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UK Commissioner Seeks To Ban Ultrasonic Anti-Teen Device
mikesd81 points out a Times Online article that discusses the legality of the Mosquito sound device, which is used to annoy and drive off younger people with sounds that are too high-pitched for most adults to hear. We discussed how annoying this device can be a couple years ago. From Times Online:
"Sir Albert Aynsley-Green, the Children's Commissioner for England appointed to represent the views of the country's 11 million children, has set up a campaign — called Buzz Off — that is calling for the Mosquito to be banned on grounds that it infringes the rights of young people. 'These devices are indiscriminate and target all children and young people, including babies, regardless of whether they are behaving or misbehaving,' Sir Al told the BBC. 'The use of measures such as these are simply demonizing children and young people, creating a dangerous and widening divide between the young and the old.'"
Followed the link to TFA. I listened to the tone that I, as a 44-year-old, was not supposed to be able to hear. Sure enough, I heard it. It's faint, I had to use DJ-style headphones to isolate it enough, but it was audible.
I couldn't be the only person who can hear a 25,000Hz tone at my age. I could see how this device could backfire big time. I certainly wouldn't stick around a store where my ears were so assaulted. I hope this never catches on in the US.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
"This is a technological device, and you can't outlaw it !", right ? It's a "hack", and cool. Only it affects many people who read this site, as opposed to (mostly) rich people, like authors.
But I fear we will get a shameful demonstration of human nature, making "noble" excuses to force whatever suits the individual making the excuse.
Wouldn't using these purely to annoy already be outlawed by the same means that blowing airhorns constantly in public spaces is outlawed?
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
OK, you're an old fogey.
I suppose next you're going to yell at me to get off your lawn.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
As to the original device, maybe the little bastards will understand how I feel every time they drive by in their car or park outside, playing the latest example of what passes for music these days, with the bass level set at "stun small mammals".
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
It lists at 500 pounds. That is over 1000 US dollars. Why is it so expensive? It's just a waveform generator, an amp, and a speaker, right?
A way to make you darn kids get off my lawn!
Just -1, Troll talking to another.
Worst superpower ever, really.
Old fogeys can hear it perfectly.
It doesn't work as advertised.
No sig today...
If you tried the mosquito samples and simply couldn't hear the last, highest frequency one -- the problem is not your hearing. I opened it with an audio editor to be sure, and the waveform is a flat line. There is NO SOUND in that file.
Circumcision is child abuse.
Miss, I don't think you were listing to the right music. After all the loud amplified music I listened to in my youth, a high frequency ringing is just about all I hear.
Just -1, Troll talking to another.
I thought this sounded familiar, but with classical music and light that makes your acne look worse. It's still socially acceptable to stereotype, mock, fear, hate and discriminate against young people.
kids are monsters. If there's a device to drive them off that's fantastic. Is there a similar device for lawyers?
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
Nope, he's just going to chase you off with his new-fangeled sound do-hicky.
Just -1, Troll talking to another.
You can easily have computer equipment that can't reproduce frequencies that high. While 15kHz isn't especially high, and the general range of audio is considered to be "20-20,000Hz," there's plenty of cheap gear that rolls off before that. Unless you are sure your gear does a good job reproducing sounds in a given range, I wouldn't count on it as an accurate hearing test.
is priceless
Engineering is the art of compromise.
I heard it too, though my age isn't much of a factor in this case. I'm 29 but have had nerve hearing loss and deafness all my life. I require a hearing aide, but knowing the aide often works like MP3 compression... I don't tend to hear things through the hearing aide's microphone in music, such as high hats. (higher, tinnier frequencies are simply stripped out selectively) However, without the hearing aide and decent sound isolating headphones, I can hear more than I can hear with the hearing aide.
That considered, I STILL heard the tone, with and without my hearing aide.
It's a deep (as in penetrating), high pitched, persistent FHWEEEE whine. Very similar to flyback transformer whine when you get one of those CRT tubes failing.
Even being the deaf kid on the block, so to speak, I would smash one of those units, without any hesitation, if I had to have my area befouled with that kind of noise pollution.
Captcha: hostile
Use Audacity, a free/open source program. Available for Mac OS X, Windows, and the platform it originated on, Linux. Ask it to generate a 25,000Hz sine-wave tone for 10 seconds. Then take a listen to the results. Can you hear the tone? I can.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
I find that statement extremely unnerving. So a group of people of a certain age getting together is always a bad thing? Is it possible that other age groups also would not have the ability to assembly (wrong side of the pond, I know)? What ever happened to just posting signs and asking people to leave and finally contacting the police if there was still a problem. Could teenagers respond by playing their heavy metal "music" at the same level wherever they are. I'm sure there are other noises that can be created that are within noise pollution laws that annoy older folk too. That way everyone is annoyed and nothing is solved. How convenient technology can be, why interact with other people at all when you can just drive them off using a device that exploits a statistical correlation with the group you don't like. Best Idea Ever.
</angry-sarcasm>Ok then, glad to see someone sensible is leading the charge
If you are about to mod me down, keep in mind that this post was most likely sarcastic.
You are correct, it's digital silence. This is not that surprising though. They clearly don't know what the fuck they are doing. They claim it's a 22.4kHz tone. Ok... except that it is sampled at 44.1kHz. The Nyquist Theorem tells us that you can't represent a sound over half the sample rate. So at 44.1kHz the best you are going to get is 22.05kHz (and then only if it is a pure tone).
They are also kidding themselves on the age thing. I'm nearly 30 and I can hear the 17.7kHz tone fine. It's a little quiet and getting near the upper limit of my hearing, but it is audible no problem.
Man, I will start taking you serious the moment my mind gets around the thought of a one-year-old Criminal.
This isn't stopping theft, it is torturing babies. The worst part? If the parents are too old to hear the sound, they. have. no. clue. what. you. are. doing. to. their. kid.
I'm assuming you don't have little ones of your own. Strike that, I'm hoping you don't have little ones of your own.
Also, on a side note, this seems very stupid from a business sense. Kids grow up to be consumers, and many companies spend massive amounts to burn brand loyalties into their young impressionable minds. How quick will that noise make a massive headache a Pavlovian response to anything related to your brand.
Seems more like they're shooting themselves in the foot, not protecting themselves.
Just -1, Troll talking to another.
I JUST turned 28 yesterday, so I clicked on the listen file to see if I could hear it.
:)
I turned my speakers up just a bit (from an almost muted level) before hitting play, and I actually shouted in pain when it started. I'm REALLY glad I wasn't wearing my headphones.
So if you're curious like I was... start with the volume OFF, and bring it up SLOW.
If I walked by one of these things, a metal protective grating wouldn't stop me from trying to smash the $@!& out of it.
I think I found a better solution: an aerosol can of expanding foam insulation would quickly cover it through any metal grate. Once the foam dries, it would muffle the sound and it's really hard to pry it off
*NOTE* I have wimpy $15 Altec Lansing desktop speakers that were turned almost all the way down for late night WoW - one more little twist down and they would in fact be OFF. I have seen a good number of loud bands in concert, sometimes right in front of the speakers.
"Cheeze it!" - Bender
kids, just go out at night and smash the things. the adults won't notice that they aren't working!
I remember hearing once that kids were using these ultrasonic sounds as ring tones, so they could text each other exam questions, and their teachers would have no idea this was going on. if this isn't true, then kids should start doing this!
this can easily go both ways.
kids can hear what adults cant.
use this to take advantage of old people.
its only fair!
-I only code in BASIC.-
You need to set the sample rate to not less than 50kHz since the sample rate has to be twice, or more, the frequency you wish to play. As a practical matter for consumer gear this means you need to have a soundcard that can do 88.2kHz or 96kHz output, you need to have it set to do so, and you need to generate the tone at that sample rate. If you tell it to generate a 25,000Hz tone in its default 44.1kHz mode, you get a somewhat irregular wave at 20,000Hz.
A small "hoorah!" for the civil liberties NGO Liberty, who've been campaigning on this for a year or so. We've got one of these things in the nearest small Gloucestershire market town I go for my beer and pizza, and I haven't noticed any reduction in moody 15 y.o.s hanging round the shopping centre... they just hang around a couple of hundred yards away from the arcade where the thing's sited.
It's much simpler and more humane to simply play classical music kinda loud.
Also, I'm 36 and I can hear all kinds of ultra high pitched stuff. So they're driving me and my money away, too.
expandfairuse.org
earplugs.
The whole reason that there is an outcry against this is because it isn't targeted at criminals but at young people. As for going from that to your other assertions - seems to me dodgy at best. I don't want to live in a police state, but that doesn't mean I don't support the rule of law and personal responsibility. Who are these people defending themselves from - young people? This kind of attitude is as indicative of a "nightmare dystopia" as anything.
Finally, this is noise-pollution, nothing more. Imagine how these shop-owners would feel if I was next door and had my guitar amp cranking - I bet they'd be calling the cops.
Just another reason to be thankful I am hearing impaired...
rules #1 and #2.
Whose the newfag now?
"What ever happened to just posting signs and asking people to leave and finally contacting the police if there was still a problem."
That's essentially the problem. I've been watching the coverage of this device in recent news with interest, and initially I was pretty furious that some politically correct hand-wringer was once again poking their nose in, but I must confess that there are always two sides to the story and I'm beginning to see that the device really does need some serious improvements and/or regulation or, ideally, the root problem being dealt with and the device being made unnecessary. And that's the real issue that this device is highlighting, to my mind - that there is a problem with the behaviour of certain groups of kids that we need to deal with.
