Driving Away Teens With High Frequency Noise

ars writes "The New York Times is reporting on a device called the Mosquito invented by Howard Stapleton designed to drive teens away by emitting a high frequency noise at 75db. Apparently most older people can not hear the sounds, but teens can not stand it. Reports are that it works quite well, but some older people can hear it too. He found the prefect irritating sound by experimenting on his children."

it's been around for years...

[theheff]

It's called 60's music.

g0t d3af?

[ZX81]

Isn't this just going to make the kids as deaf as the adults?

Yet another way for parents to avoid...

[The Lost Supertone]

Yet another way for parents to avoid spending time with their kids. Seriously why the heck would anyone come up with this sort of thing? As someone who works with teenagers a lot already, I have to say I'm a bit annoyed. Tons of the kids I work with through our church have parents who I swear can't be bothered to give their kids the nurture and self respect they need. Instead they just buy them things. At least an iPod nano to an unloved kid makes the kid cool at school. This'll just drive them to try more medications designed for chemical imbalances that won't fix depression brought on by these sorts of situations.

I hope it doesn't get widely deployed

[Anonymous Coward]

Teens have rights too, you can't discriminate on the basis of age.

Proper use.

[Irvu]

In another article this would be called a "nonlethal weapon". Do we really want a world where people deploy such things to drive select non customers away? Legal or not I find the idea of such a system being used not only insulting but sad.

Right

[StarKruzr]

Because today's teenagers hate 60's music [beatles.com].

Wonderful

[syousef]

Treat teens with about the same respect you reserve for a mosquito and wonder why they go around shooting each other, or killing themselves. Oh yeah it's the violence in video games and the availability of porn on the internet that causes this. Nothing to do with the increasing contempt modern society shows for both the very young and the very old.

Idiot.

Re:I hope it doesn't get widely deployed

[Anonymous Coward]

Not according to politicians.

Re:I hope it doesn't get widely deployed

[raoul666]

Teens have rights too, you can't discriminate on the basis of age.

You must be new here. And by here, I mean society. It's one of the few things that not only are people still discriminated against for, it's one that no one complains about, or really even thinks about.

useless

[Lehk228]

This will have no effect on the metal heads and punk fans who go to loud shows who also happen to be the people buying it want to drive away anyways.

this country is strange

[hansoloaf]

Why is this country so anti-teenager? We got the "coveted marketing demographics" of late teen to young adult that the tv networks and pretty much a lot of companies go for. Yet as a group, teenagers sure are very ostracized, looked down, and picked on. I'm sure there are some bad seeds but for the vast majority, I'm sure there are good kids. You got all these anti-cruising laws, school crackdowns, and now this. Shouldn't we be cherishing and nuturing them instead? I'm sure the Army would like to use this device to get them shepherded to the nearest recuriting office.

Re:Yet another way for parents to avoid...

[blastwave]

Personally I don't get it. I can achieve the same effect by simply asking them to take out the trash.

Honestly, I was just over at the server room with my teenage step-son and he is totally cool. He washed the white board, helped me install some servers, then I let him drive the Jeep around the parking lot and even go off road. I don't understand all his stuff and he doesn't understand all mine but we have fun together and thats all the counts. Hey, we even played HALO for an hour after school.

A high freqency buzz to drive away teens? Something seriously wrong with this invention. Yet another examply of soulless empty technology. I am happy that God watches over my family and both my teenage kids are a gift. I would never drive them away. If we keep and hold the communication channel open then we will never have them feel that they can't talk and we can't listen.

Dennis Clarke
Director Blastwave.org
http://www.blastwave.org/ [blastwave.org]

Can you hear me... Can you hear me now...

[segment]

Severe to profound losses range from PTAs of 75 dB and greater. At this level, hearing aids provide limited benefit and consideration of cochlear implants is generally given. Statistics about Hearing Disorders, Ear Infections, and Deafness [nih.gov]

Totally Absurd

[Darkshot]

This is ridiculus. They talk about using something like this to drive away 'bad teens' who hang around their store. Did they ever stop to consider that not all teens are bad, and what if some young person is actually going to their store to buy something legitimately. They need to stop stereotyping and realize most teens arent like that. I'm 17 and I do nothing of the sort. They are not only driving away these occassional trouble makers but also some of their own customers...

