Tom Scott took a pair of DJI Phantom 3 drones to the University of Manchester’s High Voltage Laboratory, where they can manufacture lightning strikes measuring over a million volts. The goal was to see what happens to a drone were it to get struck by lightning while flown in a storm, and the results will probably…
Portable DIY gaming units have been popular for a long time, and with the launch of the tiny, wireless-capable Raspberry Pi Zero W, it seems like a great time to get back to making these small handhelds. Warner Skoch revisited this concept with the mintyPi 2.0, a gaming device in an Altoids tin.
This is the second version. The first was basically a prototype. This model is so good that it looks like a professionally-produced system. He used 3D printing to cover up the messy guts inside, and switched to a USB-based audio module for better sound too. Thanks to the new RPi Zero W, it has Wi-Fi now too.
The creator says that he will provide instructions and 3D blueprints soon so you can build one too. It looks like a fun project for playing retro games on the go.
It’s time for Overwatch‘s next seasonal event, but instead of drawing inspiration from real-world happenings like holidays or the Olympics, this one focuses on Overwatch lore. This new event, dubbed Overwatch: Uprising, will take us back in time, to a period before Overwatch was disbanded and was needed to prevent another Omnic crisis. To start things off, the trailer shows … Continue reading
Acura promised last year that its Precision Concept would donate its distinctive styling to production models sooner rather than later, and the 2018 Acura TLX is next in line. The company’s luxury sports sedan is targeting younger, more eager drivers with its big revamp for the 2018 model year, complete with the marque’s new signature diamond pentagon grille. Inside, meanwhile, … Continue reading
In the near future, NASA will broadcast what it says is the first ever 4K live video from space. The broadcast will take place from the International Space Station on April 26, and it’ll showcase NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson as part of a larger panel dubbed Reaching for the Stars: Connecting to the Future with NASA and Hollywood. The broadcast … Continue reading
A simple move could have prevented the PR fiasco engulfing United Airlines after they forcibly removed a passenger from a full plane, several pilots told The Huffington Post.
In order to add four United employees to the flight from Chicago to Louisville, staff reportedly offered $400 and a hotel stay to anyone who volunteered to disembark, increasing the amount to $800 without volunteers. Finally, airline reps said they used a computer to choose passengers at random.
Dr. David Dao declined to leave the flight when selected, saying he need to be in Louisville to treat patients the next day, and was bloodied as police removed him from his seat. Airline reps should’ve simply upped the amount of the voucher until someone volunteered on their own, said pilot Karlene Petit.
“Management could have made a PA and asked, ‘Who will give up their seat for $500?… $800?… $1,000?’” said Petit, who has flown for Northwest and Delta. “Someone would have given up their seat for the right price.”
Of course, internal airline rules are strict. Patrick Smith, a pilot for a major airline, said it’s likely the crew on Sunday’s flight were told not to offer vouchers for more than $800 (federal regulations put the cap at $1,350). But if they had been empowered, they could have bent their own rules to avoid what’s now a potentially multimillion dollar PR disaster.
“What I sense is that the airline’s staff reached a point, after perhaps offering whatever dollar amounts their procedures called for, where they simply didn’t know what to do, and nobody was brave enough, or resourceful enough, to come up with something,” Smith wrote on his blog, askthepilot.com. “Summoning the police simply became the easiest way to pass the buck.
“Airline culture is often such that thinking creatively, and devising a proverbial outside-the-box solution, is almost actively discouraged,” he added. “Employees are often so afraid of being reprimanded for making a bad decision (not to mention being pressed for time) that they don’t make a decision at all.”
The incident, captured in disturbing video, happened on a United Express flight operated by Republic Airways.
“This is a typical set-up for passenger service disaster: the situation develops quickly, after normal business hours, little upstream supervision, decision shoved down to the field level,” airline captain Chris Manno told HuffPost. The result? “…Customer service failure.”
We’d have to agree on the failure part.
United did not respond to an inquiry from HuffPost. The idea of empowering employees to handle such situations differently wasn’t mentioned in CEO Oscar Munoz’ first response to employees on Monday. Instead, he sent a controversial email that noted workers “followed established procedures” and seemed to blame Dao for “[defying] Chicago Aviation Security Officers the way he did.”
On Tuesday afternoon, Munoz apologized, promising a review of the company’s policies for incentivizing volunteers.
