yofuckreddit
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User ID: 646
The Economist has published an article (paywalled, sorry) on the state of cyclists in New York, which dropped the day I was leaving the city. It was the first time I had visited as an adult. I came away with some respect for it (loved the food, service, and how fast everyone walked). The point of the story is supposedly that cyclists are now being treated unfairly:
The New York Police Department (NYPD) has started issuing criminal summonses for bike riders committing a slew of seemingly low-level fouls. Now, if caught running red lights, stopping in the pedestrian crossing or wearing headphones, wayward cyclists must appear before a judge, even if they are not contesting the fine. If they do not, they risk arrest.
I’m a cycling nut, so the issue is close to my heart. In a T2 city, I feel like our role is that of a scapegoat. People fantasize about killing cyclists pretty regularly, and none of them understand the challenges and tradeoffs we have to deal with. At this point, I've just thrown up my hands in despair at this ever being better, so I just get on the road as little as possible.
The people on two wheels in NYC are a different breed. Each of the longtime residents I asked - 100% - are now more scared of cyclists than cars. My 3 day trip felt the same to me. Every car was attentive and respectful of me as a pedestrian. The cyclists were fast, heavy, and disregarded almost every crosswalk signal or red light, despite having their own lanes. What’s the quantitative danger?
Of the 449 pedestrian deaths in the city between 2020 and 2023, electric bikes, scooters and mopeds led to just eight of them.
Notice the sleight of hand here. What’s included are E-Bikes, scooters, and mopeds - each of these truly motorized vehicles. The number of people killed by analog cyclists nationwide has been, for many years, single digits. This is important. E-bikes allow users to achieve speeds and momentum totally beyond their skill, and are often part of poorly maintained machines that are part of sharing programs. My mind is blown that even 8 people have been killed - that's an enormous number even in a place as dense as NYC. It probably means a huge number of serious injuries as collateral damage.
Cyclists kill between 1-9 people in the US per year. Cars kill 7,000+ Pedestrians (Not to mention other drivers). If you compare lethality on a per-capita basis, it's not even close. Cars are 230x more deadly (Including only pedestrians, not the 40,000 total deaths). Per-person-miles-travelled reduces the disparity a lot. It gets down to where cars are "only" 8.5x more deadly than bikes.
Put simply, the fixie riders racing through the city are psychotic but not dangerous to pedestrians.
As you’d expect, the lede is buried, along with the Culture War. The cyclists zipping through the city on E-bikes are exclusively yapping in a foreign language on speakerphone, with DoorDash bags on the back of their cycles. Nothing should get in the way of private taxis for burritos.
E-bike riders are “one of the top, if not the single, highest generator of complaints” from constituents….Mr Hoylman-Sigal (city senator) supports putting licence-plates on commercial e-bikes, so that violators can be held accountable. But such proposals have gone flat due, in part, to a desire to protect the largely immigrant delivery drivers.
To recap how insane this is:
- The problem is 100% illegal immigrants on E-bikes and mopeds
- No solution to control this will be put forward out of sympathy for the illegal immigrants
- Punishment must be metered out, though, since it’s one of the biggest problems facing the city
- Therefore, the solution is to punish analog cyclists with social security numbers!
It’s so similar to LA, albeit with fewer vehicle fires and bricks on heads. The fix just cannot be the obvious and correct one. Instead, it’s to hop on Reddit to “map police hotspots” or refuse to stop as a way to LARP civil disobedience.
Will speak as a fan.
MMA is really the only bloodsport I watch. First, I love the progression from the prelims to the main event, with the latter often being not worth watching at all. It's very fun to watch in a group with 8 light beers and a pizza showing up.
What it's not: A way to fantasize about my own fighting capability
What it is: A way to observe the pinnacle of human achievement in pain tolerance and performance. Making our bodies into weapons is an insane counterpoint to modern western living. Sure you can get like... 60% of that experience by being a traditional athlete, but nothing comes close to the insane violence in MMA. It gets my blood pumping, and even the women's events are a type of masculinity that the elites have done their best to smother everywhere.
yofuckreddit
3d ago
Prostitution is still considered low class enough it's not really an option for someone so public
yofuckreddit
25d ago
A world without color under the rainbow
Well, it’s pride month (Grammarly suggests capitalizing Pride here...)! Again. I rolled out of bed last week to a saccharine salvo of big brand bullshit. That, and smug condescension from the women I know on Instagram “wishing homophobes an uncomfortable month”.
