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Tesla's Elon Musk Talks With Google About Self-Driving Cars
Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk has been thinking about bringing autonomous driving technology to Tesla's electric cars. Quoting Bloomberg:
"Musk, 41, said technologies that can take over for drivers are a logical step in the evolution of cars. He has talked with Google about the self-driving technology it’s been developing, though he prefers to think of applications that are more like an airplane’s autopilot system. 'I like the word autopilot more than I like the word self- driving,' Musk said in an interview. 'Self-driving sounds like it’s going to do something you don’t want it to do. Autopilot is a good thing to have in planes, and we should have it in cars.' ... Google’s approach builds on a push for the driverless-car technology long pursued by the U.S. military’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which held vehicle competitions for carmakers and research labs. Anthony Levandowski, product manager for Google’s self-driving car project, has said the company expects to release the technology within five years. 'The problem with Google’s current approach is that the sensor system is too expensive,' Musk said. 'It’s better to have an optical system, basically cameras with software that is able to figure out what’s going on just by looking at things.' ... 'I think Tesla will most likely develop its own autopilot system for the car, as I think it should be camera-based, not Lidar-based,' Musk said yesterday in an e-mail. 'However, it is also possible that we do something jointly with Google.'"
Musk later warned not to take this as an actual announcement.
IIRC the Grand Challenge winner use a computer vision system, augmented with LIDAR because computer vision is still an evolving field with plenty of risk. I am excited, autonomous navigation in cars seems like the sort of thing that is actually achievable without some major tech breakthrough. Sure it's too expensive currently, but the costs will come down as engineers optimize the system.
I read the internet for the articles.
While cameras may be more cost effective than Lidar, they have problems that lidar doesn't. For example, what does the camera sensor do when it's under direct sunlight and can't make sense of what it's seeing? What about rain / fog? I have a feeling google is has the right idea here.
Don't think that a small group of dedicated individuals can't change the world. It's the only thing that ever has.
No. The point of a car is to get you from one place to another. Driving is one of the most boring tasks imaginable, except on a few roads like BC's Sea to Sky Highway when the traffic is light. The vast majority of driving situations are tedious.
Just because you are paranoid does not mean that no-one is out to get you.
That's a great concept, but very few people have time to just drive for the sake of enjoyment. Especially if you live in a developed area. The vast majority of driving is the boring, rote commuting in heavy traffic. Self driving cars, electric or otherwise, will free up a lot of time for other enjoyment or productivity. I personally look forward to regaining those hours of my life back.
We better start thinking about how we will earn a living as more daily tasks are automated.
Lidar might be expensive, but it gives you the shape and depth of the surrounding environment. Camera based imaging will have a harder time determining the distance to the objects in views. I would think the lidar would also have an advantage with fog or rain that might hinder a camera based system much more. In the end I think having multiple systems that corroborate their view of the world and cover for each other when one has difficulty getting a good sense of the environment is the best way to go. But if it used as a simple self-parking system or a souped up cruise control you might be able to get a camera based system to work well enough in most circumstances.
-- ssoorrrryy,, dduupplleexx sswwiittcchh oonn.. -Quote found on actual fortune cookie.
The problem is called "humans". Humans love to bask in the feeling of being in control, especially when it comes to cars. With planes, this was different, especially as these from their beginnings on were called "flying machines", i.e. machines made to fly ( with ). I remember that my grandma, born in 1900, never ever called them differently. Cars, OTOH, have never been called "driving machines". And this is where the crux is hidden: humans want to control their cars. I guess it will remain so for a long time.
Religous speak to God. Insane are spoken to by God. When all shut up, one can finally hear Shostakovich in peace
Tedious and dangerous. A combination practically designed to induce stress.
I know we're probably not going to read the articles, but... can't we have a link just for old time's sake?
Agreed on manual transmission. Driving in the US of A is more boring than in other places
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-05-07/tesla-ceo-talking-with-google-about-autopilot-systems.html
Very true. When I drive to work I usually arrive highly stressed. When I take the train I usually arrive relaxed and productive. It takes longer, but it is a far nicer trip.
