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‘That girl is going to get herself killed’ (2022)

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Re: ‘That girl is going to get herself killed’ (2022)

#311

Post by kkielhofner »

shortstuffsushi wrote: post #302
kkielhofner wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the other side - when describing the situation to the incredulous officers my take was (essentially) "The beginning of this scenario likely happens multiple times every single day in this city and it's not about drugs or other criminality". It's a fairly standard situation by college town standards, not some fantastical story or some other scenario that screams "a bad guy ripped off another bad guy". At one po…

Ouch, in a national chain, potential video, potential payment trail... it's too bad that (in my admittedly limited experience), these sorts of things are almost never pursued, because to your point - there's no disincentive to the perpetrators to stop.

Well let’s remember, after my initial experience with the police I didn’t even bother to return the call from the detective who “followed up”. Not having the cooperation of the victim is a guarantee nothing will come of it. Perversely it also probably reinforced the attitude the officers demonstrated - “Knew it, this guy was doing something shady and finally realized he doesn’t want to get in trouble”.

I feel bad that my inability to deal with this could contribute to it happening to someone else. But, certainly at that time, I just couldn’t bring myself to even talk about it.

Oddly, years later, I can talk about it on HN and think nothing of it. Occasionally my friends will have me tell the story to someone else and we’ll all laugh about it (occasionally to the horror of anyone hearing it for the first time).

It’s been a very strange experience.

Re: ‘That girl is going to get herself killed’ (2022)

#312

Post by mcguire »

emtel wrote: post #48

One time, I was driving at night in the Sierra after a storm - roads were covered in snow. It's a drive I've made close to 100 times without incident. Going around a bend, I saw a car in the ditch on the outside of the curve. I stopped the car, put on the hazards, and went to see if there was anyone in the car. As I was about to cross the highway a car come sliding around the bend more or less sideways. I stopped and…

Most things that are incredibly dangerous won't kill you individually. Something incredibly dangerous might kill 10%---one in ten.

Years ago, I heard of someone feeding their pets cooked, bone-in chicken. Eating cooked chicken bones is very dangerous, but you can do it for years before that one day that it suddenly isn't safe.

Re: ‘That girl is going to get herself killed’ (2022)

#313

Post by supperrtadderr »

chasd00 wrote: post #301

i was in a lab at college when an EE major friend of mine accidentally shorted 36v from three very very large high capacity 12v electric car batteries (this was in the late 90s, they weighed about 50lbs each) to the frame of a ground rover robot. It instantly welded the vice grips to the frame and then after about 3 seconds both ends of the vice grips blew off breaking the circuit. i hate dealing with electricity.

Wrong post?

Re: ‘That girl is going to get herself killed’ (2022)

#314

Post by mcguire »

lamontcg wrote: post #196
Animats wrote: post #186

I know someone who spent her twenties as an ocean lifeguard, including the real Baywatch, LA County Fire Department lifeguards. That's competitive to get in, and she's one of the few women to qualify. 6 feet tall, blonde, and muscular. Country girl who grew up on ten acres in Northern California. She spent years rescuing people who did stupid stuff. During the off-season for the beach she did off-road vehicle rescues…

I got certified as a cave diver in 2009 and I'm still alive. I don't break rules and keep things nice and mellow underwater. Same mentality as dealing with internet security or complicated changes in brittle codebases--think about all the edge cases.

Play the odds.

I ride a motorcycle. (Well, I kinda used to. It's been a while.) I've been down a couple of times, but I wore the gear and didn't drink and ride, didn't speed, and didn't go out of my way to do stupid things. Those improve the odds a lot.

That won't save you, but it cuts down on how often you need to be saved.

Re: ‘That girl is going to get herself killed’ (2022)

#315

Post by hinkley »

bombcar wrote: post #31
foobarian wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Acquaintance did some suburban kayaking and didn't see a 3ft drop (some kind of dam or culvert under a bridge) until too late. The fluid mechanics of that drop are such that there is a vortex at the base that makes it difficult to get out. He was able to stand but just barely - scary to think how close a call that was in a pretty innocuous looking setting.

https://www.weather.gov/lmk/LowHeadDamPublicSafetyAwarenessM... Low head dams are the drowning machine, and they can look very safe and simple.