When the gay marriage movement really kicked up steam in the early 00’s, I was always a bit perturbed by the use of a rainbow. I’ve always been a fetishist for color - my first attempts at building user interfaces somehow became unusable clown vomit because of it - and so a single group monopolizing literally every hue of light at the same time seemed like a bit much. But I was a good lefty-libertarian and didn’t complain.
I tried to drag this board into a conversation about cars. I won’t make that mistake again, but a point of discussion centered around all of them being way less colorful than they used to be.. If you take a look at a graph you can see that things really started getting “Super Fucking Lame” right about 2007. Don’t worry, the problem’s gotten worse: 78% of all cars sold today are a neutral color.
It wasn’t just vehicles, though. At almost the exact same time, Millennials began making everything grey..
Meanwhile, woke discourse has been (was?) on a tear in mainstream media institutions:
A clear trend of increasing prevalence of prejudice related terms is apparent with words such as racist or sexist increasing in usage between 2010 and 2019 by 638% and 403% in The New York Times or 514% and 141% respectively in The Washington Post.
If you ask a politically correct LLM about why everything is lame, it will suggest that we’re this way because of “economic uncertainty” or social media. Others will say something vague like resale value.
If I know anything about anything, it’s that correlation is causation. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that a wave of rainbows and the unrelenting drumbeat of intersectionality has, in many ways, relied on the dilution of color everywhere else. How else can you shove it in the world’s face? A coffee shop already full of colorful whimsy would be burying v99.0 of the LGBTQIA+ flag. It’s only through the clash of it with the drab whites and browns of an espresso machine that a message can be sent. At least the latest revision inoculates itself against good taste pretty well. The clashing racial bars and two spirit circle make it hideous on its own.
The death of peak woke is… probably overestimated. But even my blackpill soul feels some sort of vibe shift. Dare I hope for color to make a comeback?
- While it'd be nice to have a scholarly article about who's delivering food, there's negative incentive for universities to do this sort of research, and I'm sorry: pretending like this isn't true is just too stupid to entertain. Step outside in any major western metro, look around, and then come back to the keyboard. I will concede that "100%" is high :) (EDIT: The fact that the authorities in NYC are specifically worried about hurting immigrants and therefore not acting to improve the situation with dangerous cyclists is another reason I can't take this seriously)
- You're absolutely right on this point. Another point of regulatory skirting in NYC: Amazon has four wheeled delivery machines with vestigial pedals on them and huge batteries and motors. These seemed to be helmed by slightly more "professional" drivers but are obviously dangerous vehicles hanging out in lanes designed for human-powered transport. The problem is that all of these exist on a gradient, and nobody wants to make the first move of creating an onerous regulatory regime on what was, just a couple of years ago, a simple machine that some nerds started riding as a hobby.
yofuckreddit
15d ago
DO: Help single parent families with money and support structures (without actively incentivizing the status)
So much easier said than done. By helping, you incent. Hell: People grift Foster parenting, which is the worst way to get gubment money you can imagine. In comparison SNAP, TANF, and Section 8 seem like goldmines.
yofuckreddit
7d ago
Pikmin is such a strange game for me. I was obsessed with the visual design and marketing, read so much about it.... but never really played it. The time limit wrinkle was such a big deal and one of the things that I thought was interesting. To this day it's still the game with the highest obsession/time-played ratio.
Strategy games in particular always have an interesting tension with QoL features that aren't apparent unless you're really into the genre. In Company of Heroes 1 and for most of 2's life, for instance, AT guns would fire at infantry despite being almost totally ineffective. Tank destroyers would do the same. Members of the community argued almost entirely against these units being smart enough to prioritize what they were best at automatically. The compromise was a toggle that allowed you to control the target validity algorithm. FWIW it's a feature that I'm still stunned anyone put up with not being in the game to start.
yofuckreddit
21d ago
FWIW this is un-fun enough I would have preferred not to have it on the thread.
yofuckreddit
17d ago
landlords take a higher percentage of your income, taxes eat away at more, income inequality leads to your boss making more off of your back, and working harder is not really something that gets you promoted anymore.
