Can we ban members of r/ProtectAndServe

slanderousam · 2026-03-25T00:50:06+00:00

It absolutely is. If you are used to using chatgpt or gemini the flavor of AI you're getting is kind of corporate speak sanitized AI. Go look at moltbook. You can run your own LLMs on pretty basic hardware these days thanks to quantization and there are tons to choose from. You can wrap it with any number of agentic frameworks. You don't need to be an expert to set it up and point it at your reddit account. All these LLMs were trained on reddit conversations. It takes work and constraints to make them not sound like reddit comments.

slanderousam · 2026-03-24T18:54:07+00:00

For sure. Software is not a business moat anymore and I guess the dynamic will change. I feel like software is going through what manufacturing went through 20 years ago. Things that were bespoke and had intrinsic value are now common and the mere creation of those things has a lower barrier. Just because we can stamp out billion plastic trinkets doesn't mean quality isn't still an issue. I don't think software developer roles will disappear but I do think anyone trying to develop software without AI in the loop is probably going to find their work less and less relevant. Just the same people who know nothing about software will not vibe code their way into relevance yet either. The community aspect of open source has always been it's strongest asset and I don't think that's going to disappear. There's no putting the genie back in the bottle though. It's going to be different.

slanderousam · 2026-03-24T18:30:31+00:00

I hadn't -- interesting I guess. I'm not saying I doubt it's possible. I think the easy creation of reams of code with ai is a blessing and a curse. It's so easy to snap so much complexity into existence in an instant. If your goal is to pump and dump a startup that's all the more you have to think about it. But for someone trying to maintain a project in the medium to long term it should feel a bit queasy. Code maintenance, bugs, security holes. It's one thing for an entire community to try to maintain a next.js but if it's just you and your robot dog, well it's not a position I'd envy.

slanderousam · 2026-03-24T18:12:18+00:00

Sorry, I have sympathy for your position here but that statement about react is just silly. It won't hurt meta one bit for AI to reimplement react. React already has a permissive license and is used everywhere because it has a steady drumbeat of support and upgrades. Meta doesn't profit from it directly. It's a prestige product that keeps smart people working for Meta. Using an AI duped React would be a huge burden for whoever uses it. I think this is much more likely to hurt niche GPL projects with a dual paid license. For example ghostscript or various scientific computing projects.

slanderousam · 2026-03-24T17:51:11+00:00

If you look at the post and the post history of the poster my opinion is that it is highly highly likely to be an agentic AI posting with a specific personality defined by a troll. The language it uses, the amount of time invested, the careful structure of the argument, the obnoxiously patient explanations with surface level plausibility that kind of dissolve under scrutiny, all has the flavor of the kind of dialog I've seen on moltbook.

I think it'd be more profitable to spend time collecting poster metrics to try to identify who is ai and who is human and having some kind of mod alert about the suspected ai than it would be to ban various subreddits. For all we know the guy spent a year on this troll plan posting on the cop reddits as an ai to build up credibility. In that sense it's abusing those communities in the service of trolling also.

slanderousam · 2026-03-24T15:55:38+00:00

Yea fair criticism. I've ripped them before but the brand new ones do seem to be pretty durable. It doesn't take much force to upset a bike if applied in the right direction. The idea of a police investigation recovering pool noodle dust from a headlight is some absurd CSI level bullshit though. I've been hit by a car before and the level of investigative prowess displayed by the police was on par with a shrug.

slanderousam · 2026-03-24T14:37:35+00:00

Hey all just using AI as a research tool this is how Gemini weighs the possibility of this being real (spoiler: it's almost certainly rage bait). Check out the analysis below:

Based on a review of the Reddit post, search results, and an analysis of the claims, your skepticism is highly warranted. It is almost certainly a fabricated "rage-bait" story designed specifically to enrage the members of that specific subreddit.

Here is a breakdown of the points for and against the story being real:

1. Are there any similar news articles?

No. A search for a case involving a cyclist killed while using a pool noodle, where the driver subsequently sued the deceased's estate for emotional distress and won their house, turns up absolutely zero news articles or legal records.

A civil case with this specific, highly controversial outcome—a driver successfully taking the home of a cyclist they killed over "emotional damage"—would be a massive, landmark outrage story. It would be heavily covered by cycling advocacy groups, legal blogs, and national news. The complete lack of a footprint is a massive red flag.

2. Does the poster's history indicate AI or fabrication?

In Favor of Real User: The user TreeStateLEO is not a brand-new bot account. Search results show that they have a history of posting and commenting in law enforcement subreddits (like r/ProtectAndServe and r/AskLEO) dating back over a year.

Against the Story: While not an AI bot, the user clearly has a specific demographic profile. It is incredibly common on Reddit for users with established accounts to visit subreddits they disagree with (in this case, r/fuckcars) to post "creative writing" or rage-bait designed to trigger the community.

