Poll: Blacklisted for Driverless Cars



  • @the_dragon said:

    And just because I consider it really good, doesn't mean you will.

    With precious metals I stick to the old spectrometer & hallmark kind-of-good definition.



  • @Frank said:

    They said they are tuned to other drivers being dumb (gliding in and out of their lanes), collisions, and deer + other critters that flying in from out of nowhere.

    And then one day, someone totals his driverless ride by crashing into a sasquatch. Google responds in a press conference, saying they didn't program the system for sasquatches, because they didn't know they were real.

    Work begins on Google Driverless System 2.0, with just-in-case-there-is-one handling for unicorns, space aliens, and honest politicians.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @the_dragon said:

    The really good stuff's in the dungeon.

    Is it purple and rubber?



  • No, they do not make such things in dragon size. There are many things which I cannot properly enjoy for they are made to my magnificent proportions.



  • Most of the world is dragonist.



  • You forgot to add: Google gets $$$ profit from discovering what everyone suspected was true. Sasquatch and unicorns are real. They may try to socially engineer us that they discovered honest politicians...but we won't buy it.



  • Google gets profit (in a data-tastic way if not financially) from everything and merely pretends it doesn't. I cringe every time I see a new webmaster drop Google Analytics on their site thinking how awesome it's going to be - except it's still giving Google more data about people than it actually is to the webmaster.



  • Some say that he can activate a kill switch with mere willpower...



  • @Weng said:

    I drive a 2013 Subaru BRZ.

    I would like that car more (and its brother the FR-S) if it had either a larger displacement or forced induction. It is fuel-efficient, though.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @the_dragon said:

    No, they do not make such things in dragon size. There are many things which I cannot properly enjoy for they are made to my magnificent proportions.

    Try turning safe search off. Just sayin'



  • @cartman82 said:

    Right now, cars are relatively simple machines. You add software and they become ridiculously complicated. How often does your TV break compared to your computer?

    If we now trust software enough to override the pilot of a fighter yet (modern jets have 2 independent computersystems and a pilot, all with 1 "vote") I'm pretty sure we should be able to fullt handle cars at some point in the future.

    Only an Americans first concern would be over who he should sue...


  • Garbage Person

    Displacement and power are actually about right for size and weight - it'll go, stop and turn well enough to own an autocross.

    Think hardtop Miata and you aren't far off.

    It could use more power, but only if it doesn't come with weight.


  • Garbage Person

    Fifth generation fighter jets cost billions of dollars, are made in limited numbers, are maintained religiously, and are operated by highly trained specialists. None of these apply to cars.

    The computers are concerned with flight, and can do all of that with the aerial equivalent of a speedometer and knowledge of its own outputs. The only part that is concerned with 'don't hit anything' is terrain following radar - which is concerned with terrain. Which doesn't move.

    Cars are a much more complicated problem set.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @Weng said:

    terrain. Which doesn't move

    http://youtu.be/SlGTirtRP4c



  • @Weng said:

    Fifth generation fighter jets cost billions of dollars, are made in limited numbers, are maintained religiously, and are operated by highly trained specialists. None of these apply to cars.

    I would say that the volume of cars is actually an advantage. There is much more money going on in the car industry so the interest is higher. The higher volume also brings in scale advantages to keep the costs down. Plus the main reason planes are so expensive is not because of software or computer hardware requirements. Fighter yets were already billions of dollars when they did not include AI.

    I might be wrong about this, but I think the routine/rigorous maintenance is mainly on the mechanical parts. Actual system upgrade/overhaul happens much more infrequent, lets say 10 years. That's also about the lifetime of a car.

    @Weng said:

    Cars are a much more complicated problem set.

    I never said they weren't. However Google and others also have been working on this problem for years and are now in a stage that they can have fully autonomous cars riding around in a controlled but representative environment. That indicates to me that the problem is solvable, and might be solved in the not-so-distant future.



  • @dtech said:

    cartman82 said:
    Right now, cars are relatively simple machines. You add software and they become ridiculously complicated. How often does your TV break compared to your computer?

    If we now trust software enough to override the pilot of a fighter yet (modern jets have 2 independent computersystems and a pilot, all with 1 "vote") I'm pretty sure we should be able to fullt handle cars at some point in the future.

    Only an Americans first concern would be over who he should sue...

    Flying a plane is orders of magnitude simpler than driving a car. The only obstacles in the air are heavily regulated and monitored. You can't have that on the ground (also, not an American).

    My point is, so far, all usages of robots have been in heavily regulated environments. Whether it's airspace or factory floor, the robot maker can to a large extent influence the environment in which their AI operates. This is what has enabled us to push AI development beyond initial generalist approaches to where we are now.

