New Cat in the house

So keep in mind, there was not a lot of thought as to how were going to deal with Cha-san. This is a cat that has lived its life outside. Can he live in a house? Will it drive him nuts? I bought a really large dog cage in case he could not handle being indoors. Eventually we decided he should stay in my office until we see how he reacts. When we got him, he was exhausted. Completely shaved and shivering. We had an extra cat bed and put it out. We also carpeted my office with puppy pads in case he did not know how to use a cat liter box… he didn’t. He stayed in the cage at first, but after a few hours, he ventured out and discovered the cat bed. Guess he never seen one before but it was instant love for him! He immediately curled into the bed, and my wife covered him with a blanket. He was asleep in minuets. This is still his favorite place. Perhaps 23 hours of the day. (Picture)

With exception to getting water and food, as well as being spoon fed, he never left the bed, meaning we had to clean it three times a day. Sigh.. However, after the 3rd day, he figured out the litter box.. Kinda. He would keep stepping in his mess after he made it, so still twice daily cleaning. However, he was still weak, so we were able to move him around to fix his bed up. Soon he remembered we were one of the people who would feed him. He also connected that we were the ones fixing up the bed he so loved. So much, the unthinkable happened. We could pet him! And he purred!

The bird must leave the nest

I guess a week went by and he recovered quickly. Started to explore the room, got better at the litter box, and did not need to be spoon fed anymore. However, my office is not that big, so we had to move things out to make room for him. He still does not leave the office, but we need to get him to walk more. The first sacrifice was moving the cat tree. Both my wife and I work in my office which is the brightest room in the morning. So the cats like to be here with us. Now the cat tree is in the small dining area in the middle of the house. I kept a guest bed in the office, both for guests, and when I nap. That’s gone too. Have to build shelves to store the bed parts. We needed to make the space as large as we could so we could put his food/water, and litter box away from his bed. All that is left is my desk, so at least I can still work there. (Picture)

Eventually, slowly, he started to venture out of the office. Normally quick explorations of the house and then right back to the safety of his bed. At night we still keep the door closed because the other cats are afraid of him, and we are not sure how he will react to the other cats. At some point though, he meet Mochi our white 11year old female. At first Mochi gave him lots of space or would just run out of the house. However, she started to figure out as long as she was not on the floor, he could not reach her. It was at this time we decided, we need to leave the door open at night. Cha-san like to be active at night, like most cats and being stuck in a small room at night was starting to get to him. Even found him growing and biting his tail. We have to give him more space.

Time to meet the family

The dynamics between Mochi and Cha-san were pretty interesting. Mochi, whom was also feral for the first 3 years of her life, was VERY cautious about this this new cat. This was not the first new cat for her though. A little more than a year ago, we got Kenzo. That went more smoothly since Ken grew up with other cats and dogs and was still only a year old. Ken knew to roll over and show his belly when he first meet Mochi, so the adoption time was quite short. Not quite with Cha-san. Cha-san’s first encounter with Mochi was to try to intimidate her by looking straight at her and walking very slowly directly towards her. Each time she would blink and run away. The odd thing is though, after the encounter, Cha-san would return to the office and howl. My guess is he wanted Mochi to know this is his territory now.

Encounters with Kenzo were even shorter. Kenzo was becoming an outdoor cat and has been getting bullied by a cat that lives a block away, so he has enough on his mind and simply did not want to deal with a new cat. So he comes home, eats, leaves. At one point after seeing Kenzo run off, he went to the living room and howled. Guess he felt he could expand his territory.

Just recently though, perhaps 3 nights back, Mochi stopped running from Cha-san. Hissed when he got too close. However, she would meow and hiss, so I’m guessing she is saying ‘hey pal, I do not want any trouble, but Imma dune a run’in.’ This time Cha-san backed down and headed back to the office … and howled. Now seems they are ok with each other. Mochi still keeps off the ground, but does not seem to care about Cha-san so much now that she made her point. Cha-san sees that she will not attach him, so he is a little less cautious. Now just need to Kenzo and Cha-san to come to terms.

No office, no sleep

As all this is going on, the outside drama of Kenzo and the neighborhood Himalayan, called Lovey, became louder, more often, and typically after 1am. So we have run out of the house with a spray water bottle to break up the fight and chase off Lovey-chan. Seems Ken also decided he was dune-a -run’in from his own front yard and started to put up a fight. But he still was not winning.

