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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?

#261

Post by defrost »

fsckboy wrote: post #244
defrost wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Comments made by recent accounts appear with green names until a grace period passes.

HN prefers "legit accounts" (subjective) - good faith comments from real people, reasonable uses of alias and spun up fresh accounts for regulars to say things without being part of their main history, etc. New commenters welcome.

There are obvious and less obvious dark patterns of bad faith account creation.

The admins do a pretty decent job, sweeping cobwebs without hitting real genuine people is an artform ...

Returning to the main GP point - there's a lot of low key background churn activity that can result in "inexplicatable" votes, some from bots and some from the general case of "people are strange".

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

#263

Post by kube-system »

SoftTalker wrote: post #260
rogerrogerr wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd do it in a heartbeat in a situation like this, except that I have no idea what the insurance implications are. Actually, maybe someone here knows: How much would I expose myself lending my ~$20k car with full coverage to a random idiot? For the sake of argument, say I'm reasonably assured they are legal to drive.

Liability goes with the owner, not the driver. If you let someone drive your car, you are liable for any damage they do.

Not exactly -- legally speaking people are always primarily responsible for their own actions.

However, basically all insurance in the US extends coverage to people who the owner allows to drive the car.

But if you borrow someones car and you cause damages that go beyond their insurance limits, you can be personally sued for the remainder because you are still liable for your actions as a driver.

There are some exceptions where the owner can also be held liable for damages that someone else does, especially when they do it recklessly (e.g. lending to a drunk driver)

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

#264

Post by xboxnolifes »

mertd wrote: post #57
lubujackson wrote: post #36

5th grade, my best friend at the time was in a basketball team, just a small town league for kids. I never really played basketball, so I was planning to watch the game then we'd hang out. It was the first game of the season and my friend was getting his uniform from a table when a dad running things asked me what team I was playing on and I said no, I'm just here to hang out with my friend. He shook his head and sai…

There is a million ways where that interaction goes sideways and becomes a drama between the parents nowadays.

Things have always been able to go wrong. That's not a reason to stop doing things. Oh no, you might get an ear full from an angry parent once in a while. boo hoo.

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

#265

Post by gameshot911 »

I was a small child at the zoo. I had lost my parents in the crowd, and was scared.

A nice black man (this was important because I grew up in a white neighborhood and hadn't encountered many black people before) knelt down to me and asked me if I was okay, if I was lost. They brought me to the zoo office where they called my parents.

I'll never forget how strange and different they were to the child me, and yet how kind they were in the sea of scary strangers.

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

#266

Post by rkomorn »

Waterluvian wrote: post #262

A concussion despite a helmet. Surely that foam and plastic saved a life.

I've cracked two bicycle helmets and I don't know if they saved my life, but I'm quite certain they saved me a lot of pain, at the very least.

I can't fathom how some people ride without them.

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

#268

Post by alex1138 »

melvinroest wrote: post #189

I think if I'd go down memory lane I would come up with quite a lot. But one sticks out immediately. I was in Thailand on a bus, with only Thai people, it was a really local bus. The bus would stop around every 30 miles/50 kilometers. I didn't know that. I needed to get off at a particular stop as it was close to the meditation retreat I was going to (Phitsanulok). I miss the stop. I figure it'd be fine. I didn't rea…

I love that things like Google Translate make this possible now. If someone has a phone/computer, you can break the language barrier, it really helps compared to the alternative

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

#269

Post by seg_lol »

irishcoffee wrote: post #205
poolnoodle wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I honestly would be scared shitless lending a stranger my car.

We got a new fridge a few years ago, throw the old one up online for free. It worked just fine, but it was one of those freezer-on-the-left and fridge-on-the-right, split down the middle. Tolerated it for years, and finally saved up enough for a new one. So, someone comes to pick it up. Well, 3 someone’s. A older woman, a younger woman, and a younger man. The man was missing a decent amount of teeth and had a decent…

That was a little nudge that proved to themselves that they can be better people.

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

#270

Post by belZaah »

I was doing my 3rd 70.3 IM and I was doing badly. Something was off, I had been loosing power since the second half of the bike leg and come run time I was barely making 8 min/km. I was supposed to be doing 6. Seeing no point in continuing, I had decided to step off the course. Then a woman (older?) recognized me and asked me how I was. I told her about feeling horrible and stopping. She told me that’s stupid, that I should continue, it’s not so long any more. I did and, against all rational odds, against all logic, started feeling better and did my first ever negative split hm. It was likely dehydration and the aid stations helped. I don’t know who she was. I was so out of it, I did not recognize her and do not remember her face despite her knowing me by name. That experience of hope against all odds…
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