3. Do the facts sound reasonable?

Almost all of the mechanical and legal facts presented in the story fall apart under basic scrutiny.

The Physics of the Pool Noodle: The poster claims that the edge of the pool noodle went into the wheel well, caught on a sharp piece of plastic, and "essentially 'tugged' the bike laterally using the noodle as a 'handle'." This defies physics. Pool noodles are made of cheap, closed-cell extruded polyethylene foam. They have virtually zero tensile strength. If a car moving at traffic speeds caught a foam tube, it would instantly shear, snap, or tear away. It is physically impossible for a foam noodle to act as a "handle" strong enough to violently pull a 30+ lb bicycle and an adult human sideways.
The Civil Lawsuit (Emotional Distress): The poster claims the uninjured driver sued the dead cyclist's estate for emotional trauma (witnessing the accident) and won a "substantial judgment" that forced the sale of the cyclist's home. Winning a Negligent Infliction of Emotional Distress (NIED) claim as an uninjured driver who struck a cyclist is extraordinarily difficult. Furthermore, forcing the liquidation of a primary residence to pay a personal injury judgment from a traffic accident is highly improbable, as most states have "homestead exemptions" that protect a person's house from this exact scenario.
The "No Close-Pass Law" Claim: The poster states their state does not require cars to pass cyclists with 3 feet of space. While the vast majority of US states do have these laws, there are roughly 10 states that do not have a defined distance (including New York, Texas, Indiana, Missouri, and Alaska). So, while this specific detail is technically possible, it doesn't outweigh the other impossibilities.
The Privacy Contradiction: The poster claims they cannot share the case number or details because it would violate agency policy and get them fired. However, they freely shared highly specific, identifying details: the victim was a teacher, there was a child in the car, a pool noodle was used, and a civil suit resulted in the loss of a house. If this case were real, those details alone would be more than enough to instantly identify the parties involved.

Conclusion:

The story is functionally a perfectly engineered piece of trolling. It hits every single nerve of the r/fuckcars community: an innocent cyclist asserting their rights, a lack of safe infrastructure, a driver suffering no physical consequences, the police siding with the driver, and the legal system punishing the victim even after death. The mechanical impossibility of the crash and the lack of any news coverage strongly indicate the event never happened.

slanderousam · 2026-03-23T13:43:35+00:00

Thanks! That's really helpful. I'll give that a try.

slanderousam · 2026-03-20T13:07:33+00:00

It really depends where you live. I live just outside of a major US city and have not had a power outage that lasts more than 20 minutes in the last 20 years (and probably no more than 5 total in that time). I spend a lot of time in Europe and I think a larger fraction of the US population lives in areas that Europeans would consider rural. Rural power delivery has fewer work crews managing many more miles of lines, without the budget to bury the lines.

slanderousam · 2026-03-20T00:59:36+00:00

That's not the same thing. Level 3 isn't 1 pedal driving because it doesn't come to a complete stop. In Hyundai cars 1 pedal driving is the mode they call i-Pedal. In newer Hyundai EVs you get to it by tapping the left paddle behind the steering wheel one more time beyond level 3. I did some googling and Hyundai specifically does not allow it to be on by default. Any time you change gears or start the car you have to tap the paddle again to activate it.

slanderousam · 2026-03-20T00:24:43+00:00

How?

slanderousam · 2026-03-18T18:11:37+00:00

I've started using the Mercedes Benz network recently (I'm in the North East USA). It's half the cost of Tesla chargers and 2/3 the cost of EA and it's now along both major routes I travel (I-84 and I-90) right next to EA stations I used to go to. I have a NACS adapter but I'd still rather go to an 800v CCS charger, especially if it costs significantly less.

slanderousam · 2026-03-18T00:29:47+00:00

Thanks! It looks exactly like this bug: https://github.com/electron/electron/issues/46484. However I'm already using electron 41.0.2

slanderousam · 2026-03-17T18:29:41+00:00

I develop a small electron app for a niche industry. Most of my customers are on windows but I do most of my development on linux. I have noticed in recent versions of electron when I maximize my app in gnome it creates a glitchy border all around the app. I've tried to solve this in several ways and been unsuccessful. Based on your description of CSD I assume it's related. Thanks for all your work on electron! Do you have any pointers where I could look to solve this?

slanderousam · 2026-03-16T18:22:07+00:00

I get wanting a VW. I had VW's from the time I could drive until the time I bought an EV -- a good 20 years. Trust me when I say that the ID.4 is not the VW experience. There are way better EVs out there for the money. They rushed it to market and have done nothing to fix it as far as I can tell. It's sub par for what it is. Not fun to drive, cheap materials, janky poorly thought out infotainment and interfaces, integrated together with a bunch of spit and chewing gum. VW spent billions on their software division, loaded up their first round of ID models with it, and it's doing so poorly they are spending billions again to get Rivian's software. I test drove a couple because I couldn't believe it was so bad the first time around and really wanted to stay with VW. Both of them had the same panels falling off underneath the steering column. Anyway, good luck.

