I don't expect perfection, but if there is a problem I expect a recall that corrects it. Riding with explosives is never 100% safe, but I don't know what level of "unsafe" is a reasonable expectation.
I saw a few articles on new requirements in vehicles to detect "impairment" that would go beyond preventing starting but actually take control, pull over, and shut down. I'm all for getting impaired drivers off the roads, but I suspect "drivers" of autonomous-capable vehicles are even more likely to be the ones toked out of their minds while behind the wheel. Why enable poor judgement? If you can't drive, why are you driving?
I don't expect perfection, but if there is a problem I expect a recall that corrects it. Riding with explosives is never 100% safe, but I don't know what level of "unsafe" is a reasonable expectation.
I saw a few articles on new requirements in vehicles to detect "impairment" that would go beyond preventing starting but actually take control, pull over, and shut down. I'm all for getting impaired drivers off the roads, but I suspect "drivers" of autonomous-capable vehicles are even more likely to be the ones toked out of their minds while behind the wheel. Why enable poor judgement? If you can't drive, why are you driving?
My car turns on a "coffee cup" light if I don't stay sufficiently in the center of the lane. Actually, considering that this is a Japanese car, that's probably tea, not coffee, but the idea is the same. I have yet to see it.
One issue I do have is that the number of icons that can show up are so numerous that the display is too busy. I shouldn't be looking at the instrument panel while driving. The speedometer is nice and big, but everything else is too small to be ideal.
Ammonium nitrate is the source of some of the finer non-combat explosions throughout history. It was the source of the blast that devastated Beirut a few years back, and there was a pretty big blast in Houston, even further back. It's not just for non-combat explosions, though, as it was used for the OK City bombing.
My car turns on a "coffee cup" light if I don't stay sufficiently in the center of the lane.
My 2018 Civic just missed most of those driver assistance doodads shipping as standard. Many were available on the higher trimlines then, but I bought "in the middle" of the range. I did get quite a few doodads nonetheless, for example onboard speech recognition for things like music navigation and connected phone operations. It works with no phone or Internet service at all (well aside from the phone operations which need a phone).
If I had to dream up a gadget I could use it might be a windshield heads-up display and smart IR imaging that could detect and point out critters in front of me at night. I don't want to hit another deer or even a possum at night.
I'm kind of liking the lane following and dynamic cruise control. It's not self driving, but there are stretches where it could be. I would like to see some IR critter detection. I feel like I saw some work in that direction a decade or more back, but nothing much since then. I'm not sure how much it would help, though. In my experience, deer tend to be moving fast. There seems to be a stereotype of deer standing in the road somewhere out of the range of your headlights, but I always see them moving in fast from the side. One of my cars had a scratch on the rear quarter panel where a deer kicked it. That was a weir one. I doubt any IR display would have shown that deer until it was way too late.
What has me baffled is that my garage door opener now works far better than it did in my old car. It's just one of those push button gadgets that clips to the visor. It doesn't clip all that well in the new car because the visor is thick, but the button works far better.
In my old car, I might have to press the button five times. I might have to back right up to the door. Also, since the switch has three buttons, it sometimes seemed to do nothing until I pressed the wrong button. In all cases, I had to be in the driveway before it would do anything. With the new car, the same switch works as I would expect. I don't have to be in the driveway, and the right button works the first time.
Of course, this suggests some kind of electromagnetic interference of some sort, but what? There just isn't that much difference between two cars in the area above the passenger seat, that seems like it could explain the situation. If it was the new car that was worse, I'd suspect some kind of sensor or motor up there (there's a moonroof....though I don't see how to moon anybody out of it), but it was the old car that had the issue.
Could it be as little as the thicker visor keeping the device further from the metal of the roof? It's quite odd. Not bad, mind you, but quite odd.
II would like to see some IR critter detection. I feel like I saw some work in that direction a decade or more back, but nothing much since then. I'm not sure how much it would help, though. In my experience, deer tend to be moving fast. There seems to be a stereotype of deer standing in the road somewhere out of the range of your headlights, but I always see them moving in fast from the side.
Since I hit a deer I always keep a hard eye out now at night, using fog lights since they tend to "spray" illumination to the side better than low beams. I've seen tons of deer alongside the road, and several cases where instead of running away they decide to move right into the road.
Even spotting one deer unlikely to collide amps the senses to watch out for more. Highlighting smaller critters or even possible pedestrians doesn't have any downsides as far as I can tell.
