Why can't my car drive itself?

I'm quite serious about this. I know the simple answer is that none of the major automobile companies have found a way to do this cost-effectively. Business Week thinks it's 20 years away. But I think they ought to be getting close by now.

Don't get me wrong. I love driving. I particularly love driving fast on a mostly empty highway. But ever since starting my new job, in which I commute an hour or more each way every working day, I find myself wishing I could do something more productive during that time. Before you say, "take public transit," let me add, "I would if I could." There is no public transit between locations in rural Tennessee.

So I seriously wish that I could tell my car where I want to go (this could be done using GPS navigation systems), then sit back and read or eat breakfast or answer emails while the car drives. Theoretically, all the necessary technologies have been developed. They would just need to be connected in one vehicle.

As I previously stated, GPS navigation systems could know where the car is located, where it is going, and how to get there. They are even sophistocated enough to adjust the route midway along if a problem comes up. We already have cruise-control systems to regulate the speed of the car upward automatically. Surely, GPS navigation systems already include information about speed limits in order to calculate the fastest routes. A car's computer could combine this information with the cruise control feature to automatically keep the car at the posted speed limit for any given stretch of road.

Lexus has created a car that can parallel park itself. In order to do this, the car must be able to control the steering wheel, so a mechanism for the car's computer to control the steering wheel has already been invented.

Lane departure warning systems have been in use on commercial trucks since 2000 and are now available in luxury cars. Put this together with the car's ability to steer by computer, and you get a car that can stay in the lane without any input from the driver at all.

Mercedes has incorporated an automatic braking system to prevent its cars from colliding when the car in front stops. And Toyota has used the same technology to allow the car for stop itself when it approaches a stop sign.

So, technology already exists to control the car's speed, to map destinations, to steer the car, to recognize lanes on the road, and to brake when necessary. If we just put all these features together in one vehicle along with a sophistocated computer and programming to use all the input and control the vehicle, we could all be riding in cars that drive themselves.

Lest you wonder about the safety of all this computer-controlled equipment, recall that airplanes are flown almost entirely by computer, and that flying to your destination is more than 100 times safer than driving there. Over 95% of accidents on highways and in airplanes are caused by human error, not mechanical or electronic problems. Face it, driving is a boring and repetitive task that requires constant concentration to perform safely; it is much better suited to a computer than to a human brain.

So I ask again, why can't I get a car that will drive itself?

I am a ninja!

A Gmail ninja, that is. At least, I already do all the cute

Image via Wikipedia

tricks the Gmail folks posted in the new tips page. I love Gmail. I can do all kinds of cool, time-saving stuff with it that I could never do with my work's email client. But I'll spare you my soapbox rant here.

I'm just happy to have discovered that I am, in fact, a ninja in someone's eyes.

It's not lost. I just don't know where it is

People say a lot of stupid things. On the face of it, the phrases above seem contradictory. But sometimes when you take a deeper look at it, there is a paradox.

In this case, it has to do with the meaning of the word "lost." If you define "lost" as meaning "in an unknown location," then the phrases contradict each other. But more commonly, people use "lost" to mean "irretrievable" or "unable to be found" in the permanent sense. In this case, an object can be "lost" in the sense that the speaker does not know or cannot recall its location, but not "lost" in the sense of being beyond recovery.

I lost my watch. I could not recall where I had left it, but I knew that I had lost it inside my home. So, I could consider it temporarily lost, not permanently lost. If I think of "lost" in the permanent sense, then my watch was not "lost," I just didn't know where it was.

How's your sense of humor?

Mine is strange, or so I am told. Often. By many different people.

I don't laugh at slapstick comedy. Traditional jokes usually fall flat with me. What makes me laugh is the unexpected, the ironic, and the just plain bizarre. The weirder the ideas that are juxtaposed, the funnier it looks to me.

For example, last week my son had to have minor surgery. Before taking him back to the operating room, the anesthesiologist gave him a pretty solid dose of midazolam, which has very potent short-acting alcohol-like effects. Ten minutes after drinking the liquid, my two-year-old was plastered. He was giggling at the ceiling in the asthesiologist's arms because he couldn't hold his head up. To me, this was hilarious. A drunk toddler. You don't see that every day.

Now, mind you, I'm not amused when people are actually harmed. If my son had been drunk on actual alcohol, I would have been horrified and infuriated at whoever had given it to him. The pre-op cocktail incident was funny in part because it was prescribed for him.

Another phenomenon that amuses me is quotes that would sound wrong or bizarre out of context. When I was in college, I kept a piece of paper on the wall where I would write such quotes, and called it "the Random Quote Board." These were not quotes of the stupid things my friends and I would say when drunk. To qualify for the RQB, a quote had to make perfect sense in the context in which it was said, and essentially no other context.

Anywho, the big disadvantage of having a strange sense of humor is that it can be hard to find funny stuff when you want to. If I google "humor," most of what comes up is not funny to me. So, when I do find a website that tickles my funnybone, I make note of it. One of my favorite tricks for a quick laugh is to type something random in Altavista's babelfish website, translate it from English into Russian, from Russian to Japanese, from Japanese to French or Italian, and back into English. Usually what I get back is completely unrecognizable, and for some reason, this amuses the heck out of me. The more idiomatic or colloquial language I enter, the more distant the eventual translation is from the original.

Well, a couple of years ago, I discovered a site that collects examples of this phenomenon in real life: http://www.engrish.com Like any collection, some are funnier than others. But in general, the attempts of commercial enterprise to translate between radically different languages, and the resulting mistakes, can be outrageous. Even funnier is when people buy something that looks cool to them, totally ignorant of the effect, like the Japanese boy wearing a shirt that says "Warning: educated black woman."

Stupidphone

So, I jumped on the smartphone bandwagon about a month ago. Compared to other young professionals, I'm a little slow to adopt new technology, at least if it's expensive. I got my first cell phone in 2003. I got a PDA at the same time, and I have been carrying two separate devices ever since. Until last month.

I got the smartphone because I believe they have finally reached the point of integrating the various communication and productivity tools I use better than I can do manually with two separate devices, and because I thought it would save me enough time to be worth the money invested. So far, I'm not getting much of a return on my investment.

But I'm still optimistic. After all, I expected a learning curve. I still hope that once I know how to use this thing, the ability to check my email instantly, search the web instantly and check my schedule instantly wherever I am will save me time. And if not, hey, at least I look cool!

My favorite salad

I hate dieting. There is so little healthy food that tastes good. But I also hate not fitting in my favorite clothes. Health food sucks, but fat pants suck worse. So I am dieting.

The only way I can stick to a diet is if I find ways to satisfy my sweet tooth. If I deprive myself of sweets, I will cheat on my diet. So, I am very glad to have discovered a salad that tastes sweet enough to me that I don't feel a strong urge to buy cookies.

It's really simple, too. Buy a package of your favorite lettuce, a bag of dried cranberries, a package of praline pecans (or other honey-roasted or sweetened nuts) and a bottle of some fruity vinaigrette dressing. Mix. Eat. Yum.

The key is to measure the portions of everything, so you don't accidentally eat 600 calories worth of fruit, nuts and dressing. I like to use about 2 cups of lettuce, 1/4 cup each of cranberries and nuts, and 1 or 1.5 Tbsp of dressing. That gives me between 450 and 500 calories, just the right size for a dieter's lunch.

Drive through beer shop disturbs me

Every day (or close enough) when I drive to work, I pass by a store called "discout beer and tobacco." This paragon of American commerce has a drive-thru window. For some reason, this really disturbs me.