Tag Archives: driverless cars

No Politics Monday #2

Posted on by under Humour, Politic-Free Mondays, Random

Welcome once again to “No-Politics Monday”.  I have decided to make this a weekly tradition, as the one I did last Monday seemed to make a few people happy, and as I said last week, Mondays are hard enough already.  So every Monday I will abstain from my usual socio-political commentary and attempt to find more light-hearted, upbeat topics.  Mondays only, though!

Saturday night the time changed here in the U.S.  Clocks went forward by an hour … yes, a whole 60 minutes … whether we wanted them to or not.  I awakened yesterday morning with a headache, so I have decided that I will not participate in daylight savings time all at once, but shall accept the time change in increments of ten minutes per day for six days, starting today (Monday).  Therefore, dinner will be served at 7:50 p.m. tonight, 7:40 p.m. on Tuesday, and so on until finally on Saturday we will be back to eating at 7:00.  Apologies to my family for rumbly tummies or other inconveniences, but I simply cannot lose the entire hour at once.

I came across a few bits of interesting trivia this morning:

  • That lovely red condiment, ketchup, that which makes most any food palatable, is banned in primary school cafeterias in France. Not for any health reasons, but rather because “We have to ensure that children become familiar with French recipes so that they can hand them down to the following generation,” implying that ketchup is in some way ruining French cuisine,” according to the chairman of the National Association of Directors of Collective Restaurants. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/foodanddrink/8806553/The-French-have-some-sauce-to-ban-tomato-ketchup.html
  • I bet there are a lot of parents in the U.S., especially in the month of December, who wish we could adopt this Swedish law: television advertisements that are specifically directed at children under the age of 12 have been banned in Sweden since 1991. At the time, research showed that children could not clearly differentiate between advertising and regular programming until this age. http://www.commondreams.org/headlines01/0529-05.htm
  • Last month I told you my feelings about Valentine’s Day, so imagine my goofy grin when I found out the Valentine’s Day is, in fact, banned in Saudi Arabia! But not for the reason you might think … it is banned because, although it no longer has a religious connotation, it began as a Christian holiday, and Saudi Arabia is an Islamic nation.  Saudi Arabia actually bans Valentine’s Day and actively prevents celebration by raiding and confiscating any floral arrangements, chocolates, or gifts for sale in mid-February that may be seen as symbols of love. http://worldnews.about.com/od/saudiarabia/qt/vdaysaudis.htm
  • Do you chew gum? I don’t, have not since before I was a teenager with braces many years ago, but if you do chew gum, you may want to avoid Singapore on your next trip to Asia.  Chewing gum has been banned there since 1992 in an effort to make the country more sanitary and progressive, as the habit was seen as old-fashioned and disgusting.  I can’t say that I disagree with them, especially the way some people chew gum! http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-32090420
  • Want to name your child “Bailey”, or “Lee”, or some other name that could be suitable for either a boy or a girl? Not in Germany!  In Germany a person’s first name must clearly indicate their gender. This means that babies cannot be named unisex names (i.e. Sam, Alex), names for the opposite gender (i.e. naming a girl Robert), or last names (i.e. Anderson, Emerson). If you want to challenge one of these rules you must go through a lengthy and expensive appeals process wherein a government office will evaluate your chosen name and it’s suitability. Other countries also have laws regulating what you may name your baby … be sure to check out the link: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/24/banned-baby-names_n_5134075.html

Just a few days ago, I updated my October 2014 piece about driverless cars, then yesterday I came across this snippet and just couldn’t resist passing it along:

Spend enough time behind the wheel, and chances are you’re going to see some pretty wild things — if you work for Google, at least.

One time, an onlooker was so excited to see one of the company’s self-driving cars pass by that he ran out onto the street completely naked and leaped onto the vehicle.

Another time, the car had to slow down because there were as many as three other cars driving the wrong way up the street toward it.

There was the time a group of people hopped across the street in front of a Google car, interrupting its route with a real-life game of Frogger.

And then there was the mysterious case of a woman in an electric wheelchair chasing a duck in circles in the middle of the street.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2016/03/12/the-time-a-naked-man-greeted-googles-driverless-car-and-other-completely-true-stories/?hpid=hp_hp-cards_hp-card-technology%3Ahomepage%2Fcard

So, that wraps up my non-political Monday.  I leave you with this from Calvin & Hobbes, arguably the best cartoon strip ever written:

calvin-hobbes1

A New Kind of Hood Ornament?

Posted on by under Humour, Random

I have mentioned ‘self-driving’ cars in a couple of previous posts.

