DC police used sonic cannon to direct crowd flow during Women's March • Hacker News Board

Re: DC police used sonic cannon to direct crowd flow during Women's March

#161

Post by belorn » Wed, Dec 27, 2017, 2:52 PM UTC

heartbreak wrote: post #144

fourthark wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Didn't it mean satire, like the Daily Show and the Onion, before?

> Once upon a time (like, three [thirteen] months ago), "fake news" had a precise meaning. It referred to total fabrications — made-up stories about Donald Trump suffering a heart attack or earning the pope's endorsement — and the phrase burst into the political lexicon as Facebook and Google vowed to clean up some of the garbage that had polluted the Internet during the presidential election. https://www.washingtonp…

Researchers at Harvard made a study on which news paper focused on which candidate and was used by followers by each side (https://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/33759251/2017-08...). The washingtonpost had, like many others, a very clear bias in both which candidate they promoted and their intended reader demographic.

I don't trust anyone marked clearly blue or red to make a trustworthy description about events around the election. The Wikipedia article (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fake_news#Definition), even if they are not intended to be used as an authority, are more trustworthy. Alternative one can look at the baloney detection kit by Carl Sagan and simply define any baloney that get published in news format to be fake news.

Re: DC police used sonic cannon to direct crowd flow during Women's March

#162

Post by jochung » Wed, Dec 27, 2017, 2:57 PM UTC

ajmurmann wrote: post #148

heartbreak wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Once upon a time (like, three [thirteen] months ago), "fake news" had a precise meaning. It referred to total fabrications — made-up stories about Donald Trump suffering a heart attack or earning the pope's endorsement — and the phrase burst into the political lexicon as Facebook and Google vowed to clean up some of the garbage that had polluted the Internet during the presidential election. https://www.washingtonp…

I'm shocked that yours is the only comment on here that actually remembers what happened. The actual "fake news" that was entirely fabricated as click bate was discussed for a few weeks even on This American Life if I recall correctly. There was even an interview with a guy from Georgia (the country) who made a mint making up stories that appealed to Trump supporters and now nobody remembers how that important concep…

Fake news was an own goal by the left wing press. After selling a fable to their readers about a Clinton landslide, they tried to deflect by blaming the election outcome on fabricated stories. But there was never any evidence these stories had more reach and influence than what mainstream outlets were peddling. Same way there is no evidence Russian Facebook ads and social media postings eclipsed the millions e.g. the Clinton campaign spent to Correct The Record. Similarly, laments about r/the_donald were categorically ignoring how the default news and politics reddits had become unofficial Clinton cheering squads with moderators complicit.

Most ironically, lefties lamented the ignorance of right wing voters in accepting stories that confirmed their bias and preconceptions, while they themselves eagerly accepted the fake news narrative.

Fake news was not an important concept. Media manipulation however was, and the two got conflated for very obvious reasons.

Re: DC police used sonic cannon to direct crowd flow during Women's March

#163

Post by ajmurmann » Wed, Dec 27, 2017, 3:02 PM UTC

jochung wrote: post #162

ajmurmann wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm shocked that yours is the only comment on here that actually remembers what happened. The actual "fake news" that was entirely fabricated as click bate was discussed for a few weeks even on This American Life if I recall correctly. There was even an interview with a guy from Georgia (the country) who made a mint making up stories that appealed to Trump supporters and now nobody remembers how that important concep…

Fake news was an own goal by the left wing press. After selling a fable to their readers about a Clinton landslide, they tried to deflect by blaming the election outcome on fabricated stories. But there was never any evidence these stories had more reach and influence than what mainstream outlets were peddling. Same way there is no evidence Russian Facebook ads and social media postings eclipsed the millions e.g. the…

I don't know if the original fake news was important to the election. I do think though that it's a very important issue in general. How do we prevent entirely fabricated click bait from going viral?

Re: DC police used sonic cannon to direct crowd flow during Women's March

#164

Post by epmaybe » Wed, Dec 27, 2017, 3:06 PM UTC

Sephr wrote: post #22

etrautmann wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This requires direct mechanical coupling to the head. The air to skin interface is an impedance mismatch which causes very little of the energy to be transmitted to the brain. This is likely not a real concern.

The air pockets in your head will resonate quite effectively. The impedance mismatch in the air pockets can result in powerful vibrations. Your head isn't filled with 100% liquids and solids.

I am interested in investigating this further. Could you link me to any scientific articles that have explained how all this works?

Re: DC police used sonic cannon to direct crowd flow during Women's March

#165

Post by AlexandrB » Wed, Dec 27, 2017, 3:18 PM UTC

daveFNbuck wrote: post #109

wallace_f wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, one of the remaining only ways "doing the right thing" ever gets done in the States these days. Why can countries like South Korea, Taiwan or Japan provide public services like roads, internet infrastructure, police and healthcare at an incredibly small fraction of the cost that is lightyeaes ahead in quality and competency (for the 99%)?

