Oregon punished an engineer for criticizing red-light cameras. He fought and won • Hacker News Board

Re: Oregon punished an engineer for criticizing red-light cameras. He fought and won

#321

Post by slantyyz » Mon, Dec 11, 2017, 2:58 PM UTC

valuearb wrote: post #314

slantyyz wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't confuse legality with morality. They may be related but they are not always in sync. In the real world the law will often prevail. Context is important. You can call non-kobe beef "kobe beef" in casual conversation, but IIRC you cannot in a conversation where you are selling said meat. IIRC "Kobe" is protected by treaty. If you are selling meat from a wagyu cow not originating from and raised in Kobe, you have…

This is a man who makes a living by performing engineering work, just like me. We are both “Professional Engineers” and no state certified labor monopoly can change that. It’s neither moral nor legal to try, given both the US and Oregon constitutions(1). Which is why the “Professional Engineer” scammers are trying to avoid legal rulings. They should really only call themselves “State Certified Engineers” (1) The righ…

Well let me give you a better example. Because of the professional standards held by certain professions (medical doctors, lawyers, accountants, engineers, etc) - until they recently relaxed the rules, Canada required passport applications to have an occupational guarantor (of a certified profession) who knew the applicant for a minimum amount of time to sign a passport application.

The average person doesn't know the difference between a "Professional Engineer" with a PEng and a "professional engineer". If someone like you were to say "I'm a professional engineer" and sign the passport application and it was caught, the person's passport would be invalidated and the signing small-e engineer would likely be fined for misrepresenting him/herself. You could actually say that in Canada at least, PEng engineers actually have an elevated status in society like doctors and lawyers.

Re: Oregon punished an engineer for criticizing red-light cameras. He fought and won

#322

Post by logfromblammo » Mon, Dec 11, 2017, 4:25 PM UTC

throwawayjava wrote: post #302

logfromblammo wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> proper following distances, all traveling 70mph Hi. Welcome to Earth. It looks like you missed orientation. Humans drive at different speeds, and usually follow too closely. We have recognized this species-wide problem, and are currently trying to build driving robots that will reduce the impact. Until they are ready, every collision you may see on the road was likely caused by a human driving non-optimally. Theref…

"Proper following distances" absolutely does not mean "with less than 1 second of separation between them"! "Proper following distances" means "you can react and stop in time to prevent a collision if the car in front of you brakes very hard". Ripped from a wiki article on the topic: " The United States National Safety Council suggests that a three-second rule—with increases of one second per factor of driving diffic…

I am describing what people actually do, not what they should do. I think everybody knows that they shouldn't tailgate, but they just do it anyway, because "F U get out of my way".

Re: Oregon punished an engineer for criticizing red-light cameras. He fought and won

#323

Post by wandernotlost » Mon, Dec 11, 2017, 5:20 PM UTC

twocenter wrote: post #315

wandernotlost wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You missed the point. I'm not talking about situations with two vehicles on the road. What happens with regular traffic is that you get someone driving 75mph in the right lane and another driving 75mph in the left lane, and it's game over for the whole highway. Once a few more vehicles accumulate, there's no safe driving stance. If you stay in the left, a gap develops on the right and people coming up to the jam pass…

I think you have missed the point. If two trucks are driving 25mph side by side on a two-lane 75mph freeway, blocking all other traffic, everyone behind them can still drive safely. They don't have to merge in and out between lanes. They don't have to be dangerous. Too many people take the attitude that such a situation would force them to pass on the shoulder, or to cross the median and drive the wrong way on the ot…

And you have also missed the point. You are correct that they don't have to be dangerous in that situation, but what you describe relies on everyone around you driving in a perfectly calm, rational, coordinated manner, which is not what happens in reality. Driving with the expectation that everyone around you is a protocol droid is unrealistic and dangerous.

What I described is what actually happens in that scenario, and unfortunately I only have control over my own actions, not those of "everyone behind them".

If you're deliberately ignoring reality and blocking a line of traffic, telling yourself, "these people don't have to be dangerous", the only things you're accomplishing are self-delusion and making the road more dangerous.

Stay to the right except to pass. It's really not that difficult.

Re: Oregon punished an engineer for criticizing red-light cameras. He fought and won

#324

Post by tripzilch » Wed, Dec 13, 2017, 1:54 PM UTC

Hey America, maybe you should go after people "speaking about technical matters" on climate-change denial instead of this stupid bullshit.

It's not like you're doing anything useful with your first amendment rights anyway. I'm 100% serious btw, selectively enforced right to free speech is objectively worse. I still remember almost everybody LOUDLY and PROUDLY proclaiming "disagree with but will defend to the death" the right for a bunch of religious nuts to ruin gay people's fucking funeral, and all the fucking silence and shuffling of the feet on anything that actually matters.

Re: Oregon punished an engineer for criticizing red-light cameras. He fought and won

#325

Post by valuearb » Sat, Dec 16, 2017, 12:07 AM UTC

slantyyz wrote: post #321

valuearb wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a man who makes a living by performing engineering work, just like me. We are both “Professional Engineers” and no state certified labor monopoly can change that. It’s neither moral nor legal to try, given both the US and Oregon constitutions(1). Which is why the “Professional Engineer” scammers are trying to avoid legal rulings. They should really only call themselves “State Certified Engineers” (1) The righ…

Well let me give you a better example. Because of the professional standards held by certain professions (medical doctors, lawyers, accountants, engineers, etc) - until they recently relaxed the rules, Canada required passport applications to have an occupational guarantor (of a certified profession) who knew the applicant for a minimum amount of time to sign a passport application. The average person doesn't know th…

You could also say that Canada doesn't respect freedom of speech. But apparently even they don't fine people for calling themselves "engineers".

Again, if someone wants to be a "Government certified professional engineer", that's fine. But taking claim over the entire english language to fine people for using the perfectly clear description "professional engineer" is a violation of US constitutional rights.