madamelic (u/madamelic)

madamelic commented on The only GM EV1 ever publicly sold theautopian.com/how-the-o... · Posted by u/zdw

madamelic · a month ago

I used to walk past one of these every day on my way to and from my dorm.

My school apparently had no idea what it was for years and it just sat outside underneath the EE building and people would draw dicks in the dust on it. When they realized what it was, they immediately yonked it inside and made a student team to refurb it.

It's super cool I got to see such a piece of history and rare car even if I didn't realize it for so long.

Before: https://images.hgmsites.net/med/gm-ev1-electric-car-at-misso...

After: https://i.redd.it/8hqyo6iq7ixa1.jpg

madamelic commented on Remind: A sophisticated calendar and alarm program dianne.skoll.ca/projects/... · Posted by u/n3t

madamelic · a month ago

I love tools like this but I am currently in a cycle where I question why a tool has to operate like this.

These text-driven tools always come across like "programming the space shuttle to drive down the street for ice cream". Like, do we really need... all of this. It's beautiful and neat but does it solve the problem in a user friendly way?

Sometimes it seems like there is a lost art to simple but deep products. Many of these replacements tools are starting to seem more about demonstrating how nerdy you are by over-complicating the solution in a novel one-off way.

A great example of this, in my opinion, is Taskwarrior's sync in both 2.0 and 3.0. Just use auto-discovery of peers using a shared secret key then negotiate the connection seamlessly. I don't want to do SSL setup so I can have my tasks on two computers.

madamelic commented on Blue Origin lands New Glenn rocket booster on second try techcrunch.com/2025/11/13... · Posted by u/perihelions

bloudermilk · a month ago

Wild! Does that count their own Starlink payloads? Curious what this number looks like when you only look at the launch customer market.

madamelic · a month ago

The launch count of SpaceX per year compared to the rest of the world is quite large.

SpaceX in 2025 has launched 134 times. Everyone else in the entire world has launched 115 times combined, including other US companies. SpaceX launches a lot of stuff very often.

EDIT: Originally meant to do 2024 but accidentally read the wrong bar. Regardless, this holds for most years.

madamelic commented on When Tesla's FSD works well, it gets credit. When it doesn't, you get blamed electrek.co/2025/11/08/sc... · Posted by u/Bender

buran77 · a month ago

That's not an anecdote, it sounds like an exaggeration bordering flat out lying. A 2000 miles trip "without touching anything" to drive the car is statistically impossible for any reasonable drive (e.g. not endless straight lines on an Australian highway), especially for a Tesla famously known for needing interventions often. Even more advanced autonomous driving systems are far too limited to take arbitrary 2000 miles trip with zero human assistance.

madamelic · a month ago

13 is quite good. 14 is even better.

2,000 may be stretching it but it is possible if the driver is trusting enough. Personally many of my disengagements isn't because it is being dangerous, but just sub-optimal such as not driving as aggressive as I want to, not getting into off-ramp lane as early as I like, or just picking weird navigational choices.

Trying to recall but I haven't had a safety involved disengagement in probably a few months across late 13 and 14. I am just one data point and the main criticism I've seen from 14 is: 1) getting rid of fine speed controls in favor of driving style profiles 2) its car and obstacle avoidance being overtuned so it will tap the brakes if, for instance, an upcoming perpendicular car suddenly appears and starts to roll its stop sign.

Personally, I prefer it to be overly protective albeit turn it down slightly and fix issues where it hilariously thinks large clouds of leaves blowing across are obstacles to brake for.

madamelic commented on Tesla's ‘Robotaxis' Keep Crashing—Even With Human ‘Safety Monitors' Onboard miamiherald.com/news/busi... · Posted by u/voxadam

ipsum2 · 2 months ago

Please tell me which Waymos have been crashing into stationary objects.

madamelic · 2 months ago

Waymo hits pole (this one is from 2024, could've sworn I saw one in the last few weeks but may have misremembered): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAZP-RNSr0s

Waymos crash into each other: https://www.reddit.com/r/SelfDrivingCars/comments/1mdl5zn/tw...