A typical example is just down the road from my house. There's a small shop, video rental place, takeaway, and a pub in a small patch surrounded by houses. During the day, it's fine. At night, it's a disaster area.
The kids who gather there are an effing nuisance, they insist on playing football right in front of the cars trying to use the car park, they harrass people and treat adults there like crap, they've smashed the windows of the shops dozens of times, they throw rubbish everywhere... The list goes on and on, they're just out of control and their parents are nowhere to be seen. Nobody dares deal with it because if they do, *they* will be the ones who get punished for taking the law into their own hands, or they'll be on the receiving end of reprisals.
The police response is this: Several yellow signs have been put up on the lamp posts that have bizarre txt-speak drivel on them. A typical example is "If ur bad we'll tell ur olds."
And that's it.
You never, ever see the police turn up. They do *nothing*. The parents of the kids do *nothing*. For the reasons listed above, everyone else does *nothing*. The kids, meanwhile, go mental. It's a total failure of control.
The article in The Times is now out of date. The Government later announced that there would be no plans to ban the "mosquito" devices. Probably nothing to do with the public reaction to their banning which was overwhelmingly in favour of the devices. See the BBC message board for some reaction. http://newsforums.bbc.co.uk/nol/thread.jspa?sortBy=2&forumID=4272&edition=1&ttl=20080215083504&#paginator/
We have real problems in the UK of violent teenage gangs and feral youths who hang around in packs causing problems. I should know I see these gangs every day. Many people won't leave their homes because of these "children". Years of namby pamby liberal Labour government and lax parenting skills in a rapidly breeding underclass has led to all these young thugs. I fully support placing as many of these devices around as possible. While it's true that it's unfair to people who are not causing trouble they are already the minority.
Most of your speakers are not going to reproduce much above maybe 16kHz, even if the electronic circuitry does. And even if the audio format allowed it. (Why didn't they use .WAV? The files would still have been small enough for a short beep.)
You would have to play this back through some pretty high-fidelity speakers. (And NOT those $9.95 earbud things that claim a 20kHz response. Yeah right. Do you really know what a decibel is?)
They have been trying this in the U.S., too, with somewhat less success. Fearmongering, that is. Yet it has still been nastily effective. We should aim our animosity against those who use such techniques, rather than against those they would turn us against.
INTELLIGENTLY PRESENTED UNTRUTHS NEED REBUTTAL. Stupid generalizations require that people ignore them.
Stupid generalizations are not dangerous. Intelligent untruths are.
I was very, very tempted to ignore you.
Most people, not just children, are inconsiderate, miles away from selfless, and just plain don't have the mental propensity to form constructive thoughts.
Issues like this go way beyond troubled adolescent children to pretty much all of society. (Whichever society that may be) I honestly can't think of an effective way to help that doesn't involve fire. I've tried being kind and considerate in the hopes that others will respond in kind, but often enough I just get stared down like I was some kind of freakin' pedophile. These mosquitoes are just the retard's way of dealing with the retarded and do nobody absolutely any good.
Problems such as these do nothing but reinforce my reclusive and introverted nature. People need to hold themselves to a higher standard, and hold others to it as well. Currently, so many people suffer from what I've heard termed as the bigotry of low expectations. If you see someone being rude and inconsiderate, find a way to let them know that they're being douchebags. I think you'll find that for the most part, they feel stupid and worthless when you inform them -- as they bloody well should.
I wholeheartedly concur! I too am growing tired with the cowardly surveillance society we live in. I would mod you to heaven if I could... :)
I just have to say that that is the most stupid idea I've ever heard. It's so absurd that I can't even laugh at how stupid it is. I'm not even sure I believe you, but the nagging thought in the back of my head tells me that someone, somewhere out there, thought that was a good idea.
Jesus fucking Christ that's idiotic.
Oddly enough, I have found some references on the Internet to a technology which may be able to counter devices like this. Supposedly the US Military currently issues this equipment to soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan to help defeat noise-related threats. Does anybody know if this technology really exists, or is it just science fiction?
..reading your post you'd think kids trying to find something to do, doing stuff together is a bad thing.
Instead of grabbing the beating stick to any problem, or legislation, why not try to understand what the problem is.
Have you actually gone up to the kids and asked them why they're there playing instead of somewhere else? Have you tried to understand what's happening from their side?
Kids aren't stupid, or evil, or trying to make your life miserable. If they show no respect, have an attitude towards you, then that's your fault and your inability as well as other adults in the neighbourhood to deal properly with the situation.
So grow up and deal properly with the problem instead of shouting "get off my lawn!"
K.
I agree that it's a bad idea because parents may not realize it's in use and it cause problems to their kids when shopping.
However, this device was probably created out frustration with unable to solve teens hanging around with another method. I haven't seen these in US nor heard about them in local papers so I have to assume it's due UK general lack of ability to deal with hoodlums. At least in US we have pretty strong loitering/trespassing laws. Yes, teens hanging around can be problem depending on type of teens. If it's group of teens that look like a bunch of punks that are swearing, smoking and looking all "tough" then it will bother other customers with money. We have same problem in my local area. There are several 7-11s (quick stop) type places that have people hanging around looking for work. Most of these people are presumed illegal aliens of Central American type descent who do not speak english and whistle at women. Guess where my girlfriend WILL refuse to shop?
I have no objection to kids playing anywhere they like.
But how do you justify the broken windows and the chronic litter?
I live in a neighborhood with similar issues, and I'll be DAMNED if I will try to understand what is happening from their side. There is NO acceptable reason for trashing a bus shelter or a DLR shelter. There is NO good reason to dump rubbish bins in the street. There is NO acceptable reason for urinating on the stairs to the train platforms.
When they decide to become part of society, I'll treat them like they deserve to be. While they're playing at Lord of the Flies, I'll treat them like the animals they are.
...and how much less likely do you think these kids will be to respect people's property when those people are trying to deafen or annoy them? Never mind those kids that might want to shop there, or heavens forbid are neutral and have nothing to do with the store.
Fix the problem. Get the police to actually bloody respond. If you can't do that waging war on kids (because the politicians and police are too difficult to engage) isn't just a poor substitute it's the epitome of stupidity. Stop picking on newborns you ranting nutter.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
Only applies to raids newfag.
The point, though, is this: The owner of the shop whose windows are being trashed isn't in a position to change society. He installs the device to move the problem on.
Politicians, parents and teachers are the ones who can solve this, but our politics (and parenting and schools) are totally disfunctional at the moment. No one wants to talk about what the problems are and what solutions might actually work, be tested and proven. Instead it's essentially a one party system with everyone trying to be "tough on this" and "longer prison sentences for that".
Rich.
libguestfs - tools for accessing and modifying virtual machine disk images
Sounds all too familiar. I do sometimes approach the kids but my wife has better results - they tend to be OK with her (although the girls are usually the wirst when to comes to being drunk/agressive and they have no qualms about getting aggresive at her). The trouble is, most people know that if they do try to approach the kids they'll either get in trouble with the police or more likely become a prime target.
A neighbour who has confronted the local kids now has his car windows broken about once a month and has had his house graffitied (sp?).
I spoke to some 11-12yo recently for standing (in full view of a CCTV I might add) in front of the local shop methodically throwing french fries into rack of cut flowers at the front. I told him to stop and he slunk off (many others had just walked past and ignored him). A few nights later at the same shop there were about 6 of them outside and as I walked past they said 'you do know we're going to get you you c*nt, don't you?'.
I want a list of atrocities done in your name - Recoil
>I just have to say that that is the most stupid idea I've ever heard
Our locals are slightly brighter. We have kids riding quad bikes over some open land nearby (illegally) so they put up signs saying to stop. They tore down the signs. They put up signs saying why it was illegal, mentioned insurance, their personal liability etc. they tore them down. The police then spoke to dozens of people who walked their dogs there and asked if they could keep and eye out and photograph anything they saw. They put up new signs warning that anyone could be recording what goes on there. Surprise! Almost no problem there now.
I want a list of atrocities done in your name - Recoil
BATTLE ROYALE :-)
seriously though, as a UK resident, the current climate of kids thinking they're above the law is disgusting. they can hit you and it's fine, you hit back and you're done for assault and your life will thereon in be a misery. Many are talking about bringing back National Service to teach some discipline and self respect. How can you respect anyone else if you don't respect yourselves enough not to be a complete nuisance?
Ok, a couple of points;
"the Children's Commissioner for England appointed to represent the views of the country's 11 million children"
So the kids don't want something that has been designed to stop them doing things they are not supposed to be doing, wow, revelation. So does this mean that burglars can now get locks and gates removed because it stops them doing what they want.
"These devices are indiscriminate and target all children and young people"
So because it doesn't target only blacks or asians it's a problem then? These devices aren't left on all the time, they are used at night and on demand to disperse congregating hoards of little retarded chav bastards. If they were active 24/7 then they wouldn't be used by shops as it would drive away a large part of their business.
This country is going to shit, fast, it's no wonder everyone is leaving.
Biomech
You know, have you thought about one thing: Does these kids have a place do go?
Where excactly are they supposed to be? Mesmerized in front of a TV? Playing violent computer games? What life are they being offered?
This sounds exactly like failure of teenage clubhouses and free/sports areas in your neighbourhood. Any zone they mightve used, is probably linked to fees which these kids have no way to pay. The rest is occupied by neighbourhood and commercial sites.
