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Consumers Expect Their Cars To Become Mini Data Centers (networkworld.com)
coondoggie writes: Many consumers expect self-driving cars to become common in the not-too-distant future -- cars that diagnose problems without human intervention, cars that adapt to a particular driver's behaviors and react to its environment. Those are some of the conclusions from IBM's 'Auto 2025: A New Relationship – People and Cars' research involving 16,000 global consumers who were asked how they expect to use vehicles in the next ten years. IBM found consumers have the expectation that cars will soon communicate with other vehicles and infrastructure around them, integrating easily into a broader collection of traffic. More than a third of consumers said they'd be likely to allow collection of their driving data to support these services -- a notable figure, given that IBM is partnering with Ford to do exactly that.
in between my sandwich, o no, what do I do, *Lord Elrond*?
I don't want any data interaction with my car. I just want to drive from A to B.
I think consumers expect their cars to become Cell Phones or Tablets, not Mini Data Centers....
There are two types of people in the world; those who believe there are two types of people, and those who don't.
All I want in a car is
1- Get from point A to B without being exposed to external weather
2- The least number of point of failure (less gadget, the better)
3- Low cost of maintenance
4- A car that I'M DRIVING, and not some AI (Why ABS when I can only pump by brakes manually? Why rear camera when I can turn my head and look behind? And I can park myself ty!)
I'm the only one?
More than a third of consumers said they'd be likely to allow collection of their driving data to support these services.
I find myself surprised the percentage is not even greater, given that is the precise trade-off for joining the facebook or carrying a cellular phone.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
Does it save me a bunch of money on my car insurance?
Or, looking at it another way, Nearly two thirds would NOT be willing to allow this collection of data.
No I don't, I want my car to be a car. Nothing else.
I'm guessing most of those polled were not from rural areas. Most roads around here are gravel, maybe twisty, and always full of deer or cattle or horses or mountain lions. I'm sure I'm not typical - but I'm not alone either. How will these intelligent cars deal with roads that have changed (gravel and dirt roads more often do this) so that the connection to all that data is useless? Let alone the extra dangers from wildlife and livestock, and often times no 3G at all. Will a future self-driving car just suddenly give up when something like that happens? I have a hard time believing it will ever be up to that the task of self-driving in all the rural areas that comprise MOST of the country.
My newest car has over a dozen computers in it and it's almost twenty years old. Cars are already mini data centers. That they are not moving internet traffic around doesn't change that. PCM, TCM, ABS and climate control all regularly exchange data.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Adapt to what drivers behaviors? The car will be the driver!
Alternate reality summary:
"After asking a series of highly leading questions, IBM shockingly discovers that what it is planning to do is exactly what consumers want."
Consumers were assaulted with an endless stream of buzzwords, and a response inculding glazed eyes and/or drool were taken as indications of approval. A spokesman for IBM gushed "Phew! We didn't know if we knew what we were doing, but now we have discovered that we're right, we can push ahead with, um, what we were pushing ahead with. Go IBM!"
Consumers expect their car (or, rather, any random car they plunk their ass into) to become a peripheral for the mini data center they already carry in their pockets.
If auto manufacturers are coming up with a different answer, they're asking the wrong questions. Or, more likely, the questions intended to elicit the answer they want to hear.
Log in or piss off.
There are few things that get me more frustrated than this new push to have cars become mobile networks with local Wi-Fi and full cell service. Do we really need this?
And speaking of this has anyone else seen that infuriating Chevy Cruze commercial where that douche asks the kids which car is better: the one where they can watch steaming movies from their table or the one you can't. This just speaks volumes to out country's decline of attention spans, lust like addition to eye candy media and disconnected marketing who thinks this is a GREAT idea. No you don't get this option you spoiled little fucks!
I know keeping little Jimmy and Suzie quiet in the back seat is a nice goal but for "fuck sake" not everywhere do we need to be connected. Look outside the windows, talk to someone else, read a book or just sit there and DAYDREAM!!
I morn for our children..... And yes I know we, the adults, are the problem....
