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Text Messages Between Travis Kalanick and Anthony Levandowski

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Re: Text Messages Between Travis Kalanick and Anthony Levandowski

#51
post #34

> A source close to Uber’s operations says its engineers watched the intersection where Uber’s cars were said to have run the red light, and that this text refers to them recording a number of normal, human-operated vehicles also breaking the law. Uber has never officially admitted that its software was to blame. is the implication here that that intersection has a lot of red light runners? if so, are they so dense i…

Given there is no further context in the messages released I humbly submit that this "explanation" provided by the unbiased source at Uber is full and utter bullshit Like, they are standing there taping other people running red lights? And Kalanick cares how, exactly? No, this is them taping their own cars running red lights. Which is a very likely scenario since they are 1) testing on a small subset of streets and 2…

No, if their car is not running any lights under normal circumstances, but has ran it even once at a particular intersection, you bet I will send my engineers there with some cameras to tape the intersection so we can analyze it and see what is happening. If the intersection is poorly designed/timed, why would it be implausible to happen to catch human drivers make the same mistake?

Re: Text Messages Between Travis Kalanick and Anthony Levandowski

#52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Normal humans also run red lights when the yellow-to-red light time is too short. Transit guidelines generally state that yellow lights should stay lit 1 second for every 10mph of the speed limit. When the yellow light is shorter than this, it's easy to get caught in the middle of a red.

Have you seen the video? It's way more jacked up than what you're implying: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pzzQ42D9Srw Watch that and tell me that it's reasonable or caused by a short yellow...

Holy cow.

With a pedestrian in / on the edge of the crosswalk. And there was even another car that had been moving just a few seconds earlier stopped there too...

Re: Text Messages Between Travis Kalanick and Anthony Levandowski

#53
post #8

"Uber Saw Tesla as a Huge Competitor While Uber followed Google’s cars closely, it was Tesla and Elon Musk that the duo discussed most frequently. 9/14/2016 Levandowski: Tesla crash in January … implies Elon is lying about millions of miles without incident. We should have LDP on Tesla just to catch all the crashes that are going on. 9/22/2016: We’ve got to start calling Elon on his shit. I'm not on social media but…

What does LDP stand for?

Re: Text Messages Between Travis Kalanick and Anthony Levandowski

#54
post #49
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Multiple images can be used to compute a 3D point cloud. This is computer vision stuff around for many years. The challenge is this is a passive sensor in that the cameras count on light illuminating the scene. So at night; in bright light (that causes images to blow out); shadows; etc; you can have voids. If a person is in that void bad things can happen. But cameras now cost under a $1 each in volume (thanks smartp…

I'm curious as to what happens when there are two cars with active sensors at the same place - how much would they interfere with each other?

There are a lot of techniques to avoid it. I remember listening to an interview with Greg Charvat who said that coding a polarised pulse train with some random phase distribution is a possibility for avoiding interference.

Re: Text Messages Between Travis Kalanick and Anthony Levandowski

#55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't forget illegally running autonomous tractor trailers in Palo Alto and on the roads of Nevada. These guys are criminals... total disregard for human life (but their own) in every shape and way there is. From potentially killing people, too treating everyone is who not their BRO like trash; drivers, employees, customers, business partners, etc, etc, etc... GROSS!

Your comments come off as if you are more bitter about some company you can just choose to ignore than benchamark is about Travis.

Are you saying that we should ignore companies that act badly?

Re: Text Messages Between Travis Kalanick and Anthony Levandowski

#56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't forget illegally running autonomous tractor trailers in Palo Alto and on the roads of Nevada. These guys are criminals... total disregard for human life (but their own) in every shape and way there is. From potentially killing people, too treating everyone is who not their BRO like trash; drivers, employees, customers, business partners, etc, etc, etc... GROSS!

Your comments come off as if you are more bitter about some company you can just choose to ignore than benchamark is about Travis.

