Tech Nightmares: Ghostline the flux

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How many quarters after Q1 2016 till Marissa Mayer is unemployed?
	1 or fewer
	2
	4
	Her job is guaranteed; what are you even talking about?

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

Man, it'd be awesome if rents went down.

ToxicSlurpee posted:

Yeah sure you can probably start at $70K a year there

D'awww

# ¿ Feb 10, 2016 03:47

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 00:22

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

silence_kit posted:

You've really got to be ideologically committed to Uber being the Great Evil to deny that it is a better experience for the customer.

This is D&D.

# ¿ Feb 11, 2016 07:05

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

ToxicSlurpee posted:

Anything over $1,500 a month for a 1BR is pretty crazy. I'd argue that anything over $1,000 is crazy. The Bay Area has tiny studio apartments that are going for over $3,000 a month. NYC is almost as bad and Seattle is pretty ridiculous too. There are cities where you can snag a decently sized 1BR for $700 a month downtown. If you're making bank in a tech job that's payable but what if you aren't? If you're making $10 an hour it costs you over 300 hours (think taxes) a month just to pay your rent. Guess how many people can actually do that?

Eh, any major city undergoing an economic and population boom is going to have high rent prices downtown. The really bad part is when you go outside the core a few miles and the prices are still stupid high, that's the real problem.

Luckily, Seattle seems to be doing a reasonably good job of building enough to meet demand, so things probably aren't going to reach bay area levels of dumb there:

quote:

It's not demand that has Seattle apartment landlords worried. It's supply.

More than 11,000 new units are expected to open this year in the region, and it's forecast that an equal number will open next year. For landlords this tsunami of new apartments comes at a terrible time with the market showing signs of weakness.

Construction of apartments was booming on Seattle's Capitol Hill in the summer of 2014, when this photo was taken, and still is. That will be a problem for developers because the rental market is showing signs of slowing down as thousands of new units open.

"In our portfolio, we're starting to see signs of things slowing down a little bit," Billy Pettit, senior vice president at Pillar Properties, said Monday.

While demand remains high, he said the large number of new units coming to the market is reason to pause, especially since the increase in supply is slowing down rent growth.

http://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/blog/2015/11/bad-timingas-thousands-of-new-apartments-open.html

Those poor, poor developers. :ohdear:

# ¿ Feb 12, 2016 08:49

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

Apparently recent video game DRM efforts have actually gotten very effective, though:

quote:

TorrentFreak reports on a recent post by Bird Sister, the founder of Chinese cracking message board 3DM forum, that says the recent release of Just Cause 3 has pushed the group's cracking abilities practically past their limits. "The last stage is too difficult and Jun [cracking guy] nearly gave up, but last Wednesday I encouraged him to continue,� she wrote.

"I still believe that this game can be compromised. But according to current trends in the development of encryption technology, in two years' time I�m afraid there will be no free games to play in the world," she continued.

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2016/01/major-piracy-groups-warns-games-may-be-crack-proof-in-two-years/

# ¿ Feb 13, 2016 22:45

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

Konstantin posted:

Don't most good mobile ad blockers require a jailbroken/rooted phone?

No:

http://lifehacker.com/the-best-ad-blockers-for-ios-9-1731433501
http://techcrunch.com/2016/02/09/google-reverses-its-decision-to-ban-ad-blocking-apps-from-the-google-play-store/

# ¿ Feb 21, 2016 05:35

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

It's possible for someone's bad life situation to be caused by both generally bad economic conditions and their own dumb choices. We don't have to pick only one or the other.

Dr. Fishopolis posted:

I'm also not letting Yelp off the hook for thinking they can run a minimum wage call center in the city of San Francisco without explicitly exploiting the poo poo out of those employees. There is no excuse for a tech sector company that is actually profitable and pays out millions in C level compensation to do this. This is not retail.

I'd say call center work is roughly in the same ballpark, skill-wise, as retail. Plus they actually are apparently moving more of those jobs to a cheaper area, so mission accomplished I guess?

