Mike Ey, Microsoft HoloLens designer, killed in hit and run • Hacker News Board

Re: Mike Ey, Microsoft HoloLens designer, killed in hit and run

#141

Post by ild » Thu, Mar 05, 2015, 3:34 AM UTC

Turing_Machine wrote: post #78

Chevalier wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course there's a place for suburbs, and I'm not opposed to the idea of less dense housing. Such housing can exist in the context of walkable neighborhoods with public transit, though. I think there's quite a bit of merit to firm city limits that prevent sprawl and car dependence. That said... if someone wants to live in exurbia, he should pay an appropriate amount to access amenities downtown. It's absurd that som…

"That said... if someone wants to live in exurbia, he should pay an appropriate amount to access amenities downtown." Wait: downtowns are dying all across the country, and you want to solve that problem by charging people more money to go there?

Downtowns dying? This is something new. In some cities - yes, but in actually desirable ones (Pittsburgh, Austin, Portland, you name it) - no, they do not

Re: Mike Ey, Microsoft HoloLens designer, killed in hit and run

#142

Post by ild » Thu, Mar 05, 2015, 3:44 AM UTC

rinon wrote: post #58

Chevalier wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cars are very UNSAFE, for the record. [1] Self-driving cars will be better... but autonomous cars are SUCH an intellectually lazy progression from the status quo that I hope they won't happen. Rather than autonomous cars, we should be focusing on Taleb's antifragile solutions like walking and biking. This means the design of dense housing and walkable streets, and the removal of two-ton bullets that massacre children…

Completely agree on your suggestions for urban areas. However, not everyone wants dense housing... Suburbs exist because people do not want to be that close to each other. Some people want to own their own yards/property/houses, have open space, and are willing to trade driving significantly more (with its associated dangers) for these features. People are going to create the kind of environment they want to live in,…

The dependence on cars creates very unhealthy political climate (wars, climate change denial) and creates obesity. Unwillingness to comprehend the issues, created by cars is actually a cultural defect of the nation. OTOH, preference for suburban lifestyle is also a purely cultural phenomenon, and is caused by the fact people prefer living arrangements the grew up in. I grew up, for example in a dense Soviet city, and find big house with a yard absolutely repulsive.

Re: Mike Ey, Microsoft HoloLens designer, killed in hit and run

#143

Post by ild » Thu, Mar 05, 2015, 3:44 AM UTC

rinon wrote: post #58

Chevalier wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cars are very UNSAFE, for the record. [1] Self-driving cars will be better... but autonomous cars are SUCH an intellectually lazy progression from the status quo that I hope they won't happen. Rather than autonomous cars, we should be focusing on Taleb's antifragile solutions like walking and biking. This means the design of dense housing and walkable streets, and the removal of two-ton bullets that massacre children…

Completely agree on your suggestions for urban areas. However, not everyone wants dense housing... Suburbs exist because people do not want to be that close to each other. Some people want to own their own yards/property/houses, have open space, and are willing to trade driving significantly more (with its associated dangers) for these features. People are going to create the kind of environment they want to live in,…

The dependence on cars creates very unhealthy political climate (wars, climate change denial) and creates obesity. Unwillingness to comprehend the issues, created by cars is actually a cultural defect of the nation. OTOH, preference for suburban lifestyle is also a purely cultural phenomenon, and is caused by the fact people prefer living arrangements the grew up in. I grew up, for example in a dense Soviet city, and find big house with a yard absolutely repulsive.

Re: Mike Ey, Microsoft HoloLens designer, killed in hit and run

#144

Post by aaronem » Thu, Mar 05, 2015, 3:50 AM UTC

lawnchair_larry wrote: post #120

bottled_poe wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>There are sometimes legitimate reasons to be going quickly. I have, at times, needed to have bursts of speed into the 90s to safely get around a drunk driver going 70. Not convinced by this one. Surely reducing the kinetic energy in this scenario is the safest course of action?

