autocratic for the people.

Social Blind Spot Warning System.

Audi and Volvo are introducing technologies this year which alert drivers to objects residing in their blind spot. This continues the trend of weighing vehicles down with expensive technology that only benefits the individual; that is, the blind-spot systems only provide an advantage to the driver of the equipped vehicle.

I wonder what would happen if the DOT mandated a per-vehicle radar system that blinked an annoying light when the driver cruised in the left lane when the right lane was open. That's all it would do: be annoying. It wouldn't inform the authorities or anything, and it wouldn't bother anyone else. It would simply provide an incentive to drive in a manner beneficial to the overall good.

Would such a system, installed on every new vehicle, increase highway throughput? Probably. Wouldn't increased throughput reduce the average level of stress, and probably reduce the overall amount of gas consumed as well? It might.

Sure seems like a better use of the technology to me.

posted by avixe @ 10:20 PM 0 comments

Say It Ain't So.

Derek Lowe breaks the sad news that science isn't awesome:

"When we hold up Erlenmeyer flasks to eye level to see the future of research in them, which we try not to do too often because we usually don't want to know, rarely is this accompanied by an eerie red light coming from the general direction of our pockets. It's a bad sign when that happens, actually."

No wonder the kids don't care anymore.

posted by avixe @ 8:26 PM 2 comments

Intelligent Design.

I was listening to a podcast just now in my car, on an iPod. When I arrived at home, I paused the iPod, carried it inside, and unthinkingly set it in its cradle. Ten minutes later I sat down at my computer, located the podcast in iTunes, and hit Play, expecting to spend a few minutes scanning around the recording to try to find where I'd left off.

But instead, it just continued from where I'd paused it. It continued playing, on a desktop computer, from where I'd paused it on an iPod, in a car.

Kudos to Apple for supporting the uncommon use case.

posted by avixe @ 9:29 AM 0 comments