Waymo cutting off bus at left turn: https://www.reddit.com/r/SelfDrivingCars/comments/1o9accg/wh...

Waymo doing... something... no clue how a pre-mapped car thinks this is ok: https://www.reddit.com/r/SelfDrivingCars/comments/1lmq7rl/wa...

Waymo sideswipes firetruck with its lights on: https://www.reddit.com/r/SelfDrivingCars/comments/1mj4w8d/wa...

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Crashes happen. Tesla is currently having a rash of them but Waymo isn't immune to "wtf how" kinds of crashes even with all of its built-in advantages (far more sensors and having pre-mapping).

madamelic commented on Tesla's ‘Robotaxis' Keep Crashing—Even With Human ‘Safety Monitors' Onboard miamiherald.com/news/busi... · Posted by u/voxadam

Simulacra · 2 months ago

Didn't this happen before with a safety monitor on their phone? I seem to remember another Robo taxi company and it hit someone who was crossing the street.

madamelic · 2 months ago

That was Cruise and it killed the entire company.

madamelic commented on Tesla's ‘Robotaxis' Keep Crashing—Even With Human ‘Safety Monitors' Onboard miamiherald.com/news/busi... · Posted by u/voxadam

dylan604 · 2 months ago

Has Waymo become successful reaching a critical mass of users yet? If so, they would most likely shut it down based on historical examples. Imagine if they had sold those deprecated products instead. Maybe not a financial significance, but there'd be some interesting products still kicking

madamelic · 2 months ago

Considering Boston Dynamics sat around for like 15 years being a research lab and only started commercializing when they were sold... I'd agree.

Argue with that as you like but Google _loves_ to sit around on good ideas and, in my opinion, hamstring them away from pushing their products to commercialization.

madamelic commented on Tesla's ‘Robotaxis' Keep Crashing—Even With Human ‘Safety Monitors' Onboard miamiherald.com/news/busi... · Posted by u/voxadam

jjice · 2 months ago

The cost discussion on LIDAR always confused a layman like me. How much more expensive is it that it seemed like such a splurge? LIDAR seems to be the only thing that could make sense to me. The fact Tesla does it with only cameras (please correct me understanding if I'm wrong) never made sense to me. The benefits of LIDAR seem huge and I'd assume they'd just become more cost effective over time if the tech became more high in demand.

I'm _way_ out of my depth though.

madamelic · 2 months ago

> How much more expensive is it that it seemed like such a splurge?

LiDARs at the time Tesla decided against them were $75k per unit. Currently they are $9,300 per car with some promising innovations around solid state LiDAR which could push per-unit down to hundreds of dollars.

Tesla went consumer first so at the time, a car would've likely cost $200k+ so it makes sense why they didn't integrate it. I believe their idea was to kick off a flywheel effect on training data.

madamelic commented on Tesla's ‘Robotaxis' Keep Crashing—Even With Human ‘Safety Monitors' Onboard miamiherald.com/news/busi... · Posted by u/voxadam

vel0city · 2 months ago

If Americans were price conscious about transport they wouldn't be driving $60,000, 15mpg, oversized pickup trucks to go drop off their kids at daycare and commute to their office job, they'd be riding the bus.

Most Americans don't seem to consider the cost of their transportation in the slightest.

madamelic · 2 months ago

People who use ride share use more than one app because they can pick the one that is the cheapest. The people who use these will be price conscious.

Of course there will be other factors like amenities.

Personally, I think 'style' is going to be a non-insignificant factor to it as well. Few normies will want to get out of a 'nerd car' that has bulbous sensors all over it if they can pay a bit more to have a cooler looking ride, it's the Prius effect.

The style thing is just my opinion though but price will be the major one. People will tolerate an ugly robotaxi if it is significantly cheaper or more convenient.