I'm as ready to hate on Meta as anyone but this article is a bit of a nothingburger.
So there are disagreements about resource allocation among staff. That's normal and healthy. The CEO's job is to resolve those disagreements and it sounds like Zuck is doing it. The suggestion to train Meta's products on Instagram and Facebook data was perfectly reasonable from the POV of the needs of Cox's teams. You'd want your skip-level to advocate for you the same way. It was also fine for AW to push back.
>. On Thursday, Mr. Wang plans to host his annual A.I. holiday party in San Francisco with Elad Gil, a start-up investor...It’s unclear if any top Meta executives were invited.
Egads, they _might_ not get invited to a 28-year-old's holiday party? However will they recover??
Can somebody explain to me how giving a 28 year old kid 250 million (or was it 1 billion) to run your AI lab is a good idea? Or is it actually a dumb idea? I think it is a dumb idea, but maybe somebody can make it make sense.
well if the expected value of developing AGI is 100 quadrillion dollars -- 1000X bigger than the entire global economy -- and you think this person has a .01% chance of getting there in any given year, you should pay him 10 trillion dollars a year :)
I think a surprisingly good AI will come into existence and one of the lessons will be that we greatly overvalue intelligence over basic distribution. Giving a single kid millions and billions is symbolic of the actual problem (the distribution one).
Also, there's basically 0% chance this kid is one of the top 1000 most knowledgeable people in the world on this technology.
The other possible future is you rent the car for exactly when you need it and don’t pay a monthly bill— or your monthly bill pays for a certain number of rides/minutes/miles per month. In which case the subscription costs are managed by the provider, who might be the manufacturer and might not.
At least in cities, a fully-functioning, on-demand autonomous fleet would probably be superior to car ownership in just about every way except as a status symbol.
The monopolist providing this service would be de-incentivized from ever equipping for all the demand, and the last 10% of capacity being bid on by the last 20% of demand would make this a constant stress and struggle.
Meanwhile it's an excuse for another century of more car lanes and less mass transit infrastructure.
There used to be a service like this, called Car2Go. Not autonomous, but more like how scooter/bike rentals work. It was fantastic, and in no way profitable.
Deep Sea one is scary for some reason. It just gives me shivers to think about how deep the sea is, and what horrors lurk down there. I know that I'll never encounter such a being, but still kinda creepy.
I love Neal's work so much. He's constantly making some of the coolest stuff on the web. I'm utterly delighted every time I see his domain on the front page of HN.
I hope he never stops making these art pieces - everything he creates brings joy, regardless of whether it's educational or funny or whimsical. I'm in awe of his creative output, his manner of communication, and his ability to steal hours of our time playing ridiculous little games that make us question the fundamentals of life and society.
He's right up there with XKCD in my mind.
--
This is probably the only time I'll use my super pedantic mode on Neal's work, and it's only because I love biology -
> DNA
> The genetic instructions for life
> 3.5 nanometers tall
DNA has a lot of dimensional metrics. It gets complicated. The people that study this stuff really care because it's essential for how our enzymes work, and small differences in spacing tolerances would totally break all of the machinery.
This "3.5 nm" figure is roughly the height of one turn of the helix for one form of DNA (B-DNA). The figure is showing multiple turns in the cartoon illustration.
In theory, you could create a polymer of infinite length (or height).
B-DNA is 34 Å per turn, with 10.5 bp per turn (table 1) :
> King of the animal kingdom, it is the largest animal to have ever lived. It can eat up to 40 million krill per day during peak feeding season.
Please fix this one, Neal! We don't know that the blue whale is the largest animal to have ever lived (even assuming we know we're just talking about earth).
Blue whales are perhaps the largest animal to have ever lived on earth. But we simply do not know. The fossil record is woefully incomplete.
We even have new papers coming up all the time that challenge this:
This is undoubtedly the last time the claim to largest will ever be challenged. Even if we dug up no new fossils, the estimations of previous finds change all the time as we learn more.
Also - what does "largest" mean? Mass? Length? Surface area?
It's okay to say that they're the largest (by some metric) that we know of. But it is not correct to say that they're the largest to have ever lived - at least as far as we know or could ever know. And by setting an absolute, inquiring minds memorize the point and stop wondering.
It's very probable that we'll never know the definitive answer to this.
> (even assuming we know we're just talking about earth)
This is a nitpick, but life on other planets wouldn't be called “animals”. Animal is a clade defined by common ancestry. The only way you could have an extraterrestrial animal is for it to have evolved on Earth and then migrated somehow, and I think we can fairly confidently rule that out.
The dimensioning of DNA was an immediate turn-off for me. A common biochemistry demo is to show how long and macroscopically visible a chromosome can be. Saying DNA is 3.5 nm tall (long?) flies in the face of what is a pretty interesting and notable experience for a lot of people.
