[QUOTE=vibrotronica]
Why are you asserting they were seen when I’ve given you proof that they were?
[/QUOTE]
Not they, “one.” And not the one that caused the problem. Anyway, why are you asserting they were seen, when they plainly weren’t, at least not by the people who mattered? Is that really your argument: they should have been seen, and because they weren’t, we’re now going to deride the police and the mayor as acting like maniacs?
As to why they weren’t seen when they were meant to be advertising, that’s the million-dollar question. But judging by the fact that these things were meant to be run by D-cells and were exposed to the snow and rain, I think the simple answer is that the campaign was bungled. In more ways than one.
[QUOTE=lowbrass]
I have wires and D-cells at my house. Should we call the bomb squad?
[/QUOTE]
If you don’t make a distinction between wires and D-cells at your house and wires and D-cells attached to a mysterious package that suddenly appears on a highway support, I think we have more here than a simple failure to communicate.
[QUOTE=Sal Ammoniac]
Oh? So if you see something with a couple of D-cells and some wires attached to a dark object that suddenly appears on a highway support, what do *you *think it is? If one of the possibilities that passes through your mind *isn’t *“bomb,” then I bow down to your lamb-like innocence. And once the idea passes through your head that it *may *be a bomb – even if it’s only a 10% chance – do you do nothing?
[/QUOTE]
It didn’t “suddenly appear” (except, I suppose, on the first day of the campaign). And you mentioned in an earlier post that there is no evidence that anyone had seen them, that no one that did see them told the pollce…? BINGO! No one told the police because NO ONE WAS FREAKED OUT until some person decided that “unfamiliar” equals “dangerous.”
Add me to the list of people who think that pretty much anything with three dimensions could be a bomb; in fact I would think it far more likely that a terrorist-built bomb would be heavily camouflaged to look like an ordinary object, not something “suspicious.”
That quote from the D.A. (“Attorney General John Grossman called the light boards “bomblike” devices and said that if they had been explosive they could have damaged infrastructure and transportation in the city.”) is just plain idiotic. If they were explosive? No shit, sherlock. If apples were explosive, they could do some serious damage as well. It sure sounds like you’re going to seek to punish people for using things that, if they were explosive, could be dangerous. Thought crimes are just around the corner, people.
The fact is that hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of people in 15 MAJOR cities saw these things for weeks and didn’t call the police to report a bomb. That alone should be a pretty strong indication that these things weren’t “bomblike”, despite what a few morons up in Boston would like us to believe.
I’m not going to say fuck Boston, but fuck the mayor and the police chief. They should give up the hoax bullshit and accept the egg on their face.
[/QUOTE]
I am thinking if different people were hired in different cities to hang these signs, these two guys (who sound like a couple of real winners) may have chosen to put them in places that were more suspicious and/or harder to see and remove. I am curious where the signs were placed in other cities. Were they up high on bridges or right at eye level where people could see what they were and easily get them?
Even if they did not intend to cause a bomb scare, they were doing something illegal that resulted in a huge inconvenience and expense for the city. They do deserve to be punished for that. Maybe not five years in jail, but I don’t think the city is wrong to pursue legal action.
[QUOTE=Sal Ammoniac]
If you don’t make a distinction between wires and D-cells at your house and wires and D-cells attached to a mysterious package that suddenly appears on a highway support, I think we have more here than a simple failure to communicate.
[/QUOTE]
“Mysterious package”? What the fuck are you talking about?
It was a fucking Light-Bright. It was a circuit board with tiny light bulbs stuck in it in the shape of a cartoon character.
[QUOTE=tdn]
I can, but I won’t. Here is my reasoning: A bomb expert looks at the device, and concludes that caution is prudent. You, with your extensive Warner Brothers background, see a web image and conclude it’s a Lite Brite. Whose expertise do you think I’m more comfortable with?
[/QUOTE]
Boston Police think they’re bombs, freak out, and charge the guys who placed them.
Seattle police (see link above) say they’re not of any concern, and they aren’t worried about it.
Whose expertise are you trusting there? Especially since the “experts” that thought they were bombs are wrong, while the ones that didn’t think they were bombs are right?
[QUOTE=Cuckoorex]
It didn’t “suddenly appear” (except, I suppose, on the first day of the campaign). And you mentioned in an earlier post that there is no evidence that anyone had seen them, that no one that did see them told the pollce…? BINGO! No one told the police because NO ONE WAS FREAKED OUT until some person decided that “unfamiliar” equals “dangerous.”
[/QUOTE]
But what does that prove? Just because some people may (and I stress may) have seen it and not reported it doesn’t mean that it was innocuous, or even innocuous-looking. I ask you again: seeing something such as I have described, affixed to a highway support, wouldn’t *you *have had at least a shadow of a suspicion?
