Former Tesla Firmware Engineer Discusses the System • Hacker News Board

Re: Former Tesla Firmware Engineer Discusses the System

#331

Post by blaze_run » Fri, Aug 24, 2018, 10:29 PM UTC

lx3459683 wrote: post #276

Uhhrrr wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here is one skeptical person: https://www.reddit.com/r/EnoughMuskSpam/comments/99sbwa/form... My personal expectation that it's all true is about 60% right now. Some of the figures could be exaggerated or misremembered, but most of the hackiness described is plausible.

This comment hits the nail on the head: > As a long-ago ex-Googler I find it amusing to watch employees name-drop where they work, always with some underlying subtext implying authority [...] Parent comment doesn't simply imply this but explicitly uses it as the basis for calling OP out. It's amusing because the namedrop is always accompanied by some claim they felt they couldn't support solely through a sound argume…

Why did you leave out the part where he admits to name-dropping in that same thread?

Also, you also left out the part where he is actually agreeing with the name-dropper person:

"Meanwhile the points made are relatively sound, 100kLOC C firmware updater set off my BS alarm (assuming 98k of that wasn't some static data tables), and the 700TB MySQL DB while possible is extremely unlikely.. even given a huge JBOD setup which nobody in their right mind would plug into a single server, InnoDB tops out at 64TB per table in the best case, which means OP would need a single database with somewhere around 10 64TB tables"

Re: Former Tesla Firmware Engineer Discusses the System

#332

Post by monocasa » Fri, Aug 24, 2018, 10:34 PM UTC

rsync wrote: post #299

mfarris wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Fleet" is longstanding car industry lingo. Not something Tesla dreamed up to keep you under their boot. Source: Father worked in car industry. All of my neighbors, too. Pretty much everyone I knew and then, eventually, me... albeit tangentially.

""Fleet" is longstanding car industry lingo. Not something Tesla dreamed up to keep you under their boot." I am aware of that and I hear that terminology used by rental car companies and equipment dealers, etc. My objection is to what I hear as a subtle difference - the post-sale automobile to a private, end-user is still referred to as belonging to their fleet - as if one's ownership and use of the car were a minor…

It's not a shift.

It's the language used by the rest of the industry including manufacturers, not just private owners.

Re: Former Tesla Firmware Engineer Discusses the System

#333

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Aug 24, 2018, 10:34 PM UTC

ddevault wrote: post #11

I used to work at SpaceX on the team that did a piece of software called "WarpDrive". It was a massive monolithic ASP.NET application, with large swaths done with ASP.NET WebForms and a slow frontier of ASP.NET MVC gradually growing when I was working there. This application was responsible for practically everything that ran the factory: inventory, supply chain management, cost analysis, etc. Elon is a big Windows f…

[deleted]

Re: Former Tesla Firmware Engineer Discusses the System

#334

Post by Nelson69 » Fri, Aug 24, 2018, 10:35 PM UTC

dswalter wrote: post #16

sz4kerto wrote: post #8

Why is this interesting or surprising? Of course almost all challengers have hacky tech under the hood because they don't have the resources. Winning from that position is possible not because of generally better tech but by delivering something that the incumbents don't. Remember the demo of the first iPhone (vs the huge expertise of Nokia). Or how Microsoft won the desktop starting from a single user, cooperative m…

Cars weigh thousands of pounds and routinely drive upwards of 60 miles per hour. The success of the first iPhone or Facebook app didn't depend on using it to navigate through life-and-death situations not only for the users but also for everyone around them. There are places for 'move fast and break things'. But cars move fast already, and they can really break things.

Are there any interesting papers on formal verification of some of the most modern machine learning algorithms?

Clearly when we "verify" Waymo or Tesla auto-pilot, we're going to want to use that stuff, right? Surely they won't just provide insurers with some data about the billions of miles they've driven without accidents and how humans can only drive like a million miles without an accident and try to get the insurers to give them policies...

Just like when we hand out licenses, we always check to make sure the 16 year old took some formal driving classes from professional driving instructors... I wish things were better but we don't care about this stuff as a society until much later usually. When did the car first appear? When did the first seatbelt law appear?

Re: Former Tesla Firmware Engineer Discusses the System

#335

Post by api » Fri, Aug 24, 2018, 10:36 PM UTC

ddevault wrote: post #11

I used to work at SpaceX on the team that did a piece of software called "WarpDrive". It was a massive monolithic ASP.NET application, with large swaths done with ASP.NET WebForms and a slow frontier of ASP.NET MVC gradually growing when I was working there. This application was responsible for practically everything that ran the factory: inventory, supply chain management, cost analysis, etc. Elon is a big Windows f…

The majority of the professional world runs on Windows. There are many advantages:

(1) Stable platform that's backward compatible over long periods of time.

(2) Very good rapid application development tooling, e.g. Visual Studio which is probably still the best IDE overall.