It essentially starts the whole project with a weird take on "How long is a piece of string?"
> In theory, you could create a polymer of infinite length (or height).
"That feeling of being ignored despite having given this company your everything for many years" is a strong argument against giving a company your "everything." They'll cut you loose in a minute.
I wonder if Bumble/Hinge/etc. set profiles to be non-searchable as a kind of minimum barrier to doxxing. I have many objections to modern dating apps [0], but there's an actual tradeoff/problem here that they're trying to deal with. I don't think that uploading a screenshot to ChatGPT/Claude to figure out the translation is an unreasonable ask.
This may be the "reason" that they use but I doubt they have done any testing to show that it provides any level of protection and just makes their app less useable. Sounding like a good reason doesn't make it a good reason.
Maybe but it happens in many many other contexts. Especially apps - right now for example in Hipcamp I cannot copy the detailed instructions for my trip. In Airbnb I can copy the entire “house rules” doc but not just an arbitrary paragraph or sentence.
> While it is still an emerging technology being used only on a modest scale as yet, it does have an advantage over some other renewable energies in that it is available around the clock.
I notice the 'some' here, and the absence of the word 'nuclear' from the article, which of course is also available around the clock. Most readers will know something about Japan's troubled relationship with nuclear power and can fill in that context themselves, but to my eyes, it's a startling omission.
Nuclear is quite exhaustible. If we use it to power everything, we have about 100 years worth. It's just another kind of fossil fuel, storing energy that was captured long ago.
According to some quick googling and rough math, there's about 5.5 billion years worth of U-235 present in the Earth's crust on the top 15km. If we consider that we can maybe reach 0.5km down, (deepest gold mine is 4km), and assuming it's evenly distributed, then that's only 180 million years!! (2024 global electricity usage)
Think we can figure out breeder reactors in 180 million years? If we're going all nuclear, I'd expect them in under 1,000 years, but I'm not an expert.
I love that you can post whatever you want on the internet. “Nuclear is quite exhaustible”, “The earth is flat”, “Ernest Borgnine killed JFK” you can just put words together and put them online. Such a thrill
No but technology improves. Breeder reactors can take the current fissile material (assuming estimates of the total fissile material are accurate, which isn’t necessarily accurate) and extend it by about 60x, meaning thousands of years or even closer to tens of thousands of years. And we don’t need it to last forever. Just long enough to get to fusion.
Fusion will be the permanent end of all known life in the universe, as we compete with each other to boil the most ocean to make more bitcoins, leading to a planet with a helium atmosphere and no water.
I’m just having fun posting online as an expert on nuclear energy that’s never heard of fusion, breeder reactors or thorium it is a blast because you can just write numbers. 100 100,000 100,000,000 are all the same to me
Exactly. Nuclear power is not eternal because uranium is finite whereas solar will last forever because the aluminium, cadmium, copper, gallium, indium, lead, molybdenum, nickel, silicon, silver, selenium, tellurium, tin and zinc to make the panels exist in infinite quantities
If we can extract minerals from the Earth then we can extract them from PV panels to refurbish/build new PV panels.
If you don't like that, then there's also concentrated solar. We're not going to run out of mirrors.
Fissile isotopes on the other hand, once they're gone, they're gone. You can build new reactors that run on different fuel but that's not the same thing as you were doing before, so you can't call the original process renewable.
Idk why this is downvoted. People should look it up before you thinking someone isn't contributing to the conversation
> The European Commission said in 2001 that at the current level of uranium consumption, known uranium resources would last 42 years. When added to military and secondary sources, the resources could be stretched to 72 years. Yet this rate of usage assumes that nuclear power continues to provide only a fraction of the world's energy supply.
Or depends also on what we're willing to pay for the power but critics already call it too expensive compared to be viable given renewables' price and price history
The estimate is outdated but I didn't quickly find newer info and it's just generally not a weird notion to say it's exhaustible
Imo we should make use of what we have and not wait for everyone to put solar on their roofs to supply like 10% of what we need and then wonder how else we're going to reach net zero (especially in local winter), but that's another discussion
I think those numbers unfairly assume many things, including:
- breeder reactors will not exist in time
- we will not find more uranium on Earth than we have already
- we will not be able to economically extract uranium from seawater, phosphate minerals, coal fly ash or other sources
- other materials besides uranium will not be used in the future
- synthetic production will not become viable
To say that nothing will change in the next 40-70 years and we will simply run out of material and stop using nuclear altogether, just seems quite far-fetched in my opinion.
1) It's actually not that expensive, but the regulations made it so. I remember something from titans of nuclear or some Jordan Peterson podcast. I'll try to write the gist of it here:
There was some rule, that the cost of safety (like how thick concrete should be in some places), could be so high, that the usually cheaper fission energy would be equal in cost with the other sources (like burning oil). Then came the oil crisis of the 70's in USA. The safety margins got boosted to crazy levels, without any realistic gains. Moving from 99.999% to 99.9999% safety (just an example).
