I was just thinking about some of the "technological advances" back in the day that were tried but were ineffective and bombed for whatever reasons?
Two examples:
Red lights with flashing white strobes,
Flourescent Day-glo colored signage (i.e. yellow warning signs that looked like they were a bright lemon-lime color),
The "Buckeye Crossbucks" at railroad crossings in Ohio.
Others?
Others?
Two that come to mind:
- Morgantown Personal Rapid Transit
- The Mobile Lounge at Dulles to transport passengers from terminal to plane
Quote from: ZLoth on January 23, 2024, 01:06:49 PM
Two that come to mind:
- Morgantown Personal Rapid Transit
The PRT remains in use 50 years later. It's very effective for its intended purpose, lots of other places copied a simplified version of the concept with automated people movers, and other similar systems have been built again in the past decade. I wouldn't say it's a bomb or a fundamental problem with the technology. Poor contract management and rushed political interference by the Nixon Administration helped cause the construction cost to balloon.
QuoteFlourescent Day-glo colored signage (i.e. yellow warning signs that looked like they were a bright lemon-lime color),
School related and some other pedestrian signs use this.
HOV lanes.
Goodyear Illuminated Tires.
I have a feeling HAWK signals will be on this list someday.
This may baffle the young-uns, but when shoulder belts were first mandated, many cars had this crazy scheme with a movable anchor in a motorized slot over the door that moved the belt out of the way when the door was opened.
After work-from-home significantly shifted commuting patterns away from inbound-AM / outbound-PM, I think reversible express lanes may enter this list. They work well in some cases, and most systems did work well upon initial implementation, but now maybe not so much? Idk, just my opinion :nod:
Quote from: ZLoth on January 23, 2024, 01:06:49 PM
The Mobile Lounge at Dulles to transport passengers from terminal to plane
I am pretty sure they are still being used. At least they were five months ago.
I believe the last two times I used Dulles, upon arrival the mobile lounge was used to take us back to the main building (at the "front" of the airport). The last such trip I took was an international trip (for which I had to be segregated from the general public since I had to go through customs -- I can see that would be a good use for them).
There is an underground train which will take you to your terminal after you clear security (as a departing passenger).
But I don't believe I've ever used the train as an arriving passenger to come back to the main building.
I don't fly out of there that often and so I don't have that many data points to reference.
Solar FREAKIN' Roadways!
Good idea with great intentions, but it turned out to be way more difficult and expensive than the developers thought.
Quote from: Bitmapped on January 23, 2024, 02:32:29 PMThe PRT remains in use 50 years later. It's very effective for its intended purpose, lots of other places copied a simplified version of the concept with automated people movers, and other similar systems have been built again in the past decade. I wouldn't say it's a bomb or a fundamental problem with the technology. Poor contract management and rushed political interference by the Nixon Administration helped cause the construction cost to balloon.
First, it was years between the Morgantown PRT and other systems that were developed. Secondly, Morgantown remains the longest system. As far as I can determine, there are five other systems in the world, and all of them shorter.
Quote from: tmoore952 on January 23, 2024, 06:09:00 PM
Quote from: ZLoth on January 23, 2024, 01:06:49 PM
The Mobile Lounge at Dulles to transport passengers from terminal to plane
I am pretty sure they are still being used. At least they were five months ago.
As far as I know, only Dulles uses them, and they are so old, they have to fabricate the replacement parts.
In both instances, lack of widespread adoption combined with the higher cost of implementation doomed these systems in my opinion.
Quote from: pderocco on January 23, 2024, 05:50:55 PM
This may baffle the young-uns, but when shoulder belts were first mandated, many cars had this crazy scheme with a movable anchor in a motorized slot over the door that moved the belt out of the way when the door was opened.
I'm only 42 years old, and the car I learned to drive in had such a mechanism: a 1988 Toyota Camry. It also had a pair of red buttons down in the center console that would allow a person to disconnect one end of the shoulder belt in case of an accident and subsequent need to exit the vehicle without being able to open the door; if you pressed it, it would beep-beep-beep as a warning. If we had a new person riding in the car, my dad was known to press the button on the sly and, when the person asked what the beeping was, he'd answer, "The ejection seat."
Quote from: pderocco on January 23, 2024, 05:50:55 PM
This may baffle the young-uns, but when shoulder belts were first mandated, many cars had this crazy scheme with a movable anchor in a motorized slot over the door that moved the belt out of the way when the door was opened.
That only dealt with the shoulder part of the seatbelt and you still needed to put on the lap part of the belt manually. So they finally figured out if would be better to do it the old way of putting on both parts of the seatbelt at once manually.
I remember a lot of movies using automatic seat belts as a source of comedy. Probably paid a part in their demise.
Quote from: ZLoth on January 23, 2024, 07:08:50 PM
Quote from: Bitmapped on January 23, 2024, 02:32:29 PMThe PRT remains in use 50 years later. It's very effective for its intended purpose, lots of other places copied a simplified version of the concept with automated people movers, and other similar systems have been built again in the past decade. I wouldn't say it's a bomb or a fundamental problem with the technology. Poor contract management and rushed political interference by the Nixon Administration helped cause the construction cost to balloon.
First, it was years between the Morgantown PRT and other systems that were developed. Secondly, Morgantown remains the longest system. As far as I can determine, there are five other systems in the world, and all of them shorter.
Quote from: tmoore952 on January 23, 2024, 06:09:00 PM
Quote from: ZLoth on January 23, 2024, 01:06:49 PM
The Mobile Lounge at Dulles to transport passengers from terminal to plane
I am pretty sure they are still being used. At least they were five months ago.
As far as I know, only Dulles uses them, and they are so old, they have to fabricate the replacement parts.
In both instances, lack of widespread adoption combined with the higher cost of implementation doomed these systems in my opinion.
The system was unique to Dulles. It wasn't like other airports or locations would suddenly use them. They were tailored to the Dulles facilities and were non-transferable to other locations.
Therefore, I don't see the "doom." They were built for Dulles and are still in operation at Dulles and it doesn't look like they're going anywhere due to being an integral part of the transportation there.
Quote from: pderocco on January 23, 2024, 05:50:55 PM
This may baffle the young-uns, but when shoulder belts were first mandated, many cars had this crazy scheme with a movable anchor in a motorized slot over the door that moved the belt out of the way when the door was opened.
At the time, I believe the federal mandate was automatic seatbelts OR airbags.
Automatic seatbelts can be defeated in their use, and as mentioned there's still the lap belt that needs to be buckled manually.
The general populace greatly preferred airbags, which became the standard.
(My dad had a 1987 Toyota Camry Station Wagon with the automatic seatbelts)
In the 1970s, Bradley International Airport in CT built, and later dismantled, a people mover (https://www.nytimes.com/1976/12/23/archives/bradley-field-people-mover-a-casualty-of-overoptimism.html).
Quote from: kurumi on January 23, 2024, 09:29:36 PM
In the 1970s, Bradley International Airport in CT built, and later dismantled, a people mover (https://www.nytimes.com/1976/12/23/archives/bradley-field-people-mover-a-casualty-of-overoptimism.html).
A childhood friend's family ran a travel agency through the 1980s. They often said, after travelling around the world, that BDL was their favorite airport.
Quote from: kphoger on January 23, 2024, 07:39:18 PMI'm only 42 years old, and the car I learned to drive in had such a mechanism: a 1988 Toyota Camry. It also had a pair of red buttons down in the center console that would allow a person to disconnect one end of the shoulder belt in case of an accident and subsequent need to exit the vehicle without being able to open the door; if you pressed it, it would beep-beep-beep as a warning. If we had a new person riding in the car, my dad was known to press the button on the sly and, when the person asked what the beeping was, he'd answer, "The ejection seat."
We used to have a 1990 Toyota Cressida with the front seatbelts configured similarly, including the red release buttons on the console.
My 1994 Saturn SL2 has motorized shoulder belts and, yes, they still work (the car turns 30 in just 11 days). I do have to remind front-seat passengers not just to buckle the lap belt, but also to leave the shoulder belt alone while it does its thing. (The belt "mouse"--the part that slides back and forth in the slot that runs along the upper part of the door frame--has a release, but it is not ergonomically designed for daily use.)
Quote from: jeffandnicole on January 23, 2024, 09:19:30 PMAt the time, I believe the federal mandate was automatic seatbelts OR airbags.
That is also my understanding. Consumer preference did move decisively in favor of airbags from the late 1980's onward, so while the 1990 Cressida and the first few Saturn S-Series cars did not have them, my Saturn has both the motorized seatbelts and a driver's-side airbag.
Quote from: jeffandnicole on January 23, 2024, 09:19:30 PMAutomatic seatbelts can be defeated in their use, and as mentioned there's still the lap belt that needs to be buckled manually.
Some GM models (not Saturn) had door-mounted seatbelts. I think the theory was that since the passenger could enter and exit without unbuckling them, they counted as automatic. In practice I think most people just buckled after entry and unbuckled before exit. They were also unsafe unless the doors were locked to prevent them bursting open in a crash.
Quote from: Rothman on January 23, 2024, 08:55:41 PMThe system was unique to Dulles. It wasn't like other airports or locations would suddenly use them. They were tailored to the Dulles facilities and were non-transferable to other locations.
The Wikipedia article (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_lounge) notes that similar vehicles were used at other airports (Mirabel in Montréal, Charles de Gaulle in Paris, Benito Juárez in Mexico City, and one or two others) until about a decade ago. Trudeau (also in Montréal) reportedly still uses them. At Dulles they have been pushed into increasingly marginal roles (e.g., as airside buses) as terminals have been renovated and expanded, and I suspect they will eventually be phased out altogether.
Clearview.
[mic drop]
Quote from: ZLoth on January 23, 2024, 01:06:49 PM
Two that come to mind:
- Morgantown Personal Rapid Transit
- The Mobile Lounge at Dulles to transport passengers from terminal to plane
Quote from: Bitmapped on January 23, 2024, 02:32:29 PM
The PRT remains in use 50 years later. It's very effective for its intended purpose, lots of other places copied a simplified version of the concept with automated people movers, and other similar systems have been built again in the past decade. I wouldn't say it's a bomb or a fundamental problem with the technology. Poor contract management and rushed political interference by the Nixon Administration helped cause the construction cost to balloon.
The Mobile Lounges remain in use after 62 years. There's more of the PlaneMates at Dulles, which are several years younger.
Quote from: ZLoth on January 23, 2024, 01:06:49 PM
The Mobile Lounge at Dulles to transport passengers from terminal to plane
Hate to be so pedantic, but except for early history it was the PlaneMates were the ones that operated directly from the gates to the planes (or more commonly, from International arrival flights to the so-called "Barnacle" gates that led to the old Customs processing center). And although the modified Mobile Lounges were intended for transportation between Main Terminal to Midfield Concourses, the PlaneMates were also preferred for inter-terminal operation after they were retrofitted with backup cameras. (Mobile Lounges have operator cabs on both ends, and the driver had to switch ends; PlaneMates had an operator cab at only one end and had to be backed out of the terminal; after the backup cameras, it was discovered that the reversal process was actually faster if the driver didn't have to switch ends and wait for the control switchover process).
Quote from: tmoore952 on January 23, 2024, 06:09:00 PM
I am pretty sure they are still being used. At least they were five months ago.
I believe the last two times I used Dulles, upon arrival the mobile lounge was used to take us back to the main building (at the "front" of the airport). The last such trip I took was an international trip (for which I had to be segregated from the general public since I had to go through customs -- I can see that would be a good use for them).
There is an underground train which will take you to your terminal after you clear security (as a departing passenger).
But I don't believe I've ever used the train as an arriving passenger to come back to the main building.
I don't fly out of there that often and so I don't have that many data points to reference.
Nowadays, most of the operations are between the Main Terminal -and- Concourse D, and also between Concourse A -and Concourse D (plus, PlaneMates are required between most of the "hardstands" and the terminals). MWAA is in the process of refurbishing the entire fleet; they still have 30 PlaneMates and only 19 Mobile Lounges.
Philadelphia International Airport also has recently overhauled their six Mobile Lounges (where they still use the original Chrysler term PTV - passenger transport vehicle). These are somewhat different than those at Dulles, as the PTVs use scissor lifts (whereas the PlaneMates at Dulles use hydraulic screwjacks; Mobile Lounges at Dulles were fixed height, but originally equipped with a double-ramp lift at one end to adjust for plane height that has since been removed). I'm pretty sure that IAD and PHL are the only two locations where these beasts still roam.
Quote from: ZLoth on January 23, 2024, 01:06:49 PM
The Mobile Lounge at Dulles to transport passengers from terminal to plane
Quote from: tmoore952 on January 23, 2024, 06:09:00 PM
I am pretty sure they are still being used. At least they were five months ago.
Quote from: ZLoth on January 23, 2024, 07:08:50 PM
As far as I know, only Dulles uses them, and they are so old, they have to fabricate the replacement parts.
In both instances, lack of widespread adoption combined with the higher cost of implementation doomed these systems in my opinion.
Quote from: Rothman on January 23, 2024, 08:55:41 PM
The system was unique to Dulles. It wasn't like other airports or locations would suddenly use them. They were tailored to the Dulles facilities and were non-transferable to other locations.
Therefore, I don't see the "doom." They were built for Dulles and are still in operation at Dulles and it doesn't look like they're going anywhere due to being an integral part of the transportation there.
