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Vanishing Point: How to disappear in America without a trace (2012)

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Re: Vanishing Point: How to disappear in America without a trace (2012)

#101

Post by smeyer »

kyzyl wrote: post #98
smeyer wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it may matter which capability exists. If the capability exists from space, it means that they can easily switch between targets across a large swath of areas, as compared to deploying a drone near you. Have you seen laser acoustics deployed from a drone or similar platform before? It seems like getting a sufficiently stable mount on a drone would be a blocker here, although I'm not familiar with the state of th…

My company is developing sensors that implement these sorts of coherent interferometric ranging techniques, and I can say that it's pretty unlikely that it works from space or from a drone. There are a lot of non-obvious factors that make performing those kind of measurements from orbit a bit of a nightmare. As far as I understand space comms--which isn't that far--the 'pilot beam' technique used by satellite links i…

Yep, that's what I figured. Thanks for the input from someone with some real knowledge on the subjects.

Re: Vanishing Point: How to disappear in America without a trace (2012)

#102

Post by anigbrowl »

morganvachon wrote: post #70
anigbrowl wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a trope with a basis in fact - that used to be the standard until relatively recently. I have had occasion to file 2 missing person reports and both times I was told on my first call that the person hadn't been gone long enough to justify a report. Both incidents were >10 years ago and obviously things have changed since then.

Then I would say the agency you called wasn't conforming to their state's regulations and was potentially endangering lives. I worked in law enforcement from 1999 to 2013 and missing persons cases always had a timely entry regulation during that time. My state's regulations are copied nearly verbatim from the federal rules (NCIC).

As I said, I was talking about the basis in fact rather than in law.

Re: Vanishing Point: How to disappear in America without a trace (2012)

#103

Post by morganvachon »

rev_bird wrote: post #81
mirimir wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You posted an ad hominem attack on police in America. That doesn't even belong on reddit, although it's more common there. That said, police in America are stuck dealing with the consequences of many short-sighted policy decisions. They are not properly trained for social work, mental health services, and so on.

> They are not properly trained for social work, mental health services, and so on. Seems like another one of those short-sighted policy decisions here...

Actually many agencies have begun training their officers to properly recognize and approach mentally/emotionally unstable people to offer them assistance, without resorting to use of force. The academy in my area calls it Crisis Intervention Training, and it is a required course for agencies who train at that facility, which is most of northwest Georgia.

Re: Vanishing Point: How to disappear in America without a trace (2012)

#105

Post by DanBC »

at-fates-hands wrote: post #86
DanBC wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Suicide by cop is a thing ... in the US. People aggressively go after cops in other countries and don't get shot. It's poor training and low skills that cause US police to kill so many people.

>> It's poor training and low skills that cause US police to kill so many people. This is a total over generalization. Mainly because the numbers of people shot by police do not include the context of the shooting. Questions like: - Did the person charge at a police officer? - Did the person brandish a weapon like a knife or gun and threaten the officer? - Did the person physically attack the officer? - Did the perso…

Except we know that people in other countries who use similar weapons in similar ways (brandishing a small knife, refusing to drop it, etc) are not shot and killed by police nearly as often as they are in the US.

A guy weilding a machete and charging police in, say, London is much less likely to be shot and killed by police. (And you can see this on youtube).

Re: Vanishing Point: How to disappear in America without a trace (2012)

#106

Post by DanBC »

forgetsusername wrote: post #95
at-fates-hands wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> It's poor training and low skills that cause US police to kill so many people. This is a total over generalization. Mainly because the numbers of people shot by police do not include the context of the shooting. Questions like: - Did the person charge at a police officer? - Did the person brandish a weapon like a knife or gun and threaten the officer? - Did the person physically attack the officer? - Did the perso…

> As such, the number people trot out there simply have no context to show in many cases the officer is justified in using deadly force What exactly is "many"? Of course deadly force is sometimes justified. But you do realize that civilian deaths at the hands of police are through the roof in the US compared to any other country, right? Is the US population psychotic? > This is probably the one thing that irks the sh…

> Is the US population psychotic?

Frustrating that you chose to use word psychotic there.

Psychosis isn't linked to violence. Previous episode of violence are; a drug or alcohol addiction are; and if you combine any (or all) of these you get a stronger predictor. But a person with psychosis is far more likely to be the victim not perpetrator of violent crime, are more likely to hurt themselves than anyone else.

Maybe psychopathic fits, but that's still pretty stigmatising.

Re: Vanishing Point: How to disappear in America without a trace (2012)

#107

Post by tripzilch »

seibelj wrote: post #43
samstave wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You left out the part where the cops with an IQ Cops are incapable of servicing the greater need any further the system is broken.

Reddit would be a better place for comments like this. HN is for reasonable discussion

You too, could've made that same statement without taking the unnecessary dig at Reddit. Take it to HN--oh, wait.

No but seriously, it's one (not very nice) thing saying "don't bring Reddit's bad comment quality to HN". It's an entirely other thing to encourage someone to post shitty comments on another site. That behaviour won't fly at Reddit either. Take it to 4chan.

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