Author Topic: Amazon accuses customer of racism & shuts down their smart home!  (Read 26612 times)

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Offline MK14

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Re: Amazon accuses customer of racism & shuts down their smart home!
« Reply #200 on: June 30, 2023, 09:40:21 pm »
HEY!  Don't confuse them with the facts!!!

But they have driven for many years or decades, without crashing the car.  Which means that they are a world authority on automotive safety and anything that comes into their mind, is guaranteed to be the safest and most correct idea, ever.

In the same way, a person who knows nothing about electronics, but hasn't got an electric shock in the last few decades, is a world expert on electrical and electronic safety, and can design complicated electronic devices, despite not actually knowing what a transistor, diode, resistor or even a PCB, actually is.


Edit:  It was intended to be a sarcastic response.  Striked out, to avoid further confusion.
« Last Edit: June 30, 2023, 09:58:01 pm by MK14 »
 

Offline james_s

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Re: Amazon accuses customer of racism & shuts down their smart home!
« Reply #201 on: June 30, 2023, 09:51:21 pm »
But they have driven for many years or decades, without crashing the car.  Which means that they are a world authority on automotive safety and anything that comes into their mind, is guaranteed to be the safest and most correct idea, ever.

I did not say this, not even remotely, do not claim that I did.

I'm not the world authority on automotive safety, and I have never claimed that any idea I come up with is the safest and most correct idea ever, why are you posting these blatant lies about me? I said that the data clearly supports that I'm a better driver than a lot of people, and I do not play with my phone or do other things while driving. Are you suggesting that distracted driving is perfectly ok and that we should keep creating crutches to enable it? Are you claiming that I'm lying and that I do play with my phone and such while driving? Are you claiming that I am lying when I say that I evaluate risk and modify my behavior in order to keep my perceived risk below some acceptable level? Are you claiming that you don't do the same? Do you deny that accident rates have been increasing and highway deaths have also increased in recent years? Please point out what I have said that is incorrect and provide the correct data.
 
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Offline Zero999Topic starter

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Re: Amazon accuses customer of racism & shuts down their smart home!
« Reply #202 on: June 30, 2023, 09:52:52 pm »
HEY!  Don't confuse them with the facts!!!
The US is hardly unique. Other countries show a similar trend. I just chose the US, because it was easy to find long term data.

By the way, the main reason why the US has a higher rate of road deaths per capita, compared to other wealthy countries is because people generally drive more miles there.
 

Offline james_s

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Re: Amazon accuses customer of racism & shuts down their smart home!
« Reply #203 on: June 30, 2023, 09:54:20 pm »
Anyone claiming cars gaining more safety features hasn't resulted in a reduction in fatalities is mistaken. In the US, the number of road deaths per mile has been in decline, since the widespread adoption of the automobile.
https://injuryfacts.nsc.org/motor-vehicle/historical-fatality-trends/deaths-and-rates/

HEY!  Don't confuse them with the facts!!!

I said accidents, not deaths, work on your reading comprehension before accusing someone else of being stupid.

Deaths too have been increasing recently though, here are some facts straight from the NHTSA. 'NHTSA Early Estimates Show Record Increase in Fatalities Nationwide"

Why are you getting so emotional about this?

https://www.nhtsa.gov/press-releases/early-estimates-first-quarter-2022
 

Offline MK14

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Re: Amazon accuses customer of racism & shuts down their smart home!
« Reply #204 on: June 30, 2023, 09:55:49 pm »
But they have driven for many years or decades, without crashing the car.  Which means that they are a world authority on automotive safety and anything that comes into their mind, is guaranteed to be the safest and most correct idea, ever.

I did not say this, not even remotely, do not claim that I did.

I'm not the world authority on automotive safety, and I have never claimed that any idea I come up with is the safest and most correct idea ever, why are you posting these blatant lies about me? I said that the data clearly supports that I'm a better driver than a lot of people, and I do not play with my phone or do other things while driving. Are you suggesting that distracted driving is perfectly ok and that we should keep creating crutches to enable it? Are you claiming that I'm lying and that I do play with my phone and such while driving? Are you claiming that I am lying when I say that I evaluate risk and modify my behavior in order to keep my perceived risk below some acceptable level? Are you claiming that you don't do the same? Do you deny that accident rates have been increasing and highway deaths have also increased in recent years? Please point out what I have said that is incorrect and provide the correct data.