No “Driverless” Cars, Please!   and   CRASH!

hood2Google, who has been working on the technology since 2009, just received a new patent last Tuesday for a special coating on the surface of the vehicle … a sticky substance that is being called “human fly paper”!  When the car hits a pedestrian, the sticky coating would literally glue the victim to the car so they don’t fall under the wheels or fly onto the pavement. “The adhesive layer may be a very sticky material and operate in a manner similar to flypaper, or double-sided duct tape,” the patent reads. “The adhesion of the pedestrian to the vehicle may prevent the pedestrian from bouncing off.”

hood4This sets up a number of images in my mind.  I envision a busy city street, hundreds of cars, half of them with humans attached to the hood of the car, struggling to free themselves, rather like turtles stuck on their backs.  Or what about the bank robber who is trying to outrun the police and hits a pedestrian.  Is he really going to stop to try to free poor John Doe from his hood?  Heck no … he will just keep on driving … what a wild ride for poor Mr. Doe!  And consider this … at high speeds, wouldn’t Mr. Doe simply go flying out of his clothing?  Then you have a driverless car speeding down the highway with a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt glued to its hood, and a naked person lying on the highway in only his shoes and socks!  Ah, the things the mind can conjure!

Then there is the question of exactly how one removes the pedestrian from the car.  Imagine, if you will, the 911 call:

Operator:  What is the nature of your emergency?

Driver (of driverless car):  Uh … there’s a person stuck on the hood of my car

Operator:  Please repeat …

Driver:  I … uh … hit a woman on East 16th Street, and … uh … she is glued to the front of my car

Operator:  Sir, have you been drinking?

hood5I suppose this also opens a whole new world for body shops.  Instead of rubber mallets and Bondo, their tools will include industrial-size bottles of Goo-Gone!

Google and others admit that they still have some problems to iron out, and that the technology, as it stands at the moment, is not fully capable of avoiding collisions with such things as humans crossing busy streets. I may have mentioned before that I don’t think the world is quite yet ready for self-driving cars, but then humans driving cars doesn’t always work out all that well, either.  All things being equal, however, I think I would rather see the innovators devote their efforts toward making the cars less likely to hit pedestrians than finding ways to glue them to the car on impact.  Just my opinion.

CRASH!

Posted on by under Social commentary

In October, 2014, I wrote a post about “driverless” cars:  https://jilldennison.wordpress.com/2014/10/12/no-driverless-cars-please/?frame-nonce=1678a15260&preview=true&iframe=true

Today I have an important update to that post.

While driverless cars are not available to the public at this time, apparently they are being tested by a number of companies, but it seems that … are you ready for this? … Google is leading the race!  Yes, that is what I said … Google.  The same Google that you rely on to give you the answer to the definition of the word “antidisestablishmentarianism” and to tell you the population of Sri Lanka, is the leader of the pack in driverless cars, or “autonomous self-driving vehicles”.  Google’s target date for making these cars available to the public is 2020 … a mere four years from now.  Tesla, on the other hand, is planning to un-leash theirs in 2018, just two years away!  But wait ….

Google’s autonomous car gained a “dubious new distinction” last month when it … um … hit a bus!  Apparently the driverless car was attempting to merge into the center lane and “expected that the bus would yield”, according to company officials.  You can check out actual footage of the accident here:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/google-driverless-car-bus-crash-video-footage_us_56e0615de4b0860f99d774d4

crash

According to an article in Time magazine last November, a study by University of Michigan’s Transportation Research Institute shows self-driving cars are involved in accidents at five times the rate of those controlled by humans.  Even accounting for the fact that humans often do not report minor “fender benders”, the accident rate is still estimated to be twice as high for driverless cars.  However, the data set is small and it is still too early to draw firm conclusions.  Google claims that the majority of the accidents involving the driverless cars were the fault of the humans driving the other vehicle involved.  Fortunately, none of the accidents thus far have been serious or involved injury to humans.

