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Slashback: Summer, Sail, Sex Offenders 471

Posted by timothy from the so-sibilant-so-slippery dept.
Slashback this evening brings you updates on recent and ongoing stories about the lost (or just possibly not lost) solar sail launched earlier this week, Website tagging (this time client-side), Google's Summer of Code, and more -- read on for the details.

A new definition for optimism. Rei writes "According to a weblog entry from the Planetary Society, it appears that Cosmos 1 - the world's first controlled solar-sail spacecraft - has been found. The data is still tentative, but they have detected evidence of the spacecraft's signal in multiple tracking stations. There is a chance that it is in the wrong orbit, but it appears to be up there. This is after it was reported that the Volna rocket that launched it lost an engine after 83 seconds, and many had assumed that the craft was lost."

The power of the tag can only grow with time. An Anonymous reader writes "Saw your coverage of YubNub - I've been playing with a similar tool for a while that might interest your readers. It's called Ambedo and works in a way that you can tag search engines or bookmarks with a bookmarklet (you can also enter them manually if you want to). These are then added to you own tag directory. You then access these tags by typing them in a search box -- but all the matching is done client-side in javascript. It also has nice features like matching IP addresses, domain names, FedEx packages, calculator in the search box and so on."

If you like it so much, why don'tcha marry it? Mad Merlin writes "Groklaw has an interview with Chris DiBona of Google with regards to their Summer of Code program (as previously covered here). When asked why Google is doing the SoC program, Chris responds, 'It is simple: We love open source. A great number of Googlers have and are donating their 20% time to the open source efforts that we're doing.'"

Just kidding! scotty777 writes "Japan plans to give up its bid to have the world's first nuclear fusion reactor built in Aomori Prefecture. Japan Today reports the government decision, which means that the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) site decision can be made. Japan Times reports that the government announced the decision by saying 'it plans to back down [from the Aomori site proposal] if the European Union stands firm on bringing the project to Cadarache, in southern France.'"

Surely this won't cause any controversy. davenaffis writes "Here's a little site I developed that uses Google Maps to map sex offenders. Only Washington, D.C. data is available right now, but I'll be adding more states soon."

This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Slashback: Summer, Sail, Sex Offenders More

Slashback: Summer, Sail, Sex Offenders

Comments Filter:

  • Now why Did I think.... (Score:5, Funny)

    by 3seas ( 184403 ) on Thursday June 23, 2005 @07:04PM (#12895973) Homepage Journal
    The Solar Sail was lost due to no wind in space?

  • LOST???? (Score:5, Funny)

    by 808paulson ( 852724 ) on Thursday June 23, 2005 @07:07PM (#12895993)
    I heard it was transmitting this:
    4 8 15 16 23 42

    • Re:LOST???? (Score:4, Funny)

      by Rei ( 128717 ) on Thursday June 23, 2005 @07:56PM (#12896342) Homepage
      Odd - I just heard a report that it didn't actually lose an engine, but was *struck* by a jet engine after broadcasting 28:06:42:12. They still don't know where the engine came from...

  • Three things (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Linus Torvaalds ( 876626 ) on Thursday June 23, 2005 @07:07PM (#12895994)

    Solar sail - if we launched it, and it's transmitting a signal, and it's in orbit, and we still can't find it, what are the chances that we'd discover an asteroid headed our way? Put more funding into astronoomy please.

    Ambedo - the first thing I did was view source. It's not a good sign when its own website makes basic HTML and Javascript errors.

    Sex offenders - this list contains people who have done nothing more than urinate in public. This kind of map only encourages vigilantes and hysteria.

    • Re:Three things (Score:3, Informative)

      by Leroy_Brown242 ( 683141 )
      "Official" addresses for sex offenders can be wrong.

      TGIK got his address removed from the list a while back when he found out that the dude who lived at his place before he did, was a sex offender.

      Mistakenly, his address was still on the list.

      • Re:Three things (Score:3, Insightful)

        by bani ( 467531 )
        Such lists are a great resource for vigilantes looking for targets. And now you know exactly why the laws exist -- its not "protecting the public", its explicitly encouraging vigilantism.

        If you really wanted to protect the public you'd make the address of career violent criminals (like those who commit multiple armed robberies, assault, etc.) public.