Forgive me if I've got the quotes out of sequence. Anywhoosit, there were a bunch of varieties of these beasts roaming around airports until the late-1990s: JFK, ATL, BWI, St. Louis Lambert, Mexico City, Acapulco, two airports in Montreal (Dorval and Mirabel), Toronto Pearson, Paris CDG, and even Jeddah King Abdullaziz Airport in Saudi Arabia (plus numerous military bases that will remain unnamed). As best as I can tell, all of these are gone. I highly suspect that Dulles was the only location that ever purchased the screwjack PlaneMates, but the other two variants were spread around here-and-there.
Quote from: Rothman on January 23, 2024, 08:55:41 PMThe system was unique to Dulles. It wasn't like other airports or locations would suddenly use them. They were tailored to the Dulles facilities and were non-transferable to other locations.
Quote from: J N Winkler on January 23, 2024, 09:50:40 PM
The Wikipedia article (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_lounge) notes that similar vehicles were used at other airports (Mirabel in Montréal, Charles de Gaulle in Paris, Benito Juárez in Mexico City, and one or two others) until about a decade ago. Trudeau (also in Montréal) reportedly still uses them. At Dulles they have been pushed into increasingly marginal roles (e.g., as airside buses) as terminals have been renovated and expanded, and I suspect they will eventually be phased out altogether.
Sorry, missed this post. It looks like the PTVs at Montreal Dorval (Trudeau) were still operating as of 2014, but I'm not sure about today.
DIA's baggage system they tried to implement in the 90's. Way ahead of its time, but had a habit of launching baggage.
I think they should take whatever remains of it, and rebrand it as a ride.
Quote from: kphoger on January 23, 2024, 07:39:18 PM
Quote from: pderocco on January 23, 2024, 05:50:55 PM
This may baffle the young-uns, but when shoulder belts were first mandated, many cars had this crazy scheme with a movable anchor in a motorized slot over the door that moved the belt out of the way when the door was opened.
I'm only 42 years old, and the car I learned to drive in had such a mechanism: a 1988 Toyota Camry. It also had a pair of red buttons down in the center console that would allow a person to disconnect one end of the shoulder belt in case of an accident and subsequent need to exit the vehicle without being able to open the door; if you pressed it, it would beep-beep-beep as a warning. If we had a new person riding in the car, my dad was known to press the button on the sly and, when the person asked what the beeping was, he'd answer, "The ejection seat."
My 1992 Ford Tempo had one. I actually got the "passive restraint system" discount on my auto insurance just the same as if it had airbags. Airbags superseded the automatic seat belts by the time airbags were mandated in 1996.
I fly into and out of Dulles Airport on occasion. The mobile lounges are still in use and now serve three purposes. The most important is to carry inbound international passengers to the International Arrivals Building; as others have noted, this allows those passengers to be segregated from domestic traffic until they clear Customs and Immigration and re-clear security.
The second use is as an alternative to the AeroTrain system. The AeroTrain serves the A, B, and C midfield concourses but does not directly serve the D concourse. You can get to D by taking the train and then walking because C and D are in the same building, but it's often faster and easier to take the mobile lounge directly between the main terminal and the D concourse. I believe the mobile lounge will also take you from A/B to D, though I've never done that.
The third use is on rare occasions when a gate isn't available and they need to use a remote stand to board or disembark a flight. They pull a "Plane Mate" mobile lounge (easily identified by the two smokestack-type things on top of the lounge) up next to the plane and raise it up to the door level. All flights at Dulles used to operate that way, but it's very rare these days. Somewhere online you can find pictures of a mobile lounge being used this way in June 2023 when the final Air France Concorde flew into Dulles carrying airline personnel (the aircraft did not return to France because Air France donated it to the Smithsonian museum located adjacent to the airport).
Regarding the motorized seatbelts, as others have noted, there was a federal standard in place requiring "passive restraint systems," that is, one that would operate regardless of whether the driver or front-seat passenger chose to fasten the seatbelt. At one point, some automakers attached both the shoulder and lap belts to the door and intended that they would remain buckled (the late 1980s Honda CRX is a good example), but pretty much everybody hated those because it was too hard to get in and out of the car (women wearing skirts understandably really disliked them), so a lot of people just unbuckled them and either used them as conventional seatbelts or didn't use them at all. The motorized shoulder belts were a response to the negative customer feedback, but as noted they required you to buckle the lap belt yourself, and a lot of people in turn didn't do that. Airbags became the longer-term solution. I remember a car magazine article commenting on the absurdity of the federal regulation because a Ferrari or similar sold in Europe had a five-point racing seatbelt that was a superior design, but in the US it had to be sold with the motorized shoulder belt that scooted along the door to comply with the regulation.
Self-driving and straight battery-electric vehicles.
Mike
Quote from: mgk920 on January 24, 2024, 10:41:22 AM
Self-driving and straight battery-electric vehicles.
WAAAYYY too early to make that pronouncement.
Quote from: SEWIGuy on January 24, 2024, 01:08:27 PM
Quote from: mgk920 on January 24, 2024, 10:41:22 AM
Self-driving and straight battery-electric vehicles.
WAAAYYY too early to make that pronouncement.
I'm inclined to agree on the first, especially since now Apple released news today about their "self-driving" car being pushed back to 2028 and it's self-driving features will be no different than my wife's Mazda CX-5.
On the latter, I don't ever think the government is going to allow it to happen.
We are in the infancy of the technology for both.
Quote from: SectorZ on January 24, 2024, 03:05:39 PM
Quote from: SEWIGuy on January 24, 2024, 01:08:27 PM
Quote from: mgk920 on January 24, 2024, 10:41:22 AM
Self-driving and straight battery-electric vehicles.
WAAAYYY too early to make that pronouncement.
I'm inclined to agree on the first, especially since now Apple released news today about their "self-driving" car being pushed back to 2028 and it's self-driving features will be no different than my wife's Mazda CX-5.
On the latter, I don't ever think the government is going to allow it to happen.
The gummint's not going to allow battery-electric vehicles? Someone ought to tell Elon pretty quick.
Quote from: SEWIGuy on January 24, 2024, 01:08:27 PM
Quote from: mgk920 on January 24, 2024, 10:41:22 AM
Self-driving and straight battery-electric vehicles.
WAAAYYY too early to make that pronouncement.
I agree on the electric cars being way too early on that pronouncement. I also disagree with the carrot-and-stick approach certain states are making to force the usage of electric cars by a certain year. The extreme cold and the inability for Tesla's to charge in extreme cold certainly didn't help paint a positive picture of electric cars.
At least with my two examples (Personal Rapid Transit and Mobile Lounges), these were transport technologies that are almost 50 years old, but failed to get widespread adoption, thus they are what I considered to be transportation "bombs".
Push button gear shifting on various cars in the late 1950s?
Dare I say it, the monorail?
Once thought to be the transportation system of the future, the monorail never really caught on in a big way. They might have a useful function at zoos and amusement parks, but they seem to be gradually vanishing even there. And while Disney does seem to maintain their systems, it speaks volumes that they never extended the system to any of their other parks beyond Epcot. They just stuck with the good old-fashioned motorbus, though the new "Skyliner" aerial gondolas seem to be making a hit.
At Newark Liberty Airport (EWR), the first contractor was recently selected to replace their monorail-based Skytrain with a more conventional peoplemover system. (I hear they've decided on a cable-driven model, like those at CVG or DTW.)
Tampa International Airport (TPA) had a monorail to access long-term parking -- NOT to be confused with the 4 peoplemovers used to access the satellite concourses, or the new transport system that takes you to the ConRAC. This monorail was kind of hidden, to the point where most airport visitors probably didn't know about it. In any event, it was removed a few years ago, and replaced with mere moving walkways.
Some of the drawbacks of monorails are that they tend to be based on proprietary technology, making them difficult to service. Also the fact that they are required to be on an expensive elevated structure.
Heck, even The Simpsons had a laugh with them. (s4e12, "Marge vs. the Monorail")
Quote from: lepidopteran on January 24, 2024, 09:27:01 PM
Tampa International Airport (TPA) had a monorail to access long-term parking -- NOT to be confused with the 4 peoplemovers used to access the satellite concourses
Even the peoplemovers are a waste. By the time you wait for the next train, er, peoplemover, you could've just walked between the terminal and the central hub. The distance is only about 1,000 feet, or a 4 - 5 minute walk.
Quote from: SEWIGuy on January 23, 2024, 05:06:48 PM
HOV lanes.
Highly effective as a first step towards HOT lanes or bus lanes, and allows for highway expansion without pissing off certain types. I don't think it qualifies for this list.
Quote from: ElishaGOtis on January 23, 2024, 05:57:27 PM
After work-from-home significantly shifted commuting patterns away from inbound-AM / outbound-PM, I think reversible express lanes may enter this list. They work well in some cases, and most systems did work well upon initial implementation, but now maybe not so much? Idk, just my opinion :nod:
Seattle's system does cause considerable congestion where the express lanes begin/end at Northgate, so it really doesn't work well for the modern city. Should've been torn out for a busway decades ago.
Quote from: Bruce on January 24, 2024, 10:13:23 PM
Quote from: SEWIGuy on January 23, 2024, 05:06:48 PM
HOV lanes.
Highly effective as a first step towards HOT lanes or bus lanes, and allows for highway expansion without pissing off certain types. I don't think it qualifies for this list.
But if they worked, we'd see a lot more HOV lanes, the HOT component wouldn't be needed, and buses would coexist within the lanes.
People just don't like carpooling. HOV lanes may be a tried experiment, but except in very crowded areas, they never worked out well. Worth noting those crowded areas also tend to have sufficient mass-transit systems, which even with their issues, generally work better than HOV lanes.
Quote from: SEWIGuy on January 24, 2024, 01:08:27 PM
Quote from: mgk920 on January 24, 2024, 10:41:22 AM
Self-driving and straight battery-electric vehicles.
WAAAYYY too early to make that pronouncement.
I'll agree it's way too early with the straight battery-electric vehicles (given how likely it feels that gas will go back over $5/gallon this year), but not as strongly with the self-driving.
Perhaps the Dallas signal design/phasing since it has been replaced by the flashing yellow arrow display?
HOT lanes. Sure, popular for the rich who can afford them. A bomb for everyone else.
Quote from: zachary_amaryllis on January 24, 2024, 09:28:34 AM
DIA's baggage system they tried to implement in the 90's. Way ahead of its time, but had a habit of launching baggage.
I think they should take whatever remains of it, and rebrand it as a ride.
DIA seems like it might well be a more entertaining destination than whatever you were flying into Denver to do.
Quote from: lepidopteran on January 24, 2024, 09:27:01 PM
Dare I say it, the monorail?
Once thought to be the transportation system of the future, the monorail never really caught on in a big way. They might have a useful function at zoos and amusement parks, but they seem to be gradually vanishing even there. And while Disney does seem to maintain their systems, it speaks volumes that they never extended the system to any of their other parks beyond Epcot. They just stuck with the good old-fashioned motorbus, though the new "Skyliner" aerial gondolas seem to be making a hit.
The obvious technological difficulty of monorails is branching. Disneyland has one big loop, with a huge contraption for diverting the vehicle onto a spur that goes into what looks like a maintenance building. It also has trolleys on the ground, which are easy to branch.
Quote from: lepidopteran on January 24, 2024, 09:27:01 PMDare I say it, the monorail?
Cal Expo has a monorail that was intended to help with getting around, and was put into operation in 1969. Due to accessability and safety issues with the other stations along the route, this monorail effectively is a amusement ride whose sole station is above the main game. Japan seemed to have a more developed monorail system.
Quote from: Scott5114 on January 25, 2024, 01:01:10 AM
Quote from: zachary_amaryllis on January 24, 2024, 09:28:34 AM
DIA's baggage system they tried to implement in the 90's. Way ahead of its time, but had a habit of launching baggage.
I think they should take whatever remains of it, and rebrand it as a ride.
DIA seems like it might well be a more entertaining destination than whatever you were flying into Denver to do.
I thought they fixed the system, rather than replace it with something entirely different.
Quote from: lepidopteran on January 24, 2024, 09:27:01 PM
Dare I say it, the monorail?
I was about to suggest that myself, but then I realized how many monorail systems are actually in use around the world, so I determined that it wasn't actually a technology bomb.
Quote from: ZLoth on January 24, 2024, 07:08:15 PM
Quote from: SEWIGuy on January 24, 2024, 01:08:27 PM
Quote from: mgk920 on January 24, 2024, 10:41:22 AM
Self-driving and straight battery-electric vehicles.
WAAAYYY too early to make that pronouncement.
I agree on the electric cars being way too early on that pronouncement. I also disagree with the carrot-and-stick approach certain states are making to force the usage of electric cars by a certain year. The extreme cold and the inability for Tesla's to charge in extreme cold certainly didn't help paint a positive picture of electric cars.
At least with my two examples (Personal Rapid Transit and Mobile Lounges), these were transport technologies that are almost 50 years old, but failed to get widespread adoption, thus they are what I considered to be transportation "bombs".
Was it 'too early' when the same technology bombed in the market at the turn of the 19th to the 20th centuries?
Mike
Quote from: mgk920 on January 25, 2024, 11:19:51 AM
Quote from: ZLoth on January 24, 2024, 07:08:15 PM
Quote from: SEWIGuy on January 24, 2024, 01:08:27 PM
Quote from: mgk920 on January 24, 2024, 10:41:22 AM
Self-driving and straight battery-electric vehicles.
