On robot taxis there are a few contradictory truths (which rampers of either extreme refuse to recognise):
The technology is accelerating RAPIDLY thanks to AI Waymo are now removing some of the bolt on sensors on their latest platform as more AI removes the need for them Some people think its a Great Leap Forward, others fear it for numerous valid reasons Most people in Most places will never have their private car earning money whilst they aren't using it This doesn't stop with car-sized vehicles
Isn't this quite simple? We value a fatality in the UK at something like £2 million. Double that as a fine for any deaths involving a robot taxi (at fault or not - they should be driving to conditions), and let 'em loose.
We let 100-year olds self-certify their driving skills so I can't see any issue with this.
“Sometimes the value of a 'human touch' is negative. People willing to pay 50% more for Waymo than Lyft, despite longer waiting times.”
People will pay more not to be driven by humans. Why? The cars are a bit nicer, the robot won’t rape you, there’s no chance of a racist rant, the drive will be safe and predictable
This here is the doom of the cab driver. It is also a tolling bell for human interaction
And, if you enjoy a racist rant, I suspect that AI can provide that, too.
Isn't that all part of the Cabbie service?
Might be in your part of the world. Not up here. Most of my cabbies are not white but from overseas. Last chap was an Eritrean. We chatted about the Eritrean church in Gateshead.
Oh, they can still do racism.
I once had a racist cab driver who was so racist he ran out of obvious people to be racist about within about 15 minutes of ranting. So then he started ranting about BELGIANS
Then he briskly exhausted that theme (how many times can you swear about that surrealist c*nt Rene Magritte) so he moved onto PEOPLE WHO TAKE TRAINS
In Greater Manchester, 99% of taxi drivers are Muslim, often with relatively little English. No racism from them. Very little conversation at all. I'd still prefer an automatic car though, if only to avoid the awkwardness about tipping. There is quite a British discomfort about Employing A Man To Do A Thing. I suffer it quite acutely.
A Waymo is also far safer. Apparently parents in Frisco are using them to send their unattended kids to school. Which you probably wouldn’t risk with an Uber…
One reason local councils are skint if not bankrupt is the number of SEND children taking taxis to school.
And the cab drivers not engaged there are often driving younger children to private day schools, although I gather business has dropped off since WFH.
Driverless minibuses or even buses would seem to be a solution here. Let them go round the houses picking up the SEND kids en masse. They get to school and ££££ is saved
Off topic: A little more on elections here in King County (Seattle and most of the suburban population): As the voter booklet reminded me on page 74 that, if I wanted to, I could "Vote in Chinese, Korean, Russian, Somali, Spanish, or Vietnamese!", if I "preferred".
“Sometimes the value of a 'human touch' is negative. People willing to pay 50% more for Waymo than Lyft, despite longer waiting times.”
People will pay more not to be driven by humans. Why? The cars are a bit nicer, the robot won’t rape you, there’s no chance of a racist rant, the drive will be safe and predictable
This here is the doom of the cab driver. It is also a tolling bell for human interaction
And, if you enjoy a racist rant, I suspect that AI can provide that, too.
Isn't that all part of the Cabbie service?
Might be in your part of the world. Not up here. Most of my cabbies are not white but from overseas. Last chap was an Eritrean. We chatted about the Eritrean church in Gateshead.
Oh, they can still do racism.
I once had a racist cab driver who was so racist he ran out of obvious people to be racist about within about 15 minutes of ranting. So then he started ranting about BELGIANS
Then he briskly exhausted that theme (how many times can you swear about that surrealist c*nt Rene Magritte) so he moved onto PEOPLE WHO TAKE TRAINS
In Greater Manchester, 99% of taxi drivers are Muslim, often with relatively little English. No racism from them. Very little conversation at all. I'd still prefer an automatic car though, if only to avoid the awkwardness about tipping. There is quite a British discomfort about Employing A Man To Do A Thing. I suffer it quite acutely.
Uber drivers neither expect nor accept tips in my experience. It is all done at time of booking via the app.
What? You're expected to tip before receiving the service?
Sure, numbers are going up because people who live in the very restricted areas these cars operate are getting more comfortable using them. But they are not a replacement for manned cabs or private vehicles and won't be until you can get into one and have it take you anywhere.
The day I can step off a train in Glasgow and have a driverless cab take me to my home in the rural wilds is the day they've won. That's still many years away, I believe.
“Sometimes the value of a 'human touch' is negative. People willing to pay 50% more for Waymo than Lyft, despite longer waiting times.”
People will pay more not to be driven by humans. Why? The cars are a bit nicer, the robot won’t rape you, there’s no chance of a racist rant, the drive will be safe and predictable
This here is the doom of the cab driver. It is also a tolling bell for human interaction
Isn't this just because driverless cars are novel and people are willing to pay a bit extra for an experience? That would be my motivation for trying one. It would be interesting to see data on how many people use one on a regular basis.
My motivation would be to avoid racist taxi drivers. Are there any other kind? Also to avoid always being the designated driver. Mind you, there would be consequences of driverless cars. Sales of Guinness Zero would plummet.
It’s going to be fantastic for pubs, especially country pubs. And they deserve a break
If I were a pub landlord, I’d be first in the queue to get one as a service to customers.
To include collecting then in the morning so they can pick up their regular cars!
One pub in Wiltshire used to run a minibus home for Friday and Saturday night. Left just after closing.
Book in advance, your drop off point added to the route.
The interesting bit for self driving is whether low rate usage - mostly parked up, but available - pays. In rural areas you can’t get taxis because there isn’t enough demand to support taxi driver(s).
Probably a bit of chicken and egg in there. But if you could run a self driving taxi on a few jobs…
Sure, numbers are going up because people who live in the very restricted areas these cars operate are getting more comfortable using them. But they are not a replacement for manned cabs or private vehicles and won't be until you can get into one and have it take you anywhere.
The day I can step off a train in Glasgow and have a driverless cab take me to my home in the rural wilds is the day they've won. That's still many years away, I believe.
They’ve already “won”. The concept is established and we know it can be done and it turns out these cars are hugely popular - people will wait longer and pay more for a driverless car. That’s how popular they are
So then it’s just a question of how long before this victory is ubiquitous
You present a hard case. A rural drive in Scotland. These will presumably be the last to go
However looking at Genie 3 suggests advances will now come much quicker
I reckon we are now in the final decade of the human driven car. By 2035 they will almost all be gone - but a few will remain for fun and status, the way some people still keep horses or steam engines
Christ knows what 80 million cab drivers will do for a living
“Sometimes the value of a 'human touch' is negative. People willing to pay 50% more for Waymo than Lyft, despite longer waiting times.”
People will pay more not to be driven by humans. Why? The cars are a bit nicer, the robot won’t rape you, there’s no chance of a racist rant, the drive will be safe and predictable
This here is the doom of the cab driver. It is also a tolling bell for human interaction
And, if you enjoy a racist rant, I suspect that AI can provide that, too.
Isn't that all part of the Cabbie service?
Might be in your part of the world. Not up here. Most of my cabbies are not white but from overseas. Last chap was an Eritrean. We chatted about the Eritrean church in Gateshead.
Oh, they can still do racism.
I once had a racist cab driver who was so racist he ran out of obvious people to be racist about within about 15 minutes of ranting. So then he started ranting about BELGIANS
Then he briskly exhausted that theme (how many times can you swear about that surrealist c*nt Rene Magritte) so he moved onto PEOPLE WHO TAKE TRAINS
In Greater Manchester, 99% of taxi drivers are Muslim, often with relatively little English. No racism from them. Very little conversation at all. I'd still prefer an automatic car though, if only to avoid the awkwardness about tipping. There is quite a British discomfort about Employing A Man To Do A Thing. I suffer it quite acutely.
Uber drivers neither expect nor accept tips in my experience. It is all done at time of booking via the app.
What? You're expected to tip before receiving the service?
lol. There is no tip. It’s all done by card on your phone
...they could have been one of my daughters – they are someone's daughter.
Are these hotels where the politicians, the activists, the senior officials live? No.
What does intrigue me though is Jenrick saying we are seven years into this. Why is 2017 year zero, or 2018 year one? What happened then? Not Brexit, or Boris taking over from May, or May from Cameron.
In 2016 boat crossings were about 100 people per year as they had been the previous years. Then we paid the French to wall the roads around Calais, fast tracked the illegal boat trade and here we are.
“Sometimes the value of a 'human touch' is negative. People willing to pay 50% more for Waymo than Lyft, despite longer waiting times.”
People will pay more not to be driven by humans. Why? The cars are a bit nicer, the robot won’t rape you, there’s no chance of a racist rant, the drive will be safe and predictable
This here is the doom of the cab driver. It is also a tolling bell for human interaction
And, if you enjoy a racist rant, I suspect that AI can provide that, too.
Isn't that all part of the Cabbie service?
Might be in your part of the world. Not up here. Most of my cabbies are not white but from overseas. Last chap was an Eritrean. We chatted about the Eritrean church in Gateshead.
Oh, they can still do racism.
I once had a racist cab driver who was so racist he ran out of obvious people to be racist about within about 15 minutes of ranting. So then he started ranting about BELGIANS
Then he briskly exhausted that theme (how many times can you swear about that surrealist c*nt Rene Magritte) so he moved onto PEOPLE WHO TAKE TRAINS
In Greater Manchester, 99% of taxi drivers are Muslim, often with relatively little English. No racism from them. Very little conversation at all. I'd still prefer an automatic car though, if only to avoid the awkwardness about tipping. There is quite a British discomfort about Employing A Man To Do A Thing. I suffer it quite acutely.
A Waymo is also far safer. Apparently parents in Frisco are using them to send their unattended kids to school. Which you probably wouldn’t risk with an Uber…
One reason local councils are skint if not bankrupt is the number of SEND children taking taxis to school.
And the cab drivers not engaged there are often driving younger children to private day schools, although I gather business has dropped off since WFH.
Driverless minibuses or even buses would seem to be a solution here. Let them go round the houses picking up the SEND kids en masse. They get to school and ££££ is saved
JFDI
When in Cornwall I encountered the following -
All the taxis were being booked for the school run. Limited number of drivers. So the local cab driver/company bought a minibus - van conversion. Seats for a dozen. He told me it was so popular, he was buying a second one…
Someone remind me why we don’t have school buses in this country?
“Sometimes the value of a 'human touch' is negative. People willing to pay 50% more for Waymo than Lyft, despite longer waiting times.”
People will pay more not to be driven by humans. Why? The cars are a bit nicer, the robot won’t rape you, there’s no chance of a racist rant, the drive will be safe and predictable
This here is the doom of the cab driver. It is also a tolling bell for human interaction
And, if you enjoy a racist rant, I suspect that AI can provide that, too.
Isn't that all part of the Cabbie service?
Might be in your part of the world. Not up here. Most of my cabbies are not white but from overseas. Last chap was an Eritrean. We chatted about the Eritrean church in Gateshead.
Oh, they can still do racism.
I once had a racist cab driver who was so racist he ran out of obvious people to be racist about within about 15 minutes of ranting. So then he started ranting about BELGIANS
Then he briskly exhausted that theme (how many times can you swear about that surrealist c*nt Rene Magritte) so he moved onto PEOPLE WHO TAKE TRAINS
In Greater Manchester, 99% of taxi drivers are Muslim, often with relatively little English. No racism from them. Very little conversation at all. I'd still prefer an automatic car though, if only to avoid the awkwardness about tipping. There is quite a British discomfort about Employing A Man To Do A Thing. I suffer it quite acutely.