        • Re:Three things (Score:3, Informative)

          by perp ( 114928 )
          If you really wanted to protect the public you'd make the address of career violent criminals (like those who commit multiple armed robberies, assault, etc.) public.

          Eespecially since sex offenders are generally less likely to reoffend than other criminals (see here [johnhoward.ab.ca] and here [csom.org])

    • Re:Three things (Score:2, Informative)

      by FinalCut ( 555823 )
      I don't know about the entire sex offender list but my very simple random sample of one person:

      Carlton L. Colemen was convicted of sexual abuse of a minor (under the age of 18).

      That doesn't sound like public urination to me.

      So, to be a bit more scientific I randomly picked another:

      Dwayne A Woodard was convicted of 2nd degree rape of a 17 year old aquaintance.

      And, just because I like to be fair I picked a third from the middle of the list:
      Ronald K Lassiter was convicted of Child Abuse

      Seems odd that no
      • Seems odd that not one of my three person sample had a conviction even remotely close to urinating in public.

        As a disclaimer, I think that real rapists should experience castration for the first offense... Real child abusers should experience everything they did to the child in question, scaled up by a factor equal to the age difference.

        However, the our legal system currently favors the "victim" (particularly female "victims") with shockingly few safeguards in place to prevent, for example, outright ly

      • Re:Three things (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Deliberate_Bastard ( 735608 ) <doslund&cs,ucr,edu> on Thursday June 23, 2005 @08:46PM (#12896668)
        Oh, looky, the plural of "anecdote" has suddenly become "data"!

        Look, genius. It's not okay if even one person gets hurt because of this. Not. Okay.

        And that's true no matter what he or she has done. Because there is an appropriate penalty for what they have done, and that is to be administered according to law, by a court.

        Not by some yahoo like you who thinks that he is qualified to unilaterally judge what other people deserve.

    • Re:Three things (Score:3, Interesting)

      by SpecBear ( 769433 )
      Sex offenders - this list contains people who have done nothing more than urinate in public. This kind of map only encourages vigilantes and hysteria.

      This has been bothering me for some time. I keep reading that these lists are horrible because you can wind up on them for minor offenses, while others say only dangerous offenders are listed. But in my own casual perusal of the sites (checking a few from this latest Slashback link and checking out the online registry entries form my neighborhood), I've n

  • The solar sail wasn't lost... (Score:4, Funny)

    by LowbrowDeluxe ( 889277 ) on Thursday June 23, 2005 @07:07PM (#12895998)
    It was just on a three-hour tour...

    (There's gotta be a better Gilligan joke in all of this, I just can't think of it now.)
    • If not for the skill of the tracking station crew
      The cosmos would be lost, the cosmos would be lost.

      ?

    • Re:The solar sail wasn't lost... (Score:5, Funny)

      by Rei ( 128717 ) on Thursday June 23, 2005 @07:32PM (#12896174) Homepage
      Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale,
      A tale of a fateful trip.
      That started out in the Barrents sea
      Aboard a sub-sea ship

      The sub was unpronouncable [planetary.org]
      The Volna's risk unsure
      One spacecraft took off that day for a three month tour ("a three month tour...")

      The Volna burn was getting rough, the tiny craft was tossed
      If not for the courage of the CPU, the Cosmos would be lost ("the Cosmos would be lost..").

      The craft impacted far away, on a tiny desert moon
      With Obi-Wan!
      The Princess, too!
      The Jedi Knight!
      And his droids!
      A speeder car!
      The wookie, and Solo (Han)
      Here on Parody Isle!!

  • "Summer, Sail, Sex Offenders" (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 23, 2005 @07:09PM (#12896009)
    Was deemed Carnival Cruise Line's least effective tag line of last year's ad campaign.

  • Mapping Michigan Sex Offenders (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Pathwalker ( 103 ) * <hotgrits@yourpants.net> on Thursday June 23, 2005 @07:09PM (#12896011) Homepage Journal
    For a while now, I've been crawling the Michigan Sex Offender Registry, and plotting the locations on my own little mapping site [ofdoom.com].

    For an example, look here [ofdoom.com].

    The biggest suprise I've had is the ammount of incorrect data in the database. Only about 25% of the entries geocode on the first pass. I've had to do "best matching" to correct misspelled street names, I've seen birth years with obviously transposed digits, and some quite amusing obvious test entries.

