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Science Teacher Arrested After Crashing Drone At US Open
An anonymous reader writes: We all had that science teacher growing up — the one who took his classroom experiments a little too far. The one with the potato cannon. The one who made you wonder how he didn't get into trouble in his spare time. Well, it's finally happened for one science teacher from New York City. The 26-year-old man was arrested last night after he crashed a drone into some empty seats at the U.S. Open. He was charged with reckless endangerment, reckless operation of a drone, and operating a drone in a New York City public park outside a prescribed area for doing so. Nobody was injured, but the drone did fly through the arena while a pair of tennis players were in the middle of a match. The game was briefly interrupted when the drone crashed.
Idiots like this are why "we can't have nice things"
Privacy issues aside, morons like this are why the drone-boys are going to be facing some new laws in the not-so-distant future.
What religion was the idiot teacher? I can't see the relevance myself, but you seem to think it plays an important part of the story.
If a drone is explosive, it's because the pilot is a terrorist.
Or worse, Chrisq with a far right fascist propaganda drone.
What was he doing, going around saying "Anyone seen my drone?". Why didn't he toss the controller into the water get the hell out of there with a sign off to the class of "Thats what happens when you don't concentrate kids. Now everyone into the bus, fast!"
Douches like this prick are why we can't have nice things.
I fly all sorts of RC aircraft, Quads, fixed wing plane's, Helis, even a flying lawn mower (model, not actually a lawnmower) and I've been doing it for 25 years and never has there been an issue of people getting upset about it until recently.
You know why? Cheap electronics introducing artificial stability at a price that allows any fucking moron without the slightest clue to buy one and manage to fly it for more than 10 seconds. Before artificial stability (i.e. before there was any hope of an RC quadcopter), pricks like this would have bought one, flown it for 10 seconds, crashed it in his front yard and that would be the end of it because he wouldn't be willing to spend that money again for another 10 seconds of flight time until he learned to fly. He'd never learn to fly because he's not bothering to try, he's just throwing it in the air without understanding how/why/when its going to come down and what effects thats going to have on others.
When I see assholes like this, I tell them to get their fucking quad out of the air immediately or I'm calling the cops, and I've called them twice, the last for some asshole flying over a high school football game. Guy was a software dev at a large tech company, should fucking know better and understand that a 5 pound object falling on your head from even 10 feet above is WAY beyond potentially lethal.
So take this worthless fuck out back, string him up by his testicles and keep him the fuck out of RC * so he doesn't fuck it up for the rest of us.
This shit is why the FAA cares, and I'm 100% with them on it. I don't want additional laws, but this is a real problem in a new arena that previously had barriers to entry that kept idiots out. The modern flight controllers (which I use and love) are like exploit kits for script kiddies. They give ability to do something without the tempering that comes with learning how to do it 'the hard way', or understanding the consequences of what you're doing.
I don't have a good solution to this problem because the problem is caused by adults who haven't grown up yet or are too selfish/ignorant to care and those are problems we've been dealing with since the beginning of time without solving, but it does have to be addressed, which problem means I'm going to get screwed in the process.
I can not stress this statement enough: The guy flying that drone was an ignorant fucking asshole. 50 lashes wouldn't be enough.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
Selfish idiots like this are going to ruin the hobby for all of us. The FAA rules are pretty clear: 5 miles of an airport, nowhere near stadiums.
Quads fall out of the sky. A motor fails, a battery unexpectedly dies (or explodes), a sensor goes haywire... the number of things that can cause a quad to quit working is endless. If something quits, it drops like a stone - and a responsible pilot know that.
I hate the idea of an R/C license... but if it keeps the selfish idiots grounded then it's probably the way to go. Unfortunately.
...
It wasn't harmless.
A quad with any camera worth a shit on it is going to weigh in at 5-10 pounds minimum. A drop of even 10 feet, at 5 pounds, onto your head, with any sort of good sharp edge ... your skull is going to be split open. This is a simple matter of physics. Gravity does all the work. The propellers aren't what you're afraid of, its one of the support arms or screws jabbing into your brain that you should be worried about.
There are many many many ways it can hurt you in that fall that don't involve a lethal injury that you wouldn't enjoy at all either.
You don't need explosives for a quad to be lethal, this idiot was more than enough to seriously wound or kill someone due to nothing more than shear ignorance.
