patrick.net

Ok here is my solution to the which track trolley solution: (not original).

Wait until the front wheels pass the track switch... flip the switch. The back wheels take the other track. The trolley now turns its linear energy into rotational energy and derails, stopping before killing anyone. (Or if you are a maniac, killing everyone) :)

Fun. I call it the Kirk.

They have been ridiculously overpaying for used jalopies for years now. It had to catch up to them eventually.

Well, that's crazy. That's a subsidy of almost $5,000 per vehicle sold. Not going to t make that up on volume....

DooDahMan says

mell says

most cases murdering and in some cases killing of innocent life

Getting confused here - is this to mean not all fetuses are innocent ?

No they all are. What it means is that most if the time abortion is premeditated and for lowly reasons such as career or money or stress reduction, which is murder, and in some cases killing, such as abortion as a consequence of rape resulting in pregnancy, or some snap decisions based on emotions or physical or mental sickness.

HunterTits says

The SDC Utopians were those who INSISTED that SDCs (Self Driving Cars) were going to be perfect! Far superior to human drivers.

If every car was self driving, probably they would be far superior to human pilots.

Not that I want that, the technology would be abused and misused.

There will never be an end to accidents in my opinion, and the technology for computer piloted cars I think is in its infancy and will remain there for a long time. I think having say 10% of all vehicles being driven by individuals for 5 years and collecting ALL THAT DATA and then using it to make an AI that takes into account the accidents and how to avoid them, might make a superior system.

There's this stupid rush to market, it has to be more like a collective effort.

Hunter, I don't give a f*ck that you don't give a f*ck. Thank you for the ignore utility, Patrick.

HunterTits says

But nooo...SDCs were perfect, they said.

We're a decade away from a self driving car being safe I think and I don't think it's smart (or possibly even possible) to limit it just to visual input. Lidar is a better idea or maybe cameras that go into infra-red and ultra-violet.

Tesla was trying to confine the software to work with ONLY cameras. I think this was an extraordinarily bad idea when a machine can FAR outstrip a human's ability on data collection.

The problem with training is you can only train the AI for what it has previously encountered - throwing something in that the AI has never experienced before is a crap shoot. Another problem is with AI is that it's all digital, our brains are digital communication, but the synapse itself is analogue. I've seen interesting work with AI solutions where they use NAND flash memories for synapses, where the cell isn't written with a 1 or a 0, but somewhere between - this allows very fast multiplication, but not EXACT multiplication.

Normally when a NAND is flashed with a 0 or 1, in one case it passes it's an open circuit and in another a closed circuit. V=IR where R is the resistance of the cell. And R is either infinite or 0, but if you have a partial charge on the gate, you can do some crude multiplication in analog. The result of these sort of way of doing AI is that exact values of the synapse can't be exact, but it's good enough. A solution like this is pretty new, but it shows promise.

HunterTits says

The SDC Utopians were those who INSISTED that SDCs (Self Driving Cars) were going to be perfect

You're up pretty for on that high horse for being pretty off the mark for SDCs. SDCs don't need to be anywhere near perfect. They just have to be on average, a little bit better than the average (median) human driver. And I don't mean on average, better across all scenarios. I mean better on average in 99% of scenarios. Because 99% of driving is just stop and go down a road. And humans fuck that up constantly. Nothing running out from the side in front of them, no strange glare or edge case. Just a simple case of not paying attention when the car in front of them stops, and they fuck it up.

Now tack onto that the fact that 50% of all human drivers are WORSE than the median. Hell, they run over their own children in their own driveway pretty regularly. Now if you add on to that the fact that a whole subset is just drunk assholes who say "i'm fine" then kill someone at 2 am with almost no one on the road, the fruit is low hanging and plentiful.

It doesn't have to be perfect, it just has to be (slightly) better. Then labor costs and insurance will drive adoption and improvement, and people driving cars will become something that happens only on those far edge cases, or out in the countryside, or for entertainment.

As far as SDCs being a decade away from being "safe": that's about 11 years off the mark. Last year, Cruise started running self driving cars around in SF and PHX . Zoox is right there, as well as Aurora, and I think Waymo. TuSimple has Freightliners running cargo trucks in Arizona, and there are all kinds of robots driving around between people in stores and restaurants. The tech is basically in the process of transitioning into mass production. And each car coming off the line is just as well "trained" as the previous one with 0 hours of driving. I think the first paying customers are now riding around as well for local trips. Regulatory approval, insurance, and everything!

These cars will crash and kill people. You are right. There are edge cases. The killings won't be "moral". They will probably be fantastically absurd. But also, each incident will have hundreds or thousands of hours of review and attempt at improvement. That does NOT happen when Drunk Steve kills grandma walking home from the store.

