HEADLINES: 2025

US opens another Tesla probe, latest focused on tech that remotely returns car to driver

Bernard Condon

U.S. regulators have opened an investigation into 2.6 million Teslas after reports of crashes involving the use of company technology that allows drivers to remotely command their vehicle to return to them, or move to another location, using a phone app.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration also said Tuesday that Tesla did not report any of the accidents. Tesla is under order to report crashes on “publicly accessible roads” involving vehicles being operated through its autonomous driving technology.

The new investigation follows another probe launched in October looking into the company's “Full Self-Driving” system after getting reports of crashes in low-visibility conditions, including one that killed a pedestrian. That investigation covers 2.4 million Teslas from the 2016 through 2024 model years.

Tesla did not respond to a request for comment from The Associated Press on Tuesday.

One driver filed a complaint after a crash while using ....

CONTINUED
 
"Tesla is under order to report crashes on “publicly accessible roads” involving vehicles being operated through its autonomous driving technology." BC #2
Mitt Romney asserted corporations are people.
Do people not have a Constitutional right against self-incrimination? Amendment #5
B.O.R. ARTICLE #5: Ratified December 15, 1791
"No person shall be ... compelled in any case to be a witness against himself ..."
I'm all for public safety. rah rah

BUT !
Shall we disregard the United States Constitution?

PS
A few days ago NY Governor Hockul implemented a new automobile traffic congestion regime in lower Manhattan.
Here to fore the lament was single occupancy vehicles, thus HOV traffic lanes.
Where do zero occupancy vehicles fit here?

On street parking in cities such as New York and Boston is notoriously scarce.
One approach to this is to command a driverless car to simply circle the block in traffic, until the vehicle owner is ready for the autonomous vehicle to chauffeur him home.

Gotny ideas on that Kathleen?
 
A few days ago NY Governor Hockul implemented a new automobile traffic congestion regime in lower Manhattan.
Trump is opposed to this for obvious reasons (Trump Tower is in the affected area) - does he (or will he) have the power to overturn it?
 

Trump is opposed to this for obvious reasons (Trump Tower is in the affected area)
Does Trump have a driver's license?
Can Trump read a stop sign without moving his lips?

- does he (or will he) have the power to overturn it?
For ostensible social benefit? Unlikely in my opinion.

For his own personal enjoyment of exercising authoritative control with impunity? More likely for that reason than any other, in my opinion.

Trump asks US Supreme Court to halt sentencing in New York hush-money case

US president-elect set to be sentenced in New York criminal case 10 days before beginning second term.
Published On 8 Jan 2025

The court's bias has favored the GOP since Bush v. Gore.
Is the Roberts court shameless enough to do Trump's bidding in this case?

If they don't halt sentencing more likely out of sloth than ethical aversion, I suspect.
 
Not sure what to make of this - in the day we'd regularly do 650 pushups (non-stop) after an hour and a half workout (admittedly I was in my early 20's at the time)

Ex Texas high school football coach, assistants sued by mom claiming her son was made to do 400 push-ups in grueling punishment workout: suit

By Richard Pollina

A Texas mom is suing her son’s former football coach for allegedly making his players perform a grueling workout that caused her child to be hospitalized with a potentially life-threatening medical condition.

Former Rockwall-Heath High School coach John Harrell and a dozen assistant coaches were named in a lawsuit alleging that they made players do nearly 400 push-ups with no rest or water break in an hour on Jan. 6. 2023, according to the Rockwall County Herald Banner.

The coaches allegedly used the rigorous workout to discipline the players for not ....


While I'm sure the workout was unreasonably hard - it's the idea that 400 pushups was the villain here that I find "questionable" - I'm sure that made it into the headline because people think that's an impossible number of pushups.

 
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"Not sure whether I should laugh at this or not - in the day we'd regularly do 650 pushups (non-stop) after an hour and a half workout (admittedly I was in my early 20's at the time) ...
While I'm sure the workout was unreasonably hard - it's the idea that 400 pushups was the villain here that I find questionable" S2 #6
I suspect a "missing puzzle piece" here. Perhaps the picture would make more sense if we knew the details of the need for hospitalization, & specifically the "potentially long-term, life-affecting injury".

Let's not overlook the aptitude bell-curve.
It's no surprise that the top 10% may be able to do 50, perhaps even 100 pushups, depending on style, form.

The bottom 4%? If there's a problem (as there reportedly was here) that's where we'd expect to find it.

