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6 things I learned from riding in a Google Self-Driving Car

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6 things I learned from riding in a Google Self-Driving Car

Google invited me down to Mountain View to preview the latest generation of their self-driving cars.

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rjhilgefort
3634 days ago
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popular
3638 days ago
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7 public comments
skittone
3635 days ago
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Conquer rain and snow next. We need this technology mature soon.
toddgrotenhuis
3637 days ago
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"The unfortunate part of something this transformative is the inevitable, ardent stupidity which is going to erupt from the general public. Even if in a few years self-driving cars are proven to be ten times safer than human-operated cars, all it’s going to take is one tragic accident and the public is going to lose their minds. There will be outrage. There will be politicizing. There will be hashtags.
It’s going to suck."
Indianapolis
tante
3637 days ago
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The Oatmeal about Google's self-driving car
Berlin/Germany
wmorrell
3638 days ago
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I would love to see Google partner with a moderate-sized downtown area. The city either bans all human-operated non-emergency vehicles (and possibly buses) in the downtown area, or puts a significant toll/congestion pricing on entering ("Want to drive downtown in rush hour? Ok, $50"). A fleet of Skynet Marshmallow Bumper Bots is run by Google and/or local metro service is available for use, using existing fare payment system. Privately owned self-driving cars can be licensed to enter (permitted, or reduced/eliminated toll).

Try it for a year, and see what happens.
olympia
3638 days ago
Like, say, Downtown San Jose? :)
kazriko
3638 days ago
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I think these would be great for the boring, city/town driving. I would hope for a manual override for mountain driving and outside-of-city interstate driving though.
Colorado Plateau
skittone
3635 days ago
If you want to manually drive, you can rent time (and maybe a vehicle) at the track. It'll be expensive and niche--think horseback riding.
kazriko
3635 days ago
As long as it's not more expensive than currently owning a car is. (Which, realistically, is quite expensive if you're not getting the bottom of the barrel used cars. About as expensive as buying a horse.) I certainly hope that borrowing a self-driving car is significantly cheaper than current car ownership. I just checked the numbers on horse and car ownership. Horses cost around $3600 per year to feed/clean up after/house. Cars cost $6000 a year or so to pay for insurance, fuel, depreciation, etc.
louloupix
3638 days ago
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Interesting
[deleted]
3637 days ago
Pas mal!
diannemharris
3638 days ago
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"I want this technology to succeed, like … yesterday."

Pirate Bay Has Been Raided and Taken Down: Here’s What We Know – Wired

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rjhilgefort
3650 days ago
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Future Self

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Maybe I haven't been to Iceland because I'm busy dealing with YOUR crummy code.
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rjhilgefort
3728 days ago
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popular
3736 days ago
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satadru
3735 days ago
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Folks, make that trip to Iceland. You won't regret it.
New York, NY
toddmichaelryan
3736 days ago
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Love it.
mrobold
3736 days ago
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From my own vault:

* To the person who ever has to modify this that isn't me:
*
* I'm really, really sorry. This project started out so simply. It was a pretty straightforward
* dumb-client. All processing was done on the back-end routine and all this
* code did was display the appropriate data. That was it.
*
* Over the past 8 years (Christ, have I been here that long?), rather than rewriting the client,
* we have simply affixed more and more functionality to it - most of which would have necessitated
* a complete redesign of the client in any other organization. However, in the interests of
* expediency, those things have been bolted on - turning this dumb client into a 14,000+ line
* monstrosity that, frankly, I doubt anyone other than myself could actually maintain without
* losing their sanity. It's quite possible that the only reason I've been able to maintain
* this code is that my sanity left me a long time ago.
Orange County, California
jimwise
3736 days ago
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...
jepler
3736 days ago
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the day that stretches out before me, ladies and gentlemen
Earth, Sol system, Western spiral arm
emdeesee
3736 days ago
The #-delimited comments are cute.

The other infinite loop that all coders fear

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rjhilgefort
3738 days ago
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This sure sounds familiar
popular
3741 days ago
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jepler
3742 days ago
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yup
Earth, Sol system, Western spiral arm
emdeesee
3736 days ago
I almost shared this myself, but I had a sad instead.
LonelyBob
3742 days ago
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SW development in action
Saitama, Japan

Query

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SELECT * FROM GHOSTS
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rjhilgefort
3764 days ago
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popular
3764 days ago
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neilcar
3764 days ago
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SQL humor never gets old, does it?
Charlotte, North Carolina
tante
3764 days ago
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xkcd explaining queries (cc @mspro)
Berlin/Germany
denubis
3764 days ago
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I would like to do this today, please.
rtreborb
3764 days ago
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Underscores for column names?! :)
San Antonio, TX
zippy72
3764 days ago
More readable to a non-technical audience. Underscores _feel_ like "real computing" to everyone whose only databases were generated by an Access wizard dialog :)
jtgrimes
3764 days ago
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Alt text: SELECT * FROM GHOSTS
Oakland, CA

Getting My Brain Back

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big.brain.alien I can’t do it anymore. This has been a summer of social media. I’ve used it endlessly, made plans on it, chatted, read it religiously, and watched countless friends and friends of friends go on vacation. I’ve played a game of whack-a-mole with LinkedIn invitations and I’ve streamlined my automatic Tweeting systems. I’ve watched the world buzz by 120 characters at… Read More
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3764 days ago
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