When the oil prices dropped, safety standards stayed and now fission energy is expensive. At least in USA and EU. Not in France or South Korea, which streamlined the regulations.
2) not with the modern technology, it isn't. And there are even safer alternatives like marble balls reactors that can't meltdown even if cooling is shut down.
3) not using it is bad for the environment. Fuel requirements are minimal compared to other plants. Even some types of renewables pollute more per W of energy produced. Like wind turbines that will fill up landfills at some point.
4) Thorium reactors. If we just give the fission energy some research & development, we can burn all the spent fuel up in thorium reactors.
Same reason why Germany closed it's nuclear plants ahead of time or switched to burning gas in "green" propane gas-burning powerplants. Regulations.
You add tariffs and you make steel production profitable in US. China subsidizes it's electric cars industry and they can sell EVs in Europe for half the price of European cars, literally killing the market.
You subsidize renewables heavily and you get windfarms that are unprofitable once subsidizing ends.
I'm sure that in a free market situation, your comment would make lot of sense. But this is not the case and you should read up a little.
I believe that one should aim to, in spite of their political views, try to see the big picture. Like why there's so little nuclear vs sun or wind.
Germany had a badly designed prototype reactor with 80 incidents in 4 years of operation and one particular incident on the 4th of May 1986 - a week after Chernobyl accident, where reactor operator was lying about it. No wonder they have those regulations and general public distrust in anything nuclear: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/THTR-300
Requirement 73 of the IAEA's Safety of Nuclear Power Plants would be a start. That rule is so stringent that it requires bag in/bag out procedures for changing HEPA filters at nuclear power plants.
Bag in/bag out was developed for labs handling infectious micro-organisms. It involves a complicated bagging system, which, if done properly, isolates a contaminated filter from the environment during filter change outs.
But for nuclear the bag only protects from alpha particles and electrons. It has zero impact on photon dose. If workers are wearing bunny suits and respirators they are already protected from alphas and electrons. The extra change out time required by Bag In/Bag Out increased the worker photon dose.
This regulation actually increases workers’ exposure to radiation.
OK so how does that reduce the cost of nuclear effectively? That has to be a savings of a few tens or maybe a hundred grand over a year, it's peanuts. I'm asking for big examples, ones that would convince someone that regulations truly are stifling nuclear.
They're all in France, whose construction began under a military dictatorship to ensure energy security whenever the US starts a war in a place supplying it with energy.
This strategy was proven decisively correct in 2022, and also applies to solar and wind when the US (and by proxy, the whole West) inevitably gets into it with China and suddenly your degrading solar panels and growing need for energy become major problems (and thus forces you to build out nuclear anyway).
Cost isn't the only factor here, and it would be short-sighted to take the cheaper short-term option by buying Chinese rather than paying our own people to regain and retain that engineering and construction experience we foolishly squandered 30 years ago.
"Excessive regulation" is always the excuse but I have literally never seen someone show how that is the case. They'll show you one or two low-hanging fruits and then extrapolate that into saving billions of dollars on construction or something. It's ludicrous that anyone even repeats this argument without even knowing what they are talking about.
Humans haven't had agriculture for twenty thousand years yet.
Also, this line of inquiry is still just tilting at windmills; "somehow, future Fred Flintstone manages to get a hold of equipment capable of digging out a mile of concrete and yet somehow not know what radiation is" is not a productive line of thinking at best and a bad-faith argument at worst.
Humanity's mechanical capacity to dig that deep actually post-dates its discovery of radioactivity, too. If they have the technology for it for them digging it up to become an issue, they'll be able to identify, trivially, that it is an issue.
And if humanity can’t do anything that it hasn’t done before, why should we care about power generation or any problem that wasn’t completely solved before today? (Like today. The day that you are reading this.)
I know because storage of spent nuclear fuel is a pretty big deal, and right now the USA is simply sequestering it on-site with no plans beyond 50-100 years because there is NO solution for long-term (20k years) storage.
Nobody asked you about what’s a big deal or not. You answered a question that nobody asked you. I asked you how do you know that humanity has never stored anything for 20,000 years. You would need a list of every thing that was ever buried by a human and then proof that everything on that list has been dug up.
“Nuclear waste makes me nervous” is not proof that we have dug up everything that has ever been buried.
Given the (possibly intentional?) inability to parse language here, to make sure that you’re not a bot, is it possible for you to answer the question? If yes say yes and then answer it, if no just write something vaguely anti-nuclear
I'm not anti-nuclear, I'm realistic and I understand the technology and it's pitfalls. I was trained to operate nuclear power plants, I understand how they work and I'm not scared of the tech. I'm scared of letting American corporations who have zero accountability construct and operate them.