Physical exercise is intrinsically physically challenging. There's little muscular development swilling mai-tais while comfortably reclined in the Barcalounger.

For high school coaches, failure to bring the team to competitive fitness is a recipe for failure. This competitiveness band within the overall fitness spectrum narrows as the fitness of competing teams improves.

And for high school coaches, whether their team is a winning team or a losing team will be determined in competition, by the outcome of the games played.

After the game's final score is decided, it's too late for the losing coach to reverse-engineer a victory. Thus the high school sport team coach's goal of a winning team is known, but the means to achieve it an intrinsic unknown.

Complicated further:
It's a competitive world.
- We compete for the best spouse.
- We compete for the best house / neighborhood / school district (for maximum benefit of our children).
- We compete for the best job, and we compete against co-workers for promotion.

Before that we compete for acceptance / admittance to the most competitive university.
And being quarterback on a losing high school football team doesn't impress a college admissions board as much as QB of a winning team. A good coach knows this.

This coach may be evil incarnate.
Also possible, not being a medical doctor, coach may have pressed his team to be winners, not knowing there was one member of his team with a medical vulnerability unknown to or misunderstood by the coach.

Not to be dismissive. But the U.S. has a long history of being litigious. Should we be surprised that out of a population of hundreds of millions, a high school sport team member required hospitalization?

Might the more noteworthy headline be that so few of them do?
"You show me a good loser,
and I'll show you a loser."

note:
Even if not a universal solution, perhaps it may make sense for student applicants for high school sport teams be required to e-sign a document of understanding BEFORE admission to the team
that acknowledges the prospective team-member's right / obligation to - sit this one out - (momentarily, or temporarily suspend) if the student has reason to believe continued participation may prove severely imprudent.
Was the hospitalized student in this case aware of this?
 
I suspect a "missing puzzle piece" here. Perhaps the picture would make more sense if we knew the details of the need for hospitalization, & specifically the "potentially long-term, life-affecting injury".
The article does talk about that and apparently it wasn't just the one kid

It's no surprise that the top 10% may be able to do 50, perhaps even 100 pushups, depending on style, form.
Reality is, other than the 400 pushups, we're not told much about the workout or the temperature - if the kids were training in 90 degree heat while wearing their full gear that's not a good thing.
 
Texas:
"... 90 degree heat ..." S2 #8
In Texas?
Indeed, that, among other factors.

Problem is:
while meticulous punitive nit-picking might appear to be in the student's best interest short term,
long term it may result in the more capable, superior high school faculty candidates simply finding more remunerative employment outside academe, lower risk, higher reward.
That could result in lowering the quality of coaching staff, or perhaps leaving such faculty slots vacant in some districts.

None of that in any way diminishes the lamentable injuries to the students.
But it raises practical questions about the wisdom of attempting to extract a pound of flesh in this and similar cases. The problem is obvious. The solution is not.
 

US dockworkers threaten to strike against automation, creating economic uncertainty​

By PAUL WISEMAN / Updated 8:54 AM GMT-5, January 7, 2025
WASHINGTON (AP) — Vowing to stop machines from taking their jobs, 45,000 U.S. longshoremen are threatening to go on a strike that would shut down ports on the East and Gulf coasts and could damage the American economy just as President-elect Donald Trump returns to the White House.


We can sympathize with any working man whose livelihood is jeopardized. But a strike against automation may seem troglodytic. It's called "progress".

Any way:
Donnie can deal ...
 
#10 - modern day Luddites ....

But the change has been underway for years (decades actually). You have to wonder how much freight is now shipped on skids vs breakbulk ...
 
#10 - modern day Luddites ....
I'm sympathetic to their plight. There's no more comfortable rut than the one you're in.

How Much Do Longshoreman Jobs Pay per Year?​

National Average: $35,828 / year

- or -

What is the salary range of Longshoreman?​

As of January 01, 2025, the average annual salary for a Longshoreman in New York, NY is $75,345. Salary.com reports that pay typically ranges from $70,199 to $81,506, with most professionals earning between $65,513 and $87,115.

Not sure which is true. That's quite a range.
But I'm willing to consider that high school grads may find this salary range attractive.
IF they are disemployed by robots, what job can they (high school grads?) find that will $pay as well? I doubt they'll make that kind of $money working the window at McD's. That doesn't justify acquiescing to their preferences. But it may help us understand their position.