WAAAYYY too early to make that pronouncement.
I agree on the electric cars being way too early on that pronouncement. I also disagree with the carrot-and-stick approach certain states are making to force the usage of electric cars by a certain year. The extreme cold and the inability for Tesla's to charge in extreme cold certainly didn't help paint a positive picture of electric cars.
At least with my two examples (Personal Rapid Transit and Mobile Lounges), these were transport technologies that are almost 50 years old, but failed to get widespread adoption, thus they are what I considered to be transportation "bombs".
Was it 'too early' when the same technology bombed in the market at the turn of the 19th to the 20th centuries?
Mike
Yep. In today's world of instant satisfaction, people aren't willing to accept a growth period.
Many people wouldn't consider a car today that don't have certain safety features or conveniences (which differs among each person); most of which were non-existent or in their infancy 20 years ago. Even cell phones of 20 years ago had nowhere near the technology they do today. But car charging - people see what EVs can do today, and claim they'll never be suitable in the future.
GPS navigation is probably the single most important transportation technology that's been nearly universally adopted this century so far. For mostly good, but some bad. Way fewer people getting lost, but plenty of hiccups along the way. Took them a while to shake out all the inaccuracies that guided people down non-existent or unsafe roads. GPS nav is only as good as the data it's working off of and that's gotten good enough for probably 99 percent of use cases.
It's been huge because it's mostly killed paper maps and it's changed the way people drive. Instead of learning their city's road systems and remembering landmarks for their turns, they mostly use GPS nav. Obviously folks like us can still get around without nav, but for the general population, they're used to having the car's GPS nav on or having an app on their phone. They'll go wherever it tells them, even if the difference in travel time is negligible.
I think about any trips from my location in southern Wisconsin to any place southeast beyond Chicago. GPS nav almost always routes you through Chicago, but going via Bloomington adds just token minutes to the overall trip and is a much, much less aggravating drive.
The technology has been amazing for knowing about and getting around traffic jams. Particularly the irregular ones that spring up due to crashes or temporary road work. Lets the driver bail on their planned route well in advance of the slow down and get around it. Nothing worse than having just passed an exit and around the next turn, everything comes to a screeching halt. Now an occasional glance at Google Maps or whatever will give you fair warning.
GPS nav has also made route designations sort of moot, if I'm being honest. The average motorist doesn't care or notice what shields are on the signs, they just know "turn here" "exit there" "go three more miles..." That does hurt a little, as a roadgeek. In a pre-GPS world, there was so much more value in route continuity. "Just stay on highway xx." For example, they came up with I-69 as this idea of having one route to follow from Mexico to Canada, but since then, GPS has made it irrelevant that such a corridor carry the same route shields.
Is it more accepted and universal than fuel injection in gasoline engines or the steering wheel?
Mike
Quote from: triplemultiplex on January 25, 2024, 11:57:22 AM
GPS navigation
But neither GPS navigation nor paper maps "bombed".
Quote from: mgk920 on January 25, 2024, 12:01:36 PM
Is it more accepted and universal than fuel injection in gasoline engines or the steering wheel?
Mike
I seem to remember some hype back in the 1990s of switching out steering wheels for joysticks (a/k/a driver impalers).
Quote from: mgk920 on January 25, 2024, 12:01:36 PM
Is it more accepted and universal than fuel injection in gasoline engines or the steering wheel?
"This Century"
Quote from: kphoger on January 25, 2024, 12:06:37 PM
Quote from: triplemultiplex on January 25, 2024, 11:57:22 AM
GPS navigation
But neither GPS navigation nor paper maps "bombed".
I seem to have flipped the intent of this thread. :paranoid:
Quote from: triplemultiplex on January 25, 2024, 11:57:22 AM
....
GPS nav has also made route designations sort of moot, if I'm being honest. The average motorist doesn't care or notice what shields are on the signs, they just know "turn here" "exit there" "go three more miles..." That does hurt a little, as a roadgeek. In a pre-GPS world, there was so much more value in route continuity. "Just stay on highway xx." For example, they came up with I-69 as this idea of having one route to follow from Mexico to Canada, but since then, GPS has made it irrelevant that such a corridor carry the same route shields.
That comment makes me think of the well-known sign on westbound I-70 in Maryland, which I've always figured reflects the way many people don't distinguish between types of routes when giving directions—"Take 70 west to 68 and follow that to 219." Someone using navigation software would presumably not need this sign. (Picture from AARoads.)
(https://www.aaroads.com/md/070/i-070_wb_exit_018_03.jpg)
Quote from: Rothman on January 25, 2024, 12:08:54 PM
Quote from: mgk920 on January 25, 2024, 12:01:36 PM
Is it more accepted and universal than fuel injection in gasoline engines or the steering wheel?
Mike
I seem to remember some hype back in the 1990s of switching out steering wheels for joysticks (a/k/a driver impalers).
More recently, Tesla tried replacing the steering wheel with a steering "yoke." It was unpopular and they wound up giving people the option of a regular wheel or the new yoke. (Surprises me a bit, given that Elon Musk's companies aren't generally known for respecting customer opinions—there's definitely a "we know better than you do what you need" attitude.)
Quote from: mgk920 on January 24, 2024, 10:41:22 AM
Self-driving and straight battery-electric vehicles.
Quote from: SEWIGuy on January 24, 2024, 01:08:27 PM
WAAAYYY too early to make that pronouncement.
Quote from: ZLoth on January 24, 2024, 07:08:15 PM
I agree on the electric cars being way too early on that pronouncement. I also disagree with the carrot-and-stick approach certain states are making to force the usage of electric cars by a certain year. The extreme cold and the inability for Tesla's to charge in extreme cold certainly didn't help paint a positive picture of electric cars.
At least with my two examples (Personal Rapid Transit and Mobile Lounges), these were transport technologies that are almost 50 years old, but failed to get widespread adoption, thus they are what I considered to be transportation "bombs".
Quote from: mgk920 on January 25, 2024, 11:19:51 AM
Was it 'too early' when the same technology bombed in the market at the turn of the 19th to the 20th centuries?
Kinda like when Maglev technology bombed in the 1880s? Oh yeah, that's because a more-efficient rotary electric motor was developed in 1886.
Quote from: mgk920 on January 25, 2024, 11:19:51 AM
Quote from: ZLoth on January 24, 2024, 07:08:15 PM
Quote from: SEWIGuy on January 24, 2024, 01:08:27 PM
Quote from: mgk920 on January 24, 2024, 10:41:22 AM
Self-driving and straight battery-electric vehicles.
WAAAYYY too early to make that pronouncement.
I agree on the electric cars being way too early on that pronouncement. I also disagree with the carrot-and-stick approach certain states are making to force the usage of electric cars by a certain year. The extreme cold and the inability for Tesla's to charge in extreme cold certainly didn't help paint a positive picture of electric cars.
At least with my two examples (Personal Rapid Transit and Mobile Lounges), these were transport technologies that are almost 50 years old, but failed to get widespread adoption, thus they are what I considered to be transportation "bombs".
Was it 'too early' when the same technology bombed in the market at the turn of the 19th to the 20th centuries?
Mike
You seriously comparing electric car technology from back then to now?
Quote from: 1995hoo on January 25, 2024, 12:10:49 PM
That comment makes me think of the well-known sign on westbound I-70 in Maryland, which I've always figured reflects the way many people don't distinguish between types of routes when giving directions—"Take 70 west to 68 and follow that to 219." Someone using navigation software would presumably not need this sign. (Picture from AARoads.)
(https://www.aaroads.com/md/070/i-070_wb_exit_018_03.jpg)
That sign reminds me of the time GPS told us to get off at MD 68 in the middle of the night to get to the Hagerstown KOA, and we took narrow roads to the back entrance while pulling a trailer (and almost went up someone's driveway). The next morning we came out the front entrance and everything was well-signed, including how to get to I-70 and I-81. Of course, the KOA catalog had said not to use GPS.
Quote from: kphoger on January 25, 2024, 12:06:37 PM
Quote from: triplemultiplex on January 25, 2024, 11:57:22 AM
GPS navigation
But neither GPS navigation nor paper maps "bombed".
GPS was invented for more precise placement of bombs.
Quote from: triplemultiplex on January 25, 2024, 11:57:22 AMGPS navigation is probably the single most important transportation technology that's been nearly universally adopted this century so far. For mostly good, but some bad. Way fewer people getting lost, but plenty of hiccups along the way. Took them a while to shake out all the inaccuracies that guided people down non-existent or unsafe roads. GPS nav is only as good as the data it's working off of and that's gotten good enough for probably 99 percent of use cases.
It's been huge because it's mostly killed paper maps and it's changed the way people drive. Instead of learning their city's road systems and remembering landmarks for their turns, they mostly use GPS nav. Obviously folks like us can still get around without nav, but for the general population, they're used to having the car's GPS nav on or having an app on their phone. They'll go wherever it tells them, even if the difference in travel time is negligible.
I disagree with that. When I first moved to Texas five years ago, I was 100% unfamiliar with the area, so I was highly dependent on the GPS on even going to the nearby stores. As I learned the lay of the land, I no longer depended on the GPS and knew the landmarks.
Quote from: elsmere241 on January 25, 2024, 12:33:24 PM
That sign reminds me of the time GPS told us to get off at MD 68 in the middle of the night to get to the Hagerstown KOA, and we took narrow roads to the back entrance while pulling a trailer (and almost went up someone's driveway). The next morning we came out the front entrance and everything was well-signed, including how to get to I-70 and I-81. Of course, the KOA catalog had said not to use GPS.
Heh. There's a winery near Linden, Virginia—the aptly named Linden Vineyards—whose website used to recommend that you not follow GPS or mapping website directions because most of them would send you up a gravel road with switchbacks (Fiery Run Road south of VA-55) in order to save 1.3 miles compared to using a route consisting entirely of paved roads with no switchbacks. The road conditions result in the latter route taking more time notwithstanding the shorter distance. Google Maps, at least, no longer recommends the gravel road.
I'm sure that sort of thing is very common in rural areas, though maybe gravel switchbacks might be an extreme example.
Quote from: SectorZ on January 25, 2024, 12:38:47 PM
Quote from: kphoger on January 25, 2024, 12:06:37 PM
Quote from: triplemultiplex on January 25, 2024, 11:57:22 AM
GPS navigation
But neither GPS navigation nor paper maps "bombed".
GPS was invented for more precise placement of bombs.
(https://images.chesscomfiles.com/uploads/v1/images_users/tiny_mce/thematedkid/phpPlfUuy.gif)
Quote from: triplemultiplex on January 25, 2024, 11:57:22 AM
GPS navigation is probably the single most important transportation technology that's been nearly universally adopted this century so far. For mostly good, but some bad. Way fewer people getting lost, but plenty of hiccups along the way. Took them a while to shake out all the inaccuracies that guided people down non-existent or unsafe roads. GPS nav is only as good as the data it's working off of and that's gotten good enough for probably 99 percent of use cases.
It's been huge because it's mostly killed paper maps and it's changed the way people drive. Instead of learning their city's road systems and remembering landmarks for their turns, they mostly use GPS nav. Obviously folks like us can still get around without nav, but for the general population, they're used to having the car's GPS nav on or having an app on their phone. They'll go wherever it tells them, even if the difference in travel time is negligible.
I think about any trips from my location in southern Wisconsin to any place southeast beyond Chicago. GPS nav almost always routes you through Chicago, but going via Bloomington adds just token minutes to the overall trip and is a much, much less aggravating drive.
The technology has been amazing for knowing about and getting around traffic jams. Particularly the irregular ones that spring up due to crashes or temporary road work. Lets the driver bail on their planned route well in advance of the slow down and get around it. Nothing worse than having just passed an exit and around the next turn, everything comes to a screeching halt. Now an occasional glance at Google Maps or whatever will give you fair warning.
GPS nav has also made route designations sort of moot, if I'm being honest. The average motorist doesn't care or notice what shields are on the signs, they just know "turn here" "exit there" "go three more miles..." That does hurt a little, as a roadgeek. In a pre-GPS world, there was so much more value in route continuity. "Just stay on highway xx." For example, they came up with I-69 as this idea of having one route to follow from Mexico to Canada, but since then, GPS has made it irrelevant that such a corridor carry the same route shields.
I would call it a minus. And people do still get lost. Pretty much anywhere the road network doesn't neatly fit into what the GPS can say and people need to actually look for and read signage, in fact (especially in places where people would have been better served by checking out Google Street View before they left!). I believe I've told the Kingston roundabout story on the forum before. Short version, the person driving to a DOT meeting missed the turn because they had no clue where they were going and not looking at signage, just relying on GPS. Rest of the day she would do little else other than complain about how horrible the roundabout was and how she would never drive through it again, even if it meant going over an hour out of our way to get back. Not to mention people driving slower than they need to because they have no clue where they're going.
As for people avoiding congestion, another minus. Not the part of Google Maps being able to show it... I check that before I leave work every day. The part where people are automatically routed. There are only two alternate routes to the Northway for my drive home, and the one that should be shorter/faster clogs up to stop and go levels every single time the Northway backs up, thanks go GPS. Even the other one has a couple lights that back up and operate at LOS F if enough people divert.