Just because you are paranoid does not mean that no-one is out to get you.
The point of a car is to get you from one place to another.
1st. He was taking about a sports car. That type of car is meant for the journey not the destination.
2nd. There are people in the world that love to drive. They are called car enthusiasts. Here I'll explain this with a computer analogy. Just like there are people that like to use command lines edit config files instead of using iPads etc...
No. The point of a car is to get you from one place to another.
If "transport from point A to point B" was the sole use case for automobiles, the only model in existence would be the Ford Fiesta.
You may not believe or understand this, but some of us actually enjoy driving.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
I don't think it will be for the Roadster, but more towards more normal consumer cars, probably planned in the future.
Having to drive 5 1/2 hours from VT to Niagara Falls NY and back to VT. I would love to have a basic "Autopilot" settings, that kept me at speed, in my lane on the highway, and not running into a car in front of me. I would be OK with having to change lanes myself and other more "advanced tasks" but the hours of tedium is just hard on my eyes, and my concentration. Just to be able to take my hand of the wheel and even for 5 or 10 minutes, with my attention off the road would make that time far more comfortable.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Driving in the US of A is more boring than in other places
I presume this is more of an issue in the densely populated coastal regions of the country? Come visit the midwest, we have miles of nice country roads begging to be driven.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Some people enjoy driving, but many do not, particularly the miserable drives that many people have to endure to get to and from work, or to move around in badly designed cities. Driving can be a lot of fun, particularly if you do most of your driving in areas that do not have a lot of traffic. Most of the time, though, driving is just something that you tolerate because you need to go somewhere.
Just because you are paranoid does not mean that no-one is out to get you.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-05-07/tesla-ceo-talking-with-google-about-autopilot-systems.html
I have lived in Indiana, and driven through the midwest several times. My experience has been that the roads are mostly flat and boring, and that the drivers are suicidal. For example, the Indiana habit of deliberately turning on you high beams when you see an oncoming car.
Just because you are paranoid does not mean that no-one is out to get you.
That would be why icleberry specified "such a car". The point of the Tesla vehicles is certainly not just to go from one place to another. They make sports cars.
No. The point of a car is to get you from one place to another. Driving is one of the most boring tasks imaginable, except on a few roads like BC's Sea to Sky Highway when the traffic is light. The vast majority of driving situations are tedious.
Well, in a self-driving car, you could play Need for Speed or Gran Turismo videogames on the HUD to make things more exciting while you wait. Ever imagined your finger was a bazooka while you're in traffic, and you could just blow up the cars in the way? Well, now we can use Altered Reality to superimpose images of Actual Explosions!
My extensive research has proven that "Time Flies when you're having fun"... Ergo, there's a loveseat in the back.
Agreed!
-- some guy who has been in Indiana now for #waytoofriggin'long
I have lived in Indiana, and driven through the midwest several times. My experience has been that the roads are mostly flat and boring, and that the drivers are suicidal. For example, the Indiana habit of deliberately turning on you high beams when you see an oncoming car.
Sounds like an Indiana problem.
FTR, when I say "Midwest," I refer mainly to the region bordered by the Missouri River, Mississippi River, Rocky Mountains, and some part of Texas that doesn't suck (don't travel south much). Get much farther north than the Missouri, and yea, it's pretty much just flat nothing sprinkled with corn.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Ah yes. Driving conversations online almost always turn into insult contests
Just because you are paranoid does not mean that no-one is out to get you.
maybe to you, there are a lot of us out here who actually enjoy getting behind the wheel and driving. I cant stand riding in a car but I LOVE driving it.
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
You should teach a car to drive like you teach a human, equip the system with vision and analyse the visual input to control output. Granted I'm not working auto driving systems but it would seem to me that you just need to analyse the road surface to figure out if your centred in your lane and then analyse the environment around you to figure out what your close to. I've done a bit of image / video computer autonomous analyse system design in the past and the technology exists to do this, it's not overly expensive or hard to learn so my question is why aren't they using a system closer to this for the auto drive car?