Firstly, it was sarcasm.  To make a point.

But, being sarcastic, without mentioning it specifically, is potentially problematic over the internet, especially between differing countries and where we can't see each other, face to face.  Because it could be easily misinterpreted.

I'll think about it, but potentially decide that I SHOULD NOT have posted it in that way (sarcastic).
 
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Online Monkeh

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Re: Amazon accuses customer of racism & shuts down their smart home!
« Reply #205 on: June 30, 2023, 10:02:34 pm »
By the way, the main reason why the US has a higher rate of road deaths per capita, compared to other wealthy countries is because people generally drive more miles there.

So what's your explanation for the markedly higher rate of road deaths per mile?
 

Offline james_s

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Re: Amazon accuses customer of racism & shuts down their smart home!
« Reply #206 on: June 30, 2023, 10:03:03 pm »
Best advice from an ex-British Army driving instructor was, assume everyone else is dumb. Hence his saying, defensive driving means, you have to do everyone else's thinking for them, even if they went to college.

You can become almost psychic, knowing that in three... two... one... those men in lycra are going to undercut the articulated lorry which is already positioned and indicating to turn. Looking through a visor or a windshield is an idiot watch. Am I the only one reading the road? With the advent of driverless cars, can AI anticipate the random actions of other drivers? Seems that AI driven vehicles are very fast at reacting to hazards, but not so good at anticipating them.

That assumption has saved me from many accidents, I'm always expecting other drivers to do stupid things and too often I'm right. It's not like this is some baseless speculation or feeling, it's the direct result of driving hundreds of thousands of miles and observing this behavior with my own eyes. It's also been studied, one referenced here that distracted driving is more dangerous than driving drunk.
https://www.conradattorneys.com/blog/is-distracted-driving-more-hazardous-than-drink-driving/#:~:text=The%20National%20Highway%20Traffic%20Safety,road%20for%20about%20five%20seconds.

It doesn't mean that people are intellectually stupid, but a lot of people are simply terrible drivers, and there is plenty of data to back this up. I kind of wonder if the people protesting loudly are people that make a habit of doing things like using their phone while driving and they are upset someone is pointing out that this is moronic and dangerous behavior. I have a friend like that, nice guy but it's terrifying to ride with him, he's always on the phone and messing with stuff, he thinks he can multitask but he can't, there have been several close calls while I was in the car with him. I'm quite frankly surprised at the strong emotional reactions from some, I never thought it would be controversial to point out that there are a lot of bad drivers out there, or that a lot of people are stupid, George Carlin had a classic line about that "Just think how stupid the average person is, then realize that half of them are stupider than that!" There are a lot of dumb people out there, and I'd have thought that most people on an engineering forum where people are overall probably smarter than average would have been frustrated by this many times in life.
 
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Offline james_s

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Re: Amazon accuses customer of racism & shuts down their smart home!
« Reply #207 on: June 30, 2023, 10:06:24 pm »
So what's your explanation for the markedly higher rate of road deaths per mile?

Cultural norms perhaps? Or maybe it's just easier to get a license here? Or the training is worse? I know very little about driver licensing requirements in other parts of the world but in the US it is very easy to get a license at age 16. Our traffic accident and death statistics are skewed by teenagers who have dramatically higher accident rates than older adults.

"The crash rate of drivers ages 16-17 years was nearly double that of drivers ages 18-19 and approximately 4.5 times that of drivers ages 30-39, 40-49, and 50-59 (Table 1). Drivers ages 60-69 had the lowest crash rate."

https://aaafoundation.org/rates-motor-vehicle-crashes-injuries-deaths-relation-driver-age-united-states-2014-2015/#:~:text=The%20crash%20rate%20of%20drivers,had%20the%20lowest%20crash%20rate.
 

