Live data from Hacker News

Glitter bomb tricks parcel thieves

bbc.com

621–630 of 940 posts

Re: Glitter bomb tricks parcel thieves

#621
post #612
post #590

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I completely understand. My car has been broken into multiple times. Thieves stole my wife's credit card and went on a shopping spree. The store had footage but the police refused to do anything. It could be worse course, but it's very disappointing when this happens. Not sure what your options are - move to a relatively wealthy suburb probably with a well funded police department where they might not be lazy enough…

Why do police refuse to look into it? More important cases? Not as easy to find them guilty as it seems?

They're rational. If they look into it, they have to actually work. If they don't, there is zero disadvantage for them. Why WOULD they look into it?

Re: Glitter bomb tricks parcel thieves

#622

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is absolutely not categorically innocent. I don't know why you think it is.

It is by definition. You're simply mistaken.

No, it is not. It is in fact explicitly illegal to do a great many of things, even in defense of your own property.

Re: Glitter bomb tricks parcel thieves

#623
post #584

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Think of it this way: You have made a 100 to 200 pound large hairless ape angry at you. This creature has human intelligence, and no interest in your feelings or your safety. Rather, it wants to make you suffer. It's more capable than the most advanced robot, and may hold onto its grudge and plan revenge over the next several months or a year. Who wants to sign up for that?

You do realize it was a glitter bomb right?

They might still get quite PO'd. Also, if it's someone who's stooping to stealing packages, they might not be of the most stable mindset.

Re: Glitter bomb tricks parcel thieves

#624

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>it's easy to say, "police weren't interested" I’ve had my house robbed, and had evidence from the bank when the robbers tried to use the checkbook to send money through Western Union. They had photos, state issued identification, address, etc of the people collecting the payments. The assigned detective would not read an email or respond to voice mails. The detective said he was too busy to read emails. Not sure tha…

This is something you hear all the time, why?

Think of the number of people living in a large city, and compare that to the number of police officers in that city. It is a tiny percentage of "trained" people asked to protect the citizens. There is only so much you can do, only so many places you can be at one time. An investigation looking into stolen property requires so much effort for so little return. I would be very interested in knowing the number of open cases at any one time a single cop is expected to have to handle. I'd be willing to bet we'd all be surprised by the number. Just like any other profession, as you become senior, the tendency to become jaded is probably even more likely as a cop. We all want them to solve our specific need just like an episode of CSI or whatever, but that's not real. Being too busy to read email sounds just like a guy that is just waiting out his time for his pension. Oh, and there is a significantly larger than 0 percent chance that as they go about doing their job that they could be harmed if not killed. Would you be willing to take on that risk for something like stolen personal items that is covered by insurance?

Re: Glitter bomb tricks parcel thieves

#625

What are people's thoughts on if this is staged? Considering the views / subscriptions are the main motivation here, it might justify the expenses poured into this project – that is, it would be quite a waste if all that effort went into the build just to have no one actually take it off the porch. If actors were used, it would explain the lack of police involvement (it's easy to say, "police weren't interested" ). A…

It would be funny if this spawned a bunch of copy cats which then drives down the incidents of package theft because thiefs are paranoid of getting prank packages. I bet somebody will soon start selling this as a product. And people will just send them to their friends instead of targeting package thiefs. "Pranked you bro!" Then there will be a bunch of backlash.

Just in time for me to sell my GlitterBombDetector TM.

Re: Glitter bomb tricks parcel thieves

#626

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we as a society are OK with qualified law enforcement looking the other way, then we're OK with passing the buck to the unqualified. Post hoc ergo propter hoc make for valid public policy it does not. What source do you point to that we as a society are OK with qualified law enforcement looking the other way?

Existence proof. Law enforcement looks the other way and we do nothing about it. Not being OK with something and passively accepting it is functionally identical to being OK with something.

I don’t know what to do about such things.

One of my exes is certain what to do, which is why she’s campaigning for the fourth largest political party in America.

Me, I could work on AI to fully enforce all laws, but I suspect that would have unfortunate side effects like accidentally returning to feudalism after all but a few thousand Americans end up with multiple millennia of prison time because the laws themselves are overbroad… and if I limit it to just laws I agree with, well that’s exactly the sort of thing I would be appalled by if done by someone with whom I disagreed about which laws were just.

What should we do, do you recon?

Re: Glitter bomb tricks parcel thieves

#627
post #113
post #96

I know I'm going to get downvoted for this, but glitter is a microplastic – I hope we'll see it being used less in the future.

I want to upvote you for your concern about microplastics, but my rule is to downvote people who complain about voting.

I have the same rule.

It sounds so whiny when they start their message decrying that they'll get downvotes for something.

Its even worse when its not something they will get downvotes for.

That's when you realize that they probably get downvoted a lot because of how whiny they are, only they always blame it on some other aspect because they have no self awareness.

Re: Glitter bomb tricks parcel thieves

#628
post #557

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess wouldn't you file suit against the police as they are now responsible?

The Supreme Court has ruled that the police have no responsibility to protect citizens [1]. You cannot sue the police for failing to respond because they legally don't have to respond. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/28/politics/justices-rule-po...

Um what?!? That's astounding.

Re: Glitter bomb tricks parcel thieves

#629
post #96

I know I'm going to get downvoted for this, but glitter is a microplastic – I hope we'll see it being used less in the future.

You have no idea what the fuck that glitter is made of in the video. Don't assume.

And for the love of god, do not start comments out with "I know i'm going to get downvoted for this"

I flagged you just for that.

Re: Glitter bomb tricks parcel thieves

#630
post #454

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a European, I'm surprised that the postal services in the US just leave the packages outside, rather than ringing the doorbell and/or delivering it to a neighbor. Over here in The Netherlands, pickup points are common (my local groceries store is one), you can choose your delivery time (also in the evening) and they will deliver it to a neighbor when I'm not home. Why not avoid this whole problem with any of these…

Nobody's home during the day. What neighbor? How do you know which neighbor will be home, or which neighbor to trust? When 90% of your package recipients are not home, you spend 3x as much time per package delivery. Carriers offload responsibility by allowing the sender or receiver to opt-out of signature/package acceptance, so why would they care? Just one data point, but I've been having packages delivered to my ho…

This is also the norm in the UK.

If you're not in they try and leave the package with a neighbour. If that doesn't work, they'll try again, and if you're not there again, try for for a neighbour again. If that fails for a second time, they leave it at a nearby depot for you to pick it up.

I've never heard of a package being stolen here in the UK.

Post reply on HN