Energy, History, Sailing, Security

Can Electric Cars Be Made to Smell Like Real Horses?

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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.

History, Security

Sharing Knowledge to Overcome Possible Future Enemies

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Buried in chapter 5.2 of the famous 1945 report to the President (“Science The Endless Frontier”) by Vannevar Bush, under the heading “Security Restrictions Should Be Lifted Promptly”, is this sentence:

Our ability to overcome possible future enemies depends upon scientific advances which will proceed more rapidly with diffusion of knowledge than under a policy of continued restriction of knowledge now in our possession.

A similar sentiment is found in chapter 4.5 under the heading “Remove the Barriers”

Higher education in this country is largely for those who have the means. If those who have the means coincided entirely with those persons who have the talent we should not be squandering a part of our higher education on those undeserving of it, nor neglecting great talent among those who fail to attend college for economic reasons. There are talented individuals in every segment of the population, but with few exceptions those without the means of buying higher education go without it. Here is a tremendous waste of the greatest resource of a nation – the intelligence of its citizens.

If ability, and not the circumstance of family fortune, is made to determine who shall receive higher education in science, then we shall be assured of constantly improving quality at every level of scientific activity.

Ability instead of family fortune, diffusion of knowledge instead of restriction. America clearly was in a different, far more logical, place at the end of WWII.

Security

Most Falsehoods “Tend to Promote Conservative Positions”

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Here’s an odd paragraph from new scientific research:

Results confirm that conservatives have lower sensitivity than liberals, performing worse at distinguishing truths and falsehoods. This is partially explained by the fact that the most widely shared falsehoods tend to promote conservative positions, while corresponding truths typically favor liberals.

Way back in 2008 I wrote here about this exact problem, perhaps as a kind of foreshadowing?

The people calling themselves conservatives seem to have an amazing “hubris”. They not only stick to their guns in the face of science or even just details (like Lehman’s CEO who refused to believe his company was in trouble) but they actually become more convinced they are in the right when evidence starts to challenge them.

Prove to them the world is round and they might just try to burn you at the stake for discrediting their flatland leader.

Update October 2021: “Content Moderation Experiences for Conservative, Transgender, and Black Social Media Users”

For trans and Black social media users, content removals limit their ability to post content related to their marginalized identities, and thus to participate in the public sphere. For conservative participants, on the other hand, content removals often demonstrate enforcement of site policies intended to remove harmful and inaccurate content.