larger and much less symmetric, both in shape and treatment. There, the sound was more meh than wow. High quality equipment couldn't overcome poor room acoustics. Piece by piece, I sold off that audio system. Over the intervening years, I found my audiophile urges to be better satisfied with earphones and headphones than with loudspeakers. Still, I've always kept a pair of decent loudspeakers around to fill the room with sound when I don't want to wear headphones. But I've never found a pair of speakers that sounded as good or as satisfying as what I had in my small barracks room. Fast forward 22 years, when Apple announced a spatially aware smart speaker optimized for sound quality, I knew I had to try one. In retrospect, addressing the room acoustics problem with machine learning seems painfully obvious. I was out of town when my pre-ordered HomePod was delivered. Five days after delivery, I placed it on a countertop between my kitchen and family room, near the outer corner of a wall, a placement I would not typically consider for a speaker intended to provide good sound quality. The setup was as easy as claimed. I held my iPhone SE next to the HomePod and followed the setup instructions on my phone. I declined the Apple Music trial subscription and restricted the HomePod's ability to send and receive messages. My interest in the HomePod is exclusive to playing music from my own library. I pace a lot. The sound from the HomePod is, as advertised, relatively stable as the listener moves through the room into which the speaker is playing. Overall, the sound quality is excellent, at least at the price point. Clarity is quite good, and separation is fantastic. Frequency response is also much better than expected. At volumes at which I'm not likely to be evicted, I don't miss my powered subwoofer. The bass sounds quite natural, as do the mids and highs. I haven't noticed any sibilance or bass distortion. Imaging leaves a lot to be desired, which was disappointing, given the 7.1 discrete channels available. I expect a second HomePod, when AirPlay2 is released, will improve imaging substantially. The superb separation, combined with the comparatively poor (current) imaging reminds me very much of planar magnetic driver headphones. The sound from the HomePod is not left vs. right stereo most are accustomed to, but also it has little resemblance to monaural sound. What the soundstage lacks in width it more than makes up for in depth. Actual monaural recordings, such as Miles Davis' Kind of Blue or Ray Charles' The Genius After Hours have never sounded as good to my ears through a traditional set of stereo speakers, including great headphones (e.g., Sennheiser HD650) as through the HomePod. Songs that rely heavily on discrete stereo channels, such as Pink Floyd's On the Run or any of the binaural recordings on Amber Rubarth's Sessions From the 17th Ward do not sound flat or one-dimensional, but they also don't sound as good through the HomePod as they do through a pair of really great headphones. Likewise, the same songs played through traditional loudspeakers (of good quality) would still sound better, provided the listener sits in or near the sweet spot. Live music also sounds particularly good through the HomePod. I've long considered the December 31, 1984 live performance of Night Life by B.B. King and Willie Nelson to be a phenomenal performance by both artists, captured with a phenomenally bad recording. That same recording sounds eerily realistic through the HomePod, reaping the benefits of some serious machine learning voodoo. (I've not found any other albums showing such a dramatic benefit, so it's probably outlier behavior, or a result of the performance being originally recorded from live television.) Other live performances by artists including Diana Krall, Bob Marley, The Eagles, and Wynton Marsalis also sound excellent, with the listening experience losing nothing compared to playback over more traditional audio systems (outside of the sweet spot). The HomePod is my first AirPlay device. In general, I'm finding AirPlay to be more reliable than Bluetooth for music playback, with fewer dropouts and more straightforward switching between source devices. But I've been using AirPlay for only a few days, while I've used Bluetooth for audio for a few years. Quiet speech has been accurately detected by Siri in all but one instance. "Hey Siri, stop news." was interpreted as "Hey Siri [restart] news." Playback controls and weather forecast inquiries have worked flawlessly, without shouting or repeating, no matter the music volume. However, I mostly control volume and playback with the player app, iTunes or Music, depending on whether I'm using my laptop or phone, as I find it more convenient than voice control. The HomePod isn't the end all, be all of home audio. But it does offer excellent audio without reliance on a sweet spot, in a small plug and play package, working well even in rooms with substandard acoustic properties. It's not going to replace a high end audio system in an acoustically optimized listen space, but it might just provide the highest quality audio most people have experienced in their kitchen. For me, it's a noticeable improvement in my headphone-free sound quality and convenience at a slightly lower price than the speakers it's replacing. Math tutoring available. Only $6! per hour! First lesson: Factorials!

Indictments and guilty pleas typically only come after it has been demonstrated that a crime has, in fact, been committed. Math tutoring available. Only $6! per hour! First lesson: Factorials!

Are you seriously suggesting that homicide rates would remain unchanged if we abolished prohibition of murder? It's absurd to believe that we should not entertain legal restrictions simply because they won't be 100 percent effective at reducing mass shootings. Math tutoring available. Only $6! per hour! First lesson: Factorials!

We all do. You'll believe whatever sources confirm your own personal biases, while ignoring all others. Math tutoring available. Only $6! per hour! First lesson: Factorials!

Bias in judging figure skating: https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/winter-olympics-2018/think-olympic-figure-skating-judges-are-biased-data-says-they-n844886 And what happens when it is the judges who break the rules? Not much: https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/winter-olympics-2018/figure-skating-lets-judges-who-break-rules-return-judge-another-n845441 Yes, humans err (and/or cheat). Refs in "objective" sports are subject to exactly the same problems. It's because they're human, not because the performances can only be judged subjectively. That's all the more reason to implement an ML solution (and not just in figure skating). One of the first machine learning projects I ever completed would have served well as proof of concept that ML can easily be used to determine, objectively, whether or not a maneuver has been correctly executed. It's not a difficult problem, or even an unsolved one. People thinking figure skating (or other semi-obscure sport) is completely, or even mostly, subjective generally just don't understand the sport, and rather than acknowledge their ignorance, they try to denigrate the sport. We see the same thing in the NFL, where fans (and frequently announcers) can't be bothered (or lack the intellectual capacity) to learn the very reasonable catch rule, instead criticizing the rule in hopes the Competition Committee will dumb down the rules to a level even the dumbest fans can still understand after 18 beers. Math tutoring available. Only $6! per hour! First lesson: Factorials!

It is a (nearly) trivial machine learning problem to use sensors to objectively measure figure skating performance, as an example. Subjectivity has largely been removed from scoring in the "judged" events. There are specific criteria that must be met in order for a maneuver/technique to be considered properly executed. Math tutoring available. Only $6! per hour! First lesson: Factorials!

I've been under the impression that the demand for OTR drivers exceeds the supply. If that is the case, then self-driving trucks could be implemented to some extent without displacing humans in their jobs. Eventually humans will lose the jobs, but it should occur gradually. Math tutoring available. Only $6! per hour! First lesson: Factorials!

Hence the title of the thread. Math tutoring available. Only $6! per hour! First lesson: Factorials!