Man vs Drone

We're seeing tech get ever more into our lives.

That's intrusive tech, invasive tech, playful tech used intrusively ... other things. A common theme there is what people do with the tech.

The latest is an incident in the USA, where someone has taken the law into his own hands to shoot down a drone that was hovering over his (and neighbour's) property.

Here's the info from Register ...

Basically, a group of people were flying a drone over a neighbourhood which was (allegedly) dropping into gardens for a peek. Cue shotgun wielding person to shoot it out of the sky. There was then a confrontation as the people owning the drone came to say hello (+ a bit) and they got threatened with a pistol as they approached Shotgun Guy's property.

Let's see :

The drone was close enough to the house to be hit by a shotgun. This is very bad. You could reasonably assume as the homeowner, that the drone was spying on the daughters or looking for valuables/burglary entry points.

Shotgun guy did what he could to minimise risk to the neighbourhood (he used birdshot ammo which has a low terminal velocity / shouldn't hurt anyone on the way down).

Drone was being used to film someone (I am not inclined to believe this).

A pistol was used to threaten people. This is very bad.

And there's more in the article.

But what makes this just one example of a very bad trend is that these drones are being used for all sorts of mischief. We're seeing increasing incidents where drones are being flown near airports, dangerously close to aircraft. Here's another Register link.

This is very serious. If a drone hits an aircraft, or gets pulled into an engine, that could result in the murder of the several hundred people on board. And I fully mean that term "murder", the act of flying a drone close enough to an airliner to endanger it is a premeditated act.

It's not the tech, machine, weapon or automobile that kills people, it's the people in control of it.

Drones are the latest new toy. People don't think they are subject to the same rules of nicety that society depends on. They think, NEW TOY ! MUST PLAY, without considering that they are causing offence or injury. It used to be rock music being played too loud for the neighbour trying to get sleep around shift work, now it's peeping toms graduating from a camera in a tree to a camera on a drones.

Do I agree with the offended homeowner getting rid of the drone ? Yes.
Do I think they should have used a shotgun ? No. Too much can go wrong with firearms.
How about the threat with the pistol ? This would have you see prison time in UK. USA is a little weird with its gun culture.
What do I think they should have done ? A non-lethal method of taking down the drone.

You don't need a shotgun to take down the drone, frying its electronics should do equally well. Although there is that thing of what happens to the drone when it falls out of the sky.

I definitely think something needs to happen for airport safety. The French had problems with drones being flown around their nuclear plants too. It needs to happen before someone takes down an airliner.

But we also need to remember how to play with our toys. Do it safely. Don't endanger people. Don't do stuff that will earn you a punch on the nose if someone figures out if it was you.

This is a bit of a downer post again - I'm struggling to come up with positive posts !

I use that one a lot don't I ?

I need some good ideas for fun posts. More memes please ! More inspiration !

Ok. Last night had some good inspiration. I went to see Inside Out with the work-ish crew. (CQ, CK and BD) Good movie, Pixar keep coming out with excellent movies and even better shorts before hand. Lava was almost as good as the dog one. We went to Frankie and Benny's before and ... they have a new waitress.

This waitress has that magical combination of pretty-cute, intelligence, a fun manner and a smile to warm your heart. CQ has a picture which may appear on Facebook at some point. And when she asked me what dessert I wanted, out comes a smile, my soul got lost in her eyes and .... sigh. Mind blank.

I know a few more people like that who do that to me too. Hello Pretty Ladies ! Yep. That means you. Reading this. (If you're a lady, I think I have male readers too. You're cool as well).

When I see that smile with a bubbly chuckle, when I get messages that say I'm better than I think I am (low self confidence), when positivity comes my way, when people laugh at me being jokey/goofy, when people say they value my opinion or knowledge, part of me is doing that Sigh - Mind Blank.

You smile, I smile, world is good.