I recently saw this link on reddit which shows cyclists running red lights, almost colliding with pedestrians. After reading through the comments I realized that many redditors in NYC are themselves cyclists. The discussion in the comments was quite shocking and divisive. The fact that other cyclists were defending this behavior seemed quite annoying since I also read quite often about cyclists injuring pedestrians, and even kill them more often that I can feel comfortable about. My girlfriend is often complaining to me about the citi bikes going the wrong way almost plowing her over on a regular basis. I got to thinking: how often do cyclists seriously injure pedestrians? I took a look for some stats on the subject and found an interesting study on the subject. In 2011 the rate of serious injury of a pedestrian by a cyclist in NYC was 6.06 per 100,000. What I did like to see from this study was that at least the numbers were in decline over the last few years of the study. However, knowing that I have a real chance of being hospitalized by a cyclist got me to not only worry, but wonder: what are the rates for motorists? How do they compare?
Please note: I'm not a statistician. My analysis may be inaccurate so please check for yourself.
Motorists v Cyclists: populations
First I wanted to get a good apples to apples comparison as much as I could. I wanted to find out the total number of motorsits and cyclists and to compare the numbers I found. A few easy google searches on the subject lead me to nyc.gov sites with DOT stats and reports on motorists, cyclists, and incidents. The best stat I could get for motorists were the DOT registration numbers. In 2013 there were approximately 2 million registered motorists in the five boroughs. For the cyclists I found a document that has counts for cyclist reported from six different cycling hot spots. The average number of cyclists for all months for all six hot spots was about 20 thousand. Given the two numbers I have for both motorists and cyclists and that they are not accounted for the same way, I'm not sure if these numbers are a good basis for comparison however I have no alternative. Assuming that these numbers are comparable, there are 100:1 motorists to each cyclist in NYC.
Motorists v Cyclist: incidents
Likewise for incidents it was very easy to find data on the subject but I was similarly uneasy using what I found as a basis for comparison. For incidents of motor vehicles injuring pedestrians I found a page that summarized the NYPD reports for 2013. Assuming that their reporting is correct I found 12014 pedestrian injuries and 168 deaths for a total of 12182. For cyclists I couldn't find a 2013 set of numbers but I turned back to the 2011 study from the first paragraph to pull the totals. In 2011 there were 501 total injuries by cyclists. Although I can't match apples to apples since the years are different I can only make a broad assumption: there were approximately 24:1 incidents, motorist to cyclist.
Conclusion
Based on the numbers above and taken with some salt you may agree that cyclists are more dangerous to pedestrians than motorists. Based on the data, a cyclist is 4x more likely to injure a pedestrian than a motorist.
Tuesday, May 5, 2015
Monday, November 11, 2013
Google: No I don't want to "Stay signed in"
The Google recently updated their sign-in page but few may have noticed the subtle changes that are now almost forcing a user to stay signed in.
First off, every time you sign-in the check box is checked by default. Even if you sign in and out- the web page remembers your accounts but will not remember your preference for staying signed in.
Second- if you are signing in and un-check the box but mistype your password the page reloads with the checkbox re-checked.
Third- Since you now are back at this screen and may want to un-check this box again, the tab order is now altered. Before you could simply tab twice past the password box and hit the space-bar to un-check the checkbox. Now a link is in the way- if you tab twice and hit space-bar it will sign you in with the checkbox checked!
All of these seem kind of trivial for most users. Most people want to stay signed in on their personal computer. But for me and many like me I need access to my email from computers that are not my own. For me, having additional ways for my account to accidentally persist its session are cause for concern. Considering that Google probably has large team of people to think about all these scenarios it is also apparent that these changes were intentional to have the user stay signed in as much as possible, even if by mistakte.
Saturday, October 19, 2013
Android Permissions: what you should look for before clicking Accept
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| Chase Mobile |
The Chase online banking application needs some permissions to enable some of the features of the app. This app allows the user to deposit checks using their phone and locate an ATM branch using GPS and mapping output. The app also initializes the dialer to auto-enter (but not dial) the support service.