And call it the Aspergers/OCD roadgeek in me, but diverting routes is not something I like doing. I still drive by the "take highway X to Y" method. Not doing that makes me feel out of sync with the world, in fact. And you can take route numbering and route numbering logic from my cold, dead, hands.
Quote from: mgk920 on January 25, 2024, 12:01:36 PM
Is it more accepted and universal than fuel injection in gasoline engines or the steering wheel?
Mike
Depending on how self driving cars and electric cars advance? Possibly one day! Electric cars that have preconditioning don't even include a button to turn it on. Instead, you have to program in a charger on the cars on-board navigation, follow the route it gives, and it will automatically turn on the preconditioning at the correct time. EV enthusiasts seem to think it's awesome. I just see a future when roadgeeks will have to choose between navigating themselves and seeing what they want to see and getting the best charging speeds. And fully self-driving cars won't even have steering wheels at all, if we ever develop them. They likely won't even position the seats for optimum roadgeeking.
In short, if the futurists are right, our hobby as we know it will die within the next few decades.
Calling GPS a minus because of a couple personal anecdotes is ... something.
As someone who does a lot of driving to appointments for work, it has made it so much easier for everyone. I just verify the address. I don't have to ask for directions at all. GPS gets me where I need to go with very little problem.
And also as someone who has relocated a couple of times with my directionally-challenged wife, GPS has been incredibly valuable just to run simple errands. Like ZLoth, she eventually figures it out, but on our recent move, she had to use GPS to do simple Target runs even though she had been there prior.
I wouldn't call it the greatest technology ever, but it has been incredibly valuable.
For all its many shortcomings, I don't think I would describe turn-by-turn GPS navigation as a transportation-related technology that has "bombed," simply because it has proven to have enough staying power to remain an ongoing nuisance. (GPS by itself most definitely has not bombed, aside from the close-to-literal sense associated with military use. In the civilian world, it is extremely useful for mapping and journey logging, to name just a couple of benign applications.)
I personally don't use turn-by-turn largely because it is delivered by voice and I can't hear. However, if it were made visually accessible in a way that allowed me to keep my eyes on the road--e.g., through a heads-up display--secondary reasons would come into play, such as lack of the ability to configure the routing algorithm to match my personal preferences, which encompass a willingness to go out of my way (sometimes considerably so) to avoid aggravation in terms of loose surfacing, difficult geometry, poor LOS, lack of spare capacity to accommodate diversion due to congestion elsewhere, etc. At least in theory, this is achievable through continuing refinement of routing algorithms and improvements in the quality, accuracy, and detail of the underlying GIS data.
3M High Visibility Signal
Couple of additional thoughts. Not sure they are "bombs" or just went out of style.
**Pop up headlights
**Headlight wipers
**Touchpad entry? This seems to have gone away with the advent of proximity key fobs
Quote from: SEWIGuy on January 25, 2024, 01:20:26 PM
Calling GPS a minus because of a couple personal anecdotes is ... something.
Agreed. I work in an industry where multiple people are driving to customers' houses all day, every day.
Occasionally, I see instances of boneheaded guys blindly trusting their sat-nav device. For example, the one who came from out of state to work in Wichita for a few days and couldn't navigate addresses well enough to know he was several miles down S Topeka Ave instead of several miles up N Topeka Ave; this was the same guy who, when he called to ask for directions to the
correct part of town, insisted we tell him to turn right or left, despite us having no clue which direction he was currently facing. Or the guy who "couldn't locate" an apartment complex because Google Maps placed it in the middle of the road, even though the complex was immediately on the other side of the tree line and the very next driveway was the access road to it.
But I also remember the days
before widespread smartphone and sat-nav use. Back when the guys carried paper maps of the city. Back when, if you said a Wichita address to one particular guy, he could tell you what the nearest cross-streets were, approximately what decade the house was built in, whether it was siding or brick or whatever, and if he had done work there in the last few years or not—all by the address. Sure, the guys were arguably more able to navigate with their brains back then. But. New neighborhood still under construction, not on your paper map? Good luck with that! Working in an unfamiliar town for which you have no paper map? Good luck with that! Called the customer for directions, but you're unfamiliar with the town's road network? Et cetera.
A few incidents of people's lessened ability to navigate by brain power do not negate the much larger number of times GPS has enabled them to navigate better than they could have before.
Quote from: SEWIGuy on January 25, 2024, 01:20:26 PM
Calling GPS a minus because of a couple personal anecdotes is ... something.
^ This
Quote from: kphoger on January 25, 2024, 02:18:36 PM
A few incidents of people's lessened ability to navigate by brain power do not negate the much larger number of times GPS has enabled them to navigate better than they could have before.
^ and this.
I can't get into calling something a fail in general when there are isolated incidents, especially when those incidents occur because people shut off their brains and common sense. (Is a calculator a "bomb" because nobody knows anymore how to use a slide rule or work arithmetic problems by hand?) Yeah, GPS on rare occasions routes a driver into a river or onto a goat path, but the GPS doesn't control the steering wheel -- the driver does. vdeane has the Kingston story; I have the Port Huron story: At the end of I-94/I-69 it used to be that you forked to the left to M-25 and Port Huron, and forked to the right for the Blue Water Bridge. When the freeway was rebuilt, those movements were switched -- left to the bridge, right to M-25. Despite three sets of overhead signs plus additional signs stating "Your GPS Is Wrong / Follow Posted Signs," every day for awhile at least a couple dozen stubborn motorists who hadn't updated their system's map base found themselves unwittingly going into Canada. (Anything to declare, Sir?)
Not necessarily a "technological" bomb, but a transportation bomb:
The days when local jurisdictions or DOTs placed oodles of signs encouraging people to enroll in Carpool and/or Share-A-Ride programs.
I know it was a thing to do back in the days of the energy crises and high gas prices (from the 80's perspective). But with people not all commuting from the same home-to-work routes, riding with a group of 'strangers", and more recently, Covid, hybrid work environments and the advent of Uber/Lyft rides which are more-or-less safer than old-school carpooling (since most people have cell phones at hand) have pretty much sealed put the last few nails in the coffin.
Nevertheless, in most of the country nowadays, you are hard-pressed to find those same carpool/Rideshare signs still posted in the wild.
Digital speedometer displays...originally.
Back in the 1990's I think it was, some cars were equipped with a digital speedometer rather than a dial. What car dealers found out - motorists at the time didn't care for them. They actually liked the dials. So they faded away.
Over the past several years, automakers have started installing them again. This time around, they are often optional as the display is more like an iPad screen, where the dial could even just be a computer image, with the ability to display a dial, a digital number, or both.
Quote from: vdeane on January 25, 2024, 01:01:03 PM
As for people avoiding congestion, another minus. Not the part of Google Maps being able to show it... I check that before I leave work every day. The part where people are automatically routed. There are only two alternate routes to the Northway for my drive home, and the one that should be shorter/faster clogs up to stop and go levels every single time the Northway backs up, thanks go GPS. Even the other one has a couple lights that back up and operate at LOS F if enough people divert.
And call it the Aspergers/OCD roadgeek in me, but diverting routes is not something I like doing. I still drive by the "take highway X to Y" method. Not doing that makes me feel out of sync with the world, in fact. And you can take route numbering and route numbering logic from my cold, dead, hands.
Regarding this:
If it's my normal commuting route (NJ's I-295), I rarely detour as well. There's a few options depending where I'm at, with the easiest being the parallel NJ Turnpike. But if I'm getting to the Turnpike to avoid the backup, many others are as well (and that's in addition to the regular traffic that's going that way). When exiting the Turnpike, there's often a jam thru the plaza onto the local road (NJ 168). I wind up losing so much time that I've basically avoided a 10 mile backup just to sit in another backup that me nearly all the time I saved on the Turnpike. And I had the privilege of paying to do so. Unless a crash has closed 2 of the 3 lanes of 295, or all lanes, I just stay on it and deal with the slowdown.
That said, I've been doing this commute for 25 years 4 months. Within the first few weeks, there was a full highway closure. In the other 25 years and 3 months, maybe one or two others. NJSP do a good job keeping at least 1 lane open. That includes one fatal during a cold winter week, where they detoured us into the grassy median. Due to the coldness the median didn't rut with the highway traffic going over it.
Quote from: vdeane on January 25, 2024, 01:01:03 PM
In short, if the futurists are right, our hobby as we know it will die within the next few decades.
This I don't necessarily agree with. There's probably always going to be an option to take control of your vehicle. Even planes, which are much more automated now than people realize, always allow the pilot to override the system. For your commute, you may actually like the automation, especially when incidents do arise, because the car will communicate with other vehicles and find the best way real-time, rather than depending on today's version of GPS which doesn't do a good job of predicting the jams it's creating by detouring traffic.
Quote from: kphoger on January 25, 2024, 02:18:36 PM
Occasionally, I see instances of boneheaded guys blindly trusting their sat-nav device.
That is pretty much the
only way I see people using it. I even have the experience of working with someone doing grade crossing inventory work and he liked to put every crossing into GPS. Works great for public crossings, but for private crossings, some of them aren't anywhere near a public road that's in the GPS. Often simes we'd have to hunt around for the crossing. A few times we never found them at all. The most memorable time was when the closest road was a Thruway entrance ramp, so we were blindly following the GPS when it randomly said "you have reached your destination", by which point we were stuck getting on the Thruway and then driving 10 miles to the next exit just to turn around.
It doesn't help that, aside from a couple coworkers, literally nobody listens to me when I try to help navigate, even though I'm better than the GPS.
Quote
New neighborhood still under construction, not on your paper map? Good luck with that!
It's the same with GPS. Arguably worse, since people no longer look at signs. It can take a few days if not
weeks for changes to show up in Google Maps.
I also don't think that it's a binary between paper maps and GPS. I use Google Maps. I'll even shove things into the directions, usually just to get drive times, but sometimes to see what Google comes up with. I just don't navigate by it. In fact, the one time I tried, because I-287 was closed, US 202 was marked closed, and trying to navigate the local roads looked complicated (I didn't want to backtrack to I-80), it was completely useless because Google didn't know I-287 was closed, so it was just sending me back there. In the end, I just went up US 202, figuring that I'd try to find some way around its closure. Fortunately, Google was wrong about that too.
Quote from: wanderer2575 on January 25, 2024, 03:12:22 PM
Quote from: SEWIGuy on January 25, 2024, 01:20:26 PM
Calling GPS a minus because of a couple personal anecdotes is ... something.
^ This
Quote from: kphoger on January 25, 2024, 02:18:36 PM
A few incidents of people's lessened ability to navigate by brain power do not negate the much larger number of times GPS has enabled them to navigate better than they could have before.
^ and this.
I can't get into calling something a fail in general when there are isolated incidents, especially when those incidents occur because people shut off their brains and common sense. (Is a calculator a "bomb" because nobody knows anymore how to use a slide rule or work arithmetic problems by hand?) Yeah, GPS on rare occasions routes a driver into a river or onto a goat path, but the GPS doesn't control the steering wheel -- the driver does. vdeane has the Kingston story; I have the Port Huron story: At the end of I-94/I-69 it used to be that you forked to the left to M-25 and Port Huron, and forked to the right for the Blue Water Bridge. When the freeway was rebuilt, those movements were switched -- left to the bridge, right to M-25. Despite three sets of overhead signs plus additional signs stating "Your GPS Is Wrong / Follow Posted Signs," every day for awhile at least a couple dozen stubborn motorists who hadn't updated their system's map base found themselves unwittingly going into Canada. (Anything to declare, Sir?)
I didn't call GPS a fail (as much as I may wish it was!). I was, however, responding to a post earlier in this thread claiming it was some wonderful thing benefiting society. I don't see this as like the calculator situation. Being able to use a slide rule or solve arithmetic problems on paper doesn't really help in life if you have a calculator. Being able to read signs, navigate, and actually bothering to familiarize yourself with where you're going does. Sure, you
could do both. But I don't know anyone who does. People are lazy.
Quote from: jeffandnicole on January 25, 2024, 07:01:37 PM
Digital speedometer displays...originally.
Back in the 1990's I think it was, some cars were equipped with a digital speedometer rather than a dial. What car dealers found out - motorists at the time didn't care for them. They actually liked the dials. So they faded away.
Over the past several years, automakers have started installing them again. This time around, they are often optional as the display is more like an iPad screen, where the dial could even just be a computer image, with the ability to display a dial, a digital number, or both.
That's interesting. Why
wouldn't someone want a digital speedometer? You can get your speed down to a single mph (rather than nearest 5) and you can switch to metric with a push of a button. No small numbers for me when I go to Canada! I love my digital speedometer and I would consider going back to a dial to be a major regression.
Quote
This I don't necessarily agree with. There's probably always going to be an option to take control of your vehicle. Even planes, which are much more automated now than people realize, always allow the pilot to override the system. For your commute, you may actually like the automation, especially when incidents do arise, because the car will communicate with other vehicles and find the best way real-time, rather than depending on today's version of GPS which doesn't do a good job of predicting the jams it's creating by detouring traffic.
The images I often see involve four seats facing each other (so the front ones are facing backwards) with a table in the middle, like you're in a living room rather than a car.
Quote from: thenetwork on January 25, 2024, 03:22:09 PM
Not necessarily a "technological" bomb, but a transportation bomb:
The days when local jurisdictions or DOTs placed oodles of signs encouraging people to enroll in Carpool and/or Share-A-Ride programs.
