Radio controlled quadcopters, whether navigating automatically or not, fall under the definition of "drone". The terminology is fine, and the attempt at redefinition is a losing battle.
- a cheap Chinese $10 toy that goes out of range after 300m
- a racing quadrocopter built at a hackerspace to research autonomous operation, with a tracking GPS, hour-long battery life and first-person-view camera
- a professional, thousands-of-dollars, remotely controlled photo rig
- a military machine designed to kill human beings in a semi-autonomous manner
If I saw one of these near my house I wouldn't so much as blink. If I saw another I would be immediately relocating to another country.
So one is not a threat, but two are? (Pedantry begets pedantry.)
Overloading the term "drone" with all of the meanings above may not be optimal, but if enough context is given to roughly determine the class of drone under discussion then there is no reason to complain. The article mentions the following:
"Small drones are inexpensive and easy to buy but their appearance in recent months over sensitive locations has worried French authorities."
Of course you don't. This is pedantry nonsense that, while becoming common, is really that someone wants to argue, in utter futility, about the definition of a word. For years HN was caught up naval gazing about the difference between hacker and cracker. Now it is this drone garbage.
- Was it a helicopter or a fixed-wing aircraft?
- Was it something small or the kind of fixed-wing that companies use to do terrain imaging (think 3x4 meters, $10k+/piece)?
- Was it a cheap radio-controlled toy or something capable of flying BVR or autonomously?
- If fixed wing, was it a proppeler plane or a jet?
A lot depends on those answers. If that was just a random dude who bought a Phantom off eBay, then it's not really worth even writing about. On the other hand, it that was a model jet, it has very serious safety implications related to both speed and the noise its engines generate. Furthermore, if that was just an RC heli then again it's probably nothing, while if it was a long-flight-duration BVR/autonomous vehicle, it could be anything from a shady company doing something illegal to criminals scoping places for a strike.
Reading this article, I can't really be sure if that "mysterious drone" was any of the above, or if someone just strapped few LEDs to a pidgeon.
As for lumping everything under the name "drone" - for the last few years when you saw a news article with the word "drone" in it, it was usually followed by either a causalty count or remarks about police power abuse. People are scared of this term. Also, it feels sort of weird to call a cheap toy-quadcopter "a drone", much in the same way as calling a tank "a car".
Reading this article, I can't really be sure if that "mysterious drone" was any of the above, or if someone just strapped few LEDs to a pidgeon.
99.9% of readers read the article and knew it was quadcoptors. The 0.1% knew it was quadcopters, but want to engage in a ridiculous bit of nonsense on HN, playing to the crowd.
much in the same way as calling a tank "a car"
Hardly, and that analogy is absurd. More like if a bomb went off in a cafe you would be declaring that "IS IT A NUCLEAR BOMB? WAS IT A PLASTIC BOMB? A TNT BOMB? A BLACK POWDER BOMB? A REPURPOSED ARTILLERY SHELL WARHEAD? A...."
It's just noise. Noisy bullshit that is ruining HN.
I really don't know. It's nowhere in the article - neither stated nor implied.
> 99.9% of readers read the article and knew it was quadcoptors.
[citation needed]
> The 0.1% knew it was quadcopters, but want to engage in a ridiculous bit of nonsense on HN, playing to the crowd.
Excuse me for trying to get a coherent picture out of that article. Also, you realize that contemporary journalism is mostly misleading mixed with blatant lies? I'd be wary of accepting as a fact whatever is not stated but what you're led to implicitly belive.
> "IS IT A NUCLEAR BOMB? WAS IT A PLASTIC BOMB? A TNT BOMB? A BLACK POWDER BOMB? A REPURPOSED ARTILLERY SHELL WARHEAD? A...."
Nope. Try a headline "a mysterious explosion occured, no one got hurt" and me asking whether it was a gas explosion, a conventional explosive, or just some random kid who discovered that mixing potassium nitrate with sugar leads to fun things happening.
This is classic HN autism, and this "hurr durrr drone" bullshit appears in each and every thread that mentions "drones", even if every single participant knows what they're talking about, without specifically declaring that it's an XYZ.
Don't be the problem. Don't be the noise. Don't be the stupidity.
The objection is against vagueness, not inaccuracy.