Best part ... he's a fucking science teacher who should understand the basic laws of physics well enough to not do something this stupid.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
If a drone is explosive, it's because the pilot is a terrorist.
Or that Sony manufactured the battery.
Your drone is first flown into your face at maximum forward velocity.
It is then dropped on your head from 30m, powered off.
Until a drone is constructed entirely out of fabric, there is no such thing as a "harmless" drone (and even a fabric drone can be dangerous in certain odd circumstances).
This is something the drone-nuts don't seem to understand. At least model airplane enthusiasts understand that they are directing a rigid object at moderate speeds with (usually) open propellers rotating at high rpm. A proper understanding of what you are doing leads to some level of caution and respect for people around you. I have seen neither from any of these drone stories, not even the Amazon delivery one suggests that they will include safeguards to protect people from their drones.
It's the US Open, watched in person by thousands, and on TV by millions but rather than making it all about the tennis players, this dipshit feels that the Open should be all about him and his toys. So he flys his drone over the stadium and ends up crashing into some seats, causing a delay in the match-in-progress, lucky not to have hurt someone in the stands. He's yet one more example of an adolescent in adult form who is incapable of recognizing that this is not an appropriate place to play and not too overly concerned about its ramifications. Fines and a little jail time are exactly what he deserves.
Idiots like this are why "we can't have nice things"
Privacy issues aside, morons like this are why the drone-boys are going to be facing some new laws in the not-so-distant future.
Furthermore, behavior like this gives us an idea of what would happen if 'flying cars' were ever readily available.
If a drone is explosive, it's because the pilot is a terrorist.
Or that Sony manufactured the battery.
North Korea seems to think that Sony are terrorists...
experiment or not, that he was arrested shows that he didnt have permission to fly there
I don't see what his being a science teacher has to do with any of this. The summary makes it sound like he was doing something kooky to teach his kids in a unique way, but he wasn't doing this to teach anything. He was just another irresponsible dumbass with a drone.
The summary states that the teacher was in the middle of an experimen when he crashed the RC aircraft. Was there an actual experiment, or was the submitter just trying to pad the story into something bigger than it really was?
Apparently the Science teacher was doing a Social experiment.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
It's looking more and more like something akin to ham radio licensing should be required for drone over a certain size and/or range.
Even an easy exam would insure people have basic safety knowledge and establish a minimum level of accountability.
A quad with any camera worth a shit on it is going to weigh in at 5-10 pounds minimum.
I have a quad-copter with a 4MP camera, that is good enough to do roof / solar-panel inspections. It weighs less than one pound. The cell-phone-quality camera weighs two grams (about the weight of a penny). The only significant weight is the battery, and that can also be light if you are willing to sacrifice flight time.
morons like this are why the drone-boys are going to be facing some new laws in the not-so-distant future.
He was arrested. Why do we need "new laws" when his behavior is already illegal under existing law?
" shear ignorance"
LOL
Your entire post reads like a hysterical rant from an old man. That was just frosting on the cake!
They don't make Nerf Drones yet?
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Drones are the new laser pointers
For your consideration: "ChrisQ". Just an idiot racist with an inane first post, but next time it could be much more explosive verbal diarrhea. Retroactive birth control, anyone?
Now, back on topic..
Remember, kids, don't hate your lawmakers when they take away consumer access to your toy drones, hate the idiots who can't play with them responsibly.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
It wasn't harmless.
It was harmless. As in, according to the story, there was no harm caused.
So should we ban all snakes?
We should probably require that people who want to keep venomous snakes demonstrate the ownership of a sufficient enclosure.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
It weighs less than one pound.
:P Then i guess by "BitZtream's" definition: your quad copter isn't "worth a shit"
This really has nothing much to do with drones or technology though, and everything to do with mass and stupidity... or is it mass stupidity?
Replace "drone" with "heavy object" and "flight" with one or more of various other mechanisms available to give heavy objects gravitational potential energy and or momentum. This can be an idiot throwing rocks at people, a psychopath dropping pennies off the Eiffel Tower or a clumsy buffoon flying a heavy drone around in public... you can replace the things but not the people.