    In addition to the sex offender data, I also map the locations of domains with dns-loc [ofdoom.com] location records, sites registered with geourl.org [geourl.org], or my own Geographic Crawler experiment [ofdoom.com], sites on or considered for the Superfund NPL list, and any other data I can force into a format I can plot.
    • You should colour code for females.

      You know those girl put out.

    • Re:Mapping Michigan Sex Offenders (Score:5, Funny)

      by exp(pi*sqrt(163)) ( 613870 ) on Thursday June 23, 2005 @07:43PM (#12896247) Journal
      For a while now, I've been crawling the Michigan Sex Offender Registry
      My! That's a healthy hobby you have there. Hobbies are good, they make you into a nice well-rounded person.

    • ethics? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Heisenbug ( 122836 ) on Thursday June 23, 2005 @07:51PM (#12896302)
      This is a nifty hack, but I wonder what your thoughts are on the ethics of it. If the database is inaccurate to the point where you have to make guesses about what the correct data really is, it's also likely that it points to a fair number of entirely innocent people. By making it easy for folks to find entries near them, you're aiding a process with the potential to do a lot of harm, for better or worse.

      This is the kind of project I can easily imagine myself starting -- but around the time I was making guesses about misspelled street names, I think I'd can it and move on to something with less potential to ruin lives. With no negative judgment implied, why didn't you?

      On a separate note, at a first glance I see a surprising number of pairs of dots very near to each other. Is this some kind of bug in the data or the mapping process? Am I just inventing patterns where there aren't any? Or perhaps there's some strange tendency for sex offenders to settle in pairs ...

      Thanks for the interesting link.
      • If you look at the linked site, each offender has a name, photo, and link to the county records. Even if the street name is misspelled, do you think the photo would frame an innocent person?
      • at a first glance I see a surprising number of pairs of dots very near to each other. Is this some kind of bug in the data or the mapping process? Am I just inventing patterns where there aren't any? Or perhaps there's some strange tendency for sex offenders to settle in pairs ...

        Well, both the perpetrators and the victims got mixed up in the same database, but who cares! I'm not letting this minor inconvenience get in the way of this weekend's lynching frenzy I got planned! Wanna come too? (don't forget
      • I glanced through the mapped offenders in D.C. -- what surprised me was the seeming smallness of some of the crimes.

        Some of them definitely fit in with what I'd think of dangerously disturbed... rape of child under 12, etc. etc... but there are also crimes like "enticing a child under 16 years of age". I'm not even sure what that means -- does it really put this guy in the same category? We don't even know that he knew the girl he was "enticing" was underage... and perhaps he would have found out for sur

      • Re:ethics? (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Pathwalker ( 103 ) *
        I've been thinking about the ethics since I first thought about doing it - until a minute or two before I made the post, that option would only show up when a special URL was used.

        I had been gradually giving access to people I knew, and asking what they thought of it.

        When I saw this story coming up on Slashdot, I figured it was as good of a time as any to expose it to a larger group of people, and see what people's opinions were.

        I think that the main component which is least ethical is the initial col

      • Ethical problem with guesses not the real problem. (Score:4, Insightful)

        by zippthorne ( 748122 ) on Thursday June 23, 2005 @11:51PM (#12897729) Journal
        But what even if all the guesses are correct there's still some ethical issues. Granted most of the issues involve even publishing the list of names to begin with. I mean wouldn't it be easy for someone to get the list and go around all vigilante style on the people on the list? Certainly it might be satisfying to attack a creep (even a reformed creep) but that's not justice. That's vengence.

        Which brings me back around to the real point. Sex offenders are apparantly still dangerous to society following their release from prison. Shouldn't the solution to continue to segregate them from society rather than to just let 'em go and tell people, "Sorry, there's a dangerous new person in your neighborhood, watch your kids/wife/backside." We could put them in a concrete building with bars over the windows and locks on the doors.. a lot like.. more prison! If it's been shown that these people are a danger to society following their terms and that they are incapable of reform*, then it is obvious, at least to me, that the terms are not long enough to protect society from them and them from society.

        *statistical incapability** is indistinguishable from real incapability if you cannot say for certain if they've been reformed until they die having not regressed.

