Explosions near Boston Marathon finish line • Hacker News Board

Re: Explosions near Boston Marathon finish line

#541

Post by supervillain » Tue, Apr 16, 2013, 1:10 AM UTC

recoiledsnake wrote: post #2

Edit: Boston police reporting at least 2 dead, 22 injured and 10 people losing limbs. http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/04/15/explosion-reported-near... Looks like there were two explosions. Picture: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BH6fCgFCQAERWMB.jpg:large More details http://www.wcvb.com/news/local/metro/Explosions-reported-nea... "Witnesses said several victims lost limbs, and the area was being evacuated. Many of the in…

The explosions is so timely it gives more reasons to oppose any US immigration reforms next week.

Re: Explosions near Boston Marathon finish line

#542

Post by tshaddox » Tue, Apr 16, 2013, 1:12 AM UTC

uberuberuber wrote: post #475

In the sturm und drang that has resulted from this tragedy, and the weeks to come of hand wringing about terrorists/crazyfolk/etc across the major news networks, I hope against hope that we can stow our reptilian brains for a brief while… In the 3 hours that have passed since the top comment was made, 205 people in the US have died from heart disease(1), an almost entirely preventable disease. This observation may be…

And when humans first landed on the Moon, think of all the other people (not to mention animals) that landed elsewhere that same day! But the sensationalist media only covered the Moon landing.

Re: Explosions near Boston Marathon finish line

#543

Post by Iterated » Tue, Apr 16, 2013, 1:24 AM UTC

austenallred wrote: post #462

joseph_cooney wrote: post #441

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Highlights is pretty bad too.

We used to call it "best of" then went to "favorites." It obviously won't be favorites anymore - didn't think of this use case.

Perhaps just a star? You can call them "starred" posts. Seems somewhat more neutral.

Re: Explosions near Boston Marathon finish line

#544

Post by jleader » Tue, Apr 16, 2013, 1:28 AM UTC

VLM wrote: post #339

taurath wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Transit is much harder and has a much stronger security presence - people in general are also far more alert for suspicious packages. It would be much tougher I'd think to get something like this onto a subway rather than a huge crowd.

Whoops I looked it up and apparently a "mall" in boston is what the rest of the world would call a boulevard or parkway. So they're actually evac a street lined with trees. My worry was it they're shoving people in immense lines thru the doors of what the rest of the world would call a "mall" making a tempting target for the opfor. I am surprised its verified to be packages and not dudes wearing vests or whatever. Th…

"people mostly sittin down can't get into too much mischief"

Except the psychological stress of sitting quietly near where a bomb just went off is probably much worse than heading for home. I imagine that the police manpower needed to actually keep people from leaving would be substantial.

The alternative isn't "everybody get up and run around", it's "everybody head for home, where you feel safe." I know if I were police chief, I'd think long and hard about the trade-offs before I tried to stand in the way of people trying to get home. After all, they're going to have to go home eventually.

And we know of one location where the opposition is known to have planted bombs; why would you want to keep large numbers of people around that location? Why not disperse them to their homes, so they're not such a concentrated target?

Re: Explosions near Boston Marathon finish line

#545

Post by rbanffy » Tue, Apr 16, 2013, 1:34 AM UTC

youngerdryas wrote: post #152

scarmig wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The aim of the WTC attack was to make a very symbolic action: the goal was to destroy three symbols of American power, its military, economic, and political might, though the last ended up physically unscathed. Obviously a huge number of deaths associated with it, but the symbolism was key. You knew exactly where the attackers stood--American power is evil--once you heard a description of the attacks. This, in contra…

>You knew exactly where the attackers stood--American power is evil Who gives a fuck where they stand they will all be hunted down and killed. For all you know this bombing was because they don't believe women should run in marathons.

I know I'm stating the obvious, but the moment you cease to be the "land of the free" in order to better hunt them down and kill them, they win.

Because turning you into them is what they wanted from the start.

Re: Explosions near Boston Marathon finish line

#546

Post by Gigablah » Tue, Apr 16, 2013, 1:44 AM UTC

blhack wrote: post #478

tbrooks wrote: post #379

Really PG? https://twitter.com/paulg/status/323909260826259457

What a jerk! Being inspired to donate to charity and whatnot! /s

I guess the problem is that PG phrased it like a robotic commercial advertisement.

Re: Explosions near Boston Marathon finish line

#547

Post by film42 » Tue, Apr 16, 2013, 1:55 AM UTC

joeblau wrote: post #264

austenallred wrote: post #47

While this is buggy/not ready for release, here's a way to follow this on social media. http://fastlane.grasswire.com/ PS. Here's our launchrock page if anyone cares http://grasswire.com

How do you plan to get around the Twitter syndication rules and regulations once this site takes off?

This is a really good question, and should be referring to all apis and their limits. This was my approach: Create a parser that lives off of apis, just under posted limits. Although we had a few thousand visitors today, there was only one direct line to each data source. There's a viewer server that reaches for data every so often depending on your desired speed (I think it's set to somewhere between 1 and 2 seconds) and broadcasts it. So if the parser goes down, or tags change, or services get mad, you can fix and restart without requiring clients to refresh. I'm still not in love with the solution, but it worked nicely today. Thanks!

Re: Explosions near Boston Marathon finish line

#548

Post by AlexandrB » Tue, Apr 16, 2013, 1:55 AM UTC

DigitalJack wrote: post #518

uberuberuber wrote: post #475

In the sturm und drang that has resulted from this tragedy, and the weeks to come of hand wringing about terrorists/crazyfolk/etc across the major news networks, I hope against hope that we can stow our reptilian brains for a brief while… In the 3 hours that have passed since the top comment was made, 205 people in the US have died from heart disease(1), an almost entirely preventable disease. This observation may be…

I think there is a small bit of difference between you choosing to live your life in such a way that heart disease will be your end, vs someone else deciding to blow your limbs off.

Now that is insensitive. People have died of heart disease at all ages. It's not a lifestyle choice FFS.

Re: Explosions near Boston Marathon finish line

#549

Post by ChrisNorstrom » Tue, Apr 16, 2013, 2:05 AM UTC

If this continues I wonder if we're going to start seeing drones with "Persistent Stare" (24 hour recording of a massive area that creates an enormous video of the entire city) employed over American Cities.

Had one been used already, they would have been able to take the video, slowly reverse it to see who dropped off the package in the dumpster, and then follow that person back to their home or business. Thus finding out who did it.

Re: Explosions near Boston Marathon finish line

#550

Post by yew » Tue, Apr 16, 2013, 2:05 AM UTC

lifeguard wrote: post #466

optiminimalist wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Better false positives than false negatives.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_benefit_analysis

Don't be silly. No one ever does that in a crisis. They just spout platitudes about 'doing everything possible' and never stop to think about what that actually means.

And if you point out the implications someone will quickly follow up by assuring you that 'no one would ever do that'. Sometimes I think the greatest weakness of policymakers is the delusion that other policymakers believe what they believe, and for the same reasons.