I don't know, which is worse: a car that you drive distractedly and run into things, or a car that you drive that hits the brakes for you if you're about to hit things?
― mh, Monday, 12 September 2011 20:47 (twelve years ago) link
remember those Grand Cherokees with the "sudden acceleration" issue that turned out to be "because of pedal placement, ppl were standing on the gas when shifting it into drive"?
― Tal Berkowitz - Vaccine advocate (DJP), Monday, 12 September 2011 20:48 (twelve years ago) link
Golly, you just have to have equipment to set up your own gsm network and you're good to go!
fwiw this is a way people have done really entertaining phone hacks of all sorts, it's just that it usually doesn't lend to property theft.
x-post
Yeah, the Jeep issue has hit a couple different cars now! There was some other one where people were slipping off the brake pedal and their foot was landing on the gas.
― mh, Monday, 12 September 2011 20:50 (twelve years ago) link
I'm never sure if I think our self-driving car future is a good thing (fewer people killed...in the long-term) or a bad thing (makes awful exurban lifestyles more attractive)
― iatee, Monday, 12 September 2011 21:02 (twelve years ago) link
Fuel's still gonna cost a lot
― mh, Monday, 12 September 2011 21:11 (twelve years ago) link
computer-driven cars could react much more quickly than a human driver, it wouldn't need the space in between cars as a buffer for reaction time. conceivably in a freeway situation the cars could be quite close to each other, like a train, allowing for much more drafting and better mileage
― goole, Monday, 12 September 2011 21:15 (twelve years ago) link
Yeah, I live in the upper midwest and that'd be useful for about half the year until ice season
― mh, Monday, 12 September 2011 21:34 (twelve years ago) link
why don't you just put your entire city under a dome
― dayo, Monday, 12 September 2011 21:39 (twelve years ago) link
I'm pretty sure google et al. already have pretty impressive tech when it comes to generic freeway driving, but as soon as somebody dies...
but outside of freeway driving, I can't imagine they're anywhere close to having a car that could drive in some chaotic urban situation. I would imagine the biggest problem would be judging whether the obstacles in front of it were temporary or permanent - if someone's in the street but clearly moving out of the street, you'd be able to tell, but a car wouldn't. even if it can judge based on the object's direction and speed, that doesn't seem entirely safe.
also a lot of the magic coordination things can happen when *every* car is computer-driven. but that might not even be the case 30 years after the technology is on the market. limited $$$, resources, etc.
― iatee, Monday, 12 September 2011 21:51 (twelve years ago) link
Google's streetview cars do most of their automatic driving in cities!
― mh, Monday, 12 September 2011 21:53 (twelve years ago) link
there are no cities in the south bay tho
― iatee, Monday, 12 September 2011 21:54 (twelve years ago) link
I'm reading up on it and apparently they've been in LA and SF, so who knows, maybe they've figured out chaotic places. something will go wrong one day though.
― iatee, Monday, 12 September 2011 21:59 (twelve years ago) link
wait those streetview things are driven remotely?
― comes correct with his gameboy (k3vin k.), Monday, 12 September 2011 22:03 (twelve years ago) link
lol i don't think so -- google does work on self-driving cars though
― markers, Monday, 12 September 2011 22:05 (twelve years ago) link
there is a human inside in case of emergencies
― dayo, Monday, 12 September 2011 22:06 (twelve years ago) link
ah
― markers, Monday, 12 September 2011 22:06 (twelve years ago) link
the chinese are just gonna build in rootkits into the chips that they supply to us auto manufacturers and then one day they're gonna make every car drive off a bridge
― dayo, Monday, 12 September 2011 22:07 (twelve years ago) link
streetview ones have drivers
regardless, even w/ the gains from better mileage, it's hard to imagine that this tech won't more than make up for that by making a sprawly lifestyle more pleasant and more appealing. but by the time this is legal and on the market, we'll be dealing w/ resource limitations, so whatever.
― iatee, Monday, 12 September 2011 22:07 (twelve years ago) link
How the hell does one drive 80 in an urban area? I'll do 80 north of Arlington or south of Tumwater, but usually, you can only do about 70 in the fast lane through most of the Seattle area, and that's if the freeway's moving along (which is roughly never). Plus, that's just asking to get pulled over.
― The Reverend, Monday, 12 September 2011 22:11 (twelve years ago) link
self-PARKING cars. think about that. our children will wonder what a valet was.
― goole, Monday, September 12, 2011 3:18 PM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink
trying to kill american jobs smh
― D-40, Tuesday, 13 September 2011 00:21 (twelve years ago) link
How the hell does one drive 80 in an urban area?
no one does this, we're talking about highway/interstates
― Tal Berkowitz - Vaccine advocate (DJP), Tuesday, 13 September 2011 02:36 (twelve years ago) link
unless you mean the urban interstate, to which I say "you do it at 3PM before rush hour, or you live in the Twin Cities lol"
― Tal Berkowitz - Vaccine advocate (DJP), Tuesday, 13 September 2011 02:37 (twelve years ago) link
I meant an urban interstate. And the freeway here is clogged at 3PM.
