My Surreal UberX Experience | Hacker News Reader

My Surreal UberX Experience

tomtunguz.com

185 pointsASquare42 comments

Nothing a cab stand, cash, and pen and paper hadn't already solved.

A wise man once said: "Don't be too proud of this technological experience you've constructed. The ability to incorporate technology into a solution is insignificant next to the power of human ingenuity."

Or something like that.

I don't carry a sign language dictionary with me. The driver might have had one in his car. But regardless, the problems are now solved better than before and that is a little surreal.

I don't carry a sign language dictionary with me. The driver might have had one in his car.

OR A PEN.

PROTIP: COMMUNICATE BY WRITING WITH THE PEN.

Edit for clarity: I suppose that I deserve the hate for using caps, but I'm amazed that people think access to a sign language dictionary on your phone is a better way to communicate with a deaf person than a pen and paper. Sure the poster was able to learn a single sign that he ended his interaction with, but he could have nodded or waved to the same effect and would not be able to hold a conversation. With a writing implement he would be able to richly communicate with the driver, including diagrams for route choice or drawings of landmarks to navigate to a place he didn't know the address or name of. There are many impressive capabilities that modern technology provides us, but sometimes we get lost in thinking that they are revolutionary. There's nothing wrong with reveling in an experience, but you should recognize that it is only indulgence.

He wanted to learn the sign, as a form of respect. Yes, respect could be shown other ways. But to communicate back to someone in their own language can show that you care enough to learn something new for them.

He could have mouthed "thank you" as well.

> Nothing a cab stand, cash, and pen and paper hadn't already solved.

You could use that analogy for pretty much any technological innovation the past 50 years.

Like public key cryptography.

Space flight???

throws pen at the moon

Ok Darth Vader ;)

I'm surprised you still have to communicate your destination to the driver after you get in the car. Shouldn't Uber let you specify your destination in advance, entirely through the app?

Uber does not disclose passenger destinations to drivers to prevent discrimination, e.g. far-away pick-ups with short rides.

A month or so ago, I made the mistake of answering a text message from my en route driver asking where I was going. I thought, "Oh nice, he's plugging it into GPS beforehand." But I was wrong. He must have not liked my destination because the trip was promptly canceled by the driver and I had to spend another 15 minutes waiting for a new one.

Lesson learned: never tell your Uber driver your destination before you get into the car. :\

They have a very small limit to how many pickups they can cancel, though.

That's good to know. Just to be clear, I don't fault Uber at all for this happening, and it's nice to know that they're attempting to put limits in place to prevent it. But it was aggravating in the moment.

Why don't you fault Uber? It's their driver who reneged on the offer to drive you and inconvienced you. Don't you want them to prevent this and make your experience better?

Because it doesn't happen on a regular basis, and they seem to have reasonable blockers in place to prevent it when they can. But, their drivers are people, and some people will do anything they can to get around that system.

If I had other poor experiences with Uber, then I'd be faulting them... but they've done a good job making sure that hasn't happened more than once.

I recently had this happen for a $65 airport-to-city fare when the driver was 5 minutes from the airport.

Uber could wait until you've been collected before passing that information to the driver.

A "Share My Location with the driver" button,which only becomes available once the ride has started would be cool.

I'm surprised the Uber app doesn't let you do this and give the driver directions automatically.

Most Uber drivers I see have GPS systems in their cars or one that I saw the other day had two iPhones.

Had a similar experience with a Lyft driver recently. Thought he simply didn't want to talk, but realized he was deaf shortly after.

Decided to navigate him myself and didn't have any issues at all. Glad to see that those less fortunate are finding more opportunity due to improvements in technology. Hope to see more of this in the future.

I worked at Sorenson VRS with deaf people for six months while they were developing the mobile VRS app, as well as "BuzzCards", which was precisely a digital notepad with many saved notes of things you'd say often, like Starbucks orders, addresses, basically just canned phrases or stuff to create on-the-go.

While I was there, I never had to actually learn sign language to even communicate with my deaf coworkers, and this was in a technical environment.

One coworker could mouth sounds adequately enough to understand. Most could read lips just fine. In some scenarios, we'd communicate with a small portable whiteboard. The deaf people I knew could write very quickly and tersely, which would be much more efficient than anything you could do via phone.

This experience is only surreal if you've never spent any significant amount of time around deaf people.

The technology to give this deaf man hearing, and eliminate the need for drivers is the really interesting thing

I agree that that would be more awesome. That doesn't take away from this cool story though.

Also, we're getting there. I recently saw this clip of a woman hearing for the first time. Powerful stuff.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rja_LI0izK8

The technology to give this deaf man hearing,

You mean like a pen and paper?

Can you hear through your eyes?

Funny everyone is picking on the tech part. Being a SOMA-dweller I immediately wanted to pick on the idea that Sightglass is "deep South of Market". Every direction is single digits of blocks out of SOMA.

I had the exact same experience except with Lyft and it was a Galaxy Note hah!

I am not deaf or blind, but podcasts give me the same experiences. Specifically Radio Lab or This American Life. Growing up in the TV generation we are so use to one stimuli...the visual one.

We forget about the way the other ones are so fresh and sensitive.

Wow what qualifies as 'surreal' these days...

Dalí must be ejaculating in his grave...

I think I've had this same guy near the same area. I thought initially he was doing it to avoid conversation with passengers and to hopefully over hear some juicy valley gossip.

Or he was just deaf.

Why would you immediately assume such a negative scenario?

How is that a negative scenario? Not wanting to have a conversation isn't a crime.

Are you serious? You don't see how immediately assuming that he's faking a serious disability in order to avoid normal conversation and eavesdrop is a negative scenario?

Nothing in the description indicates driver was faking serious disability.Why did you assume that?

Do you see the comment I am replying to?

The user said " I thought initially he was doing it to avoid conversation with passengers and to hopefully over hear some juicy valley gossip. "

"it" refers to "being deaf."

it refers to "Without saying a word, the driver passed me his iPhone."

There are some strange people our here in the valley. I thought maybe he was one. Either way, the thought crossed my mind and I posted it here because there's also some strange people on HN that I thought could relate.

Inverse Hanlan's Razor.

Hanlon's Razor is something I've never heard before - but it's a philosophy that I've tried to stick to in my life.

It's so great to be able to put an "official" term to something you know but can't associate with a title!

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