by liberal japonicus
The previous post was an invitation to talk about history and society. However, I found this article quite interesting and thought it might spark some interesting thoughts
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(21)00333-9/fulltext
Medicine could arguably be described as man’s greatest achievement beating out other fields of endeavor because it must have been a lot harder to present new theories because the old ones were so tied to our physical state. It also might be our greatest achievement because we can do so much despite knowing so little. Sending one object to meet another one to a point precisely in space and time is all a question of having the right math, medicine is still full of blind spots and things we have no idea about, yet we stumble along.
But the opinion piece above reminds us of those blind spots, and that our ability to do some things is predicated on ignoring other things is a rather systematic way. Which linked it to this piece
https://aeon.co/essays/africas-ancient-scripts-counter-european-ideas-of-literacy
As the example of Bourdieu shows, even the most intellectually committed, even the smartest – perhaps especially the smartest – of us can all too easily overlook the script of those lives, the language that might remain hidden for too long.
There was a period of time in Europe and America that the wealthy had a shorter life expectancy than the poor due to something they had. George Washington and the wealthy of his time were near the end of that period. What they had were doctors.
There was a period of time in Europe and America that the wealthy had a shorter life expectancy than the poor due to something they had. George Washington and the wealthy of his time were near the end of that period. What they had were doctors.
Thank god they didn’t do the libertarian thing and argue that we didn’t need them.
Thank god they didn’t do the libertarian thing and argue that we didn’t need them.
I’m not sure the two things are the same, though they may once have been.
While it’s true that doctors have a strong tendency to be conservative, and not recognise what they have not been taught to recognise, I don’t think that adequately characterises medical research any longer.
The explosion in information, and the means of multiplying that information, forces researchers to confront their areas of ignorance, and begin to chart ways through the thickets.
I’m not sure the two things are the same, though they may once have been.
While it’s true that doctors have a strong tendency to be conservative, and not recognise what they have not been taught to recognise, I don’t think that adequately characterises medical research any longer.
The explosion in information, and the means of multiplying that information, forces researchers to confront their areas of ignorance, and begin to chart ways through the thickets.
Though is there a gulf between practitioners of medicine and researchers?
Also, I realize that this was 30 years ago, but this story always stuck with me
https://www.discovermagazine.com/health/the-doctor-who-drank-infectious-broth-gave-himself-an-ulcer-and-solved-a-medical-mystery
I presented that work at the annual meeting of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians in Perth. That was my first experience of people being totally skeptical. To gastroenterologists, the concept of a germ causing ulcers was like saying that the Earth is flat. After that I realized my paper was going to have difficulty being accepted. You think, “It’s science; it’s got to be accepted.” But it’s not an absolute given. The idea was too weird.
His Nobel lecture is also interesting
https://www.nobelprize.org/uploads/2018/06/marshall-lecture.pdf
Though is there a gulf between practitioners of medicine and researchers?
Also, I realize that this was 30 years ago, but this story always stuck with me
https://www.discovermagazine.com/health/the-doctor-who-drank-infectious-broth-gave-himself-an-ulcer-and-solved-a-medical-mystery
I presented that work at the annual meeting of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians in Perth. That was my first experience of people being totally skeptical. To gastroenterologists, the concept of a germ causing ulcers was like saying that the Earth is flat. After that I realized my paper was going to have difficulty being accepted. You think, “It’s science; it’s got to be accepted.” But it’s not an absolute given. The idea was too weird.
His Nobel lecture is also interesting
https://www.nobelprize.org/uploads/2018/06/marshall-lecture.pdf
You think, “It’s science; it’s got to be accepted.” But it’s not an absolute given.
Actually, the way science works is that, if you present a new idea, even including evidence to support it, other people go out and do their test. To verify your results. And to see if other implications of your idea pan out.
Just acceptance, on first hearing, rarely if ever happens. Especially if you are breaking new ground, or challenging existing theories.
You think, “It’s science; it’s got to be accepted.” But it’s not an absolute given.
Actually, the way science works is that, if you present a new idea, even including evidence to support it, other people go out and do their test. To verify your results. And to see if other implications of your idea pan out.
Just acceptance, on first hearing, rarely if ever happens. Especially if you are breaking new ground, or challenging existing theories.
If you dive into the above example, there was no testing, there was no consideration of evidence, there was no seeing if the implications of the proposal would pan out. That’s why he had to use himself as a guinea pig.
If you dive into the above example, there was no testing, there was no consideration of evidence, there was no seeing if the implications of the proposal would pan out. That’s why he had to use himself as a guinea pig.
Well, himself as guinea pig does provide some evidence. Not a lot, certainly. But he wasn’t just proposing a theory with zero evidence to support his idea.
Well, himself as guinea pig does provide some evidence. Not a lot, certainly. But he wasn’t just proposing a theory with zero evidence to support his idea.
What they had were doctors.
I’m sceptical about that. In the UK, the life expectancy of ducal families overtook that of the general populace from about 1700.
What changed for the wealthy? Sanitation and smallpox innoculation. Added to that, 18th century nobility was (I’m guessing) much less likely to be killed in battle or executed for being in the wrong political faction.
Plus there was a lot of turnover in the nobility in the 17th and early 18th century. The newly created Dukes were to some extent chosen on merit (excluding Charles II’s illegitimate sons, but he will have chosen their mothers for some sort of merit) and therefore will have been less likely to get themselves killed through stupidity.
What they had were doctors.
I’m sceptical about that. In the UK, the life expectancy of ducal families overtook that of the general populace from about 1700.
What changed for the wealthy? Sanitation and smallpox innoculation. Added to that, 18th century nobility was (I’m guessing) much less likely to be killed in battle or executed for being in the wrong political faction.
Plus there was a lot of turnover in the nobility in the 17th and early 18th century. The newly created Dukes were to some extent chosen on merit (excluding Charles II’s illegitimate sons, but he will have chosen their mothers for some sort of merit) and therefore will have been less likely to get themselves killed through stupidity.
one of my friends who got the virus last year now has the long Covid thing. brain fog, fatigue. he mostly just tries to push through it.
it’s a nasty virus.
What they had were doctors.
leaving aside the knee-jerk libertarian nature of this comment, I will say that given the quality and sophistication of medical practice of the time, I find it believable that no doctor might have yielded better outcomes than doctor.
simple diet and physical activity might also have been a factor.
What changed for the wealthy? Sanitation and smallpox innoculation.
As a historical aside, there’s a small island just offshore of where I live that served as a smallpox clinic in the late 18th C.
Folks in town were disturbed by its presence, and also angry that most of the people being treated were wealthy.
So they burned it down.
In fairness to them, the idea that making you a little bit sick to keep you from getting really sick is somewhat counter-intuitive. Seems natural to us now, but maybe kind of weird and frightening at the time.
Hostility to public health measures, for a variety of reasons, has a long history.
one of my friends who got the virus last year now has the long Covid thing. brain fog, fatigue. he mostly just tries to push through it.
it’s a nasty virus.
What they had were doctors.
leaving aside the knee-jerk libertarian nature of this comment, I will say that given the quality and sophistication of medical practice of the time, I find it believable that no doctor might have yielded better outcomes than doctor.
simple diet and physical activity might also have been a factor.
What changed for the wealthy? Sanitation and smallpox innoculation.
As a historical aside, there’s a small island just offshore of where I live that served as a smallpox clinic in the late 18th C.
Folks in town were disturbed by its presence, and also angry that most of the people being treated were wealthy.
So they burned it down.
In fairness to them, the idea that making you a little bit sick to keep you from getting really sick is somewhat counter-intuitive. Seems natural to us now, but maybe kind of weird and frightening at the time.
Hostility to public health measures, for a variety of reasons, has a long history.
leaving aside the knee-jerk libertarian nature of this comment,
What’s libertarian about it? It’s just that wealth afforded people something that, at the time, could be counterproductive to their wellbeing. As in an earlier age, they could afford lead and pewter containers for their wine and other foods.
leaving aside the knee-jerk libertarian nature of this comment,
What’s libertarian about it? It’s just that wealth afforded people something that, at the time, could be counterproductive to their wellbeing. As in an earlier age, they could afford lead and pewter containers for their wine and other foods.
What’s libertarian about it?
a good question.
what prompted my comment was the combination of contrarian / counter-intuitive assertion, without any expansion of the argument.
just “they had doctors, that’s why they didn’t live as long”.
so maybe less libertarian and more knee-jerk contrarian.
apologies if I’m being unfair.
What’s libertarian about it?
a good question.
what prompted my comment was the combination of contrarian / counter-intuitive assertion, without any expansion of the argument.
just “they had doctors, that’s why they didn’t live as long”.
so maybe less libertarian and more knee-jerk contrarian.
apologies if I’m being unfair.
I think Charles’ point was that people later on had doctors, starting around the time George Washington was alive, which was when the wealthy started living longer than the poor. Before that, the wealthy had goods that were detrimental to their health – things the poor couldn’t afford.
I’m not endorsing it or arguing against it. I’m just putting forth my understanding of it.
I think Charles’ point was that people later on had doctors, starting around the time George Washington was alive, which was when the wealthy started living longer than the poor. Before that, the wealthy had goods that were detrimental to their health – things the poor couldn’t afford.
I’m not endorsing it or arguing against it. I’m just putting forth my understanding of it.
Along a similar line to Charles’, I recall several years ago that studies of Americans’ diets revealed that wealthier people’s diets had gotten better while poorer people’s diets had gotten worse. There was a time when wealthier people could afford a diet consisting of fattier meats and such (I tend to think of foods with lots of gravy), while poorer people had to eat cheaper foods like beans, which were healthier.
Now that the cheaper foods are processed and less healthy, that’s what poorer people eat, while wealthier people can afford things like organic vegetables and pastured meat (I tend to think of sushi).
This would be a more recent phenomenon than care from doctors becoming a worthwhile resource, but the dynamic is similar.
Along a similar line to Charles’, I recall several years ago that studies of Americans’ diets revealed that wealthier people’s diets had gotten better while poorer people’s diets had gotten worse. There was a time when wealthier people could afford a diet consisting of fattier meats and such (I tend to think of foods with lots of gravy), while poorer people had to eat cheaper foods like beans, which were healthier.
Now that the cheaper foods are processed and less healthy, that’s what poorer people eat, while wealthier people can afford things like organic vegetables and pastured meat (I tend to think of sushi).
This would be a more recent phenomenon than care from doctors becoming a worthwhile resource, but the dynamic is similar.
I need to stop repeating things I hear in interviews and discussions. Or, at least, varify in written form before repeating. In an interview, someone asserted that until about the nineteenth century a reason for the wealthy having worse life expectancy than the general population was their access to the medical practices of the period. I’m having trouble explicitly verifying that. It’s generally believed that Washington would have lived longer if he had kept his doctors at bay.
In the UK, the life expectancy of ducal families overtook that of the general populace from about 1700.
Life expectancy for the English population and for ducal families
I need to stop repeating things I hear in interviews and discussions. Or, at least, varify in written form before repeating. In an interview, someone asserted that until about the nineteenth century a reason for the wealthy having worse life expectancy than the general population was their access to the medical practices of the period. I’m having trouble explicitly verifying that. It’s generally believed that Washington would have lived longer if he had kept his doctors at bay.
In the UK, the life expectancy of ducal families overtook that of the general populace from about 1700.
Life expectancy for the English population and for ducal families
Okay. So never mind.
Okay. So never mind.
No worries, Charles.
My comment was unnecessarily sharp and dismissive. We all post things here off the cuff from time to time. Please accept my apologies.
No worries, Charles.
My comment was unnecessarily sharp and dismissive. We all post things here off the cuff from time to time. Please accept my apologies.
Let’s not forget sugar (at Elizabethan times even put into the then equivalent of toothpaste). In olden times the main problems with teeth were abrasions from grit (from the millstones used to grind the grain). The real problems started when sugar became available in large quantities first for the rich then for everyone (still Hollywood medieval peasants tend to have ahistorical bad teeth as a general rule). Even earlier switching from hunting and gathering to agriculture led to a diet with more calories but lower nutritional value, so more food security but lower quality (of food and health). In the 19th century common people in the country had a generally healthier diet than those in the (big) cities but it was (I presume) also easier to starve in the country due to poverty and lack of charity than in the big cities (despite the more squalid living conditions there).
So, I think there is not one general valid answer.
Closer to the present time: I guess there were more rich victims of food and cosmetic items laced with radium (not to be confused with the plutonium laced milk the US government later used to experiment on unwitting children). That stuff was expensive and marketed as a boost for health.
Let’s not forget sugar (at Elizabethan times even put into the then equivalent of toothpaste). In olden times the main problems with teeth were abrasions from grit (from the millstones used to grind the grain). The real problems started when sugar became available in large quantities first for the rich then for everyone (still Hollywood medieval peasants tend to have ahistorical bad teeth as a general rule). Even earlier switching from hunting and gathering to agriculture led to a diet with more calories but lower nutritional value, so more food security but lower quality (of food and health). In the 19th century common people in the country had a generally healthier diet than those in the (big) cities but it was (I presume) also easier to starve in the country due to poverty and lack of charity than in the big cities (despite the more squalid living conditions there).
So, I think there is not one general valid answer.
Closer to the present time: I guess there were more rich victims of food and cosmetic items laced with radium (not to be confused with the plutonium laced milk the US government later used to experiment on unwitting children). That stuff was expensive and marketed as a boost for health.
Every day a banquet…
“There is little doubt that the British aristocrats got more to eat than did the common people; courtiers of Henry VIII at Hampton Court consumed 4,500 to 5,000 calories a day in the sixteenth century, and the king himself eventually became so obese that he could not move without assistance. Henry was not alone, and in some other European courts, people consumed even more. Yet more food—or at least more food of the kind that the aristocrats consumed—did nothing to protect against the bacteria and viruses that brought plague and smallpox, or from the poor sanitation that did away with their children. So the comparison with the peerage suggests that, in England from 1550 to 1750, it was disease, not lack of nutrition, that set the limits to life expectancy. Of course, disease and undernutrition compound one another—it is hard to digest food when you are sick—but there is no evidence that the consistently high nutrition levels of the aristocracy protected them or their children against the infectious diseases of the day.”
Life and Death in the Enlightenmen: page 3 (83)
Every day a banquet…
“There is little doubt that the British aristocrats got more to eat than did the common people; courtiers of Henry VIII at Hampton Court consumed 4,500 to 5,000 calories a day in the sixteenth century, and the king himself eventually became so obese that he could not move without assistance. Henry was not alone, and in some other European courts, people consumed even more. Yet more food—or at least more food of the kind that the aristocrats consumed—did nothing to protect against the bacteria and viruses that brought plague and smallpox, or from the poor sanitation that did away with their children. So the comparison with the peerage suggests that, in England from 1550 to 1750, it was disease, not lack of nutrition, that set the limits to life expectancy. Of course, disease and undernutrition compound one another—it is hard to digest food when you are sick—but there is no evidence that the consistently high nutrition levels of the aristocracy protected them or their children against the infectious diseases of the day.”
Life and Death in the Enlightenmen: page 3 (83)
Charles’ excerpt there is from:
https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691153544/the-great-escape
Charles’ excerpt there is from:
https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691153544/the-great-escape
Off topic, but I thought russell might like this.
https://tedgioia.substack.com/p/the-most-musical-man-in-the-world?
Off topic, but I thought russell might like this.
https://tedgioia.substack.com/p/the-most-musical-man-in-the-world?
Regarding the explosion in information, this is the kind of thing I was talking about:
https://nanoporetech.com/products
A kit that weighs about a pound that you can plug into a laptop, and you have your own mobile gene sequencing lab.
Regarding the explosion in information, this is the kind of thing I was talking about:
https://nanoporetech.com/products
A kit that weighs about a pound that you can plug into a laptop, and you have your own mobile gene sequencing lab.
So, how long will it be before there are DNA sniffers at airports and other public venues?
And what will the anti-vaxxers do if the powers-that-be decide to release contagious vaccines?
So, how long will it be before there are DNA sniffers at airports and other public venues?
And what will the anti-vaxxers do if the powers-that-be decide to release contagious vaccines?
Morning all, I got the ball rolling on Charles’ comment, so I should apologize as well, my take was the same as Russell’s, which is why I wrote what I did. Though I did want to explain a bit more.
I feel like there is a pretty big audience for these sorts of contrarian takes, so you have Levitt’s Freakonomics and Gladwell’s Blink among others. They aren’t bad books, but the underlying notion is ‘I’m really smart because I disagree with the wisdom of the masses’ and the entire book becomes a tortured attempt to prove how smart the person is (that it always seems to be a guy may also tell you something)
The logic and arguments are seductive, they aim to make the reader feel like they can be smart too by adopting similar patterns. I react to them strongly because I can feel myself being pulled in.
And, if you think about it, I feel like there is a deeper intuition to draw from the example of the rich living shorter lifespans than the poor. It’s that when fashion drives health, you can often get poor outcomes. This isn’t to suggest that some government agency needs to shape fashion, but if someone were to use that as an argument for libertarian thinking, I’d suggest that if you take another step back, you’d see that it is the complete opposite.
