mikejb

Talking about data collection is a slippery slope. Surprisingly little of a Tesla ride gets transmitted, so whilst it seems like "A huge fleet of cars out there is collecting driving data", only a tiny amount of it is used to train. And so far, Tesla has a driver assist feature, and a lot of promises that get postponed every time the deadline is up.

Their current set of feature outshines most car manufacturers, yes - but you have to remember: Tesla seems that far ahead because - unlike most other manufacturers - they push their beta-features to the production fleet.

[Edit]: I should note: I don't subscribe to the sentiment that Tesla is "completely faking it" - I think they very much oversell their capabilities, and are nowhere near the point where the driver can stop paying attention (which to me is a core component of autonomy).

I think the primary fallacy in the theory is confusing companies like Waymo with companies like Tesla, and mingling their (in)capabilities.

Both have a very different approach in trying to get to self-driving, and when combining what both can't do, it would seem nobody can do anything. And whilst both throw out their fair share of "demo videos" (=advertising), they have different track records for what they can (and actually do), and what they can't (but claim to do).

That's pretty clever! How the tables have turned since hiybbprqag

> when the hardest Soduku problems in the world succumbed to a brute force search to my lame program in less than a few something something ms, I kind of shrugged at the fancy methods.

I think you're coming off as dismissive, which is why you're getting downvoted. Puzzles like these have the purpose to entertain a human solving them, and they do that pretty well.

If you seek entertainment in developing algorithms to solve these puzzles, you should adjust your challenge to modern computers: Up the size to 100x100 or more, see how your algorithm performs, and go from there. Spoiler: NxN Sudoku is NP-hard (NP-complete, to be precise), so have fun - maybe you'll even win a million dollars.

Now, if you want to really challenge yourself: Write an algorithm to create Sudoku puzzles that have a unique solution and as few initial numbers set as possible. Maybe you'll even improve your coding skills beyond mediocre. ;)

> Or just like a ton of other companies like Magic Leap, they went for a moonshot and are discovering that it would have been better to iterate instead.

Waymo started with the iterative approach, and threw it out of the window after they observed what Tesla is observing now: Humans suck at monitoring. Their testers started doing all kinds of crap while the car they were supposed to be supervising was driving, including texting, make-up and taking a nap.

Waymo identified the risks, and had the luxury to take a step back, and re-aim the moonshot. Tesla made the same discovery, but can't (or at least didn't) go back and say "we need to re-evaluate our approach to FSD" - and instead keep trying to get people to stay attentive at the monotone task of monitoring the vehicle, while continue to keep the blame on the human when they crash and die.

Now Waymo is in the position of being not only the current leader in self-driving tech (having cars without drivers on the road), but also having the perception of being the responsible player in the field, putting safety over profit&sales. Having the first cars without drivers on the road allows them to help inform legislation in that space, while Tesla is still struggling to convince their test drivers (=customers) to pay attention and not crash.

I agree. I think one key element Tesla is lacking (currently) is handling pedestrians. No Tesla driving demo I could see included any humans outside their cars.

I'm not sure what your source of information is, but I'd love to see the train of thought that has lead to this comment.

> You can take sensible precautions and not catch it.

A bit nitpicky, but significant: you can take sensible precautions and reduce the risk of transmission - but there's no reasonable strategy to not catch it.

> The best proof is that even with billions spent, the best contenders got marginal improvement over what Mercedes had in 1990 with discreet algorithms and no neural/fuzzy logic

Can you elaborate on that? I haven't found much on that, e.g. w.r.t. the Mercedes system handling other vehicles, pedestrians, street signs, unexpected situations (roadworks, children playing, etc.) - from what I was able to gather, the two systems aren't even remotely comparable.

Edit: Mercedes was able to go on a highway, follow the lane, and keep distance to the car in front. Claiming "the best contenders got marginal improvement" is heavily biased at best - it feels like an attempt to justify an outdated opinion, rather than having facts inform it.

It wasn't disclosed on whether stolen IP was used - Uber had (still have?) to cooperate with Waymo, inspecting their hardware and software stack.

The pedestrian ultimately got hit because a lot of fallback systems failed: They disabled the software's ability to emergency-break (1), they disabled the cars' systems to emergency break, and the operator of the vehicle was distracted, not reacting in time.

(1) This was actually done due to false-positives, i.e. the car slamming on the breaks in non-emergency cases. (I find that's a relevant point, because without that detail it just sounds more ludicrous than it already is).

Levandowski started a Church, around the time shit started to fall around him. I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of his money is hiding there.

Is his church bankrupt, too? I'd start there.

