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Ask HN: What are unintended consequences of new tech you've noticed?

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Re: Ask HN: What are unintended consequences of new tech you've noticed?

#271

Post by cheschire »

FDSGSG wrote: post #247
onion2k wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In practical terms speeding actually makes very little difference to your journey time. Eg if you have a 100 mile drive on a 70mph road and you drive the entire way at 85mph your reward is saving about 10 minutes on a 1.5 hour trip. The downside risk is getting charged for speeding and being delayed for much more than 10 minutes. I've never though the cost/benefit shows it to be particularly worthwhile.

There are exceptions to this though. If you're driving through Europe at night you can easily spend most of your trip on highways safely going 180kmh or faster, saving you many hours on longer trips.

You will most likely be partially liable for any accidents over 130kph because it is difficult for people to judge speeds over that amount.

This is why if you spend much time over that line, you will find that people will seemingly jump out from behind an LKW and cut you off. It's not because they're idiots or trying to intentionally crash, but rather they most likely completely misjudged your speed due to the innate human capacity for judging speed.

Therefore I've been told that while it's not against the StVO to drive over 130, doing so is a liability risk.

Re: Ask HN: What are unintended consequences of new tech you've noticed?

#272

Post by FDSGSG »

Aeolos wrote: post #263
FDSGSG wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are exceptions to this though. If you're driving through Europe at night you can easily spend most of your trip on highways safely going 180kmh or faster, saving you many hours on longer trips.

180kmh at night is definitely not safe on a highway. Even with perfect visibility during daytime, anything above 150-160kmh is pushing it for most of the highways I've traveled in Europe.

How come? The roads themselves certainly aren't the limiting factor, often you could go even faster.

> anything above 150-160kmh is pushing it for most of the highways I've traveled in Europe

Anything above 150-160kmh is certainly pushing it for most cars, the highways themselves tend to be fine for even faster speeds. There's a vast difference between speeding in a WV Polo and a BMW 7series, it's downright terrifying to go 160 in the Polo but the BMW won't start shaking like that even at 260.

I drive between Barcelona and Berlin pretty regularly, sometimes I go all the way to Bucharest. There are definitely stretches of road on those routes where you can't go fast in low traffic conditions, but they're in the minority.

Re: Ask HN: What are unintended consequences of new tech you've noticed?

#273

Post by Eremotherium »

agnimurthy wrote: post #85

The platform economics of streaming services incentivizes musicians to release a larger quantity of short, catchier singles that work well in playlists, instead of putting out a sonically diverse album.

At the same time it's never been easier for producers of niche art to find their audience and capitalize on it, simply because the cost of production and distribution is nearing zero and there are basically no more gatekeepers (in the traditional sense).

Re: Ask HN: What are unintended consequences of new tech you've noticed?

#274

Post by FDSGSG »

cheschire wrote: post #271
FDSGSG wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are exceptions to this though. If you're driving through Europe at night you can easily spend most of your trip on highways safely going 180kmh or faster, saving you many hours on longer trips.

You will most likely be partially liable for any accidents over 130kph because it is difficult for people to judge speeds over that amount. This is why if you spend much time over that line, you will find that people will seemingly jump out from behind an LKW and cut you off. It's not because they're idiots or trying to intentionally crash, but rather they most likely completely misjudged your speed due to the innate…

Just because you're driving fast doesn't mean you have to be driving dangerously, but of course there's going to be a significant correlation as idiots also like to drive fast.

I have no problem slowing down from 200 to 130 whenever I approach an entry ramp or pass a big truck, and I certainly aggressively avoid situations where I'd have to do so frequently.

Also, while going over 130 might strictly be a liability risk it does not mean that you're going to automatically be liable. See this case of a guy going 150, he didn't do anything wrong and wasn't held liable https://www.verkehrsrundschau.de/nachrichten/urteil-schnelle...

Re: Ask HN: What are unintended consequences of new tech you've noticed?

#275

Post by pritambaral »

ksec wrote: post #257

USB-C, the intention of one port to rule it all leads to 5 different cables using the same port all supporting different set of spec and functions. Or actually using something similar / variation of USb-C Plug but does not actually confine to any USB spec at all, aka Nintendo Switch. Leading to Powering and Display in the same port ( aka Thunderbolt ) which is great in theory and idea, in practice there are much high…

What's wrong with AV1?

