It's not ergnomic nor designed around the human body or everyday experiences.
It started arbitrary. Then was defined as in terms of the wavelength of radiation from krypton-86. (the meter was 1,650,763.73 wavelengths of that particular transition to match the original arbitrary metal bar)
Then they based it on the distance light travels in an arbitrary amount of time (1/299,792,458 of a second).
These were all decidedly non-human scale measurements with no actual scientific basis. Yes they used scientific references, but theyre all arbitrary references.
I didn't say it was SI units, but it's easily convertible to them. Metric isn't magic, but it's a cohesive set of legos that can be transformed easily without requiring messy arithmetic and hard to memorise scale constants.
Are you not pretending people use the modern, most-precise definitions in the day-to-day just to give yourself a stab at claiming that Metric is awful? Non-metric would face the same dilemma when trying to establish units in a way that can be scientifically replicated. The counter point is that non-metric is so bad that people don't even bother using it in this endeavor ;)
> I guarantee you you would be able to adapt without any problem.
I guess it depends on how you define "problem". It took me years (probably a decade or so) to get good at estimating measurements. I would expect that to relearn how to estimate using metric units would take a decent portion of that (though probably not all). That is a very real cost to me if we were to adopt metric units. Meanwhile, metric also confers no benefit to me (ease of conversion math is irrelevant when I carry a calculator in my pocket, and I've learned the conversions I need in everyday life). So the cost-benefit analysis of switching to metric would be negative for my usage.
But more to the point, it's fucking rude to come in here as you did and call people "uncivilized" for something as petty and meaningless as which units of measurement they use.
Metric isn't magic but as an engineer who's had to use both systems for my whole career[^1] I despise the imperial system. Factors of 3, 8, 12, 640, 5280! Fractions used in carpentry. Just centering a picture on a wall is annoying.
I will agree that a temperature interface in °C should read in increments of 0.5 in order to have roughly the same resolution as when in °C (and many don't, but that's poor UX). I don't care about 0-100 being roughly aligned to human environments - 0-100 being aligned to freezing/boiling of water is just as good a reference.
[1] of the many things that Reagan should be despised for, cancelling metrication is probably not in the top 5, maybe not top 10. I still despise him for it.
That's the key question: whose laws are Waymo enforcing? ICE and Flock's extra-constitutional policies? City ordinances? A future eco-radical government's laws?
How about things taking place outside the car?
Can Waymo mount a robotic machine gun next to the LIDAR and snipe suspected terrorists? Release tear gas? Self destruct, killing several nuns to protect s CEO?
Most likely an identification grab. I haven't seen how anth will enforce the age restriction, but my bet is through linking all of your movements within claude to a govt id.
Abt protecting minors:
19 states still permit teachers to physically hit students. In most states, children as young as 14 or 15 can be legally married (typically girls to older men) with parental consent or a judge's approval.
Multiple states have "religious exemption" laws that shield parents from prosecution for withholding medical care from sick children based on religious beliefs, even in cases where children die. Some states have essentially no requirements for homeschool curriculum, testing, or welfare checks. The US incarcerates children at rates dramatically higher than comparable countries. The 2021 expanded Child Tax Credit cut child poverty roughly in half. It was allowed to expire in 2022, and child poverty immediately rebounded.
Millions of American children have inadequate or no healthcare. Medicaid coverage varies wildly by state. States that rejected Medicaid expansion have measurably worse child health outcomes. This is political choice, not necessity. An estimated 500,000+ American children still have elevated blood lead levels, primarily from lead paint in older housing and lead water pipes. Roughly 1.4 million American children experience homelessness in any given year. Almost no meaningful regulation of what can be advertised to minors online.
Firearms became the leading cause of death for American children in 2020. Car crashes are still one of the top three killers of children. schools. Children who live and go to school near freeways have measurably worse health outcomes across their lifetimes: asthma, cognitive impairment, cardiovascular problems in adulthood. Universal free school lunch demonstrably improves child health and academic outcomes. Most states don't have it.
...but official(+) LLM access restriction is our priority? Hahahaha tell me another one.
(+) offline models are as easy as installing ollama.
At my friend's org, they like it to suck bc that reminds them they are doing the very sophisticated work of dogfooding. No one told them they're allowed/supposed to feel good making/using the sw...
"We want to feel the same pain the customer feels" is shortened to "we want to feel pain." Instead of "neither we nor the customer feel pain."
Animalistic survival desires under conditions of engineered scarcity and reduced awareness. Compounded with powerful need for consistency - to keep everything this way.
Anyone with a decent amount of social power is aware and skilled at maintaining these conditions whether consciously or not.
The praxes are non-trivial: awareness, bravery, flexibility, and seflessness.
This could be summarized as "unhealthy competition."
This is exactly the type of nuance that the comparison fails on. Plus we have limited info here.
Yes ofc we must yield to pedestrians. And we also make nuanced decisions. "There's a motorcycle moving too fast behind me. There's a pedestrian in front of me."
If the pedestrian would be killed or struck by the vehicle, then yes you need to stop and/or steer away. But if it's about merely inconveniencing the pedestrian to prevent an accident, that's the ethical duty.
That's the nuance the rule "always yield to pedestrians" needs to consider.
Perhaps the explanation is: to make space for other incoherent self-defeating policies like threatening the Fed that they'll increase tariffs if rates aren't lowered?
I discussed above how Carpenter is not narrowly restricted to cell phones.
The fact of being in public or on a vehicle isn't the key point. It's that electronic systems aggregating location data are 4th amendment protected. Which was established in Carpenter.
The aggregation creates a comprehensive system.
Aggregated location data over months creates a comprehensive chronicle of your life that's categorically different from someone observing you on one street corner. Aggregation changes the constitutional analysis.
So to my original point, the Flock camera does not violate any rights. Even the system aggregating the data, like Google or your cell provider, doesn’t violate any rights.
It’s only the government searching that database without a warrant that would be unconstitutional under some hypothetical future case.
Metric isn't magic.
It's not ergnomic nor designed around the human body or everyday experiences.
It started arbitrary. Then was defined as in terms of the wavelength of radiation from krypton-86. (the meter was 1,650,763.73 wavelengths of that particular transition to match the original arbitrary metal bar)
Then they based it on the distance light travels in an arbitrary amount of time (1/299,792,458 of a second).
These were all decidedly non-human scale measurements with no actual scientific basis. Yes they used scientific references, but theyre all arbitrary references.
reply