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Why Protesters In Cairo Use Laser Pointers
New submitter Ahmed Shaban writes "Why do protesters in Cairo use laser pointers? At the beginning, they were used to light up snipers on rooftops. Later, it just became fashionable to use them, and such things spread very fast among the youth of Cairo, who can find the high power laser pointers for sale on the sidewalks. The article contains amazing photos of a chopper lit up by green laser pointers."
Why does the lasers in laser war games (laser tag) show in the air but with laser pointers they just show where they hit a hard object? Are they different kinds of lasers?
stupid people do stupid things like live in Egypt and blind pilots of vehicles carrying a ton of fuel over their heads
Laser pointers have been around for years at concerts and sporting events around the world. The fad has been dying, it's funny that Egyptians are so behind the times and so primitive you see why democracy isn't working there.
In greece they are also used to confuse/temporary blid attacking riot police
With the Egyptian military completely on board with the protesters this time around, I guess the laser pointers dont have much actual purpose anymore.
Its actually quite remarkable what is happening there. More people were protesting than had voted for the president because the president decided that their constitution didnt apply to him, so the military takes down the president in response but remarkably doesnt assume power.
How many countries actually have a military that would do this sort of thing? I'm fairly certain that mine, with a military that runs an agency well known now for violating the constitution, would not.
"His name was James Damore."
aren't weapons that blind people banned by the Geneva Convention?
Anyone want to invest in a cataract treatment center in Cairo, they're going to need it in a few years...
Simple as that...
I know the 'copters are being illuminated by hand-held laser pointers but the photographs do look like those produced by Michael Yon http://www.michaelyon-online.com/the-kopp-etchells-effect.htm showing the Kopp-Etchells Effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helicopter_rotor.
Gee, laser pointers. Stupid Egyptians and their stupid conflict.
Buy your lasers now, because this behavior will catch on in the states and soon lasers will be illegal.
With the current batch of losers raping this country I wouldn't be surprised if your pointer gets reclassified as an "assault weapon".
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
...are the moronic A/Cs on /. who seem happy to denigrate the Egyptian people for celebrating the peaceful overthrow of a useless leader.
The fact that the army has removed these incompetants and are immediately handing power back to the people is un-precedented and incredible. The Egyptian people and army could teach some other nations a thing or two, I think, not to mention some of the ignorant bigots who plague /.
Smivs on the intertubes!
The military is on their side! It makes no sense for them to do this. Why would you intentionally piss off pilots, possibly temporarily blinding them, in the worst case even causing an accident, when they are on the same side you are?
Now get a stack of 10,000 of those little laser pointers all hooked to one power source...
Now you have a weapon. Pretty good one too.
*warning, do not look into laser with remaining eye*
Oh wait, it didn't crash! With hundreds of pointer directed at it, it didn't crash. I'm wondering, have there been any aircraft crashes attributed to pilot blindness caused by laser pointers reported anywhere in the world? It seems to me that the prohibition has more to do with law enforcement and the military not wanting people identifying where drones are flying overhead since the actual risk to pilots seems to be non-existent.
because they are idiots
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
Sooo
This is just more US Hegemonic "agression"?
Didn't the Egyptians have a roll? or is this more infintalizing other contries/populations in favor of demionizing the US.
Take responsibility, stop trying to blame outside influence for everything. Morsi was a homegrown problem and the US didn't install him, Egyptians did.
the US worked with Sadat, Mubarak, Morsi, and it will likely work with the next in line and the one after that.
we didn't force Mubarak to oppress people and run sham elections, we didn't force Morsi to try to assume total control, and we wont be forcing the next gut to do whatever it is he does to cause some future grievence.
the US has plenty of dirt on it's hands but little of it is Egyptian dirt.
You do know that in just a couple of days there are over 30 dead already? Hardly peaceful. Certainly not democratic in any sense.
#0 dead? For what amounts to a revolution in the Middle East.
30 dead.
Hardly "Democratic"? They -the Egyptian people without any outside help (No America World Police fucking things up!) just peacefully - without shooting - overthrew someone who wanted to be a dictator. The military helped - by the way - without shooting.
Do yo remember Libya by any chance?
The Egyptian people are going to do more for Middle Eastern Democracy and freedom with their laser pointers than the US military EVER did with their high tech weapons.
I really hope Obama and our idiot Congress does everything they can to support the Egyptian people.
Of idiots blinding aircraft pilots...
The pilot should have bailed out and let the damned thing crash into the crowd.
If an aircraft is on auto-pilot, there's negligible risk.
If an aircraft is currently under human control while cruising, there's a slight risk.
If an aircraft is under human control while taking off, landing or performing any sort of maneuver, there's a reasonably significant risk.
