Then 'self flying' airline planes would really blow your mind *NM*

This morning on CNBC. Dr. David Agus. Semi-long video, but the pertinent part is about four minutes in and lasts about 25 seconds.
[video]http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000478394[/video]

Minus 40 degrees... Is that Fahrenheit or Celsius?

That follows the old saying - you'll lose it if you don't use it.

It makes perfect sense. The more you engage your brain and your body in everyday life, the better off (mentally and physically) you will be. People are becoming so depended on apps on their smart phones and having cars do everything for them, they soon won't be able to think for themselves.

I think there's a use for self driving cars. There are those who are no longer able to drive. It's a great way for them to be able to get around. If capable people start driving (more accurately riding around in) autonomous cars, the number of people who are unable to drive will rise dramatically. Can you imagine what will happen as these autonomous cars get older? Electronic glitches / malfunctions. Scary thought.

...and then there's hacking (and I'm not referring to Pedro's type.)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/13/2016 10:54AM by Guenter in Ontario. (view changes)

Ford is talking the introduction of cars talking to each other.

Tesla says that there are still challenges their system can't overcome.

Give my kids a stick shift car and they couldn't get it out of the driveway.

My simple cable box just broke last night, wouldn't power on. Second one in a month.

I played in the guts of software touching hardware for 37 years, I won't be an early adapter.

News report today about how many times a human had to intervene in one of the Google self-driving cars. Seems the cars can't handle dense commuter traffic I guess. Software went off into the weeds a few times. And critcal sensors failed. Oh oh. Report was on average about one incident every 3 years of driving. No mention of how many miles of driving or how much time spent in the car every day.

Minus 40 degrees... Is that Fahrenheit or Celsius?

Watched a news report recently to the effect that the self-driving car can operate on snow-covered roads, by (get this), determining its location on the road by observing where non-moving objects (telephone polls, trees etc.) are located.

I DO NOT want to be the guy in the car travelling anywhere near a self-driving car when the roads are covered in snow, or during any sort of snow squall.

OTOH, with the huge number of texting 'drivers' on the road, it's probably a good idea that cars are being equipped with safety systems which intervene to avoid a crash.

I am now officially an 'old fart'. I've crossed the rubicon.

As I read this article, I was shaking my head back and forth with such vigor, I almost gave myself whiplash.

[www.theglobeandmail.com]

My steadfast refusal to embrace the self-driving auto appliance filled with screens of distraction reminds me of a line from Dire Straits' 'Industrial Disease' :

'Two men say they're Jesus, one of them must be wrong'.

There are probably still a few engineers/designers who feel a car which offers the driver the highest level of active driving experience brings us closer to the pinnacle, and then there are the rest who see removing the driver from the drive is the achieving the highest goal.

A gondola will get me up a ski hill and back down with the least amount of effort on my part and likely the greatest degree of safety. Or, I can ski down. In both cases, the scenery is largely the same. But the experience sure as h*ll isn't.

And a line from another Dire Straits song - 'Money for Nothing' :

'I want my MTP ' (Manual Transmission Porsche)

Just think of the possibilities if you're freed from the drudgery of driving.

Think of the satisfaction you'll get from sending that perfectly crafted text. knt u c it?

Imagine the finger dexterity you'll gain from selecting your destination on the screen. And, the freedom of movement of your wrist as you gracefully wave instructions for AC and infotainment system operation.

The fun you'll have when your car beats your friend's car around the track. The satisfaction you'll gain when you'll not have dropped a single chip or spilled a drop of beer during the event.

Alas, I just keep thinking about the 2008 movie WALL-E. It's a fun movie for the whole family. Sadly, I think it shows where mankind is headed if we let computers do everything for (and to) us. If you haven't seen it, check out what happened to the humans in 700 years. At the rate we're going, we'll be there much sooner.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/14/2016 02:32PM by Guenter in Ontario. (view changes)

Minus 40 degrees... Is that Fahrenheit or Celsius?

Part of the challenge in driving in snowy Minnesota is knowing the safest way between two points when the weather gets bad. The safest way is usually not the shortest distance. Think hills and stretches one knows to be particularly difficult. I am not worried that we will see self driving cars in the foreseeable future.

Quote
SteveJ (2010 987 base, manual trans)
Part of the challenge in driving in snowy Minnesota is knowing the safest way between two points when the weather gets bad. The safest way is usually not the shortest distance. Think hills and stretches one knows to be particularly difficult. I am not worried that we will see self driving cars in the foreseeable future.

What I'm dismayed about is now $4B will be spent by the government to expedite the delivery of self driving cars.

It would be awesome for the trip down to Florida for March Break with the family in the family hauler..... Leave late in the evening when traffic is light... get on the interstate after crossing the border at I75 after Detroit... set the cruise and nod off and wake up when it's light 6-8hrs later and pull over for a pee break and fill up.....

Would make the trek down from home to Florida much more tolerable, It's over 20 hours driving from where we are.

or anything out of the ordinary.

Google sef-driving car runs into a bus:

[www.engadget.com]


No matter what the response, it was always going to be difficult to avoid this kind of incident. Until self-driving cars can anticipate every possible road hazard, there's always a chance that they'll either be confused or make choices with unexpected (and sometimes unfortunate) consequences.

