Are you saying there are too many? You can always sign off and go get some fresh air.
I happen to be kind of excited about his work, it's compact, it has a nice frequency range, and it can transmit, which is a bit novel. To each their own.
I mentioned mass murders partially because it's the topic du jour, but if you look at figure 1 in the actual link I posted, you can actually see what happened with both the firearm and non-firearm homicide rate after the passing of the 1996 law. Both decreased.
In fact, the only areas where there was an immediate increase was the "non-firearm suicides" (though this later declined to below the 1995 levels) and the "unintentional firearm deaths" which as since developed a slight positive trend.
I don't know what the hell you are talking about if you think that someone can run a hundred shells through a shotgun faster than a semi-automatic assault rifle. That's ten full magazines for a high capacity combat shotgun, and two to four for an assault rifle. On a "reload time per round" basis, I'm yet to see a shotgun that can be reloaded (.5 - 1 second per shell) as fast as an AR-15 (3-5 seconds for a 30 round magazine, that's 0.10 - 0.17 seconds per round - and higher capacity magazines are available).
A single no. 1 shot pellet can kill, but on an odds basis, the deer is more likely to survive.
And then there's the issue of weight. Someone can carry and uses a rifle effectively while carrying a couple hundred rifle shells. For shotguns, a couple dozen is about all that is practical.
Oh, and the pattern spread for a shotgun at 10 yards (no choke) is about 15 inches, so it is unlikely that a single shell is going to allow you to reliably hit more than one target at a time in close quarters (5 yards).
As for your final comment, if you are incompetent and inexperienced with the weapons you are using, then yes, you will suck. I agree with you on that one thing, at least.
In 1996, Australia banned semi-automatic and pump-action long rifles and shotguns. In the 18 years before the ban, there were 13 mass killings. In the 10 years since, zero. The firearm homicide rate dropped, as did the non-firearm homicide rate. (Check out figure 1.) There's other fun finding also, but I'll leave them for you to find.
Gonna disagree with you on the shotgun. The magazines are much smaller, and they take much longer to reload. If this had been a shotgun problem, we'd have lots of wounded, a couple of dead and the gunman tackled by other adults.
Eh. If I have "stuff" that I need holes in, I use a drill. Much more precise, frequently lighter, almost always cheaper, and I get to chose the hole size and depth. If I have stuff that I want dead or otherwise destroyed, a gun may be the tool of choice. The fact that a gun puts a hole in "stuff" is incidental to their actual purpose.
Guns are weapons that are designed to kill things. I've heard plenty of rationalizations in the last couple days about "some guns" are for target shooting, but that's really just a simulation of killing things. When someone brings that up, I like to point out that "some guns" are designed specifically for the purpose of killing people, to the detriment of other legitimate reasons for owning a gun, like killing animals for food.
I've only looked around for a minute or two, and here's what I've got:
* The US had roughly 3 gun murders per 100 000 population in one year. (Data from 2008 - 2010)
* The UK had 0.04 per 100 000 population (2011)
* Australia had 0.09 per 100 000 (2008)
The (gun) murder rate in the US is 7.5 times larger than in the UK, and more than 3 times larger than in Australia. This would tend not to support your point. Since you mentioned crime, I did not cite the Suicide and Accidental Death numbers, but they make the US look even worse.
Incidentally, the country with the highest gun homicide rate in the EU (that I could find data for on short notice) was Luxemburg - 0.6 gun murders per 100 000 population (2009). The US gun homicide rate is 5 times larger . . .
I'd stop throwing that 51% number around - it demonstrates a bit of ignorance on recent tax policy (Those numbers are partially a result of temoporary tax breaks enacted in 2009 and recently expired), demographics (Retired seniors and students frequently have extremely low income, and thus little or no income tax burden, so we EXPECT that about 40% of households will have no income tax burden), and reality (First, there are plenty of other taxes in play, even at the shallow end of the income pool; Second, poor people typically aren't subject to corporate taxes either).
The 51 percent and 46 percent figures are anomalies that reflect the unique circumstances of the past few years, when the economic downturn greatly swelled the number of Americans with low incomes. The figures for 2009 are particularly anomalous; in that year, temporary tax cuts that the 2009 Recovery Act created — including the “Making Work Pay” tax credit and an exclusion from tax of the first $2,400 in unemployment benefits — were in effect and removed millions of Americans from the federal income tax rolls. Both of these temporary tax measures have since expired.