Wow, this is pretty stupid.

[loraksus]

At least, it seems like it to me.
Back in the days of dos, pascal and c programming in a text based ide, I used to run high pitched noises out through the pc speaker. I believe I specified something between 21,000 and 24,000 hz - although I'm fairly sure that the speaker wasn't exactly tuned (although it did go a bit higher (27,000-ish hz), although only a few of us were able to hear it - we had the computer randomly play these high pitched tones and the monitor would change color about 5 seconds after the tone started, so it was sort of a double blind test)
Yeah, high school was tons of fun.
Anyways... Even though the old folks might not be able to hear it consciously, it still affects them. People become moody, short tempered, and in general, quite bitchy. I honestly can't say that it is due to the effects of the sound - or the effects of interacting with people who are able to consciously hear it, but - to me, at least - it doesn't really matter, because chances are that if you have teens hanging around your business, they probably spend money there and you're going to have to interact with them.

And as for whether this bothers teens immensely, I call bullshit. Most of the older TVs out there put out a high pitched noise and it isn't like teens don't spend a ton of time sitting in front of one. Of course, old people enjoy buying crap like this, so it isn't to say there isn't a market.

Also, the sensitivity seems to go away after being exposed to the sounds of gunfire (anecdotal evidence based on my experiences, so take with a grain of salt) and other loud noises, so gangbangers and punkheads probably won't be affected ;)
And please, 75db? feh.

(feel free to use this as a perfect example of how to not write an argumentative essay btw)

Re:I hope it doesn't get widely deployed

[Anonymous Coward]

They are just being annoyed if they hang around near the entrance of the store. Just like they annoy actual customers of the store.

This isn't discrimination.

Re:Wonderful

[Koiu Lpoi]

While I agree, it's not modern society at all. Society IN GENERAL, throughout time, has had contempt for the very young and the very old.

Re:I hope it doesn't get widely deployed

[Koiu Lpoi]

*checks numbers*

That's funny. 18 and 19 are still part of the teens.

Huh.

Re:Wonderful

[tourvil]

Now that I'm 41, oooooooh geez, I now realize what a typical arrogant ... young punk I was.

...

If someone who is relatively young (i.e., under, say, 25-30) is reading this and thinks I'm full of crap, then you're not qualified to have an opinion. Your brain hasn't finished developing yet. Sorry.

And if someone disagrees with me who is older than that, then you must've not grown up yet. :)

Glad to see you've gotten over that arrogance problem... ;)

Re:Wonderful

[Galvatron]

As the other reply said, I wouldn't say you're totally over that arrogance just yet. However, even supposing that everything in your post is God's own truth, do you really think that the best way to encourage teenagers to develop into worthwhile adults is by chasing them around with high pitched noises?

Re:I hope it doesn't get widely deployed

[Joe Random]

As a teen, having gone through very frustrating and annoying shit just because of my age, I'd love to know why the fuck this was modded funny.

Probably for several reasons, one of which being that discrimination against teens is legal and state-sponsored. Can a 13-year-old drive a car? Buy a handgun? Drink alcohol? Buy cigarettes? Vote? There you go, state-sponsored and, many would argue, valid age discrimination. So there's a certain amount of humor for someone to say, obviously tongue-in-cheek, that you can't discriminate against teens.

If the guys are annoying, call the cops on the fuckers. Don't take it out on everyone who just happen to be the same age.

The sound is only annoying with constant exposure, and the only way someone is going to be constantly exposed is if they're loitering around outside the store. It will have no effect on people who are legitimate customers entering or leaving the store. No one, regardless of age, should be loitering outside this guy's store. And if there's a simply way to encourage a group not to loiter, especially when the loiterers are pretty much exclusively composed of that group, then I say "go for it!"

Re:Wonderful

[lamasquerade]

So now that you're old, you don't like the way young people act? Wow, insightful isn't the word.