Do any of the people in your neighbourhood speak to eachother? Like, you are pretty many people, and can deal with most _any_ problem in your neighbourhood if you want to. But if nothings happening, this is a symptom nobody is dealing with it. YOU dont have to go in front of the teens, weve given braincells to think with, you just have to gather people and agree on some things..
This is a classic failure of community in your area, and the kids are just the symptom of the real problem. Yes, theyre asses, but its because theyre forced to live in a shit community that really doesnt care.
There is possibility of doing wonderful things there.. for those with their eyes open.
Furthermore, in support of your argument, the UK news is consistently riddled with stories where adults who have approached such groups have been kicked to shit, or more recently to death.
No one has a problem with constructive activities or even people hanging out, but that's not what they do anymore, because people don't stop them, give an inch and they take a mile. Smashed cars, smashed windows, stabbings, gang wars, old women/men being battered to death, the list goes on.
Biomech
And freedom of religion. The mosquito sound is us old peoples anthem for our old people religion.
Now get off my lawn you whipper snappers! *shakes fists*
"Have you actually gone up to the kids and asked them why they're there playing instead of somewhere else?"
Would you want to?
Three teenagers have been found guilty of murdering a man who was kicked to death outside his home in Cheshire. Garry Newlove, 47, died two days after being "kicked like a football" when he confronted a gang in Warrington in August 2007, Chester Crown Court heard.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/merseyside/7176471.stm
Biomech
These devices are only used to disperse gangs which have already accumulated and who are causing trouble.
They are not emitting this sound on a constant basis, and are just fired for very short periods of time as required.
As many others have said, the UK has a very serious problem with gangs of youths causing trouble, and we're not just talking a little petty crime, there have been a number of recent cases where individuals, often adults, have actually being kicked to death or stabbed by such groups. In some areas, entire communities will not leave their homes at night, because the streets aren't safe. We're not just talking about the stereotypical elderly couple here, we're talking about regular families, it really is that bad.
It's a similar situation in shopping centres and other retail areas, where these groups of what are essentially just kids, are either actively or just by their presence stopping people from entering shops, and it is these shops who are investing in the devices. If it weren't such a major problem (and it is) and they weren't generally very effective (which they) then you could guarantee that people wouldn't be spending money on them to protect their property and business, which is actually all they are doing here. The devices are fixed in position, and people aren't just wandering around finding groups to disperse.
Many of the recordings people are listening to on the web have been processed to make them audiable to pretty much everyone. The intention is to give people an idea what it sounds like to kids, I doubt any of the the people commenting on the sound itself have every actually heard it "live" as it were. There is plenty of evidence that in the vast majority of people, by the age of around 25 their hearing has deteriorated to the extent that they cannot hear this, or if they can, it's more of a background noise that a serious annoyance. Not everyone's hearing deteriorates at the same rate, but 25 is apparently the average age for people to no longer find it annoying, but of course some 20 years olds won't be able to hear it properly, and there will be people in their 30s for whom it will be irritating.
Granted, the long term causes of these issues need to be addressed, but the fact remains that these gangs of "young people" are causing criminal damage and are at best a serious concern and in some cases a genuine threat to the safety and liberties of regular members of the public. When people talk about the rights of children, they always think of the relatively innocent ones, the ones who are probably more like we were when we were young (and this is an image that those who are anti-Mosquito are trying to foster) but the truth of the matter is that the kids this device is being used on, have little in common with the British kids of the 80s. They are the sort who have no regard for other people's property or civil rights. They are the sort for whom a night out involves underage binge drinking and for whom violent behaviour is part of the fun, so forget about being idealistic, and taking the moral high ground here. You'll notice that those people who have posted who actually live in the UK are supporting the use of this device. There's a reason for this.
I should also point out that in response to this campaign, the British Government said a couple of days ago that they will not be banning the use of the Mosquito. There is overwhelming public support for the devices, because there is a genuine need for them. I suspect a good percentage of the people who are adding their voice to the supposed "public outcry" about their use (and in truth it's a very, very small number of people relative to the population) are not fully aware of the manner and situations in which these devices are actually used. From some of the nonsense I've seen written (and I don't particularly mean here on Slashdot) that certainly seems to be the case.
You've completely missed the point of the OP.
Biomech
Dangerous. Bring a strong bloke with you next time you see them gathering and let him just slap the shit out of any of those bastards who try anything.
Obviously, responding to a flamebait post is probably going to get me in karma trouble, but I can't help it. Now, what you have said may have merit, but it is how you said it that got you modded down. Let me propose to put it another way.
Personally, I believe that, just as there are sounds that drive teens off, there are also sounds that can drive adults off. I think such things can be hard-wired. For example, a cat's visual cortex can be heavily patterned by early stimuli. It is well known that early patterning is usually irreversible and manifests itself throughout development.
One would be remiss to assume the same patterning would not function similarly for the auditory centers. I would postulate that your disdain of rap and hip-hop comes from the type of music you listened to as a young child--which was probably what your mom was listening to (maternal patterning). Perhaps you were a child of the 70's, like me, and sacrificed your sense of rhythm for the melodic sounds of the Bee Gees or Paul McCartney. Perhaps you were young during the 80's and your musical sensibilities were destroyed by the likes of Spandau Ballet, Cindy Lauper, and, god forbid, Duran Duran. Now remember, these groups would be the ones your Mom was listening to--you would probably not listen to such groups by your own choice.
The natural question, of course, becomes: what the hell were the hip-hoppers and rap kids' moms listening to?
Just callin' it like I see it.
That wouldnt' work out to well here in Texas.
For instance the kids would probably try to beat me to death for approaching them.
I would immediately retreat to my house where I would be legally justified in blowing each of their heads off for coming after me.
Got any other bright ideas?
In case you haven't figured it out yet adults aren't responsible for other peoples teenagers and for the most part are impartial to what happens to them when they infringe upon peoples rights.
Quit whining about this wonderful piece of technology. Sometimes you just need to break up a group of children, and this is a perfect device for doing it with. Also there is a real problem with threatening groups of kids, particularly around shops. This is exactly the solution we need.
Okay, next up a device which only causes discomfort to black people, then one which only causes discomfort to women. Research on the device that only causes discomfort to Buddhists is currently stalled...
++ Say to Elrond "Hello.".
Elrond says "No.". Elrond gives you some lunch.
If parents were allowed to discipline their kids properly, this problem would be much smaller in the first place. But the politically correct wankers that fear anything that are said about them on the press not only habe taken that away from the parents, but also the teachers.
That said, I can hear the bloody thing and i'm 28...
Your head a splode
No one is going to call for a ban on speakers but it's easy to outlaw a particular use that causes real physical harm to people. It hurts the ears of anyone with ears good enough to hear the sound. You can think of it as a booby trap and those are repulsive no matter how they are made. It also teaches troubled youth that force is the way to solve problems.
There's not even a good business case for this. Besides hoodlums, the device will drive off mothers with babies who are your best customers. When they find out about these devices those moms are going to be very angry. Stores dumb enough to have bought these things would do well to discretely dismantle them and apologize profusely to anyone who asks about them.
The only thing shameful is wishing others harm. That's why you are not supposed to like the victims of this box - they supposedly hurt people and make life unpleasant. It would be better to have reasonable policing to discourage actual crime.
A reasonable society will quickly outlaw or set energy limits for these nasty devices and they may already be illegal. It's already against the law to make yourself a nuisance with noise or to burst someone's ear drums by other means.
"In case you haven't figured it out yet adults aren't responsible for other peoples teenagers and for the most part are impartial to what happens to them when they infringe upon peoples rights."
Good Bless America!
This isn't at poster, it's at the attitude displayed by the comments which are far from unique in the USA.
Doesn't the fact America is massively more violent than Europe and social attidues like this somehow link? Obviously, there's massive disparity of income too that drives the violence, but that in itself is also maintained by 'I'm alright Jack' attitudes like this.
"This is a technological device, and you can't outlaw it !", right ? It's a "hack", and cool. Only it affects many people who read this site, as opposed to (mostly) rich people, like authors.
If I was a total, complete fuckwit. Trebuchets are "cool", but I bet you'd take a dim view if I used one to throw boulders weighing 200 kilos into your house.
In other words: yes the tech might be cool, but there are very uncool uses for said tech. Which is the point of the article - fuckwit.
Tempting. I've never actually had a fight in my life so unless I have some as yet untapped but born-with super street fighting skill I'm going to go down like a sack of potatoes followed by the usual multiple kicks to the head. OTOH, they may just be all mouth, you don't tend to warn people in advance otherwise it gives them a chance to prepare. That's my hope anyway :-)
I want a list of atrocities done in your name - Recoil
In Buddhism, there is no good karma.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
To repel rowdy young ruffians, just pipe in classical music. You don't need to inflict
suffering on anyone's eardrums -- just offer them something they'll find totally uncool.
Then, leaving and avoiding such places feels like a victory to them. They'll even tell
their young ruffian friends how horribly unbearable the music is, and you'll be spared
even more of them as word spreads.
Normal people, including babies, don't mind the classical music at all!
Perhaps the fellow who thinks it's ok to torture babies to protect himself against
dangerous teenagers can get a job with the Bush administration.
Hide all sigs: Click HELP+Prefs (top), VIEWING (last on right), DISABLE SIGS (3rd on left) and SAVE (hidden at bottom).
Three teenagers have been found guilty of murdering a man who was kicked to death outside his home in Cheshire. Garry Newlove, 47, died two days after being "kicked like a football" when he confronted a gang in Warrington in August 2007, Chester Crown Court heard.