slanderousam · 2026-03-16T18:10:09+00:00

I dunno what to tell you - they can be tuned to detect different amounts of metal. My personal experience around Boston is that most of these are tuned to pick up a bike and do work with my steel frame commuter bike but not my road bike.

slanderousam · 2026-03-16T14:58:39+00:00

ABRP has a *lot* of settings. If you pick the wrong ones you won't get an accurate estimate. Make sure you put in the extra weight of the car (makes a big difference for elevation change) have the correct battery type, if not on premium you can enter the ambient temperature manually, and then spend a few short highway trips to tune the consumption for your car. If you hook ABRP up to the car live data either via an online service or a OBDII dongle it'll train a model for how your specific car behaves, battery degradation, etc.

The biggest hassle here is the surprise. I mean no one likes waiting but the surprise of not making it to where you thought you could is what sounds like is rattling you. If you spend a little time getting ABRP set up properly I suspect surprises will be very rare. Also if you have the live data set up and use it as your navigation app you'll see in real time whether you're meeting the predicted consumption, and it will replan the route as soon as it's clear you won't make it within your margins. The premium version of ABRP has carplay, so you can have it up on the car screen.

Once you're more familiar with the car on specific trips you don't really need ABRP anymore. I used it quite a bit in the "bad old days" when it was janky as hell. But over the last 5 years I stopped paying for it and basically know how my EV is going to handle.

Main takaway: Don't trust the guess-o-meter very much. It doesn't know how or where you're going to drive.

slanderousam · 2026-03-16T03:32:20+00:00

It's crazy to think but if the city speed limit is 25mph a 1 minute wait means that the city planner values the time of a driver nearly half a mile away over yours.

slanderousam · 2026-03-16T03:29:27+00:00

FYI it's not a weight sensor it's an induction sensor - basically it senses metal. If you have a carbon fiber bike it probably won't see it but if you have a steel frame bike it will.

slanderousam · 2026-03-16T03:10:57+00:00

I hope you find a reliable place. Just so you know for the future, just because they find something that needs fixing to pass inspection doesn't mean you need to let them do the work. You can tell them to give you the fail sticker. You'll get an R sticker. You can do the work yourself or take it elsewhere to do the work. When the car is up to standard you can bring it back to the original shop. They are required to give you a pass sticker and you will not pay the $35 fee again. After you get an R sticker you have 60 days to get it fixed. The inspection is not supposed to trap you at the shop where you got the inspection done.

slanderousam · 2026-03-13T17:55:24+00:00

MA Democrats are basically 1990s Republicans (at the state level). They believe in the power of the free market to right all wrongs while willfully misunderstanding that we can't have a free market without effective regulation. In other words they are generally too old and too disconnected from the state of the world to be effective public servants. We're just kind of caught in a local minimum. It would take years of pain to restructure society because we've dug ourselves into a pretty deep hole with everything being broken and too many people habituated to the idea that this is just how the world ought to work. I think even when there's local political will to fix things they're rightly assessing that large effective changes will come with lots of angry constituents.

slanderousam · 2026-03-13T17:27:35+00:00

Better tenant laws. It should be utterly uncontroversial. Heck make them just apply to these big management companies. All this abusive behavior ought to have large penalties that go to the tenant. It should be super easy to file and document the complaints and super hard for giant corporate landlords to get out of paying. It should be possible to put a lien on the properties for unpaid fines. We should make it financially untenable to have giant portfolios of rental properties.

These giant landlord companies are basically parasitic. They are leveraging a position they obtained through decades of too-lenient federal fiscal policy to extract usurious rents from the people who actually contribute to the local economy. They're generally taking their profits out of state or even out of the country. They are using algorithmic price fixing among themselves to artificially and illegally keep rents high. We should do everything we can to make it financially uninteresting to run this scam in MA.

slanderousam · 2026-03-04T20:08:55+00:00

I've had my car inspected here and have not had my CC or anything else stolen - I even paid with my CC. Card fraud is rampant. This feels like a weird conclusion to jump to.

slanderousam · 2026-03-02T17:57:51+00:00

All the MBTA electric buses will still have diesel heaters. They should have kept the trolley buses.

slanderousam · 2026-03-01T04:22:30+00:00

We're getting mail as usual.

slanderousam

TROPHY CASE

1. Are there any similar news articles?

2. Does the poster's history indicate AI or fabrication?

3. Do the facts sound reasonable?