I know it was a thing to do back in the days of the energy crises and high gas prices (from the 80's perspective). But with people not all commuting from the same home-to-work routes, riding with a group of 'strangers", and more recently, Covid, hybrid work environments and the advent of Uber/Lyft rides which are more-or-less safer than old-school carpooling (since most people have cell phones at hand) have pretty much sealed put the last few nails in the coffin.
Nevertheless, in most of the country nowadays, you are hard-pressed to find those same carpool/Rideshare signs still posted in the wild.
Carpooling is definitely not a bomb. My brother carpools to work in the Seattle area and then you have the successful slug riders in the DC area. In urban areas, you still have carpools.
That said, has carpooling ever reached the ridiculous forecasts of New Urbanists and the like? Heck no. But "last nails in the coffin"? Hardly.
Quote from: vdeane on January 25, 2024, 09:12:49 PMThat's interesting. Why wouldn't someone want a digital speedometer? You can get your speed down to a single mph (rather than nearest 5) and you can switch to metric with a push of a button. No small numbers for me when I go to Canada! I love my digital speedometer and I would consider going back to a dial to be a major regression.
I wouldn't want to rely on a seven-segment display alone, which is essentially what the early digital speedometers were. They were hard to read under sustained acceleration since the number shown would change frequently, often before it could be read. A dial makes it easier to see approximate speed at a glance and to visualize rate of change in speed.
Quote from: thenetwork on January 25, 2024, 03:22:09 PM
Not necessarily a "technological" bomb, but a transportation bomb:
The days when local jurisdictions or DOTs placed oodles of signs encouraging people to enroll in Carpool and/or Share-A-Ride programs.
I know it was a thing to do back in the days of the energy crises and high gas prices (from the 80's perspective). But with people not all commuting from the same home-to-work routes, riding with a group of 'strangers", and more recently, Covid, hybrid work environments and the advent of Uber/Lyft rides which are more-or-less safer than old-school carpooling (since most people have cell phones at hand) have pretty much sealed put the last few nails in the coffin.
Nevertheless, in most of the country nowadays, you are hard-pressed to find those same carpool/Rideshare signs still posted in the wild.
The signs are gone because the Internet has better resources for arranging carpools. There's also vanpools, which are still very popular out in the West Coast metro regions because they're between coworkers and on a somewhat fixed route.
A 2019 survey of Downtown Seattle commuters showed a slight decline in carpool/vanpool from 2010 despite the presence of new rideshare options (which are counted as Other here).
(https://i.imgur.com/UbnsAzS.png)
Quote from: ZLoth on January 25, 2024, 06:56:22 AM
Quote from: lepidopteran on January 24, 2024, 09:27:01 PMDare I say it, the monorail?
Cal Expo has a monorail that was intended to help with getting around, and was put into operation in 1969. Due to accessability and safety issues with the other stations along the route, this monorail effectively is a amusement ride whose sole station is above the main game. Japan seemed to have a more developed monorail system.
That's a great video. That's what it takes to do branching on a monorail. The mechanism probably costs a thousand times as much as a switch that flexes a couple of rails on the ground a couple inches one way or another, something that was originally done by moving a manual lever next to the switch. And there's no way to overcome that cost difference.
Quote from: kphoger on January 25, 2024, 10:32:41 AM
Quote from: lepidopteran on January 24, 2024, 09:27:01 PM
Dare I say it, the monorail?
I was about to suggest that myself, but then I realized how many monorail systems are actually in use around the world, so I determined that it wasn't actually a technology bomb.
It depends upon what it's used for. If it's used for pleasure, the standards are different than if it's used for practical transportation. A rollercoaster is good at giving people a fun time, but lousy for getting to work. The monorail is a less dramatic example of that distinction. "We visited Seattle, and we took the monorail from the shopping district to the Space Needle!"
Quote from: lepidopteran on January 24, 2024, 09:27:01 PMDare I say it, the monorail?
Quote from: ZLoth on January 25, 2024, 06:56:22 AM
Cal Expo has a monorail that was intended to help with getting around, and was put into operation in 1969. Due to accessability and safety issues with the other stations along the route, this monorail effectively is a amusement ride whose sole station is above the main game. Japan seemed to have a more developed monorail system.
Quote from: pderocco on January 25, 2024, 11:06:17 PM
That's a great video. That's what it takes to do branching on a monorail. The mechanism probably costs a thousand times as much as a switch that flexes a couple of rails on the ground a couple inches one way or another, something that was originally done by moving a manual lever next to the switch. And there's no way to overcome that cost difference.
The Honda commercials where someone pulls up to a scenic part of the Southwest; pushes a button and the scenery changes are reminiscent of switching at the Newark Airport Monorail:
This switching technique comes with some quirks: Before the Newark system opened to the public, I was assigned to ride out the "Blizzard of '96" as a test of the guideway heating system. There were a few minor issues, but guideway heating system proved reliable for about 6 hours, and after two feet of snow we decided to call it quits for the weekend. When came back, there were huge icicles hanging from the guideway switch panels. When they flipped over, those icy stagatites became stalagmites. The first train to hit one got some not-so-minor damage to its fancy-dancy handcrafted aluminum carbody. Ouch! Afterwards, they installed additional power rail heating in certain areas and some of the heaters sometimes need to stay on when the trains are shut down.
Another near-oops: the original cables to the guideway switch panels were installed with the panels in the "normal" position (ergo, straight). Somebody caught that problem before they tried to flip over the guideway switch panel for the first time (which would have twisted the cable too far, ripped out the cable and probably done some structural damage as well). It took several days to figure out how to position and hold the guideway switch panels in the halfway position to install the cables correctly.
Quote from: jeffandnicole on January 25, 2024, 07:01:37 PM
Back in the 1990's I think it was, some cars were equipped with a digital speedometer rather than a dial. What car dealers found out - motorists at the time didn't care for them. They actually liked the dials. So they faded away.
My new Subaru Forester has both. I find myself only looking at the digital speedo, because the center of the console shows three speed-related numbers that I have to compare: my speed, the speed my cruise is set for, and the speed limit. They're all displayed differently, to avoid confusion, but having to compare two numbers and a pointer angle wouldn't be quite as easy.
Quote from: jeffandnicole on January 25, 2024, 07:01:37 PM
For your commute, you may actually like the automation, especially when incidents do arise, because the car will communicate with other vehicles and find the best way real-time, rather than depending on today's version of GPS which doesn't do a good job of predicting the jams it's creating by detouring traffic.
I haven't noticed Google Maps making much effort to direct people intelligently, or stupidly, around temporary blockages. When they occur, it still seems to me that very few people take the alternate routes that I know about because I'm a road geek, but sit resignedly in the multi-lane parking lot. Perhaps they just listen to music or drive-time radio, and don't really care.
Quote from: Rothman on January 25, 2024, 07:14:31 AM
Quote from: Scott5114 on January 25, 2024, 01:01:10 AM
Quote from: zachary_amaryllis on January 24, 2024, 09:28:34 AM
DIA's baggage system they tried to implement in the 90's. Way ahead of its time, but had a habit of launching baggage.
I think they should take whatever remains of it, and rebrand it as a ride.
DIA seems like it might well be a more entertaining destination than whatever you were flying into Denver to do.
I thought they fixed the system, rather than replace it with something entirely different.
My (possibly flawed?) understanding, is that a lot of the stuff from the planned system got sort of morphed into what it is now. The original system had individual 'cars' on tracks that routed all the baggage around. After they determined it wasn't working right, they went with the good ol' conveyor belts.
Quote from: zachary_amaryllis on January 26, 2024, 05:31:40 AM
Quote from: Rothman on January 25, 2024, 07:14:31 AM
Quote from: Scott5114 on January 25, 2024, 01:01:10 AM
Quote from: zachary_amaryllis on January 24, 2024, 09:28:34 AM
DIA's baggage system they tried to implement in the 90's. Way ahead of its time, but had a habit of launching baggage.
I think they should take whatever remains of it, and rebrand it as a ride.
DIA seems like it might well be a more entertaining destination than whatever you were flying into Denver to do.
I thought they fixed the system, rather than replace it with something entirely different.
My (possibly flawed?) understanding, is that a lot of the stuff from the planned system got sort of morphed into what it is now. The original system had individual 'cars' on tracks that routed all the baggage around. After they determined it wasn't working right, they went with the good ol' conveyor belts.
Ah, okay.
Quote from: pderocco on January 26, 2024, 02:00:09 AM
Quote from: jeffandnicole on January 25, 2024, 07:01:37 PM
For your commute, you may actually like the automation, especially when incidents do arise, because the car will communicate with other vehicles and find the best way real-time, rather than depending on today's version of GPS which doesn't do a good job of predicting the jams it's creating by detouring traffic.
I haven't noticed Google Maps making much effort to direct people intelligently, or stupidly, around temporary blockages. When they occur, it still seems to me that very few people take the alternate routes that I know about because I'm a road geek, but sit resignedly in the multi-lane parking lot. Perhaps they just listen to music or drive-time radio, and don't really care.
It doesn't. It just pushes people onto the same option (as long as these people are all headed in the same general direction). Once that backs up, then it finds a 3rd option, or by then the original incident has been cleaned up and Google can route people back to the normal path.
BTW, just to be clear, that earlier comment of mine was in regard to potential future automation of most vehicles on the road, where cars are driving themselves and "talking" amongst each other.
One thing that GPS and navigation combined with mobile phones is the ability to see (approximately) where someone is at on a map. Very important for both trucking and adult caregivers.
Quote from: ZLoth on January 26, 2024, 09:40:37 AM
One thing that GPS and navigation combined with mobile phones is the ability to see (approximately) where someone is at on a map. Very important for both trucking and adult caregivers.
Also very helpful for those of us whose spouses tend to make wrong turns or otherwise get lost. My wife has, on more than one occasion, called me from a rest area or the like saying she thinks she missed her exit. Because we share our location, I can look at it and tell her where she is and whether she made a mistake.
I'm also thinking that 'touchscreen' controls in vehicles will be a transport tech 'bomb'. They take too much attention away from the primary task of controlling the vehicle and have too many 'cold weather' operating issues.
Mike
Quote from: mgk920 on January 26, 2024, 01:02:17 PM
I'm also thinking that 'touchscreen' controls in vehicles will be a transport tech 'bomb'. They take too much attention away from the primary task of controlling the vehicle and have too many 'cold weather' operating issues.
Agreed. I completely dislike my wife's touchscreen. Give me knobs and buttons!
And I am not alone.
https://slate.com/business/2023/04/cars-buttons-touch-screens-vw-porsche-nissan-hyundai.html
One thing I think was a total bomb in the motorcycle field, that I don't see as much anymore in recent years, were the cycles with the "pulsating" headlights.
I know it was created for brighter visibility for the cyclists, but when you are cruising down the road and one of those motorcycles comes behind you, you think you have a motorcycle cop behind you [despite the lack of blue/white lights] and you suddenly pull over or slam on the brakes which might confuse or cause the motorcyclist to think you were brake checking them.
Quote from: SEWIGuy on January 26, 2024, 01:28:06 PM
Quote from: mgk920 on January 26, 2024, 01:02:17 PM
I'm also thinking that 'touchscreen' controls in vehicles will be a transport tech 'bomb'. They take too much attention away from the primary task of controlling the vehicle and have too many 'cold weather' operating issues.
Agreed. I completely dislike my wife's touchscreen. Give me knobs and buttons!
You will _never_ get rid of touchscreens because they are also used as displays for backup cameras.
Having said that, there is a strong need for dedicated controls with haptic (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/haptic) feedback such as climate controls and the audio volume. While I do want Android Auto in my next vehicle (in about six years!), and I'm sure plenty of CarPlay users are saying the same thing, the focus should be on driving on the road, not spend several seconds fiddling on a touch screen. That can be done when your vehicle is stopped.
Quote from: ZLoth on January 26, 2024, 02:11:57 PM
Quote from: SEWIGuy on January 26, 2024, 01:28:06 PM
Quote from: mgk920 on January 26, 2024, 01:02:17 PM
I'm also thinking that 'touchscreen' controls in vehicles will be a transport tech 'bomb'. They take too much attention away from the primary task of controlling the vehicle and have too many 'cold weather' operating issues.
Agreed. I completely dislike my wife's touchscreen. Give me knobs and buttons!
You will _never_ get rid of touchscreens because they are also used as displays for backup cameras.
Having said that, there is a strong need for dedicated controls with haptic (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/haptic) feedback such as climate controls and the audio volume. While I do want Android Auto in my next vehicle (in about six years!), and I'm sure plenty of CarPlay users are saying the same thing, the focus should be on driving on the road, not spend several seconds fiddling on a touch screen. That can be done when your vehicle is stopped.
They need a better user-friendly voice control installed in vehicles that can recognize more basic commands/requests....AND....make it easier for even the not-so-brightest of bulbs to use it on a regular basis.
You still need to be somewhat tech savvy to use your smart phone hands free for phone calls and messages, which is why you still see so many people calling and texting while oblivious to their driving performance.
I think (this is a guess) that the automakers seem to think we'll all use voice control to operate touchscreen features when a vehicle is moving. The trick is knowing the particular command the vehicle expects to hear and, in some vehicles, knowing how to activate the voice controls (for example, my Acura has a button on the steering wheel with an icon that makes it clear which button it is, but in a Tesla you use the unintuitive method of pressing in on the right-side scroll wheel).
