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nicboobees

25 karma · joined July 14, 2015

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nicboobees··on Sandra Bland arrest video has continuity problems, anomalies
Maybe you're right... maybe it's my own bias since the only times I've interacted with police have been positive.

Maybe if you're stopped regularly, then it's hard to keep your temper. It'd be interesting to know how many times she'd been stopped in the past.

nicboobees··on Sandra Bland arrest video has continuity problems, anomalies
Never put down to malice something that can be attributed to stupidity or bugs.

Far more likely the recording software is crappy and sometimes skips back a second or two.

The problem is whatever they released, people would start picking apart and launching conspiracy theories about.

nicboobees··on Sandra Bland arrest video has continuity problems, anomalies
He asked her nicely if she could put out her cigarette for his benefit. She in return started ranting about how it was her car etc.

I don't care if she has the right to remain smoking in her car or not. Someone asked kindly for her to put it out, and she went full rant in return.

I'm sure statistically speaking, if someone is a complete asshole and "resists" any attempt to be nice to the police, they're likely to be breaking other laws - carrying drugs, no car insurance, etc etc.

If you get pulled over by the police, starting an argument and forcing them to escalate things isn't the best idea.

nicboobees··on Sandra Bland arrest video has continuity problems, anomalies
Would it be so hard for her to just do what he asked instead of blowing things up...

I really don't understand the absolute lack of respect some people have for the law and other humans. Is it that hard to be civil?

nicboobees··on What happens when you talk about salaries at Google
It certainly is me who benefits.

In 2 previous jobs, I found out what others at the company were making. OK, they were managers, but still, it just made me pissed off. It didn't make me happy by any means.

As others note, people tend to generally think they're above average. Can you not see that exploding their delusion might not be such a great idea? Some of them have to be below average. A team who doesn't share salary info, can all be happy that they're all above average. If they start sharing salary, half will be below average and probably pretty pissed off.

The people who benefit, are people who are generally happy as they are. Would you like to know how much money your neighbours have? Why should it matter?

nicboobees··on What happens when you talk about salaries at Google
Maybe it's different here. In the UK it's considered vulgar to discuss money or how much you earn.
nicboobees··on What happens when you talk about salaries at Google
Nothing good comes from knowing other peoples salary. Only jealousy, resentment, unhappiness, and greed.
nicboobees··on Stephen Hawking and Yuri Milner Announce $100M Initiative to Seek ET
"the cost of lost discoveries"?

Things will get discovered eventually, by people who are passionate about them.

nicboobees··on Stephen Hawking and Yuri Milner Announce $100M Initiative to Seek ET
As a fellow reply states, using "Space travel" as a means for general R&D is pretty damn inefficient.

You would have a similar result if you poured money into alchemy research - lots of side products etc.

nicboobees··on Stephen Hawking and Yuri Milner Announce $100M Initiative to Seek ET
I completely agree. But it's a pursuit individuals should pursue. If you want to go explore mars, go ahead! I'm sure it'd be great fun. But it should absolutely not be anything to do with public money, taxes, grants etc.

Leave it completely to rich people and companies to waste their money on.

nicboobees··on Stephen Hawking and Yuri Milner Announce $100M Initiative to Seek ET
If you're going to force people to pay money, through taxes, grants etc, to explore space, then it should have some material benefit.
nicboobees··on Stephen Hawking and Yuri Milner Announce $100M Initiative to Seek ET
Stadiums benefit millions of people. Jet fighters save lives. Finding out that there's water on mars, or some single cell organisms on pluto, does nothing apart from fill a few future text books.
nicboobees··on Stephen Hawking and Yuri Milner Announce $100M Initiative to Seek ET
So we find out there's some creatures on Pluto that are roughly the same as frogs. How does that impact anyones life? It'd be an interesting fact, and maybe fun if we could move some over here as pets, but beyond that, it's a colossal waste of energy and money.
nicboobees··on Stephen Hawking and Yuri Milner Announce $100M Initiative to Seek ET
Well, agree to disagree. The average person doesn't really care if there is or isn't water on mars, or if someone spent millions of their dollars taking a photo of pluto.

Year after year the news reports another big experiement which cost millions to setup, and which claims to "give us answers as to how the universe was created". I just couldn't be less interested. It's rich people (Or taxpayer funded people) playing with their toys.

It must be great fun if space exploration is your hobby, like explorers of days gone by, but for most people it won't have any impact at all on their lives (Apart from wasting their taxes).

nicboobees··on Stephen Hawking and Yuri Milner Announce $100M Initiative to Seek ET
Is it worth millions of dollars to know that? Nope.

It's rich people playing with their toys.

nicboobees··on Tesla’s Model S Gets “Ludicrous” Mode, Will Do 0-60 in 2.8 Seconds
I have both. If I need maps/browser/camera, I use my android phone, and moan at all the crappy UI issues and endless updates etc.

