Hijack This Thread

[AndyinPA]

Not quite sure where to post this, so…

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/ ... ki-airport

A US bomb from the second world war that had been buried at a Japanese airport has exploded, causing a large crater in a taxiway and the cancellation of more than 80 flights but no injuries, Japanese officials said.

Land and transport ministry officials said there were no aircraft nearby when the bomb exploded at Miyazaki airport in south-western Japan on Wednesday.

Officials said an investigation by the self-defence forces and police confirmed that the explosion was caused by a 500-pound US bomb and there was no further danger. They were determining what caused its sudden detonation.

A video recorded by a nearby aviation school showed the blast spewing pieces of asphalt into the air like a fountain. Videos broadcast on Japanese television showed a crater in the taxiway reportedly about 7 metres in diameter and 1 metre deep.

[jez]

Wasn't really sure where to put this, and yes, I've been following this on TikTok.

COLUMBUS, Ohio — The Columbus Division of Police is investigating what is believed to be a rug that was discovered buried in the ground in the backyard of a home in east Columbus after a series of videos went viral on TikTok.

Santry had recently started digging holes in her yard to install a fence. As she and her husband went digging the other day, they noticed something unusual.

"Back here... we dug a hole. There is a rolled-up carpet buried underground that we came across as we were digging this hole,” Santry said in a TikTok video.

https://www.10tv.com/article/news/crime ... ab27793c6e

Two cadaver dogs alerted on the spot where the rug is. Could mean it's a rug that has some blood on it, or it could be a body is rolled up in the rug that is buried a couple of feet (less than 1 meter) underground.

[bill_g]

[Rolodex]

Thought about putting this in the weather thread; maybe someone knows of a better cross posting.

Anyway, this "photo" has been making the rounds on socmed. The first second I glanced at it, I thought, "AI." And indeed it is. It's incredibly obvious to my eye (and I'm an old bag who wears glasses).

Dr Rolodex went to an event without me last night and came home, telling me someone had shown him this picture and so sad, etc. I said I'd seen it and shook my head that so many people are being fooled by an AI image.This led to a conversation about whether it made any difference if it was AI or not; it's "emblematic" of the situation in the disaster areas. My take was that there are too many stupid people fooled by nonsense.

So here's what I'm wondering: does it matter if people are fooled by AI like this photo? It's a harmless "photo" (unless people are using it to con money out of people, which I haven't seen yet). What are the arguments against sharing or believing this image is real?

Screenshot 2024-10-04 at 11.34.18 AM.png (185.76 KiB) Viewed 1001 times

[pipistrelle]

It's fake. There are enough real photos of tragedy that we should focus on. Fake ≠ emblematic.

[MN-Skeptic]

I think the biggest problem with AI generated photos is the loss of credibility. A reputable person would have real photos to support their stories. If you're known to display AI generated photos, how can anyone believe anything you say?

[Rolodex]

I think the biggest problem with AI generated photos is the loss of credibility. A reputable person would have real photos to support their stories. If you're known to display AI generated photos, how can anyone believe anything you say?

Yep. I agree.

I think it's embarrassing for people to pass these things around like they're real. Do people care if they look dumb? I don't know. But is there something worse happening? I think it's super wrong to pass those things around, but I'm having a hard time articulating why I think that. LOL That's why I need this discussion!

[bill_g]

What features identify it as AI gen?

The girls eye?
The puppy?
Foreground? Background?

[keith]

I think the biggest problem with AI generated photos is the loss of credibility. A reputable person would have real photos to support their stories. If you're known to display AI generated photos, how can anyone believe anything you say?

As long as you profess faith in Turnip, then everything you say will be taken as gospel.

[neonzx]

What features identify it as AI gen?

The girls eye?
The puppy?
Foreground? Background?

Yes.

[bill_g]

What features identify it as AI gen?

The girls eye?
The puppy?
Foreground? Background?

Yes.

It's not as easy to spot as Rhonda Santis.

.

[neonzx]

[RTH10260]

re above girl with puppy

Hurricane Helene Deepfakes Flooding Social Media Hurt Real People

Lars Daniel covers digital evidence and cybersecurity in life and law.
Oct 4, 2024,12:27pm EDT Updated Oct 4, 2024, 01:51pm EDT

An AI-generated image spreading across social media of a girl holding a puppy in the aftermath of ... [+]AI generated image circulating social media.
In the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, Asheville and other impacted regions were flooded with water, while fake generative AI images of destruction and human suffering flooded social media.

These doctored or faked visuals can complicate disaster response efforts, create false narratives and, above all, harm public trust in a moment when normal people are making extraordinary efforts to help one another in the midst of life and death scenarios.

In particular, two images of a distressed child holding a puppy and who appears to be trapped in floodwaters has gained traction online.

As an expert in video and photo forensics, I can say with certainty that these emotionally evocative images are highly edited or outright fake. The first image (above) bears telltale signs of a deepfake to a trained eye. Comparing it with the second image in the series (below) — in which the young girl has one too many fingers — the puppy’s muzzle has a different coloration and the boat is a different shape and color.


more at https://www.forbes.com/sites/larsdaniel ... al-people/

[keith]

The one with the girl with too many fingers does not have too many fingers. The 'extra finger' is a fold of the puppies skin.