I'm in an extremely advantageous position compared to most, but I still feel that meaningful progress is becoming increasingly difficult.
Progress towards what, you might ask? I'm not sure I know myself. FU money perhaps. Feeling safe enough to take a lower-paying job at some point.
How much of this is a cage I've built on my own. OP discusses the difference in men's and women's ability to lead a simple lifestyle. I've actually lived on my own as a bachelor for probably only 2 weeks of my life. It was fucking amazing how simple it all could be. Even with a job and a dog as complications. The only "gear" I needed was the apartment's gym nobody ever used and my gaming PC. Plenty of social time. Losing weight and getting stronger. Entire living space immaculately cleaned.
Children make things more complicated. I spent two precious hours of "kids asleep" time last night trying to repair electrical issues in toys, only to realize I was missing necessary parts replacements that would be 2 days later on Amazon. $30 here and there, but every week, another system, another shipment of plastic wrapped in cardboard. It's hard not to occasionally take a hard look at all of it and feel a deep sense of ennui.
yofuckreddit
29d ago
In no particular order:
- I am unsure if this is sooner, later, or right on time. I was 100% confident this would happen, but expected a smaller explosion.
- If Trump thinks he's going to win against someone who is smarter and more driven than he is, with a high amount of innoculative safety via wealth, he's wrong.
- However if Elon thinks that Biden's targeted attacks during his administration were tough, he's in for a wild fucking ride.
Ultimately I'm blown away by how selfish this explosion is to SpaceX and Tesla. All of his employees and perhaps even the human race are going to be hurt because of it. And over what? A completely intractable political reality?
The US electorate is too pants-on-head retarded to save itself from spending. That's it. There is only one way out of this, and it's riding the lightning until we're all consumed by a black swan event in the next couple of years.
yofuckreddit
28d ago
As a longtime "Reduce Defense!" hawk and a former left-libertarian, it's just not enough. The Pie Chart doesn't lie.
I have enough friends in the MI complex to know how fatty and corrupt the whole thing is, but if you're serious about cutting spending, you actually shouldn't start there for two reasons:
- The scale of personal welfare is such that small moves here mean big benefits
- The defense industry spend at least trickles down into technology that eventually benefits the human race (after extracting some blood). Facilitating the underclass' antisocial tendencies/addiction to corn syrup is worse long term.
yofuckreddit
24d ago
To start, note that there are subcultures in cycling. I think a lot of the negative traits you're thinking of are largely confined to roadies, which I don't consider myself a part of.
In an urban environment, it's hard to be a cyclist and not look down on everyone else. Cars are crawling along streets, burning gallons of gas to shift 4,000 pounds of steel and 200 pounds of human, moving at a speed similar to you. Meanwhile, pedestrians are moving even more slowly, having trouble carrying any weight at all. Quite simply: There's a best way to get around, and you're it.
Then, add the antagonistic nature of so many interactions. You have to be prepared to die for no reason at all. Everyone hates you, and wants to steal your mode of transportation the moment you come to a stop. When I am on the road, especially by myself, my nerves are shredded after being aggressively fucked with.
I think the people who are on the road a lot get into this mode. You have to be closer to the middle of the lane to avoid being driven into the curb, pedal away from danger, trust your instincts even if they violate traffic laws... etc.
Perhaps a much more sympathetic take than you were looking for.
To add more on the negative side, people who are on the road regularly are typically affluent. Bikes are expensive, you need to have the free time to use the equipment, and the mechanical know-how to maintain a (abiet simple) machine. It all circles around arrogance and elitism.
yofuckreddit
19d ago
Finished Cryptonomicon. 5/5. Neil Stephenson has an interesting approach to relationships and sex. It stands out a bit because many books that feel like this (and Anathem) just skip them entirely. I think Cryptonomicon did a better job overall.
As I read it I thought "this is great but it was clearly written just a couple of years ago" given it's references to crypto currency. No - 1999. Amazing.