How about instead of looking down on youth for acting the way you admittedly acted, try to remember why you acted that way and understand them. Then maybe you won't react with fear followed by reactionary measures like this ridiculous device which further alienate youth.

You may even remember that for all your youthful posturing, you weren't so dangerous and evil, that you loitering around a store wasn't so threatening. Next time you see a bunch of youths and you feel some emotional response (fear, disgust, derision, etc.) try looking for the root of that response and see if it's reall well founded, or if it's just there because you watch too many 60 Minutes stories about our out of control youth, or in your case, maybe you're just too entrenched in this clash-of-the-generations psyche.

The bad seeds...

[alakazam]

...are the ones who are doing the loitering, bothering customers, etc., as explained in the article. It's an "anti-loitering" device, not anti-teenager -- it's just that teenagers have more time to hang out and make a nuisance of themselves.

Teenagers don't want to be cherished and nurtured -- they want freedom without responsibility. (Generalization, not applicable for every teenager.)

Re:Wonderful

[Anonymous Coward]

And if someone disagrees with me who is older than that, then you must've not grown up yet. :)

You jest, but you're being serious. If someone disagrees with you, there's something wrong with their brain! It's an appealing thought, but one that doesn't carry much weight as an argument. Ad hominem attacks on your teenage self are still logical fallacies.

You're right that teenagers aren't qualified to have an opinion, but you're wrong that you are. What is an opinion? One dictionary says it's "a belief or conclusion held with confidence but not substantiated by positive knowledge or proof". That's a pretty low burden.

If you just plain don't like young'uns, that's your right, and no one wants to change your mind. If you want to buy a device that will keep teenagers as far away from you as possible, that's your right too. I'm not worried about discrimination here; teenagers have too much money to ever be systematically excluded from the economic world.

But if you want to argue that society doesn't actually show contempt for the young, then you need some evidence. You're commenting on a story about a device invented for the sole purpose of annoying young people. The burden of proof is on you.

Re:Can you hear me... Can you hear me now...

[Anonymous Coward]

As someone who has had a 70-75 dB hearing loss in the 500-4000 Hz (i.e. voice) band since age 5, I can vouch for this. Funny thing is, I didn't lose my high frequency hearing, so for years I could hear the 17.5 kHz squeal from our old TV's flyback transformer.

Hearing aids are no fun. Modern technology has yet to make them better than pathetic. I've got an all-digital (DSP) set that set me back $5K and in a restaurant I hear all the other tables better than the one I'm sitting at. Hard to avoid that; like all people, my ears point sideways, not forward. Then there's the self-oscillation ("feedback"); since these things use IIR filters instead of FIR filters, they tend to go unstable at odd times, usually as a result of some sound that is barely audible, or a pure sinusoidal sound, like many computer beeps and alarm sounds. Solution? Cycle power on the devices. It's a Windows world, and these don't even run Windows.

Some folks think that hearing aids are convenient because you can just turn them off when you don't want to listen to some blowhard. I think that's worked exactly twice in my life; the other times, the teacher gave me a demerit or whatever. On the flip side, because they don't help you dig out speech as well as they should (it's like having 25% of the consonants you hear be wrong), you have to ask people to repeat themselves, which not only makes you look ignorant, but instead of actually repeating themselves, people will say, "Oh, nevermind" or "It's not important." Bull; if it weren't important, you wouldn't have bothered to say it, and I still want to know what you said. People quickly learn that you're no fun to have a conversation with, because conversations start feeling like work. Of course, how well would the Internet work if UDP was all you had, and packet loss was around 10%?

My hearing loss has done far more to end my social life than my being a geek and/or nerd ever could.

Now, a device like this will likely make me effectively deaf. How? The hearing aids set their overall gain based on the sound level in the room, regardless of band. Thus, they will sense the loud HF sound and cut the gain way down, so, from my point of view (hearing?), the world will suddenly get really quiet.

Do not screw with what little hearing I have left.

babies

[maxzilla]

if only the young can hear it, why do I think mothers with young children and babies will get peeved because it will wake up sleeping kids or provoke tantrums?