If I'm completely wrong then okay but could someone describe why it's not possible or who's already doing it.
As someone who's actually done this stuff, LIDAR gives solid data, but is range-limited. Cameras have more ambiguous results. Cameras are most useful when things are going well, as on a highway under good conditions. That was Stanford's approach in the Grand Challenge. All their vision system really did was answer the question "is the near section of road (within LIDAR range) like the far section of road"? If the LIDAR said the near section was OK to drive on and the vision system said the far section was like the near section, then the vehicle could speed up and out-drive the LIDAR range. That sped up travel on good sections of road.
Google is using Velodyne LIDAR units, which are effective but an expensive mechanical kludge. A better approach is from Advanced Scientific Concepts, which has an eye-safe flash LIDAR. No moving parts.
ASC's units cost about $100K each, but that's because they're hand-made for DoD. The technology isn't inherently expensive if made in volume. It uses custom imaging ICs, and because they're made by tens, not millions, they cost far too much. If the cost can be brought down, the vehicle can have multiple LIDAR units around the car to get full coverage, rather than one big spinning thing up on the roof.
Millimeter radar is also useful. It's good to have a Dopper anticollision radar as a backup system. It provides an unambiguous "rapidly approaching big solid object" signal. We had one of those on our DARPA Grand Challenge vehicle as a backup to the fancier LIDAR system.
Spoken like a true programmer. Why make something elegant and fun when it can just work?
Driving is supposed to be fun. The sound of the engine, the shifting of gears, the lateral forces as you take a curve, all make driving enjoyable.
If you consider driving boring and tedious, I'm presuming you're one of those who thinks eating is equally boring and tedious and looks forward to the day when we can just inject nutrient rich sludge directly into our stomachs.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
Vermont!
-- some guy who grew up in Burlington, and frequently drives back through the freak, constant snowstorm that is Buffalo
If only because technology marches on. I would think that as long as the human can choose whether or not to activate an autopilot, then its existence doesn't have to be considered a problem. So, along the lines of making fancy tech happen (what nerds do, after all), here's a notion.... When Google decided to compete with Apple's Siri voice-recognition system, an infrastructure was created that might be enhanced to do image-recognition. And Google has vast numbers of images from its Street-View system, probably all linked together in an orderly way (such as the route a autopiloted car might take). From there, the conclusion should be obvious, if not so simple to actually achieve.
I agree. Driving can be fun, and I pointed out a nice highway to drive on. However, most people do not enjoy their morning commutes, or darting around from shop to shop, or sitting still in bumper to bumper traffic with three miles to go until the next exit. These are common driving conditions for most people. If the only driving that I ever did was in a BMW 3 Coupe on a lightly used road in the Rockies I would be very happy, but in the real world driving is not quite that much fun.
Just because you are paranoid does not mean that no-one is out to get you.
Ever imagined your finger was a bazooka while you're in traffic, and you could just blow up the cars in the way? Well, now we can use Altered Reality to superimpose images of Actual Explosions!
Yes I do and that would be awesome. I use the e-brake release button and pretend that my car has missile launchers or machine guns instead so it would be nice if the fire button was mapped to the e-brake release button.
Time to offend someone
Go far enough north and you end up with some really nice roads along the Mississippi in southeastern Minnesota or along the north shore and iron range as well. You just have to watch out for the most deadly animal in the world or the ever more rare moose.
Time to offend someone
I like driving. Something is just so relaxing, yet fun, about cruising down a light traffic highway with my music playing.
Sadly, that's only a tiny portion of the driving I ever do. Most of it is spent in a congested commute, 5 days a week. I'd *love* to be able to just let my car take me to and from work as I browse Slashdot on my phone.
A self driving car would give me a precious 40-50 minutes of extra free time.
The Internet King? I wonder if he could provide faster nudity.
Autopilot is a good thing to have in planes, and we should have it in cars.