But the change has been underway for years (decades actually). You have to wonder how much freight is now shipped on skids vs breakbulk ...
What's "breakbulk"? Neither American Heritage nor Webster's offers a def.
BUT !
There are impressive innovations in robot innovation regarding such labor as warehousing. Seriously, they're driving cars these days!

The alarm is that robots will take all our jobs, leaving humans destitute. BUT !!

This source: https://www.bls.gov/web/laus/laumstrk.htm
lists a 3.7% unemployment rate. So relax shoremen, long & short alike [kiddin']. Robots aren't stealing your $paychecks. They're making your jobs easier & safer.

"google" buggy whip
 
What's "breakbulk"?
Way back when (early 90's) I had a shipping company for a client and they were quite proud of the fact that they now unloaded ships by lifting entire skids out of the hold (pretty interesting to watch how they did it safely) rather than manually moving every carton on the skid by hand (that's what they referred to as "breakbulk").

As for how much they were paying longshoremen I remember making a comment about a control unit for one of their pieces of equipment - looked kind of like a videogame controller - I said something about maybe there was a career for all these gamers after all - one that paid $50,000 or so - their response was "any of these guys will tell you that they couldn't live on no f*ing hundred grand". No idea how much of that was sarcasm tho.
 
Way back when (early 90's) I had a shipping company for a client and they were quite proud of the fact that they now unloaded ships by lifting entire skids out of the hold (pretty interesting to watch how they did it safely) rather than manually moving every carton on the skid by hand (that's what they referred to as "breakbulk").
"Live & learn." Thanks for mentioning it S2.

Never heard of it. BUT !!
I vaguely recall seeing video (on a CRT? meaning in the previous millennium?) hoisting what approximated a shipping pallet w/ cargo, perhaps sacks of grain, stacked running-bond style on the pallet.
The entire stack was hoisted by overhead crane, out of the ship's hold.
note:
Manhole covers are round so they don't turn diagonal, and plummet through the hole and kill the guys beneath it.

(pretty interesting to watch how they did it safely)
Hoisting cargo pallets from the hold by crane is fine, provided they don't snag the vessel.

As for how much they were paying longshoremen I remember making a comment about a control unit for one of their pieces of equipment - looked kind of like a videogame controller -

I caught a small part of a report on recent technological innovations.
Remotely piloted U.S. "drones" may be controlled by remote human pilots operating their drone with what resembles a video-game controller.

1736521803502.jpeg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship's_wheel

More recently, on large U.S. military vessel control by "helm" (known to laymen as "steering wheel") may be displaced by the more controller style configuration.

I said something about maybe there was a career for all these gamers after all - one that paid $50,000 or so - their response was "any of these guys will tell you that they couldn't live on no f*ing hundred grand". No idea how much of that was sarcasm tho.

Understood.
But they're likely to be serious about earning a living. Few are those that perceive themselves to be overpaid.
 
I remember seeing graffiti on the side of containers that made some very serious comments about named individuals - my contact at the company said that was to be expected if you promised to get someone into the union and then didn't do it.
 

Special counsel Jack Smith resigns

The move was expected ahead of President-elect Donald Trump taking the oath of office.
Updated Jan. 11, 2025, 5:38 PM GMT-5 / By Ryan J. Reilly and Megan Lebowitz
WASHINGTON — Special counsel Jack Smith has resigned from the Justice Department on Friday, officials said in a court filing on Saturday.
The move was expected ahead of President-elect Donald Trump taking the oath of office.
Smith’s report on Trump’s alleged involvement in 2020 election interference is expected to be released soon. Trump has denied the allegations.

Smith's intention to dodge the Trump "railroad" was public late last year. This NBC report corroborates multiple earlier reports.
 
SCOTUS rules unanimously the TikTok ban can proceed, as it's based on national security, not an infringement of 1A.
 

The Supreme Court upholds TikTok ban. What happens next remains unclear. The ban is set to take effect on Sunday.​

Katie Mather / ·Reporter / Updated Fri, January 17, 2025 at 10:51 AM EST
One week after hearing arguments from TikTok, ByteDance and the U.S. government, the Supreme Court has decided to uphold the law that will ban TikTok on Sunday, Jan. 19, if its parent company, ByteDance, does not take steps to sell the app before then.
The law passed in April 2024 with bipartisan support and was signed by President Biden. It was upheld by a Washington, D.C., federal court in December following a challenge from TikTok and ByteDance, which argued that the ban violated the app’s First Amendment right to free speech.
 
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