    However, with self-driving cars, we are entering an unexplored territory. AI operates in the wild. It is capable of making more independent decisions than ever before. When it makes a mistake and mows down little Billy on his way back to orphanage, it wasn't the automaker who made the car do that. The machine made that decision on its own. Sure, it was the company's programming, but the input was completely out of their hands.

    Now you can reasonably argue (and I agree) that we should look at the circumstances and try to split the responsibility between the automaker, car owner, Billy and the surrounding circumstances. But we all know that's not what's going to happen. People will want somebody to blame. It will be a circus, with anti-technology crazies calling for blood.

    Can any company reasonably develop this hellishly complicated technology in such environment? I just hope that Google and their lobbyists will be strong enough to push through when (not if) this happens. But I'm not sure.



  • @Weng said:

    autocross

    Yeah, for that I'd suppose it's adequate. For 1/4 mile and road courses, 200 horses on 2700 pounds seems a little low.

    @Weng said:

    It could use more power, but only if it doesn't come with weight.

    I'm not much of an expert on car physics - why is it that people treat weight as such a bogeyman? Weight increases the force between the tires and road, which should translate to greater friction/traction. If you have wide enough tires, large enough brake calipers, a relatively even weight distribution and a larger engine to compensate, why should weight matter?



  • On point about flying planes...that Malaysian flight went totally off grid. While it was a terrible human event it was also comforting to know that mysteries can still occur and gigantic planes and satellites, cellphones, radar and radio waves and all that spectral stuff totally failed.

    My theory was the cabin and passenger compartments lost pressure at high altitude. Hence the long coasting flight to the crash site. I have heard of a very similar story happening to private jets.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @Groaner said:

    I'm not much of an expert on car physics - why is it that people treat weight as such a bogeyman? Weight increases the force between the tires and road, which should translate to greater friction/traction. If you have wide enough tires, large enough brake calipers, a relatively even weight distribution and a larger engine to compensate, why should weight matter?

    The key issue is that weight increases the amount of kinetic energy, and that means you need to be much more exacting with the braking, as well as needing more material to absorb the energy in a crash (driverless vehicles will still crash even with perfect driving; external factors can still come into play). Also, the consequences of getting it wrong are more serious for other road users.

    In general, weight causes other problems too (e.g., more damage to the structure of the road) but that wouldn't be a primary design consideration for a driverless car manufacturer beyond that of any other car maker.


  • Garbage Person

    @Groaner said:

    I'm not much of an expert on car physics - why is it that people treat weight as such a bogeyman? Weight increases the force between the tires and road, which should translate to greater friction/traction. If you have wide enough tires, large enough brake calipers, a relatively even weight distribution and a larger engine to compensate, why should weight matter?
    I'm very familiar - my racecars are a 3900lb Crown Vic and a 3400lb Grand Prix.

    Basically, in the long run you can't compensate. More weight means you have to add more brakes, more suspension, more tire, more structure for crash protection, etc. all of which weigh more, and much of that weight comes as unsprung weight which ruins handling and acceleration quickly.

    And then you get into inertia. A heavier car traveling at 60mph has more inertia than a light car traveling at 60mph, so it'll tend to go in a straight line more. So you need to add grip to the tires. And tires are unsprung weight.

    And you need more torque to move the car. Which beyond a certain point means you're going to need a bigger engine. And so on and so forth.

    Put simply, you can't make an idealized 2050lb car quite as good as an idealized 2000lb car for any set of design goals.

    For a particularly graphic simulation of this, note that the diminishing handling and acceleration capabilities as you go from motorcycle (handling notwithstanding) to car to SUV to truck to roadgoing crane to freight railroad locomotive.



  • @Arantor said:

    Google gets profit (in a data-tastic way if not financially) from everything and merely pretends it doesn't. I cringe every time I see a new webmaster drop Google Analytics on their site thinking how awesome it's going to be - except it's still giving Google more data about people than it actually is to the webmaster.

    Use Ghostery for such purposes.



  • Pushed to the limit, it makes sense that you'd want to minimize it, sure.

    I get in arguments with some of my more ricer-oriented friends who believe that my (also 3900 pound) car is an extremely slow and heavy barge. They seem to overlook that it has a 52/48 weight distribution, Brembo calipers and three times as much torque as their vehicles, and will outperform them in most practical situations (except for the pedantic dickweed races, e.g. "I'll beat you in a 300 mile race as long as we both only use ten gallons of gas!").

    Many of the top production car times around the Ring are from heavier cars, notably the 3800 pound GT-R NISMO. I'm sure its AWD helps substantially, though. The lighter C6 ZR1 and Viper, while not exactly featherweights, also do pretty well.