        **within a socially acceptable error margin. (is 3 standard deviations enough (~99.7% confidence)? 30 (100-(.98e-195) percent confidence)? I don't claim to have the answer)
  • Wow, sure are lots of 'em. Click on the names for scary mug shot photos.

  • A map too far? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Sv-Manowar ( 772313 ) on Thursday June 23, 2005 @07:13PM (#12896034) Homepage Journal

    Being able to plot the home locations of sex offenders on a map, as if they were tire-fitting chains or restaurants, is one step too far for me. I can see the logical extension from the things the Chicago Crime maps were achieving, but its really data that shouldn't be made accessible in such a contextless and simple manner. There could be people on the list for any number of reasons (not just the most serious offences..) who suffer greatly due to a 'Find your local sex offender' site.

    I wouldn't be surprised if google maps chose to pull their data from being used by this site in such a way, it certainly wouldn't look good if anything unsavoury occurred. I'm all for cool and nifty uses of google maps, but this just doesn't seem tasteful.

    • Usually, the offenders who are listed on public websites are either violent sex offenders or child molestors. They don't put your name on the public list of sex offenders in the area for putting a mirror on your shoe and going to the mall. If the people are on the public list of offenders, they're the scummiest of the scum.

      • I'm skeptical (Score:3, Insightful)

        by DoctaWatson ( 38667 )
        Aside from the two hypothetical cases I talked about elsewhere in this thread, I've heard horror stories of people being put on sex offender lists for mild offenses like public urination or public nudity.

        Considering that the definition of "sex offender" can be so broad, compiling a map from every state and local database (each with its own criteria for listing people) seems like a really really bad idea.

    • Re:A map too far? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by radiumsoup ( 741987 ) on Thursday June 23, 2005 @07:40PM (#12896228)
      Not at all too far - in fact, I think we should expand on this idea. I want a map of everyone who has stolen a car. I like my car, I don't want to move into a neighborhood where a former car theif lives. You know he'll (or she'll) just go right back out and steal my car UNLESS they're on a searchable map. You've done it once, you'll do it again.

      Oh, and I want a map of everyone who has back taxes yet to pay - you know they want to steal my car along with the car theif to pay some of those back taxes.

      Don't forget the people who have late library books - they're cleptos, and just want to take my garden gnomes out front...

      Mapping this kind of thing isn't a detternt - look at how many registered sex offenders there are. And it doesn't help parents to "make good decisions", either - if you aren't watching your kids enough already, it doesn't matter if there's a sex offender *LIVING* nearby... if something happens, you are partly responsible for not being prepared and educating your kids, and keeping track of them, and following up when they say they're giong to a friend's house...

      Parents need to be prepared for the worst, but having a list like this will only make it possible for these people to be punished while they're not in prison or on parole or probation by some holier-than-thou zealot with a shotgun and too much Bud Light in his system. Click and shoot.
      • Sex offenders have a far higher recidivism rate than all of the other crimes you list. There is a very valid distinction to track them but not the others.

        • Re:A map too far? (Score:3, Interesting)

          by Mycroft_VIII ( 572950 )
          You know I've heard that said as well, yet the one time I see any data on the subject it shows just the opposite.
          I was in a link earlier in another thread on this article.
          Do you have any data(or rather links to), or this just 'everyone knows so it must be true'.

          Mycroft
      • Example: Friend of mine has two young children, was looking to move to a new house. Looked up the neighborhoods of the areas she was considering moving to. One house which otherwise looked ideal had literally hundreds of sex offenders within a two-block radius (apartment complexes). She's since chosen a house in an area with a much lower number of such criminals.

        As a friend who's concerned about her children's wellbeing, I think was useful and appropriate information for her to have available.

    • Agreed, it's unjust without context (Score:5, Insightful)

      by DoctaWatson ( 38667 ) on Thursday June 23, 2005 @07:56PM (#12896344)
      What happens when a teenage boy gets convicted of Statutory rape because his girlfriends's dad walked in on them making hanky panky? Is he just another blip on the map- presumably a target for vigilantes or a scapegoat for community demagogues?

      What happens when two consenting homosexual adults get railroaded by some backwater anti-sodomy laws? Now the ignorant have a map to the house for vandalism and hate crime intimidation?

      Without context these maps have huge potential to inflict harm upon innocent people. These are just two of the examples that come off the top of my head.