Zak says

And I don't mean on average, better across all scenarios. I mean better on average in 99% of scenarios. Because 99% of driving is just stop and go down a road.

This is where you're making a mistake and you're wrong.

When a human driver gets into a collusion and kills 3 people, well, that's life!

When an AI gets into a collusion and kills 3 people, that's a lawsuit and terrible public relations.

Zak says

As far as SDCs being a decade away from being "safe": you're about 11 years off the mark. Last year, Cruise started running self driving cars around in SF and PHX . Zoox is right there, as well as Aurora, and I think Waymo.

Just wait for the inevitable accidents and failures.

It's an awful thing when a person gets killed because they drove into a tree, but when an AI did it, well, the AI just killed that person. He'd be alive if it wasn't for that fucking AI piece of shit.

Even if they are 100 times safer, we're a decade away from it. They might work in small localities, but I'm telling you, first bad accident and there will be hell.

Oh the other funny thing you may or may not know... the last .1% isn't even "AI" . If these cars "get confused" they just stop or pull over. They all have cell service, and a driving center gets an internet connection to the car, and a virtual driver drives the car out of the "stuck" situation in limp mode (reduced speed), OR alerts to send a real human or tow truck. I know of at least 1 SDC company that has standby drivers just sitting in cars waiting to go out on "rescue missions" in the event an SDC gets stuck and needs assistance.

richwicks says

It's an awful thing when a person gets killed because they drove into a tree, but when an AI did it, well, the AI just killed that person.

This already occurs in cars without AI. Mechanical failures.. gas pedals get stuck, tires blow out.. Manufacturers get sued all the time for their products killing people.

IT ALREADY HAPPENS!

Are you saying it is going to happen more frequently ? You could be right, but the data doesn't indicate that you are.

richwicks says

Even if they are 100 times safer, we're a decade away from it.

Like I said, its here now , and we are just rolling into an adoption timeline. That means it will start small and grow. But its not like we are 10 years away from research being done. The companies are basically ramping up business plans to create self driving car garages in the targeted profitable markets. This isn't rocket science, just sort cities with population's over 1M by median income, and you probably have a pretty good idea of rollout plans. Expect to see the equivalent of your city "bus yard" for self driving vehicle fleets. I'd be surprised if Uber/Lyft/Taxi fare data wasn't already mined to identify the maximum profit centers to maximize growth rates.

Zak says

richwicks says

Even if they are 100 times safer, we're a decade away from it.

Like I said, its here now , and we are just rolling into an adoption timeline.

We'll see.

Public perception determines what is done, as you can see with the level of propaganda we just went through. Logic doesn't operate in this nation.

I'm assuming the 1% to 2% of customers who exceed the cap aren't single family homes with 6500 sq ft lots. Well, at least I hope not! Is it a small number of people with very large properties and enormous gardens that also haven't figured out how to declare themselves a farm? Or many a large complex where the complex is the customer and 1000 residents all piggyback on that?

Another box to check for the Midwest. We'll never have water issues besides quality with radium being highly present. Occasionally we get put in an alternating day schedule for watering during summer so as not to tax the water tower in our small town, but that's infrastructure related and not the actual water supply. Our town isn't expanding, so there's no point in over building the tower or adding more wells.

I don't know how CA will ever get any better. Somehow we can build 40 story buildings in Miami swamps in a hurricane zone, but cannot figure out a better way to desalinate Ocean water and less resource intensive.

Which reminds me. When excavating the new house I think I'm going to drop in a massive rain collection tank. We have a high water table here and it should help keep the basement dry collecting the roof run off along with the pool collecting water. I think I might go with a 2k gallon buried tank. Not a prepper by any means, but if the tank was maxed out I'd have a solid amount of easy to filter fresh water. Also save on the water bill if I need to top off the pool or water the lawn/garden. First years will be landscape intensive.

Good luck out there in CA though. I couldn't imagine some of the crap you guys have gone through over the years with water. It's a basic need and part of what taxes should be going to supply. Otherwise what good is government? IL it's more about bribes and kickbacks for government work that's the problem.

WookieMan says

I don't know how CA will ever get any better. Somehow we can build 40 story buildings in Miami swamps in a hurricane zone, but cannot figure out a better way to desalinate Ocean water and less resource intensive.

LET ME EXPLAIN THE PROBLEM!

It's SUPER energy intensive to remove salt from water. Basically, you create high pressure water in an RO machine in a plant, and all that water is being moved around at SEA LEVEL and has to be at pressure to produce the water. Once it's potable water, it has to be pumped around UP somewhere for storage.