I like the notion, and it's a great frame of reference for consideration. One major distinction between planes and cars: When a plane is on autopilot in a relatively sparse chunk of sky, the time between sensor warning and twisted burning wreckage is tens of seconds to minutes. Most of the time in an ordinary flight plan the plane can wander hundreds of feet without a problem. On a typical chunk of sparsely populated two lane highway, however, If your car's autopilot travels twenty feet out of its lane -- things get exciting very quickly.
Moreover, most airplanes are like long-haul trucks -- they spend most of their miles in transit between heavy traffic areas. A major chunk of American automotive miles are spent with other vehicles within a few dozen feet.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
That's actually a good analogy. Driving can be fun from time to time, but it can also be quite boring and tedious much of the time. It would be nice to do it when you want but have an autopilot to engage when you don't. A well prepared gourmet meal can be a real treat and wonderful experience, but often eating is just tedious, too. One would not want to be denied the opportunity, but at the same time, if you could just take a pill or something while you're doing something else actually useful or enjoyable, that would be a nice option much of the time.
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
And as soon as it has voice control and feedback, I'll want that too. Me: "Car, take me to work. And take Alvarado." Car: "Do you want me to take the 10 to Hoover?" Me: "Sure, if traffic isn't too bad. And queue up 'Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me.'" Car: "Sure thing. Buckle up!"
Let me escape the tyranny of screen interfaces AS WELL as the tyranny of driving.
Too bad. Once driverless cars become cheap and safe, the government will require all cars on public roads to be driverless. It will be illegal to drive human-driven car unless you have $$$$.
Get this through your head. Driving is a privilege and you will be the luddite holding back progres. The tax the public pays for roads gives us the right to kick you off the road.
Agreed on manual transmission.
It's one thing to use a manual instead of an automatic if you need a transmission, but in an electric car? Talk about refusing to change with the times. Maybe when these newfangled horseless carriages came out, there were those who yearned for buggy whips and eau de equestrian posterior.
really nice roads along the Mississippi in southeastern Minnesota
You country wusses. If you want some excitement in driving, try Manhattan. Driving on an empty road is no more challenging than flying with nothing around you, but Manhattan is like the Battle of Britain.
judging a book by its cover? Ill have you know ive been driving for 10 years and have a totally clean record. then again why am I wasting my time on a coward anyway
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
Driving is supposed to be fun.
No it isn't, it's supposed to get you from A to B. The fact that can be made fun is a totally distinct argument. I highly doubt anyone has fun doing mundane commutes and sitting in traffic.
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
Spoken like a true programmer. Why make something elegant and fun when it can just work?
I think cars started downhill when that newfangled synchromesh eliminated the need for double clutching, and as in so many other areas technology continues to destroy the simple pleasures of life. Imagine a train without the joy of stoking the fire while cinders fly in your eyes and you watch the pressure gauge to avoid a boiler explosion. Or a ship where you don't have to climb the ratlines in a storm. Or turning a tap labeled "hot" instead of fetching well water and starting a fire to warm it. Or of not having to run down your dinner armed only with a flint tipped spear.
Some may, but most don't. And the ones that do are usually out in the country away from the other drivers.
The main point of cars is to get from Point A to Point B. Some people do enjoy driving, but I have yet to find anybody for whom driving in traffic is something they find to be enjoyable.
I think a car analogy is in order. It's like if you had the choice between sitting in traffic cursing out the idiots around you, or could use that time to check up on email or read a book.
I've heard that before. And I'm going to have to go and see that for myself.
Even around here where the problem with drivers is primarily the opposite, it's no fun to drive. You get the occasional driver that's extremely aggressive, but for the most part folks are so passive that nothing moves. Driverless cars would go a long way towards solving that problem.
I imagine that it would also greatly improve traffic as you'd reduce the time it takes for the cars to get moving again at stop lights.
I enjoy driving, on a Sunday afternoon, driving down deserted country roads with no need to be at any particular place at any particular time.
I pretty much hate it otherwise. Now here's the deal, there are some very strange desires people have. Some want to be beaten. Others want to be tied up. And others want to be tied up and beaten. And still others want some combination, or neither, of these two activities combined with having jello pudding thrown at them.