Depends. If the man confronted those kids like this cop confronted some skateboarders, he had it coming.
For the record, I'm 34 and I can here them, so can my 4 kids who are too young to do anything wrong. Yes a married geek with kids.
Our local shop has speakers up and has an alternative solution to the problem, they play classical music.
Its just not cool to hang out there any more, so they have moved on else where.
The kids who gather there are an effing nuisance, they insist on playing football right in front of the cars trying to use the car park, they harrass people and treat adults there like crap...
So how about building them a proper place to play football. As you said, deal with the root of the problem.
Except that kids aren't the only one who can hear those things. I'm 30 and I can still hear outside the "adult range". You had better believe I will be avoiding spending my income at any store that annoys me.
On a more amusing note here in Montreal they use classical music for the same purpose. Stores that don't want kids around will play it outside their shops. Pissed me off the first time heard something good and went inside to get a better listen only to discover that inside they were playing some crap radio station.
I fear I have wasted my youth.
Earplugs are designed for normal frequencies and do a poor job if blocking high sounds.
I just hope these things aren't as loud as the "ultrasonic" anti dog device that radio shack used to sell. I can hear them and that very painful noise get blocked by nothing.
It is an issue that the parents let there kids run feral. Except for actually paying attention to the kids in being involved in their lives they let them run out side and learn the world with others with the same type of parents. The kids learn to fend for themselves when they get confident enough to start attacking adults and other children then there is really nothing that will stop them or change their ways. If you want to know what humans were like before society just watch the children in any major american city, and you will see humans in action in their non socialized selves. No fear of the police or any one but at the same time afraid of everything, everyone and everything is a threat, the strong is the one who survives so everyone must be the strongest.
It is no longer Kids will be kids, kids and gangs especially are not as much a criminal element like the gangsters of the 1930's they are a pack of wild humans, they don't do crimes because of things like money and power (in a society scale) they do it for Survival, Dominance, or Acceptance amongst their group. In my mind these kids (and adults too) are wild animals who happen to be human species.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Ok, my age group is what they are aimed at, and I live near one. After about 2 weeks I barley notice it and after a month or so I had to actually try to hear it. These things are needed, in some places especially. At night sometimes I cant even walk down the street in my small town without the risk of some kid pulling a knife on me, just because I have long hair or such. As for young babies, I do think that its unfair for them and that yes if their parent have bad hearing they won't realize whats wrong, that said, I know a lot of parents won't go to certain places where these happen to be simply because of kids. And yes I am aware that my grammar properly suck balls, I'm the nerd, my girlfriend is the grammar queen.
and apparently I can't spel hear ither.
No, no, no. If their parents weren't COMPLETE DUMBASSES, the problem wouldn't be there in the first place. If they just cared about what are their kids doing, or maybe even - ${DEITY} forbid - TALKED to them, everyday, ever since their kids were born, the problem wouldn't be there at all, except maybe some corner cases of inborn blockheadedness. Disciplining won't do any good if there's no feel of doing wrong without being disciplined. Do you want a society of people who are "good" just because they were being beaten as kids?
I was disciplined (in the common sesne of this word) TWICE in my whole life, yet I know what's good and what's bad and don't like doing the latter because it's just something intrinsically wrong for me. And that was explained to me when I was a kid, not beaten into my head. It can be done, it's just that most people out there should have never had children because they are unable to give proper upbringing. And disciplining won't help anything.
This is Slashdot. Common sense is futile. You will be modded down.
As a parent of a 16 year old I can tell you what is wrong.
1 - parents of other kids are morons. They dont teach them right from wrong or any respect for themselves or others.
2 - right now out of control is "cool" the more out of control the "cooler" you are. Destruction of someone elses things, theft and shoplifting are considered the coolest of them all.
3 - Kids teach other kids destructive things. No kid would pick up a cigarette and start smoking if it was not for their idiot friends forcing it on them. No kid would cut themselves if it was not for their idiot friends guilting them into it or convincing them to do it. Same for the good kids getting into destruction and mayhem. It's the other stupid brats sucking the kids into it.
I solved a vandalisim problem on my property, when the cops arrived and had the kids in hand, I talked with the cop and then with the kids. I said, "I have a pump shotgun. I talked to the officer on this and he said I am legally allowed to do this. Next time I hear noises in my garage or home, I will not stop and tell you to leave, I will fire a couple of rounds into your chest. you will probably die a very slow and painful death." the officer backed me up telling them that they were home invading and I have the right to kill them. The kids shit themselves right there. One started crying. I have had no problems for 2 years now.
My global solution? return of corporal punishment. Kids and Young adults today know there are no repercussions to their actions. what's the worst that will happen? Mom or Dad will have to pay for me smashing out all the windows on that car? who cares, all I'll get is grounded from the TV for 3 months and I'll sneak out at night anyways.
Beat the brats ass and they will not only get the point but realize there is something bad that will happen to them if they do it. Also cince most parents wont do it, the state gets to do it. Help support caning of the 12-18 age group, because the worthless parents refuse to punish the kids for doing something wrong.
.. fuck the children.
They are practically untouchable, and they know it. Years of 'knowing their rights' has seen to that, as does the change in policing from proactive to reactive, all in the name of measurable (read spinnable) results.
What you see here is an unintended result of criminal justice policy gone wrong over many years. Is it legal, and a short-term solution; something that breaking the little criminals' legs, sterilising their parents and removing them from access to any state benefits is not.
It's true I tell you, feller at work's next door neighbour read it in the paper.
where I can get one of these for my lawn?
My local (Merseyside) papers made a lot of noise (ho ho!) some months ago when it was announced that a series of devices would be installed at petrol stations and other 'identified troublespots'. I wrote to a series of local MPs (some who had commented in the papers and some who hadn't) about their views on the device, asking how they would define such a device, how familiar they are with its function and effects and whether they would supporting a trial run of device installations in my local area. None of the bastards replied. And now I get their damn party 'newsletter' through my letterbox every month.
The problem's not with parents being unable to discipline their kids - they wouldn't bother anyway. The issue is that a pervasive welfare state has made being a shit parent a viable career.
Left school at 16? No job, no qualifications, female? Get knocked up and the state will give you a flat and benefits, just like they did for your parents and grandparents. Work ethic? Responsibility? Self sufficiency? Who needs them when you have an all encompassing nanny state ready to take care of you from cradle to (early) grave?
If you haven't made a developer cry, you've wasted a day.
Remember that it is only a miniscule minority of children causing the trouble. Why should 99% of the population suffer for something that the minority of 1% does? Most teens can usually find something to do, rather than causing trouble. See browsing the Internet. Going to the library. Watching television. Playing on a games console. Going to the shops in town, contributing to the local economy. Doing homework/coursework. Many even run their own websites. It's a great shame to see so many people (most of them, seemingly, Daily Mail readers) claiming that all children are happy-slapping, hoodie-wearing (what exactly is wrong with an item of clothing!?) smoking, drinking, ASBO-bearing, joy-riding pea-brains with no GCSEs, no A-levels, no job, and their evil iPods (all stolen from the local Dixons, which, by the way, has now been forced to redo all its signage in Polish because of the 400,000,000 immigrants flooding into this country every day) turned up to a ridiculous volume.
Those using pirated Tinysoft signatures(TM) are a real threat to society and should all be thrown in jail.
Correlation doesn't necessarily imply causation. What we have here is someone feeling that a particular viewpoint is wrong, tossing out some vague quantifications and making suppositions about whether one drives the other.
You're going to have to do a lot better than that if you really want to prove your point.
The parent's not trolling - "uncool" music is indeed used to deter antisocial behaviour by young people. the effect is well known http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4154711.stm. Classical music is played in certain London Underground stations in part for this reason. http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/music/article3284419.ece
Sigh.
"...and how much less likely do you think these kids will be to respect people's property when those people are trying to deafen or annoy them?"
"Fix the problem."
Maybe I didn't come across well there, but what you've just said above is pretty much what I was trying to say - we need to deal with the root of the problem.
And thanks for accusing me of picking on newborns and being a ranting nutter.
Well, hopefully with the tearing down of the projects in NOLA, it will help curb this somewhat in this area...those were breeding grounds for unsupervised, 'feral' children as you described. It was so sad to see, after Katrina, that somehow many kids, most from the projects....came back to the city with no parents at all, and are now causing a great deal of the violence on the streets.
I'm hoping the replacement mixed housing that will replace the old projects, will help to promote responsible family life again among the poorer classes in the city...the road to home ownership, and regulations on drugs and other illegal activities (if you mess up, you're out) should all help to instill values back again into these families, and maybe parents will be more responsible and raise law abiding children.
I'm hoping that in the future, that you don't have to always keep a wary eye on the youth you walk by, fearing they might shoot you...
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
It has to be something else. We've had rich people and poverty since the beginning of time, yet you didn't used to hear of this type of violence and complete disregard for human life, especially amongst the youth of the US till recent decades.
Maybe it is more of a sense of entitlement that drives it? I mean, there have always been poor people, but if they wanted luxuries and all....they worked hard to get more $$. Now....if you can't afford it...you are 'justified' in stealing it. What does being poor have to do with not seeing the value of a human life....there are kids today that can kill someone without a second thought....no remorse at all.
It wasn't that way when I grew up....when did it start to get this bad? Early 90's or maybe a little earlier?
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
...when kids started using it as a ringtone so they could txt each other during school without the teacher hearing...?