Add to this, leaving the office door open so Cha-san can explore the house at night. Typically something would happen and he would howl and I would have to come downstairs and escort him back to the office. Last time, 3.30am, I had enough. He was howling downstairs and I got up, turned on the light at the top of the stairs and said; “Cha-san. Knock it off and go to bed.” Well what do you know. That worked.

Well two nights back seems Kenzo finally won a fight with Lovey in the backyard. Still had to get up at 1.30am to break it up, but at least progress. Also today he came into the office, looked at Cha-san and simply left. Again he does not want to deal with him, but perhaps he is getting some confidence. Also, Ken slept in the house yesterday. A change. I expect more fights, more howling, and more times I hear some loud noises and have to come downstairs to see what is going on. All between 1m and 7am. Sigh. Not to mention now Mochi is getting back to normal, meaning she wakes us up at 7 to get more breakfast. Until Ken can keep Lovey at bay, and when I do not need to worry about Ken attacking (in self defense) Cha-san attempts to dominate him, this will keep up.

So where are we then with all this?

Well, Cha-san is mostly recovered. We can pet him and he feels free to walk around the house when he wants. Still only sleeps/naps in the office, but yesterday he discovered the space heater my wife uses when working at the kitchen table and hung out for 30+ min. His hair is growing back and kidneys seem to be ok for now. On special food from the vet. Hopefully he will learn to be comfortable with living inside a house in time. Remember, 16years of being outside only. I know there will be adjustment issues for a long time. Perhaps we can get him used to a cat walker and be able to take him out when his hair is grown back and the weather is nicer.

Mochi seems to be ok with Cha-san, does not follow and play with him like she does with Ken, but he is pretty old so understandable; so Kenzo is more fun for Mochi.

Ken, well Ken has his own neko drama to deal with. We will see what happens in the near future.

Me, well last week happen to be a VERY busy week, so I was already low on sleep. The multiple post midnight neko wake-up events are starting to wear on me. Hopefully things will settle down.

But this is our neko life now. The adventure continues.

More update: Cha-san has started to sleep at my wife’s feet under the dinning room table where the space heater is. A kind of Kotatsu of sorts.

Have not heard any fighting the last two nights. Fingers crossed. Last night I slept 7 hours with no interruptions. First time in a month.

The tl;dr: We adopted a 16 yr old cat that lived in a neighboring parking lot. Our two cats were not thrilled, lost my home office, and have to get up once or twice a night to deal with neko (cat) drama. Due to everyone always asking, we created a blog for the cats; mochi.perivision.net I also link a few times in my post so as not to repost the same images.

The beginning

So lets go back about a year and a half. My wife and I were taking a walk down our street and happened to look into a neighboring condo parking lot. There we saw a scruffy old looking cat. Checked it out and it looked like there were a few bowels of water and food around. The next day we saw it again. Just stilling in parking lot or laying under cars. After a few more days of seeing this, I ask the maintenance people and the person sitting at the condo front office about the cat. They did not seem to know anything about it. Called SPCA and they said that I could borrow a cage, catch it myself and bring it. They would have a look, perhaps clean it up, but I could not adopt it. The policy is to release it back where the cat was found.

Next I thought, ok, I’ll put up some flyers to see who can help. Then I was told I was not allow to post anything. Sigh… Well, I was getting pretty close to simply getting the cage when we ran into someone who is taking care of the cat. Seems there are a number of people who have been feeing him over the last est. 16 years. 16 years living in a parking lot! So the thinking was, ok well, its been 16 or more years of living here, may as well let it finish his life here. And I thought that was the end of the story…

For a year and a half, we joined this rag tag random group of people leaving food and water. My wife would take on the extra task of cleaning up the area since the maintenance people were not happy about all these bowls as you can imagine. I found where he sleeps at night, against a wall where the hot water pipes run. (picture) So I dug down a bit a placed a pad and covered it again to keep him off the wet soil. He was brown so my wife called him Cha-san. Or Mr. Brown in Japanese. Seems everyone that took care of him had a different name: Master, Diamond, MiMi, Kat. I’ve had cats all my life, so I went with Kat as well as Cha-san.

