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What is the nicest thing a stranger has ever done for you?

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Re: What is the nicest thing a stranger has ever done for you?

#241

Post by unyttigfjelltol »

phil21 wrote: post #197
workfromspace wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't "number of old men who die from heart attacks while doing anything is non zero"?

It’s the going from zero to 100 that gets folks it seems. Deep, heavy, wet snow is called heart attack snow for a reason. It sneaks up on you - a driveway you just cleared for years with normal snowfalls is all of a sudden a 10x workout from usual, and your brain doesn’t completely process this. Anything else at that level of intensity would likely trigger you to take breaks. That said - I think inactivity is far wor…

In the cold. The exercise-plus-hypothermia combo is a bad one. Pick one, not both.[1]

[1] https://shine365.marshfieldclinic.org/heart-care/prevent-hyp...

Re: What is the nicest thing a stranger has ever done for you?

#242

Post by [deleted] »

hermitcrab wrote: post #229
thunderfork wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My grandfather was a farmer and scarcely went a day without hours of exercise in his life. He passed away after a heart attack while shoveling his paraplegic neighbor's driveway. You don't have to be unfit to get done in by shoveling snow.

It doesn't snow much where I live. Why is shovelling snow so deadly? Don't people stop for a rest when they get tired?

[deleted]

Re: What is the nicest thing a stranger has ever done for you?

#243

Post by JKCalhoun »

I guess this is me being nice…

When I was 20 or so I worked at a pizza place (Godfather's Pizza in Kansas City, FWIW). I suppose because I had a high school diploma, the manager had taken a liking to me and made me "shift supervisor" — which is kind off like assistant to the manager. Anyway, I was often left in charge to close the store with a few of the high school hires.

I often noticed a family come in on Tuesdays or whatever when there was some kind of promotion like get a large for the price of a medium or whatever. They often had some coupon you cut out of a newspaper so they could save another $2 or whatever. They were quiet and I decided they were not very well off.

I had a flashback to my own childhood: where going out for pizza with my sister and (single, working) mom was a real treat for us (and with the coupons, or free drinks).

When they order I make an extra large rather than a large. Unfortunately, this night, I think the pizza was left a touch long in the oven and it comes out with the cheese a little browner than I would have preferred. I was a bit embarrassed handing it to them and then even more embarrassed when they didn't even bat an eye but quietly accepted the pizza.

I decided nonetheless to make them another pizza and when it was done I brought it out to them in a to-go box—apologizing for the first pizza.

I can't know how it made them feel, but I was happy to be in a position to do that. (To hell with corporate profits, ha ha.)

Re: What is the nicest thing a stranger has ever done for you?

#244

Post by fsckboy »

defrost wrote: post #237
CamperBob2 wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, I suspect HN is starting to fuzz votes the way Reddit does. Some of the voting I've seen on my own comments lately makes zero sense, including weeks-old comments of perfectly neutral tone. It isn't worth worrying about.

Don't discount better and better "I can't believe it's not human" aping behaviour of personal bot armies of HN accounts - there's clear and obvious spam green accounts, and a steady drip of bland comment, weird voting behaviour, biege textual tone accounts that evolve through green and into background noise. The admins potter about classifying coarse behaviour and looking to reject spam, voting blocs, overly weird AI…

what's green mean, new?

Re: What is the nicest thing a stranger has ever done for you?

#245

Post by lostlogin »

mkl wrote: post #239
phyzome wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know what else is a nice thing to carry? A wad of paper towels to get the grease off. Even if someone can repair their own bike, they often don't have a plan for the grease. I've handed out paper towels to 4-5 people this year and they were all delighted.

And alcohol wipes. Just the other day someone stopped to give me alcohol wipes after I put my chain back on. The alcohol cleans off the grease completely, unlike paper towels. I'm carrying a pack in my car now.

I’ve started waxing my chain rather than oiling it.

It’s a hassle, but doing 2 at a time means the admin is much reduced.

There is a huge amount less dirt and grease in my life now. Even when I change it to re-wax it I don’t get dirty. I probably get 2-3 weeks, 500-600km out of each waxing.

Re: What is the nicest thing a stranger has ever done for you?

#246

Post by JKCalhoun »

anonymousiam wrote: post #240

Saved my life At 15 years old, I stupidly rode my bike across the street in front of my high school on a red light. It looked safe, but a car was speeding in the opposite lane, and I had to turn back to avoid being killed. So now I was in the lane I had just crossed and another speeding car hit me, throwing me (and my bike) about 40'. I was dead on the street, and a stranger stopped to give me CPR. After a month in t…

I was trying to adjust the tension spring on a motorcycle rear-shock absorber in the parking lot where I worked. Suddenly I rotated the ratchet past a detent and it sprung with a tremendous force that locked on to my finger—holding it with an iron grip (literally). It's a little difficult to describe the mechanism, but I can tell you the pain was intense and immediate and I struggled with one hand now to try and pull back the steel cap that was holding my fingertips in its spring-loaded vise. I was pretty sure in some amount of time I would have to assume I would lose the finger.