> bitter about some company you can just choose to ignore

This is not about some product you buy, or some service you pay for, it's about sharing the road, and whether the other people/entities on the road with you operating multiple thousand pound machines at 24-65 Mph have a legal right to be there and are safe. That's not something you can necessarily "ignore" without consequence.

Re: Text Messages Between Travis Kalanick and Anthony Levandowski

#57
post #8

"Uber Saw Tesla as a Huge Competitor While Uber followed Google’s cars closely, it was Tesla and Elon Musk that the duo discussed most frequently. 9/14/2016 Levandowski: Tesla crash in January … implies Elon is lying about millions of miles without incident. We should have LDP on Tesla just to catch all the crashes that are going on. 9/22/2016: We’ve got to start calling Elon on his shit. I'm not on social media but…

> I don't take Elon as a person to lie

But we all know he will exaggerate to the point of being misleading.

Re: Text Messages Between Travis Kalanick and Anthony Levandowski

#58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given there is no further context in the messages released I humbly submit that this "explanation" provided by the unbiased source at Uber is full and utter bullshit Like, they are standing there taping other people running red lights? And Kalanick cares how, exactly? No, this is them taping their own cars running red lights. Which is a very likely scenario since they are 1) testing on a small subset of streets and 2…

No, if their car is not running any lights under normal circumstances, but has ran it even once at a particular intersection, you bet I will send my engineers there with some cameras to tape the intersection so we can analyze it and see what is happening. If the intersection is poorly designed/timed, why would it be implausible to happen to catch human drivers make the same mistake?

>If the intersection is poorly designed/timed, why would it be implausible to happen to catch human drivers make the same mistake?

Unless they had already pulled the self driving cars, which the timeline presented suggests they haven't, why would that data be important enough to text back without the corresponding number of Uber violations?

Re: Text Messages Between Travis Kalanick and Anthony Levandowski

#59
post #25
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tesla will do self driving without a LIDAR, just cameras (ok, 8 of those), a RADAR and some ultrasonic distance sensors: https://electrek.co/2016/10/20/tesla-new-autopilot-hardware-... Some people believe this to be impossible for the time being - LIDAR gives you a 3d point cloud (every obstacle, with its distance from you measured), which is amazing (but currently expensive, bulky, fragile, etc) while with cameras i…

I know that you were just doing a tl;dr and not necessarily trying to start a discussion about it, but wow, that seems kinda stupid to be coming out of someone who is ostensibly fairly intelligent. A 3D point cloud is great, but with the raw computing power we have these days, image processing should be pretty reliable, at least until LIDAR becomes more. . .well, reliable and affordable. Doesn't the HoloLens just use…

The Hololens uses an IR projection and camera in addition to 4 "environmental cameras", which is why it doesn't work well in very low or very bright lighting. It also uses the inertial sensors to help correct the map.

There are some things about SLAM that are best done optically.

Re: Text Messages Between Travis Kalanick and Anthony Levandowski

#60
post #47
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Multiple images can be used to compute a 3D point cloud. This is computer vision stuff around for many years. The challenge is this is a passive sensor in that the cameras count on light illuminating the scene. So at night; in bright light (that causes images to blow out); shadows; etc; you can have voids. If a person is in that void bad things can happen. But cameras now cost under a $1 each in volume (thanks smartp…

Incidentally, Musk's take: "The whole road system is meant to be navigated with passive optical or cameras and so once you solve camera vision then autonomy is solved if you don't solve vision it's not solved so that that's why our focus is so heavily on having a vision neural net that's very effective for road conditions." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gv7qL1mcxcw&feature=youtu.be...

It's interesting if you consider we have 2 eyes [cameras] and we drive under all conditions, and under bad driving conditions - if you're sane - you slow down or even completely stop and pull over with your 4-ways on. When I've been in very heavy rain downpours on the highway, it feels like I'm only driving because I'm able to follow the flow of lights in front of me as having a bunch of guidance points - autonomous vehicles could likely do a much safer job of this..
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