Cha-san likes being around people, and did like another cat that came by, but no one could get closer than 6 feet. (guess he took Covid seriously) Never approached you unless you made a sound of dry food in a container, then he might come by and see what you brought. Otherwise, we have a complete loner and did not want to be touched. Pretty amazing a cat that growled if you got too close to him would develop such a following.

So about a month ago, I guess a new resident decided that the cat was getting worse and needed help. A SVACA volunteers came out to trap the cat. Gave the same answer, they almost never kill the cats; always return them… Turns out this was not one of those times.

The clock starts ticking

When others found out the cat was taken, there were a flurry of calls from various people trying to get answers. The SVACA said they have never seen such interest in a feral cat before. However, they have decided to put the cat down unless someone comes and claims it before 4PM. One of the people who care for the cat, told her friend what was happening. He asked no questions but jumped in the car and headed there. He claimed the cat. However, they would not let him take the cat unless he found a vet who would take the cat under care, again before 4pm. He was on the phone calling every vet in the area until he found one that was willing to take care of him. Next he has to rush to find a cage and get the cat before the clock stuck zero time. He barely made it.

Oh my God

This was the reaction of the vet. He was shocked at the cats age and condition. Said most likely he will not come back from anesthesia. But was given the greenlight anyway. After he was under, they shaved him, ended up making a few deep cuts because of badly matted the hair was, clipped nails including one that was growing into his paw… And amazingly, he came back. But now what? They could not keep the cat, no home for it. Keep in mind, there was not a formal organization for this group, it was a case of one person who know another who knew another. Text messages were flying everywhere. My wife said to pass a message to whomever has the cat, that we would take him in. 36 hours later, the messages finally connected and the people with the cat who have no choice but keep the cat in a garage the night before finally got our address and came by to drop off the cat.

Part II: A new cat in the house

Well, seems the deal went through! Right now, its still a rumor, but let say the ByteDance Pico deal goes through. What does that mean for the AR / VR space?

Currently the consumer VR space is pretty much dominated by Facebook with the Oculus Quest. A very good device, lots of content, very affordable price. With the release of Workrooms, we are seeing a slide into the soft enterprise space. (more on Workrooms later). Ok, so why is TikTok and Pico so interesting?

TikTok has followed both FB and Snap by offering an AR development platform. Snap has already released a dev version of AR glasses that can take advantage of their AR platform. And remember, they bought WaveOptics as well, so clearly they are committed to creating an AR device in the near term. What is interesting is that they are positioned to be the first AR glasses company to sell in large numbers give Snaps reach. Although I’m certain FB will come out with consumer level AR glasses very soon, they do not have the same penetration that Snap has for user AR content creation. Given TikToks current reach on in the user creative space, it would not be hard to imagine ByteDance is looking to compete directly with Snap. And the two of them need to move fast to buffer FB’s AR ambitions.

So how does Pico play into this? ByteDance recently bought a gaming studio to help bolster their content pool, but I think this will mostly be for the Chinese market, VR is pretty much owned by FB right now. However, if ByteDance wanted to create AR light glasses somewhat like Snap, Nreal, and Lenovo, this would be a step in the right direction. I would not be surprised to see a follow up acquisition of Nreal, or failing that, MadGaze.

This gives ByteDance quite a bit power in the Chinese market.

• Continue to expand the VR Consumer space in China perhaps with more gaming studio acquisitions.
• Support AR pass-through and copy FB Workrooms to create a Chinese version. Remember Pico using the same X2 chip Quest uses, so its doable.
• Create a set of AR glasses, either through acquisition or other work that Pico has been doing that we do not know about.
• Leverage TikTok popularity to compete with Snap and soon FB in the western market for consumer AR.

So what is missing?

Right now, both Snap and perhaps ByteDance still have a content issue. Yes, AR filters are very popular, but that will not be enough to sustain interest. To succeed they need access to the consumers phone which offers FAR more content than any one walled garden can ever create. To do this they need to figure out how to take mobile 2D content and display and interact with it on the XR device. This is why I wrote about Samsung Dex for AR-lite in the past. But guess who else has a Dex like experience? Huawei.

I’m calling this now. Watch for a future agreement between ByteDance and Huawie for a mobile based desktop experience that works in both VR and AR.

