You don't lose anything if you keep the deposit... Just buy new ones.. Right?
Seems like a great way to sell umbrellas to me... Here borrow this, but if you don't bring it back I'm going to charge you...
You hope the company was smart enough to charge a deposit. TFA doesn't say.
It does say that they ordered 3million more umbrellas though, so either they like giving away cheap umbrellas, or they are charging a down payment and this isn't the disaster the article makes out.
I know you can buy small devices that block cell phone signals locally over a small area.
Understandably illegal; but were it legal for prisons they could theoretically have multiple low power devices placed around a prison rather than a big powerful one that will impact a larger area.
A surgical tube slingshot can shoot wirecuters over the fence too. Or a homemade, easy set up, catapult. Another sensationalized witch hunt against new and not comprehended tech.
Perhaps they can but a slingshot or catapult can't get the wire cutters to the right place. Especially since there are multiple fences spaced apart. the person operating the catapult would probably not be able to see who they are delivering the goods too.
Go old school- guards on the wire armed with shotguns loaded with bird shot. Then it's just a matter of a little trap shooting if a drone flies over. It's also easy to quickly reload a shotgun to either buckshot or less lethal rounds such as bean bags in the case of a riot(or just use the birdshot, should work fine for crowd control at a distance), assault, or escape attempt. Plus it's a lot cheaper than trying to use a jammer to bring down drones.
I'm not convinced that that IS a cheaper solution. How many extra full time employees do you have to hire to stand around the perimeter looking for drones to shoot? What sort of extra liability are you opening yourself up for having that many extra guards armed 24/7?
They should NOT be permitted any outgoing calls except to their legal representation.
Blocking all calls to friends and family could be considered a violation of the 8th amendment (cruel and unusual punishment). I don't think blocking communication with what may be the more stable elements in a prisoner's life to be a good step in reducing reoffending rates.
If they don't talk to the outside, they talk to the inside.
You're right. Criminals would be the ones to ignore any such ban; however, right now the police have no way of going after anyone trying to smuggle stuff into a prison, unless they actually succeed.
"I'm just flying my drone around officer, I'm doing nothing wrong- show me where in the law book it says you can't fly a drone with wire cutters taped to the bottom? I put them there for ballast."
The person on the outside operates with almost no risk. A law preventing operation around the jail might stop a few people (probably not many); but it would give the police the right to go after anyone one the outside trying to smuggle stuff in, if they catch them. Right now, the guy on the outside helping was untouchable until the moment his drone actually released it's cargo.
The mesh is a good idea; I suspect you might be able to drop things "in parts" through the mesh though unless it was very fine mesh. Parts to assemble a rudimentary wire cutter dropped one at a time through the mesh.
I DO have a right to fly drones near prisons. There NO LAW AGAINST IT.
But should there be? We have laws restricting drone usage around airports. I know some people are worried about some sort of precedent where dones are blocked from more and more places... but it makes sense to set up exclusion zones around prisons.
Naturally, the very people such a law would be written to stop would be the same people that would be more willing to break the law... but it makes the act of preparing the smuggle stuff into prisons using drones more risky for the person on the outside. If you're flying a drone outside a jail with wirecutters strapped to them- it would make it legal for police to arrest you.
Having never been inside the prison I couldn't make an educated guess on whether there was lower than stand security at play. I would certainly think it should be standard procedure at prisons to block cell phones and do routine searches, but I'm not an expect as to what actually happens (and why that might not happen).
I will say, the drone DID directly have an impact on the escape though. One can assume that since they used that method to get wire cutters to him, that was presumed to be a more reliable method of providing him access to escape tools.
If you try smuggling in wire cutters with a person, that person is risking arrest himself, and wirecutters will likely set of metal detectors. (phones might not). A drone can be operated with relative safety.
I saw one suggestion to put up walls instead of fences. Certainly, this would be a better solution for preventing escapes and I hope high security prisons all have walls. Clearly this comes with a lot more expense so might not be practical for all prisons.
If a drone can fly in wirecutters they can fly in a gun, a knife, who knows what else.
I'm not sure the complete solution, maybe there are problems with other security checkpoints, but regardless, drones could pose a major potential problem for prisons going forwards. They need to start implementing plans on how to tackle outside actors using drones to smuggle things in.
