Stuff I just don't understand, post here yours.

[Peelee]

Why do i need ten psots before i can add attachments

That's to try to make it harder for spambots to throw out links.

Also, I'd advise to be careful about double posting.

[darkrose50]

How people stop in a in an entrance.

I am like why the Sam hell did you stop, and why are you blocking the door?

How people stop in a hallway.

I am like why the Sam hell did you stop, and why are you blocking the hallway?

How people meet in the middle of a hallway at a huge event.

I took my kids to the Ice Capades, THOUSANDS of people were leaving the arena, and there were idiots who thought that it would be a good idea to meet in the MIDDLE OF THE ******* hallway. Standing there blocking everyone, making hundreds of people walk around them. I know that 10% of the population has a IQ lower than 83, but WTF?

How people turning left at a green light stop only go into the intersection with just anough for them, and no one else, when it turns red.

These people will burn in hell.

How people say that liberals / conservatives think like X. Insert something stupid for X.
I am a far <something>, and I don’t think like X.

How other countries do Y just fine, but that will not work in America for some reason.
I just gave myself away.

How people waist opportunities at resource management.
I swear to god I will be angry at my friends for ever. They all need money, and none of them went to go play a game at a game store for a day for money. We could have each made at the minimum $20 each per hour. I made ~$800 that day (after eBay). I should bring this up every time any one of them asks me to loan them cash.

[Mith]

How people turning left at a green light stop only go into the intersection with just anough for them, and no one else, when it turns red.

These people will burn in hell.

Sometimes I am checking to make sure that someone isn't going to run a yellow into my car. Especially when I need to cross 4 lanes of traffic. If I make the wrong decision, I may very much end up in hell.

[darkrose50]

Sometimes I am checking to make sure that someone isn't going to run a yellow into my car. Especially when I need to cross 4 lanes of traffic. If I make the wrong decision, I may very much end up in hell.

This may be a bigger deal in Chicago where they do not have very many turn lights. So one person making a turn per light cycle (TRON!) may be super annoying to me, and not so much to others.

[darkrose50]

People begging in the middle of the street at bottleneck intersections.
So we have some crazy intersections here in Chicago where like 5-cars can go though in a light cycle (and they are backed up for blocks). If we have people begging in the middle of the road, then like 2-3 cars can make it though . . . because not hitting people with your car is a thing.

I have nothing against poor folks begging, but I have something against causing traffic.

Here around 4-6 PM is insane:
https://www.google.com/search?source....0.iPbmhgqGRCc

Notice the lack of a turn lane or turn light (exiting the City going NE).

[Mith]

This may be a bigger deal in Chicago where they do not have very many turn lights. So one person making a turn per light cycle (TRON!) may be super annoying to me, and not so much to others.

Fair enough. This was more a point of sometimes the car in front has reasons to be cautious. Rush hour traffic does suck no matter where you are though.

[Xyril]

How other countries do Y just fine, but that will not work in America for some reason.
I just gave myself away.

To answer your question best I can without getting political, the broad answer is history, culture, geography, economics, and politics, and America is not unique in this respect. Prohibition, for example, had a few big hurdles in the U.S. First, we had a long history of alcohol-making in this country, one that not only comprised a substantial part of the economy, but also had major cultural significance. This not only means that many people would have strong incentive to oppose and/or circumvent the law, it also means that there is a large supply of alcohol and alcohol-making equipment out there that was previously legal. This raises the second issue--the U.S. has stronger than average protections against government search and seizure. When commonplace and legal items become contraband overnight, the only effective way to get rid of them is massive search and seizure.

Outside of the laws and other constraints we deliberately impose on ourselves, though, lots of little systems can't work everywhere. For example, stringent emission controls developed much more quickly in California in large part because it's dense population and particular geography meant that smog would have a noticeable impact on human quality of life even though other parts of the country could get away with much more lax standards without as much (immediate) negative impact. The way our country dealt with water rights (especially early in our history) and the economics of safe drinking water in general would be absolutely infeasible in more water-scarce regions (and in fact is become less and less feasible in water-scarce regions even within the U.S.) In countries where cars aren't affordable to most people, you can largely get away with a laissez faire attitude when it comes to things like insurance and conduct on the roads. If the average person passes at most one or two cars a day, it's much more reasonable to say "everyone just act reasonably to avoid accidents." If only a few, wealthy people own cars, there is less need for licensing or registration or insurance, since it's easier to track any particular car down and unlikely than an owner doesn't have the assets to pay for whatever damage they cause.