But to circle back, I apologize for starting the ball rolling on that and I’ll try to rein it in a bit.
Morning all, I got the ball rolling on Charles’ comment, so I should apologize as well, my take was the same as Russell’s, which is why I wrote what I did. Though I did want to explain a bit more.
I feel like there is a pretty big audience for these sorts of contrarian takes, so you have Levitt’s Freakonomics and Gladwell’s Blink among others. They aren’t bad books, but the underlying notion is ‘I’m really smart because I disagree with the wisdom of the masses’ and the entire book becomes a tortured attempt to prove how smart the person is (that it always seems to be a guy may also tell you something)
The logic and arguments are seductive, they aim to make the reader feel like they can be smart too by adopting similar patterns. I react to them strongly because I can feel myself being pulled in.
And, if you think about it, I feel like there is a deeper intuition to draw from the example of the rich living shorter lifespans than the poor. It’s that when fashion drives health, you can often get poor outcomes. This isn’t to suggest that some government agency needs to shape fashion, but if someone were to use that as an argument for libertarian thinking, I’d suggest that if you take another step back, you’d see that it is the complete opposite.
But to circle back, I apologize for starting the ball rolling on that and I’ll try to rein it in a bit.
And what will the anti-vaxxers do if the powers-that-be decide to release contagious vaccines?
Embrace a (probably totally ineffective; but expensive) vaccine against vaccines.
And what will the anti-vaxxers do if the powers-that-be decide to release contagious vaccines?
Embrace a (probably totally ineffective; but expensive) vaccine against vaccines.
“Embrace a (probably totally ineffective; but expensive) vaccine against vaccines.”
There’s always the homeopathic vaccine-against-vaccine, but make sure you don’t overdose by injecting pure distilled water.
(BTW, does everyone know how insanely difficult it is to get *very* *very* *pure* water? The closest chemical analog to H2O is HF: it want to dissolve *everything*)
“Embrace a (probably totally ineffective; but expensive) vaccine against vaccines.”
There’s always the homeopathic vaccine-against-vaccine, but make sure you don’t overdose by injecting pure distilled water.
(BTW, does everyone know how insanely difficult it is to get *very* *very* *pure* water? The closest chemical analog to H2O is HF: it want to dissolve *everything*)
I thought russell might like this.
Thank you for sharing that Nigel!
Pascoal is just an amazing inexplicable phenomenon. He contains multitudes.
Brazil is an amazing stewpot of musical traditions and influences. Cuba is deep, America is wide, Brazil is inexhaustible. Pascoal kind of owns it all.
I thought russell might like this.
Thank you for sharing that Nigel!
Pascoal is just an amazing inexplicable phenomenon. He contains multitudes.
Brazil is an amazing stewpot of musical traditions and influences. Cuba is deep, America is wide, Brazil is inexhaustible. Pascoal kind of owns it all.
Thanks for the tip, the only Brazilian music I know is pretty old stuff (Gil/Jobim/Gilberto – initially via Stan Getz). If there are any other interesting artists I’d love to hear about them.
Thanks for the tip, the only Brazilian music I know is pretty old stuff (Gil/Jobim/Gilberto – initially via Stan Getz). If there are any other interesting artists I’d love to hear about them.
(BTW, does everyone know how insanely difficult it is to get *very* *very* *pure* water? The closest chemical analog to H2O is HF: it want to dissolve *everything*)
Yes, Indeed.
At least since I read about the German project after WW1 to pay the war reparations with gold extracted from seawater (it even involved Nobel laureates). One major problem was to get the water used for the analytics free of any contaminations that could distort the results. But even the cleanest vessels were insufficient since the water always dissolved small amounts of the material they were made of. And I assume that analytics of trace amounts was not as sensitive in the 1920ies compared to to-day (although it was truly cutting edge then and practised by some of the best chemists in the world). And that was for inorganic compounds. Our own senses are sensitive enough to detect some substances in air or water that are diluted 1: 10e12. And there are some catalytic effects depending on specific contaminations of the main catalyst of 10e-19. Purity of essence is really hard to achieve 😉
(BTW, does everyone know how insanely difficult it is to get *very* *very* *pure* water? The closest chemical analog to H2O is HF: it want to dissolve *everything*)
Yes, Indeed.
At least since I read about the German project after WW1 to pay the war reparations with gold extracted from seawater (it even involved Nobel laureates). One major problem was to get the water used for the analytics free of any contaminations that could distort the results. But even the cleanest vessels were insufficient since the water always dissolved small amounts of the material they were made of. And I assume that analytics of trace amounts was not as sensitive in the 1920ies compared to to-day (although it was truly cutting edge then and practised by some of the best chemists in the world). And that was for inorganic compounds. Our own senses are sensitive enough to detect some substances in air or water that are diluted 1: 10e12. And there are some catalytic effects depending on specific contaminations of the main catalyst of 10e-19. Purity of essence is really hard to achieve 😉
Pascoal is just an amazing inexplicable phenomenon
Gioia is also one probably the best writer on music I’ve come across.
Pascoal is just an amazing inexplicable phenomenon
Gioia is also one probably the best writer on music I’ve come across.
there is no anti-vaccine vaccine division.
there is no anti-vaccine vaccine division.
If there are any other interesting artists I’d love to hear about them.
also old, but: Os Mutantes
If there are any other interesting artists I’d love to hear about them.
also old, but: Os Mutantes
Thanks for the heads-up on Gioia.
Literature as well.
Thanks for the heads-up on Gioia.
Literature as well.
If there are any other interesting artists I’d love to hear about them.
Off the top of my head:
Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil, Gail Costa, Tom Ze are notable tropicalia artists. Kind of like bossa but with later pop influences.
Olodum, bloco afro ensemble that appears on Paul Simon’s Rhythm Of The Saints.
DJ Dolores, from Recife, mixes electronica with traditional rhythms.
Cartola and Martinho da Vila are (very) traditional samba artists.
Luciana Souza, a more modern bossa and jazz singer, now living in the US.
All of this is with the caveat that what I know about Brazilian music would fill a very small thimble. It’s a big country, with many many cultural influences – a list of Brazilian musical styles alone would fill a couple of pages. Samba, forro, axe, maracatu, carioca, choro, on and on and on and on.
A very very deep and wide culture. You could spend a lifetime exploring it and never come close to exhausting it.
If there are any other interesting artists I’d love to hear about them.
Off the top of my head:
Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil, Gail Costa, Tom Ze are notable tropicalia artists. Kind of like bossa but with later pop influences.
Olodum, bloco afro ensemble that appears on Paul Simon’s Rhythm Of The Saints.
DJ Dolores, from Recife, mixes electronica with traditional rhythms.
Cartola and Martinho da Vila are (very) traditional samba artists.
Luciana Souza, a more modern bossa and jazz singer, now living in the US.
All of this is with the caveat that what I know about Brazilian music would fill a very small thimble. It’s a big country, with many many cultural influences – a list of Brazilian musical styles alone would fill a couple of pages. Samba, forro, axe, maracatu, carioca, choro, on and on and on and on.
A very very deep and wide culture. You could spend a lifetime exploring it and never come close to exhausting it.
The late Chico Science showing us all what mangue is about. Mangue is from Recife, which was the closest port to Africa back in slave days and has probably the deepest African influences, musically and probably otherwise. Stuff from Rio is more European, except for the samba school stuff, which is 100% drums and chanting.
Then there are a whole rack of rural and traditional styles. And styles that come straight out of African possession cults. And a smorgasbord of pop styles.
It’s endless.
I gotta stop now, I can feel my productivity circling the drain….
The late Chico Science showing us all what mangue is about. Mangue is from Recife, which was the closest port to Africa back in slave days and has probably the deepest African influences, musically and probably otherwise. Stuff from Rio is more European, except for the samba school stuff, which is 100% drums and chanting.
Then there are a whole rack of rural and traditional styles. And styles that come straight out of African possession cults. And a smorgasbord of pop styles.
It’s endless.
I gotta stop now, I can feel my productivity circling the drain….
I recall several years ago that studies of Americans’ diets revealed that wealthier people’s diets had gotten better while poorer people’s diets had gotten worse.
There is no question that if I were rich enough to have someone knowledgeable and skilled do the shopping, cooking, and taking care of the dishes, my diet would improve greatly. Ditto for exercise :^)
I recall several years ago that studies of Americans’ diets revealed that wealthier people’s diets had gotten better while poorer people’s diets had gotten worse.
There is no question that if I were rich enough to have someone knowledgeable and skilled do the shopping, cooking, and taking care of the dishes, my diet would improve greatly. Ditto for exercise :^)
Our own senses are sensitive enough to detect some substances in air or water that are diluted 1: 10e12. And there are some catalytic effects depending on specific contaminations of the main catalyst of 10e-19. Purity of essence is really hard to achieve 😉
The human body is 60% water. (And the brain some 73% water.) Makes it clear why ideological purity is so hard to achieve. 😉
Our own senses are sensitive enough to detect some substances in air or water that are diluted 1: 10e12. And there are some catalytic effects depending on specific contaminations of the main catalyst of 10e-19. Purity of essence is really hard to achieve 😉
The human body is 60% water. (And the brain some 73% water.) Makes it clear why ideological purity is so hard to achieve. 😉
Forty-some years ago I was the schmuck from Bell Labs systems engineering going around telling project managers that it was a software world, and in the future their projects were much more likely to get in trouble because of software than hardware. This was an unpopular position.
And still is. IEEE Spectrum has a terrific article up titled “How Software Is Eating the Car”. The bottom line is not unlike the situation I was facing back then: the software side of things has become the critical part, and none of the senior management has a clue about it.
Forty-some years ago I was the schmuck from Bell Labs systems engineering going around telling project managers that it was a software world, and in the future their projects were much more likely to get in trouble because of software than hardware. This was an unpopular position.
And still is. IEEE Spectrum has a terrific article up titled “How Software Is Eating the Car”. The bottom line is not unlike the situation I was facing back then: the software side of things has become the critical part, and none of the senior management has a clue about it.
There is no question that if I were rich enough to have someone knowledgeable and skilled do the shopping, cooking, and taking care of the dishes, my diet would improve greatly.
that’s if you chose to hire a health-oriented chef. i’m sure someone like Trump has a chef who makes upscale-looking versions of Taco Bell.
There is no question that if I were rich enough to have someone knowledgeable and skilled do the shopping, cooking, and taking care of the dishes, my diet would improve greatly.
that’s if you chose to hire a health-oriented chef. i’m sure someone like Trump has a chef who makes upscale-looking versions of Taco Bell.
Software Is Eating the Car
Software also seems to be eating farm equipment. Such as a tractor zipping down a field at 8-10 miles an hour while towing a sixty-foot wide planter planting two dozen rows.
Each row is planted with seed a precise distance apart. And that distance changing with any changes in soil quality in different parts of the field. In the cab of the tractor is a display providing statistics for each row on how well the results are matching settings.
Software Is Eating the Car
Software also seems to be eating farm equipment. Such as a tractor zipping down a field at 8-10 miles an hour while towing a sixty-foot wide planter planting two dozen rows.
Each row is planted with seed a precise distance apart. And that distance changing with any changes in soil quality in different parts of the field. In the cab of the tractor is a display providing statistics for each row on how well the results are matching settings.
Software Is Eating the Car
i just got a Tesla 3.
while i’d ridden in them before, and had read tons of articles about them, i was still shocked by just how much that car is software. it’s a cross between an iPad and a rocket.
Software Is Eating the Car
i just got a Tesla 3.
while i’d ridden in them before, and had read tons of articles about them, i was still shocked by just how much that car is software. it’s a cross between an iPad and a rocket.
Even the 16-year-old small SUV my son “inherited” from me has computer-related problems. It failed inspection for an emissions code, but it drove fine. We had a sensor replaced and it passed. A few days later the light came back on, but this time it started running rough and has noticeably less power. So now we have to take it back to see what’s wrong.
Why a 16-year-old vehicle is still expected to pass emissions, I don’t know. They aren’t even testing the emissions, just going by whatever codes the computer is producing. Given how it’s now running after replacing the sensor, I’d bet the emissions are worse than they were before. But it has a good inspection sticker!
Even the 16-year-old small SUV my son “inherited” from me has computer-related problems. It failed inspection for an emissions code, but it drove fine. We had a sensor replaced and it passed. A few days later the light came back on, but this time it started running rough and has noticeably less power. So now we have to take it back to see what’s wrong.
Why a 16-year-old vehicle is still expected to pass emissions, I don’t know. They aren’t even testing the emissions, just going by whatever codes the computer is producing. Given how it’s now running after replacing the sensor, I’d bet the emissions are worse than they were before. But it has a good inspection sticker!
random Braziliana, on the mellow tip – folks who dig Bonfa or Jobim should dig this stuff. the tunes should be familiar…
Caetano Veloso, For No One in bossa style.
Luciana Souza is more bossa and jazz, here she is with God Only Knows.
random Braziliana, on the mellow tip – folks who dig Bonfa or Jobim should dig this stuff. the tunes should be familiar…
Caetano Veloso, For No One in bossa style.
Luciana Souza is more bossa and jazz, here she is with God Only Knows.
Software Is Eating the Car
If I still have enough money left after we pay off the mortgage and before I wrap up my brilliant tech career, I really really really want one of these.
Probably one of the simplest cars ever made, from a mechanical point of view, but updated with an electric motor conversion.
Don’t know if I’d fit in it, but it’s probably a blast and a half to drive. It’s like an electric skateboard, with seats.
Software Is Eating the Car
If I still have enough money left after we pay off the mortgage and before I wrap up my brilliant tech career, I really really really want one of these.
Probably one of the simplest cars ever made, from a mechanical point of view, but updated with an electric motor conversion.
Don’t know if I’d fit in it, but it’s probably a blast and a half to drive. It’s like an electric skateboard, with seats.
Why a 16-year-old vehicle is still expected to pass emissions, I don’t know.
I live in a region that is about to go back on the EPA’s list of severe violators for ozone. That will cost a lot of people money trying to implement plans to get back into compliance. All cars in the region are subject to emissions testing. The state keeps statistics, and older cars are responsible for a very disproportionately large amount of the pollution. At some point the state is likely to eliminate the exceptions currently in place for older cars and force them off the roads.
Alternatively we could try to stop people from moving here in large numbers, and bringing their cars with them, but the federal government frowns on that even more than air pollution :^)
Why a 16-year-old vehicle is still expected to pass emissions, I don’t know.
I live in a region that is about to go back on the EPA’s list of severe violators for ozone. That will cost a lot of people money trying to implement plans to get back into compliance. All cars in the region are subject to emissions testing. The state keeps statistics, and older cars are responsible for a very disproportionately large amount of the pollution. At some point the state is likely to eliminate the exceptions currently in place for older cars and force them off the roads.
Alternatively we could try to stop people from moving here in large numbers, and bringing their cars with them, but the federal government frowns on that even more than air pollution :^)
Software also seems to be eating farm equipment.
It’s eating everything, which was largely my point 40 years ago. Some of us may remember the episode from a few years back when F-35 fighter jets were being delivered with a cannon; and a trigger on the control stick; but the software that detected the trigger had been depressed, ran through a list of situations where the gun shouldn’t be fired, and if everything was okay actually fired the gun, wasn’t going to be delivered for two years. The last three times we had a major household appliance fail it wasn’t the software per se, but it was the (very expensive) computer board on which the software ran. The thermostat that came with our new townhouse whines if it can’t reach the internet to check for firmware upgrades.
Software also seems to be eating farm equipment.
It’s eating everything, which was largely my point 40 years ago. Some of us may remember the episode from a few years back when F-35 fighter jets were being delivered with a cannon; and a trigger on the control stick; but the software that detected the trigger had been depressed, ran through a list of situations where the gun shouldn’t be fired, and if everything was okay actually fired the gun, wasn’t going to be delivered for two years. The last three times we had a major household appliance fail it wasn’t the software per se, but it was the (very expensive) computer board on which the software ran. The thermostat that came with our new townhouse whines if it can’t reach the internet to check for firmware upgrades.
It’s eating everything, which was largely my point 40 years ago.
The smartphone and its software replaced 100s of pounds of various devices.
It’s eating everything, which was largely my point 40 years ago.
The smartphone and its software replaced 100s of pounds of various devices.
If I still have enough money left after we pay off the mortgage and before I wrap up my brilliant tech career, I really really really want one of these.
Cool. If we ever hit one of the big lottos, I want a 1938 “hot rod Lincoln” with all of the body and interior fully restored, but an electric drive train with a “ludicrous” mode capable of zero to sixty in four seconds.
If I still have enough money left after we pay off the mortgage and before I wrap up my brilliant tech career, I really really really want one of these.
Cool. If we ever hit one of the big lottos, I want a 1938 “hot rod Lincoln” with all of the body and interior fully restored, but an electric drive train with a “ludicrous” mode capable of zero to sixty in four seconds.
Alternatively we could try to stop people from moving here in large numbers, and bringing their cars with them, but the federal government frowns on that even more than air pollution :^)
Happily, there’s a workaround. Just revise the zoning rules to make it impossible to build more housing. At any price. (Maybe with an exception for very low end “affordable housing” for the homeless. If the state government changes.) If there’s nowhere to live, they won’t come. Pass thru, of course, but not stay. And the Feds have no say in that.