In 2007, before the economy turned down, 40 percent of households did not owe federal income tax. This figure more closely reflects the percentage that do not owe income tax in normal economic times.[4]
These figures cover only the federal income tax and ignore the substantial amounts of other federal taxes — especially the payroll tax — that many of these households pay. As a result, these figures greatly overstate the share of households that do not pay federal taxes. Tax Policy Center data show that only about 17 percent of households did not pay any federal income tax or payroll tax in 2009, despite the high unemployment and temporary tax cuts that marked that year.[5] In 2007, a more typical year, the figure was 14 percent. This percentage would be even lower if it reflected other federal taxes that households pay, including excise taxes on gasoline and other items.
Most of the people who pay neither federal income tax nor payroll taxes are low-income people who are elderly, unable to work due to a serious disability, or students, most of whom subsequently become taxpayers. (In years like the last few, this group also includes a significant number of people who have been unemployed the entire year and cannot find work.)
Moreover, low-income households as a group do, in fact, pay federal taxes. Congressional Budget Office data show that the poorest fifth of households paid an average of 4.0 percent of their incomes in federal taxes in 2007, the latest year for which these data are available — not an insignificant amount given how modest these households’ incomes are; the poorest fifth of households had average income of $18,400 in 2007.[6] The next-to-the bottom fifth — those with incomes between $20,500 and $34,300 in 2007 — paid an average of 10.6 percent of their incomes in federal taxes.
Moreover, even these figures greatly understatelow-income households’ totaltax burden because these households also pay substantial state and local taxes. Data from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy show that the poorest fifth of households paid a stunning 12.3 percent of their incomes in state and local taxes in 2011.[7]
When all federal, state, and local taxes are taken into account, the bottom fifth of households pays about 16 percent of their incomes in taxes, on average. The second-poorest fifth pays about 21 percent.[8]
This is a small community where a lot of people know each other and knew who did go to collection point.
This probably falls in the category of peerpressure.
O. M. G. Not the peer pressure!
The police also had a list of people and people who didn't volunteer would be visited or called by the police to ask why.
Citation needed. I'd actually bet that they don't give a shit. Mostly because they figure that at least one of your relatives will volunteer a sample which will in all likelihood exonerate you.
I'm sorry, "all the cool kids are doing it", or "I'm really disappointed with you for not doing this" is not the same as compulsion. As others have already mentioned, this was occurring in a fairly small town, so the odds of one of your family members contributing a sample and incrimination (or exonerating) you is fairly high, regardless of your decision.
Just to clarify one thing:
If you have to make a decision where choice 1 results for more (subjective) unpleasantness for you than choice 2, that doesn't mean that you are compelled to chose choice 2.
The world's full of trade-offs, and if keeping your DNA in your own pants is worth a little Q&A with the police, then be prepared to do that. If they come after you with a $5 wrench, I agree that it's moved in to coercion, but putting up with a little pointed questioning . . . put on your big girl panties and deal with it.
There are a few more details that make the Prosecutor's Fallacy less applicable to this situation. First, they are looking at a relatively small population, so the odds of two unrelated matches is lower than if you were scanning a database of millions of profiles. Second, they have a pretty complete picture of the population that they are searching, so duplicate matches can be investigated. Third, this is all just evidence at this point - the trial is yet to be carried out. Assuming that a miscarriage of justice is going to occur because large quantities of DNA evidence was used seems a bit harsh for this early in the game.
I was going to guess that it was a trunked radio system like many large law enforcement agencies use. Each site probably has access to a datalink of some sort (possibly IP based, possibly something more specialized, like a satelite link) that can carry traffic between sites, and a central controller at each site relays traffic to individual users. That would probably allow the sort of performance he describes.
You are still, STILL, missing the point that a crowd isn't controlled by the people at the obstruction. It's controlled by the people behind, and their actions (which may be perfectly reasonable in isolation) are compounded into an undesirable behavioral under certain circumstances. Person 3 in my example can no more resist the pressure from behind than Person 2 could.