In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
I can hear these things and my teenage years are gone. I can also hear devices that are supposed to scare pigeons away and I left a shopping area because it was giving me a headache.
But whether or not adults can hear these things is not the issue. They are offensive, discriminatory and wrong for several solid reasons even if they did work as advertised.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
OK, that's two comments I've read now about them having a proper place to play.
This area I mentioned is along a road. On the opposite side of the road is a park area with all the space kids could ever want. It's also one of 4 parks within a half-mile radius.
They *have* places to play. That isn't the issue. I only wish it was that simple.
If you want to know what humans were like before society just watch the children in any major american city,
Before what society? Even apes congregate into groups. Generally I think we can assume that in any form of evolution people were always aggregated into tribes. Every tribe like culture I've ever come to known has generally been fairly close knit and people respect their elders.
I would say the degeneration of youth into packs is more of an unnatural occurrence where they lack guidance. Pretty much every step of human progress (likely before we were even "human") has had youth supervision. It's only in more recent history that we've had larger congregations of people who simply do not watch over their young.
Thatcher said there is no such thing as society. If true, there is no such thing as anti-social behaviour. She also said Britain was safe in Blair's hands.
Twenty-odd years ago, during the height of the boombox, I read a piece in Philly's weekly paper by a guy who lived with his wife on the second floor, over a corner. Some local kids had started hanging out on the corner, and cranked the boombox UP. He was about to yell out the window, when his wife stopped him.
Then they opened their windows, put their full-sized stereo speakers in the windows, and cranked UP the opera.
Kids last seen walking away, waving fists...
mark
Would it be illegal to own and operate a device designed to seek out the exact location of such annoyance devices as a counter-measure. Once you know where the things are located, you could either disable/destroy the thing discreetly (as the owner probably can't *hear* it working or isn't generally close enough to observe the results), or find someone in law enforcement that can clearly hear it and see the amplifier itself as grounds enough for issuing a charge for disturbing the piece. (A follow-up check for compliance could result in specific harassment charges and even arrests.)
After all, what's good for the goose is good for the gander, right?
8==8 Bones 8==8
I suspect that this strategy might backfire on them. I'm a female in my 40's, and have had my hearing tested extensively, and my hearing in that range is quite good. From my ear specialist's views, and what is expressed on the vestibular forums, high frequency hearing loss is most likely in males. As females do more shopping, unless this just being used at the Bass Pro shop, they will find their overall business dropping. Plus, if you think about how many people shop with children in tow, this will have the consequence of getting babies and small children all riled up, as the younger you are, the sensitive the high frequency hearing.
Such as the sound of a chalk scratching the blackboard, or cutting a ceremic plate with a metal knife.
Unfortunately, many teenagers are annoyed by these sounds too, and only toddlers seem to enjoy that.
I once had a signature.
I have a friend who is 30 and he still can hear these high pitched noises. He's a teacher and has busted tons of students who used those high pitched ringtones to know when an incoming text message was received. I'm sure there's a big number of adults who are trying to conduct business who would be affected by this as well.
Can I bum a sig?
Maybe your lack of money is my problem too?
And I bet your lack of girlfriend is also my problem?
It makes perfect sense! Everything wrong in your life is really all my fault!
No. Since you arrogant cunts, hiding behind your mob mentality, believe in the law of the jungle you should also be subjected to the law of the jungle. You should all be publicly slaughtered. Half the adult population would queue up and pay good money to do it.
Life's cheap, you shitty, parasitic bastard. No-one would miss you, especially not your worthless parents.
Do not forget that this is Britain; there is no "american dream" there, they're the very redcoats the yankees rebelled against 234 years ago.
they just hang around a couple of hundred yards away from the arcade where the thing's sited.
Some rocket scientist put a device that repels teenagers next to an arcade? Brilliant!
Try this in reverse, someone engineer a device that bugs the hell out of senior citizens (for the purpose of, say, keeping them out of self-checkout lines at the grocery store) and see how well that goes over. I understand some business want to drive off adolescents, but maybe they should consider trying to enforce local ordinances against loitering if they exist.
Obligatory xkcd
Oh please I knew from reading the title that this article would congeal comments of "Wah! Bad parents!". Have you ever stopped to think why the parents are so bad?
I had this debate a few days ago with a 72 year old man. I'm only 21 for the record. We were discussing a group of school children who were maybe 12 or 13 on the bus sitting down while this man and another old woman were standing. The point that I hit is how can you blame the parents when we are all the cause for their failing. Let me explain, most of us are working longer hours, kids are in daycare/school/babysitter, your mortgage just keeps growing, tax and inflation woes worrying you, savings disappearing, credit card debt and other factors. Most people with an ounce of sense or ability to earn money aren't having kids. Almost all the kids are coming out of the lowest common denominator multiplied by itself, not all, but by far the great majority. We are creating our own problem and unfortunately economics is to blame. This isn't just happening on the village level it's happening en masse in most established, post-industrial countries. We have a problem where parents can't be parents. This is the cause and unless either the middle/upper class couples start having children again or life becomes less stressful it's not going to get any better.It goes deeper than that though. I remember the key cause for generation and legal conflict from teenagers when I was one was boredom. I wasn't your generic geek who hid from everyone else at school during my teenage years, that is not to say I didn't have a horrible time at school it is just to say I associated with people most geeks would avoid. Most of us are living in suburbs or satellite towns, these are horrible breeding grounds for boredom. Kids are dead bored, the fact there is nothing to do nearby except mill with friends is the resultant of this. People get violent and abusive, both to themselves and others, when they are bored. Never underestimate the power of environmental factors on people.You argument of children's world being one of survival of the fittest is looking through the Fox News camera. You're being overly dramatic and probably ignorant of your own upbringing. Childhood is a microcosm of the larger society around them, if you wonder why they fight so much and have pecking orders and whatnot it is because the rest of us live in such an environment as well. Kids forming groups, gangs or whatever derogatory slang you want to use are merely living out the wider societies states and nations metaphors to a scale. If you want to point the finger at someone state with yourself and why you continue to live in such an inhumane, yet intrinsically human manor.
Am I the only one who thinks that if a handful of businesses within a small area install these then their effects might bleed-over? What if there's a business a block from a child day-care? What about noise pollution? If I lived near one of these (I'm in my 20s and can hear it fine) I would be calling the cops about it driving me nuts. Back to the range question though, in a downtown location with lots to echo off of how far would this sound travel? Would it possibly black-out an entire area? What about kids travelling nearby to these, say on their way to school? Perhaps if they could very tightly focus the sound and ensure that it disipates within the landowner's property it could be acceptable, but as is it sounds as though this would be like my grandmother sprinkling mothballs around her entire block just to keep mice out of her basement closet.
What the fuck is your problem? Well actually you are part of the problem. Bitch'n about things not being your fault. You know something? It is your fault. My problems are not your fault but where the hell did I say they where?
You know what makes it your fault? Because you sit around an bitch about it and don't do nothing constructive. Posting signs and arresting kids for being kids doesn't work. As a society this is all our fault.
Get off your ass and out from in front of the computer and do something with your life. If the teens/kids in your community need a place to play then get out there and start talking to people about doing it. Do something.
And if you don't like my option put me on your ignore list and shut the fuck up.
Supporting World Peace Through Nuclear Pacification
I think the problem is that there were lots of highly effective yet questionable punishments for bad kids back in the old days. As I understand it police officers would basically hit them if they were naughty, and then take them back to their parents who would hit them even more. If they were really bad they could be sent to some sort of juvenile prison.
Now I'm not saying this was a good thing per se, but it worked. The problem is that in a more human rights conscious society that doesn't happen anymore. The worst kids can literally form packs ramage around, even killing people with impunity. And the sad thing is that every time any government tries to do something about it it is sabotaged by a bunch of people that don't live in the sort of estates where kids run rampant.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
Children aren't adults and they won't behave responsibly unless someone teaches them too. The ones running rampant have parents that don't care and live in estates that the police avoid.
Arguably the children have quite rationally adapted to an amoral environment. The problem is that you need to make the adapt to a moral one if society isn't going to gradually decay.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
Kids will just turn up their IPods and render those neurotic baby-boomer tax dollars and city counsel meetings irrelevant. Self-interest wins in decibels these days. Politically, socially, etc.
While it's true that it's unfair to people who are not causing trouble they are already the minority.
So screw 'em?
"In a society under the forms of which the stronger faction can readily unite and oppress the weaker, anarchy may as truly be said to reign as in a state of nature, where the weaker individual is not secured against the violence of the stronger" - James Madison
"Doesn't the fact America is massively more violent than Europe and social attidues like this somehow link? Obviously, there's massive disparity of income too that drives the violence, but that in itself is also maintained by 'I'm alright Jack' attitudes like this." Say what you want, but we don't have roving bands of youngsters destroying property and kicking people to death here in Texas. You can have your warning signs and ultrasonic devices, I'll take my Riot Shield and Shotgun.
With credit to Massad Ayoob for his insightfulness -
You made a mistake by not helping this guy. You needed to communicate with him. You needed to ask him a deep, existential question that would cause him to question and reassess his actions, attitudes, and core beliefs in light of the impact he is having on the world and of the impact the world can have on him. You needed to ask him a question that would help him onto the path of nonviolent enlightenment.
Sometimes you can even ask such a question without using any words at all.
A question like -
"You don't really want me to shoot you in the face with this .38, do you?"
Oh, wait. You're in the UK.
Never mind...
The kids who gather there are an effing nuisance, they insist on playing football right in front of the cars trying to use the car park, they harrass people and treat adults there like crap...
