This rule only applies to a single adult + child pair, and not the entire traveling party. For instance, if you have a party of 1 child and 2 adults, the airline is well within its rights to charge seat selection fees to the second adult. It’s incredibly frustrating that I have to pay an extra $40-$50, per journey, to United to sit next to my wife and child. And that’s with the current “consumer friendly” rules in place.
I usually filter out all Basic Economy fares from my search and only look at the next tier up, where you can get seat selection at time of booking. I just figure it's a product that doesn't work for my family.
Think of the inverse, someone who doesn’t care about where they sit save money.
On the other hand, I never understood this obsession with grown people acting like it’s the end of the world if they don’t sit together. My wife and I fly a lot together - over a dozen trips this year - and she flies more frequently by herself. We both prefer window seats. We hardly ever sit together unless we can get 2 seats next to us by ourselves like on larger planes with a 3-2-3 combination or exit row seats in main.
In this particular case, it lets the parents trade childcare responsibilities back and forth during the flight, which can be a serious boon on a long flight or if one of them starts feeling unwell.
Parents want to sit next to their kids Let's assume this for sake of argument that people don't want to sit next to other people's kids. So here's a situation no one wants. But parents will be the ones who have to pay. New legislation is saying that parents are the one who should pay for this. You make a fair point that making everyone pay to select the exact seat they want, would just be treating everyone the same way.
What I'm saying is, if you do it this way, you're now leaving the decision up to the parents. And some parents will choose not to pay. When that happens – because it will happen – I don't want to hear people complaining about having to sit next to other people's kids. Everyone was treated equally, a choice was given, a choice was made.
The other option is, we say as a society that here is a situation nobody wants, we all see that, so we're all going to collectively agree to set things up in the parents' favor a little bit, thus doing something nice, creating an outcome that is better for everyone, but at the cost that some parent seating gets subsidised by others on the plane.
Just laying out the options. Classic individualist thinking will say, I don't want the government to decide for me that I should subsidize. And thus some people will end up sitting next to somebody's crying 2 year old.
I feel like our planet’s long-term academic health would dramatically improve if something resembling the following statement was posted on the wall of every K-12 and college classroom:
ChatGPT is not a primary source.
Wikipedia is not a primary source.
Google Search is not a primary source.
Microsoft Encarta is not a primary source.
The Encyclopedia Brittanica is not a primary source.
Information aggregators are not primary sources. Identifiable people are primary sources.
Creepy is subjective of course, but it’s pretty high on the list for the most isolated and/or inconveniently-located platform in the country. The only access is via a narrow footbridge leading to a 486-step staircase that goes 70m underground (230ft). Unlike most other 50+ meter deep train stations, there are no elevators and no escalators. The only way in or out of the station is via those stairs, which makes platform-to-street time a non-trivial part of the overall journey.
It was originally a switching/signalling waypoint, and later started seasonal passenger service for skiiers in 1932, before later switching to year-round service. Apparently it used to be a popular hiking destination as well, but with the establishment of more convenient rail and road routes became less popular in the 80s.
I think it has more to do with lighting as well as the height of the ceiling. In NYC the escalator going to Grand Central Madison is very long and yet it doesn't feel uncomfortable at all. It has way more lighting than your picture and the ceiling seems higher too.
Do you feel nothing at all when you're on a very long escalator and you look down? What if someone pushes you, or a person behind you? People would fall like domino.
I'm going to guess the person suffers from vertigo, as have I to a small degree - particularly on the metro escalator in Rosslyn, VA (across the river from DC). The sensation occurs going down or up very tall escalators in a tunnel. When it hits, you feel like you are traveling horizontally with some weird tunnel vision. This is terrifying and can cause you to feel like you're falling - even when you know you are going down or up, your eyes are telling you you're traveling horizontally.
I've also gotten this driving a car through long tunnels as well, going down or up (Baltimore 895 harbor tunnel can do this).
I’m pretty scared of heights and generally haven’t been triggered by any long escalators into subways, but there’s one on the DC Metro (Adams Morgan maybe?) that kind of freaked me out.
