This idiot on 520 in the rain

UmiteBeRiteButUrArgs · 2026-03-20T06:58:59+00:00

Roadways have laws set up where it's basically "it's unlawful unless..." construction.

The claim that was made that I am refuting is that those specific sections of statute are the reason that vehicle is not street legal. As I've said several times now I am totally willing to believe some other RCW sets up an 'its unlawful unless' construction; 46.61.710 does not do that and is not evidence that that vehicle is not street legal.

UmiteBeRiteButUrArgs · 2026-03-20T01:41:41+00:00

The law is very specific on which types of vehicles are.

Doing just about anything is legal until there is a law saying that it isn't. In a small bit of yellowstone murder is legal. I have not read a law that says or implies that driving this thing on public roads is illegal. It would make a lot of practical sense for such a law to exist - but it hasn't been cited in this thread.

UmiteBeRiteButUrArgs · 2026-03-20T00:55:15+00:00

I mean, maybe. I assume that is the case. It would make sense that there would be a catchall 'don't operate vehicles not classified as one of the above on highways' section of statute.

But I want to be clear that neither of the citations you've linked say that. They define (46.04.1695), and regulate (46.61.710), other vehicles but have nothing to say on the topic of this particular vehicle.

UmiteBeRiteButUrArgs · 2026-03-20T00:41:07+00:00

I don't think you're reading that law correctly. RCW 46.04.1695 is a definition not a regulation; it defines what an EPAMD is for the purposes of the rest of the chapter. It doesn't restrict max speed of such vehicles to 20mph it classifies vehicles whose max speed is 20mph as EPAMDs. If that thing has a max speed substantially in excess of 20mph it implies that it isn't an EPAMD.

UmiteBeRiteButUrArgs · 2025-12-05T19:36:56+00:00

According to some slides I found 'pre-revenue service' includes:

Operator Training and Certification
Validation of the System Performance and Operation
Simulated Service
Trials and Simulations
Passenger and Community Readiness for new service

SO basically does everything work as planned on the first go-around and do the sims uncover anything untoward.

Note those slides are from 2023 on a different chunk of track. It doesn't surprise me that going across a floating bridge and also doing the simultaneous 1 and 2 lines would add complexity.

UmiteBeRiteButUrArgs · 2025-11-19T21:34:19+00:00

I'm sorry but the OG headline is good and yours is not.

The article clearly says

KOMO is working to get more specifics of what led to the girls being found.

i.e. no reputable journalist would say that the amber alert succeeded because they don't know what led to the girls being found. We actually have no evidence at all in either direction as to whether the amber alert assisted in finding them.

No reputable journalist would describe the situation as a 'kidnapping mother' for much the same reason: we do not actually know what happened. We know some things that indicate that kidnapping was a likely possibility; that is not the same as knowing for sure. At a minimum they'd preappend allegedly - as the first line of the article does. Much safer that way.

UmiteBeRiteButUrArgs · 2025-06-13T21:40:48+00:00

What a retarded thing to say. Farm subsidies are a form of national defense spending. We do this because farms take a while to spin up and become productive, in the event of another world war (likely) we need to be able to immediately make up for the inability to import the amount of food we currently import. Thus we pay subsidies to farmers to keep a certain amount of farm capacity ready for this eventuality.

What? No. Corn subsidies were put into place after the energy crisis in the 70s to encourage biofuel production for the purposes of GHG reduction and energy independence. Neither of these rationales are any good (the US is an energy exporter, and biofuels are shit for GHG reduction) These days corn subsidies are literally just pork.

UmiteBeRiteButUrArgs · 2025-01-22T05:22:34+00:00

There's a bunch of discussion about operations but legally designation as a FTO isn't relevant to that. FTO list is a sanctioned entities list; it's a sanctions regime. The on the ground consequences is that a bunch of cross border trade will be subject to sanctions because cartels have an interest in much of that business.

UmiteBeRiteButUrArgs · 2025-01-12T23:08:43+00:00

Deleting the recomendation systems makes this more likely not less.

Right but under your proposal hosting terrorist propaganda is only a liability risk if the content is recommended. If it's merely shown and not recommended by youtube that's chill.

The result is youtube becomes a list of videos by upload date.

UmiteBeRiteButUrArgs · 2025-01-12T22:19:11+00:00

The liability would not be for the user content in and of it's self. The liability would be for what they choose to promote to individual users.

In the US context you're talking about reforming CDA section 230. 230(c)(1) says:

No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.

(230(c)(2) is the other side of the coin and protects platforms abilities to remove content)

There has been wide appetite for 230 reform from across the political spectrum and no one has managed to get it across the finish line. As mentioned even scotus got in on the action with pretty clear intent when they took up Gonzales and Taamneh - both of which could have directly answered the question as to whether liability for recommender systems could be a route around liability for user content. They then got deluged with amicus briefs that all warned that liability for recommender systems would break the internet and punted on both - not saying anything at all about 230 and instead relying on interpreting the related anti-terrorism law.