Have you ever had someone shine a bright flashlight in your face? It's a lot like that. It causes you to jerk away, confuses you, and partially blinds you for anywhere from a few seconds to several minutes. Any of those can be deadly given that the person with the laser probably doesn't know if the aircraft is on autopilot or is preparing to land.
It's one of those laws where, sure, 98% of the time nothing bad will happen if you do it. But that last little bit of a time, something *really* bad could happen. So it's a felony.
Not too smart are you.
The article states the lasers were originally used to illuminate/search for snipers. I wonder if IR lasers deployed in this manner would negate the advantages offered by IR night vision devices? Or if several laser diodes of different frequencies integrated into a single unit and and aligned would offer any value in this regard. Or does the design of the NVD's anticipate this happening and have countermeasures?
bigger picture:
http://mashable.com/2013/07/01/egypt-protestors-laser-pointers/
Got any studies, statistics to back up your assertions? Didn't think so.
It's all fun and games, 'til someone loses an eye.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
return to base, return to base, your fight'n a laser war”
Egyptians revere cats.
So obviously they are fascinated with laser pointers as well.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
Is that not the textbook definition of a coup d'etat?
Just because a government is democratically elected doesn't mean it's a democracy. History is full of democratically elected governments that then turn into totalitarian regimes.
If Obama woke up tomorrow and ordered that all Tea Party members be arrested, I would expect our military to essentially remove him from office - in the immediate case by ignoring him, and in the longer case by Congress impeaching him and removing him from office - which would still require the cooperation of the military (they'd have to decide to listen to Congress and not the President.)
In Egypt, there isn't really a constitutional mechanism to get rid of a leader who, while democratically elected, isn't fulfilling his responsibilities as a democratic leader, so the best thing they have is the Army takes care of it.
So while this may technically be a coup in that the elected leader is being removed from office through a non-elective means, it's not necessarily undemocratic, if you believe the elected leader is abusing the freedoms of the people and the coup is to create the opportunity for someone who does respect the rights of the people to be elected.
paintball
If the military don't behave now that they're in power again,
the Egyptians will get
http://www.wickedlasers.com/arctic .. and do actual damage ..
-f
I saw them being used at a rally in Rio the day before as well.
A week ago in Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt I have not seen a single plane preparing for landing or just taking off that was not hit by one or (usually) more laser pointers. Basically anything that flies or moves or might be remotely interesting is a target. If you are on a boat at the end of the day/early evening, better wear some serious eye protection as you/your boat will be a target. If a group of women gets into a taxi and are spotted they are covered in green laser light. They are sold everywhere, models with way too much power are more rule than exception and they are very popular both with Egyptians and the bottom-feeder all-inclusive crowd which in Sharm is mostly Russian, Polish and Italian.
Night vision goggles are extremely sensitive to light, If the laser hits the goggles directly, the shooter might be blinded for quite some time.
Alternatively, a democratically elected leader with a near impossible task was ousted after only a year (Most people consider an entire term of a US president not enough for lasting change) by a minority who shouted louder than everyone else. The army has now moved in to arrest people simply for being members of a legitimate political party that had done nothing illegal.
You think this is unprecedented? Are you joking? The army moving in to oust an unpopular democratically elected head of state? Yeah, that's never happened before! I'm sure it wouldn't have had dire consequences for that country either!
As it stands, what's happening in Egypt will at best lead to a rise in extremism ("we did things the right way and look what happened?") at worse, full on civil war.
Yeah, almost like they are pointing their laser pointers at the belly of the aircraft and not directly into the windshield at the pilot's face.
Yet these helicopters that were targeted at lenght by a few dozen to a few hundred laser pointers continually for several hours did not drop from the sky. The pilots were not blinded, they returned safely to their landing spot. Only thing that happened is that the surveillance camera's where less effective.
I'm thinking laser pointers aren't such a problem after all.
You would think that the lasers would make it easier to decide and execute a target from a good distance. All you would need is a little reflective material on your scope to protect your targeting eye.
I work with a man from Egypt, a Christian with family over there. I asked him what he thought about all this and his eyes lit up, "my family is finally free."
Great! So they can now start suppressing gays, abortion, science, etc just like they do here in the US!
Trading one form of hatred for another isn't progress.
Please help metamoderate.
It's one of those laws where, sure, 98% of the time nothing bad will happen if you do it. But that last little bit of a time, something *really* bad could happen. So it's a felony.
Frankly, in the list of crazy things in the US that are considered felonies I think this is one that should stay on the list. Aiming a laser at a plane puts hundreds of peoples lives at risk. It is criminal negligence at the very least, and attempted murder at worst.