We could reprocess it but choose not to. This is what France does. It’s not a novel process. Instead we stupidly let it sit there and pay to secure it.
I am quite rational, thanks. See my other comment.
Also, France has a state-owned company operating the plants. I would not be averse to an American version of that, or perhaps just expand and enhance the training they already do for the naval nuclear power program and send navy nukes to operate them. I don't trust American corporations to operate them properly.
State owned nuclear worked out great for Chernobyl. I don't trust the state to run them, especially given the string of failures by our government to do anything competently over the past 20 years.
Semi-related, but just once in my life, I want to hear a mayoral candidate say: “I endorse broken windows theory, but for drivers. You honk when there’s no emergency, block the box, roll through a stop sign — buddy that’s a ticket. Do it enough and we’ll impound your car.”
Who knows, maybe we’ll start taking our cues from our polite new robot driver friends…
This always astounds me about cities who have a reputation for people breaking certain traffic laws. In St. Louis, people run red lights for 5+ seconds after it turns red, and no one seems to care to solve it, but if they'd just station police at some worst-offender lights for a couple months to write tickets, people would catch on pretty quickly that it's not worth the risk. I have similar thoughts on people using their phones at red lights and people running stop signs.
It’s amazing how effective even a slight amount of random law enforcement can be.
Several of the hiking trails I frequent allow dogs but only on leash. Over time the number of dogs running around off leash grows until it’s nearly every dog you see.
When the city starts putting someone at the trailhead at random times to write tickets for people coming down the trail with off-leash dogs suddenly most dogs are back on leash again. Then they stop enforcing it and the number of off-leash dogs starts growing.
Random sampling over time is substantially as effective as having someone enforce the law 100% of the time. It's something like how randomized algorithms can be faster than their purely-deterministic counterparts, or how sampling a population is quite effective at finding population statistics.
It feels less fair though. When everyone is driving x mph over the limit but only you get pulled over, it sucks. So I agree for efficiency of enforcement, but I'd rather see 100% enforcement (automated if possible), with more warnings and lower penalties.
That's a pretty extreme example, maybe the idea doesn't hold as much there. But yeah, if 99% of murders weren't prosecuted, the 1% who get charged might feel like they were singled out (and maybe they were, because of some bias or discrimination). Again, 100% enforcement is better.
It doesn't just "feel" less fair, it often is -- bc it's not truly random, it's selective enforcement which leads to things like "driving while black".
Unpopular opinion, but I actually like traffic enforcement cameras. They don't know what race you are, and they never end up escalating to using lethal force.
The problem with 100% enforcement is it doesn't allow law enforcement any discretion, and then you end up having to actually officially change the speed limit which would probably never happen
Definitely true in practice, but I don't think we want discretion. What I mean though is as a deterrent, you can either have a "fair" fine that's enforced 100% of the time, or 2x the "fair" amount with 50% enforcement, etc. When it's 100x the "fair" amount with 1% enforcement, and you see everyone else not being enforced, it feels unfair.
Traffic rules do require some discretion though - if eg you don’t allow crossing a double yellow line but a car is broken down blocking the lane, does that mean that the road is now effectively unusable until that car is towed? Lots of examples.
But I’m with you on more enforcement. I’m totally fine with automated traffic cameras and it was working great when I was in China - suddenly seemingly overnight everyone stopped speeding on the highways when I was in Shanghai, as your chances of getting a ticket were super high.
I completely agree. Here in DC, we have sporadic enforcement of things like fare evasion, reckless moped driving, unlicensed food trucks, and speeding on the shoulder of the highway. It definitely helps somewhat.
In Massachusetts, USA, red light cameras were illegal until very recently, due to a 70s era law specifying that a live policeman had to issue a citation for something like that. From well before traffic cameras were common.
We had a pilot program in NJ for them, they were universally hated. People would slam brakes on and be hanging over the edge into intersection and throw their car into reverse panicking to avoid the ticket, ended up causing a ton of new accidents so the program was never continued. In newark people shot at the cameras: https://www.nj.com/news/2012/08/shoot_out_the_red_lights_2_t...
That's an insufficient yellow phase rather than a camera problem. Not sure why NJ would think their population are special snowflakes that can't deal with red light cameras otherwise.
I bet if you come back after they've removed the old one but before they install the new one you can wreck the threads on the threaded anchors by impacting the wrong size higher grade nut on.
Sweden: Their locations are public. There is even an official API.
They are mostly located in sane places.
Apps like Waze consume this API and warn drivers if they’re at risk of getting caught. It’s the deterrence/slowdown at known risky spots they’re after, not the fine, I guess.
I heard that apps warning drivers this way are illegal in Germany?
Aside: what's up with the traffic speed cameras in Sweden? It feels like they're not designed to catch anybody. In my recent drive there it seemed like most of the cameras were in an 80 zone just before it switch to 50 for a tiny town. They wouldn't catch a typical driver who does something like 10 over everywhere -- they would likely have already started slowing down for the 50.
