Posts by TedF 41 publicly visible posts • joined 21 Jul 2010
The real problem is not technical, but legal / ethical. With 99.99% reliability you will still have incidents when the autonomous vehicle has a dead body under its front wheels. The passengers in the vehicle and society in general must consider that to be acceptable and not look for fault or compensation.
Had a gold anodised pair of sliding Aluminium doors with bronzed tinted glass in a house occupied previously by chain smokers. Dated now but looked in good shape. After a few years use and prior to selling, I was giving it a thorough clean with neat 'Flash' - Silver anodising and clear glass apparently. No hint of the disgusting coating previously as it was so uniform...
I'm sure systems will eventually be good enough to cope with the vagaries of a wide range of roads.
It would mean you could remove all pedestian crossings in towns; want to cross the road? - Simply step out into traffic and watch it safely stop for you. Got a few hundred people crossing and re-crossing the road? You can see where this is going.
The western world's capitalist system is steadily increasing the gap between the 'haves' and the 'have nots'. My comment was a simple reductio ad absurdem argument. You though, seem to be one of the believers who will chant "There is no alternative!" as the world slides down the crapper..
In typical UK MOD bungling style, it was going to have steam catapults, then it wasn't, then some fancy electro-magnetic linear motor catapult, then nothing. Multiply this sort of faffing about for every system aboard and I wonder it hasn't cost ten times its already staggering cost. Still six years to finish it, so plenty of opportunities to add / delete / add again countless bits of technology. . . .
I bought 30 - odd Amstrads for my school at a time when CUB monitors and BBC masters were the norm. They proved amazingly tough and reliable whereas the BBCs were a nightmare. We used PCW's as upgrades from typewriters and CPC 6128s to introduce computing. At some point we built (kit?) mice interfaces and used DMP printers. 'Protext' was a fabulous word processor and simple 'coding' done via LOGO. Happy memories.
A distinct improvement on my DVD copy with pin-sharp graphics (though the 'dodgy' artwork in Bulldog scene still grates.) Audio seems over cooked though with alarming surges and stereo image leaping about at times. A colourful, one-off featuring the Fab Four.
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