IMO crimes should be judged on intent, not results (yes, I realize this isn't how it is usually done). Somebody who attempts to kill somebody but fails is a FAR greater danger to society than somebody who does something that most would consider perfectly safe and yet accidentally kills somebody. Negligence is obviously a lesser crime than malice, but it should still be punished, especially when it could cause loss of life.
Got any studies, statistics to back up your assertions? Didn't think so.
What, we can't pass judgement on whether it is a good idea to let kids play with nuclear warheads until a statistically significant number of cities have been vaporized?
Just staring at a bright light causes loss of night vision which makes flying more hazardous (there aren't exactly street lights in the sky). A laser pointer can actually cause permanent vision damage. Firing lasers at eyes is even a violation of the Geneva Conventions.
Where I live, $1000 will buy you a 1000mW (1 watt) green hand held laser from wicked lasers(tm). I suspect that they might be getting their lasers from another source, but they seem to be powerful, green, and widely available. I also saw some scanning lasers being used to print messages on the sides of apartment buildings in the square.
People bring up the Lincoln thing all the time (usually it's some bitter old southern racist who still hates Republicans for their "war of aggression" against his slave-owning grandpappy and who is angry the rest of the Democrats have moved-on...) but Lincoln was in an utterly unique situation (for the U.S.) which was that half the country, including parts of the military, had broken-off to form their own country over their demand that they had the right to own, and treat like cattle, another chunk of the population. At that moment in time, with even many families split by the war and brothers fighting against brothers, Lincoln was in a place never contemplated by the Constitution. if Half of America was currently Muslim-Brotherhood-aligned, blowing-up buildings and bridges, openly fighting the US military in cities around the country with hundreds of thousands of dead people and the US Military actually losing some of the battles, not many sane people would criticize a President for taking Lincoln-style actions. The criticisms of Bush43 and Obama is that they have undertaken many actions more severe than Lincoln did but without facing a threat anywhere near what Lincoln faced.
Lincoln was a good man, and his cause was entirely just. The founders of the nation tolerated slavery in the south as part of forming the union to fight for independence from King George... but they wrote at the time that they expected slavery to come to a natural end on its own. By 1860, however, it was quite clear that the Democrats were never going to give-up on owning black people and indeed they were demanding that new states added to the union be slave states. When Lincoln was elected, running as an opponent to slavery, the Democrats went crazy and split the nation over the fear he would free their slaves. They were dirtbags who deserved to lose the war. I hate sugar-coating. I'm sure some Democrat, unable to handle the truth, will flag this as a troll post... but it is a provable, well-documented FACT that no Republican ever owned a slave and nearly every slave owner was a Democrat. Indeed, after the war, it was Democrats who formed the KKK and one of the groups the KKK targeted for violence was Republicans (these too are documented FACTS.... as is this: Many Democrats currently sitting in the US Senate have knowingly cast at least one vote to have as their party Senate leader an actual Klan member (the Late Dem. Sen. Robert Byrd)).
Are you REALLY so dense that you think the US supports/prefers all the elected leaders of all the democratic countries? REALLY? In the US, our two main political parties cannot even agree on who is leading the US! Our two parties have entirely different views on who should lead other countries too. Republicans in the US LOVED Maggie Thatcher but many Democrats despised her. Republicans tend to despise Danny Ortega in Nicaragua, but many Democrats have loved the guy for decades. The U.S. State Department has a mind of its own (one with no wisdom and a VERY low IQ) and thinks it should run the world... but those folks are generally incompetent
I can understand (a little) why you might think what you think if you are outside the US and only getting news from your nation's perspective... many countries find local benefit from painting the US as some sort of geopolitical evil wizard (which can be blamed for all bad things) and the US State Department adds fuel to that propaganda by briefing every American President to be "diplomatic" in speeches and praise every leader as "a good friend" etc (which makes the nation look extremely two-faced). Your conspiracy theory, however, requires a level of competence that is simply lacking.... our state department often likes stability in various places (stupidly not facing the fact that that stability is provided by a distasteful dictator) while championing "democracy" then after the dictator is replaced and the stability is gone, they panic and get confused. Best advice for any nation wanting to replace a tyrant and have no trouble with the US State department is: achieve stability QUICKLY... then they'll not even notice you...just like they did not notice you while a dictator had you under his boot.
http://what-if.xkcd.com/13/
Actually, the crowd was helping. They were monitoring radio transmissions and learned the helicopter was losing power and could crash (perhaps into the crowd itself). The leaders in the crowd organized all the laser pointers and had them all point (simultaneously, mind you) at the bottom of the helicopter. The additional lift generated by all those little green photons pushing the helicopter up provided just the help needed to enable the pilot to safely recover the helicopter to the ground a few blocks away from the town square.
So how would you classify Egypt now, since it isn't a revolution of a coup?
A coulution, or a revoup?