Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

longreads.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

251–260 of 474 posts

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

#251

Post by JeremyNT »

angst_ridden wrote: post #208

A lot of folks don't appreciate how quickly normal can turn into dangerous in the wilderness. Because most of the time, it's all so tame. With our specialized gear and tech, there's not much threat ... most of the time. I've been on mountain peaks on nice summer days when storms appear as out of nowhere (not the typical afternoon rains), and there's lightning, high winds, and 50ºF temperature swings. In that kind of…

> I've been on mountain peaks on nice summer days when storms appear as out of nowhere (not the typical afternoon rains), and there's lightning, high winds, and 50ºF temperature swings. In that kind of situation, things can turn very dangerous very quickly. Stuff that you take for granted suddenly isn't true any more: some rock which is rough and gives great traction suddenly gets slippery, winds that come from a prevailing direction suddenly come from somewhere else and the formerly sheltered areas aren't any more, clouds and fogs may come in and visibility may drop to zero.

Even hiking out here in the Appalachians the swiftness of the arrival of thunderstorms has caught me offguard a few times. You can go from sun to hail, blistering wind gusts, and lightning in short succession, and if you're on a high bald you really may have nowhere to hide.

As the essay above hints at, this potential danger is part of why we seek these places out. When you follow the happy path, you get exercise, views, solitude... all rewarding of course. But being apart from the safety net of civilization can put you on a knife's edge. You can find yourself off that happy path surprisingly quickly - and for the adrenaline junkies among us, it's part of why we're out there.

(Maybe ops engineers, or old school sysadmins, can somewhat relate...)

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

#252

Post by Udo »

jononomo wrote: post #127
MrBuddyCasino wrote: post #47

> I did other reckless shit with my own car. [...] Drove it 120 miles per hour just to see what it felt like. Admittedly this gave me a chuckle. Most people don't go that fast, but with the right kind of car this no big deal on the Autobahn.

That is 193 KPH -- seems pretty fast to me, even for the autobahn.

> That is 193 KPH -- seems pretty fast to me, even for the autobahn.

German here, it's not fast for the Autobahn, per se. The issue is though talking about the speed on its own is nearly meaningless, the most important factor becomes the road and what speed it is designed for. There are plenty of stretches on the Autobahn where there is no speed limit AND you can "safely" go 250+kph. Although I personally get uneasy at speeds beyond that because it starts to feel like you're entering an event horizon where unforeseen things on the road ahead are now beyond your ability to meaningfully react to them.

That being said, there are lots of stretches on the Autobahn where the speed limit is 80-100kph, often with good reason.

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

#253

Post by kkielhofner »

P_I_Staker wrote: post #233
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…

Victim blaming does NOT just happen with SA cases. I know someone that was mugged in a small town. When he reported to the police it was recommended for him not to file an official report, because they would be forced to arrest him for underage drinking. P.S. Arrest doesn't mean taken away in cuffs, so it was probably gonna be a ticket. Still, this is utterly ridiculous.

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 and pretty messed up at that point. I never even called them back - I just wanted to move on and after the initial experience with the police I didn't even want to think about how much worse it could get. I felt (and still feel) very violated and a bit traumatized by the experience. I can't even remotely imagine how much more violated I would feel if it was a SA.

The most positive outcome of this experience was the 180 in my understanding of these types of violations and the empathy I acquired. Again, I'm not proud to admit it and I'm still a little bothered it took something happening to me personally to better understand this.

While we're on the topic of empathy I also better understand poverty. The perpetrators of this incident risked kidnapping, armed robbery, who knows what charges with what I'm sure would be considerable amounts of jail time - for the $100 I had in my pocket and $100 (or whatever) they got from selling my locked iPhone to part out (after being marked stolen with iCloud it pinged once several months later - from China IIRC). I couldn't imagine risking going to jail for $100,000 let alone $100. Poverty and life circumstances create a level of desperation I can't fathom.

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

#254

Post by CadmiumYellow »

MrBuddyCasino wrote: post #174
jacquesm wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Und bist du nicht willig, so brauch ich Gewalt. That had me laughing. Funny story: I once, long ago in the corridor stopped to help a bunch of people in a Trabant, the engine had seized and it really wasn't going to go anywhere so I offered to tow them behind my 230E, which could easily do that. They agreed happily and we hooked them up, and one of their party switched to my car to show me where to go (illegal to g…

Lovely story! I can see how 110 is scary in a Trabi, especially so considering the state the roads were in. > there was also a strong camaraderie, 'us against the system' I think this is what gets lost in prosperity, and what causes some of the current spiritual misery. You simply don't need other people anymore if you have enough money, which in turn destroys community. Maybe the land of plenty is a dystopia, and we…

This is such an interesting point. When people have something to lose they turn inwards with the goal of protecting what they have. There's something to be said about how people can connect when nobody has resources to guard. Maybe this is part of why kids and college students can form such easy camaraderie compared to adults.

