nexuist · HackerTrans

há 8 mesesdiscuss

Assuming a perfect system this still fails because you have now locked in all the law abiding citizens with someone who has proven they are ready to break the rules, effectively inventing a hostage situation out of thin air whereby a miscreant can terrorize their fellow passengers for the duration of the police response time.

nexuist

há 2 anosdiscuss

Do you not see the difference in American companies asking Americans to pressure their American representatives on American legislature, vs. a Chinese company doing this? If Google tried to do the same thing in China when the CCP were debating banning YouTube their mainland employees would have been arrested and "disappeared."

nexuist

há 4 anosdiscuss

Airlines have historically been cash poor. It's extremely difficult to make an airline profitable, and demand fluctuates wildly due to weather, oil prices, world conflicts, etc.

"If you want to be a millionaire, start with a billion dollars and launch a new airline." - Richard Branson

nexuist

há 4 anosdiscuss

I am an ignorant prick, and if the powers that be had chosen to exploit poor people mining uranium instead of poor people mining coal 40 years ago, we would have avoided billions of metric tons of CO2 and saved millions of poor peoples' lives.

nexuist

há 4 anosdiscuss

Great job moving those goal posts when your original premise was called out.

What exactly do you want France to do in Niger to atone for their sins? Build infrastructure, fund businesses, make deals with their government? In other words, you want to solve colonialism with more colonialism?

nexuist

há 4 anosdiscuss

For the record, the Model 3 does have physical volume/playback controls on the steering wheel, but I do agree with the OP's greater point about not hiding important functionality behind context menus.

nexuist

há 5 anosdiscuss

This is a brilliant idea and I'm curious if anyone has any opinions on why it wouldn't work. Paid overtime shifts financial responsibility to the PM who ordered overtime, because arguably a more competent PM would either push back against unrealistic deadlines or manage the team more efficiently to avoid overtime crunch. It sets the stage for competent management to prevail while incompetent managers are forced out of the org. I think this is great incentive structuring.

nexuist

há 5 anosdiscuss

Before I reply, I want to recognize that as the actual licensed engineer, you have more of a say in this than I do, a non licensed software developer, regardless I would like to continue the conversation to better understand why I am wrong.

Your core argument seems to ride on the idea that public trust is paramount. I can definitely see this on projects such as bridges, buildings, wells etc. I struggle to see it on a private consumer good such as an airbag vest. If I want to cross a river I'm forced to drive across a bridge, and the bridge doesn't come with an instruction manual. It makes sense to engineer for the lowest common denominator here so that the functionality is predictable.

But I'm not forced to use the airbag vest. Every issue you listed is a problem with almost all motor vehicles. On my car dashboard the LED that pops up to indicate low tire pressure is tiny and the label so abstract I had to look in up in the drivers manual to figure out what it meant. In many situations low tire pressure means you could be seconds away from losing control of the vehicle, yet the engineers trusted that dashboard LED would be safe enough for consumers to understand. This is also true for ABS, traction control, stability assist, brake failure, and whatever else gets its own LED.

Even disregarding the subscription service, it still makes sense to have a device that shows a status LED to confirm the system works. What if the battery died? What if some wire internally disconnected? What if some hardware component failed a startup check? An electronic system can alert you to failure conditions far better than a mechanical one.

> 4.) Hardware failures of a huge variety, which can exist in a system which has an inbuilt mechanism to DISABLE airbag.

On any modern passenger car the passenger airbag is disabled if a weight sensor in the seat isn't tripped. These systems already exist and are deployed en masse.

> 1.) Human error to notice, identify, and correctly interpret an LED indicator light.

> 2.) Human error to properly correct an LED warning light indicator for a variety of reasons. ("I called them and gave them my new credit card so I should be ok, even though the light is on.")

> 3.) Inability to correct the situation without first continuing travel to an area with cell or internet service. (Date changed, subscription expired, have been traveling and haven't had reliable cell, internet, or mail for 2 months.)

> 5.) Programming errors and/or network errors.

From the site: https://www.klim.com/Ai-1-Airbag-Vest-3046-000

4. If I’m subscribed monthly and miss a payment or my credit card expires, will the airbag suddenly stop working?

Answer: No. In&motion will reach out with a 30-day warning prior to your payment method expiration. After expiration or missed/forgotten payment, In&motion gives you a 30-day grace period during which the airbag functions completely the same. You will receive notifications about the missed payment. After the 30-day grace period, the airbag will stop detecting crashes until payment is resumed. You will not be able to turn on your airbag vest into ride-ready status after the 30-day grace period, so you won’t unknowingly ride with a non-functioning vest, unless you choose to ignore the LED indicators warning that it isn’t active.

5. Would In&motion turn off my vest mid-ride if I pass the 30-day grace period?

Answer: No. In&motion will not turn off your vest mid-ride for any reason, even if you’re at the end of the 30-day grace period and it elapses during your ride. The only way for it to turn off during a ride is if you didn’t charge the In&box and the battery dies (LEDs indicate battery level, which you see when you turn it on) or if you manually turn it off during your ride.

> Would you feel ok entering a building where the fire exit required the building owner pay a subscription service to unlock?

This is a false premise because fire exists are required by law and factored into the cost of the building. There is no legal situation where you can skimp out on fire exit costs. Also, a motorcycle isn't a shared space. Whether another rider chooses to wear protection or not has no impact on me as a car driver.

nexuist

há 5 anosdiscuss

This is a great point. The IoT subscription model can be avoided by using a more traditional rental model. I don't think anyone would have qualms over financing plans about this, but the IoT angle makes it more controversial.

nexuist

há 5 anosdiscuss

No electronics? How does it detect crashes?

nexuist

há 5 anosdiscuss

Kind of an interesting dilemma. Charge full price, only rich people can afford it, poor people die. Charge a subscription, poor person affords it for a while, bank account gets overdrafted, poor person dies. On the other hand, charge a subscription, poor person affords a safety feature they previously couldn't use, saves their life. Isn't that the more ethical option? If the full price is $800 then they're actually selling the vest to you at a 50% discount and hoping to recoup the costs through the subscription. You're getting a safety product for 50% off and you don't even have to pay back the other 50% if you don't think you'll need it. Hm.

nexuist

há 6 anosdiscuss

Privacy for me, not for thee....

nexuist

há 7 anosdiscuss

Wait, that's actually kind of really good!? Out of 50,000 views, if 0.01% donated (500 BATs) that translates to $85! Maybe my expectations are low but that's more than enough to cover server costs for a month. It certainly doesn't pay rent but it's better than not making any money at all.

nexuist

há 7 anosdiscuss

Apple has enough money in the bank at this point to not really care about what is or what isn't the most stable. They could make the worst decisions possible and it would take years before the consequences of their actions come back to bite them. While I'm sure they had genius analysts crunch and ultimately approve this move, the rules are different for them.

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