This seems like an external real world Schrodinger's cat.
Red Light Green Light
61–70 of 169 posts
Re: Red Light Green Light
#62I’m more impressed that James was able to just write up an excerpt from someone else’s podcast and make it to the top of hacker news
Re: Red Light Green Light
#63Similar things happen surprisingly often in companies. Many intense arguments can be diffused by first being specific about what we agree upon. Just to add to this, one strategy from the rationalist community that I rarely see practiced is to 'taboo' certain words. For example if two engineers are arguing about a solution not being scalable, taboo the word scalable. They both re-explain their POV without using the wo…
>Many intense arguments can be diffused by first being specific about what we agree upon.
Exactly. Whenever I have the inclination to get into an argument about politics, I try to start by finding a common premise, in order to find where the problems or disagreements start. And eventually, I find that we have similar goals where you wouldn't expect sometimes, but are coming at it from completely different sets of facts that guide us to different conclusions.
Re: Red Light Green Light
#64[deleted]
Re: Red Light Green Light
#65My child perspective story; When we were young we watched a TV program called Play School. We always watched it when we got home from normal school. Mum put on the TV and on came Play School. I didn't understand until much later that the act of turning on the TV didn't 'start' the program, so if, for whatever reason, we got home early I used to get super frustrated with my mum for not turning on the TV and letting me…
The amount of on-demand kids content these days makes this even trickier now. I frequently have to explain to my kids that no, I can't play that song again because this is the radio and we can't control what it plays.
Re: Red Light Green Light
#66As a kid my mom ran out of gas several times, and it was always on the same road, which had a gravel shoulder. We'd be riding along, she'd pull off into (what I call "the rocks"), the car would stop and she'd say "we're out of gas". Since the car was moving along fine before pulling off the road, and I had no concept of how cars worked, I made the connection that pulling into "the rocks" caused the car to run out of gas. After making that connection, I used to scream not to pull into the rocks when she ran out of gas. My parents eventually made the connection as to what I was thinking, and instead explaining how it worked used to tease me with it well into my adult years.
Re: Red Light Green Light
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
Note that (AFAIK), for adults, "why" can get you the wrong response (puts people on the defensive), so (AFAIK) it's recommended to use "what" instead (which tends to get at the "why" you wanted in the first place) - "why do you think that?" -> "what led to you thinking that?" :shrug: It works, sooooo.
I also stay away from second person: "what led to you thinking that?" -> "what led to that thought?" My preferred version: "what was the motivation for choosing that?". It's especially helpful on a team working with legacy software. Because the root cause can sometimes be a historic team decision, no longer attributable to anyone on the current team. Where "led you" can result in the "oh it wasn't my idea" responses,…
This is great. I also often go with something like "can you explain that to me?", because it puts the focus on my apparent lack of understanding the thought process rather than the implication that there's a deficit in the process.
Re: Red Light Green Light
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes. I'm 50, and grew up before the common use of car seats for children. Children of all ages would commonly ride in the front seat, or even in the back of pickup trucks. Even today, only about half the states have rules specifying that the carseats must be installed in the rear: https://saferide4kids.com/car-seat-laws-by-state/ As a fun anecdote, my father grew up prior to the time that most cars even came with fac…
But you're 50. I'm 55, and for the large majority of my life (and presumably smaller than yours) kids were relegated to the back seat.
Remember getting stuck with the "hump" in the middle of the floor? I guess it was only a problem if you have more than one sibling and your parents had rear-wheel drive.
Re: Red Light Green Light
#69It's weird it took her so long to realize what was happening - I knew as soon as I read the first paragraph what was going on. I suppose it's because I am younger (and thus have memories of being a kid) and was rather short as a kid, so I know what sorts of limited visibility you can have as a kid, and more recently I'm also used to driving at confusing intersections where it's not clear which light applies.
Isn't this just another example illustrating her point?
Re: Red Light Green Light
#70It's weird it took her so long to realize what was happening - I knew as soon as I read the first paragraph what was going on. I suppose it's because I am younger (and thus have memories of being a kid) and was rather short as a kid, so I know what sorts of limited visibility you can have as a kid, and more recently I'm also used to driving at confusing intersections where it's not clear which light applies.
Your comment was the top one and it encouraged me to just click through to the article and... I just don't get it after the first paragraph. Indeed, colour blindness? But that doesn't make you "know" it wrong, that makes you not be able to tell (afaik). So then... the kid was either joking, had learned it the wrong way around, or tied the name 'red' to the bottom position perhaps. ... turns out it's a localization pr…
> Why not change them around in the USA as well? It's not as if people could be confused and look at the wrong lights, as the others' lights are simply not visible when the lights are all on the side nearest to the lane(s) they apply to.
As a German in the US, I find the positioning of traffic lights to be one of the very few traffic-related this that are better in the US. In Europe I find myself frequently leaned forward and looking up at the traffic light to see it at all. I never have an issue seeing the traffic light in the US. Figuring out which light is yours very rarely is a problem. At least not on the west coast where you usually have grid patterns.