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

#255

Post by chowells »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #224
hex4def6 wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

No one reasonable wants blind equality of outcome. They want an to understand the cause of the differences, and they want that cause to be moral.

That's far different from proclaiming either that there is no problem or that outcomes are to be measured blindly.

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

#256

Post by xcskier56 »

One of my favorite quotes is "Good judgement comes from experience; experience comes from bad judgement". I really like this article for showing the other side to viewing other people's mistakes... almost everyone very experienced in the wild have made some bad judgement calls before, and through luck or skill have managed to not get themselves killed. Everyone was a beginner at some point, and while we can take solace in knowing we will hopefully not make the mistake that whomever we're reading about did, remember that we've all done stupid things and gotten lucky.

I follow a few of the prominent ski mountaineers, and one of my favorite times is when they talk about a decision they made on a trip that was a bad one, but didn't end up badly. "Another notch on the belt of 'I got away with something'". I think this acknowledgement of making a mistake and getting away with it is very important b/c that is how you identify the lessons you need to learn.

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

#257

Post by switchbak »

justsocrateasin wrote: post #200

I recently went on a 60 mile gravel bike trip with a rather large group (50 riders) in the PNW. It was ~May of last year, and a freak storm came out of nowhere over the mountain, while we were in a large national forest. We were all wearing shorts (weather was in the 60s), and woefully unprepared as the temperature dropped into the 20s. I had thin gloves with holes in them. The storm dumped sleet on us and we had to…

I got caught near the top of Mt. Fromme - literally a 40 min climb from city streets in North Vancouver. A flash storm hit us near the top, hit us with rain + hail in the middle of summer, and from +24 degrees C down to 3. We went from fine to hypothermic VERY quickly. Bombed down to the bottom of the hill through gnarly trails, freezing my hands and feet off all the way down. Since we were in t-shirts it was getting pretty serious. At the bottom of the hill the weather pattern disappeared and it was warm and sunny again.

Sometimes you can even have life risking events in the front country, on a gorgeous day with a great forecast. Now I take small emergency jacket all the time* regardless of anything. Another good reason is if you sustain an injury, you can get tremendously cold even in decent weather. Heating packs are a good idea too.

* - well until I get negligent again, and get caught out in another hailstorm.

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

#258

Post by danenania »

vasco wrote: post #239
scanny wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like you encountered a "rip" [0]; usually letting it take you out and then swimming after the current eases is the safest thing to do. At school (Oceania) we get taught this as part of water safety, but I suppose it would be a foreign concept to many people, particularly those not living near the coast. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rip_current

I was taught to immediately start swimming parallel to the beach. Some rip tides can take you very far away very quickly, enough that nobody would be able to get to you without a boat, and that is if they were looking at you. Best advice is to swim parallel to the beach, while remaining calm and swiming at a pace you can hold. Do not sprint-swim due to fear.

Swimming parallel to the beach will get you out of it, but it could be a struggle depending on the width of the rip and the size of the waves. Getting past the break first is often easier since then you can swim parallel to the beach and away from the rip without having to deal with waves breaking on you.

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

#259

Post by xcskier56 »

Loughla wrote: post #210
themaninthedark wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As long as the paranoia is about how nature is going to try and kill you at any chance it gets, sounds good to me!

Sadly the paranoia in outdoors survival groups tends to be less about nature, and more about the government coming to take your guns and homes and what-not. Although, that is my experience in multiple mid-western states; so it may not translate to other parts of the country.

I've done a lot of ultralight backpacking. That community is, in general, on the more liberal/hippie side of the spectrum. One of the funniest things I noticed however is that the far other end, the doomsday-preppers, start to share a lot of the same tools and food. For example I was making my own freeze-dried meals, and most of the sites where you could buy the food were targeted towards preppers. A little bit of if you go so far right (or left) you end up on back on the other side.

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

#260

Post by chaps »

dragonwriter wrote: post #226
chaps wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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”.

This is a lovely example of HN pedanticism.
Post reply on HN