Driverless Cars

[Reg]

Transition from horse drawn... some/most of our ancestors got through it.
Around here we're going through it again, some equestrian retros are "driving" as well as riding on the roads, partly as political statements to re-state their rights, etc.
Pennsylvania; Lancaster, Reading, etc. ? are still very much IN that transition.

I think this one could/should be easier; since the NEW arrivals are being programed to be the tolerant road users and have "understanding" from the get go, THEY will be the yielders at intersections.

I used to travel by train quite a lot and it could be nice to get back to NOT watching where I am going, to be able to read again while getting there with more confidence in arrival time and safety.

Even this little brain can be put to better use than spinning a wheel and pressing pedals - I think it can.

 

[Reg]

In the very near future there is going to be a polar flip when it comes to a big chunk of the higher pay grade jobs...

The once high pay tech jobs are going to become median pay scale jobs...and skilled labor and mechanical repair type services will be getting the big bucks...!

That happened in the computer "main frame" business.
In the early 60s they recruited "engineers" to troubleshoot and repair failures, not all failures were electrical, skills were needed to differentiate between programming, operational and component failures.

Over time it degenerated to become a "board swapper" job, "man in a van" was a common term.

Now we have more compute power in our cell phones a laptops - many of which are disposed of when they "fail" even when the failure is due to misuse or a faulty app/program.

 

[Jstpssng]

^^^
That's partly just controlled obselance (sp?) Yahoo has informed me that they no longer will support my browser in my 4 year old lap top; and that I need to switch to chrome by Jan 31. Instead I am slowly switching everything over to gmail... I probably will still need to change but I hate Yahoo's newest email format; it's slower than Sim, and I find myself deleting things by mistake. It's a bit of a pain to switch, it's been my main email account since 2001.

 

[Oaktree]

A lot of cities have this already. They have automated license plate scanners that write tickets for speeding, red light violations, and stop sign violations.

The owner gets a bill in the mail. Since they don't know who the operator was no points on the license. It's like a parking ticket, it doesn't matter who parked the car, the owner gets the ticket.

They also have license plate scanners by the side of the road that scan every car as it goes by. If a car has been reported stolen police are notified. If the registration is expired the owner gets a bill in the mail for the fine. Police cars and parking enforcement cars also have scanners that scan every car they encounter. They also generate automated parking tickets if a car has been parked in the same spot for too long, or if it's parked in a restricted spot.

Am I the only one here who finds all this (as well as the increasingly present street cams) a little too "1984" for their taste? Of course it's only to "protect" us.
Personally, I find a lot of the increasingly mandated "safety" equipment in cars in general (automatic braking, lane change alerts, telematics that "phone home", etc.) rather intrusive and "big brotherish" as well. How much longer before your telematics-equipped car contacts the DMV every time you exceed the speed limit, pass on a solid line or run a stop sign so they can ticket you for that too?

I think this one could/should be easier; since the NEW arrivals are being programed to be the tolerant road users and have "understanding" from the get go, THEY will be the yielders at intersections.

I used to travel by train quite a lot and it could be nice to get back to NOT watching where I am going, to be able to read again while getting there with more confidence in arrival time and safety.

Even this little brain can be put to better use than spinning a wheel and pressing pedals - I think it can.

OK, we get it. You like this technology. Each to their own. I happen to enjoy driving, and dread the day that this privilege will be essentially taken away. I'm in my late 60s, hopefully I won't be around to see it.

 

[Jstpssng]

^^^^
I agree with what you say. However people who have grown up with the changes won't find it so objectionable. The world population has doubled in the last 50 years, as we crowd more and more people into the same space more and more things we believe in will be lost.

 

[aczlan]

McDonald's employees found out a kiosk was the answer to 15$ /hour wage demands.

Speaking of robots. Anyone been seeing them at WalMart more and more?

I have seen self-checkout kiosks at Walmart, both the small ones and the new ones that have a belt like a regular checkout.

Aaron Z

 

[k0ua]

I have seen self-checkout kiosks at Walmart, both the small ones and the new ones that have a belt like a regular checkout.

Aaron Z

I use them all the time If I have a small to medium number of things in my cart. Getting pretty good at doing the vegetables too!.

 

[LouNY]

Am I the only one here who finds all this (as well as the increasingly present street cams) a little too "1984" for their taste? Of course it's only to "protect" us.
Personally, I find a lot of the increasingly mandated "safety" equipment in cars in general (automatic braking, lane change alerts, telematics that "phone home", etc.) rather intrusive and "big brotherish" as well. How much longer before your telematics-equipped car contacts the DMV every time you exceed the speed limit, pass on a solid line or run a stop sign so they can ticket you for that too?




OK, we get it. You like this technology. Each to their own. I happen to enjoy driving, and dread the day that this privilege will be essentially taken away. I'm in my late 60s, hopefully I won't be around to see it.

Couldn't agree more, "big brother" has his nose in the door and he's not stopping.

And I do my best not to use the self checkout.

 

[aczlan]

Couldn't agree more, "big brother" has his nose in the door and he's not stopping.

And I do my best not to use the self checkout.

If I have a lot of stuff a cashier is faster, the local Walmart doesn't have any less people working the checkouts than they used to, but they have more registers open as one person can support 4-8 self checkout registers.

Aaron Z

 

[Oaktree]

And I do my best not to use the self checkout.

I like self-checkout. It's usually faster and it's easy to use. Only bottleneck is when you're trying to buy something that needs the security case removed or deactivated, but the attendants usually take care of that in short order.

Oddly, Shaws (northeast supermarket chain) did away with self-scan a couple years ago, claiming too much shrinkage. They replaced them with more 12-items-or-less lanes, but they always seem to have the slowest cashiers at them when they're open at all. Price Chopper, the only other chain in the immediate area never had self-scan AFAIK.