Article

2019-12-02 -Signs, Portents, and the Weather-

Rampaging monkeys to be tracked using Microsoft facial recognition AI so worst offenders can be STERILISED after causing chaos across India

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Posted by Skidmark 2019-12-02 00:00|| || Front Page|| [11133 views ] Top

#1 Big brother is here!

Posted by g(r)omgoru 2019-12-02 00:43|| 2019-12-02 00:43|| Front Page Top

#2 Where's Monkey Boy [Em]Ballmer when you need him?

Posted by Lex 2019-12-02 04:35|| 2019-12-02 04:35|| Front Page Top

#3 Google and Youtube will take notes.

Posted by Procopius2k 2019-12-02 07:26|| 2019-12-02 07:26|| Front Page Top

#4 The South Asian Macaque, these beasts can be very dangerous. Their numbers need to be dramatically reduced, especially in urban areas.

I had an inadvertent run in with a small troupe that could have been disastrous, I was very lucky. People here might joke, but people have been killed by these animals.

Posted by Spike Turkeyneck3965 2019-12-02 08:14|| 2019-12-02 08:14|| Front Page Top

#5 My brother and I, he a 40 kilo bull terrier and I a wiry young kungfool once fought off a posse of about a dozen of 'em. Their leader had fallen in my yard my brother was on him immediately. I warded of the posse with a stick. I caught a glimpse of the bastards long teeth as he opened his mouth to bite my brother. And I jabbed one end of the stick in its mouth. I kept the thing pinned, while Ninja (my bro) tore him asunder at the waist. My brother was lacerated all over his head, neck, shoulders... and we were bathed in blood when we got to the vet.

The news was broadcast on local radio an' all. You can imagine the cred.

Posted by Dron66046 2019-12-02 08:44|| 2019-12-02 08:44|| Front Page Top

#6 Can white males be far behind?

Posted by Mercutio 2019-12-02 11:50|| 2019-12-02 11:50|| Front Page Top

#7 ..they start in elementary school with ritalin.

Posted by Procopius2k 2019-12-02 12:57|| 2019-12-02 12:57|| Front Page Top

#8 Are they using China's human face scan ID software?
(Just curious if the same software works for both.)

Posted by 3dc 2019-12-02 13:00|| 2019-12-02 13:00|| Front Page Top

#9 Why would they sterilize the worst offenders, at considerable effort and expense, when they could simply cull them?

Posted by trailing wife 2019-12-02 15:22|| 2019-12-02 15:22|| Front Page Top

#10 Culling monkeys? In India?

Posted by John Frum 2019-12-02 15:33|| 2019-12-02 15:33|| Front Page Top

#11 People here are averse to killing animals for any reason. The refrain is, we encroached on their habitats, it's only just we adjust with them as they have with us. Plus, there's a strong hindu sentiment for the monkey god who's a sidekick to the primary deity, Ram.

Posted by Dron66046 2019-12-02 15:37|| 2019-12-02 15:37|| Front Page Top

#12 "NEW DELHI — The first interloper stepped in front of her on the sidewalk and silently held up his hand. The second appeared behind her and beckoned for her bag. Maeve O’Connor was trapped.

Resistance would have been dangerous, so Ms. O’Connor handed it over. The two then sauntered arrogantly away. The whole encounter lasted no more than 15 seconds — just one more coordinated mugging by rhesus monkeys in a city increasingly plagued by them.

“I had other bags with me, but they knew the bag that had the fresh bread in it,” Ms. O’Connor said.

“They were totally silent, very quick and highly effective.”

The monkey population of Delhi has grown so large and aggressive that overwhelmed city officials have petitioned India’s Supreme Court to relieve them of the task of monkey control.

“We have trapped 13,013 monkeys since 2007,” said R. B. S. Tyagi, director of veterinary services for Delhi’s principal city government. Nonetheless, Delhi’s monkey population has only increased. The reason is simple: People feed them. Monkeys are the living representatives of the cherished Hindu god Hanuman, and Hindu tradition calls for feeding monkeys on Tuesdays and Saturdays.

Dr. Tyagi expressed impatience with residents who feed the monkeys one day, then complain to the city when the monkeys steal their clothes on another day.

Dr. Tyagi’s agency has asked the city’s wildlife agency for help, but wildlife officials claim that the monkeys — a scourge of the city for years as urbanization has encroached on their original habitat — are no longer wild and are thus not their responsibility.

“This problem will never be solved” as long as Hindus feed monkeys regularly, said R. M. Shukla, the city’s chief wildlife warden. “We’ve issued many ads asking people not to feed monkeys in public places.”

