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The Lowdown on Lidar

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Re: The Lowdown on Lidar

#241

Post by JetSetWilly »

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #235
adamtj wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would assume such changes come from a desire to be accurate. But accurate how? In what way? That depends on the purpose of the title. As I see it, our differences of opinion on this topic stem largely from misunderstanding it. I think it's not at all clear what we're even talking about, so we wind up arguing about slightly different things and fail to come to a consensus. I think that we need to really understand t…

On Reddit, people post short summaries as titles. It isn't a good idea. A boring title may not be descriptive, but it's prescriptive: it prevents tainting the conversation. People shouldn't go into an article with a mindset established by a summary written by a random user. That privilege should be reserved for the author. Why not have mods vet the summaries, like they do with titles? Because it'd be way too much wor…

Plenty of subreddits have rules about editorialising titles and introducing bias, and they work well depending on the community.

But I'd rather have the odd editorialised title slipping through, than a large collection of bland, meaningless and decontextualised link titles. The current situation makes HN titles far inferior.

Re: The Lowdown on Lidar

#243

Post by sillysaurus3 »

JetSetWilly wrote: post #241
sillysaurus3 wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On Reddit, people post short summaries as titles. It isn't a good idea. A boring title may not be descriptive, but it's prescriptive: it prevents tainting the conversation. People shouldn't go into an article with a mindset established by a summary written by a random user. That privilege should be reserved for the author. Why not have mods vet the summaries, like they do with titles? Because it'd be way too much wor…

Plenty of subreddits have rules about editorialising titles and introducing bias, and they work well depending on the community. But I'd rather have the odd editorialised title slipping through, than a large collection of bland, meaningless and decontextualised link titles. The current situation makes HN titles far inferior.

The current situation makes HN titles far inferior.

Good. HN titles being inferior will attract fewer new users.

Re: The Lowdown on Lidar

#244

Post by brianpgordon »

tedunangst wrote: post #106
Karunamon wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what happens when you are caught breaking into a building, and the camera is evidence of your crime? This entire line of reasoning would completely destroy any kind of automated crime detection (security systems, security cameras), which is ridiculous on its face. Further, what happens when you commit a crime where there are no witnesses? People are rightfully convicted of crimes based on "things" rather than the…

In order to introduce the video as evidence, they have to put somebody on the stand who will explain how the camera works and so on. And right there is your opportunity to confront them. You can ask all sorts of questions, like when was the last time they cleaned the lenses.

I'm going to need a source on that. I'm pretty sure a video can be entered as evidence without any actual witness to present it. Maybe you live in a state with unusual rules.

Re: The Lowdown on Lidar

#245

Post by brianpgordon »

diminoten wrote: post #175
kareemm wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Please don't do things to make titles stand out, like using uppercase or exclamation points, or adding a parenthetical remark saying how great an article is. It's implicit in submitting something that you think it's important. The submitter didn't do this. > Otherwise please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait. Guidelines != rules. Sometimes authors write poor headlines (this is a great exam…

I'd rather be on a website that errs on the side of "no linkbait" than a website that allows too much linkbait.

I'd rather not be on a website that takes itself so seriously that people obsess over rules/guidelines. It seems like every popular post has this confusion and argument about changing titles.

Re: The Lowdown on Lidar

#246

Post by tedunangst »

brianpgordon wrote: post #244
tedunangst wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In order to introduce the video as evidence, they have to put somebody on the stand who will explain how the camera works and so on. And right there is your opportunity to confront them. You can ask all sorts of questions, like when was the last time they cleaned the lenses.

I'm going to need a source on that. I'm pretty sure a video can be entered as evidence without any actual witness to present it. Maybe you live in a state with unusual rules.

Google "entering evidence at trial" and then click on just about any of the first ten results. They all lay out roughly the same procedure.

Re: The Lowdown on Lidar

#247

Post by mrfusion »

driverdan wrote: post #212
mrfusion wrote: post #114

When I was a teenager I tried to fight a speeding ticket, and prepared a presentation like this with several good points (I think). Come court day, I got all dressed up, stood up when called and started my arguments ... and the judge simply cut me off after two sentences and said "guilty". I'm surprised this guy was allowed to present his whole argument and it actually convinced a judge.

Did you appeal? You can always appeal your first court hearing. The key is to talk to the prosecutor beforehand. They will almost always plea it down.

This was in Maryland. It seemed you went right to the courtroom and talked to a judge along with 40 other people. There was no prosecutor present as far as I could tell.

I've fought them in Connecticut later and there you only meet with a prosecutor and they warn you all over the place that if you don't take the deal and try to go to court the judge can significantly increase the fine :-(

Re: The Lowdown on Lidar

#248

Post by TeMPOraL »

ghkbrew wrote: post #73
timthorn wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In practice, they're actually very good for improving traffic flow on busy roads - because almost everyone is driving at the same speed, jams just don't form in the same way. The utilitarian argument for them is very strong.

Do you have evidence to back up that claim? It seems counterintuitive that slowing down the top few percent fastest drivers would improve traffic. If there's enough traffic to cause congestion wouldn't they be stuck behind slower drivers anyway?

As you go faster, your stopping distance (that is, the distance you should maintain between you and cars in front and behind you) increases. This leads to roads having a maximum capacity somewhere in the area that speed limits are set. If you go faster than that, you're reducing efficiency of traffic.

Re: The Lowdown on Lidar

#249

Post by TeMPOraL »

ylhert wrote: post #71
ihaveajob wrote: post #12

Speed radars are good for speed traps, but not so great to prevent speed related incidents. They share the same fatal flaw with all other single-point speed meters: You can just slow down for a minute, while you pass by the speed trap, and then speed up for the rest of your trip. Instead, a 2-point speed meter (i.e. license plate readers every few miles, measuring time between matching reads) system is superior becau…

In France they have a system that sort of works like this, most/many highways are toll based. There are toll booths at regular intervals(every 100 miles or so). If your time between toll booths is below a certain time, they know you were speeding at some point. To get around this, my always speeding grandpere would just have us stop for gas, un cafe, etc right before each toll booth.

> To get around this, my always speeding grandpere would just have us stop for gas, un cafe, etc right before each toll booth.

That sort of defeats the point of speeding. Why endanger your lives and the lives of the others if you even don't get faster to your destination as you make additional stops to "defeat" anti-speeding systems?

Re: The Lowdown on Lidar

#250

Post by TeMPOraL »

stronglikedan wrote: post #25
ihaveajob wrote: post #12

Speed radars are good for speed traps, but not so great to prevent speed related incidents. They share the same fatal flaw with all other single-point speed meters: You can just slow down for a minute, while you pass by the speed trap, and then speed up for the rest of your trip. Instead, a 2-point speed meter (i.e. license plate readers every few miles, measuring time between matching reads) system is superior becau…

Perhaps it's because you're ticketing the vehicle's registered owner, but not necessarily the driver.

I don't get why people are bringing this point up like this was something weird, IMO it should be obvious. You own a dangerous kinetic weapon, you should be responsible for how it's used, either by yourself or by anyone who you lend it to.
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