brad's blog
Make Supercharging better by ordering food in advance
Submitted by brad on Tue, 2019-06-04 13:34I've written about how to make Tesla Supercharging work, you try to have a meal while doing that. Here's a proposal to make that work much better: Be able to order food from participating restaurants while on the way to the charger, and have it all timed perfectly to either:
AR/VR picks up steam again
Submitted by brad on Mon, 2019-06-03 12:29In spite of the hype, 5G is not crucial for robocars
Submitted by brad on Thu, 2019-05-30 10:45You've seen the hype and battles over 5G. You may also have seen claims that one of the most important reasons we need 5G is communication with robocars. While more bandwidth and lower latency are never bad things, it's a mistake to presume the cars are doing to depend on them, or that getting 5G is some sort of blocking factor.
I explain the (fairly low) bandwidth needs of cars in a new Forbes.com article:
New York congestion charging could be much more
Submitted by brad on Tue, 2019-05-28 10:57Aurora buys Blackmore -- almost a rebuke to Musk
Submitted by brad on Fri, 2019-05-24 11:39If you buy land that will be covered by rising seas, should the government help you?
Submitted by brad on Thu, 2019-05-23 11:36Evidence mounts that sea level rise can't be avoided now, absent some miracle of geoengineering, and maybe not even with that. Even if you're one of those who insists human pollution isn't the cause, the planet is getting warmer, the ice sheets are melting at extreme rates.
How might we build an Electric or robotic RV?
Submitted by brad on Tue, 2019-05-21 10:48Tesla also dismisses high-precision maps, again in disagreement with most teams. Here's why.
Submitted by brad on Mon, 2019-05-20 10:00Tesla Autopilot repeats fatal crash - do they learn from past mistakes?
Submitted by brad on Fri, 2019-05-17 10:08Elon Musk's war on LIDAR: He hates it, everybody else loves it. Who's right?
Submitted by brad on Mon, 2019-05-06 10:32Tesla's use of the phrase "beta test."
Submitted by brad on Sun, 2019-05-05 15:05Some of the reaction to the story of the lawsuit against Tesla came from Tesla's declaration that Autopilot is a product in "beta test."
I don't think that's actually true. I think it's a misuse of that phrase by Tesla to communicate something that is true -- "This product isn't finished, expect it to have bugs."
The problem is that almost no software product is ever "finished." And even once finished, they almost always have bugs.
Tesla sued over fatality but probably will prevail, but other issues are exposed.
Submitted by brad on Fri, 2019-05-03 11:47Investing in students instead of student loans
Submitted by brad on Tue, 2019-04-30 12:24Student loan debt has become a hot election issue. It's immense, has ruined some lives (but also vastly improved others) and is connected to (and possibly even the cause of) the cost of education growing much faster than inflation.
Tesla's "Shadow" driving and how they test Autopilot
Submitted by brad on Mon, 2019-04-29 11:06Tesla's Robotaxi Economics
Submitted by brad on Tue, 2019-04-23 11:42Tesla reveals impressive new details on autonomy plans
Submitted by brad on Mon, 2019-04-22 16:22Podcast featuring the future of cities
Submitted by brad on Fri, 2019-04-19 10:02I don't do a lot of podcasts, though am curious as to whether people prefer to hear them compared to reading things. They make more sense for debates or being interactive.
Nonetheless, here's one I did recently, hosted by a new organization called Pivot Factory. We covered some history and a lot of my favourite topics, and had a particular focus on the future of the city, which I write about here but haven't done a recent cohesive essay on.
Is there safety theatre among robocar developers?
Submitted by brad on Thu, 2019-04-18 13:53A recent essay by Robbie Miller, who blew the whistle at Uber about their bad practices, accuses the industry at large of "safety theater" and driving too many unsafe miles. He's not wrong about some of his accusations, but there does need to be some risk taken. I outline the reasoning in this new Forbes.com article:
Why should first run movies at home cost $3,000?
Submitted by brad on Wed, 2019-04-17 11:45A new service called Red Carpet was announced, which will offer first-run movies in the homes of the very wealthy. You need a $15,000 DRM box and movie rentals are $1,500 to $3,000 per rental. That price is not a typo.
So I wrote an article pondering why that is, and why this could not be done at a price that ordinary people could afford, similar to the price of going to the movies.