Drivin' Online

There's been a lot of talk about self-driving cars. This week a study prophesied that in twenty years, most cars will come without a strong wheel or pedals.

I find that hard to believe. Self-driving had become a promising technology, advancing a lot in just the last decade.  So I'm sure it will be possible.  And a car that can take over for you would be very useful. But the study isn't claiming it will be possible, or even common, but that most people will be content with it as the only option.

It's easy to get carried away with predictions of technological progress. For instance, digital cameras have gone from unheard of to dominant in the past twenty years. But there are also examples of technology being slower to catch on; over the same twenty years, online shopping has gone from unheard of to common but not standard.

People tend to overestimate change involving technology, because of those situations where the change is so fast. A that any change involving technology will be as fast. But fast changes happen when:

• The advantages of the new way are complete and undeniable.
• There's no emotional connection to the old way.

I doubt self driving cars will be the only way because:

Lives are involved

It sounds nice to talk about self driving cars, but we still have to see how the public reacts to a fatal accident involving one of the cars. Even if we get to the point where self-driving cars are safer overall, they won't be perfect, and the thought of dying because of a bad decision by a machine you have no control over will be a powerful one.

Regulations are involved

There are a huge number of regulations involving cars. It's because - as stated above - lives are involved. The regulations-are-evil-job-killers crowd is surprisingly accepting of auto industry rules, since they have made cars dramatically safer over the years. So a major alteration to how cars work and are used will not be a matter of just making a new car and putting it on the road.

Companies will fight it

Often, fast technological change comes when new companies build around new technology overtake old companies with old technology. But that’s not likely here. To start a new car company, you need huge manufacturing facilities all over the world, and develop relationships with an army of parts suppliers.
And (relating to the previous two points) there’s a much higher bar when it comes to quality. Tech startups benefit from our low expectations of new developments. Or, to put it another way, look down at your Android phone and ask, would you buy a car from these people?

And the existing car companies aren’t going to want to build self-drive-only cars; taking away the driving aspect takes away a big differentiator between makes and models. A no-steering-wheel car is just an appliance, and is reduced to a commodity.

Fill 'er Up, Karl

The city of Somerset, Kentucky has combated high gas prices by setting up their own city-owned gas station, and selling their gas at lower prices. Of course, this has led to accusations of socialism.

That's pretty amazing, because for once, they're right. It is socialism. It's actually pretty rare these days that people even call political ideas by the correct putdowns.

I find that frustrating. Given the amount of anger the American right has at all things perceived as socialist, you would think that anything as Marxist as a communal gas supply would get a person run out of town for merely suggesting it. Yet, here they are putting that in practice in a bright-red state.

And it's not just the right. Whenever the price of gas gets high, you can count on the NDP asking for action, such as the government lowering its gas taxes. Never mind the effect on government coffers or the environment.

So what is it about gasoline that makes people abandon their usual beliefs?  It's an illustration that much of our political bickering is not based on ideology, it's people fighting for their self interests.  When large numbers of people have interests in common, it may look like they're fighting for the ideas that unite them.  But with a widely-relied-upon product like oil, people's personal needs are great enough to make them drop any high-minded ideals.

The Tragedy Of The (House Of) Commons

After the recent Ontario election, I wrote about the calls for election reform, in particular the problems with the First-Past-The-Post system choosing candidates that don't truly reflect the desires of the voters.  Author Cory Doctorow has proposed an interesting idea for getting around these problems without changing any laws.

The idea is to get people to agree to vote for third-party candidates the same way they agree to fund things on Kickstarter.  You sign up and agree to vote for the candidate, but only if a certain number of other voters also sign up.  If that minimum number is reached, each of those voters gets an e-mail letting them know.  Thus, they can vote for the candidate knowing that they have the amount of support that can make a difference.  If the support level isn't reached, then the few people who have signed up will know that this candidate doesn't really have a chance, and voting for them would be throwing their vote away.

It sounds like it could work.  Though there is quite an opportunity for fraud: you could have vote promises made by people from outside the district that's voting, or multiple one person signing-up several times.  A fringe party could inflate their vote promises, thus making them look more popular.  And even if you had some way of identifying people when they sign-in so that you could be sure that they are real people who live in the proper area, there's still a problem: one of the main parties could have their supporters promise to vote for a minor party at the other end of the political spectrum.  For instance, Liberal supporters could claim to support the Christian Heritage Party, making them seem more popular than they are.  That way, Conservatives would vote for the CHP, wrongly thinking they have the support to win.