(3) A huge trained developer base making it easy to recruit. Same goes for IT personnel.

(4) A huge pool of software, custom dev firms, etc.

(5) Certification for US DOD and other certification-heavy environments where Windows is used heavily, which may be important for an aerospace company.

(6) Integration with everything in the business and government world is already done.

(7) Windows has a lot of complex user, permission, and policy management stuff. Active Directory is The Standard for UAM in the corporate world.

The cost of Microsoft licensing is chicken feed compared to the cost of building and launching rockets.

Overall I don't think it's a bad decision. Not everything is an Internet startup or hacker project. Right tools for the job.

Re: Former Tesla Firmware Engineer Discusses the System

#336

Post by remoteorbust » Fri, Aug 24, 2018, 10:36 PM UTC

nickserv wrote: post #217

joering2 wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ubuntu and Centos come pretty naked; what would you strip and why? Im asking because I run few instances with very heavy traffic and have no issues whatsoever. Just added nano and fail2ban and it runs with no issues for about 2 years now.

Any kernel module that's not required (wifi, graphics, sound, USB, etc depending on application), any security system like selinux, any unnecessary libraries, helper utilities, etc etc. Basically you rip out anything not strictly required for the task at hand. Running on embedded hardware is quite different from running on server hardware, disk space and memory are measured in megabytes, not gigabytes...

I once ran an "embedded" Linux on a $10 marvel SOC. It was a pretty vanilla kernel running a basic Debian install. 10MB out of 128MB RAM used most of the time.

Obviously you can go much slimmer, but a $10 board is surprisingly capable.

Re: Former Tesla Firmware Engineer Discusses the System

#337

Post by api » Fri, Aug 24, 2018, 10:38 PM UTC

ryandrake wrote: post #194

bmiller2 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to work at SpaceX on avionics software, in a role very similar to OP, and my experience was similar in some respects. The tech and products were complex. The turnover rate was high and training new hires was a lengthy process. The new projects coming down the pipeline never ceased (this was during a period where FH/F9-1.1/Dragon/Crew was all under design/development and constant iteration). It was fun for a yo…

I heard the same thing about the burnout and turnover. Do companies really think they are saving money by paying peanuts, grinding people down to burnout, and then constantly having to rehire/retrain new people as the old ones leave? Meanwhile the code is a mess because nobody has been there longer than a year and there is no architecture or design continuity. Just frantic patches over other frantic patches by burnt…

I think it's a case of what is seen vs. what is unseen combined with "you get what you measure."

"We're paying more for programmers than almost anyone else in the industry!" is an obvious thing a bean counter would notice and point out. Productivity is harder to measure, and all that time lost to training on the job doesn't immediately leap out in spreadsheets because it's blended with actual work.

Re: Former Tesla Firmware Engineer Discusses the System

#338

Post by erikpukinskis » Fri, Aug 24, 2018, 10:39 PM UTC

lx3459683 wrote: post #258

> "the interior is a disaster, there's no instrument cluster which takes your eyes off the road" This is the most WTF aspect of the model 3 to me and seems to confirm that there isn't going to be some last-minute mitigation. I know it was done because autopilot was expected to be mature by the time model 3 rolls out, but I don't see how it can even be street-legal when you need to look away from the road to determine…

You have to look away from the road to look at your speed on a regular dash too.

Re: Former Tesla Firmware Engineer Discusses the System

#339

Post by dragonwriter » Fri, Aug 24, 2018, 10:42 PM UTC

v_petkov wrote: post #291

lx3459683 wrote: post #258

> "the interior is a disaster, there's no instrument cluster which takes your eyes off the road" This is the most WTF aspect of the model 3 to me and seems to confirm that there isn't going to be some last-minute mitigation. I know it was done because autopilot was expected to be mature by the time model 3 rolls out, but I don't see how it can even be street-legal when you need to look away from the road to determine…

Customers seem to love it.

In that the people who do not love it choose not to be Tesla customers, sure.

Re: Former Tesla Firmware Engineer Discusses the System

#340

Post by phendrenad2 » Fri, Aug 24, 2018, 10:42 PM UTC

8_hours_ago wrote: post #52

ddevault wrote: post #11

I used to work at SpaceX on the team that did a piece of software called "WarpDrive". It was a massive monolithic ASP.NET application, with large swaths done with ASP.NET WebForms and a slow frontier of ASP.NET MVC gradually growing when I was working there. This application was responsible for practically everything that ran the factory: inventory, supply chain management, cost analysis, etc. Elon is a big Windows f…

> the rockets fly with a heavily customized Linux install My jaw hit the floor the first time I heard this. Why Linux instead of an RTOS?? Apparently Tesla's autopilot also runs Linux, which seems like a huge accident waiting to happen (pun intended).

Now just hold on a minute. I’ll bet you five bucks that Linux is just the brains of the rocket, controlling a network of RTOS-running (or not) microcontrollers (or maybe ARM SBCs.