California has spent years getting rid of power plants. It's just crazy here. They are trying to drive the car off the cliff in my opinion.

Obligatory:

I would argue that in the first and the second scenario the right choice is to do nothing. Let Fate decide. There is no obvious answer wherein nobody dies and no harm will have been committed by the observer. So the correct choice would be to take no action and thus minimize the moral/psychological harm to the observer. If five men or one man die, people still die. But with no intervention, at least you as the observer won’t have to feel guilty about it. You weren’t the one who set this problem in motion or broke the trolley or tied the men to the tracks. It isn’t your obligation to solve it.

richwicks says

I assume you're joking, but motion is relative.

I am not joking, and the Oreo cookie has always spit with the center filling stuck to one side of the cookie. Even though the recipe and the manufacturing process has changed over the years. And oh btw Oreo isn't the only creme filled sandwich cookie that does this. Sometimes half of the center filling lifts up in one corner where the cookie first separated.
I would go buy a pack and experiment, but industrial cookies have gotten so disgusting and inedible I wont bring myself to pay over $5.00 for something that I can care a less about.

They have fucked with the amount of recipe ingredients while still needing the same amount of anti coagulators, lubricants, and other industrial ingredients, to allow the industrial ooze to flow through the Snack making machine, until pretty much all store bought cookies taste like a vat of Lithium grease.

Zak says

This already occurs in cars without AI. Mechanical failures.. gas pedals get stuck, tires blow out.. Manufacturers get sued all the time for their products killing people.

IT ALREADY HAPPENS!

Are you saying it is going to happen more frequently ?

Yes, absolutely I am. I are a enginerd. These are AI trained systems. We can train a neural network to work with a bunch of scenarios, but when presented with entirely new input, it's not predictable.

There's a group of people that just work on defeating the AIs of cars, I don't know if it's research or just for fun or what - but they got a car to drive off a road by just putting some reflectors in the road starting from the center, and moving to the ditch. I think they got a car to malfunction when it encountered a blank white billboard in the early days.

More and more and more and more data will be collected until 99.99999% of the scenarios are handled, but I don't think we're that close yet.

WookieMan says

I think I'm going to drop in a massive rain collection tank.

This is what most folks in CA need one going forward to be sustainable.

Less than 10% of California's water is used for basic urban and suburban homes and irrigation. So when the Commies in California start rationing water to us plebes and forcing our lawns to die, they aren't putting a dent into the problem.

50% of the water is considered "Environmental" which is basically allowed to run through our rivers out to the ocean.

The rest of the water is used for Agriculture. Even though California grows a big chunk of the world's food, Agriculture is only 2% of the State's overall GDP. If we want to get serious, we need to force more water conservation on agriculture and pay a few pennies more for our produce.

The average person in California spends very little for water. My daily water bill is less than a coffee at Starbucks for a family of 5 and irrigating my lawns 3 times a week. People in wetter states in the Northeast pay much more for their water to support the older pipe and treatment plant infrastructure.

We have the technology and the means to fix this problem (desalination) - but it will increase our cost of water a bit.

socal2 says

Even though California grows a big chunk of the world's food, Agriculture is only 2% of the State's overall GDP. If we want to get serious, we need to force more water conservation on agriculture and pay a few pennies more for our produce.

Farmers work on a shoestring budget. It's commodity production. If lettuce potatoes cost $0.02 more, they eat that cost - the price is determined on a commodity market.

They can't just increase the cost. What will happen is farmers will go out of business, and their production will end.

Is is pretty amazing. Why can't everyone do this? Al_Sharpton_for_President, LLC now announces that you have $800,000 in an account. No, we don't have the $800,000 ourselves, why?

richwicks says

Farmers work on a shoestring budget. It's commodity production. If lettuce potatoes cost $0.02 more, they eat that cost - the price is determined on a commodity market.

They can't just increase the cost. What will happen is farmers will go out of business, and their production will end.

Maybe farmers in California should have invested in more water conservation technology and irrigation over the years instead of just opening a sluice gate with flood irrigation and putting a foot of water on their fields............because water cost next to nothing for them due to 100 year old water contracts?

I am not a big fan of letting my yard burn up so California farmers can sell almonds to China.

There is a cap... people's ability to pay.

I'm at 6. I thought I was almost at 7, but the stock market slapped some reality into me lately.

Speaking of level 7, do people use a financial advisor? How does one go about finding such an advisor? I've been going it alone, which is educational/rewarding, but probably foolhardy.