You never, ever see the police turn up. They do *nothing*. The parents of the kids do *nothing*. For the reasons listed above, everyone else does *nothing*. The kids, meanwhile, go mental. It's a total failure of control.
I know that I shouldn't belittle your entire problem, but I find it funny. It isn't a failure of control at all. Its actually democracy at its roots. Those of the peer group finally have limited power over another group that has historically always had control over them.
I'd dislike the kids behavior as well. But here is the thing. They finally do have control. Those that use force/control measures have control over those that don't. The police and their parents don't care. So these kids have some limited control over those older them, the age group of folks that usually sets rules.
I understand this. There is a part of me that thinks that the voting age needs to drop to 12 years old just so kids will actually be a part of the democracy instead of feeling like they are growing up in a prison. What am I saying? It's the UK of course they feel like they are growing up in a prison!
If people would just quit having sex there wouldn't be any problems with unruly children. Within about 70 years a lot of other problems would disappear as well.
You never really know how close to the edge you can go until you fall off.
Carry a knife, with 9-inch or so blade. If it was the US I'd say get a gun and a concealed carry permit. You've been warned, at this point if you get beaten or killed, well, you knew.
<xml><I><am><so><damn>Web 2.0</damn></so></am></I></xml>
It is no longer Kids will be kids, kids and gangs especially are not as much a criminal element like the gangsters of the 1930's they are a pack of wild humans, they don't do crimes because of things like money and power (in a society scale) they do it for Survival, Dominance, or Acceptance amongst their group. In my mind these kids (and adults too) are wild animals who happen to be human species.
Um, didn't you know there is no such thing as a civilized human? These kids prove that. If you could civilize people by public education and such, this would be stopped in a generation or two. Once we started this whole urbanization thing, I'm pretty sure we've been stuck with the problem.
I find it funny. These kids are apparently getting their Survival, Dominance, or Acceptance amongst their group kicks. If they felt a part of the larger society and not completely dominated by it, they might care a bit more than issues of their own survival. The goal is to make the kids half way civilized citizens. By my mind, you should recruit them to fix the problem. Sure this is your turf, do you really want your turf to be a dump? Give them strict polished uniforms to wear, the flashier the better, and have them patrol the streets.
And marketing.
You fuckity fucking fucker-fucker should learn some fucking manners before you fucking say any fucking shit to another mother fucking human being, fucker.
Even though the press whips up lots of concerned outrage about people being attacked by gangs of youths, I'm pretty sure that the number of occurrences is vanishingly small (20). Surely, you are far more likely to be battered by an abusive partner or hit by a motor vehicle, but no-one is trying to ban partners or cars.
Furthermore, in support of your argument, the UK news is consistently riddled with stories where adults who have approached such groups have been kicked to shit, or more recently to death.
...because it sells more papers.
...because society loves violence.
Why is the news riddled with such stories?
Why does it sell more papers?
What you really need over there is a another really juicy sex scandal to get your mind off things and give to time to reflect on the fact that real violent crime rates have dropped every year for the past 13 years.
Treat it just like any other loud "music". If it's annoying people outside of the owner's property then let them file a complaint.
If I want to use a lightning generator on my front porch to disuade solicitors and it won't zap anyone on the street then tough luck. If I do zap someone, i'm on the hook for it.
Why is that so complicated?
You can get rich if you own a politician, but you have to be rich to buy one in the first place.
If you think that the last few decades were the first time that poor people have become belligerent and violent then you must be learning your history from cartoons. Adolescents have always caused problems. The old have always complained about them. The poor have always wanted more (and so have the rich) and they have always blamed the rich for making it more difficult for them to get it (and often, they've been right). If you want to understand this, there is only one place to start:
Learn more history.
This situation is not unique. The last few decades have seen loads of drastic changes in human life, but not because adolescents are rebellious or poor people are resorting to violence. This suggests that you've been taught worthless "history indoctrination" whereby the current generation of middle-aged people portrays the time of their youth as perfect and ideal while the current state of affairs is headed toward Armageddon. Conservatives then sell this ideal to the populous, making them believe that there was a time when people didn't murder other people just because they had a few bucks or schillings or spare cowrie shells. People who actually have a clue about history have seen this pattern in every generation they have looked at, from today's Baby Boomers to the ancient Greeks and even early Egyptians. This same pattern can even be found in isolated jungle tribes which don't have any of the causes you might like to blame this on.
This is human nature. Perhaps that's why people don't want to believe it. They hate being wrong. They hate growing old. They hate the idea that someone else's point of view might be worth as much as theirs.
I have no love for punks who hang around only to cause problems. However, everything I've seen and read suggests that the way to fix this is to treat the young/poor/insert-nogoodnick-group-here as humans rather than someone who is less important than you. In most cases, the reason they don't respect others because others don't respect them.
Though you are likely correct that a future with no hope is the source of a good number of problems with youth, both in the US and in the UK, it's a tad goofy to compare this with the Revolutionary War.
The folk in the colonies were NOT "revolting against society".
These are not the redcoats you're looking for.
The colonists were working through society. Many representative bodies throughout the colonies held "civilized" debates about the issue and issued a wide variety of declarations of independence. Sure the war got ugly. Sure it involved a bunch of youth (as wars always seem to do). But it is an incredible stretch to compare this with destructive, undisciplined, unmanaged kids in the UK.
I'm in the US. Can't say that I'm aware of this sort of problem in my area; but then again I'm an old geek and probably wouldn't go to the 'pub' in the evening - because it's well past my bed time.
From the property-owner's perspective; one would ask "Why would you install a device that causes younger customers to flee?" Well, if the young customer has little or no disposable income, buys nothing, and prevents an older customer from spending money, then the young customer is an inconvenience to business. Business is the engine that pays for the store/theater/mall/arcade/pub and allows the owners to make a living, hire staff and pay bills. If the younger customer causes damage, and prevents one from making a living - then the younger customer is not an aid to commerce, but a parasite that is feeding off of the efforts of the businessman. Parasites, as a rule, are something that have little or no value.
Thus, as legal recourses in this matter are limited; the logical thing to do is to create an atmosphere that discriminates against the parasite. Polka, waltz, opera and country music may irritate the parasite, but they also detract from the attractiveness of the area for the customer. Thus, the mosquito truly appears to be the best possible solution.
I find it interesting that those with *no* vested interest; want to stand up for the irritant. This makes as much logical sense as my arguing the 'rights' of a sliver of glass to be in embedded in your index finger.
the solution we employ for getting rid of unwanted loitering teens is to blast out country/western music.
BTM
That was the turning point of my life--I went from negative zero to positive zero.
Don't we have dog whistles? Are we comparing teen-agers to DOGS? I mean, I am fucking 21 and I can hear that sound! Is it supposed to solve any problems to humiliate teen-agers? This has got to be THE stupidest - not to mention snobby - idea I've ever heard of.
Cool!
What happened to the idea of video-cameras anyway? And signs to notify.
There is a rather interesting passage in the book Starship Troopers that deals with this head-on. At the beginning of the book, the History (their History =~ our present) teacher was describing the horrors of the past, specifically describing how kids would run amok in a destructive manner such as people are relating here.
The children were simply shocked and rather incredulous. The teacher asked them what would happen if they did such things. The kids responded quickly and clearly: the offending child(ren) AND the parents would end up in the public stockades for a public beating. The teacher then went on to explain many of the reasons corporal punishment had fallen out of favor and how parental responsibility had all but evaporated.
Corporal punishment isn't likely the panacea you are hoping for. Some recent meta-studies have shown it's not necessarily as effective as you'd think and may end up enhancing violent tendencies. However, these studies were looking at parent-on-child punishment, not societal or state level punishment. And as inhumane as it does seem today, I imagine the shame of public punishment (simultaneously with your parents) would actually be very effective with teens.
In any case, there really does seem to be need to rope the parents in and determine how to punish both the parents and the kids or to figure out how to help both.
Carrying a knife is an arrestable offence in the UK, hell, carrying a golf club in public is illegal - offensive weapon as far as the law is concerned.
I want a list of atrocities done in your name - Recoil
I'm 35.
I'm certain that someone down the next street from me has one of these devices, I can hear it and it's loud.
While hearing does degrade over time, for many people (especially those who've not abused their hearing) they can hear these frequencies well past their youth.
These devices are just as antisocial as playing, say, heavy metal loudly on the street. If I were a neighbour, I'd ask politely for the device to be turned off or turned down. If, after a couple of requests, this was not done, I'd do exactly the same as if a neighbour was playing loud unpleasant music - file a complaint.
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
Isn't this age discrimination? Do they have such a concept in UK law?
Yikes. Wouldn't want to live there then. I know the "make X illegal and only criminals will have X" is hackneyed, but damn.
<xml><I><am><so><damn>Web 2.0</damn></so></am></I></xml>
LSU cites http://www.lsu.edu/deafness/HearingRange.html/ some good sources supporting a claim that human hearing extends to "around" 23KHz.
And as andecdotal counterpoint to your anecdote: when Bethesda Naval Medical Center gave me a physical at 18 my hearing tested (yes, in an isolating booth) as working up through (inclusive) 24KHz -- the auditory specialist stopped testing at that point.
With cited sources identifying human hearing at least up to 23KHz it doesn't seem a big stretch to posit that there may be individuals with hearing up to 25KHz.
This is why we need to legalize firearms. Next time those faggots come up, just pull out a Glock and shoot em all. Fucking kids.