You don't see deaths at every rock concert today for the same reason you don't see people dying every time a fire alarm goes off in a theater. YOU don't see all the infrastructure and people working behind the scenes to prevent tragedies. If you look at the flow of people out of any modern large stadium, you'll see that there are multiple chokepoints to prevent any one crowd from being too large, that's why seating sections have dividers between them, and there are several levels of exits. (That provides exactly zero excuse for someone who intentionally creates a rush - If you pulled a fire alarm and people got trampled to death, you bear responsibility, same as if you yelled "Fire!") Most of the time the system works, theaters, concerts, it's all the same. Crowd depth is an important variable. Psychology is another. People who are much more knowledgeable about either field than I spend a lot of time writing regulations, designing buildings, creating crowd control plans, and doing whatever they can to make sure that the cattle-like participants like you stay as calm as possible, and your "herd" is limited to a reasonable size. After all, if you feel stressed or overcrowded, you'll spend your money elsewhere - but if you die, they have to pay off your heirs.
I agree in principle with your statement that "Normal people are usually reasonable in their actions" but you forget the edge cases. Normal people are known to be unreasonable in their actions under some circumstances, and if you attempt to manufacture those circumstances, there's NO WAY you will be held blameless for the result. There's no excuse if you create a hazardous situation and someone is harmed.
As to your distinction to "Real" vs "Fake" fires - I thought the distinction was obvious, but clearly I have to spell this out too. Here's how courts see this situation:
a) You yell "fire!" in a theater. b) There's a crowd of 300, who collectively panics, stampedes, and 3 people die.
Scenario 1: You were telling the truth. (There was a REAL fire) Harm done as a result of your actions: 3 deaths caused Good done as a result of your actions: up to 297 deaths averted
Scenario 2: You were lying (there was no real fire) Harm done as a result of your actions: 3 deaths caused Good done as a result of your actions: 0 deaths averted
Judgment: In the first scenario, you were acting in the interest of the greater good, so the lives you saved would vastly outweigh those lost due to your actions. You may not be judged a hero, but no one's going to suggest that you be charged for manslaughter or worse. In the second scenario, there is no greater good, so your actions can only be judged by the harm they did. Expect to face charges, who's severity depend on your intent.
Don't try to feed me that line about dropping things in my responses - I'd be here all day if I wanted to pick apart every error in your reasoning. And besides, you are hardly innocent. (To paraphrase someone who may or may not have lived two millennia ago: Remove the beam from your own eye, then you can see clearly to remove the speck from mine.) My goal in this discussion is to attack your idiotic thesis that the first amendment prevents your being held responsible for harm done as a result of falsely shouting "Fire!" in a crowded theater (or similar situation). In the furtherance of that goal, I have attempted to educate you about previous events (you had not done enough research to know that people HAD died due to false claims that there was a fire in a theater) and I have set up sample scenarios so that you could better understand the situations (physics of a s
This DOES happen, and one of the big responsibilities of the venue is to provide adequate crowd control. If you think they aren't worried about this, ask them about their insurance. You may also note that really large venues have physical separations between groups of seating - this ensures that you can't develop a crowd that's too deep - and they keep security people trained in crowd control around.
Also, if you have found a specific error in my math or scenario, please feel free to point it out. I'll fix it and we can reevaluate. (If all you can come up with is a vague counter-example, can it.) You've neglected a couple of key difference between 300 people in a hallway and 300 people up against a stage. Crowd depth in the direction of motion, participant expectations, and state of mind are major factor in these situations. A group of fans near a stage in a large venue may have a couple hundred people in it, but be 30 people wide and only 10 people deep. Also, these people are expecting to _stop_ moving forward at some point. One more thing - These people aren't expecting to be burned to death if they are at the back of the crowd - which changes the dynamic a bit.
I think that addresses your counter-example, and I want to take a moment to point out that you are really not taking much time to think through the specifics of the situation and the influence of small details. This may be why you were promoting such idiocy in the first place. Really, do some research.
1) For the legality of the situation: IF YOU CREATE A DANGEROUS SITUATION, YOU CAN BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE FOR THE HARM DONE, EVEN IF YOU WERE NOT PRESENT FOR THE HARM. This is true even if others could have acted to prevent the harm. If you think this is false, you are wrong, If you don't believe me, ask a judge or someone else who has professional experience with this area of the law. Don't look for idiots on/. to confirm your foolish belief.
2) You are still totally ignoring the physics of a tightly packed crowd. Trampling happen among tightly packed people even when everyone behaves in the most rational possible way. Let me provide an example:
Imagine a crowd of three hundred adults of average size packed into a hallway that fits 6 people across under the current conditions (approx 10 feet), and there is about 6 inches between each person and the person behind. This implies that the crowd will be roughly 50 people deep. At the end of a hallway is large double door, measuring 8 feet across, through which no more than 5 people may pass at any one time.
Still with me?