Alternatively we could try to stop people from moving here in large numbers, and bringing their cars with them, but the federal government frowns on that even more than air pollution :^)
Happily, there’s a workaround. Just revise the zoning rules to make it impossible to build more housing. At any price. (Maybe with an exception for very low end “affordable housing” for the homeless. If the state government changes.) If there’s nowhere to live, they won’t come. Pass thru, of course, but not stay. And the Feds have no say in that.
And the Feds have no say in that.
That may not last.
And the Feds have no say in that.
That may not last.
speaking of blind spots…
Teslas have cameras mounted on their B pillars (posts behind the front seats that hold the middle of the roof up) to look at the sides of the car. Tesla recently made an over-the-air update to reduce the minimum level of detail the cameras need to see before they complain to the driver that there’s a problem.
turns out that minimum is above what the cameras will see on an empty rural highway at night.
so i get alerts telling me the cameras can’t see anything. really? neither can i! call the eye doctor! file a bug report!
speaking of blind spots…
Teslas have cameras mounted on their B pillars (posts behind the front seats that hold the middle of the roof up) to look at the sides of the car. Tesla recently made an over-the-air update to reduce the minimum level of detail the cameras need to see before they complain to the driver that there’s a problem.
turns out that minimum is above what the cameras will see on an empty rural highway at night.
so i get alerts telling me the cameras can’t see anything. really? neither can i! call the eye doctor! file a bug report!
That may not last.
There’s an LOTR quote for any purpose. At the inn at Bree:
“One of the travellers, a squint-eyed ill-favoured fellow, was foretelling that more and more people would be coming north in the near future. ‘If room isn’t found for them, they’ll find it for themselves. They’a right to live, same as other folk,’ he said loudly. The local inhabitants did not look pleased at the prospect.”
That may not last.
There’s an LOTR quote for any purpose. At the inn at Bree:
“One of the travellers, a squint-eyed ill-favoured fellow, was foretelling that more and more people would be coming north in the near future. ‘If room isn’t found for them, they’ll find it for themselves. They’a right to live, same as other folk,’ he said loudly. The local inhabitants did not look pleased at the prospect.”
The state keeps statistics, and older cars are responsible for a very disproportionately large amount of the pollution.
I’d bet there are more much-older cars in CO than in NJ if the pattern I’ve witnessed in AZ holds. Much older cars rust away here a lot faster.
As an anecdote, I had a 1980 280ZX that, by the time I got rid of it, had body parts flapping in the breeze, and the rug would get wet if I drove on wet-enough road. I would visit AZ, even years after my 280ZX had bitten the dust, and see them almost completely intact. The paint and dash might have been faded and the dash splitting from the sun, but not much rust.
Also a lot of really old (and faded) pick-ups and Chevy Suburbans and such still on the road, which are rarities here.
The state keeps statistics, and older cars are responsible for a very disproportionately large amount of the pollution.
I’d bet there are more much-older cars in CO than in NJ if the pattern I’ve witnessed in AZ holds. Much older cars rust away here a lot faster.
As an anecdote, I had a 1980 280ZX that, by the time I got rid of it, had body parts flapping in the breeze, and the rug would get wet if I drove on wet-enough road. I would visit AZ, even years after my 280ZX had bitten the dust, and see them almost completely intact. The paint and dash might have been faded and the dash splitting from the sun, but not much rust.
Also a lot of really old (and faded) pick-ups and Chevy Suburbans and such still on the road, which are rarities here.
The smartphone and its software replaced 100s of pounds of various devices.
I’ll agree that a contemporary smartphone is an amazing device, starting from the (to me, staggering) amount of signal processing that makes it work as a phone to all the other things that it can do. I’ve been noticing how many old detective stories and shows are aging badly because critical plot points wouldn’t happen if the protagonist was carrying a smartphone in their pocket.
OTOH, Apple (iOS) and Google (Android) maintain very tight control of the operating systems and work very, very hard to put applications in sandboxes where they can’t mess with each other. The car companies don’t. That’s how we get examples of academic hackers trailing a car, cracking the wifi-enabled entertainment system, then using that to inject commands on the system bus to put the engine and the transmission out of sync.
The smartphone and its software replaced 100s of pounds of various devices.
I’ll agree that a contemporary smartphone is an amazing device, starting from the (to me, staggering) amount of signal processing that makes it work as a phone to all the other things that it can do. I’ve been noticing how many old detective stories and shows are aging badly because critical plot points wouldn’t happen if the protagonist was carrying a smartphone in their pocket.
OTOH, Apple (iOS) and Google (Android) maintain very tight control of the operating systems and work very, very hard to put applications in sandboxes where they can’t mess with each other. The car companies don’t. That’s how we get examples of academic hackers trailing a car, cracking the wifi-enabled entertainment system, then using that to inject commands on the system bus to put the engine and the transmission out of sync.
thanks, russel and cleek
thanks, russel and cleek
Something I just remembered about AZ, though, is that the cost of registration is at least somewhat in proportion to the book value of the vehicle. Here it’s based on what type of vehicle it is, regardless of how much it’s worth. You might pay hundreds of dollars to register an expensive new car in AZ.
Now I shall google.
From the AZ MVD website:
So a new $60K vehicle will cost over $1K to register the first year. After 4 years in AZ, that tax goes away and you’re left with some fees that amount to around $40. So probably not something that pushes people all that much to keep really old cars, but it’s something.
Something I just remembered about AZ, though, is that the cost of registration is at least somewhat in proportion to the book value of the vehicle. Here it’s based on what type of vehicle it is, regardless of how much it’s worth. You might pay hundreds of dollars to register an expensive new car in AZ.
Now I shall google.
From the AZ MVD website:
So a new $60K vehicle will cost over $1K to register the first year. After 4 years in AZ, that tax goes away and you’re left with some fees that amount to around $40. So probably not something that pushes people all that much to keep really old cars, but it’s something.
I’d bet there are more much-older cars in CO than in NJ if the pattern I’ve witnessed in AZ holds. Much older cars rust away here a lot faster.
True. My wife’s Honda Odyssey is 22 years old now. No body rust. Also went through emission testing last month and was way under the limits. The real problem is the 20-year-old car that hasn’t been well maintained, or has a previously undetected problem. I am told that a surprising number of cars arrive here with a catalytic converter that has been poisoned at some point, and those are horrible on NOx, a ground-level ozone precursor.
I’d bet there are more much-older cars in CO than in NJ if the pattern I’ve witnessed in AZ holds. Much older cars rust away here a lot faster.
True. My wife’s Honda Odyssey is 22 years old now. No body rust. Also went through emission testing last month and was way under the limits. The real problem is the 20-year-old car that hasn’t been well maintained, or has a previously undetected problem. I am told that a surprising number of cars arrive here with a catalytic converter that has been poisoned at some point, and those are horrible on NOx, a ground-level ozone precursor.
Governments and citizens could be saved a lot of time, trouble, and money if they set up roadside scanners for polluting vehicles and left everyone else alone. But testing centers would fight that tooth and nail.
Governments and citizens could be saved a lot of time, trouble, and money if they set up roadside scanners for polluting vehicles and left everyone else alone. But testing centers would fight that tooth and nail.
they also test for lights, blinkers, horn, tires and mirrors.
they also test for lights, blinkers, horn, tires and mirrors.
I was stopped at a light driving down into Cambridge a week or so ago. Car next to me was a mid-60’s Plymouth Valiant V8.
You could smell the hydrocarbons wafting in the breeze, like some kind of toxic perfume. Reminded me of my days pumping gas back in high school. I’m surprised any of us who grew up back then still have any brain cells left.
Amazing how much better automobiles are now.
Governments and citizens could be saved a lot of time, trouble, and money if they set up roadside scanners for polluting vehicles and left everyone else alone.
Maybe it’s just me, but this seems profoundly impractical. How would this work? Would you pull cars over to test them, like they do for weighing trucks? If you had to do it on the fly, how would you isolate the emissions from one specific moving vehicle accurately enough to know which one was the polluter?
On the whole it just seems a lot simpler to check it when you check all of the other basic functions of the car. As cleek notes.
I was stopped at a light driving down into Cambridge a week or so ago. Car next to me was a mid-60’s Plymouth Valiant V8.
You could smell the hydrocarbons wafting in the breeze, like some kind of toxic perfume. Reminded me of my days pumping gas back in high school. I’m surprised any of us who grew up back then still have any brain cells left.
Amazing how much better automobiles are now.
Governments and citizens could be saved a lot of time, trouble, and money if they set up roadside scanners for polluting vehicles and left everyone else alone.
Maybe it’s just me, but this seems profoundly impractical. How would this work? Would you pull cars over to test them, like they do for weighing trucks? If you had to do it on the fly, how would you isolate the emissions from one specific moving vehicle accurately enough to know which one was the polluter?
On the whole it just seems a lot simpler to check it when you check all of the other basic functions of the car. As cleek notes.
How would this work? Would you pull cars over to test them, like they do for weighing trucks? If you had to do it on the fly, how would you isolate the emissions from one specific moving vehicle accurately enough to know which one was the polluter?
Colorado sets theirs up on busy single lane on-ramps to the interstates. Measurements are more accurate if the car is accelerating. U of Denver originally developed the technology the state uses: lasers at selected frequencies shine across the lane and bounce off a mirror and back to the sensors. Lots of lab and field work to show that the measurements yield the same mean as the test centers, with slightly wider error bars. In practice, there aren’t very many borderline vehicles: the large majority either pass easily or obviously fail. A separate camera shoots a picture of the front license plate when the sensor says it has the reading (we’re talking milliseconds here, that part is trivial). Misses — eg, a lifted truck — are also determined properly. If moving above a critical speed, turbulence disperses the exhaust between vehicles. If you pass a drive-by test twice in the six months before your registration comes up for renewal, no emission test is required. Test site locations are published weekly.
When I was working I drove by one at least once per week. Now that I’m retired I don’t, so go to the test center and pay the $25. Last month, the wait was about five minutes. The workers are invariably polite.
How would this work? Would you pull cars over to test them, like they do for weighing trucks? If you had to do it on the fly, how would you isolate the emissions from one specific moving vehicle accurately enough to know which one was the polluter?
Colorado sets theirs up on busy single lane on-ramps to the interstates. Measurements are more accurate if the car is accelerating. U of Denver originally developed the technology the state uses: lasers at selected frequencies shine across the lane and bounce off a mirror and back to the sensors. Lots of lab and field work to show that the measurements yield the same mean as the test centers, with slightly wider error bars. In practice, there aren’t very many borderline vehicles: the large majority either pass easily or obviously fail. A separate camera shoots a picture of the front license plate when the sensor says it has the reading (we’re talking milliseconds here, that part is trivial). Misses — eg, a lifted truck — are also determined properly. If moving above a critical speed, turbulence disperses the exhaust between vehicles. If you pass a drive-by test twice in the six months before your registration comes up for renewal, no emission test is required. Test site locations are published weekly.
When I was working I drove by one at least once per week. Now that I’m retired I don’t, so go to the test center and pay the $25. Last month, the wait was about five minutes. The workers are invariably polite.
Maybe it’s just me, but this seems profoundly impractical. How would this work?
This article is from 2015 so things may not have changed enough to invalidate the emissions testing solution it suggests.
“What’s really needed is a truly independent emissions-testing system that measures pollution where it occurs, on the open road, and not just in a laboratory or emissions-testing station.
In fact, this technology already exists. Remote sensing devices on the roadside can measure emissions as a vehicle passes by, without impeding traffic flow, often without the driver or vehicle knowing they have been tested, and without the vehicle owner waiting in line at an inspection station.
Most important, this technology measures vehicle emissions where vehicles actually pollute, on the road. These are real-world emissions, as opposed to what is measured in vehicle-certification laboratories or at testing stations, where it has become clear that those scheduled and scripted tests can be thwarted.
A single roadside remote sensing device can capture thousands of vehicle emissions measurements a day in free-flowing traffic. These machines use infrared scanning technology to measure emissions, speed and acceleration. A camera records the license plate number, which can be matched to state vehicle registries.”
Test Emissions Where Cars Pollute: On the Road: Sept. 30, 2015
Maybe it’s just me, but this seems profoundly impractical. How would this work?
This article is from 2015 so things may not have changed enough to invalidate the emissions testing solution it suggests.
“What’s really needed is a truly independent emissions-testing system that measures pollution where it occurs, on the open road, and not just in a laboratory or emissions-testing station.
In fact, this technology already exists. Remote sensing devices on the roadside can measure emissions as a vehicle passes by, without impeding traffic flow, often without the driver or vehicle knowing they have been tested, and without the vehicle owner waiting in line at an inspection station.
Most important, this technology measures vehicle emissions where vehicles actually pollute, on the road. These are real-world emissions, as opposed to what is measured in vehicle-certification laboratories or at testing stations, where it has become clear that those scheduled and scripted tests can be thwarted.
A single roadside remote sensing device can capture thousands of vehicle emissions measurements a day in free-flowing traffic. These machines use infrared scanning technology to measure emissions, speed and acceleration. A camera records the license plate number, which can be matched to state vehicle registries.”
Test Emissions Where Cars Pollute: On the Road: Sept. 30, 2015
I should add, Colorado has emissions testing. The state doesn’t test other functions.
I should add, Colorado has emissions testing. The state doesn’t test other functions.
Governments and citizens could be saved a lot of time, trouble, and money if they set up roadside scanners for polluting vehicles and left everyone else alone.
How is this not a horrible intrusion of the government into people’s personal lives? I mean, scanners on the public roads? Shocking idea. Even more shocking that it is, apparently, supported by libertarians.
Governments and citizens could be saved a lot of time, trouble, and money if they set up roadside scanners for polluting vehicles and left everyone else alone.
How is this not a horrible intrusion of the government into people’s personal lives? I mean, scanners on the public roads? Shocking idea. Even more shocking that it is, apparently, supported by libertarians.
The state doesn’t test other functions.
it should.
The state doesn’t test other functions.
it should.
lasers at selected frequencies shine across the lane and bounce off a mirror and back to the sensors.
ok then. carry on!
The state doesn’t test other functions.
?!?!?!
brakes, lights, directionals? nothing?
go for it, I guess. just don’t tell folks in NH about it, they’ll want it, and they drive around here.
lasers at selected frequencies shine across the lane and bounce off a mirror and back to the sensors.
ok then. carry on!
The state doesn’t test other functions.
?!?!?!
brakes, lights, directionals? nothing?
go for it, I guess. just don’t tell folks in NH about it, they’ll want it, and they drive around here.
Georgia is also emissions only testing, and it’s not statewide, just 13 metro Atlanta counties. The three most recent model years are exempt, as are vehicles over 25 years old.
Georgia is also emissions only testing, and it’s not statewide, just 13 metro Atlanta counties. The three most recent model years are exempt, as are vehicles over 25 years old.
Washington state is phasing out emissions testing altogether for newer cars (I don’t which model year), and have not tested for anything else for at least 23 years, that being when I first bought a car here.
I mean: yes, part of the driver’s test is making sure you know how to work the lights, brakes, turn signals, etc. But SFAIK, once you’re licensed, that’s it. No later car you buy needs function testing.
Florida, of all places, used to require inspection. But that was back in the 1970s, when “safe driving in a safe car” wasn’t a partisan issue.
Washington state is phasing out emissions testing altogether for newer cars (I don’t which model year), and have not tested for anything else for at least 23 years, that being when I first bought a car here.
I mean: yes, part of the driver’s test is making sure you know how to work the lights, brakes, turn signals, etc. But SFAIK, once you’re licensed, that’s it. No later car you buy needs function testing.
Florida, of all places, used to require inspection. But that was back in the 1970s, when “safe driving in a safe car” wasn’t a partisan issue.
Vehicle inspection in the United States
Vehicle Inspection Requirements by State (2021)
Car Inspection Requirements By State: A Compendium
Vehicle inspection in the United States
Vehicle Inspection Requirements by State (2021)
Car Inspection Requirements By State: A Compendium
part of the driver’s test is making sure you know how to work the lights, brakes, turn signals, etc. But SFAIK, once you’re licensed, that’s it.
I guess what I was hoping for was an inspection to make sure that all of that stuff works ON THE CAR.
Not that you know which knobs and levers and pedals to turn and press, but that if you do, the right thing happens. You know, car stops, road is illuminated, turn signals signal.
I may never leave MA again. Not in a car, anyway.
part of the driver’s test is making sure you know how to work the lights, brakes, turn signals, etc. But SFAIK, once you’re licensed, that’s it.
I guess what I was hoping for was an inspection to make sure that all of that stuff works ON THE CAR.
Not that you know which knobs and levers and pedals to turn and press, but that if you do, the right thing happens. You know, car stops, road is illuminated, turn signals signal.
I may never leave MA again. Not in a car, anyway.
Of course, in MA, while we check to make sure the turn signals on the car work, we immediately ignore them – ignore using them and ignore others using them – until inspection rolls around again.
So, even stevens, I guess.
Of course, in MA, while we check to make sure the turn signals on the car work, we immediately ignore them – ignore using them and ignore others using them – until inspection rolls around again.
