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Fake Signs On Bay Area Highways Say Drones Looking For Speeders
- devb 13y agoThey're definitely a distraction? Excellent! Let's start getting rid of roadside advertising, billboards, obnoxious fast food signs...
- alanctgardner2 13y agoDon't be facile; surely a picture implying that the government is going to blow you up with a Reaper for going 10 over the limit is more distracting than a picture of a Big Mac. Especially in a state that (I hear) is on the verge of bankruptcy.
- alan_cx 13y agoGiven American levels of obesity, Im not sure you are correct.
- Zigurd 13y agoSo the bad news is that Big Macs kill more Americans than drones, and the bad news is that we're closing the gap.
- GrinningFool 13y agoHave you driven I95 near Philadelphia lately? I think the contingent of electronic animated, image-changing, and even occasionally flashing billboards carries a slightly higher distraction factor.
- samatman 13y agoIt's beginning to remind me of Fahrenheit 451.
- skaevola 13y agoAnd, to be successful, billboard advertising necessarily must distract you.
- ErikAugust 13y agoFun fact: In Vermont, billboards are illegal.
- btipling 13y agoAmerica would be so much more beautiful if we had fewer billboards and cables were underground instead hosted on poles. I think it's patriotic to oppose billboards and telephone polls.
- koenigdavidmj 13y agoAnchorage has a law that in order to do any work on above-ground cables (other than emergency repairs), you must put them underground at the same time.
- devb 13y agoNYC, or at least Manhattan, has had a law requiring underground utilities since 1888!
- oijaf888 13y agoIts substantially more expensive to run cables underground everywhere in the nation.
- btipling 13y agoA price that's probably worth it in many cases.
- alan_cx 13y agoStrikes me (no pun intended) as being a very good way to get the general public to think about the consequences of the creeping use of drones. "Think its just terrorists targeted? Well, it could now be you". OK, terrorists get a missile, and drivers get a ticket, but do people want an army of drones monitoring them for motoring offences, and more?
- psutor 13y agoOr it could be a good way of desensitizing the public...
- rayiner 13y agoI'd much rather the drone monitor things and just give me a ticket in the mail than a potentially power tripping cop.
- cobrausn 13y agoThis is the worst (although power tripping cops are also pretty bad). Imagine you are driving 5~10 mph over the limit for a long time, distracted by life and generally unaware. How many tickets do you think you would get? You were never stopped and corrected, how were you supposed to know? Given the tendency of some courts in the SF area to make you pay the ticket before you can contest it (read this somewhere, not sure 100% on truthfulness of it), this sounds like a nightmare shakedown scenario.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- dman 13y agoWhere theres spy theres always counter spy. If ticket giving drones get more widespread it will make economic sense to launch a drone service to monitor the ticket giving drones.
- georgemcbay 13y ago
- borplk 13y agoPeople will laugh it off until the next Snowden will release the slides and it suddenly becomes a reality.
- CodeCube 13y agoThere are signs along I-4 here in Florida (between Orlando and Tampa) that say that there is aerial surveillance looking for speeders for several years now. Though, there's a picture of a cessna-type plane on the sign, heavily suggesting it's a human pilot :P
- rucker 13y agoI've seen this same thing along I-71 in Ohio.
- chiph 13y agoThose are real. The pilot times how long it takes you to travel between two lines painted on the road. If it takes too little time, he radios to one of his buddies in a patrol car. You then get a "reward" for being a fast driver.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- finnw 13y agoI had difficulty parsing that title. At first I read it as '"Fake Signs On Bay Area Highways" Say Drones Looking For Speeders' i.e. there are already drones enforcing the speed limit, and they are reporting (or being confused by) fake signs (maybe installed by pranksters for that purpose.)
- lettergram 13y agoI like the idea, simple and effective.
- nsxwolf 13y agoYou like governments spending your money on lies to make people paranoid?
- lettergram 13y agoI was talking about the pranksters that made the signs...
- nsxwolf 13y agoSorry. I didn't do a good job on my reading comprehension.