Let's give them a reason to worry: Some person (who depending on their intent, may or may not be the scum of the earth) has announced loudly (and in a way which inspires panic) that there is a "FIRE!"
Let's imagine that every thing is perfect for a moment - people are passing through the door, no person is touching any other, and the evacuation is proceeding in an orderly fashion. This lasts for a moment, but while passing through the door, somebody trips. Let's call this moment Time 0.
What happens? The second person in line behind them does exactly what any reasonable person would do, and attempts to stop. Let's imagine that Person 2 has remarkable strength and reflexes, and succeeds in going from a walking pace to a stop over the course of 6 inches. However, the third person in the line comes up abruptly Person 2 - pressing them forward slightly. Person 3 applies whatever force is necessary to stay upright. (For the sake of simplicity, let's say they initially exert 20 N of force (slightly less than 5 lbs) against Person 2.
Has anything unreasonable happened here yet? Personal space has been invaded, but that's it. Has someone acted in any way OTHER than the way a rational person would act? I think not.
While this little drama involving Persons 1, 2, and 3 has been playing out (in which Person 4 is about to join), Persons 5 thru 50 have been moving forward. Many of them have not been made aware of the problem, and even if they are aware that there is a problem ahead, the person directly in front of them is still moving forward at the same rate as before, so there appears to be no immediate need to stop.
Another 500 milliseconds pass. Now, Person 4 comes against Person 3, and applies a 20 N load in exactly the same way as Person 3 is loading Person 2. Now, Person 3 transmits a load of 20 Newtons IN ADDITION to the origional 20 N load that they were imposing, so Person 2 now sees a force of 40 N.
The situation repeats, through the entire line. Here's why. If people are moving at 0.5 miles per hour, they cover that 6 inch spacing in a bit less than 700 milliseconds. Human reaction time is roughly 200 milliseconds. So if we assume that everyone grasps the entire situation and determines the appropriate response within 200 milliseconds of when the person in front of them comes to a stop, then they have 500 milliseconds to act before they will come into contact with the person in front of them - and they haven't done anything yet. if it takes an additional 200 ms to reposition their bodies to stop in the most effective way possible, they have 300 ms remaining. If each person can come to a complete stop in that time, without touching the person in front, then the crowd will stop nicely. Unfortunately they can't. This would require a deceleration of 0.75 m/s^2. For a reasonable sized male (78 kg) thi
I agree that the Iraq War does not pertain precisely to your original statement - but I enjoyed the insight.
Your second statement is interesting too. "fault . . . does not solely rest on whoever provided bad intelligence" So you'd agree that they are clearly not blameless? This would seem to support my position.
I take the position that if you engage in action that you know will lead to the harm of others when inaction will prevent the harm, you are culpable for the harm. (This is true even if you do not personally inflict the harm. If you drop a piano on someone, you can't say "Gravity did it!" and expect clemency.) If you are not prepared to accept blame for the harm, you better not engage in the action. There are (rare) circumstances where this is acceptable - like preventing an even greater harm. However, knowingly causing the harm of others makes you a criminal in the eyes of society, even if the law does not explicitly ban your conduct.
Taking a different approach: It's not a crime to speak (most things), or to shoot guns (most places), or to throw things, or to drop pianos. Causing the death of another human is a crime, even if it happens due to otherwise protected actions. If you take actions that you know could result in the death of another, you are party to the crime. How blame is apportioned will depend on the circumstances, but you should not expect that a court of law or public opinion will support your contention that "it's legal, therefore I'm blameless."
And as others have mentioned already, the Italian Hall Disaster of 1913 is an example of someone falsely yelling "Fire!" in a crowded theater, which resulted in the deaths of 73 people.
Slashdot Mirror
Are you saying there are too many? You can always sign off and go get some fresh air.
I happen to be kind of excited about his work, it's compact, it has a nice frequency range, and it can transmit, which is a bit novel. To each their own.
I mentioned mass murders partially because it's the topic du jour, but if you look at figure 1 in the actual link I posted, you can actually see what happened with both the firearm and non-firearm homicide rate after the passing of the 1996 law. Both decreased.
In fact, the only areas where there was an immediate increase was the "non-firearm suicides" (though this later declined to below the 1995 levels) and the "unintentional firearm deaths" which as since developed a slight positive trend.