So, even stevens, I guess.
I think in Texas using turn signals is telling other people too much about your business…
I think in Texas using turn signals is telling other people too much about your business…
Different places have different cultural (for lack of a better word) attitudes towards rules. Which is reflected in their driving.
Some places, drivers religiously pay attention to lane markings. Other places they treat the marlings as various levels of advisory. But you haven’t lived until you’ve driven in Saudi Arabia. Lane markings? Not even advisory; strictly decorative. NOT a fun place to drive IMHO.
Different places have different cultural (for lack of a better word) attitudes towards rules. Which is reflected in their driving.
Some places, drivers religiously pay attention to lane markings. Other places they treat the marlings as various levels of advisory. But you haven’t lived until you’ve driven in Saudi Arabia. Lane markings? Not even advisory; strictly decorative. NOT a fun place to drive IMHO.
But you haven’t lived until you’ve driven in Saudi Arabia.
It takes a number of generations for people to internalize the use of, to them, new technologies like motor vehicles.
I’ve seen videos of Chinese drivers driving like they’re the only vehicle on the road. Like, when missing an exit, they’ll stop and back up to the exit. Or make a U-turn in the road and drive back to it.
People drive much better than when I was a kid. Visitors from other countries often comment on how smooth and orderly traffic is in the US. They would probably say the same about most other countries who have had the automobile for four or five generations.
But you haven’t lived until you’ve driven in Saudi Arabia.
It takes a number of generations for people to internalize the use of, to them, new technologies like motor vehicles.
I’ve seen videos of Chinese drivers driving like they’re the only vehicle on the road. Like, when missing an exit, they’ll stop and back up to the exit. Or make a U-turn in the road and drive back to it.
People drive much better than when I was a kid. Visitors from other countries often comment on how smooth and orderly traffic is in the US. They would probably say the same about most other countries who have had the automobile for four or five generations.
Driving in Napoli is good preparation for driving in Boston, IMO.
LJ, want to fill everyone in on car inspections in Japan? My info is out of date/misunderstood?, but I recall a very tough every-2-year inspection, that gets progressively more expensive until it’s better to just junk the car.
Driving in Napoli is good preparation for driving in Boston, IMO.
LJ, want to fill everyone in on car inspections in Japan? My info is out of date/misunderstood?, but I recall a very tough every-2-year inspection, that gets progressively more expensive until it’s better to just junk the car.
Russell – As I recall, the license tester does look to be sure the lights, etc., are actually working, not only that the new driver knows which switches are which.
I switched from a Honda to a Scion, and the windshield wiper controls are the opposite of what I was used to. In the Honda, pushing the lever up turned the wipers on (intermittent, regular, maximum). In the Scion, pushing the lever *down* does all that.
I still find myself reciting “Less is more” to remember which way the lever needs to go.
Russell – As I recall, the license tester does look to be sure the lights, etc., are actually working, not only that the new driver knows which switches are which.
I switched from a Honda to a Scion, and the windshield wiper controls are the opposite of what I was used to. In the Honda, pushing the lever up turned the wipers on (intermittent, regular, maximum). In the Scion, pushing the lever *down* does all that.
I still find myself reciting “Less is more” to remember which way the lever needs to go.
Annual test for cars over three years old in the UK.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOT_test
And driving standards, particularly lane discipline, have got worse over the last couple of decades.
Annual test for cars over three years old in the UK.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOT_test
And driving standards, particularly lane discipline, have got worse over the last couple of decades.
RTA fatality rates per 100,000 population, by country (from wp, may be a bit out of date):
Norway: 2.0
UK: 2.9
Japan: 4.1
Italy: 5.2
USA: 12.4
Saudi Arabia: 27.4
Liberia: 35.9
RTA fatality rates per 100,000 population, by country (from wp, may be a bit out of date):
Norway: 2.0
UK: 2.9
Japan: 4.1
Italy: 5.2
USA: 12.4
Saudi Arabia: 27.4
Liberia: 35.9
I think in Texas using turn signals is telling other people too much about your business…
In Mass, a turn signal to change lanes simply ensures everyone speeds up to prevent it. The only use for a turn signal is,when at a red light, to let the people going the other way know you are going to cut them off and go first.
In Florida it most often means the signal wasn’t turned off after the last turn. It is pretty common to see a left turn indicator in the high speed lane on the highway.
I think in Texas using turn signals is telling other people too much about your business…
In Mass, a turn signal to change lanes simply ensures everyone speeds up to prevent it. The only use for a turn signal is,when at a red light, to let the people going the other way know you are going to cut them off and go first.
In Florida it most often means the signal wasn’t turned off after the last turn. It is pretty common to see a left turn indicator in the high speed lane on the highway.
I switched from a Honda to a Scion, and the windshield wiper controls are the opposite of what I was used to
it took me five minutes to find the switch to turn off the hazard lights in my new car as i drove it off the lot. because everything is controlled by the computer, and you interact with the computer by using the touch screen, i looked at page after page after page after page of controls. but i couldn’t find it. i googled “turn off hazard lights telsa 3”. there was a video!
well, the control is up on the ceiling by the rear view mirror – where it is in a lot of cars. it never occurred to me it would be a physical button, since nothing else is.
I switched from a Honda to a Scion, and the windshield wiper controls are the opposite of what I was used to
it took me five minutes to find the switch to turn off the hazard lights in my new car as i drove it off the lot. because everything is controlled by the computer, and you interact with the computer by using the touch screen, i looked at page after page after page after page of controls. but i couldn’t find it. i googled “turn off hazard lights telsa 3”. there was a video!
well, the control is up on the ceiling by the rear view mirror – where it is in a lot of cars. it never occurred to me it would be a physical button, since nothing else is.
Meta comment: This thread has been particularly unstable in terms of subject matter. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that.)
Meta comment: This thread has been particularly unstable in terms of subject matter. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that.)
Driving in Napoli is good preparation for driving in Boston, IMO.
not just your opinion.
my wife and I went to Italy back in 2018. I wanted to know what were in for, driving-wise, so I checked some guidebooks.
the guidance was: if you’re good with driving in Boston, you’ll probably be OK in Italy.
everything is controlled by the computer, and you interact with the computer by using the touch screen
my wife’s car – Honda Insight – is similar, and has the touch screen in the middle of the dashboard.
I hate hate hate it. no tactile feedback, and you have to take your eyes off the road to use it. I don’t know who thought the touch screen controls in an automobile was a good idea. my guess is that it was a touch screen vendor.
it wasn’t and isn’t a good idea.
gimme knobs and buttons and levers, please. anything that lets me operate the car without taking my eyes off the road.
Driving in Napoli is good preparation for driving in Boston, IMO.
not just your opinion.
my wife and I went to Italy back in 2018. I wanted to know what were in for, driving-wise, so I checked some guidebooks.
the guidance was: if you’re good with driving in Boston, you’ll probably be OK in Italy.
everything is controlled by the computer, and you interact with the computer by using the touch screen
my wife’s car – Honda Insight – is similar, and has the touch screen in the middle of the dashboard.
I hate hate hate it. no tactile feedback, and you have to take your eyes off the road to use it. I don’t know who thought the touch screen controls in an automobile was a good idea. my guess is that it was a touch screen vendor.
it wasn’t and isn’t a good idea.
gimme knobs and buttons and levers, please. anything that lets me operate the car without taking my eyes off the road.
Driving in Napoli is good preparation for driving in Boston, IMO.
not just your opinion.
my wife and I went to Italy back in 2018. I wanted to know what were in for, driving-wise, so I checked some guidebooks.
the guidance was: if you’re good with driving in Boston, you’ll probably be OK in Italy.
Depends. I can’t speak to Napoli, but I’d never drive the Amalfi Coast because the roads are so damn dangerous. Tuscany is fine. Florence is fine. Never in Rome or Paris. But the worst, by any measure? Sicily.
Sicilian drivers are insane–cancel me, I don’t care. We had multiple near-death experiences in Sicily to the point where I dropped our car off in front of the rental agency, put the keys in the drop box and walked off.
In Sicily, on two lane highways, a car desiring to pass straddles the middle line and the car ahead and the oncoming vehicle move slightly to their right, leaving an opening down the middle of the road for the passing vehicle. When we were there (2017), Sicily had the highest death rate per 100,000 on the highway in Europe.
It’s a beautiful island with amazing sight-seeing, but either save up enough to hire a driver or stay home. And, be current on your life insurance premiums.
Driving in Napoli is good preparation for driving in Boston, IMO.
not just your opinion.
my wife and I went to Italy back in 2018. I wanted to know what were in for, driving-wise, so I checked some guidebooks.
the guidance was: if you’re good with driving in Boston, you’ll probably be OK in Italy.
Depends. I can’t speak to Napoli, but I’d never drive the Amalfi Coast because the roads are so damn dangerous. Tuscany is fine. Florence is fine. Never in Rome or Paris. But the worst, by any measure? Sicily.
Sicilian drivers are insane–cancel me, I don’t care. We had multiple near-death experiences in Sicily to the point where I dropped our car off in front of the rental agency, put the keys in the drop box and walked off.
In Sicily, on two lane highways, a car desiring to pass straddles the middle line and the car ahead and the oncoming vehicle move slightly to their right, leaving an opening down the middle of the road for the passing vehicle. When we were there (2017), Sicily had the highest death rate per 100,000 on the highway in Europe.
It’s a beautiful island with amazing sight-seeing, but either save up enough to hire a driver or stay home. And, be current on your life insurance premiums.
My info is out of date/misunderstood?, but I recall a very tough every-2-year inspection, that gets progressively more expensive until it’s better to just junk the car.
Yep, though there are some interesting wrinkles. Cars need to do a shaken, and people often think it is just the inspection, but it also requires mandatory insurance policy, which then avoids the problem of uninsured drivers. There are a few people who keep up very old cars and I’ve never figured out how they do it, I think they pay a lot and they have to pass an emissions test.
You can do the tests yourself and fill out the paperwork and if your tests are ok, you can save money, but that requires some pretty intense automotive skills and really good language skills.
A new car gets three years and after that, every 2 years, so it’s cheaper to buy a new car after a couple of turns. I’ve always relied on my dealer to tell me, so I’m not sure about what the timing is.
If you drive with an expired shaken, you face about a 3000 dollar fine and if you can’t pay that, 6 months in jail. You also get 6 points knocked off your license, which means that you lose your license for 30 days with no other offenses, lose it for 120 days if it a second offense (and anything that gets you knocked down, from going down a street that is set to be 1 way for particular times in a day or if your kid isn’t wearing their seatbelt in the back counts). 3rd offense and your license is revoked and you have to reapply and do everything after a year.
Driving under the influence is also very strict, with between a 0.03 and 0.04 (essential a swig of beer I think) you could be imprisoned for up to three years, suffer a $5,000 fine and lose your driver’s license for 3 months. And after you served your time, you’d be eased out of your job.
Get caught with a level exceeding 0.04 percent, and you will face up to five years in prison, a fine of $10,000 and a cancellation of your license altogether. And that would come with immediate firing.
My info is out of date/misunderstood?, but I recall a very tough every-2-year inspection, that gets progressively more expensive until it’s better to just junk the car.
Yep, though there are some interesting wrinkles. Cars need to do a shaken, and people often think it is just the inspection, but it also requires mandatory insurance policy, which then avoids the problem of uninsured drivers. There are a few people who keep up very old cars and I’ve never figured out how they do it, I think they pay a lot and they have to pass an emissions test.
You can do the tests yourself and fill out the paperwork and if your tests are ok, you can save money, but that requires some pretty intense automotive skills and really good language skills.
A new car gets three years and after that, every 2 years, so it’s cheaper to buy a new car after a couple of turns. I’ve always relied on my dealer to tell me, so I’m not sure about what the timing is.
If you drive with an expired shaken, you face about a 3000 dollar fine and if you can’t pay that, 6 months in jail. You also get 6 points knocked off your license, which means that you lose your license for 30 days with no other offenses, lose it for 120 days if it a second offense (and anything that gets you knocked down, from going down a street that is set to be 1 way for particular times in a day or if your kid isn’t wearing their seatbelt in the back counts). 3rd offense and your license is revoked and you have to reapply and do everything after a year.
Driving under the influence is also very strict, with between a 0.03 and 0.04 (essential a swig of beer I think) you could be imprisoned for up to three years, suffer a $5,000 fine and lose your driver’s license for 3 months. And after you served your time, you’d be eased out of your job.
Get caught with a level exceeding 0.04 percent, and you will face up to five years in prison, a fine of $10,000 and a cancellation of your license altogether. And that would come with immediate firing.
it never occurred to me it would be a physical button, since nothing else is.
The federal vehicle safety rules require a physical button, appropriately marked, that toggles the flasher system on and off. I believe that the rules also require the flasher system to be physically distinct — beyond the lamps, of course — from the rest of the car’s systems.
it never occurred to me it would be a physical button, since nothing else is.
The federal vehicle safety rules require a physical button, appropriately marked, that toggles the flasher system on and off. I believe that the rules also require the flasher system to be physically distinct — beyond the lamps, of course — from the rest of the car’s systems.
McKinney’s comment made me smile: I’ve driven in France, mainland Italy, and Sicily (the latter three summers running), and the only serious trouble in Sicily was occasionally ending up on tiny streets barely wide enough to take a car in ancient towns. But it was worth it.
Israeli drivers are appalling (we used to joke that the rule there is you ONLY overtake on blind curves), but the most terrifying driving I ever saw was in Hanoi. Hell, even crossing the road on foot there was taking your life in your hands. I never even tried to drive; when I went to Ha Long Bay I hired a driver for the two day trip.
McKinney’s comment made me smile: I’ve driven in France, mainland Italy, and Sicily (the latter three summers running), and the only serious trouble in Sicily was occasionally ending up on tiny streets barely wide enough to take a car in ancient towns. But it was worth it.
Israeli drivers are appalling (we used to joke that the rule there is you ONLY overtake on blind curves), but the most terrifying driving I ever saw was in Hanoi. Hell, even crossing the road on foot there was taking your life in your hands. I never even tried to drive; when I went to Ha Long Bay I hired a driver for the two day trip.
I wonder how well the Japanese regime would travel. As background, for an average male, 1 oz = .02, so two “regular”* drinks gets you to .04, but at the end of an hour, assuming no additional intake, the average male has metabolized/eliminated .02. The average elimination rate for a male is .02 per hour. I don’t recall the female numbers because that’s never come up in one of my cases.
That said, if TX had a .04 zero tolerance level, our prisons would be full way beyond capacity, and the impact on POC’s (blacks and Hispanics) would be way disproportionate. Ditto with have insuring requirements. So, I’m thinking what works on one country may not work in others. I’m personally fine with a hyper aggressive anti-drinking regime (because, in the long run, with enough people paying a very high price, our deaths/injuries on the highway would hopefully plummet), but I’m guessing others may not be so happy as they see it play out.
*a ‘regular’ drink at Casa McKinney starts at 3 oz, so I’m a stay-at-home imbiber or I do Uber. My personal observation is that the average, regular consumer of adult beverages drinks 1.5-3.0 oz per drink (a single or a double), so the average person is going to exceed the .04 threshold pretty quickly.
I wonder how well the Japanese regime would travel. As background, for an average male, 1 oz = .02, so two “regular”* drinks gets you to .04, but at the end of an hour, assuming no additional intake, the average male has metabolized/eliminated .02. The average elimination rate for a male is .02 per hour. I don’t recall the female numbers because that’s never come up in one of my cases.
That said, if TX had a .04 zero tolerance level, our prisons would be full way beyond capacity, and the impact on POC’s (blacks and Hispanics) would be way disproportionate. Ditto with have insuring requirements. So, I’m thinking what works on one country may not work in others. I’m personally fine with a hyper aggressive anti-drinking regime (because, in the long run, with enough people paying a very high price, our deaths/injuries on the highway would hopefully plummet), but I’m guessing others may not be so happy as they see it play out.
*a ‘regular’ drink at Casa McKinney starts at 3 oz, so I’m a stay-at-home imbiber or I do Uber. My personal observation is that the average, regular consumer of adult beverages drinks 1.5-3.0 oz per drink (a single or a double), so the average person is going to exceed the .04 threshold pretty quickly.
*a ‘regular’ drink at Casa McKinney starts at 3 oz, so I’m a stay-at-home imbiber or I do Uber.
Go big or go home! Or, um, go big and stay home? ;^)
*a ‘regular’ drink at Casa McKinney starts at 3 oz, so I’m a stay-at-home imbiber or I do Uber.
Go big or go home! Or, um, go big and stay home? ;^)
An amazing look at vaccination rates across the country.
https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2021/06/22/california-covid-vaccination-uneven-as-state-reaches-milestone/
Percent who have at least one shot are highest in places like Vermont, Hawaii and massacre, and lowest (like 40%) in deep red states across the deep South and the mountain West.
Here in California we have lots of variation within the state. Some counties are above 80% vaccinated. Other counties (typically rural and deep red) are in the low 30s. Amazing what some people will risk in order to show that they won’t listen to the government.