      • Its real hard for a teenage boy to get in trouble for statutory rape, unless he is 19 and 3/4ths and she is fourteen. I know about this because it pops up here periodically - its normal for a college sophomore and a highschool freshman to hook up in Mexico, and the trouble comes when they're north of the border.

        The law goes to great lengths to protect the innocent. If someone gets tagged sex offender ... well ... we have an epidemic of that sort of thing in the last two generations, so you'd best strai

      • PUBLIC EXHIBIITONISM == LISTABLE SEX OFFENCE. (Score:5, Informative)

        by goombah99 ( 560566 ) on Friday June 24, 2005 @03:45AM (#12898454)
        Things that can get you on a registered sexual offender list:

        public urination, exhibitionism, nudism, streaking, flashing, mooning, outdoor consensual sex, lewd behaviour.

        Dont believe me?

        utah law book says:

        (d) "Sex offender" means any person convicted by this state or who enters a plea in abeyance for violating Section 76-7-102, 76-9-702.5, 76-5a-3, 76-10-1306, or 76-5-301.1

        and all of those are for lewd behaviour that specifically includes public urination, streaking, and mooning.

        LAW LINK [oshkosh.net]

        "The study found that people charged with crimes such as public urination, flashing, consensual sex between teenagers, possession of child pornography and adult prostitution are all classified as sex offenders in some states."

        Link to source [theledger.com]

        "Plaistow Deputy Chief Kathleen Jones also said that not every person on the sex offender list has necessarily committed an egregious crime such as rape or molestation because a conviction of indecent exposure, even in cases such as public urination, can land someone on the list."
        Link [seacoastonline.com]

        "According to Michigan State Police Sgt. Troy Fellows, urinating in public is classified as indecent exposure, and requires sex offender registration after three convictions...[And] Judges [can] to order registration after any number of convictions..."

        Link [geocities.com]

        • The law in Utah (Score:3, Informative)

          by westlake ( 615356 )
          Utah Code 77-27-21.5. Sex offender registration: [state.ut.us]

          "Sex offender" means any person:

          (i) convicted by this state of:
          (A) a felony or class A misdemeanor violation of Section 76-4-401, enticing a minor over the Internet;
          (B) Section 76-5-301.1, kidnapping of a child;
          (C) a felony violation of Section 76-5-401, unlawful sexual activity with a minor;
          (D) Section 76-5-401.1, sexual abuse of a minor;
          (E) Section 76-5-401.2, unlawful sexual conduct with a 16 or 17 year old;
          (F) Section 76-5-402, rape;
          (G) Section 7

          • What you post is the 2005 law. What was posted above was the 2003 law. Clearly they amended the law. Still the point is well taken, people convicted of sex offences on utah prior to 2005 might well be public urinators and have to registered sex offenders in any state they live in.

    • Re:A map too far? (Score:4, Informative)

      by MrResistor ( 120588 ) <peterahoff@gma[ ]com ['il.' in gap]> on Thursday June 23, 2005 @08:05PM (#12896404) Homepage
      Most states already have a website that does exactly the same thing already. Perhaps you've heard of Megan's Law? Google for it if you're unfamiliar.

    • Even streaking gets you on the sex offender list if you're convicted of it.

    • While the source of the public information, the Metropolitan Police Department Sex Offender Registry, clearly states that an individual is "not wanted by the police at this time", that the offender has "served any prison sentence imposed" and that the information should not be used to threaten registered offenders, Sex Offender Mapper includes no such information or warning. At the absolute least, this is something they should include. As well as a solid legal disclaimer, IMO.

  • Sex offenders have no rights? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 23, 2005 @07:13PM (#12896039)
    Haven't the sex offenders already "served their time"? Or is their set of rights smaller than your or mine...

    • Re:Sex offenders have no rights? (Score:5, Informative)

      by WhatAmIDoingHere ( 742870 ) * <sexwithanimals@gmail.com> on Thursday June 23, 2005 @07:24PM (#12896120) Homepage
      Their set of rights is smaller than yours or mine.

      There exist lists of convicted sex offenders. They have to register when they move. They have to register every year even if they don't move. If the community they move into doesn't want them around, they can get a petition thrown together and the sex offender cannot live there. Oh, and they'll know when he moves in. Usually some group will make a big stink about the whole deal.