A Waymo is also far safer. Apparently parents in Frisco are using them to send their unattended kids to school. Which you probably wouldn’t risk with an Uber…
One reason local councils are skint if not bankrupt is the number of SEND children taking taxis to school.
And the cab drivers not engaged there are often driving younger children to private day schools, although I gather business has dropped off since WFH.
Driverless minibuses or even buses would seem to be a solution here. Let them go round the houses picking up the SEND kids en masse. They get to school and ££££ is saved
JFDI
When in Cornwall I encountered the following -
All the taxis were being booked for the school run. Limited number of drivers. So the local cab driver/company bought a minibus - van conversion. Seats for a dozen. He told me it was so popular, he was buying a second one…
Someone remind me why we don’t have school buses in this country?
It’s always bemused me too. It’s not rocket science. America - which hates public transport and generally does it badly - manages to do it with the yellow school bus. Why can’t we?!
Sure, numbers are going up because people who live in the very restricted areas these cars operate are getting more comfortable using them. But they are not a replacement for manned cabs or private vehicles and won't be until you can get into one and have it take you anywhere.
The day I can step off a train in Glasgow and have a driverless cab take me to my home in the rural wilds is the day they've won. That's still many years away, I believe.
They’ve already “won”. The concept is established and we know it can be done and it turns out these cars are hugely popular - people will wait longer and pay more for a driverless car. That’s how popular they are
So then it’s just a question of how long before this victory is ubiquitous
You present a hard case. A rural drive in Scotland. These will presumably be the last to go
However looking at Genie 3 suggests advances will now come much quicker
I reckon we are now in the final decade of the human driven car. By 2035 they will almost all be gone - but a few will remain for fun and status, the way some people still keep horses or steam engines
Christ knows what 80 million cab drivers will do for a living
Labour Party 6051 Conservative 4326 Liberal Democrats 3203 Green Party (E&W) 866 Reform UK 862 Scottish National Party 417 Plaid Cymru 201 Sinn Féin 144 Democratic Unionist Party 121 Alliance Party of Northern Ireland 66
Sky News reported that the new Corbyn/Sultana party had 200 councillors lined up, and nearly a dozen more have pledged support since. That would catapult them into 7th. If all of the Independent Alliance come over, they'll be 6th in Commons seats.
If we add the Reform Derby guys to Reform they sneak past the Greens, although defections have probably,y already done that
If you're going to add Reform Derby to the Reform total, then surely you'd add Scottish Greens (36) and Northern Ireland Greens (5) to the Green (E&W) total?
Sure, numbers are going up because people who live in the very restricted areas these cars operate are getting more comfortable using them. But they are not a replacement for manned cabs or private vehicles and won't be until you can get into one and have it take you anywhere.
The day I can step off a train in Glasgow and have a driverless cab take me to my home in the rural wilds is the day they've won. That's still many years away, I believe.
They’ve already “won”. The concept is established and we know it can be done and it turns out these cars are hugely popular - people will wait longer and pay more for a driverless car. That’s how popular they are
So then it’s just a question of how long before this victory is ubiquitous
You present a hard case. A rural drive in Scotland. These will presumably be the last to go
However looking at Genie 3 suggests advances will now come much quicker
I reckon we are now in the final decade of the human driven car. By 2035 they will almost all be gone - but a few will remain for fun and status, the way some people still keep horses or steam engines
Christ knows what 80 million cab drivers will do for a living
But the benefits from those rural drives are much bigger too. I'm pretty sure I have among the biggest mileages on PB (something like 17,000 miles) and it's irritating AF stick behind tourist traffic on the A9, getting stuck behind a lorry on the A1 etc etc. if I could jump in a cab that dropped me off below the Triple Buttress on Being Eighe, a 4.5 hour drive away, I'd pay ££££.
Would it make sense to book the car out for the whole day? Dunno. But I think the market could deliver that too.
“Sometimes the value of a 'human touch' is negative. People willing to pay 50% more for Waymo than Lyft, despite longer waiting times.”
People will pay more not to be driven by humans. Why? The cars are a bit nicer, the robot won’t rape you, there’s no chance of a racist rant, the drive will be safe and predictable
This here is the doom of the cab driver. It is also a tolling bell for human interaction
And, if you enjoy a racist rant, I suspect that AI can provide that, too.
Isn't that all part of the Cabbie service?
Might be in your part of the world. Not up here. Most of my cabbies are not white but from overseas. Last chap was an Eritrean. We chatted about the Eritrean church in Gateshead.
Oh, they can still do racism.
I once had a racist cab driver who was so racist he ran out of obvious people to be racist about within about 15 minutes of ranting. So then he started ranting about BELGIANS
Then he briskly exhausted that theme (how many times can you swear about that surrealist c*nt Rene Magritte) so he moved onto PEOPLE WHO TAKE TRAINS
In Greater Manchester, 99% of taxi drivers are Muslim, often with relatively little English. No racism from them. Very little conversation at all. I'd still prefer an automatic car though, if only to avoid the awkwardness about tipping. There is quite a British discomfort about Employing A Man To Do A Thing. I suffer it quite acutely.
A Waymo is also far safer. Apparently parents in Frisco are using them to send their unattended kids to school. Which you probably wouldn’t risk with an Uber…
One reason local councils are skint if not bankrupt is the number of SEND children taking taxis to school.
And the cab drivers not engaged there are often driving younger children to private day schools, although I gather business has dropped off since WFH.
Driverless minibuses or even buses would seem to be a solution here. Let them go round the houses picking up the SEND kids en masse. They get to school and ££££ is saved
JFDI
When in Cornwall I encountered the following -
All the taxis were being booked for the school run. Limited number of drivers. So the local cab driver/company bought a minibus - van conversion. Seats for a dozen. He told me it was so popular, he was buying a second one…
Someone remind me why we don’t have school buses in this country?
“Sometimes the value of a 'human touch' is negative. People willing to pay 50% more for Waymo than Lyft, despite longer waiting times.”
People will pay more not to be driven by humans. Why? The cars are a bit nicer, the robot won’t rape you, there’s no chance of a racist rant, the drive will be safe and predictable
This here is the doom of the cab driver. It is also a tolling bell for human interaction
And, if you enjoy a racist rant, I suspect that AI can provide that, too.
Isn't that all part of the Cabbie service?
Might be in your part of the world. Not up here. Most of my cabbies are not white but from overseas. Last chap was an Eritrean. We chatted about the Eritrean church in Gateshead.
Oh, they can still do racism.
I once had a racist cab driver who was so racist he ran out of obvious people to be racist about within about 15 minutes of ranting. So then he started ranting about BELGIANS
Then he briskly exhausted that theme (how many times can you swear about that surrealist c*nt Rene Magritte) so he moved onto PEOPLE WHO TAKE TRAINS
In Greater Manchester, 99% of taxi drivers are Muslim, often with relatively little English. No racism from them. Very little conversation at all. I'd still prefer an automatic car though, if only to avoid the awkwardness about tipping. There is quite a British discomfort about Employing A Man To Do A Thing. I suffer it quite acutely.
A Waymo is also far safer. Apparently parents in Frisco are using them to send their unattended kids to school. Which you probably wouldn’t risk with an Uber…
One reason local councils are skint if not bankrupt is the number of SEND children taking taxis to school.
And the cab drivers not engaged there are often driving younger children to private day schools, although I gather business has dropped off since WFH.
Driverless minibuses or even buses would seem to be a solution here. Let them go round the houses picking up the SEND kids en masse. They get to school and ££££ is saved
JFDI
When in Cornwall I encountered the following -
All the taxis were being booked for the school run. Limited number of drivers. So the local cab driver/company bought a minibus - van conversion. Seats for a dozen. He told me it was so popular, he was buying a second one…
Someone remind me why we don’t have school buses in this country?
“Sometimes the value of a 'human touch' is negative. People willing to pay 50% more for Waymo than Lyft, despite longer waiting times.”
People will pay more not to be driven by humans. Why? The cars are a bit nicer, the robot won’t rape you, there’s no chance of a racist rant, the drive will be safe and predictable
This here is the doom of the cab driver. It is also a tolling bell for human interaction
And, if you enjoy a racist rant, I suspect that AI can provide that, too.
Isn't that all part of the Cabbie service?
Might be in your part of the world. Not up here. Most of my cabbies are not white but from overseas. Last chap was an Eritrean. We chatted about the Eritrean church in Gateshead.
Oh, they can still do racism.
I once had a racist cab driver who was so racist he ran out of obvious people to be racist about within about 15 minutes of ranting. So then he started ranting about BELGIANS
Then he briskly exhausted that theme (how many times can you swear about that surrealist c*nt Rene Magritte) so he moved onto PEOPLE WHO TAKE TRAINS
People who take trains are doing him out of a job.
Tbh, I generally eschew taxis. I reckon I average one every two years. They generally suggest you have failed to plan your journey properly.
People who take trains often get a taxi from the station to their final destination. It is people who drive their own cars that the cabbie should be ranting about.
“Sometimes the value of a 'human touch' is negative. People willing to pay 50% more for Waymo than Lyft, despite longer waiting times.”
People will pay more not to be driven by humans. Why? The cars are a bit nicer, the robot won’t rape you, there’s no chance of a racist rant, the drive will be safe and predictable
This here is the doom of the cab driver. It is also a tolling bell for human interaction
I bet this doesn't happen and people will continue to use cabs with drivers.
Sure, numbers are going up because people who live in the very restricted areas these cars operate are getting more comfortable using them. But they are not a replacement for manned cabs or private vehicles and won't be until you can get into one and have it take you anywhere.
The day I can step off a train in Glasgow and have a driverless cab take me to my home in the rural wilds is the day they've won. That's still many years away, I believe.
They’ve already “won”. The concept is established and we know it can be done and it turns out these cars are hugely popular - people will wait longer and pay more for a driverless car. That’s how popular they are
So then it’s just a question of how long before this victory is ubiquitous
You present a hard case. A rural drive in Scotland. These will presumably be the last to go
However looking at Genie 3 suggests advances will now come much quicker
I reckon we are now in the final decade of the human driven car. By 2035 they will almost all be gone - but a few will remain for fun and status, the way some people still keep horses or steam engines
Christ knows what 80 million cab drivers will do for a living
But the benefits from those rural drives are much bigger too. I'm pretty sure I have among the biggest mileages on PB (something like 17,000 miles) and it's irritating AF stick behind tourist traffic on the A9, getting stuck behind a lorry on the A1 etc etc. if I could jump in a cab that dropped me off below the Triple Buttress on Being Eighe, a 4.5 hour drive away, I'd pay ££££.
Would it make sense to book the car out for the whole day? Dunno. But I think the market could deliver that too.
Likewise. I have to drive my eldest to St Andrews Uni in early September. It’s a 4 day slog there and back. I have to rent a car and drive 30 trillion miles
I’d pay very good money for a driverless car. Then my daughter and I could chill out and chat. It would be safer. Much more relaxing. And maybe I could let the car go in St Andrews and take the train home to london
“Sometimes the value of a 'human touch' is negative. People willing to pay 50% more for Waymo than Lyft, despite longer waiting times.”
People will pay more not to be driven by humans. Why? The cars are a bit nicer, the robot won’t rape you, there’s no chance of a racist rant, the drive will be safe and predictable
This here is the doom of the cab driver. It is also a tolling bell for human interaction
And, if you enjoy a racist rant, I suspect that AI can provide that, too.
Isn't that all part of the Cabbie service?
Might be in your part of the world. Not up here. Most of my cabbies are not white but from overseas. Last chap was an Eritrean. We chatted about the Eritrean church in Gateshead.
Oh, they can still do racism.