So I looked around the parking lot in desperation and I saw someone leaving their car and head in to work. I had no idea who it was but I shouted "help!" to them.

The guy jogs over to me, looks at the situation and just cooly but quickly asks, "Tell me what you need me to do." (What an engineer, huh? I'm sure this guy was an engineer.)

I explain I need this collar pulled back against the tension of the spring and between the two of us (my one good hand) we just barely get it lifted to where I was able to tear free (yeah, the skin tore) my finger.

Wow.

Crisis averted. I profusely thanked the guy and then he just went on in to work.

Thank you stranger! It was made especially clear to me after the two of us struggled that I had not a prayer on my own.

Re: What is the nicest thing a stranger has ever done for you?

#247

Post by crazygringo »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #223
tjwebbnorfolk wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's really striking the number times people have downvoted my story, considering it is 1) a true fact about my life, and 2) eminently relevant to the topic of the article. Even a thread about kindness can't stop the haters :)

Honestly, I suspect HN is starting to fuzz votes the way Reddit does. Some of the voting I've seen on my own comments lately makes zero sense, including weeks-old comments of perfectly neutral tone. It isn't worth worrying about.

I don't know if it even needs to be intentional. On mobile, it's incredibly easy to downvote when you mean to upvote.

Re: What is the nicest thing a stranger has ever done for you?

#248

Post by bigstrat2003 »

tjwebbnorfolk wrote: post #106

I've got a weird one from a bank. I was driving from South Carolina to Virginia, I was completely broke, and had exactly $20 in cash, and only a couple dollars in my checking account. I did my math wrong, and didn't have enough money for enough gas to make it home. I was trying to draft behind semi trucks and drive slow to conserve fuel, but it wasn't enough. I called my bank at the gas station with my needle on empt…

I have a similar story. I was probably 22 and my car was in the shop, which was across town. When I got the call that it was ready, it was only an hour before the shop closed but I figured I could walk the distance in that time. After a while it became clear I wasn't going to make it, even running (which I had been doing for a bit). Exhausted and with only 5 minutes before the shop closed, I asked a guy at a gas station if he could give me a ride. He said sure, got me to the shop no problem and even refused money I tried to give him for his time and gas.

Looking back, it probably wasn't that big a deal for the guy. He only had to drive me a handful of blocks, so it's not like it was way out of his way or cost him more than a couple dollars in gas. But at the time, it felt like he saved my life. I was able to get my car back and get to work that night, and all was well. It's amazing how big of a difference a small kindness can make.

Re: What is the nicest thing a stranger has ever done for you?

#249

Post by bigstrat2003 »

hermitcrab wrote: post #229
thunderfork wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My grandfather was a farmer and scarcely went a day without hours of exercise in his life. He passed away after a heart attack while shoveling his paraplegic neighbor's driveway. You don't have to be unfit to get done in by shoveling snow.

It doesn't snow much where I live. Why is shovelling snow so deadly? Don't people stop for a rest when they get tired?

Snow can be very heavy depending on the water content. So sometimes it's really light and basically effortless to shovel, but sometimes each shovel full of snow is 10-20 pounds of weight that you have to throw over and over. That gets taxing very quickly, plus people don't generally warm up before doing this intense exercise.

It's not like shoveling snow is super dangerous. Most people don't die from shoveling the snow. But it can happen and it's worth slowing down and taking breaks.

Re: What is the nicest thing a stranger has ever done for you?

#250

Post by lkbm »

socalgal2 wrote: post #129

There's a corelation between how nice people are in general and how well laws are enforced. More consistent enforcement means people trust that other's are not getting away with stuff and so they can settle into assuming the best most often, instead of having to worry. I feel like many places have forgotten that. Maybe law enforcement got too expensive or there were too many corrupt police but so much now is no longe…

Reading through these things, I was thinking about how being a high trust society is incredibly important (though to be fair, I harp on this a lot).

When I was in Cape May, I walked to the beach, and realized I'd forgotten my access pass. The person at the entrance let me borrow her bike to ride back to the house to grab my pass and bike back. You do that when you trust the people around you to behave honestly. Any time you do something to reduce that trust of strangers (it doesn't have to be crime), we erode the high-trust environment and make everyone a little worse off.

Thanks to all the kind strangers discussed in these comments for having and building social trust through your actions. Collectively, we build a safe, happy society through small kindnesses.

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