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Trolling My Kids with Google Home [video]
- BuffaloBagel 10y agoGreat troll but I would criticize using the cops as the Boogeyman.
- semi-extrinsic 10y agoDon't know why you're being downvoted. Having your kids be afraid of contacting the police (IRL or on the phone) in an emergency situation could be fatal for you or your kids.
- basch 10y agoWho is an appropriate boogeyman for kids, the IRS? "Never talk to IRS cold calls." Could save them in an identity theft situation. Side note, Dad sounds JUST LIKE Ron Howard.
- semi-extrinsic 10y agoRound here we use trolls, goblins, and in particular the infamous Draugr (a marine type of undead creature): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draugr https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draugr
- ryandrake 10y agoI don't know--if you're worried about your kids' safety, teaching them to avoid interactions with the police whenever possible might be a wise move. Their job, after all, is to find a reason to put you in prison and/or confiscate your property, and they can kill you without repercussions depending on how the interaction goes. Instilling a healthy distrust is more likely to help than harm.
- DanBC 10y agoThis is a cultural thing. In the US it's possibly a good idea to avoid police. In the UK where they still work to Peelian principles we don't need to fear every interaction with the police.
- sqeaky 10y agoIn some parts of the US its just fine, but in other its not. Sometimes it depends on other factors... Look at the city I am in right now, Omaha. If you appear to be white it is just about the safest city in the country. But if you have dark skin, run for your life.
- Mindless2112 10y agoSure, but even as a White person living in Omaha, the advice you get is "Don't go to north O[maha]. You're gonna get shot." (For those who don't know, north Omaha is predominately Black. Check it out on the Racial Dot Map [1].) [1] http://demographics.coopercenter.org/DotMap/ http://demographics.coopercenter.org/DotMap/
- icantdrive55 10y agoAs a white guy who lives in a the wealthy county of Marin; I can honestly state, you only call the police if in imminent danger, and even then good luck. I don't care if your wealthy, or poor, in my experience; they have always made a questionable situation worse. Qualifications: High school diploma, and a few weeks in an academy. And usually a chip on your shoulder? That chip sometimes grows, and sometimes mellows with experience. The profession needs federal oversight. It needs consistent training, and not paramilitary training. Way too many Cowboys, and Revenue collectors. Maybe a licensing system implemented? You can't cut hair without a licence?
- neves 10y agoNever heard about these principles: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peelian_principles#Nine_Principles_of_Policing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peelian_principles#Nine_Princi... A nice thing to learn.
- Poiesis 10y agoI wish it weren't so, but depending on what you/your kids look like, not being afraid of contacting the police could be fatal for you or your kids.
- vkou 10y agoHaving your kids contact the police in an emergency situation could also be life-threatening. In just about any situation, I'd much rather have the help of a firefighter, then a police officer. It's incredibly unlikely that introducing a scared man with a gun and broad extrajudicial power will make a situation better.
- tzs 10y ago> Having your kids contact the police in an emergency situation could also be life-threatening. That's very very unlikely. You are probably failing to take into account that an interaction with police only makes the news when it goes bad. You don't hear about the 99.99% of interactions that go fine. Here's a list of the known police killings so far in 2016: http://www.killedbypolice.net http://www.killedbypolice.net There are just over 1000 of them, out of tens of millions of interactions with police. Pick about 20 of those 1000 at random, and click through for the details. You will almost certainly find that the overwhelming majority of those are ones where the person who got shot was actively committing a serious crime, or threatening imminent harm to someone.
- hdctambien 10y ago> http://hearphones.bose.com/ http://hearphones.bose.com/ total - overwhelmingMajority == too many
- vkou 10y agoYou also don't hear about the interactions which don't kill anyone, but escalate into illegal searches, arrest, harassment, theft under the guise of civil forfeiture, court appearances, probation, breach of probation, or jail sentences. If you can call the police, and can be absolutely certain that there will be no negative consequences to you as a result - great. This is not what life is like for many Americans - and any one of these outcomes can be enough to ruin a life.
- sedachv 10y agoA friend of mine works as a public defender in Los Angeles (and prior to that, worked as a public defender in San Francisco). His advice is to never call the cops in all but the most extreme situations. The risk of them maiming or killing someone, performing unwanted illegal entries and searches, making an arrest based on unrelated things they see (suspected drug paraphernalia, etc), spurious complaints to child protective services, baseless detention and arrest, or just plain mistreatment and harassment is too great. In addition, if there is any person on parole or probation present when the cops show up, that person's chances of going to prison are very high, because a cop can say almost anything and have that be taken as a parole violation.
- lojack 10y agoI have a friend who works in the cardiothoracic step down unit at a hospital. She constantly thinks she has developed some sort of heart condition to the point where she is for all intents and purposes is paranoid of this. It's a bias because she's around people with heart conditions day in day out, so it seems more common than reality. Your friend has developed a bias because they're constantly around people who have been (or at least claim to be) wronged by the police. They see these people at a significantly higher rate than the people who have been saved by the police, or have otherwise been on the other side of the crime. There simply isn't a need to defend the other side of the fence.