      Once you commit a sex crime (or are convicted of ANY felony) you lose the majority of your rights.
      • You know, it rather bothers me the loss of rights. The definition of sex offender has expanded to be quite wide, and there are a lot of cases cropping up that really don't make sense. The scope of felonly is expanding a lot as well, and really, there's no solid definition of what 'felony" is.... and government always likes to expand...

      • Re:Sex offenders have no rights? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by thegrassyknowl ( 762218 ) on Thursday June 23, 2005 @08:56PM (#12896729)
        Their set of rights is smaller than yours or mine. Why? They'd done the time. Their rights and liberty have been deprived as punishment. You do realise the seriousness of your thinking? For any offence where there is a court ordered conviction (and that can mean repeatedly unpaid parking tickets that a court will eventually enforce) then you would have a smaller set of rights than others. Once you commit a sex crime (or are convicted of ANY felony) you lose the majority of your rights.

        So you don't believe that the rehabilitation system works then. Certainly you lose your rights for the duration of the applied sentence, but once you are released and your parole period is up you are once more deemed to be an up-standing, reputable member of society.

        • Sorry but the percentages speak loud and clear - unlike other criminal activity a sex offender is FAR more likley to repeat the offense. That's exactly why there is a registry. Why anyone smart enough to read Slashdot has a problem with any means of querying a database is beyond me.
          • Sorry but the percentages speak loud and clear - unlike other criminal activity a sex offender is FAR more likley to repeat the offense. That's exactly why there is a registry

            Can you backup your statements with valid studies? The majority of the studies I've seen point the other way, especially if the offenders in question received any type of treatment. Here is a link [csom.org] from the US Justice Department with data showing about a 16% average reoffense rate for sex crimes (13% recidivism rate for molestors and
        • So you don't believe that the rehabilitation system works then.

          We don't have a prison system based on rehabilitation in the U.S. We have a system based on detainment.

        • Their set of rights is smaller than yours or mine. Why?

          The concept of redemption is fundamental to christianity, so it is part of the legislature of societies based on the judeo-christian ethic. The concept of vengeance is fundamental to most human beings, so a key goal of victims and potential victims is punishment. We are now seeing a renegotiation of the boundaries between these two conflicting ethical systems.
        • The question is: Would you be comfortable with having a person who has been convicted of raping five small girls - who has served his sentence - living next door to you and your 8 year old daughter?
          If you are, I pity you and your family.
    • Those convicted of felonies generally lose a number of rights, even after serving their time: Possession of guns, voting (in some jurisdictions), elegibility for certain positions of trust (such as military service, practice of law, security guard, locksmith, high corporate official), and so on. (Some states automatically "restore civil rights" if they don't re-offend after a certain number of years, and any state governor can restore them on a case-by-case basis by a decree akin to a pardon.)

      One thing t
      • Your last paragraph has made a black-and-white class of people that always behave the same way regardless of therapy and/or medication.

        In fact, there *IS* evidence that sex offenders *CAN* change their behavior. If there was not, no court in 49 states (California excluded because they're just insane) would ever release them. Ever. There would be mandatory life sentences for every sex offender, no matter how "trivial" (the example of a woman claiming to be 18 but was really 16 is a good example) the inte
      • Actually, the numbers I've seen are that child molestors repeat less often than other types of offenders (theft, for example).

        That said, child molesting is (deservedly, I'd say) categorized as a very heinous crime in most places. As such, child molestors get the short end of the proverbial stick (excuse the pun) when it comes to "serving their time".

        I'd also like to point out that "sex offender" (the term usually coined) equally applies to the 19 yr old and her 16 yr old boyfriend as it does to the 52 yr
    • ...I'm going to release my own GoogleMaps database. First, I'll start with hacking into the Good Vibrations databases and listing everyone that has been purchasing sex toys. Then I'll use information from libraries to identify those sick bastards who read Danielle Steele. Finally, I'm going to identify every g.d. idiot that didn't vote, so that we can go kick the shit of of those idiots.

      It is only by directly identifying the addresses of these sick, sick people that we can ensure the safety of our child

  • The Culture Wars (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 23, 2005 @07:18PM (#12896075)
    The culture wars may turn literal.