I once had a racist cab driver who was so racist he ran out of obvious people to be racist about within about 15 minutes of ranting. So then he started ranting about BELGIANS
Then he briskly exhausted that theme (how many times can you swear about that surrealist c*nt Rene Magritte) so he moved onto PEOPLE WHO TAKE TRAINS
In Greater Manchester, 99% of taxi drivers are Muslim, often with relatively little English. No racism from them. Very little conversation at all. I'd still prefer an automatic car though, if only to avoid the awkwardness about tipping. There is quite a British discomfort about Employing A Man To Do A Thing. I suffer it quite acutely.
Uber drivers neither expect nor accept tips in my experience. It is all done at time of booking via the app.
What? You're expected to tip before receiving the service?
lol. There is no tip. It’s all done by card on your phone
Have you never taken an Uber??!
Ha, no, I get a taxi, what, once every year or two? I'm quite keen on a) walking, b) cycling and c) public transport. And d) not spending a lot when I can spend a little. The time advantage of a taxi rarely seems clear cut enough to be worth it. I'm rarely out much after the last tram runs, and there are night buses. And I'm also averse to downloading apps. So it's never seemed worth signing up. I have been in an uber, twice, when my (to my mind) needlessly extravagant friend called one to get from Euston to Lord's (and then back again), but he paid (on the basis that I'd have very happily taken the tube) so I've no direct experience of how it's done.
One thing about this meeting is that it effectively says that they're not going to prosecute anyone else over Epstein, if the AG, deputy and FBI director are at an administration strategy meeting over the issue.
It would be wildly prejudicial to any prosecution subsequently launched.
White House chief Susie Wiles, JD Vance, AG Pam Bondi, FBI Dir Kash Patel & Deputy AG Todd Blanche are expected to meet Wed evening at Vance’s residence to discuss the Trump admin’s strategy relating to Epstein case https://x.com/alaynatreene/status/1952899871666508042
What we can expect is selective disclosure of anything embarrassing to Democrats, plus a few randoms for good measure.
The whole arrangement, with Trump's lawyer interviewing Maxwell in private, is massively corrupt, on its face.
“Sometimes the value of a 'human touch' is negative. People willing to pay 50% more for Waymo than Lyft, despite longer waiting times.”
People will pay more not to be driven by humans. Why? The cars are a bit nicer, the robot won’t rape you, there’s no chance of a racist rant, the drive will be safe and predictable
This here is the doom of the cab driver. It is also a tolling bell for human interaction
And, if you enjoy a racist rant, I suspect that AI can provide that, too.
Isn't that all part of the Cabbie service?
Might be in your part of the world. Not up here. Most of my cabbies are not white but from overseas. Last chap was an Eritrean. We chatted about the Eritrean church in Gateshead.
Oh, they can still do racism.
I once had a racist cab driver who was so racist he ran out of obvious people to be racist about within about 15 minutes of ranting. So then he started ranting about BELGIANS
Then he briskly exhausted that theme (how many times can you swear about that surrealist c*nt Rene Magritte) so he moved onto PEOPLE WHO TAKE TRAINS
In Greater Manchester, 99% of taxi drivers are Muslim, often with relatively little English. No racism from them. Very little conversation at all. I'd still prefer an automatic car though, if only to avoid the awkwardness about tipping. There is quite a British discomfort about Employing A Man To Do A Thing. I suffer it quite acutely.
Uber drivers neither expect nor accept tips in my experience. It is all done at time of booking via the app.
What? You're expected to tip before receiving the service?
You can tip the Uber driver after the journey via the app when you rate their service.
“Sometimes the value of a 'human touch' is negative. People willing to pay 50% more for Waymo than Lyft, despite longer waiting times.”
People will pay more not to be driven by humans. Why? The cars are a bit nicer, the robot won’t rape you, there’s no chance of a racist rant, the drive will be safe and predictable
This here is the doom of the cab driver. It is also a tolling bell for human interaction
And, if you enjoy a racist rant, I suspect that AI can provide that, too.
Isn't that all part of the Cabbie service?
Might be in your part of the world. Not up here. Most of my cabbies are not white but from overseas. Last chap was an Eritrean. We chatted about the Eritrean church in Gateshead.
Oh, they can still do racism.
I once had a racist cab driver who was so racist he ran out of obvious people to be racist about within about 15 minutes of ranting. So then he started ranting about BELGIANS
Then he briskly exhausted that theme (how many times can you swear about that surrealist c*nt Rene Magritte) so he moved onto PEOPLE WHO TAKE TRAINS
In Greater Manchester, 99% of taxi drivers are Muslim, often with relatively little English. No racism from them. Very little conversation at all. I'd still prefer an automatic car though, if only to avoid the awkwardness about tipping. There is quite a British discomfort about Employing A Man To Do A Thing. I suffer it quite acutely.
Uber drivers neither expect nor accept tips in my experience. It is all done at time of booking via the app.
What? You're expected to tip before receiving the service?
I do not know if ‘expected’ is the right word. The same thing is an option even with Deliveroo. Try it. Install the app and give it a go. You can cancel before the end. Its main advantage over classic minicabs (although they are catching on now) is the tracking app showing your cab on its way to picking you up. London buses have the same thing, and trains of course.
OT but rather interesting piece on what happens when one abandons land and nature takes over. Perhaps rather surprising results (except to a biologist, but it's good to see work being done on it). Audio version available.
One thing about this meeting is that it effectively says that they're not going to prosecute anyone else over Epstein, if the AG, deputy and FBI director are at an administration strategy meeting over the issue.
It would be wildly prejudicial to any prosecution subsequently launched.
White House chief Susie Wiles, JD Vance, AG Pam Bondi, FBI Dir Kash Patel & Deputy AG Todd Blanche are expected to meet Wed evening at Vance’s residence to discuss the Trump admin’s strategy relating to Epstein case https://x.com/alaynatreene/status/1952899871666508042
What we can expect is selective disclosure of anything embarrassing to Democrats, plus a few randoms for good measure.
The whole arrangement, with Trump's lawyer interviewing Maxwell in private, is massively corrupt, on its face.
You can do prejudicial stuff in America. Free speech trumps sub judice.
ETA but do not forget Trump has alienated a lot of bases, both MAGA and isolationists. He's already delivered tax cuts and an eye-watering deficit (which many on the right welcome!) so in a transactional world, many will be wondering for how much longer they need The Donald.
“Sometimes the value of a 'human touch' is negative. People willing to pay 50% more for Waymo than Lyft, despite longer waiting times.”
People will pay more not to be driven by humans. Why? The cars are a bit nicer, the robot won’t rape you, there’s no chance of a racist rant, the drive will be safe and predictable
This here is the doom of the cab driver. It is also a tolling bell for human interaction
And, if you enjoy a racist rant, I suspect that AI can provide that, too.
Isn't that all part of the Cabbie service?
Might be in your part of the world. Not up here. Most of my cabbies are not white but from overseas. Last chap was an Eritrean. We chatted about the Eritrean church in Gateshead.
Oh, they can still do racism.
I once had a racist cab driver who was so racist he ran out of obvious people to be racist about within about 15 minutes of ranting. So then he started ranting about BELGIANS
Then he briskly exhausted that theme (how many times can you swear about that surrealist c*nt Rene Magritte) so he moved onto PEOPLE WHO TAKE TRAINS
In Greater Manchester, 99% of taxi drivers are Muslim, often with relatively little English. No racism from them. Very little conversation at all. I'd still prefer an automatic car though, if only to avoid the awkwardness about tipping. There is quite a British discomfort about Employing A Man To Do A Thing. I suffer it quite acutely.
Uber drivers neither expect nor accept tips in my experience. It is all done at time of booking via the app.
What? You're expected to tip before receiving the service?
lol. There is no tip. It’s all done by card on your phone
Have you never taken an Uber??!
Ha, no, I get a taxi, what, once every year or two? I'm quite keen on a) walking, b) cycling and c) public transport. And d) not spending a lot when I can spend a little. The time advantage of a taxi rarely seems clear cut enough to be worth it. I'm rarely out much after the last tram runs, and there are night buses. And I'm also averse to downloading apps. So it's never seemed worth signing up. I have been in an uber, twice, when my (to my mind) needlessly extravagant friend called one to get from Euston to Lord's (and then back again), but he paid (on the basis that I'd have very happily taken the tube) so I've no direct experience of how it's done.
Fair enough
No, there is no tip. The payment is all done automatically and smoothly via your phone. You can tip if you want afterwards but no one does, and the drivers probably prefer you give them a five star rating anyway
It’s one huge advantage of Ubers (and one reason black cabs are slowly dying out despite the prices now being similar)
However you still have to endure a human driver. Who might want to chat or be a bit drunk or misunderstand his Google maps
So a driverless car would be preferable. And people are already preferring them
Labour Party 6051 Conservative 4326 Liberal Democrats 3203 Green Party (E&W) 866 Reform UK 862 Scottish National Party 417 Plaid Cymru 201 Sinn Féin 144 Democratic Unionist Party 121 Alliance Party of Northern Ireland 66
Sky News reported that the new Corbyn/Sultana party had 200 councillors lined up, and nearly a dozen more have pledged support since. That would catapult them into 7th. If all of the Independent Alliance come over, they'll be 6th in Commons seats.
If we add the Reform Derby guys to Reform they sneak past the Greens, although defections have probably,y already done that
If you're going to add Reform Derby to the Reform total, then surely you'd add Scottish Greens (36) and Northern Ireland Greens (5) to the Green (E&W) total?
AIUI Reform Derby are just Reform, they set the group up before Reform had won any council seats in 2023/early 2024 Scottish Greens are a separate party with a different policy platform etc Not sure on the status of the NI greens?
“Sometimes the value of a 'human touch' is negative. People willing to pay 50% more for Waymo than Lyft, despite longer waiting times.”
People will pay more not to be driven by humans. Why? The cars are a bit nicer, the robot won’t rape you, there’s no chance of a racist rant, the drive will be safe and predictable
This here is the doom of the cab driver. It is also a tolling bell for human interaction
And, if you enjoy a racist rant, I suspect that AI can provide that, too.
Isn't that all part of the Cabbie service?
Might be in your part of the world. Not up here. Most of my cabbies are not white but from overseas. Last chap was an Eritrean. We chatted about the Eritrean church in Gateshead.
Oh, they can still do racism.
I once had a racist cab driver who was so racist he ran out of obvious people to be racist about within about 15 minutes of ranting. So then he started ranting about BELGIANS
Then he briskly exhausted that theme (how many times can you swear about that surrealist c*nt Rene Magritte) so he moved onto PEOPLE WHO TAKE TRAINS
In Greater Manchester, 99% of taxi drivers are Muslim, often with relatively little English. No racism from them. Very little conversation at all. I'd still prefer an automatic car though, if only to avoid the awkwardness about tipping. There is quite a British discomfort about Employing A Man To Do A Thing. I suffer it quite acutely.
A Waymo is also far safer. Apparently parents in Frisco are using them to send their unattended kids to school. Which you probably wouldn’t risk with an Uber…
One reason local councils are skint if not bankrupt is the number of SEND children taking taxis to school.
And the cab drivers not engaged there are often driving younger children to private day schools, although I gather business has dropped off since WFH.
Driverless minibuses or even buses would seem to be a solution here. Let them go round the houses picking up the SEND kids en masse. They get to school and ££££ is saved
JFDI
When in Cornwall I encountered the following -
All the taxis were being booked for the school run. Limited number of drivers. So the local cab driver/company bought a minibus - van conversion. Seats for a dozen. He told me it was so popular, he was buying a second one…
Someone remind me why we don’t have school buses in this country?
