I’m sitting here reading these comments as the low-end Dell laptop I just picked up for software testing is booting up and updating Windows. For logistic reasons, had to pick one up today, so had the pleasure of dealing with Best Buy sales staff 🙄

From powering it up, it’s been 1.5 hours with updates and multiple restarts. Half of it was spent showing a progress indicator with a carousel slideshow of all the great AI tools I have no interest in using. Then it insisted on signing in with a Microsoft cloud account.

It’s been eons since I actually ran a fresh copy of Windows. Amazed people still put up with all this nonsense.

Tney handed out ChatGPT accounts to all California State University students and actively encouraged them to use it.

Surely NOBODY would imagine students would use it to cheat?

If you assume Level 5 autonomy exists, you don’t really need ANY control surface inside the car. Those just become useless artifacts. Steering wheels, gear shifters, gas/brake pedals, turn-signals, or rear-view mirrors.

Really, even map apps. Those just convert to glorified ToDo apps, where you say where you need to be at what time and the AV figures out how to get you there. Showing your position on a map is just more of a curiosity, like the airplane in-flight scenes, giving you a rough sense of place and calmly reassuring you that you are on your way (instead of, say, plunging into the sea).

You don’t really need car windows either. Could be replaced with screens that show idealized imagescapes to enhance the transportation experience, or a movie.

Not requiring brake pedals is just the first logical step, if you want to let a machine drive you.

For those who actually enjoy the driving experience, AVs are stupid wastes of effort and tech.

May want to consider setting up a private, on-prem system. That way, you can reliably enforce privacy/GDPR rules. You can also tweak the system to support local training, RAG, MCPs, etc.

This way, the costs can also be controlled. It’s some capital investment in local hardware, plus reasonably fixed power/cooling/maintenaance ongoing expenses.

Another way is to use the major AI services for planning/brainstorming specific features, tell it not to implement or touch anything, but to generate a detailed plan for an implementer LLM. Review that plan manually, and when ready, feed it to your local system for implementation and debugging.

This doesn’t work if the goal is one-shot vibe-coding. But it works really well for focused feature enhancements, test coverage, and bugfixing.

Found vLLM to be the most efficient local runtime service. And “ray” as a good (but complicated) way to distribute the load: https://docs.ray.io/

A few jobs ago, people tried doing this the high-tech way, for a regulated banking service.

Hilarious, seeing all the creative workarounds.

Local coding LLMs are going to be the hot new commodity this year.

LAST WORDS

“I was never a SaaS. I was just Marty.”

Saw an ad last week for a startup pitching ‘Let AI in your bank.’

Basically, letting Clawed or other automated agents direct access to your bank account. Tie that to an automated travel agent and let it fly. Don’t remember their name, and if I did, wouldn’t want it spreading to ruin someone’s life.

Basically, the cryptobro/YOLO crowd, handed unexploded ordnance.

Been six days since the new Siri announcement. Still on the waiting list. Will reserve judgment until we actually get access.

Excellent way to encourage responsible disclosure.

/s

There are so many more worthwhile startup projects you can pour $12B into.

Given how connected these cars are, I bet there’s telemetry being collected on the state of that latch and how often the door is actually opened once the vehicle is stopped.

Another option is to put a weight in the driver’s seat. But if vehicle is stopped, the door is open, AND there is weight in seat, they’ll probably be able to tell. Plus, there are cameras pointed at the drivers.

One way is to have the vehicle turn on the AC remotely, BEFORE the driver enters the van. They have cameras on all sides and can check for that. Or through their phone and proximity sensing. This way, AC is off when nobody is inside, it conserves battery, and makes it still cool when driver steps inside.

Using a wire continuity tester, and hearing that sweet beep.

Time for the Universal Life Church to step in.

As an ordained minister (and fully-paid Saint), would highly approve.

Sudoku’s origin story.

They’re trying to low-key, sneak in VBscript and XAML.

Laws of unintended consequence. Getting snake and mongoose vibes from this.

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/science/in-1979-japan-released-mongooses-onto-an-island-to-kill-venomous-snakes-but-unexpected-consequences-followed/articleshow/131500541.cms

People wanting to also center it vertically is what broke the web.