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The origins of ‘horn ok please,’ India’s most ubiquitous phrase (2016)

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Re: The origins of ‘horn ok please,’ India’s most ubiquitous phrase (2016)

#371

Post by wcunning »

kube-system wrote: post #281
wcunning wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a huge problem here in Michigan, too. Many cars come with automatic headlights, but many do not, particularly of a certain age, and the LED DRLs seem to be bright enough that people do not realize that they don't have their full lights on. I find this particularly infuriating in ugly snowstorms and the part of the year where the sun sets before 5:00pm... sigh

My theory is that these cars have multiple drivers. Driver A is used to vehicles with manual headlights and always turns their lights off when they get out. Driver B is used to "everything is automatic" and touches nothing when they get in.

This is very possible -- I had this exact situation with my girlfriend until I managed to get her used to leaving it in automatic mode.

Re: The origins of ‘horn ok please,’ India’s most ubiquitous phrase (2016)

#372

Post by sdfjkl »

silon42 wrote: post #156
sdfjkl wrote: post #85

Different cultures have different unwritten behaviours on roads. In the mountains of Italy, drivers give a short honk before entering a turn on a serpentine road, which usually can't be seen around. If there is no responding honk, they will take the full width of the road (making the very tight turn easier and faster). Tourist drivers have to pick up on this :) In much of Europe oncoming cars flash their lights to wa…

They must not have cyclists in Italy... I drive on a twisty road like that often, and I'd collect a cyclist every month if I did that.

They do, but having tried it, I wouldn't recommend it. If the cars don't get you, the stray dogs probably will. But don't worry, your bike will probably get stolen before either becomes a problem :-P

Okay, that experience (dogs, theft and dead cyclists) was actually in Sicily, not north Italy, which is very different in many ways, except for the driving.

Re: The origins of ‘horn ok please,’ India’s most ubiquitous phrase (2016)

#373

Post by imbnwa »

pitspotter2 wrote: post #231
missedthecue wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's like a group sonar.

I wonder what are the implications for the automated cars.

My intuition suggests it would make a lot of things easier as you can figure out a lot of geometry with a prominent sound like a car horn but with visual analysis you have to extract signal from way more noise. I'm not a ML engineer though at all, nor even well-read in these topics

Re: The origins of ‘horn ok please,’ India’s most ubiquitous phrase (2016)

#374

Post by idiotsecant »

nawgz wrote: post #353
idiotsecant wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It is crazy to get into my partner's mid-2010s sedan and laugh at how bad the lights are at nighttime compared to the perfectly aimed and calibrated Subaru lights On the other hand, that mid 2010s sedan's headlight system will age gracefully - there are no aiming servos to fail or autodim relay output to stop working or such thing. It's just lights with a switch to turn them on or off. Increased complexity also impl…

I would find it hard to believe that the failure mode of these headlights wouldn't be "points straight and doesn't auto-dim ever", which reduces it to the previous implementation's graceful aging modes, but you are right a new possibility is introduced.

I would absolutely believe the failure mode will be that one headlight will stop moving when it's commanded to, which best case means straight headlight, worst case means aimed where it shouldn't be 99% of the time

Re: The origins of ‘horn ok please,’ India’s most ubiquitous phrase (2016)

#375

Post by nawgz »

kube-system wrote: post #360
nawgz wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The annoying thing about that design is, if I want to turn my high beams on manually, and the car decides that a street light in the distance is a vehicle, it will ignore my request to turn on my high beams when I push the stick forward. I then also have to set my primary headlights to manual mode in order to override the car. This requires turning the knob at the end of the stalk which is not backlit and therefore…

> if it did behave incorrectly in this way, I would simply pull the stick back and push it forwards to re-activate high beams In the Toyota that I had, if it thought there was an oncoming car, asking it to do the same thing again wouldn't result in a different outcome. Maybe Subaru's system is tuned better, or maybe my driving conditions are an edge case. Either way, this was just an anecdotal tangent to support my a…

> In the Toyota that I had, if it thought there was an oncoming car, asking it to do the same thing again wouldn't result in a different outcome

Why wouldn't the result of the action the second time be based on exclusively the stick's position and the current state the vehicle is in? Then it is a pure function of time. If they truly mixed up previous states in there, and somehow it's aware that in the history of positions it was at this position and at that time it rejected your request so it will also reject it now, that's braindead and you should phone Toyota and scream at them

My car's headlight's current state is a pure function of time T and position P. That's my mental model and I haven't observed deviations. I will look at these manuals later perhaps to understand if they really argue there are more stateful factors than this

Re: The origins of ‘horn ok please,’ India’s most ubiquitous phrase (2016)

#376

Post by garfieldnate »

sdfjkl wrote: post #85

Different cultures have different unwritten behaviours on roads. In the mountains of Italy, drivers give a short honk before entering a turn on a serpentine road, which usually can't be seen around. If there is no responding honk, they will take the full width of the road (making the very tight turn easier and faster). Tourist drivers have to pick up on this :) In much of Europe oncoming cars flash their lights to wa…

I remember when I first moved to Japan that my friends and I got off of our bikes and moved to the side of the road to let a car pass (it was a very small road). The driver honked as they went by, and the other American and I thought they were being rude. Honking in the US usually means, "get outta the way!" Our Japanese friend corrected us, telling us that two quick honks meant "thank you." I was blown away that such a thing existed!

Re: The origins of ‘horn ok please,’ India’s most ubiquitous phrase (2016)

#377

Post by Firehawke »

Dma54rhs wrote: post #342
Firehawke wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The former is definitely true. There are towns out there in the United States that are on an interstate and play games with their speed limits. You'll see a speed limit of 60-70 up until you hit city limits then it suddenly drops to 30-40, with enforcement lined up at the city limits waiting to nab people. They're making good money off of these fines.

But why wouldn't you want lower speed inside the city?

You normally would, but this is just predation on through traffic. It's not like you're going through the middle of main street, these may be off to the side of town with several exits but close enough for the city to dictate speed limits.

Re: The origins of ‘horn ok please,’ India’s most ubiquitous phrase (2016)

#378

Post by pitspotter2 »

imbnwa wrote: post #373
pitspotter2 wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder what are the implications for the automated cars.

My intuition suggests it would make a lot of things easier as you can figure out a lot of geometry with a prominent sound like a car horn but with visual analysis you have to extract signal from way more noise. I'm not a ML engineer though at all, nor even well-read in these topics

I've heard that submarines can now extract information from ambient ocean noise. Car honkings and traffic noise have got to be at least as useful, for the roads. Would require a microphone array to be added to the car.
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