These countries all have at least 10x the population density of the US. I'm not sure about healthcare, but the rest of your list gets cheaper as population density increases.

And the US has 10x the population density of Canada. Yet we manage it somehow (except for internet). I love how the US is simultaneously the most powerful economy in the world and completely hapless at putting any of that to use for the good of its citizens.

Re: DC police used sonic cannon to direct crowd flow during Women's March

#166

Post by stevenjohns » Wed, Dec 27, 2017, 3:19 PM UTC

azernik wrote: post #98

alexeldeib wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the detail, and for your own experience. The interrogation interests me. It sounds you don't feel it was useful? I had heard about this kind of interrogation over mundane stories, and understood it as a way of "testing" individuals' stories (especially under duress). But that would depend on it being repeated/prodded thoroughly, which it seems isn't the case.

"Repeated/prodded thoroughly" matches all of the descriptions of the long-form interrogations by Israeli airline and airport security. If they got to the 100 shekels in his wallet, then that means they probably asked him about a lot of other things first, and searched his wallet, and probably tried to put together a timeline of exactly when he went where to try to find cracks in the story.

Not really. It was a standard run-of-the-mill search. The shekels are the only thing they were genuinely interested in. They couldn't comprehend why I had gotten it.

It was bizarre.

Re: DC police used sonic cannon to direct crowd flow during Women's March

#167

Post by stevenjohns » Wed, Dec 27, 2017, 3:21 PM UTC

Pyxl101 wrote: post #100

alexeldeib wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the detail, and for your own experience. The interrogation interests me. It sounds you don't feel it was useful? I had heard about this kind of interrogation over mundane stories, and understood it as a way of "testing" individuals' stories (especially under duress). But that would depend on it being repeated/prodded thoroughly, which it seems isn't the case.

It sounds like this interrogation strategy could be designed to make the interviewee think that the interlocutor is onto something, even if they aren't. If you're a regular guy, you're likely to react by becoming bored and tired. If you're doing sinister stuff, there is a chance that you might start to stress out from the interaction. I believe similar techniques are used when screening people for government security…

You're trying to justify it in the sense that they're some sort of smart people with a plan. They're just civilians, they're not spies. No malice or cunning elements to it - just idiocy.

The takeaway I got is that they just don't want people to visit Israel and made it as difficult as possible for me (which involved taking away my personal documentation, such as my invitation letter and copies of my citizenship, to give me a tough time when I got to Ben Gurion).

Re: DC police used sonic cannon to direct crowd flow during Women's March

#168

Post by emodendroket » Wed, Dec 27, 2017, 3:24 PM UTC

sschueller wrote: post #103

Sephr wrote: post #17

High power directed ultrasound can potentially cause brain damage from induced mechanical strain in brain tissue. I feel like parametric ultrasonic speakers should be more stringently regulated before every single police department starts using them as if they were regular loudspeakers. I support requiring something akin to an amateur radio license to operate high powered parametric ultrasonic speakers.

With the incident in Cuba I would think we would be a bit more reluctant to use such devices on civilians.

Why?

Re: DC police used sonic cannon to direct crowd flow during Women's March

#169

Post by emodendroket » Wed, Dec 27, 2017, 3:26 PM UTC

daveFNbuck wrote: post #109

wallace_f wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, one of the remaining only ways "doing the right thing" ever gets done in the States these days. Why can countries like South Korea, Taiwan or Japan provide public services like roads, internet infrastructure, police and healthcare at an incredibly small fraction of the cost that is lightyeaes ahead in quality and competency (for the 99%)?

These countries all have at least 10x the population density of the US. I'm not sure about healthcare, but the rest of your list gets cheaper as population density increases.

In the case of healthcare it's because the US is alone in the degree to which its system is privatized.

Re: DC police used sonic cannon to direct crowd flow during Women's March

#170

Post by stevenjohns » Wed, Dec 27, 2017, 3:27 PM UTC

alexeldeib wrote: post #64

stevenjohns wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of those are the metrics they use. Despite being an Australian citizen with a very clean record, as well as having a very Western name, I was red flagged before I even arrived because of my country of birth. With El Al, you're interrogated before you board the plane. When you go to check in, there is a "pre check-in" where you show staff your passport and they check your name off against a paper list. That paper…

Thanks for the detail, and for your own experience. The interrogation interests me. It sounds you don't feel it was useful? I had heard about this kind of interrogation over mundane stories, and understood it as a way of "testing" individuals' stories (especially under duress). But that would depend on it being repeated/prodded thoroughly, which it seems isn't the case.

The "interrogation" felt more like they didn't want me to visit Israel again. Genuinely, that was the only take away I had.

They tried to intimidate me with their faux "all seeing eye" - asking about whether or not I trained judo (in reference to the jiu-jitsu Gi I had in my luggage) but aside from that, the questions about the shekels in my wallet and also taking issue with the rubber waistband on my pants, they didn't really ask about anything else. The shekels thing and the issue they took with it was just absurd.

It was really just civilian employees on a power trip trying to mess with me... because they can.