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Ask HN: Why is there no way to lower amber alert volume on headphones?

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Re: Ask HN: Why is there no way to lower amber alert volume on headphones?

#51

Post by coldpie »

dtjb wrote: post #46
radford-neal wrote: post #26

I very much doubt that there is any technical reason for the alerts always being loud. It's a deliberate decision. Like the whole idea of amber alerts, it is a matter of authorities taking decisions that make them feel good, without considering the consequences. Amber alerts are bad. We get them now and them in Ontario at 3am, sent to the entire (rather large) province. This is idiotic. The probability that someone w…

It's getting worse. Most US states [1] have started to use the phone siren system for injured cops as well. Regardless of your politics on this, what exactly am I supposed to do with a notification at 2AM that a cop was shot 400 miles away? Seems like the phone alert system is being used to push public perceptions rather than public safety. [1] https://cops.usdoj.gov/BlueAlert

> Seems like the phone alert system is being used to push public perceptions rather than public safety.

Yes, they absolutely are. Just a couple weeks ago, local law enforcement sent out an incredibly vague shelter-in-place active-shooter alert across the entire Twin Cities area for a situation in a suburb that was resolved about five minutes later[1]. Schools were locked down, buildings closed, etc. And wouldn't you know it, there's an election in two weeks where the Republicans, who the police unanimously endorse and campaign for, are running on a "crime is out of control" narrative! Crazy coincidence, that.

[1] The entirety of the message was, "Shelter in place - Homicide suspect at large described as 17 year old white male." No location specified, sent to the entire urban region. https://www.startribune.com/shelter-in-place-alert-about-hom...

Re: Ask HN: Why is there no way to lower amber alert volume on headphones?

#52

Post by giantg2 »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #17
tyleo wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are they useless? I grew up in an area with tornadoes and when one came ripping through my childhood suburb and destroyed some houses I was happy to have forewarning.

> Why are they useless? I can’t speak to tornado alerts, but the Amber Alert child alerts were becoming excessive and useless in my state. I was getting alerts from many hundreds of miles away, often while trying to sleep. Other times they’d forget to put relevant information in the first alert so they’d send several more to follow up. When we finally got a series of multiple Amber alerts in the middle of the night,…

Like most government websites I've used, they're junk with no thought to UX.

Maybe go with the UX best practice of allowing the user to choose how they want to be alerted? Is that so hard? Government can't get basic shit like this right, I wonder how they're handling the rest of it...

Re: Ask HN: Why is there no way to lower amber alert volume on headphones?

#53

Post by paiute »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #17
tyleo wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are they useless? I grew up in an area with tornadoes and when one came ripping through my childhood suburb and destroyed some houses I was happy to have forewarning.

> Why are they useless? I can’t speak to tornado alerts, but the Amber Alert child alerts were becoming excessive and useless in my state. I was getting alerts from many hundreds of miles away, often while trying to sleep. Other times they’d forget to put relevant information in the first alert so they’d send several more to follow up. When we finally got a series of multiple Amber alerts in the middle of the night,…

I made an effort to look them all up for a while, almost all of them are custody disputes and the child isn't in real danger. I mostly ignore them now. We did have a girl nearby that was actually missing and they couldn't issue an amber alert because it didn't meet the criteria. It took them a few days to decide to issue one in exception to the criteria and within that day the girl was found (due to the amber alert).

Re: Ask HN: Why is there no way to lower amber alert volume on headphones?

#55

Post by mvdwoord »

armada651 wrote: post #37
nells wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

These HN comments get so tiring. Yes, I'm sure everyone would be better off if only countries were managed like a tech startup.

False dichotomy much?

It should be possible to improve policies without introducing dependencies to crappy JavaScript frameworks.

Re: Ask HN: Why is there no way to lower amber alert volume on headphones?

#56

Post by Kye »

tyleo wrote: post #5
bombcar wrote: post #2

My guess is a conservative reading of the applicable laws, if anything. Turn off amber alerts; they're entirely useless and you can now turn them off without turning off the tornado warnings (almost entirely useless, too).

Why are they useless? I grew up in an area with tornadoes and when one came ripping through my childhood suburb and destroyed some houses I was happy to have forewarning.

If you live in the path of water coming through the air from the Gulf of Mexico, you're in popup thunderstorm country. These confuse prediction systems, so you end up with warnings all day, every day for large parts of the year.

Re: Ask HN: Why is there no way to lower amber alert volume on headphones?

#57

Post by tpict »

On a similar note to the linked article: the low battery alert of the AirPods Pro can be ear-shattering, and there's no means of reducing the volume. I suspect it tries to scale volume with environmental noise because it ranges from "startling" to "painful".

Re: Ask HN: Why is there no way to lower amber alert volume on headphones?

#58

Post by yesBut00 »

nells wrote: post #24
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why are they useless? I can’t speak to tornado alerts, but the Amber Alert child alerts were becoming excessive and useless in my state. I was getting alerts from many hundreds of miles away, often while trying to sleep. Other times they’d forget to put relevant information in the first alert so they’d send several more to follow up. When we finally got a series of multiple Amber alerts in the middle of the night,…

Quoted post unavailable.

No post body was provided.

Re: Ask HN: Why is there no way to lower amber alert volume on headphones?

#59

Post by Spoom »

radford-neal wrote: post #26

I very much doubt that there is any technical reason for the alerts always being loud. It's a deliberate decision. Like the whole idea of amber alerts, it is a matter of authorities taking decisions that make them feel good, without considering the consequences. Amber alerts are bad. We get them now and them in Ontario at 3am, sent to the entire (rather large) province. This is idiotic. The probability that someone w…

Ontario is worse than most places because, at least as of a couple of years ago, they send all alerts as Presidential alerts, meaning they can't be turned off at all.

Re: Ask HN: Why is there no way to lower amber alert volume on headphones?

#60

Post by hedora »

whuthu wrote: post #21

What is an "amber alert"? I've never encountered this before, and I don't see any option for it on my phone. I'm an Android user in the UK, if that helps.

At least in the US, they almost always involve a custody fight.

(A divorced parent actually kidnapped their own kid, or is late dropping a kid off.). Less commonly, it will involve other family members. (A parent is a drug addict, so the grandparents/uncle take the kid.)

In a vanishingly rare subset of the alerts, it is a kidnapping where a kid is taken by a stranger.

The phone settings are usually called "emergency alerts" or similar.

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