Driverless Cars

   / Driverless Cars #261  
Soon you'll walk without stopping through a scanner that reads the product, deducts from your card, then unlocks the exit gate, or not.
 
   / Driverless Cars #263  
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

Exactly, they are good for "small loads". If I have a full basket, I wheel it into the fastest looking checker I can find. :)
 
   / Driverless Cars #264  
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. :censored:
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.


Way too 1984 for me.
 
   / Driverless Cars
  • Thread Starter
#265  
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. :censored:
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.

The thin edge of the wedge has been in play for quite a while..... what you cite nicely segues into fully autonomous vehicles. For some of us, not in a good way.....

Closer in....... just look at something as basic as a steering rack. Electric ones seem to fail pretty often up here, at least compared to conventional hydraulic <- said meaning total replacement of the rack.

The more complex the technology, the faster the replacement cycle...... fine if you are wealthy, or just have ADD and think you are wealthy....... but it's another big push on the $ side, dissuading people from owning vehicles.....

Typing this, I'm thinking of a sci-fi short story I read many years ago..... it was about the Last Driver...... he took the last IC engined vehicle out of a hidden garage, and went for a run...... got tracked down by satellite before he got far......

Rgds, D.
 
   / Driverless Cars #266  
The thin edge of the wedge has been in play for quite a while..... what you cite nicely segues into fully autonomous vehicles. For some of us, not in a good way.....

Closer in....... just look at something as basic as a steering rack. Electric ones seem to fail pretty often up here, at least compared to conventional hydraulic <- said meaning total replacement of the rack.

The more complex the technology, the faster the replacement cycle...... fine if you are wealthy, or just have ADD and think you are wealthy....... but it's another big push on the $ side, dissuading people from owning vehicles.....

Typing this, I'm thinking of a sci-fi short story I read many years ago..... it was about the Last Driver...... he took the last IC engined vehicle out of a hidden garage, and went for a run...... got tracked down by satellite before he got far......

Rgds, D.


or the song
Red Barchetta
... before the Motor Law...




My uncle has a country place
That no one knows about
He says it used to be a farm
Before the Motor Law
And on Sundays I elude the eyes
And hop the Turbine Freight
To far outside the Wire
Where my white-haired uncle waits

Jump to the ground
As the Turbo slows to cross the borderline
Run like the wind
As excitement shivers up and down my spine
Down in his barn
My uncle preserved for me an old machine
For fifty odd years
To keep it as new has been his dearest dream

I strip away the old debris
That hides a shining car
A brilliant red Barchetta
From a better vanished time
I fire up the willing engine
Responding with a roar
Tires spitting gravel
I commit my weekly crime

Wind
In my hair
Shifting and drifting
Mechanical music
Adrenaline surge...

Well-weathered leather
Hot metal and oil
The scented country air
Sunlight on chrome
The blur of the landscape
Every nerve aware

Suddenly ahead of me
Across the mountainside
A gleaming alloy air car
Shoots towards me, two lanes wide
I spin around with shrieking tires
To run the deadly race
Go screaming through the valley
As another joins the chase

Drive like the wind
Straining the limits of machine and man
Laughing out loud with fear and hope
I've got a desperate plan
At the one-lane bridge
I leave the giants stranded at the riverside
Race back to the farm
To dream with my uncle at the fireside

from Wiki

Peart's lyrics to "Red Barchetta" were inspired by the short story

"A Nice Morning Drive" by Richard S. Foster, originally written in the November 1973 edition of the American car magazine Road & Track.

Lee described the tale as "Orwellian in nature"
 
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   / Driverless Cars
  • Thread Starter
#267  
:thumbsup:

Well quoted..... very appropriate...... from a band of 3, who are (no surprise) also all bigtime MC riders.....

I was used to Rush having a big following in Canada..... got traveling on business in the USA in the 90's, and found a lot of fans there too !

Agreed ! A good antidote to driverless cars :D

Rush - Red Barchetta (Live (198/Canada)) - YouTube

Rgds, D.
 
   / Driverless Cars #268  
Way too 1984 for me.

my smart phone figured out where i worked..based on time spent there maybe? Not sure. Creepy.
Looked up a funeral notice online, thought i knew where it was..got close but not right, got out my phone..the directions were there to the place....no clue how it knew that.

Many other less creepy things of course, but those two stand out in my mind.
 
   / Driverless Cars
  • Thread Starter
#269  
my smart phone figured out where i worked..based on time spent there maybe? Not sure. Creepy.
Looked up a funeral notice online, thought i knew where it was..got close but not right, got out my phone..the directions were there to the place....no clue how it knew that.

Many other less creepy things of course, but those two stand out in my mind.

Quite a long time ago (by tech standards) Google mapped out how to locate people geographically solely based on the id of nearby wifi networks.

Obviously there are a few variables in that ^ working accurately/consistently, but just food-for-thought, esp. if you habitually leave wifi turned On.....

Examples come up now and then..... Google sometimes knows more about a person, than the person themself does....

Rgds, D.
 
   / Driverless Cars #270  
My wife just read the book: No One at the Wheel-- driverless cars and the road of the future. By:Samuel Schwartz 2018

The book describes many things that could go wrong going driverless like hacking the cars or what controls them and people using DC's to deliver explosives. These vehicles would also need black boxes to record what happened during a horrible accident. Who do you blame for a accident when there is no driver? Do you think you will win against a big corporation? The rest of us will have to have dash cams to prove our side too. The book describes the HUGE costs of things to come...

No One at the Wheel: Driverless Cars and the Road of the Future by Samuel I. Schwartz
 
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