- sedachv 10y ago> Your friend has developed a bias because they're constantly around people who have been (or at least claim to be) wronged by the police. Absolutely. Which is why I am glad he pointed these risks out to me - no one else who is unbiased does or is even aware of the worst-case outcomes. If there is a way to resolve a situation without calling the police, why would you take the risk? Another thing my friend likes to do is post news reports of police abuse to social media. One of these is very relevant to the original post. In 2013 a father called the police on his son, after the latter drove off in the father's automobile without permission, to "teach him a lesson." The police response was to murder his son: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/tyler-comstock-killing-iowa-police-shoot-unarmed-19-year-old-after-father-calls-authorities-to-report-the-teen-stole-his-truck/ http://www.cbsnews.com/news/tyler-comstock-killing-iowa-poli... Threatening your kids, family, neighbors etc with the police is not only distasteful but can end up in tragedy.
- woodruffw 10y agoMy parents are both public attorneys. I was raised from a young age to minimize unnecessary interaction with the police. That is, of course, an American (and urban) perspective.
- JWN1111 10y agoEh, it depends on how you look at it. It's a lesson for both kids. The one sister is maybe learning to fear the cops, but the other sister is learning that the cops are there to keep things right and just.
- msabalau 10y agoCops kill about 1000 people a year in America. But evidently the problem is that people don't always and at every moment keep them on a pedestal.
- icebraining 10y agoFor those wondering about the number, it's at 1079 as of today: http://killedbypolice.net/ http://killedbypolice.net/
- geuis 10y agoIt's teaching them a survival skill.
- sleepychu 10y agoThe actual punishment made me laugh so hard. "Mommy, is that real?"
- megawatthours 10y ago> I am going to send over 15 cute boys for you to kiss You're a cool dad.
- ChristianGeek 10y agoYou had me at "you better get your kissy face ready!"
- kevin_thibedeau 10y agoI can see a future SO using that line on her.
- macandcheese 10y agoI fear for the children of the future.
- learned 10y agoJust curious, but what about this of all things makes you feel that way? It just seems like a fun moment between father and daughter.
- macandcheese 10y agoRobots raising children? Nothing wrong with this, and it's cute, admittedly, but I can't help but think that in 20 years we'll have robot teachers instructing rooms of children who go home to their robot nanny and rarely, if ever, make human contact with their people parents.
- soylentcola 10y agoNot sure how this really relates to "robots raising children" though. More just having a laugh with tech that young kids sort-of understand but don't quite grasp the limits of yet. I remember as a kid we got a Commodore 128 computer and I was teaching myself to write BASIC programs. I had two younger brothers (I was maybe 9 years old, they would've been 6 or 7) and while they generally grasped "computers", they didn't really know the difference between what they saw in movies and what our little home computer could do. After seeing Wargames or something like that, I wrote a program that simulated dialing into "the government" and displaying menu options. Even had the Hollywood-style one character at a time by adding delays to my PRINT commands. Basically it was just a bunch of menu options you could pick from but in the end you end up selecting an option that commands it to launch nukes or something like that. Like I said, I was a kid so my understanding of things wasn't very subtle either. Still, it scared the shit out of my brothers before my mom told me to quit screwing with them. Hell, we didn't even have a modem hooked up to the thing... Mom was a big no-fun.
- ansible 10y ago
- BWStearns 10y agoThe Lady from Silicon Valley, v0.0.1
- 6stringmerc 10y agoHa! Very well executed and totally dig the 'having fun' part of it - eg. kiddo still could doubt it was real. Reminds me of Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure when they hide the cassette player on a timer to distract Ted's Dad at the police station, or of 'Soundboards' to call places with Arnold's voice. I do have a fondness for pranks.
- agumonkey 10y agoI thougth he meant the Google Home app. Which can be either leaky or trolley, since every phone on the network will be able to be remotes for ChromeCasts, you can communicate through your playlist. Or get caught.
- gnicholas 10y agoWould love to see a bot that listened for my burglar alarm and then just played an audio file with a voice recording of an increasingly-worried security dispatcher: Hello, this is [blah] security, and we've just received a break-in notification from your home. Is everything alright? Hello? We are calling your emergency contact numbers and if we do not receive a response officers will be dispatched to [address]."
- knodi123 10y agoDoesn't your burglar alarm already do that? Or is it an unmonitored alarm?
- gnicholas 10y agoIt doesn't talk out loud, which would strengthen the deterrent effect. It would also work even if our internet/phones were cut, which makes the alarm company unreachable. But yes, it could also be used with unmonitored and very cheap solutions, like door-stoppers with built-in alarms. It might not fool every criminal, but compared to the cost of a full-blown, monitored system (thousands up-front and hundreds/year) it'd be a steal (pun intended).
- pbhjpbhj 10y agoSo when are Google shutting down Google Home ...