OK, first, it’s the nerd rage thread. Stop trying to tell me not to nerd rage.
I guess what it boils down to is … just because you CAN do something, it doesn’t mean you SHOULD.
I’m with WarrenM on this one Mightynute. He’s not raging about those darn kids and their newfangled technology, he’s raging about people staring at their phone in a meeting instead of paying attention. If you aren’t paying attention, why are you there?
If people are able to check their phone while still paying attention to the meeting and can answer questions/provide comments, etc, then it doesn’t bother me. And let’s be honest, most meetings are boring and a waste of time anyway, so hey – get something else done, go for it. As long as you keep one ear on the conversation.
But if someone was staring at their phone while something was said, and they ask for it to be repeated, that’s when my nerd rage kicks in. You’re wasting my time because you think your phone is more important.
People who vote for the terrorists in a friendly EE joke thread with attached poll.
Daughter mentioned this to me over the weekend and I had never heard it before. Wikipedia says its actually kind of old. I feel decrepit.
This side argument is interesting. Here late merging is the law, but Danes are the true experts at the “If I’m suffering that bastard should suffer too” and will actively block those following the rules of the road and taking advantage of the two lanes as far as possible - so the road department is experimenting with signs here that in as few words as possible try to explain how merging should work to be as effective as possible (and in accordance with our actual rules).
… it doesn’t work.
Of course people driving in closed lanes, on bicycle paths and hard shoulders etc. to skip ahead should just be summarily shot.
App stores that require web browsers to have a parental warning but let through games that crash every time the intro cinematic finishes.
In the couple years I spent over the road a few years ago (in the U.S) Chicago was the woooorst. They had some hella fucking construction going on all over the fucking place and it felt like you’d constantly be merging from one place to another the whole time you needed to navigate your way around the damn place.
It became a regular occurrence to see yelling matches break out, and a couple times coffee or other items being summarily dumped on the douchey car trying to merge so fucking late in the game. Although the idiots that would wait until the last moment to merge in would ramp up tension for everybody that had to deal with their idiocy, it was at least entertaining.
Quitch
1610
The problem was it’s not them that’s the idiots. Good driving is being punished and making life a little shittier for everyone.
Zylon
1611
Just keep digging, Quitch.
Quitch
1612
It worked for the dwarves.
Here’s what you guys are missing : Those people aren’t doing that because they feel it’s the correct thing to do or because they want to make everyone’s driving experience more efficient. They are douche bags trying to cut in.
Quitch
1614
I don’t see why their intent matters.
Believe what you will.
Fact: It is a legal driving lane.
Fact: Those people are driving on it.
Speculation: They are douche bags trying to cut in.
Zylon
1616
Late merging is only being a good driver if everybody is doing it.
Yes, it is a conundrum.
NURRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!
It does not matter.
The point is not the motivations behind the action, but the effect of the action itself. Step back from the douche bags. Look at their actions, evaluate their effectiveness against the goal and the whole. The goal is to get through the choke point faster. Using both lanes and cutting in moves us closer to that goal. The whole is not hurt by douche bags, emotionally or otherwise, if they shift perception. Which will happen naturally if the action is taken enough.
So even though that action is not intuitive for many, the action itself can be logically assessed to better for both the goal and the whole.
Or at least, that is how I approach it.
Driving is a great compact model for life and how people approach it. If you can step back from the immediate of driving and start to watch the system as a whole it be highly interesting.
For instance, speeding. Driving in the left hand line on a two lane highway and someone faster pulls up behind you with no option to go around, what do you do? So many reactions this one simple situation. Some make damn sure to not let that person around. Some base their decision to let that person around easily or not based on how they are driving (did they come right up on their ass? Did they ‘ask nicely’ or drive aggressively, etc). Others pull over as fast as possible, like sorry they ever blocked anyone at all ever. Some are completely oblivious to the whole thing (many older folks go this route) and just drive along their merry way, no matter how traffic is unfolding around them.
But besides the whole host of motivations involved in the above actions, what really turns out to matter is the actions. Does the whole matter as much in this situation? I guess you could argue it has some impact, but really, we focusing on the goal. My goal is get where I am going in a reasonable amount of time without getting pulled over by the coppers doing so. So to my goal, driving in the left is necessary and letting people pull by is beneficial (they are copper bait since I am already going at a speed I think is just this side of being pulled over).
As you might guess, I have spent a lot of time commuting over these past 15 years or so.
Zylon
1619
NURR?
I remain unconvinced of this. When the choke point is saturated, it should make no difference whether cars are merging 10 feet back from it or a mile. The real reason single-lane bottlenecks are so slow probably has more to do with standing waves.
Why anyone owns a car in Chicago is beyond me. What a miserable goddamn place to drive. Just a complete disaster.
On the other hand, it’s one of the handful of American cities with sort-of-functional mass transit.
