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As someone who plays a lot of online multiplayer, there's a few issues. A lot of games do have skill based matchmaking systems (aka SBMM) in place.

Ideally, this would lead to people having a 50% win rate which is just unacceptable to some. Those people resort to smurfing or cheating to get their fix--they don't really want a fair and equal match. Just look to the Call of Duty community crying about SBMM. Those people want to farm clips and play with those worse than them--not people at or above their skill level.

Additionally, many multiplayer games at all but the highest skill levels have most matches determined by the side that plays the fewest number of mistakes. This is especially true of team based games. At most skill levels, both teams will be making many obvious (and less obvious) mistakes. This can frustrate some who believe that they're held back by their team and just need to play with higher ranked teammates. So people will boost or buy accounts or resort to cheating.


Love it but note that Dan Ariely is a fraud: https://datacolada.org/98


For those who might be confused, Dan doesn't appear to be the author of the OP, Dan is Quoted by the author


I don't get the point of this comment. So, there's a quote in the article by 'Dan Ariely'. The quote is 'Humans are predictably irrational'

So what if Dan Ariely is a fraud, a crazy or a madman. If something someone says seems valuable to you, take it. Why does their history matter?


As a note to the author/OP, nothing more


The post you link uncovers apparent frauds in research from 2012 and 2020. Ariely's reply says that he received the data in good faith, and that it was provided by private insurance companies. He also thanks the post authors for their work.

This doesn't paint him as a fraud, but as a victim of fraud.


There's been enough follow-up on this case to come to the conclusion that he fabricated the data. The Hartford insurance company's statement contradicts his claim. The PNAS study was retracted after the Data Colada article and there are anomalies in his other work.

[0]: https://openmkt.org/blog/2023/everyone-involved-in-dan-ariel...

[1]: https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2021/08/19/a-scandal-...

[2]: https://www.npr.org/2023/07/27/1190568472/dan-ariely-frances...

> It is clear the data was manipulated inappropriately and supplemented by synthesized or fabricated data.


Oh dear, far more damning. Thanks for the links.


We never quite did enough in NYC. One gym in Williamsburg stayed open even during March and just kept paying the fine. There just hasn't been that much enforcement. We came to the conclusion that we experienced a real lockdown instead of a short stint of heightened delivery use. It's absurd that indoor/outdoor dining is still allowed (also that restaurants can't get support). In my experience as a 20-something, most of my friends have been hanging (even house-partying!) indoors maskless, and it too leaves me at a loss for words. The "well I already tested positive" mentality is pretty common. Meanwhile my partner and family in Asia participate in heightened levels of lockdown when getting a fraction of the cases we get on a good day.


+1 to pandering in mining/oil. The field really felt like a fraternity (House SPE), where ideas only moved as fast as the old guard felt like it. I also felt like a necessary skill as an academic in the field was vetting ideas early for clear financial gain.

Drake meme: 1. NN's for classifying micro-seismic events a la Oklahoma 2. Coming up with something new to blast shale with

Not sure if the vibe is different elsewhere, but my department was similarly unhappy. At the very least, I'm glad that the experience gave me a taste of shoddy research enough to hate it and develop my own preferences.


Could be a reference to "geoengineering" patents like Myhrvold's StratoShield, but he is a huge patent troll so I doubt that development is far along.


Yeah I've seen this kind of pocket experimented with a lot in techwear. These Y-3 pants have a great side pocket: https://media.yoox.biz/items/36/36876259pl_14_d.jpg I've found it super useful.


Technically SA wouldn't be the only country in the area to be able to produce a bbl under $40, but as you and others have echoed, that's not the whole story.


Grew up in Harlem though not black.

While I'm sure there are good police out there, broken windows policies effectively act as a safe haven for a subset of cops to enforce arbitrary (usually racial) bias whenever they feel like it. There's no impetus to actually do the neighborhood policing they claim aspire to--just a universal excuse to allocate resources and attention in the name of making neighborhoods "safe".

Metric gaming is real. Ex. strapped for money or not meeting your quota? Stop some drunk teens on a weekend night before the end of your shift and you can make time and a half because your lookup is "still processing" well past 5 PM. End up writing a citation for the kids, tell yourself that they can afford it, tell them that they should be grateful, and wash your hands clean of it all because you're doing "neighborhood policing".

What if there's an actual crime to report in these neighborhoods?

Two squad cars pulled up to my building. The first thing said to me: "OK who was it? Black? Hispanic?"

They have me ride with them as they stopped every non-white group of kids, at least 30 over the course of ~2 hours despite my repeated remarks that no one had actually seen the perpetrator(s). I wanted to back out at this point, but they had to have a case to justify their time. Frustrated, they took me back to the station and had me go through a photo book of juvenile delinquents in the neighborhood they had compiled. It was photos of entirely black and hispanic youth captioned by their name, address (at which they could be arrested), and some minor crime that was enough to put them in the book. They were practically begging me to just point out any dark face. I just wanted to report a stolen phone.


This is horrific. When did this happen? Was this in Harlem?


9-10 years ago. Spanish Harlem during peak stop and frisk era/doctrine.

What I remember most was how routine it all was for everyone involved. Driver would sometimes pull the car up on kids drug raid style, swerving into the sidewalk. They'd turn on the high-beams and within a few words and seconds, it was a pop-up police lineup.

The only description of the suspects was this: a group of kids, one of them was wearing a bright hoodie. No one had even seen their faces. I was adamant about this as well but these cops didn't believe me. They instead kept asking me to "be real" with them and that I shouldn't "feel the need to be PC" around them. They acted as if I was self-censoring for virtue signalling instead of being honest. I just wanted them to log my IMEI and keep a lookout for my phone on CL/eBay because they had been doing press releases about it at the time. Apparently that was the less accessible option.

It scares me to think how much negative impact that one group of police might've had. When I think about how frustrated they became when I told them the truth over and over. Maybe they're used to more central park Karen type of crime reports.


Wish I still had a mac. I remember Bang and Olufsen doing some spatial audio research a few years back:

https://www.en.tech.aau.dk/news-events/news/new-lab-mimics-t...

It's nice to see it being rolled out into their products too!


Used to be in the oil and gas space. One of the biggest issues with orphaned wells is that local enforcement is so comically lax.

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/11/orphaned-oil-wells-...

For example, the article says PA has 200k abandoned wells, but the number is likely 500k-750k, according to Mary Kang's work. https://www.pnas.org/content/113/48/13636

Why you ask? There is NO required security for unconventional wells (most wells on the Marcellus) and only $25k required as a blanket security. You bet that that's going to be factored into the P/L. Abandoned wells are defined by the fact that there is no existing LLC left on the title.

http://iogcc.ok.gov/Websites/iogcc/images/Publications/2019%...

>"The average cost per well ranged from $3,700 to $101,000, with most in the $10,000 to $80,000 range. The overall average for the states is $18,940."

What if you own a bunch of stripper wells like in PA? Well when they only produce <15bbl a day each for a short life time, why bother when you can dissolve eventually and start anew? If the PA DEP's permit surcharge is only $50-200, do you really think they'll make any progress?


I've heard some stories about abandoned PA wells too. One version claimed that tens (hundreds?) of thousands were from the late 1800s to early 1900s, with old records lost. That means people do NOT know where they are. That always struck me as an opportunity for some enterprising remote sensing co. (even one formed by HN readers, hint hint!) to step into the breach and find them. You can't remediate it, if you don't know where it is.


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