Also watch for further moves by ByteDance to implement AR glasses. Its getting closer … perhaps 2023 is when we will see the first major plays into consumer AR.

So some really basic things here. Price for a item is based on the equilibrium of supply and demand. Cool. Supply is replenished to maintain pace with demand. Also cool. However, we demand suddenly outstrips supply, we get limited supply. Not so cool, but as long as that demand is sustained, supply will catch up eventually. Now here is the fun part, sometimes people just go nuts and create inflated short term demand. Add in some crappy people who exploit this by buying what limited stock there is to make a profit, (price gouging) and everything become that much worse give us shortages like the large number of images of empty racks. And so it is today with toilet paper.

I guess we are well into the second week when I first started noticing bins not being quite a full in my local shops. Mostly frozen food, beans, rice, and pasta…. and toilet paper. The funny thing is, I can always find any of the above listed items if I look around enough, but TP, no where! So from a supply side point of view, what is going on?

Basically demand is simply being artificially pushed forward. Demand is not really up, in the sense that people are really using all this paper. (As far as I know), but instead people are buying and hording, and others are gauging, causing a panic which just feeds on itself. (By the way, you people suck). But somewhere, is garages all over the US, are stocks and stocks of TP. Now if people were REALLY worried about cleaning after using the bathroom, they should get a bidet. Works great, used all over the world. Had one for a few years, Installed it myself in less then an hour. But that will be another post.

Now add to this panic hand sanitizer, wipes masks, etc.. all of which are harder to increase supply and now we have a public health problem on our hands.

But I have noticed something change just today, which is why I wanted to write this. Some things are coming back. Not all, but those that were closer in the supply line are on the shelves and staying on the shelves. I’ve also noticed today, not many people were shopping and most people where getting just a few things. Last week it seemed every other shopper has a overfull cart. Whats going on? I think the panic may be at peak. Stores are starting to limit the number of items people can buy, those that are gouging are getting called out, some getting their online selling accounts closed.

So that got me thinking, what happens when those induced to panic, have enough? Supply will just as suddenly outstrip demand. I mean, buy 100 roles of TP, I do not think you are going to be buying anymore for awhile. Same with frozen pizza, masks, pasta, and all the other stuff that people have been grabbing. I think we may see some REALLY good sales soon.

• update: I wrote this on Sunday, and its now Wednesday in the bay area. We are on lock-down (shelter in place) I went to Costco earlier today to get something and it was pretty empty, lots of stock. I think we are already starting to see the end of the panic.

BTW, check this video below. There are LOTS of places like this all over the place. Don’t worry, we have TP.

level 7Hahnsolo11347 points·1 hour ago

Beer has food value but food has no beer value

I remember standing in line to put my $1000 down on a car I have not even seen.  The excitement was like the first release of the iPhone, but without the wait.  So jump 2 years and my M3day was last month.  I love the car, although I wish the ride was smoother but I could fix that by changing the shocks… and I wont.  However, what I have found is that I love showing people the car.  I get excited talking about the fact that there is no dash.  LOVE showing the self driving.  The new electric motor the M3 uses, the smooth acceleration, how it looks, even the cool way the air vents operate.

Now there are things I would love to change now that I’m 30 days into my M3day.  I would really like to edit the UI.  Perhaps one day they will provide an API where I can code up my own via markup or directly in c++ or however they do it.  I’m also waiting for the self drive to improve and expand.  For example, the system should be smart enough to lean into a turn.  Right now the car still tried to keep the center line in a turn and ends up hugging the far line a bit too much for me and the unlucky person driving next to me.  This should be a simple algorithm fix.  (I work in computer vision for VR for a living BTW).  These details not withstanding, watching peoples eye light up as I let the car drive itself is so much fun.  I also love when people first sit in the car.  Its one thing to tell people, ‘no instrument panel, just a screen’ and then having people actually sit in it.   The comment I get all the time is, ‘ah so this is the future’.  And yes, I think it is.   Just like when I first got the iPhone and jailbroke it, I could see, this is where all phones are going to go.   The M3 is the first car in my mind that will signal, this is where we are going and I love sharing that.