Quote from: vdeane on January 25, 2024, 09:12:49 PM
I even have the experience of working with someone doing grade crossing inventory work and he liked to put every crossing into GPS. Works great for public crossings, but for private crossings, some of them aren't anywhere near a public road that's in the GPS. Often simes we'd have to hunt around for the crossing. A few times we never found them at all. The most memorable time was when the closest road was a Thruway entrance ramp, so we were blindly following the GPS when it randomly said "you have reached your destination", by which point we were stuck getting on the Thruway and then driving 10 miles to the next exit just to turn around.
My counterexample... I used to drive a delivery route of janitorial supplies in southern Illinois and nearby areas, back before GPS-enabled doodads to get you from A to B. Some of my customers were rural schools with no address other than a PO box or whatever. The paper ticket would have nothing but the town name of the school district HQ, or maybe the useless PO box number, or something like that. Before I moved away from the area, I had started working on pinning all of my customers on Google Maps, for use by other drivers, but of course they wouldn't have had a way to access that while on the road. Something like what you're describing would have been a big benefit, because it would have at least gotten drivers somewhat close.
For Berry School, in particular, I remember telling the front office to start putting this in the address section of the ticket:
900E RD & 1250N RD, 5 MI NORTH OF SIMS
Quote from: vdeane on January 25, 2024, 09:12:49 PM
Why wouldn't someone want a digital speedometer? You can ... switch to metric with a push of a button. No small numbers for me when I go to Canada!
This can work for dials too. See below:
Quote from: kphoger on February 28, 2023, 10:51:05 AM
Our car doesn't have a digital speedometer, but it does have the ability to switch the dashboard displays from US customary to metric units. When I do that, the temperature display changes to °C, the odometer changes to kilometers, and the speedometer switches from mph to km/h. It only has one set of tick marks on the circle, but the numbers switch from meaning 'mph' to meaning 'km/h'. In fact, if I switch to metric while I'm on the highway, the speedometer needle immediately jumps from, say, 50 to 80.
Quote from: ZLoth on January 26, 2024, 02:11:57 PM
Quote from: SEWIGuy on January 26, 2024, 01:28:06 PM
Quote from: mgk920 on January 26, 2024, 01:02:17 PM
I'm also thinking that 'touchscreen' controls in vehicles will be a transport tech 'bomb'. They take too much attention away from the primary task of controlling the vehicle and have too many 'cold weather' operating issues.
Agreed. I completely dislike my wife's touchscreen. Give me knobs and buttons!
You will _never_ get rid of touchscreens because they are also used as displays for backup cameras.
My display for my back up camera in my 2020 Kia is my audio screen. I can still control almost everything audio from my steering wheel. Everything else (climate, seat warmers, etc.) are all buttons and knobs.
Quote from: ZLoth on January 26, 2024, 02:11:57 PM
Quote from: SEWIGuy on January 26, 2024, 01:28:06 PM
Quote from: mgk920 on January 26, 2024, 01:02:17 PM
I'm also thinking that 'touchscreen' controls in vehicles will be a transport tech 'bomb'. They take too much attention away from the primary task of controlling the vehicle and have too many 'cold weather' operating issues.
Agreed. I completely dislike my wife's touchscreen. Give me knobs and buttons!
You will _never_ get rid of touchscreens because they are also used as displays for backup cameras.
Having said that, there is a strong need for dedicated controls with haptic (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/haptic) feedback such as climate controls and the audio volume. While I do want Android Auto in my next vehicle (in about six years!), and I'm sure plenty of CarPlay users are saying the same thing, the focus should be on driving on the road, not spend several seconds fiddling on a touch screen. That can be done when your vehicle is stopped.
My 2014 Civic has a backup camera and no touchscreen at all.
Automakers seem to be betting on voice commands to solve a lot of that (even those that are going back to physical buttons for some things), which is unfortunate. I don't want my car to have a microphone listening to (and maybe recording?) every word I say. Especially since I talk to myself a lot when I'm alone.
Why would a car record everything you say?
Quote from: SEWIGuy on January 26, 2024, 02:45:43 PM
Quote from: ZLoth on January 26, 2024, 02:11:57 PMYou will _never_ get rid of touchscreens because they are also used as displays for backup cameras.
My display for my back up camera in my 2020 Kia is my audio screen. I can still control almost everything audio from my steering wheel. Everything else (climate, seat warmers, etc.) are all buttons and knobs.
Perhaps I miscommunicated. On March 31, 2014, the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration announced that it would require all automobiles sold in the United States built beginning in May 2018 to include backup cameras, although many car models have backup camera before then, including my 2013 and 2016 vehicles, which incorporate a LCD display. A logical extension is to add a touchscreen, which both of my vehicles have. There is no integration with the climate controls, and the closest thing to the radio is the six favorites being currently displayed and can be touched, and that functionality is replicated in the physical buttons. Everyone else on that screen is configuration and non driving-critical, whether it be adding a Bluetooth device, or security features such as whether the drivers door or all doors can be unlocked.
Quote from: ZLoth on January 27, 2024, 08:55:27 AM
Quote from: SEWIGuy on January 26, 2024, 02:45:43 PM
Quote from: ZLoth on January 26, 2024, 02:11:57 PMYou will _never_ get rid of touchscreens because they are also used as displays for backup cameras.
My display for my back up camera in my 2020 Kia is my audio screen. I can still control almost everything audio from my steering wheel. Everything else (climate, seat warmers, etc.) are all buttons and knobs.
Perhaps I miscommunicated. On March 31, 2014, the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration announced that it would require all automobiles sold in the United States built beginning in May 2018 to include backup cameras, although many car models have backup camera before then, including my 2013 and 2016 vehicles, which incorporate a LCD display. A logical extension is to add a touchscreen, which both of my vehicles have. There is no integration with the climate controls, and the closest thing to the radio is the six favorites being currently displayed and can be touched, and that functionality is replicated in the physical buttons. Everyone else on that screen is configuration and non driving-critical, whether it be adding a Bluetooth device, or security features such as whether the drivers door or all doors can be unlocked.
Our 2011 Honda Pilot, purchased in 2010, has a backup camera. The screen is incorporated into the rearview mirror. While small, it's actually in a convenient place - where you're already looking when you're backing up.
Quote from: SEWIGuy on January 26, 2024, 11:22:58 PM
Why would a car record everything you say?
To sell your data to third parties.
And possible blackmail.
Quote from: 1995hoo on January 26, 2024, 09:52:38 AM
Also very helpful for those of us whose spouses tend to make wrong turns or otherwise get lost. .
And not yourself? There have been several times I've been in situations where I go some place I hadn't been to in a fair number of years and things had changed roadwise.
Perhaps this is just old-fashioned me speaking, since my car does not have satellite navigation, and I have to research what I know are tricky areas ahead of time, and pay good attention to the signs in real time (if they exist, back roads are not signed that well at times). But even satellite navigation doesn't get updated in a timely manner.
Quote from: jeffandnicole on January 27, 2024, 09:45:08 AM
Our 2011 Honda Pilot, purchased in 2010, has a backup camera. The screen is incorporated into the rearview mirror. While small, it's actually in a convenient place - where you're already looking when you're backing up.
Ditto for my 2012 Suburu Outback. However, the camera fails from time to time (I get blue screen or nothing at all -- but it doesn't always fail). The picture quality is not great either, especially at night. When it does fail, I have to go back to checking the mirrors constantly (actually, I am really doing that all the time anyway, since people are worse drivers now).
The Suburu is reaching the end of its useful life, and I will not be sad to see the camera go (but I will be sad to lose my manual transmission, as that probably will not be easily available now).
Having also driven newer car as rentals when needed, in my opinion the newer backup cameras are infinitely better both in picture size and picture quality.
Quote from: Rothman on January 27, 2024, 10:49:41 AM
Quote from: SEWIGuy on January 26, 2024, 11:22:58 PM
Why would a car record everything you say?
To sell your data to third parties.
And possible blackmail.
I could easily envision such a thing being required in China (and other similar places).
Mike
Quote from: Rothman on January 27, 2024, 10:49:41 AM
Quote from: SEWIGuy on January 26, 2024, 11:22:58 PM
Why would a car record everything you say?
To sell your data to third parties.
And possible blackmail.
Exactly. Has any company been able to resist selling customer data to advertisers and who knows who else? Not to mention getting recorded in the event recorder black box.
I don't want a car that has a camera to monitor me and potentially deem me "tired" or "distracted" based on what it assumes head and eye motions mean, either.
Quote from: vdeane on January 27, 2024, 04:28:57 PM
Quote from: Rothman on January 27, 2024, 10:49:41 AM
Quote from: SEWIGuy on January 26, 2024, 11:22:58 PM
Why would a car record everything you say?
To sell your data to third parties.
And possible blackmail.
Exactly. Has any company been able to resist selling customer data to advertisers and who knows who else? Not to mention getting recorded in the event recorder black box.
I don't want a car that has a camera to monitor me and potentially deem me "tired" or "distracted" based on what it assumes head and eye motions mean, either.
Then again, I think a lot of privacy concerns stem from anxiety about facing one's true insignificance or unimportance. "If someone actually cares about the mundane conversations in my car, it must mean I am important!" I've yet to be negatively affected because someone else has sold my "data." Life goes on.
Then again:
"All I know is that first you've got to get mad. You've got to say, 'I'm a HUMAN BEING, God damn it! My life has VALUE!' So I want you to get up now. I want all of you to get up out of your chairs. I want you to get up right now and go to the window. Open it, and stick your head out, and yell, 'I'M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!'"
I have night vision on my backup Can I have some in front?
Quote from: tmoore952 on January 27, 2024, 11:19:18 AM
Quote from: 1995hoo on January 26, 2024, 09:52:38 AM
Also very helpful for those of us whose spouses tend to make wrong turns or otherwise get lost. .
And not yourself? There have been several times I've been in situations where I go some place I hadn't been to in a fair number of years and things had changed roadwise.
Perhaps this is just old-fashioned me speaking, since my car does not have satellite navigation, and I have to research what I know are tricky areas ahead of time, and pay good attention to the signs in real time (if they exist, back roads are not signed that well at times). But even satellite navigation doesn't get updated in a timely manner.
I've never gotten lost because the roads have changed, but put it this way—I would commit a man card violation and stop and ask for directions (assuming, for argument's sake, that I couldn't retrieve maps on my phone or some such) before I trusted my wife to guide me somewhere if I were lost, including calling her to ask her to look at a map and help me. Her sense of direction is just plain bad. Before we got married, she once got lost driving to work in the morning.
Quote from: 1995hoo on January 27, 2024, 06:31:08 PM
Quote from: tmoore952 on January 27, 2024, 11:19:18 AM
Quote from: 1995hoo on January 26, 2024, 09:52:38 AM
Also very helpful for those of us whose spouses tend to make wrong turns or otherwise get lost. .
And not yourself? There have been several times I've been in situations where I go some place I hadn't been to in a fair number of years and things had changed roadwise.
Perhaps this is just old-fashioned me speaking, since my car does not have satellite navigation, and I have to research what I know are tricky areas ahead of time, and pay good attention to the signs in real time (if they exist, back roads are not signed that well at times). But even satellite navigation doesn't get updated in a timely manner.
I've never gotten lost because the roads have changed, but put it this way—I would commit a man card violation and stop and ask for directions (assuming, for argument's sake, that I couldn't retrieve maps on my phone or some such) before I trusted my wife to guide me somewhere if I were lost, including calling her to ask her to look at a map and help me. Her sense of direction is just plain bad. Before we got married, she once got lost driving to work in the morning.
I had a coworker that would need to drive from work to home to her next destination often, because she didn't know how to get there directly from work.
There was also a place or two she to after work occasionally...where if she was home, she would drive to the office and then to that other location.
Quote from: vdeane on January 27, 2024, 04:28:57 PM
Quote from: Rothman on January 27, 2024, 10:49:41 AM
Quote from: SEWIGuy on January 26, 2024, 11:22:58 PM
Why would a car record everything you say?
To sell your data to third parties.
And possible blackmail.
Exactly. Has any company been able to resist selling customer data to advertisers and who knows who else? Not to mention getting recorded in the event recorder black box.
I don't want a car that has a camera to monitor me and potentially deem me "tired" or "distracted" based on what it assumes head and eye motions mean, either.
Possibly advertisers, but I'm not sure of the actual harm of any of that.
The idea that they could blackmail you is pretty nutty. Y'all don't lead that interesting a life for them to invest any energy into that.
Quote from: SEWIGuy on January 27, 2024, 09:34:29 PM
Quote from: vdeane on January 27, 2024, 04:28:57 PM
Quote from: Rothman on January 27, 2024, 10:49:41 AM
Quote from: SEWIGuy on January 26, 2024, 11:22:58 PM
Why would a car record everything you say?
To sell your data to third parties.
And possible blackmail.
Exactly. Has any company been able to resist selling customer data to advertisers and who knows who else? Not to mention getting recorded in the event recorder black box.
I don't want a car that has a camera to monitor me and potentially deem me "tired" or "distracted" based on what it assumes head and eye motions mean, either.
Possibly advertisers, but I'm not sure of the actual harm of any of that.