- freejack 13y agoI love the denial... “Along with not having drones we definitely do not have any drones that would fire any type of weaponry.” Somehow I think the second class is already covered by the first class. A conspiracy nut would have a field day with how this parses ;-)
- Ygg2 13y ago"Also those drones definitely do not have any MSG-31 equipped. And their speed is definitely not above the state limit. Well not by much anyway." Damn, that makes for some fine ass comedy.
- volume 13y agoI'll take a stab at it! Let's zero in on the use of "any". It's worded in a way that's true - that technically all the drones they have don't fire a range of weaponry. By that statement then, there might be a specific drone they have, which fires a specific type of weaponry.
- mikeash 13y agoI can't find the Any Drone!
- dspillett 13y agoIt is a bit like the two statements I've seen about the UK government having accessed information via PRISM: they have both denied using it at all, and stated that when they did use it such use was within the law.
- chaz 13y agoCommon grammatical mistake. This is similar to the phrase "let alone," and is supposed to be used to underscore the first point by raising a second, even broader point. Ex: "I don't like burgers, let alone red meat." But a lot of people get the phrasing mixed up.
- michaelbuddy 13y agopolice dry humor at it's finest.
- confluence 13y agoDrones are the new Gods; in more ways than one it would seem (watch everything/arbiters of life and death/random collateral damage). I remember that when I was a kid, adults would always tell me not to do anything wrong, lest I incur God's or Santa's wrath, and that they were watching my every move, every minute, of everyday. Which was complete bullshit, and struck me as extremely creepy behavior at the time, but that's besides the point. I guess it's time for the adults to watch out now, because the drones are coming, and they can see (and kill) everything. The robots are, or rather will be, watching you; so you better be nice, because ARGUS (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5273000 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5273000) has a kill list (http://www.infowars.com/colbert-warned-he-may-be-on-government-drone-strike-kill-list/ http://www.infowars.com/colbert-warned-he-may-be-on-governme...), and it won't won't be checking it twice (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6061816 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6061816). Robot Santa Claus is coming to town (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AizNTA3q7Fk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AizNTA3q7Fk). Welcome to the future, kiddies. Transcript for people too busy to watch the video: > He knows when you are sleeping, he knows when you're on the can, he'll hunt you down and blast your ass from here to Pakistan. Oh, you'd better not breathe, you'd better not move, you're better off dead, I'm telling you, dude. Santa Claus is gunning you down! From here to Pakistan huh? Wasn't Futurama prescient. Merry Xmas everybody.
- rfnslyr 13y agoWe need secretly funded personal security startups to counter all the bullshit of the government. None of this cute website photo startup bullshit. Serious hardcore hardware engineering. The nerds, geeks, and engineers will soon run this world if we play our cards right.
- namank 13y ago(Copyright 2013 by CBS San Francisco. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.) Does this notice, found at the end of the article, imply it is illegal to post the article on HN? Or is it ok since we are redistributing the link and not the article itself?
- LoganCale 13y agoA link is merely a way to direct someone's attention to something someone else has posted online. Sharing a link, unless it is a link specifically generated for an individual who licensed a copy of something and got a unique link to obtain it at, is not a copyright violation.
- bradleyland 13y agoThe important phrase is "This material". A link is no more "the material" than a phone number is a conversation.
- DanWaterworth 13y agoIsn't that the same justification used for collecting meta-data?
- ChuckMcM 13y agoI saw a pair, the one sign said "Speed Checked by RADAR" and the drone one said "Speed Enforced By Aircraft". The one I saw had been hand painted over the regular sign. I thought it was quite funny, wondered if it broke some law. Clearly it does which is understandable I suppose. But what about those signs that say "Speeders are Losers" in various neighborhoods, are they too subject to citation?
- ics 13y agoIf you're on the east coast, those signs are on I-81 through Virginia. I haven't seen them in any adjacent states.
- snambi 13y agoWow... someone has a real sense of humor and ability to execute the details.
