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High power directed ultrasound can potentially cause brain damage from induced mechanical strain in brain tissue. I feel like parametric ultrasonic speakers sho
by Sephr 9y ago
High power directed ultrasound can potentially cause brain damage from induced mechanical strain in brain tissue. I feel like parametric ultrasonic speakers should be more stringently regulated before every single police department starts using them as if they were regular loudspeakers.
I support requiring something akin to an amateur radio license to operate high powered parametric ultrasonic speakers.
- godzillabrennus 9y agoIt’ll take some high dollar lawsuits getting paid out before any regulation around these will happen.
- wallace_f 9y agoAh, one of the remaining only ways "doing the right thing" ever gets done in the States these days. Why can countries like South Korea, Taiwan or Japan provide public services like roads, internet infrastructure, police and healthcare at an incredibly small fraction of the cost that is lightyeaes ahead in quality and competency (for the 99%)?
- TeMPOraL 9y agoPath dependence? US went a bit too far in the "individual liberty" direction, and it now can't get out of the mess. In principle, things could be fixed, but good luck getting enough lawyer mass on this.
- TheCoelacanth 9y agoSurely allowing police to use excessive force to control protestors is the exact opposite of "individual liberty".
- imjustsaying 9y ago>individual liberty causes high prices and low quality. this could be fixed with more lawyers please elaborate
- TeMPOraL 9y agoFree market causes low quality. What I meant in my comment was something else though - that strong individual liberty/independence causes difficulties in coordinating people on large-scale infrastructural projects. I.e. by the time you get through all the lawsuits and payouts, your new rail line takes 10x time to build and costs 20x the money a less liberal country would need to spend.
- daveFNbuck 9y agoThese countries all have at least 10x the population density of the US. I'm not sure about healthcare, but the rest of your list gets cheaper as population density increases.
- louithethrid 9y agoFine, we are talking about the trhee main urban centers of the US here - not the whole country. Now that this strawman is out of the way- are we allowed to continue?
- tatersolid 9y agoNo. You don’t get to wire up NYC at the expense of all taxpayers.
- twobyfour 9y agoNYC pays far more in both state and federal taxes than it receives in services. NY State pays far more in federal taxes than it receives in services. Rural parts of the US receive far more in services than they pay in taxes. The rest of the country isn't paying for a thing in NYC - it's the other way around. Just leave us more of our own tax money and we could do all sorts of things that aren't currently considered possible.
- randallsquared 9y ago> Just leave us more of our own tax money and we could do all sorts of things that aren't currently considered possible. At (roughly) what number of people does that argument stop working? 5M? 500K? 50K? 5?
- twobyfour 9y agoI'm not clear on what it is you're asking.
- 9y ago
- jsz0 9y agoThe US government is like old legacy software. It's not as good as modern software but it's too difficult and expensive to replace.
- PrimHelios 9y agoEven that won't cause any real regulation. If anything the legal battles will just drag on for years before they're eventually settled out of court for almost nothing.
- etrautmann 9y agoThis requires direct mechanical coupling to the head. The air to skin interface is an impedance mismatch which causes very little of the energy to be transmitted to the brain. This is likely not a real concern.
- Sephr 9y agoThe air pockets in your head will resonate quite effectively. The impedance mismatch in the air pockets can result in powerful vibrations. Your head isn't filled with 100% liquids and solids.
- djsumdog 9y agoI support them not being allowed ever. But just like the totally ineffective body scanners at airports, too much money has been sunk in for officers not to use them. No one actually cares about the sunk cost fallacy.
- secret_island 9y agoQuite right. Israel's El Al simply profiles everyone that flies and by doing so they obviate the need to use stupid, expensive equipment that does nothing other than bottleneck airports and cause frustration. The Israelis are the best in the world at what they do regarding air security. The West has considered using the same techniques and they likely should. I'm not opposed to profiling if the person fits the profile. Better profiling than dead innocents. People do not have the right to not be offended. I get the heavy hand for some reason every time I fly and I'm literally the grey man, but I understand and go along with it. I'm also squeeky clean from a legal standpoint.
- brador 9y agoWho decides the profiles?
- alexeldeib 9y agoI agree broadly that the Israeli model seems the one to follow. My understanding differs, however, in that it's not strictly profiling in the sense that carries heavy negative connotations in the US. I haven't traveled to Israel so can't comment, but I understand that in "profiling" the focus is on more objective metrics than an American might think when they hear the word -- e.g., physiological responses (sweating, increased heartrate, nervousness), consistency under questioning, etc. If that's not the case, would you mind providing some details about your own experience, since you mentioned being pulled aside repeatedly?
- username223 9y ago> physiological responses (sweating, increased heartrate, nervousness), consistency under questioning, etc. Is this what Canadian border guards are supposed to be doing? I hate dealing with them, and therefore minimize my border crossings. I just want to pour money into the Canadian economy as a tourist from time to time, and actual Canadian cops (RCMP) are much less aggressive than their US counterparts, but the border crossing is almost always unnecessarily miserable.
- myaccountzz 9y agoGood thing these women already had brain damage.
- rectang 9y ago> brain damage Surely that's a feature, not a bug, when the police have to deal with civil rights protesters. Recall the dogs, batons, and water cannons of the south.
- emodendroket 9y agoThey used water cannons on people in Standing Rock in some seriously cold temperatures just last year.
- jonlucc 9y agoAnd dogs on protestors in Ferguson in the hours after the police shooting of Michael Brown.
- ataturk 9y agoAs bad as that sounds, I ask "do the people whose property was damaged by the rioters matter at all?" If the riots had gotten even further out of control and lethal force had to be employed, would the use of dogs or water cannons, or whatever else be more palatable?" People taking part in riots do have a choice--they can behave if they so choose. Their victims are merely caught up in the ordeal, though. Protecting public safety is a delicate balance.
- peak_body_yo 9y agoIsn't mental instability positively correlated with antisocial, disruptive behavior? I'd imagine that they want well behaved protesters.
- sschueller 9y agoWith the incident in Cuba I would think we would be a bit more reluctant to use such devices on civilians.
- emodendroket 9y agoWhy?
- e40 9y agoBecause the hypothesis is that people in Cuba have brain damage due to devices like these.
- kevin_thibedeau 9y agoLRADs don't generate ultrasound. The worst they can do is create the brown note.
- dwyerm 9y agoI'm pretty sure that they do. They're parametric speakers, like the 'Soundlazer[1]', that use a very loud ultrasonic carrier and make audible sound from the interference between the beams of ultrasonics. Even when an parametric speaker is playing 'silence', it is probably blasting 120dB of ultrasound. Soundlazer's faq on Kickstarted mentioned this explicitly: "...you will be hit with 120.5Db of sound pressure that you can't hear! It starts hurting your ears after 10 minutes." http://www.soundlazer.com/ http://www.soundlazer.com/
- kevin_thibedeau 9y agoThey max out at 2.5kHz. All they can do is loud speech and infrasound.
- fencepost 9y agoIt sounds like you have a lot more technical knowledge about these than most people. Can you expand on this? I see people in this thread doing what Muckrock likely desired and getting all worked up because the police used an LRAD, but I also see that it was used as an announcement system not as a loosely-targeted weapon. Does its use for announcements carry dangers that aren't clear to those of us without technical knowledge of it?