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Showing posts from September, 2021

The Fire Alarm

  The fire alarm It once had a purpose  to warn us and wake us from our sleep but when it went off too much we ignored it we failed to listen once when it mattered so we created a means of enforcement to remind us but it went off again so now we have to check it but we fail to check it so we create a checker  with a purpose - to check it what do we check? how often? the checker decides but it could fail between checks so we check it more but we check it too much and the checks become like the original alarm so we stop allowing the checker  (we stop paying to have it checked) but the checker has a purpose we could have a fire we have to check it we took away its purpose the checker is a means of enforcement the checker returns but who pays the checker? the checker has purpose, and a means of enforcement so we grant the checker a fee but there is not enough to check so there is more to check and with that more payment but ther...

Curated Learning - for the Youtube generation (which is all of us now if you haven’t figured that out yet…)

No one has the time - that is the theme. It is so easy to do a quick search and watch a Youtube video, but how many do you have to weed through to even get a hint and knowledge? What people need is a curated path to learning. The right books to read and in what order to get to their goal. Maybe there are some online courses as well - like those from MIT Open Courseware. Someone states their goal and an expert in the field as well as someone who just followed a path contribute to give the fastest way to get there. A shortcut to knowledge with important experiences thrown in along the way. Online I have tried to do this with my booklist, but a curated list with excepts cut out - cutting to the chase as fast as possible would be the key. There is no time to read everything - why waste time with the wrong things. Great books lead to great conversations. We need to find a way to get the 5 min segment Youtube generation on a track to learning or their wisdom will be limited to what they can ...

Autonomous Vehicles 2021: Thoughts on Architecture

Thought:  Autonomous driving fails when a plastic bag flies in front of the car and is recognized as a deer. One solution that has been touted is a “cheat” by looking at the recorded data and therefore knowing where the bag ends up in the future and basing the reaction/calculated act on that.  This is not possible in the real world - or is it? How to we achieve this sort of forward in time calculation/reaction? One way is to return to the three screens, or in this case three brains. There is the left brain, calculating based on the existing model. This identifies and reacts to normal stimuli that has been learned from the past. There is the right brain, which continues to adjust the model and is still learning as it goes. Then there is the lizard brain - or right brain reaction. The right brain sees a new situation - something that it has not seen before - and it reacts immediately. The lizard brain reacts based on the immediate best guess from what that object is, what the si...

Autonomous Vehicles 2021 : How do we get there - fast?

  First item - analysis paralysis: Engineers will pile on so many what-ifs that the problem becomes impossible. Try to do too many things in the kitchen at once and everything burns. So how to we get past that? We build what we have and see how it plays. Bottom Line - Platooning: Start with driver in front car similar to Uber driver, the 4 cars behind are platooning, like pack animals following in a line. Preroll recording, maybe 15 seconds to one minute in advance and when event occurs, save that 15 seconds until the end of the event.   This may not be conveyed perfectly since I am thinking out loud.  What I am attempting to cover is how to optimally collect data for control of autonomous vehicles based on current drivers. This is necessary to allow the transition from the human driver, to humans and machine drivers, potentially to entirely machine drivers. The first premise is that there are an infinite number of variations or combinations of outcomes leading up to an e...

“Thinking in Public”

 This blog is intended to be “thinking in public” as Malcolm Gladwell has called it. Thoughts come out as they arrive and are there for all to see. I am doing so in the interest of time. I risk offending some and risk looking like a fool. Hopefully though we can establish a dialog and move things forward.