Make inmates wear tamper-resistant collars with a grenade attached. They mess with the collar, they get blown up, and so does anyone else that was messing with the collar. Also make it so that the collars can be remote detonated. Someone escapes a California prison and goes to Maine? One phone call, and the felon's body gets ripped to shreds.:) Bonus points if his or her family members also get blown up.
I think there are already plans afoot to get rid of private prisons in this country. Private prisons are being phased out... at least for now, unless Trump or a later President decides to reverse that decision.
He didn't. Someone on the outside used a drone to fly wire cutters to him on the inside.
(goes along with the whole idea of prisons wanting to make it illegal to fly drones around prisons that Slashdotters got angry about last year because it violated their rights to fly drones wherever they wanted)
People don't care about anything but 'FREE'. So who cares about paying for the product any longer. Then their favorite artist stops touring and producing music and they complain because "They were my favorite band".
I don't pirate music- but I don't exactly think the music artists of large bands are really struggling for money. They tour because THAT's where they make most of their money.
Smaller bands probably aren't going to be on most streaming sites anyway.
In reality, stream ripping isn't really much different to copying to cassette from the radio like everyone was doing in the 80's.
Rather sadly, we do in the west too. (although probably fewer than they do). There's the classic report from ABC News a few years ago that said that the average chocolate bar had 8 insect parts in it.
How well do you trust the official unemployment estimates? Looking around, the signs of unemployment are up, while the unemployment statistics say it's down. But every time I go out I see more homeless, more empty storefronts.
That might very well be a regional issue. It's certainly not true where I am. I see fewer homeless people now than I did 10 years ago. Far fewer "will work for food" signs. Either the county has scared them all away, or there are fewer of them after help. (I couldn't say which is the real reason). I can walk down main street now without being asked for money to buy "medicine" every 100ft.
We have more stores and restaurants being built than are being closed down here too. I'm sure all this is very regional though. As one place grows another may be contracting.
Everyone's life is dependent on government, and has been since the first humans gathered together in units much larger than a few dozen families. The Libertarian philosophy you admire is simply a form anarchist fantasy. It could never exist, not in a society of any significant size.
When there is no government, the man with the biggest gun is the government.
And history is full of people who "don't care" and who were removed from their position of privilege by the poor using force.
we celebrate disruptive technologies , e.g. MP3 player vs tape/CD. Well we are about to enter a disruptive economic period whey the old economics and wealth and privilege values are about to get removed too. The people making old tech fought against their replacement, but they still lost.
I think UBI will happen one day, and will be disruptive on world governments. It will be a ripple that will go around the world.
The problem is, it's too early now. In the past as automation took jobs- new jobs were created in "thinking" positions. Now machines can think, those aren't so safe. There's not many places left to create new jobs for people.
However, we're not there yet. Most people CAN work. Most people CAN and DO find jobs still. UBI would be a huge risk right now.
Essentially it would cause inflation Give everyone $20k. Living now costs $18k more. Everyone currently with a job will feel a lot poorer as they're paying more in taxes than they get from the government and on top of that inflation is going up. Ironically, the people least impacted will be the rich, despite them necessarily having to foot a larger portion of the bill.
Eventually UBI will have to take hold when jobs become scarce. (I'm talking consistently 33% and higher unemployment) And when UBI does take affect, we'll all be relatively poor except the owners of the automations, but hopefully fewer people will live in absolute poverty.
Curiously, two of the most transphibic people I know of are homosexual and kinda racist. As near as I can tell, they truly hate transfolk. As in, true hate.
I've also noticed in the gay community (especially amongst older gays) there seems to be a lot more hatred towards bisexuals than there are in the general population.
Being in a discriminated group doesn't make you not discriminate yourself.
Slashdot Mirror
The biggest surprise here is that this loophole hadn't been closed down years ago.
That's $2.79. Looking on Alibaba that's in the cheap range for an umbrella in China.
You don't lose anything if you keep the deposit... Just buy new ones.. Right?
Seems like a great way to sell umbrellas to me... Here borrow this, but if you don't bring it back I'm going to charge you...
You hope the company was smart enough to charge a deposit. TFA doesn't say.
It does say that they ordered 3million more umbrellas though, so either they like giving away cheap umbrellas, or they are charging a down payment and this isn't the disaster the article makes out.