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Social media exploded on Sunday with footage of a police officer wrenching a screaming man out of his airplane seat and dragging him down the aisle like a rag doll, blood seeping from the side of his mouth.
People around the world directed their ire at United Airlines, which offered a corporately manicured response apologizing for having to “re-accomodate” 69-year-old doctor David Dao and three other customers to make space for company employees that needed seats. United maintains that it followed proper procedure, but something isn’t right about watching Dao get battered and publicly humiliated simply for insisting on sitting in a seat he paid for.
Let’s not ignore what we’re seeing. Yet again, an uncomfortable and repulsive outburst of state-sanctioned violence ― this time at the behest of a massive corporation ― is captivating the nation’s attention. The Chicago Aviation officer was unquestionably brutal in this instance, and his actions follow a disturbing trend of U.S. police resorting to force, even when it seems to most observers like they’d be better off avoiding it at all costs.
As with most controversial use-of-force incidents, officials will now examine whether the officer acted lawfully in this scenario. The Chicago Department of Aviation has reportedly placed the officer on administrative leave pending an investigation, and said in a statement that it does not condone his actions. But legal or not, the confrontation could have larger consequences.
Subsequent videos show Dao return to the plane after the altercation, saying he needs to go home. In one, he appears disoriented and mutters repeatedly to himself.
The scene is chilling, in part because Dao appears to not have received medical attention, said Monnica T. Williams, a clinical psychologist and associate professor of psychology at the University of Connecticut who has studied the effects of police brutality.
“I can’t imagine seeing a white woman treated in this way, just left to bleed with possibly some sort of severe head injury,” she said.
Dao was later taken away on a stretcher, according to the Associated Press.
United CEO Oscar Munoz blamed Dao for the officer’s reaction, calling the doctor “disruptive and belligerent” and suggesting airline personnel and police had no choice but to physically extract him from the plane.
But if the officer’s actions were necessary to ensure the plane’s timely departure, they certainly failed to achieve that goal. The flight was grounded for hours after the disruption, in order to allow staff to clean Dao’s blood from the cabin. And in the end, this approach will likely cost United far more money than if staff had simply offered passengers additional money to deplane voluntarily.
Munoz’s statement also reflects a tendency of those in positions of power to excuse law enforcement for using violence to force compliance. Authority figures consistently argue that it’s the responsibility of civilians to act in a way that could not invite officers to use force, and never the responsibility of the officers to consider ways to de-escalate and avoid it.
The incident also highlights broader concerns about the culture of U.S. law enforcement, which many have criticized for embracing a role as “warriors” rather than “guardians.” Multiple bystander videos in recent years have captured officers showing little hesitation to use force, even in seemingly sensitive situations. In many of these cases, a cop’s use of force leads to a precipitous escalation of the situation.
Trust in law enforcement has suffered at times as a result. A 2015 survey showed confidence in police had fallen to its lowest level in 22 years, though a similar poll taken the next year found that respect for law enforcement had rebounded.
Opinions on law enforcement’s use of force are consistently divided along racial lines, with white and black Americans showing drastically differing views of the issue. Although 75 percent of white respondents said police use the right amount of force, only 33 percent of black respondents agreed, according to a 2016 survey.
Victims of violence often suffer from trauma beyond their physical wounds. Many report feeling psychological symptoms like anxiety or post-traumatic stress, and those issues can be compounded when the aggressor is in law enforcement, Williams said.
“Part of the whole syndrome of PTSD is that you feel like the world is not a safe place, so you’re constantly vigilant, constantly on guard,” she said. “And what better way for them to learn that the world isn’t safe when the people who are supposed to protect you are harming you or brutalizing you and not taking any steps to keep you safe.”
The debate over police tactics typically revolves around law enforcement activity in communities ― often communities of color, which tend to experience policing differently. But the fact that we’re seeing this happen on an airplane should open people’s eyes, Williams said.
“It reminds us all that the police can do whatever they want to us, even if you’re a doctor on a plane,” she said. “They can harm you if you don’t obey.”
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A crafty canine was filmed breaking out of a Virginia animal hospital during an overnight stay by casually opening the doors with his mouth, securing his bid for freedom.
General, a Great Pyrenees, was staying at the Aquia-Garrisonville Animal Hospital in Stafford on Monday when surveillance footage captured his late-night adventure, NBC Washington reports.