Offline gnuarm

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Re: Amazon accuses customer of racism & shuts down their smart home!
« Reply #208 on: June 30, 2023, 10:10:50 pm »
By the way, the main reason why the US has a higher rate of road deaths per capita, compared to other wealthy countries is because people generally drive more miles there.

So what's your explanation for the markedly higher rate of road deaths per mile?

Where?  In the US it is not "markedly higher".  What exactly are you referring to?  Can you give a reference?
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Offline james_s

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Re: Amazon accuses customer of racism & shuts down their smart home!
« Reply #209 on: June 30, 2023, 10:12:57 pm »
Anyone claiming cars gaining more safety features hasn't resulted in a reduction in fatalities is mistaken. In the US, the number of road deaths per mile has been in decline, since the widespread adoption of the automobile.
https://injuryfacts.nsc.org/motor-vehicle/historical-fatality-trends/deaths-and-rates/

I don't think anyone is claiming that.

Deaths are only a small part of the picture. There is a much larger number of accidents that don't result in deaths, but many of those do result in injuries, and many others result in billions of dollars in property damage. Several years ago I was rear ended by a distracted driver, I was not killed or even injured, but my car was destroyed simply because someone decided their text message or whatever they were doing was more important than my property. Perhaps if they knew they were at a greater risk of getting hurt if they hit someone they would have paid more attention to what they were doing. I've yet to see someone texting while riding a motorcycle, motorcycles are dangerous and require the rider to pay attention.
 

Online Monkeh

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Re: Amazon accuses customer of racism & shuts down their smart home!
« Reply #210 on: June 30, 2023, 10:14:58 pm »
By the way, the main reason why the US has a higher rate of road deaths per capita, compared to other wealthy countries is because people generally drive more miles there.

So what's your explanation for the markedly higher rate of road deaths per mile?

Where?  In the US it is not "markedly higher".  What exactly are you referring to?  Can you give a reference?

You did read the context?
 

Offline james_s

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Re: Amazon accuses customer of racism & shuts down their smart home!
« Reply #211 on: June 30, 2023, 10:16:56 pm »
Where?  In the US it is not "markedly higher".  What exactly are you referring to?  Can you give a reference?

I have not personally confirmed this to be accurate but here it is:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-related_death_rate


Road deaths per 1 billion km driven, USA 8.3, UK 3.8, that is certainly what I would call "markedly higher", it's more than double. Just scanning down the list the USA is higher than the majority of other developed nations.
 

Offline PlainName

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Re: Amazon accuses customer of racism & shuts down their smart home!
« Reply #212 on: June 30, 2023, 10:55:27 pm »
Quote
"Just think how stupid the average person is, then realize that half of them are stupider than that!"

Pedantically, average is not necessarily the halfway mark. You could have an average where most of the population are above it  ;)
 

Offline PlainName

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Re: Amazon accuses customer of racism & shuts down their smart home!
« Reply #213 on: June 30, 2023, 11:03:51 pm »
Speaking of road accidents, it occurred to me the other day that the rates in UK towns is surely set to rise significantly. Reason being the food delivery guys (and maybe gals, but they all seem to be guys) - they are zipping around on scooters with L plates, and many of them seem to have never driven anything on the road before these things, partly because they weren't old enough and have just upgraded from a bicycle. Some of them seem to think it's a workable alternative to Dignitas.
 

Online Monkeh

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Re: Amazon accuses customer of racism & shuts down their smart home!
« Reply #214 on: June 30, 2023, 11:16:37 pm »
Speaking of road accidents, it occurred to me the other day that the rates in UK towns is surely set to rise significantly. Reason being the food delivery guys (and maybe gals, but they all seem to be guys) - they are zipping around on scooters with L plates, and many of them seem to have never driven anything on the road before these things, partly because they weren't old enough and have just upgraded from a bicycle. Some of them seem to think it's a workable alternative to Dignitas.

Oh, they're an ever increasing nightmare. As is the easily availability of 'e-scooters' (daft electrically powered vehicles with no construction or use standards applied..).
 