Re:this country is strange

[Sithech]

Why is this country so anti-teenager?

Uh, more correctly, why is society so anti-males-between-age-10-and-30?

The extreme concentration of crime and other antisocial behavior in that demographic might be relevant.

The US in particular does a lousy job of handling the maturing of its males as shown by a number of measures - including grades, incarceration rate, mortality rate, and vulnerability to military recruiting pitches. However, it's not politically viable to treat them as a vulnerable population. (Not to just pick on the US, the Brits have plenty of trouble with yobs n hoodies [wikipedia.org], and the French have had very public problems with the Muslem young male population recently)

An 18 and 19 year old pair of chums just got arrested in Northern California for throwing baseball sized rocks from their car window into oncoming traffic while driving home drunk from a casino at 60 mph. One of the victims is still having surgery on his face, being treated for a broken jaw, and has lost an eye. A couple dozen cars were damaged as well. Sorry, but 50 year old women aren't nearly as likely to do crap like this as 10-30 year old males.

Re:Proper use.

[JanneM]

Yes, first they have the freedom to associate with whomever they wish. Second, they have the right to defend their property as they see fit,

Legal or not, it does show quite a bit of contempt towards people to install it. I'd rather not associate with a shopkeeper or his store if they so obviously divide people only into those that give them money and those that do not. It may be their right to do so, but it's mine not to give such a sad excuse for a human being any of my money.

As other posters have pondered, where's the metal grating to keep walkers and walking stick out? Old people don't spend much money, after all, and they take a lot of time and space in the store. Some nicely arranged tripwires should take care of the blind and a few well-trained dogs should be able to scare away the mexicans and the black people, all less likely to spend heavily than the middle-aged middle-class white people that are the sweet spot this merchant obviosuly should be optimizing his store for.

Today

[Jozer99]

Today: Miracle Hypersonic siren drives away teens and children. Tomorrow: Modern teens going deaf, lets blame iPods.

Re:Wonderful

[Joe Random]

Homey, regardless of my brain development, had you said this to my face

If someone who is relatively young (i.e., under, say, 25-30) is reading this and thinks I'm full of crap, then you're not qualified to have an opinion. Your brain hasn't finished developing yet. Sorry.

I would fucking knock your overweight ass into next week.

I don't exactly agree with the GP, but you seem to be doing your best to prove his point for him. I could never understand the whole "you insulted me so I'll respond with physical violence" mentality. Sure, if it's in self defense then physical force may be necessary. But in response to a (poorly thought out) verbal insult?! Grow the fuck up! It's not that the GP is a glowing beacon of rationality, but attitudes like yours are exactly the reason that people like the GP have such a low opinion of the younger generation.

Re:Far more effective...

[SoCalChris]

I used to live in downtown Long Beach, Ca, and would often find guys on our porch smoking, drinking and cussing. Asking them to leave got old after a while, and wasn't really effective. We finally got a hymn CD, that worked better than anything else we tried.

Re:I hope it doesn't get widely deployed

[LordEd]

Since you are a teen, I don't suppose you can tell me what is the draw behind hanging out in the parking lot of 7/11 stores late at night? I can never figure out what the point is.

Re:Yet another way for parents to avoid...

[That's Unpossible!]

Personally I don't get it. I can achieve the same effect by simply asking them to take out the trash.

Then again you're talking about your own kids living in your house, and not hooligans smoking cigarettes in front of your store and harassing your customers.

Honestly, I was just over at the server room with my teenage step-son and he is totally cool.

That's wonderful. He's also not the target of this type of device.

A high freqency buzz to drive away teens? Something seriously wrong with this invention.

Why?

I own a gun. If a criminal enters my house to do me harm, I will have no choice but to kill him with this gun. That doesn't mean I want to kill everyone with this gun.

Yet another examply of soulless empty technology.

You mean like those servers you and your son installed? Or the Jeep you let him drive around in circles? Or the video game system you two played? What exactly is "soulless empty technology"? Technology is what it is.

I am happy that God watches over my family and both my teenage kids are a gift.