I lust, I yearn, I ACHE for late 90s hackerdom like you wouldn't believe. Two pieces of art have sparked my imagination in a way to have made me wish I was born 10 years earlier or smarter: this and the movie Primer. Halt and Catch Fire not bad either.
I also have some simple, base pleasures that I know are bad for me. The Japanese being wrecked in WWII is one of those things, and so that was an unexpected and happy bit of catharsis.
Now digging into Circe which has also been excellent so far!
yofuckreddit
24d ago
I was a little prepared for a general cycling debate. I agree that rules apply... but do consider the different ways that "we" are pulled.
- When in a group ride on the road, two wide, drivers complain that we aren't single file. The group is small enough to pass when 2x, but too long to do so when 1x.
- We're asked why we can't ride on sidewalks. If you haven't pedaled on one recently, they're completely unpredictable and awful for bikes, not even mentioning how inconvenient it can be for pedestrians.
- When we come to a stop sign, we always stop. But almost every time a motorist waves us through. To them, it seems polite - they understand we would sacrifice momentum much more than they would. But then we're holding up the whole intersection as we get started again...
- Then if we're clearly going to make it to the stop sign well before anyone else, it's best just to blow through. Otherwise, the driver is going to be waiting far longer if we come to a complete stop.
- Some (too many) drivers will never pass (regardless of margin), which blocks all of the cars behind them. The cyclist is the one who gets the blame for this.
- Weaving through traffic at a stop light to maintain momentum so we don't block is hated by many, but if you've ridden for a bit you know it's the least damaging way to do it.
From a personal perspective, I can safely say that every time I've been a real asshole it's been by accident, but will not pretend like there aren't problems with 3 types of transportation competing for travel space in many places.
yofuckreddit
22d ago
Essentially you're saying we should shame because she's an effective promoter of her ideas through her niceness?
she pushes [her ideas] against a high-iq people population (rationalists) who should be having more children
Don't get me wrong, I'd prefer to have a child of two rationalists over another member of the permanent underclass. But to speak in plain language: These cucks are self-selecting out of the gene pool, and that's a good thing. Anyone stupid enough to participate in Polyamory is unfit to be a parent.
yofuckreddit
24d ago
DD says they require SSNs and IDs. Account Sharing seems rampant - their own algorithms flag more than 100,000 accounts right now to have to "reverify identity* every shift, and they're incentivized to maladjust the algorithm in their favor.
You'll almost certainly never get the real data. Instead, I'd use someone's inability to understand English as a sufficient proxy for what I'm suggesting. It's a severe enough problem on Uber (for people driving cars under a regulatory regime) that I just can't reasonably play along with the theory that the problem is reduced or eliminated when it comes to bicycles. I'm going to believe my lying eyes and ears.
Normally traditional hot "zones" of money-making became overly saturated with drivers out of nowhere, he added. He said he often chats in Spanish with foreign drivers, many of which tell him they are from Venezuela.
"[Us drivers] run into each other all day long at these various businesses and restaurants and so forth," he said. "We chat it up. I chat with the migrants, too. I'm a grandson of an immigrant. I'm sympathetic for them but I'm a rules guy first."
Preston said he personally met countless "unqualified" individuals—estimating that the senators' concerns about hundreds of unverified or illegal drivers could be understated on a national scale.
He alleged "fraudulent" accounts are commonly sold or shared via the dark web or openly in Facebook groups. In August, Preston said he hadn't been re-identified by the app in over two years.
yofuckreddit
23d ago
improved cycling infrastructure is taking people off busses and trains, not cars
I would disagree with this. Bicycles are far closer to an individual mode of transportation than a subway, much less a bus. This is why delivery drivers are using them instead of shuttles and hub-spoke models. For a door-to-door journey an individual vehicle is the best option.
yofuckreddit
23d ago
I'm a moderate on this - I hop on the sidewalk plenty on big roads. Once you start doing this, however, you realize how bad they are. Even with how much slower you are on them, a cyclist is going to see far more of this infrastructure than an average pedestrian. They end at random places (right when lanes crunch!), foliage overhang is a serious problem, dirt and potholes push you to the edge of the curb and risk you being struck by cars anyway...