Yep its not creepy its just a train station. I live in a big city and not-well-lit stations are common and its just a boring fact of life no one even notices here. But to an outsider trying to exoticize things, suddenly its "creepy" or "weird." I mean "the descent is terrifying?" It just stairs. We have this in DC, NYC, and Chicago. To a Chicagoan like me, these 'terrifying tunnels' are just our train station and where we go everyday. There's a real anti-urbanism and anti-public trans aspect here that is concerning.
The notes aren't "Silent Hill" like but a cute way human social need expresses itself. Its community. Its not weird or scary at all, in fact its the opposite.
The alternative to 'terrifying' stairs and trains are the actual terror of driving which has a much higher injury and morality rate than riding a train.
No one wants to have this conversation but if you wonder how egyptomania happened, well, its happening here with people fetishizing Japan and its people.
I wish orientalism was taken more seriously. Japan has sort of become this fictional and stereotypical thing and it percolates down with stuff like this. Its just a train station. Its someone's boring work commute. Its not GITS or a catgirl hideout or cyberpunk in real life whatever. Its a place that doesnt have the social, political, and capitalist capital to get much needed renovations, same with the many 'creepy' stations on Chicago's west and south sides, which the North side ones (wealthy, white dominated) have had renovations, new paint, new lighting, etc. Its just the everyday corruption of how many societies work.
Go ahead an put "DOAI EKI" into google images. It looks quite normal. The "tokyo cowboy" website inserted that dark green filter. Its just a boring, if not ugly, tunnel with a but of colorful moss to break up the monotony:
If anything, the external facade is quite striking with its big triangle face. I mean, this is just a train tunnel, albeit a deep one. Not the Chernobyl exclusion zone and entirely safe and honestly, if you're anything like me, you'll enjoy the quiet and seclusion of a train tunnel.
I've been to Japan and when people find this out and start ranting to me about how they'd love to go for stereotype-heavy reasons, its very hard for me to tell them it isn't actually a cybperpunk or anime heaven, but its just a normal developed economy and it and its people are not very different from them, many of whom without a strong interest in the otaku culture they think defines this entire society. Nor is it easy to talk about its many serious political issues, as Japan has many faults orientalism doesn't present.
Japan is full of the same working class people as you, with the same worries and joys as you. Maybe they ride the train more than you but their tunnels and stairs aren't "terrifying," they're instead the cherished memories of their hometowns. Maybe the L in Chicago is ugly to you, but its my, sometimes difficult, but beloved train system I ride every day. The L is the source of many of my warm childhood and young adult memories the same way stations like this are to the Japanese there too. I dont know if its accurate to portray these systems as weird exotic and dangerous things. Its just everyday rail. Its our daily lives.
So much of this orientalism is dishonesty to get engagement, fame, ad impressions, etc. I'd love a good hearted and honest appreciation and criticism of Japan's rail lines over sensationalist writing like this. The Atlas Obscura style of writing and profit-making is practically ruining the internet and making people divorced from the actual reality of these places and its people. You get the McTourist version of things that don't reflect the reality and people there much, or if at all.
I think the older crowd remembers what it was like before wikipedia got big, near everything was sensationalist and 'blogger' and 'personal diary' like this. You couldn't just bring up the data and facts about stations like this or an article written with journalist ethics, instead you'd be pummeled with "Atlas Obscura" style narratives like this made to be sensational and often inaccurate and engaging in stereotypes. The people who wrote this article are motivated by money, not information sharing, hence the style. I dislike we're moving back towards "Anime fans facts on Japan webring" type writing. I really hope people stop and think about this stuff and stop promoting this kind of stuff, especially now when you can just tell an AI to write Obscura-style sensationalism trivially and use many SEO tools to promote this writing for profit.
I come to HN to get away from stuff like this and its just disheartening to me to see these types of articles becoming popular here. This isn't the first one and I'm afraid this is becoming a trend.
I really don't think it's that deep. There's nothing about this article that screams "orientalism". It's just an article about a weird train station. You can probably find similar article's about some of the weird subway stations in NYC.