Interestingly enough, Waymo (back than Chauffeur) attempted the Tesla approach - and threw it out once they saw how people behave when the car "drives itself*".

W.r.t."self driving winter", I think Waymo are aiming to protecting themselves from that situation by developing close relationships with regulators, highlighting the "we're not them"-part and sticking to their safety-first approach.

I may be misunderstanding you, but in case I was misunderstood: I didn't mean to say that the virus is harmless. It may have longer-term effects, and just because it is more deadly when certain conditions are met, we shouldn't just throw people who meet these conditions under the bus, or assume it's going to be harmless in other cases - it isn't.

But it's hard work not to fall for the paranoia that is fed (partly as side-effect) by the current attention-seeking headline-business formerly known as news.

> the German man [...] said he had a mild fever in the weekend and slept it off, and came to work on Monday, which must mean he had recovered.

Unfortunately, this isn't a valid assumption. Lots of people come in to work sick - just yesterday we had to ask our boss to send someone home because they showed up to work caughing and sneezing all day (Today, two other coworkers aren't coming in because they're not feeling well...)

But reports at sueddeutsche.de say that the (by now) 4 individuals in isolation are feeling very well, and are not showing any symptoms.

I also don't think the virus is a death sentence. I haven't done sufficient research to strongly support this opinion, but from what I've read across news articles is that most fatal cases were individuals with certain pre-conditions. That doesn't mean there's nothing to worry, but this isn't humanities downfall.

IIUC, porn is used as an example to highlight that these are very personal details that are being sold, and porn preferences are things people often fear more of leaking than - for example - their financial data.

John Oliver, in his work on the NSA scandal had Snowden explain individual NSA programs based on "dick picks", to help people visualize and clarify the consequences of what otherwise is just generically described as "selling/stealing your data".

It should be noted though that the airplane type is only marginally * relevant in this incident (I'm saying that because many have other associations when a B737 gets mentioned in an "incident" context).

* The only relevance is that the ability to open windows / reach other windows to clean them during flight depends on the airplane type. So it's actually a plus for the 737, in this case.

Nuclear weapon detonations (particularly when tested underground, which is done mostly to avoid atmospheric contamination) can be identified through seismic arrays. The system is pretty reliable, and beyond the obvious task of distinguishing between natural and human causes, it is even capable of detecting the approximate origin. I remember reading an article about how even civilian arrays were capable of identifying tests in North Korea, and distinguishing between detonations, and the following cavity collapses.

"to act" has also other meanings than just be on stage or in front of a camera. Similary, an "actor" has also other meanings than just an individual being on stage or in front of a camera.

It's pretty much agreed on - the public acknowledgement of the conclusions by individual countries is plainly a game of politics.

> But pretty much all western countries are being threaten by Iran now.

Are they? If I remember correctly, Iran threatened the US / Trump specifically (more so since Trump threatened to attack cultural sites). Were there any threats to other western countries?

The US military is (by now) a terrorist organization where the plane crashed, so even Iran Air Flight 655 would be considered a "terrorist attack".

That's probably why they said "preliminary information indicates". And the rumors of a missile was probably the reason why they felt the need of putting out a statement in the first place.

The amount of trust put into any conclusion at this point should be minimal, and whilst I understand and partly share the lack of trust in embassy statements, I posted this to counter the blind "looks like it was shot down, someone on twitter said so" conclusion.

What I learned is that the stellar decades-long safety record of an airplane can be ruined by a single fuck-up during service - even when servicing another airplane [1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_4590

The Ukrainian embassy reported preliminary information indicates engine failure, and excludes a rocket or terrorist attack as cause. [1]

Particularly at this time, I wouldn't trust random sources on the web to provide accurate information about events.

[1] https://edition.cnn.com/middleeast/live-news/iran-plane-cras...

> Regarding the missile theory: if it was a missle, it was probably accidential. The majority of passengers on board were Iranian citizens.

Unless it was a non-Iranian missile, or a rogue actor.

(At this point, it's all speculation)

This is not correct. The details of gun ownership rights depends on the individual European state, but it's absolutely possible for a civilian to own guns. In fact, some do. It's just not engrained in the general culture or connected to the protection of rights, and subject to stricter regulation.

> Same way no one gives a shit about Yemen.

There is an undeniable discrepancy on how we receive and perceive information about individual subjects; Where our attention is directed, and from where it's deviated - what I'm surprised about is how this persists despite a medium like the Internet.

The guardian is a British newspaper, so there's an understandable focus.

An additional factor may be the insurance situation: Some countries require travel organizers to set up insurance for these cases, ensuring that customers can still get back. I'm not 100% sure on this, but I think the UK doesn't have such requirements, which would worsen the situation for them in particular.