Microsoft is developing a new app for their phones. And a lot of people are getting their panties in a wad over it.
The app is still under development, but word of it has leaked out, as has the working title of the app: Avoid The Ghetto.
According to the patent filing, the app is to help a pedestrian avoid “traveling through an unsafe neighborhood or being in an open area that is subject to harsh temperatures.” It uses weather data, crime stats, and such to make the determination.
Well, the NAACP is all up in arms over that. Or is going to be:
“I’m going to be up in arms about it if it happens,” said Dallas NAACP President Juanita Wallace.
Wallace spent her afternoon at a rally on Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. and said she felt safe there, but fears the app may project otherwise.
“Can you imagine me not being able to go to MLK Blvd. because my GPS says that’s a dangerous crime area? I can’t even imagine that,” she said.
The thing she’s missing is that it won’t say that MLK Boulevard is a high crime area unless, well, stats show it’s a high crime area.
You think maybe the problem isn’t that people are pointing out that crime occurs, but that crime occurs? Nah, that’d make too much sense to actually address the real problem, when fake outrage over fake problems is much more fun.
But, you know, maybe Microsoft is on to something. I wonder what other apps they could develop.
- Avoid The Idiots. Using voter registration roles, it could find where Democrats live, and then you could avoid having to deal with idiots.
- Avoid The Tide. Using college records, it could find where Alabama fans live and help you not get someone’s wang thrust in your face.
- Avoid The Crazy Women. Using information from Facebook, dating sites, and news stories, it will help you avoid hooking up with the future Ex-Mrs. Ex-Speaker Of The House. (Boy, could I have used this one, once upon a time!)
There are probably several apps that could be developed that would be of benefit.
Maybe I need to rethink my position on Microsoft being all evil and such.
A fine idea, as far as it goes, and it goes as far as trusting Microsoft to actually craft decent algorithms. This is unlikely, but will be entertaining when released.
– An app. that shows me where highest estimated gun ownership is so I can go and be safe.
– An app. that identifies Yankee-hating southern police departments so I can be routed around them.
– An app. similar to the Democrat identification app. that identifies areas where hippie punching is not only allowed but also expressly encouraged.
– An app. that displays Ron Paul supporter density — for entertainment purposes only.
Exit questions about Microsoft’s algorithm: Will it account for illegal presence in the US as a crime? Will it take into account the severity of the crime? If so, Bernie Madoff’s neighborhood would appear as a black hole.
“Imagine me not being able to go because my GPS says”
WTF? She actually thinks that if the app tells her an area is high crime then she can’t go there?
You know, I could have used that last summer when my GPS sent me straight into the worst neighborhood of Paterson, NJ in my new car. I’d always laughed about people driving off piers and into restaurants because the GPS told them to. Of course, when I realized what was happening I did a U–better lost than dead–but my pride took a whack.
So hell, yeah, bring on the crime-stat apps. (Had they called the thing something like “Crime Avoidance Program” they might have lower sales, but they’d avoid the bad publicity.)
There are plenty of similar apps already out there that just haven’t got the same pub as “Avoid the Ghetto” has.
For instance, over 95% of the OWS demonstrators utilize the DNC’s “Avoid the Soap” and “Avoid the Work” apps on a daily basis on their standard-issue 99%® Smartphones.
[racism]
Do we really need an app for that? Can’t I just have google maps search for streets named after MLK and schools named after Obama, and avoid those areas?
[/racism]
Juanita Wallace is the reason there should be an aptitude test before you are allowed to vote.
I just had a thought – of the two birds, one stone variety. For the people who are stupid enough to do whatever their ‘smart’ device tells them to, let’s make an app that tells those people to avoid polling stations on election days.
How abouts they apply their Genuine Advantage software validation algorithms to voter registration.
“In any city in America, the one place you don’t want to be after dark is Martin Luther King Drive”
– Chris Rock –
Gotta love the rationale behind this. App looks at crime rates. App maps high crime areas. High crime areas often have a high black population. Therefore, app is racist. This is the age-old liberal fallacy which states that it is worse to observe a crime than it is to commit one.
“So Crusty, where is it safe to go while I’m staying in Chicago?”
“I’d tell you but I can’t. That would be racist.”