What expense? Bricks are cheap, manual labor is free.
All in all it's probably cheaper than a fence.
So if we arrest a bunch of Mexicans we can make the Mexicans pay for the walls (with free labor)?
I know you can buy small devices that block cell phone signals locally over a small area.
Understandably illegal; but were it legal for prisons they could theoretically have multiple low power devices placed around a prison rather than a big powerful one that will impact a larger area.
A surgical tube slingshot can shoot wirecuters over the fence too. Or a homemade, easy set up, catapult. Another sensationalized witch hunt against new and not comprehended tech.
Perhaps they can but a slingshot or catapult can't get the wire cutters to the right place. Especially since there are multiple fences spaced apart. the person operating the catapult would probably not be able to see who they are delivering the goods too.
Go old school- guards on the wire armed with shotguns loaded with bird shot. Then it's just a matter of a little trap shooting if a drone flies over. It's also easy to quickly reload a shotgun to either buckshot or less lethal rounds such as bean bags in the case of a riot(or just use the birdshot, should work fine for crowd control at a distance), assault, or escape attempt. Plus it's a lot cheaper than trying to use a jammer to bring down drones.
I'm not convinced that that IS a cheaper solution. How many extra full time employees do you have to hire to stand around the perimeter looking for drones to shoot? What sort of extra liability are you opening yourself up for having that many extra guards armed 24/7?
They should NOT be permitted any outgoing calls except to their legal representation.
Blocking all calls to friends and family could be considered a violation of the 8th amendment (cruel and unusual punishment). I don't think blocking communication with what may be the more stable elements in a prisoner's life to be a good step in reducing reoffending rates.
If they don't talk to the outside, they talk to the inside.
You're right. Criminals would be the ones to ignore any such ban; however, right now the police have no way of going after anyone trying to smuggle stuff into a prison, unless they actually succeed.
"I'm just flying my drone around officer, I'm doing nothing wrong- show me where in the law book it says you can't fly a drone with wire cutters taped to the bottom? I put them there for ballast."
The person on the outside operates with almost no risk. A law preventing operation around the jail might stop a few people (probably not many); but it would give the police the right to go after anyone one the outside trying to smuggle stuff in, if they catch them. Right now, the guy on the outside helping was untouchable until the moment his drone actually released it's cargo.
That really sucks, I had missed that bit of news.
No excuse for that.
The mesh is a good idea; I suspect you might be able to drop things "in parts" through the mesh though unless it was very fine mesh. Parts to assemble a rudimentary wire cutter dropped one at a time through the mesh.
I DO have a right to fly drones near prisons. There NO LAW AGAINST IT.
But should there be? We have laws restricting drone usage around airports. I know some people are worried about some sort of precedent where dones are blocked from more and more places... but it makes sense to set up exclusion zones around prisons.
Naturally, the very people such a law would be written to stop would be the same people that would be more willing to break the law... but it makes the act of preparing the smuggle stuff into prisons using drones more risky for the person on the outside. If you're flying a drone outside a jail with wirecutters strapped to them- it would make it legal for police to arrest you.
Having never been inside the prison I couldn't make an educated guess on whether there was lower than stand security at play. I would certainly think it should be standard procedure at prisons to block cell phones and do routine searches, but I'm not an expect as to what actually happens (and why that might not happen).
I will say, the drone DID directly have an impact on the escape though. One can assume that since they used that method to get wire cutters to him, that was presumed to be a more reliable method of providing him access to escape tools.
If you try smuggling in wire cutters with a person, that person is risking arrest himself, and wirecutters will likely set of metal detectors. (phones might not). A drone can be operated with relative safety.
I saw one suggestion to put up walls instead of fences. Certainly, this would be a better solution for preventing escapes and I hope high security prisons all have walls. Clearly this comes with a lot more expense so might not be practical for all prisons.
If a drone can fly in wirecutters they can fly in a gun, a knife, who knows what else.
I'm not sure the complete solution, maybe there are problems with other security checkpoints, but regardless, drones could pose a major potential problem for prisons going forwards. They need to start implementing plans on how to tackle outside actors using drones to smuggle things in.