It’s always bemused me too. It’s not rocket science. America - which hates public transport and generally does it badly - manages to do it with the yellow school bus. Why can’t we?!
Eh? They have school buses in the UK, depending on the distance from school which the pupil lives (obviously more for small towns and rural areas).
The economics of busing all pupils is of course very different from busing a few specialist class pupils to few and widely dispersed establishments.
Edit: probably you don't notice them because they are ordinary buses. There's a lot to be said for the purpose-built US style school bus, not least the legal provisions surrounding it (especially the way in which other drivers have to behave around it).
“Sometimes the value of a 'human touch' is negative. People willing to pay 50% more for Waymo than Lyft, despite longer waiting times.”
People will pay more not to be driven by humans. Why? The cars are a bit nicer, the robot won’t rape you, there’s no chance of a racist rant, the drive will be safe and predictable
This here is the doom of the cab driver. It is also a tolling bell for human interaction
And, if you enjoy a racist rant, I suspect that AI can provide that, too.
Isn't that all part of the Cabbie service?
Might be in your part of the world. Not up here. Most of my cabbies are not white but from overseas. Last chap was an Eritrean. We chatted about the Eritrean church in Gateshead.
Oh, they can still do racism.
I once had a racist cab driver who was so racist he ran out of obvious people to be racist about within about 15 minutes of ranting. So then he started ranting about BELGIANS
Then he briskly exhausted that theme (how many times can you swear about that surrealist c*nt Rene Magritte) so he moved onto PEOPLE WHO TAKE TRAINS
In Greater Manchester, 99% of taxi drivers are Muslim, often with relatively little English. No racism from them. Very little conversation at all. I'd still prefer an automatic car though, if only to avoid the awkwardness about tipping. There is quite a British discomfort about Employing A Man To Do A Thing. I suffer it quite acutely.
Uber drivers neither expect nor accept tips in my experience. It is all done at time of booking via the app.
What? You're expected to tip before receiving the service?
You can tip the Uber driver after the journey via the app when you rate their service.
The catch is that Uber drivers rate their passengers.
That's simply racism/nationalism. Tan is probably Intel's last best chance of turning things around, or more likely saving the saveable parts of the business.
“Sometimes the value of a 'human touch' is negative. People willing to pay 50% more for Waymo than Lyft, despite longer waiting times.”
People will pay more not to be driven by humans. Why? The cars are a bit nicer, the robot won’t rape you, there’s no chance of a racist rant, the drive will be safe and predictable
This here is the doom of the cab driver. It is also a tolling bell for human interaction
And, if you enjoy a racist rant, I suspect that AI can provide that, too.
Isn't that all part of the Cabbie service?
Might be in your part of the world. Not up here. Most of my cabbies are not white but from overseas. Last chap was an Eritrean. We chatted about the Eritrean church in Gateshead.
Oh, they can still do racism.
I once had a racist cab driver who was so racist he ran out of obvious people to be racist about within about 15 minutes of ranting. So then he started ranting about BELGIANS
Then he briskly exhausted that theme (how many times can you swear about that surrealist c*nt Rene Magritte) so he moved onto PEOPLE WHO TAKE TRAINS
In Greater Manchester, 99% of taxi drivers are Muslim, often with relatively little English. No racism from them. Very little conversation at all. I'd still prefer an automatic car though, if only to avoid the awkwardness about tipping. There is quite a British discomfort about Employing A Man To Do A Thing. I suffer it quite acutely.
Uber drivers neither expect nor accept tips in my experience. It is all done at time of booking via the app.
What? You're expected to tip before receiving the service?
You can tip the Uber driver after the journey via the app when you rate their service.
The catch is that Uber drivers rate their passengers.
Which is another reason driverless cabs are preferable. They ain’t gonna judge you
“Sometimes the value of a 'human touch' is negative. People willing to pay 50% more for Waymo than Lyft, despite longer waiting times.”
People will pay more not to be driven by humans. Why? The cars are a bit nicer, the robot won’t rape you, there’s no chance of a racist rant, the drive will be safe and predictable
This here is the doom of the cab driver. It is also a tolling bell for human interaction
And, if you enjoy a racist rant, I suspect that AI can provide that, too.
Isn't that all part of the Cabbie service?
Might be in your part of the world. Not up here. Most of my cabbies are not white but from overseas. Last chap was an Eritrean. We chatted about the Eritrean church in Gateshead.
Oh, they can still do racism.
I once had a racist cab driver who was so racist he ran out of obvious people to be racist about within about 15 minutes of ranting. So then he started ranting about BELGIANS
Then he briskly exhausted that theme (how many times can you swear about that surrealist c*nt Rene Magritte) so he moved onto PEOPLE WHO TAKE TRAINS
In Greater Manchester, 99% of taxi drivers are Muslim, often with relatively little English. No racism from them. Very little conversation at all. I'd still prefer an automatic car though, if only to avoid the awkwardness about tipping. There is quite a British discomfort about Employing A Man To Do A Thing. I suffer it quite acutely.
Uber drivers neither expect nor accept tips in my experience. It is all done at time of booking via the app.
What? You're expected to tip before receiving the service?
You can tip the Uber driver after the journey via the app when you rate their service.
The catch is that Uber drivers rate their passengers.
A lot of people in the US now complain that if they don't tip prior to delivery for Doordash etc they never get anybody to bring their food. Rather makes a mockery of the whole idea of a tip.
One thing about this meeting is that it effectively says that they're not going to prosecute anyone else over Epstein, if the AG, deputy and FBI director are at an administration strategy meeting over the issue.
It would be wildly prejudicial to any prosecution subsequently launched.
White House chief Susie Wiles, JD Vance, AG Pam Bondi, FBI Dir Kash Patel & Deputy AG Todd Blanche are expected to meet Wed evening at Vance’s residence to discuss the Trump admin’s strategy relating to Epstein case https://x.com/alaynatreene/status/1952899871666508042
What we can expect is selective disclosure of anything embarrassing to Democrats, plus a few randoms for good measure.
The whole arrangement, with Trump's lawyer interviewing Maxwell in private, is massively corrupt, on its face.
The obvious deal is Maxwell gets a pardon and spills the beans on mostly Dems, a handful of minor Republicans, gives Orange a pass and exagerrates the f*** out of anything to do with the Clintons. Not sure why it is taking so long, perhaps being timed for the mid terms.
“Sometimes the value of a 'human touch' is negative. People willing to pay 50% more for Waymo than Lyft, despite longer waiting times.”
People will pay more not to be driven by humans. Why? The cars are a bit nicer, the robot won’t rape you, there’s no chance of a racist rant, the drive will be safe and predictable
This here is the doom of the cab driver. It is also a tolling bell for human interaction
And, if you enjoy a racist rant, I suspect that AI can provide that, too.
Isn't that all part of the Cabbie service?
Might be in your part of the world. Not up here. Most of my cabbies are not white but from overseas. Last chap was an Eritrean. We chatted about the Eritrean church in Gateshead.
Oh, they can still do racism.
I once had a racist cab driver who was so racist he ran out of obvious people to be racist about within about 15 minutes of ranting. So then he started ranting about BELGIANS
Then he briskly exhausted that theme (how many times can you swear about that surrealist c*nt Rene Magritte) so he moved onto PEOPLE WHO TAKE TRAINS
In Greater Manchester, 99% of taxi drivers are Muslim, often with relatively little English. No racism from them. Very little conversation at all. I'd still prefer an automatic car though, if only to avoid the awkwardness about tipping. There is quite a British discomfort about Employing A Man To Do A Thing. I suffer it quite acutely.
Uber drivers neither expect nor accept tips in my experience. It is all done at time of booking via the app.
What? You're expected to tip before receiving the service?
You can tip the Uber driver after the journey via the app when you rate their service.
The catch is that Uber drivers rate their passengers.
A lot of people in the US now complain that if they don't tip prior to delivery for Doordash etc they never get anybody to bring their food. Rather makes a mockery of the whole idea of a tip.
Tipping should be banned everywhere for everything. Its a grotesque practice. Pay people properly.
One thing about this meeting is that it effectively says that they're not going to prosecute anyone else over Epstein, if the AG, deputy and FBI director are at an administration strategy meeting over the issue.
It would be wildly prejudicial to any prosecution subsequently launched.
White House chief Susie Wiles, JD Vance, AG Pam Bondi, FBI Dir Kash Patel & Deputy AG Todd Blanche are expected to meet Wed evening at Vance’s residence to discuss the Trump admin’s strategy relating to Epstein case https://x.com/alaynatreene/status/1952899871666508042
What we can expect is selective disclosure of anything embarrassing to Democrats, plus a few randoms for good measure.
The whole arrangement, with Trump's lawyer interviewing Maxwell in private, is massively corrupt, on its face.
You can do prejudicial stuff in America. Free speech trumps sub judice.
ETA but do not forget Trump has alienated a lot of bases, both MAGA and isolationists. He's already delivered tax cuts and an eye-watering deficit (which many on the right welcome!) so in a transactional world, many will be wondering for how much longer they need The Donald.
Zero to do with free speech. This is a meeting of the country's top lawyer and law officers to politically fix a potential criminal problem. It will make any subsequent prosecution initiated by them on the matter impossible.
“Sometimes the value of a 'human touch' is negative. People willing to pay 50% more for Waymo than Lyft, despite longer waiting times.”
People will pay more not to be driven by humans. Why? The cars are a bit nicer, the robot won’t rape you, there’s no chance of a racist rant, the drive will be safe and predictable
This here is the doom of the cab driver. It is also a tolling bell for human interaction
And, if you enjoy a racist rant, I suspect that AI can provide that, too.
Isn't that all part of the Cabbie service?
Might be in your part of the world. Not up here. Most of my cabbies are not white but from overseas. Last chap was an Eritrean. We chatted about the Eritrean church in Gateshead.
Oh, they can still do racism.
I once had a racist cab driver who was so racist he ran out of obvious people to be racist about within about 15 minutes of ranting. So then he started ranting about BELGIANS
Then he briskly exhausted that theme (how many times can you swear about that surrealist c*nt Rene Magritte) so he moved onto PEOPLE WHO TAKE TRAINS
In Greater Manchester, 99% of taxi drivers are Muslim, often with relatively little English. No racism from them. Very little conversation at all. I'd still prefer an automatic car though, if only to avoid the awkwardness about tipping. There is quite a British discomfort about Employing A Man To Do A Thing. I suffer it quite acutely.
Uber drivers neither expect nor accept tips in my experience. It is all done at time of booking via the app.
What? You're expected to tip before receiving the service?
You can tip the Uber driver after the journey via the app when you rate their service.
The catch is that Uber drivers rate their passengers.
A lot of people in the US now complain that if they don't tip prior to delivery for Doordash etc they never get anybody to bring their food. Rather makes a mockery of the whole idea of a tip.
Tipping should be banned everywhere for everything. Its a grotesque practice. Pay people properly.
Even self checkouts have been spotting asking for tips...so even our robot overlords are in on the game.
In the US, in some states minimum wage exemptions have been cracked down on and minimum wage is for instance $20/hr, so the guilt trip angle of you have to tip otherwise these people aren't earning anything doesn't hold.
Where as in lots of places in Asia, leaving a "tip", is basically a massive middle finger, saying your service is so shit you are going to need this as you will be going out of business.
“Sometimes the value of a 'human touch' is negative. People willing to pay 50% more for Waymo than Lyft, despite longer waiting times.”