So, given that, I'm going to rule it as not entirely impossible that you're about to tell me that you think commuting to work by car is awesome, and the bit you love the most is when you're about 10 minutes from work and suddenly see red lights in front of you and realize that the next mile of traffic consists of cars travelling at about 5-15mph, stop, start, stop, start.
But I really, really, doubt it.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Given the alternative, I would prefer a cruse ship that let you man the sails.
From the article:
Hallways were flooded with human waste, there was no A/C or running water, and passengers were left to survive on limited food and water.
In the days of sailing ships, you only got those conditions in first class.
you're one of those who thinks eating is equally boring and tedious and looks forward to the day when we can just inject nutrient rich sludge directly into our stomachs.
we already do that its called they are called "frozen burrito" or "cup'o noodle"
---Saying gnome 3 is better than windows 8 not so much a compliment as it is damning with light praise.
Agreed.
Why do I get the impression that none of the people posting that "driving is fun" actually have to drive? It's a week day, if they have to drive it's a fair bet that the last time they drove was this morning, to work. If they had fun doing that, well...
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
You may not believe or understand this, but some of us actually enjoy driving.
But how many enjoys driving all the time? All traffic, all road conditions, never tired, never busy, never wanted for a button to push to make the car drive itself while you do something else? I have friends who are quite car conscious but they also like cruise control, automatic gearbox and all that, it's more about going around in comfort and style than pretending to be a rally driver. I think there's a solid market of people that aren't looking for the "basic transport from A to B" but the "private limo driver from A to B" experience, particularly since the computer has even more discretion than a human. And it's not like they're going to take away the "off" switch any time soon, so if you want to go ahead...
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Would love to have autopilot on the large US highways - I-40, I-80. 500 miles at a stretch with barely a turn.
No "enthusiast" is going to be enthused by that drive.
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
It's the result of seeing something; going, "Hey, that's neat, and I have no fucking clue why it works"; and then deciding that a part of it you don't understand is expensive and accomplishing the same sort of thing as another thing you know about that's cheap, and so you should do it that way. It's what you get when you don't employ expert judgment, and instead make decisions based on the analysis of completely unqualified non-technicians.
Support my political activism on Patreon.
When our roads are autonomous, you will get to point B faster, safer, with less fuel, less wear on the car, and better rested. You can also stop worrying about parking, fueling, and maintaining you car as it can go and do all these things automatically while you go about your business.
My God can beat up your God. Just kidding...don't take offense. I know there's no God.
http://www.bmwusa.com/Standard/Content/Innovations/onething.aspx
"The Ultimate Driving Machine"
My God can beat up your God. Just kidding...don't take offense. I know there's no God.
Once cars are robotic enough that we are only giving guidance to the car (pretending to drive but the car will ignore stupid inputs) insurance will become the battleground. I can see a car company like Tesla offering free liability insurance with their cars. They will know that basically their car can not cause an accident and with the camera/computer system will have the proof to avoid a he-said-she-said situation.
At the same time I can see the insurance companies realizing that a huge huge HUGE market will simply go away when car accidents become unlikely enough for car companies to be able to cover it. Think about it. Every car that you see is paying in around $1,000+ for insurance. The only insurance people will want after robotic cars will be theft (hard to do with a hi-tech upgradable car), vandalism, trees falling on them kinds of insurance. Plus nearly every jurisdiction says you must have something like 2 million in liability; that need will vanish or at least be covered by the manufacturers.
So my robotic car prediction is that car companies will be trying to terrorize us into hating robotic cars. They will show videos of families being driven off cliffs, or saying it is our god given right to have control of our cars. And of course they will spend ungodly amounts of money lobbying everyone from the president down to your school board to stop this.
But the simple reality is that 35,000 people are killed every year in the US and robotic cars might take this down to a few hundred. (mechanical failure, trees falling on them, sinkholes, etc)
If his name was Joe Smith nobody would care about him.
Wrong. Musk has a track record of making major projects work in areas where others have failed big-time. Tesla and Space-X make stuff that works, at a profit.