An amazing look at vaccination rates across the country.
https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2021/06/22/california-covid-vaccination-uneven-as-state-reaches-milestone/
Percent who have at least one shot are highest in places like Vermont, Hawaii and massacre, and lowest (like 40%) in deep red states across the deep South and the mountain West.
Here in California we have lots of variation within the state. Some counties are above 80% vaccinated. Other counties (typically rural and deep red) are in the low 30s. Amazing what some people will risk in order to show that they won’t listen to the government.
Just got back from a walk where I saw a car almost its entire length up the bracing cables on a powerline pole.
Just got back from a walk where I saw a car almost its entire length up the bracing cables on a powerline pole.
Vehicle crash porn.
Bad Driving Asia
Vehicle crash porn.
Bad Driving Asia
Here in California we have lots of variation within the state. Some counties are above 80% vaccinated. Other counties (typically rural and deep red) are in the low 30s. Amazing what some people will risk in order to show that they won’t listen to the government.
Good ol’ Lassen. Half of the 30% that is vaccinated is probably Hmong. May this turn out to be the start of the demographic shift we all dream of.
And the rest of the state is being pulled up by San Diego, which seem to be entirely populated by military families and essential workers.
Also, it’s fitting that 1/3 of Yolo is unvaccinated. YOLO, bruh.
Here in California we have lots of variation within the state. Some counties are above 80% vaccinated. Other counties (typically rural and deep red) are in the low 30s. Amazing what some people will risk in order to show that they won’t listen to the government.
Good ol’ Lassen. Half of the 30% that is vaccinated is probably Hmong. May this turn out to be the start of the demographic shift we all dream of.
And the rest of the state is being pulled up by San Diego, which seem to be entirely populated by military families and essential workers.
Also, it’s fitting that 1/3 of Yolo is unvaccinated. YOLO, bruh.
May this turn out to be the start of the demographic shift we all dream of.
With the Delta variant spreading in the US, the culture of determined ignorance may turn into a self-correcting problem. Rough on their minor children (if any). But otherwise, hard to work up much sympathy. Which, I realize, doesn’t speak all that well of me, but there you are.
May this turn out to be the start of the demographic shift we all dream of.
With the Delta variant spreading in the US, the culture of determined ignorance may turn into a self-correcting problem. Rough on their minor children (if any). But otherwise, hard to work up much sympathy. Which, I realize, doesn’t speak all that well of me, but there you are.
I’ve seen videos of Chinese drivers driving like they’re the only vehicle on the road. Like, when missing an exit, they’ll stop and back up to the exit. Or make a U-turn in the road and drive back to it.
My sister was living in Korea when they were going to have the Olympics. She told me that at some point early that year, the legislature was suddenly, “Hundreds of thousands of people from other countries are going to be coming to Korea, and at least some of them will want to drive. Perhaps we should have actual traffic laws.”
I’ve seen videos of Chinese drivers driving like they’re the only vehicle on the road. Like, when missing an exit, they’ll stop and back up to the exit. Or make a U-turn in the road and drive back to it.
My sister was living in Korea when they were going to have the Olympics. She told me that at some point early that year, the legislature was suddenly, “Hundreds of thousands of people from other countries are going to be coming to Korea, and at least some of them will want to drive. Perhaps we should have actual traffic laws.”
you can lead a Trumper to a life-saving vaccine, but you can’t make him smart enough to take it.
you can lead a Trumper to a life-saving vaccine, but you can’t make him smart enough to take it.
when DeSantis runs for Pres, “conservatives” everywhere will think thought policing by the state is an awesome idea.
anyone want to bet against me?
when DeSantis runs for Pres, “conservatives” everywhere will think thought policing by the state is an awesome idea.
anyone want to bet against me?
“anyone want to bet against me?”
The Ghost of McCarthy sez “oh hell NO”
“anyone want to bet against me?”
The Ghost of McCarthy sez “oh hell NO”
anyone want to bet against me?
Sorry, cleek. You’re not winning any sucker bets today.
anyone want to bet against me?
Sorry, cleek. You’re not winning any sucker bets today.
If you ask the Berlin police, the most reckless drivers in the world are Saudis connected to the embassy. They have thousands of serious violations on record including fatal hit-and-runs. If the perpetrators have actual diplomatic immunity, they’re asked to leave the country, otherwise they are put on a plane home quickly by the embassy while stalling (e.g. by falsely claiming that the culprit had an official status). The worst offenders seem to be the kids of diplomats who know exactly that they will not be held accountable (at least not by the German state).
If you ask the Berlin police, the most reckless drivers in the world are Saudis connected to the embassy. They have thousands of serious violations on record including fatal hit-and-runs. If the perpetrators have actual diplomatic immunity, they’re asked to leave the country, otherwise they are put on a plane home quickly by the embassy while stalling (e.g. by falsely claiming that the culprit had an official status). The worst offenders seem to be the kids of diplomats who know exactly that they will not be held accountable (at least not by the German state).
If you do this video search,
(bad OR crazy) Saudi drivers
you get links to videos of people doing jackass stunts like driving on the highway with the vehicle balanced on two wheels.
If you do this video search,
(bad OR crazy) Saudi drivers
you get links to videos of people doing jackass stunts like driving on the highway with the vehicle balanced on two wheels.
I wonder how well the Japanese regime would travel.
It is important to note that the regime has been the result of a gradual process of tightening the laws. Drunk driving was only made illegal in 1970. When I first came, people were still drinking a small glass of beer for the initial kampai of a party. I understand that the initial impetus was when two court cases involving drunk driving with roughly similar circumstances were decided and one received a light sentence and another, the judge basically threw the bookshelf at the person. This led to a campaign and other changes in the laws have been the result of public anger at similar incidents.
The first laws led to a big drop.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0386111219300470#bb0025
Even more stringent rules came into effect in 2000 and again in 2007 as a result of some high profile accidents where children were killed.
https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/jea/advpub/0/advpub_JE20120134/_pdf
The models did not consider police-enforcement activities. However, the police usually undertake only short-term (typically 1-week) crackdown campaigns after high-profile crashes. The number of drivers charged with drunkdriving, which had been quite constant for more than 10 years, decreased by 24% in 2000 (ie, before the law amendment)29–31; this suggests that the reduction in drunkdriving occurred without an increased likelihood of being caught. Although some drivers may have equated law enactment with automatic enforcement and changed their behavior when the law amendments were reported by the media, the observed change started many months before the amendments passed the Diet (road-traffic law in June 2001 and criminal law in November 2001).
Obviously, this sort of model depends on access to public transport, which is why drunk driving has been more of a problem in rural prefectures (like mine!) However, the laws 10 years ago gave rise to daiko, which are basically taxis with 2 drivers, and the second driver drives your car and then then go back. The cost is about 1.5 times the cost of a taxi to your place.
When coupled with public gestures, this is quite powerful. This is from the neighboring prefecture
https://japantoday.com/category/crime/first-arrests-made-under-new-fukuoka-drunk-driving-regulations
Fukuoka Prefecture has been running a high-profile anti-drink driving campaign since August 2006, when a 22-year-old man drove his vehicle into the back of an SUV containing a family of five. The collision pushed the SUV through a bridge railing, and the vehicle plunged into Hakata Bay. The two parents survived with minor injuries, but their three children, aged 4, 3 and 1, died.
Further initiatives were tested to raise awareness of the dangers of drunk driving. In May 2012, all Fukuoka city employees were ordered to abstain from drinking any alcohol for a month by Mayor Soichiro Takashima, after a scandal involving two city officials.
[…]
Under the new regulations, establishments that serve alcoholic beverages could be fined up to 50,000 yen and have their names made public if they fail to adequately uphold public safety commission regulations.
That two month pause pales in comparison to what a previous mayor did
Imabayashi [arrested and convicted for causing an accident] was a municipal employee in Fukuoka City’s Animal Control Center, and a higher level of care is expected of public officials, even at Imabayashi’s level. The mayor’s office received nine hundred complaints, leading the mayor to hand Imabayashi a disciplinary dismissal, cancel events related to Fukuoka’s Olympic host city bid, give himself a 20 percent pay cut, and issue pay cuts and reprimands to departments and officials connected with the Animal Control Center.
There is a lot to unpack in terms of cultural gestures and expectations, but simply put, it’s not just you who will get punished, it can be everyone you work with. I often have problems with that, but when dealing with problems like drunk driving, it works quite effectively.
The new laws also punished people who loaned their cars to people who were involved in a drunk driving accident, with the penalties going thru the roof if there was a death involved. There was a lot of discussion about this and concerns of the unfairness of it. However:
Japanese drunk driving laws are among the strictest in the world and are stricter than those of any U.S. state. Yet despite considerable drinking in Japan, drunk driving arrests and prosecutions are relatively rare. When cases reach the courtroom, Japanese judges apply an extraordinary range of tests to determine liability. Sometimes they rely on blood alcohol or breath alcohol results, and sometimes they don’t. Sometimes they rely on subjective observations of intoxication, and sometimes they don’t. Sometimes they rely on factors unrelated to drinking or driving to determine liability both for drivers and for passengers alike.
https://oxford.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.1093/oso/9780190070847.001.0001/oso-9780190070847-chapter-4
So, while taking the Japanese regime and simply moving it to the states might seem to provide clarity, if you don’t know the context and cultural factors, it can often lead you astray.
I wonder how well the Japanese regime would travel.
It is important to note that the regime has been the result of a gradual process of tightening the laws. Drunk driving was only made illegal in 1970. When I first came, people were still drinking a small glass of beer for the initial kampai of a party. I understand that the initial impetus was when two court cases involving drunk driving with roughly similar circumstances were decided and one received a light sentence and another, the judge basically threw the bookshelf at the person. This led to a campaign and other changes in the laws have been the result of public anger at similar incidents.
The first laws led to a big drop.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0386111219300470#bb0025
Even more stringent rules came into effect in 2000 and again in 2007 as a result of some high profile accidents where children were killed.
https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/jea/advpub/0/advpub_JE20120134/_pdf
The models did not consider police-enforcement activities. However, the police usually undertake only short-term (typically 1-week) crackdown campaigns after high-profile crashes. The number of drivers charged with drunkdriving, which had been quite constant for more than 10 years, decreased by 24% in 2000 (ie, before the law amendment)29–31; this suggests that the reduction in drunkdriving occurred without an increased likelihood of being caught. Although some drivers may have equated law enactment with automatic enforcement and changed their behavior when the law amendments were reported by the media, the observed change started many months before the amendments passed the Diet (road-traffic law in June 2001 and criminal law in November 2001).
Obviously, this sort of model depends on access to public transport, which is why drunk driving has been more of a problem in rural prefectures (like mine!) However, the laws 10 years ago gave rise to daiko, which are basically taxis with 2 drivers, and the second driver drives your car and then then go back. The cost is about 1.5 times the cost of a taxi to your place.
When coupled with public gestures, this is quite powerful. This is from the neighboring prefecture
https://japantoday.com/category/crime/first-arrests-made-under-new-fukuoka-drunk-driving-regulations
Fukuoka Prefecture has been running a high-profile anti-drink driving campaign since August 2006, when a 22-year-old man drove his vehicle into the back of an SUV containing a family of five. The collision pushed the SUV through a bridge railing, and the vehicle plunged into Hakata Bay. The two parents survived with minor injuries, but their three children, aged 4, 3 and 1, died.
Further initiatives were tested to raise awareness of the dangers of drunk driving. In May 2012, all Fukuoka city employees were ordered to abstain from drinking any alcohol for a month by Mayor Soichiro Takashima, after a scandal involving two city officials.
[…]
Under the new regulations, establishments that serve alcoholic beverages could be fined up to 50,000 yen and have their names made public if they fail to adequately uphold public safety commission regulations.
That two month pause pales in comparison to what a previous mayor did
Imabayashi [arrested and convicted for causing an accident] was a municipal employee in Fukuoka City’s Animal Control Center, and a higher level of care is expected of public officials, even at Imabayashi’s level. The mayor’s office received nine hundred complaints, leading the mayor to hand Imabayashi a disciplinary dismissal, cancel events related to Fukuoka’s Olympic host city bid, give himself a 20 percent pay cut, and issue pay cuts and reprimands to departments and officials connected with the Animal Control Center.
There is a lot to unpack in terms of cultural gestures and expectations, but simply put, it’s not just you who will get punished, it can be everyone you work with. I often have problems with that, but when dealing with problems like drunk driving, it works quite effectively.
The new laws also punished people who loaned their cars to people who were involved in a drunk driving accident, with the penalties going thru the roof if there was a death involved. There was a lot of discussion about this and concerns of the unfairness of it. However:
Japanese drunk driving laws are among the strictest in the world and are stricter than those of any U.S. state. Yet despite considerable drinking in Japan, drunk driving arrests and prosecutions are relatively rare. When cases reach the courtroom, Japanese judges apply an extraordinary range of tests to determine liability. Sometimes they rely on blood alcohol or breath alcohol results, and sometimes they don’t. Sometimes they rely on subjective observations of intoxication, and sometimes they don’t. Sometimes they rely on factors unrelated to drinking or driving to determine liability both for drivers and for passengers alike.
https://oxford.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.1093/oso/9780190070847.001.0001/oso-9780190070847-chapter-4
So, while taking the Japanese regime and simply moving it to the states might seem to provide clarity, if you don’t know the context and cultural factors, it can often lead you astray.
Even more stringent rules came into effect in 2000 and again in 2007 as a result of some high profile accidents where children were killed.
Bit of a contrast with the US reaction when children were killed by gunfire. Oh wait, those weren’t accidents, so it’s totally different.
Even more stringent rules came into effect in 2000 and again in 2007 as a result of some high profile accidents where children were killed.
Bit of a contrast with the US reaction when children were killed by gunfire. Oh wait, those weren’t accidents, so it’s totally different.
One additional factor in Japan is that there is a genetic divide between people who cannot tolerate much alcohol (similar to Native Americans) and those who have much higher tolerance. There’s a geographic correlation to the genetic divide.
I personally have seen a big Japanese guy, over 6 feet tall, not heavyset but definitely ‘solid’ 200lbs or so, have ONE weak Japanese beer and be three sheets to the wind*
That’s probably why BAC isn’t the only rule for intoxication. And why a national strict limit makes sense.
(*yes, we were all part of the same group, but I kept up with my Russian colleagues and was only mildly tipsy)
One additional factor in Japan is that there is a genetic divide between people who cannot tolerate much alcohol (similar to Native Americans) and those who have much higher tolerance. There’s a geographic correlation to the genetic divide.
I personally have seen a big Japanese guy, over 6 feet tall, not heavyset but definitely ‘solid’ 200lbs or so, have ONE weak Japanese beer and be three sheets to the wind*
That’s probably why BAC isn’t the only rule for intoxication. And why a national strict limit makes sense.
(*yes, we were all part of the same group, but I kept up with my Russian colleagues and was only mildly tipsy)
Russell at 9:21: I’m with you. I don’t care if the entire car runs on a single computer chip, but I want my user interface to be “real.”
And any screen in the front where the driver can see it, much less a touchscreen, strikes me as absolute madness.
Russell at 9:21: I’m with you. I don’t care if the entire car runs on a single computer chip, but I want my user interface to be “real.”
And any screen in the front where the driver can see it, much less a touchscreen, strikes me as absolute madness.
gimme knobs and buttons and levers, please. anything that lets me operate the car without taking my eyes off the road.
What? There’s no knob app?
gimme knobs and buttons and levers, please. anything that lets me operate the car without taking my eyes off the road.
What? There’s no knob app?
Heads up displays are a good thing, if not too crowded, because that allows to keep the eyes on the road (I always wished for that when I learned driving*) but controls need to be in a way that can be handled blindly (i.e. without the need to look at them).
*Actually, I have not steered a car since the day I got my driving licence many years ago.
It would be utterly reckless of me to go behind the wheel without going back to driving school again first. And I’d still be a lousy driver.
Heads up displays are a good thing, if not too crowded, because that allows to keep the eyes on the road (I always wished for that when I learned driving*) but controls need to be in a way that can be handled blindly (i.e. without the need to look at them).
*Actually, I have not steered a car since the day I got my driving licence many years ago.
It would be utterly reckless of me to go behind the wheel without going back to driving school again first. And I’d still be a lousy driver.
If asked to guess, I think they’ll go all in on speech recognition before they put the knobs back.
I’ve been fooling around with speech recognition in an embedded application using free open-source software. With a restricted vocabulary and a close-in microphone it’s surprisingly good. Less so as the necessary vocabulary expands and the microphone setup gets worse. There’s an outfit in Vancouver that seems to be doing remarkable things. And specialized hardware to support AI models (like the Alexa back-end) is getting much more affordable — see, eg, Apple’s M1 chip with a dedicated neural network processor that performs 11 trillion operations per second. Just writing that makes my head hurt.
If asked to guess, I think they’ll go all in on speech recognition before they put the knobs back.
I’ve been fooling around with speech recognition in an embedded application using free open-source software. With a restricted vocabulary and a close-in microphone it’s surprisingly good. Less so as the necessary vocabulary expands and the microphone setup gets worse. There’s an outfit in Vancouver that seems to be doing remarkable things. And specialized hardware to support AI models (like the Alexa back-end) is getting much more affordable — see, eg, Apple’s M1 chip with a dedicated neural network processor that performs 11 trillion operations per second. Just writing that makes my head hurt.
