Former Tesla Firmware Engineer Discusses the System • Hacker News Board

Re: Former Tesla Firmware Engineer Discusses the System

#541

Post by reitanqild » Sat, Aug 25, 2018, 5:51 PM UTC

ucaetano wrote: post #534

ASalazarMX wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Shareholders [..] to keep happy. In my opinion, this is the biggest flaw of the system. For many investors, a company is less about what it makes and more like a process to grow their money. Even when a company becomes profitable, there's always pressure to make it even more profitable quarter after quarter.

> Even when a company becomes profitable, there's always pressure to make it even more profitable quarter after quarter. Would you keep your retirement funds in a company that doesn't grow?

Sure, as long as it pays good dividends.

Not everything needs to grow into the sky.

Re: Former Tesla Firmware Engineer Discusses the System

#542

Post by Amygaz » Sat, Aug 25, 2018, 6:00 PM UTC

pishpash wrote: post #376

api wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This is a real problem. But if burndown charts can be translated into dollars, this might be noticeable.

It can and it has been for academic reasons.

But no employer tracks that, not even in academia...

I can’t find the reference I’m looking for, but cost associated with turn over rate due to narcissists is apparently as high as taking care is ASD. I would imagine turn over rate associated with burnouts not due to narcissism, but simply poor & short term management & vision to be at least on par.

Re: Former Tesla Firmware Engineer Discusses the System

#543

Post by bluefeather » Sat, Aug 25, 2018, 6:05 PM UTC

agitator wrote: post #409

BugsJustFindMe wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a person who used to write navigation and control software for autonomous vehicles who occasionally gets downvoted for telling people that you really don't need a fancy RTOS for this stuff, you really don't need a fancy RTOS for this stuff. Linux is a very common platform for highly responsive robotic systems. I promise that their pid control isn't an Electron app.

As someone who worked on RTOS systems and now works on autonomy. These things frighten me everyday. What frightens me even more, is the people who work on autonomy without a real grasp on determinism. It's unfortunate that the people who have the most high tech backgrounds (phds in computer vision AI, etc) applicable to autonomy, have never implemented safety critical autonomous systems outside of a research project…

SpaceX's Linux-based engine controllers at least have a decent amount of redundancy. They're all triple-redundant, and each of the three components consists of two cpu cores running in lockstep that are validated against each other as well.

Re: Former Tesla Firmware Engineer Discusses the System

#544

Post by twblalock » Sat, Aug 25, 2018, 6:15 PM UTC

rgrove wrote: post #355

Shivetya wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I join the III family this coming week. I am really interested in how well the updates are managed as the idea of cratering my car isn't something anyone is keen about. can you as an owner delay updates?

Yeah, you can choose to postpone an update. The car may occasionally prompt you again, but I don't think it will force you to install it if you really don't want to. I've never postponed for more than a day or two though. I have a Model 3 and so far haven't had any problems with updates. Installed the most recent one (2018.32.2) last night.

If you really need to prevent updates I assume you could find the wireless antenna and unplug it.

Re: Former Tesla Firmware Engineer Discusses the System

#545

Post by Cyph0n » Sat, Aug 25, 2018, 6:26 PM UTC

TheKarateKid wrote: post #467

Cyph0n wrote: post #429

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a pressure sensor, but an induction loop. Basically, there is a coil placed on the road that has a small AC current passed through it. When a car (metal) sits on top of the coil, the two "coils" couple, changing the overall inductance. A simple sensor can detect this change.

The current is even able to pass through the tires?

No, the current passes through the coil, and the coil has no physical contact with the vehicle.

Look up inductive coupling. The basic idea is that a changing (AC) current in a conductor generates a changing magnetic field (Ampere's law). This changing magnetic field then induces a voltage in the second conductor (Faraday's law). This is the principle behind how transformers work.

Re: Former Tesla Firmware Engineer Discusses the System

#546

Post by saghm » Sat, Aug 25, 2018, 6:29 PM UTC

bradleyjg wrote: post #450

ryandrake wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Does paying peanuts here mean—not very top of market? Or?

I think it's the converse of the idiom "working for peanuts", which means to make a relatively small salary (see https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/work+for+peanuts)

Re: Former Tesla Firmware Engineer Discusses the System

#547

Post by mmt » Sat, Aug 25, 2018, 6:54 PM UTC

malkia wrote: post #410

user5994461 wrote: post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Monkeys have no salary and no rights. It's more scalable and easier to manage than regular employees. Get a lot of monkeys and put them at work. They will produce something. Better have something than have nothing.

That's a bit like trying to use Apple ][ machines for cloud business.

Although your simile is reductio ad absurdum, a version of this idea does, occasionally get surfaced, in the form of using (modern) small, lower-power processors (e.g. Atom, mobile ARM) in very large numbers in the datacenter.

While touting the purchase cost or energy benefits, these ideas routinely ignore the overhead cost inherent in a distributed system, let alone the Fallacies [1], which is the GP's and OC's (and possibly your) point, I believe.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacies_of_distributed_compu...

Re: Former Tesla Firmware Engineer Discusses the System

#548

Post by badpun » Sat, Aug 25, 2018, 7:02 PM UTC

marssaxman wrote: post #325

illumin8 wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your post conveniently ignores the fact that over the last 20 years cars and trucks have become physical delivery vehicles for software. In fact, the complexity of the software running in any manufacturer's modern car dwarfs the complexity of the hardware in the car itself. So, if you have a car manufactured any time in the last 25 years, you're running software that hasn't likely been patched in years, has a ton of…

This is why I do not have a car that was manufactured any time in the last 25 years. You can't trust software, and you definitely can't trust software developers.

If you can't trust software, then how do you handle money? Cash only? No online purchases?

Re: Former Tesla Firmware Engineer Discusses the System

#549

Post by carlivar » Sat, Aug 25, 2018, 7:04 PM UTC

MPSimmons wrote: post #466

carlivar wrote: post #455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When was it cool?

When NT4's kernel was released and Linux was on 2.2, there was a good reason to choose Windows for stability - or at least, there were trade-offs that were acceptable up to Windows 2000. After that, it became a battle for libraries. If you're using C# or other dotNet, then you're on Windows (or Mono?!?), otherwise your platform is Linux. Both are reasonably capable of high service uptimes and solid performance. With…

The thing that made NT4 still "super uncool" for me was needing to reboot when the IP address changed.

Back at that time of NT4 & Linux 2.2, I'd argue Solaris was the best option.

Re: Former Tesla Firmware Engineer Discusses the System

#550

Post by bradleyjg » Sat, Aug 25, 2018, 7:26 PM UTC

saghm wrote: post #546

bradleyjg wrote: post #450

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does paying peanuts here mean—not very top of market? Or?

I think it's the converse of the idiom "working for peanuts", which means to make a relatively small salary (see https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/work+for+peanuts )

Yes, but I don’t think that’s accurate in this case. Unless the “relatively” part is crafted to be an unreasonably narrow comparison group.