There are overpromoted hipsters. Vivek Wadhwa (Y2K COBOL code conversion), Nicholas Negroponte (One Laptop Per Child), Shai Agassi (Better Place), and Nassim Nicholas Taleb (Empirica Capital) come to mind. All are heavily into self-promotion, but each of their startups failed.
Electric motors need a transmission too.
If by transmission you mean a fixed ratio reduction gear. Electric motors have actually been used for years to eliminate the need for variable ratio transmissions, which often don't work well w/ high torques or other situations that electric motors handle gracefully. That's what the electric part of a diesel-electric locomotive is - an electric motor used in place of a transmission. They're built that way because mechanical transmissions can't cut it.
Teslas engineers were just too incompetent to build one correctly.
Tesla subcontracted the transmission design, and three companies, all of which have extensive experience, couldn't produce something that worked right. Tesla's solution was to improve the electric motor and drive electronics, which gave them equal or better performance than was originally anticipated with a transmission, but without the weight or unreliability of a mechanical transmission. Tesla's "incompetence" led to a better car.
Who wants a driverless tesla roadster? Terrorists.
Self driving bomb.
Yeah the danger with pot smoker, err, Ganjadude on the road is that take make every stops, follow the speed limit or drive under it and use the flasher on the car at the right time....
Jehovah be praised, Oracle was not selected
Careful, you are very close to the high crime of lese-majeste. You may also note that questioning our future in space or the utility of 3D printing are equally unwelcome here.
Bah. Slashdotters are a bunch of wimps who "punish" blasphemers by saying unkind things to them. In the old days we'd burn 'em at the stake (bring your own marshmallows).
Often I sight-see, get intentionally lost, or even prefer to visit locations with no name (to hike, to consider buying, etc).
Are driving cars another round of "consumer" vs "creator"?
Science & open-source build trust from peer review. Learn systems you can trust.
That's just pure boring. Isn't the whole point of such a car that you drive it yourself for your enjoyment?
I agree. I wouldn't want a driverless car myself.
But I would probably like everyone else to have one. That way, I could keep driving like a maniac while all the other cars get outta my way via their collision avoidance mechanisms.
I don't mind taking the bus except for 2 factors:
1. Comfort. The city buses I've been on have been far less comfortable than any of my car seats. I know there have to be car seats out there that are less comfortable, but I haven't found them.
2. Time. I can decide to go somewhere, jump in my truck and be at my destination in about 10 minutes most of the time. With the bus I have to pay attention to the time, wait for the bus out in the weather, take an extra hour of time getting to within a couple blocks of my destination, normally arrive there an hour early, etc...
I don't count my time riding the bus as expensive as driving, but it's not an OOM's difference, thus making the bus more expensive in my metric.
I don't read AC A human right
Yeah except there is no "he". Each of his endeavors involved many other people and their money.
Is it the other people's money that is noteworthy, or the other people whose ideas and work made these ventures a success?
Who is heavily into self-promotion again?
Of course Musk is a self-promoter. You rarely hear about people who aren't self promoters (unless they invented the polio vaccine or something). So what?
I also get tired of hearing about tech billionaire garbage. It's usually more about business strategy and getting away with monopolistic practices and a bunch of luck. However, if money is your interest, why not talk about the Waltons (worth a combined total of $115.7 billion)? Personally I'm a technophile. I'm more interested in (Nikola) Tesla, who died in debt, than I am in J.P. Morgan. I'm certainly not saying that Musk is another Nikola Tesla, but at least he starts ventures that do seriously cool and technologically interesting things, rather than making billions from boring over-hyped technologically uninteresting things like the latest "cloud" whatever.
And yet statistically speaking, a hundred years after the last manually driven car comes off the road, we'll probably still have laws on the books that ban texting while in the front left seat.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Tell that to the thousands of commuters sat staring at each others' bumpers.
Try Paris, or Moscow. Manhatten driving is for wimps.
If "transport from point A to point B" was the sole use case for automobiles, the only model in existence would be the Ford Fiesta.
