Herbivore2

StrangeDays said:

Herbivore2 said:

2old4fun said:

sog35 said:

Self driving cars are silly.

As you are silly. Self Driving Cars are mass transit but not constrained by timetable as public mass transit is.

Self driving cars are NOT mass transit. Nice way to buy the Google Kool Aid. 

Self driving cars will still mostly transport one passenger per vehicle which isn't mass transit by any stretch of the imagination. 

Self driving cars are computerized taxis. 

I myself find the notion of self driving cars unsettling. There are a whole host of ethical and legal issues to still be worked out. Testing autonomous vehicles without passengers in semi-controlled conditions is one thing. 

Riding in one as a passenger knowing that I am in the hands of another software engineer/programmer is another. The software will be built to the ethical standards of someone else. And how will the software react to a child running into the street chasing a ball vs. runaway grocery cart. In one case, I would accept the vehicle steering into a wall. In the other case, I would not. Unless the cart had a child in it. 

While the technology is serious, the flagrant promotion of self driving technology by Google is frankly, quite silly. I don't want it. And neither do the vast majority of my friends and colleagues. 

The only people who do want it? People who have no business operating a motor vehicle in the first place. And do we really want a blind, demented elderly person being transported as the only passenger in a self driving vehicle? 

I certainly don't. And if you believe it should be the case, then I would invite you to take flight on a commercial airplane without human pilots. 

Why don't we want old people being carted in SDCs? I'd want to be able to get driven around when i'm too old to drive. Sounds great. 

It sounds great until the person gives the wrong address and the car drops the person off in some remote area and the person gets out then gets lost. Or to a shady area of town where the person gets mugged. Or the person trips getting out of the car falls and breaks their leg. Maybe the car can activate a powerful electromagnet, pull the person into the vehicle and self drive to the hospital. There are many more circumstances where such technology can actually be harmful. 

If harm comes to the person, who is liable? If I am too old to drive, a human driver is still far preferable. 

Things sound great on the surface but then there are always those pesky details that cause problems. 

Self driving technology is still of limited benefit. AR technology is quite helpful. 

I just don't see the technology amounting to much really other than a curiosity. Like Google glass. Interesting but not anything that will change much. 

gatorguy said:

Herbivore2 said:

2old4fun said:

sog35 said:

Self driving cars are silly.

As you are silly. Self Driving Cars are mass transit but not constrained by timetable as public mass transit is.

Self driving cars are NOT mass transit. Nice way to buy the Google Kool Aid. 

Self driving cars will still mostly transport one passenger per vehicle which isn't mass transit by any stretch of the imagination. 

Self driving cars are computerized taxis. 

I myself find the notion of self driving cars unsettling. There are a whole host of ethical and legal issues to still be worked out. Testing autonomous vehicles without passengers in semi-controlled conditions is one thing. 

Riding in one as a passenger knowing that I am in the hands of another software engineer/programmer is another. The software will be built to the ethical standards of someone else. And how will the software react to a child running into the street chasing a ball vs. runaway grocery cart. In one case, I would accept the vehicle steering into a wall. In the other case, I would not. Unless the cart had a child in it. 

While the technology is serious, the flagrant promotion of self driving technology by Google is frankly, quite silly. I don't want it. And neither do the vast majority of my friends and colleagues. 

The only people who do want it? People who have no business operating a motor vehicle in the first place. And do we really want a blind, demented elderly person being transported as the only passenger in a self driving vehicle? 

I certainly don't. And if you believe it should be the case, then I would invite you to take flight on a commercial airplane without human pilots. 

Is Mercedes also serving Kool-Aid? What about Audi, still just Kool-Aid? BMW Kool-aid? Ford, and Nissan, and Delphi, and Tesla, and Toyota, and Volvo and. . . 
You're letting the fire in your eyes at any mention of Google blind you. Within 3 years self-driving cars will be on streets in a city near you, and sold by several of those real car companies. Count on it. 

There may be some form of driver assist technology. But I am certain that fully automated driving technology is many years away. 

