Transportation Technology "Bombs".

[3467]

I have night vision on my backup Can I have some in front?

[1995hoo]

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.

[jeffandnicole]

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.

[SEWIGuy]

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.

[Rothman]

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.

[SEWIGuy]

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.

[vdeane]

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.

[lepidopteran]

"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.

[Rothman]

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.

[lepidopteran]

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.

[J N Winkler]

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.

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" (NSA employees illicitly using agency assets to check up on current or former significant others) are not reassuring.

[Rothman]

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.

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" (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?

[SEWIGuy]

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.

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" (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.

[GaryV]

"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.

[Rothman]

"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.

[ZLoth]

"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".

[GaryV]

^ You must have never heard a car say it. It sounded like 2 separate words, "a jar".

[SEWIGuy]

"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.

[Rothman]

"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.

[kphoger]

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.

[tmoore952]

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.

[kphoger]

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.

[SEWIGuy]

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.

[1995hoo]

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.

[kphoger]

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.