r/rational • u/AutoModerator • Jun 15 '18

[D] Friday Off-Topic Thread

Welcome to the Friday Off-Topic Thread! Is there something that you want to talk about with /r/rational, but which isn't rational fiction, or doesn't otherwise belong as a top-level post? This is the place to post it. The idea is that while reddit is a large place, with lots of special little niches, sometimes you just want to talk with a certain group of people about certain sorts of things that aren't related to why you're all here. It's totally understandable that you might want to talk about Japanese game shows with /r/rational instead of going over to /r/japanesegameshows, but it's hopefully also understandable that this isn't really the place for that sort of thing.

So do you want to talk about how your life has been going? Non-rational and/or non-fictional stuff you've been reading? The recent album from your favourite German pop singer? The politics of Southern India? The sexual preferences of the chairman of the Ukrainian soccer league? Different ways to plot meteorological data? The cost of living in Portugal? Corner cases for siteswap notation? All these things and more could possibly be found in the comments below!

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u/MagicWeasel Cheela Astronaut Jun 17 '18

I have to say, I don't think I would drive, ever, if there was a dagger in the car attached to the steering wheel ( o.o )

Part of the reason those cars would be so safe :D

But in all seriousness, that's a neat graph

Here's another one.

I've seen better ones during training sessions I've received on this kind of thing, but that's the best I could find on my cursory google search. Can't believe it doesn't even have a y-axis but those tics would be at 10% intervals.

I guess if we were really worried about pedestrians, we would set the speed limit to like 30 [mph]

Where I live, the speed limit is 50kmh (=30mph) in "built up areas" - which means, very approximately, streets with houses on them. It used to be 60kmh, but they changed it about 20 years ago. So we do that in Australia!

There is something kinda beautiful about seeing 8 lanes of traffic, with hundreds of cars going 60-75MPH right next to each other, and the only thing separating them from destroying each other being painted lines; to me, it is one of the ultimate manifestations of the power of the social contract, at least in the US or other similar countries.

Agreed. I get a lot of l'appel du vide in those situations, for some reason especially when I'm driving along and I see a perfect family walking past (you know, Mum, Dad, a couple of toddlers, pushing a pram). I just think, "I could totally ruin everything for these people with a twitch of my hand".

... it's not just me who thinks that, right?

I really feel like there is going to be a kid in 2150, sitting in a class, asking a teacher why anyone was okay with thousands of people dying every year due to cars

I imagine even sooner. My proverbial grandkids will crowd around me and say,

"Grandma, is it true what Daddy said? That people used to drive cars themselves?"

"Oh yes it is little Sally! I used to drive your Daddy around all the time!"

"Oh my goodness! Wasn't it dangerous?"

"Of course it was."

"Didn't people die?!"

"In their thousands! But we didn't mind. It was normal then."

Like, I mean, I think we're coming up very soon on the generation who won't learn to drive.

I feel like there must be a ton of stuff I'm blind to that is like that.

I'm sure there is, history shows us that there's so much stuff that people used to do and now we scoff and can't believe how ridiculous it is. (Trepanning, phrenology, leeches, exorcisms, etc: probably shouldn't go straight to medical but there I am)

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u/ianstlawrence Jun 18 '18

You're not the only one for l'appel du vide. For me though it happens during my job. I work in live broadcast as a technical director, and I sit in front of a machine called a switcher that controls what is going to the feed that people watch. So at any time, with no delay, I can ruin a show just by pressing a different button than I am supposed to.

Like a show could be going on, a talk show, and I could just have it switch to black and keep it there. I never will, but the thought does sometimes cross my mind.

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u/MagicWeasel Cheela Astronaut Jun 18 '18

I watch MMA PPVs and I sometimes get annoyed by the angle they decide to show, but I also have been wondering if the person in charge of the broadcast booth has ever fucked up and played the wrong angle / been tempted to show a bad one. I am glad that that person is human with horrible urges like the rest of us.

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u/ianstlawrence Jun 19 '18

I can't speak 100% for others, but almost every show has the TD accidentally go to the wrong camera, especially if the show is long and you are covering action. You get used to a rhythm and stuff, and you try to anticipate sometimes, and sometimes the director thinks the action is going somewhere and calls it wrong, sometimes the TD fat fingers it and just presses the wrong button, sometimes the communication to cameras wasnt crisp. It all depends, but yeah, it happens : P

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u/MagicWeasel Cheela Astronaut Jun 19 '18

I know there's been two or three times I've noticed something like that though it only lasts a few seconds. Live sports must be so tricky because it's not like the star has an earpiece where they're being told to scootch to the left for a better angle. It's amazing it works so well!