Offline themadhippy

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Re: Amazon accuses customer of racism & shuts down their smart home!
« Reply #215 on: June 30, 2023, 11:32:42 pm »
Quote
they are zipping around on scooters with L plates, and many of them seem to have never driven anything on the road before these things
wonder how many have bothered with there cbt
 

Offline Kim Christensen

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Re: Amazon accuses customer of racism & shuts down their smart home!
« Reply #216 on: July 01, 2023, 12:37:48 am »
Quote
"Just think how stupid the average person is, then realize that half of them are stupider than that!"
Pedantically, average is not necessarily the halfway mark. You could have an average where most of the population are above it  ;)

Well, since Carlin was telling the joke to an "average" audience, he avoided the word "median" so as not to confuse them.  :-DD
 

Offline james_s

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Re: Amazon accuses customer of racism & shuts down their smart home!
« Reply #217 on: July 01, 2023, 01:22:22 am »
Quote
"Just think how stupid the average person is, then realize that half of them are stupider than that!"

Pedantically, average is not necessarily the halfway mark. You could have an average where most of the population are above it  ;)

Well George Carlin was a comedian, not a mathematician or engineer. It's meant as a joke obviously, but there is some truth to it. 
 

Offline gnuarm

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Re: Amazon accuses customer of racism & shuts down their smart home!
« Reply #218 on: July 01, 2023, 01:53:41 am »
Quote
"Just think how stupid the average person is, then realize that half of them are stupider than that!"

Pedantically, average is not necessarily the halfway mark. You could have an average where most of the population are above it  ;)

If you are measuring IQ, it is symmetric with 100 being, median, mean and mode.  Some comedian said, "Consider that half the people have IQs below 100!"
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Offline Simon

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Re: Amazon accuses customer of racism & shuts down their smart home!
« Reply #219 on: July 01, 2023, 09:06:11 am »
Speaking of road accidents, it occurred to me the other day that the rates in UK towns is surely set to rise significantly. Reason being the food delivery guys (and maybe gals, but they all seem to be guys) - they are zipping around on scooters with L plates, and many of them seem to have never driven anything on the road before these things, partly because they weren't old enough and have just upgraded from a bicycle. Some of them seem to think it's a workable alternative to Dignitas.

Oh, they're an ever increasing nightmare. As is the easily availability of 'e-scooters' (daft electrically powered vehicles with no construction or use standards applied..).

Electric scooters are illegal. They cannot be used on roads as they are unlicensed and unapproved vehicles and the cannot be used on pavements because they are vehicles. But as we don't have enough police in this country they are not being taken off the idiots that ride them and destroyed.

I really don't know why their import is even allowed, the justifiable use for them only on private land is so near non existent that it is the sole legal caveat for them to exist, yet people openly purchase them as a means of transport.
 

Offline gnuarm

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Re: Amazon accuses customer of racism & shuts down their smart home!
« Reply #220 on: July 01, 2023, 09:34:28 am »
Speaking of road accidents, it occurred to me the other day that the rates in UK towns is surely set to rise significantly. Reason being the food delivery guys (and maybe gals, but they all seem to be guys) - they are zipping around on scooters with L plates, and many of them seem to have never driven anything on the road before these things, partly because they weren't old enough and have just upgraded from a bicycle. Some of them seem to think it's a workable alternative to Dignitas.

Oh, they're an ever increasing nightmare. As is the easily availability of 'e-scooters' (daft electrically powered vehicles with no construction or use standards applied..).

Electric scooters are illegal. They cannot be used on roads as they are unlicensed and unapproved vehicles and the cannot be used on pavements because they are vehicles. But as we don't have enough police in this country they are not being taken off the idiots that ride them and destroyed.

I really don't know why their import is even allowed, the justifiable use for them only on private land is so near non existent that it is the sole legal caveat for them to exist, yet people openly purchase them as a means of transport.

Wow!  I'm surprised anyone gives a crap about them.  I don't think I've ever seen one used. 

BTW, they are not illegal everywhere.  I recall years ago, I lived somewhere that had very delineated rules about what amounts to mopeds.  If the engine was too powerful, they were illegal.  If the wheels were too large, they were illegal.  To be a motorcycle the wheels had to be a bunch bigger, to be a moped the engine was very limited. 