BTW, why not say this about the S?  I drove the S a few times and really loved it, and it felt like really great electric car, but because of the dash, I still felt like I was in a normal car.  Also, the car felt too big, too many ‘features’ that were not really necessary, etc.  In other words, like the first iPhone.  Really cool, but not quite there yet. The dash-less experience with the M3, smaller more practical, only things on the car is what is needed on the car felt like a much cleaner design and more inline to what I would want in a car.  So like my iPhone 3G, yes the 2G gave me the first glips of the future, but the 3G is where I really experienced it, and so with the M3.

Hopefully at some point I will get time to mix the full video, but … been busy with XR (VR, AR, MR) stuff.

Strong Leaders can be good and bad. https://www.vdare.com

Well long time no type.  Once I started my recent gig I’ve been too busy to really write again.  And surprise, last week my site was hacked.  Sigh.. So spent the weekend cleaning everything up (still more to go).  However, I have been thinking about writing this post the last 3 days so here we go…

Trump won the election.  Done.  Complain how you like, but here we are.  I was pretty depressed about it, not about who won, but the process.  However after a few days I started to feel better because I realized, no one REALLY knows whats going to happen, could be bad, could be good! So two things I want to talk about, how did this happen, and why this is both good AND bad.

First, how did it happen.  I can explain it in one sentence.

Democrats fall in love, Republicans fall in line.  

Now the rest of the post will explain this line.

So lets step back to 2008.  Obama and Hillary and fighting it out for the Democratic ticket. The last 8 years have been pretty much a disaster and the Republicans are scared.  Obama has the charisma and message to galvanize the population and wins by large margins.

After his election, the Republic base split, some thought they needed to really look inward and see what needed to be improved, and a large VERY LOUD population went nuts.  Texas wanted to seceded (then again, they always want to do that) the tea party movement started and a segment of the population thought the apocalypse was about the happen and all good Christians would be put in jail by a Muslim president.  Kinda of like today but smaller numbers..

Two years later and the angry Republican wing won over the direction and message from the moderates and won back the house and senate.  Anger Works!!  In the midterm Democrats do not tend to vote as much, (remember they need to be in love to be in the voting booth).  No such issue for Republican.  They vote steady and vote every time.

As time goes on the economy recovers, we get out, get in and get out … and in some wars and some social issues are successfully pushed forward, but the big changes that was needed, a change in the system (like redistricting reform, electoral collage, campaign finance, etc..) never happen.  And the signature moment of Obamacare, gutted in congress and the courts in just a few years.

The country gets even more divided and more disillusioned

ecommcentral.com

Fast forward to today.  Once the Republicans took control of Congress that was pretty much the end of Obama’s sweeping plans.  He could do things along the edges and presided over the recovery, but all the promises of change he made, were simply not going to happen.

Speaking of the recovery, he did turn it around but unfortunately, the wealth did not go to everyone, but instead the top 1%.  The country wanted change, but instead got a divided Congress that did nothing while the rich got richer and everyone else stayed that same.  (BTW, don’t give him too much credit, a president only has so much affect on the economy.)

Another key issue is the Black Lives Matter Movement.  Agree with it or not, it further strained already ‘us vs. them’ mentality in this country.  I really feel this is the tipping point for working class whites, they have told they are under attack and now they are seeing it on TV thus increasing the fear factor.

Now here is an important point.  The Republics were successful in shutting down Obama, but the price was being the angry party of ‘No’.  This not a recipe for long term success in leading the country, and many moderate republicans did not like the idea of sacrificing the country for party.  As such, the 2016 election would be the battle for the heart and soul of the Republican party…  And it was, but not like anyone thought it would be.

The none_of_the_above candidate

https://zyzmog.blogspot.com

As the primaries raged the Republican front runners already had their establishment choice.  Jeb Bush.  The only problem is, no one in the public really wanted him.  This opened the door for plenty of alternative Republicans, more conservative, or more religious, or more angry, or more centrist, or even more tea party… oh and one other… the none of the above.  Donald Trump.

Donald Trump was the non-Republican Republican.  Many people thought he would of course lose because he is not playing the Republican game and whose character traits would simply be unacceptable.  But Trump had what everyone else lacked, he had charisma, good social media skills, and most importantly, was NOT an establishment candidate. The exact reasons the Republics thought he could not win the primary is exactly why he did.  Same for the election. 

