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iPod: This Season's Must-Have for Muggers
KH writes "West Midlands police have issued a stark warning to iPod users: ditch the white headphones or pay the price." Apparently, muggers recognize the headphones and target passersby for muggage.
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I keep the mini-iPod in a ... hidden place... that's very snug. Muggers never look there, and really, who wants to pull the cord out of there?
let a mugger have it and have your insurance buy you a replacement.
Dude, I'm, like totally understanding of your verbage, but, like, there might not be others, that, like, know.
But rock on, Dude! Awesome!
Mugger: "Your I-Pod or your life..."
Mr Benny: ...
Mugger: I SAID, your I-POD or your LIFE!
Mr Benny: Hold on! I'm thinking!
buhbumpbump...
I'm going to buy some white headphones for my 4lb 1996 Sony Discman. Maybe finally I'll get a chance to try out this new tazer I bought on Ebay...
My days of not taking you seriously are certainly coming to a middle...
Even muggers recognize that the higher price of Apple hardware goes into quality.
Most muggers don't realize they'll be replacing that little battery for $99 in a couple weeks' time.
Yeah, the white headphones do give it a way, but this paragraph is badly written!
The thief then asked Baskerville if he was listening to an iPod and, receiving an affirmative answer, he "pulled a knife out and started waving it at me, saying: 'Well hand it over, then.' I gave it to him and he ran off. He must have known I was wearing an iPod because of the white headphones."
Of all the nice design aspects of the iPod, as far as Apple are concerned those distinctive white headphones have to the best. Portable devices need to be small, discrete, and easy to slip into a pocket, so you never really see them. Is that person with the headphones on listening to a Rio player? iRiver perhaps? Maybe Neuros? Or just a discman stuck in their bag? But you know damn well when you see someone listening to an iPod.
I'm surprised the others player manufacturers never cottoned on to this one: get the customers to do your advertising for you!
Jedidiah.
Craft Beer Programming T-shirts
By your logic, you should be put to death. You just stole some of my life because I read your inane post.
I wonder if the RIAA will sue these muggers for stealing copyrighted music? Knowing the RIAA, they are more likely to sue the victims for distributing copyrighted material.
_____
Thank you.
The mugger may get pissed and pop a cap in your ass when he find you only have an old walkman.
depends on what it's wrapped in
#!/usr/bin/english
Not that bad an idea. You generally need iTunes to use and iPod, right? And each iPod must have a unique identifier (presumably for DRM among other reasons), right?
Well, you could register your iPod as stolen and the next usage connected to iTunes could be noted by Apple. Then either a lo-jack scenario ensues OR your iPod gets locked with a "stolen ipod" screen.
Of course there are liabilities, jurisdictional, law enforcement, and practical reasons why this would be a no go. But it could be done.
sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it.
Indeed. If we ditch the white headphones, the robbers will have won. In the war against robbery, we must continue to wear our earphones and go on with our daily lives.
Changing the color of the headphones won't help much. Muggers will just start targeting joggers that wear Blueberry, Tangerine, Lime, Grape, Stawberry, or Bondi Blue headphones.
"There's companies that are just so cool that you just can't even deal with it," - Bill Gates, about Google
It's as if they tied me up for 30 hours.
Now, now, now, you were on to making a good point, and then you had to go get hysterical. No, it is not like they "tied you up for 30 hours." Yes, it sucks, but no, it is not false imprisonment.
Plus, chances are, you didn't actually WORK those 30 hours, but merely 15, and spent the other 15 reading slashdot, which is actually theft from your employer, so maybe he should kill YOU!
On second thought, why not just get it over with, and go for the gusto. Call it 'terrorism'.
Mod down people who tell people how to mod in their sigs
One fake iPod case: $50.
One receiver: $50
One transmitter: $50
One kilo C4: $150
One mugger exploding when he runs more than 50 feet away from you: Priceless.
www.eFax.com are spammers
for stealing mp3's ....
You've obviously never been mugged. It's not something to look forward to.
God Bless America. Why? Did it sneeze?
Or pack it with C4 and a remote detonator.