The whole “autonomous car” concept seems a bit like something from a Back to the Future movie, but there are some very real concerns that come to mind.  First, these cars are programmed to be incapable of breaking the law, so there should be no issue of cops pulling them over for, say, exceeding the speed limit, running a stop sign, or failure to yield.  But the laws are different from one state to the next.  So, if the car goes on a cross-country journey from New York to California, is the car programmed to know what state it is in and is the data for all fifty states resident in its little microchips?  And what if a cop does pull it over?  How do you issue a ticket to a machine?  Then there’s insurance.  Currently, auto insurance companies charge an extra amount to insure against an accident involving another driver who is “uninsured or under-insured”.  Will we all now have to pay an additional amount to insure against being hit by a driverless machine?  And then, and to me this is a huge consideration, what if the car’s computer malfunctions or re-boots on the interstate highway at 70 miles per hour?  I don’t care how many assurances Google, Tesla, or Delphi offer that this can’t happen, I say “sure it can and sooner or later it will.”  There is some talk about the makers of these cars accepting “blanket liability” for accidents caused by their cars.  That seems unlikely, or if they do, it would certainly add significantly to the price of one of these cars.  The other side of that coin, of course, being that if it is involved in a fatal collision, there is no amount of money that can compensate for a life lost.  And as these cars increase in numbers and miles travelled, it is only a matter of time.

Perhaps I am just old-fashioned and not being a forward-thinker, but I don’t think I like this idea of driverless cars.  In addition to all the concerns I already expressed, think of this.  You are driving down a busy street when you glance in the next lane and see a car with no driver!  What do you do?  You are so flummoxed that you fail to note the traffic signal that just turned red and …. CRASH!!!!  Nope, Google, I am not ready to see these cars on the roadways yet.  I suspect that eventually it will happen, I just hope not in my lifetime.

Very Random Thoughts on a Cold Day

Posted on by under Humour, Random

It is cold today.  Yesterday the temperature was in the mid-60’s, and today it was in the 30’s, with wind chills significantly colder.  Yesterday I stayed home and did Christmas-y things, like cooking and wrapping presents.  Today I had to be out for six hours, meeting friends for lunch and finishing Christmas shopping.  I never quite get my life in sync with the weather.

I read most of the transcript from Tuesday night’s republican debate.  My readers will be happy to know that I have no intention of writing a new blog post about this one, as it was simply more of the same (yawn) rhetoric, in-fighting, lies and bullying.  If you are interested, you can find the transcript at https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2015/12/15/who-said-what-and-what-it-meant-the-fifth-gop-debate-annotated/ and read the annotated version for yourself.  Trust me when I tell you, it is a waste of time.

As I was driving from one of my stops to another today, I was thinking about the worst inventions of the past half-century or so.  I am certain to expand my list, but the top three that came to mind were:  cell phones (perhaps because people driving and using cell phones keep trying to hit my car), “driverless” cars (see post from 10-12-2014), and drones as toys for private citizens.  Anybody care to add to the list?

Did I mention that it is very cold today?

It looks like I am going to have to write a post about the shenanigans of the democrats soon.  Not tonight, but soon.  Bernie Sanders seems to have taken it into his head to sue the DNC (Democratic National Committee).  I think he was jealous of all the attention Trump was getting and wanted some for himself.  More about all that another day.

A half-eaten hamburger left in a Styrofoam container in the refrigerator for 2-3 weeks becomes a lethal weapon.  Who needs a gun?

Lately I have taken to throwing out one liners in response to people’s comments on news stories in the New York Times, Washington Post, and others.  I call them “hit-and-runs”, as I throw out a single sentence, off the cuff remark and then move on.  Interestingly, I sometimes receive hundreds of “likes” to my little zingers, far more than when I actually take time to think and make a reasoned, well-thought-out response.  I wonder what the message here is?

Am I the only person on the planet who never developed an interest in the Star Wars phenomenon?

I have figured out why I am a recluse (another of my thoughts while driving along I-75 today).  I am not a recluse because I am afraid of the public.  I just don’t like the public very much.

Why do people put flowers on graves?  Dead bodies likely can no longer smell nor see the flowers.  If you really want to do something for the deceased, why not go check on one or two of their family members to see how they are doing?  Or make a donation to their favorite charity?

We have been doing the “Elf on the Shelf” thing this year.  I always thought it seemed a bit creepy, but we are actually having fun with it.  Thankfully, I didn’t break my neck when I almost fell off the ladder trying to get him on top of the 8’ Christmas tree.  Maybe one day I will post pictures of some of our more creative efforts.

As you can see, my mind, when left to its own devices, is like a little marble bouncing gleefully from corner to corner in its little box.  And so, my kind readers, I promise a post of more substance tomorrow, but for now I leave you with one final thought:  IT IS COLD OUTSIDE!

No “Driverless” Cars, Please!

Posted on by under Uncategorized

A recent article in The Week magazine (Briefing: Self-driving cars, 17 October 2014) states that self-driving cars will become available to the general public within the next 5-10 years. My first reaction was to immediately start shaking my head and saying “NO NO NO NO NO!!!” Can anybody possibly think this is a good idea?