Tired of all this "everything must be connected". I have to reboot my entertainment system in my car couple of times a week because Bluetooth stop working, XMRadio is no more able to connect to satellite, ... And they want to let my car take decisions for me? No thanks! I simply need a car to go from A to B : 4 wheels, steering wheel, radio, ...
Will $CURRENT_YEAR be the year of the Linux Desktop?
It's generally a bad idea. This simply gives the manufacturers an ongoing revenue stream and provides them with information about people. Consumers really want small improvements, and in particular want a car that will last for more than a couple of years. How long does any electronic protocol last these days (just think of the rate of change for smartphones, both hardware and software)? And built into a car... My own Hyundai with the built-in iPod 2 connector is an example.
I would rather have the car manufacturers build cars that are better cars!
I've had this conversation about autonomous cars with about 15 people and every single one is against it, except one guy - ironically the only one who doesn't own a car.
At best, I can only see it being a feature like "super cruise control." I have a hard time seeing cars without steering wheels. Hell what about extenuating circumstances that require you to drive off road, or park at a concert? There are so many edge cases, it boggles the mind why so much money and time is being spent on a technology nobody wants!!!
And *I* want you not to crash in me/my car/bicycle/motor if *I* happen to be between your A and B.
Therefore, I want you car to be overstuffed with as much electronics as possible that can automatically break and avoid me in case you're distracted/busy texting/tired and not very concentrated/completely wasted, etc.
(That's why I'm happy that features like "CitySafety(tm)" and other such Forward Collision Avoidance Systems are becomming more common place. It used to be only on high end expensive cars like my father's Volvo, now it's even available on the cheapest VW Up! on my local car-sharing).
Driving is a dangerous activity. Driving causes way much more death than terrorism, illegal aliens, or any other of the bogeyman currently waved by the media.
Together with Cancer and Cardiovascular diseases, Driving is among the 3 leading causes of death. (Exact details vary depending on age. Youngs a more likely to die in a car crash, older are more likely to die of cancer or heartstroke).
I'm all for putting as much technology as possible to reduce risks of car crashes, and risks of me dying because I happened to be between your A and B point right at the moment you where distracted by the boobs on the model on some yogurt advertisement rather than paying attention in front of you.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Something pre-80s, that works entirely mechnically. Soon you will have to have a backup camera and all that other nonsense.
yeah everyone knows the new way to make phone calls, surf the web and turn on light switches is with smart trousers (smart pants for you americans).
All i have to do is lift my foot to my ear to take a call or make a switching like gesture with my ankle when i walk into a room to turn on the light... and most intuitive of all, i just have to roll around on the floor and flail my legs in the air wildly to surf the web.
I'm sure this is just the beginning, think of all the "smart" things that you can get technology to do for you... say you could gesture to open a door and it would open for you, or you could gesture to open a draw and it would open without you having to lift a finger, or gesture to take a shit and it would teleport your faeces from inside you (and possibly your guts) for you.... the possibilities are endless, welcome to the "smart world"
Oh I expect it alright. As in, I know it will happen.
But I don't want it to. I like my cars to be cars, not crashable databreaches. Which is what they'll be.
And none of us car-driving peasants want a completely computer-piloted vehicle when the same immoral uniformed bastards that forced a bunch of us into being their human shields are *also* lobbying for backdoor access into everything. Because forcing a bunch of us off the road, into poles or whoever they're chasing or want run down, without any risk to themselves personally (plenty to us) whenever they feel like - most especially if it could even potentially be blamed on driver error - is exactly the kind of thing they have wet-dreams about.
But I do expect it to happen. Because it would be a good thing if it didn't, and nobody with money or authority likes when good things happen to those they rule.
What could possibly go wrong? It won't take too long until we have millions of internet connected self-driving cars awaiting for commands..
I want my car to get me from point A to point B reliably and safely. Beyond that, it's nice if it has some form of GPS (mine doesn't) and the ability to make & receive phone calls (I can receive them, but making them is more trouble than it's worth). That's about the extent of the bells & whistles I want in my car.
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
Consumers Expect Their Cars To Become Mini Data Centers
So how did you phrase the question in order to get the response you wanted?