# ¿ Feb 21, 2016 22:26

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

cheese posted:

It will be interesting to see what happens when a moderate to severe tech "bubble" bursting leads to the outsourcing of some of those six figure engineering jobs that are occupied almost exclusively by middle/upper class white and Asian men.

That makes zero sense. Why would a reduction in demand, which would lead to lower salaries, result in more outsourcing?

# ¿ Feb 21, 2016 23:15

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

cheese posted:

Many major companies did it after the 2008 crash. I mean, if everyone is doing it because everyone is suffering from the same massive downturn, then I would imagine its not as big a deal. Especially since the jobs slash-and-move that these companies did is part of what helped them ride a rocketing stock price back up after the downturn.

Source on offshoring of well paid tech employees increasing after 2008 recession?

# ¿ Feb 22, 2016 01:28

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

Ender.uNF posted:

If you think outsourcing is going to make a comeback then I would question whether you know anything about the industry.

It's just a "revenge of the nerds" type fever dream, except now it's more like "revenge on the nerds". A certain segment of the left sees techies (particularly those in startups) as ignoble looters who immorally profit from business ventures that are stupid at best and immoral & destructive at worst.

# ¿ Feb 22, 2016 05:50

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

There are telecommuting workers, but they're rare.

# ¿ Feb 26, 2016 18:24

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

Radbot posted:

I just want to understand why CEOs are held to such low standards of accountability. They are quite literally less materially responsible for their actions than a call center rep, in many large orgs. Why would you accept this as a board member?

Performance as a CEO is relative and zero sum: you only win by making other CEOs lose. Performance in a grunt-level job is more objective (and in most cases, relatively straightforward).

# ¿ Feb 27, 2016 00:50

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

asdf32 posted:

Features don't matter if people don't use them because they suck. If the iPhone wasn't innovation nothing is.

Agreed. There's a certain utilitarian mindset among both linuxbeards and marxists where they pretend that advances in UX don't count as technological innovation. They only think in terms of core features, not how those features are presented or used.

# ¿ Mar 1, 2016 03:02

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

Less Fat Luke posted:

Seems like it! I was an early potential enthusiast but at this point to get the consumer VR stuff I'd need about 800$ in upgrades to my PC (and I'm in Canada where our dollar currently means I'd add 30%). I hope the high barrier to entry doesn't screw it up.

It'll probably be like just about every other successful technology: expensive and niche to start, eventually becoming cheaper and mainstream. I don't think anyone's expecting console-level sales for the first gen, but eventually they'll get there, or even higher.

# ¿ Mar 9, 2016 22:56

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

computer parts posted:

Yep, VR is going to be incredibly niche for the foreseeable future. I doubt any laptop out now will be able to comfortably run it.

For games with good modern graphics, yes. If you're willing to have simplistic graphics, sure, go hog wild. I'm guessing there'll be a lot of games/apps that have a 'toaster mode' for running on weaker computers.

# ¿ Mar 9, 2016 23:59

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

computer parts posted:

So you could have low or non-existent raises for years, get an offer from another company, work there for two years, and get an offer back from the first company for a lot higher than what you made earlier, despite the fact that the only change is that you're not presently working at the original company.

I agree that this is kind of dumb and frustrating, but on the other hand, the cross pollination that happens when people frequently change jobs is part of what made Silicon Valley's tech industry so strong. The ideal for a company is probably a mix of old-timers with institutional knowledge and newbies that bring with them new ideas/best practices.

# ¿ Mar 12, 2016 23:43

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

Tasmantor posted:

If swapping jobs every time you want to "move up" is the only way to go how does anyone ever get long service leave? Is portable LSL common in the tech industry or something?

Swapping jobs isn't the only way to move up, it's just the fastest way. And not all companies really suck at compensation, Google has been quite fair to me, at least so far.