How people waist opportunities at resource management.
I swear to god I will be angry at my friends for ever. They all need money, and none of them went to go play a game at a game store for a day for money. We could have each made at the minimum $20 each per hour. I made ~$800 that day (after eBay). I should bring this up every time any one of them asks me to loan them cash.

I'm very curious what the deal is here. I can imagine a few scenarios where you'd make money playing a game, but none where eBay would be involved. Best I can think of is some sort of tournament with non-cash prizes, but I've never heard of one with a substantial minimum profit just for participating (assuming your friends aren't all already semi-professional/semi-celebrity gamers).

[Peelee]

This raises the second issue--the U.S. has stronger than average protections against government search and seizure.

Well, is supposed to have, at least. And I think that's as much as I'm willing to say on this forum.

[brian 333]

I will never understand why people 'follow' celebrities, learning intimate details of their lives, flocking to be a part of a crowd that glimpses them in passing, or listening to their political and social commentary as if the celebrity was endowed with special knowledge about such things we mere mortals cannot acquire.

A guy who can kick a football or dunk a basketball or create music or movies is certainly talented in that area, and when speaking on those subjects should be treated as experts, but outside their area of expertise they have no more knowledge than the average guy. They are just people, with flaws just like us.

Working a lifetime to learn to throw a forward pass against eleven equally trained guys who want to prevent it takes time away from investigating the mysteries of government corruption. These guys are less qualified than Average Joe to opine on politics. As far as social advice from celebrities goes, find one whose home life isn't more screwed up than yours.

Yet the population at large treats them as modern day prophets endowed from on high with all the answers to life's problems. I don't get it.

[Peelee]

I will never understand why people 'follow' celebrities, learning intimate details of their lives, flocking to be a part of a crowd that glimpses them in passing, or listening to their political and social commentary as if the celebrity was endowed with special knowledge about such things we mere mortals cannot acquire.

A guy who can kick a football or dunk a basketball or create music or movies is certainly talented in that area, and when speaking on those subjects should be treated as experts, but outside their area of expertise they have no more knowledge than the average guy. They are just people, with flaws just like us.

Working a lifetime to learn to throw a forward pass against eleven equally trained guys who want to prevent it takes time away from investigating the mysteries of government corruption. These guys are less qualified than Average Joe to opine on politics. As far as social advice from celebrities goes, find one whose home life isn't more screwed up than yours.

Yet the population at large treats them as modern day prophets endowed from on high with all the answers to life's problems. I don't get it.

Yeah, I don't really think the population at large treats them as modern day prophets. Also, at a certain level of success, you likely have more free time than an average Joe, and certainly have more resources. I'm not saying that we should treat their opinions as special, but we should treat them with the same weight we treat any average Joe's.

The rest of it, the following them and learning about them and whatnot is probably wanting to live vicariously.

[Xyril]

Well, is supposed to have, at least. And I think that's as much as I'm willing to say on this forum.

Well, that's why I say "stronger than average." I'm not particularly enthusiastic about the gap between our aspirations and our practice, but I have enough experience in other First World nations that espouse similar ideals that I don't feel terrible about being where I am either.

[darkrose50]

<Insurance agent here>

If you want to remove someone from your insurance, and you get their SSN wrong, then underwriting WILL NOT process the request.

If you want to remove someone from your insurance, and you do not fill in their SSN, then underwriting WILL process the request.

[darkrose50]

I'm very curious what the deal is here. I can imagine a few scenarios where you'd make money playing a game, but none where eBay would be involved. Best I can think of is some sort of tournament with non-cash prizes, but I've never heard of one with a substantial minimum profit just for participating (assuming your friends aren't all already semi-professional/semi-celebrity gamers).

Little plastic promo spaceships that you can only win at tournaments.

I was stressed out of my gourd for a while, and I would blow off steam by blowing up other peoples little plastic ships. I played at 5-6 places each month. I got kind of good at it. One place (well the non-worker who ran it) I played at even accused me of cheating and changed the rules so that I would not win the grand prize. So there's that.

At any rate one of the prizes sold for something like $220 and there were others.

Each game we played, we would get a promo ship that would sell for ~$20 (we would have paid ~$10 each). We could play as often as we liked, and each game would take about 30-min. We could have played for like 14-hours. If they did well in the tournament, then they could have gotten some of the good stuff (and likely would have).

WizKids got in trouble with GenCon because a teen aged boy got his arm sprained/broke when people would rush the booth trying to get those things. They don't go to GenCon and sell their promos / have games for them anymore.