I also note that they used the word "expect" and not "want."
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
"Great, I was hoping to have at least ONE hand free to drive..."
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
In a utopia that neither you nor I exist, data and cars would be secure from hacking and bad design. Fly by wire is one thing. Abdicating all responsibility to a complex mechanism based closely on the IoT is a whole other thing.
I know plenty of people that commute into Manhattan to work. They get a lot of work done on the train in and out, so much so that some get paid to commute.
I'm thinking I should mount a hotspot in my car to solve the streaming problem and just do it for $10/month or so.
Uber clearly should be looking at self-driving cars as the solution to their most pressing problem - drivers.
And urban areas should see self-driving cars as a huge advantage, increasing the effective capacity of highways.Now we need electric only cars, rafting up, sharing power, so those longer commutes become simpler and cheaper, less polluting. this is a technology problem waiting to be solved and it will. Too late for me to patent that.
I, for one, welcome our self-driving overlords.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
So, they want their car to be like home appliances, which used to last 30 to 40 years, but now last only a year or two. Not because tha machinery breaks down. No, that is still good for at least 10 years. But the electronics which controls the machinery can't seem to survive in the harsh environment created by the machinery it operates, and gives up after a year or two. It can be fixed for only 99.8% of the price of a new unit.
So now we want cars that will brick themselves after a year or two, not because the engine went bad, or the transmission threw a gear, but because the mp3 player used all available memory and now there is not enough memory for the computer to check the systems to allow the starter to engage. Yes, that is exactly what consumers want. Well, not really, but that is exactly what consumers will be given, and there won't be any choice for a non-Smart car for those of us who recognize that we already have a device in our pocket that performs thousands of functions substandardly, but borderline adequately, and we would rather pay $400 for a phone to do the poor job than to pay $10k more for a vehicle to do a poor job of performing the same function.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
Why the hell are they talking to? not one person out there expects or wants this.
My cellphone does more than ANYTHING the car makers can come up with. What I want is the car to use fully open and well documented standards that my devices can easily pull information from.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
"Driving is a dangerous activity. Driving causes way much more death than terrorism blah blah liberal crap snipped.."
Perhaps we should ban cars and see how life goes for you on your pedal bike when doctors and nurses, emergency workers, police, people who work the shops, guys who fix the roads, drive the buses and trucks plus 1001 other assorted activities can't get to work. You see I know this doesn't fit your standard issue left wing drivers-are-evil argument, but unlike cancer, terrorists and "the bogeyman" (how old are you, 12?) driving is far more a force for good than bad. Just an FYI - check out how many people were trampled and killed by horses each year back before the internal combustion engine was invented.
There is already an option in my country to get lower cost insurance if you allow the insurance company to collect data on your driving skills - you plug in a device (I suspect it contains an accelerometer) and leave it in place for a while. I haven't taken that option (yet).
I think it could make a lot of sense to offer lower insurance rates to people who let the car do the driving - arguably the "I'm in charge of the driving" types might well be a higher risk :-).
Might well be a case in the future to restrict some roads to automated cars - perhaps a high-speed commuter route where the automated cars can run closer together in a smooth stream because they can cooperate better than human-driven cars.
A car used to be about independence, it was really the BIG first step in becoming and independent person from your parents, and was a symbol of individual freedom.
Independence comes in many forms. A car is merely one way to get it. It's a state of mind. Are kids in NYC somehow less independent just because they don't need a car to get around their city? I live near Detroit and people celebrate cars around here but it's more of a fetish than a practical necessity. Cars are transportation first and foremost. Any sense of independence you get from them is secondary and to a large degree perceptual.
My question is, are you really that scared? Are you that scared of your driving ability to avoid wrecks? Are you that worried about people around you?
No, No, Yes. But if you asked me about other people my answers would be different. Put my grandmother behind the wheel and the answers are Yes, Yes and Yes. And frankly you aren't scared because you are accustomed to how things work. The objective safety record of cars is rather bad and much of that is based in human error.
I want to be the one in control of my car. I like to drive.