In my city in Canada, that camera would be in the 50 zone.
The typical driver who does something like 10 over everywhere is probably not the biggest safety hazard.
When I lived in a small town in Sweden, the problem was that at night some drivers would blow down the country roads and straight through the small towns at crazy speeds assuming that there was nobody around. On some nights/weekends there were also zero police on duty in the whole municipality, they would have to be called in from a neighboring, larger, municipality.
But does it slow people down? I doubt it has significant effect. Very few people are going to be going over 80 a few meters in front of a 50 sign. You essentially are only catching people who are doing close to double the upcoming speed limit. Those who are willing to do that should be getting much more severe punishment than a speeding ticket.
Here in my country they removed the cameras in the second largest city after a trial period. It took too much effort to filter out police colleagues running a red (in police or civilian vehicles).
Ah that is easy here. 1) civilian vehicles never get leeway 2) we know the license plates of all police cars so we just filter it. Or actually only do so when they use proper permission to run a light
In most the USA, or at least Arizona, you have to serve someone. Just dropping something in a mail box doesn't mean dick. The very people that invented the traffic cameras up in Scottsdale were caught dodging the process servers from triggers from their own camera.
Another words, you have to spend hundreds of dollars chasing someone down, by the time you add that on to how easy it is to jam up the ticket in court by demanding an actual human being accuse you, it's not the easy win some may think. You're basically looking at $500+ to try and prosecute someone for a $300 ticket.
NY is not Arizona. They have the plate and send the fine to whomever the vehicle is registered to. If the fine isn't paid they flag the plate and impound the car if it's driven in their state.
In FL, a speed camera can give a car's owner can a ticket without needing to know he was the driver. Your perspective is not true nation wide.
"The registered owner of the motor vehicle involved in the violation is responsible and liable for paying the uniform traffic citation issued for a violation"
What would be the alternative? Just get who was driving your car to pay you back for the fine. If they are not accountable/honorable enough to back you back, then why were you letting them drive your car in the first place?
The same "alternative" that there is to every other crime in existence, proving the person you charged with a crime actually committed the crime. The default is suppose to be innocence, not guilty. It is the state's responsibility or problem to prove someone is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, not a citizen's responsibility to prove their continued innocence at all times.
I mean, the state obviously has photo evidence. So you need to show that either the photo was taken in error, that it misidentified your vehicle or that you weren't the legal owner at the time.
They have a photo of a car, but the car cannot commit a crime all on its own, someone has to be driving it. And if you have no idea who is driving when you charge them you are inevitably going to be charging innocent people.
When the police come across a car that's parked illegally, do you think they should need to wait around and figure out exactly who left it before issuing a ticket? Of course not; the vehicle owner is responsible for ensuring it's parked legally.
In the same way, it's the vehicle owner's responsibility to make sure their car is not driven through a red light. If they abdicate that responsibility, they aren't innocent!
That's absolutely hilarious. They take a photo of something approximating your vehicle that shows your plate number, toss it in a mail system that loses more than 0.5% of the class of mail used, then according to another poster in NY they impound your car after all this.
Anyplace with the slightest adherence to the rule of law requires the state to positively identify an actual person, not a vehicle owned by a person, that is responsible for a moving violation. And then personally serve that person rather than just coming up with this absolute bullshit excuse that an unreliable mail system with a letter dropped god knows where somehow is legal service.
1. Camera-issued tickets are not moving violations
2. Your car will not be impounded for failure to pay (maybe unless you have many, many unpaid tickets)
If the photo is bad, you can dispute it! That isn't presumption of guilt, it's the legal system working exactly as intended: one side presents their evidence, and the other side has a chance to respond.
Even if USPS loses 0.5% of mail (I am skeptical; that seems crazy high) the state sends at least three notices, so the chances of you missing every notice of your infraction is something like one in a million.
Only by the most ridiculous fiction is running a red light or speeding not a moving violation. They've intentionally pretended like it's not to get around the due process involved.
You don't even have to 'allow' them. Either you could live in a community property state, where your spouse, even a spouse who has initiated divorce against you, legally also owns the vehicle that is in your name. Or someone could steal it. Or someone could steal or duplicate your plates and put it on a nearly identical car, which happened to a friend who had to spend years fighting all the tickets that were mailed to him when an entirely different car (same make/model) used his same plate numbers.
If you can show that your vehicle or plates were stolen, you won't have to pay the ticket; in NYC that is explicitly listed as a possible defense [1].
The spouse thing honestly seems fine — it just means that you're both responsible for paying the ticket, rather than you alone — but if you have an issue it's with the property laws, not the red light cameras.
