hawkharris

I'm calling for people to comment on the facts of a public policy posted by the hotel. No more, no less. If you interpreted this as a call to post dishonest or mean comments, you were reading into it the wrong the way.

I'm suggesting that people comment on a public policy. No more, no less.

EDIT: Yelp rating is no longer high, but there's still TripAdvisor and Google+.

As an aside, I recently set up encrypted email for my Mac's desktop Mail client using the GPG Suite. I want to set up my friends with secure email, too, but none of us really use Mail; we prefer web mail. I haven't been able to find good browser plugins for GPG. (WebPG for Chrome looks promising except for a major bug that prevents messages from being sent; I reported this issue.)

Can anyone recommend good solutions for bringing GPG to Gmail in the browser? I want something that's easy enough my non-technical friends will be willing to use it for everyday conversations.

The point is, I wonder if the machine learning approach used here is overly complex. After all, the set of environmental factors affecting crime is so well understood and thoroughly researched that you could focus on detecting tried-and-true things such as sidewalks. This would entail applying a clear set of rules instead of using the relatively unsupervised approach with training data. To be fair, ML is a complicated subject and I'm not an expert; maybe their approach draws heavily on these things.

EDIT: I understand that perception, rather than the actual crime rate, is the focus of this research. Still, there seems to be a tight correlation between the features that are known to be dangerous and those that appear sketchy. The major ones - an absence of lights, few walkways, etc. - are obvious to most pedestrians.

On a related side note, I've started using the Chrome Web Inspector as my only text editor for front end development. It's great because you can map it to your project folder, make edits directly and harness the power of breakpoints, along with the network, console and performance tabs, without constantly switching windows. Breakpoints, in particular, make it much easier to work with callbacks in JS. (I do miss the nice syntax highlighting of Sublime, but Chrome's dev tools provides more powerful features for JS development IMO.)

It's also smart to record the data yourself instead of sharing it with a health tracking app. With due respect to those projects, I draw a line at sharing specific and private health information. I've arrived at this personal stance after weighing the benefits of information sharing against the risks of my data being leaked, mishandled or mined.

Think of it this way: while asking your boss for a raise, you wouldn't mention the cost of rent or your other bills — even if those are prime motivators. You would instead focus on how you bring value to the company.

Several of the article's points focus on the value that this app brings to customers. The post would be stronger if all of the points had that tone.

It's unethical to write such an opinionated piece covering a case like this, in which the facts are just starting to emerge. Let's keep it objective until the evidence is clear. Otherwise we risk perpetuating a witch hunt (of both the defendant and the plaintiff).

The games that try to juxtapose conflict with stretches of non-action are usually the most successful at conveying the experience of combat. The new Tomb Raider comes to mind. You can travel awhile without fighting because there's a lot to see and do in the environment. When you do encounter adversaries, they're usually in small numbers. They'll speak to each other and respond to your attacks with unique dialogue.

On the other hand, games like Call of Duty, which overwhelm the player with hundreds of enemies at all times, fail to convey the experience of war. The key is to provide contrast between action and non-action, and to provoke suspense by limiting the scope of the conflicts so they can be felt and comprehended more easily.

Meeting people is the most important part of college. The vast majority of graduates find jobs through their personal networks. If finding a job isn't your top priority, students who expand their circles grow intellectually as they exchange ideas with people who have different perspectives.

Having said that, I've thought about putting together a do-it-yourself comp-sci degree that involves attending local Meetup events. One of the great things about this field is that, in most cities, there are active communities surrounding what it is you want to learn. So it's possible to capture the personal networking experience of college without the tuition.