That's nice but not really particularly important to society. I like to drive too but most of the time I wouldn't miss it, particularly when commuting. Much of the time driving is merely a waste of time and not much fun. You might be a great driver and you might like to drive but the objective evidence is clear. Lots of people are NOT good drivers. Lots of people who are generally good drivers make mistakes while driving. Tens of thousands of people die in auto accidents each year and many of these are possibly avoidable with automation. Furthermore we waste vast numbers of hours driving that could be put to better use. Your desire to have some fun driving a car is understandable but there will be ways to maintain that in the future.
I like to be in control. I like to have a car that stops as well as it accelerates and handles. I don't want a computer intervening in my driving.
Really? The plain fact of the matter is that without computer assistance your ability to control the vehicle is limited, particularly in difficult corner cases. In the right conditions you WILL stop faster with ABS brakes than without. In the right conditions you WILL accelerate better with traction control than without. Etc. With a well designed computer assistance you will be a measurably better and safer driver. I love computer controls in cars that help me drive better and I love them even more in other people's cars so they don't crash and hurt anyone.
Think of it this way. Fighter jets are computer controlled but nobody complains about the computer interfering with the pilot's control.
What people want is different from what the industry wants.
The industry wants to expand, hence the push for a lot of crap being put in the dashboard, as if anyone wants to use Windows when driving.
But now the automotive market has been identified as non-saturated with IT crap, so the industry will fill this niche.
A consumer which is ready to splash over 10K on a car is much more likely to accept to spend a few hundred extra for the in-car entertainment system, which is esentially a tablet, while one looking for a stand-alone tablet may not accept to pay more than about 100 (in USD/GBP/EUR).
That is the main reason NVidia has directed its Tegra at the automotive market instead of standalone tablets. It is only a matter of consumer perception, and a lot more money can be taken from the final purchaser if the tablet is bundled with a much more expensive purchase.
...This is exactly why I ride a motorcycle. No extraneous bullshit distractions. I will admit, it's EASY to pick out the drivers who desperately need this kind of tech in their rides. It's also disturbing at how many of them there actually are.
In my area, they can't build a highway in 20 years, how in the world will they build a "intelligent" one in 10? The cost of upgrading all the roads and cars in the US to this new V2V driverless world will be in the quintillions. Why not just go with the Jetsons prediction and we will all be in flying autonomous cars with a robotic maid for our every whim by 2025? Saves the cost of all that road buildout.
I do not belive the poster's position is "drivers-are-evil" or against cars. He probably just wants a reasonable development for future cars. Cramming the cars full of useless, ancilliary toy electronics is probably detrimental to both road safety and the utility of the vehicle. Replacing simple, well-working mechanical systems with electronic ones with no backup or safe failure state is stupid. And most drivers overestimate their ability to safely handle their vehicles. But on the other hand, most drivers are way, way better at cooperating on the roads than cyclists or pedestrians. My biggest gripe with cars and/or traffic is the noise and pollution. Electric cars and smart grids will probably go a long way to mitigate that. I just hope that the future cars will not be full of anti-consumer bullshit designed to make the them more expensive to own and service.
"Driving is a dangerous activity. Driving causes way much more death than terrorism blah blah liberal crap snipped.."
Perhaps, you shouldn't have snipped all the liberal crap, because you missed parts such as :
Therefore, I want you car to be overstuffed with as much electronics as possible
or
I'm all for putting as much technology as possible to reduce risks of car crashes
or even the begining :
And *I* want you not to crash in me/my car/bicycle/motor
2 out of the 4 transportation mean I've cited are powered by internal combustion engines. (Well, partly. The car sharing service I get my cars from also feature Renault's Zoé electric cars. But they are all *motorised* transportation whatever the motor).
Thus...
Perhaps we should ban cars and see how life goes for you on your pedal bike when...
I've never advocated banning cars (nor motors, btw, the other powered transportation I've cited).