Make inmates wear tamper-resistant collars with a grenade attached. They mess with the collar, they get blown up, and so does anyone else that was messing with the collar. Also make it so that the collars can be remote detonated. Someone escapes a California prison and goes to Maine? One phone call, and the felon's body gets ripped to shreds. :) Bonus points if his or her family members also get blown up.
Did you by any chance vote for Trump?
When someone can escape a prison with a pair of wire cutters, a drone is not the problem.
He wouldn't HAVE the wire cutters if someone didn't fly them in on a drone. The drone is very much a problem in this case.
I think there are already plans afoot to get rid of private prisons in this country. Private prisons are being phased out... at least for now, unless Trump or a later President decides to reverse that decision.
Where did he get the drone?
He didn't. Someone on the outside used a drone to fly wire cutters to him on the inside.
(goes along with the whole idea of prisons wanting to make it illegal to fly drones around prisons that Slashdotters got angry about last year because it violated their rights to fly drones wherever they wanted)
This topic makes me thirsty. Who wants Vodka?
People don't care about anything but 'FREE'. So who cares about paying for the product any longer.
Then their favorite artist stops touring and producing music and they complain because "They were my favorite band".
I don't pirate music- but I don't exactly think the music artists of large bands are really struggling for money. They tour because THAT's where they make most of their money.
Smaller bands probably aren't going to be on most streaming sites anyway.
In reality, stream ripping isn't really much different to copying to cassette from the radio like everyone was doing in the 80's.
I know New York ships their homeless out to the rest of the country. http://nypost.com/2014/09/06/d...
I've not heard of South Carolina shipping theirs out to California... but you never know.
Rather sadly, we do in the west too. (although probably fewer than they do). There's the classic report from ABC News a few years ago that said that the average chocolate bar had 8 insect parts in it.
http://www.nbcnews.com/health/...
It's not just chocolate. Almost all our processed food has insect parts in them.
How well do you trust the official unemployment estimates? Looking around, the signs of unemployment are up, while the unemployment statistics say it's down. But every time I go out I see more homeless, more empty storefronts.
That might very well be a regional issue. It's certainly not true where I am. I see fewer homeless people now than I did 10 years ago. Far fewer "will work for food" signs. Either the county has scared them all away, or there are fewer of them after help. (I couldn't say which is the real reason). I can walk down main street now without being asked for money to buy "medicine" every 100ft.
We have more stores and restaurants being built than are being closed down here too. I'm sure all this is very regional though. As one place grows another may be contracting.
Everyone's life is dependent on government, and has been since the first humans gathered together in units much larger than a few dozen families. The Libertarian philosophy you admire is simply a form anarchist fantasy. It could never exist, not in a society of any significant size.
When there is no government, the man with the biggest gun is the government.
> Don't care.
The don't argue against UBI on economic grounds.
And history is full of people who "don't care" and who were removed from their position of privilege by the poor using force.
we celebrate disruptive technologies , e.g. MP3 player vs tape/CD. Well we are about to enter a disruptive economic period whey the old economics and wealth and privilege values are about to get removed too. The people making old tech fought against their replacement, but they still lost.
I think UBI will happen one day, and will be disruptive on world governments. It will be a ripple that will go around the world.
The problem is, it's too early now. In the past as automation took jobs- new jobs were created in "thinking" positions. Now machines can think, those aren't so safe. There's not many places left to create new jobs for people.
However, we're not there yet. Most people CAN work. Most people CAN and DO find jobs still. UBI would be a huge risk right now.
Essentially it would cause inflation Give everyone $20k. Living now costs $18k more. Everyone currently with a job will feel a lot poorer as they're paying more in taxes than they get from the government and on top of that inflation is going up. Ironically, the people least impacted will be the rich, despite them necessarily having to foot a larger portion of the bill.
Eventually UBI will have to take hold when jobs become scarce. (I'm talking consistently 33% and higher unemployment) And when UBI does take affect, we'll all be relatively poor except the owners of the automations, but hopefully fewer people will live in absolute poverty.
Curiously, two of the most transphibic people I know of are homosexual and kinda racist. As near as I can tell, they truly hate transfolk. As in, true hate.
I've also noticed in the gay community (especially amongst older gays) there seems to be a lot more hatred towards bisexuals than there are in the general population.
Being in a discriminated group doesn't make you not discriminate yourself.