My friend "showed" the plates were not his (he couldn't prove the car wasn't stolen because it wasn't -- they only copied his plate) but they kept sending him tickets because apparently it only counts for one ticket. They wanted him to go through a laborious process every time. I think he finally just stopped challenging them because it took too much time, and probably can't go to that state again unless he wants his car seized.
In CO we have automatic traffic cameras, and to my knowledge they just mail you the ticket, which is usually only a fine (and no license points). Its one of those “automatic plea” tickets where if you fight it, you fight (and risk conviction on) the actual offense, while if you just pay the ticket it will automatically get downgraded to a less serious offense (IE parking outside the lines).
Not in New Jersey. I visited my parents and didn’t stop for a full three seconds before making a right on red on a deserted road at night and they fined my dad.
I live in AZ, try driving on Lincoln in Paradise Valley. Everyone is going at 40mph because of the speed cameras. Most people don't want to be fugitives.
I sometimes use Tatum with PV's speed vans parked on the side of the road to head towards downtown Phx and, yes, the common speed is definitely around 40. But pretty much as soon as past McDonald and on 44th St, I resume the the normalized 7-8 mph over the posted limit because I know there are no more speed cameras.
It's just a process server, not cops. It's just the equivalent of a glorified delivery man looking for you. The general counsel, an executive, and the employees in general of ATS (the company that does the traffic cameras in most of AZ and I think much the USA) dodge the process servers when they get caught by their own cameras. The people that understand how the process works don't seem too bothered being a "fugitive" as it's all a nothing-burger and if you get caught all it means is you need to hire a lawyer to make it go away or pay the ticket.
They were rolled out but the mailed tickets are legally meaningless, someone has to actually hunt you down within a short timespan (I think 90 days) to create any binding requirement to address it.
A mailed citation from a photo radar camera is not an official ticket and does not need to be responded to unless it has been formally served to you.
The problem with traffic cameras in the US was that they became outsourced revenue enhancement rather than public safety.
The cameras would get installed at busy intersections with lots of minor infractions to collect fines on rather than unsafe intersections that had lots of bad accidents. And then, when the revenue was insufficient, they would dial down the yellow light time.
Consequently, and rightly, Americans now immediately revolt against traffic cameras whenever they appear.
(San Diego was one particularly egregious example. They installed the cameras on the busy freeway interchange lights when the super dangerous intersection that produced all the T-bone accidents was literally one traffic light up the hill. This infuriated everybody.)
Nobody thinks it's racist to enforce traffic laws. People think it's racist to selectively enforce traffic laws by race, which usually takes the form of police pulling over Black drivers at higher rates. (But it can also mean installing more traffic cameras in minority neighborhoods!)
Try driving anywhere in the world that's not Western Europe or The USA and you'll quickly see how advanced even our worst cities are when it comes to traffic.
Last time I was in China drivers simply go through four way intersections at top speed from all directions simultaneously. If you are a pedestrian I hope you're good at frogger because there is a 0% chance anyone will stop for you. I really wonder how self driving cars work because they must program some kind of insane software that ignores all laws or it wouldn't even be remotely workable.
When I was living in China I got used to crossing large streets one lane at a time. Pedestrians stand on the lane markers with cars whizzing by on either side while they wait for a gap big enough to cross the next lane. It's not great for safety, to put it mildly, but the drivers expect it and it's the only way to get across the road in some places. I was freaked out by it but eventually it became habit.
Then I came back to the US and forgot to switch back to US-style street crossing behavior at first. No physical harm done, but I was very embarrassed when people slammed on their brakes at the sight of me in the middle of the road.
I've never been to SK, but in Japan things are -- unsurprisingly, as one might guess -- very orderly. For the most part (in cities at least) you don't jaywalk, even when there are no cars on the road.
Same in Korea, just on the other side of the road, very polite and professional, no one breaks rules for the most part, even in Major Cities.
I know a lot of foreigners like Japan for motorcycling specifically because you can "white line" in most places, and the drivers are attentive.
The one quirk I thought was most interesting was Crab Angle Stops or when at a T shape stop lights that have an additional stop light 20 feet further from the intersection. Sometimes the cars will align diagonally to allow more traffic per light and let whoever is in front have a better angle to see traffic on small roads with poor visibility. Then when the light turns green the diagonally aligned cars move back to normal.
Like ////// to - - - - - -
Officially, the 道路交通法 (Road Traffic Act) doesn’t say “you must angle.” It just requires drivers to stop at the line and confirm safety before entering.
The diagonal stop is more of a local driving custom (practical adaptation) rather than a codified rule.
What the actual rules are matter far less than that traffic is predictable. Like in Boston it's typical for a few cars to get into the intersection to take a left, traffic goes around them in both directions and only on the change to red to they go. Not technically legal but normal. 4-way stops where nobody stops and everyone times their roll unless there's a reason to. Also not technically legal but normal. Nobody with an opinion worth caring about complains about these things. Blowing lights many seconds after they've changed is still wild IMO.