Get mugged, then help clean up the gene pool!
In all seriousness, I'd love a chance to really try out a tazer, even if it involved getting mugged. Really.
"Give me your--"
*bzzt* *thud*
"AWESOME!"
If you outlaw white earphones, only outlaws will have white earphones.
just so long as his next words weren't going to be "license, registration and proof of insurance"
...I carry an iPod and also an H&K USP .40, fuck with my iPod and you're going to have some extra holes in your ass. Oh, sorry, I forgot you can't own guns like that in England, my bad :-/
-- Is it a right to remain ignorant? -- Calvin
Yeah, because threatening a guy at knifepoint is one thing, but most criminals draw the line at pirating music.
Anecdotal evidence says otherwise. I've talked to cops that use them, and have had them used on themselves, and the comments are that it hurts - not that it paralyzes. Of the commonly available "stun" weapons, the Tazer is indeed the best, but they aren't reliable stoppers.
I've talked to so many people who have been zapped from everything from garden variety stun guns like gramma had in "Die Hard II" to the much ballyhooed Myotron and the common denominator is that they hurt.
I'd personally be more than willing to get "stunned" by any available electrical "paralysis" garbage on the market, and I'd be willing to bet that I could close in on the stunner and clinch them while they stun me. I'd be willing to be that I could fully demonstrate ability and motive to continue an assault, and prove that if I were an assailant the "stun gun" would be a meaningless tool for self-defence.
really disabling the nervous system is also capable of stopping the heart and killing the attacker. Thus, you might as well use a weapon that is designed to do just that.
I can get to Washington State, so if anyone wants to take me up on this you provide the stun weapons and I'll provide the flesh.
Pierre
Here's an easy way to get the same effect.
1) Locate a dairy farm that uses electric fences to restrain cattle. You can tell it's an electric fence because it's one thin strand of wire at waist height strung through plastic insulators on the fence posts, and the cows are giving it a rather wide berth.
2) Walk up to the electric fence.
3) Whip out your dick.
4) Piss on the electric fence.
This, I posit, will remove *all* further desire on your part to play with high voltage electricity. For that matter, it will take a fair while afterwards for you to regain ANY "desire" to "play", if you know what I mean and I think you do.
just so long as his next words weren't going to be "license, registration and proof of insurance"
No, especially if it's "...license, registration, and proof of insurance."
Those identity theives are real clever.
"When I am king, you will be first against the wall..."
Okay, all that slightly offtopic stuff said, wearing white headphones will not get you mugged. However, if some guy on an empty street stops you and asks you if you have an ipod, and you stop walking, look at them, and respond... well that may get you mugged, as it did the victim in the story.
Great, Pudge didn't do his homework on this one.
I considered submitting this story, but I was busy and now I regret it because according to this MacWorld UK article, this is just an unsubstantiated media frenzy. The proof of how widespread these muggings are is still pretty sketchy.
Anyway, the people with IPODs are no being mugged becuase of the IPOD. They are being mugged because of what the IPOD signifies. Someone who has an IPOD probably access to disposable cash and so make a richer target then other people. Also since this person is the kind of person to get an IPOD they are also less likely to put up a fight (ok I just made that up)
Anyway, the point is that Muggers are using IPODS for selection of their targets *and* they get a cool IPOD to boot
I would like to hear your thoughts on this. Thanks
Sigs are dangerous coy things
Anonymous nothing, my name is right there.
I'm not saying Tasers don't work, I'm saying that they work only in the right context - self-defence by an individual is not that context.
Getting a Taser to work properly requires that both probes get a good seat in the subject. A common problem is that only one gets in, or that both get in, but one falls out. In the article you sent me the Officer is clearly dressed only in a light, tight, shirt to ensure a good contact by the Taser probes. That's fine for a demo, but that's not how things go on the street. Now imagine him in loose clothing, layered, telling you to give him the fucking iPod right fucking now and tell me you're willing to bet your life on something as fragile as a Taser.
Here's a thread that illustrates what I'm talking about.
