What the hell? Lol.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2088667/Critics-say-Microsoft-Avoid-Ghetto-app-damage-economies-poor-communities.html

****ing white people

Why is this even news? All it does is just offer routes around dangerous areas. It's something I do manually all the time, so why is having an app a bad idea?

How is this racist? The only way this is racist is if being a violent individual is part of a particular race's proud heritage. That's an awful implication to make in defense of minority groups. "Avoiding violent parts of town" does not mean "avoiding black/hispanic parts of town," even if that's the functional result. Also, the argument that it is going to hurt businesses in underprivileged areas is such a misappropriation of resources it hurts. Maybe all of the energy put towards fighting illusary suggestions of racism could go towards fighting the violence we're talking about?

I think this is awesome, because some of the people I work with like to maintain the illusion that they live in a 'safe' neighborhood while just 2 blocks away is the ghetto.

Now, I'll be able to plug their address into an APP and say 'Look it's official, you live in the ghetto'.

Maybe this is nitpicking, but the way they continually reference this patent as "the app" in that article annoyed me. It's not an app, it's a piece of functionality that will just be built into Microsoft's existing map software.

I'm going to kind of agree with Kirby on this. It appears that the app only lets you know which neighborhood have the highest crime rates. If you read that and say "that means it's where all the black/hispanic people live!" then you're the racist.

When I lived in Columbus I was mugged once, had my beer stolen from me on the way back from the store, and chased down the street twice. Two of those instances were white guys, one of them was a black guy, and I have no idea what the ******* who mugged me was.

I encourage this person to leave their keys unattended in their car in Detroit until they understand the concept of frequency.

Win.

I really thought this thread was about whether or not to avoid the "Ghetto App" but whatever.

Funny thing is, Detroit is actually banning parking on the street in some parts of the city now where crime is high now. I find it hilarious that instead of trying to clean the city up a bit and reduce crime, their solution to car breakins and thefts is just "you can't park there."

Haha, me too. Punctuation is your friend!

PRIVATE
NO
SWIMMING
ALLOWED

as opposed to

PRIVATE?
NO!
SWIMMING
ALLOWED

lol. Sorry i fail in the area of punctuation.
:v:.......
[CENTER]
[/CENTER]

If you're Pac-Man, then all is forgiven. ^-^

Is it worth saving Detroit?

You are correct here.

The only racists here are the people claiming this is racist. If they don't like the fact that I avoid their neighborhood maybe they should clean their **** hole up.

You don't patronize crappy stores in hopes of giving the owner more money so he can improve the store. It's the other way around, the owner has to take the initiative and invest in the store to win you over. Same idea.

Yeah the word racism is thrown around way way too much.

If I have no desire to be in an area renown for violence and crime, I don't care if it's filled with whites blacks or purple people eaters, I just don't want to be there.

Hey guys, just because someone sees racism everywhere doesn't mean that they must in fact be racist.

I think you're the racists for saying that people saying this is racist are racist. Moreover, I'm the racist for saying that people saying this is racist are racist are racists.

You racist *******!

Haha, sort of like an I know that you know that I know that you know situation.

And purple people eaters. Heh.

You must be referring to Barney.

Well you were either on the east side or west side, but since you said white guys Im guessing the west side.

On the contrary, my good man! I lived in Old Town East for the majority of my stay, with a year in Victorian Village when I thought I had more money than I actually did.

Were you counting 1940 dollars?

Probably credit cards.

-Also, if it really does count crimes like domestic violence and such, then it's a pretty useless app. I suspect that the Green River Killer alone would make my entire town a no-go area, and he's been in prison for like 8 years now.

If it merely counts all crimes ever, then yes, it would be crap.
But I think the most likely thing is it counts recent crimes (for a given value of recent) or something like that.