etendue

> They said that the radar and camera detected the trailer but that it looked like an overhead sign and so was ignored.

Has Tesla or NTSB actually said that? From ref. 1, published today, my emphasis:

    Tesla *is considering* whether the radar and camera input
    for the vehicle’s automatic emergency braking system
    failed to detect the truck trailer or the automatic
    braking system’s radar may have detected the trailer but
    discounted this input…

[1] http://finance.yahoo.com/news/tesla-mulling-two-theories-exp...

> It's not clear to me that an engineer working on making seatbelts work better is the best person to decide when they reach the point that the benefits outweigh the drawbacks.

I agree that they're not the best person, but they are an active participant in the process. As a participant, they have an ethical duty to raise their concerns. Consider that an engineer "working on making seatbelts work better" is (arguably) the organizational expert on seatbelt operations. It is perfectly appropriate for engineering management to address the raised concerns through risk management and for the engineer to accept this decision because it was through a defined PLM process.

When, as in the quote, the justification for accepting the dismissal of concerns is that "it was a business decision", it raises red flags for me.

It does bring attention to the AACC. They also issued a pretty strong disclaimer (https://www.aacc.org/publications/cln/cln-stat/2016/july/5/t...):

> Holmes’ appearance does not reflect an endorsement of Theranos or its technology by AACC, and Theranos has not provided any financial contribution to AACC in exchange for the invitation to speak, nor has it provided any sponsorship monies or other forms of grants to AACC.

I remember having to do a lot of paperwork to speak at medical conferences because of CME credentialing. I wonder what happened in this specific case?

> Clearly we already (ethically) accept some risk in our products.

We do, when the risk is managed. A key feature of risk management is, after identification of potential risks, the minimization of the occurance probability or the severity to within an acceptable range.

> When Rajkumar has raised concerns with those Tesla employees about autopilot's technical limitations, the response is they have to "wash their hands of it" because "it's a business decision."

I've wondered about Tesla's engineering management before, and this would support that it is inadequate. Engineers cannot "wash their hands" on safety critical projects. This is potentially a serious ethical lapse: the health, safety, and welfare of the public is the foremost concern:

    If engineers' judgment is overruled under circumstances
    that endanger life or property, they shall notify their
    employer or client and such other authority as may be
    appropriate.[0]

> In another anecdote recounted by two sources, Musk was told that the sensors used for Tesla's self-parking feature might have difficulty recognizing something as small as a cat. Musk is said to have responded that given how slow the car moves in this parking mode, it would only be dangerous to "a comatose cat."

Outrageous, a baby can be the size and of the speed of a "comatose cat". Hysterical example aside, a comatose cat demands no less consideration with respect to risk analysis. Handwaving that the the feature is of no safety concern, rather than submit to the rigors of risk management, is an absolutely improper response.

[1] https://www.nspe.org/resources/ethics/code-ethics

Harvard's common indirect rate is as high as 69%: http://osp.finance.harvard.edu/fa-cost-rates-federal-sponsor...

I've long been expecting someone like the NYT to do an exposé on the "dark money" of F&A. It would seem to be ripe given he current discussion of the cost of education.

As an engineer, I try to imagine what the risk analysis for the Tesla cars look like for the Autopilot functionality.

Multiple warnings would seem to me to be insufficient to reduce the hazard presented by the Autopilot functionality; indeed, there are any number of videos of Tesla drivers using the vehicle contra to the warnings. As one specific example, consider that the Tesla Autopilot cautions the driver to maintain hands on the wheel[0], yet does not enforce this requirement[1] despite having the capability to do so[2]. There's also a problem with Musk viz. marketing: he's the very public face of the company, and he is frequently overly optimistic in describing the car's capabilities by blurring the line between current and future capabilities, e.g., implying that holding the wheel isn't critical with a wink-wink, nudge-nudge[3].

Tesla's PLM certainly has some sort of mechanism to continuously examine the risk analysis for the car, yet the Autopilot functionality doesn't seem to have been significantly updated to incorporate the changing risk profile. To add on all of this, why does Autopilot allow one to speed? Why can one enable Autopilot on a road such as the exemplar if it is contrary to the instructions and the car is capable of knowing the difference? What does the risk analysis say on the topic of the feature name "Autopilot" being misunderstood by the public? &c. &c.

I do wonder about the engineering processes at Tesla. I admittedly don't work in automotive, but I do work in a regulated industry, and Tesla's apparent engineering process makes me very uneasy. Risk analyses that I have done took into account that the user may not have read the instructions for use, and I struggle to understand how Tesla could not do the same.

