Source: Swiss government bans all events over 1,000 people – MarketWatch
Numerous tech industry conferences have been canceled in the U.S. already. Flights to and from Asia have been slashed or eliminated.
The modern world has no effective way to deal with a spreading virus except to shut down the entire economy – potentially destroying entire economic systems and causing additional harm to populations.
Seems like they must require a “keep alive” (dead man’s switch) to ensure driver’s remain alert.
Among other things, the office wants Tesla to improve its driver engagement monitoring systems. Tesla relies on sensing a driver’s hands on the steering wheel to know if they are attentive enough to the road while using Autopilot features. Other auto makers use cameras to ascertain whether a driver’s eyes are on the road.
Source: NTSB calls out Tesla and Apple for neglecting driver safety
I understand train locomotives require that the engineer make at least one control input every 25 seconds. If that doesn’t happen, the train will begin braking. Seems like pseudo-self driving cars must use a similar approach – if the driver does not manipulate the controls, then alerts must be activated and/or the car needs to get off the highway and stop.
Summarizes possible impacts to the U.S. and economic issues. CDC is planning for possible school and business closure mandates, summer Olympics could be canceled, and hoping the disease, like many, subsides during warm summer conditions.
The total number of COVID-19 cases climbed above 80,200 as of Tuesday with deaths climbing to at least 2,704.
Source: Coronavirus live updates: US confirms 53 cases, CDC outlines pandemic planning
U.S. firms discouraging or prohibiting travel by employees to affected areas now including China, Italy, South Korea and southeast Asia including Australia.
Not cool:
The jury found that Hytera had stolen trade secrets and infringed Motorola’s copyrights.
It’s also unknown if anyone will be willing to fly on a Boeing 737 MAX:
Regarding the additional 385 MAXs that were delivered to customers but have been grounded for almost a year and are parked at airfields around the world, company spokesman Bernard Choi said Boeing is recommending inspections for those airplanes that have been in storage for more than a year. “It’s still undecided if we will inspect the rest” of the delivered MAX fleet, he added. “Obviously, we’ll do what’s right for safety.”
No idea what someone was thinking with that last quote – “it’s still undecided if we will inspect the rest“. When you are in a hole, stop digging. That decision ought to be obvious.
Satirist JP Sears takes a whack at the Tesla culture with his humorous commentary.
JP has hundreds of spot on satire videos poking fun at our popular culture. In many cases, he’s poking fun at himself and the culture he and his peers (and perhaps many of us!) live within.
This is a though provoking video: Economics theory is based on the idea that wants (demand) exceeds supply. Stated another way, we tend to want more than we can afford – we do not have the resources to acquire everything we may desire. But today we are, for a great many, and for many of life’s necessities, living in a post scarcity world. Once we have fulfilled our basic “wants” we have the luxury of being tricked by marketing into wanting even more (basically, a fake want designed to increase demand).
Maslov’s Hierarchy of Needs tries to explain human motivation in terms of fulfilling the basics, like food and water, first, at the bottom of his pyramid. Above that we seek shelter and safety, then peer support, self esteem and finally self actualization.
The reality of life today is that life is actually quite good – compared to the past. (Poverty is at a global low point, for example. Literacy is at a historical high point, and so on, in spite of the daily dose of fear mongering news media.) In effect, for most people, the goods and services of daily life are not scarce. We enter a world of post-scarcity economics for much of our daily needs.
Most people (yes, there are definitely exceptions) in modern economies have fulfilled the bottom 3 tiers of the Hierarchy of Needs. At this point, our wants become warped. Few people need digital watches (to quote Douglas Adam’s comments about the 1970s) – or for that matter smart phones or any number of other goods and services.
Since we do not really need a lot of “stuff”, marketing tricks us in to wanting things we don’t need. So we acquire more.[1] Because many of our basic wants are satisfied, we create new “wants”. Some “wants” are not goods or services – we have the luxury of time so we build ourselves up (top of the pyramid) by running marathons and ultramarathons or spending time at the gym or the hair salon to look good.