But the bigger problem would be getting it big enough to provide voters with an accurate view of fringe party popularity.  For one thing, your pool of potential users is people who both vote and keep up with the latest things on the Internet.  I can't be bothered to draw out the Venn Diagram of that, but I think you can imagine that it's not the biggest group to draw your customers from.  The other problem is just trying to explain what you're trying to do.  A lot of people won't get it.  Not you. You're smart; you read my blog.  I even assumed that you know what a Venn Diagram is.  Or know how to use Wikipedia.

In spite of the difficulties, I'd be willing to use one of these services.  That is, of course, assuming that users' privacy and security are respected.  As I observed before, our voting system isn't likely to change any time soon, so we need to look for alternatives.

Things the Teenage Me Would Never Have Believed About Life In The Future, #16

Which eighties musician is having the greatest success in 2014?  Weird Al Yankovic.

Uncommon Wealth

It's time for the Commonwealth Games again!  The Commonwealth Games are in that second tier of international sporting events.  In the first tier, you've got your Summer and Winter Olympics, and the World Cup.  Then in the second tier you've got your continental games like the Pan Am Games and a few types of Youth and University Games, the Gay Games (in Cleveland this year?) and so on.

The Commonwealth Games are pleasant enough; who doesn't like an excuse for international sports, especially if it's going to be less pushy than the Olympics.  But then you stop and think about what it is: A pleasant sports event open to places that have nothing in common other than being colonized by the same country. 

I can understand the existence of the Commonwealth: these countries do end up with some political and cultural commonalities.  It's just hard to believe we celebrate this history.  Well, we in Canada would; we love any excuse to revel in our British origins.  But India?  Didn't they go through a lot to get rid of British rule?  Why don't we just invite the Americans while we're at it?

The Games are a great example of the weird way we look at Britain in the world today.  There are plenty of countries that still have resentment and anger at them, and with good reason.  And at the same time, the British have achieved a reputation for being calm and civilized.  It's hard to imagine any other former empire having a sports event ("Former Subjects Of The Mongol Hordes Games.")  So the British really know how to craft an imperial legacy - Americans, take note.

Please Pay Me Before Reading This

Today I tried to buy gas. I lifted the nozzle, put it in the car, and then I waited for the screen on the pump to tell me to select the gasoline grade. I know that may sound submissive, but in the past when I do things out of order or before the pump expects it, it freaks out.

This time, it seemed to take forever to ask for the grade. I was starting to wonder if something was wrong, when I heard the attendant from the office saying something about Pump 4. I realized with a sort of horror that it was my pump. I pressed the button on the intercom and asked her to repeat herself, but it was useless trying to communicate over the din of the traffic on the subway-P.A.-quality speakers. So I headed to the office, in front of all the other motorists, like a kid called to the principal's office.

She explained that it's a pre-pay pump; you have to pay before getting the gas. Since I had declined to pay-at-the-pump with a credit card, I had to pay in the office first.

I'd seen some gas stations institute that rule, but it was usually only at night. I'm guessing they were doing it here because the recent spike in gas prices had lead to more people driving off without paying.

So I paid - thanks to her promoting me to guess how much I'd want - and returned to actually pump my newly-purchased gas. Of course, I want to check and see if there was some indication on the pump telling me about their new policy, a notice I had somehow missed. Sure enough, there was a sign on top of the pump explaining how little they trust us, in the friendliest way possible.

It was a bit embarrassing. But I feel a little justified in missing it for a few reasons:

• That's above most people's eye-level.
• It's nowhere near the screen, or anything else a customer is likely to look at.
• Honestly, when has anything important been placed on top of a gas pump?

But especially the last one: I'm sure I noticed the sign, but unconsciously ignored it. Usually any sign up there is just an invitation to get their points card, this month's special on antifreeze, or an explanation of why the high gas prices are really the government's fault.

So now I'm worried: what other important things have I missed because they were in some place I've learned to ignore? You know, pizza flyers, phone vendors at the mall, downtown lampposts, the Weather Network.  The secret to happiness could be right under our noses, but we miss it, because they printed it on the public washroom hand-dryer instructions.  Now I'm going to pay attention to everything, even if it takes me twice as long to do everything.

Here's A Tip

Business is obsessed with growth.  Making money isn't enough: you have to make more money than last year.  That's unfortunate, since there are many products that are popular and profitable, but aren't successful, because they just bring in the same revenue year after year.  And that leads to bizarre improvements, as they desperately try to make a satisfactory product better.

Today's exhibit is Q-Tips.  It's likely a good money maker: lots of people use them, they don't have any competition other than generics, and they can't cost much to make.  But that's boring, so let's make them better:

Now, they're not your parents' Q-Tips.  Now they have precision tips.  No more accidentally missing your ears with those huge blunt swabs.  Of course, doctors - who tell us not to put them in our ears - will be pretty horrified by that.

And you have to love the shiny point.  They're so pointy, even cotton will glint in the sunlight.