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Comment Deadly LA drivers (Score 1) 367

We left LA after our daughter was born in part because we couldn't stand the risk involved in driving through that city, not with a baby in the car. To illustrate how insane it is, when you're at a red light and it turns green, people don't start to drive, they wait several seconds, because there are ALMOST ALWAYS one or two idiots who will drive at full speed through the newly turned-red light, although they could very easily have stopped. But it's LA, so the right thing to do is to drive through the red light, and assume that people who have the green light won't start going soon enough to crash into your car; otherwise, if you're the one with an opportunity to drive through the red light but you actually brake, the idiot behind you is going to rear-end you, since they assume that you'll accelerate through the light, so they get a chance to play with other people's lives as well. I have never seen as many cars with evidence of accidents on their body as in LA, not in any European or North American city.

As a pedestrian it's insanely dangerous as well, since car drivers think they should drive through their red light and you are an object that they don't think exists. And given the clement climate, one would decently expect that biking is a pleasant, common activity, with lots of bike lanes throughout the city. The car drivers use the few bike lanes to cut corners, or to park, and they are too busy with their cell phones to even try to leave a bit of space for bikers.

Comment Re:WLAN location triangulation (Score 1) 559

I've recently moved from California to Colorado. The Google Maps app on my android-running phone insists that I am at my old address in CA (with the exact house number, btw) -- it doesn't even check the GPS signal. If I turn off the wifi signal of the house the phone uses the GPS signal and correctly locates me at my new address in CO.

I discovered this two weeks ago and figured Google has been mapping the location of my password-protected wifi base and decided that they can use it to "assist" GPS location. There is a very stupid assumption that the base doesn't change location.

I find it really creepy and disturbing.

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