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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)

#221

Post by giantg2 »

jessaustin wrote: post #211
giantg2 wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In theory, children that young shouldn't be unattended anyways. The onus shouldn't be on the company for not printing a warning, but on the parent for a lack of supervision (aka negligence).

Printing the warning might be cheaper than dealing with lawsuits? Courts don't accept "ha, Darwin!" as an argument.

And people still sue even if a warning was present. And nobody is saying "ha, darwin". They're saying stuff like "why weren't you supervising your 1 year old" or "how could we anticipate that someone would get [object] stuck in their butt".

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

#222

Post by kkielhofner »

I think it's important to note poor planning, unawareness, and frankly stupid, naive, or ignorant decisions can make nearly any environment or activity dangerous.

As an example I once got in a car with people I'd just met. After driving a few blocks one of them held a gun to my head. The driver then drove us out to the middle of nowhere... I was convinced I was going to be killed. I couldn't say how long the drive was but it felt like hours. They "just" robbed me and left me there. Frankly, dealing with the police after this was just as traumatizing as the initial experience - after I described the perpetrators (yes, including race) and the overall situation they assumed it was a drug deal gone bad (even though I've never had anything to do with drugs) and more or less dismissed me. They actually took it a step further and started mocking me. Essentially, they heard the race of the suspects and assumed I was initially in that situation because of something criminal (I'm white). It was awful.

I was pretty traumatized for a while but in the years since I'm much more aware of my surroundings at all times. I certainly don't trust people I don't know well and put myself in situations even remotely similar to that. I definitely have some PTSD but it doesn't impact my life much on a daily basis. In telling this story people frequently respond with "that was stupid". I can't say I disagree but it's also been eye-opening to observe a lot of casual and overt racism in response.

Point being, I essentially "victim blame" myself to some extent. I don't know if that's psychologically good or bad but what I do know is factoring everything in the chances of anything like that ever happening to me again are much lower. I'm not an outdoors type person but I imagine that (as the article describes) similar factors can easily and rapidly assemble to lead to more-or-less near death experiences.

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

#223

Post by nsxwolf »

kkielhofner wrote: post #222

I think it's important to note poor planning, unawareness, and frankly stupid, naive, or ignorant decisions can make nearly any environment or activity dangerous. As an example I once got in a car with people I'd just met. After driving a few blocks one of them held a gun to my head. The driver then drove us out to the middle of nowhere... I was convinced I was going to be killed. I couldn't say how long the drive wa…

I've always found the way the term "victim blaming" is usually used to be unhelpful. For example when you recommend someone lock their doors, someone might object and accuse you of victim blaming - because you have the right to leave your door unlocked and not be victimized. You may have that right in a perfectly just world, but in this world people don't respect that right, so it's good to protect yourself.

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

#224

Post by TeMPOraL »

hex4def6 wrote: post #216
cassepipe wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In case you had hit, a deadly accident would be more likely because of the SUV's weigh. A 4000 pounds vehicle contains has twice the energy of a 2000 pounds vehicle at the same speed. Just another example of inequality in face of death between rich and poor.

The solution, obviously*, is to just drive faster if you're in a light vehicle, to match the SUV's kinetic energy. If they're going 40 MPH, you just need to go ~60MPH, thanks to the v^2 in the kinetic energy equation. *(/s)

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.

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

#225

Post by sowbug »

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…

PSA about driving around bends. If you're ever in this situation, don't stop your car anywhere near the bend! If the bend is caused by nature, that usually means that it's wrapping around a hill or trees, which means it's blind in at least one direction. Human drivers are not physiologically capable of stopping a car in time to avoid an obstacle on a blind curve.

I've lived near two such blind curves in my life, and at each I've seen minor issues like a flat tire turn into catastrophic accidents when the driver parks and someone else comes along and hits them.

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

#226

Post by dragonwriter »

chaps wrote: post #190
taeric wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it that lightning strikes twice, or that most events are not as rare and in need of as much setup as a lightning strike?

It's "better safe than sorry".

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”.