It's not too hard to get to 6 if you start investing early.
The compounding effect applies to mutual funds, and is amazing.
I'm constantly telling younger people that $500/month will be a million dollars someday (30+ years).
Nobody wants to wait or come up with the dough usually.
I might be between 6-7 but I don't have enough for a yacht or helicopter or etc. Maybe we can call that level 8.
Incidentally, the 4% rule can be broken with a portion of your financial assets (not all) if you buy an immediate fixed income annuity when you're a geezer.
That's because they 1. pay more than 4% 2. never stop until you or your wife ("second to die") are dead.
I'm considering marrying a girl someday, she should be 49 or 50.
I have to live 10 years, then when I'm dead and she's 60 she can collect my social security (10 years married required).
I'm so pissed about the taxes I pay I want to get some back from the grave.
She's not going to kill me off because she's not collecting unless we complete 10 years of marriage.

The 10th anniversary will be interesting, lol.

SunnyvaleCA says

Speaking of level 7, do people use a financial advisor? How does one go about finding such an advisor? I've been going it alone, which is educational/rewarding, but probably foolhardy.

@SunnyvaleCA I worked at Schwab's investment advisor service branch (just on the tech side) for a few years, and I do not recommend that you ever get a financial advisor.

They will generally want 1% of your assets per year no matter how they do with your money.

You would do much better just buying index funds, or even better, the specific stocks that make up the indexes.

Patrick says

I do not recommend that you ever get a financial advisor.

I guess I'm doing it correctly then!

I think it’s easier to save for retirement then to figure out what you’re going to do when you get there.

I’m getting really close, but have no idea what I’d do if I quit. Probably will just keep working and give less fucks.

SunnyvaleCA ,
You can hire a financial planning guy if you pay by the hour. (“Fee only”)

I told my father once he was paying 1% of his net worth to a Morgan Stanley guy.
Of course he was incredulous.

Invest for capital appreciation with mutual funds over a long time.
Tax deferred SEP-IRA, 401k or tax free (Roth, HSA) better.
Believe me you will hate taxes later; my taxable accounts cost me $$$ in 2021.
Another good investment is Vanguard Tax Managed Capital Appreciation.

pudil says

I think it’s easier to save for retirement then to figure out what you’re going to do when you get there.

I’m getting really close, but have no idea what I’d do if I quit. Probably will just keep working and give less fucks.

@pudil You may have some life project you want to accomplish then.

I would like to find all the descendants of all my known ancestors and meet the ones that are alive. And to record the relationships in books so everyone knows who is who. That's my project, and I'm really enjoying it, especially when I find new relatives who are friendly (not all are).

@patrick when someone ask for censorship!

2 yrs worth of expenses in cash? Insane. Especially now.

RWSGFY says

2 yrs worth of expenses in cash? Insane. Especially now.

Reminds me of Suze Orman, who got $20,000 from a person she never named (probably her lawyer older brother) in 1980 at the age of 19. Who never had any kids, who became a financial advisor and then sued for sex discrimination, winning a 6 figure award in the 1980s, and then going on to a lucrative career giving financial advice.

Only people like that can say with a straight face "Two years of expenses in cash".

SunnyvaleCA says

Speaking of level 7, do people use a financial advisor? How does one go about finding such an advisor? I've been going it alone, which is educational/rewarding, but probably foolhardy.

You don't need a financial advisor. Most of them are annuity/mutual fund salesmen in disguise.

Save 10-15% of your income as early as possible and buy equities or real estate, preferrably a mix of both. Buy Broad Index ETFs if you don't want to play the market. Don't put ALL your investment money in your own industry and definitely not only the company you work for, because if the industry or company gets pranged (think Enron) you'll have a double whammy of losing your job while your investments tank simultaneously.

Realizing that housing is 30% of expenditure, so the fastest way to save a large percentage of income is to buy the CHEAPEST dwelling you can that is remotely convenient to multiple potential employment sources and not next door to a trap house is priority one.

Not buying the dream suburban shack your wife wants, but the smallest, lowest maintenance apartment you can tolerate in terms of distance and space and paying it off ASAP. In fact it's best not to get married or have a live in girlfriend to avoid that pressure.

Assuming you're male, you're under no time pressure to reproduce.

Imagine if you didn't pay rent or mortgage, just $500/month in combined condo fees and taxes to live in a small apartment or house (Yes, this is not possible in SFBA but is in most of the US Metro Areas esp. in the South), how much money you can save on a modest tax home net income. Buying a cheap condo is literally job #1. Not getting married until 40 (if ever) is job #2. You can spend thousands on hobbies and fun and eat well and still sock away 5 figures a year with a modest job of any kind, and retire at 55 quite comfortably.

My net worth is 1.8 million and I live frugally yet I still feel like I'm only a 5.5 I plan to keep working my 'career' job for at least 7 more years.

When I first started reading patnet I was only an 80,000aire. I'll probably get to 6.