That sounds reasonable to me. Everybody makes mistakes, but nobody should be consistently making grievous mistakes capable of causing serious injury or death to other motorists on a regular basis.
I'm less concerned with a little speeding than I am with blowing through lights and stop signs.
I think in most areas with cameras where fines are automatically assesed to the vehicle owner (who is not necessarily the driver), there are no points. That way it's just a civil penalty and the burden of proof is low. "We have a photo" is enough.
If they run a red light today there is some small chance they will injure/kill someone.
If they run a red light with a camera, there is a 100% chance they will receive a ticket.
The key factor is not the magnitude of the penalty (i.e. whether someone dies or they receive a fine) but the chance that they will encounter the penalty.
It is in NYC also, except it's entirely unenforced. We need a lot more red light cameras.
The nominal regulations on automotive behavior is pretty sufficient throughout the US, the main problem is that in most parts of the country traffic law may as well be a dead letter.
> It is in NYC also, except it's entirely unenforced.
It's enforced in the worst congested zones, the intersections around tunnel entrances and midtown, but as I said in my other comment usually by parking enforcement not NYPD.
A workaround in the law is to throw your turn signal on if stranded in the box, this doesn't count as blocking the box.
It is in NYC as well and it's usually enforced by parking enforcement (doesn't carry points but it has a steep fine), if NYPD writes it also comes with points but in my experience they'd rather let the walking ticket printers do it.
Great! and if enforcement were consistent, rule-breaking behavior would probably decline:
> Quick, clear and consistent also works in controlling crime. It’s not a coincidence that the same approach works for parenting and crime control because the problems are largely the same. Moreover, in both domains quick, clear and consistent punishment need not be severe.
> Who knows, maybe we’ll start taking our cues from our polite new robot driver friends…
I think this could be an interesting unintended consequence of the proliferation of Waymos: if everyone gets used to drivers that obey the law to letter, it could slipstream into being a norm by sheer numbers.
Here in Washington DC, we've installed a variety of different kinds of traffic cameras. And the local police engage in targeted enforcement actions against things like driving on the highway shoulder or recklessly operating a moped. It makes a difference. An unexpected upside is that the regular police spend a lot less time catching speeders and stop sign runners, which frees them up for more serious situations.
If you look into the fleet size serving Waymo service areas, it's remarkably small. But because they work 24/7 they serve up a lot of rides, punching way above their weight in terms of market share in ride hailing.
Their effect on traffic and how drivers behave will be similarly amplified. It could turn out to be disastrous for Waymo. But I suspect that low speed limits in New York will work to Waymo's favor.]
I've seen reports that they've been testing Driver 6 in snowy places like around Lake Tahoe and the upper Midwest last winter. I suppose this year we'll find out how well that went.
Ultimately I wouldn’t support this level of snitching (especially in our current political env) but I’ve had the idea of:
A bounty program to submit dash cam video of egregious driving crimes. It gets reviewed, maybe even by AI initially and then gets escalated to formal ticket if legit. Once ticket is paid, the snitch gets a percentage.
Again, I am fundamentally against something like this though, especially now.
Snitching... Please. We're not in the school playground any more. We're talking about taking responsibility when it comes to operating a vehicle in public. There's a huge imbalance of power when it comes to car use especially and we need to restore the balance. People need a recourse against irresponsible and bad drivers.
do you actually know every specific vehicle code and regulation everywhere you drive? I constantly remark to my dashcam about people breaking the law in my jurisdiction.
Would you be bothered if someone was following you all day, making recordings every time you didn't signal for exactly 5000ms before a lane change, or 300' before a turn? how about not stopping for a full three seconds, or driving an extra 100' in the left lane than necessary?
and i'm sorry, i can't take anyone seriously that claims they both know and always follow every vehicle code, wherever they are and wherever they travel. I do understand it allows one to shake their head in disdain for the unwashed cars driven by the lesser drivers of our society.
I can follow anyone, including federal agents, local and state law enforcement, CDL drivers; i will catch something that is a violation of the vehicle code.
If you live anywhere near the gulf coast, i'd be happy to tail you for a couple of days and point out every violation you make.
NYPD cops don't like enforcing traffic violations: https://i.redd.it/w6es37v1sqpc1.png (License holders and drivers on the road are up in the same period that summonses are down, too. Traffic is up since pre-covid.)
Now that I live in Toronto we face the same challenges. Politicians may introduce traffic laws to curb dangers and nuisances from drivers, but police refuse to enforce them. As they don't live in the city, cops seem to prefer to side with drivers over local pedestrians, residents or cyclists who they view antagonistically. Broken window works for them because they enjoy harassing pedestrians and residents of the communities they commute into.
So there is a bigger problem to solve than legislation.