The rest of the story is correct though.

[Dave from down under]

We have the Rural Fire Service which is mostly volunteers (70K volunteers and 1K employees).
Plus Fire and rescue service (state employees).

If there is a fire either/both will attend, though RFS does most non urban fires.

If it is a bush fire they prioritise residential buildings, so your shed etc may be unprotected.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Sou ... re_Service

Finding of the RFS
Section 102 established the New South Wales Rural Fire Fighting Fund. Quarterly contributions from insurance companies, local councils and the Treasury were to continue in the same proportions as under previous legislation – 14% from the State Treasury, 73.7% from the insurance industry and 12.3% from local Councils.


NSW pop is 8.5M most are in urban

[AndyinPA]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/ ... to-witches

Three feminist campaigners in the Netherlands want to reclaim the insult “witch” and recognise the innocent victims of Dutch witch-hunts from the 15th to the 17th centuries with a national monument.

Susan Smit, Bregje Hofstede and Manja Bedner, the chair and board members of the National Witches Monument foundation, have raised €35,000 (£29,000) for an official site of memory for about 70,000 people who died during a Satanic panic that swept Europe and the Americas.

“It’s about creating more awareness around this history of, basically, femicide,” Hofstede said. “To this day a witch is still a comic figure. In the Netherlands, every year at the carnaval, people burn effigies of witches … but there’s hardly any knowledge of the actual history of people being burned at the stake.”

[MsDaisy 2]

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[p0rtia]

[AndyinPA]

[Uninformed]

[Flatpoint High]

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May her memory be a blessing

[RTH10260]

Most of Iowa’s fixed traffic cameras must be turned off as DOT implements new law

Iowa Public Radio | By Katarina Sostaric
Published October 1, 2024 at 3:07 PM CDT

Most of Iowa’s traffic cameras that issue speeding tickets in permanent locations must be turned off after the Iowa Department of Transportation denied the vast majority of cities’ requests to operate them.

A new law regulating traffic cameras in Iowa required local governments with automated traffic enforcement systems to apply for a permit from the DOT to continue operating those systems. Cities and counties have to prove to the state that their traffic cameras that automatically issue speeding tickets are appropriate, necessary and the least restrictive way to address traffic safety at those locations. The DOT notified communities of its decisions on Monday afternoon.

According to the DOT, local governments requested the use of traffic cameras at 348 locations across the state, including fixed and mobile cameras. The DOT approved 154 of them.

Only 11 of the 139 fixed cameras were approved for continued use. There are four in Cedar Rapids, four in Davenport and one each in Des Moines, Le Claire and Marshalltown.

As for mobile speed cameras, 143 of the 209 locations were approved. They are all in eight cities.

Eighteen of the 28 communities that applied for a permit were fully denied. Only one city — Fort Dodge — had all of its cameras approved. Nine cities total got to keep some of their cameras.



https://www.iowapublicradio.org/state-g ... t-iowa-dot

[RTH10260]

Brothers exonerated with DNA evidence after 25 years in prison

by WKRC
Sat, September 28th 2024 at 12:41 PM

GREEN BAY, Wis. (WKRC) - Two brothers will soon be free after spending 25 years in prison for a crime they didn't commit.

44-year-old Sandra Lison disappeared from the bar Good Times, where she worked as a bartender, in 1987. Her remains were found 30 miles away with evidence of strangulation and sexual assault, according to WFRV.

David and Robert Bintz were suspects due to their presence at Good Times on the night Lison disappeared, and because David allegedly fought with Lison about his bill. The brothers were questioned, but nobody was arrested and the case went cold.

11 years later David was serving time in prison for an unrelated crime when his cellmate told guards that David confessed to murdering Lison in his sleep, according to WFRV.

David and Robert were sentenced to life in prison in 2000 for the sexual assault and murder of Lison, and despite a lack of physical evidence, they were also charged with robbing Lison before she was killed.

It took another 18 years before David and Robert had any hope of seeing freedom again. In 2018 the Great North Innocence Project of Minnesota began to reexamine the Bintz's case.

Genealogists from theInvestigate Genetic Genealogy Center at Ramapo College in New Jersey (IGG) aided the project by looking at the collected DNA samples against an even wider, more modern database, according to Fox 11.

The IGG found a family match in 2023, but it linked to three brothers.

The IGG hedged their bets on William Hendricks, a convicted rapist who died in 2000. They accessed a sample of William's remains and determined there was a 1 in 329 trillion chance that the DNA found at the original 1987 crime scene belonged to anyone but William Hendricks, according to Fox 11.

David and Robert were finally freed on Sept. 27, nearly a full 25 years after their initial imprisonment.



https://local12.com/news/nation-world/b ... rrest-jail

[MsDaisy 2]

25 years for a wrongful conviction, holy shit! How do you compensate someone for something like that?

[zekeb]

25 years for a wrongful conviction, holy shit! How do you compensate someone for something like that?

How much is a mother's child worth to her? 25 years is about a third of that person's life, so give each a third of what a mother values her child at. OTOH these are normally the best 25 years of someone's life. A million dollars doesn't give them that part of their life back.