So, while taking the Japanese regime and simply moving it to the states might seem to provide clarity, if you don’t know the context and cultural factors, it can often lead you astray.
First, thanks for the insight. I don’t think the Japanese regime would do at all well in the US, although I’d be fine with something along those lines. For some reason, I found myself reading up on Norway’s DUI regime and it is also pretty Draconian.
Bit of a contrast with the US reaction when children were killed by gunfire. Oh wait, those weren’t accidents, so it’s totally different.
You might be missing something: no one is arguing in favor of drunk driving, nor are any gun owners arguing in favor of school shootings. The closer analogy would be to regulate alcohol purchases and consumption as tightly as many here propose to regulate otherwise legal firearms ownership. We tried something like that before with alcohol and it didn’t work out well.
If asked to guess, I think they’ll go all in on speech recognition before they put the knobs back.
I use Dragon a lot. It is ok, but a long way away from performing with the level of certainty I would want in a car or truck.
So, while taking the Japanese regime and simply moving it to the states might seem to provide clarity, if you don’t know the context and cultural factors, it can often lead you astray.
First, thanks for the insight. I don’t think the Japanese regime would do at all well in the US, although I’d be fine with something along those lines. For some reason, I found myself reading up on Norway’s DUI regime and it is also pretty Draconian.
Bit of a contrast with the US reaction when children were killed by gunfire. Oh wait, those weren’t accidents, so it’s totally different.
You might be missing something: no one is arguing in favor of drunk driving, nor are any gun owners arguing in favor of school shootings. The closer analogy would be to regulate alcohol purchases and consumption as tightly as many here propose to regulate otherwise legal firearms ownership. We tried something like that before with alcohol and it didn’t work out well.
If asked to guess, I think they’ll go all in on speech recognition before they put the knobs back.
I use Dragon a lot. It is ok, but a long way away from performing with the level of certainty I would want in a car or truck.
If asked to guess, I think they’ll go all in on speech recognition before they put the knobs back.
This is one of those situations where I ask “why?”.
The driver of a car needs to be able to command the operation of the car. Steer, control the speed, turn lights on and off, signal intention to other drivers.
Knobs, buttons, and levers are really simple ways to communicate all of that.
Voice recognition is, in fact, really good at this point. But its quality degrades with the quality of the audible environment.
Road noise, wind noise, kids yelling or someone on the radio talking (including saying “stop” and/or other things that may or may not be interpreted as driving commands by whatever software is running things.
I’m sure they can sort all of that out with another several years of research.
But why? Why is it better? Or even necessary?
Software has become the universal hammer in search of nails to hit. I’m not sure it always adds that much value.
For driving, specifically, there is also the fact that so much of driving is automatic.
When I drive my car, I do 1,000 things that basically make the car an extension of myself, without thinking about it all that much. The physical and neurological habits are burned in at this point, and have been since about the second month that I ever drove a car.
I don’t have to think about it, I just do it, automatically. It’s like walking or riding a bike.
If I had to tell my car to do all of the things I just automatically do, I’m not sure I’d keep up with the additional cognitive load. Not the car, I’m sure the computer can keep up.
I’m not *I* would be able to keep up.
I can see it working for stuff like “turn the lights on” or “change the radio station”. I can’t see it as a good solution for anything critical. And it’s just not that hard to turn the lights on or change the radio station manually, so I don’t see the point.
If asked to guess, I think they’ll go all in on speech recognition before they put the knobs back.
This is one of those situations where I ask “why?”.
The driver of a car needs to be able to command the operation of the car. Steer, control the speed, turn lights on and off, signal intention to other drivers.
Knobs, buttons, and levers are really simple ways to communicate all of that.
Voice recognition is, in fact, really good at this point. But its quality degrades with the quality of the audible environment.
Road noise, wind noise, kids yelling or someone on the radio talking (including saying “stop” and/or other things that may or may not be interpreted as driving commands by whatever software is running things.
I’m sure they can sort all of that out with another several years of research.
But why? Why is it better? Or even necessary?
Software has become the universal hammer in search of nails to hit. I’m not sure it always adds that much value.
For driving, specifically, there is also the fact that so much of driving is automatic.
When I drive my car, I do 1,000 things that basically make the car an extension of myself, without thinking about it all that much. The physical and neurological habits are burned in at this point, and have been since about the second month that I ever drove a car.
I don’t have to think about it, I just do it, automatically. It’s like walking or riding a bike.
If I had to tell my car to do all of the things I just automatically do, I’m not sure I’d keep up with the additional cognitive load. Not the car, I’m sure the computer can keep up.
I’m not *I* would be able to keep up.
I can see it working for stuff like “turn the lights on” or “change the radio station”. I can’t see it as a good solution for anything critical. And it’s just not that hard to turn the lights on or change the radio station manually, so I don’t see the point.
I use Dragon a lot. It is ok, but a long way away from performing with the level of certainty I would want in a car or truck.
Right there with you if it’s mission-critical. OTOH, it is (or soon will be) suitable for handling “Turn the volume down,” or “Blow warm air on my feet” or “Remind me to stop and get milk.”
I use Dragon a lot. It is ok, but a long way away from performing with the level of certainty I would want in a car or truck.
Right there with you if it’s mission-critical. OTOH, it is (or soon will be) suitable for handling “Turn the volume down,” or “Blow warm air on my feet” or “Remind me to stop and get milk.”
I’m with Russell. Voice recognition is good for Blue Tooth and whatnot. Maybe reminders as MC says. Beyond that, the steering wheel can and should have a range of hand or thumb-operated commands that do not involve taking one’s eye off the road.
This dovetails with the comments about bad driving. Houston was awful ten years ago. Now, I’d trade that ‘awful’ in a heart beat. I regularly clock drivers doing 90+ on freeways and 60+ on streets. The last thing I want is any kind of added distraction or uncertainty for those clowns.
I’m with Russell. Voice recognition is good for Blue Tooth and whatnot. Maybe reminders as MC says. Beyond that, the steering wheel can and should have a range of hand or thumb-operated commands that do not involve taking one’s eye off the road.
This dovetails with the comments about bad driving. Houston was awful ten years ago. Now, I’d trade that ‘awful’ in a heart beat. I regularly clock drivers doing 90+ on freeways and 60+ on streets. The last thing I want is any kind of added distraction or uncertainty for those clowns.
Also, I stutter from time to time (not awesome for a trial lawyer, but there you go). How would that work with voice commands?
Also, I stutter from time to time (not awesome for a trial lawyer, but there you go). How would that work with voice commands?
@russell,
An example of the problem I thought we were discussing is “Change the radio station at 60 mph using this touchscreen.” There’s no tactile feedback, so you have to take your eyes off the road. In addition to not watching the road, many people tend to steer slightly in the direction they are looking. Look to the right to see the touchscreen and some people will immediately start drifting to the right. (I have noticed an increased tendency to this myself as I have become an oldster.)
So, if the design decision is no physical knobs, and the touchscreen is dangerous, what alternatives are left?
@russell,
An example of the problem I thought we were discussing is “Change the radio station at 60 mph using this touchscreen.” There’s no tactile feedback, so you have to take your eyes off the road. In addition to not watching the road, many people tend to steer slightly in the direction they are looking. Look to the right to see the touchscreen and some people will immediately start drifting to the right. (I have noticed an increased tendency to this myself as I have become an oldster.)
So, if the design decision is no physical knobs, and the touchscreen is dangerous, what alternatives are left?
any screen in the front where the driver can see it, much less a touchscreen, strikes me as absolute madness.
Totally agree. Madness. And it’s going to get people killed. One has to wonder, if it’s illegal to drive while using your cell phone (as it is in California — “distracted driving” is, I believe, the term of art), how is it OK to drive while using a touch screen nowhere near your line of sight to traffic?
Now if they get to the point where you are running complete VR, with verbal modifications of the various buttons and knobs. That might be another story. But that’s a completely different story.
any screen in the front where the driver can see it, much less a touchscreen, strikes me as absolute madness.
Totally agree. Madness. And it’s going to get people killed. One has to wonder, if it’s illegal to drive while using your cell phone (as it is in California — “distracted driving” is, I believe, the term of art), how is it OK to drive while using a touch screen nowhere near your line of sight to traffic?
Now if they get to the point where you are running complete VR, with verbal modifications of the various buttons and knobs. That might be another story. But that’s a completely different story.
The closer analogy would be to regulate alcohol purchases and consumption as tightly as many here propose to regulate otherwise legal firearms ownership. We tried something like that before with alcohol and it didn’t work out well.
Prohibition was more like a total ban. Damn few people (albeit, admittedly, some very loud ones) are pushing for anything even nearly that extreme when it comes to guns.
The closer analogy would be to regulate alcohol purchases and consumption as tightly as many here propose to regulate otherwise legal firearms ownership. We tried something like that before with alcohol and it didn’t work out well.
Prohibition was more like a total ban. Damn few people (albeit, admittedly, some very loud ones) are pushing for anything even nearly that extreme when it comes to guns.
but a long way away from performing with the level of certainty I would want in a car or truck.
Control with voice recognition would require a period of the computer learning your personal voice in order to work. In addition to stuttering, which McKinney mentioned, there are regional and foreign accents. And dialects. Could anything like out-of-the-box voice recognition handle both a Southern drawl and Cockney? (Not to mention things like rhyming slang.)
Plus, you’d need to reprogram every time you added a new driver.
Then there is the detail that cars sold internationally would also need to deal with other languages, of which there are hundreds (over 400 just using the Latin script, which I’m personally aware of). And their dialects as well. Anybody can learn to push a button. No language skill required.
but a long way away from performing with the level of certainty I would want in a car or truck.
Control with voice recognition would require a period of the computer learning your personal voice in order to work. In addition to stuttering, which McKinney mentioned, there are regional and foreign accents. And dialects. Could anything like out-of-the-box voice recognition handle both a Southern drawl and Cockney? (Not to mention things like rhyming slang.)
Plus, you’d need to reprogram every time you added a new driver.
Then there is the detail that cars sold internationally would also need to deal with other languages, of which there are hundreds (over 400 just using the Latin script, which I’m personally aware of). And their dialects as well. Anybody can learn to push a button. No language skill required.
Also, I stutter from time to time (not awesome for a trial lawyer, but there you go). How would that work with voice commands?
There’s at least one PhD dissertation in that question :^)
There’s a subfield of speech recognition that is sometimes called “speech to intent”. For a limited intent “space”, things can be much easier. For example, “T-t-t-turn the volume up” in the context of what can be done in the car is much simpler to handle correctly than transcribing “The b-b-beast was t-t-t-transmogrified into a handsome prince.”
I’ve been thinking about adding to Cain’s Laws™. Something about software, and that solving a new problem always takes longer than initially thought, but in the long run the solution is better than anyone imagined. It used to be conventional wisdom that computers would never learn to play Go. Given suitable scoring cues, AlphaZero can derive the rules of Go, play against itself for a few days, and reach the point that humans simply can’t beat it.
Also, I stutter from time to time (not awesome for a trial lawyer, but there you go). How would that work with voice commands?
There’s at least one PhD dissertation in that question :^)
There’s a subfield of speech recognition that is sometimes called “speech to intent”. For a limited intent “space”, things can be much easier. For example, “T-t-t-turn the volume up” in the context of what can be done in the car is much simpler to handle correctly than transcribing “The b-b-beast was t-t-t-transmogrified into a handsome prince.”
I’ve been thinking about adding to Cain’s Laws™. Something about software, and that solving a new problem always takes longer than initially thought, but in the long run the solution is better than anyone imagined. It used to be conventional wisdom that computers would never learn to play Go. Given suitable scoring cues, AlphaZero can derive the rules of Go, play against itself for a few days, and reach the point that humans simply can’t beat it.
how is it OK to drive while using a touch screen nowhere near your line of sight to traffic?
it’s exactly the same as every other car’s center console. no car has all of its controls in the driver’s line of sight. the climate controls, radio, phone, etc. are always in the center console.
at best, some functions can be controlled from buttons on the steering wheel (which Tesla does) or from stalks in front of it (which Tesla does).
the one frequently-used thing Telsa puts on the screen that other cars put on the dash or a HUD is the speedometer. and they put it in the top left corner of the screen, so it’s always just to the right of- and above your right hand, instead of to the left of your right hand as it is in cars with in-dash speedos.
that’s the only thing i’ve had to get used to – control-wise.
wipers, lights, turn signals, gear, radio volume and channel, phone and cruise are all on stalks and wheel buttons.
how is it OK to drive while using a touch screen nowhere near your line of sight to traffic?
it’s exactly the same as every other car’s center console. no car has all of its controls in the driver’s line of sight. the climate controls, radio, phone, etc. are always in the center console.
at best, some functions can be controlled from buttons on the steering wheel (which Tesla does) or from stalks in front of it (which Tesla does).
the one frequently-used thing Telsa puts on the screen that other cars put on the dash or a HUD is the speedometer. and they put it in the top left corner of the screen, so it’s always just to the right of- and above your right hand, instead of to the left of your right hand as it is in cars with in-dash speedos.
that’s the only thing i’ve had to get used to – control-wise.
wipers, lights, turn signals, gear, radio volume and channel, phone and cruise are all on stalks and wheel buttons.
it’s exactly the same as every other car’s center console. no car has all of its controls in the driver’s line of sight.
No, it is not. Just for openers, you can find the button you want by feel. And feel whether you have rotated a dial. Touch screens, at least the ones I am familiar with, simply don’t provide that kind of tactile feedback.
it’s exactly the same as every other car’s center console. no car has all of its controls in the driver’s line of sight.
No, it is not. Just for openers, you can find the button you want by feel. And feel whether you have rotated a dial. Touch screens, at least the ones I am familiar with, simply don’t provide that kind of tactile feedback.
A different question about the touchscreen, cleek. My polarized sunglasses turn my smartphone screen completely black. (Not surprising, LCD technology depends heavily on polarized light.) When I have the phone in the dash mount to use for maps, I have to take the sunglasses off in order to read it. Is the Tesla touchscreen subject to the same problem?
A different question about the touchscreen, cleek. My polarized sunglasses turn my smartphone screen completely black. (Not surprising, LCD technology depends heavily on polarized light.) When I have the phone in the dash mount to use for maps, I have to take the sunglasses off in order to read it. Is the Tesla touchscreen subject to the same problem?
wj,
just tried it… with the sunglasses i have, it start to go black if i turn my head 90deg. so, they got the polarization angle correct.
i’ve had cars where the LCD screens were always black with sunglasses on.
wj,
just tried it… with the sunglasses i have, it start to go black if i turn my head 90deg. so, they got the polarization angle correct.
i’ve had cars where the LCD screens were always black with sunglasses on.
Just for openers, you can find the button you want by feel.
you can, but if it’s a knob, you are still probably going to look at it to see where you want to to turn it to. or, you’ll look at a display of some kind that tells you which station, temp or whatever you’ve selected. or to make sure the button picks the right seat warmer level or whatever. you’re already looking at the console a lot.
i was wary of the screen. i thought it would be hard to do things. but it really hasn’t been. the important things are right there and music, for example uses huge icons for channels – don’t have to be precise, just punch the 1.5×1.5″ icon that has your channel on it. and all the other things i really don’t mess with much anyway (tire PSI, phone settings, etc.).
Just for openers, you can find the button you want by feel.
you can, but if it’s a knob, you are still probably going to look at it to see where you want to to turn it to. or, you’ll look at a display of some kind that tells you which station, temp or whatever you’ve selected. or to make sure the button picks the right seat warmer level or whatever. you’re already looking at the console a lot.
i was wary of the screen. i thought it would be hard to do things. but it really hasn’t been. the important things are right there and music, for example uses huge icons for channels – don’t have to be precise, just punch the 1.5×1.5″ icon that has your channel on it. and all the other things i really don’t mess with much anyway (tire PSI, phone settings, etc.).
i thought it would be hard to do things. but it really hasn’t been
Well, I’m getting ready to buy a new car, so I guess I’ll be getting some first hand experience.
i thought it would be hard to do things. but it really hasn’t been
Well, I’m getting ready to buy a new car, so I guess I’ll be getting some first hand experience.
“what alternatives are left?”
https://www.investors.com/news/technology/crnc-stock-news-cerence-partners-with-sirius-xm-on-car-radio-voice-controls/
Maybe.
I wonder, when carpooling, when an argument breaks out regarding what station to listen to, which passenger’s voice will Sirius listen to?
No doubt the insistent teenager’s riding shotgun?
FOX, OAN, and the rest of the America-killing radio stations will recognize only Trump’s voice to change the channel, and then summon law enforcement harassment to pull you over when you insist.
“Also, I stutter from time to time (not awesome for a trial lawyer, but there you go).”
I went thru a period in my 40’s and maybe into my 50’s when I stuttered from time to time. It was puzzling, because prior to and since I rarely displayed that.
All I know is when Porky Pig declaimed “bedea .. bediet .. t-th-th-that’s all folks!” followed by the Looney Tunes fanfare, as kids, we knew it was time to grab a cookie.