This thinking always bothers me. This is like the guy who comes out of his house after an earthquake, looks over at his dead neighbors, and says, "Thank God we survived!"

I don't think God has anything to do with your kids, I think it may be that you're just a good parent.

I would never drive them away. If we keep and hold the communication channel open then we will never have them feel that they can't talk and we can't listen.

Again, great advice for parents, terrible advice for store owners.

Re:Wonderful

[Turn-X Alphonse]

I'm almost 20 and I disagree with you. You say because of my age I'm an arrogant, idiotic, irritating, annoying and ignorant young punk? Well isn't that spiffy. Nice to know in this era of knowledge we're judging people by their age and not on themselvs.

Never mind that I can sit and talk to 40 year olds on the same level, or feel contempt for the idiots in my age group who make the most noise. Lets totally forget the fact that I'm polite in public and will do my best to help someone out.. No, I'm just some ignorant teenager who doesn't have a clue about anything. I should still be in school because clearly at 19 I'm not safe to walk around on my own.

People mature differently, I know 25-30 year olds who act like complete children. They throw hissy fits and have no sense of money but, these people are allowed an opinion in your magical little world.. yet I'am not because I was born in 1986 instead of 1981?

You sonny boy need to grow up. Get the stick out of your arse and start to understand people cannot be judged by gender, age or skin colour. Every person is a stand alone process and you should give them a chance.

But then if you're going to attack teenagers maybe I should attack you "old people"? You know the way you're bitter that you're stuck in a dead end job, half your life is over, you're going to die soon and in 20 years, you'll be left munching on apple sauce because you'll have no teeth, reduced brain function and hips so fragile you'll wish they were made of glass.

Signed - The disrespectful youth who don't like you because you're still arrogant, stuck up and in short irritatingly idiotic.

Re:I hope it doesn't get widely deployed

[strider44]

I can vote, drive a car, drink alcohol, look at porn and buy cigarettes. (I can't buy a handgun but alas I live in Australia where handguns are illegal without a license) I make my own money. I can still hear these noises and I'll be damned if I'm going to shop at a store that treats me like shit.

Re:I hope it doesn't get widely deployed

[Joe Random]

I'd rather have to listen to a high-pitched squeal for the 5 seconds it takes to enter the store than have a bunch of punks yell obscenities at me. And based on the article, this would be exactly the choice this quy was faced with.

Fuck you, ya bald headed ol' fart

[crovira]

I'm actually a balding ol' fart but I loathe the very thought of ever fuckin' mellowing out.

I'm angrier now than I ever was but its a cold and calculating anger. Its the steely edge of the knife.

I have outgrown the fugues and tirades of youth, when I'd wax elequent with rage and make the most grandeloquent speeches any man could ever regret, if he could regret anything, but I don't.

John Tesh can swallow and kiss my lil' pink ass after I take a dump right in his fuckin' gob.

Me mellow?

Like A-fuckin'-lexis Sayles...

I'm driven and driven to drink by "mellow people." I'm a man with a mission, touched with a little madness, or is it genius that pushes, prods and make me reach beyond myself?

I HATE having become a cripple. Fuck.

I used to be a dancer.

I used to be a musician.

I used to be the guy a mother warned her daughter about.

I used to be the guy a daughter didn't tell her mother about.

And I HATE fuckin' growing old.

So I'M NOT FUCKIN' DOING IT.

(A little catharsis is good every now and then.)

Re:Far more effective...

[prichardson]

As a classical musician and theorist I'm really offended that you put Celine and John Tesh on the same list as classical music.

I'm really really fucking offended, actually.

Get some taste.

Re:this country is strange

[nEoN nOoDlE]

What country? The story takes place in Wales.

Re:I hope it doesn't get widely deployed

[donscarletti]

Probably for several reasons, one of which being that discrimination against teens is legal and state-sponsored. Can a 13-year-old drive a car? Buy a handgun? Drink alcohol? Buy cigarettes? Vote? There you go, state-sponsored and, many would argue, valid age discrimination. So there's a certain amount of humor for someone to say, obviously tongue-in-cheek, that you can't discriminate against teens.

