Category: electrics/electronics

The Ethical Dilemma of Self-Driving Cars

On By JohnIn education, electrics/electronics, vehicles1 Comment

Based on this – go watch, I’ll wait: https://youtu.be/ixIoDYVfKA0

Back already?

There are several flaws in the the premise:

  • A large object falls of the vehicle in front of you: no matter what size and mass of the object that fell of the vehicle in front of you, it’s not going to come to an instantaneous stop. Use the brakes and scrub off some speed the moment the threat is detected. Just like you would if you were driving yourself. I’d argue that regardless of the nature of the unsecured load, the brakes will stop your self-driving car long before the load has come to rest.
  • Arguing that “you cannot stop” is also entirely flawed. You don’t know that you can’t stop until you’ve tried. Have you tried? Try. Scrub off some speed. If you’re so close that the laws of physics prevent you stopping in time, then you’re too close. Use the brakes and increase your following distance. Even if you -do- hit the object in front of you, doing it at a lower relative speed is better than doing it at a higher speed.
  • Swerving? Really? Is that what they teach in Drivers’ Ed. today? Swerving to avoid a hazard takes away valuable traction from the tires that is better leveraged for slowing the vehicle. Use the brakes.
  • Suggesting that your self-driving car – or self-driving network, even – might have a way to discern the contents, condition, ages, health, or any other aspect of the occupants of nearby vehicles is also flawed. Yes, I can comprehend a technical sequence of events that might lead to such compute capabilities in the future (that, actually, would be the bigger ethical dilemma). But your self-driving car doesn’t need to know any of these things. The only thing it needs to know – other than whether it’s upright and on course – is whether it’s traveling too fast for the current road conditions and nearby objects. If it is, then apply a bit of brake.

So, to answer the ethical dilemma of self-driving cars: apply the brakes.

Generators

On By JohnIn electrics/electronics, home improvement, tiny houseLeave a comment

Don’t be the person at the campground with the cheap, unmaintained, builder-grade generator. Just. Don’t.

“But it’s the best/biggest thing I could afford!”

You’ve approached it by trying to solve the wrong problem. The problem is not, “How much wattage can I get for $1,000?” It should instead be, “How much generator do I actually need balanced with how badly do I want to annoy the hell out of everyone around me?”

Save a few more dollars and buy the best-quality, inverter-style, eco-throttle, RV generator available to you. You and your neighbors will be extremely grateful.

And, yes, a 2KW generator really will run your RV’s air conditioner.

After having to listen to the neighbors on both sides run their 9kw Champion and 8kw Honeywell generators for the entirety of the non-quiet hours and well-into quiet hours, I find myself pondering the plausibility of a remote generator-disabling mechanism.

–

For my own, future reference, I’ll leave these here:

My #1 pick, if I can find a good spot to mount or install it is the Honda EU3000iS: 

image

I wonder if it could be fit into a 5th Wheel’s typical generator bay.

I hear (hah!) it’s the quietest generator in its class. There’s one here at the campground that I walked by and I’m quite impressed with it.

There’s also a nearby site with a Yamaha ES3000iSEB, which, too, is quite nice:

image

There are, of course, built-in options available from Onan – maybe the RV QG 5500 LP would be well-suited to the task.

I think the Honda is the way to go. Prices vary. In my experience, paying a bit more for better quality up front, and caring for machines and implements properly will greatly reduce their overall cost of ownership and improve their reliability and usability in the long run.

For now, I’m going to try to enjoy the 100F heat without resorting to running my own generator and contributing to the noise pollution.