You clearly don't drive.

I do, and I'm not convinced either; if the drunk's doing a steady 70, it won't hurt me to do 55 in the right lane for long enough so he's well ahead of me and I have time to react to whatever stupidity he perpetrates next. Too, when I'm driving, most of my attention is focused ahead, so dropping back puts him squarely in the region where I'm most likely to spot him doing something dangerous in time to avoid it.

Contrariwise, if I speed up and pass him, I have to keep worrying about him. What if he decides 70 just isn't fast enough? He's both more willing to drive fast, and willing to drive faster, than I am, so if I make it about who can stay ahead of whom, I lose. But I, being neither drunk nor proud, am both more willing to drive slowly, and willing to drive more slowly, than he is. So I make it about who can stay behind whom, and I win.

(None of this, I hasten to note, is intended in support of mandated governors on cars, nor should it be taken as such; I've seen enough to know that trying to make something foolproof results only in a lot of annoyance and a better fool. But it makes anyone a better driver, and safer to be around, to understand that faster doesn't always equal better.)

Re: Mike Ey, Microsoft HoloLens designer, killed in hit and run

#145

Post by Surio » Thu, Mar 05, 2015, 3:51 AM UTC

This is so sad. This is the third time I hear of extremely gifted people that I know of, killed by road accident/hit and run.

Growing up, I used to hear cassettes of Jon Higgins (musician) and was impressed at his dedication to his craft. Upon asking my father, why we didn't have any new cassettes of his, I was told he was killed in a road accident.. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_B._Higgins !Gutted!

Then, I was exposed to UNIX, and fell in love with it. Loved the man pages, tried to figure out how the man pages are created, got into the History of it.... and discovered that the original developer of the roff tool, Joe Osanna, was also killed by road accident. !Gutted!

Now, gutted again! :(

I sincerely wish that his family and near and dear ones are provided with the strength to handle this utterly painful situation that they are forced to face, all of a sudden!

Re: Mike Ey, Microsoft HoloLens designer, killed in hit and run

#146

Post by ild » Thu, Mar 05, 2015, 3:54 AM UTC

Turing_Machine wrote: post #100

Chevalier wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just to clarify, are you implying here that elderly, infirm, or underage people benefit from car dependence? Because...

I'm not "implying" it. I'm stating it. And it's not a "dependence", it's a blessing. It's given people the freedom to live where they want, far away from the filthy, crime-ridden cities that you appear to idolize. Living in the city can be fun when you're a 20-something with no dependents. Most people change their minds once they have families. That's why suburbs exist. And I notice that you didn't answer my question…

> crime-ridden cities

Still living in 1980-s?

Meanwhile poverty in subarbs growing faster than in cities and crime is also quite a bit growing. Safe area of Brooklyn is a lot safer than in Elyria, OH, although Elyria is a suburb of a big city.

Re: Mike Ey, Microsoft HoloLens designer, killed in hit and run

#147

Post by vtlynch » Thu, Mar 05, 2015, 4:41 AM UTC

joesmo wrote: post #129

RIMR wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you live in Seattle proper, there are busses that run all night. Most of them will get you within a 20-minute walk of wherever you want to go. Still, with Uber, Lyft, Sidecar, and 5+ cab companies at your disposal there is no excuse for being drunk behind the wheel. Before I moved here I was a pretty obsessively responsible driver. Now that I live here, I have to keep my irresponsible drinking in check because I n…

You make a great point about services like Uber, etc. For this reason alone, I now think cities need to stop with the bans and such. Cabs are not a substitute as no one likes to wait hours or walk miles or both in hope of catching one, a situation that's quite common in places like San Francisco (especially at night) and I imagine, many other cities.

Uber is so unbelievably horrible. It should not be the solution to anything.