My point is simply that driving is among the most dangerous activity that we take day to day, one of the three main causes of deaths,
therefore I AM ALL FOR MORE ELECTRONICS inside cars (you know: the topic of the current fucking article),
and unlike the parent poster who simply wants to get from point A to B (as simply as possible, no need to have twiter and facebook connected to a SmartCar),
I want him to get from point A to B *AS SAFELY AS POSSIBLE*, without killing me in the process (thus I DO WANT all the possible electronics that can improve safety on the road).
driving is far more a force for good than bad.
Yes, that's why I'm not advocating banning cars, I'm advocating making them safer by stuffing as much electronics as possible inside, to give the capability to cars to break in case of emergency, etc.
Just an FYI - check out how many people were trampled and killed by horses each year back before the internal combustion engine was invented.
(Technically: Steam, Electric, and ICE)
Yes, cars are a tiny bit safer than horses. But that doesn't mean we have to be happy with that and stop at this step.
Cars are also much more driven arround than horses (among other reason, simply because nowadays many more people own cars, than used to own horses carriage back then), thus accident are bound to happen.
That's why focusing on improving safety is important and will always have much more positive result than, e.g.: all the security circus following terrorism fears, or all the paranoia about Ebola.
Up until recently, most safety improvement where about increasing the likelihood of surviving *after* a crash:
- Safety belts
- Air bags
etc.
Now with modern electronics, you can avoid the crash to happen at all:
- Forward Collision Warning Systems
- Autonomous breaking to avoid collision
- Lane Departure Warning Systems
etc.
Future development give us even more ways to avoid crashes.
(Autonomous cars, be it either full driverless cars by big name like Google and smaller startups like Best mile
or autopilote on regular cars like InfiniQ, Tesla, Mercedes, etc.)
I'm all for it and thus I think that not all inboard electronics is useless shit like Twitter from the wheel,
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
I get the hype over cars that can tell you what's wrong or that may be able to self drive. However, until all cars are self-driving and no human can thwart the system, I'll take my chances doing my own driving. In addition, I don't care how often the car tells me it's time for brakes or tires or whatever, until I actually drive the thing into the service department and shell out the cash to repair it, it does nobody any good. That's what's scary. How long before the car shuts itself down or the government mandates repair rules and demands everyone upload their telemetry to the DMV for safety inspections? No, I'll stick with my mid 70's cracker box with points and condenser for an ignition and no connectivity plug.
The term "data center" has a fairly specific meaning. If the TFA used that term in referring to all the gee-whiz things that one might want in their cars technology suite, the author should have his tech reporter credentials revoked.
I expect my car to go where I drive it. Primary expectation.
Beyond that, I'd like things that make that experience easier and more pleasurable. Climate control, some sort of audio entertainment capability, GPS is nice, and while we're at it... heated seats.
And for the record, totally happy with the radio/GPS etc functionality being provided by my smartphone which can be bluetooth slaved into the car.
Beyond that... I really don't want them to do anything to the car.
I don't like self driving cars because I know how computers work and I know they make mistakes and are frequently stupid... and that could get awkward when the system plows into a wendy's because it's SURE that that is the way to the grocery store.
I also don't really have a problem with driving long distances. Does not phase me. I throw on something to listen to and I'm gravy.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
I already have a car that can self diagnose. It just has a problem telling me what's wrong I get this check engine light what's wrong chevvy? Is the gas cap loose? "purrr" Has one of the spark plugs gone bad? "purrr" Is one of the half dozen filters clogged? "purrr" is there a pressure leak in the fuel system? "purrr" Does the oil need to be changed? "purrr" Has timmy's fallen down a well? "purrr"
I suppose I will have to take it back to the parts store again and have them hook up their $2000 code reader and check it.
*10 minutes later.
Well would you look at that P0442 small evap system leak. Now i've replaced the gas cap and still have that code. Where's the leak chevvy? "purrr".............Yeah that's really helpful.
How about one that can tell you what's wrong instead of just throwing a generic check engine light for everything. That would be one hell of an improvement.
Minimum threshold fixed. Thanks!
I guess I'm not a consumer. I'm okay with that.
I don't want a smart car. I want ONE smart device that rules my car, my house, my friends... I do not want to learn and master five ecosystems. My life is already complicated enough.