― The Reverend, Tuesday, 13 September 2011 02:43 (twelve years ago) link
self driving cars are my dream
riding the train but all to yourself1
― J0rdan S., Tuesday, 13 September 2011 04:58 (twelve years ago) link
yeah, that's why I can't really get on the "cars are all evil, let's tear down all of our autocentric infrastructure and start over" bandwagon. I dream of a future with self-driving electric cars + solar panels everywhere + lots of people working at home.
― the wheelie king (wk), Tuesday, 13 September 2011 05:43 (twelve years ago) link
i like driving, especially on the highway on the highway w/ music
― markers, Tuesday, 13 September 2011 06:13 (twelve years ago) link
in the winter
uh, especially on the highway at night w/ music, rather
128 when it's dark outside...
― nickn, Tuesday, 13 September 2011 06:28 (twelve years ago) link
yeah, that's why I can't really get on the "cars are all evil, let's tear down all of our autocentric infrastructure and start over" bandwagon. I dream of a future with self-driving electric cars + solar panels everywhere + lots of people working at home. --the wheelie king (wk)
this would just be another step toward us turning into 'up'-style obese people
― iatee, Tuesday, 13 September 2011 12:28 (twelve years ago) link
You guys can never be happy.
― Jeff, Tuesday, 13 September 2011 12:40 (twelve years ago) link
think you mean wall-e xp
― dayo, Tuesday, 13 September 2011 12:42 (twelve years ago) link
not surprising though that an ilxor would want to go through an entire day without meeting anybody else
― dayo, Tuesday, 13 September 2011 12:43 (twelve years ago) link
ilx sees 'ilxing for all' as a better future than 'college for all#
― and my soul said you can't go there (schlump), Tuesday, 13 September 2011 12:49 (twelve years ago) link
http://i.imgur.com/5wnEB.png
http://i.imgur.com/PsOwq.jpg
― dayo, Tuesday, 13 September 2011 12:51 (twelve years ago) link
i wonder if there aren't some half-way measures, though; there's a 'self-drive lane', say, or maybe your daily journey is your short drive to the autozone, piloting autonomously from your house to the turn-off, before you slip into the robo-drive mode & take out your newspaper for the next fifteen minutes.
we could just get like good trains though.
― iatee, Monday, 12 September 2011 22:59 (Yesterday) Bookmark
this isn't an attempt to correct this, because it's so obviously still a flawed point, but you can imagine that you might be able to get a better safety level than we have right now, considering our pretty bad self-driving stats. what would probably be problematic is that we'll take copious errors that we at least get to make, over the dystopia of limited but computer-made errors that we'd have to sit and idly watch occur (which is totally horrifying to contemplate tbh).
― and my soul said you can't go there (schlump), Tuesday, 13 September 2011 12:59 (twelve years ago) link
iatee did mean 'Up,' he's just really against flying houses as a form of transport
― mh, Tuesday, 13 September 2011 13:56 (twelve years ago) link
otm
― iatee, Tuesday, 13 September 2011 14:42 (twelve years ago) link
no. that's more about what we eat and how much we eat of it. that's the same thing that bugged me about the walkscore site. I feel like the legitimate environmental argument against cars is somewhat undermined when people try to add on all of these unconvincing extra points like exercise.
― the wheelie king (wk), Tuesday, 13 September 2011 16:31 (twelve years ago) link
I'm glad I don't live in your guys world where the office is the only way to meet people and walking to work is your only possible chance for exercise.
― the wheelie king (wk), Tuesday, 13 September 2011 16:33 (twelve years ago) link
you really think that car culture has zero correlation w/ poor health? none at all? I'm on my phone so I can't pull any stats, I will later.
of course you can get exercise in the suburbs. but people who live in walkable places get lots of exercise without having to make a conscious decision about it.
― iatee, Tuesday, 13 September 2011 17:10 (twelve years ago) link
and the environmental argument has nothing to do w/ this - can't be 'undermined' by a completely different issue
― iatee, Tuesday, 13 September 2011 17:11 (twelve years ago) link
http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/walking/HQ01612
All it takes to reap these benefits is a routine of brisk walking. It doesn't get much simpler than that. And you can forget the "no pain, no gain" talk. Research shows that regular, brisk walking can reduce the risk of heart attack by the same amount as more vigorous exercise, such as jogging.
― dayo, Tuesday, 13 September 2011 17:11 (twelve years ago) link
there are a bunch of demographic studies showing a correlation between obesity rates and rates of people who walk/bike/use public transpo
― max, Tuesday, 13 September 2011 17:12 (twelve years ago) link
http://www.thesmythgroup.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/1276.jpg
― dayo, Tuesday, 13 September 2011 17:13 (twelve years ago) link
Living in a walkable city is pretty much its own health reward, outside of the possibility of frostbite
― mh, Tuesday, 13 September 2011 17:13 (twelve years ago) link
http://i.imgur.com/i7ZGG.jpg
feel like when you have a society that builds in exercise into its basic conception of how people should live, that's a good thing imo
― dayo, Tuesday, 13 September 2011 17:14 (twelve years ago) link
all bags of chips should have a 6lb lead weight at the bottom
― goole, Tuesday, 13 September 2011 17:15 (twelve years ago) link
"lead weight may settle during shipment"
― dayo, Tuesday, 13 September 2011 17:16 (twelve years ago) link