I don't know what the hell you are talking about if you think that someone can run a hundred shells through a shotgun faster than a semi-automatic assault rifle. That's ten full magazines for a high capacity combat shotgun, and two to four for an assault rifle. On a "reload time per round" basis, I'm yet to see a shotgun that can be reloaded (.5 - 1 second per shell) as fast as an AR-15 (3-5 seconds for a 30 round magazine, that's 0.10 - 0.17 seconds per round - and higher capacity magazines are available).
A single no. 1 shot pellet can kill, but on an odds basis, the deer is more likely to survive.
And then there's the issue of weight. Someone can carry and uses a rifle effectively while carrying a couple hundred rifle shells. For shotguns, a couple dozen is about all that is practical.
Oh, and the pattern spread for a shotgun at 10 yards (no choke) is about 15 inches, so it is unlikely that a single shell is going to allow you to reliably hit more than one target at a time in close quarters (5 yards).
As for your final comment, if you are incompetent and inexperienced with the weapons you are using, then yes, you will suck. I agree with you on that one thing, at least.
Hey, I did a bit more research, and you are talking out of your ass.
Check this out: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2704353/
In 1996, Australia banned semi-automatic and pump-action long rifles and shotguns. In the 18 years before the ban, there were 13 mass killings. In the 10 years since, zero. The firearm homicide rate dropped, as did the non-firearm homicide rate. (Check out figure 1.) There's other fun finding also, but I'll leave them for you to find.
So, "good" is the enemy of "perfect"?
Gonna disagree with you on the shotgun. The magazines are much smaller, and they take much longer to reload. If this had been a shotgun problem, we'd have lots of wounded, a couple of dead and the gunman tackled by other adults.
Eh. If I have "stuff" that I need holes in, I use a drill. Much more precise, frequently lighter, almost always cheaper, and I get to chose the hole size and depth. If I have stuff that I want dead or otherwise destroyed, a gun may be the tool of choice. The fact that a gun puts a hole in "stuff" is incidental to their actual purpose.
Guns are weapons that are designed to kill things. I've heard plenty of rationalizations in the last couple days about "some guns" are for target shooting, but that's really just a simulation of killing things. When someone brings that up, I like to point out that "some guns" are designed specifically for the purpose of killing people, to the detriment of other legitimate reasons for owning a gun, like killing animals for food.
Yup. My Bad.
Good catch. I dropped a decimal place.
Knives are very ineffective weapons, compared to guns, especially for harming numbers of people.
Can you please cite some data?
I've only looked around for a minute or two, and here's what I've got:
* The US had roughly 3 gun murders per 100 000 population in one year. (Data from 2008 - 2010)
* The UK had 0.04 per 100 000 population (2011)
* Australia had 0.09 per 100 000 (2008)
The (gun) murder rate in the US is 7.5 times larger than in the UK, and more than 3 times larger than in Australia. This would tend not to support your point. Since you mentioned crime, I did not cite the Suicide and Accidental Death numbers, but they make the US look even worse.
Incidentally, the country with the highest gun homicide rate in the EU (that I could find data for on short notice) was Luxemburg - 0.6 gun murders per 100 000 population (2009). The US gun homicide rate is 5 times larger . . .
I'd stop throwing that 51% number around - it demonstrates a bit of ignorance on recent tax policy (Those numbers are partially a result of temoporary tax breaks enacted in 2009 and recently expired), demographics (Retired seniors and students frequently have extremely low income, and thus little or no income tax burden, so we EXPECT that about 40% of households will have no income tax burden), and reality (First, there are plenty of other taxes in play, even at the shallow end of the income pool; Second, poor people typically aren't subject to corporate taxes either).
This excerpt from http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=3505 may help you out:
The 51 percent and 46 percent figures are anomalies that reflect the unique circumstances of the past few years, when the economic downturn greatly swelled the number of Americans with low incomes. The figures for 2009 are particularly anomalous; in that year, temporary tax cuts that the 2009 Recovery Act created — including the “Making Work Pay” tax credit and an exclusion from tax of the first $2,400 in unemployment benefits — were in effect and removed millions of Americans from the federal income tax rolls. Both of these temporary tax measures have since expired.
In 2007, before the economy turned down, 40 percent of households did not owe federal income tax. This figure more closely reflects the percentage that do not owe income tax in normal economic times.[4]
These figures cover only the federal income tax and ignore the substantial amounts of other federal taxes — especially the payroll tax — that many of these households pay. As a result, these figures greatly overstate the share of households that do not pay federal taxes. Tax Policy Center data show that only about 17 percent of households did not pay any federal income tax or payroll tax in 2009, despite the high unemployment and temporary tax cuts that marked that year.[5] In 2007, a more typical year, the figure was 14 percent. This percentage would be even lower if it reflected other federal taxes that households pay, including excise taxes on gasoline and other items.