Re: Ask HN: What are unintended consequences of new tech you've noticed?

#276

Post by buboard »

godelski wrote: post #81
unlinked_dll wrote: post #39

Internet usage starts with users querying information they want, and services learning/adapting to deliver information in a format/context based on their activity. This has created some stellar search tools, a personalized network of services and communities available to people, and made the internet a paradise for new content from all over the world. Despite that all the information in the world is available to us,…

> We wanted it. I'm not entirely convinced this is accurate. It definitely is in part, but not in whole. We wanted these better search tools and we like recommendation systems. But I know a lot of people are frustrated with algorithms like YouTube's recommendation system trapping them. (e.g. watch one Joe Rogan video and you get firehosed with more JRE videos). The thing is we also don't notice that this reinforcemen…

Things like my twitter feed are curated though and I selected the people who curate my stuff. So if it was some kind of echo chamber, i totally willingly chose to do that.

Re: Ask HN: What are unintended consequences of new tech you've noticed?

#277

Post by buboard »

- Technical: I hate when i get a call on skype and 2 computers and a phone start ringing in concert. And this is default behavior that cant be turned off. I think a lot of apps do that

- Apps that spam your contacts list and notifications that keep coming even when you closed the app. In the name of dumbproofing everything we ve made it hard to keep secrets secret

- Probably not getting out of the house as much

- An anxiety with people's public image, e.g. not being seen in any picture breaking out of your curated public character. This is something that young people obsess over, while previous generations wouldn't give a toss really.

- An extension of this and porn is public nudity / the end of nudism as culture

Re: Ask HN: What are unintended consequences of new tech you've noticed?

#278

Post by julienreszka »

Joeri wrote: post #260
mattlondon wrote: post #234

My favourite one that surprised me and continues to surprise people: kids that have grown up with smartphones and iPads from birth are computer illiterate. People see their 5 year old using an iPad and the knee-jerk cliche thought/assumption us the classic "oh wow these kids just get technology!" (recall all the "I need my kid to program the VCR" type stuff from the 80s/90s - it is the same thing of older people assu…

I chuckle to my self sometimes when I see a toddler walk up to a TV or video advert and try touching it a few times, then walk away confused because what they thought was a touch screen isn't doing anything when they touch it. I also chuckled when my 2yo did this, but stopped chuckling when he actually got it to switch channels. Turns out our tv has small near invisible touch controls beneath the screen and we just d…

Hilarious

Re: Ask HN: What are unintended consequences of new tech you've noticed?

#279

Post by buboard »

JDiculous wrote: post #98

Depression. People are spending the majority of their lives staring at a screen, and then wondering why they're depressed. In the moment it might not feel lonely. Exchanging DMs and posting on Reddit / HN / social media might feel like real communication. But ultimately there's a sense of emptiness to it, and it can't substitute real flesh-to-flesh human connection. But it feels like we're always expected to be on ou…

This is a real problem and , oddly the solution is to build even more immersive technologies that bring people closer together, thus making the jump from virtual life -> real life smoother. We can't expect to just tell people to "go out and meet people", because people's expectations have changed, and the street has no "mute" and "block" buttons.

Re: Ask HN: What are unintended consequences of new tech you've noticed?

#280

Post by UweSchmidt »

mattlondon wrote: post #234

My favourite one that surprised me and continues to surprise people: kids that have grown up with smartphones and iPads from birth are computer illiterate. People see their 5 year old using an iPad and the knee-jerk cliche thought/assumption us the classic "oh wow these kids just get technology!" (recall all the "I need my kid to program the VCR" type stuff from the 80s/90s - it is the same thing of older people assu…

I'm curious if, and exactly when, this might lead to sweet consulting gigs for the then elderly, computer savvy generation that I consider myself part of, similar to old COBOL devs called back from retirement.

It seems that the ressources for people who actually want to learn computers are excellent and are getting better all the time, so maybe there will always be enough well trained people coming up to solve all problems.

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