At this point, what with the nuisance and ubiquity of the damn things, can I break out my old-timey, arrow-pierced, frontiers hat and start calling the damned things varmints?
Blighty's Coastguard goes into battle against waterborne Pokemon
Suspicions are rising that Pokemon Go is some sort of massive Darwinian experiment, after HM Coastguard was forced to warn the UK populace about the dangers of attempting to capture waterborne varieties of the non-existence pocket monsters. The coastguard said that early this morning, it was “was called to investigate reports …
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Tuesday 19th July 2016 14:48 GMT Brian Miller
Don't mess with evolution!
We can't evolve if we all survive. There must be those who will server as a warning to others, "don't do that!" So we must, in fact, have Pokemon in all sorts of places where the forces of evolution shall meet the forces of physics. Yes, please chase the creatures onto the rails, off of docks, the tops of high voltage towers, war zones, Rockall, etc.
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Tuesday 19th July 2016 15:32 GMT Flocke Kroes
Re: Don't mess with evolution!
I assume somebody used a boat to place a lure in the middle of the lake. It is not that difficult to get a phone high up in a dangerous place, but presumably you have to press a button to set the lure, so need to get into that place yourself - until GPS started working in canyons.
The satellites transmit right hand circular polarised microwaves. In the dark ages, GPS antennas were designed to prefer RHCP to avoid being confused by reflections (reflections are LHCP). Antennas changed to accept either polarisation so they would still work when the direct signal is blocked. Modern receivers track the direct and the reflected path at the same time. The first one to arrive must be the direct signal, but the second may provide a clearer signal.
To take advantage of multipath, you must turn your phone off, go to a place with two tall buildings, stand with your back against one of them and turn the phone back on again. The building behind you should block or at least weaken the direct path, so it will take the phone time to detect it. The signal from the building in front of you should provide a stronger signal that the phone detects quickly. As the phone has no history of how it got to its current position, it will assume the reflected signal travelled in a straight line, and will conclude that it is on the far side of the building in front of you.
If that is an impossible place for people to reach, you should be able to wind up Satoshi/Musashi unless they understand multipath too.
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Tuesday 19th July 2016 15:40 GMT Midnight
Re: Don't mess with evolution!
Or... You could just have your phone lie about its current location. Really, it's like two taps on the screen and then you enter the longitude and latitude of any place on Earth and your phone will report that it is there, and any apps running on it will believe it.
But your way works too.
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Tuesday 19th July 2016 16:58 GMT TitterYeNot
Re: Don't mess with evolution!
Lures can only be placed on pre-designated 'places of interest'
Having read a story yesterday about some utter muppet calling 999 (and being given a thorough bollocking by the emergency operator) because someone had 'stolen their Pokemon', I'm tempted to ask if we can't get the fast lane of all UK motorways designated as 'places of interest.'
Feel like doing humanity a favour and helping clean out the gene pool with a little Darwinian filtration? There's an app for that...
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Tuesday 19th July 2016 17:00 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Don't mess with evolution!
There was another trick I learned on Ingress to reach a hard-to-get-to portal.
1. Charge at a wall, holding your phone up.
2. Dive, curling up atop your phone before you hit the wall.
The phone loses GPS, but (mine, at least) uses an extrapolation algorithm - so the phone thinks it has just carried on in a straight line, taking it right through the wall and into your target area. For a brief time, before it gives up and tells the app that GPS has been lost.
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Tuesday 19th July 2016 18:24 GMT Leeroy
Re: Don't mess with evolution!
The Pokestops (seriously) were all created / discovered by Ingress players that had to be at the site and take a picture. This process stopped around a year ago so no new pokestops or portals unless you have a deal with Niantic.
Altitude does not matter as all portals are assumed to be at ground level, as is the player. You can spin pokestops and capture portals etc in a helicopter at 1000 ft if you really want to, I have seen it done.
You also get an account ban if they even suspect you are faking the gps location. They are very good at catching people doing this.