Most of the people who pay neither federal income tax nor payroll taxes are low-income people who are elderly, unable to work due to a serious disability, or students, most of whom subsequently become taxpayers. (In years like the last few, this group also includes a significant number of people who have been unemployed the entire year and cannot find work.)
Moreover, low-income households as a group do, in fact, pay federal taxes. Congressional Budget Office data show that the poorest fifth of households paid an average of 4.0 percent of their incomes in federal taxes in 2007, the latest year for which these data are available — not an insignificant amount given how modest these households’ incomes are; the poorest fifth of households had average income of $18,400 in 2007.[6] The next-to-the bottom fifth — those with incomes between $20,500 and $34,300 in 2007 — paid an average of 10.6 percent of their incomes in federal taxes.
Moreover, even these figures greatly understatelow-income households’ totaltax burden because these households also pay substantial state and local taxes. Data from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy show that the poorest fifth of households paid a stunning 12.3 percent of their incomes in state and local taxes in 2011.[7]
When all federal, state, and local taxes are taken into account, the bottom fifth of households pays about 16 percent of their incomes in taxes, on average. The second-poorest fifth pays about 21 percent.[8]
That was hardly voluntary.
This is a small community where a lot of people know each other and knew who did go to collection point.
This probably falls in the category of peerpressure.
O. M. G. Not the peer pressure!
The police also had a list of people and people who didn't volunteer would be visited or called by the police to ask why.
Citation needed. I'd actually bet that they don't give a shit. Mostly because they figure that at least one of your relatives will volunteer a sample which will in all likelihood exonerate you.
I'm sorry, "all the cool kids are doing it", or "I'm really disappointed with you for not doing this" is not the same as compulsion. As others have already mentioned, this was occurring in a fairly small town, so the odds of one of your family members contributing a sample and incrimination (or exonerating) you is fairly high, regardless of your decision.
Just to clarify one thing:
If you have to make a decision where choice 1 results for more (subjective) unpleasantness for you than choice 2, that doesn't mean that you are compelled to chose choice 2.
The world's full of trade-offs, and if keeping your DNA in your own pants is worth a little Q&A with the police, then be prepared to do that. If they come after you with a $5 wrench, I agree that it's moved in to coercion, but putting up with a little pointed questioning . . . put on your big girl panties and deal with it.
There are a few more details that make the Prosecutor's Fallacy less applicable to this situation. First, they are looking at a relatively small population, so the odds of two unrelated matches is lower than if you were scanning a database of millions of profiles. Second, they have a pretty complete picture of the population that they are searching, so duplicate matches can be investigated. Third, this is all just evidence at this point - the trial is yet to be carried out. Assuming that a miscarriage of justice is going to occur because large quantities of DNA evidence was used seems a bit harsh for this early in the game.
Yes, yes, you can copy and paste from a dictionary too.
This is no more compulsion than saying "I'll pay you $5 to mow my lawn" compels you to do break out the lawn mower.
Anyone could have said "No thanks" and that would have been the end of it, so no, definition 2 does not fit.
Sometimes confidence intervals are conservative.
Or as a friend of mine said:
Nate Silver is to talking-head punditry what the National Weather Service is to "Hurricanes are caused by teh gays."
I was going to guess that it was a trunked radio system like many large law enforcement agencies use. Each site probably has access to a datalink of some sort (possibly IP based, possibly something more specialized, like a satelite link) that can carry traffic between sites, and a central controller at each site relays traffic to individual users. That would probably allow the sort of performance he describes.
And then the patent expires.
You are still, STILL, missing the point that a crowd isn't controlled by the people at the obstruction. It's controlled by the people behind, and their actions (which may be perfectly reasonable in isolation) are compounded into an undesirable behavioral under certain circumstances. Person 3 in my example can no more resist the pressure from behind than Person 2 could.