Even a fairly unreasonable troll would like to get there with their colon in good working order, and some of us live where there are potholes. But you're probably near being right, in that most of the vehicles on the market would go away tomorrow. Of course, most of them should do that anyway...
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Try Paris, or Moscow. Manhatten driving is for wimps.
Manhattan is for people who want excitement. Paris and Moscow are for people who are suicidal.
I'll take the jello pudding scenario!
criminal liability
Who pays a ticket? Who get's points? Can you have a bot take traffic school?
Now on to bigger stuff What it does some thing that you can get jail time / big fines / ect...
What it drives into some one at speed and does not even to try to stop? misses a road closed and hits people in the street?
Hit's a work worker? Will Mushishkabishalishdish Jaboodiboodi do the 14 years and pay the 10K fine? Will all people get off how fast will that EULA be cut down in a court? will Google take the 5th?
I find driving incredibly relaxing. It requires just enough focus to get me into a zen like state, but not enough that it ever gets taxing except under unusual circumstances. Sometimes if I'm really stressed, I'll hop behind the wheel and drive for an hour or two in some random direction, then come back and feel totally relaxed.
But, right now my car is in the shop, and I'm taking the bus, and it's stressful as hell. Buying groceries is either an expensive taxi or a painful ordeal, sleeping in 10 minutes means I'm half an hour late for work, and visiting my friends has to be weighed against the boredom of an hour each way bus trip.
I don't know how anyone could possibly think of driving as boring and stressful. It's right up there with sex, tobacco and whiskey as far as I'm concerned.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
Roughly 15 years ago, when I was 22, I was working in Chicago as a consultant making $30 an hour, not salaried. Being stuck in traffic for a few hours at a time was some of the most enjoyable times I had. I was getting paid the same either way. I'd roll down the windows, crank the music and sing out-loud to my heart's content. I put a smile on a few faces doing that. People thought I was crazy. If they only knew. :)
Good point. Nicholas Negroponte's One Laptop Per Child didn't fail on its own, however. It had help from M$ and M$' better half, Intel. They got in and messed with OLPC causing delays, barriers and overruns. Even in the most generous assessments, Intel had a serious conflict of interest because it was actively trying to sell a product of its own which competed directly with OLPC. The OLPC was suppose to be based on the AMD Geode and Intel couldn't have that.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
That's just pure boring. Isn't the whole point of such a car that you drive it yourself for your enjoyment?
If you want enjoyment buy a motorbike. Cars are for moving people and things from A to B.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
I can decide to go somewhere, jump in my truck and be at my destination in about 10 minutes most of the time.
With a decent bus service you could do the same, except you might have to walk a few hundred yards to a bus stop.
With the bus I have to pay attention to the time, wait for the bus out in the weather, take an extra hour of time getting to within a couple blocks of my destination, normally arrive there an hour early, etc..
That just means you've got a crappy bus service, it's nothing inherent in the idea of buses.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
I find driving incredibly relaxing.
Then, like most people, you're not doing it right.
Try riding a motorcycle for a while and see what happens if you don't concentrate 100% of the time.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
No. The point of a car is to get you from one place to another.
If "transport from point A to point B" was the sole use case for automobiles, the only model in existence would be the Ford Fiesta.
You may not believe or understand this, but some of us actually enjoy driving.
I enjoy driving. I also have to get to work. I do not enjoy commuting by car particularly, but there is no realistic public transport alternative where I live. If I had a Ford Fiesta or a Ferrari F12 it would make little difference to the enjoyment of my daily journey. A daily personal taxi (i.e. self-driven car with no taxi driver trying to talk about immigration) would be great. At least I could read there and back.
If I want a fun drive, I'll go out at the weekend or very early morning or something, not during rush hour.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
It may not have occurred to you, but people don't generally commute by car through traffic-clogged cities for the sake of it.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Roughly 15 years ago, when I was 22, I was working in Chicago as a consultant making $30 an hour, not salaried. Being stuck in traffic for a few hours at a time was some of the most enjoyable times I had. I was getting paid the same either way. I'd roll down the windows, crank the music and sing out-loud to my heart's content. I put a smile on a few faces doing that. People thought I was crazy. If they only knew. :)
I bet you're one of those "wearing seatbelts and having airbags means I could be trapped in my car upside down in a ditch with two broken arms and suffocate" guys.