[Peelee]

I was stressed out of my gourd for a while, and I would blow off steam by blowing up other peoples little plastic ships. I played at 5-6 places each month. I got kind of good at it. One place (well the non-worker who ran it) a played at even accused me of cheating and changed the rules so that I would not win the grand prize. So there's that.

That's bull, and I would have raised a fuss. If the guy thought you were cheating, the onus was on him to prove it. If you were cheating, then you were not eligible to win by the existing rules. If the rules had to be changed for you not to win, then they could not prove cheating (or they would have disqualified you), or what you were doing was not against the rules. Either way, they can't change the rules after the start. Imean, I have no idea what they could or couldn't do legally, but if they rig their contests so the person winning can't win, that's a huge trust issue. Even if it didn't happen to me, if I'd heard of it happening, I wouldn't go there anymore.

[darkrose50]

That's bull, and I would have raised a fuss. If the guy thought you were cheating, the onus was on him to prove it. If you were cheating, then you were not eligible to win by the existing rules. If the rules had to be changed for you not to win, then they could not prove cheating (or they would have disqualified you), or what you were doing was not against the rules. Either way, they can't change the rules after the start. Imean, I have no idea what they could or couldn't do legally, but if they rig their contests so the person winning can't win, that's a huge trust issue. Even if it didn't happen to me, if I'd heard of it happening, I wouldn't go there anymore.

I won just about every time (I damn well should have from playing so often), and people were getting mad. I would have been okay with random prizes, but the guy was a jerk.

It is also a competitive game, so there is that aspect.

Also we would randomly pick one of our ships (it was crazy stupid), but I would consistently get the good ships.

[Peelee]

I won just about every time (I damn well should have from playing so often), and people were getting mad. I would have been okay with random prizes, but the guy was a jerk.

It is also a competitive game, so there is that aspect.

I had that happen back when Guitar Hero 3 came out. Bar in a college town had a weekly competition, it kept ending up with me and this other dude as the finalists, and me winning. They eventually asked me to stop competing, which I was fine with because they didn't ask that in the middle of a competition. They waited until I won the last one, then asked if I would stop (and even gave me reasons). Perfectly reasonable, perfectly acceptable.

If there's a competition, someone somewhere will be good enough to constantly dominate everyone around them on a regular basis. Sure, cheating may happen, but someone just being crazy good may also happen.

Also, I'm guessing it wasn't X-Wing, since I've heard of alt-art cards being prizes, but not ships you couldn't get otherwise.

[darkrose50]

I had that happen back when Guitar Hero 3 came out. Bar in a college town had a weekly competition, it kept ending up with me and this other dude as the finalists, and me winning. They eventually asked me to stop competing, which I was fine with because they didn't ask that in the middle of a competition. They waited until I won the last one, then asked if I would stop (and even gave me reasons). Perfectly reasonable, perfectly acceptable.

If there's a competition, someone somewhere will be good enough to constantly dominate everyone around them on a regular basis. Sure, cheating may happen, but someone just being crazy good may also happen.

Also, I'm guessing it wasn't X-Wing, since I've heard of alt-art cards being prizes, but not ships you couldn't get otherwise.

Star Trek, but just about the same rules. Yeah, I made ~$800 going to that tournament and playing with little plastic ships. Good times . . ..

[Peelee]

Star Trek, but just about the same rules. Yeah, I made ~$800 going to that tournament and playing with little plastic ships. Good times . . ..

I thought about getting into the Star Trek version, but I really didn't want to get into a whole 'nother money sink. Also, the ships not being all to scale kinda bothered me. But mostly the money sink thing.

[Velaryon]

That's bull, and I would have raised a fuss. If the guy thought you were cheating, the onus was on him to prove it. If you were cheating, then you were not eligible to win by the existing rules. If the rules had to be changed for you not to win, then they could not prove cheating (or they would have disqualified you), or what you were doing was not against the rules. Either way, they can't change the rules after the start. Imean, I have no idea what they could or couldn't do legally, but if they rig their contests so the person winning can't win, that's a huge trust issue. Even if it didn't happen to me, if I'd heard of it happening, I wouldn't go there anymore.

I had something similar happen to me once, but it was only my high school's MtG club. We had a 6-person tournament, so it was structured as three 1v1 matches, and the winners would go on to play a 1v1v1 match to determine 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place. I won my first match. Unfortunately for me, I was playing against one of the club president's friends, so she changed the rules to best of three rather than single elimination. He came back and beat me the next two games.

I was not happy, but there wasn't much I could do about it. The guy who beat me went on to take 1st place and won a booster box of the newest set at the time.