You should know full well that these restrictions have nothing in common with a device designed exclusivly to annoy and frustrate a given demographic. As a 22 year old who hears high frequencies very loudly (I can hear almost all screens whistle) I can imagine the havoc this will cause not just with teenagers, but with parents that have babies (who have even higher auditory ranges), with children wating outside while their mother shops and with people walking their dogs on the footpath. There are many legitimate uses for the public land outside this store and the public has the right to use it for things like waiting and pedestrian transport regardless of their age. I've met store owners that believe that they own the public land around where they are, such as one particually charitable gentleman who demanded my spastic uncle be moved from near his shop to improve the ambience, but they are invariably wrong. Public land belongs to the public, at least where I live.

I find the public's callous attitudes towards teenagers to be disgusting. Sure, teenagers are stupid, boring to talk to and nearly everything they do is pointless, but this also applies to people who are mentally handicapped. Yet if someone was to invent the Retard-Prod(tm) that jabs everyone with an IQ less than 60, the inventor would be lynched within a day. I was a teenager 2 years ago, I was pretty stupid back when I was 15, in the same way I'll discover I'm stupid now in another six or seven years, but generally I didn't hurt anyone and only wanted to mind my own buisiness and have other people mind theirs, most teenagers are like that. Picking on kids because you don't like their demographic is not cool and it never will be.

Re:g0t d3af?

[dgatwood]

I'm 29 and NEW televisions still bother me, high def sets with higher scan rates notwithstanding. I can hear my TV set right now, and it's about ten feet away. 15 kHz is audible for me even at relatively low volume. At sufficient levels, I can hear 23 kHz. Not perceive. Not feel. Hear. It's a very annoying squeal if you have the "pleasure" of hearing it. I haven't been able to produce enough volume to hear frequencies any higher than that. Speaker roll-off kind of bites you in the backside above about 18kHz.

Heaven help me if I'm in a room with a TV where the flyback is really whining because of a missing sync signal.... The light dimmers at work piss me off because they hurt my ears. Many of my friends (even some younger ones) can barely hear them. Defective computer monitors? Torture. I'm told the lowest sync rate on VGA is 30 kHz, so I figure there must be a frequency divider somewhere, but I'm starting to wonder if I'm a bat or something. After my last job (slight flicker and lots of whine, with near-daily migraines), I now refuse to use any non-LCD displays when working with computers.

I'll say this: as someone who takes care of my ears, if a store I shopped at regularly put one of these things in, I can be fairly certain that it would bother me well into my 40s. And I would choose to shop elsewhere. Companies should take into serious consideration that doing this sort of thing -will- undoubtedly drive away some of their actual customers....

For now, I'll just stay away from people with dogs. :-D

Re:Wonderful

[devinjones]

Actually, it is the rise of industrialization and the expansion of childhood that drives teens crazy. 13 - 16 year olds used to be valuable farm workers or craft apprentices, learning skills and doing work that was valued by society. Now they are largely un-employable. While trying to leave childhood behind, teens find they have no meaningful work and thus no value to adults other than as consumers.

Re:Yet another way for parents to avoid...

[blastwave]

Re: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happy_slapping [wikipedia.org]

OKay, well. Now I have nothing but a sad feeling in my gut. On the one hand I am terribly aware of how much of a back woods middle of nowhere sort of family guy that I am. I have no clue about the context of all this. I live in a small town in Canada where the big problem is that the local library group took down a large framed picture of a founder and chipped the wood on the frame. Now someone needs to fix the frame. Front page news.

On the one hand I want to thank you for the education and on the other, well, perhaps ignorance would have been better.

I'll go back to hanging Christmas lights now and just hoping the raccoons will stop tipping over my trash cans.

Dennis

Re:Proper use.

[Anonymous Coward]

The guy had a serious problem. From TFA:
"On the low end of the scale, it would be intimidating for customers," said Robert Gough, who, with his parents, owns the store. "On the high end, they'd be in the shop fighting, stealing and assaulting the staff."