I am the first to admit that most humans, even those who are excellent drivers, are sometimes distracted by any number of things … eating/drinking while driving, changing channel on the radio, lighting a cigarette, the ultimate no-no – texting or talking on the cell phone, or just having their mind on a problem and not on the road ahead. All it takes is a split second of inattention and BAM! As a result, human error is the cause of most accidents that are not weather-related. However, that doesn’t mean that machines will do a better job of it than humans. There are a number of problems with this new technology and its use:

• Machines sometimes break
• Auto manufacturer recalls
• Weather
• Imaginative solutions
• Legal issues

Every machine eventually fails and needs repair. This is a fact of life. If your current car needs repair, you notice that it is failing to perform as it should and you take it to a repair shop to have it fixed. It may be that you notice the brakes are a bit spongy, or that it isn’t idling quite right, or simply that there is a new thunka-thunka sound that wasn’t there before. With a self-driving car, you will be relying on the car to diagnose its own problem and notify you, or perhaps it would just drive itself to the repair shop and you would step into the garage in the morning to find it empty. Two potential problems are that it might fail to notify you, and the other is the opposite … it might notify you incessantly about so many small, insignificant problems that you eventually learn to disregard the warnings. How many of us at one time or another have ignored a “check engine” light?

Currently, Saturn/GM have an ignition switch recall on 6 models of Saturn, Chevrolet and Pontiac. Apparently the ignition switch can shut itself off which, according to cars.com, has led to 303 fatalities thus far. How many more fatalities might there have been if these were self-driving cars? There was a similar recall of Ford trucks back in the 1980’s, only the opposite … the Ford trucks were starting themselves and taking off. There would be no room for error in a self-driving car, where human logic and decision-making capacity has been removed from the equation.

According to the article, “ … driverless cars rely heavily on monitoring road lines for navigation … they may not work well in snow or dense fog.” Their solution to this hurdle thus far is that “ … [driverless] cars recognize when they have limited visibility and will make the safe decision not to drive.” Okay, fine, but what if you really need to get to work despite the snowy or foggy conditions? And what about lightning? Many electronic devices can be affected by electrical currents generated during a thunderstorm. I have a picture in my head of cars spinning around in a circle in the middle of an intersection after receiving a surge of electricity from a nearby lightning strike.

We have all heard the saying that a computer program is only as good as the data that is put into it, or more popularly expressed as “garbage in, garbage out”. This is not to say that the data that is being put into the programs for these driverless cars is garbage, however it can never be complete. No computer program can replace the human thought process which factors in variables that are beyond the capability of computers, such as what I think of as imaginative solutions. For instance, what if there is a sudden road hazard and an immediate choice must be made to either swerve left and hit a school bus or right and hit a parked car. Obviously, we would prefer to hit the parked car than endanger the lives of children on the bus, but what option would the self-driving car choose?

Then there is the issue of liability. In the event of an accident, who is responsible? Not the owner of the car … he wasn’t driving, he was playing Farmville on his laptop! The two likely scenarios would be the manufacturer and/or the software developer. Certainly this potential liability increases the cost and thus the price of the car before it even leaves the starting gate and could cause a costly overflow of court dockets for decades to come.

And one final, albeit low-probability “con” is that if a proactive terrorist organization were to obtain a global code, they could make all the cars on every highway make a u-turn at the exact same moment and the result would be the biggest pile-up ever in the history of the automobile. Okay, so yes, this is the stuff of which science fiction is made, but still …. so was the concept of flying airplanes into buildings at one time.

Having outlined some of the objections, it is only fair to also consider that there may be a few positive aspects to the concept of self-driving cars, though I do not see them as balancing the scale:

• Machines do not drink alcohol or take drugs
• Machines do not experience “road rage”
• Machines are not distracted by such things as music, food, emotions, etc.
• Machines do not get sleepy
• Machines may be better able to compensate for certain road conditions

Nissan and other manufacturers are “ … rapidly developing the technology for public use by the end of the decade.” Apart from the pro’s and con’s listed above, these manufacturers might do well to ask themselves if the public is going to be ready or even want self-driving cars. Some people have expressed interest, saying that they would like to have the extra time they now must spend commuting to and from work, however I believe the vast majority of the public would still prefer to maintain control over the machine. If the manufacturers proceed with R&D, planning and testing of this technology and then nobody will buy it, who ultimately bears the cost, which is certain to be in the tens of millions of dollars or more? Take a wild guess at that one, dear reader.