You've missed something fundamental: there's more than one of them. They don't operate with one mind or behave in the same way. 'They' are not going to suddenly 'become part of society' because most already are; and the most that already are will become normal adults and the criminal children will turn in to criminal adults. Blasting noise at all young adults, children and babies in the area just isn't an acceptable answer to some teenagers being arseholes. Put it this way: if a number of adults of the same age as you started dropping litter, smashing bus shelters and threatening passsers-by (including you), would you accept being driven out of your local public spaces as part of the solution? And that's not even mentioning the effect on local residents, pets and wildlife.
"It was so sad to see, after Katrina, that somehow many kids, most from the projects....came back to the city with no parents at all"
Their parents aren't dead or missing, they just knew that this was the best opportunity to ditch the little bastards for good.
"But this one goes to 11!"
Would you go back to Digg or Youtube or whatever other hell-hole you crawled out of, please?
Just another "DOJ fascist authoritarian totalitarian bootlicker" -- Zeio
It's their choice to loose half of their customers, anyway. The price will be higher than a few broken windows.
For fun do a quick search and replace "younger" with "wheel chair bound" or some other protected minority.
I laughed at the weak who considered themselves good because they lacked claws.
No, now go fuck yourself.
God, I hate little pricks and morons who think the sun shines out of their asses.
Supporting World Peace Through Nuclear Pacification
I was disciplined (in the common sesne of this word) TWICE in my whole life, yet I know what's good and what's bad
You just proved my point. Discipline, when properly administered, doesn't need repetition.
Kids nowadays have no limits, no responsibilities, no consequences to their acts, and yet they feel they've got all the rights.
Your head a splode
Because, of course, indiscriminately harassing an entire population for the actions of a few members is an appropriate response.
The logical response by these rebellious youth, then, should be treat all older people the exact same as those who treat them shittily. After all, why should they be bothered to actually address the pain-in-the-ass old people when they could just urinate on their steps of all the old people?
Yes, class warfare, that's how we can solve these problems.
I agree, but installing devices to try repel teenagers from those locations isn't such a good idea. I'm 20 (Oh no, young adult who doesn't understand the big world!) who, living at uni away from home, makes heavy use of public transport to get around. These bloody things drive me absolutely insane. I see no good reason why I should have some device chirping in my ear every second whilst I'm waiting for a train, even if it does repel the idiots who would graffiti the platform.
If you want to treat the kids like the animals they are, go use some harsh words and some action instead of putting up a bleeping box made from 50p worth of electronics which manages to piss off the 90% of the people who can hear it and are trying to get on with their lives.
How many people can read hex if only you and dead people can read hex?
No, we can't function in society when you actively stop us from doing so. And as long as you dictate that you know how to run our lives better than we do, you DO have a responsibility to "try to understand what is happening from [our] side." Paternalism is only remotely ethically sound if actually step in and help. If you'll "BE DAMNED" before you'll try to understand us, then you'll be damned for taking our rights, too.
And besides, even if the rights of the youth are unimportant, this device is a bad idea. It doesn't create a disincentive for being rowdy, it creates a disincentive for being young. In the face of that, the rowdy youth won't change but the "good" youth are going to be given a good reason to be rowdy. Nice job, asshole: you just made life tough for good people and encouraged the exact problem you're trying to solve, a problem you created in the first place by trampling the rights of the easily oppressed.
I was a "good" youth and I have the little paper certificates from every institution I've been in to prove that. And you know what my perspective is? I'm pretty damned pissed at you for dehumanization I suffered as a kid. I've never pissed on anyone's steps or turned over any trash cans in the streets, but I feel kind of guilty for that. I didn't do my civic duty like some of these youth did.
And, by the way, we didn't break the world: your generation got us where we are today. Please take a look in the mirror the next time you start criticizing the youth. We didn't start Iraq, excuse Darfur, send the U.S. into depression, create global warming, or create the system in which youths are turned into delinquents. You did.
Oh, the wisdom you sages impart on us. What would we do without you?
That is what I imagined but it's worse than that. It won't just happen once, it will happen again and again. The first few times, most moms will give up and go home. After a while, they will either give up the store or stay there despite the baby crying. Eventually the mom will quit going. If she ever hears about these devices .... Kaboom! Real anger. Most will never go to the guilty store again and many will give a lot of innocent clerks a piece of their mind. Anything that looks like these devices, including fire alarms is going to be vandalized by people no one would suspect of such behavior.
Some people, even hearing impaired people who should know better don't think of this because they are so busy gloating about the pain they can inflict on people they don't like:
Statements like this are going to make moms even angrier. It is all very sad and stupid.
Great plan.
Because the adult thing to do when people you don't like are nearby is to pump up your amp and play out a really loud sound until they leave? Right?
Next up:
Replacing all ramps and lifts with extra-steep stairs to keep the elderly etc. away.
Installing emitters in the HVAC that put a smell that only women can smell.
"When they came for the children, I did not speak because I was not a child."
"We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals." --The American President (20.1.2009)
A rose by any other name would smell as sweet;
A chrysanthemum by any other name would be easier to spell
No, I didn't. My parents told me several years ago that they regretted even those two times because it wasn't necessary and they did that out of anger instead of taking the time to think and consider some better way of dealing with the situation. And that they never did such a thing again (I was four years old then, I can still remember the second time, but barely the first) just because it's the worst possible way of bringing someone up. Also, those particular situations had really nothing to do with being good and bad, they were really stupid things, just the circumstances weren't very lucky.
This is Slashdot. Common sense is futile. You will be modded down.
If your going to ban a note ban C#
Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.
*Sigh* Fornicate recursively elsewhere.
What are you blathering about? I guess you enjoy any chance you can get to point out supposed double standards on slashdot (what a strange hobby), but you don't need double standards to reason this one through. Yes it is a technological device and should most certainly not be outlawed altogether (duh). THE ABUSE OF IT in public places, yes, there might be an argument to outlaw that (the abuse thereof, not the ownership).
If I don't want kids on my lawn, I certainly don't to be 'harmonising' with children anyway, it should be my right to use this on my private property as long as I don't blast the neighbours.
This is just a device that makes a noise. It should be treated legally the same as any other device that makes a noise (i.e. not be banned). It's not special. The fact that only some people can hear it is irrelevant to the ethics therein. Making a noise with this is ethically like making a noise with any other device. We don't ban stereos but you can limit their abuse.
Actually, any hearing test on a PC (assuming youre not a decked out audio engineer) is highly inaccurate.
Trying playing a sweep from 14khz-22khz. Can you hear the whole thing? If so, its more likely that your machine cant accurately reproduce high frequencies.
I have played a sweep on numerous high end, new machines and all of them began producing erroneous and completely audible tones from ~15-16khz on.
The only setups that did produce accurate sweeps were my home stereo, and a PC using an edirol external card. So unless you've dumped extra cash for the sole purpose of quality sound, chances are its the computer crapping out.
We're not talking about having a discussion with a Sunday school class here. We're not talking about kids who are just "playing". But the kids in question are stupid/evil/anti-social. People aren't putting up these devices to disperse law abiding well mannered children. They're being put up because of rampant problems that the police aren't dealing with. That is the most silly argument I have heard yet. Victims are at fault here? Windows get smashed because the adults don't know how to party with the kids? People get beaten because they didn't try to listen?
It's much more likely that the kids who no respect and have bad attitudes towards adults outside their group because they're anti-social immature jerks too self absorbed with having a good time to care if anyone else is inconvenienced. And the faults of their parents of course, who should be grabbing them by the ears and dragging them home to finish their school work.
While you scared those kids shitless and maybe the whole under-18 neighborhood, all it did in the long run was widen the gap. And as far as corporal punishment goes, it fell out of favor because it was often not punishment but abuse. If a kid does something stupid or bad and is swiftly hit for it, and told it is wrong, that is one thing. But corporal punishment that I observed while taking the public Philadelphia bus for 8 years throughout middle and high school, was some obese woman beating her 1 year old senseless for making even the slightest noise. She was probably more angry at herself than the child but lo and behold, her shitty life was reflected onto her child and if anyone was to question her, she could just say its how she raises her kids and thats that. The reason corporal punishment isnt used is because of the image of what it is, and in fact what it's actually become. A well adjusted parent doesn't want to hit their kid because the image of a parent who hits their kid these days is not a good one, and for a good reason. The people who make corporal punishment most known are the ones who do it excessivly and who constantly try to rationalize it by giving the fancy misnomer of corporal punishment, when in fact what they are doing is abuse.
Also, those years of taking the bus made me hate the majority of adults more than anything. I never did anything to anyone, in fact I took so much crap in middle school from my peers that I had anxiety and panic attacks and stuff. But I'd get on the bus and some middle aged woman would make a loud comment about my bookbag to her stupid friends as they headed home from their secretarial jobs and meanwhile 95% of these women were the most obese cows you'd ever meet. They took up 2 seats sitting down but only paid 1 token but my backpack, now there was the real issue. So trust me, adults have their share of problems too and shit like that only distanced me from adults. If I was a different person or from a different background then things like that could have turned me into the exact type of teenager the mosquito-thing wants to drive away. Maybe certain adults shouldn't always assume the worst about kids just because they never had any. Plenty of adults like kids and plenty of kids like adults. The problem is boredom as someone said earlier. Boredom, peer pressure, anger and a divide between the elderly adult and kid population. Actually, the divide I believe is shrinking which is a good thing and may solve a lot of issues at hand but we don't need people continue to open it up.
wheres the "+1 depressingly correct" option?
