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PaperclipPerfector  6mo ago (text post)   2698 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for October 29, 2023

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

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Does anyone know or have a link to a study that researches the true-positive rate of car alarms?

Never in my life has a car alarm gone off near me in their miles-audible radius that wasn’t some false-positive. Whenever I hear a car alarm I do not think “criminal activity” I think “electrical problem” or “owner messed up” or “accidental bump” and hope someone turns it off shortly.

Honestly at this point I don’t see any reason to keep them around. If we’re going to have regulations, then automakers should be prevented from including this feature. It is pure noise pollution with no security gain.

Now, this is likely a result of where I live. But to the degree they do alert on actual criminal activity elsewhere, what can be said for how helpful the alarms end up being?

Don't have data for you, but I wanted to add:

  • Fire alarms - It's gotten to the point where schools/companies doing fire drills have to send around staff to make people go outside.
  • Emergency phone alerts - In my area, these also get used for AMBER alerts, which everyone ignores. When they need to warn everyone about the big west coast earthquake, there's going to be a lot of phones left in pockets.
  • Screaming in public - In a healthy society, it'd be normal to pay attention to this, right? I'm totally desensitized to it. I assume others are as well.

Emergency phone alerts - In my area, these also get used for AMBER alerts, which everyone ignores. When they need to warn everyone about the big west coast earthquake, there's going to be a lot of phones left in pockets.

A few days back, the Indian government did the first trial I can remember of their equivalent, and it was fucking annoying. Thankfully my phone let me switch them off for good, I vaguely recall the ones sold in the US sometimes don't allow that.

About the only reason I'd care is if there were nukes inbound, and I'm sure the hellish beeping of the devices of everyone around me would make me wish for death in the first place.

Screaming in public -

Dunno if Japan can be classified as a health society but screaming in public would get attention here. Even raise your voice and heads will turn. How proactive those whose attention is got will be is another matter. What a sentence.

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