    Imagine this:

    People from conservative websites search liberal websites for anyone admitting that they have smoked pot. They compile a database of who said they smoked pot, linking the person's name, the person's address, and the comment(s) where the person admitted to smoking pot.

    Now liberals respond. To take revenge, they categorize the different types of beliefs held by conservatives, and begin compiling a database of people, evidence, addresses.

    Hostilities rise. If you live in a tower, a grid of condos, anywhere where there are a lot of people- stories start to spread, and people take sides.

  • Sex Offender boogeyman (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 23, 2005 @07:19PM (#12896076)
    The "sex offender" b.s. is a very, very bad thing.
    I remember reading last year sometime about a guy in Aurora, CO (It was in westword) was having sex with a woman that told her she was over 18. A while later, he was busted because the woman was 16 or so. The guy got nailed by the courts and his life is now ruined.

    The general "Sex Offender" term is just wrong. I can see why it's a bad thing to have your normal raper out on the loose, but to have your life ruined because of some stupid chick? Come' on people.

  • (Warning Soviet Joke Imminent) (Score:5, Funny)

    by fimbulvetr ( 598306 ) on Thursday June 23, 2005 @07:24PM (#12896121)
    In Soviet America, Sex Offenders map YOU!

  • ITER intro (Score:5, Informative)

    by interiot ( 50685 ) on Thursday June 23, 2005 @07:29PM (#12896158) Homepage
    For those who need an intro to ITER [wikipedia.org]:
    ITER is a proposed international tokamak (magnetic confinement fusion) experiment designed to show the scientific and technological feasibility of a full-scale fusion power reactor.

    ITER will use a hydrogen plasma torus operating at over 100 million Celsius. It will produce approximately 500 megawatts of fusion power sustained for up to 500 seconds (compared to JET [wikipedia.org]'s peak of 16 MW for less than a second). ITER will not generate electrical power.

    ITER is the experimental step between today's studies of plasma physics and tomorrow's electricity-producing fusion power plants.

    It sounds like the plans for it were pretty much ready to go, they just couldn't decide where to build the thing. So, all systems are go now?

  • In other news: the idiot mapper (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 23, 2005 @07:31PM (#12896163)
    The idiot mapper [google.com].
    So far only 1 idiot is listed there, but it is the biggest idiot on this planet.

  • If only... (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Great job on the sex offender map. Now somebody get started on the slut map, please. Start with the Chicago area?

  • Is it only me? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by sparkz ( 146432 )
    I don't know where you get your "sex offender" data from, but are there really no sex offenders with white skin?
    Or are they just not recorded?
  • Seems the interview with chris was conducted a while ago. They are actually accepting 400 projects now, instead of 200.

    One more day left until I know if one of those projects is mine!

  • sex offender map (Score:3, Funny)

    by tiberiandusk ( 894649 ) on Thursday June 23, 2005 @08:04PM (#12896398) Journal
    i was looking around on the sex offender map and i found something interesting...
    I had no idea... [longlines.com]
  • There are a few problems with sex offender registries. 1) The most important problem is that they give a false sense of security. It is far more likely that a perpatrator of sexual assault will be someone known to the victim. For children this usually means parents or trusted adults. Furthermore, most offenses are never reported, so there are a large number of offenders out there who never make it into a registry. 2) There isn't enough staffing power to check up on sex offenders. Often, they will simply m
  • The Sex Offender Registration page for the people I've looked at say that there are 638 registered offenders in DC. I didn't do a full count of the people on your list - but it's of the order of 100. I looked at about 1/3 to 1/2 and only found 3 Caucasians. None of the people listed were women. Is there a good reason that you chose these 100 or so? Or is it just because DC has a African American majority? Or was it just random? Or, and I really hope not, are you trying to make some sort of racist point? Why
  • Can someone explain what this is and why it is useful? The 'Help' and 'About' pages aren't very helpful or tell a lot about the project.

    Instead of going to www.imdb.com and typing 'tom hanks' I go to www.ambedo.com and type 'actor tom hanks'? Isn't that more work? (BTW, the 'About' page mentions imdb.com. Does that URL resolve for anyone? I always need the full www.imdb.com.)

    Why would I need a 'front page' for google? Can't I go to www.google.com?

    And their built-in calculator doesn't work. But why

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