tandempower

I can, but I predict they won't for the next five years.

cooker

Well, you do your part.

tandempower

It would help to have a 'split thread' option, like the 'start new thread' option, but you could select it as part of responding to post within a thread. Idk if I should predict such a technological leap will happen at BF or in internet discussion generally in the next five years, though. It is, after all, a very advanced concept in interactive online discussion.

jon c. 

If you know anything about bicycling and basic physics, there is no doubt to give this daft idea the benefit of. This idea is a fail. It won't work this year and it won't work in five years. Some ideas are bad. That they involve bicycles doesn't make them worthy of serious consideration.

cooker

It already exist. Start a new thread and post a link to it in the original thread.

cooker

If they increase the time individuals spend on the road, that is "more people on the road". I hope they will reduce the time, as people who opt to use a convenient car service might not take as many trips as someone who owns a car and drives/rides in it frequently on impulse "because it's there"; but it might go the other way, and people might use them more instead of less, if they find riding to be a better experience than driving. And even before widespread use of driverless cars, we'll get some sense of where things are going from how Uber et al evolve over the next 5 years.

tandempower

Have you ever used a poncho on a bike? If so, do you hold the corners of the poncho in your hands along with the hand grips? Have you ever thought of somehow clipping the corners so that you don't have to hold them and they still remain stretched taught over the handlebars so water doesn't pool above your lap? If so, consider that is exactly what these umbrella designers have sought to do.

Maybe the design isn't perfect, but at least have the decency to acknowledge that anyone who rides in the rain has thought of ways to make the experience better and, usually, we realize that we have to rely on others because we don't have the manufacturing tools and ability to design and construct prototypes in a cost-effective way, let alone market them to enough people to recover what we would invest in the design/production process.

tandempower

I suppose, but what are the chances it will emerge as a single 'split thread' button in the next 5 years, i.e. where you can start the new thread and post the link all in one post?

Walter S

Now I'll be up all night.

Maelochs

I disagree but not worth it.

There is a Huge selection of rain gear out there, some cycling-specific, some action-sport specific, some just useful.

However, I also made some of my own. You can use Visqueen (polythelene film) or regular garbage bags, sewn or taped between layers of cloth (for rip protection--Visqueen doesn't need this) and make rainproof bags, hats, or any other garment you feel you need.

I also made a lot of rain gear/waterproof bags out of ... torn-up ponchos. I found they tore pretty easily, and as rain gear were useless (I will not compromise my control by effectively tying my handlebars to my neck with a a poncho) but backing them with cloth gave them new life.

I made a sort of diaper because before i developed an aero-belly, I found wind would blast both up and down into my groin area a freeze me. A simple windbreaker-g-string solved that. I made a hat like a pharaoh's hat (sort of also like Darth Vader's helmet (I am suing!!)) so rain running off my head didn't go down my neck or onto my shoulders.

As you well know if you really do ride and ride in a sub-tropical locale, sweat will soak you as fast as rain, and depending on how hot you run and how hard you ride, a wicking t-shirt or a light wool sweater might be the best solution---the rain dilutes the sweat, and when you reach your destination, you wring it out and hang it up.

I was really amused to hear of your sock problems. Did it never occur to you to bring extra socks?

Personally, I ride in sandals in heavy rain and in most warm weather. Since I use panniers, spare shoes just make sense.

But hey ... aren't you posting off topic?

tandempower

Then I would have to put the wet socks somewhere to sit and mildew all day. Better to keep them on and walk around in them, which helps them dry faster.

Spare shoes take up too much cargo space.

I usually suggest starting new threads, but I think you are the type of person who likes to continue posting responses within the same thread to see if you can bait continuing interaction and get others in trouble for responding. Here, just to cover myself I will post a link to another thread on riding in the rain:
https://www.bikeforums.net/living-ca...l#post20137093

Rollfast

All first world problems in the savannah. Or on Miami Vice.

Rollfast

And put the staff out of work?

Roody

Possibly the biggest start-up cost will be related to cellular service that the cars will require. We're in the midst of switching over to 5G, but some people are concerned that this new technology won't be anywhere near adequate for billions of autonomous vehicles. Also, car companies and tech companies are sweating the costs. Not even Apple or Google is guaranteed to have big enough piles of cash to make the switch to autonomous, so it will be a a matter of convincing a lot of wealthy people that it's a good bet to provide leverage for this practically untried technology.

I'm not saying that a switchover to driverless won't happen--just that it's way too early to get smugly certain about it!

tandempower

Unfortunately, I think the relative certainty or uncertainty many people portray and/or argue regarding the expectation of technologies has more to do with steering investment and stock prices than what they actually expect or would like to see happen.

