Can someone explain in simple terms what this article was saying? I tried, and thought I knew, and began to realize how little I knew about anything the further I read.
1,058 karma · joined May 19, 2015
If I were to guess, I'd assume that "de-coupling" means "splitting the spectrum into RGB." RGB, because it's easy to reproduce for human viewing, but you could do this with other spectrums as well.
I imagine "in-coupling" refers to how they get the light to a sensor.
I used to worked for a company that would use lasers to "build" mirrors inside of blocks of glass. They could tune those mirrors to reflect just red, or just blue, or green, or any combo.
I can imagine using this sort of tech to build panels of glass that can route "de-coupled" RGB to travel spectrum specific sensors.
Or, it might be possible that they're just capturing the full spectrum of light, but using microscopic etchings or surface treatments to bounce light down a layer of glass, somehow bouncing "pixels" of light down the pane of glass in a way that isn't lost while capturing other "pixels".
I say "pixels", but what I mean is "a portion of the glass." If you think of the glass as the polished ends of fiber optic strands, all bundled together, each of them routed to a specific sensor pixel - that's sort of what I mean. If you can etch your prisms/combs/gates fine enough, you can have higher "pixel" density from your glass pane.
Then again, they're the lens experts and could be doing something else entirely. I'm really just guessing.
Especially true since Zeiss isn't planning on selling these at all. They're selling licenses to the tech.
I doubt that undermines your privacy argument in any meaningful way however. Even if the license was free, the cost of producing the components is certainly magnitudes higher compared to the cost of current tech that accomplishes similar goals.
> The Holocam technology "uses holographic in-coupling, light guiding and de-coupling elements to redirect the incoming light of a transparent medium to a hidden image sensor."
That suggests, at least to me, that you'll need something more than just a simple sheet of glass. There's probably some engineering required to allow light to be guided and redirected towards what sounds like a typical camera sensor.
I was prepared to dispute this, but now I'm not certain. According to capitoltrades.com, a site that tracks US politician stock trades, 213 politicians made trades within the last 3 years. Assuming those are senators and congress members, then it's fair to say that most aren't making trades.
That said, the GP comment that asserted "their power and insider knowledge makes them a lot more than that overall" isn't incorrect. 213 politicians take advantage of their elected positions to profit from the stock market.
The Supercharger network is a very nice part of the Tesla experience. When I first got my Model 3, I assumed that non-Tesla charging networks were at least functional, but learned very quickly how much of a mess other networks are.
Any time I've attempted to charge somewhere other than a Supercharger there were issues. Either the charger simply didn't work, or the rate of charge was slower than if I'd connected to a 110v outlet.
Another benefit I often forget about is how I can park my car in my garage or driveway with 50 miles of range at the end of the day and wake up to 300. Having the "gas pump" at home is fantastic and something I often take for granted. It's also hard to convey the benefits to those who don't charge at home. It seems like a trivial thing, and it's even something I feel weird about being so enthusiastic about. I try to tell people it's like having someone fill your gas tank every morning. For about $10.
I've considered replacing my wife's car with an EV that isn't a Tesla, but the thought of dealing with the craptastic non-Tesla charging networks stops me every time. I'm hoping that sentiment will improve as more manufacturers join the network and the overall charging experience improves, rather than decline due to the influx of new vehicles using the network.
For me, it's the relative silence of going from 0-60 MPH in under 4 seconds that does it. I have an ICE car that can almost do that, but it does so very loudly requires me to shift gears manually as it happens. It's a full body and mind experience, one full of very obvious feedback.
Problems that I think are unique to the Tesla:
Even after 4+ years of driving, I still hate the door handles. They require so much more dexterity than "normal" car door handles. You gotta aim your thumb at a quarter sized spot, then push in so that your fingers have a chance to catch the lever before you pull your thumb away. Normal car doors are stupid enough that they could be opened by a lobster. When the Model 3 handles freeze (which happens where I live), the user manual instructs you to hit the handles with your fist. Like a caveman. How about real door handles?
The entire top sheet of glass spontaneously shattered while just sitting in my garage. I was sweeping the other side of my garage one afternoon when there was what sounded like a gunshot. I looked over and saw that the top class window had just fully cracked diagonally across the entire pane. There were no rock chips on its front edge (a common precursor to full shatter), no kids standing on it (a less common precursor). My best guess is that the body of the car warmed up in the garage after coming in from the cold, but the glass itself wasn't yet warm enough and that was enough to cause thermal expansion that was incompatible with it wanting to remain whole. Cost $1500 to replace, and Tesla refused to cover it under warranty, claiming it was not a manufacturing defect. No appeal, no second opinion. Also, it was during covid, and it took 7 weeks for the glass to arrive. So for 7 weeks, I had a very big, open, sunroof.
