Autonomous vehicles, planes and high speed rail

[FlyerInHi]

[quote=Myriad]Also this article from WSJ.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-china-flexes-its-political-muscle-to-expand-power-overseas-11546890449?mod=hp_lead_pos5

In order to get political leverage in Malaysia, China basically cut a deal to gloss over the stolen funds in 1MDB. $16B for the East Coast Rail Link for an estimated cost of $7.25B, to cover $4.78 billion of 1MDB debt.
[/quote]

Isn’t that generous of China? Wouldn’t you like a generous patron to bail you out when in trouble? The twisted logic on the part of the WSJ makes them sound like western propaganda.

[quote=Myriad]
Also this:
“At a meeting the next day, Sun Lijun, then head of China’s domestic-security force, confirmed that China’s government was surveilling the Journal (aka WSJ) in Hong Kong at Malaysia’s request, including “full scale residence/office/device tapping, computer/phone/web data retrieval, and full operational surveillance,” according to a Malaysian summary of that meeting.”[/quote]

I don’t think it’s any big deal. Do you think the FBI is not surveilling RT’s activities in USA?

[FlyerInHi]

[quote=Myriad]China is lucky in the sense that their timing was good for HSR. They had the capital, the right available technology and the population density to support such a system.However, for the large majority of Chinese, the rail is very expensive – it’s great for relatively wealthy city workers and foreigners.
[/quote]

China was not lucky. They worked very hard when everyone said would fail.
Not only are they successful, they are extreme successful in rail and developing new technologies (such as high altitude extreme conditions travel). They built the whole network in 10 years, faster than California’s HSR. That just shows how screwed up we are.

Just more “hate” to belittle China’s achievements. Their high tech infrastructure will drive more development in the future. For historical comparison, we built the airports around the country when air travel was for the “elite”.
Was grand central terminal a monumental waste of money when New Yorkers lived in tenement apartments?

[spdrun]

Scrap any antiquated notions of patriotism or nationalism, pay the French, Germans, or Chinese to build a turn-key HSR and electrification system. They seem to be good at it.

Also, if you build SF-Fresno and LA-Bakersfield, you’re left with a gap of approximately 100 miles. May as well close this gap.

Electrified rail has environmental advantages — unlike aircraft and long-distance buses, it’s easy to power using any source of electricity, including clean sources like nuclear (yep, NUCLEAR) and renewables.

While we’re at it, time for Californians to overcome their cowardice and build two (or ten) new nuclear plants to replace San Onofre and Diablo Canyon.

[FlyerInHi]

[quote=spdrun]Scrap any antiquated notions of patriotism or nationalism, pay the French, Germans, or Chinese to build a turn-key HSR and electrification system. They seem to be good at it.
[/quote]

That’s what we said when we had the best technology. That’s also what you learn the first class of economics. A widget Is a widget. You buy the best widget at the best price. Provenance is irrelevant.

The Chinese are already providing rail cars to Boston. If I remember, they have the contract to run the system in Copenhagen.

BTW, US public works is hardly free market. . With trade opening, we need to open public procurement to international competition.

I love the Chinese train controllers in uniform. They are polite and professional. They even exported that style of customer service to Africa.

[Myriad]

[quote=FlyerInHi] I don’t think it’s any big deal. Do you think the FBI is not surveilling RT’s activities in USA?[/quote]

Oh, I’m sure they are, since the RT is essentially backed by the Russian government. But that’s not an equivalent story here.
It would be more like the CIA monitoring a Turkish dissident newspaper reporter in Canada, taking that info, and willingly provide it to the Turkish government to hunt down someone in Turkey’s government who was the source of a leak of someone stealing $4B from the Turkish people.

Have we done that before? Maybe in the Cold War. Heh, but I guess we’re going back into one so maybe the gloves come off the CIA again. Maybe they’ll bring back the proxy wars in Africa too.

[Myriad]

.

[Myriad]

[quote=FlyerInHi]China was not lucky. They worked very hard when everyone said would fail. Not only are they successful, they are extreme successful in rail and developing new technologies (such as high altitude extreme conditions travel). They built the whole network in 10 years, faster than California’s HSR. That just shows how screwed up we are. [/quote]

Lucky in the sense that their development happened in the recent past decade. If it was a few decades ago, it probably would have been too expensive and they may have done something else. Another decade in the future, maybe there’s some other technology.

