Technology

So that they can get pictures of license plates tied to addresses to sell to repo companies so that the tow truck can come get your Hellcat.

The only way to stop or reverse this is to get conservative capitalists out of our government.

I mean aside from literal bloody revolution, which some people say is the only way. And, as much as this may be true, it will take a lot more than what has been happening so far to incite that sort of action, so the next actionable step is to vote for and support socialists to push back against the filthy rich and their corrupt cronies that infest our government at every level.

The problem with these, and all, automated systems that detect EVERYTHING is that current code enforcement hardly detects 0.1% of existing violations, by design. That's how they roll. They only kick into action when somebody complains.

Think of speeding tickets - how easy would it be for our roadside ALPR systems to time your transit from point A to point B, calculate your minimum average speed to make the trip in that time, and mail you a citation when you're over the posted speed limit? Not hard at all, but that's not how speeding tickets roll in this country (and most others, too.) If they really wanted total enforcement, your car already knows when you're speeding, it can already wirelessly tattle on you to roadside monitors, they could effect 100% citation coverage if they wanted to, but whoever tries that is comitting political suicide.

One of the reasons HOAs are such groaners is that the types of people who run for HOA president occasionally (not always) go in for this "100% enforcement" mentality and due to the utter apathy of HOA residents who can't be bothered to depose their despot, they can persist in that mode for years. Last HOA I lived in had fearless leaders who "lived in the back" and hired an outside company to write upkeep violations, but only on houses in the front of the neighborhood.

When I lived in a big city with a code enforcement department instead of an HOA system, things went along for decades without much flap, the occasional citation on the really persistently bad violators - as things are expected to work, but then some new neighbors moved in and attended the city-neighborhood meeting and started chanting "just enforce the law, JUST ENFORCE THE LAW" and, so, code inspectors were sent to walk the neighborhood by foot and write every violation they could see from the street. Our 400 houses got more violations written up in one day than the entire city of 40,000 homes received in the prior year.

So, these systems that "observe 13,000 violations in a single week" need to chill out, turn the filters way way up and figure out what the 13 most important violations in the city are each MONTH and work with those property owners to get them fixed. Use the photo-scans to pre-screen citizen complaints, ensure that there's even a problem worth sending an inspector for when the neighbor says "there's been a junky car here up on blocks for the past 2 years and somebody needs to do something about it" the records can show whether that's true, or a gross exaggeration before prioritizing which citizen calls get seen this week and which need to chill out and "wait their turn."

How's it going America?

Oh...

Our garbage trucks already have been for years… I learned that when I got an “overloaded bin” fine, with a video of my neighbor’s bin being dumped as “evidence.” I had to do a dispute and make them reverse it, not because I care about a dollar or whatever insignificant fine amount, but because, like… fuck off with that shit, you know?

That's the announcement. It isn't the story.

AI writing detected in an article about the evils of AI. It’s like rain on your wedding day.

[Flock] run what it calls convoy analysis to flag vehicles that keep turning up near each other.

There's an interesting article written back when it was revealed that the post office was recording the envelopes of every piece of mail it handles and what kind of data they could extrapolate from it. [If you've mailed a letter at the counter in the past few years, you'll know that they bug you if you haven't put a return address on the envelope.] Anyway, it's called "Finding Paul Revere" and I found it an interesting read.

...can yards and house fronts for code violations: overgrown grass, illegal dumping, peeling paint...

I'm sure nobody's going to get outrageous fines due to an AI's false positives.

Us paranoid tried to warn everyone back in the early 2000s 🫩

The idea of putting Cameras on City Vehicles and using AI to find problems, including Code Enforcement issues, is a good one IMO. The problem, as the article notes, is what that data is going to be used for in the future. We used to call this a Slippery Slope argument but the past 10 years have proven that if data is harvested that it will eventually be misused; it's some kind of parallel to Godwin's Law that I am going to coin as "Flock's Law".

In this specific instance Flock's Law tells us that the authorities will inevitably start scanning the photos / videos for people in order to track movements, the Police will be in the database stalking people, and you'll start getting tickets for over-filling your trash can.

Meanwhile all people really want, and what won't happen, is someone to come by to get that absolutely jungle of a lawn mowed, fix a broken sidewalk, replace a missing street sign, or move the damn boat / camper / trailer / junk car that has been parked in the street for the last year.

Of all places, the fucked up red run Florida Oblast. I thought the MAGA nutters were all about "freedom."

I don't have a garbage truck. I let the city handle that.

I guess they won't be satisfied until we are all wearing mechanical suits that will prevent us from doing anything "illegal!"

The American defaultism is so fucking tiring, it's such a constant "here's this thing that's only a thing in the US but it's written like it's global". There needs to be a rule of at least having (US) in the title for posts that use whatever title they link to.

What if I dont have a garbage truck?

About? Imagine my surprise when I logged into my WM portal to see if they picked up, and boom, full HD video of them dumping my trash into their truck, my property in full view.

Not to be that smug guy who drives old cars, but I can fairly safely gaurenteed my vehicles, from '84, '85, '93, '06, and '07 are not spying on me.

Mine doesn't. Specifically downgraded big time to a nearly dumb car (AA is the only modern feature and this I can control)

I hope for the future those dumb things will still be built or else I'd have a problem...

My car doesn’t even shift for me and has no cameras or cellular radios, nor any software that can make internet connections.

If she’s spying on me she’s being quite clever about it.

Interesting, bylaw stuff like this is usually complaint based, active enforcement just creates hostility with the city.

Of course if you’re a common nuisance maybe you should be actively enforced, but it’s not just about having enough staff. There’s a balance between relations as well.

And also, maybe the city should maintain their crap before actively targeting enforcement too….

this article sounds like AI too, i am going crazy