This is also assuming zero competition from pedestrians. Once there is some, it turns into a nightmare. They're unpredictable, have dogs with them, etc. I just think "the system" (whatever it is) has to have some sort of tangible benefits to counteract the myriad downsides of cycling: mechanical maintenance, capital expenditure, and enormous risk of theft. I have to have some speed advantage even if it's not the 4x one I'd get on a road.
yofuckreddit
7d ago
I hate to say it but I just disagree, and I say this as a big fan of JJs who will never turn one away.
I had the privilege of nerding out for an hour and a half with a dude driving a 720s whose vanity plate read frkyfst Both places use the same suppliers for meat, but the cuts are thicker at JJs, along with those for veggies. Their misfire on a bread redux, along with them now being on version 3 of the sublime kickin' ranch shows how much jacking of the formula the PE firm has been doing. The new toasted subs are absolutely hot garbage and destroy crew throughput. I have appreciated one or two of the LTOs though.
In comparison, I've found the bread at JMs to be more consistent and the veggies more generous. I have to beg the guys on the line at JJs to give me a reasonable number of tomatoes.
yofuckreddit
7d ago
It's been a pretty short time since the buyout relatively speaking, but that's a bummer.
For anyone with the app, I believe the code jmmissesyou is an evergreen code for $2 off a regular.
yofuckreddit
28d ago
This whole thing where Trump's inner circle is pretending they believed Musk's promises is utterly unconvincing.
Musk is a known overpromiser. Any idiot can look at a pie chart of government spending and know obvious fraud is a rounding error. The DOGE cuts need to happen because they caught the open-secret financial life blood of artificial leftist movements.
What's left is stuff that feels like fraud but isn't. Veteran disability, disability in general, cost disease in the MI complex, and the straight up bad math of social security.
Musk is being ejected for some other reason. The cuts not being deep enough is just window dressing.
yofuckreddit
16d ago
I am an LDR vet(unfortunately) and have to echo that getting into meatspace as a goal is key.
How much emotional damage have you all inflicted on you? I ask because my first girlfriend was sourced the same way yours was. I was in the same position. The difference was that I was ~15 years old, so the years I wasted on a sub-optimal relationship could at least be considered "below the line".
In terms of showing affection and truly feeling it, I've found it helpful to actually think about what they do for me and what is awesome about them. You can forget these things when involved with someone for a long time.
If you're struggling too much to do this, it may have less to do with aspergers and more to do with them not being great. I'd need to know more about her to give more specific help.
yofuckreddit
16d ago
I feel like I'm perpetually in a whole at work: always many presentations/experiments behind where I should be, so I over-schedule to try and catch up and then end up not actually doing what I said I was going to do and falling further behind.
I'm not sure how many hours you're putting in. If you're in a position with high agency, people at the company are going to continually pile work on you. I have this feeling but I've also set hard limits about the number of hours I work and delay scheduling. Two sayings:
- "Better to whole-ass one thing than half-ass multiple things"
- "Slow is smooth and smooth is fast"
Just start pushing out deadlines and making people get in a real queue. They'll start doing their own jobs at some point. It may not be as good as what you'd do but it'll be something.
yofuckreddit
24d ago
Maybe? A California Stop/Rhode Island Roll is an unofficial moniker for when cars do it, and an idaho stop is the practice being enshrined in actual law for cyclists across multiple states.
I spend more time than average in fast food subreddits. I have just been tickled pink by one recently submitted to /r/jerseymikes. For those who don't want to click through, it's a meme image of the ham they slice for their sandwiches with the following text:
In any case, I don't care about it being a loogie in the face of the Creator or an affront to my GP when looking at my blood pressure. I'm very opinionated about what makes a good sandwich, and I think Jersey Mike's absolutely crushes the nationwide competition. I still recall vividly my first taste of a true Italian (complete with prosciutto!) from Lenny's in the Memphis airport 20 years ago that changed my life. That place is now a shadow of its former self, but it's interesting how times have changed. These places couldn't even survive in ideal locations in the southeast back when I was a Subway sandwich artist and now they're thriving. Awesome, because my palate was built for thin ham.
(Side note - the humorous caption above is in fact mostly incorrect for at least Boar's Head. Their process involves using whole pieces of meat but forming them through force as opposed to ultra heavy processing.)
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