[0] "Drivers must keep their hands on the steering wheel." https://www.tesla.com/presskit/autopilot

[1] "We drove for 10 miles without the message appearing." http://www.teslarati.com/what-happens-ignore-tesla-autopilot...

[2] It's not clear that they have a capacitance sensor as on properly-equipped Mercedes, but Teslas allegedly can detect minute torques applied to the steering wheel as happens when the wheel is held. I recall reading this about the Teslas, but can't find a citation at the moment.

[3] “It works almost to the point where you can take your hands off,” Musk laughs, “but we won’t say that. Almost.” http://www.wired.com/2015/10/tesla-self-driving-over-air-upd... also, "But by April, he told a conference that Autopilot was "almost twice as good as a person," even in its first version." and from the same, "Musk himself has retweeted news reports showing drivers using Autopilot with no hands on the wheel." http://www.autonews.com/article/20160705/OEM06/160709956/tes...

It's also a total bore if you live in a rural area.

It's of course very complex, but three things not always mentioned: Dealing with the insurance companies and their Byzantine billing practices requires hiring additional staff to specifically deal with billing issues, with that cost passed to the patient. Electronic medical records slow down physicians, (fewer patients seen requires billing more for those you do see) and at least the ones I've experienced end up being more expensive than paper records. The insurance companies also are very slow in reimbursements to physicians (sometimes several months behind) which requires billing more to help compensate for the uncertainty.

Also, insurance frequently doesn't reimburse enough to cover the actual cost of a procedure, e.g., vaccines.

The Tesla warnings remind me of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, where one of the brats were about to do something disaterous and Gene Wilder would in a very neutral tone protest "no, stop, you shouldn't do that".

From a risk management standpoint, Tesla's design doesn't strike me as sufficient. Warnings without consequences are quickly ignored.

On the medical devices I've worked on, the risk analysis took into account that the users may not read the instructions for use or might be lacking in training. I'm sure that automotive is similar, which has had me wondering what the risk analysis looks like for the Teslas.

It's common practice in medical journals and conferences to list academic degrees.

The new features notification bar at the top was really nice. Maybe it could be used again in the future when the topbar goes black in memoriam?

[deleted]

This article is attracting some distasteful comments, generally seems to be headed in a bad direction, and I want no association with it.

Wanted to say that, in addition to agreeing with what you wrote here, I've noticed myself frequently nodding in agreement with your other nicely worded and considered comments.

I prefer your version, but I would like to share a slightly different formulation of that aphorism that is equally amusing: never argue with idiots, they'll bring you down to their level and then beat you with experience.

That causes the front end of the car to pitch forwards, which can actually increase the severity of a collision with large animals.

Actually, immunotherapy is the new old big thing in cancer research. As I recall it was first hot in the late 70s/early 80s after the invention of hybridomas, but failed to produce dramatic early successes.

I share the parent's skepticism. Fighting cancer is fighting basic biology population dynamics: the population that survives the assault is by definition harder to kill. It's made even harder by the very nature of cancer cells that freed from following the rules: they can relocate at will while simultaneously ignoring the body's zoning board (metastasis), steal nutrients (angiogenesis), dump waste in their backyard (poor lymphatic recruitment) and create an area that is inhospitable to other cells while simultaneously making for difficult drug delivery, ignore court orders to stop what they're doing (evade apoptosis), and replicate faster than other cells in the body (both by producing their own growth signals and ignoring anti-growth signals, including senescence). Also, the cancer cells have a head start. The deck is stacked against "curing" cancer by chemotherapeutics or immunotherapy.

Two points. One, these polls give one an idea of how people might feel about an idea in principle, but don't tell you how people feel about the implementation of the idea as a law. Many of the gun control bills that are proposed have flaws that disproportionately affect law-abiding gun owners, and given the general skepticism of the efficacy of gun control laws here, the bills fail to advance.

The second point is that it isn't informative to average across the US to make statistical inferences: it's too heterogenous. Most violent crime in the US (keeping in mind different countries define violent crime uniquely and report it with varying rates) is cultural and is highly focal in limited parts of cities. Even with firearms, many parts of the US are statistically similar to similar areas in Europe when considering violent crime.

Have you looked into Amazon Prime? You can download stuff to your phone/tablet when you have unmetered internet and then listen or watch it later.

I haven't tried it yet, but I think that the Apple Lightning to HDMI adaptor will work to get Amazon Video on the TV. I would think that HDMI would be even cheaper/easier on an Android device.

Can US broadband be considered free market? Cellular (and satellite?) is limited by frequency allocations and wired is limited by franchise agreements.

The web I want is one that doesn't assume I have an unmetered high-speed internet connection.