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Tuesday 19th July 2016 14:51 GMT inmypjs
Joke
Chatting to a friend yesterday about IP geolocation and I asked if he had android devices connecting to his wifi with location services enabled.
He said yes for sure because his son who is about to graduate from university has got this new epokeymon app thing. The more he described it the more I was convinced he was winding me up.
Apparently not - maybe we should replace these virtual pokemon with physical land mines and do a useful bit of gene pool trimming.
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Tuesday 19th July 2016 15:08 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Art Desk?
"You have an Art Desk???"
Sudden flashback to nursery school. We each had a sheet of white paper on an easel for our big brush and primary colour poster paints. Grass was a green stripe at the bottom - sky a blue stripe at the top. Stick figures by a box-shaped house with smoke curling out of the chimney.
Wonderment all round when someone's older sister came into the class and showed her sibling that the blue sky should actually meet the grass at an horizon.
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Tuesday 19th July 2016 16:00 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Sky meets grass?
"That's a fallacy. If the sky meets the grass there is no room for the house or the stick-people. I'm an artist so I know this stuff. Honest."
I'm still shaking my head over "an horizon".
I think the game makers should get a special award from the Darwin Awards people, for helping so many achieve a Darwin Award.
I see the rozzers have stopped and fined a guy driving around while playing.
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Tuesday 19th July 2016 15:58 GMT Antron Argaiv
New Brighton Marine Lake
Not being from the UK, I'm fascinated by what appears to be a small artificial lake, apparently built just behind a seaside beach. Was it too much trouble to create a channel from the lake to the ocean, so that boaters could explore beyond the rather limited boundaries of the lake? Unless, of course, the boats (which don't appear in the picture) are very small.
And why would they need to fine people for wading? (1000 pounds? seems excessive for wading in the water) If the problem is littering, intimidating behaviour and/or foul language, punish that (shirley there are already laws on the books against that), but fining people for letting their kids play on the lakeshore seems misdirected.
And, if the lake was built with public money (not clear from the linked article), why are people prohibited from using it in a way which doesn't interfere with any boating activity? So many questions...
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Tuesday 19th July 2016 16:29 GMT Kubla Cant
Re: New Brighton Marine Lake
Was it too much trouble to create a channel from the lake to the ocean, so that boaters could explore beyond the rather limited boundaries of the lake?
Tides present a problem. Also, these lakes tend to be used by fairly young children. With all due respect to Arthur Ransome, I don't suppose many parents want their kids to set sail for Ireland in a 10-foot rowing boat.
And, if the lake was built with public money (not clear from the linked article), why are people prohibited from using it in a way which doesn't interfere with any boating activity?
Jobsworths. Local council mentality: everything that is not compulsory is prohibited.
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Tuesday 19th July 2016 18:36 GMT Antron Argaiv
Re: New Brighton Marine Lake
Thank you -- many questions answered. But if the lake is used by young children to learn to sail, row, etc., it does seem rather shortsighted to prohibit wading...perhaps they could legitimize it by offering swimming lessons :-)
"Jobsworths" explains it nicely. Around here, it's the "high school vice-principal mentality"
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Tuesday 19th July 2016 18:32 GMT VinceH
Re: Chasing?
"The Pokemon appear as markers on the map and allow you to capture them when you get within a set range"
Apparently by pretending to throw a 'pokeball' at them, which is what they did in the kid's TV show. However, on the phone you do this by swiping up on the screen - which is not at all like throwing a ball for real, so why not make it a more realistic experience?
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Tuesday 19th July 2016 19:34 GMT Destroy All Monsters
Re: Chasing?
They do not move and there is no need to chase them.
I have to say I am somewaht disappointed. That would have been a very nice feature, though I can imagine it would lead to accidents. It's hard enough to navigate with a GPS-enabled electronic map while keeping an eye on the road and making absolutely sure that the cognitive task list for handling "what's out there" is prioritized over the cognitive task list for handling "what's on the little screen".
