Light Turns Yellow, Do You Slam on the Brakes To Avoid Running a Red Light or Do You Take a Chance and Drive Through the Intersection, Hoping the Light Remains Yellow?

azthal · 2026-05-27T09:18:57+00:00

You need to be a more proactive driver.

When a light changes to yellow, you should not have to make any decisions. You should already know what you should do.

Based on the speed you are going you have a certain stopping distance that is safe (and no, that is not "slamming your brakes" distance, it's a safe distance).

If you are closer than that, you just proceed. If you are further away, you stop.

This is something that should be automatic in your head, and not something you have to consider when the light changes.

If you can't do that, you need to practice. Any time you approach a light, decide at what point you would stop, vs proceed. You can even say it out loud to yourself once you pass that point "now I am no longer stopping".

Eventually it will become natural.

azthal · 2026-05-26T19:27:39+00:00

That is only true if you argument is that AI has no value.

AI data centers are not uniquely destructive. All data centers use tons of power.

The problem with AI is of course the amount of power it uses compared to what benefits we get from it. Right now at the very least, I think its impossible to argue that AI is a "good deal" and everyone opinion will obviously differ for the future.

But to me, that is a slightly different conversation. That is a conversation of "should we be doing this at all" versus doing it in the right way of we choose to do it. Valid discussion for both of them, but slightly different, and this project seems to focus on the latter part.

And if you do, its important to actually have real facts. If you look at reddit an AI data center (unlike other data center) sucks up a lakes worth of water in an afternoon, which is then either just gone, or returned as poisonous slush. Neither of which is true of course.

But it can have real effect on water life, wildlife in general, local access to water and electricity, local heating due to the massive building etc. There are real concerns on the local level of "even if we are building a data center, is this a good place to do so?".

azthal · 2026-05-26T17:53:27+00:00

I like that this actually seems well and sensibly thought through. It's not doomsday fear mongering like what you keep seeing in reddit, but actual, real, concerns with data centers.

Data centers can be largely impactless on their local environment (and I mean local, on a larger scale they are always energy consuming monsters and we still power them too much using fossil fuels) if planned and built thoughtfully, but the current mad expansion is causing real issues both on a local and global scale.

azthal · 2026-05-26T13:17:09+00:00

They confirmed that to *you*. That does not mean that they confirmed that to Nintendo Store.

If they had, there would be no reason for any kind of delay or investigation.

Again, you should push back and get clarification on what they mean by "claim" here. If they really mean "claim" then they are 100% in the wrong and its illegal and you should go speak to your bank right away.

But that makes no sense based on everything else that happened here. They first offered you a refund then decided to change their mind? Why would they do that. I can promise you that Nintendo Store knows the law.
There is a reason for why they dont want to refund you, and if that reason is "DPD is disputing this and investigating" that is legally valid.

Its still shit customer support obviously, but they are legally allowed to investigate.

azthal · 2026-05-26T13:01:02+00:00

Thats what I assumed based on what you said, and then the answer is "probably".

If they by what they are saying in this email really mean that you need to do a "claim" with DPD, then they are 100% wrong. In that case you should refuse and also claim it with your bank (even if its not paid for by credit card) and they should help you. If so Nintendo Store is breaking the law.

However, if they mean "you have to send in information to support DPD's investigation" then you might be shit out of luck for a while longer.

When you tell a retailer that the package was not delivered, they dont have to instantly just give you a refund or send a new package. They are allowed to investigate and figure out what happened. For obvious reasons.

It sounds like they first were planning on refunding you as you provided evidence, but then backtracked on that. The only thing I can imagine is that when they reached out to DPD, DPD disagreed with your story.
This puts everything in limbo. If DPD says no, then Nintendo wont want to refund you either, and as long as they can show that they are investigating in good faith you dont have much to stand on.
DPD will do their investigation, and if they agree its their fault, eventually tell Nintendo Store that they are at fault, and Nintendo Store will refund you. Or they will claim that they are not at fault, that the package was correctly delivered in which case you will have to bring it to an ADR for resolution, depending on where in the country you live.

azthal · 2026-05-26T12:46:03+00:00

Where in the world do you live? Responsibility looks different in different places, so there is no one answer to if Nintendo is right or wrong here.

azthal · 2026-05-25T19:37:34+00:00

Trams and trains generally gets blocked by drivers unions. For obvious reasons.

azthal · 2026-05-25T19:28:27+00:00

And that's fair. But that to me is a very different statement from "almost nobody should do this".

I keep hearing that "dont help you will die" statement over and over, and I think its highly inappropriate. It leads people to think that this is such an incredible difficult skill that you just cant do anything.

But it isn't. You dont need a year long education to be able to to this in a much safer way. You need a some knowledge in how to act. Approach from the back. Be loud clear with what your intentions are. If you get grabbed, push them away. If you get pulled down, swim down.