I'm visiting my parents right now. They have what I would term as "rural internet options": satellite, fixed cellular, or dialup. There is no DSL. There is no cable. There is no wifi. Satellite has awful latency and an effective 20GB monthly cap (their advertising is very deceptive because they pool midnight off-peak data in their advertised caps), fixed cellular has a 30GB cap: there is no provision to buy more data on either service short of ruinous overage fees.

Browsing around on the modern web filled with autoplay videos, huge JS libraries, giant pictures, etc. has been sufficient for a 2 person household to blow through that 30GB cap in less than a month. It was hard for me to believe, until I instrumented their network and saw for myself. Of course, accidentally updating any software, accidentally syncing their photo libraries, etc. are all expensive mistakes.

Most effective changes I have been able to make so far (without frustrating the parents too much) have been to ad block and get them to use Opera with Turbo, which has been sufficient to cut their data use by about half. I also put a timer on the cellular hub power supply to manually shut it off when they're not at home or when they're sleeping, because despite best efforts some software still automatically updates.

It's also not clear what is meant when the road is being described as a dirt road: often people will describe a gravel road as a dirt road, but I think this is an error. A gravel road of several inches of 21A, properly graded, compacted, and maintained, has little in common with a dirt road.

I view the article differently (although I agree it is a learning tool): I see it as showing yet another example of what I think of as Silicon Valley hubris.

I've spent about 15 years in research on colloidal nanoparticles, much of that for biological applications of magnetic and fluorescent nanoparticles. There are countless barriers to creating the proposed "tricorder", each significant enough that overcoming even a single one would make one a "made man" in academia, e.g., "solving" RES uptake.

Look at this statement from the article, for one example of what I see as hubris,

    "The particles were so safe, [Conrad] said, that animal testing could be skipped."

This statement contradicts advisory statements by the FDA, guidelines issued by the FDA, the general understanding of the frameworks put forward by the NNI (National Nanotechnolgy Initiative), general trends in the field, and (regulatory) common sense. This "tricorder" would be a combination of a hardware diagnostic platform, a pharmaceutical contrast agent, and some sort of software platform: it doesn't get any more complicated than that. It would take months for the FDA to figure out how to regulate this device. I am completely unable to conceive how anyone with any experience in this area could think that animal testing could be skipped.

Also, your statement that we should "positively reinforce the fact that they had the fucking balls to try" reads to me as if you are unaware that there are many of us in the biomedical world trying, very hard, fighting over scraps of funding and trying to move the ball down the field. We just aren't in the public eye or consciousness. It hurts to see a group like Verily get celebrated for trying when the rest of us get ignored (or worse, dismissed) when we're working on some pretty challenging stuff under some lousy conditions.

How does the 2^10 to 10^3 approximation come about? All of the others made sense to me, but I couldn't figure that one out.

Excellent to hear, thanks for clarifying that.

> Frankly, most of the existing institutions we thought about partnering closely with were somewhat bloated, and it would have made the whole study significantly more expensive and slower.

Some of that "bloat" is due to compliance and ethics: has YC engaged an IRB yet? SV tech companies (Facebook, OkCupid) have shown very questionable judgement with respect to ethical considerations.

Sorry to be a wet blanket, but in the US your proposal would likely result in charges for violating one of several "bird laws" such as the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act or Migratory Bird Treaty Act. Defending your property isn't sufficient justification for causing harm without the appropriate permits. Farmers for example are brought up on charges when they harm a bird of prey attacking their livestock, or when migratory birds are poisoned due to improper pesticide use.

If you get the bird clicker trained you're more than half way there, and birds generally take to clicker training very quickly. Those particular birds have an affinity for shiny things, so painting the parts silver or wrapping them with foil might be one way to prompt the behavior for reinforcement.

edit: for the other half, depositing the parts where you'd like, look up "targeting". I'd train the birds to a colored sticker, then place the sticker on your deposit box gizmo.

3D movies do cause problems in many people, which is why there is a market for these: http://www.amazon.com/Hank-Greens-2D-Glasses-Turns-movies/dp...

> Also, to emphasize, when a cheap aluminum, steel or fiberglass part breaks/is wrecked, it's cheaper to replace than a carbon infused panel. Try to re-bend the frame of a steel car (rather easy) and re-bend the frame of a car with a monocoque body made of carbon fiber (You can't).

Can you repair the more exotic steels that are now used on cars? I was in an accident a year ago, and all of the affected ultra-high strength steel members of the car had to be directly replaced: it was explained to me that they cannot be straightened or welded.

As to the CFRP used in the BMWs, it is actually "repair friendly". The insurance costs of a BMW i3 are no more than other comparable luxury cars: in an accident, they cut out the affected portions of the CFRP and epoxy replacement elements in place. The material costs might be slightly higher, but the labor costs are lower.