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Tuesday 19th July 2016 16:53 GMT Anonymous Coward
Yawn. Nothing to see here...
Meh. Usual response to a fad.
$NEWSHINY becomes a big sensation, involves a lot of people, including stupid people, teenagers, dunk people, and stupid teenagers.
Stupid people do $DUMBTHING (which they may have done anyway) and happen to do $DUMBTHING while doing/wearing/smoking/chanting $NEWSHINY
Media goes apeshit over how $NEWSHINY is the end of civilization as we know it, citing anecdotal instances of $DUMBTHING as evidence.
for $NEWSHINY in {
Pokemon go,
smartphones,
GPS,
IRC,
baggy pants,
planking,
Tebowing,
nerf wars,
pogs,
telephone booth stuffing,
1st person shooter games,
slap bracelets,
the Charleston,
}
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Tuesday 19th July 2016 17:43 GMT Natalie Gritpants
They are on Weston-super-Mare beach
You know, the one with the massive tidal range with waist deep sticky mud exposed at low tide. I'm sure it is a place of interest as several people have died after trying to walk to the water at low tide. If you get stuck and are noticed you may survive as the local coast guard now has a hovercraft but you will have to wait for the water to get deep enough for them to lift you out.
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Wednesday 20th July 2016 16:25 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: They are on Weston-super-Mare beach
"The tidal range around here is about a mile and a half but can't I recall the last drowning"
The tidal range at New Brighton or Southport in England on the Mersey estuary is probably something like that. On day trips we were surprised if the sea was in sight.
IIRC they have gently shelving beaches of relatively hard sand. When building sandcastles there was always a good chance of hitting "oil" - and our parents had to clean tar off us.
Weston-Sludgy-Mare is a different beast. As the nickname implies it is not firm sand. The tide is not measured by how far it goes out - but by the change in height of the water. Slightly further up the Bristol Channel the tide height change at Clifton can be nearly 15 metres (over 40 feet). That's a lot of water movement in a short time.
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Wednesday 20th July 2016 10:44 GMT sabroni
Re: several people EACH YEAR have died..
Someone needs to tell Google, because currently there's one drunken death in 2014 and another couple of drunken ones in 2009. Nothing about people getting stuck in the mud and drowning though, just stuck in the mud and rescued...
Still, it's a good story!
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Tuesday 19th July 2016 19:08 GMT Destroy All Monsters
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. call of Pokemon
Situated in the exclusion Zone of the Chernobyl, you have to collect them all, fighting radioactivity, Azov Battalion True Believers, lesser Banderistas, random Oligarch Muscle and tired policemen who just want to go home.
Keep "Guranteed Pure Ukrainian" vodka on the ready!
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Tuesday 19th July 2016 20:05 GMT 404
Critical thinking?
Go for the two-fer by mounting your phone to a drone (DroneFone? MINE!), then going out to these areas..
Remember to clone your phone before you mount it to the drone... need to control these things within reason, eh? I can't wait to show all those stupid trainers...
<fuckaduck>Remember when you only had to deal with people texting while driving? Those were the days, eh?</fuckaduck>
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Tuesday 19th July 2016 20:16 GMT noddybollock
We have one of them there spot near where I work, on a roundabout (traffic island) on a busy dual carriageway that links a motorway and another major dual carriageway !!!
And the idiots have parked up and are sitting on the embankment playing with their phones, well I hope that’s what their doing - as it's also not too far from a 'popular' dogging site (so I'm told ;-)
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Tuesday 19th July 2016 21:07 GMT lukewarmdog
Presumably
"Presumably both Pokemon and youths escaped safely."
What? You can't presume or assume that.. maybe I've just re-read American Gods far too recently but what if some massive lake monster got them?
We accept cartoon beasts that you can apparently keep in a ball and fight with other beasts in a ball so we don't need to dredge the lake for bodies?
World is a messed up place.
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Biting the hand that feeds IT