Remember, the Republicans has been winning on the ‘us vs them’ and anger/fear card for 6 years successfully.  Now here comes someone who fully understands what is going on with working class whites and knows how to talk to them.  As we saw, the other Republicans were crushed!  All efforts to have an ‘anyone but Trump’ movement was simply playing into his hands.

The Democrats and the none candidate

On the Democratic side, something similar was going on. The DNC decided Hillary would be the next president, without checking with the people. Bernie Sanders saw this and ran on the working class, anti-establishment message.  This message resounded with the country, but not the DNC.  They wanted their candidate just like the Republicans wanted theirs.  HOWEVER, the DNC has it set up that they have a much larger say in who they pick for the Democratic ticket, and by ignoring the LOUD voices of the people, they continued with Hillary.  So the Demo’s got who they wanted but the Republicans and a large portion of the people did not.

So comes the election and it was tight. Why?  People did not want Trump, but they did not want Hillary either.. Remember, Democrats fall in love, Republicans fall in line!  The turn out was smaller then expected and Trump won.

BTW, interesting side note on the polls.  Many of the polls did not have Trump win because many people would not admit they were voting for Trump.  Many people were ‘leaners’.  People who would lean in and say, “I’m thinking of Trump”, because they were embarrassed to say it.  That says so much right there.  Despite all the faults Trump has, and he has plenty, people STILL voted for him.  People want change and he is seen as the strong man to bring it, regardless if the change is good or not.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.

http://www.AboveAverage.com

Remember I said that there would be bad and good with Trump.  Many of the protesters I see today seem like a larger more rowdy version of what I saw in 2008. Instead of protesting the election, why not try fixing the DNC? That is were you need to focus.  But anyway..

Remember what Trump said in 1988?  NOT TRUE.  Yea, that is a false meme.  Remember people, check up on your facts.  However, I did find THIS bit.

Trump on CNN, Oct. 8, 1999:  I’m a registered Republican. I’m a pretty conservative guy. I’m somewhat liberal on social issues, especially health care, et cetera, but I’d be leaving another party, and I’ve been close to that party.

King: Why would you leave the Republican Party?

Trump: I think that nobody is really hitting it right. The Democrats are too far left. I mean, Bill Bradley, this is seriously left; he’s trying to come a little more center, but he’s seriously left. The Republicans are too far right. And I don’t think anybody’s hitting the chord, not the chord that I want hear, and not the chord that other people want to hear, and I’ve seen it.

I fully believe that Trump won because of two reasons: the Republics have no message, just NO and anger.  The Democrats stopped listening to the people.  Sanders tried to alert them, but no avail.  So the people either did not vote, or voted for change, real change and if that meant risking someone like Trump, then so be it.

Trump looks good if the country does well.

Something important to remember, and the reason he got so many votes, Trump is not in it to be a politician; he is not a Republican (in the insider respect) and he is not an ideologue.  Trump has only one goal, and that is the betterment of Trump.  And that might not be so bad.

So here we have Trump as the president, he is not beholding to any Party, to any SuperPac, to any idealistic leader.  He only wants what will make him look good.  And what will make him look good is seeing the country left better then when he got it. The question is, what is ‘better’ in his mind.  Some policies will ‘not’ be better, but some actually will.  We already seen that he is not going to simply ‘trash’ Obamacare, although ‘publicly’ who knows.  He will take what he thinks could work and leave the rest.  He also does not need to ‘erase’ everything Obama has done.  Sure he said that on the trail, but again, he does not owe anybody so if he wants to change is mind, he will.  He also does not seem to feel bonded to what he has said in the past, even the recent past, so I would not take every word he said on the trail as Gospel. He will keep what he thinks make sense to reject and replace what does not.

No that does not say he will not be baited into making some serious mistakes, I fully expect will be baited into AT LEAST 1 really bad deal  and 1 armed conflict in the next 4 years.  I really hope I’m wrong here.  I also believe that if he follows through on his protectionist leaning and Brexit happens, we will have another recession.  Not sure if it will be as bad or as long, but I expect a slow down in the economy of some sort in the next year to year and a half. 

Furthermore this is not a dictatorship.  He still has to get things through Congress…   Ah congress.  If any political body can be more rightly hated right now… I’m going to suggest something shocking right now….