Is passive IR the answer, or something else? I'm not sure what else might work very well (if at all) at a reasonable price.
What has me baffled is that my garage door opener now works far better than it did in my old car.
Less metal overall in the front-upper quarter of the cabin? The portion from the base of the windshield and side windows up over the roof to halfway back? Some sort of sunroof window?
Since I hit a deer I always keep a hard eye out now at night, using fog lights since they tend to "spray" illumination to the side better than low beams. I've seen tons of deer alongside the road, and several cases where instead of running away they decide to move right into the road.
Even spotting one deer unlikely to collide amps the senses to watch out for more. Highlighting smaller critters or even possible pedestrians doesn't have any downsides as far as I can tell.
Is passive IR the answer, or something else? I'm not sure what else might work very well (if at all) at a reasonable price.
I've never killed a deer, as far as I know. I rolled one into the ditch out on Orcas Island, but it got up and ran off. Did it run off a ways, then die? Perhaps, but I didn't hit it very hard, so it might well have survived. Certainly no legs were broken. Deer out there are kind of like vermin. You may have a similar situation. In Idaho, we have lots of deer, but also lots of predators. They are more wary. There are times of day when I don't like driving certain areas, but I don't drive in those areas all that much.
However, I don't encounter the deer on the side of the road around here. I see that on Orcas, but not in Idaho. They stay well back. What we DO have is cows. Free range cattle, which means they can be anywhere. I don't think the survivability of hitting a cow would be all that good for either party. Fortunately, adult cows stay off the road and pay no attention to cars. Calves, on the other hand, freak out when a car comes along. The way they freak out is to run right into the road in front of you, then run down the road at no very great speed (cows aren't fast, and neither are calves) while looking back at you over first one shoulder then the other. It's about the stupidest avoidance technique I've ever seen: Something scary is coming, I'll get in front of it and try to run away in the same direction it is going.
Less metal overall in the front-upper quarter of the cabin? The portion from the base of the windshield and side windows up over the roof to halfway back? Some sort of sunroof window?
Of course "thick visor" makes some sense.
Probably not less metal overall, but maybe. It does make me kind of wish I had experimented more with the old car. Of course, I blamed the problem on the device, not on the car. Now I realize that it was at least partly the car, but I can't say what part or how.
Yeah, deer-scale predators are scarce here. Domestic dog packs would be more likely predators.
But we do have idiots who insist on feeding the deer on an ongoing basis. It causes them to do abnormal things, like forming up in groups close to livestock pasture. We've had this lead to Chronic Wasting Disease and Bovine TB and something else that makes deer act deranged.
There are fines, but enforcement is spotty. It gets so bad local governments often stage clearing hunts to try to thin the herds and eliminate those obviously infected. All of this tends to bring the crazies out, marching with little kids and "Bambi" signs.
On Orcas, I watched a buck push a woman back into her car and start climbing in on top of her. She had been feeding it potato chips, and had run out. The buck wasn't having it. He wasn't big, as none are on that island, but it had some forks.
Had to make a run to a hardware store and then get groceries. Started my return by stopping and getting a small pineapple and black cherry shake made from scratch. Little shop shaped like an ice cream cone.
90 F, so running that A/C set for 75 degrees. Pleasant trip, and the atypical treat was a bonus. Just glad for the large-bore straw so I could get the fruity bits.
Trip meter says I averaged 46.1 miles/gallon. Not bad for a non-hybrid even on a shortest-path route instead of a more hypermiling-friendly route (longer).
Do most cars offer these statistics these days? I can get my MPG since last fill up, since trip meter A or B was reset, last and current trip from key-on to key-off. I never had this before the hybrid I'd bought in 2002.
I realize that EVs will fudge a nonsense figure as well as reporting efficiency by honest measures, and the plug-ins can often be a mixed bag jumbling things up.
I guess I wondered how many straight gas cars offer feedback? I sure notice other drivers doing crap on the road that must destroy their fuel efficiency.
I think virtually every new car has something like that. In my experience, the meters always run high, but that's still pretty good. I haven't seen anything recent that didn't have at least something, even on trucks that get lousy mileage under any circumstance.
My plug in doesn't report what would be useful, but I already covered that. I'm not going to bother calculating true fuel economy. It would be a chore. I'd want to cover a fair amount of distance on gas only, while measuring miles and gallons used (by filling the tank at the end), and I'd want to repeat the calculation a few times to come up with an average. After all, my last car could vary considerably based on the time of year and the type of driving. It really liked 45-55, but not so much at 75-80. The interstate out here is 65 in some places and 80 everywhere else, which isn't going to be great for any car. Of course, the 65 stretch is in Boise, where whether or not you can do 65 depends on a lot of factors out of your control. Hybrids are supposed to be better at stop and go, since stop is pretty nearly off.
