notable benefits of clergy

• geofence (tech n.): a virtual boundary that lets software respond when its device enters or leaves a particular area. e.g. disabling wi-fi, e.g. sending an alert. My engineering lecturer claimed that the DoD disabled his car with one of these.


• Stingray (policing n.): phone snooper; IMSI-catcher. Emulates a real phone tower to locate and identify nearby phones. In common use in large US cities.


• Moravec's paradox (AI n.): the surprising fact that abstract cognition has proved much easier to emulate in AI than has basic, instinctive visual and motor processing. Haut en bas.


• slamming (white-collar crime n./v.): taking control of a phone owner's account without permission. Done by actual companies, somehow.


• benefit of clergy (medieval n.): right to be tried by the Church instead of the magistrate; effectively, the right to not be executed for your crimes. Originally only granted to clerics, hence the name, but eventually to anyone who could read.
  


• skurf (sports n.): water-skiing on a surfboard.


• dark ad (data n.): a targeted ad with differing content depending on your data exhaust. Tabloid newspapers have always been dark ads.


• to breadboard (maker v.): to prototype; to experiment with a rough solderless version of a circuit design.


• URM (US n.): under-represented minority.


• Pump and dump (finance n.): inflating the price of stock you own through false advertising, then selling it at the higher price. Post-dump, the price falls and investors lose everything. See also chop stocks.


• hardbass (Russian n.): techno / hard house. Joyless.


• invoice financing (biz n.): Payday loans for businesses.


• person analytics (biz n.): the creepy big-data approach arrives at the traditionally creepy HR department. Automated hiring, reward, and firing.


• the woods (prison collective n.): white hoods; the KKK (?). The mandatory racism of US prison is one of its most stable and horrifying features.


• smallcap (finance n.): a public company with a 'small' total market capitalization: like, a mere $0.3bn to $2bn.