These features seem useful and sure, they need to access the GPS, network, camera, and phone dialer.
but some other permissions seem to be out of the scope of normal banking and may not even be associated by user initiated features of the software. which make me wonder what features they have actually use them:
- Disable screen lock: This one is strange. If they can disable the screen lock they can certainly 'spoof' a screen lock once the normal one had been disabled.
- Mock location sources for testing: One could imagine this could be used to tell the user that they are somewhere they are not.
- Take Pictures and Videos: Maybe these permissions are bundled, but should they? Taking a single photo to deposit checks is one thing, but a video seems to be too much
- Your Social Information: Modify contacts, read call log, read contacts, write call log. I can't imagine a legitimate use for any of these. Maybe if "modify contacts" is to include "add contact" if they want to push a Chase contact into my address book, maybe. But the rest sound like clear overreach.
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| Chase Mobile Branch Locator |
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| Chase Mobile EULA |
Super Bright LED Flashlight is an App on the Play marketplace that turns your Android smart-phone into a flashlight by turning on/off the flash LED that is built in for use with camera. The only features or functionality/features I noticed are:
- On/Off slider
- The ability to 'blink'
- Sound feedback on/off switch
- Banner ads on the bottom
- Reminder to rate the application
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| Super Bright LED Flashlight |
To be completely honest I found this app to be useful and fun to use. The slider graphic and ability to switch into blinking mode were not very useful but it made it a well rounded application more than just an on/off button for an LED.
However, even though I was happy with the features it gave me I am still a bit confused why it needs so much access to the phone itself. I'm guessing this has to do with how the application was built, rather than to provide functionality to the features that are given to the user. And since all I really wanted was a flashlight- pretty much anything besides access to the camera shouldn't be asked for, right?
Storage: Modify or delete the contents of your USB storage
User Features: I'll venture to guess this could be to save and load the status of the settings for the flashlight such as the blink setting or the sound on/off.
Your Location: Approximate location (network-based), precise location(GPS and network-based)
When I saw this feature in the list prior to first installing the app I thought maybe it was to link to where I was using the flashlight, or maybe while I'm using flashlight I can snap a pic? Now I'm guessing at best must be linked to the ads that appear, and at worst to track where I'm using their app.
Camera: Take pictures and videos
Just like with the chase app it seems this permission is linked to all possible functions of the camera. It doesn't even mention turning flash on-off but it must be part of the camera controls and is therefore linked to this explicit permission.
Your applications information: Retrieve running apps
I can't understand why a flashlight app would need to know what other running apps are loaded. Maybe there is a feature that tracks usage of the apps to gaugue how much power usage is being drained over time to let the flashlight know when it should turn off? The app doesn't appear to have this feature but I can't say I have used it while the phone has been running out of power to know for certain. The only reason I can guess if it is not a feature it is something to track the users habits for sale or use by the people distributing this app.
Phone Calls: Read phone status and identity
This one is also confusing. Why would a flashlight need to know if the phone is in use or who is using the phone? These two permissions are probably bundled, as we have seen with the Camera, so maybe one of these has a legitimate use. I must guess that the flashlight wants to turn off if a call is coming in (or flash, or something) which would be a good feature to have so the flashlight doesn't burn the battery when the user is on the phone.
Network Communication: Full network access
Most flashlights I have used in the past have not had access to communication networks. On the face of this permission it seems very obvious at this point they are not simply providing a free flashlight for you. They want you to provide feedback, click ads, and possibly send more data for them to use or sell.
System Tools: Modify system settings, test access to protected storage
As with most of the other permissions it is not clear what you are allowing the application to do. As we noticed before there are some permissions not explicitly granted in the permissions dialog, but are assumed implicity by the Android operating system. For this permission it is very unclear what the application may be doing to require this permission or what this permission really means. If we look at just these two permissions we have to assume that this app can change brightness settings, network settings, sync settings, and any other settings in the settings panel- possibly installing and uninstalling software they have decided (anti-virus, etc). This appears to be a security hole and I can't even imagine what the flashlight needs from this setting. The second setting is just as bad. The app is testing access to protected storage- possibly to check if the app can do something and get away with it without causing the operating system or anti-virus to flag the behavior.
