Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

CIA Director Brennan Confirmed as Reporter Michael Hastings' Next Target

sandiego6.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–38 of 38 posts

Re: CIA Director Brennan Confirmed as Reporter Michael Hastings' Next Target

#31

Post by unclebucknasty »

dram wrote: post #27
unclebucknasty wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not clear on a few things here: > Michael Krikorian observes that Hastings' car was going at least twice as fast as the other cars in the video. Does that tell us anything without knowing how fast the other cars were going? For instance, could they have been slowing for a light as the article suggests? > He estimated that the car was traveling at least 80 mph. Not sure why some dude looking and estimating (i.e. "…

Fair points but the author of the article, Kimberly Dvorak, appears convinced that Hastings' was murdered. It seems she found someone to support a theory that his car was travelling 35MPH. I think you can deduce from him speeding through the red light, the lack of brake lights in the 2nd video, the witness who said the car was travelling 100MPH, and the nature of the impact that he was in fact driving very fast. If t…

>I think you can deduce from him speeding through the red light, the lack of brake lights in the 2nd video, the witness who said the car was travelling 100MPH

I don't think we can deduce that. There are gaps. And witnesses are notorious for being wrong. Besides, why should we be deducing anything when there is actual video?

>If the video evidence was so clear that he was travelling 35MPH, I'm sure other people would be supporting this claim

That's an odd position to take. I mean, how many people have to agree before it's "clear"? Instead of asking for other people supporting, shouldn't you be asking others to refute it? It's out there for all to see. So, tell us the timing is off, the distance was wrong, the video was not real-time, or something which would prove his conclusions wrong.

In all of the mystery surrounding this, this particular point is easy. There has to be a physics based reason that his video analysis is wrong.

One thing I would like to know is the possible range of speeds the car was traveling at the point of impact. The most that can be deduced from simple time/distance is that the average was 35 MPH, unless there was frame-by-frame analysis. I don't think that was the case here. So, given what's known about the car's acceleration/braking performance, as well as the distance traveled, what is the maximum speed at impact? I don't think it's too big a delta because the distance is relatively short. Still would be nice to be more precise.

Re: CIA Director Brennan Confirmed as Reporter Michael Hastings' Next Target

#32

Post by lamontcg »

"When you hear hoofbeats, think of horses not zebras"

Assassinated by the government is definitely a zebra

Driving recklessly because of PTSD from being in a war zone is going to be the horse in this situation:

http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-05-05/national/39048...

And if he was not assassinated by the government, then this whole thread is just providing a distracting side show when there's a real known issue out there that kills thousands.

Re: CIA Director Brennan Confirmed as Reporter Michael Hastings' Next Target

#33

Post by na85 »

achughes wrote: post #26
talmand wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It wasn't too long ago that there were classic conspiracy theories about the NSA that would get you labeled as a crackpot which have recently been shown to be true.

See: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/23/opinion/the-national-secur... and http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/03/ff_nsadatacenter/ It was hardly a conspiracy theory.

Perhaps the point was that they were derided as being mere conspiracy theories?

Re: CIA Director Brennan Confirmed as Reporter Michael Hastings' Next Target

#34

Post by dram »

unclebucknasty wrote: post #31
dram wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fair points but the author of the article, Kimberly Dvorak, appears convinced that Hastings' was murdered. It seems she found someone to support a theory that his car was travelling 35MPH. I think you can deduce from him speeding through the red light, the lack of brake lights in the 2nd video, the witness who said the car was travelling 100MPH, and the nature of the impact that he was in fact driving very fast. If t…

> I think you can deduce from him speeding through the red light, the lack of brake lights in the 2nd video, the witness who said the car was travelling 100MPH I don't think we can deduce that. There are gaps. And witnesses are notorious for being wrong. Besides, why should we be deducing anything when there is actual video? > If the video evidence was so clear that he was travelling 35MPH, I'm sure other people woul…

Let's be fair. Krikorian had access to the ENTIRE video and this professor only a short Youtube video clip. Kirkorian wrote, "Three seconds later, another vehicle goes by, traveling from the restaurant front door to the crash site in about seven seconds." And you can see from the video clip, that Hastings' car travels the same distance in about 3.5 seconds- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EjaPHWNzTHQ

The car that slowed down was travelling the other direction. There's no indication the two cars travelling the same direction slowed down.

Why wouldn't Krikorian, a former LA Times reporter, want to not break the biggest story ever, proving Hastings was driving 35MPH? His investigation also contradicted other things Miss Dvorak claimed- http://krikorianwrites.com/blog/2013/7/24/michael-hastings-i...