Part of the problem is we have police doing far too many jobs. We need to separate out traffic enforcement, mental health responses, and other works into their own focused units. Especially the mental health responses, as far too often police refuse to or (at best) don't know how to de-escalate in those situations.
Bringing a gun and a taser to every problem guarantees that a lot of problems will be "solved" with the wrong tools. It's impossible to train enough people to carry guns and tasers and use them wisely.
The current Democratic nominee and frontrunner for NYC mayor plans to do exactly that! He plans to create a Department of Community Safety to take over mental health responses from NYPD.
I agree we need to separate these responsibilities, but when it comes to mental health response, the police themselves are often opposed to alternatives, even while they complain that they're not mental health providers and often can't do anything in those types of situations.
In my city, we've had an underfunded street response program for a few years now, but a lot of people (including a lot of people who don't live here) see it as antagonistic to police and police funding, when really it should just be part of a holistic system to address social issues.
It makes no sense to me that the people who ostensibly care the most about addressing crime and "disorder" on the streets are often the most oppositional to programs that might actually address some of the underlying issues (not all of course, but some).
As a paramedic, multiple times I've watched police walk into a mental health emergency that we were handing satisfactorily, to everyone's contentment, patient, family, bystanders...
... and escalate it into a law enforcement situation.
One situation sticks in my mind. Person had broken a glass bottle on a curb. Family member was sweeping and cleaning that up while we dealt with laceration and planning for in-patient help (they were off their meds).
LE shows up, and immediately starts yelling aggressively at the patient about the broken glass, liability for any tires, injuries. Patient makes some comments back, so LE gets in his face and yells more, leads to patient trying to push off a bit and saying "get out of my face", cop is arresting him for assaulting a police officer.
Only with me and my partner talking to the Sergeant who showed up shortly after did it get de-escalated, but better believe the cop (and even the Sergeant) weren't happy with us about it.
Police quiet quitting and arbitrarily choosing what laws they feel like enforcing is a huge problem.
The most effective fix vis a vis traffic is simply automating so much of it with speed averaging cameras and intersection cameras and taking police out of the equation and retasking them to more important things that only they can do.
Don't police have quotas any more? 40 years ago everybody knew not to speed at the end of the month because a cop that would normally give you a warning for a small speed infraction would give you a ticket instead so they could make this month's quota.
Isn't that what speed cameras are about? Seem a lot more efficient and cheaper. I got a few tickets, nothing too serious just ran the yellow a little too close and 40 in 25. And if def changed my behavior
In many places outside the USA they just use cameras for box blocking, stop sign rolling, speeding...and there is a system for honking also. But many in the states think automation here is too Orwellian.
They do that in NY too. The worst offenders inevitably have fake/defaced/covered/no license plates. That should be cracked down on very hard but the police and prosecutors are strangely reluctant.
A sound solution in general, but the majority of police and firefighters and government employees with a connection to law enforcement cover their license plates with magnetic 'leaves' and so on. It's an undocumented perk for government employees.
>We don't go after moving violations anymore (in NYC) because the driver might have a bad reaction. True story.
Who is "we"? And it's not a "true story." In fact, the NYPD issued almost 52,000 moving violation summonses in July 2025 alone and more than 400,000 year to date.[0]
If 400,000 moving violation summonses just this year is your "true story" about moving violations not being issued to avoid "bad reactions", do you believe in the tooth fairy and santa claus as well?
Or are you referring to the policy that NYPD cars shouldn't endanger the lives of everyone by engaging in high-speed chases on city streets?[1] Which is a completely different thing.
Well said. This is a subject where I’ve become radicalized as an adult (veganism is the other). Even Brooklyn, where I live, has a million little choices which prioritize cars over pedestrians, and any effort to reclaim space — maybe the avenues bordering prospect park should not have free parking? — creates huge backlash. Culture problems are hard.
Is a marvellous phrase. Public opinion can be changed, and it's good to see people doing the hard work to bring that about. It often seems these days that the only people willing to put that long-term effort in have the worst goals in mind.
Such advice is mainly useful politically; e.g., suppose you are having a dispute in your company about the overuse of presentations. Point to Jeff Bezos and say: he hates them too! if your adversary is an MBA type, he might find it challenging to respond.
So there are disagreements about resource allocation among staff. That's normal and healthy. The CEO's job is to resolve those disagreements and it sounds like Zuck is doing it. The suggestion to train Meta's products on Instagram and Facebook data was perfectly reasonable from the POV of the needs of Cox's teams. You'd want your skip-level to advocate for you the same way. It was also fine for AW to push back.
>. On Thursday, Mr. Wang plans to host his annual A.I. holiday party in San Francisco with Elad Gil, a start-up investor...It’s unclear if any top Meta executives were invited.
Egads, they _might_ not get invited to a 28-year-old's holiday party? However will they recover??