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Tracking Thieves With 'Find my iPhone'
An anonymous reader wrote in to say "A friend of mine who just got an iPhone 3GS and has Mobile Me just used the "Find my iPhone" feature to track down his lost and subsequently stolen iPhone. This story involves three nerds wandering sketchy streets with a MacBook, and ends with a confrontation at a bus stop."
I tend to agree with you, but I live in Chicago a few files from the area he's talking about. I been there a few times. Generally in our big cities and Chicago for sure, race or ethnicity can matter - more so in some neighborhoods than in others. It's a fact relevant to the story. I suppose he dwelled on it a bit to heighten the drama for his readers - playing on their own fears/prejudices. If he were a black man writing about 3 black geeks in a white or hispanic neighborhood would you have been offended?
Very often, people confuse simple with simplistic. The nuance is lost on most. - Clement Mok
Author here.
First, I was being self-deprecating, since I felt like the opposite of a badass iPhone tracker as we walked up and down this block.
Second, ethnicity is completely relevant to the story in that we were out of our element and quite visible prowling up and down the street with our laptop. The stares of the local residents confirmed this.
Third, other than the self-deprecation, I don't believe I said a single negative thing about anyone's race.
It's this mentality of urban fear that shows how screwed up US cities really are.
Perhaps they just aren't as naive as you. Here's a neat map showing crime reported in Baltimore over the last 11 days. You'll notice all the fists and cross hair icons. Those are assaults and shootings. Just because you don't like it, doesn't mean that cities aren't overrun with dangerous thugs. The ghetto is a dangerous place.
You don't make the poor richer by making the rich poorer. - Winston Churchill