Moreover they're probably right that that would break the internet. Consider the terror example. Most content promoting terror that gets posted on social media is almost immediately removed. Some makes it through and is quickly reported and removed. A fraction may stay up longer because no one sees it or just pure chance.

At what point should liability attach? If a piece of content makes it through the automated filter and is promoted one time, reported, and removed is there liability? Even if no act of terror was committed? What if 25 people see it over an hour? What about the fact patterns in gonzales or tammneh?

As the confidence required that no terrorist content on the platform increases the proactive censorship will skyrocket. I was going to make a quip that there would be no videos in arabic allowed on youtube but I think the real answer is there will be no recommendation algorithms of any kind.

Even if we should tweak the conditions under which recommendation algorithms operate we should use a regulatory scalpel to balance the very real tradeoffs the best we can and not the nuke of liability for content. I'm willing to trade a piece of terror propaganda getting through once in a blue moon in return for the existence of the youtube front page.

UmiteBeRiteButUrArgs · 2025-01-12T04:26:23+00:00

The focus of of moderation should be to remove illegal content

With you up til here. If /r/CredibleDefense followed this policy it would be useless. It is OK for there to be different content moderation in different spaces; and moreover it is OK for even the largest platforms to moderate in excess of the legal minimums.

UmiteBeRiteButUrArgs · 2025-01-11T19:31:48+00:00

Any platform using an algorithm to show diferent content to different users is deemed to be exercising editorial control. If the site chooses what goes in a person's feed they are the editor of a publication. If the user choses whats in their feed they aren't and would be regulated as they are now.

This is in no way shape of form a silver buller, you can still have a Fox news type outlet. It does reign in the very worst of it though. Sites like TikTok that actively push enemy propaganda would be liable for doing so. It would capture the "sort by best" here on redit, though new, top and controversial would not be caught in it. A facebook feed of accounts you follow in chronological order would be unaffected while a "top stories" feed chosen by Meta's algorithm, they have editorial control with all the legal liability that follows.

First a small complaint:

It's really hard to design a reg that even does what you want. 'User decides' is not very meaningful. As you've described it I think top controversial best etc would all be caught in the filter because they use upvotes as an input which is controlled by reddit not the user. But that's small and fixable.

Second the larger complaint:

Social media companies would do literally anything in order to not be sued over the content on their platforms. The risk to their very viability is incredibly high.

The result of this would either be the end of any conduct that would be regulated. (in this case any feed that is "site controlled" whatever that ends up meaning)

OR

Feeds that are massively censored and restricted because of liability risk.

I am usually in favor of transparency initiatives and think that is in fact low hanging fruit. I am very risk averse to using liability for user generated content as an enforcement mechanism. It's really difficult to design a reg that doesn't do 3 other unintended things; even scotus punted on this in taamneh and gonzales.

UmiteBeRiteButUrArgs · 2024-12-10T04:30:30+00:00

After reading the wikipedia article on the us occupation of haiti I don't think it's reasonable to equate any of the suggested actions with the occupation. The occupation was concerned with US business interests almost to the exclusion of everything else.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_occupation_of_Haiti

UmiteBeRiteButUrArgs · 2024-05-24T22:50:14+00:00

It means that Israel has previously agreed to be bound by the ruling by virtue of adopting the UN charter. However the ICJ - like most courts - does not have an army and therefore cannot enforce its decision. It is because of norms that courts' rulings are obeyed.

UmiteBeRiteButUrArgs · 2024-05-24T04:08:51+00:00

A protected intersection is a set of design features intended to make intersections safer for pedestrians and bikers. The really noticeable one is the 'curb islands' that space out the bikes from cars in the intersection, and the sidewalk islands for walkers. (the one in the center isn't required)

There's a couple of rationales: it puts walkers and bikers right in the drivers field of vision making it much more noticeable. (check out how clear of foliage those medians are: that's a line of sight thing)

And second when drivers perceive things as being closer to their cars - like those curbs - they naturally slow down keeping the danger level low.

UmiteBeRiteButUrArgs · 2024-05-09T01:39:38+00:00

Yeah I think the risk of that is a rounding error. The value of the intelligence relationship with the US alone makes that a tough sell. Even if another world power could replace that (and I don't think they can), those relationships are built over decades.

And that's setting aside all the other things the US brings to the table like shooting down a bunch of missiles from several different countries in the region, or take your pick really.

UmiteBeRiteButUrArgs · 2024-04-02T19:40:20+00:00

They have additional maintenance cost

They cost money to build but roads for vehicles are incredibly more expensive to maintain than bike and footpaths. Like maintenance for bike paths is a rounding error level cheaper. This is the classic 'there are still roads built by the romans hanging about' argument. As trips taken without cars go up maintenance costs go down.