    Of course, you could compare them to exotics like the 3100 pound Agera R which have nearly twice as much power (and cost an order of magnitude more), and it's no contest.



  • @cartman82 said:

    Flying a plane is orders of magnitude simpler than driving a car. The only obstacles in the air are heavily regulated and monitored.

    They tried to regulate my flights. That didn't work out so well for the regulators.

    Edit: They were delicious.



  • @the_dragon said:

    They tried to regulate my flights. That didn't work out so well for the regulators ...

    Former regulator.



  • This post is deleted!


  • What the fucking hell!? You're trying to make a joke out of 9-11!? What kind of asshole are you?!



  • So, no like? Hmm, off to dig for some jewish gas chamber jokes...



  • But did you have fava beans and a nice chianti with them?



  • @abarker said:

    What the fucking hell!? You're trying to make a joke out of 9-11!? What kind of asshole are you?!

    We all know it's a conspiracy anyways! Bush let it happen because he hates black people! And he wanted to fight Iraq because papa! And everybody knows that jet fuel fires of a few thousand degrees would not weaken metal! Illuminati!!!!11eleven▲▲



  • Nope, but I did use a nice dry-rub.


  • 🚽 Regular

    @the_dragon said:

    No, they do not make such things in dragon size. There are many things which I cannot properly enjoy for they are made to my magnificent proportions.
    OGLAF is a NSFW comic



  • @cartman82 said:

    Hmm, off to dig for some jewish gas chamber jokes...

    Try gulags, they ring nicely with this forum.


    Filed under: i miss morbs, he could be an insensitive dickhead without really insulting anyone



  • GA has drop-in support in Discourse. Fun!



  • OMG IT'S THE ALUMINADE



  • @riking said:

    OMG IT'S THE ALUMINADE

    Am I the only one who thought of lemonade with aluminum flavor when reading that?


  • Aluminum shavings can be used as an incendiary... lemons... fire/explosions... @CaveJohnson?


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @DrakeSmith said:

    Aluminum shavings can be used as an incendiary...

    Even more fun when you mix with iron oxide. On ignition, the aluminium steals the oxide ions from the iron and vaporises off, leaving behind plenty of lonesome now-liquid metallic iron…


    Filed under: chemistry ≝ “fun”



  • @dkf said:

    aluminium steals the oxide ions from the iron and vaporises off

    Not exactly. Al2O3 boils at 2977 °C. The thermite reaction produces temperatures of about 2500 °C:

    @Wikipedia said:

    [Aluminium's] high boiling point (2519 °C) enables the reaction to reach very high temperatures, since several processes tend to limit the maximum temperature to just below the boiling point.

    This is well above the melting point of Al2O3 (2072 °C), and
    @Wikipedia said:

    the low density of the aluminium oxide formed as a result of the reaction tends to cause it to float on the resultant pure [iron].

    In fact, it would be undesirable for the Al2O3 to vaporize:

    @Wikipedia said:

    too high temperature – above boiling point of any reactant or product – will lead to rapid production of gas, dispersing the burning reaction mixture, sometimes with effects similar to a low-yield explosion.

    (Quotations from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermite.)

    @dkf said:

    Filed under: chemistry ≝ “fun”

    Yes!


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @DrakeSmith said:

    Aluminum

    Is that like aluminium? Only with less letters?



  • @PJH said:

    @DrakeSmith said:
    Aluminum

    Is that like aluminium? Only with less letters?

    Some people find the "minium" part rather difficult, hence "condo" and "alu" (the latter being common in Germany).


  • 🚽 Regular

    Aluminium has a grey colour, while aluminum has a gray color.

    Filed under: I'm pretty sure I stole this from someone but I CBA to find whom


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @Zecc said:

    Filed under: I'm pretty sure I stole this from someone but I CBA to find whom

    http://what.thedailywtf.com/t/language-ids/1100/18?u=pjh


  • 🚽 Regular

    Thanks. I like giving credit where credit is due.

    I was under the impression I read it outside this forum. That's why I didn't bother hitting the search here.



  • There's actually an ad on TV for Enterprise Cars here in the UK, with an American guy and an English guy.

    "Look for the aluminum sign!"
    "It's aluminium."
    "No it's not!"
    "Yes it is, there's a u in it."

    This is also a WTF.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @Arantor said:

    There's actually an ad on TV for Enterprise Cars here in the UK, with an American guy and an English guy.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yX5y4PPk1Zk



  • I know a few things about chemistry.

    In my life I have probably made a blue chemical drum full of Nitric Acid (100s of small batches at a time). I use sodium nitrate, copper, water, and hydrogen peroxide. I use aluminum foil as an accelerant in this process.

    Tada! That's it.

    Well not really, I know a few other things but wish I knew more.


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