There's a lot of pressure to get rid of these things. Maybe not as much as there should be.

Re: ‘That girl is going to get herself killed’ (2022)

#316

Post by 6502nerdface »

chaps wrote: post #260
dragonwriter wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, its “the occurrence of a rare event is an indication of the existence of the conditions in which that event occurs in that time and place, so if you have evidence that such an event has recently occurred, you should treat the place where it did as a place where that kind of event has an elevated likelihood of occurring”, which is far more specific and actionable than “better safe than sorry”.

This is a lovely example of HN pedanticism.

The English word is pedantry, not pedanticism.

Re: ‘That girl is going to get herself killed’ (2022)

#317

Post by andrecarini »

dbspin wrote: post #266
TeMPOraL wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Equality of outcome, that's indeed the modern western take on things. That v² in there also means that, if enough people follow your advice, we'll eventually start seeing SUVs equipped with reactive armor.

An arms race of sorts is inevitable. Your reactive armour will be worthless in the face of my active measures. Innocent casualties are inevitable, but they're the price we pay for freedom.

> Your reactive armour will be worthless in the face of my active measures.

Suddenly [1] isn't so ridiculous anymore...

[1]: https://youtu.be/k7YVxLLIuGM?t=149

Re: ‘That girl is going to get herself killed’ (2022)

#318

Post by lovehashbrowns »

P_I_Staker wrote: post #300
kkielhofner wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's interesting you mention SA cases. I'm not proud to admit it but prior to this experience I was firmly in the camp of "Of COURSE you report it, go to the police, testify, etc". In my incident even though the responding officers were terrible, racist, victim blaming, etc they filed what I'm sure was a mandatory report. I received a call (voicemail) from a detective about a week later. I was still having nightmares…

It's worth pointing out that many people go through these experiences and never do anything like that. There's homeless drug addicts that would commit crimes, but never hold someone up at gunpoint... maybe break into a house and run away when there's an intruder, and feel very guilty. At risk of sounding like a conservative (I don't consider myself one), greed, as well as a culture of violence, and wanting to be toug…

Another piece of the puzzle to add to what you've said, is the feeling of helplessness/hopelessness that can get locked in at a young age. When I was growing up, there were a lot of kids that didn't view their future with any kind of optimism. So really, what difference does it make if they go to jail for selling drugs, armed robbery, running from the cops, etc. That's pretty much how I viewed things, except instead of leading a life of crime I just wanted to do something much more drastic. Of course, I was super young when that viewpoint permeated my thought process, so that viewpoint is still there but not to the same extreme.

It's a lot more convincing as a preteen (or even younger), seeing your friend's friends and family members making "a living" from crime, and then looking at your life with what seems like no opportunity or a respectable future.

Re: ‘That girl is going to get herself killed’ (2022)

#319

Post by bagels »

dkarp wrote: post #309
AYBABTME wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I almost drowned on a beach without surveillance, jumping into the surf waist high, for fun, until suddenly the receding water pulled me just a few meters further away and now I couldn't touch the floor anymore, and was slowly being pulled further and further away from the beach. My girlfriend of the time was on the beach far enough away that she couldn't hear or grasp that I was struggling. By luck and after perhaps…

I used to live on a popular surfing beach in Australia. Every day people would see the surfers and think it was a good place to swim and get into trouble (In general, if you see surfers then it's a bad place to swim). Always swim near the lifeguard's tower and pay attention to the flags

Even without a rip, swimming where the surfers are is just going to get you knocked in the head by a board or yelled at.

Re: ‘That girl is going to get herself killed’ (2022)

#320

Post by dragonsky67 »

itsmemattchung wrote: post #26

Some tips on where to begin to learn more about nature and survive in the wild? Maybe an REI class? I'm a little embarrassed to admit that should I ever venture out into the wilderness, I would definitely not survive. I lack basic survival skills and nature would eat me alive. That being said, I always admired folks who could go camping for days (or weeks), who could cook up a warm (and edible) meal over a campfire.

Rule #1... Tell somebody reliable where you are going and when to expect you back and who to call if you don't come back. (Could be local police, park ranger etc depending on where you are going).

Then make sure you let them know you are back.

Far too many people get lost and nobody knows where they have gone.

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