Yes, there are exceptions to almost every rule. That's why they're outliers and don't apply to the vast majority of people.
People on slashdot often moan about mob rule and the tyranny of the majority, but seem to find it perfectly reasonable that their own special interests should be pandered to whatever happens.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
A Ford Fiesta is perfectly adequate unless you are grossly overweight or live somewhere where the roads aren't paved.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
My extensive research has proven that "Time Flies when you're having fun"... Ergo, there's a loveseat in the back.
As this is slashdot, I'm assuming it's solo?
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Agreed.
Why do I get the impression that none of the people posting that "driving is fun" actually have to drive? It's a week day, if they have to drive it's a fair bet that the last time they drove was this morning, to work. If they had fun doing that, well...
It's slashdot. Most of them are probably 17 and occasionally drive to their high school or to McDonalds when they're allowed to borrow their mom's Prius. Probably they're not commuting daily for 45 minutes each way stuck in traffic going 10 mph.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
A Ford Fiesta is perfectly adequate unless you are grossly overweight or live somewhere where the roads aren't paved.
Or if you live somewhere the roads aren't paved adequately, like most of California.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
...you might have to walk a few hundred yards to a bus stop.
You must live in Europe or a big US city.
The nearest bus stop to my house is 8.3 MILES from my house and it's then an additional 4.3 mile bus ride to the office. It's only 10.4 miles from my house to the office directly.
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
I find driving incredibly relaxing.
Then, like most people, you're not doing it right.
Try riding a motorcycle for a while and see what happens if you don't concentrate 100% of the time.
It's the need to concentrate that makes it relaxing.
It's like rock climbing. You have to focus on the immediacy of the moment. It relieves my overactive mind from cycling over emotionally charged thoughts and leaves me unable to return to them because I'll die if I do.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
If "transport from point A to point B" was the sole use case for automobiles, the only model in existence would be the Ford Fiesta.
Because the soccer mom who needs to drive her kids and their friends to practice, the farmer who needs to pick up a ton of supplies in town and drives on unpaved roads a lot of the time, or the courier who needs to distribute a bunch of parcels are all equally well served with a Ford Fiesta...
Who could possibly have a need for a Volkswagen Touran, Toyota Hilux or Citroën Berlingo other than to better connect to the road and fully experience the joy of driving? These cars are simply *made* for pleasure!
Install windows on my workstation? You crazy? Got any idea how much I paid for the damn thing?
With a decent bus service you could do the same, except you might have to walk a few hundred yards to a bus stop.
Even when I lived somewhere with half decent bus service(house was within half a block of the bus stop, and one came by every 1/2 hour most of the day), it was normally faster to bicycle where I wanted to go. It was like 10 miles to downtown, and on average I couldn't quite beat the bus. Note: I lived pretty much at the turn-around point for the route.
The bus service where I live now is much, much worse. Problem is, I don't see how there's any economical fix for it. The density just isn't there. Start running enough buses to get me taking it again and you'd be burning more fuel moving buses around than having the passengers just drive.
I don't read AC A human right
Right, because my screen name is ganjadude it must mean that im high 24/7 and drive stoned all the time. You must wear nothing but suade right jony??
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
I drive to and from work every day. While not the most exciting, having to dodge the large amount of idiots on the road keeps the ride from being boring.
Then there are the weekends and the few (remaining) curvy roads I can have some fun on while going to where I want.
So yes, I have to drive and for the most part, I do enjoy it. Now if everyone else would stop driving, it would be even more fun.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
It was a joke on driving high mostly derived from my own past experience as a stonner, sorry if I offended you.
Jehovah be praised, Oracle was not selected
no you didnt, I got the joke, I was just playing it back on your name as well ;)
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same