I believe you will see President Trump actually work with the Democrats against the Republicans on some issues.  I believe this will be because he does not have a loyalty to ether party, and he will make whatever deals with whomever if he thinks it will make the country look better if for at least the next 4 years.  I also HOPE, REALLY HOPE the democrats have learned a lesson here and truly fight for the middle and working class.  Only time will tell.  As for the Republicans, they have a lot of soul searching to do.  Again.

So buckle your seat beats, the next 4 years will be like nothing you have ever seen.

BTW, I have been an (I) for most of my life.  I consider myself a financial conservative and social liberal. This is neither a nod for or against either candidate of 2016.   Just Random Thoughts.

From Reddit of course: https://www.reddit.com/r/nonononoyes/comments/3qp2h7/tesla_autopilot/

All this talk about self driving cars causing accidents, very little about how they avoid them and save lives.  So here is the first video clip of a real world situation where a Tesla avoided an accident by stopping way faster than I could have.  Also note, its wet.  So if a human was driving, there would be a possibly that the human would swerve the car as well, potentially causing another accident. (click the thumbnail to start the gifv.)

ALSO, the car was smart enough not to follow the idiot driver and ‘teach them a lesson’.  Which does bring me to one concern.  How long will it be until someone decide to hack their car to do just that?  Say someone cuts you off; the car can use object recognition to track and follow the other car and then bump them off the road.

Right now, our autonomous cars do not have a voice, but I already know what to expect having grown up with Eddie Murphy comedy.

Eddie Murphy talking car. ( warning NSFW)!!!

Image from http://inhabitat.com/

Now there are exceptions to this of course, but when I tell people that in five years they will no longer need a new car, I get a look like I’m nuts.  But once I explain that you are getting a new(ish) car and its a ‘need’ not want, then they are a little less skeptical.  However, once I give the full explanation, as I’m about to here, gentle readers, you will agree with me and start telling your friends the same thing just to get that ‘your crazy’ look from them.

First, the caveats.  There are people who buy vehicles for work or hobby.  Truck, Van, taxicab or RV for example.  Then there are those that WANT to buy a new car because its a part of their identity, or love high performance, or have that classic that they love to drive.  Then there are those who live near the edge or off the grid with poor or dirt roads.

OK, now that we have the exceptions out of the way, lets talk about your typical citizen living in a urban environment. In five years, that will be the last time you need to buy a new or newish car. How does that figure?  3 things are going to start happening in 5 years and be complete in 15.

In 5 years we will have our first autonomous vehicles on the road. FULLY autonomous meaning we have the legal issues sorted out that these little Google panda cars driving around my neighborhood will no longer need a driver.  This will be huge. The idea that I can use my phone to have a car pick me up and take me where I need to go will be just as convenient as taking my own car. To make this work, there needs to be a lot of these little buggers running around such that I can have a car at my door in 3 min or less.  Assuming Uber has not been sued out of existence, they will be first in line to try and make that happen.  Watch for them to partner with google and some car maker.

In 5 years the price of these little bugs will be 1/10 the cost of a normal car.  They will be fully electric with no frills.  There will be competitors (Apple, Tesla and later other car makers) that will focus on higher end self driving cars, but those will be seen more as luxury than a necessity. The simple ‘autono-cabs’ will be simple, and thus inexpensive such that there will be many of them. So many that in 15 years many of the next generation will question why they need to ever buy a car or even get a drivers license. (By the way, when that happens we will need a new form of ID.)

Parking space, who needs a parking space?  If you live in San Francisco you know parking is a pain. Worse when you are coming home tired and the last thing you want to is run circles around the blocks trying to find a place to park.  That goes away.  Worried about finding parking when you go somewhere?  Don’t worry about it anymore.  The autono-cab will pick you up at your door and drop you off at your location. Suddenly, parking anywhere will be easier and cheaper because of the reduction of demand.  Going to the game? Or big event?  Not only will you not worry about parking, there will be special lanes for electric autono-cabs so you will get there faster then driving?  Why will this happen?  People who run events and the cities authorities where the event takes place does not want traffic anymore then you do.  They want people in and out quickly, without accidents and drunk drivers making a mess of things.  Win.