I caught a train through this station last year without knowing about it. It was very noticeably different from any other station I've caught a train through in Japan.
I generally agree with you that a lot of ridiculous fake information about Japan gets posted online, though. (especially in spammy Facebook groups and AI-assisted Instagram reels)
That's fine, but were you terrified? Scared and having a panic attack and clutching your purse? Were you worried you ended up in "Silent Hill" like the author of this sensationalized piece?
I'm guessing like any unbiased person you just noticed this is a deep tunnel and that's interesting on its own and can be written about and expressed non-sensationally and without Matrix-like filters on photos.
Imagine instead of exoticizing and orientalizing this, we had an article about its unique architecture style, who the architects were, why it is so deep, quotes from the people there, a comprehensive history, information about the surrounding town and region, etc. Its bothersome to me that we're regerssing back to the world of grifters and sensationalists. I feel like the popularity of Atlas Obscura-style stuff is a sad reflection of the times we're in. We collectively decided facts, respect, diversity, respecting other cultures, challenge, and merit are put on the backburner for sensationalism, ego pleasing, rent-seeking, mindlessness, intellectual dishonesty, and engaging in popular stereotypes.
That's true. It wasn't scary, of course. Just a very interesting station because I noticed that it must be more or less in a mountain. The train had been traveling through a tunnel for quite a while before stopping there, so I hadn't been expecting the stop.
In a world where everyone already knows and has seen everything, people will seek to make mundane things more mysterious and exotic. Just the way it is.
This is the real answer, not the pat “no one builds new used cars” nonsense. It is entirely possible to build new, no-frills apartments that are 100% habitable and to code. But because of all the regulatory boxes one needs to check — namely all the fees spent, and time spent waiting for seemingly endless approvals — it is simply not possible to rent out bottom-dollar builds at a low market rate. The same logic applies for single family homes sold for purchase. The startup costs are just too damn high.
They’re horrible in crashes in the North American region. That’s because the average vehicle size in North America is much, much bigger than the vehicles in the Kei trucks’ region of origin. And streets in North America are, on average, much, much wider and permit higher speed traffic than those in Japan. The cars themselves aren’t inherently unsafe; if you keep them mostly on private property and only take them out on low-speed public roads with light duty vehicles, they’re still operating in an appropriate context. Also pretty appropriate in historic city centers where the roads aren’t too fast and the trucks and full size SUVs aren’t too numerous. But yeah, take one out on the interstate boxed between two semi trucks, an F-350, and a Suburban and you’re going to be in real danger.
What’s interesting to me is that in this horribly corrupt state of affairs we find ourselves in, there are thousands upon thousands of smaller businesses that are not able to seek redress the way a megacorp like Apple or Nvidia can. Your run-of-the-mill office furniture importer doesn’t have the same ability to book up a dinner and pay the requisite multi-million dollar lobbying fee as a Silicon Valley magnate. In the before times, these folks would form interest groups and lobby Congress as a unified front, but at the moment it seems as though that doesn’t work anymore. It doesn’t take imagination to see a highly noncompetitive, post-capitalist future where only the goods from megacorps are exempted, and the goods from medium sized businesses are taxed to oblivion, destroying any semblance of free markets.
In my view the author is putting the cart before the horse here. His primary argument seems to be that people already think in bullet points, so the fluff around them is unnecessary and can be excised without destroying the original message. But that fluff is there for many reasons. It adds context, it allows us to commingle our meaningful and valid emotions alongside our facts, and ultimately, it lets us tell a human story.
The way in which we create and consume information has a direct effect on our experience of the world, and I think there is a deeper point to be made here about how the way we use communication technology. The endless firehose of information is drowning our brains to the point that we are compelled to find a way to cope. But I would argue that the way to do that is to rate limit receipt of messages so that only the quality stuff gets through, rather than letting everything through and destroy every human aspect of them in the process. It’s Twitter’s 140 character limit argument from last decade all over again; the medium becomes the message, so we must be careful what mediums we use.
> But that fluff is there for many reasons. It adds context, it allows us to commingle our meaningful and valid emotions alongside our facts, and ultimately, it lets us tell a human story.
