IntenseDebate - jobo12

13 years ago @ Daily Camera.com: - Boulder approves pot u... · 4 replies · -34 points

And how do I keep their pot smoke from floating over the fence into my yard? I've already been through this with a neighbor. They smoked pot constantly and in great quantity - I rarely got to spend time in my yard and had to basically keep my windows closed the entire summer.

13 years ago @ Daily Camera.com: - Boulder approves pot u... · 10 replies · -57 points

I don't care if people smoke pot - but being allergic to it (as in breathing problems allergic) I'm less than thrilled that people now essentially have carte blanche to smoke it in their yards. The relative lack of public smoking in Boulder (cigarette, pot or cigar) has always been a real plus.

13 years ago @ Daily Camera.com: - Buying a home? Order t... · 0 replies · +9 points

The concept is good but I foresee a number of implementation issues -

Insurance claim info is only available if a homeowner agrees. My house is over 60 years old. The owner I purchased from is deceased, don't know about ones before that. So you can find out that I haven't had any claims in the time I've owned the house but nothing about the decades before that. Ditto on fire reports, for houses built before 1980.

Most house insurance policies don't cover flooding. So you won't know if the sewer backed up in the basement - there will be no claim - unlike a water pipe bursting in the house. You will only know if a house was busted for cooking meth or growing pot - not if meth was ever cooked, or pot ever grown (mold/moisture issues) commercially in the structure.

I would expect a big market for this product would be home inspectors and the selling owner. Just like car dealers will offer you a carfax on their used cars - a homeowner might offer you the housefax or a home inspector might include it as a part of service - or add on.

I think the service will be useful mostly for newer homes or where it's been owned for a long time by the same person (to get a reasonable length of insurance history). It's one more piece of info.

13 years ago @ Daily Camera.com: - Boulder not planning w... · 0 replies · +12 points

Does that extend to not filling swimming pools? :-)

Which leads me to the question - during a drought and restricted watering are people with in ground permanent swimming pools restricted in how often and/or if they can fill/refill them?

13 years ago @ Daily Camera.com: - EcoPass \'smart cards\... · 0 replies · +6 points

Ding, ding, ding!

How long before they start selling rider data and law enforcement starts asking for it? Unless they can guarantee those rider records are secure, anonymized for analysis, and not retained indefinitely - not a chance I'd be interested given the privacy implications. You can read about issues in London with the oyster card. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oyster_card#Privacy

And to head off the inevitable "if you have nothing to hide"

I offer the following links to debunk the false "nothing to hide" dichotomy.
Nothing to Hide - The False Trade Off Between Privacy and Security http://www.aclu.org/blog/technology-and-liberty/q...

I've got nothing to hide and other misunderstanding of privacy http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_i... http://yro.slashdot.org/story/07/07/10/2054219/pr... http://www.computerweekly.com/blogs/the-data-trus... http://theartofprivacy.com/2011/02/02/why-ive-got...

After more than 20 years in high tech I have seen collected user data misused often and am not naive about the ways in which "innocent" data can be abused by law enforcement, insurance companies, and marketing firms. I am also opposed to the trend of insurance companies trying to put 24/7 trackers in cars for the same reasons.

' According to the 'nothing to hide' argument, there is no threat to privacy unless the government uncovers unlawful activity, in which case a person has no legitimate justification to claim that it remain private. At the base of the fallacy, as Bruce Schneier has noted, is the "faulty premise that privacy is about hiding a wrong."

13 years ago @ Daily Camera.com: - Boulder prioritizes fo... · 0 replies · +3 points

"City Council members also said they would like to see an analysis of the density and location of affordable housing throughout the city. Some north Boulder residents have said they feel their neighborhood has borne too much of the burden of the city's affordable housing."

When the Hi-Mar Pool and Tennis club redevelopment project (replacing it with affordable rental units) is finally built - Martin Acres will have 2 affordable housing developments on Moorhead Ave just a few blocks apart (Alvarado Village, which was built on an open/park space back in the 70's is the other).

I'd like to see the affordable housing distribution map along with a code requirement that neighborhoods without affordable housing get a development before neighborhoods with one or more get any additional ones. If Boulder residents are as truly committed to affordable housing as is asserted, then there should be no objection to distributing them evenly about town.....

14 years ago @ Daily Camera.com: - Boulder studies RTD co... · 1 reply · +12 points

"One of the most common responses of those unconcerned about government surveillance or privacy invasions is 'I've got nothing to hide.' According to the 'nothing to hide' argument, there is no threat to privacy unless the government uncovers unlawful activity, in which case a person has no legitimate justification to claim that it remain private. The 'nothing to hide' argument is quite prevalent. Is there a way to respond to this argument that would really register with people in the general public? In a short essay, 'I've Got Nothing to Hide' and Other Misunderstandings of Privacy, Professor Daniel Solove takes on the 'nothing to hide' argument and exposes its faulty underpinnings."
At the base of the fallacy, as Bruce Schneier has noted, is the "faulty premise that privacy is about hiding a wrong."

I offer the following links to debunk the false "nothing to hide" dichotomy.
Nothing to Hide - The False Trade Off Between Privacy and Security http://www.aclu.org/blog/technology-and-liberty/q...

I've got nothing to hide and other misunderstanding of privacy http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_i...
http://www.computerweekly.com/blogs/the-data-trus...
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/07/07/10/2054219/pr...
http://theartofprivacy.com/2011/02/02/why-ive-got...

After more than 20 years in high tech I have seen collected user data misused often and am not naive about the ways in which "innocent" data can be abused by law enforcement, insurance companies, and marketing firms.

Thumb me down all you like:-)

14 years ago @ Daily Camera.com: - Boulder studies RTD co... · 7 replies · +12 points

And how long before they start selling rider data and law enforcement starts asking for it? Unless they can guarantee those rider records are secure, anonymized for analysis, and not retained indefinitely - not a chance I'd be interested given the privacy implications. You can read about issues in London with the oyster card. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oyster_card#Privacy

And I had an Eco some years back under the neighborhood system before my block could no longer manage to qualify.

14 years ago @ Daily Camera.com: - Bill would create data... · 1 reply · +12 points

First - if it's good enough for CU then it's good enough to apply to the Regents and state legislators like Sharkey.

Second - The proposed database is of virtually no practical use unless it also includes funding grants(and what percentage of the person's salary comes from it) research money, any funded joint appointments etc.

There is a distinction between a history professor who's salary is paid 100% by CU and an electrical engineering professor who has 40% of his salary paid by a multi-year multi-million dollar research grant. If the grant is funding a lab as well - then his expenses are going to look high because those costs will be attached to the grant on which he is listed as the primary. Without that info to provide context it will look like he has a huge salary and huge expenses and is wasting money - when in reality he's bringing big money TO the university not OUT of the universities pockets.

It's like all the outrage over the CU-HSC campus professor (an M.D.) that makes huge money - most of which doesn't actually come from CU. Doesn't mean it not worth knowing just that the number by itself has little relevance without appropriate context.

14 years ago @ Daily Camera.com: - Environmental groups s... · 1 reply · +8 points

Love it - they should have christened the project with the nickname "plutonium parkway" decades ago, since the proposed road runs right through the fall out zone from the Rocky Flats fire. Last thing they should do is disturb dirt in that fall out zone. I'm certainly stealing your name for it from here on out!

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