After opening the door to his cage ― rousing the curiosity of another nearby dog ― he went to work on turning another door’s handle with his mouth. Video next shows him exiting the building and strolling around the parking lot.
Fortunately for General and his family, he was later found resting in a nearby yard and an animal control officer returned him, the animal hospital said in a Facebook post.
“He’s a little Houdini,” General’s owner, Travis Campbell, who dropped his pet off at the hospital as his family vacationed out of town, told ABC7 News. “When it comes to doors, he can get a lot of doors open.”
As for how General was able to get out the back door, the animal hospital explained on Facebook that the door isn’t locked from the inside, but instead requires a keypad to open from the outside. When General opened it from the inside, he triggered an alarm, which is how they realized he had gotten out.
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When news of an active shooter inside an elementary school broke on Monday morning, it triggered panic and alarm. For residents of San Bernardino, California, a community still reeling from the trauma of a terrorist attack that killed 14 people less than two years ago, it was as though a fresh wound had been ripped wide open.
But as the details of the shooting emerged, it became clear that what took place inside that classroom was driven by domestic violence, not ideology. The story police told was as American as apple pie: A rage-filled man taking his wife’s life.
The incident, however sad, would not inspire President Donald Trump to address the nation. It would not create pressure for politicians to act. It would not even start a conversation about the role of domestic abuse as a major driver of gun violence in the U.S. As HuffPost’s Michael Calderone documented, the story was already receding from the headlines by Tuesday morning. The country had moved on.
On Monday, Karen Elaine Smith was doing what she loved best ― teaching students with intellectual disabilities ― when her estranged husband walked into her classroom armed with a .357 handgun, police say.
Cedric Anderson didn’t say a word. He “just shot everywhere” before reloading and killing himself, a child who witnessed the scene told the Los Angeles Times. Smith died. Two of her students were hit by errant bullets. One, 8-year-old Jonathan Martinez, died later that day.
An 8-year-old and his teacher were dead. But the public breathed a sigh of relief: At least the shooting was not an act of terrorism.
That reaction ― or lack of one ― is misguided. The latest San Bernardino shooting was also an act of terror ― a much more common kind, with a much higher death toll: The kind women face when trapped in abusive relationships.
According to PolitiFact, there have been 71 deaths due to extremist attacks on U.S. soil from 2005 to 2015. Compare that to the drumbeat of women killed by their intimate partners, which number three daily. In California alone, there were 118 domestic violence-related homicides in 2015. On average, there are nearly 11 murder-suicides nationally each week. Most involve a man killing his wife or girlfriend using a gun. But they get little sustained media attention.
“Multiple murders by a stranger stay in the news for weeks, often carrying demands for change. But for victims of domestic violence like Karen Elaine Smith, their stories make headlines for a day or two, and then vanish,” said Kim Gandy, CEO of the National Network To End Domestic Violence. “Despite the lives taken every single day, mainstream media treat each domestic violence case as an isolated incident, rather than a widespread national tragedy.”
According to an Everytown for Gun Safety analysis released on Tuesday, more than half of all shootings in the U.S. between 2009 and 2016 with at least 4 fatalities involved domestic or family violence. In those shootings, children made up more than 40 percent of those killed.
Our society still does not understand that domestic violence is terrorism.
Ruth Glenn, National Coalition Against Domestic Violence
Smith was planning to divorce Anderson after a brief marriage, her mother told the Los Angeles Times.
“She thought she had a wonderful husband, but she found out he was not wonderful at all,” Irma Sykes said. “She left him and that’s where the trouble began. She broke up with him and he came out with a different personality.”
Women are in the most danger when trying to leave relationships, experts say. And black women have historically experienced disproportionately high rates of fatal domestic violence. In 2013, black women were murdered at a rate two and a half times that of white women, according to a study that examined incidents in which men killed women. Smith was black.
It’s unclear if Anderson legally owned his firearm. San Bernardino Police Chief Jarrod Burguan said he had been accused of domestic violence in the past, and had weapons charges.
Ruth Glenn, executive director of the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, said that the shooting was yet another example of how critical it is to keep guns out of the hands of domestic abusers.
“Our society still does not understand that domestic violence is terrorism, that women and children remain at risk, and that firearms are increasingly becoming the weapon of choice for those who commit these acts,” she said. “This is a type of terrorism that should be recognized as such.”