You don't see deaths at every rock concert today for the same reason you don't see people dying every time a fire alarm goes off in a theater. YOU don't see all the infrastructure and people working behind the scenes to prevent tragedies. If you look at the flow of people out of any modern large stadium, you'll see that there are multiple chokepoints to prevent any one crowd from being too large, that's why seating sections have dividers between them, and there are several levels of exits. (That provides exactly zero excuse for someone who intentionally creates a rush - If you pulled a fire alarm and people got trampled to death, you bear responsibility, same as if you yelled "Fire!") Most of the time the system works, theaters, concerts, it's all the same. Crowd depth is an important variable. Psychology is another. People who are much more knowledgeable about either field than I spend a lot of time writing regulations, designing buildings, creating crowd control plans, and doing whatever they can to make sure that the cattle-like participants like you stay as calm as possible, and your "herd" is limited to a reasonable size. After all, if you feel stressed or overcrowded, you'll spend your money elsewhere - but if you die, they have to pay off your heirs.
I agree in principle with your statement that "Normal people are usually reasonable in their actions" but you forget the edge cases. Normal people are known to be unreasonable in their actions under some circumstances, and if you attempt to manufacture those circumstances, there's NO WAY you will be held blameless for the result. There's no excuse if you create a hazardous situation and someone is harmed.
As to your distinction to "Real" vs "Fake" fires - I thought the distinction was obvious, but clearly I have to spell this out too. Here's how courts see this situation:
a) You yell "fire!" in a theater.
b) There's a crowd of 300, who collectively panics, stampedes, and 3 people die.
Scenario 1: You were telling the truth. (There was a REAL fire)
Harm done as a result of your actions: 3 deaths caused
Good done as a result of your actions: up to 297 deaths averted
Scenario 2: You were lying (there was no real fire)
Harm done as a result of your actions: 3 deaths caused
Good done as a result of your actions: 0 deaths averted
Judgment: In the first scenario, you were acting in the interest of the greater good, so the lives you saved would vastly outweigh those lost due to your actions. You may not be judged a hero, but no one's going to suggest that you be charged for manslaughter or worse.
In the second scenario, there is no greater good, so your actions can only be judged by the harm they did. Expect to face charges, who's severity depend on your intent.
Don't try to feed me that line about dropping things in my responses - I'd be here all day if I wanted to pick apart every error in your reasoning. And besides, you are hardly innocent. (To paraphrase someone who may or may not have lived two millennia ago: Remove the beam from your own eye, then you can see clearly to remove the speck from mine.) My goal in this discussion is to attack your idiotic thesis that the first amendment prevents your being held responsible for harm done as a result of falsely shouting "Fire!" in a crowded theater (or similar situation). In the furtherance of that goal, I have attempted to educate you about previous events (you had not done enough research to know that people HAD died due to false claims that there was a fire in a theater) and I have set up sample scenarios so that you could better understand the situations (physics of a s
I stand corrected.
You really need to start researching things before you post them.
Google search: "people die at rock concert crush". First result: http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20114358,00.html
A little more searching also found this wiki page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stampede, which has the following:
1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1979_The_Who_concert_disaster (alluded to in previous link)
2) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roskilde_Festival#2000_accident
3) August 20, 1988: 2 people were crushed to death during a Guns N' Roses concert at a Monsters of Rock festival at Donington Park, England. (no specific link)
This DOES happen, and one of the big responsibilities of the venue is to provide adequate crowd control. If you think they aren't worried about this, ask them about their insurance. You may also note that really large venues have physical separations between groups of seating - this ensures that you can't develop a crowd that's too deep - and they keep security people trained in crowd control around.
Also, if you have found a specific error in my math or scenario, please feel free to point it out. I'll fix it and we can reevaluate. (If all you can come up with is a vague counter-example, can it.) You've neglected a couple of key difference between 300 people in a hallway and 300 people up against a stage. Crowd depth in the direction of motion, participant expectations, and state of mind are major factor in these situations. A group of fans near a stage in a large venue may have a couple hundred people in it, but be 30 people wide and only 10 people deep. Also, these people are expecting to _stop_ moving forward at some point. One more thing - These people aren't expecting to be burned to death if they are at the back of the crowd - which changes the dynamic a bit.
I think that addresses your counter-example, and I want to take a moment to point out that you are really not taking much time to think through the specifics of the situation and the influence of small details. This may be why you were promoting such idiocy in the first place. Really, do some research.
Uh, all of those products are recent products. Not only that, but the iPhone 4 is Apple's current flagship model. Galaxy S II is Samsung's.
You are still missing a few important points.
