Here’s a heart-warming (no pun intended) rescue story from a ship en route (Durban to Djibouti) on the Indian Ocean.
…urgent request for aid Saturday on behalf of U.K. mariner Kevin Nixon, who was experiencing symptoms of a heart attack while onboard U.S. cargo ship Liberty Grace.
Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa then deployed the five Air Force PJs aboard MV-22B Ospreys to rappel down to the ship and stabilize the patient.
Because the ship was 500 nautical miles east of Kenya in the Indian Ocean, a Marine Corps KC-130 tanker also had to provide aerial refueling for the Ospreys…
Quite a change since the 1980 Operation Eagle Claw outcome, foundational to the Osprey development and this rapid deployment force model from the Horn of Africa.
An incredibly expensive electric car ($500-600K) has this to say about its simulation features:
Totem claims that using gaming algorithms and internal combustion engine calibration, it can make engine torque, gear ratios, power band, engine brake, and sound and vibration sound “realistic and customizable.” Even the gear lever can be made to have a conventional shifter’s mechanical feeling. Engine sounds are customizable as well.
Yuck. This reads to me like an electric carriage can be made to smell like it’s being pulled by animals. At some point people have to give up all the horseshit and move on.
In ancient Rome, Julius Caesar banned horse-drawn carriages due to gridlock and pollution. In New York City, though, that seemed implausible — horses were just too essential for urban transportation and shipping.
Things being too essential shouldn’t mean people are allowed to do the wrong things when those things no longer are essential, right? I guess someone would have to define what is wrong with things like engine sound.
Maybe for some this is yet another moment to celebrate technology holding on to distinct obvious smell and noise pollution of horse power. I still say yuck.
To be fair many years ago I spoke with nautical engineers about making a giant empty carbon fiber box with a tiny electric trolling engine that looked just like a $500K cigar boat with jet engines. Then I would slowly float and gurgle it along the Intracoastal Waterway with big speakers that made it sound real. True story. And we never built one but obviously there’s a market.
Sand is a fluid such that driving on it can be hard (pun not intended) even for humans.
It’s like driving on snow or mud, yet it seems to be far less well studied by car manufacturers because of how infrequent it may be for their customer base.
Source: Simulator Game Mods “Summer Forest”. Snow and mud computer driving virtual environments can easily be found, yet sand simulations are notably absent.
Traction control, for example, is a product designed for “slippery” conditions. That usually means winter conditions, or rain on pavement, where brakes are applied by an “intelligent” algorithm detecting wheel spin.
In sand there is always going to be some manner of wheel spin, causing a computer to go crazy and do the opposite of help. Applying brakes, let alone repeatedly, is about the worst thing you can do in sand.
On top of that the computer regulation of tire pressure sensors has no concept of “float” profile required for sand. When the usual algorithm equates around 40psi to safe driving, deflating to a necessary 18psi can turn a dashboard into a disco ball.
The problem is product manufacturers treat core safety competencies as nice to have features, instead of required. And by the time they get around to developing core competencies for safety, they over-specialize and market them into expensive festishized “Rubicon” and “Racing Design” options (let alone “WordPress“).
In other words core complex or dangerous scenarios must be learned for any primary path to be safe, yet they often get put onto a backlog for driverless. Such a low bar of competency means driverless technology is far, far below even basic human skill.
Imagine it like exception handling cases or negative testing being seen as unnecessary because driverless cars are expected only to operate in the most perfect world. In other words why even install brakes or suspension if traveling parallel to all other traffic at same rate of speed, like a giant herd? Or an even better example, why design brakes for a car if the vast majority of time people don’t have to deal with a stop sign?
Recently I put a new car with the latest driverless technology to the test with dry sand. I was not surprised when it became very easily confused and stuck, and it reminded me of the poem “Dans l’interminable” by Paul Verlaine (1844 – 1896).
Dans l’interminable
Ennui de la plaine,
La neige incertaine
Luit comme du sable.
Le ciel est de cuivre
Sans lueur aucune.
On croirait voir vivre
Et mourir la lune.
Comme des nuées
Flottent gris les chênes
Des forêts prochaines
Parmi les buées.
Le ciel est de cuivre
Sans lueur aucune.
On croirait vivre
Et mourir la lune.
Corneilles poussives,
Et vous, les loups maigres,
Par ces bises aigres
Quoi donc vous arrive?
Dans l’interminable
Ennui de la plaine
La neige incertaine
Luit comme du sable…
the truck transmission whined in protest, the computer gave up. then, bailing away soft flowing sand from our door sills, shovel burning my hands even under a cool moonless starry night… something was truly exhilarating about digging out.
this machine would never understand. sat quietly and waited for rescue by a tool thousands of years old.
in a way, hacking machines is like driving off-road so far that you’ll maybe never make it out again. and that’s why to do it. humans are driven by curiosity, machines are driven by humans.
a blog about the poetry of information security, since 1995