Then there's the UI. This is my single biggest gripe. Parts of it are objectively terrible.
The part of the UI that tells you how fast your car is going is, compared to the rest of the UI, microscopic, and rendered in a grey on white background. It's not in your line of sight, which requires you to turn to look at it. I figured out a hack though - let someone else, like my wife, tell me when I'm speeding. That only works when she's in the car though. When she's not in the car and tells me I'm speeding, I tend to ignore her.
When you're stopped at a stop, there are dancing grey car and truck models all over the place. There was a tiny old Toyota pickup truck next to me the other day, and the UI wanted to simultaneously render it as a traffic cone, a big box truck, a motorcycle, and then a sedan. It never could make up its mind, and decided to just place it sideways growing halfway out of the model of a box truck that was meant to represent the Toyota Corolla that was in front of me. What's the point of devoting more than a third of the UI to this endeavor? To show me how wrong the computer always is about what's around me?
Here's a fun one that made it to my list super early into my ownership experience: sometimes the UI will reboot while you're driving 75MPH in the middle of rush hour traffic. That makes for some serious puckering, even if it's happened 10 times before. No worries though, after driving blind for about 2 minutes it comes back online.
One time, it came back online to the "romance" app, showing a lovely fireplace and adjust the fans to gently blow warm air on me to set the mood. I was not in the mood. I was using the route navigation to get me someplace. Instead of knowing what exit to take, I was enjoying a warm fire. On an August afternoon in Los Angeles rush hour traffic.
Then there's the Autopilot experience. Not Full Self Driving, but just Autopilot. When you're using it to stay within lanes, it'll aggressively try to center itself in the lane, which is good for staying in the lane, but if you pass an onramp, and the right lane line vanishes for that onramp to merge into the lane you're in, the car will violently align itself between the left lane line, and the onramp's right lane lane. It'll happily do that whether you're going 20 MPH or 100 MPH. I don't use Autopilot any more.
When I go to work in the morning, while backing out the overlays that show your rear and side cameras will appear, but imagery from the cameras will often take over a minute to appear. But not always, and it's that part that's the most unsettling. Why be slow sometimes and not others?
Let's talk about the front trunk latch. Is there an actual trick to close it the first time, gently? I still don't know how to best close it. I don't think I'm alone either. Yesterday while at a Super Charger I saw two different people trying to close their frunk at least 3 to 4 times each. One of them even got into an argument with their passenger for how best to do it. I rarely use my frunk anymore because I hate trying to close it.
What's crazy to me is: despite all of what I just said, damn I love driving it.
It's why I think Tesla is stupid for not pursing a bare bones, "dumb" version of the Model 3. Give it physical buttons, no driving assist fluff, real door handles, minimal glass. I'd trade in my current Model 3 for that, no question.
Thing is, the number of adult Americans who cannot use their voice to control a Tesla is about 17.5 million.
What you categorize as "grasping at straws" is me responding to a post where someone asserted that "you're mostly meant to use voice and put everything on auto" to operate your car. Remarking that not everyone can do that isn't grasping at straws, it's just a fact. Even if we used your 0.002% number, that's easily 600k people who cannot operate a Tesla using only their voice. Voice control is not a solution to poor controls.
Weird, too, that of all the things I said, that's what you decide to reply about. The one, actually non-subjective reason why "using your voice" isn't the solution, is the one thing you consider to be a stretch.
I'll reluctantly agree with this notion, but will say that being the best car UI is hardly difficult to achieve.
> There's zero guessing.
What? Do you use the UI every day? I do, and I'm constantly guessing where the latest UI update moved things to.
I suspect my Model 3 doesn't have "touch zones" on the steering wheel either, since if it I did, I'd certainly be touching them unintentionally. Or maybe my Model 3 does have them, and I just haven't found the UI control/setting to know if I do or not.
The configurable steering wheel button is a huge win in terms of usability, and it's also relatively new to the Model 3.
> you're mostly meant to use voice and put everything in auto.
Some of us don't have voices. Being able to speak out loud should not be a requirement for driving a vehicle.