Re: Mike Ey, Microsoft HoloLens designer, killed in hit and run

#148

Post by rickdale » Thu, Mar 05, 2015, 4:45 AM UTC

dilap wrote: post #132

coffeemug wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Not all workers can demand decent living conditions You're assuming that car-oriented urban planning is synonymous with poor living conditions, which isn't true. A lot of people (most?) in the U.S. actually prefer it -- for many people the perceived convenience of cars beats public transportation and biking.

I love driving, but man, it sucks to build a city around it. I'm living in SF right now, carless, and skate a lot. It's fun, but holy shit does it suck constantly having to dodge oblivious drivers, asshole taxis, and homicidal MUNI drivers. I have a fantasy where the whole city is grass and bikepaths. All normal deliveries are by bike, & if you really need to move something big, you get a special permit to rent a tru…

Not quite SF, but this might be close to your fantasy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mackinac_Island

Re: Mike Ey, Microsoft HoloLens designer, killed in hit and run

#149

Post by pash » Thu, Mar 05, 2015, 4:47 AM UTC

VLM wrote: post #47

Chevalier wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not that it's any more or less tragic, but I've always been astonished that Silicon Valley is so car-dependent. We've concentrated the most brilliant minds in the world in this small area... and then force everyone to pilot two-ton bullets to pick up groceries? Not all workers can demand decent living conditions, but you'd think the competitive draw for workers in Silicon Valley would entice company towns to, I don't…

This article is being flooded with weird anti-car hate. Yet, my car is perfectly safe and can only kill someone in a hit and run at 100 MPH if, and only if, I get drunk first. Given that I don't drink very much and then only at home (a sixer lasts me about a season, sometimes half a year) that means my car is incredibly safe and will almost certainly never kill anyone. Odd how there's no anti-alcohol hate here on HN,…

> If you subtract out deaths due to drunkenness, cars kill less people than bathtubs.

In case anybody actually thought this might be true, here are some statistics that show it almost certainly isn't.

Accidental motor-vehicle crashes account for slightly more deaths than accidental drowning and falls combined; in America, about 35,000 people were killed in car crashes in 2013, while about 33,000 died by falling or drowning [0, 1]. Alcohol was involved in less than a third of traffic fatalities in the same year [2].

Meanwhile, figures for 1990–2010 show that only 9.7% of accidental drowning deaths occurred in bathtubs [3]. So roughly three quarters of all fatal falls must occur in bathtubs if we're going to reach the number of deaths caused by car crashes in which everybody involved is sober. I can't find figures, but the number of total deaths that occur in bathrooms suggests that it's not close.

0. http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/accidental-injury.htm

1. http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr64/nvsr64_02.pdf [PDF], see Table 10, p22

2. http://www.cdc.gov/Motorvehiclesafety/impaired_driving/impai...

3. " rel="nofollow">http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db149.htm#x2013;2010...

Re: Mike Ey, Microsoft HoloLens designer, killed in hit and run

#150

Post by Turing_Machine » Thu, Mar 05, 2015, 4:47 AM UTC

ild wrote: post #146

Turing_Machine wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not "implying" it. I'm stating it. And it's not a "dependence", it's a blessing. It's given people the freedom to live where they want, far away from the filthy, crime-ridden cities that you appear to idolize. Living in the city can be fun when you're a 20-something with no dependents. Most people change their minds once they have families. That's why suburbs exist. And I notice that you didn't answer my question…

> crime-ridden cities Still living in 1980-s? Meanwhile poverty in subarbs growing faster than in cities and crime is also quite a bit growing. Safe area of Brooklyn is a lot safer than in Elyria, OH, although Elyria is a suburb of a big city.

1) You don't get to cherry-pick a "safe area of Brooklyn" and compare it with the whole of Elyria.

http://www.city-data.com/crime/crime-Elyria-Ohio.html

There are "safe areas" in Elyria that have a crime rate of 6 (national average: 286, according to this site's measurment methodology)

2) Elyria has over 50,000 people. That's hardly a representative suburb.