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
Knee-jerk response. I nearly got in some trouble with some kids (well people my own age actually) and I thought about getting a knife. But they are illegal to carry if they are switch or stiletto, have strange blade length laws and finally I don't have any knife fight training and theres more of a chance of it being taken from me, and frankly whoever takes it from me would probably be more likely to use it as well since I dunno if I'd be ballsy enough to stab someone if it came down to it. Don't pack heat unless you actually KNOW what you're doing and won't get in trouble just for possessing it.
Be fair to the teachers -- they have a tough time with government targets, exams, regulations, exams, exams, exams, exams, oh -- and the kids they teach had better pass their exams! Or else. A UNICEF survey found that UK kids are more likely than other kids in developed countries to hate school -- I blame the government, not the teachers.
Part of the problem is when people like you say "kids these days". There have always been thugs and hoodlums with no motivation. It's well documented. The misled youth is a common theme throughout the 20th century. They were just different incarnations for different decades and some were different then others.
Says the man expressing clearly pent up anger on slashdot.
Done. You really are an asshole.
Nobody knows how to knife fight, except maybe Steve Segal. Cut and stab everyone as fast as you possibly can.
<xml><I><am><so><damn>Web 2.0</damn></so></am></I></xml>
Flash Forward, 2009 - News Headline: President McCain has denied any wrongdoing. He has repeated stated that his campaign was not in any way involved in installation of the Mosquito sound devices discovered at thousands of polling places across the country. House Democrats are calling for an investigation into the affect on the 2009 presidential election.
I don't know what I would do without /. Where else in the world would we have this level of sophisticated philosophical discussion? We simply wouldn't. Kudos to /. and the users that never cease to amaze me with their larger-than-the-box-thinking.
What you did was define "young people" as delinquents with no money and no use. So yes, thanks to your re-definition of terms, your argument is logical.
I'm nearly 50, and can still hear into the 40 KHz range. Yes, it's hard to test this with stuff around the house. But there are still stores with ultrasonic systems (anti theft, i suppose) that i avoid.
My point is that there is variation. It's a belle curve. While i'm average for many things, i'm not average for everything. No one is. Most people lose higher frequency hearing as they age. Perhaps i have, if so it's not been enough.
Before you go off the deep end and say "that's impossible", consider the limits of hearing. Sounds vibrate a little disk in your ear. The softest sounds detectable move that little disk less than the diameter of an atom. It's hard to imagine.
So, i hear "teen age ringtones" and stuff.
-- Stephen.
Well, the first thing you'll find when you get kids of your own is that what worked for you doesn't work for everybody.
I know for sure I would have turned out a lot worse if I didn't have consequences-- because I took a very left minded approach: "This is fun, and I will do it unless for some reason it is not fun". The discipline helped with the not fun part in a way that the normal action/reaction consequences of life didn't at the time.
Must be a pretty bad case of self-loathing you have there.
By this I obviously mean that you think we give a shit about your reasons for not being able to be polite to people. You're confused - we don't. What we want you to do is this: if you're not prepared to talk to us with the respect deserving to your common man, then talk to someone else.
LOL..... Nice troll monkey boy. In my neck of the woods, kids like you don't often make it to voting age....
I wish I had a dime for every petty martinet who thinks they've had a good idea for solving imperceptible problems. Oh, wait... Iraq... WMDs, yellow cake... right! I wish I had that $50 trillion dollars back, too.
``Tension, apprehension & dissension have begun!'' - Duffy Wyg&, in Alfred Bester's _The Demolished Man_
Christ on a Crutch! Are you dumb ass fuckers still posting to this thread? Hell, an I thought I needed a life.
Supporting World Peace Through Nuclear Pacification
It appears that you are what my sports teacher used to describe as "a fucking soft bastard".
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
I was actually not talking to you, but the parent.
I doesn't matter.
Say this device didn't exist, and guard dogs were the trendy new protection device. I have problems with graffiti on my storefront, which faces a sidewalk on a public street.
Regardless of whether I can train it to only bark at people who look young, I don't have the right to hook up a leash to the door handle and let it bark at people who approach a 30 meter radius of the door.
People in Soviet Russia, however, appear to be afflicted with amusing juxtapositions of the aforementioned situation
I vote for using a machete. They can't take it from you when they're using their teeth to pick up their arms off the floor.
I don't know about that, it's only relatively recently in terms of human history that these "youths" weren't the middle aged people of their society.
Now that we're industrialised and people expect to live for more than 30-40 years, people spend their first twenty years of life treated like children, and so they act like children. Big, strong, indomitable children.
I said "properly administered". The fact that your parents used violence with you for no reason doesn't change the fact that a smack on time can help shape the character of children. I only ever got smacked twice, and looking back after all those years I see that they were well deserved. I wasn't the pain, because it was not painful. It was the shock. I learned I shouldn't do whatever I did or there would be an outcome, and that was enough because you can't reason with a 4 year old. Years later I understood why I was smacked. And here it is the difference. No matter how intelligent you think your child is, you can't reason with him over certain limits. Don't get me wrong, children are not stupid. They are clever little buggers. There is a logic on everything they do. But that logic is not the same that the one that governes your life. Therefore you cannot impose your logic by reasoning alone. In the same way he can't impose theirs on you. The more complex the issue, the older they need to be to grasp why they acted wrong. Obviously any punishment needs to be proportional to the wrongdoing, and a smack needs to be the very last resort.
You cannot be a parent and a friend, all at the same time. When you act like one, you stop being the other, and if you do that often you're going to confuse the hell out of your children.
Your head a splode
I was played that infernal noise, and it really pissed me off. Good for him, I hope he succeeds.
I imagine this is redundant by now. what the hell, I've got karma to burn.
How dare you be so modest!! You conceited bastard!!
On a more amusing note here in Montreal they use classical music for the same purpose. Stores that don't want kids around will play it outside their shops. Pissed me off the first time heard something good and went inside to get a better listen only to discover that inside they were playing some crap radio station.
They tried that classical music idea a few years ago in my town square to try to get rid of the herds of punks and gothlings that were always hanging around... Amusingly, most of them didn't budge because they actually *liked* the classical music. (FWIW, most ripped clothes/purple mohawk/20lb. wallet chain types that I've ever met are actually audiophiles with good well-rounded taste in music). I'd like to think that some old fogies learned a lesson about preconceived notions, but honestly I doubt it.
By the way, I am nearly 30 myself and am capable of hearing outside of the "normal" range as well. If I ever encounter a business with one of these devices, I'm definitely going to have a little chat with the store manager about how they will never see any of my money ever again, and go out of my way to tell everyone I know to avoid that business as well.
Knowledge != Intelligence
That was a good try, but no. I listen to all kinds of music, much if not most of it made in just the last few years. Classical, many different flavors of jazz, country, hard rock, techno, trance, "pop" off the radio, etc. Literally all kinds. And most of it I enjoy, to a degree. I like Green Day and Maroon Five. I like Pink Floyd and Creed. I like some Avril Lavigne. I like Metallica and Buckcherry. I like Linkin Park, some Pink, and Bach too. Okay? And a lot more.
I was simply stating -- in an honest, and as unbiased manner as I can -- what I think of rap and hip-hop. While Sturgeon's Law says that "90% of everything is crap", when it comes to those two "art forms", in my honest opinion the true percentage is more like 99.9%, or even more.
Why? Simple. First, rap (and hip-hop, which is little more than rap warmed over) is OLD. It has been around since the 70s, and has improved over that time not a whit. Speaking lyrics does NOT display singing or other musical talent; repetitive inane lyrics -- when they bother to rhyme even -- do not display poetic talent. Persistent, boring, thumping, monotone beats also do not display musical talent. And to make matters even worse, much of today's "rap" and "hip hop" music does not even use orginal music! Instead they have "mashed up" music from earlier, more-talented and more-original artists and called it their own.
Shame.
And that is why I call it OLD. It was all done before. It has all been used, to the point that they have been stealing from others and calling that "talent". It just ain't so. I don't like it because it is BORING and typically shows no talent. Okay? You wanted a reason, and now you have reasons and my considered opinion, not just name-calling.
Contrary to your own hypothesis, I postulate that many modern young people like rap and hip-hop because that is what THEY grew up with. Just as with politics, they simply do not remember the better days. True... they have other examples they could appreciate or emulate (see above... it's not all bad), but they have been exposed to A LOT of crap. And like most anything else, when a human is exposed to enough of something, they can become used to it and even think it is "normal".
The owner of the shop whose windows are being trashed isn't in a position to change society. He installs the device to move the problem on.
He does no such fucking thing. By installing the device he adds a new problem solving no existing one. These kids still go find somewhere else to trash. Now the kids moving on in itself isn't the problem. I'd put a lock on my door to move a crook on to the next house. However my lock on the door doesn't create a new social problem and doesn't affect innocent people. His new device does. Therefore he's just become another thug.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
"Because, of course, indiscriminately harassing an entire population for the actions of a few members is an appropriate response."[/sarcasm]
Funny, your profile appears to indicate that you're american.
Biomech
Now I'll know for sure if girls I take home are 18.
Oh wait, I'm a geek, girls don't let me take them home.
Teens don't listen to metal any more. They listen to emo pablum and rap.
Gotcha. In the U.S., at least in my jurisdiction, there would also be a court inquiry but it would be a mere formality. If someone's waving an axe, they're a deadly threat. I can't imagine anyone questioning that you'd be justified in shooting them. Same in the UK? Or not?