At some point, many people are persuaded to want things they cannot afford today – so lenders step into loan money to acquire stuff (you probably don’t really need). This can be loans for cars, homes, or consumer loans for vacations and home improvement, or accumulation of credit card debt to acquire “stuff” we believe improves our self-esteem (catching up or exceeding those in our peer group). As satirist JP Sears says, “Tesla – pretend to save the environment while looking rich” 🙂
Eventually, our loan payments cause us to cut back on spending on other things. As collective debt loads become too high, economic activity slows down and we enter a recession.
Post scarcity economics means we have the means to be persuaded (by marketing) to acquire stuff we probably don’t need and a ready supply of lenders to enable us to buy it today (versus saving our money).
A small observation: When we choose to purchase an item X, it is not so much a decision to buy X as it is a decision that we are not going to buy Y (and A, B and C too!) Few people think of purchase decisions this way though. But we should be asking ourselves, if I buy X, what product Y am I choosing not to buy? If we did this, we’d balance our spending – and wants – a lot better.
We see this effect at work in government spending. Legislators are constantly asked to spend more money on government programs (let’s call them X). But seldom is anyone simultaneously suggesting what projects (call them Y) we should not be funding in order to fund X. The solution is to buy X – and Y – and just borrow more money.
Keep this in mind the next time you “want” something (X) and ask yourself, what will I give up (Y) to buy X? Most people never ask this question and buy stuff they probably cannot afford. Spending decisions are about choosing between things X and Y, but most people view spending decisions as deciding whether to buy X1, X2 and X3.
[1] Getting tricked in to wanting and buying more is made possible by intense surveillance of our lives both on and offline. As Walmart says
“[W]e have a lot of data and we can gather even more data. [I]f you win their most frequently purchased items, you get the opportunity to serve impulse items online and in-store, and our focus is in driving that sweet spot,” he said.
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/walmart-could-run-into-privacy-issues-in-its-efforts-to-get-personal-with-consumers-analysts-say-2020-02-19?mod=home-page
Businesses are using multiple tricks to manipulate you in to wanting more than you need.
SpaceX may launch 30,000 more low altitude satellites added to the 12,000 it already plans to launch. OneWeb is launching 900 satellites and Amazon is planning over 3,000 satellites. There are predictions that any given moment, over 100 satellites will be visible crossing overhead, no matter where you may live.
Source: SpaceX and Starlink are changing the night sky, and fast – CNET
Utility companies want to be able to make the demand go up and down just as much as the supply fluctuates.
Source: How utility companies lower electricity use by controlling your thermostat | kgw.com
This concept works with “smart” thermostats. When electricity demand is high, such as during a hot summer day, the utility can remotely adjust your thermostat’s air conditioning settings to raise the interior temperature setting by a degree or two – thereby reducing power demand.
Individuals can still reset it back down, if they wish.
The power utility has also experimented with a voluntary system where consumers without smart thermostats subscribe to email or text alerts asking them to adjust their electricity usage.
Electricity has to be created, in real time, as it is demanded by customers. Traditionally, this meant coal and natural gas fired production plants which can ramp up and down quickly (hydro dams are not adjustable in real time). In the new model, the power companies are looking at altering the demand – not just the supply – in real time.
The vast difference in EPA figures didn’t amount to much in the real world.
…
When the Porsche Taycan‘s first EPA range figure exposed itself to the public, the outcry was swift and decisive. Even those not strong in math might realize that a paltry 192-mile rating for the Taycan Turbo S is a huge miss compared with the 326- or 348-mile figures that the Tesla Model S Performance gets.
Source: In Our Testing, Porsche Taycan Range Nearly Equaled Tesla Model S
But in a real world test, the two vehicles range measure are almost identical. Hmmmm.