Sounds to me as if a nonlethal weapon was exactly what was needed. I doubt the man cares whether you're insulted and/or saddened. I wouldn't. Would you prefer that he kept a pistol handy, behind the counter? That could certainly solve the assaults on staff problem, but could have some very adverse consequences all around.

I've a feeling you'd be against that too. So what's the guy supposed to do? Let people be intimidated, perhaps assaulted, let mass theft (also in the article) of his merchandise continue, etc? Don't think for a moment this doesn't in many places. It's not as if it were just in Wales.

I wish people would get the fuck over themselves, and quit competing in the eternal Most Sensitive Being in Known Universe contest. Something about Slashdot seems to attract them.

Re:Yet another way for parents to avoid...

[Anonymous Coward]

I own a gun. If a criminal enters my house to do me harm, I will have no choice but to kill him with this gun. That doesn't mean I want to kill everyone with this gun.

Wha? Are you sure your choices aren't being determined by your tools?

That's why...

[Belial6]

That's why laws keep getting passed that restrict teenagers. How are we going to keep convincing each other that teenagers are evil if they don't commit crimes. So, we work towards creating a society that puts 18 year olds out on the street with never having held a job, no drivers license, never having had sex, and no experience with keeping things like drinking in moderation. Add on to that laws that prevent parents from teaching kids that there are reprecussions for your actions, and you just might turn this decline in youth crime around.

Just remember these are the people that will decide if the plug should be pulled. Needlessly making enemies of them is not a good idea.

Re:Greed is Good

[samjam]

I would suggest "thrift" as an alternate rendering which is to aoid unneccessary spending and taking care of what has been bought.

Sam

Re:The bad seeds...

[arron_nz]

It's an "anti-loitering" device, not anti-teenager

No, it's anti-teenager. A 45 year old loiterer won't be affected. Only teenagers are affected by this device. It's comparable to a gun that only shoots black people.
Where is my right as a non-loitering teenager to walk past a store undisturbed by a device that could be potentially damaging and incredibly annoying?

Re:What worries me is...

[bhima]

They have the right to because "the 7-11" is neither a bus stop or public property.

So as long as this device passes a health safety muster it is OK to use it to broadcast that annoying sound 24 hours a day 365 days a year. In addition property owners or agents acting on behalf of the property owner are free to turn it up (with in the limits of health safety) and direct it at whom ever they want.

If you don't want to be treated like a hooligan don't appear as one and don't treat private property as either yours or as public property. You have no real need or right to treat a business's private property as a bus stop. It's really that simple...

Re:Right

[IngramJames]

Glad you're a biologist - most of the computer geeks here wouldn't get past the design document.

It's not the design document I object to, so much as some parts of the initial spec.

1.13 Maintenence (part 1)
In the Model I, there will be lots of poo-poo and other bodily excretions. These can be cleaned easily, using Tissue (tm), available from most high street stores. We are not planning to add any extra functionality to deal with this - the users haven't complained yet, so it can't be a huge issue.

12.4.9 (c) Sport
After a few years, the Model XII will abandon previous sporting loyalties which have been carefully installed over a number of years, and adopt new loyalties for teams who are currently successful. There is no known workaround for this behaviour at the present time; seems to be an inherant design flaw. Note - Model XII-F may choose whichever team whose members have the best thighs.

13.3.4.5 (a) Randomness
The new adolescent Model XIII will be designed to adopt new ideas and concepts at the fastest rate ever. Sometimes a new concept will be adopted before the end of the sentence explaining the old concept. Proof, justification and coherance modules may be provided as an optional extra, but only on the luxury models.

79.1 Memory Leaks
Older models will start to suffer memory leaks, resulting in a slowing of perfromance. Either replace with a newer model, or simply store in a suitable warm place with lots of tea. But let's face it, by the time that happens, it will be obsolete anyway.

Re:Yet another way for parents to avoid...

[zerocool^]

I applaud you sir.

For one, it's nice to hear someone who tries to connect with their kid by understanding them, or at least cutting them some slack and embracing the differences.

For two, it's also relatively rare these days to hear a person say a rational, well thought statement involving genuine belief in a god.