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

#227

Post by nucleardog »

rootusrootus wrote: post #152
13of40 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does it matter whether the light was switched on? It seems like the path of least resistance in that scenario would be the other copper wire leading out of the light socket rather than the high resistance person connecting to ground. I've had a similar experience, where (at the age of about 10) I touched an exposed 120v AC wire on a running water pump, while standing in a muddy field, and I only got a mild vibrating…

> Does it matter whether the light was switched on? Depends on how it is wired. Sometimes lights are wired so that the switch comes before the fixture, sometimes after. One of several reasons you should always turn power off at the breaker when fiddling with the wiring, instead of assuming it won't be hot if the switch is off.

> One of several reasons you should always turn power off at the breaker when fiddling with the wiring

And once you've turned the power off, test wit with a non-contact voltage detector. A brand name one that's actually been built to UL/CE standards and is subject to actual recalls/etc is under $30. It's a straightforward, pretty much foolproof way to make sure you don't get yourself shocked.

A multimeter is, in theory, a fine alternative but in practice is not. The non-contact detector detects the presence of the fluctuating magnetic field from A/C. A multimeter measures the difference in potential between two points. If you were to, say, have 120V on from same phase on both hot and neutral in an outlet, it would read 0V. If, say, the ground were also not connected then you'd also get 0V testing either against ground. By all accounts there is no voltage in the plug. If, say, each side of the plug were on a different breaker you might think you'd killed the power while it's still live. (Yes, this is based on a true story.) The only way to avoid this is to make sure you have a known good ground to test against. Whereas a non-contact voltage detector immediately lights up like a christmas tree telling you this situation is all sorts of fucked up.

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

#228

Post by vasco »

kibwen wrote: post #86
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…

> 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. The lesson here is this: lightning strikes twice (frustratingly, the usual idiom is as wrong as can be). In other words, if you observe an outcome and have no oth…

One very easy application of this axiom is whenever you're near water or rain and don't want to get wet. You're at the beach, climbing on rocks and you're not sure if a wave will hit you if you climb on the next rock. Is the rock wet? If so it will, if it's dry, you're fine. You're next to a sprinkler system and it's going around and you don't know if you'll get hit if you stand here, is the floor wet? And so on.

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

#229

Post by philjohn »

newaccount74 wrote: post #68
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…

I've accidentally touched live electricity (230V) several times, and from speaking to other people it's not a rare occurrence. I think you actually need to be pretty unlucky to die from an electric shock at home.

Depends - if the path it takes is through your heart (or head) you're probably going to have a bad time. eg touching live with one hand and neutral with the other.

I've had a few mains shocks before as well, a fair few years ago, and what saved me was live and neutral touched the same hand. I now have an inductance tester I use first, then follow up with multimeter and only THEN do I start whatever I'm doing.

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

#230

Post by kragen »

13of40 wrote: post #104
bitexploder wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Couple of thoughts: Probably just leaking voltage, so not a full circuit shock, that is my first guess. Also, even wet your skin has high-ish resistance. It also may have traveled on the outside of your body to ground, path of least resistance? I have been bit by 120 and 240. When it is a full load it hekkin hurts.

Does it matter whether the light was switched on? It seems like the path of least resistance in that scenario would be the other copper wire leading out of the light socket rather than the high resistance person connecting to ground. I've had a similar experience, where (at the age of about 10) I touched an exposed 120v AC wire on a running water pump, while standing in a muddy field, and I only got a mild vibrating…

ideally the hot wire is switched, and the outside of the edison socket connects to the neutral wire, so especially if the light is switched off, you're often only in a position to get a shock from whatever is on the neutral wire, which might have been what happened in the bathroom-fixture case

commonly the neutral wire has something like 20vac rms on it for a variety of reasons

if you are ungrounded (due to rubber boots or whatever) your body is in series with your capacitance to ground, and that will commonly give you just a mild vibrating feeling or nothing at all

this 'path of least resistance' thing can be pretty misleading, because if you have two resistors in parallel, the least resistance is always the parallel resistance (i.e. current through both resistors in inverse proportion to their resistances) and not just one resistor or the other

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