Range?  Got that covered. I looked into buying a leaf and decided not to.  If I wanted to take a day trip from mountain view to say Napa, or halfmoon bay, or Oakland (hey its kick’en over there) or even SF I could not be sure I would get back unless I was positive I could find a charging station and have the car there long enough to get a charge.  Our little cabs?  Well, being smaller, lighter and battery tech about to double the range of current car battery packs, we only need to go one way.  Odds are these little guys will have a 60-75 mile range, more then enough for a one way trip anywhere in the bay area.

Now, back to the 5 years thing.  So its 2015 (at least at the time of this writing). I just bought a 2013 PIP Prius although once the new Tesla comes out I will sell the Prius and get that.  But lets say I keep it for 5 years and buy a 2018 Tesla. (I almost never buy new). That takes us to 2020.  Many people believe, as I do, that we should start seeing autonomous cars on the road in 2020. I live in Mountain View, which is not ‘Big city’ but dense enough that the first wave of autonomous cars will reach me.  Odds are, like bike sharing, there will be a monthly or yearly fee you can pay for near unlimited rides.  So that means my Tesla stays in the garage unless I need to go somewhere outside of my local area or I want to go for a fun drive. So now that 2018 is taking on less miles and holding onto more value.  So instead of getting a new car in 2025 I can wait until 2030 or longer depending on how often I drive it.

So now we are at 2025. Battery tech will have doubled again (conservatively) making autono-cabs to more specialized public cars cheaper to make.  The autono-cab is mostly a giant tablet now with multiple screens.  Averts help reduce the costs even more. Choice increases as well as we see Apple cars, luxury Lexus and turbo Tesla’s available via an app. My 2018 Tesla is sitting in the garage most of the time and my wife got a new’ish’ car in 2015, so we have two cars that we really do not drive.  It does not make any sense to have 2 cars now, so we will sell one of them.  Now we just need to stretch the remaining car to 2030, which will be easy because again, we do not drive it much.

From www.fastcodesign.com

By 2030 the autonomous car is ubiquitous. There will still be manual cars out there but even they will have ‘safety’ overrides. The number of car accidents plummets, car insurance goes up for some, and no longer exists for others. There are gas stations, but they are also charging station for the autono-cabs.  Owning a car repair shops goes they way of the local newspaper. Traffic actually goes down instead of up even as population increases. There are more people on the road, but traffic is more efficient, almost no accidents to cause backups, no rubber necking and very few breakdowns since the cars know when they need attention and can drive themselves for service. Places like LA see a marked reduction in pollution.  And one of the biggest win IMHO, drop in drunk driving. Buying a car in 2030 does not make much sense.

Now there will be losers in this grand future I’m painting.  Vehicle drivers; cab, truck, bus will be losing their jobs. Mechanics, we will not need as many.  Oil?  Do not need as much of that either. Car insurance, car dealerships, towing services; not a growth industry.  Municipalities will need new revenue (most likely they will tax the cabs per mile). Traffic tickets?  Kiss those dollars goodbye. Toll takers?  That is already disappearing.

So lets recap.  I said that in 5 years, that will be the last time you ‘need’ to buy a new car.  Math review time!  Buy car latest in 2020.  Good for 5+ years.  We should see the first deployments of self driving public cars in 2020.  By 2022, they should cover most urban and sub-urban areas. Since you are driving your car less, you can hang on to it for another 8 years easy which brings us to 2030.  Not so crazy sounding anymore right?  1) So start telling your friends.  2) Make money bets before you explain.  3) Profit!

P.S.  I started telling people this back in May, and started writing this post in June.  So no, I’m not following the crowd, just talking WAY to long to write my posts now-a-days.

Well, sadly, nearly 14 years after I first found this 3 year old fur ball in a nondescript cage at the Oakland shelter we had to say goodbye.  She was 17 and had a long full life.  First as an inside outside cat, then slowly became inside only. Even towards the end when she had little energy left, she did what she always loved to do; lay next to me or my wife.

Love you Brandi, miss you.

Brandi ended up as the subject in two posts for perivision and a series of pics when I was working on the new version of Gamesbeat.  (links below)

https://www.perivision.net/wordpress/2013/09/my-cat-is-addicted-to-crack/

https://www.perivision.net/wordpress/2012/10/remote-home-monitoring-system-on-the-cheap-or-how-to-catch-a-cat/

The following pics were from a test post I did on Gamesbeat.