First they came for the cell phones, and I did nothing. Then they came for the pagers. Still I did nothing. At last they came for the walkie-talkies, yet I continued doing nothing.
All I thought was "What's any of this got to do with me? I'm just a pigeon!"
Any theories as to why the popularity is orders of magnitude higher today? The title, the source? people's mood? Egypt? It is Friday so more people slacking? Time it was posted yesterday vs today (prime time)?
The more times a story gets submitted, the more upvotes it generally gets because more people have already read it. No matter how good a story is the odds are that it won't get past the new page simply because there aren't many people willing to triage stories. And by the time those who see a story in the new queue finish reading it and vote on it, it's often already too late for it to make the front page. Whereas lots of people are happy to vote for a story they've already seen.
Since stories usually hit the front page when their score is around 6, I think it would make sense to give the first five upvoters a share of the karma from the submission. (With the submitter getting the most, and the first upvoter getting more than the fifth.)
It is a good idea, but I feel that your first-five-upvoter share is too strong of an incentive. It will encourage upvoting for the sake of karma rather than to reflect the overall quality of the article. There could be up-vote spam. It could also come in the form of vote herding on the new page because once an article has 2-3 points, there will be a rush for the remaining 4-5 slots. The result is a more cycled-through front page with worse quality articles.
Ha... so you need give people karma if they voted early (in the first 5) on an article that becomes popular, and penalize them for voting early on an article that goes nowhere once it's on the front page.
It would be simpler to just give the first 5 or whatever upvoters a bonus based on the total upvotes the article receives, if someone decided to do something like that.
I'll make a wild guess. The previous title was "Text message blows up suicide bomber by accident". That could easily describe a situation where the planners sent the text too early. Also it mentions the text was sent by the carrier, perhaps adding some credibility (as opposed to some apocryphal story about a friend of a friend getting a wrong number.) Just guesses.
Preferential attachment. It began as a random fluctuation and then entered a positive feedback loop (as it climbed, more HN readers saw it and upvoted it further).
Cheap Nokia GSM phones are probably much easier as they just have to throw in a SIM card and replace the vibrate motor with a connection to the detonator
Maybe if the world wasn't already awash in a sea of GSM phones. As it stands, I'm sure the incremental cost of acquiring an active GSM cell-phone is very much less than $50 (and probably comes closer to free).
To be exact, this particular price is likely slightly subsidized by AT&T because they expect to make money on your airtime use. For a better comparison, you'd have to find an unlocked, unbranded phone which doesn't come with a carrier SIM.
I may be wrong, but I believe it's so the suicide bomber can't back out at the last minute. They have a spotter that makes sure they're in position then blows them up.
I might be missing something, but if that's the case then you can't call them suicide bombers! If they are not actually the ones in control of their own death, it's not suicide.
I don't think so -- if you choose to strap a bomb to yourself which you know someone else will detonate, then it's suicide.
I am, however, with Fox News on disliking the terminology "suicide bomber" just because it puts the emphasis on the death of the murderer rather than the innocent folks whom he murders. The suicide aspect is really the least important aspect of the act.
if you choose to strap a bomb to yourself which you know someone else will detonate, then it's suicide.
I wish things were that simple. There are several variations that makes this logic less convincing, from social pressure ('all families must make sacrifices') to outright catch-22 ('if you do not do it, we will kill you and your family').
Especially in the latter case, I wouldn't call this suicide.
In addition to the coldfeet scenario, they use SMS in case the bomber is captured or incapacitated, a handler watching from afar can detonate the bomb. That's why lots of suicide bombers blow up at police checkpoints, their handler sees them being detained and remote detonates the bomb.
It's fairly common, actually. It gives the control to the organizers, in case the bomber has a change of heart (which people are prone to have when they have a bomb strapped to their chest.)
My assumption is that there was both a manual "detonate" button that the bomber could have activated once in position as well as this SMS trigger just in case the bomber couldn't muster up the nerve to blow herself up.
Presumably whoever is triggering the bomb has a better vantage point to inflict the most damage. From the linked article: Islamist terrorists in Russia often use mobile phones as detonators. The bomber's handler, who is usually watching their charge, sends the bomber a text message in order to set off his or her explosive belt at the moment when it is thought they can inflict maximum casualties.
I've read conflicting accounts from different news articles.
Some articles state the bomber's handler sends a text message to the bomber to say when to detonate the bomb, to maximize terror, but this situation seems like the text message actually triggers the device which seems very precarious and conflicts with the handler theory.
The bomber needs a remote control so that they can detonate the bomb that they strapped to someone else.
In many (most?) cases, the 'suicide bomber' is being coerced into participating, and can't actually be trusted to fully follow through. The real bomber, the person making and orchestrating the bombings, needs the remote control so that they have control over the detonation.
Because the bombs aren't in phone form-factor, they're big vests packed with nails and shit, just set off by phones. People tend to notice when you walk into the middle of a crowd, drop a large bag, then walk away. Now, in situations where they can pull that off, say crowded busses..., I'm sure they employ that tactic.
Also, I imagine there is a heavier emotional impact associated with 'suicide' bombings.
And because the whole point of a suicide bomb is to send yourself to heaven immediately for killing infidels in the name of Allah. Why would you want to carry on living when you could be hanging around in paradise?
They are likely being watched by whoever has the detonator, and (reportedly) the bombers often coerce the bomb carriers into participating by threatening their family.
Alternatively, the thought of directly disobeying authority figures never occurs to them. Remember that most of these 'bombers' are women (in societies where women are oppressed) or children.
Sometimes they are told that they are just transporting and delivering the device to the actual suicide bomber. Then, a spotter sets them up the bomb instead.
Wireless carriers SMS all their customers 5 hours before any major event that might be a terrorist target!