bigschnitz

joined 2 years ago
[–] bigschnitz 2 points 1 year ago

In well designed urban areas, where lights are synchronized I would expect a change in speed limit without changes in traffic light logic to increase time spent waiting at lights.

This has a knock on effect in heavy traffic areas as a car in front stopping might take 10 seconds to take off when the signal changes, but each car behind them has the cumulative delay of each driver in front, so a 10 seconds delay for the first car would likely be closer to a full minute for the fifth car.

I'm not sure that this extra time spent idling would be enough to undo the reduction in emissions due to lowering speed limits (more likely for EVs I imagine), but if implemented sloppily (as has been the case every time I've ever seen a speed limit on a road reduced), it does add significant time to commutes during busy times and should actually be thought through properly, with other changes to optimize traffic because of it, fully considered.

A far more effective and cheaper way of reducing emissions is invest in reliable and affordable public transit options, or better yet safe cycle paths.

[–] bigschnitz 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

I've always known sprite and similar lemon flavored soft drinks to be lemonade, though there is a lime version.

I'm sure I remember seeing lemonade on sprite packaging when I was younger, and it looks like Google agrees with my memory. Not sure why these other guys are arguing with you.

Obviously the same for all the other brands as well (Schweppes lemonade is very much a carbonated soft drink).

[–] bigschnitz 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I used to have a pebble back in the day, and then later a pebble steel. I've not found a modern smartwatch that is as good for my needs (partially because it doesn't look like a smartwatch).

I use a Samsung Galaxy wear, which also looks like a normal watch. I'm sure competing products are used a lot and you just don't notice them because their styling is modelled off of dumb watches.

[–] bigschnitz 8 points 1 year ago

Risk of driving when smoking weed is not a good example, because it is illegal to drive while high - much in the same way that it's illegal to run a red light or illegal to discharge a firearm into the air within city limits - the exact same arguments apply, where the victim is those other bystander who is exposed to risk. Taking two otherwise legal things and combining them makes it a risk to others, and illegal. Same as drink driving, either drinking or driving separately is not considered a risk.

The health insurance thing is a better argument (especially if you're in a country with single payer or otherwise taxpayer funded healthcare). The threshold here is a little more dicy and somewhat subjective, but the core argument is good. Cigarettes are legal, and far more carcinogenic , with a far higher risk of respiratory illness, than cannabis smoke (assuming we're not talking about THC gummies or whatever where the medical costs associated are lower), so if this line is somewhere where things like cigarettes, diesel combustion engines, alcohol, coal fires power plants etc are legal, it wouldn't make sense to make low impact drugs like THC illegal.

So to your first point, we, as a society must have some threshold where we accept some risk, otherwise pretty well existing would be illegal (what if you contract a contagious disease and kill someone?). The main argument here is it should be consistently applied. If the cost in respiratory illness caused by sulfides in coal fires powerplants has associated medical cost of exposed people orders of magnitude higher than the total sum of cost associated with individuals using a particular drug, reason would dictate that if the impact of sulfides is considered acceptable that the far lower impact of that drug is also acceptable. Both of these examples carry negligible risks compared to the more deliberate and dangerous actions like running red lights or firing guns in populated areas, so these could still be illegal with consistent reasoning.

[–] bigschnitz 10 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Is it a crime to fire a legally owned gun in a built up neighborhood, even if it doesn't harm or otherwise interfere with anyone? Is it a crime to to drive above the posted speed limit even if you're the only person on the road?

Obviously it is currently illegal to expose bystanders to risk, and in the eyes of the law those exposed bystanders are the victims.

You can argue semantics and say that there's no victim if they're just being exposed to risk, but that's contrary to the logic on which the rest of society functions.

Equally obvious, no such bystander is exposed to risk due to an individuals choice to smoke weed, ergo there is no victim (nor any argument presented that there is).

[–] bigschnitz 20 points 1 year ago (10 children)

Because by running a red light you endanger other road users because you're acting unpredictability and you disrupt the flow of traffic which ultimately creates congestion (more hazardous plus wastes time and resources).

[–] bigschnitz 10 points 1 year ago

He's articulating the problem of a single entity controlling web standards. It is a huge problem and both apple and Google are trying to kill competition in different ways, but the goal is equivalent.

[–] bigschnitz 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

If people wanted them, they'd sell them here.

Yeah depending on where "here" is different things are available. If people don't buy them or if dealers make more money off SUVs, then they will be gone.

Also seems they have bigger engines and clearly a larger physical footprint than my wife's CUV, so that argument is gone as well.

Size and fuel economy weren't things I mentioned above, but yeah I agree with you. Usually station wagons, like SUVs, have different engine configurations which dictates fuel economy more than ride height. The fuel efficiency argument against SUVs is a little out of date, the smaller ones are shared chassis with passenger cars often with the same engine, so fuel economy is more or less unchanged (the aero is worse on an SUV, but the kind we are discussing it's not really significant). By footprint I guess you mean length, which in the example I have is right, obviously height goes the other way. Smaller SUVs are more comparable to hatchbacks (eg Mazda 3 is the same as CX-30), I don't think the mid sized car platform is as directly comparable to the mid sized CUV/SUV.

[–] bigschnitz 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Ok so we could've saved time if you just said you're the least cool person imaginable with negative sense of style. Claiming that this is somehow cooler than this is entirely indefensible, SUVs are the literal antithesis of cool, the "soccer mum" moniker is not a term of endearment and your insinuation that wagons are uncool or old fashioned is, at best, misinformed.

Aside from just being criminally uncool and unsexy, there are objective ways that SUVs/CUV are worse as well, most notably safety for other road users but also higher cost and of course the one people like me care about: that they also that they universally drive worse than a comparable passenger car.

I guess you didn't Google the safety stats on SUVs vs passenger cars, your allegory to blaming the tools is flawed. It's more like saying guns without safetys are more dangerous than those with them. All cars (much like all guns) are dangerous, but some are more likely to be involved in accidents than others.

[–] bigschnitz 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (4 children)

Google pedestrian deaths by SUVs compared to conventional sedans. To say there is no rational argument against the SUV trend is laughably ignorant.

It also confuses me why yanks keep pretending small SUVs have more space than conventional station wagons. Unless you're going full Yankee and think a 7 seater is "small".... despite the size they often have worse visibility and less passenger space, it's a genuinely impressive how bad something like a Nissan kicks or toyota C-HR manage to be.

[–] bigschnitz 3 points 1 year ago

A station wagon is easier for moving animals, more space than a small SUV - it's lower to the ground (huge plus if you have to lift them in, easier for them if you are leading them up a portable ramp).

The trade off is you can't do soft sand, cross deeper streams etc, but IMO animals don't need to be released far off track, to me it's worth the trade off.

[–] bigschnitz 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Why did you reply again without reading either post?

The post said they are trying to vape and gradually reduce their nicotine intake to 0. I don't know how it can be made any more clear in stating that their near term goal is not to stop vaping, but to reduce the nicotine dose in the vape to 0.

They are trying to reduce their nicotine dosage in their vape but due to their addiction, are having withdrawals and ultimately re-adding the dose. This is 100% due to nicotine, they are not trying to reduce how many times they inhale the vape.

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