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Cake day: August 16th, 2023

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  • Radar and Lidar also get a lot of noise from heavy rain or snow. Fog can be just as bad. Some conditions just aren’t safe to drive in, regardless of who’s driving. I don’t think either of them are trying to design a system for those conditions.

    On a personal note, I have no interest in getting a ride in a self driving car. I do have an interest in an empty car that can drive itself. Drop myself off at the airport, valet parking downtown, easier to share one car per household, river shuttling, through hike shuttling - I would use it a lot. I understand the more profitable goal is taxi services, but I don’t want that. So in my narrow use case, I hope Tesla succeeds since that approach can be used on personal vehicles anywhere while Waymo is strictly city taxis, which I don’t use.


  • Chess is a very complex rules game, while Checkers is quite simple. Waymo has a complex approach to self driving:

    • Expensive suite of sensors
    • High resolution maps of operating areas
    • Remote operators standing by

    While Teslas approach is simple:

    • Capture a bazillion miles of camera footage, feed into AI, profit?
    • Unpaid volunteers teach the AI safe driving
    • Car has only a basic map for routing, the rest is inferred in real time from cameras

    Waymo’s successful approach scales linearly. They have to high-res map every city they want to operate in, and they can gradually bring down the cost of the sensors. They will require fewer remote operator interactions over time.

    Teslas success is more difficult, but it scales exponentially. They already produce vehicles at scale and full control over all the equipment on board. The existing fleet would be able to participate as well. If they succeed, they may want to offer buy-backs for customers who didnt buy FSD - the cars would be worth more to Tesla than the owner.

    In both checkers and chess, the player gains super powers for reaching the other side of the board. Time will tell who reaches the other side of the board first. They are playing different games on the same board. Okay that’s fair.



  • My takeaway from that article is mostly that primate research is a big emotional topic for some people, and maybe tech writers shouldn’t write about medical research. Do you think it would be so interesting if it was done on mice? The primate research center in Davis has been there since 1962, and it’s always been controversial. Do you think they’ve just been twiddling their thumbs for 55 years waiting for Neuralink to come along? No, that shit is routine for them. They keep doing it because primate research is still an important step before human trials.

    There is no need to ethically green light a medical procedure that is voluntary, of sound mind, and of one’s own will. It’s not your body. It’s not your life. People implant beads and magnets into their bodies and tattoo their faces. People hang themselves from meat hooks for fun. People get circumcised, and pierced. It’s all none of your business.