[Cristo Meyers]

<Insurance agent here>

If you want to remove someone from your insurance, and you get their SSN wrong, then underwriting WILL NOT process the request.

If you want to remove someone from your insurance, and you do not fill in their SSN, then underwriting WILL process the request.

I feel your pain.

The days that our underwriters do something I can understand are few and far between.

[Florian]

How other countries do Y just fine, but that will not work in America for some reason.
I just gave myself away.

Different assumptions on how things are going to regulate themselves, what places the citizens, free market and government have in this triangle. For example, contrast how preventive vs. punitive consumer protection laws work. The difference here is whether citizens believe that a market regulates itself or prefer to empower their government with enforcing the regulation straight away.

[darkrose50]

Different assumptions on how things are going to regulate themselves, what places the citizens, free market and government have in this triangle.

Mostly I ask what is most efficient, while being ethical.

For example, contrast how preventive vs. punitive consumer protection laws work. The difference here is whether citizens believe that a market regulates itself or prefer to empower their government with enforcing the regulation straight away.

Some states have help the poor laws, while spending less money (like <area> giving homeless people a place to live). Great job by the <area peeps>!

Some states have punish the poor laws, while spending more money (like <area> testing people for drugs who want to go on food stamps). WTF <area>?

We have a real problem with equating being poor with not being favored by god.
[1] This idea in mixed in with the idea of "seed money" . . . that if you give money to the church, then god will give you money. Therefore money is from god, therefore if you don't have money its because of god. This is highly dangerous, and is illegal in most countries. Poor people are poor because of god, thus we cannot change things, is not a helpful idea to have.
[2] This money is from god idea ALSO traveled ALONG with Calvinism (it is not Calvinism). Basically if you had money, god blessed you. If you do not have money, then god did not bless you.

So we have strongholds of the same political party where two different ideas of how to handle the poor arise that are highly influenced by the cultural view of the poor.

[Peelee]

I strongly recommend removing any real-life references, especially including political parties and religions. I've found it's best to use hypotheticals and allegories when talking about forum-sensitive topics, like how a given entity can be great in one area and poor in another.

[2D8HP]

hypotheticals and allegories.

Dwarven halls and Greysky City.

[Vinyadan]

Not-Callan, Not-Barthis, Not-Lynn's Brook...

[Velaryon]

In today's installment of Things Velaryon Doesn't Understand: the popularity of Drake.

I admit I'm not familiar with too much of his music, but from what I have heard, I can't understand why he got a record deal in the first place, let alone why he's one of the most successful artists of the last decade.

His songs are flat, repetitive, have weak beats and lack punch. His lyrical flow is... not that impressive. I just don't see what there is here to like.

[2D8HP]

In today's installment of Things Velaryon Doesn't Understand: the popularity of Drake...

Well, in 1979, on the 400th anniversary of the Golden Hind landing in California, there was a kid-oriented museum exhibition on Sir Francis Drake's circumnavigation of the world, including Elizabethan costumes one could try on, and a screening of The Sea Hawk, on the basis that many of Thorpe's deeds in the film were based on Drake's.

Just fantastic.

...I admit I'm not familiar with too much of his music, but from what I have heard, I can't understand why he got a record deal in the first place, let alone why he's one of the most successful artists of the last decade.

His songs are flat, repetitive, have weak beats and lack punch. His lyrical flow is... not that impressive. I just don't see what there is here to like.

Oh.

You mean some pop-singer.

[Florian]

Mostly I ask what is most efficient, while being ethical.

"Manifest destiny" is a nasty thought pattern that should die pretty quickly, along with anything related to "destiny", "own country" and "vult" (latin for "wills it"). Both are racism and Herrenmenschentum in a very pure form.

Be careful what you ask for. Efficient and ethical rarely fit on the same page. Dabbling a bit in community politics, reality is that you have to ask for the most ethical solution, handled in the least inefficient way and a way to explain that to you fellow citizens in a way that they feel morally pledged to not aim for the efficient way.

[Velaryon]

Oh.

You mean some pop-singer.

Yeah... I'd say maybe I'm getting old, but to be honest I hated most pop music when I was a teenager as well. So nothing's changed, really.

[Fawkes]

The short version of the Drake story is that he was able to get in with some talented connected people who helped him produce three mixtapes that got his name out there enough that he got Lil Wayne's attention, and signed to the Young Money label, which gave him a lot of opportunities to connect with bigger and even more talented people. Drake and Nicki Minaj are undoubtedly the two most talented artists that signed to Young Money, so they got the best backing, and were both able to reach an audience that they connected to. That's what a lot of pop success hinges on - finding the audience.