When guns incorporate voice-activation, I don’t know how I’m going to voice DE-activate them when a shooter points one at me, and I stutter out: “P..pa..please da-don’t sch ..scha … shoot!”
Just like now.
“what alternatives are left?”
https://www.investors.com/news/technology/crnc-stock-news-cerence-partners-with-sirius-xm-on-car-radio-voice-controls/
Maybe.
I wonder, when carpooling, when an argument breaks out regarding what station to listen to, which passenger’s voice will Sirius listen to?
No doubt the insistent teenager’s riding shotgun?
FOX, OAN, and the rest of the America-killing radio stations will recognize only Trump’s voice to change the channel, and then summon law enforcement harassment to pull you over when you insist.
“Also, I stutter from time to time (not awesome for a trial lawyer, but there you go).”
I went thru a period in my 40’s and maybe into my 50’s when I stuttered from time to time. It was puzzling, because prior to and since I rarely displayed that.
All I know is when Porky Pig declaimed “bedea .. bediet .. t-th-th-that’s all folks!” followed by the Looney Tunes fanfare, as kids, we knew it was time to grab a cookie.
When guns incorporate voice-activation, I don’t know how I’m going to voice DE-activate them when a shooter points one at me, and I stutter out: “P..pa..please da-don’t sch ..scha … shoot!”
Just like now.
OAN’s voice activated genocide:
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/oan-host-muses-about-mass-executions-of-radical-democrats-for-election-crimes
OAN’s voice activated genocide:
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/oan-host-muses-about-mass-executions-of-radical-democrats-for-election-crimes
Plus, you’d need to reprogram every time you added a new driver.
All the information pertaining to a particular driver, from voice recognition to seat position, could be stuffed in the driver’s smartphone or maybe the key fob.
Plus, you’d need to reprogram every time you added a new driver.
All the information pertaining to a particular driver, from voice recognition to seat position, could be stuffed in the driver’s smartphone or maybe the key fob.
and Ingraham wants to Defund The Military because they aren’t Republicanly-correct.
and Ingraham wants to Defund The Military because they aren’t Republicanly-correct.
I personally don’t have a big problem with voice commanding for things like “turn the radio down”, if that’s what floats folks’ boat. If it fails, the worst case is… your radio is still loud.
That said, I’m able to do all the radio stuff I need to do in my car (2012 Mazda 5) without taking my eyes off the road.
And all of *that* said, my confidence level in vox recognition for critical functions is pretty low. I worked for a few years in a company whose bread and butter was vox recognition. It’s very very good, but sometimes very very good is not enough.
Enough people drive enough miles that edge cases are going to be an everyday occurrence.
Mostly, I think people like shiny new gadgets. They’re cool. Nothing wrong with that per se, I just don’t want to absorb those kind of learning curves embodied in 1 or 2 ton metal objects traveling at high speeds.
All IMVHO.
I personally don’t have a big problem with voice commanding for things like “turn the radio down”, if that’s what floats folks’ boat. If it fails, the worst case is… your radio is still loud.
That said, I’m able to do all the radio stuff I need to do in my car (2012 Mazda 5) without taking my eyes off the road.
And all of *that* said, my confidence level in vox recognition for critical functions is pretty low. I worked for a few years in a company whose bread and butter was vox recognition. It’s very very good, but sometimes very very good is not enough.
Enough people drive enough miles that edge cases are going to be an everyday occurrence.
Mostly, I think people like shiny new gadgets. They’re cool. Nothing wrong with that per se, I just don’t want to absorb those kind of learning curves embodied in 1 or 2 ton metal objects traveling at high speeds.
All IMVHO.
Plus, you’d need to reprogram every time you added a new driver.
(Preface: I prefer buttons and knobs as much as anyone, and you can pry my steering wheel from my cold dead fingers. But if the spec says “speech recognition”…)
The large-vocabulary model I’ve been playing with comes with no specialization beyond the language model(s). I’ve done nothing to train it. Accuracy is about 95%. With a sharply restricted vocabulary, much better accuracy. In its case, the problem would be restricting it to specific speakers.
How large a vocabulary? Given this (spoken) input, “Still following reasonable precautions given uncertainty around variant and post-vaccination transmissibility,” the only word it got wrong was the last one, which came out as “trans miscibility.” Heck, the Firefox dictionary rejects transmissibility. Granted, I read it in Standard American, which most college professors eventually acquire. (“Mike, in lecture mode” according to my wife.)
Carnegie Mellon, where the software came from, has free models for English, Indian English, German, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, Russian, Turkish, Vietnamese, Italian, Dutch, Catalan, Arabic, Greek, Farsi, Filipino, and Ukrainian.
I have been pleasantly surprised by how good the free software is. I may take a month later this year and see about combining it with some free software I’ve seen that guesses about punctuation and paragraph breaks just to see what happens.
Plus, you’d need to reprogram every time you added a new driver.
(Preface: I prefer buttons and knobs as much as anyone, and you can pry my steering wheel from my cold dead fingers. But if the spec says “speech recognition”…)
The large-vocabulary model I’ve been playing with comes with no specialization beyond the language model(s). I’ve done nothing to train it. Accuracy is about 95%. With a sharply restricted vocabulary, much better accuracy. In its case, the problem would be restricting it to specific speakers.
How large a vocabulary? Given this (spoken) input, “Still following reasonable precautions given uncertainty around variant and post-vaccination transmissibility,” the only word it got wrong was the last one, which came out as “trans miscibility.” Heck, the Firefox dictionary rejects transmissibility. Granted, I read it in Standard American, which most college professors eventually acquire. (“Mike, in lecture mode” according to my wife.)
Carnegie Mellon, where the software came from, has free models for English, Indian English, German, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, Russian, Turkish, Vietnamese, Italian, Dutch, Catalan, Arabic, Greek, Farsi, Filipino, and Ukrainian.
I have been pleasantly surprised by how good the free software is. I may take a month later this year and see about combining it with some free software I’ve seen that guesses about punctuation and paragraph breaks just to see what happens.
So, 17 languages out of, what, 400+ living languages currently? Consider me underwhelmed. (How did they miss Japanese???)
So, 17 languages out of, what, 400+ living languages currently? Consider me underwhelmed. (How did they miss Japanese???)
It’s one piece of free software.
It’s one piece of free software.
But are the others more inclusive?
But are the others more inclusive?
Google’s cloud speech-to-text service covers 125. Of course, “cloud” implies a bunch of limitations that exclude more people than the missing languages will.
Google’s cloud speech-to-text service covers 125. Of course, “cloud” implies a bunch of limitations that exclude more people than the missing languages will.
Others in the existing universe of speech-cognition software, free or otherwise? Yes. (That’s not even something I can claim to “know” in a specific way or would bother to look into. But, still, yes.)
Others in the existing universe of speech-cognition software, free or otherwise? Yes. (That’s not even something I can claim to “know” in a specific way or would bother to look into. But, still, yes.)
takes a huge amount to work to build a decent speech interpreter for a given language. companies aren’t going to bother going after small languages.
takes a huge amount to work to build a decent speech interpreter for a given language. companies aren’t going to bother going after small languages.
“The vodka is good, but the meat is rotten”
And we’ll have fun fun fun ’til Alexa formats the Tesla’s hard drive.
“The vodka is good, but the meat is rotten”
And we’ll have fun fun fun ’til Alexa formats the Tesla’s hard drive.
I worked for a few years in a company whose bread and butter was vox recognition. It’s very very good, but sometimes very very good is not enough.
to expand on this a bit…
one place I worked for a couple of years had proprietary vox recognition that they used to field interactive apps on the phone. like a robo-call, except with logical branching based on responses to walk through a scripted interaction.
for its time, it was very very good. I think a lot of newer stuff is better – Polly, Alexa, etc. but it was and still is pretty good.
part of the workflow for that stuff was having exit points, where if the software just couldn’t figure out what you were saying, it would exit gracefully and route a recording of the call to humans for review. because humans hear humans better than machines do, in general.
this was all for health care stuff, so we needed to make sure no critical stuff fell through the cracks – hence, the human review for the edge cases. but it didn’t have to be in hard real time.
driving a car is hard real time.
even Alexa gets confused, now and then.
I worked for a few years in a company whose bread and butter was vox recognition. It’s very very good, but sometimes very very good is not enough.
to expand on this a bit…
one place I worked for a couple of years had proprietary vox recognition that they used to field interactive apps on the phone. like a robo-call, except with logical branching based on responses to walk through a scripted interaction.
for its time, it was very very good. I think a lot of newer stuff is better – Polly, Alexa, etc. but it was and still is pretty good.
part of the workflow for that stuff was having exit points, where if the software just couldn’t figure out what you were saying, it would exit gracefully and route a recording of the call to humans for review. because humans hear humans better than machines do, in general.
this was all for health care stuff, so we needed to make sure no critical stuff fell through the cracks – hence, the human review for the edge cases. but it didn’t have to be in hard real time.
driving a car is hard real time.
even Alexa gets confused, now and then.
They want to make car interiors more like the bridge of the USS Enterprise? I mean, I love starships, but…
Those modern houses that are so popular, the big square things with plain exteriors or paneled siding, and flat roofs. I hate them.
I understand they’re wonderful inside, energy efficient, yadda yadda, but the outside just doesn’t look like a house, a home, to me. At best, it looks like a little office building. At worst, it looks like an institution of some kind – there’s a very modern mansion in a very ritzy neighborhood here in Seattle that I swear looks like a prison or a mental hospital.
Maybe I just want the inside of my car to look like a car, not a starship.
They want to make car interiors more like the bridge of the USS Enterprise? I mean, I love starships, but…
Those modern houses that are so popular, the big square things with plain exteriors or paneled siding, and flat roofs. I hate them.
I understand they’re wonderful inside, energy efficient, yadda yadda, but the outside just doesn’t look like a house, a home, to me. At best, it looks like a little office building. At worst, it looks like an institution of some kind – there’s a very modern mansion in a very ritzy neighborhood here in Seattle that I swear looks like a prison or a mental hospital.
Maybe I just want the inside of my car to look like a car, not a starship.
Maybe I just want the inside of my car to look like a car, not a starship.
Or a fighter jet?
“Though most car interiors stick to these relatively straightforward standards, there are a few of them out there that have taken interior design in a very distinct direction to give the driver a “cockpit” feel, in other words making the driver feel as though he or she is sitting at the controls of an F-22 fighter jet, rather than a used sports coupe that makes them look rich. These types of interiors usually have some variety of gauge cluster screen(s), a dashboard angled towards the driver, and at least a few buttons in places you might not expect to find them. “
15 Car Interiors That Make You Feel Like You’re In A Fighter Jet: While most cars share the same basic interior layout, a few have all the controls angled towards the driver, making them feel like a fighter jet. (McLaren F1)
Maybe I just want the inside of my car to look like a car, not a starship.
Or a fighter jet?
“Though most car interiors stick to these relatively straightforward standards, there are a few of them out there that have taken interior design in a very distinct direction to give the driver a “cockpit” feel, in other words making the driver feel as though he or she is sitting at the controls of an F-22 fighter jet, rather than a used sports coupe that makes them look rich. These types of interiors usually have some variety of gauge cluster screen(s), a dashboard angled towards the driver, and at least a few buttons in places you might not expect to find them. “
15 Car Interiors That Make You Feel Like You’re In A Fighter Jet: While most cars share the same basic interior layout, a few have all the controls angled towards the driver, making them feel like a fighter jet. (McLaren F1)
driving a car is hard real time.
yeah. i didn’t cough up the extra $10K for the self-
annihilatingdriving package.
programming is hard enough when it’s just drawing widgets on a web page. i’m not about to let someone’s code drive me around.
driving a car is hard real time.
yeah. i didn’t cough up the extra $10K for the self-
annihilatingdriving package.
programming is hard enough when it’s just drawing widgets on a web page. i’m not about to let someone’s code drive me around.
well fuuuuudge
(but he didn’t say fudge)
well fuuuuudge
(but he didn’t say fudge)
I’ve noticed something. In addition to in-state tourist destinations, my TV is being deluged with ads for Las Vegas and for New York City. But not, intetestingly, for Florida. Guess Gov DeSantis doesn’t want to get any extra business while he’s busy driving the cruise industry to relocate elsewhere.
I’ve noticed something. In addition to in-state tourist destinations, my TV is being deluged with ads for Las Vegas and for New York City. But not, intetestingly, for Florida. Guess Gov DeSantis doesn’t want to get any extra business while he’s busy driving the cruise industry to relocate elsewhere.
some days I miss my Chevy panel van with three on the column.
my motto these days is “OK boomer”.
some days I miss my Chevy panel van with three on the column.
my motto these days is “OK boomer”.
One very important innovation in the traffic law enforcement is the license olate recognition technology. This makes it much easier for the police to find people driving cars with expired insurance or inspection.
For example, my own country, Finland, requires an annual vehicle tax payment, a vehicle insurance and yearly inspection. If your car is lacking any one of those, the cameras installed in the police cars driving on the road will recognise this, and unless the patrol has more urgent things to do, you will be stopped and fined. The same happens if you are a fugitive and driving your own car.
The actual consequences for those minor offences are mild: a small fine and the payment of tax or insurance with penal increase, but the likelihood of getting caught is really high.
One very important innovation in the traffic law enforcement is the license olate recognition technology. This makes it much easier for the police to find people driving cars with expired insurance or inspection.
For example, my own country, Finland, requires an annual vehicle tax payment, a vehicle insurance and yearly inspection. If your car is lacking any one of those, the cameras installed in the police cars driving on the road will recognise this, and unless the patrol has more urgent things to do, you will be stopped and fined. The same happens if you are a fugitive and driving your own car.
The actual consequences for those minor offences are mild: a small fine and the payment of tax or insurance with penal increase, but the likelihood of getting caught is really high.
After WW2 Willy Messerschmitt (probably the best-known German designer of fighter airplanes) went into car design and it shows at least from the outside. Not much concerning the dashboard though.
After WW2 Willy Messerschmitt (probably the best-known German designer of fighter airplanes) went into car design and it shows at least from the outside. Not much concerning the dashboard though.
What I’d like in my car:
– manual control of essential things: steering, accelerator, brake, gears, clutch if appropriate, indicators.
– computer control of things it can work out for itself: engine management, anti-lock braking, windscreen wipers, headlights
– voice override of the things the computer controls, where appropriate
– a heads-up display of useful information: speed, navigation…
– voice control of what’s shown on the heads-up display
– voice control of amenities: music, air conditioning
– computer monitoring of whether I’m doing something stupid, with either computer override, if the monitoring is reliable enough, or audible and visual warnings
What I’d like in my car:
– manual control of essential things: steering, accelerator, brake, gears, clutch if appropriate, indicators.
– computer control of things it can work out for itself: engine management, anti-lock braking, windscreen wipers, headlights
– voice override of the things the computer controls, where appropriate
– a heads-up display of useful information: speed, navigation…
– voice control of what’s shown on the heads-up display
– voice control of amenities: music, air conditioning
– computer monitoring of whether I’m doing something stupid, with either computer override, if the monitoring is reliable enough, or audible and visual warnings
why wife’s 2-year old Acura has most of that, ProBono.
auto wipers and headlights have been somewhat standard for a while. HUDs are becoming widespread. voice control, check. lane departure warning (beeps) and lane departure mitigation (it will keep steer to keep up in your lane automatically unless you fight it), auto-braking (to prevent rear-enders), auto gearbox which you can override, adaptive cruise control where it senses traffic ahead of you and adjusts speed accordingly, etc..
there are a few cars that can auto-park themselves, too.
why wife’s 2-year old Acura has most of that, ProBono.
auto wipers and headlights have been somewhat standard for a while. HUDs are becoming widespread. voice control, check. lane departure warning (beeps) and lane departure mitigation (it will keep steer to keep up in your lane automatically unless you fight it), auto-braking (to prevent rear-enders), auto gearbox which you can override, adaptive cruise control where it senses traffic ahead of you and adjusts speed accordingly, etc..
there are a few cars that can auto-park themselves, too.
there are a few cars that can auto-park themselves, too.
So I’ll be able to complain about how *kids these days* don’t know how to parallel park the same way I do about how they can’t make change in their heads?
(Back when I still used paper money, I was paying for something or other that came to $10 and change. Having no tens, I handed the young cashier a twenty and a one so I could get a ten and whatever coinage back instead of $9 and change. The young cashier was completely befuddled. I had to explain it twice, the second time saying, “Just enter $21 as payment in the register and see what comes up as the change due back. It’ll make sense to you then.”)
there are a few cars that can auto-park themselves, too.
So I’ll be able to complain about how *kids these days* don’t know how to parallel park the same way I do about how they can’t make change in their heads?
(Back when I still used paper money, I was paying for something or other that came to $10 and change. Having no tens, I handed the young cashier a twenty and a one so I could get a ten and whatever coinage back instead of $9 and change. The young cashier was completely befuddled. I had to explain it twice, the second time saying, “Just enter $21 as payment in the register and see what comes up as the change due back. It’ll make sense to you then.”)
it will keep steer to keep up in your lane
parse that, AI muthafukka!
it will keep steer to keep up in your lane
parse that, AI muthafukka!
