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Waymo in Portland

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Re: Waymo in Portland

#231

Post by blks »

jrflowers wrote: post #185
starkparker wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And in August, the bus line that serves my neighborhood completely goes away, and the next closest bus line with stops 2 miles away will end weekday service after 6:30 p.m. and weekend service altogether. I don't give a fuck if it's free, if it's inaccessible. I'm not crossing SE Foster on a rainy evening to catch a bus that won't take me home afterward.

I see. You meant that Waymo showed up with a solution for you, specifically, not the city or the neighborhood that you live in.

Specifically for him being probably highly paid IT specialist that can afford daily commute on a taxi.

Re: Waymo in Portland

#232

Post by spankalee »

fsckboy wrote: post #225
tjwebbnorfolk wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Employers and employees split payroll taxes 50/50 by law. You definitely pay payroll taxes as an employee in the US. If you are self-employed, you have to manually pay the tax because there's no employer wage to automatically deduct from. A quick search could have resolved your confusion before commenting nonsense.

ah, good correction, that's why the self employed hate them, they have to pay both halves. the main reason for the distaste is that self-employed people generally fall in the class of people who do a better job preparing for retirement, and the govt old age/retirement systems are not intelligently run, it's more like "money under the bed" that gets raided to pay the current generation of old people rather than being…

No. The reason that self-employed don't like payroll tax is that they have to pay both sides of it, so it seems like more than they paid as employees.

Re: Waymo in Portland

#233

Post by dyauspitr »

Silamoth wrote: post #62
boc wrote: post #4

I've determined that my ultimate dream car would be something like a Rivian but with Waymo tech, so I can drive it manually when I want/need (snowstorms, off-road), but I can also let it drive me across the country at night while I camp in the back. Would absolutely change the way we move across the US, especially if you have hobbies that involve a lot of gear and equipment.

At least 80% of what you’re describing would be satisfied by trains and buses. It’s wild that Americans are so obsessed with self-driving cars while ignoring public transit that solves most of the problems. It’s reliable, more efficient, better for the environment, and less stressful for you. I’m not saying cars shouldn’t ever exist. The ‘last mile problem’ is a thing, and proper self-driving cars could be good for p…

Enough with this public transport bullshit. We live in very spread out suburbs where you need to drive to everything and everyone has big backyards because we like it that way. Most people here don’t want to live in a tiny coop sharing walls with neighbors on all sides and live the vast majority of our lives in a 15 min public transport bubble. Further, having a train line is borderline not feasible the way the vast majority of the US lives. There is no way having a train station with even a 30 minute walking distance is feasible or even desirable. I also don’t want to get into public transport with a whole bunch of other people no matter how nice it is. It’s not going to be able to compete with a self driving EV of my own that I charge with my solar panels for free.

That being said I’m in full support of metros for large cities and high speed rail between major cities but it’s hard to beat a domestic airline you can show up for an hour before it leaves at an airport and gets you there 10x faster for anything other than the shortest trips.

Re: Waymo in Portland

#234

Post by cucumber3732842 »

SR2Z wrote: post #71
radiorental wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its not always about speed, This winter I was on interstate 93 in a 4WD with winter tyres. I was doing 25-35mph because the roads weren't treated. I still spun out, like many others. The road was an ice rink. Humans and Control System Models need feedback to operate, and worse still... when any input into the vehicle's controls produce zero results, you will spin out. My concern with a model in these conditions is th…

When it comes to controlling the wheels to prevent sliding and slipping, the AV control system is unbeatable. The ABS and traction control on a regular car has to cope with whatever control inputs the driver has made; on an AV, the computer models the grip limits of the wheel and plans a trajectory to not exceed them. It's not just for snow but also for changing pavement surfaces and the rain. The main limitation is…

This is the "works in a textbook" take.

Being able to plot a series of inputs that can more efficiently use available traction than a human doesn't prevent you from blundering your way into a dumb situation where the laws of physics dictate that the only possible outcomes are various flavors of bad ones.

It's not clear how often the software will chose poorly and need to brute force its way out with traction/handling. The fact that they seem to be hedging against this by putting the hardware on particularly performant cars indicates it must happen enough to matter or be rare but bad enough to matter when it does happen.

Waymo will probably also rack up a ton of technically not at fault accidents by being obtuse in traffic since there's when there's snow there's a lot less margin for the "two people trying to pass each other in a hallway" type missteps that behavior tends to create.