My abiding memory of science teaching was the chemistry teacher who wanted to demonstrate the reactivity of phosphorous with air. He pulled a large stick of phosphorus (oxidised on the outside) out of a jar of water and carefully sliced off a small section. He then rushed to drop the rest of the stick back into the jar of water, but he missed and it bounced off the rim of the jar, landed on the table and promptly burst into flames and began to fill the room with fumes.
Science!
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
You're mistaking "need" for "going to be facing." You won't need new laws. You're going to get new ones with harsher maximum penalties even if you don't need them. I tried mentioning this and was modded to oblivion quite some time ago when people were first insisting that they could do anything they wanted with them. Good luck with that.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
This is a simple matter of physics.
There's your problem. This guy must be chemistry.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
I am far from defending this dopey teacher, but there is a chance he was at least careful enough to not fly it over areas where people were. It did say that it crashed into a section of empty seats. Not sure he entirely deserves it, but we could give him the benefit of the doubt that he had at least a bit of common sense in his flight of stupidity. I want to believe that there was a nugget of smart in there.
"Never give up, for that is just the time and place when the tide will change." -Harriet Beecher Stowe ^_^
Firearms are protected by the 2nd amendment. I am afraid drones are not. I guarantee in 10 years, to buy a drone you will have to...
- mandatory background check
- mandatory 3 hour online drone safety course that costs $100 and has to be renewed with a new course every 5 years
- mandatory annual safety inspection of the drone that costs $50
- mandatory national registration markings on the drone tied to you in a federal database
No joke.
Someone you trust is one of us.
Or worst, a muslim terrorist crashing into a building.
It's relevant because as a science teacher he should understand the physics involved and why what he was doing was REALLY STUPID. It's just as relevant if pointing out that a Ponzi scheme victim was an accountant. They should be trained well enough to realize what the hell is going on.
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
The newspapers are revising the title of their story: "Teacher with a mostly harmless drone."
If you think your hairdryer is a turbine screaming out of control, you've never used a Dremel 395 at maximum speed.
Unless the drone had a gun attached to it. Then you would be able to walk right out of the corner store with a hunting drone under one arm and a case of beer under the other.
Because otherwise the evil British would be able to take over the country and quarter soldiers in private homes or whatever it is that you're supposed to be protecting against.
Pansy.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
At least model airplane enthusiasts understand that they are directing a rigid object at moderate speeds with (usually) open propellers rotating at high rpm.
But at least the (RC) airplane actually flies. If you lose an engine it still has some semblance of control. A drone has exactly the same flight capabilities as a helicopter ... or a brick.
Of course if you lose contact with the device it's then flying on it's own -- and you better hope it's smarter than you are.
Just a harmless drone this time
I thought we were supposed to learn from our mistakes. And being human even understand how NOT to make them. Or am I expecting too much from adults?
... Never Mind.
Looking around at Politics
If the universe is someone's simulation -- does that mean the stars are just stuck pixels?
Why do we need "new laws"
Because the existing laws don't seem to be preventing this sort of behavior. In reality, its more of a statistical effect. Where the large increase in the number of drones (RC aircraft, etc.) in the hands of morons result in such incidents occurring more frequently.
Have gnu, will travel.
That kind is too dumb. They blow themselves up trying to build it. Often skip step 0 of any bomb building plan: 0. Sober up.
See also 'The Weather Underground'.
Darwin never sleeps.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
And you have never had a tuned pipe glow engine running 90%+ nitro-methane spinning a 9 inch propeller at 25kRPM+.
It's a beautiful noise.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
A helicopter can auto-rotate. Quads just drop.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
That quote is from the tennis player.
She's in the middle of playing in the US Open when the match is halted and there a bunch of police staring at the seats in an empty section of the stadium.
What do you think they are checking out? A box of donuts? An escaped water buffalo? The latest iPhone?
Because now that you have a camera you can post your videos. The guy who spent days building a perfect P-51 replica isn't going to buzz the US open with it. The guy who bought it on line and had a box truck deliver it will. Likewise the guy who causes water planes to divert from a fire run out west. They can't think beyond "getting a shot".
It wasn't harmless.
It was harmless. As in, according to the story, there was no harm caused.
If I dropped a tarantula on your lap, but it was a bit sleepy and didn't try to bite your cock off, would you still say it was harmless?
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
there is a chance he was at least careful enough to not fly it over areas where people were. It did say that it crashed into a section of empty seats.