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Melissa Jeltsen covers domestic violence and issues related to women’s health, safety and security. Tips? Feedback? Send an email or follow her on Twitter.
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Related stories:
Need help? In the U.S., call 1-800-799-SAFE (7233) for the National Domestic Violence Hotline.
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The executive editor of the Louisville Courier-Journal has defended an article the publication wrote exploring the previous felony convictions of the man violently dragged off a United Airlines plane out of Chicago Sunday.
David Dao, a doctor who allegedly had to be at a hospital in the morning, was seen in a video posted to social media screaming as Chicago aviation police pried him out of his chair and dragged him down the aisle on his back after United picked flyers to deplane so its employees could take their seats. United’s CEO described Dao as “disruptive and belligerent” but said he “deeply regretted” the situation that unfolded.
Since all of this went down, articles have popped up on sites like the Courier-Journal and TMZ about Dao’s “sordid history.”
The Courier-Journal’s executive editor and vice president of news, Joel Christopher, told The New Republic that the paper had covered Dao previously.
“That’s how people in the newsroom knew who he was. It was a fairly high-profile case. It was a case that stuck in people’s minds because it was high-profile,” Christopher said, adding that the article’s many critics in national media “need to make sure they’re commenting on it with full context and perspective.”
So now that we have the context, which apparently is that the paper recognized Dao from its previous reporting, what does their new story add to the United tale? Why desperately look for excuses to indict people who are thrown into public view?
No one is getting on a soapbox to defend Dao’s past actions, nor is there any need to. But in the current context, putting a spotlight on them serves an insidious purpose: It searches for some sort of justification for the corporate violence and police brutality we all witnessed.
This isn’t what journalists are supposed to be doing. And journalists are ethically obligated to “minimize harm” and “avoid pandering to lurid curiosity.”
We can’t just blame the individual writers of the articles. There are editors involved in the processes, so more than one person had to green-light this piece. This is a fundamental issue with how we the media report stories.
There are ways of reporting further details about this particular story that don’t imply what happened to Dao on that plane was something he had coming. It’s important to give the public additional background information when it’s relevant to the narrative being discussed. For example: This is prime time to look into what else United has done to deserve the public flogging it’s currently getting.
As ThinkProgress notes, the Courier-Journal piece doesn’t delve into the background of the Chicago Department of Aviation or the 10-year stretch between 2004 and 2014 when the Chicago Police Department paid out more than $500 million in brutality settlements and legal fees. “Nor does it attempt to explain why the CDA placed one officer who was involved in the Dao incident on leave but not the other two who can be seen manhandling him in videos,” ThinkProgress points out.
But as for Dao’s “sordid history,” what purpose does that serve?
This sort of unnecessary muckraking has taken place repeatedly.
For example, take Timothy Caughman, a 66-year-old New York City man who was stabbed to death by a white supremacist in March. News reports about Caughman’s murder investigated his arrest records from the 15 years prior, though his criminal history had nothing to do with his death or why his killer, James Jackson, targeted him. Jackson admitted in an interview that he “had traveled to New York from Baltimore intending to kill numerous black men.” Isn’t that more significant than charges for marijuana possession over a decade old?
We can also consider what happened to 18-year-old Michael Brown after he was fatally shot in Ferguson, Missouri. Brown’s life was dissected posthumously: The New York Times called him “no angel” due to habits deemed “problematic” ― activity that included “dabbling in drugs and alcohol,” rapping and “one scuffle with a neighbor.”
And look at what happened to Ken Bone, the red-sweatered man who asked a question during the 2016 presidential debates and won America’s hearts. After Bone had become a widespread meme, reporters discovered that he had made unsavory comments about the likes of Trayvon Martin and Jennifer Lawrence on Reddit. Again, there’s no reason to defend Bone here. The comments were bad. But what was the motive for bringing them to light?
In Dao’s case, no matter what he did in his past, United’s actions are unjustifiable.
We are living in an age where the media is under incredible scrutiny. People routinely doubt facts and even have presidential support to consider journalists an enemy. It’s important that we do our jobs as effectively as possible. But the more we dig up irrelevant dirt from people’s pasts, the more we resemble pitchfork-carrying mobs.
We don’t need to tell every story, folks. But if we must put it out there, let’s tell it right.
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