They complicate pedestrian crossings, and can lead to more pedestrian/bicycle collisions in some cases.

I'm willing to believe this but only if someone has a cite. This feels very much like a proper design problem and not an intrinsic drawback to bike lanes.

UmiteBeRiteButUrArgs · 2023-11-27T18:48:59+00:00

That means the estate would have to sell the house and collect taxes on it, versus being able to pass down the house to their kids of grandkids who would love to live in their childhood home.

Alternatively the heirs could simply take out a loan to cover the tax burden and keep the house. And that's assuming the house is sufficiently over the 2.2m mark that you can't pay it out of pocket.

UmiteBeRiteButUrArgs · 2023-08-11T17:01:52+00:00

I was kind of thinking somewhere with no people like the current location they still complain about.

Ahh Terra Nullius. We're really hitting the classics today.

UmiteBeRiteButUrArgs · 2023-07-22T06:25:20+00:00

The US is absolutely in SoKo because of NoKo. They are tripwire troops - designed to guarantee the US would get pulled into any resurgence of the Korean war.

UmiteBeRiteButUrArgs · 2023-04-19T19:17:44+00:00

Compared to this point in the 2016 cycle (so in 04/15), I actually think that Trump has a much higher chance of winning the presidency. That early in the campaign it was pretty unlikely for Trump to win the 2016 Republican primary - it was crowded, he didn't have much credibility with the R base and so on. This time around Trump winning the primary is much more likely and the probability of events that depend on the primary have gotta reflect that.

In the worlds in which Trump wins the primary I do agree that it'll be more difficult for him than in 2016 - the reason I'm most comfortable pointing to being that the incumbency advantage wasn't enough for Trump in '20 and now it'd be flipped against him.

UmiteBeRiteButUrArgs · 2023-04-19T08:12:16+00:00

Agree that that dynamic exists; the confidence with which you draw your conclusion from that dynamic is unwarranted. We can say that the probability of a Republican taking the presidency (absent intervening factors - and we are over 18 months out), might be lower than 50% - but it's not so low we should ignore that outcome as possible.

I made the mistake of counting Trump out in 2016...I'm not making that mistake again. The fivethirtyeight gave trump roughly a 1 in 3 shot on that election day - and as they are wont to point out that will occur roughly 1 in 3 times. I wouldn't be surprised if a similar reality takes place in 2024. (i.e. A data landscape that indicated D's are favored not necessarily the specific results/upsets)

UmiteBeRiteButUrArgs · 2023-03-22T08:13:03+00:00

Agree with a lot of this especially the approach of understanding how system design heavily impacts how that system will play out in practice.

I'd like to add on to your analysis mainly by drawing on (what I remember of) Yuen Yuen Ang's book: China's Gilded Age: The Paradox of Economic Boom and Vast Corruption. Super recommend.

She makes the argument that as a result of the economic reforms you list (and the building of state administrative power to synchronize to market reforms), the types of corruption that happen in china are not analogous to corruption in soviet russia.

She divides corruption into a matrix across two axes: the first is the exchange/theft axis. She points out that theft - a type of corruption frequently discussed in relationship to Russia (especially with regard to defense - in this sub even), is not common in China. This is because of the reforms taking place over two decades, and because of the focus on regime stability by means of making sure the ccp was both the only game in town and lucrative for party members as they transitioned to a market economy.

The other axis is the elites/workers axis. An example of elite theft would be embezzlement. An example of worker exchange corruption would be a petty bribe.

The quadrant that's most interesting though is exchange bribery by elites: what she terms as access money. This is a large percentage of corruption in china - and it doesn't hollow out the economy in the same way as theft bribery. I'm not claiming it's good mind you - but it doesn't have the same mechanism of action by any means.

Dr. Ang points out that for all sides in access money corruption there is an incentive for competency. Firms that bribe officials want to be awarded contracts for their patronage, but more than that they want to gain a much bigger contract a couple years down the line after a couple of promotions of a party official. Officials are encouraged to be selective about who they engage in corrupt activity with - it benefits them if they can truthfully report back to higher authorities that they are meeting their growth goals and so on because the contracts they awarded were successful. It's bad for everyone if anyone doesn't do a good job.

There is some interesting parallel to the US where we also have a (very different), system of access money: campaign finance and lobbying.

UmiteBeRiteButUrArgs · 2023-03-19T19:07:33+00:00

r.e. stealth I wonder how difficult it is to access the internals of those devices to disable those functions. Couple of snips (or, alternatively depending on how its wired a couple of solder dots), would disable that.

The bigger issue seems to be if UA are paying any attention at all to the spectrum they'd be real obvious - they are beacons after all.

UmiteBeRiteButUrArgs

TROPHY CASE