That’s for sure. You can’t do crap with CA’s environmental and local resident provisions. If only our land was owned by the state and we could plow anything in the way like SimCity/City Skylines. Maybe we’ll just have to wait for the next earthquake.

[Myriad]

[quote=spdrun] Also, if you build SF-Fresno and LA-Bakersfield, you’re left with a gap of approximately 100 miles. May as well close this gap. [/quote]

Sure, eventually. After you build out all the rest first. You can plan for the right of way now, since you have to do that if you plan to build in 20 years.

[quote=spdrun] While we’re at it, time for Californians to overcome their cowardice and build two (or ten) new nuclear plants to replace San Onofre and Diablo Canyon. [/quote]

What… I was waiting for my Mr Fusion to solve all the problems.

[FlyerInHi]

OMG. Now there’s fear of spying.
Like I said what goes around comes around. We were so proud when IBM computers sold to China were compromised.

Kishore Mahbubani asked, I paraphrase: are we ready to live in a world where China acts likes the USA? Hence the need for multilateral institutions to contain the impulses of super powers.

Could a Chinese-made Metro car spy on us? Many experts say yes.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/trafficandcommuting/could-a-chinese-made-metro-car-spy-on-us-many-experts-say-yes/2019/01/07/00304b2c-03c9-11e9-b5df-5d3874f1ac36_story.html?utm_term=.6e80af1dbd55

[FlyerInHi]

[quote=Myriad]
Lucky in the sense that their development happened in the recent past decade. If it was a few decades ago, it probably would have been too expensive and they may have done something else. Another decade in the future, maybe there’s some other technology.
[/quote]

Makes sense. That’s why we have to think big and carpe diem.

We had our chances when were were the master builders. Why is it that don’t own infrastructure around the world? We should have a Belt and Road.
The US, Japan and the EU should have developed the world, not in a colonial way, but in a vertically integrated way like China is doing now. It’s amazing how many awesome Chinese projects are coming online every month.

You know, my dad built infrastructure but in his whole career he only built one shit dam and one shit cement factory. The rest of the time he basically wasted time. That pretty much sums it up.

if we love tech and development, we need to give credit where credit is due, regardless of nationalism. If the west had developed the world instead of making war and conflict, the whole world would be richer today and we would own part of the wealth. Now we are getting worried because China is eating our lunches. They are taking our techniques but they are not doing stuff our way. They improved our management methods and they are actually delivering completed projects that better humanity.

[The-Shoveler]

I was listening to a guy who has been working on autonomous vehicles, he was saying fully autonomous vehicles are still a long way off.

Listening to him would have to agree, there are lots of situations where sometimes makeshift dirt roads etc.. must be used when roads are washed out or earthquake etc.. makes the regular road sometimes un-passable for months at a time (I have seen this on major freeways even in L.A.).

Then there is just weather, Fog, 3 inch’s of fresh snow etc.. other chaos and mayhem.

It may be quite a while yet, then there will still
a requirement for manual driven vehicles for a very long time.

[spdrun]

“Autonomous” vehicles today aren’t truly autonomous. They’re too reliant on detailed maps and outside data in situations where a human can rely on their brain and a set of fairly primitive sensors.

A truly autonomous car should be able to drive from L.A. to New York, taking local roads on occasion, while using maps with a similar level of detail as is available on Google Maps on any smartphone and its own sensors to read road markings, see vehicle positions, and detect signs and lights.

[The-Shoveler]

To me weather chaos and mayhem are the biggest obstacles and happen a lot more frequently than most think.

What happens if there is no mapped road and no markings.

Do things just stop?

[FlyerInHi]

Consumers want a vehicle to do everything so that’s why they buy SUVs.

But in practice, as long a tool fits the purpose then it fine. Other countries, namely China, will be able to carve out geographical markets where autonomous excel at what they do. We will lose out on the technology and industry.

Often, an all or nothing attitude gives you nothing.

[The-Shoveler]

I don’t think it is all or nothing,

Just that it is going to require a human decision maker who can take over control or at least have that option.

Machines are still a long long way off from full control of our roads.

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