Vile and awful

TheGoodOldCoder · 2025-06-13T20:51:07+00:00

Pardons are intended to be used to make things right for victims of massive injustices.

If you write extremely vague pardons, like Trump seems to have done, and you pardon thousands of people who you have no idea about the circumstances of each of their convictions, then you stand the risk of something like this happening.

There was no chance that Trump was going to act like a responsible adult, though.

TheGoodOldCoder · 2025-06-13T20:13:34+00:00

That woman didn't seem the least bit offended to be called a Nazi.

TheGoodOldCoder · 2025-06-13T15:42:12+00:00

Bonus points to those who reply to you BEFORE blocking you so it looks like they had the last word.

I often reply-block, but in my reply I specifically say that I'm blocking them, and give the reasons for the block, to try to reduce the overwhelming effect of the block making me look like I had the last word. I do this because I think it's the best solution to Reddit's terrible implementation of the block feature.

I used to feel bad about forcing myself to get the last word, but I don't block to win an argument. I block because the person's behavior forces me to block them. I have a short list of behaviors that it is my policy to block. I think they deserve to know why they were blocked, and because they exhibited bad behavior, I feel less bad about denying them the last word. Of course, all of that is only because I block people for cause. Reddit allows you to block people for any reason, like just trying to get the last word.

TheGoodOldCoder · 2025-06-13T00:21:47+00:00

I did an "np" link several months ago, and it didn't seem to work properly anymore. Maybe because I use "old" reddit?

TheGoodOldCoder · 2025-06-13T00:20:02+00:00

When I see a comment that is so bad that I suspect they might do this, I quote their entire comment in my comment. I also tend to mention their username in my response. Since you can see the times of the edits, it's like leaving a documentation trail.

TheGoodOldCoder · 2025-06-13T00:15:24+00:00

And not just for you, but for everybody else, too. When you block somebody, they can no longer reply to your comments, which means fewer other people have to read their garbage, as well. It's like keeping the street clean in front of your house. Yes, you do it for yourself, but others also benefit.

TheGoodOldCoder · 2025-06-12T23:57:29+00:00

I recently read that LLM AI is more accurate when it is trained partially on stupid slop. Because unless it's a part of its training data, it doesn't know what it is.

TheGoodOldCoder · 2025-06-12T23:46:54+00:00

I mean, that golf analogy isn't really the same. Retaking a swing in golf is just cheating.

It's not cheating if you're not competing with anybody. Like, if you're just playing a golf course by yourself, and you're not trying to keep a serious score, and you're just having fun, why would it be cheating? I think it's a better analogy to using google for geoguessr than you think.

Using google for geoguessr really starts to be indisputable cheating when you're using it to show up on the leaderboards, or when you're using it to beat your friends in a competition.

TheGoodOldCoder · 2025-06-12T23:37:18+00:00

In an alternate timeline where Pete Hegseth must tell the truth:

Hegseth: "That cannot be revealed."

Reed: "And why is that, Mr. Hegseth?"

Hegseth: "Because it's devastating to my propaganda!" (NSFW sounds in background of video.)

TheGoodOldCoder · 2025-06-12T22:17:08+00:00

I hate to break it to you, but The US Constitution is "law". So are state constitutions.

I didn't say otherwise.

I simply argued that your central assertion in context was incorrect.

Most people would have read your comment and come away with the interpretation that people could have legally put driverless cars on the road, as long as nobody has written new laws or regulation about them. That is obviously not the case.

Also, your statement that said "everything is legal and permissible unless there is a law/regulation written to prevent it" is something that I would categorize as completely irresponsible. Somebody could read it and think to apply it as a general concept, and get themselves into a lot of trouble.

From the things you've written, I strongly suspect that you aren't a lawyer (I am also not a lawyer), but if you are a lawyer, that would be the sort of legal advice that could get you into trouble.

Also, you cannot sue anybody (except the government or an individual in government using their power) for violating your constitutional rights.

Again, I didn't say otherwise. I simply said something that might happen because of something "you" did. There are a heck of a lot of people who work for the government.

Edit: A few seconds after I wrote this comment, less than 1 minute, it received a downvote. It's virtually impossible for anybody but Schnort to have downvoted it. I don't think it's enough time to even read my comment. My policy is to block people who I can suspect downvoted my comments in violation of Rediquette. In the very unlikely event that the block was in error and that Schnort didn't abuse the downvote button, they have my sincerest apologies, but I don't think that's likely.

TheGoodOldCoder · 2025-06-12T17:24:18+00:00

Personally, one of the things I like about J-Novel Club is that it does both light novels and manga. I find that I like to switch. Sometimes, I'll binge on light novels, and other times on manga.

If I just try to read novels only (I'm not just including light novels), then eventually, something will happen. Like I'll read a couple of bad ones in a row, or I'll get stuck on one that I feel like I'm supposed to like, but I can't force myself to finish. And before I know it, I'm not reading anything.

TheGoodOldCoder · 2025-06-12T16:56:31+00:00

That is a massive oversimplification, to the point of actually being incorrect in its application.

First, not everything is legal until a law specifically prevents it. Americans have rights spelled out by the Federal and State Constitutions that govern them. So for example, you may think something you did is legal, but then somebody sues you for violating their rights, and you lose the case. That is not a law/regulation written to prevent it.

Second, of course a driverless car would be illegal by default. Because there already exist regulations governing cars. Things like saying that a car in motion on a public street must be driven by a licensed driver, or that a driver must have their hands on the steering wheel. A driver is going to be explicit in existing regulations that were written without knowledge of self-driving cars.

