Are they going to follow FAA rules then or just do whatever they want and kill people every now and then when they crash/fall out of the sky?

No, they’ll do whatever they want and kill people deliberately, frequently, whenever they say something which disagrees with the dictatorship state definition of truth. Give it a decade

Oh boy. Ain’t gonna take that long.

How long can these even stay airborn? This is a REALLY stupid idea.

Maybe 40 minutes.

Well when they crash the company needs to replace the whole drone, so they are probably going to try to avoid that when possible.

That said, they should have to obey faa regs, but while the laws for private use are pretty clear, the commercial use regulations are layered and sort of in flux. Major operators are always pushing to have laws adjusted, and because leadership in the US is generally overly supportive of big business, those changes often go into place.

In other words, there ARE laws, but you know, it’s the US, so they can probably change them.

I think this will depend less on the FAA and more on local jurisdiction. the FAA doesn’t really have that much restrictions in place for low altitude drones (< 400 ft) they require it to be registered due to commercial but, the 2026 modifications for usage removed a lot of the safety barriers and controls that were in place for them. Now it’s basically as long as its registered and the lights are bright enough to be seen, it’s allowed unless there’s a local law forbidding it.

Isn’t there an fcc rule about drones needing to be in the line of sight of the operator

I’ve been waiting for this for a long time. Drones are cheap. Automating their flight is a super solved problem. At some point every cop car will have a drone on demand that can pop out and follow. They’ll launch some slow movers with big blades and just have them patrol. 30-40 minute flights.

Skeet shooting: city edition

The maximum viable elevation that you can hit a target at with a shotgun is ~40m, or ~55m with a very tight choke. Drones can comfortably operate much higher than that. I guess it might work from the roof of a skyscraper though.

time to deploy our own counter-drone drones

This is already a thing

A handful in the sky is still a lot less useful than the thousands on the ground. We need them off the streets and then we can deal with the drones.

I don’t think sending a couple drones to canvas a city grid from the sky would count as less useful. In fact, it’d be a lot faster than strapping a camera to a truck/car. Really depends how they are used. But worst case scenario, both drones and fixed cameras work in conjunction, which they obviously would.

While I agree that the street-level cameras should urgently be taken care of, don’t underestimate what a stationary aerial drone can do over a couple of hours.

Listen to Radiolab’s Eye in the Sky episode. Think of the possibilities that have opened up because of drone tech in the 10 years since it first aired (and the 20 years since the tech was used in Iraq). It’s truly frightening what these drones will be able to accomplish once they are in place.

“Normally what would happen… is like one cop would have heard that, flip on the blue lights, race down there… and someone’s about to die,” [Flock CEO Garrett] Langley explained, describing a case in which a woman called 911 on a man, who later turned out to be holding a lighter, not a gun, as initially suspected. “Instead, they launch the drone.”

Langley claimed that “we have thousands and thousands of stories like that where communities are safer now with our drones. They’re safer with our cameras.”

That’s your prime example of a community becoming safer? The cops droning a mf because he lit a cigarette and some Karen panicked? You’re the CEO of the fucking company with like the worst PR and you say this shit.

“We know cops are racist so we’ve lessened their load by making our drones racist too.”

“Why are they not clapping”

I read it as the drones protecting the civilians from the trigger-happy cops rushing in first.

How does that even change the situation to make things safer? Are they gonna crash the drone into a suspect to diffuse a situation? Unless Flock is advertising domestic drone strikes, then the only feasible deliverables are more spying and more profiling.

No body gonna be driving when the markets crash.

Frankly, what a bunch of fucking creeps. Does no one else find it weird that they’re hellbent on spying on people? If it weren’t for the government we’d probably lock up these fucking psychos.

No, it’s not weird.

No, it really fucking is tho.

I have no doubt this is thiel’s work. He needs the data for his surveillance machine.

Next week having closed courtains will be illegal. What’s going on in there? Probably something suspicious! Why is your bathroom window frosted?!

They will go down kicking and screaming. A company like flock has tons of investor capital. That results in a board putting tons of pressure on executive leadership. They will never go “oops nevermind this was a bad idea”. It’s just a other front in the class war against the billionaire Epstein class.

wonder how hard it is to hit those…

Probably pretty easy with a shotgun

m.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_VNnkB-i54

Depending on the drone, might be harder than I initially thought

So, target practice.

I forgot that there was a sport meant to help train you for shooting drones out of the sky

Everyone told you shooting skeet was a useless hobby.

These guys really don’t get the message eh?

It should be legal to destroy corpo property.

It is if you ask me.

According to my laws, this is not forbidden.

one thing I learned is that everything is legal as long as you don’t get caught.

I mean, if it hovers, a laser to a camera is a known thing…

Genuine question…I’ve only ever thought that was some kind of movie magic we all accepted as reality. Could you blind a camera with any kind of laser pointer? Like, Dollar store shit would work? or it needs to be a special frequency or something?

Not 100% sure if laser wattage matters. I’m sure if not a higher wattage just does it faster. A YT search for laser pointer camera probably would give you an idea.

After Looking at those vids myself it does seem wattage is a factor, and steadiness of the pointer does too.

Be very careful to adequately protect your eyes when using lasers. Different laser wavelengths need different eye protection

In other news, falconry has become unexpectedly popular.

Once this becomes the norm next podcast is “What if we put small tasers on the drones? Our communities become much safer!”. And then handguns etc…

And when they get hacked, people will be able to do mass shootings from the comfort of their own homes. That’s what I call progress!

quietly

The drone on the thumbnail looks like the german flag!

It’s so distinct that it must be intentional.

sounds expensive

They’re just copying Chinese ideas, don’t they ?

Can we use jammers against them perhaps?

I have a 12G one.

lovely😍😍

A lot of americans already have them. I’m unfamiliar with them, but they’ve all got names like dezziteegoo and smiffunwessun.

Fun as it may be to shoot them out of the sky, that’s not super feasible in urban or suburban areas. Don’t want to risk the possibility of the bullet hitting someone on the way down and the neighbors probably wouldn’t appreciate the gunshots

Converting a little microwave oven to a homemade jammer gun never hurt anyone (it has).

No. Its highly illegal to jam frequencies. If you find one legal to jam the drone can change frequency.

At this point, does it matter if its illegal? Lets rather ask is it safe? is it easy to avoid getting caught? is it low risk for damage?

It is likely you’ll get caught yes.

Same with those destroying flock cameras in general. People still do it.

No not the same. Destroying a camera you put a mask on and go break it and run away and the punishment is basically nothing. Flying license plate drones would require you to run a jammer which is like activating a beacon on your exact location and carrys a huge punishment.

Bold move in a nation that treats firearms target practice as a sport.

First thing I thought of was “TARGET PRACTICE!”

Crowbar stocks is on the rise.