Even humans can't anticipate every possible hazard. And:how well does the driver to Florida match up wiith a stretch of road called El Camino Real?

Our self-driving cars spend a lot of time on El Camino Real, a wide boulevard of three lanes in each direction that runs through Google's hometown of Mountain View and up the peninsula along San Francisco Bay. With hundreds of sets of traffic lights and hundreds more intersections, this busy and historic artery has helped us learn a lot over the years. And on Valentine's Day we ran into a tricky set of circumstances on El Camino that's helped us improve an important skill for navigating similar roads.

I've driven hundreds make that thousands of times on El Camino Real, parts of it at any rate. Used to commute on it. It does throw a number of situations at one that's for sure. But it is not the same as driving on Foot Hill Expressway, Page Mill Road, Lawrence Expressway, San Tomas Expressway, or 101, 17, 880, 84, 92, I-580, or down I-5 or across 58 to I-40 and west. And having driven in Florida I can tell you -- and this is the case in other areas where I have driven -- driver behavior, driver expectations, differ from region to region. If one believes drivers everywhere are not different -- not better, not worse, just different -- they are in for a surprise.

In this case the surprise might wake you up from your nap during the drive south.

Quote
Petee_C
It would be awesome for the trip down to Florida for March Break with the family in the family hauler..... Leave late in the evening when traffic is light... get on the interstate after crossing the border at I75 after Detroit... set the cruise and nod off and wake up when it's light 6-8hrs later and pull over for a pee break and fill up.....

Would make the trek down from home to Florida much more tolerable, It's over 20 hours driving from where we are.

In a self driving car, you're not going to make that drive in any 20 hours. They're programmed to stay at or below the speed limit. How are those self driving cars going to manage when you get into snow that you can hit in the mountains? There goes their lane control and other reference points that have disappeared under the snow.

Besides the government, I think the insurance companies will have the final say of whether this technology becomes widespread.
Since they have to insure accidents, I think will take a lot to convince insurers that this technology is advanced enough to fall under the coverage of their policies. if they don't like it, all they have to say is that the car isn't covered while using self-driving technology and that is that.

In order to push the adaptation of self-driving cars I think the state governments and possibly the federal government -- or worse just some fed. bureacracy -- legislating or just offering up the ruling self-driving cars are not capable of an accident -- in spite of the Google car I mentioned above -- and drivers/owners of regular cars will be found liable/at fault when involved in a crash with a self-driving car.

The burden of bearing the insurance cost then falls more heavily on those who choose to stay with regular cars.

This will have the added benefit of making drivers of regular cars more careful around self-driving cars, giving the self-driving cars a wider berth, right of way, etc., to avoid any chance of contact. This then makes the job of self-driving perhaps easier.

I suspect you ask tongue in cheek, but a serious reply is "no". At least I think not.

Self-driving cars will be distinctive enough they'll be recognizable for some distance though.

If the technology advances to the point self-driving cars are available to the general automobile market it will be interesting to see the rest of the drivers react/accept/reject the cars.

As an owner of a Porsche now for 14+ years and having driven lots of miles I have found while the majority of other drivers pretty much ignore my cars some, a few just love them. But a nearly equal number hate them.

The treatment I receive while on the road varies. In some cases -- which I do not like -- other drivers yield right of way to me at 4-way stops or in other situations where the right of way can be yielded. IOWs, I get the royal treatment.

I prefer other drivers just take their turn when it is time and let me take my turn when it is my time. I am perfectly willing to wait my turn at a 4-way stop and do not expect the masses -- so to speak -- to make way, to part like Moses encountering the Red Sea.

But there are some who are if not the opposite quite willing to push their way to act as if I have no right of way, that the rules of the road do not apply to them when they are at the traffic level interacting with my cars.

I get cut off, pulled out in front of, cut in front of. If I signal for a lane change the car behind will speed up and block my change and so on. Sure, some of this behavior is just bad driving and happens to every driver. But having had other cars while owning Porsches I see this behavior more often when in a Porsche.

I would be surprised if self-driving cars were not subjected to their share, and then some, of this aggressive, mean, bullying behavior too. And it will be interesting to observe how the self-driving cars deal with it.

What happens when a cop (machine-perceived as a pedestrian in the roadway) is waving vehicles over the double-yellow (hazard line - Rule: don't ever cross!) around an accident or other lane obstruction and one of these things stops dead? How long will it take its text-messaging occupant to realize what's going on the immediate world and take control so as not to be rear ended by following cars whose drivers assumed the traffic would flow per police directives, which by law supercede traffic signals, lane markings, etc?

Although this article doesn't talk directly about self driving cars. When you realize how a self driving car needs to be connected and "talking / communicating" with cars around them, it's got to make them more susceptible to hacking.

I know that, specially millennials love to have electronics do everything for them, but it's scary how that can put you at risk. This article talks about the real dangers of car hacking and how unaware a lot of people are about the risks.

[www.autoblog.com]

"A mile of highway will take you one mile. A mile of runway will take you anywhere."