Occupy Wall Street

[marharth]

That is a normal thermal camera not a police chopper. Way too low for a chopper and someone is clearly holding it.

 

The tents probably insulated enough for the camera to not detect it.

 

Buying a tent and setting it up then just leaving it there is also not a very wise idea, and I seriously doubt a ton of people would do that just to cause issues.

Edited November 9, 2011 by marharth

[ginnyfizz]

If you look and read on, it is quite clear that the police helicopter first spotted the issue and then the footage shown was shot by a hand held. Please note that I said "The police helicopter with a little help from a national newspaper".

 

Good sense is not something these protestors have ever been accused of, and yes they would do it just to cause issues. They merely leave the tent there, in the hope it doesn't get rifled by anyone else, but they tend to take their smartphones and iPads on the Tube home with them.

[Marxist ßastard]

The police were not involved in any way:

 

However, City of London police told the Guardian that they could not confirm nor deny the reports, saying only that neither details of the thermal imaging cameras nor the occupancy estimates had come from them.

 

"We've no idea where this has come from but the point is it hasn't come from us. We haven't commented on this."

Protesters using the same camera

that it cannot detect them in their tents.

 

Also, several comments point out that at 0:42 in

, the exact same thing happens.

 

Why? Three reasons:

1. Thermal imaging cameras aren't x-ray specs. They can't see through most materials, including tents. So what you're seeing is just the surface temperature of the tent. Or, equivalently, where the tent is losing heat to the outside.
2. Tents don't lose much heat, if there's only a sleeping person inside. Someone sleeping produces little heat, and most of it is captured inside a blanket or sleeping bag. But if you catch a heated tent – or the orgy tent – then yeah, that'll be lit up like a Christmas tree.
3. The colors are completely relative, and scale based on the hottest (or most heat-losingest) surface in the picture. If there's a person outside and walking about in-frame, the color scale will base around them – but of course they're losing heat much faster than someone sleeping in a tent. It's like talking a picture of black paint samples with the Sun in-frame.

A trained user (i.e., the police) would know all of this.

 

tl;dr: Some perv thought he had a magic camera that would let him see inside the orgy tents. It didn't. The police were not involved in any way.

Edited November 9, 2011 by Marxist ßastard

[ginnyfizz]

And here was me thinking that the article said the police refused to confirm or deny either way that they had been using thermal imaging, which translates as they have indeed been using it and someone just talked out of turn, and has probably had their bottom spanked for it.

 

The protestors would have course supply their own set of images and counter claims. Doesn't alter the fact that they are routinely seen by passing commuters, quite literally, "decamping". (OK it IS a bad pun). It's fun watching them make themselves look silly, and for goodness sake I am sure people have better things to do than watch that shower having orgies in tents.

[Marxist ßastard]

So let me get this straight: You think the original is credible because of its supposed police affiliation, since the police are neutral and trustworthy. But when the police flat-out refused to be affiliated with the video in any way, you ignore them, since they're obviously all politics and thus lying.

 

And you ignore the evidence within the original video, the protesters' rebuttal, and my SCIENCE! because the protesters are a group with a well-coordinated propaganda machine capable of fabricating video evidence. And they're so lazy they don't sleep in their own camp.

 

Achievement unlocked!

Cognitive Dissonance

[ginnyfizz]

No, that's not what I said and you know it. Give you an inch and you take a mile. If you think I trust the London police then you certainly know neither me nor have you ever read any of my previous postings on the subject. After all I have commented on more than one occasion about the heavy handed tactics of the Metropolitan Police at demos (having had one of their batons wrapped around my head at a pro-hunting demo), and also upon their tendency to both shoot first and ask questions later, and then lie about the facts (as in the case of Jean Charles de Menezes where I think there should have been a murder charge). So to suggest that I would blindly trust anything that the police say is patently absurd. In fact, what I implied in this topic is a cynical view of the police saying they "could neither confirm nor deny", which invariably means that "Yes we did, we didn't want anyone to know but nor do we want to admit that we leak like a sieve".

 

You are swallowing whole everything that these protestors come out with. And are so convinced that your "science" is right. Actually it could be turned right on its' head because if one side could be tweaking the camera settings to prove their side, then the other side could be too.

 

Protestors grab thermals to challenge evidence

 

Here they actually manage to condemn themselves out of their own mouths, note the bit about "Protesters admit many tents can be empty at any one time because their colleagues have to be elsewhere, but deny that theirs is a ‘show camp’ full of empty tents." ;D

 

(and yes I DO know the difference between the City of London police and the Met. I've never been clouted by a City police officer.)

[Marxist ßastard]

I said nothing about either side tweaking the camera. I only gave very basic facts about how thermal imaging cameras work. If you think the facts should be changed to accommodate you, go ahead and dig up Isaac Newton's corpse, and tell him he was all wrong about this whole heat transfer business.

 

He's nearby you. Probably less than a day's walk.

 

In the meanwhile – and for the third time – look at the original video. It shows tents obscuring people's image, just like the protesters' video.

[ginnyfizz]

I said nothing about either side tweaking the camera. I only gave very basic facts about how thermal imaging cameras work. If you think the facts should be changed to accommodate you, go ahead and dig up Isaac Newton's corpse, and tell him he was all wrong about this whole heat transfer business.

 

He's nearby you. Probably less than a day's walk.

 

In the meanwhile – and for the third time – look at the original video. It shows tents obscuring people's image, just like the protesters' video.

 

And I didn't say anything about the facts being changed to accommodate me, so just stop putting words into my mouth. I merely said that if one side was capable of manipulation, then so was the other. The issue of the tweaking of the camera settings has, from what I've read, been quite the bone of contention. You must just think these protestors are so saintly that you believe everything they say. Since there's also eye witness of them going home at night, it's not just the caught on camera, or not, issue.

 

As for talking about digging up Isaac Newton, that's just...weird. I think we all have a basic understanding of how thermal imaging cameras work, but would not claim to be experts.

[dazzerfong]

ANYWAY.................

 

About Occupy Wall Street. Ironic, considering that their lives depend on the very capitalist greed that they are fighting against. It's not pretty, capitalist greed, but well, when a country has been like that for, what, 250 years+, it's hard to change.

 

Thermal cameras are very finicky: there's a reason why the LE/military ones cost roughly 10 times commercial ones. I highly doubt that the protestors' ones are identical to the ones police use. In the end, I trust the police's ones more, sorry.

[marharth]

ANYWAY.................

 

About Occupy Wall Street. Ironic, considering that their lives depend on the very capitalist greed that they are fighting against.

That is in no way irony. Read that in out loud a few times and tell me if that still makes sense.

 

Their lives depend on capitalist greed, so its ironic they are fighting against the thing that controls their lives? What?