Also, IBM found a false dichotomy in its "developing vs mature country" division. Actually it should be "drives a car vs doesn't drive a car". Anyone who already drives doesn't want a perpetual argument between car and phone and smart street signage and home server.
This is the problem with Apple Play now. My car offers maps. So does my phone. My car offers live data feeds and situational apps. So does my phone. Do I really want a greater barrage of constantly updating competing data sources from more apps, not just from my phone, but now also from my car? And from friends & family?
Nobody who drives a car every day in real world traffic would want this. Only someone who lives in a poor country and *doesn't* drive could think this is a good idea. IBM: don't drink Watson's Kool Aid.
Your car is not a lifestyle, it is transportation. You keep adding shit to cars that distract the driver from driving more and more and more, and you all wonder why some people are such poor drivers? Get all this crap out of your cars and just drive!
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
I'm just waiting for the outbreak of self-driving cars, delivering explosive payloads and not making martyrs.
Automobile manufacturers use In Vehicle Infocenters (IVI)s as means to obsolete otherwise good vehicles. Just like the audio industry does. You want MP3 playback on your radio ? Too bad you can't update it, but it comes standard in our new model.
This is BS. What consumers really want is a standard interface to the vehicle so that we can put whatever system we want in our vehicles. THAT would be progress.
It doesn't matter what IBM puts in a vehicle, it is going to be outdated in 5 years. Would you buy a house with a built in computer that could never be upgraded ? Unlikely. Why do we do it with vehicles ? It is stupid !
It is only going to get worse with the self driving cars. Way worse. Cars have become (un upgradable) computers on wheels.
I don't give a flying fuck what you want. I will not trust my life to a bunch of computer programmers and lying car manufacturers. No fucking way.
You have no idea how happy it makes me to know that no one will ever be able to make me buy/use one of those fucking death traps.
FUCKING EVER!!!!
It's the sharing of the data that I have a problem with. Getting the data to avoid collisions or using the GPS to map out my route is great. But I don't want that going to the car manufacturer, whoever made the OS for the car's main computer, or the maker of the on-board entertainment system and whoever they decide to share or sell it to.
GP didn't seem to be advocating getting rid of cars.
Indeed, my initial idea is to supplement the human driver with as much assisting technology as possible to lower as much as possible the car crash fatalities.
And to a lot of people, nothing of value would be lost. The benefit of being able to drive your car manually is outweighed by the hassle and danger of having to drive your car manually. {...} The people {...} need to realize that people who don't like to or are unable to drive need the new tech.
Some people might enjoy staring at the taillights of the car in front of them for an hour a day. I don't, and I'd rather be able to let my car do the driving while I do other things.
That's also Google's own experience when they tried to scale-up their tests:
- They let some of their employee (outside the professionnal car-tester, I mean) test a first batch of autonomous cars. Not the cute golf-carts-like with no wheel. The regular-cars-augmented-with-assistive-electronics.
- They wanted people to test the cars, carefully monitor and report anything useful.
- Instead, at their horror, most people took the opportunity to do other things while the car was driving on its own : reading, texting, polishing nails, napping...
Apparently most people hate spending time driving and jump at the first opportunity not to.
Hence the whole "Skip the assistive technology, go straight for the wheel-less /driver-less option" new approach, that was also featured on /.
So yeah, most of the drivers would actually seem happy not to need to drive and watch the road.
Problem: horses are much higher maintenance than cars and slower by modern transportation standard. And your country seem to have forgotten to build a reliable public transportation network as several European country here around have. (Gotta love trains in CH).
So putting an AI and sensors in cars to replace the driver is the next best thing to avoid being bored while commuting.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
The word you wanted was "brake" but you accidentally used a far more appropriate word.
I know people who have drawers full of old cell phones they can no longer use because software. My 1959 Westinghouse rotary works fine, though - I used a paper clip to convert it from 4-wire to 2-wire operation, and it's been in continuous daily use since the 1960s, in half a dozen locations as I've moved from place to place.