# ¿ Mar 13, 2016 03:42

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

shrike82 posted:

1) CV screen - Is an average Harvard graduate really better than a top Pitt graduate? I come from a target school so I can't complain personally but I think the monoculture of backgrounds at a place like a Goldman or McKinsey or Google is a) incredibly boring and b) arguably impedes work (some interesting work on org. behavior)

At least at the IC level, I don't think Google is that much of a monoculture. The target school thing mainly applies to internships/new grads (and I don't think it's as strict as people are implying here); experienced hires can come from all over, and at least my team has a LOT of people from acquired startups. At one point I think like half or more of the people I was working with had come through that way.

# ¿ Mar 14, 2016 03:14

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

Nobody's mentioned SpoonRocket shutting down yet?

quote:

SpoonRocket informed its investors it�s shutting down its on-demand pre-made meal delivery service after failing to raise the necessary capital to continue operations.

[Update: Co-founder Steven Hsiao confirmed SpoonRocket�s shut down. The company published a goodbye blog post saying it will transition customers to competitor Sprig, which is offering SpoonRocket users a $10 discount.]

screen322x572SpoonRocket had reached a positive contribution margin � it was selling meals for more than it cost to cook them. But due to other costs and the frosty fundraising climate, it wasn�t able to get the money it needed to continue operating. The startup found an unnamed quick-service restaurant (QSR) chain to acquire it, Hsiao tells me. But the acquirer abandoned the deal, leaving SpoonRocket to die. �Last minute, all signs pointed to something getting done, but they pulled out. It�s just an unfortunate situation,� Hsiao said with obvious disappointment in his voice.

http://techcrunch.com/2016/03/15/spoonrocket-shuts-down/

Hard to tell how much of an indictment this is of the general "on-demand stuff" model this is, since even to the most naive and optimistic techie imaginable it was obvious that there were far too many players in the on-demand food space, there was no way most of them were going to survive.

Cicero fucked around with this message at 23:23 on Mar 15, 2016

# ¿ Mar 15, 2016 23:20

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

sbaldrick posted:

On-demand stuff maybe work in the core areas of maybe 20 cities on the planet to be generous.

The problem is most of these idiots don't understand this and if you live outside of these areas it's loving useless.

Depends on which on-demand stuff you're talking about. A taxi summoning app is pretty awesome in basically any major city...heck it's useful in about any place that could reasonably be called a city, period. And that's true regardless of whether it's Uber or Lyft or a traditional taxi company behind the app.

# ¿ Mar 17, 2016 00:15

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

Subjunctive worked/works at Oculus/Facebook.

Absurd Alhazred posted:

Is there anything you don't like about working at Google?

The recruiting process takes too long, it's depressing to see your friends/former colleagues apply and then almost always get rejected, the promo process is stressful and time-consuming, and having the largest office be in the bay area is bad for one's wallet.

# ¿ Mar 18, 2016 07:13

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

Absurd Alhazred posted:

That sucks.

Not really, overall working at Google is awesome. There are way more upsides than down.

# ¿ Mar 18, 2016 21:01

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

VR will be a major platform but will take a few years to really catch on, the good stuff is too expensive for mainstream consumers for this gen.

And yeah it'll have significant non-gaming uses as well. There'll be lots of interesting stuff, I think; I remember the Verge had an article about using VR to make it feel like you swapped bodies with someone of the opposite sex, and I think I read about plans to use it for people confronting their phobias.

# ¿ Mar 21, 2016 01:09

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

AFAIK it's basically any new startup-y tech that involves money as the main product or service.

# ¿ Mar 26, 2016 00:49

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

I thought Invictus just got his steam games from steambux from playing around in the marketplace for games like Dota2 or TF2.

edit: confirmed - http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3528291&pagenumber=18&perpage=40#post420939023

# ¿ Mar 27, 2016 06:23

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

Paradoxish posted:

Maybe everything really will go to hell when the tech bubble bursts and programmers start streaming out of the tech hubs in search of work, but for the moment I'm not too concerned.

On the upside, this would be great for tech hub housing prices!