I wonder if age differential between kid and parent plays into the interaction and development? My wife and I are 24, and we have an 18 month old... I didn't think we were particularly young to have kids, but we take our little one to the park, and we see all kinds of people who look to be 30, 35, near 40 with kids the same age as ours. I wonder how those people are going to connect with their kids when the kids are 16 - I'm worried enough about how I'll do it, about whether or not I'll be able to remember my life at that age enough to connect... I can't imagine being almost 60 with a high schooler...

~W

Re:Can you hear me... Can you hear me now...

[jimi the hippie]

You don't have a "right" to be there. If you don't like the music the store is playing LEAVE, don't just go and vandalize their equiptment.

Re:Far more effective...

[Chrontius]

Frankly, I'm pretty sure that this is turning my stomach (though that may be the pizza from last night) -- in the course of my high school career, I developed a very high pain threshold because every day of every week of every... I had a monster, killer splitting headache by the time I got home due to the countless TVs left on, tuned to a blank station.

This strikes me as somewhere between sadistic and evil and I think this is going to backfire long-run -- if your future customers associate your shop with pain now, they'll go elsewhere later.

Re:Far more effective...

[Siberwulf]

Some good classical music with maybe a little John Tesh thrown in for good measure. Just don't make me haul out the "big guns" and start playing some Celine Dion! Note the bold. It means "in addition to" not "including". He never said they were classical. As an English professor, I'm really offended by your inability to read. Reall, I'm offended.

Re:Far more effective...

[Anonymous Coward]

It's easy to shield yourself from high frequencies. Low frequencies, however, can go right through concrete walls. You can't even have peace and quiet in your own fucking home anymore.

They should outlaw those fucking subwoofers. And the next car that has some fucking low frequency shit (BOOM-BOOM-BOOM isn't music, assholes) next to me at a red light better be insured.

Re:Yet another way for parents to avoid...

[ScentCone]

people break into homes, for the very most part, to take your ipod/dvd/laptop/flat screen/jewellery, not to sexually assault your child

But that's just part of the cost of doing business for a burglar... they have to know that their intentions cannot be deduced as they cut through your back door's window, etc. In fact, many in-house injuries/deaths from intruders happen when a burglar is surprised to discover that someone is home, and reacts violently. They may not be there to assault someone, but assaults sometimes stem from the fact that they're trespassing and have just been caught. Asking them to leave is not always effective, and it's reasonable to err on the side of assuming that a caught-off-guard burglar may be or become violent.

One of the major benefits of living in a community where more houses are occupied by rational gun owners isn't a higher number of dead burglars (nice as that would be), it's the reduced number of burglary attempts. Your average B&E specialist is generally a coward, and tend to leave high dog/gun-frequency neighborhoods alone. But it's important for that aspect of the local culture to be well known, and people who case such houses when they know nobody is home also have know that the local custom is to keep valuables (especially firearms) in a safe.

All that being said: I know that my wife, confronted with a stranger in the house, would absolutely show them the business end of a shotgun. And if that person didn't run out the door at full throttle (no doubt with 150 pounds of our dogs hot on his tail/trail), she'd use it. When you're 5'-2", 115 pounds, you don't take a lot of time to wonder if the strange person who broke into your house is or isn't going to respect your personal space. She's experienced someone (in total, drug-addled maniac mode) trying to pound his way through our back door at 2:00AM, and doesn't appreciate wondering about motives. You break into someone's house, you waive all rights to any claim that you weren't there to hurt someone.

Re:TTC

[Anonymous Coward]

You need to watch "A Clockwork Orange"

Re:Greed is Good

[SamSim]

Thrift?

Re:Wonderful

[Kylere]

People in their teens are "arrogant, idiotic, irritating, annoying and ignorant" you may not feel as if YOU are, but that is the arrogant part. Idiotic may be a little strong, but lacking any worthwhile world experience (no matter what you think, you DO lack it) but it makes you appear that way to people possessing a clue(tm). Irritating is due to all the other factors. Annoying is because you fail to realize the level of your arrogance, and ignorance. Lastly, you do not have the breadth of experience needed to recognize this simple fact which is the ignorant part.