Regarding everything being in auto: when everything is in auto, sometimes the car wants to automatically slam on the brakes or swerve into oncoming traffic or stopped police cars. You may be comfortable with that risk. I am not.
I have also never stared at my speedometer, but that's usually because on most cars it's easy to just glance down and see a speedometer.
On the Model 3, you have to: remember where the speedometer is now (since UI updates have moved it - it's had 4 different locations since I've owned my Tesla). Once you do find it, you have to ignore all the other UI baubles crowding around it. There are dancing grey 3D models of nearby vehicles, notifications, yellow icons, if your blinker is on, and you found the setting to enable it, sometimes a side camera overlay alternating between something you can see and full yellow/white from brightness of the blinker over exposing the shot, green icons, models of nearby vehicles that are swapping out between a truck shape, a sideways car shape, cones, then back into the sedan model (even though the vehicle it's rendering is actually a tiny old pick up trick).
It UI may be the "best car UI" you've ever used, but that doesn't mean touch-screen-only controls in a vehicle are even remotely a good idea.
All that said, I think the Model 3 feels remarkably sporty for how heavy it is. You can feel that weight in corners for sure, but I'd hardly call the ride "numb". I can't accelerate entirely through a typical corner like I can with the STI, but once the weight settles, and you're coming out of a corner, you can make up whatever was lost when scrubbing speed with instant torque. I think because of that, it feels far more like my STI than most all other cars I've driven.
"A fire built around a wad of kerosene soaked rags starts instantly."
Does that sentence suggest that kerosene starts rags to you, or that kerosene soaked rags help start fires instantly?
The good news is that the article describes in detail how to determine for yourself if it's worth it. The author uses an M2 as well, so you can at least know it'll likely work.
The advertised range of the announced vehicles are in the 250 to 340 mile range. When I read "promised range", those are the numbers I'm thinking of.
The battery pack referred to in the article title adds to that promised range. Instead of the "promised range" of 250 to 340, it increases range to 440 to 470.
I think Elon says things fully expecting them to become true.
Whenever I hear him say "I'm confident that X will happen by Y", I mentally add "provided that every single engineer at [one of his companies] puts in 20 hour days for 2 years and manages to solve a mountain of problems that have never been solved before."
Sometimes it works, which unfortunately encourages the behavior.
Your use of "crazy abuse allegations" is strange to me as well. I hardly see any of her allegations as being "crazy".
Here's a collection of things she's said about the abuse.
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/QDczBduZorG4dxZiW/sam-altman...
Lawyers, being very much not naive, knowingly write contracts that are unenforceable in court. They're ok with that because they know the majority of those who sign the contract assume it's legally enforceable and never challenge it.
> BlackRock invests in multifamily properties, apartment complexes, and other residential real estate.
If BlackRock doesn't buy individual houses in the U.S., but does invest in multifamily, and apartment properties, then what kind of properties are "other residential"? Anything I can think of is either a kind of individual home (which they don't buy) or multi-unit.
I apologize that you felt that it was an accusation. I could have been more tactful in expressing what my impressions were of your probing. I'm happy to be wrong.
I used to photograph professional skateboarders. My favorite sort of shot would be of the rider doing something down a set of stairs using a telephoto (usually in the f4 and up focal length). I'd setup strobes in front of and behind the rider's line to get good rim lighting of their face and body as they nailed the trick.
That was to help isolate them in the shot against the background better, which, because of the f4 and need for a lot of light, we'd shoot in broad daylight.
That meant you needed very bright flashes and very fast shutter speeds. The best my camera could do at the time was 1/250 flash sync, which meant that was the fastest shutter speed I could use. 1/250 is the very bare minimum you can use in those conditions to freeze motion. If I could have shot above 1/500, that would have opened up so many other options for capturing those kinds of shots.
Others have explained that the flash duration itself doesn't need to be quick as the shutter. If it helps, think of it this way: you can still capture sunlight at 1/80000, even though the sun's "flash" duration is pretty long.
Stupid invented fees are what flipped the "never again" switch for me. Every step of the buying process, there'd be a new fee tacked on. You'd get things like "order processing fee, $20, facility fee, $10, service fee, $23, digital copies fee, $10, fee to see what all the fees add up to, $20".
You'd end up spending $120 on a pair of tickets, and $500 on invented fees that any sane person would have a very difficult time justifying.
I love my A7IV, but the A9III makes it look like a toy.