Non Forbes

Almost every thing that went wrong in the Uber fatality is both terrible and expected

Submitted by brad on Sun, 2018-03-25 14:51

Today I'm going to examine how you attain safety in a robocar, and outline a contradiction in the things that went wrong for Uber and their victim. Each thing that went wrong is both important and worthy of discussion, but at the same time unimportant. For almost every thing that went wrong Is something that we want to prevent going wrong, but it's also something that we must expect will go wrong sometimes, and to plan for it.

Topic: 
Robocars

Uber robocar hits and kills pedestrian in Arizona

Submitted by brad on Mon, 2018-03-19 11:29

Update: Did the woman cross 3.5 lanes of road before being hit?

It's just been reported that one of Uber's test self-driving cars struck a woman in Tempe, Arizona during the night. She died in the hospital. There are not a lot of facts at present, so any of these things might be contradicted later.

Topic: 
Robocars

What happens if/when Bitcoin stabilizes in price

Submitted by brad on Fri, 2018-03-16 14:33

I've been doing some analysis of the "HODL" movement (which attempts to use social pressure to convince people to hold on to Bitcoin and other holdings, rather than taking the normal profit-taking steps after such a large appreciation.) I believe that HODL goes against what a cryptocurrency is supposed to be about, since to be valuable it has to be useful, and to be useful, people need to be using it, not holding it. I will explore this in another article next week.

Topic: 
Technology
Tags: 
bitcoin

Waymo goes totally unmanned, arbitration and other news

Submitted by brad on Thu, 2018-03-15 16:45

One of the biggest milestones of the robocar world has gotten just a little coverage. Waymo, which last year removed the safety driver from behind the wheel of their cars in Phoenix, still had a supervisor sitting in the back with a kill switch. That supervisor is now gone and the car comes to pick up passengers entirely unmanned.

Topic: 
Robocars

Never ask a lawyer how much lawyering you need, and other advice on the use of lawyers.

Submitted by brad on Tue, 2018-03-13 12:21

Lawyers are highly disliked in our society, at least until you need one. This is because we primarily use lawyers like weapons, offensive and defensive, and who likes the weapon? I think lawyers can serve the world better if we take different attitudes about what clients wish from lawyers. Here are some lessons about using lawyers I have learned over the years.

Topic: 
Random Ideas

A modern paternoster elevator (for cars and maybe people)

Submitted by brad on Sat, 2018-03-10 17:51

Earlier this week, I wrote about making a subway for robotic vans which just has tunnels and ramps to the surface, rather than the vastly more expensive system of giant stations we use for today's underground transit. It offers the chance to save immense amounts of money because stations are expensive to build and maintain.

Topic: 
Robocars

The paradox on robocar accidents

Submitted by brad on Fri, 2018-03-09 14:41

I have written a few times about the unusual nature of robocar accidents. Recently I was discussing this with a former student who is doing some research on the area. As a first step, she began looking at lists of all the reasons that humans cause accidents. (The majority of them, on police reports, are simply that one car was not in its proper right-of-way, which doesn't reveal a lot.)

This led me, though to the following declaration that goes against most early intuitions.

Topic: 
Robocars

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