To calculate real fuel mileage, I'd have to do several trips of some distance. I don't do a lot of that, but when I do, it's almost entirely interstate travel. I suppose I could use that to figure out the accuracy of the gauge, but since I already know that it doesn't give me the data I want, I don't really care whether the data I don't want is accurate or not.
The one thing I am curious about is how it would handle the NaN issue.
One other interesting point is that, though it makes no particular sense, my electric range has increased since I started using the A/C. Naturally, the A/C can't boost range, as that would violate a law of physics, but I'm not quite sure what is going on. My father speculated that it could be a case that the bearings are smoothing out a bit, but that seems unlikely to result in a 10% efficiency gain. I was thinking it might be that the batteries work better at warmer temperatures, but it wasn't exactly cold for the first few weeks when I had the lower range, and it's not exactly warm now that I'm getting the higher range. Not quite sure what to make of it. The stated range was 42, I was getting about 44, now I'm getting about 52.
Well there are always break-in issues I suppose. For the driver as well as the vehicle.
If people have the feedback available though, I'm not sure why I see so much erratic driving that hurts mileage. Stuff like running up to stops, driving slow then fast then slow for no obvious reasons, accelerating hard up inclines, starting from a stop too quickly or slowly.
Perhaps they just haven't spent as much time with this stuff. I pick it up in peripheral vision having had mileage feedback displays for 2 decades.
It really isn't a game of numbers aside from doing well while still driving safely. I don't get goofy like coasting down hills, but I do tend to feather the acceleration when cruise control isn't a safe option. A guy I know can do much better, but he admits he does a lot of dicey things for high MPG.
For the good of the car I'll occasionally do an "Italian Tuneup." There is a stretch of Interstate near me where the limit is 75. I'll hit it during light traffic times and accelerate hard to 75 and hold it on cruise and go about 25 miles, then back. There is a military electronic gear surplus shop I visit, so the trip is not all waste. Amazing stuff to fiddle with, and I got a used compact oscilloscope and some hand tools there. Those trips average more like 37 to 38 MPG though.
Isn't stop and go where the real MPG throttling happens because it takes more gas to get going than it does to maintain a speed?
Yeah, that really hurts, especially for gas engines that keep running during the stop part of stop and go. Hybrids have traditionally done better at stop and go.
At higher speeds, drag begins to clobber fuel economy. This is dramatically more evident in ships, but it's true for cars, as well.
For the good of the car I'll occasionally do an "Italian Tuneup." There is a stretch of Interstate near me where the limit is 75. I'll hit it during light traffic times and accelerate hard to 75 and hold it on cruise and go about 25 miles, then back.
That's cause you're old. That was a thing in MUCH older cars, but doesn't do a thing for you anymore. It used to be useful for burning out carbon buildup in poorly tuned carbureted engines. Since those are basically museum pieces these days, there isn't any advantage to that.
Growing up in the rolling hills of NH, we'd go swimming in a pretty remote lake. Our town had the 'town lake', the 'rich lake', and the 'hippy lake'. Naturally, I went to the latter. For one thing, it was far more interesting, as it had some excellent glacial erratics just off shore. Some were close in for little kids to play on, one was further out, much larger, and in much deeper water. Then, if you swam way out in a very straight line, and were particularly tall, there was a further rock you could stand on. It was perhaps 100 meters, or more out. I could just barely stand on it with my face out of water (not my whole head, though). The other thing about that lake was that there was a whole lot of life. Salamanders, frogs, fish, snapping turtles, and one particularly aggressive kingbird that would attack anybody who came near.
Where I was going with this was that my mother had figured out that from the top of one hill, you could put the car in neutral and coast all the way back through town and down another hill on the far side of town. It was miles of coasting, and there was one hill along the way that we'd top at little more than walking speed. Of course, this was rural NH, so cars were not common. I always liked the efficiency of being able to coast all that way, especially since there was enough uphill to bleed off any excess speed, so you pretty nearly didn't need the brake, either.
Of course I don't do it very often, and mostly because I don't drive as much as I used to. This car is 5 years old with under 10,000 miles on it. Part of that can be credited to the COVID era and part to retirement. Kids all out of college means a lot fewer long trips.
