Day 13 of house arrest…quarantine…whatever.  Finding things to occupy my daytime hours is becoming scant.  While my daily necessities are still in high enough supply, my cellmates are taking to watching Survivor again.  There must be something out there to amuse me.  Lets check out Facebook.

Okay.  Thats mostly retarded.

This is my review of Primator Double Bock

“Hero” is perhaps a stretch when talking about the guy stocking the produce at the local supermarket, and that seems to be in style at the moment.  Given thats how many of us, including me, got started professionally, I’m not about to knock it.  In fact I’ll go to bat for the garbage man.  That man hauling away your trash is definitely a hero.  In spite of the sentiment, nearly all the jobs there will be eventually replaced by an AI.  Even the cop?  Especially the cop!  The trouble is preventing it from turning into a surveillance state.

Consider this scenario of a routine traffic stop gone wrong.  Here the cops attempted to stop a vehicle speeding, who reacted to the police pursuit by fleeing, resulting in a car wreck.  The suspects then fled the scene when the cops noticed the driver had a shotgun.  Which then escalated into a shootout, with the cops claiming began when the driver shot at them.  Eventually, a citizen with a CCW made a hit on the driver who fled once again, and tried to hide away…it ended when yet another citizen apprehended the driver.

The passenger is still at large and don’t worry, none of the police were harmed…

It is fair to argue this whole thing could have been prevented by the suspects following traffic laws which meant the cops had no reason to pursue.  The reverse of that argument is had two guys not show up armed, in a semi-armored vehicle with an easy means of coordination between other similarly armed individuals to issue a traffic citation, perhaps the suspects wouldn’t be so paranoid?

Given the majority of crime is property crime and even most violent crimes never being enforced while the crime is in progress, a human cop to file the report can probably be replaced by the victim filing via a web portal.  Because the response time in some localities can be long enough for a cop to literally show up late enough to the scene and everyone including the victim being gone, the real engineering problem lies in stopping crimes in progress against a victim unwilling or unable to defend themselves. The above scenario began as a traffic citation.  Photo radar and red light cameras are a common enough where I live, but I hate them, so lets have traffic enforced by a system of drones.  Go too fast, one records the license plate and the location and mail the citation to an address on file, just make them few enough in number and program it so its presence doesn’t impede the flow of traffic.  I’m not terribly worried about the 5-10 MPH over the limit driver (I’ll admit I’m that guy), its the guy going 95 in a residential neighborhood.  Besides, with self driving cars becoming more of a reality that might eventually solve itself.

More….effective.

For a real crime?  Lets say a few of these drones has a single counter measure built in.  1 in 20 has a measure to safely stop a vehicle.  1 in 3 has a less than lethal means to stop a person, like a taser.  Apprehend long enough for a driverless cruiser to pick them up.   The suspect won’t get in the cruiser?  Record the suspect’s face, determine the identity (if possible) and file an arrest warrant to be enforced by a more…effective means later on.  The idea is to prevent the situation from escalating into yet another quagmire.

For example, 911 is called for a robbery at a convenience store, these drones would then scour the area for a suspect matching the description.  Program them not to deploy the counter measure unless a number of qualifications are met.  Even then, being less than lethal lowers the stakes as does enforcement not being a person, because killing a drone will never equal killing a cop.  How would they know which is the right guy?  That I cannot answer intelligently, after all human cops can find probable cause in a nearly infinite number of scenarios.  Putting a series of well known go/no go rules in place seems like a way to cut down on unnecessary collateral damage ensuing from poor decision making from the blue line crowd.

There will certainly be a few bugs to work out, but I’m sure one of the nerds here can come up with a better idea.  Overall its a system that sounds expensive enough only the government is dumb enough to buy it.

 

While I had high expectations for this one, most doppelbocks are malt heavy but somewhat balanced by using a number of malts to keep it from being too sweet.  This is not one of those. While it pours like engine oil and has a pleasant mouthfeel, this one is sort of like a drinking a Dr. Pepper reduction.  Primator Double Bock:  2.8/5