Affects Battery: Control flashlight, prevent phone from sleeping
I got through all these settings, giving the benefit of the doubt to this app that they simply want to control the flashlight and maybe they are doing some tricks to get that to work- such as accessing the camera or possibly some system settings. It seems that is not the case.
This app wants to do a lot more than provide a free flashlight- it wants to control your phone.
Your Location: Approximate location (network-based), precise location(GPS and network-based)
When I saw this feature in the list prior to first installing the app I thought maybe it was to link to where I was using the flashlight, or maybe while I'm using flashlight I can snap a pic? Now I'm guessing at best must be linked to the ads that appear, and at worst to track where I'm using their app.
Camera: Take pictures and videos
Just like with the chase app it seems this permission is linked to all possible functions of the camera. It doesn't even mention turning flash on-off but it must be part of the camera controls and is therefore linked to this explicit permission.
Your applications information: Retrieve running apps
I can't understand why a flashlight app would need to know what other running apps are loaded. Maybe there is a feature that tracks usage of the apps to gaugue how much power usage is being drained over time to let the flashlight know when it should turn off? The app doesn't appear to have this feature but I can't say I have used it while the phone has been running out of power to know for certain. The only reason I can guess if it is not a feature it is something to track the users habits for sale or use by the people distributing this app.
Phone Calls: Read phone status and identity
This one is also confusing. Why would a flashlight need to know if the phone is in use or who is using the phone? These two permissions are probably bundled, as we have seen with the Camera, so maybe one of these has a legitimate use. I must guess that the flashlight wants to turn off if a call is coming in (or flash, or something) which would be a good feature to have so the flashlight doesn't burn the battery when the user is on the phone.
Network Communication: Full network access
Most flashlights I have used in the past have not had access to communication networks. On the face of this permission it seems very obvious at this point they are not simply providing a free flashlight for you. They want you to provide feedback, click ads, and possibly send more data for them to use or sell.
System Tools: Modify system settings, test access to protected storage
As with most of the other permissions it is not clear what you are allowing the application to do. As we noticed before there are some permissions not explicitly granted in the permissions dialog, but are assumed implicity by the Android operating system. For this permission it is very unclear what the application may be doing to require this permission or what this permission really means. If we look at just these two permissions we have to assume that this app can change brightness settings, network settings, sync settings, and any other settings in the settings panel- possibly installing and uninstalling software they have decided (anti-virus, etc). This appears to be a security hole and I can't even imagine what the flashlight needs from this setting. The second setting is just as bad. The app is testing access to protected storage- possibly to check if the app can do something and get away with it without causing the operating system or anti-virus to flag the behavior.
Affects Battery: Control flashlight, prevent phone from sleeping
I got through all these settings, giving the benefit of the doubt to this app that they simply want to control the flashlight and maybe they are doing some tricks to get that to work- such as accessing the camera or possibly some system settings. It seems that is not the case.
This app wants to do a lot more than provide a free flashlight- it wants to control your phone.
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| Flashlight Permissions |
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| Even more Flashlight Permissions |
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| Flashlight Rating Reminder |
Tuesday, March 12, 2013
Chromebook Pixel: Another follow up
I rarely buy something I can't touch first but after I saw the Pixel announced I knew exactly what they did. They made the perfect developer laptop, and that's what their intention was.
I think most people are like me, and what I am looking for is:
- Full size, fully functional keyboard. I was skeptical at first- after I ordered the machine I realized I hadn't even looked at the keyboard layout. THen I looked online before it shipped and saw things like a power button, a search key, no function keys. That was off-putting but nothing was really missing. Search key instead of caps-lock. That's better. The keys that I thought "weren't" function keys, actual are. They just have actual functions now.