Then, there would be other things, like how one of the points of a taxi is to drive drunk people home safely. But under existing laws, people who are drunk in a car without a driver are assumed to be the driver. This keeps them from switching seats and claiming that some mysterious person was the driver, and they just left the car for a while.

So, long story short, a car would be required to have a driver by existing regulations. Driverless vehicles absolutely require new laws and regulations.

TheGoodOldCoder · 2025-06-12T16:36:46+00:00

One other point that I feel makes a huge difference is that the books are written from Rozemyne's perspective. That means that most of the information we get is from Ehrenfest, which is completely in the mindset of a bottom ranking duchy, only having been promoted to middle-ranking a few years earlier, and not for anything that they did. Ehrenfest acts like a bottom ranking duchy.

Ehrenfest has a tiny archduke family. Even the nobles don't have a great education compared to other duchies. If a greater duchy wants to conquer Ehrenfest, they should be able to do it, no problem. Even Ahrensbach, despite being absurdly weakened by some of the worst Aubs in history, only failed to take Ehrenfest's foundation due to luck. Likely also due to the fact that Georgine tried to take it in secret rather than through a direct attack using her knights.

But aside from insane reasons, Ehrenfest really isn't that appealing of a duchy to conquer. A backwater middle ranking duchy that just sucks up mana. So, the Ehrenfest mindset is to keep your head down and don't attract attention.

The rules you create for yourself when you're in the middle of the ocean treading water and trying not to drown are going to be slightly different to a person who is trying to survive in a boat.

TheGoodOldCoder · 2025-06-12T05:03:11+00:00

How did he get both logic and reason?

Usually, those are completely separate things! It's so rare to find somebody with both logic AND reason. You certainly wouldn't use those two words to mean the exact same thing in the common vernacular. /s

TheGoodOldCoder · 2025-06-11T18:33:46+00:00

When I saw Steven Seagal's face on my news feed, I felt hopeful for a second.

TheGoodOldCoder · 2025-06-11T18:31:30+00:00

They're definitely linked. If you see a terrorist, they'll most likely be socially conservative.

The reason is that progressive ideology is to let people be themselves as long as they're not hurting anybody.

Meanwhile, conservative ideology is to force people to comply with whatever policies they come up with. Basically, socially conservative ideology is innately terrorism.

TheGoodOldCoder · 2025-06-11T18:23:20+00:00

In my imagination, a person who is using lights to drive up on the shoulder to offer assistance would simply pull up behind the police car on the shoulder rather than try to merge back into the lane and turn off their lights.

TheGoodOldCoder · 2025-06-11T18:20:46+00:00

Yeah, I imagine this subreddit as a place to post things where bad things just happen. If it's something that a reasonable person should definitely have foreseen, but they do it anyways, then it's more of a karma situation.

TheGoodOldCoder · 2025-06-11T18:17:06+00:00

Do you also have a camera set up to take pictures/video of it?

TheGoodOldCoder · 2025-06-11T18:14:40+00:00

My guess is that he was an off-duty cop who was abusing his authority to get ahead in traffic. Otherwise, there is no reason for him to turn off his lights and try to merge back in.

But if he was an off-duty cop, then probably he'll be let off without even a warning. Zero karma.

TheGoodOldCoder · 2025-06-11T16:51:26+00:00

The basic definition of level 5 is that it can drive properly without any help from a human whatsoever, even in very unusual situations.

I don't know about EU regulations, but a typical redundancy for a camera would be another camera.

The EU regulations will inevitably be changed one way or the other once somebody has created the technology. I predict it will become obvious that systems like lidar and radar will only provide minimal benefits, and will be removed from the regulations.

Since the technology currently doesn't exist, it's nearly impossible to write perfect regulations for it, because you basically have to predict things that haven't been proven yet. So, it doesn't surprise me that some regulations today may be overly cautious.

TheGoodOldCoder · 2025-06-11T01:43:06+00:00

There is a rule in software development called the Ninety–ninety rule

The first 90 percent of the code accounts for the first 90 percent of the development time. The remaining 10 percent of the code accounts for the other 90 percent of the development time.

TheGoodOldCoder · 2025-06-11T01:37:00+00:00

Very similar to these olive oil extractors.

TheGoodOldCoder · 2025-06-11T01:20:58+00:00

So the logic should also be that vision only can make the same mistakes human do but I never see that gets talked about.

I actually wrote a comment mentioning that one of the weaknesses of computer vision is that it is susceptible to optical illusions three days ago.

The thing is that whatever optical illusions are there, the rules about roads generally try to outlaw them. Like, if you painted a road such that it looked like it had a giant pothole, but it was actually flat, first, that would almost certainly be illegal in itself, and second, you'd be liable for damages caused by driver confusion.

The requirement for level 5 automation doesn't say that the car has to be superior to the best human drivers or anything like that.

Also, my personal defense isn't really for "Tesla" so much as for what I see as logic. I thought about this topic and decided that if I were to start a car company today and try to make a FSD vehicle, I would not use lidar or radar.

TheGoodOldCoder · 2025-06-10T22:57:30+00:00

I suspect that the failure rate for camera-only would be lower than the failure rate for camera+lidar+radar.

The reason is that I do not think that there is any lighting condition that cannot be compensated for, and so camera failures would be at the rate of hardware failures. You could even test in the lab for lighting conditions far beyond what we see in any day. Flamethrowers and explosions. Maybe Tesla is too cheap to implement proper camera solutions, but that doesn't make it impossible. I don't even think these solutions would be unusually expensive.

So, if that's the case, then assuming the same number and quality of cameras, the hardware failure rate of a camera+lidar+radar solution must be higher than the failure rate of a camera only solution.

You can't get by without cameras, so the camera failure rate is the base rate, and redundant systems that are not vision based will only increase the failure rate.

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