I'm completely willing to give this a shot. If I could convince the PD here to do it, I'd go get it done in a heartbeat. Barring that, if you want to shoot me with a Taser, let me know. Like I said in a previous post, I can get to Washington State pretty easy - maybe down to Oregon, or over to Idaho.
I used to think a lot of things were true that weren't. Popular media likes to hype crap like Stun Guns, but the reality is far different.
Pierre
So radio tags are bad because they track peoples' habits. Product activation is bad because it ties a product to a specific user. Global databases are bad because it's a violation of your privacy. However, when we are talking about your $300 iPod, then it's all good? You wouldn't mind having your device registered and activated and your usage tracked because Apple is the mighty and benevolent company? Now, if this was proposed in connection with a Microsoft product, how many "Big Brother" posts would we see?
That's the sound of my karma dropping
"Oh dear, she's stuck in an infinite loop and he's an idiot" -Prof. Farnsworth (Futurama)
No, no they don't. As a law enforcement officer, at least in our city, we have to get tazed to know what it feels like. The 3 times I have been tazed by one, was by a 500,000 volt one, and I didn't fall or become paralyzed. It would still be easy to attack after.
Free stuff without getting the referrals? http://referralaccelerated.com
Actually, the warning in the article sounds like common sense. We live in a culture of capital--of possessions and class with who owns what determined by disposable income.
Apple certainly understands this which is why they introduce iPod models by threes, differentiated only by the size of the harddrive. It lets you say, 'look! I spent more money. Mine is bigger!'
Like it or not, the iPod is a device which announces that its owner has spent at least U.S. $300 on something easily stolen and eminently desireable. If you want to understand what that white cord looks like to a thief, imagine going to a bank and getting three fat stacks of singles, and then taping them to your chest with a post-it attached that says, 'Hi, you don't have this!'
It just makes sense.
To mail me, remove the 'mailno' from my email addy.
"Yeah. It smells, too..."
Nah, stun guns don't paralyze... I used one once. I've never seen my little brother get outta bed so fast in my life.
Well, you did just post again.
Heh: there's just one problem about sending such messages in a volatile society, especially when you can't hear what's going on around you. The distance from preening signifier to damn easy pickings is much shorter than many realize.
Put these ingredients together--frontin' hipsters oblivious to their environment, the anger and hunger of the street, and the value of the iPod both as tech and music motherload--and it's probably poised to replace car stereos as the quickest score a thief can make.
I stood there, taking my best innocent air, and staring at him like saying "now what"???
He was puzzled, got off the tractor, and walked straight to the fence which he touched pretty intently.
At that very moment, the relay decided to send a good charge which sent the redneck something like 3 feet up in the air, landing on his ass in the freshly ploughed field.
He said nothing at all, and never played smartass again with me...
I'm the last person to promote use of lethal force for protection of property. However, you're not understanding the nature behind the argument I feel.
A mugging is a violent act. In normal thinking parts of this world (IMHO) it's prefectly legal to respond to a lethal threat of violence with lethal force.
If I walk up to you, 10 feet away, and demand that you tell me you like me while pulling a gun on you to insure compliance I have put your life in danger. The level of my demands does not in any way, shape, or form effect the perceived threat level to your own person. It shouldn't at least. I don't care if somebody demands a stick of gum or my car -- if they pull a weapon my life is in danger and I not only have the natural right, but often the legal right, to respond with deadly force to neutralize the threat.
The wording of your reponse, "Killing someone to protect", just screams to me that you do not have any background in such areas. You do not shoot to kill, ever, you shoot to stop. A very small caliber round will kill a human being if given enough time. That is not the goal. The goal is to deliver a massive amount of trauma to their body to immediately stop all action on their part. That does not mean that you're trying to kill them. People shoot center of mass not because it's deadly, but because it's likely to stop the person. A shot to the upper thigh (if you hit a major artery) is horribly fatal despite what you see in the movies, however it's unlikely to IMMEDIATELY stop the attacker. Stopping is the goal, not killing.
I wouldn't shoot somebody over $300 dollars. I wouldn't shoot sommebody for any sum of money. The whole situation turns though once the perp presents the threat of deadly force.
I find it interesting that someone modded you interesting.