Once this becomes the norm next podcast is “What if we put small tasers on the drones? Our communities become much safer!”. And then handguns etc…
And when they get hacked, people will be able to do mass shootings from the comfort of their own homes. That’s what I call progress!
In other news, falconry has become unexpectedly popular.
I mean, if it hovers, a laser to a camera is a known thing…
It should be legal to destroy corpo property.
“Normally what would happen… is like one cop would have heard that, flip on the blue lights, race down there… and someone’s about to die,” [Flock CEO Garrett] Langley explained, describing a case in which a woman called 911 on a man, who later turned out to be holding a lighter, not a gun, as initially suspected. “Instead, they launch the drone.”
Langley claimed that “we have thousands and thousands of stories like that where communities are safer now with our drones. They’re safer with our cameras.”
That’s your prime example of a community becoming safer? The cops droning a mf because he lit a cigarette and some Karen panicked? You’re the CEO of the fucking company with like the worst PR and you say this shit.
“We know cops are racist so we’ve lessened their load by making our drones racist too.”
“Why are they not clapping”
Frankly, what a bunch of fucking creeps. Does no one else find it weird that they’re hellbent on spying on people? If it weren’t for the government we’d probably lock up these fucking psychos.
Next week having closed courtains will be illegal. What’s going on in there? Probably something suspicious! Why is your bathroom window frosted?!
I have no doubt this is thiel’s work. He needs the data for his surveillance machine.
No, it’s not weird.
So, target practice.
I forgot that there was a sport meant to help train you for shooting drones out of the sky
Are they going to follow FAA rules then or just do whatever they want and kill people every now and then when they crash/fall out of the sky?
Well when they crash the company needs to replace the whole drone, so they are probably going to try to avoid that when possible.
That said, they should have to obey faa regs, but while the laws for private use are pretty clear, the commercial use regulations are layered and sort of in flux. Major operators are always pushing to have laws adjusted, and because leadership in the US is generally overly supportive of big business, those changes often go into place.
In other words, there ARE laws, but you know, it’s the US, so they can probably change them.
I think this will depend less on the FAA and more on local jurisdiction. the FAA doesn’t really have that much restrictions in place for low altitude drones (< 400 ft) they require it to be registered due to commercial but, the 2026 modifications for usage removed a lot of the safety barriers and controls that were in place for them. Now it’s basically as long as its registered and the lights are bright enough to be seen, it’s allowed unless there’s a local law forbidding it.
No, they’ll do whatever they want and kill people deliberately, frequently, whenever they say something which disagrees with the dictatorship state definition of truth. Give it a decade
Oh boy. Ain’t gonna take that long.
How long can these even stay airborn? This is a REALLY stupid idea.
Maybe 40 minutes.
I mean, that’s one of the easier problems to solve. Basically make them a Roomba that has a set flight plan where it returns to its charging station at the end, and have enough that they can swap out and still keep coverage.
And depending on how it’s made, powerless gliding is an option. They already use gliders in some places for speed limit enforcement.
These guys really don’t get the message eh?
I’ve been waiting for this for a long time. Drones are cheap. Automating their flight is a super solved problem. At some point every cop car will have a drone on demand that can pop out and follow. They’ll launch some slow movers with big blades and just have them patrol. 30-40 minute flights.
time to deploy our own counter-drone drones
Skeet shooting: city edition
The maximum viable elevation that you can hit a target at with a shotgun is ~40m, or ~55m with a very tight choke. Drones can comfortably operate much higher than that. I guess it might work from the roof of a skyscraper though.
No body gonna be driving when the markets crash.
A handful in the sky is still a lot less useful than the thousands on the ground. We need them off the streets and then we can deal with the drones.
While I agree that the street-level cameras should urgently be taken care of, don’t underestimate what a stationary aerial drone can do over a couple of hours.
Listen to Radiolab’s Eye in the Sky episode. Think of the possibilities that have opened up because of drone tech in the 10 years since it first aired (and the 20 years since the tech was used in Iraq). It’s truly frightening what these drones will be able to accomplish once they are in place.
I don’t think sending a couple drones to canvas a city grid from the sky would count as less useful. In fact, it’d be a lot faster than strapping a camera to a truck/car. Really depends how they are used. But worst case scenario, both drones and fixed cameras work in conjunction, which they obviously would.
wonder how hard it is to hit those…
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_VNnkB-i54
Depending on the drone, might be harder than I initially thought
Probably pretty easy with a shotgun