Oddly enough, there were some sort of hot rod, miniature motorcycles that were not legal because they fell into this illegal half way domain.  It made little sense to me.  Why not make a category for such things, rather than outlaw them entirely?  Maybe they could not meet safety standards?
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Offline tggzzz

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Re: Amazon accuses customer of racism & shuts down their smart home!
« Reply #221 on: July 01, 2023, 10:04:58 am »
Speaking of road accidents, it occurred to me the other day that the rates in UK towns is surely set to rise significantly. Reason being the food delivery guys (and maybe gals, but they all seem to be guys) - they are zipping around on scooters with L plates, and many of them seem to have never driven anything on the road before these things, partly because they weren't old enough and have just upgraded from a bicycle. Some of them seem to think it's a workable alternative to Dignitas.

Oh, they're an ever increasing nightmare. As is the easily availability of 'e-scooters' (daft electrically powered vehicles with no construction or use standards applied..).

Electric scooters are illegal. They cannot be used on roads as they are unlicensed and unapproved vehicles and the cannot be used on pavements because they are vehicles. But as we don't have enough police in this country they are not being taken off the idiots that ride them and destroyed.

I really don't know why their import is even allowed, the justifiable use for them only on private land is so near non existent that it is the sole legal caveat for them to exist, yet people openly purchase them as a means of transport.

Wow!  I'm surprised anyone gives a crap about them.  I don't think I've ever seen one used. 

BTW, they are not illegal everywhere.  I recall years ago, I lived somewhere that had very delineated rules about what amounts to mopeds.  If the engine was too powerful, they were illegal.  If the wheels were too large, they were illegal.  To be a motorcycle the wheels had to be a bunch bigger, to be a moped the engine was very limited. 

Oddly enough, there were some sort of hot rod, miniature motorcycles that were not legal because they fell into this illegal half way domain.  It made little sense to me.  Why not make a category for such things, rather than outlaw them entirely?  Maybe they could not meet safety standards?

Electric scooters aren't completely illegal in the UK: you are allowed to hire them from a number of designated companies (e.g.Voi). There is an infestation of them in my nearest city, causing blocked pavements and delayed journeys where they can't be safely overtaken.

They are speed limited (15.5mph?) and supposedly geofenced. You have to have a driver's licence and be 18+. That does not, of course prevent youngsters getting hold of them and injuring themselves and others.

They are promoted as a fun instant-gratification way of getting around a city (cf a bus!). That leads people to being too carefree and thoughless, and hence ride dangerously.
Not sure whether the riders are required to have insurance, which will be an expensive problem for a car driver involved in an accident.

All other electric bikes are legal only on private land with the landowner's permission.
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Offline Simon

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Re: Amazon accuses customer of racism & shuts down their smart home!
« Reply #222 on: July 01, 2023, 10:05:21 am »
In the UK you can use them legally only on private land. There are rental schemes where you need a driver license and the scooters are approved, but somehow kids end up with them on pavements and the adults using them on the road clearly forgot that they are driving a motor vehicle and behave dangerously.
 

Offline PlainName

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Re: Amazon accuses customer of racism & shuts down their smart home!
« Reply #223 on: July 01, 2023, 10:17:59 am »
Around here there's a chap who rides a sit-on monowheel and wears the full protective gear (bike helmet, leathers) because it will save him from being damaged by the pedestrians he might mow down. Rides through the middle of town in the pedestrian precinct, along the pavement out of the town centre. And is employed at the council office, so clearly they don't give a shit. Not cool to nick one of their own, you know, and parking tickets are more lucrative.
 

Offline tggzzz

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Re: Amazon accuses customer of racism & shuts down their smart home!
« Reply #224 on: July 01, 2023, 12:21:47 pm »
In the UK you can use them legally only on private land. There are rental schemes where you need a driver license and the scooters are approved, but somehow kids end up with them on pavements and the adults using them on the road clearly forgot that they are driving a motor vehicle and behave dangerously.

Yes, exactly as I wrote
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