- Bright big display. With 4:3 aspect ratio you can get more screen by going vertical. Other manufacturers with full size keyboards that have 16:10 or 16:9 won't get as many vertical pixels. This display is actually quite huge considering the amount of pixels it has- making it 'bigger' than my 30" monitor at 2600x1700. But not only is it huge, I can use it well too. The problem I've had with the 30" is having to move my head to see all those pixels on the screen. I end up using that display at a very crisp 1280x800 instead. On the pixel I can use all those pixels, and see them all. The display is small, but huge.
- Thin, yet sturdy. It's not made of plastic, this thing is pretty solid. Some laptop screens are way too thin and seem like they would bend or flex. This one is thin but solid. I threw the thing off my bed last night at 3am after I fell asleep watching a documentary on North Korea- the thing SLAM on the floor probably scare the crap out of the guy living below me. Not a scratch. I thought the hinges would have bent or something, because this thing hit really hard, but nothing. No scratch.
- Expansion, ports: Pixel has SD card reader to expand memory. I would have been happy to get USB 3 but to be honest I don't really transfer files too much any more. They are saved on the network.
So far I'm loving my Pixel, even though to be honest it's not my primary because it just stays home for now. I do some work on it from home but I am tempted daily to bring this to work to start using there because the feel of this machine is just great. My only dislike for the machine and probably the main reason I wouldn't use it at work is the glare. I hate screens with a reflection. This one is great to work at home but at work I'll have other light sources to ruin the experience.
Plato's Guardians
In Plato's Republic there is a discussion of the Guardian class, those that are imbued with power from the society in order to help guard it from itself. The only way this Guardian class can exist is if it has a special privilege. This class are the guardian/ruling class of the society. In the Republic, Socrates discusses the founding of a republic with Glaucon and Adeimantus and determine that this Guardian class is necessary for the stability of the republic to exist. I was thinking, yes this may be the case- that a balance of power given by the people to this ruling class is a fair trade, as long as the power is within reason and is held in check.
What we have been seeing lately in the US has been concerning to most people. Increased militarization of federal and even local police forces, aquisition of immense stockpiles of arms and ammunition, and possible use of drones to target citizens. While I don't agree with these practices, I am curious to see how they are measuring to the success of the guardianship model as it has been applied to the earth. Over the past century the 'guardian' has been gravitating toward the western world, almost completely dominated by the US. During this time there have been questionable actions to wage wars that, even if you haven't read all the conspiracy theories on the subjects, seem completely non-credible. With all the ties and connections in countless publications and documentaries about the false flag operations throughout the world, I think we are all just on the edge of our seats to see when the next one will happen- ever since Sept 11.
But getting back to this concept of the Guardian. Are we better off as a nation to have the guardian government militarize our homeland? Has the increased militarization over the past century helped or hurt the communities they have most affected?
What we have been seeing lately in the US has been concerning to most people. Increased militarization of federal and even local police forces, aquisition of immense stockpiles of arms and ammunition, and possible use of drones to target citizens. While I don't agree with these practices, I am curious to see how they are measuring to the success of the guardianship model as it has been applied to the earth. Over the past century the 'guardian' has been gravitating toward the western world, almost completely dominated by the US. During this time there have been questionable actions to wage wars that, even if you haven't read all the conspiracy theories on the subjects, seem completely non-credible. With all the ties and connections in countless publications and documentaries about the false flag operations throughout the world, I think we are all just on the edge of our seats to see when the next one will happen- ever since Sept 11.
But getting back to this concept of the Guardian. Are we better off as a nation to have the guardian government militarize our homeland? Has the increased militarization over the past century helped or hurt the communities they have most affected?