I think the key word there is "crashed".
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Fundamental or muslim extreamists mixing explosives with crowds is not an unknown event (type 'bomb' in google news). Likewise the mixing of drones and bombs is also known (Type in 'US drone strike' in google news). It's easy to understand how someone might get confused and think these could be related in some way and be a little concrened about 'US muslim drone bomb' becoming a valid search some day soon.
Although it might be worth noting that your view and what is really happening are two very seperate issues and its dangerous to mix those two together. So, umm... As you were.
I think you underestimate just how much I just dont care.
Yes, as by definition a tarantula is harmless to a human. They don't bite us, and even if they did, their bite is not especially harmful to us.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
It didn't look damaged in the video I saw on CNN, so it must not have "crashed" too bad.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
Except that isn't the way the gun laws work anywhere in the US.
Work in reality, not in your assumption of how reality works.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
The same can be said (especially in the U.S.) for fundamentalist Christian extremists.
Also agnostic crazies with an agenda.
Couldn't one of the tennis players just knock it down? Heck, even Chimpanzees can figure out how to do that
It it was a DRONE, it probably wouldn't have crashed and wouldn't be flying manually controlled. Title should be "Numbnut crashes his quadcopter at the Open" with a photo of the him titled "Would you let this man teach your children?".
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B - D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
Or this:
"The next time it could be a deranged former member of our military who puts a bomb in a drone and flies it into a school yard full of children."
Timothy McVeigh
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
I have a quad-copter with a 4MP camera, that is good enough to do roof / solar-panel inspections. It weighs less than one pound.
How high a roof?
If a strike from 5 lb drone falling 10 ft can be lethal, how safe is it to be caught standing unawares beneath your 1 lb drone as it falls 30 to 40 ft?
This is a simple matter of physics.
There's your problem. This guy must be chemistry.
Apparently, he's a "science" teacher at the Academy of Innovative Technology in NY (magnet school K618) who moonlights as a photog with the handle "TheDVimage"
K618 is a school that specializes in teaching kids gaming, web design and applications programming. I imagine that a "science" teacher at this school is really just a technology instructor (not chemistry nor physics)
FWIW, K618 (rated by Great Schools as 2/10 based on stunning performance in standardized test scores) is a remnant of the defunct Franklin K. Lane High School that had the distinction of being crowned the City's Worst School (which is quite an accomplishment in NYC) just before it was closed permanently in 2012. As another note, FKLHS had John Gotti as one of its distinguished alumni (well, technically not, as he dropped out at 16).
Well, due to all those Hollywood movies which portray tarantulas as deadly, and a pretty high level of arachnophobia being widespread anyway, and those things inherently generating a " HUGE SPIDERS!!!!" reaction in the unsuspecting... they may be harmless (for getting jabbed with fangs the size of icepicks, regardless of their venom being ineffective on humans levels of harmless) but in the words of Ray Stevens hilarious song "Sittin' Up with the Dead"... they can sure make you hurt yourself.
Until a drone is constructed entirely out of fabric, there is no such thing as a "harmless" drone (and even a fabric drone can be dangerous in certain odd circumstances).
This is something the drone-nuts don't seem to understand. At least model airplane enthusiasts understand that they are directing a rigid object at moderate speeds with (usually) open propellers rotating at high rpm. A proper understanding of what you are doing leads to some level of caution and respect for people around you. I have seen neither from any of these drone stories, not even the Amazon delivery one suggests that they will include safeguards to protect people from their drones.
Drones don't kill people, bullets do.
Be seeing you...
Drones are a major development and as such need to be compared with other major developments as far as issues like safety are concerned. Yes, peaceful drones will kill or harm people in accidents from time to time. In the near future we will all know someone who was smacked and harmed by a drone. Now compare that with automobiles. Automobiles are a recent development in this world and they kill people every day. How about motorcycles? We all know people who have died or suffered a serious injury from the use of motorcycles. Or how about locomotives? The same thing applies. Or how about vacation cruise ships? So maybe we should only compare drones with things we feel we really don't have to have. How about private air craft used only for a hobby? How about gymnastics or throwing a frisbe or baseballs or bats? What we are seeing right now are knee jerk reactions to a new kid on the block. Yes drones will have some negative side effects like every other thing that comes down the pike. But we have no great reason to be concerned at all until we can quantify the degree of harm or benefit that may be determined over time and the answer may be quite complex. For example we know how much good personal computers have done but we do not know how human health may have suffered due to over use of personal computers. And don't even go there with smart phones. The body count on smart phones is high. Some people simply can not drive without talking on their smart phones and the crashes are well documented. The commentary on drone negatives really is sort of silly in my opinion.