- gvb 13y agoIf you look closely at the sign, you can see it has just fired a missile (in front of the port wing leading edge). Now that's speed enforcement!
- TallGuyShort 13y agoIt's sad that I can read that, miss the word 'fake', and not be surprised at all. I was a bit too far away to be 100% sure but I'm pretty sure I saw a drone taking off from Moffett Field the other day. I've been meaning to look into whether or not there are publicly-acknowledge test-flights happening there or anything. edit: publicintelligence.net says there are "future" plans by the Army for launching drones from Moffett Field.
- sonoffett 13y agoI've been seeing this recently (past month) as well on 237, along with another coworker.
- pasquinelli 13y agowhat's a fake sign?
- outworlder 13y agoA sign that's... fake? As in, not real? In this case, it means that the signs were not posted by the authorities.
- pawrvx 13y agoThat sign is real.
- pasquinelli 13y ago"A sign that's... fake? As in, not real?" don't think about that too hard, you may have a seizure. "In this case, it means that the signs were not posted by the authorities." well, i think in this case it really means a sign that lies, because if they were posted by the authorities or not, if they tell the truth, who would call them fake? but then, a sign is anything that can be used to tell a lie... i think i just had a seizure.
- jasonjei 13y agoSadly, the signs although being humor could easily become reality in the next few years.
- kens 13y agoOn the topic of fake road signs, there's the famous story of Los Angeles artist Richard Ankrom making and installing a perfectly-crafted modification to a freeway sign on the 110 to provide better directions to I-5. For months nobody realized the sign was "fake". Caltrans ended up liking the sign and left it up for 8 years before replacing it with a "real" one. http://www.laweekly.com/2009-12-31/la-life/richard-ankrom-s-freeway-art-caltrans-buys-into-the-prank/full/ http://www.laweekly.com/2009-12-31/la-life/richard-ankrom-s-...
- ajryan 13y agoI have a guess at the perpetrators: http://nonchalance.com/ http://nonchalance.com/
- Lambdanaut 13y agoHaha, that's not the only place they are. I've seen them on the east coast too. I can't remember the exact highway, but I'm pretty sure it was in North Carolina. I thought they were legit at the time, and it sparked a pretty interesting conversation about privacy.
- alxndr 13y ago"Along with not having drones we definitely do not have any drones that would fire any type of weaponry." Doth protest too much?
- hathawaymoore 13y agoWhen flying cars take over- I wonder if speed enforcement by drone use will make the sky look like a Star Wars aerial battle/chase? Don't drive too fast Luke- your father will nuke you
- iyulaev 13y agoTickets require the driver to be identified. There's no law about wearing a mask while driving.
- aegiso 13y agoThere are already laws popping up that criminalize masked protest. Getting this one passed will be child's play.
- weej 13y agoReminds me of the NYC Street Art that created some creative awareness surrounding drones: http://hyperallergic.com/61192/street-artist-behind-nyc-drone-posters-arrested/ http://hyperallergic.com/61192/street-artist-behind-nyc-dron...
- nfriedly 13y ago“The best way to get a bad law repealed is to enforce it strictly.” - Abraham Lincoln I'd kind of like to see drones that automatically ticket anyone going 0.1mph over the speed limit or break any other of a dozen silly traffic laws. I think it would lead to both saner traffic laws AND safer roads.
- zevyoura 13y agoThis is an art project by Stephen Whisler; there are pictures of him installing them here: http://stephenwhisler.net/Sculpture/Pages/Speed_Enforced_by_Drones.html http://stephenwhisler.net/Sculpture/Pages/Speed_Enforced_by_...
- gojomo 13y agoWe can only wish authorities would have to invest in fueling and maintaining drones, visible in the sky, to enforce speeding law. The signs could say: SPEED ENFORCED BY TRACKING YOUR MOBILE PHONE ...or even... SPEED ENFORCED BY REVIEWING LOGS OF GOOGLE MAPS INTERACTIONS Eventually navigation apps could offer both an "estimated travel time" and a "don't make the trip in less time than this, or we'll have to report you for a speeding citation".