“Mitch, why are you so ambivalent about self-driving cars?”
Because I work with software engineers, and I know how screamingly unreliable and charmlessly quirky anything to do with software is until the technology has years or decades to mature?
Which is annoying enough when you’re trying to make a grocery list or listen to a song.
Getting into a metal box and clipping along at 30-60MPH?
Hard pass.
I was in Oakland/San Fran in June. While riding in a Lyft car, a driverless taxi drove by. I asked our driver if they are big here, she replied “Most people take one only once, mostly tourists or out of staters. The novelty is wearing off for the locals. The locals also know about the lawsuits and issues that have been happening.”
Honestly, how bad can it be? The only difference between being crashed out by a computer in a driverless car and being crashed out by some nimrod texting their boyfriend while driving at 60 mph is that you can’t punch the computer in the face after the crash.
The bright side for Bay area residents for self-driving cars is that jokes about “women drivers” and “driving while Asian” would stop.
What if these thing ran on Windows?
Imagine joyfully scooting along at 65 mph when suddenly you car swerves to the curb and the screen on the console flashes: Please Do Not Power Off or Unplug Your Machine: Update 1 of 39…
A Tesla semi crashed into a tree this week in northern California and caught fire. The interstate was closed for 16 hours.Within the last month another truck carrying lithium batteries crashed in southern California and the interstate was shut down for something like 12 hours, in the desert. Now imagine all the crashes happening daily but with battery power, it’s going to be chaos.
“What if these thing ran on Windows?”
and those chronic memory leaks that have plagued the Windows platform since Win 3.1 create enough of a realtime throughput bottleneck that its constantly buffering & paging out while you’re cruising along a MN winter highway in traffic while its snowing – nothing to worry about there.
Its bad enough that Android AutomotiveOS for Cars (which leverages the full potential of Google services and updates as soon as they’re released) is already in place — if you think Google is spying on you now, just wait.
from the Android Auto promotional material:
“The availability of SDKs promotes the development of new in-vehicle applications, creating possibilities for autonomous vehicle functions, control of air conditioning, and more.”
so it’ll be possible for “shade tree mechanics” of the future to make their own improvements. It just gets better doesn’t it?
I watched a delivery droid bringing groceries in Finland this summer. It moved slowly crossing the street and maneuvered around me where I was standing at a corner. It then turned and lined itself up with the crosswalk to make a 90-degree turn and patiently waited for the Walk signal before setting off. Meanwhile, several people, seeing there was no oncoming traffic, walked around where the droid was waiting.
I wonder how many people in a self-driving car will get impatient and want to rip the brain out of it.
control of air conditioning, and more.
Remotely-managed “smart” thermostats for your car. Summertime? Nah, you don’t need to expend the extra energy that A/C uses. Wintertime? Suffer with a tiny porthole in your fogged up windshield. (Some people don’t know that Defrost also engages A/C)
That’s your penance for refusing to give up your personal transportation.
so it’ll be possible for “shade tree mechanics” of the future to make their own improvements. It just gets better doesn’t it?
Techies can tinker, hackers can cause chaos, and Right-To-Repair will rear its ugly head.
Ha! About 5 years ago, a couple of computer geeks made headlines because they hacked into a Jeep Cherokee and drove it around, shut it off and locked the owner out. The owner was a participant in the test. As soon as the AI crowd started talking about the possibilities of driverless semis, I had visions of some middle eastern terrorists hacking a fuel truck and running it into a building.
Regarding Windows, I was selling Aspect contact centers and competed against a server based system, operating on Windows 95. That was my sales pitch, “Do you really want your (insert number of seats) contact center relying on that server? That usually got me the sale.
Finally, re: controlling the air conditioning, that’s what Xcel’s “smart switch” is doing. It was sold to customers as a way for them to cycle your air conditioner on and off during peak demand times. If you had a family member that was affected by the heat, the switch could be manually overridden. In 2021, Colorado was going through the hottest summer in years. Xcel customers with the smart switches on their houses, found out that they could no longer override them. Hence, the push by the environazis in the DemoCommie party to get rid of gas water heaters, furnaces, ovens and stoves. Electric power can be cut far easier to make sure that you support the right people.
BossHoss – ain’t that the truth! I specifically replaced my gas range early, before Tampon Tim and the trifecta can ban new sales of gas appliances!
Should be good for another 20 years and hopefully the mania will have passed.