People will pay more not to be driven by humans. Why? The cars are a bit nicer, the robot won’t rape you, there’s no chance of a racist rant, the drive will be safe and predictable
This here is the doom of the cab driver. It is also a tolling bell for human interaction
And, if you enjoy a racist rant, I suspect that AI can provide that, too.
Isn't that all part of the Cabbie service?
Might be in your part of the world. Not up here. Most of my cabbies are not white but from overseas. Last chap was an Eritrean. We chatted about the Eritrean church in Gateshead.
Oh, they can still do racism.
I once had a racist cab driver who was so racist he ran out of obvious people to be racist about within about 15 minutes of ranting. So then he started ranting about BELGIANS
Then he briskly exhausted that theme (how many times can you swear about that surrealist c*nt Rene Magritte) so he moved onto PEOPLE WHO TAKE TRAINS
In Greater Manchester, 99% of taxi drivers are Muslim, often with relatively little English. No racism from them. Very little conversation at all. I'd still prefer an automatic car though, if only to avoid the awkwardness about tipping. There is quite a British discomfort about Employing A Man To Do A Thing. I suffer it quite acutely.
Uber drivers neither expect nor accept tips in my experience. It is all done at time of booking via the app.
What? You're expected to tip before receiving the service?
You can tip the Uber driver after the journey via the app when you rate their service.
The catch is that Uber drivers rate their passengers.
A lot of people in the US now complain that if they don't tip prior to delivery for Doordash etc they never get anybody to bring their food. Rather makes a mockery of the whole idea of a tip.
Tipping should be banned everywhere for everything. Its a grotesque practice. Pay people properly.
Even self checkouts have been spotting asking for tips...so even our robot overlords are in on the game.
Where as in lots of places in Asia, leaving a "tip", is basically a massive middle finger, saying your service is so shit you are going to need this as you will be going out of business.
'And here's a little something for you for your service' Ugh. Wankers
“Sometimes the value of a 'human touch' is negative. People willing to pay 50% more for Waymo than Lyft, despite longer waiting times.”
People will pay more not to be driven by humans. Why? The cars are a bit nicer, the robot won’t rape you, there’s no chance of a racist rant, the drive will be safe and predictable
This here is the doom of the cab driver. It is also a tolling bell for human interaction
And, if you enjoy a racist rant, I suspect that AI can provide that, too.
Isn't that all part of the Cabbie service?
Might be in your part of the world. Not up here. Most of my cabbies are not white but from overseas. Last chap was an Eritrean. We chatted about the Eritrean church in Gateshead.
Oh, they can still do racism.
I once had a racist cab driver who was so racist he ran out of obvious people to be racist about within about 15 minutes of ranting. So then he started ranting about BELGIANS
Then he briskly exhausted that theme (how many times can you swear about that surrealist c*nt Rene Magritte) so he moved onto PEOPLE WHO TAKE TRAINS
In Greater Manchester, 99% of taxi drivers are Muslim, often with relatively little English. No racism from them. Very little conversation at all. I'd still prefer an automatic car though, if only to avoid the awkwardness about tipping. There is quite a British discomfort about Employing A Man To Do A Thing. I suffer it quite acutely.
A Waymo is also far safer. Apparently parents in Frisco are using them to send their unattended kids to school. Which you probably wouldn’t risk with an Uber…
One reason local councils are skint if not bankrupt is the number of SEND children taking taxis to school.
And the cab drivers not engaged there are often driving younger children to private day schools, although I gather business has dropped off since WFH.
Driverless minibuses or even buses would seem to be a solution here. Let them go round the houses picking up the SEND kids en masse. They get to school and ££££ is saved
JFDI
When in Cornwall I encountered the following -
All the taxis were being booked for the school run. Limited number of drivers. So the local cab driver/company bought a minibus - van conversion. Seats for a dozen. He told me it was so popular, he was buying a second one…
Someone remind me why we don’t have school buses in this country?
It’s always bemused me too. It’s not rocket science. America - which hates public transport and generally does it badly - manages to do it with the yellow school bus. Why can’t we?!
Eh? They have school buses in the UK, depending on the distance from school which the pupil lives (obviously more for small towns and rural areas).
The economics of busing all pupils is of course very different from busing a few specialist class pupils to few and widely dispersed establishments.
Edit: probably you don't notice them because they are ordinary buses. There's a lot to be said for the purpose-built US style school bus, not least the legal provisions surrounding it (especially the way in which other drivers have to behave around it).
Occasionally in the morning I see a few people I know dropping their children off at a car park at this end of the world. All the children go to the same prep school and they get dropped off to one of those Mercedes van taxis and the 8 of them get dropped off to school together - and dropped back. It saves the parents from the rush hour traffic etc and they are splitting a taxi between 8 people five days a week - I can’t work out whether it’s a bit indulgent or if it’s really sensible. The school buses don’t serve them as it’s a private school so not an option.
“Sometimes the value of a 'human touch' is negative. People willing to pay 50% more for Waymo than Lyft, despite longer waiting times.”
People will pay more not to be driven by humans. Why? The cars are a bit nicer, the robot won’t rape you, there’s no chance of a racist rant, the drive will be safe and predictable
This here is the doom of the cab driver. It is also a tolling bell for human interaction
And, if you enjoy a racist rant, I suspect that AI can provide that, too.
Isn't that all part of the Cabbie service?
Might be in your part of the world. Not up here. Most of my cabbies are not white but from overseas. Last chap was an Eritrean. We chatted about the Eritrean church in Gateshead.
Oh, they can still do racism.
I once had a racist cab driver who was so racist he ran out of obvious people to be racist about within about 15 minutes of ranting. So then he started ranting about BELGIANS
Then he briskly exhausted that theme (how many times can you swear about that surrealist c*nt Rene Magritte) so he moved onto PEOPLE WHO TAKE TRAINS
In Greater Manchester, 99% of taxi drivers are Muslim, often with relatively little English. No racism from them. Very little conversation at all. I'd still prefer an automatic car though, if only to avoid the awkwardness about tipping. There is quite a British discomfort about Employing A Man To Do A Thing. I suffer it quite acutely.
Uber drivers neither expect nor accept tips in my experience. It is all done at time of booking via the app.
What? You're expected to tip before receiving the service?
You can tip the Uber driver after the journey via the app when you rate their service.
The catch is that Uber drivers rate their passengers.
A lot of people in the US now complain that if they don't tip prior to delivery for Doordash etc they never get anybody to bring their food. Rather makes a mockery of the whole idea of a tip.
Tipping should be banned everywhere for everything. Its a grotesque practice. Pay people properly.
Even self checkouts have been spotting asking for tips...so even our robot overlords are in on the game.
Where as in lots of places in Asia, leaving a "tip", is basically a massive middle finger, saying your service is so shit you are going to need this as you will be going out of business.
'And here's a little something for you for your service' Ugh. Wankers
If it was Trump, did he pay them for their work in servicing his little something?
Absolutely no way I’d get in a driverless car . They should only be allowed for disabled people .
I'm taken back to the countless, "Absolutely no way I'd get a mobile phone..." comments one heard in the mid 1990s.
You’re comparing two things that aren’t comparable. Mobile phones can’t mount a pavement and wipe out a group of pedestrians.
Drivers are perfectly capable of that too. All of us are one undiagnosed medical condition away from it.
The really cool thing about driverless is that they could warn other cars. "Cyclist in two miles, get ready to slow down". "Drunk guy on South Bridge". "Pavements overloaded near the Balmoral, slow to 10mph".
Labour Party 6051 Conservative 4326 Liberal Democrats 3203 Green Party (E&W) 866 Reform UK 862 Scottish National Party 417 Plaid Cymru 201 Sinn Féin 144 Democratic Unionist Party 121 Alliance Party of Northern Ireland 66
Sky News reported that the new Corbyn/Sultana party had 200 councillors lined up, and nearly a dozen more have pledged support since. That would catapult them into 7th. If all of the Independent Alliance come over, they'll be 6th in Commons seats.
If we add the Reform Derby guys to Reform they sneak past the Greens, although defections have probably,y already done that
If you're going to add Reform Derby to the Reform total, then surely you'd add Scottish Greens (36) and Northern Ireland Greens (5) to the Green (E&W) total?
AIUI Reform Derby are just Reform, they set the group up before Reform had won any council seats in 2023/early 2024 Scottish Greens are a separate party with a different policy platform etc Not sure on the status of the NI greens?
It's a separately registered political party and I'd have thought that's the distinguishing feature for local government, given that all parties run on a local authority specific platform rather than a national platform (there's no reason to assume the Wandsworth Labour platform is the all that close to that of Cumbria Labour, albeit the national party would be keen to avoid really jarring differences and would encourage adoption of some common positions).
“Sometimes the value of a 'human touch' is negative. People willing to pay 50% more for Waymo than Lyft, despite longer waiting times.”
People will pay more not to be driven by humans. Why? The cars are a bit nicer, the robot won’t rape you, there’s no chance of a racist rant, the drive will be safe and predictable
This here is the doom of the cab driver. It is also a tolling bell for human interaction
And, if you enjoy a racist rant, I suspect that AI can provide that, too.
Isn't that all part of the Cabbie service?
Might be in your part of the world. Not up here. Most of my cabbies are not white but from overseas. Last chap was an Eritrean. We chatted about the Eritrean church in Gateshead.
Oh, they can still do racism.
I once had a racist cab driver who was so racist he ran out of obvious people to be racist about within about 15 minutes of ranting. So then he started ranting about BELGIANS
Then he briskly exhausted that theme (how many times can you swear about that surrealist c*nt Rene Magritte) so he moved onto PEOPLE WHO TAKE TRAINS
In Greater Manchester, 99% of taxi drivers are Muslim, often with relatively little English. No racism from them. Very little conversation at all. I'd still prefer an automatic car though, if only to avoid the awkwardness about tipping. There is quite a British discomfort about Employing A Man To Do A Thing. I suffer it quite acutely.
Uber drivers neither expect nor accept tips in my experience. It is all done at time of booking via the app.
What? You're expected to tip before receiving the service?
You can tip the Uber driver after the journey via the app when you rate their service.
The catch is that Uber drivers rate their passengers.
A lot of people in the US now complain that if they don't tip prior to delivery for Doordash etc they never get anybody to bring their food. Rather makes a mockery of the whole idea of a tip.
Tipping should be banned everywhere for everything. Its a grotesque practice. Pay people properly.
Even self checkouts have been spotting asking for tips...so even our robot overlords are in on the game.
Where as in lots of places in Asia, leaving a "tip", is basically a massive middle finger, saying your service is so shit you are going to need this as you will be going out of business.
'And here's a little something for you for your service' Ugh. Wankers
“Sometimes the value of a 'human touch' is negative. People willing to pay 50% more for Waymo than Lyft, despite longer waiting times.”
People will pay more not to be driven by humans. Why? The cars are a bit nicer, the robot won’t rape you, there’s no chance of a racist rant, the drive will be safe and predictable
This here is the doom of the cab driver. It is also a tolling bell for human interaction
And, if you enjoy a racist rant, I suspect that AI can provide that, too.
Isn't that all part of the Cabbie service?
Might be in your part of the world. Not up here. Most of my cabbies are not white but from overseas. Last chap was an Eritrean. We chatted about the Eritrean church in Gateshead.
Oh, they can still do racism.
I once had a racist cab driver who was so racist he ran out of obvious people to be racist about within about 15 minutes of ranting. So then he started ranting about BELGIANS
Then he briskly exhausted that theme (how many times can you swear about that surrealist c*nt Rene Magritte) so he moved onto PEOPLE WHO TAKE TRAINS
In Greater Manchester, 99% of taxi drivers are Muslim, often with relatively little English. No racism from them. Very little conversation at all. I'd still prefer an automatic car though, if only to avoid the awkwardness about tipping. There is quite a British discomfort about Employing A Man To Do A Thing. I suffer it quite acutely.