I don't think they will use a bomb i think it will contain a deadly virus like what was sent in the US mail. Everyone sees a cute RC chopper then POOF cloud of white power is released at some event with lots of people their. just saying.
Jack of all trades,master of none
if competent science teachers
Because being a science teacher (competent or otherwise) isn't a precondition for a drone operator's license.
Have gnu, will travel.
How is it that this jackass says something so foolish, and I'm the one who gets modded down "Troll"?
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
Hi ChrisQ,
You know your comeback is pretty weak and pathetic, right? Why not just admit that you're mad that you've been called out for your small-minded, hateful ways and move on?
Most Islamic peoples are like most other people in the world in at least one respect: they just want to live their lives. They don't want to dictate to everyone else how they live, and they just want to be left alone. It's the extremists that ruin thing for everyone else, Islamic or otherwise. And guess what? YOU are an extremist, YOU are ruining things for everyone else. Get correct, son, the world is too small a place anymore for people like you to be allowed anymore, we don't need you and your bullshit. Seriously, you're not any different fundamentally from those 'islamic state' assholes that are running around cutting off people's heads and blowing up archaeolgical sites; the only real difference between them and you, is you haven't worked yourself up to the point of actually hurting anyone yet (or at least I hope not).
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
It was harmless. As in, according to the story, there was no harm caused.
I do not think the word means what you think it means.
I have an old unexploded mortar shell from WWII. Since it hasn't exploded -- yet -- it is harmless. Yes?
...Drone safety is a serious issue. Yes, next time it could be a terrorist with an explosive drone. Terrorism is a serious issue, regardless of ideology.
You're obviously not paying attention. If it's a Christian American crazy (such as Timmy McVeigh), then we say it's just a crazy. If it's a Muslim crazy killer, then we say it's part of an international religion with one billion believers and we piss in our pants.
It's a problem of social perspective which is _always_ based on ideology.
Absolutely. I was thinking in terms of the popular fantasy of what having a flying car would be like, and one more reason why the reality could not be anything like that.
My guess is that automation of the flying of flying cars would be a simpler problem than the automation of road vehicles, but there are a host of more difficult problems to be solved before such a vehicle is feasible. One of them is noise.
For those of us who like to fly, the advent of flying cars would probably be the end of our hobby.
Quadcopters with flight controllers and other fancy features along with much improved battery technology. A short time ago there was nothing anywhere near as capable and easy to fly at such a low cost.
Oh. So now you're the authority on the kind of people allowed in the world.
He's a Muslim, what do you expect? In countries they control they kill or enslave people they don't like.In they rest of the world they use insults, violence and intimidation and feel hard dun by that others are equal to them in the eyes of the law.
No. She said she heard it fly by. That is a reference to the 'drone' itself. The police staring at an empty seat would have occured some time after that. All she was reacting to was the sound of a quadcopter. Have you ever heard one? A reasonable thought might be that it was a hummingbird, a really big bee or... a fcking quadcopter! How many bombs fly around making a buzzing noise before they finally go off?
If you wonder what you are hearing.. apply Occam's Razor FCOL! What is more likely.. a bomb, a quad copter, wildlife such as a bird or a big bee or even just some random thing you haven't thought of yet because even those are probably more common than bombs?!?
Did she have to take cover often growing up in Romania? I have Romanian friends and they have never shared stories like that with me!
i never said it was unreasonable to feel unnerved about being interupted by something unidentified in the middle of such a big tournament.
It is totally unreasonable however when the first thing coming to one's mind as soon as there is something unidentified is BOMB. She just heard a noise at that point! Imagine all the things it could be. Add bomb to the list. Add "not a bomb but something I haven't thought of yet" to the list. Apply Okam's Razor. Is bomb still up there?
if so then do you ever go to big high profile events? Ever attend a concert? When in large groups do you worry that every little blurred movement in your perephieral vision or every little sound that you might not have heard right is a BOMB?
How do you live like that?