Tuesday, March 5, 2013
Chromebook Pixel Follow up: Linux chroot, Steam
Since my last post I tinkered a bit with setting up Linux on this machine using Crouton. This is far better than installing a separate OS and booting into it. With Crouton all I have to do is pop open a terminal (ctrl-alt-t), type shell, then sudo startxfce4. The X display pops open in a seconds and I'm up and ready. To toggle between this environment and chrome is simple too- ctrl-alt-back is chrome, ctrl-alt-forward is developer console, ctrl-alt-refresh is the X window. It is also easy to access ubuntu from the shell without X, this way I have access to all those great CLI software packages from the terminal just by entering the chroot. Enter: 'enter-chroot'. Crouton also can be configured to install more than just xfce4 environment, however xfce happens to be my favorite of the ones included with crouton. The steps I took to get this up and running were found in this brief article at lilputing.com. I then took the steps necessary to set up my development environment for work stuff; got my build of my software going after quickly configuring and installing its dependencies. Next I went about tweaking some of the environment configuration so the texts were more readable. I tried several DPI configurations and font sizes. It seems that not all the fonts scale according to the DPI setting, and unfortunately the containers that hold the texts don't stretch in most applications. Eventually I just settled for something in the middle. Not scaled as nicely as in ChromeOS but not too small that I can't use it without eye strain.
After finishing with dpi tweaks I took the time to check out Steam for Linux. I hadn't tried this yet so I didn't know how far I would get. Apparently there are very few titles ready for Linux from the games library I have. I wasn't really looking to sit down and seriously play any titles, although it would have been nice if that were an option for counter-strike source. I ran through a bit of half-life and it was quite strange running it at 2600x1700. From far away (in game distance) the textures look intricately detailed, but moving closer they just start to blur; pixels grow. It is strange to see at the same time very detail where i can hardly see the lines of tiny pixels along side a large scaled up and stretched texture over a crate.
After all the tweaking, reconfiguring, etc- I am finally settled and I'm starting to really like the configuration I am left with. I am still not at the point where I can honestly say I wouldn't be happier with a MacBook - but at least now it is comparable.
After finishing with dpi tweaks I took the time to check out Steam for Linux. I hadn't tried this yet so I didn't know how far I would get. Apparently there are very few titles ready for Linux from the games library I have. I wasn't really looking to sit down and seriously play any titles, although it would have been nice if that were an option for counter-strike source. I ran through a bit of half-life and it was quite strange running it at 2600x1700. From far away (in game distance) the textures look intricately detailed, but moving closer they just start to blur; pixels grow. It is strange to see at the same time very detail where i can hardly see the lines of tiny pixels along side a large scaled up and stretched texture over a crate.
After all the tweaking, reconfiguring, etc- I am finally settled and I'm starting to really like the configuration I am left with. I am still not at the point where I can honestly say I wouldn't be happier with a MacBook - but at least now it is comparable.
Thursday, February 28, 2013
PIXEL
Today I received my Google Pixel. So far, it is fantastic. I have a few comments about some of the features that struck out to me:
First of all- it's just chrome:
I saw chromebooks in Best Buy stores and read about them briefly online but always assumed that the Chrome OS had to be at least a little bit more than just chrome- it is but it isn't All you get is a task bar and system tray and a way to tile your chrome windows. Absolutely nothing else runs outside of chrome, and what I found more surprising is that all your configuration for the system is through chrome. I guess I missed this part when I had read about them earlier- at first I was OK with this but now I'm a bit scared. I'm feeling a little trapped but I just got to let go of it all and embrace the chrome.
Keyboard & Track Pad:
Great to type on- great size and arrangement- keys feel very natural but the travel on them is quite minimal, feels like some of the keys may not depress straight down, but at angles- but upon inspection this isn't the case. All the buttons are great- the big track pad works just like my old MacBook except some of the gestures I was used to aren't here such as 2 or 3 finger swipes.
Battery:
For some reason the battery life was not that great the first day- I tried charging at the office all day and when I got home it was still at about 50% charge- I'm assuming there is some smart charging technology involved trying not to over charge? Maybe it needs to discharge first? On day 2 I got a full charge after an all night plug-in and found the battery life to be mildly satisfactory.