That was the case prior to the availability of LLMs. However, the practice of sending over LLM-expanded content from the sender to the recipient and the use of LLM-aided summarization on the recipient's side is only about to become prevalent. Once it reaches some sort of saturation point, people would either forego LLMs entirely, or move to other forms of communication that you speak of where this sort of social convention won't be needed entirely.
In my case, I predict that this is going to make people interact a lot more in meatspace and supersede Internet communication in the same way email has been relegated for many people over channels such as Discord, WhatsApp, etc.
It's a little bit sad that people are wasting all these kWh of compute power to save a few seconds hassle (apparently) of communication. I don't know how to translate this in English, but LLM-driven emailing is a real "gas factory", an absurd level of complexity and effort (albeit hidden) for a trivial task.
Why not just adopt a more direct style of communication? Why fret so much over emails? You wouldn't leave an actually important e-mail to an LLM, I would hope not. And, if it's more casual (even in a work setting), just write as you usually do, the other person most likely knows you and doesn't give a shit.
At my previous employer, there was a kind of a top-down mandate to "use AI in your daily work to become efficient", which senior management would interpret in all sorts of braindead ways.
This, of course, lead to hilariously nonsensical emails, such as a IT security team member sending out a LLM-generated email about how users should be reading CVE reports for the software they use, instead of doing the right thing and lock out people running old software.
I don’t think it’s just you. “This site visit could have been an online meeting which could have been a phone call which could have been an email which could have been a text.”
None of the places I've worked at required sending an email -- although I've been on the receiving end of people asking to set up calls for trivial issues.
> It adds context, it allows us to commingle our meaningful and valid emotions alongside our facts, and ultimately, it lets us tell a human story.
You are correct of course, The fluff is the "delivery vehicle" but that also introduces errors.
the problem is, this kind of extra information is hard to do effectively, and its not really taught formally. Worse still its very hard to do if there are cultural or neurological differences(ie being on the spectrum, or a Dutch person talking to someone English)
I agree, I think he overstated the desire to add fluff. It's true that LLMs now add a bunch of fluff by default, but I imagine that will get better.
I actually do the reverse of the example the author gave (bullet points - fluff). I give train of thought to an LLM about what I want to communicate and instruct it to use no BS and make it tight and it gives me a well structure short message with clear action items logically structured. It adds the minimal amount of fluff (e.g. "Thanks for taking the time to speak with me today") but it makes it a lot easier for the other person to comprehend, without using an LLM.
The "fluff" is a careful orchestration driven by our desire to maintain social standing. 5,000 years ago rejection by the tribe meant death, and that fear is subconsciously influencing all our communications and actions. That is why a bullet point email of what is wrong with a coworker is not acceptable, it lacks all the nuance that allows you to read into the other persons past perceptions and future intents.
There is a huge range of cultural influence though. Americans, on average, have quite a different communication to let's say Germans or Scandinavians. Fluff will be present everywhere, but to vastly different degrees.
I’m gonna be straight with you. I used to think this way — that living small was a form of protest against the ills of society. But life is too short. For many of us, that cardiac arrest, car accident, or pandemic-related terminal illness is right around the corner. Don’t say no to things that bring meaning, joy, purpose, and expansion to your life. You only have one life to live.
Where there is smoke, there is fire. And Trump has been boasting about hacking the election, if some Twitter screenshots are to be believed..
This looks a bit thin and a bit far-fetched, but, then again, it might be the beginning of some proof.
If there was fraud, it's hard to believe they managed to cover all their tracks. So let's archive and save the possible clues we can find, and maybe, one day, we will have an answer.
All these replies trying to justify the title... absolutely bonkers. Should be ashamed.
Literally has nothing to do with faking data, hacking data, changing data or trying to influence any outcome whatsoever. The title is 100% not what his code is about.
But yall keep on trying to fit a square peg into a round hole and wonder why no one cares about your outrage.
Use it on something legitimate, not something 100% made up.
The coup started well before January 20th. And likely with the blessing of VC funds like Y Combinator…watch this post, it’s a proverbial canary in the coal mine.