In 2007, a Delhi deputy mayor died when he fell from his terrace after being attacked by monkeys, a widely publicized episode that spurred the city to step up its efforts to move monkeys to safer environments. Yet such attacks continue. This month a 14-year-old girl was seriously injured when she fell from the roof of a five-story residential building after monkeys pursued her.

“Monkeys do commonly bite people, and their bite wounds can be extensive,” Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in Bethesda, Md., wrote in an e-mail. “They are smart enough to often attack the face of the person.” While monkey bites can lead to rabies or a fatal form of the herpes virus, documented cases are “close to nonexistent,” Dr. Fauci wrote. Skin bacterial infections from bites are common, however. They are treatable with antibiotics. Stories abound in Delhi of monkeys’ entering homes, ripping out wiring, stealing clothes and biting those who surprise them. They treat the Indian Parliament building as a playground, have invaded the prime minister’s office and Defense Ministry, sometimes ride buses and subway trains, and chase diplomats from their well-tended gardens.

Roopi Saran, a Delhi resident, has seen monkeys steal candy from the hands of her children. And tribes of monkeys often take over her yard, preventing her and her children from venturing outside."

Posted by John Frum 2019-12-02 15:41|| 2019-12-02 15:41|| Front Page Top

#13 Road Song of the Bandar-Log
R. Kipling

Here we go in a flung festoon,
Half-way up to the jealous moon!
Don’t you envy our pranceful bands?
Don’t you wish you had extra hands?
Wouldn’t you like if your tails were–so–
Curved in the shape of a Cupid’s bow?
Now you’re angry, but–never mind,
Brother, thy tail hangs down behind!

Here we sit in a branchy row,
Thinking of beautiful things we know;
Dreaming of deeds that we mean to do,
All complete, in a minute or two–
Something noble and wise and good,
Done by merely wishing we could.
We’ve forgotten, but–never mind,
Brother, thy tail hangs down behind!

All the talk we ever have heard
Uttered by bat or beast or bird–
Hide or fin or scale or feather–
Jabber it quickly and all together!
Excellent! Wonderful! Once again!

Now we are talking just like men!
Let’s pretend we are ... never mind,
Brother, thy tail hangs down behind!
This is the way of the Monkey-kind.

Then join our leaping lines that scumfish through the pines,
That rocket by where, light and high, the wild grape swings.
By the rubbish in our wake, and the noble noise we make,
Be sure, be sure, we’re going to do some splendid things!

Posted by Lex 2019-12-02 16:07|| 2019-12-02 16:07|| Front Page Top

#14 Are they using China's human face scan ID software?
(Just curious if the same software works for both.)

You could. One of the hot new things in Artificial Intelligence is Transfer Learning. Basically, you take a neural network that is trained on one problem domain, like classifying pix of dogs vs cats, and use it as the basis for a second classification network. The idea is that the lower layers of the neural network have already learned to identify basic features and therefore need less training.

Given that Chinamen look alike and monkeys look alike, this should totally work.
(Oh, stop it! I've had multiple Asian friends (Japanese, Korean and Chinese) confess that when they first came to America, they thought all white people looked alike. This has more to do with limited sample size than racism. With more samples, your brainal network learns better recognition skills)

Seriously, since we are talking about recognizing primate faces (you took biology, right?), the problems are similar.

Posted by SteveS 2019-12-02 19:37|| 2019-12-02 19:37|| Front Page Top

#15 SteveS -> same assumptions that's why I asked.
2 stories on the same day about a different use for facial recognition for purposes of controlling the face owners suggest similar software at some point.

Posted by 3dc 2019-12-02 20:55|| 2019-12-02 20:55|| Front Page Top

#16 What Steve said. These are actually not difficult problems to solve.

Soon facial recognition will be as simple and ubiquitous as PageRank or search retargeting algorithms. Easy stuff now.

Posted by Lex 2019-12-02 23:42|| 2019-12-02 23:42|| Front Page Top

23:42 Lex
23:39 Lex
23:29 Secret Master
23:21 trailing wife
22:35 trailing wife
22:10 Injun Thrinegum4602
22:07 Injun Thrinegum4602
20:55 3dc
20:54 Thaising Dark Lord of the Huns8668
19:57 The peanut gallery
19:43 SteveS
19:37 SteveS
19:24 Glenmore
19:22 Glenmore
19:14 The peanut gallery
19:06 Silentbrick
19:04 Silentbrick
18:44 Skidmark
18:43 Frank G
18:36 Roger Smith
18:17 Roger Smith
18:09 AlmostAnonymous5839
18:07 AlmostAnonymous5839
18:03 AlmostAnonymous5839