# ¿ Mar 27, 2016 19:46

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

Buffer posted:

In SF it's under $100k on average I think, and that's a super expensive city. Anyway, there are a few different tech industries. Everyone likes to focus on the flashy sexy silicon valley stuff, but hell, IBM employs 380,000 people. EDS employs 136,000 (not quite half of HP's 300,000). That's three quarters of a million jobs right there between two companies. Very few of which are in a Silicon X.

IIRC IBM has significantly more employees in India these days than in the US. For most areas, it kind of seems like they've given up on competing based on software quality. Whenever I read a thread about IBM on hacker news or reddit and there's actual current/ex-IBMers talking it just sounds depressing, and I have a couple of friends who used to work there who say the same.

quote:

Anyway, staff programmers and computer janitors out in the real world are where the 70k stable jobs are. That's the bulk of tech, if anything, and why places like Austin are particularly hillarious(they aren't even the 4th biggest tech city in Texas). It's important to take a step back sometimes and acknowledge just how overhyped and overvalued and unrepresentative all of the stuff in this thread is. I know choir yada yada, but it gives very familiar vibes to everyone who has been through it before - and is a big part of why I at least have bubble vibes.

E: I'm really looking forward to a future where I get to talk Facebook and AOL parallels (there's a lot of them and they're hillarious).

Just depends on what you mean by 'tech'. Someone who's doing an internal CRUD app for Safeway isn't in the tech industry, anymore than an accountant at Safeway is in the accounting industry (is 'accounting industry' a thing? anyway you get my point).

Cicero fucked around with this message at 02:03 on Mar 28, 2016

# ¿ Mar 28, 2016 02:00

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

I usually just work 40 hours a week at Google including lunch. I do work some overtime prior to major releases though. Most people I see seem to have a similar work-life balance.

At Amazon I usually did 40 hours a week too, same for most of my co-workers.

# ¿ Mar 28, 2016 18:39

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

Gail Wynand posted:

Citation needed, I've heard wildly varying stories of technical interviews at Google, from white boarding to take home code challenges to easter egg code games triggered by searching for certain Python related keywords.

AFAIK the Easter egg code game thing is just used as a replacement for resume filtering, it's not gonna let you skip onsites.

Gail Wynand posted:

Yeah there are already study guides out there that cover all of the commonly asked algorithm questions. It's basically like the consulting case interview at this point, what's being tested is not your ability at the job but your ability to identify a problem's type and shoehorn it into a pre-memorized solution technique.

After all it's not like you need to be Alan Turing to memorize and drill the 20 most common data structures and algorithms that appear in interviews.

Coincidentally this style of learning and assessment is what people who get into top CS schools and get hired by Google tend to be good at, otherwise their test scores wouldn't have gotten them into Stanford and past Google's GPA bar.

Google maintains a list of banned questions, so it's not as easy to just memorize a bunch of questions as it sounds. Obviously that system isn't perfect, but you're definitely exaggerating how useful raw memorization is for getting into Google. Now, doing a ton of questions as practice IS very useful, for sure.

# ¿ Mar 30, 2016 18:37

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

corn in the bible posted:

i literally do not understand this product. like with even really stupid poo poo like taskrabbit i get why you would maybe use it

this is just a juicer

Yes, but do conventional juicers boost your life force and chi?

# ¿ Mar 31, 2016 20:43

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

corn in the bible posted:

uberr, an app that lets you hire programmers to make an uber knockoff for you on demand

https://gigster.com/

# ¿ Apr 4, 2016 07:07

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

Lord Tywin posted:

I'm getting a lot of facebook ads for this new idiotic start-up! https://airdine.com/ in which you are supposed to start a restaurant in your home and invite home strangers!

There have been a bunch of these, I just read an article the other day about how many have struggled/shuttered.
fake edit:

quote:

The first EWSAs [Eating With Strangers Apps] started making headlines in the early 2010s. There were articles from both the food and tech world about companies like GrubWithUs, Kitchenly, Grouper, EatWith, HomeDine, Leftover Swap, and many others.

http://www.eater.com/2016/3/31/11293260/airbnb-for-food-apps-eatwith-feastly

# ¿ Apr 5, 2016 19:14

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

Huh, I didn't realize the NFL had games on Thursday nights.