Re: Waymo in Portland

#235

Post by Barbing »

cucumber3732842 wrote: post #207
whatgoodisaroad wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

once we've refactored humans out of driving, the speed limits can go way up

I don't think so. Engineers design a road for 55. Police say make it 40 for $$ and pretext. Public says make it 60. Karen says make it 30. Politician says they don't care as long as Karen stops screeching, the public doesn't hate them and the police doesn't hate them. End result ->45 Refactoring the humans out would only change a couple of the less influential inputs to that equation. It might actually make it way wo…

Might increase as trust grows.

Can’t stop until cross traffic can simultaneously use intersections all at 100 miles an hour with inches to spare

Re: Waymo in Portland

#236

Post by saalweachter »

rootusrootus wrote: post #199
mmooss wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Busses take multiple times as long for the same trip compared to a car. Buses can be slower, but I don't even know of a 2x difference. For longer trips they can travel 24/7. And overall they are more efficient because you can do other things instead of driving. > This doesnt even get into the anti-social behavior present on both I don't have a problem on buses and trains. I have more problem with other drivers when…

> For longer trips they can travel 24/7 That sounds like hell. Bus seats are just as tight as coach class airline seats, and unlike trains there isn't even an option to pay exorbitant pricing for a sleeper compartment.

Napaway briefly offered ticketed intercity service on busses with 18 sleeper pods, but has (temporarily) discontinued it in favor of focusing on charter service.

Re: Waymo in Portland

#237

Post by bdangubic »

spankalee wrote: post #232
fsckboy wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ah, good correction, that's why the self employed hate them, they have to pay both halves. the main reason for the distaste is that self-employed people generally fall in the class of people who do a better job preparing for retirement, and the govt old age/retirement systems are not intelligently run, it's more like "money under the bed" that gets raided to pay the current generation of old people rather than being…

No. The reason that self-employed don't like payroll tax is that they have to pay both sides of it, so it seems like more than they paid as employees.

I am self-employed and have been since 2007-ish and while paying "both sides" is the downside, there are soooooo many upsides to being self-employed (especially since the Trump tax sh#t has been enacted and especially if you are setup as S-Corp) that I seriously* do not mind paying both sides at all.*

Re: Waymo in Portland

#238

Post by cucumber3732842 »

Barbing wrote: post #235
cucumber3732842 wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think so. Engineers design a road for 55. Police say make it 40 for $$ and pretext. Public says make it 60. Karen says make it 30. Politician says they don't care as long as Karen stops screeching, the public doesn't hate them and the police doesn't hate them. End result ->45 Refactoring the humans out would only change a couple of the less influential inputs to that equation. It might actually make it way wo…

Might increase as trust grows. Can’t stop until cross traffic can simultaneously use intersections all at 100 miles an hour with inches to spare

>Can’t stop until cross traffic can simultaneously use intersections all at 100 miles an hour with inches to spare

Heck I'd just be happy with banked curves.

Re: Waymo in Portland

#239

Post by loeg »

blks wrote: post #228
starkparker wrote: post #127

For context, this is coming in as TriMet is laying off staff, reducing service frequency, eliminating bus lines, and cutting parts of light rail routes due to a $300M budget shortfall. The cuts were exacerbated by state Republicans getting a proposed payroll tax repeal onto the ballot next month; TriMet relies heavily on payroll taxes that are deeply unpopular among the self-employed and small business owners, so the…

Waymo is an expensive taxi service, not a solution to public transport.

At the margin, it substitutes for some trips.

Re: Waymo in Portland

#240

Post by NoGravitas »

Silamoth wrote: post #62
boc wrote: post #4

I've determined that my ultimate dream car would be something like a Rivian but with Waymo tech, so I can drive it manually when I want/need (snowstorms, off-road), but I can also let it drive me across the country at night while I camp in the back. Would absolutely change the way we move across the US, especially if you have hobbies that involve a lot of gear and equipment.

At least 80% of what you’re describing would be satisfied by trains and buses. It’s wild that Americans are so obsessed with self-driving cars while ignoring public transit that solves most of the problems. It’s reliable, more efficient, better for the environment, and less stressful for you. I’m not saying cars shouldn’t ever exist. The ‘last mile problem’ is a thing, and proper self-driving cars could be good for p…

I fucking love trains.
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