I, for one, look forward to our brave new world of feral AI cars roaming the city in search of parking spaces and cheap gas.
I can haz hunting license to keep the population in check, plz?
I, for one, look forward to our brave new world of feral AI cars roaming the city in search of parking spaces and cheap gas.
I can haz hunting license to keep the population in check, plz?
lane departure mitigation (it will keep steer to keep up in your lane automatically unless you fight it),
Just curious. Does it connect to the turn indicators? So it fights you if you don’t signal a lane change (or even a turn), but not if the blinker is on.
That would dramatically increase the number of people actually signaling their lane changes.
lane departure mitigation (it will keep steer to keep up in your lane automatically unless you fight it),
Just curious. Does it connect to the turn indicators? So it fights you if you don’t signal a lane change (or even a turn), but not if the blinker is on.
That would dramatically increase the number of people actually signaling their lane changes.
Just curious. Does it connect to the turn indicators? So it fights you if you don’t signal a lane change (or even a turn), but not if the blinker is on
right.
if you signal, it doesn’t fight you. if you don’t it puts a bit of resistance in the steering wheel and beeps.
the problem is when lanes split off the main road (ex. exit ramps). it will try to follow the exit ramp because that’s where the solid line on the right is going, and then when you try to steer back, it complains because that would mean crossing the dotted line that now marks the right side of lane you.
good times.
it is handy when you’re in the left lane, and don’t have to worry about exit lanes, though.
Just curious. Does it connect to the turn indicators? So it fights you if you don’t signal a lane change (or even a turn), but not if the blinker is on
right.
if you signal, it doesn’t fight you. if you don’t it puts a bit of resistance in the steering wheel and beeps.
the problem is when lanes split off the main road (ex. exit ramps). it will try to follow the exit ramp because that’s where the solid line on the right is going, and then when you try to steer back, it complains because that would mean crossing the dotted line that now marks the right side of lane you.
good times.
it is handy when you’re in the left lane, and don’t have to worry about exit lanes, though.
…the right side of the lane you want to be in.
err. i’m uh, apparently, um, declining.
…the right side of the lane you want to be in.
err. i’m uh, apparently, um, declining.
Going back to the start of the thread, the Oxford Nanopore tech which I noted has just been used to sequence the onion genome.
A prosaic endeavour described rather poetically:
https://www.wur.nl/en/Research-Results/Research-Institutes/plant-research/show-wpr/Onion-genome-finally-reveals-its-secrets.htm
…“Assembling the onion genome is comparable to completing a (jigsaw) puzzle with 100,000 pieces, of which 95,000 are just bits of blue sky,” says Finkers. “Only 5000 pieces really make the difference”…
Going back to the start of the thread, the Oxford Nanopore tech which I noted has just been used to sequence the onion genome.
A prosaic endeavour described rather poetically:
https://www.wur.nl/en/Research-Results/Research-Institutes/plant-research/show-wpr/Onion-genome-finally-reveals-its-secrets.htm
…“Assembling the onion genome is comparable to completing a (jigsaw) puzzle with 100,000 pieces, of which 95,000 are just bits of blue sky,” says Finkers. “Only 5000 pieces really make the difference”…
Didn’t help in that there was always another layer…
Didn’t help in that there was always another layer…
a (jigsaw) puzzle with 100,000 pieces, of which 95,000 are just bits of blue sky
Except it keeps turning out that those “bits of blue sky” actually (if looked at correctly) reveal critical bits about how the 5,000 pieces that “really make the difference” are able to work at all. So called “junk DNA” appears to be far more important than originally assumed.
a (jigsaw) puzzle with 100,000 pieces, of which 95,000 are just bits of blue sky
Except it keeps turning out that those “bits of blue sky” actually (if looked at correctly) reveal critical bits about how the 5,000 pieces that “really make the difference” are able to work at all. So called “junk DNA” appears to be far more important than originally assumed.
Ghost in the machine.
The ingredients list is easy to decipher compared to deciphering the recipe.
Nature throws stuff against the wall until it finds something good enough. Then it doesn’t bother with it anymore until such time it’s no longer good enough.
Ghost in the machine.
The ingredients list is easy to decipher compared to deciphering the recipe.
Nature throws stuff against the wall until it finds something good enough. Then it doesn’t bother with it anymore until such time it’s no longer good enough.
There’s research being done to develop tomatoes that have capsaicin. One advantage besides having literally hot tomatoes is that tomato plants are, if I remember correctly, 5-6 times more productive than are pepper plants.
There’s research being done to develop tomatoes that have capsaicin. One advantage besides having literally hot tomatoes is that tomato plants are, if I remember correctly, 5-6 times more productive than are pepper plants.
my wife’s company is figuring out how to get common watermelons to produce a sweetening agent that is currently only naturally produced in monkfruit – a little 3″ thing that only grows in SE Asia.
my wife’s company is figuring out how to get common watermelons to produce a sweetening agent that is currently only naturally produced in monkfruit – a little 3″ thing that only grows in SE Asia.
In a similar vein…having your meat and eating it too.
“Future Meat Technologies announced last week that it can now produce 1,100 pounds of meat daily from animal cells grown in industrial-scale bioreactors at its facilities in Israel. The company is scouting several locations in the U.S to build large-scale plants to grow cultivated chicken, lamb, pork, and beef. It aims to get its cultivated meats into U.S. grocery stores in 2022. Sadly, this timeline may be too optimistic since getting lab-grown meats onto your plate will require approval from two notoriously sluggish federal regulatory agencies, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration.”
Manufactured Meats Coming to a Grocery Store Near You Next Year?: The process uses 99 percent less land and 96 percent less freshwater than traditional meat production.
In a similar vein…having your meat and eating it too.
“Future Meat Technologies announced last week that it can now produce 1,100 pounds of meat daily from animal cells grown in industrial-scale bioreactors at its facilities in Israel. The company is scouting several locations in the U.S to build large-scale plants to grow cultivated chicken, lamb, pork, and beef. It aims to get its cultivated meats into U.S. grocery stores in 2022. Sadly, this timeline may be too optimistic since getting lab-grown meats onto your plate will require approval from two notoriously sluggish federal regulatory agencies, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration.”
Manufactured Meats Coming to a Grocery Store Near You Next Year?: The process uses 99 percent less land and 96 percent less freshwater than traditional meat production.
it can now produce 1,100 pounds of meat daily from animal cells grown in industrial-scale bioreactors
The critical question is: How does it taste? Well, that and texture. Just being “meat” isn’t going to get people buying it. (Although I suppose they could sell it to McDonald’s and Burger King — their “meat” is tasteless anyway.)
it can now produce 1,100 pounds of meat daily from animal cells grown in industrial-scale bioreactors
The critical question is: How does it taste? Well, that and texture. Just being “meat” isn’t going to get people buying it. (Although I suppose they could sell it to McDonald’s and Burger King — their “meat” is tasteless anyway.)
The critical question is: How does it taste? Well, that and texture.
Have you had any of the Beyond/Impossible products? My understanding is that Future Meat Technologies are doing something similar, using vegetable protein for texture, but combining it with cultured animal protein cells to dial in the flavor.
I mean, your average factory burger patty is made up of enough different cows to not be all that different.
The critical question is: How does it taste? Well, that and texture.
Have you had any of the Beyond/Impossible products? My understanding is that Future Meat Technologies are doing something similar, using vegetable protein for texture, but combining it with cultured animal protein cells to dial in the flavor.
I mean, your average factory burger patty is made up of enough different cows to not be all that different.
… Except it keeps turning out that those “bits of blue sky” actually (if looked at correctly) reveal critical bits about how the 5,000 pieces that “really make the difference” are able to work at all. …
Absolutely.
The problem until very recently, though, is that sequencing has only been able to ‘read’ pretty short stretches of DNA, and the bits then need to be assembled through statistical analysis.
That simply wasn’t possible for huge and relatively featureless genomes like that of the onion.
The Nanopore tech enables far longer individual reads, with pretty good fidelity.
It also reveals a lot of very small features which statistical methods discard when reassembling short reads.
… Except it keeps turning out that those “bits of blue sky” actually (if looked at correctly) reveal critical bits about how the 5,000 pieces that “really make the difference” are able to work at all. …
Absolutely.
The problem until very recently, though, is that sequencing has only been able to ‘read’ pretty short stretches of DNA, and the bits then need to be assembled through statistical analysis.
That simply wasn’t possible for huge and relatively featureless genomes like that of the onion.
The Nanopore tech enables far longer individual reads, with pretty good fidelity.
It also reveals a lot of very small features which statistical methods discard when reassembling short reads.
DNA analysis is pretty clearly going to be at the heart of “the next big thing.” Not just biotech, but something based around DNA analysis and understanding. By the end of this decade, I expect to see something analogous to the dot com boom.
DNA analysis is pretty clearly going to be at the heart of “the next big thing.” Not just biotech, but something based around DNA analysis and understanding. By the end of this decade, I expect to see something analogous to the dot com boom.
DNA analysis is pretty clearly going to be at the heart of “the next big thing.”
Beyond that is being able to reverse engineer and redesign an organism from scratch. But that may be decades away.
DNA analysis is pretty clearly going to be at the heart of “the next big thing.”
Beyond that is being able to reverse engineer and redesign an organism from scratch. But that may be decades away.
Crossing the streams, perhaps, but…:
https://futurism.com/neoscope/lab-leak-hall-mirrors
Epidemiologists like Wertheim — who’s made a career of tracking down how viruses like HIV emerge and spread during outbreaks — and other experts have been tasked with unraveling an endless list of possible timelines that range from unhinged conspiracy theories to plausible-yet-unlikely lab accidents.
“I guess a philosophical problem with the lab leak hypothesis is that it is unfalsifiable,” Wertheim said. “And what I mean by that is the specific scenario where a virus was isolated from an animal brought into the lab and then infected a technician or was accidentally released by somebody working there — there is no virus that we can find in nature that can disprove that scenario.”
Crossing the streams, perhaps, but…:
https://futurism.com/neoscope/lab-leak-hall-mirrors
Epidemiologists like Wertheim — who’s made a career of tracking down how viruses like HIV emerge and spread during outbreaks — and other experts have been tasked with unraveling an endless list of possible timelines that range from unhinged conspiracy theories to plausible-yet-unlikely lab accidents.
“I guess a philosophical problem with the lab leak hypothesis is that it is unfalsifiable,” Wertheim said. “And what I mean by that is the specific scenario where a virus was isolated from an animal brought into the lab and then infected a technician or was accidentally released by somebody working there — there is no virus that we can find in nature that can disprove that scenario.”
Probably do things like “gene cleaning” long before building from scratch. (Denounced as “designer babies”, no doubt.)
Probably do things like “gene cleaning” long before building from scratch. (Denounced as “designer babies”, no doubt.)
Beyond that is being able to reverse engineer and redesign an organism from scratch. But that may be decades away.
Take a look at (for example) Ginko Biotech.
It’s already starting to happen for simple organisms.
They got a billion dollar loan from the US government to help Pfizer/Moderna industrialise their processes for mRNA vaccine production.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-loan-ginkgo-idUSKBN2851TA
Beyond that is being able to reverse engineer and redesign an organism from scratch. But that may be decades away.
Take a look at (for example) Ginko Biotech.
It’s already starting to happen for simple organisms.
They got a billion dollar loan from the US government to help Pfizer/Moderna industrialise their processes for mRNA vaccine production.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-loan-ginkgo-idUSKBN2851TA
Probably do things like “gene cleaning” long before building from scratch. (Denounced as “designer babies”, no doubt.)
if we eventually figure out how to safely edit-out congenital ailments, we’d be fools not to do it. (there will be lots of unsafe attempts first)
Probably do things like “gene cleaning” long before building from scratch. (Denounced as “designer babies”, no doubt.)
if we eventually figure out how to safely edit-out congenital ailments, we’d be fools not to do it. (there will be lots of unsafe attempts first)
if we eventually figure out how to safely edit-out congenital ailments, we’d be fools not to do it
Similarly, having figured out how to safely vaccinate against childhood diseases, we’d be fools not to do it. And yet, and yet.
if we eventually figure out how to safely edit-out congenital ailments, we’d be fools not to do it
Similarly, having figured out how to safely vaccinate against childhood diseases, we’d be fools not to do it. And yet, and yet.
eventually we’re going to find a bug or two that will solve the anti-vaxxer problem once and for all.
eventually we’re going to find a bug or two that will solve the anti-vaxxer problem once and for all.
covid-19 looks to be providing a step in that direction. Currently virtually all of the fatal cases reported are for people who have not been vaccinated (for whatever reason).
Evolution in action.
covid-19 looks to be providing a step in that direction. Currently virtually all of the fatal cases reported are for people who have not been vaccinated (for whatever reason).
Evolution in action.
To put it in a Rumsfeldian way: do they spawn more offspring than is offed by the disease? Do they outbreed the pandemic and manage to infect their kids with their antivaxx sentiments before they die of it (to the end denying it to be the cause)?
That’s why a precondition for a Darwin Award is not having produced offspring.
To put it in a Rumsfeldian way: do they spawn more offspring than is offed by the disease? Do they outbreed the pandemic and manage to infect their kids with their antivaxx sentiments before they die of it (to the end denying it to be the cause)?
That’s why a precondition for a Darwin Award is not having produced offspring.
That’s why a precondition for a Darwin Award is not having produced offspring
Make that “…not having produced offspring who agree with your delusions.”
That’s why a precondition for a Darwin Award is not having produced offspring
Make that “…not having produced offspring who agree with your delusions.”
I think Hartmut’s right, because the crazy can skip a generation. To qualify, their genes have to be ended, taken out of the pool.
However,IRL, I have read reports of teenage children of extreme anti-vaxxers secretly going against the indoctrination and getting the vaccination. I don’t know numbers, and am on phone so can’t find link, but it’s rather encouraging to hear.
I think Hartmut’s right, because the crazy can skip a generation. To qualify, their genes have to be ended, taken out of the pool.
However,IRL, I have read reports of teenage children of extreme anti-vaxxers secretly going against the indoctrination and getting the vaccination. I don’t know numbers, and am on phone so can’t find link, but it’s rather encouraging to hear.
The pioneers of atheism often came from over-religious households. They knew what they were rebelling against. That’s a (small) glimmer of hope that the plans of fundamentalists to just outbreed us will backfire against them by creating a young generation filled with disgust for their parents’ bigotry (more so than kids that grow up in a ‘neutral’ family).
Still idiots will outbreed those with common sense (as opposed to the ‘common sense’ among the leaders of the idiots).
The pioneers of atheism often came from over-religious households. They knew what they were rebelling against. That’s a (small) glimmer of hope that the plans of fundamentalists to just outbreed us will backfire against them by creating a young generation filled with disgust for their parents’ bigotry (more so than kids that grow up in a ‘neutral’ family).
Still idiots will outbreed those with common sense (as opposed to the ‘common sense’ among the leaders of the idiots).
the plans of fundamentalists to just outbreed us
Is there any data on whether fundamentalists** actually are having more kids?
** Well, other than Mormons, of course.
the plans of fundamentalists to just outbreed us
Is there any data on whether fundamentalists** actually are having more kids?
** Well, other than Mormons, of course.
And (in Israel, where it matters) ultra orthodox haredi Jews.
And (in Israel, where it matters) ultra orthodox haredi Jews.
It’s at least a declared goal
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quiverfull
Quick googling yields results like this
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2723861/
(not very up to date, based on data nearly 20 years old)
A bit newer
https://www.pewforum.org/2015/05/12/chapter-3-demographic-profiles-of-religious-groups/
And the WaPo from 2015
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/05/12/charted-the-religions-that-make-the-most-babies/
Looks like evanglicals are slightly above self-sustaining while most other groups are below that (iirc self-sustaining is about 2.1 per woman).
So, in theory they could outbreed the non-Mormons but all of this assumes that all the kids stay in the fold and don’t become renegades (i.e. becoming mainline Christians or atheists).
Definitely far below the planned production targets.
It’s at least a declared goal
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quiverfull
Quick googling yields results like this
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2723861/
(not very up to date, based on data nearly 20 years old)
A bit newer
https://www.pewforum.org/2015/05/12/chapter-3-demographic-profiles-of-religious-groups/
And the WaPo from 2015
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/05/12/charted-the-religions-that-make-the-most-babies/
Looks like evanglicals are slightly above self-sustaining while most other groups are below that (iirc self-sustaining is about 2.1 per woman).
So, in theory they could outbreed the non-Mormons but all of this assumes that all the kids stay in the fold and don’t become renegades (i.e. becoming mainline Christians or atheists).
Definitely far below the planned production targets.
all of this assumes that all the kids stay in the fold and don’t become renegades (i.e. becoming mainline Christians or atheists).
Well, assuming that and that their kids don’t die of something that they could have been vaccinated for. Before they, in turn, can reproduce.
all of this assumes that all the kids stay in the fold and don’t become renegades (i.e. becoming mainline Christians or atheists).
Well, assuming that and that their kids don’t die of something that they could have been vaccinated for. Before they, in turn, can reproduce.