1) For the legality of the situation: IF YOU CREATE A DANGEROUS SITUATION, YOU CAN BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE FOR THE HARM DONE, EVEN IF YOU WERE NOT PRESENT FOR THE HARM. This is true even if others could have acted to prevent the harm. If you think this is false, you are wrong, If you don't believe me, ask a judge or someone else who has professional experience with this area of the law. Don't look for idiots on /. to confirm your foolish belief.
2) You are still totally ignoring the physics of a tightly packed crowd. Trampling happen among tightly packed people even when everyone behaves in the most rational possible way. Let me provide an example:
Imagine a crowd of three hundred adults of average size packed into a hallway that fits 6 people across under the current conditions (approx 10 feet), and there is about 6 inches between each person and the person behind.
This implies that the crowd will be roughly 50 people deep.
At the end of a hallway is large double door, measuring 8 feet across, through which no more than 5 people may pass at any one time.
Still with me?
Let's give them a reason to worry: Some person (who depending on their intent, may or may not be the scum of the earth) has announced loudly (and in a way which inspires panic) that there is a "FIRE!"
Let's imagine that every thing is perfect for a moment - people are passing through the door, no person is touching any other, and the evacuation is proceeding in an orderly fashion. This lasts for a moment, but while passing through the door, somebody trips. Let's call this moment Time 0.
What happens? The second person in line behind them does exactly what any reasonable person would do, and attempts to stop. Let's imagine that Person 2 has remarkable strength and reflexes, and succeeds in going from a walking pace to a stop over the course of 6 inches. However, the third person in the line comes up abruptly Person 2 - pressing them forward slightly. Person 3 applies whatever force is necessary to stay upright. (For the sake of simplicity, let's say they initially exert 20 N of force (slightly less than 5 lbs) against Person 2.
Has anything unreasonable happened here yet? Personal space has been invaded, but that's it. Has someone acted in any way OTHER than the way a rational person would act? I think not.
While this little drama involving Persons 1, 2, and 3 has been playing out (in which Person 4 is about to join), Persons 5 thru 50 have been moving forward. Many of them have not been made aware of the problem, and even if they are aware that there is a problem ahead, the person directly in front of them is still moving forward at the same rate as before, so there appears to be no immediate need to stop.
Another 500 milliseconds pass. Now, Person 4 comes against Person 3, and applies a 20 N load in exactly the same way as Person 3 is loading Person 2. Now, Person 3 transmits a load of 20 Newtons IN ADDITION to the origional 20 N load that they were imposing, so Person 2 now sees a force of 40 N.
The situation repeats, through the entire line. Here's why. If people are moving at 0.5 miles per hour, they cover that 6 inch spacing in a bit less than 700 milliseconds. Human reaction time is roughly 200 milliseconds. So if we assume that everyone grasps the entire situation and determines the appropriate response within 200 milliseconds of when the person in front of them comes to a stop, then they have 500 milliseconds to act before they will come into contact with the person in front of them - and they haven't done anything yet. if it takes an additional 200 ms to reposition their bodies to stop in the most effective way possible, they have 300 ms remaining. If each person can come to a complete stop in that time, without touching the person in front, then the crowd will stop nicely. Unfortunately they can't. This would require a deceleration of 0.75 m/s^2. For a reasonable sized male (78 kg) thi
I agree that the Iraq War does not pertain precisely to your original statement - but I enjoyed the insight.
Your second statement is interesting too. "fault . . . does not solely rest on whoever provided bad intelligence" So you'd agree that they are clearly not blameless? This would seem to support my position.
I take the position that if you engage in action that you know will lead to the harm of others when inaction will prevent the harm, you are culpable for the harm. (This is true even if you do not personally inflict the harm. If you drop a piano on someone, you can't say "Gravity did it!" and expect clemency.) If you are not prepared to accept blame for the harm, you better not engage in the action. There are (rare) circumstances where this is acceptable - like preventing an even greater harm. However, knowingly causing the harm of others makes you a criminal in the eyes of society, even if the law does not explicitly ban your conduct.
Taking a different approach: It's not a crime to speak (most things), or to shoot guns (most places), or to throw things, or to drop pianos. Causing the death of another human is a crime, even if it happens due to otherwise protected actions. If you take actions that you know could result in the death of another, you are party to the crime. How blame is apportioned will depend on the circumstances, but you should not expect that a court of law or public opinion will support your contention that "it's legal, therefore I'm blameless."
And as others have mentioned already, the Italian Hall Disaster of 1913 is an example of someone falsely yelling "Fire!" in a crowded theater, which resulted in the deaths of 73 people.