The idea that they could blackmail you is pretty nutty. Y'all don't lead that interesting a life for them to invest any energy into that.
Speak for yourself, boring boy.
Quote from: Rothman on January 27, 2024, 09:42:32 PM
Quote from: SEWIGuy on January 27, 2024, 09:34:29 PM
Quote from: vdeane on January 27, 2024, 04:28:57 PM
Quote from: Rothman on January 27, 2024, 10:49:41 AM
Quote from: SEWIGuy on January 26, 2024, 11:22:58 PM
Why would a car record everything you say?
To sell your data to third parties.
And possible blackmail.
Exactly. Has any company been able to resist selling customer data to advertisers and who knows who else? Not to mention getting recorded in the event recorder black box.
I don't want a car that has a camera to monitor me and potentially deem me "tired" or "distracted" based on what it assumes head and eye motions mean, either.
Possibly advertisers, but I'm not sure of the actual harm of any of that.
The idea that they could blackmail you is pretty nutty. Y'all don't lead that interesting a life for them to invest any energy into that.
Speak for yourself, boring boy.
Name a time that a company recorded someone in a similar manner and used it to blackmail them. Honestly you're just not that interesting.
Quote from: Rothman on January 27, 2024, 05:22:43 PM
Quote from: vdeane on January 27, 2024, 04:28:57 PM
Quote from: Rothman on January 27, 2024, 10:49:41 AM
Quote from: SEWIGuy on January 26, 2024, 11:22:58 PM
Why would a car record everything you say?
To sell your data to third parties.
And possible blackmail.
Exactly. Has any company been able to resist selling customer data to advertisers and who knows who else? Not to mention getting recorded in the event recorder black box.
I don't want a car that has a camera to monitor me and potentially deem me "tired" or "distracted" based on what it assumes head and eye motions mean, either.
Then again, I think a lot of privacy concerns stem from anxiety about facing one's true insignificance or unimportance. "If someone actually cares about the mundane conversations in my car, it must mean I am important!" I've yet to be negatively affected because someone else has sold my "data." Life goes on.
Then again:
"All I know is that first you've got to get mad. You've got to say, 'I'm a HUMAN BEING, God damn it! My life has VALUE!' So I want you to get up now. I want all of you to get up out of your chairs. I want you to get up right now and go to the window. Open it, and stick your head out, and yell, 'I'M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!'"
Sure, anxiety plays a part, but not of that. I'm easily embarrassed. I also learned to mask my true self because not doing so led to being bullied throughout school (which only stopped in high school, largely due to a combo of being more able to isolate myself from my peers, having a more competent school administration, and that being around the time when smart became cool) (also because I have a tendency to put my foot in my mouth if I'm too loose with talking... thanks, Aspergers!). I'm also a member of a social group that not everyone likes, so I'm more sensitive to such things. The last thing I need is to get doxxed by libsoftiktok or something. I don't like being observed. At all. Being observed means I have to be "on". Being alone means I can be myself, and I don't want to have to be "on" in the car. Driving by myself is a therapeutic getaway from the hostility of the world and I don't want to lose that. Sure, my apartment if like that (if either nobody's staring at me from across the courtyard or the blinds are closed), but it can sometimes feel like a prison cell too, especially when I'm feeling lonely or antsy to do more travel.
"Talking" cars
Back in the mid-1980s, several automakers introduced talking warnings, e.g., "Your keys are in the ignition." in a somewhat condescending voice. This seemed to be almost universally loathed by motorists, not the least reason was that they essentially paid $1k more for a voice rather than a buzzer or chime. I think this was a case of "because we can", since the technology for talking warnings was new at the time.
This is NOT to be confused with "KITT", the talking car in the TV series Knight Rider. At least one episode had the person who commandeered the vehicle think it was just another voice synthesis thing, until KITT said "You ain't seen nothing yet." The rogue was puzzled that the message used bad grammar.
Quote from: SEWIGuy on January 27, 2024, 09:58:42 PM
Quote from: Rothman on January 27, 2024, 09:42:32 PM
Quote from: SEWIGuy on January 27, 2024, 09:34:29 PM
Quote from: vdeane on January 27, 2024, 04:28:57 PM
Quote from: Rothman on January 27, 2024, 10:49:41 AM
Quote from: SEWIGuy on January 26, 2024, 11:22:58 PM
Why would a car record everything you say?
To sell your data to third parties.
And possible blackmail.
Exactly. Has any company been able to resist selling customer data to advertisers and who knows who else? Not to mention getting recorded in the event recorder black box.
I don't want a car that has a camera to monitor me and potentially deem me "tired" or "distracted" based on what it assumes head and eye motions mean, either.
Possibly advertisers, but I'm not sure of the actual harm of any of that.
The idea that they could blackmail you is pretty nutty. Y'all don't lead that interesting a life for them to invest any energy into that.
Speak for yourself, boring boy.
Name a time that a company recorded someone in a similar manner and used it to blackmail them. Honestly you're just not that interesting.
Oh, come now. Everyone's got secrets.
Two examples from the world of vertical transportation. (OK, the first one is actually horizontal.)
High-speed moving walkways. There have been a number of designs over the years for moving walkways that glide along at speeds of up to 10 mph. (Most moving sidewalks top out at about 2 mph.) Of course, it would be too much of a jolt for a passenger to step on or off a walkway moving at this rate, so several methods have been tried. (1) Have the user step on a slow walkway, then move sideways onto the faster walkway, perhaps with an intermediate step in between. (2) Step on a slow pallet walkway, then have the plates turn at an angle at a faster rate. (3) Step on a slow-moving pallet which literally accelerates by separating from adjacent plates. Each design has to have a uniquely-designed handrail that keeps pace with the passenger. Yet there have been only two commercial installations of such a device, and both have been removed. One was on the Paris Metro at the Montparnasse–Bienvenüe station, and the other was at Toronto-Pearson Int'l Airport (YYZ). Perhaps there were too many accidents, and/or maintenance costs were too high.
Spiral escalators. In 1906, not long after the first escalators were installed in the London Underground, inventor Jesse Reno tried to install a double-helix, up/down escalator inside a cylindrical tube at the Holloway Rd. station. The device was built, and while it did run, there was one design problem: getting the steps at the top of the "up" stairway to continue smoothly to the top of the "down" stairs. Depending on who you talk to, the machine was either never opened to the public, or it was only open for a day or less. Either way, it was quickly shut down and forgotten about. That is, until one day around the year 2000, when the sump at the bottom of the tube was dug up for maintenance or remodeling and the remains of that unique spiral escalator were discovered. The parts they found have put on display at the London Transport Museum.
Note that the spiral (or curved) escalator did become a thing some 80 years later. Only one company, Mitsubishi, makes them. Installations are few, however, as they cost at least 3 times as much as a conventional escalator, and have to be assembled on site; most escalators are transported to the site in one piece, unless they are really long. One impressive spiral installation may be found in Las Vegas at the Forum Shops at Caesars Palace.
Quote from: Rothman on January 27, 2024, 05:22:43 PMThen again, I think a lot of privacy concerns stem from anxiety about facing one's true insignificance or unimportance. "If someone actually cares about the mundane conversations in my car, it must mean I am important!" I've yet to be negatively affected because someone else has sold my "data." Life goes on.
A fair amount of data collection is passive and the proceeds are hoarded in anticipation of some future use. (I consider blackmail to be unlikely, but this is not to say that someone won't work out a Big Data approach to extortion.) I take the view that companies and the government don't need to be gathering it from me unless they can explain what they will do with it and there are checks and balances that govern their use of it.
The stories of "loveint (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LOVEINT)" (NSA employees illicitly using agency assets to check up on current or former significant others) are not reassuring.
Quote from: J N Winkler on January 28, 2024, 12:21:00 AM
Quote from: Rothman on January 27, 2024, 05:22:43 PMThen again, I think a lot of privacy concerns stem from anxiety about facing one's true insignificance or unimportance. "If someone actually cares about the mundane conversations in my car, it must mean I am important!" I've yet to be negatively affected because someone else has sold my "data." Life goes on.
A fair amount of data collection is passive and the proceeds are hoarded in anticipation of some future use. (I consider blackmail to be unlikely, but this is not to say that someone won't work out a Big Data approach to extortion.) I take the view that companies and the government don't need to be gathering it from me unless they can explain what they will do with it and there are checks and balances that govern their use of it.
The stories of "loveint (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LOVEINT)" (NSA employees illicitly using agency assets to check up on current or former significant others) are not reassuring.
Someone crushing on you from the NSA?
Quote from: J N Winkler on January 28, 2024, 12:21:00 AM
Quote from: Rothman on January 27, 2024, 05:22:43 PMThen again, I think a lot of privacy concerns stem from anxiety about facing one's true insignificance or unimportance. "If someone actually cares about the mundane conversations in my car, it must mean I am important!" I've yet to be negatively affected because someone else has sold my "data." Life goes on.
A fair amount of data collection is passive and the proceeds are hoarded in anticipation of some future use. (I consider blackmail to be unlikely, but this is not to say that someone won't work out a Big Data approach to extortion.) I take the view that companies and the government don't need to be gathering it from me unless they can explain what they will do with it and there are checks and balances that govern their use of it.
The stories of "loveint (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LOVEINT)" (NSA employees illicitly using agency assets to check up on current or former significant others) are not reassuring.
It is very likely that any data collected by your car "listening" to you is something already known about you. Companies and the government have it and aren't explaining what they are doing with it. And I really don't have a problem with it. It is what it is.
Quote from: lepidopteran on January 27, 2024, 11:05:26 PM
"Talking" cars
Back in the mid-1980s, several automakers introduced talking warnings, e.g., "Your keys are in the ignition." in a somewhat condescending voice. This seemed to be almost universally loathed by motorists, not the least reason was that they essentially paid $1k more for a voice rather than a buzzer or chime. I think this was a case of "because we can", since the technology for talking warnings was new at the time.
"A door is ajar." No, a door is a door.
I worked at Chrysler, and one day we were looking up something in the "code guide" and found that you could order the warnings in various languages - French, Spanish, etc. We got into a discussion of how there should be regional accents available too. Then it devolved into coming up with things like Jewish Mother-in-Law or Brooklyn Gangster.
Quote from: GaryV on January 28, 2024, 07:41:15 AM
Quote from: lepidopteran on January 27, 2024, 11:05:26 PM
"Talking" cars
Back in the mid-1980s, several automakers introduced talking warnings, e.g., "Your keys are in the ignition." in a somewhat condescending voice. This seemed to be almost universally loathed by motorists, not the least reason was that they essentially paid $1k more for a voice rather than a buzzer or chime. I think this was a case of "because we can", since the technology for talking warnings was new at the time.
"A door is ajar." No, a door is a door.
I worked at Chrysler, and one day we were looking up something in the "code guide" and found that you could order the warnings in various languages - French, Spanish, etc. We got into a discussion of how there should be regional accents available too. Then it devolved into coming up with things like Jewish Mother-in-Law or Brooklyn Gangster.
My uncle and aunt had a talking New Yorker in the later 1980s or so.
Quote from: GaryV on January 28, 2024, 07:41:15 AM"A door is ajar." No, a door is a door.
Per the following:
https://www.britannica.com/dictionary/ajar
https://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/dictionary/english/ajar
https://www.dictionary.com/browse/ajar?s=t
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/ajar
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ajar
https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/ajar
https://www.webster-dictionary.org/definition/ajar
"ajar" can mean the following:
- slightly open
- partially open
- neither entirely open nor entirely shut
- in contradiction to; at variance with
Considering that we are talking about 1980s technology where they thought "Hey, wouldn't it be cool if cars could talk" ran up against severe memory storage limitations, "ajar" was much shorter than "partially open".
^ You must have never heard a car say it. It sounded like 2 separate words, "a jar".
Quote from: ZLoth on January 28, 2024, 12:12:37 PM
Quote from: GaryV on January 28, 2024, 07:41:15 AM"A door is ajar." No, a door is a door.
Per the following:
https://www.britannica.com/dictionary/ajar
https://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/dictionary/english/ajar
https://www.dictionary.com/browse/ajar?s=t
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/ajar
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ajar
https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/ajar
https://www.webster-dictionary.org/definition/ajar
"ajar" can mean the following:
- slightly open
- partially open
- neither entirely open nor entirely shut
- in contradiction to; at variance with
Considering that we are talking about 1980s technology where they thought "Hey, wouldn't it be cool if cars could talk" ran up against severe memory storage limitations, "ajar" was much shorter than "partially open".
<sigh>
Yes. Everyone knows that "ajar" means.
Quote from: SEWIGuy on January 28, 2024, 01:14:33 PM
Quote from: ZLoth on January 28, 2024, 12:12:37 PM
Quote from: GaryV on January 28, 2024, 07:41:15 AM"A door is ajar." No, a door is a door.
Per the following:
https://www.britannica.com/dictionary/ajar
https://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/dictionary/english/ajar
https://www.dictionary.com/browse/ajar?s=t
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/ajar
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ajar
https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/ajar
https://www.webster-dictionary.org/definition/ajar
"ajar" can mean the following:
- slightly open
- partially open
- neither entirely open nor entirely shut
- in contradiction to; at variance with
Considering that we are talking about 1980s technology where they thought "Hey, wouldn't it be cool if cars could talk" ran up against severe memory storage limitations, "ajar" was much shorter than "partially open".
