• yermaw@sh.itjust.works
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      6 hours ago

      A lot of americans already have them. I’m unfamiliar with them, but they’ve all got names like dezziteegoo and smiffunwessun.

      • Ostrichgrif@lemmy.world
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        6 hours ago

        Fun as it may be to shoot them out of the sky, that’s not super feasible in urban or suburban areas. Don’t want to risk the possibility of the bullet hitting someone on the way down and the neighbors probably wouldn’t appreciate the gunshots

  • Avicenna@programming.dev
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    1 day ago

    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…

  • treadful@lemmy.zip
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    2 days ago

    “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.

    • fartographer@lemmy.world
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      2 hours ago

      How does that even change the situation to make things safer? Are they gonna crash the drone into a suspect to diffuse a situation? Unless Flock is advertising domestic drone strikes, then the only feasible deliverables are more spying and more profiling.

    • bcgm3@lemmy.world
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      2 hours ago

      I read it as the drones protecting the civilians from the trigger-happy cops rushing in first.

    • turtlesareneat@piefed.ca
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      1 day ago

      “We know cops are racist so we’ve lessened their load by making our drones racist too.”

      “Why are they not clapping”

  • Cousin Mose@lemmy.hogru.ch
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    2 days ago

    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.

    • chilicheeselies@lemmy.world
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      9 hours ago

      They will go down kicking and screaming. A company like flock has tons of investor capital. That results in a board putting tons of pressure on executive leadership. They will never go “oops nevermind this was a bad idea”. It’s just a other front in the class war against the billionaire Epstein class.

    • Scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech
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      2 days ago

      Next week having closed courtains will be illegal. What’s going on in there? Probably something suspicious! Why is your bathroom window frosted?!

    • Malyca@lemmy.zip
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      2 days ago

      I have no doubt this is thiel’s work. He needs the data for his surveillance machine.

  • mrmisses@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    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?

      • mrmisses@lemmy.world
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        7 hours ago

        Yes. They are also not allowed to be over people (including traffic) unless it’s just to pass over to move to another area with no people (not allowed to continuously pass over people) unless they are below a certain, very low, weight. I think only one drone fits that category last I checked.

        I have my commercial drone license but quit the job that required it so I am a little rusty on the rules

    • Andrew Beveridge@sh.itjust.works
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      2 days ago

      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

    • Cocodapuf@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      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.

      • Pika@sh.itjust.works
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        1 day ago

        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.

      • village604@adultswim.fan
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        1 day ago

        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.

    • jayb151@piefed.social
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      10 hours ago

      Genuine question…I’ve only ever thought that was some kind of movie magic we all accepted as reality. Could you blind a camera with any kind of laser pointer? Like, Dollar store shit would work? or it needs to be a special frequency or something?

      • Zomg@piefed.world
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        9 hours ago

        Not 100% sure if laser wattage matters. I’m sure if not a higher wattage just does it faster. A YT search for laser pointer camera probably would give you an idea.

        After Looking at those vids myself it does seem wattage is a factor, and steadiness of the pointer does too.

        Be very careful to adequately protect your eyes when using lasers. Different laser wavelengths need different eye protection