Basil and Frank, being smart engineers, could develop and patent an app that identifies low crime areas. They could call it “NoMug”, as in this area has no muggings.
Juanita Wallace needs that Allstate Insurance commercial Mayhem Guy in her GPS. Problem solved if she does everything it tells her to. “Turn left over the cliff. Recalculating.”
What I want is an app that tells me where all the current cop cars are so I know when I need to slow down. That thing would sell like hot cakes. I’d buy a smart phone just for that app. Of course, all law enforcement agencies everywhere would hate it and try to get it banned.
I’ve had some thoughts about writing such a program myself – make it so anyone who sees a cop can update the location or something. Then I think about how much work it would be to get such a program to work correctly, and I go back to playing video games instead.
Ernie:
Didn’t they make T-Shirts like that one time? “If you see a cop, warn a brother.”
Ernie, that’s so 14,519,798 users ago.
Download Trapster For Free!
Basil, these are all app’s for so called smart phones.
But smart phones are stupid (like Twitter)
So, I propose a “You are a stupid smart phone user app” that self-identifies.
Well, if you made your income by carjacking, and someone developed a way to warn your potential victims ahead of time, I suppose you’d be mad too. Perhaps a solution would be for Juanita Wallace and her homeys to start looking for honest work.
Libs are always screaming “racist!” when the truth is told – like the Cloud of Shame the PC crowd has tried to place over the term “illegal” when used to describe an alien who is in this country illegally – oops, I mean, without documentation. (Actually, they have lovely documentation, that has been illegally stolen and/or forged – oops, I mean, obtained from an unconventional source.) Because of the USA’s geographic location (adjacent to one country with a moderately stable economy, and one country run by and for criminals, with vast sink-holes of poverty, wide-spread violence and no hope for reform), the overwhelming majority of aliens present in the USA illegally are Mexican – therefore calling an illegally present alien by the shorthand term “illegal alien” is RACIST!!1! When the truth implicates one race over another, the truth must be suppressed. Better to die from random gunfire on MLK Boulevard than to admit its denizens include gang members who are prone to criminal acts.
racists — Yeah, theres an app for that
Unfortunately for you Burma, the areas of the country that house the highest amount of Yankee-hating southern police departments also has the highest concentration of areas where hippie punching is not only allowed but also expressly encouraged.
I double dare Juanita to take a walk down MLK Blvd in East St. Louis. Day or night.
You may need to throw kid etiquette out the window and go straight to the triple-dog dare.
@zzyzx: I didn’t think of that.
Full disclaimer: I’ve spent a lot of time in the South, and I am extremely fond of it, all of it. Sometimes my fondness of the south might not be apparent to a highway patrol man who can only see my Yankee license plates.
Burmashave:
Why don’t you just learn to eat grits and move down here?
Dallas NAACP President Juanita Wallace
So that’s like..her “job”? What does the “P”resident of the NAAColored People DO? besides looking for things that are raaaaaaaaasist….like calling her a ‘colored person’ of whom she is the “P”resident there of. How much does professional whining pay?
Criminals generally feel safe in the ghetto …hmmmm It’s everyone else that has to worry.
[racism]
At least she’s not on welfare.
[/racism]
maybe….
How about an app that intentionally steers liberals into the real ghettos so they can finally meet those people they claim to like so much. They aren’t about to go see the results of the welfare state on their own.
#22 – No-mo-bama,
“They aren’t about to go see the results of the welfare state on their own.”
Why do you think they created the welfare state in the first place?
If minorities were upwardly mobile, they might move next door to them!
@4of7 “If minorities were upwardly mobile, they might move next door to them!”
Hey I don’t want no hippies in my neighborhood. Its bad enough we have a democrat within a mile.
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Can you hear me now, begging for my life?
Can I get a listing of the NAACP lawyers and officers that live in high crime areas?
What’s that? None of them do?
RACISTS! How dare they choose their domiciles to avoid high-crime areas; I declare this to be illegal and want an injunction requiring a certain percentage of them moved to high crime areas immediately.
Or is avoiding high crime areas only bad when other people do it? Yeah, that’s probably it.
All I know is, MLK Blvds have the best rib joints.