<sigh>
Yes. Everyone knows that "ajar" means.
It's a cylindrical glass container with a lid.
Quote from: jeffandnicole on January 27, 2024, 09:45:08 AM
Our 2011 Honda Pilot, purchased in 2010, has a backup camera. The screen is incorporated into the rearview mirror. While small, it's actually in a convenient place - where you're already looking when you're backing up.
Our 2009 Chevrolet Traverse has a backup camera. The screen is incorporated into the rearview mirror. It's small and I never use it because I'm either looking over my shoulder or at the side-view mirror whenever I'm backing up, not at my center mirror.
Quote from: kphoger on January 29, 2024, 01:54:41 PM
Quote from: jeffandnicole on January 27, 2024, 09:45:08 AM
Our 2011 Honda Pilot, purchased in 2010, has a backup camera. The screen is incorporated into the rearview mirror. While small, it's actually in a convenient place - where you're already looking when you're backing up.
Our 2009 Chevrolet Traverse has a backup camera. The screen is incorporated into the rearview mirror. It's small and I never use it because I'm either looking over my shoulder or at the side-view mirror whenever I'm backing up, not at my center mirror.
I mentioned earlier that my 2012 Suburu outback has a backup camera screen incorporated into the rearview mirror. Last night (when it was dark), it was actually quite useful. I was backing up into a space, and in the camera screen I could clearly see the white lines of the sides of the parking space on either side of my car. I can't do that when looking at my side mirrors or over my shoulder.
Quote from: tmoore952 on January 29, 2024, 10:08:18 PM
I mentioned earlier that my 2012 Suburu outback has a backup camera screen incorporated into the rearview mirror. Last night (when it was dark), it was actually quite useful. I was backing up into a space, and in the camera screen I could clearly see the white lines of the sides of the parking space on either side of my car. I can't do that when looking at my side mirrors or over my shoulder.
I'll have to give that a try next time I come to work and it's too dark to see the lines well. I almost always back into parking spaces.
Traffic cameras are great in two particular situations.
1. Parallel parking
2. Backing out of a parking stall when you have bigger cars parked next to you.
Quote from: SEWIGuy on January 30, 2024, 11:51:29 AM
Traffic cameras are great in two particular situations.
1. Parallel parking
2. Backing out of a parking stall when you have bigger cars parked next to you.
They're very useful for backing in. I'm not normally a back-in parker (I particularly dislike it at the grocery store), but there are a few situations where I will do so. The main ones are in the parking garage we use for hockey games (I park along the drive aisle that leads to the exit, and while I normally pull straight through to face out, if that's not possible I will back in), at the Superchargers when I've driven rental Teslas, and in situations where there's a sign requiring backwards parking. The camera simplifies things bigtime, and in my wife's Acura I also like that you can change the camera angle to look straight down in order to help ensure that you're right back up to the line at the back of the parking space without going over.
Another situation where I find a backup camera useful is in particularly dark places. If we go over to my mother's house for dinner, usually it's dark when we leave, and her neighborhood is not well-lit. The people across the street, in turn, have a tendency to park a car directly across the street from my mom's driveway. The backup camera (and the proximity sensor that beeps) makes avoiding that car significantly easier in the dark, especially on dark rainy nights. I wish I had had a camera years ago when I was backing out of my own driveway on a dark night in a torrential downpour because I might have been able to see the big black pickup that the jerk across the street had illegally parked across the sidewalk protruding out into the street.
Quote from: SEWIGuy on January 30, 2024, 11:51:29 AM
1. Parallel parking
I don't find that to be true, because I can't tell from my backup camera exactly where the back end of my car is.
Quote from: kphoger on January 30, 2024, 12:09:17 PM
Quote from: SEWIGuy on January 30, 2024, 11:51:29 AM
1. Parallel parking
I don't find that to be true, because I can't tell from my backup camera exactly where the back end of my car is.
Neither can I, but after a little experimentation and observation (getting out of my vehicle and seeing how far it actually is from an object in comparison to the display) I know how close an object can appear in my display before I would hit it.
Quote from: kphoger on January 30, 2024, 12:09:17 PM
Quote from: SEWIGuy on January 30, 2024, 11:51:29 AM
1. Parallel parking
I don't find that to be true, because I can't tell from my backup camera exactly where the back end of my car is.
Really? Cause in mine it makes it perfectly clear.
Quote from: SEWIGuy on January 30, 2024, 03:37:54 PM
Quote from: kphoger on January 30, 2024, 12:09:17 PM
Quote from: SEWIGuy on January 30, 2024, 11:51:29 AM
1. Parallel parking
I don't find that to be true, because I can't tell from my backup camera exactly where the back end of my car is.
Really? Cause in mine it makes it perfectly clear.
There's a small buffer between where it claims the end of the car is and where the actual end of the car is.
Quote from: wanderer2575 on January 30, 2024, 12:30:00 PM
Quote from: kphoger on January 30, 2024, 12:09:17 PM
Quote from: SEWIGuy on January 30, 2024, 11:51:29 AM
1. Parallel parking
I don't find that to be true, because I can't tell from my backup camera exactly where the back end of my car is.
Neither can I, but after a little experimentation and observation (getting out of my vehicle and seeing how far it actually is from an object in comparison to the display) I know how close an object can appear in my display before I would hit it.
In my wife's Acura, a set of yellow bars appears on the screen as you start getting closer to the vehicle behind you, and then they turn orange the closer you get. I've found that stopping when they turn orange is just right (whereas she is lousy at parallel parking and thinks stopping when they turn yellow is better).
I found the approach Tesla uses to be interesting—it tells you how many inches there are to the obstacle and then flashes "STOP" on the screen when you're about to hit something (I saw "STOP" when I parked facing some bushes near my brother-in-law's house, but I never parallel parked and thus don't know how effective it would be in that scenario).
Quote from: kphoger on January 30, 2024, 12:09:17 PM
I don't find that to be true, because I can't tell from my backup camera exactly where the back end of my car is.
Isn't that like saying that you can't tell from your eyes exactly where your face is?
Quote from: kphoger on January 30, 2024, 12:09:17 PM
Quote from: SEWIGuy on January 30, 2024, 11:51:29 AM
1. Parallel parking
I don't find that to be true, because I can't tell from my backup camera exactly where the back end of my car is.
Huh. I've used backup cameras in multiple models now. All have been helpful and, worryingly, sometimes a replacement for good visibility out the rear window.
Have to say they've improved my parallel parking skills.
My backup camera does three things:
1. It displays an image in the rearview mirror. There is no indication in that image of where the back end of the vehicle is, nor is there anything that pops up in the image when the car gets really close to anything, therefore it is not very useful.
2. There are three indicator lights above the rear hatch. It starts with one, then additional ones light up as the vehicle approaches an object. Half the time I'm backing up, I'm looking over that shoulder, so it's arguably more useful, but it's basically just a deaf-friendly version of the next thing.
3. A 'boop' sounds along with the first indicator light. When the third indicator lights up, it goes 'boop boop boop boop boop ...' This is the most useful of all.
None of the actually useful things have anything to do with the image displayed in the rearview mirror.
(Our car's name is Betty Boop. That's because it has a large and curvy rear end, it is grey, and it goes boop.)
Quote from: kphoger on January 30, 2024, 06:18:49 PM
My backup camera does three things:
1. It displays an image in the rearview mirror. There is no indication in that image of where the back end of the vehicle is, nor is there anything that pops up in the image when the car gets really close to anything, therefore it is not very useful.
2. There are three indicator lights above the rear hatch. It starts with one, then additional ones light up as the vehicle approaches an object. Half the time I'm backing up, I'm looking over that shoulder, so it's arguably more useful, but it's basically just a deaf-friendly version of the next thing.
3. A 'boop' sounds along with the first indicator light. When the third indicator lights up, it goes 'boop boop boop boop boop ...' This is the most useful of all.
None of the actually useful things have anything to do with the image displayed in the rearview mirror.
(Our car's name is Betty Boop. That's because it has a large and curvy rear end, it is grey, and it goes boop.)
You need a new car.
Quote from: lepidopteran on January 27, 2024, 11:05:26 PM
"Talking" cars
Back in the mid-1980s, several automakers introduced talking warnings, e.g., "Your keys are in the ignition." in a somewhat condescending voice. This seemed to be almost universally loathed by motorists, not the least reason was that they essentially paid $1k more for a voice rather than a buzzer or chime. I think this was a case of "because we can", since the technology for talking warnings was new at the time.
This is NOT to be confused with "KITT", the talking car in the TV series Knight Rider. At least one episode had the person who commandeered the vehicle think it was just another voice synthesis thing, until KITT said "You ain't seen nothing yet." The rogue was puzzled that the message used bad grammar.
Still very alive in Japan, by the way
Quote from: Rothman on January 30, 2024, 07:44:25 PM
You need a new car.
I mean, yeah, maybe. But not because of the backup camera.
Quote from: Rothman on January 27, 2024, 05:22:43 PM
Quote from: vdeane on January 27, 2024, 04:28:57 PM
Quote from: Rothman on January 27, 2024, 10:49:41 AM
Quote from: SEWIGuy on January 26, 2024, 11:22:58 PM
Why would a car record everything you say?
To sell your data to third parties.
And possible blackmail.
Exactly. Has any company been able to resist selling customer data to advertisers and who knows who else? Not to mention getting recorded in the event recorder black box.
I don't want a car that has a camera to monitor me and potentially deem me "tired" or "distracted" based on what it assumes head and eye motions mean, either.
Then again, I think a lot of privacy concerns stem from anxiety about facing one's true insignificance or unimportance. "If someone actually cares about the mundane conversations in my car, it must mean I am important!" I've yet to be negatively affected because someone else has sold my "data." Life goes on.
Possibly, but I can't help but wonder why Nissan and Kia make you agree to them collecting data on your sexual activity (https://jalopnik.com/auto-privacy-report-kia-nissan-driver-sex-data-1850812549). Given that the policy also says this data can be used to comply with "governmental requests", and the way that Southern politics is going...
Quote from: vdeane on January 27, 2024, 04:28:57 PM
I'm also a member of a social group that not everyone likes, so I'm more sensitive to such things. The last thing I need is to get doxxed by libsoftiktok or something.
Fortunately for you, libsoftiktok in particular probably isn't going to have time to dox you, since she's in charge of approving material for Oklahoma school libraries now.
Quote from: Scott5114 on January 30, 2024, 09:35:53 PM
Possibly, but I can't help but wonder why Nissan and Kia make you agree to them collecting data on your sexual activity (https://jalopnik.com/auto-privacy-report-kia-nissan-driver-sex-data-1850812549). Given that the policy also says this data can be used to comply with "governmental requests", and the way that Southern politics is going...
Do you think this "sexual activity" thing refers to sex as such or rather certain procedures that occasionally take place after sex, which are legal in some jurisdictions but not others?
Quote from: CtrlAltDel on January 30, 2024, 10:33:01 PMDo you think this "sexual activity" thing refers to sex as such or rather certain procedures that occasionally take place after sex, which are legal in some jurisdictions but not others?
I followed the Jalopnik link and it seems Nissan's excuse is as follows:
* State privacy laws vary in what they cover, so Nissan has to obtain consent for information that is collected incidentally through the use of geolocation services.
* Nissan provides an opt-out.
None of this is to minimize the fact that the information is collected and sold, including to buyers in law enforcement, and this opens the door to criminalizing travel to another jurisdiction to access goods and services that are legal there.
Quote from: CtrlAltDel on January 30, 2024, 10:33:01 PM
Quote from: Scott5114 on January 30, 2024, 09:35:53 PM
Possibly, but I can't help but wonder why Nissan and Kia make you agree to them collecting data on your sexual activity (https://jalopnik.com/auto-privacy-report-kia-nissan-driver-sex-data-1850812549). Given that the policy also says this data can be used to comply with "governmental requests", and the way that Southern politics is going...
Do you think this "sexual activity" thing refers to sex as such or rather certain procedures that occasionally take place after sex, which are legal in some jurisdictions but not others?
Sure. There's also certain kinds of sexual activity that are illegal in the South, but the laws are not enforced because the state is currently complying with a Supreme Court decision. Enforcement could happen if the Supreme Court changes its opinion, or the state no longer desires to remain in compliance with it.
Quote from: Rothman on January 28, 2024, 07:58:19 AM
Quote from: GaryV on January 28, 2024, 07:41:15 AM
Quote from: lepidopteran on January 27, 2024, 11:05:26 PM
"Talking" cars
Back in the mid-1980s, several automakers introduced talking warnings, e.g., "Your keys are in the ignition." in a somewhat condescending voice. This seemed to be almost universally loathed by motorists, not the least reason was that they essentially paid $1k more for a voice rather than a buzzer or chime. I think this was a case of "because we can", since the technology for talking warnings was new at the time.
"A door is ajar." No, a door is a door.
I worked at Chrysler, and one day we were looking up something in the "code guide" and found that you could order the warnings in various languages - French, Spanish, etc. We got into a discussion of how there should be regional accents available too. Then it devolved into coming up with things like Jewish Mother-in-Law or Brooklyn Gangster.
My uncle and aunt had a talking New Yorker in the later 1980s or so.
Reminds me of the Eddie Murphy "Delirious" comedy routine.
"Ding. Lights are on."
Waiting for it to say, "Ding. Somebody stole yo' bat'ry."