# ¿ Apr 5, 2016 22:12

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

Liquid Communism posted:

Automated cars are a joke, and will be no closer to public adoption 10 years ago than they are now because they flatly aren't capable of fulfilling many of the jobs vehicles are used for, and are another high maintenance component with a strong liklihood of a malfunction killing drive/passenger/bystanders.

Yeah, I'll take this bet. :toxx:

there'll be a publicly available self-driving car that can handle a majority of car trips for your average person in the states with no human intervention* within 10 years.

* beyond obvious setup type things like telling it where to go, maybe some state info relevant to where it's legal to park (e.g. whether you have a handicapped placard), etc.

edit: now to add this to my calendar. Hope google calendar and gmail both still exist 10 years from now.

Cicero fucked around with this message at 01:10 on Apr 9, 2016

# ¿ Apr 9, 2016 01:08

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

Mr. Nemo posted:

This is true, but at the same time, subway and train drivers. I mean, if we still haven't automated something that's basically a car trip that always go through the same path, with mostly the same obstacles I can't see us getting rid of truck drivers in 10 years.

We already do have automated trains in some places: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_automated_urban_metro_subway_systems#Grade_of_Automation_4_Systems

One issue that metro systems in the US have is that the US just tends to underinvest in transit in general, combine that with union resistance and it's not surprising that our automated trains are just in little niches.

# ¿ Apr 9, 2016 08:54

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

Meal plans/shopping list subscriptions aren't a new thing. They're not even that bad of an idea. I think I might do one if I was a stay at home parent and thus had more time to cook.

# ¿ Apr 9, 2016 20:30

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

computer parts posted:

Like, the average age of cars on the road right now is over 11 years. It's going to take a concentrated effort to introduce any technology into the national fleet, never mind something quite as large as that.

Lol if you think politicians are going to hold back on mandating self-driving cars because poor people can't afford it. Once the affluent largely have self-driving cars, there'll be a huge push to get rid of manually driven ones. They may dole out some subsidies for poor people upgrading, though.

asdf32 posted:

But it's safe to say that automakers arn't ready to take on the full cost of ensuring every vehicle on the road every year.

They'll just charge a monthly fee like insurance. In fact, it'll probably subsume traditional insurance; calculations around the individual won't be as important once the individual isn't the one doing the driving anymore.

# ¿ Apr 10, 2016 23:19

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

computer parts posted:

Hasn't happened with backup cameras.

Well, they have been mandated for new cars starting in a couple years, but the safety benefit of backup cameras is much, much less than that of going from manually-driven to self-driving cars.

edit: traditionally, car safety features have been mainly about protecting people inside the car. That's how they get sold. Self-driving cars do help protect the people inside the car too, but they will also have a massive benefit for protecting everyone else. I think that's what will incentivize Congress -- or rather, incentivize (rich) people to push Congress -- to pass a law sunsetting manually driven cars.

Cicero fucked around with this message at 02:44 on Apr 11, 2016

# ¿ Apr 11, 2016 02:38

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

Lyesh posted:

If they mandated completely self-driving cars tomorrow, it would still take around fifteen years of record-setting sales to replace the current fleet. Manual cars are going to be around for a few decades unless someone can get a whole lot of money dedicated to ramping up new car manufacturing, so automatic cars are going to need to deal with manually driven ones for quite some time.

Yeah, I'm suggesting that Congress might just ban them anyway, even with many still on the road. You would need some level of critical mass of existing self-driving cars before they would so, of course. A couple decades from now sounds about right.

Or maybe a somewhat more palatable solution would be increasingly heavy manually-driven car surcharges, with one-time subsidies for (poor) people upgrading from manually-driven cars to self-driving ones.