EDIT: I did a rough estimate of the professor's math. The pizza shop to the impact is about 200'. Looking closer, it appears it takes Hastings 2.5 to 3 seconds to travel that distance. So if the video surveillance is played at real time, Hastings was travelling between 45MPH and 55MPH? To be 35MPH, the time would have to be about 3.8 seconds.

Sure someone could do a more accurate estimate but it seems very unlikely that he was going 80MPH assuming the video surveillance is not delayed. It'd be interesting to get accurate measurements and use some video analysis to get a real answer.

Re: CIA Director Brennan Confirmed as Reporter Michael Hastings' Next Target

#35

Post by junto »

dram wrote: post #27
unclebucknasty wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not clear on a few things here: > Michael Krikorian observes that Hastings' car was going at least twice as fast as the other cars in the video. Does that tell us anything without knowing how fast the other cars were going? For instance, could they have been slowing for a light as the article suggests? > He estimated that the car was traveling at least 80 mph. Not sure why some dude looking and estimating (i.e. "…

Fair points but the author of the article, Kimberly Dvorak, appears convinced that Hastings' was murdered. It seems she found someone to support a theory that his car was travelling 35MPH. I think you can deduce from him speeding through the red light, the lack of brake lights in the 2nd video, the witness who said the car was travelling 100MPH, and the nature of the impact that he was in fact driving very fast. If t…

Why is the "security camera" moving? It looks like someone was holding the camera. Aren't security cameras usually mounted to walls?

Re: CIA Director Brennan Confirmed as Reporter Michael Hastings' Next Target

#36

Post by dram »

junto wrote: post #35
dram wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fair points but the author of the article, Kimberly Dvorak, appears convinced that Hastings' was murdered. It seems she found someone to support a theory that his car was travelling 35MPH. I think you can deduce from him speeding through the red light, the lack of brake lights in the 2nd video, the witness who said the car was travelling 100MPH, and the nature of the impact that he was in fact driving very fast. If t…

Why is the "security camera" moving? It looks like someone was holding the camera. Aren't security cameras usually mounted to walls?

The investigative reporter lives nearby. He recorded the surveillance camera playback with his camera or phone. Perhaps the recording of the playback slowed down the video slightly?

Maybe someone could load the video up in Physics Toolkit (http://www.physicstoolkit.com/) or another program (http://jabryan.iweb.bsu.edu/VideoAnalysis/) and get a more accurate estimate of how fast Hastings was travelling.

Re: CIA Director Brennan Confirmed as Reporter Michael Hastings' Next Target

#37

Post by unclebucknasty »

dram wrote: post #34
unclebucknasty wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think you can deduce from him speeding through the red light, the lack of brake lights in the 2nd video, the witness who said the car was travelling 100MPH I don't think we can deduce that. There are gaps. And witnesses are notorious for being wrong. Besides, why should we be deducing anything when there is actual video? > If the video evidence was so clear that he was travelling 35MPH, I'm sure other people woul…

Let's be fair. Krikorian had access to the ENTIRE video and this professor only a short Youtube video clip. Kirkorian wrote, "Three seconds later, another vehicle goes by, traveling from the restaurant front door to the crash site in about seven seconds." And you can see from the video clip, that Hastings' car travels the same distance in about 3.5 seconds- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EjaPHWNzTHQ The car that slow…

Fair points. I think it's good that we're focusing on the video, BTW.

>Why wouldn't Krikorian, a former LA Times reporter, want to not break the biggest story ever, proving Hastings was driving 35MPH?

I have no idea. Maybe because he's a former reporter? Some other reason? I don't know. But, I think it's good to keep focusing on verifying or refuting the numbers from the video.

>Hastings was travelling between 45MPH and 55MPH?

That's what I get.

>It'd be interesting to get accurate measurements and use some video analysis to get a real answer.

It would be good to have more precise numbers (distances, times, etc). But, even with rough (but reasonable) numbers, this takes us way under 80MPH and definitely the 100MPH that some have suggested.

But, doesn't it seem like such analysis should be part of the police investigation?

Re: CIA Director Brennan Confirmed as Reporter Michael Hastings' Next Target

#38

Post by talmand »

achughes wrote: post #26
talmand wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It wasn't too long ago that there were classic conspiracy theories about the NSA that would get you labeled as a crackpot which have recently been shown to be true.

See: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/23/opinion/the-national-secur... and http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/03/ff_nsadatacenter/ It was hardly a conspiracy theory.

Since I failed to mention the number of years I was referring to, I meant further back than last year.
Post reply on HN