Uber drivers neither expect nor accept tips in my experience. It is all done at time of booking via the app.
What? You're expected to tip before receiving the service?
You can tip the Uber driver after the journey via the app when you rate their service.
The catch is that Uber drivers rate their passengers.
Which is another reason driverless cabs are preferable. They ain’t gonna judge you
Former cab driver running a fleet of driverless cars - “No tip. I’ll give him a fucking -5 on the passenger rating system”
“Sometimes the value of a 'human touch' is negative. People willing to pay 50% more for Waymo than Lyft, despite longer waiting times.”
People will pay more not to be driven by humans. Why? The cars are a bit nicer, the robot won’t rape you, there’s no chance of a racist rant, the drive will be safe and predictable
This here is the doom of the cab driver. It is also a tolling bell for human interaction
And, if you enjoy a racist rant, I suspect that AI can provide that, too.
Isn't that all part of the Cabbie service?
Might be in your part of the world. Not up here. Most of my cabbies are not white but from overseas. Last chap was an Eritrean. We chatted about the Eritrean church in Gateshead.
Oh, they can still do racism.
I once had a racist cab driver who was so racist he ran out of obvious people to be racist about within about 15 minutes of ranting. So then he started ranting about BELGIANS
Then he briskly exhausted that theme (how many times can you swear about that surrealist c*nt Rene Magritte) so he moved onto PEOPLE WHO TAKE TRAINS
In Greater Manchester, 99% of taxi drivers are Muslim, often with relatively little English. No racism from them. Very little conversation at all. I'd still prefer an automatic car though, if only to avoid the awkwardness about tipping. There is quite a British discomfort about Employing A Man To Do A Thing. I suffer it quite acutely.
A Waymo is also far safer. Apparently parents in Frisco are using them to send their unattended kids to school. Which you probably wouldn’t risk with an Uber…
One reason local councils are skint if not bankrupt is the number of SEND children taking taxis to school.
And the cab drivers not engaged there are often driving younger children to private day schools, although I gather business has dropped off since WFH.
Driverless minibuses or even buses would seem to be a solution here. Let them go round the houses picking up the SEND kids en masse. They get to school and ££££ is saved
JFDI
When in Cornwall I encountered the following -
All the taxis were being booked for the school run. Limited number of drivers. So the local cab driver/company bought a minibus - van conversion. Seats for a dozen. He told me it was so popular, he was buying a second one…
Someone remind me why we don’t have school buses in this country?
We do...?
60% of my school came in by bus.
It was a hell of a long day for me when I went to school. Dad took the milk to the milkstand and me to XXX to catch the school bus at 7.30 to catch the bus at 7.50. Arrived at school at 8.35 for classes to begin at 8.50. School ended at 4.00 pm, bus collected us at 4.10 and took us back to XXX where we arrived at 4.50. I then walked back home getting there at 5.30 if no-one gave me a lift, many did. Then 3 hours home work.
For Sixth Form I didn't go in on Wednesday, they scheduled my classes so I didn't have to. So got a lot more done WFH as you might say. Oh and if I had to stay for an early evening event such as Further Maths for 1 terms then dad had to drive to school to pick me up after evening milking. Anyway, I go 5 A Levels which is 5 more than a lot of kids who lived within half a mile walking distance from school.
“Sometimes the value of a 'human touch' is negative. People willing to pay 50% more for Waymo than Lyft, despite longer waiting times.”
People will pay more not to be driven by humans. Why? The cars are a bit nicer, the robot won’t rape you, there’s no chance of a racist rant, the drive will be safe and predictable
This here is the doom of the cab driver. It is also a tolling bell for human interaction
And, if you enjoy a racist rant, I suspect that AI can provide that, too.
Isn't that all part of the Cabbie service?
Might be in your part of the world. Not up here. Most of my cabbies are not white but from overseas. Last chap was an Eritrean. We chatted about the Eritrean church in Gateshead.
Oh, they can still do racism.
I once had a racist cab driver who was so racist he ran out of obvious people to be racist about within about 15 minutes of ranting. So then he started ranting about BELGIANS
Then he briskly exhausted that theme (how many times can you swear about that surrealist c*nt Rene Magritte) so he moved onto PEOPLE WHO TAKE TRAINS
In Greater Manchester, 99% of taxi drivers are Muslim, often with relatively little English. No racism from them. Very little conversation at all. I'd still prefer an automatic car though, if only to avoid the awkwardness about tipping. There is quite a British discomfort about Employing A Man To Do A Thing. I suffer it quite acutely.
Uber drivers neither expect nor accept tips in my experience. It is all done at time of booking via the app.
What? You're expected to tip before receiving the service?
You can tip the Uber driver after the journey via the app when you rate their service.
The catch is that Uber drivers rate their passengers.
Labour Party 6051 Conservative 4326 Liberal Democrats 3203 Green Party (E&W) 866 Reform UK 862 Scottish National Party 417 Plaid Cymru 201 Sinn Féin 144 Democratic Unionist Party 121 Alliance Party of Northern Ireland 66
Sky News reported that the new Corbyn/Sultana party had 200 councillors lined up, and nearly a dozen more have pledged support since. That would catapult them into 7th. If all of the Independent Alliance come over, they'll be 6th in Commons seats.
If we add the Reform Derby guys to Reform they sneak past the Greens, although defections have probably,y already done that
If you're going to add Reform Derby to the Reform total, then surely you'd add Scottish Greens (36) and Northern Ireland Greens (5) to the Green (E&W) total?
AIUI Reform Derby are just Reform, they set the group up before Reform had won any council seats in 2023/early 2024 Scottish Greens are a separate party with a different policy platform etc Not sure on the status of the NI greens?
It's a separately registered political party and I'd have thought that's the distinguishing feature for local government, given that all parties run on a local authority specific platform rather than a national platform (there's no reason to assume the Wandsworth Labour platform is the all that close to that of Cumbria Labour, albeit the national party would be keen to avoid really jarring differences and would encourage adoption of some common positions).
“Sometimes the value of a 'human touch' is negative. People willing to pay 50% more for Waymo than Lyft, despite longer waiting times.”
People will pay more not to be driven by humans. Why? The cars are a bit nicer, the robot won’t rape you, there’s no chance of a racist rant, the drive will be safe and predictable
This here is the doom of the cab driver. It is also a tolling bell for human interaction
And, if you enjoy a racist rant, I suspect that AI can provide that, too.
Isn't that all part of the Cabbie service?
Might be in your part of the world. Not up here. Most of my cabbies are not white but from overseas. Last chap was an Eritrean. We chatted about the Eritrean church in Gateshead.
Oh, they can still do racism.
I once had a racist cab driver who was so racist he ran out of obvious people to be racist about within about 15 minutes of ranting. So then he started ranting about BELGIANS
Then he briskly exhausted that theme (how many times can you swear about that surrealist c*nt Rene Magritte) so he moved onto PEOPLE WHO TAKE TRAINS
In Greater Manchester, 99% of taxi drivers are Muslim, often with relatively little English. No racism from them. Very little conversation at all. I'd still prefer an automatic car though, if only to avoid the awkwardness about tipping. There is quite a British discomfort about Employing A Man To Do A Thing. I suffer it quite acutely.
A Waymo is also far safer. Apparently parents in Frisco are using them to send their unattended kids to school. Which you probably wouldn’t risk with an Uber…
One reason local councils are skint if not bankrupt is the number of SEND children taking taxis to school.
And the cab drivers not engaged there are often driving younger children to private day schools, although I gather business has dropped off since WFH.
Driverless minibuses or even buses would seem to be a solution here. Let them go round the houses picking up the SEND kids en masse. They get to school and ££££ is saved
JFDI
When in Cornwall I encountered the following -
All the taxis were being booked for the school run. Limited number of drivers. So the local cab driver/company bought a minibus - van conversion. Seats for a dozen. He told me it was so popular, he was buying a second one…
Someone remind me why we don’t have school buses in this country?
It’s always bemused me too. It’s not rocket science. America - which hates public transport and generally does it badly - manages to do it with the yellow school bus. Why can’t we?!
Eh? They have school buses in the UK, depending on the distance from school which the pupil lives (obviously more for small towns and rural areas).
The economics of busing all pupils is of course very different from busing a few specialist class pupils to few and widely dispersed establishments.
Edit: probably you don't notice them because they are ordinary buses. There's a lot to be said for the purpose-built US style school bus, not least the legal provisions surrounding it (especially the way in which other drivers have to behave around it).
Occasionally in the morning I see a few people I know dropping their children off at a car park at this end of the world. All the children go to the same prep school and they get dropped off to one of those Mercedes van taxis and the 8 of them get dropped off to school together - and dropped back. It saves the parents from the rush hour traffic etc and they are splitting a taxi between 8 people five days a week - I can’t work out whether it’s a bit indulgent or if it’s really sensible. The school buses don’t serve them as it’s a private school so not an option.
Impossible to say on whether it is indulgent without knowing the distances involved. But clearly it saves a lot of vehicle movements in the rush hour.
Absolutely no way I’d get in a driverless car . They should only be allowed for disabled people .
I'm taken back to the countless, "Absolutely no way I'd get a mobile phone..." comments one heard in the mid 1990s.
You’re comparing two things that aren’t comparable. Mobile phones can’t mount a pavement and wipe out a group of pedestrians.
Drivers are perfectly capable of that too. All of us are one undiagnosed medical condition away from it.
The really cool thing about driverless is that they could warn other cars. "Cyclist in two miles, get ready to slow down". "Drunk guy on South Bridge". "Pavements overloaded near the Balmoral, slow to 10mph".
“Roderick Spode and chums on small bridge. Drive like Nigel Mansel.”
I reckon we are now in the final decade of the human driven car. By 2035 they will almost all be gone - but a few will remain for fun and status, the way some people still keep horses or steam engines
That's way too aggressive a timescale. It wouldn't even be possible to build all the required cars in that time. Driverless cars are hard to scale because you don't just need a car, you need the sensors and computers to handle the vision processing and AI. There's already a supply issue for the chips required (which is why NVidia is now a $4tn company) and increasing fab capacity to meet demand is slow and expensive work.
I'd say we're looking at 20 years before driverless cars are the majority, at minimum.
Absolutely no way I’d get in a driverless car . They should only be allowed for disabled people .
I'm taken back to the countless, "Absolutely no way I'd get a mobile phone..." comments one heard in the mid 1990s.
You’re comparing two things that aren’t comparable. Mobile phones can’t mount a pavement and wipe out a group of pedestrians.
They could, in the 1990s if you listened to fairly sizeable groups of people, fry your brain and shrivel your testes.
The point is that the march of technology almost inevitably involves enormous numbers of people who said they'd never adopt it ending up adopting it. Perhaps reluctantly, perhaps late, but nevertheless.
“Sometimes the value of a 'human touch' is negative. People willing to pay 50% more for Waymo than Lyft, despite longer waiting times.”
People will pay more not to be driven by humans. Why? The cars are a bit nicer, the robot won’t rape you, there’s no chance of a racist rant, the drive will be safe and predictable
This here is the doom of the cab driver. It is also a tolling bell for human interaction
And, if you enjoy a racist rant, I suspect that AI can provide that, too.
Isn't that all part of the Cabbie service?
Might be in your part of the world. Not up here. Most of my cabbies are not white but from overseas. Last chap was an Eritrean. We chatted about the Eritrean church in Gateshead.