# ¿ Apr 11, 2016 08:40

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

mkultra419 posted:

Also, cultural incentives. How do you think the media is going to protray a drunk driver who kills someone while driving drunk in "manual" mode instead of using "auto" mode? How is a jury going to react to it? How many "my children would still be alive if that poor wasn't driving an outdated vehicle" stories do you think a senator with a lot of automotive companies in his state needs to start passing laws to force people to buy automated?

Exactly. We accept a certain number of deaths from dumb/bad drivers because there's no apparent practical solution. Once self-driving cars are commonplace, there will be an obvious practical solution, and so people will be much less tolerant of traffic deaths.

cheese posted:

You are off your rocker if you think we are anywhere near passing a law sunsetting manually driven cars. Totally off your rocker.

Well, I did say

Cicero posted:

A couple decades from now sounds about right.

And that's for passing the law, not actual implementation of the ban (which would be set 5-10 years out from the law being passed).

quote:

My uncle drives around in a car that is grandfathered into no seat belts and we have not even federally mandated proper motorcycle helmets, and those are simple things that clearly save lives.

The difference there is that those things only affect the people using them. If some other dude decides to not wear seatbelts, it's no skin off my back. Whereas compared to (presumably competent) self-driving cars, someone manually driving their old rustbucket represents a substantially larger threat to everyone around them.

quote:

And thinking that "rich" people (who apparently spend a lot of time driving around in their cars) are going to push for all the plebs to get self driving cars so they will be safer is just some odd, twisted thinking. Mostly because I assume the people who are so rich they have that kind of pull take their helicopter straight to their private jet.

How is it weird at all? People freak out about a much smaller number of terrorist deaths, once traffic fatalities are clearly preventable via policy, people are going to start thinking about them differently. And I'm not saying just the super rich, but the merely affluent, too. Maybe even the middle of the middle-class, depending on how quickly self-driving cars become mainstream.

# ¿ Apr 11, 2016 19:28

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 00:22

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

cheese posted:

Then why have we not not made Anti Lock Brake systems/electronic stability control mandatory for old vehicles? Those have a statistically significant impact on traffic accidents - cars with ABS are flat out more safe for their drivers AND the other cars on the road.

Yes, but the magnitude is very different. A competent self-driving system might eliminate 90%+ of traffic fatalities. That's huge, far larger than existing safety improvements, which are much more incremental.

quote:

If we wanted safer driving, we should just install a breathalizer in every car. Far cheaper and it would halve traffic fatalities, but we both know that will never happen.

Most people would look at that as an invasion of privacy, and too heavy-handed. The difference with self-driving cars is that in a lot of ways they're desirable for the user as well, since you'd be able to do something else while driving.

quote:

As far as car systems, what we will see in our life times is more and more automation of safety tasks. Auto braking systems that detect possible collisions faster than a person could? Sure. Side view cameras with indicators when a car is in your blind spot? Ya, no doubt. But level 4 systems where you take a nap and wake up at your destination? Not a chance.

It's one thing to think we won't get level 4 systems within the next decade, that's at least plausible, but not within the next several decades? That's absurdly pessimistic.

quote:

I.E., not with MY kids in the car they will say.

What if those cars are safer for your kids, rather than more dangerous?

quote:

Not when my 10 month old iPhone crashes while loading facebook.

What nonsense is this? Your car already has craptons of software on it, but it hasn't killed you yet. Comparing the reliability of a safety-critical system to one where the only downside is "have to wait a few more seconds to post my sweet clubbin' pics" is dumb.

quote:

I'm not convinced we are even anywhere close to the technology that can handle all of the exigent circumstances that can occur while driving, let alone Americans awful roads, side alleys, etc.

I'm sure the first systems will be level 4 with certain conditions; e.g. the weather isn't horrible and the roads are ones that have been pre-mapped. But eventually they'll get there, and you're nuts if you think it'll take 40+ years.

# ¿ Apr 11, 2016 19:59

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Tech Nightmares: Ghostline the flux

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