The automobile manufacturers were also big on HCCI and all sorts of technologies that never became reality. Just because several companies are looking at it doesn't mean that it will be feasible or that it will sell. 

Not that it matters because it doesn't. But self driving technology as envisioned by Google will not happen in 3 years. And I will be happy to report back on Feb 1, 2020 to remind you of that. 

Auto pilot technology has been available on the major airliners for several years. Yet they all still have human pilots. 

Why is that? Piloting an aircraft is a far more controllable activity than driving a car. 

Self driving cars have huge legal and regulatory hurdles to overcome. To think that they will be commonplace in three years is a stretch. 

2old4fun said:

sog35 said:

Self driving cars are silly.

As you are silly. Self Driving Cars are mass transit but not constrained by timetable as public mass transit is.

Self driving cars are NOT mass transit. Nice way to buy the Google Kool Aid. 

Self driving cars will still mostly transport one passenger per vehicle which isn't mass transit by any stretch of the imagination. 

Self driving cars are computerized taxis. 

I myself find the notion of self driving cars unsettling. There are a whole host of ethical and legal issues to still be worked out. Testing autonomous vehicles without passengers in semi-controlled conditions is one thing. 

Riding in one as a passenger knowing that I am in the hands of another software engineer/programmer is another. The software will be built to the ethical standards of someone else. And how will the software react to a child running into the street chasing a ball vs. runaway grocery cart. In one case, I would accept the vehicle steering into a wall. In the other case, I would not. Unless the cart had a child in it. 

While the technology is serious, the flagrant promotion of self driving technology by Google is frankly, quite silly. I don't want it. And neither do the vast majority of my friends and colleagues. 

The only people who do want it? People who have no business operating a motor vehicle in the first place. And do we really want a blind, demented elderly person being transported as the only passenger in a self driving vehicle? 

I certainly don't. And if you believe it should be the case, then I would invite you to take flight on a commercial airplane without human pilots. 

gatorguy said:

Herbivore2 said:

I dislike Chrome. Haven't used it in years. It is a system resource and bandwidth hog. 

I actually liked iCab enough to pay for the browser. It is a very nice app and far nicer than Chrome with better speed and customizability. 

I have Chrome where I work, but use it only as a last resort as my machine bogs down substantially. As soon as I am finished with the browser, I close it immediately. If I happen to forget, I am usually forced to use the Windows task manager to kill the process. 

I could care less about syncing the bookmarks, etc. If I need them, I will just VPN to my home machine from my iPhone and access safari directly. 

Staying off of Chrome has another huge advantage. Google is unable to profile my browsing habits. 

For those times you're forced to use it:
https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/114836?co=GENIE.Platform=Desktop&hl=en

There's also Incognito Mode. Click on the three dots in the upper corner to access it.

I appreciate the attempt at providing assistance, but changing the privacy settings for the browser never made any difference regarding the browser taking up greater and greater amounts of system ram. The browser was always constantly using bandwidth also. 

It was just easier to delete the browser all together. Especially with all of the other nicer options for the Mac. I use safari mostly with Firefox as a backup. On iOS I use iCab with Safari as the backup. My employer allows two browsers, Internet Explorer and Chrome. After opening and forgetting to shut Chrome down on a couple of occasions, I remembered why I had developed an intense dislike for the browser. 

I never thought I would ever say it, but IE is better than Chrome. And this one doesn't pertain to browsers, but Bing itself has become a better search engine also. Try typing in the name of a physician in each browser page. Bing returns the relevant results at the top and in large format. Very nice. Google returns the results from a bunch of physician rating firms. NOT useful. Wait until the general public figures that one out. 

The iPad is a very nice machine. Very long lived too. 

I still use my original iPad on occasion. I only upgraded just last year when the large screen iPad Pro was released. 

My next upgrade will be to a MacBook Pro. I am waiting for Intel to get on the ball regarding their 3D XPoint memory product. And I will likely upgrade the iPad also when Apple includes the NVM memory product in the device also. 

The iPad lasts and lasts. Such a great product. It makes for a light upgrade cycle and the likely reason for the sales declines. It is far better than anything from the competition.