Oh, they can still do racism.
I once had a racist cab driver who was so racist he ran out of obvious people to be racist about within about 15 minutes of ranting. So then he started ranting about BELGIANS
Then he briskly exhausted that theme (how many times can you swear about that surrealist c*nt Rene Magritte) so he moved onto PEOPLE WHO TAKE TRAINS
In Greater Manchester, 99% of taxi drivers are Muslim, often with relatively little English. No racism from them. Very little conversation at all. I'd still prefer an automatic car though, if only to avoid the awkwardness about tipping. There is quite a British discomfort about Employing A Man To Do A Thing. I suffer it quite acutely.
Uber drivers neither expect nor accept tips in my experience. It is all done at time of booking via the app.
What? You're expected to tip before receiving the service?
You can tip the Uber driver after the journey via the app when you rate their service.
The catch is that Uber drivers rate their passengers.
A lot of people in the US now complain that if they don't tip prior to delivery for Doordash etc they never get anybody to bring their food. Rather makes a mockery of the whole idea of a tip.
Tipping should be banned everywhere for everything. Its a grotesque practice. Pay people properly.
Even self checkouts have been spotting asking for tips...so even our robot overlords are in on the game.
Where as in lots of places in Asia, leaving a "tip", is basically a massive middle finger, saying your service is so shit you are going to need this as you will be going out of business.
'And here's a little something for you for your service' Ugh. Wankers
“Sometimes the value of a 'human touch' is negative. People willing to pay 50% more for Waymo than Lyft, despite longer waiting times.”
People will pay more not to be driven by humans. Why? The cars are a bit nicer, the robot won’t rape you, there’s no chance of a racist rant, the drive will be safe and predictable
This here is the doom of the cab driver. It is also a tolling bell for human interaction
And, if you enjoy a racist rant, I suspect that AI can provide that, too.
Isn't that all part of the Cabbie service?
Might be in your part of the world. Not up here. Most of my cabbies are not white but from overseas. Last chap was an Eritrean. We chatted about the Eritrean church in Gateshead.
Oh, they can still do racism.
I once had a racist cab driver who was so racist he ran out of obvious people to be racist about within about 15 minutes of ranting. So then he started ranting about BELGIANS
Then he briskly exhausted that theme (how many times can you swear about that surrealist c*nt Rene Magritte) so he moved onto PEOPLE WHO TAKE TRAINS
In Greater Manchester, 99% of taxi drivers are Muslim, often with relatively little English. No racism from them. Very little conversation at all. I'd still prefer an automatic car though, if only to avoid the awkwardness about tipping. There is quite a British discomfort about Employing A Man To Do A Thing. I suffer it quite acutely.
A Waymo is also far safer. Apparently parents in Frisco are using them to send their unattended kids to school. Which you probably wouldn’t risk with an Uber…
One reason local councils are skint if not bankrupt is the number of SEND children taking taxis to school.
And the cab drivers not engaged there are often driving younger children to private day schools, although I gather business has dropped off since WFH.
Driverless minibuses or even buses would seem to be a solution here. Let them go round the houses picking up the SEND kids en masse. They get to school and ££££ is saved
JFDI
When in Cornwall I encountered the following -
All the taxis were being booked for the school run. Limited number of drivers. So the local cab driver/company bought a minibus - van conversion. Seats for a dozen. He told me it was so popular, he was buying a second one…
Someone remind me why we don’t have school buses in this country?
We do...?
60% of my school came in by bus.
It was a hell of a long day for me when I went to school. Dad took the milk to the milkstand and me to XXX to catch the school bus at 7.30 to catch the bus at 7.50. Arrived at school at 8.35 for classes to begin at 8.50. School ended at 4.00 pm, bus collected us at 4.10 and took us back to XXX where we arrived at 4.50. I then walked back home getting there at 5.30 if no-one gave me a lift, many did. Then 3 hours home work.
For Sixth Form I didn't go in on Wednesday, they scheduled my classes so I didn't have to. So got a lot more done WFH as you might say. Oh and if I had to stay for an early evening event such as Further Maths for 1 terms then dad had to drive to school to pick me up after evening milking. Anyway, I go 5 A Levels which is 5 more than a lot of kids who lived within half a mile walking distance from school.
Oh and don't get me started on the three mile limit. You could get transport if you were more than 3 miles from school. This translated into having to walk up 2.8 miles to pick up the morning bus and then being dumped 2.8 miles from home in the evening.
“Sometimes the value of a 'human touch' is negative. People willing to pay 50% more for Waymo than Lyft, despite longer waiting times.”
People will pay more not to be driven by humans. Why? The cars are a bit nicer, the robot won’t rape you, there’s no chance of a racist rant, the drive will be safe and predictable
This here is the doom of the cab driver. It is also a tolling bell for human interaction
And, if you enjoy a racist rant, I suspect that AI can provide that, too.
Isn't that all part of the Cabbie service?
Might be in your part of the world. Not up here. Most of my cabbies are not white but from overseas. Last chap was an Eritrean. We chatted about the Eritrean church in Gateshead.
Oh, they can still do racism.
I once had a racist cab driver who was so racist he ran out of obvious people to be racist about within about 15 minutes of ranting. So then he started ranting about BELGIANS
Then he briskly exhausted that theme (how many times can you swear about that surrealist c*nt Rene Magritte) so he moved onto PEOPLE WHO TAKE TRAINS
In Greater Manchester, 99% of taxi drivers are Muslim, often with relatively little English. No racism from them. Very little conversation at all. I'd still prefer an automatic car though, if only to avoid the awkwardness about tipping. There is quite a British discomfort about Employing A Man To Do A Thing. I suffer it quite acutely.
A Waymo is also far safer. Apparently parents in Frisco are using them to send their unattended kids to school. Which you probably wouldn’t risk with an Uber…
One reason local councils are skint if not bankrupt is the number of SEND children taking taxis to school.
And the cab drivers not engaged there are often driving younger children to private day schools, although I gather business has dropped off since WFH.
Driverless minibuses or even buses would seem to be a solution here. Let them go round the houses picking up the SEND kids en masse. They get to school and ££££ is saved
JFDI
When in Cornwall I encountered the following -
All the taxis were being booked for the school run. Limited number of drivers. So the local cab driver/company bought a minibus - van conversion. Seats for a dozen. He told me it was so popular, he was buying a second one…
Someone remind me why we don’t have school buses in this country?
But we do? Some areas of the country must opt out of using them I guess.
Absolutely no way I’d get in a driverless car . They should only be allowed for disabled people .
I'm taken back to the countless, "Absolutely no way I'd get a mobile phone..." comments one heard in the mid 1990s.
You’re comparing two things that aren’t comparable. Mobile phones can’t mount a pavement and wipe out a group of pedestrians.
Drivers are perfectly capable of that too. All of us are one undiagnosed medical condition away from it.
The really cool thing about driverless is that they could warn other cars. "Cyclist in two miles, get ready to slow down". "Drunk guy on South Bridge". "Pavements overloaded near the Balmoral, slow to 10mph".
I'd be useless as a recipient - I'd be wondering where the hell the Balmoral is, I'm still calling it the North British.
But, seriously, good point. You'll maybe know this - the thought of a U turn on that main road ...
Absolutely no way I’d get in a driverless car . They should only be allowed for disabled people .
Why not? Genuine question
Are you similarly freaked out by driverless trains like the DLR? Or planes on autopilot?
Auto pilot still has a pilot there. I don’t trust the technology in driverless cars .
Driverless trains?
Do you mistrust your pocket calculator and check all the sums with pen and paper?
See my reply re pavements ! It’s only a matter of time before there’s a mass casualty event because of a driverless car .
As others have noted, this will certainly happen, and it will certainly happen much less often than with human drivers. Because waymos don’t drink. Or sneeze. Or argue. Or look at their phones while driving
People made the same arguments about the first cars and trains. That’s why cars had to be preceded by a man with a red flag, walking
We don’t do that any more do we? We got over it because it was a ridiculous overreaction. You are repeating this fallacious response
Absolutely no way I’d get in a driverless car . They should only be allowed for disabled people .
I'm taken back to the countless, "Absolutely no way I'd get a mobile phone..." comments one heard in the mid 1990s.
You’re comparing two things that aren’t comparable. Mobile phones can’t mount a pavement and wipe out a group of pedestrians.
They could, in the 1990s if you listened to fairly sizeable groups of people, fry your brain and shrivel your testes.
The point is that the march of technology almost inevitably involves enormous numbers of people who said they'd never adopt it ending up adopting it. Perhaps reluctantly, perhaps late, but nevertheless.
Do you remember the size of phones in the early 1990s?
You could wipe out a group of pedestrians if you threw it at them/out of a window.
Here’s a photo of my father using his mobile in circa 1990.
“Sometimes the value of a 'human touch' is negative. People willing to pay 50% more for Waymo than Lyft, despite longer waiting times.”
People will pay more not to be driven by humans. Why? The cars are a bit nicer, the robot won’t rape you, there’s no chance of a racist rant, the drive will be safe and predictable
This here is the doom of the cab driver. It is also a tolling bell for human interaction
And, if you enjoy a racist rant, I suspect that AI can provide that, too.
Isn't that all part of the Cabbie service?
Might be in your part of the world. Not up here. Most of my cabbies are not white but from overseas. Last chap was an Eritrean. We chatted about the Eritrean church in Gateshead.
Oh, they can still do racism.
I once had a racist cab driver who was so racist he ran out of obvious people to be racist about within about 15 minutes of ranting. So then he started ranting about BELGIANS
Then he briskly exhausted that theme (how many times can you swear about that surrealist c*nt Rene Magritte) so he moved onto PEOPLE WHO TAKE TRAINS
In Greater Manchester, 99% of taxi drivers are Muslim, often with relatively little English. No racism from them. Very little conversation at all. I'd still prefer an automatic car though, if only to avoid the awkwardness about tipping. There is quite a British discomfort about Employing A Man To Do A Thing. I suffer it quite acutely.
Uber drivers neither expect nor accept tips in my experience. It is all done at time of booking via the app.
What? You're expected to tip before receiving the service?
You can tip the Uber driver after the journey via the app when you rate their service.
The catch is that Uber drivers rate their passengers.
A lot of people in the US now complain that if they don't tip prior to delivery for Doordash etc they never get anybody to bring their food. Rather makes a mockery of the whole idea of a tip.
That's because the doordashers can quickly see whether or not it's gonna be economical for them. The beauty of the free market.
One thing about this meeting is that it effectively says that they're not going to prosecute anyone else over Epstein, if the AG, deputy and FBI director are at an administration strategy meeting over the issue.
It would be wildly prejudicial to any prosecution subsequently launched.
White House chief Susie Wiles, JD Vance, AG Pam Bondi, FBI Dir Kash Patel & Deputy AG Todd Blanche are expected to meet Wed evening at Vance’s residence to discuss the Trump admin’s strategy relating to Epstein case https://x.com/alaynatreene/status/1952899871666508042
What we can expect is selective disclosure of anything embarrassing to Democrats, plus a few randoms for good measure.
The whole arrangement, with Trump's lawyer interviewing Maxwell in private, is massively corrupt, on its face.
The obvious deal is Maxwell gets a pardon and spills the beans on mostly Dems, a handful of minor Republicans, gives Orange a pass and exagerrates the f*** out of anything to do with the Clintons. Not sure why it is taking so long, perhaps being timed for the mid terms.
On the other hand, if Bill Clinton goes to jail it will be very funny. And possibly a just and righteous outcome
Absolutely no way I’d get in a driverless car . They should only be allowed for disabled people .
