Self-driving cars and the pandemic

From the NYT:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/07/technology/uber-self-driving-car-project.html?smid=tw-share

Uber spun out its autonomous unit to Aurora. Aurora is working on trucking. This is a good choice; long haul trucking is _hard_ for humans but _easy_ for computers. So, good match!

I have been making an Uber joke for a while: what’s the difference between a self-driving Uber and a regular Uber? The Regular Uber has one human driver; the Self-Driving Uber has two. Obviously, in a pandemic, that presents a real problem!

“The coronavirus pandemic presented more problems. It curtailed testing because social-distancing rules prevented companies from keeping multiple drivers in cars to guard against accidents. Some industry veterans admitted that success was further away than they had expected.”

Probably no one will even notice that this is happening; there is too much other stuff happening. But still, it is nice to have two basic beliefs confirmed. First, self-driving ain’t happening any time soon. Second, and especially not for taxis (but maybe for highway driving).

All those idiots contemplating ethical tradeoffs (do I hit the pedestrian in the crosswalk or not!) have been shown to be idiots, altho of course they will have already forgotten that they even had an opinion on the topic.

Monday: walks and life moving virtual

I walked with M. She did _not_ come in the house. I wore a mask outdoors for our walk. We have not yet heard back for the test result of the person who was exposed to someone with confirmed covid.

Our piano teacher who fortunately did a zoom lesson last week has a household member with the dreaded double whammy (flu and covid). Hopefully, recovery will be rapid and complete! In the meantime, feeling grateful that the timing of things worked out that we were not exposed.

I am now rethinking my small pod. I have now had every person who I am around unmasked who is not a household member have to take a break because they had an exposure scare (that is three for three, basically). The first scare barely counts — it was not really an exposure at all, imo. The other two, however, are recent and real. While one is no impact directly on us (in terms of additional isolation), one does. And while I still believe we had it in February on our California trip, and while I still believe that if you had it, except in rare circumstances you are probably immune for at least years, this is feeling like too many close calls. Maybe 40 days in the virtual wilderness before re-entry this time. Not sure; we are still thinking about it. We’ve got a few days of mandatory keep to ourselves to think about it.

Because it is still icy out (and likely to stay that way for a while), after dark walks are a little too treacherous to be fun for me. So today, I hooked up the cell to the TV on the treadmill, fired up BitGym and called my sister. After 45 minutes, I called R. It worked mostly well. Certainly, BitGym plus a phone call is way more likely to generate an hour on the treadmill than anything else I have ever tried. Not as fun as an after dark 3 mile loop, but definitely better than an icy slip ‘n’ fall.

T. is working on a 500 piece Mickey and Minnie puzzle. It is definitely taking longer than the 150 piece puzzles. R. is doing a lot of it, which is fine.