One of my worst gripes with android is just how often it changes the UI just as I'm about to click on something, so that I click on something else. It's maddening.

If I need a phone, I use my Nokia 3210 (With its ridiculously long battery life and far superior reception).

nicboobees··on How a car works (2012)
Look at sewing machines though. They used to be made of cast iron and wood. They were built properly, and it shows. They still work 50 or 60 years later. Modern day sewing machines are made of cheap plastic and flimsy metal. They last 5 years.

Yeah there's some survivor bias, but the materials used to make things in the olden days was just better material. On the down side, sewing machines used to cost a months wages or something.

nicboobees··on Tesla’s Model S Gets “Ludicrous” Mode, Will Do 0-60 in 2.8 Seconds
What if they decide to remove a feature like Android removed "silent mode" as a feature...

Also, software will always be more buggy than hardware. The more software there is in something, the less reliable it is.

nicboobees··on Tesla’s Model S Gets “Ludicrous” Mode, Will Do 0-60 in 2.8 Seconds
This is an awful user experience though.

Look at mobile phones.

An old Nokia 3210 or something, just works. It does everything fine. It works as a phone. It was designed from start to finish, and built.

Compare that with Android. Every update they seem to break or remove some functionality. Endless software updates, restarting, etc. It was shipped with bugs, it'll always have bugs.

I'm not convinced this is an improvement. Also obviously has some pretty big consequences if the update system is hacked, or if there's critical bugs etc.

nicboobees··on How a car works (2012)
People will always use "old tech".

"Old tech" often just works. Flawlessly. I have a dumper truck I borrow from next door. Crank handle, diesel. It just works. Starts every time. No battery, no crap to go wrong.

"new tech" is often designed to last 5 or 10 years maximum. After that is anyones guess as to whether it'll work.

nicboobees··on Getting too little sleep can have serious health consequences (2013)
Habits like reading every scientific paper and worrying about them?
nicboobees··on Donate to Chelsea Manning's Legal Defense
I agree. I'm just saying that just because someone is a lawyer, and has a reasonably high salary, doesn't necessarily follow that they're swimming in money.
nicboobees··on Donate to Chelsea Manning's Legal Defense
Rich people don't just swim in money you know. It's fairly likely they'll have far more expenses than poor people. So they might have a better pension plan, pay a gardener. Might send their kids to private school. etc etc

So someone earning $200k could well be less well off after expenses than someone earning $50k.

nicboobees··on Getting too little sleep can have serious health consequences (2013)
Also if you sleep well, and live 25% longer, that 25% will be when you're old, senile, and unable to do anything useful.

Studies about sleep are often just crazy. When did people stop using their common sense? Just have as much sleep as you think works for you.

nicboobees··on Donate to Chelsea Manning's Legal Defense
You don't think you're slightly playing the victim card here at all do you?
nicboobees··on Uber’s Manhattan Invasion Is Killing the Loan Market for Taxis
Do you really believe that no regulation is the answer?

Look at airbnb and the detrimental effects it has on cities. Residential areas are residential for a reason. It must be horrible to wake up one day and find that your neighbour has decided to turn into an unregulated hotel.

nicboobees··on Uber’s Manhattan Invasion Is Killing the Loan Market for Taxis
It'll come full circle. People will start getting murdered / seriously hurt in Uber cars, maybe they'll be filmed without their consent while in the car, probably a few rapes along the way.

Then customers will cry out for regulation, insurance, etc. And it'll put the prices up.

I don't understand why you'd put your life completely in someone elses hands without any sort of vetting, regulation, insurance etc. Just so you can save a few $

Maybe a startup should disrupt the medical industry. Just provide "doctors" to patients based on online feedback scores. After all, all that regulation and training just pushes prices up.

nicboobees··on Uber’s Manhattan Invasion Is Killing the Loan Market for Taxis
And in return, you're getting a properly regulated and insured service which you can pretty much rely on.

You get what you pay for.

nicboobees··on Driving for Uber as an Iraq War Vet
God forbid we should actually interact with our fellow humans.

I guess the next step down this path is to replace waiters etc with robots - again reducing the amount you have to interact with other humans.

When I get in a taxi, I actually enjoy talking to the driver, asking about the local area, the news, and making both our days a tiny bit more interesting.

As the world population increases, and cities grow and grow I can only see this getting worse - millions of humans bunched together, and all of them scared to talk to each other.

(In case you hadn't guessed I'm not a city person)

nicboobees··on The anatomy of a credit card form
Another example of doing it wrong is when the form splits the cc number into 4 separate boxes, and automatically skips along merrily to the next box as you type it in. This might look nice and everything, but usually breaks if you try to backspace your entry, or paste etc
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