You guys need to think of the psychology of this. Imagine the commuter looking up, and seeing a vaguely suspicious object. He or she does the right thing, and reports it to the nearest T worker, saying, “Hey, you may want to look at this.” Now, the worker is sort of primed by this to viewing the object with suspicion. The worker looks up, sees something suspicious that he or she knows should not be there, sees what looks like a triggering device, and calls the police. The police are even more primed to view it as a bomb because of this phone call. And needing to be more prudent than Joe Citizen, they call the bomb squad and set the whole thing in motion.
For us, having been told exactly what these devices are and why they were put there, and having seen closeups on the web, it’s easy for us ito say, “Those don’t look a bit like bombs! I can’t believe how Boston overreacted!” Hindsight is 20-20, as the saying is.
[QUOTE=lowbrass]
You know, it’s not so much that the Boston authorities did something - my first thought upon hearing the story was, “better to be overly cautious than not cautious enough”.
[/QUOTE]
And yet that’s the point you keep arguing. If your actual point is that Menino is making too big a deal out of this, then make your case for that. I might even be convinced to agree with you. But to compare wires and batteries on a bridge to your computer is to miss your own point.
[QUOTE=Kokopilau]
Whose expertise are you trusting there? Especially since the “experts” that thought they were bombs are wrong, while the ones that didn’t think they were bombs are right?
[/QUOTE]
They came to different conclusions. That happens. But I would still wager that the ones that were wrong have more training than you and me.
[QUOTE=Sal Ammoniac]
It was only a fucking Light-Bright for those who haven’t read the thread.
[/QUOTE]
Have you read it too? I posted already a link to an AS thread that showed that:
Guys reported seeing the signs last week.
They did not confuse them with bombs.
And one guy even took one sign home. (After seeing the evidence, it is clear that was part of the deal, the signs had no permissions and so it was finder’s keepers, an element of that kind of advertisement)
[QUOTE=lowbrass]
Anyone who thinks they looked like bombs does not possess the ability to look at and process the information in a photograph.
[/QUOTE]
You’re still arguing that they didn’t look like bombs. Why? I thought you conceded the point.
[QUOTE=lowbrass]
Anyone who thinks they looked like bombs does not possess the ability to look at and process the information in a photograph.
[/QUOTE]
So everyone on the Boston police bomb squad is a certifiable moron, is that what you’re arguing? As is the person who reported it in the first place – who could be an MIT professor, for all you know – as well as the workers on the T?
And how does that square with your notion that it’s “better to be overly cautious than not cautious enough”?
[QUOTE=Sal Ammoniac]
For us, having been told exactly what these devices are and why they were put there, and having seen closeups on the web, it’s easy for us ito say, “Those don’t look a bit like bombs! I can’t believe how Boston overreacted!” Hindsight is 20-20, as the saying is.
[/QUOTE]
So what about the cities that DIDN’T flip out? Its fine (I suppose) to be overly cautious, but don’t get all huffy and demand compensation when it turns out you were wrong.
[QUOTE=tdn]
They came to different conclusions. That happens. But I would still wager that the ones that were wrong have more training than you and me.
[/QUOTE]
Let me put it another way. You have a headache. A friend takes you to the hospital, where one doctor screams “It’s brain cancer! BRAIN CANCER! Prep for surgery IMMEDIATELY!”
However, another doctor says, “It’s just a mild dehydration headache,” and none of the other doctors at the hospital make any sort of fuss. Then, another friend reveals that you’d been out drinking the night before, so your headache is just a hangover, exactly like the second doctor said.
In response, the first doctor charges the friend who brought you to the hospital with attempting to defraud him by making him think you had cancer when it was just a hangover all along.
Would you go back to that first doctor again for any sort of diagnosis, saying “Well, he went to medical school, he knows more than me,” despite both the common-sense reaction of your friend and the medical opinions of other doctors being diametrically opposed to that first doctor’s reaction?
[QUOTE=Sal Ammoniac]
So everyone on the Boston police bomb squad is a certifiable moron, is that what you’re arguing? As is the person who reported it in the first place – who could be an MIT professor, for all you know – as well as the workers on the T?
[QUOTE=tdn]
And yet that’s the point you keep arguing. If your actual point is that Menino is making too big a deal out of this, then make your case for that. I might even be convinced to agree with you. But to compare wires and batteries on a bridge to your computer is to miss your own point.
[/QUOTE]
Are you having a hard time keeping up? Here are the salient points:
The fact that something has a circuit board, wires, and a battery does not necessarily mean it “looks like a bomb”
The Boston authorities over-reacted. The PROOF of this is the fact that the devices were in place for weeks without incident, AND the fact that authorities in other cities were able to come to the rational conclusion that these devices were not a threat, thus avoiding a major incident. Boston authorities are the ONLY ones who reacted so stupidly.
GIVEN THAT, I could still forgive the over-reaction, had they not CONTINUED to bluster about the incident, had they not arrested people on absurd charges, and had the media not turned this into a firestorm over nothing.
What exactly are you having a hard time understanding here?