Modern society often seems to be all about letting the most frightened and easily offended people decide what inconveniences are reasonable to inflict on others. I wonder how that's going to work out, long term... I'm just not scared of letting other people drive, frankly. We all die, it's the Gift of Man, and some of us will die in cars. I got over that before I applied for a driver's license.
If US continues to make progress with nuclear weapons, why is it that we are leading the effort to impose banning other countries to develop nuclear anything as well as a comprehensive test ban treaty? I don't understand how that works.
Consumers expect nothing of the sort. How many "Consu-MOOO-ers" even have a phucking concept of what the hell a data center is? Yeah.
This is big brother propaganda, yet again, from silicon valley technohustlers trying to use fallacious social proof as some sort of mass jedi mind trick to convince us all to give up private control of autos and just let them own the cars and own the data and have absolute power!! Well, phuck that noise.
You making more money than you need to live is not particularly important to society either
What does a feeling of independence have to do with actually making cash? You or I making more money absolutely is important to society. It employs more people, it results in more taxes and raises all boats. The fact that people some people feel a bit of independence by getting a car is nice but doesn't matter nearly as much as the economic utility they achieve with one.
Actually, no. Many people can stop a car faster than relying on ABS alone will.
That's simply not true unless you are talking about specific conditions. I'm an automotive engineer. I work with this stuff. UNDER THE RIGHT CONDITIONS (those are important words) ABS will stop you faster. It's not a matter of opinion. It's a demonstrated fact. Car companies didn't put that technology into cars because it performs worse. People cannot pump the brakes faster than ABS. Any situation where pumping the brakes would be helpful you will stop faster with ABS. There are cases where ABS isn't helpful but you can find corner cases for pretty much any technology. The net result however is not in dispute. Other safety technologies are similar.
Anyone who can keep the tires at the limit of traction can easily stop faster than this.
A specious argument. You are talking about a razor edge there under a different set of conditions with a fairly small percentage of the driving population. Fact is that most people are not professional drivers (or even close to it) and they certainly aren't good keeping the tires at the limit of traction nor do they want to. I understand the appeal of wanting a car you can drive right to the edge (I own a sports car for a reason) but asking most drivers to do that is a recipe for thousands of needless deaths a year. We put technologies like ABS on cars to keep people away from the limit of traction because most people demonstrably cannot handle it.
It is hard to argue when you put "in the right conditions" as a preface to your remark...
That's why it is there. ANYTHING in automotive engineering is condition dependent. ABS isn't useful in every case - it is useful in corner cases. That's also why it doesn't kick on most of the time. You can find some even narrower corner cases where ABS degrades performance but there are a lot fewer of those.
In summary, the guy you are responding to loves his high quality, well tuned, and very sharp tools. In summary to the summary, you are not an artisan and could care less about the tool that you have to use and want lots of safeguards built in... and wanting to require such things of people who are masters at using the tool. Because society.
Wow, you have awfully detailed opinions about someone you know nothing about. The guy I'm responding to has an outdated notion of "controlling his car" which the facts suggest is almost certainly more perception than probable fact. I have owned a number of very fast sporty cars and I like driving them fast but I have no illusion about control, or independence or driving talent. I care very much about my "tools" and I want the very best ones available which means getting something that improves my ability to handle them. If you want to pretend that you are such a talented driver that you don't ever need the technologies baked into cars these days please tell me which Formula 1 team you drive for.
We're talking about the general public. Asking/allowing them to driver cars too close to their performance envelope is simply dumb most of the time. People die because of that every day needlessly. If you want to blather on about artisans and other nonsense, fine but my point stands. Just because you like risking your life (for art?) doesn't mean you should have the right to risk mine on a public road. Cars are transportation first and foremost. Whatever else they represent is a second order effect. If I have to sacrifice a bit of my own driving pleasure so that we can save a few thousand lives then so be it.
"The Machine Stops" by E.M Forster, ( http://archive.ncsa.illinois.e...), and "The Revolt of the Pedestrians" by David H. Keller. Extreme scenarios to be sure, but entertaining reading, and entirely relevant to the current discussion.
'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.