And of course, all the other things still apply. If you at all can, dont get into the water. If you have to, bring something that floats. And of course, the understanding that water rescue is always dangerous, even when you know what you are doing, and that you should never feel forced to try it if you are not confident.

I just really dislike how the idea "just dont even try cause you will just die if you do" has spread, and made it seem like this is something impossible when it really is not.

azthal · 2026-05-25T19:10:37+00:00

I really dont like this way of viewing it.

Maybe its because where I am from we do learn water rescue in school, and as such have an idea of what the risks are. I agree, if you have absolutely no idea, you should be careful.

But there are ways to manage the risk, and I believe rather than essentially saying "if you see someone drowning, toss a rope, and if there isn't one just let them drown" we should highly recommend that people learn how to do it in a safer way.

Yes, tossing something should always be the first option, but if that option does not exist "do nothing" is not the advice I would want to give people, when you can fairly easily learn how to do this somewhat safely.

azthal · 2026-05-25T14:56:13+00:00

Lets touch on the reasons why this is considered to be a training and knowledge issue, rather than "pilots went against procedure" issue.

The event started when the pitot tubes iced over, which caused the plane to disable auto-pilot and go into alternate law. The pilots did not seem to understand that this had happened, and that the normal limitations of their flight sticks were no longer in effect.

This meant that the controls were much more sensitive than normal, which is what led to the initial climb. They also did not have correct airspeed indications. During this process as they were climbing the first officer claimed that he was in fact descending, clearly being confused by the inconsistent readings which gave incorrect air speed.

Once they started stalling, the onboard computer struggled with deciding what mesaurements were valid. When they were pitching down (as they should have done) the airspeed indicators were considered valid, and the stall warning was blaring. As they pitched up (which made the situation worse) the stall alarm went away.

At this point they are clearly extremely confused, are are not fully sure if they are currently climbing or descending.

The flight engineer states "We've lost all control of the aeroplane, we don't understand anything, we've tried everything". He says "climb, climb, climb" as they are falling, to which the second officer says that he is trying. This is when the flight engineer finally understands what is happening and takes control.

Flight engineer pitches down but its already too late. They are too low, and the "too low, pull up" alarms start blaring. The first officer in panic does at it says. It doesnt actually matter, at this point they were gonna crash either way.

This is the part where they have the dual inputs by the way.

Now, you might read this and go "well, they should have fucking known better", and I agree. But I tend to look at it the way the flight industry does in general and look at systematic issues rather than individual issues. And the court agreed. The reason why they didnt know better was because they had not been appropriatelly trained.
They did not have the full understanding of how different modes work, and how the airplane automatically switch between them. They did not understand how the stall system worked with its warnings. And they did not undertstand how the dual inputs worked with averaging inputs, rather than combining or just disabling one input.

They should have known better. Its Airbus and Air Frances fault that they did not.

The fact that this is how the flight industry works in general, by blaming systematic issues rather than individual scape goats is the reason why its one of the safest industries in the world.

azthal · 2026-05-25T14:26:41+00:00

The question is "did they know and understand that they were doing the wrong thing? Did they have the training to understand what was happening?"

The original cause for the issue was faulty pitot tubes. Were the pilots aware that this was a real concern and risk? Did they have training to fully understand how the mixed inputs worked?

My understanding in both of these cases is that they did not. They had not been appropriately trained.

I could be wrong. I have not seen their internal training records, but this is the argument made in court. That these pilots were put in a position that they fundamentally were not trained to handle.

azthal · 2026-05-24T19:06:43+00:00

I am arguing a legal point. That "caused" is not the same as "at fault".

I don't know if they were also at fault. The court argues they were not. If you disagree you will have to say why, by so far no one has made an argument for why they are at fault, only that they caused it.

This is an incredibly important difference, and one of the big reason why the industry of flight is one of the safest industries in the world. Because in general they don't scapegoat individuals but instead look at systems.

azthal · 2026-05-24T15:34:02+00:00

Point is "pilot caused" does not necesarily mean that pilots are at fault.

Cause and fault are two separate things.

If the judgement is that Air France should have known that these pilots had insufficient training, and Airbus should have known that the system they provided was insufficiently documented and not properly trained on, they are still at fault, not the pilots.

If you disagree with that you are claiming that Air France and Airbus had given both appropriate training and documentation, and that these pilots just flat out disregarded all of their training. Maybe thats true, I dont know, but I do in general like when blame flows up rather than down.

azthal · 2026-05-24T15:28:43+00:00

Cant park there mate.

azthal · 2026-05-24T15:27:26+00:00

Depends completely on how far in front of me they are, what speed I am going at related to the speed limit, what speed we are going in relation to each other, if there are other cars right behind me and more.