We're not in a tidal area but we have some truly massive lakes. There is a place on Lake Michigan with a very wide and shallow channel back into a smaller lake. At intervals water trickles in to fill the small lake, and then the flow can suddenly reverse and run back out in a sheet at a similar depth as in that video.
The movement illusion of those standing in it can be so strong it gives some people vertigo. You often see people start to wobble trying to stand upright or even fall down when it makes them dizzy. Those nearby watching also express a feeling of confusion, some saying they felt the dry land move.
The movement illusion of those standing in it can be so strong it gives some people vertigo. You often see people start to wobble trying to stand upright or even fall down when it makes them dizzy. Those nearby watching also express a feeling of confusion, some saying they felt the dry land move.
Wow. That is fascinating. I'd love to experience that first-hand.
I encountered some Shoshone-Bannock members fishing for steelhead like shown in that video clip. The thing about fishing for steelhead is that they run in the spring. Image that video, except that the water is barely above freezing. They were into it.
Yeah, things can get weird in around larger lakeside dune fields too.
We have a State Park that encompasses one. There is a lake there that was created when dunes piled up and eventually cut a bay entirely off from the larger lake. The strip of dunes is maybe 1/2 to 3/4 of a mile wide now. These are banked up pretty high above water level.
On the dune side of the small lake you can wade in and be over your head in water well within 12 feet of wading in places, it drops off that fast. Nearer in toward the "beach" you can feel weird currents of cold water rushing out of the dunes at your legs. These aren't strong, just eerie. It seems to be percolating rain water. Any heavy currents quickly wash out sand and fan out, so they aren't really a hazard to people playing in the water.
These dunes are made of "singing sands" that make squeaky sounds at every step.
I took my kids there enough to become jaded. But it made a really good place to take visitors who were impressed enough to rekindle appreciation. I thought I lost my wallet on one march across the dunes to the big lake. We frantically searched, then got back to the truck and found the wallet on the seat. With great relief we went for tacos and ice cream under the pines at a small town a few miles inland. I think my oldest boy was maybe 12 then.
There is a cat in the neighborhood, I don't know who it belongs to. Nobody close by me anyway.
It's one of those mostly-black with white on its legs, belly, and up to its chin underneath. Big one, not gigantic. Seems mature but not elderly, not fat or thin. I've seen it skulking for years, mostly at twilight or after dark. It never runs off but has always kept its distance. I don't have dog or cats.
Suddenly it has decided to be friendly in broad daylight. I had to dodge to keep it from coming into the house yesterday. No aggression, it just acted like it owned the place and was gently persistent. I went outside, and when I got near it smoothly flopped to he ground and rolled over on its back. When I moved off it just calmly got up and gradually moved off.
I dumped some pistachio shells into the firepit, and the rattling sound perked its ears up. So I'm guessing it was "hearing cat food" and that suggests it is anything but feral or even stray.
I'm not a cat person, but if I understand the language it must like me. Go Figure.
Exposing it's belly could signal that, or could just be saying, "you're the boss...and I'm fine with that." Cats can say both of those things with the same move. You can figure out which one it is by trying to pet it. If it takes your arm off, then it was the latter, otherwise it was the former.
I'm pretty "treed in" these days with gigantic trees all around. Google Earth and such barely show my house any more.
But I still wish I'd set up planters for a tiny "tomato patch" this year. Maybe even trellised for vining grape and cherry tomatoes. Pretty cheap, and almost overabundant in season, but great for salads and snacking. They freeze well, just wash, dry, and bag. Easy way to extend peak harvest.
I have a few areas that still get good sun most of the day.
My wife's uncle was able to grow Brandywine tomatoes this year which is impressive. He's tried for several years but this was the first year where everything went right. They're delicious and kind of sweet.
I'm trying for a few types of tomatoes this year. Mostly, I'm going to get LOTS of beans. Looks like I'll get a whole bunch of lettuce...when I'm away and won't be able to enjoy any of it. By the time I get back, it will probably be all bolted pretty thoroughly. I planted late with the expectation that I'd start on a bike trip a week ago, but the amount of snow put that back, and my clever timing will ensure I get no lettuce.
Yeah, we're seeing some of this in Michigan as well. I thought it was coming from Nova Scotia, but the local weather guys are saying ours spews here from Quebec.
We haven't seen this since the last time Canadian companies "wanted to assist" native peoples off their lands prior to exploitation "to meet national goals." On this side of the continent that usually means a hydropower project or a mine.
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Originally Posted by dilettante
