Re: Ping anim

On Wed, 10 Apr 2024 21:22:56 -0400, Rhino
<no_offline_contact@example.com> wrote:

On Wed, 10 Apr 2024 10:05:25 -0700
anim8rfsk <anim8rfsk@cox.net> wrote:
>

Rhino <no_offline_contact@example.com> wrote:

One of my friends just shared a video with me touting the features
of the latest Tesla FSD (Full Self Driving) software and I was
surprised to find that it was made in Scottsdale. It's essentially
the first video footage I've seen of the place.
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WX4kekZ2Fps [25 minutes]
 
I've always found it interesting to see places I've never been. They
always seem to look different than whatever I've anticipated. This
is no exception. I suppose I was expecting more sandy desert and
cactus and fewer boulders and scrub grass and palm trees ;-)
 
Anyway, anyone curious to see what the area looks like might find
this an interesting video. 
 

 
Thanks for the post. I found it an interesting watch.

>
That's a bit surprising; I thought you'd find it boring because all of
that is so familiar to you ;-)

 
It does confuse me on several points.
 
The bashes he went to (supermarket) isn’t even in Scottsdale. It’s
about 15 miles to the south in another city. Bashes supermarkets are
all over the place. There are literally half a dozen between the one
he went to and his friends house so I have no idea why he did that.
 

More of a driving challenge for the car??
>

The cheesesteak place he went to, I’ve never heard of, but it’s very
near my old office, and only a couple miles from where I live.
 

Now you'll have to give it a try ;-)
>

Most of what you see in the video are freeways, industrial areas,
shopping centers. That is what those things look like but if you
drove around through neighborhoods people live in, you would see a
lot more lawns and greenery. Traditionally people move here from back
east to get away from their allergies and bring with them everything
they were allergic to.
>

Green lawns would be nice but, as you say, he doesn't spend much time
in the 'burbs.
>
What things are people bringing with them that reinforce their
allergies? Are we talking about bringing cats if they're allergic to
them, that kind of thing?

All sorts of plants and flowers and grass. Things that have ended up
giving people with grass/pollen allergies running into the same
allergies in Phoenix. This was true back in the 90s so I imagine it is
even worse now.

Yes, palm trees are everywhere! I have had several. They are actually
rogue. They just appear in your yard one day and then decades later
are 50 feet tall. I have had several removed because they were too
close to the house and were going to take the roof right off as they
pushed on the eaves from below.
 

The thing that most surprised me when I saw palm trees in California is
how very dry they seemed. I'm not sure how to describe it better than
that. I suppose I think of them as a jungle tree and that jungles get a
lot of rain so why do these trees seem so dry?

They should be dry on the outside so as to keep the water inside the
protective outside.

Several of his comments on the Tesla perplexed me. They’ve been
trying to sell me one for years and years (whenever I used to go to
fashion Square mall, I would visit the dealership that Jake Paul
destroyed) and one of the selling points several years ago was that
the self driving version would in fact park itself. You are supposed
to be able to have it drop you off at the restaurants front door,
find itself a parking space, And when you’re done, it will come and
get you. Apparently they never implemented or have removed this
feature.
>

No, it's not gone. In fact, it's become a basic feature. Or so says the
friend who sent me the link. He has a Tesla and I asked him that same
question: the video implied that the car couldn't park itself but I
thought that was a common feature. His reply was:
>
=======================================================================
Yes it does autopark, just not within FSD [Full Self Driving package,
the feature/software that is being highlighted in the video.]  This is
part of the basic level. My enhanced autopilot option includes "smart
summon" which, based on a button in my tesla app on my phone, will pull
out of where it is parked and come to pick me up wherever I'm standing,
driving by itself through the parking lot.  Not on streets though. Elon
has said that this will all be consolidated and include "banish" which
will tell your car to go park itself too.

So it's all part of Elon's plan to nickel and dime people who buy a
Tesla.

========================================================================

Unlike him, I can think of lots of reasons for self driving cars, the
first being that most people are too useless to be driving!
 

Amen to that!
>

We have Waymo completely autonomous vehicles here. Recently one was
bringing me groceries or something and I watched on the tracking
software map as it tried to find my house for 20 minutes driving
right by it several times. If I had been a passenger in there, I
would’ve been frantic by the time it found the place.
 

Yeah, I could imagine being a passenger in a car trying to find a place
that it was right in front of but that it apparently couldn't "see".
I'd be looking for some kind of "abort" button to take it out
of automatic mode or some kind of "just drop me here" button.
>
Apparently, the Tesla equivalent, the "robotaxi" is coming out this
summer.

No, it's just Elon saying it will come out this summer. Given his past
predictions covering Tesla features I wouldn't expect to see it till
2026/2027 at the earliest.

I was going to ask you - and the other Americans in this thread - if
you're all starting to see roundabouts in your area the last few years?
It's not that long ago that we had essentially none in all of southern
Ontario. Now they seem to be the "go to" choice for lots of situations.
I'm not sure why that happened but it's very common now.  I had
understood that roundabouts are extremely rare in the US too but my
friend is hearing that they are springing up all over in the US now.
There was one in that video so maybe he's correct.

Not around here. Only roundabout I'm familiar with in Georgia was in
Thomaston. Which has been in place for decades in the town center.