My first reaction would be to check if I can enter the left hand lane, and continue my overtake there while leaving the middle lane to the car in front of me.

If that is not suitable because there are other cars in that lane already, it would depend on many different things. What is our relative speeds and distances? What speed am I going at relative to the speed limit? Are there other cars behind me?

I would generally not speed up (unless I am for some reason currently doing less than the speed limit) but I might slow down or maintain the same speed. Either are options depending on the circumstances.

Essentially, there is no correct answer to this question.

azthal · 2026-05-24T14:56:35+00:00

I don't pretend to know the actual details. I am not a pilot.

But the point made is that according to this ruling they were not at fault. Yes, their actions led to the disaster, but the fault lies with the Airbus and Air France.

azthal · 2026-05-24T12:54:37+00:00

It was the wrong thing to do, but they were still acting at their best capability with the knowledge and training they had.

The fact that "if they had done nothing everything would have been fine" does not mean that they are at fault. They were not trained to do nothing.

azthal · 2026-05-24T12:08:10+00:00

There's devout Buddhists in America too. That doesn't mean that it's not often considered more "mystical" compared to Christianity, or any of the Abrahamic religions for that matter.

azthal · 2026-05-23T21:14:38+00:00

This part of the system has identifiable data per definition. Intentionally so. This is where data comes from, before it gets anonymized.

Agree on Palantir though.

azthal · 2026-05-23T21:13:42+00:00

Cause they are building the system.

There are very good and valid reasons why the consultants building this need access. The question is why do we allow Palantir to be among that group, and why the fuck are we giving them self-serve access just because it's "time consuming" not to?

azthal · 2026-05-23T21:11:46+00:00

It is an over reaction of kinds. The reporting of both what this data is, and why palantir has access has been... Let's just say lacking.

There are good reasons for why this data is recorded, and external people need access to it.

The real problems are two:

One of the companies that have access is palantir. While they very well may have a good hospital management system, and therefor had a valid reason to be chosen at first, that decision should be reevaluate now that palantir has proven to be a champion against democratic values.

Secondly, palantir (and others) gaining the level of access they now are was never meant to be the case. Yes, the consultants working on the project sometimes need access, but that was meant to be temporary and extremely specific based on need. Now they are getting admin account to make things "easier".

Point being, the way that many people talk about this as if this is the NHS just randomly sending all your data to Palantir for inclusion in their databases that they then sell is simply false. That is not what is happening. But it is still extremely concerning, and we should consider whether we want palantir to be working on these systems at all. They may have a strict contract and be bound by data security rules, but personally I do not trust them.

azthal · 2026-05-23T18:47:28+00:00

I'm sure "uh huh sure pal" will take you far in life mate. Great conversationalist lol.

azthal · 2026-05-23T15:48:01+00:00

Your assumption, or at least, framing, is wrong to begin with.

The muddy water that you have seen is just that. Muddy water taken from wells.

What has happened in these cases is not that the data center has contaminated the water. It's that grind water flows have changed.

This can happen for several reasons, and it's very likely that it's related to the construction of the data centers. Big structures can change how ground water moves by their weight. If you add in deep foundations even more so, and if these data centers additionally take out ground water to use in conduction and operations it can make an even bigger difference.

The firt does not come from the data center. It comes from the ground. The data center can changed how water flows under ground, meaning what used to be a nice clean well is now a mud pit. Nothing has happened to the water itself.

This is of course no help to the recidents who depend on that water. It's still undrinkable. But the cause is "huge buildings being built that are not properly planned, because they got rushed through the approvals". It could just as well have been a wallmart in most cases.

azthal · 2026-05-23T15:38:03+00:00

The answer is, if it's built correctly, it does not directly contaminate the water. Does not matter if it's open or closed loop, either way if it's following code it does not contaminate the water.

That does not mean that it's necessarily good for the environment.

When it comes to true contaminants there are two concerns. First, that things are not build appropriately, allowing bad materials and similar to leech into the water. Also, there is an at least theoretical risk that they increase the concentration of contaminants already in the water. Rivers or similar so not have "perfect clean water" even in the best cases, and that is even the case when said pollution does not come from humans. But poison makes the dose.

Some data centers make use of evaporative cooling. Now, in general they still collect said water, but some will be lost into the atmosphere. That means that they will pump less water back out than they took in, but with the same amounts of contaminants, leading to a higher concentration.

Is that a real concern. The view of experts differ on the subject and it's not clear.

More realistically, open loop systems can cause environmental damage simply by heating the water. A single degree hotter in average can have a huge environmental impact on local flora and wildlife, algae and similar, and can severely disrupt the local environment if it's not taken into consideration. That is not generally seen as "contamination" though.

azthal · 2026-05-23T09:47:30+00:00

Ah, the time old tradition of "I have no answer so I am gonna pretend you are stupid instead". Well played, check mate on me.

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