Display:
Can get plenty bright and it has a wide range to choose for brightness. I never cared for glossy displays because of glare. The touch screen is quick and accurate but I doubt I'll use it much. Actually, it is kinda annoying because I'm always brushing away dust that lands on the screen- now when I do that I may accidentally change my cursor position or click something.
Netflix:
Playing video sounds amazing. I thought that the way the speakers are configured on the machine that the sound would be obstructed if I the laptop were sunk into a blanked when I'm laying in bed but the sound is amazingly clear.
PROBLEMS:
Aside from the ones that I expected prior to the arrival of my pixel, I was surprised to discover the following issues:
Netflix:
After setting up my pixel to go to Developer mode I had a feeling Netflix would be blocked, considering it is not allowed in Linux on Chrome. I was correct, no Netflix for Dev mode.
Speed:
Even though this is the top of the line chromebook and comparable in cost to macbook (almost 1500 after taxes) performance is kinda crappy. I've noticed performance issues running youtube video and other slowness hickups are apparent compared to other machines I use.
No Java:
Java support is non-existant on Chromebook. I went to install Minecraft from chrome, installed, but the plugin could not load. Later found out that Java is not on chromebook.
Poor printing support:
I have a network printer. Unfortunately the only way to print from chromebook is through cloud printing service requires the printer to somehow connect to the cloud service independently of the chromebook. My printer does multi function, scan and fax, so obviously I can't have these either.
First of all- it's just chrome:
I saw chromebooks in Best Buy stores and read about them briefly online but always assumed that the Chrome OS had to be at least a little bit more than just chrome- it is but it isn't All you get is a task bar and system tray and a way to tile your chrome windows. Absolutely nothing else runs outside of chrome, and what I found more surprising is that all your configuration for the system is through chrome. I guess I missed this part when I had read about them earlier- at first I was OK with this but now I'm a bit scared. I'm feeling a little trapped but I just got to let go of it all and embrace the chrome.
Keyboard & Track Pad:
Great to type on- great size and arrangement- keys feel very natural but the travel on them is quite minimal, feels like some of the keys may not depress straight down, but at angles- but upon inspection this isn't the case. All the buttons are great- the big track pad works just like my old MacBook except some of the gestures I was used to aren't here such as 2 or 3 finger swipes.
Battery:
For some reason the battery life was not that great the first day- I tried charging at the office all day and when I got home it was still at about 50% charge- I'm assuming there is some smart charging technology involved trying not to over charge? Maybe it needs to discharge first? On day 2 I got a full charge after an all night plug-in and found the battery life to be mildly satisfactory.
Display:
Can get plenty bright and it has a wide range to choose for brightness. I never cared for glossy displays because of glare. The touch screen is quick and accurate but I doubt I'll use it much. Actually, it is kinda annoying because I'm always brushing away dust that lands on the screen- now when I do that I may accidentally change my cursor position or click something.
Netflix:
Playing video sounds amazing. I thought that the way the speakers are configured on the machine that the sound would be obstructed if I the laptop were sunk into a blanked when I'm laying in bed but the sound is amazingly clear.
PROBLEMS:
Aside from the ones that I expected prior to the arrival of my pixel, I was surprised to discover the following issues:
Netflix:
After setting up my pixel to go to Developer mode I had a feeling Netflix would be blocked, considering it is not allowed in Linux on Chrome. I was correct, no Netflix for Dev mode.
Speed:
Even though this is the top of the line chromebook and comparable in cost to macbook (almost 1500 after taxes) performance is kinda crappy. I've noticed performance issues running youtube video and other slowness hickups are apparent compared to other machines I use.
No Java:
Java support is non-existant on Chromebook. I went to install Minecraft from chrome, installed, but the plugin could not load. Later found out that Java is not on chromebook.
Poor printing support:
I have a network printer. Unfortunately the only way to print from chromebook is through cloud printing service requires the printer to somehow connect to the cloud service independently of the chromebook. My printer does multi function, scan and fax, so obviously I can't have these either.
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