Walter S

“Cell service”? Are you talking about position info from a gps? Driverless cars will frequently need to operate without gps coverage. Not just when tree cover is thick - consider going thru a tunnel! The cars will need to have inertial position info which only need be occasionally calibrated with gps position.

tandempower

I wouldn't be surprised if all (driverless) cars are outfitted with servers/routers that function as an internet relay system between vehicles. Really, the internet was designed as a protocol for automatically rerouting signals whenever one or more servers would go offline. With vehicles in a tunnel or elsewhere, the ones that can get a good signal from an antenna should be able to relay that signal to other vehicles that can't. Basically the cars would work as extensions and amplifiers of the antennas.

Walter S

I don't think it will go quite like that myself. With the internet you have a gateway server at a specific IP address that forwards your message to its destination. But with driverless cars intercommunicating you have a network where the participants keep changing and the communication is with other cars in your immediate area rather than a specific gateway at a remote location. Internet-style routing just won't work because your car won't know the address of local vehicles and it would be too slow to communicate with them individually anyway. So I think it will be more of a situation where each car broadcasts information about its position/direction/speed continually. Other cars in the area receive these broadcast messages and are thus informed.

It's not a simple matter to avoid having broadcasts that stomp on each other. But there's actually already a IEEE standard for this that will probably apply well to driverless cars (802.11p). But here too, you have security concerns with people trying to hack the car network. The timing requirements for exchange of data at high speed as cars zoom around coming into and out of range don't facilitate traditional authentication techniques. So there may be all kinds of neat traffic control/optimization techniques that we'll simply shy away from for fear of hacking.

An intrusion detection system against malicious attacks on the communication network of driverless cars - IEEE Conference Publication

tandempower

You can also hack the infrared sensors in elevators to trick the door into thinking a person is in the way. You can try waving your hand in front of the elevator door repeatedly while someone next to you is waiting for the door to close and see when they say something to you. With cars, the issue is obviously more dangerous, but how often do you hear about people's brake lines getting cut? Hacking is easy but it just doesn't happen much.

As for vehicle identification, I think simplified methods can be devised to eliminate the need for id-verification and ip-address type specifications. E.g. vehicles could signal their lane and position simply by broadcasting on a frequency that corresponds to their lane. If cars would constantly identify themselves and their positions within their lane channel, other vehicles would keep track of them and if they suddenly went off the radar, there would be protocols for re-establishing contact and/or taking evasive precautions.

Walter S

What about the cross-talk that results from multiple cars in the same lane using the same frequency? That would also require receiving on multiple frequencies and a wider spectrum of frequencies and dynamic switching based on your lane. Way too complicated and why?

In any case the problem has been solved with devices like this. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.res...unications/amp

The problems are daunting to a novice. You really need a lot of training as an EE to figure this stuff out.

tandempower

True, but it's always good to think as an outsider since people working on the problems from within the field tend to get their minds stuck in the same patterns and have trouble coming up with innovative ideas.

If multiple cars are broadcasting on the same frequency that is designated for a certain lane, they could each have a unique tone that would distinguish them. As different vehicles come into range, they could listen for what tones are present on the frequency and automatically select an unused tone. Idk how astute tone-recognition is but as I recall the horrible grinding sound that dial-up modems would make in the 90s connecting to AOL consisted of a lot of different tones being played simultaneously.

How many vehicles in each lane does each vehicle need to keep track of? If each one broadcasts its position and speed relative to others, couldn't onboard computers triangulate all the positions and distances of vehicles in their surroundings?

Walter S

Thousands of separate tones assigned to different cars? Again too complicated. 802.11p/Direct Short Range Communication (DSRC) already exists and works just fine. If you have suggestions you should probably consider things that are simpler. The cardinal rule of engineering is to make it as simple as possible, but no simpler. (Einstein)

I doubt the right electrical engineers are looking for input on BF anyway

tandempower

There wouldn't be thousands of separate tones, because vehicles would signal their presence as they come into range by scrolling through a palette of tones until they no response comes back that their tone is already being used. By the time cars were next to each other, they would have already established their tones.

Anyway, it was just a response to the problems you all were talking about, such as the delays involved with using IC addresses. I think you and certain others here are just biased against self-driving developments because of political reasons, though, and you translate your political biases into negative thoughts about the viability of the technology.

tmac100

And this statement (opinion) is based on what reliable (aka factual) evidence that we can all read for ourselves??

Walter S

Once again, no need for any scrolling thru a pallet etc. The technology already exists and is simpler and more elegant than that. What are you talking about?? Why are you trying to solve a problem that already has simpler solutions than you propose?

It's ironic that you think I'm biased against the technology with respect to this particular point where I'm arguing that the technology exists already (intercar communication) and you're trying to figure out how to make it work.

As to self driving in general, yes I continue to believe that its adoption on public roads will be much slower than most of the hype I see on the subject. The problems with self driving cars have very little to do with whether or not they could intercommunicate. THAT problem is easy and there's already a formal IEEE standard for it in place (802.11p) (the "p" is for specific ammendments made for intercar communication).