I'm taken back to the countless, "Absolutely no way I'd get a mobile phone..." comments one heard in the mid 1990s.
You’re comparing two things that aren’t comparable. Mobile phones can’t mount a pavement and wipe out a group of pedestrians.
Drivers are perfectly capable of that too. All of us are one undiagnosed medical condition away from it.
The really cool thing about driverless is that they could warn other cars. "Cyclist in two miles, get ready to slow down". "Drunk guy on South Bridge". "Pavements overloaded near the Balmoral, slow to 10mph".
I'd be useless as a recipient - I'd be wondering where the hell the Balmoral is, I'm still calling it the North British.
But, seriously, good point. You'll maybe know this - the thought of a U turn on that main road ...
That case is very well known. And there have been a number of similar incidents since, with no progress.
I think the only politically possible way is to introduce random re-testing after you've had your license for 10 years. Otherwise Age UK will turn on you.
Absolutely no way I’d get in a driverless car . They should only be allowed for disabled people .
Why not? Genuine question
Are you similarly freaked out by driverless trains like the DLR? Or planes on autopilot?
Auto pilot still has a pilot there. I don’t trust the technology in driverless cars .
Driverless trains?
Do you mistrust your pocket calculator and check all the sums with pen and paper?
See my reply re pavements ! It’s only a matter of time before there’s a mass casualty event because of a driverless car .
As others have noted, this will certainly happen, and it will certainly happen much less often than with human drivers. Because waymos don’t drink. Or sneeze. Or argue. Or look at their phones while driving
People made the same arguments about the first cars and trains. That’s why cars has to be preceded by a man with a red flag, walking
We don’t do that any more do we? We got over it because it was a ridiculous overreaction. You are repeating this fallacious response
A few of my colleagues have used Waymos this year, only one problem, a few times the previous passengers have left the vehicle a mess.
One thing about this meeting is that it effectively says that they're not going to prosecute anyone else over Epstein, if the AG, deputy and FBI director are at an administration strategy meeting over the issue.
It would be wildly prejudicial to any prosecution subsequently launched.
White House chief Susie Wiles, JD Vance, AG Pam Bondi, FBI Dir Kash Patel & Deputy AG Todd Blanche are expected to meet Wed evening at Vance’s residence to discuss the Trump admin’s strategy relating to Epstein case https://x.com/alaynatreene/status/1952899871666508042
What we can expect is selective disclosure of anything embarrassing to Democrats, plus a few randoms for good measure.
The whole arrangement, with Trump's lawyer interviewing Maxwell in private, is massively corrupt, on its face.
The obvious deal is Maxwell gets a pardon and spills the beans on mostly Dems, a handful of minor Republicans, gives Orange a pass and exagerrates the f*** out of anything to do with the Clintons. Not sure why it is taking so long, perhaps being timed for the mid terms.
On the other hand, if Bill Clinton goes to jail it will be very funny. And possibly a just and righteous outcome
If he takes Hilary with him it will be even funnier Lock her up
Absolutely no way I’d get in a driverless car . They should only be allowed for disabled people .
Why not? Genuine question
Are you similarly freaked out by driverless trains like the DLR? Or planes on autopilot?
Auto pilot still has a pilot there. I don’t trust the technology in driverless cars .
Driverless trains?
Do you mistrust your pocket calculator and check all the sums with pen and paper?
See my reply re pavements ! It’s only a matter of time before there’s a mass casualty event because of a driverless car .
As others have noted, this will certainly happen, and it will certainly happen much less often than with human drivers. Because waymos don’t drink. Or sneeze. Or argue. Or look at their phones while driving
People made the same arguments about the first cars and trains. That’s why cars has to be preceded by a man with a red flag, walking
We don’t do that any more do we? We got over it because it was a ridiculous overreaction. You are repeating this fallacious response
And peoiple started getting killed straight away, in increasing numbers - and massive numbers in the 1920s and 1930s pro rata. Became one of thje main causes of death in the UK.
Absolutely no way I’d get in a driverless car . They should only be allowed for disabled people .
That's silly, either they're safe and should be allowed, or they're not so they shouldn't. Whether someone is disabled or not is neither here nor there.
One thing about this meeting is that it effectively says that they're not going to prosecute anyone else over Epstein, if the AG, deputy and FBI director are at an administration strategy meeting over the issue.
It would be wildly prejudicial to any prosecution subsequently launched.
White House chief Susie Wiles, JD Vance, AG Pam Bondi, FBI Dir Kash Patel & Deputy AG Todd Blanche are expected to meet Wed evening at Vance’s residence to discuss the Trump admin’s strategy relating to Epstein case https://x.com/alaynatreene/status/1952899871666508042
What we can expect is selective disclosure of anything embarrassing to Democrats, plus a few randoms for good measure.
The whole arrangement, with Trump's lawyer interviewing Maxwell in private, is massively corrupt, on its face.
The obvious deal is Maxwell gets a pardon and spills the beans on mostly Dems, a handful of minor Republicans, gives Orange a pass and exagerrates the f*** out of anything to do with the Clintons. Not sure why it is taking so long, perhaps being timed for the mid terms.
On the other hand, if Bill Clinton goes to jail it will be very funny. And possibly a just and righteous outcome
Possibly, but there is zero chance of that happening if the key evidence against him is the word of convicted criminal, Ghislaine Maxwell, given to secure a pardon from Donald Trump. That's all just too trivially easy to discredit.
“Sometimes the value of a 'human touch' is negative. People willing to pay 50% more for Waymo than Lyft, despite longer waiting times.”
People will pay more not to be driven by humans. Why? The cars are a bit nicer, the robot won’t rape you, there’s no chance of a racist rant, the drive will be safe and predictable
This here is the doom of the cab driver. It is also a tolling bell for human interaction
And, if you enjoy a racist rant, I suspect that AI can provide that, too.
It makes total sense if you think about it. A driverless cab drive is a private experience. You can scratch your crotch, have a wank, surf porn, argue about migrants with your stupid woke wife, no one will see or know or care. Who prefers a human driver? Plus the whole safety thing
Humans driving other humans is a concept on its way out. I wonder if humans even talking to other humans will soon feel dated
THE TRIUMPH OF THE SHY
I sense an email to the Gazette editor is in the offing
The real boon of driverless cars is that it lets normal people experience what’s now only available to the very wealthy, their own personal car and ‘driver’.
If my car can drive itself, then it drops me at work in the morning as I read the paper and check emails, goes back and picks up the kids to take them to school, picks up my wife and takes her to her Pilates class then to her coffee morning, picks the kids up from school, picks me up from work and takes me to the pub. Best of all, it then picks me up from the pub at midnight and takes me home.
Yes. It’s basically a chauffeur without all the hassle and expense
As I’ve been saying here for years, to much scorn, driverless cars are the future. The private car will slowly die
Parents with young children may be the last to give up their own cars.
Unless "call me a driverless taxi with car seats fitted for a newborn, two year old and five year old in rural Kent" becomes part of the offering.
The effort of carrying your own seats and fitting them in a car would far outweigh any benefit of not driving unless you're driving to Scotland.
There's also the problem of parking (much of current space is on private land).
I suspect you end up with a hybrid of private and communal cars. But with almost all driverless in any case.
But we won't be there for another decade or two.
I think we'll move from self driven private cars to autonomous private cars. I don't see very much demand for communal use cars and ondemand hailing, it may work in big cities and maybe even smaller ones but out in the countryside people will own their autonomous vehicle just as they own their car today. Even in the city there will be people who will want to own their vehicle rather than share it with strangers.
"No thoughtful person can be pro-Palestinian without also being anti-Hamas."
"If Netanyahu makes the colossal mistake of trying to reoccupy Gaza for the long term, then no thoughtful person can be pro-Israel without also being against him."
One thing about this meeting is that it effectively says that they're not going to prosecute anyone else over Epstein, if the AG, deputy and FBI director are at an administration strategy meeting over the issue.
It would be wildly prejudicial to any prosecution subsequently launched.
White House chief Susie Wiles, JD Vance, AG Pam Bondi, FBI Dir Kash Patel & Deputy AG Todd Blanche are expected to meet Wed evening at Vance’s residence to discuss the Trump admin’s strategy relating to Epstein case https://x.com/alaynatreene/status/1952899871666508042
What we can expect is selective disclosure of anything embarrassing to Democrats, plus a few randoms for good measure.
The whole arrangement, with Trump's lawyer interviewing Maxwell in private, is massively corrupt, on its face.
The obvious deal is Maxwell gets a pardon and spills the beans on mostly Dems, a handful of minor Republicans, gives Orange a pass and exagerrates the f*** out of anything to do with the Clintons. Not sure why it is taking so long, perhaps being timed for the mid terms.
On the other hand, if Bill Clinton goes to jail it will be very funny. And possibly a just and righteous outcome
Possibly, but there is zero chance of that happening if the key evidence against him is the word of convicted criminal, Ghislaine Maxwell, given to secure a pardon from Donald Trump. That's all just too trivially easy to discredit.
"It would be wildly prejudicial to any prosecution subsequently launched."
You think that matters anymore in Trump's America?
That's simply racism/nationalism. Tan is probably Intel's last best chance of turning things around, or more likely saving the saveable parts of the business.
Yes, people don't get what Tan was installed to do. Intel is in a terrible state, he's there to save it from bankruptcy, even if all that's left is a pale shadow of the old Intel. They bled $22bn in the last financial year, it's an existential crisis.
Intel's issue is new fab processes have gotten so expensive now it's not feasible for them to only make their own chips. They need outside customers to pay the bills. Gelsinger decided to invest in the new 18A and 14A processes before he had any customers signed up, assuming they''d come later.
But they didn't. Intel's process tech is unstable and a bit odd by industry standards. Customers are also required to use Intel's own non-standard design tools, so outside design teams need to learn new software and the resulting product can't be made anywhere but Intel. Which is why everyone stuck with TSMC and Samsung.
Heck, even Intel doesn't always use their own fabs. Their current 15th Gen chips are made by TSMC because Intel's processes are not good enough right now.
Tan is doing a salvage job, not returning Intel to the glory days.
“Sometimes the value of a 'human touch' is negative. People willing to pay 50% more for Waymo than Lyft, despite longer waiting times.”
People will pay more not to be driven by humans. Why? The cars are a bit nicer, the robot won’t rape you, there’s no chance of a racist rant, the drive will be safe and predictable
This here is the doom of the cab driver. It is also a tolling bell for human interaction
And, if you enjoy a racist rant, I suspect that AI can provide that, too.
It makes total sense if you think about it. A driverless cab drive is a private experience. You can scratch your crotch, have a wank, surf porn, argue about migrants with your stupid woke wife, no one will see or know or care. Who prefers a human driver? Plus the whole safety thing
Humans driving other humans is a concept on its way out. I wonder if humans even talking to other humans will soon feel dated
THE TRIUMPH OF THE SHY
I sense an email to the Gazette editor is in the offing
The real boon of driverless cars is that it lets normal people experience what’s now only available to the very wealthy, their own personal car and ‘driver’.
If my car can drive itself, then it drops me at work in the morning as I read the paper and check emails, goes back and picks up the kids to take them to school, picks up my wife and takes her to her Pilates class then to her coffee morning, picks the kids up from school, picks me up from work and takes me to the pub. Best of all, it then picks me up from the pub at midnight and takes me home.
Yes. It’s basically a chauffeur without all the hassle and expense
As I’ve been saying here for years, to much scorn, driverless cars are the future. The private car will slowly die
Sorry BartholomewRoberts
I was right again
Parents with young children may be the last to give up their own cars.
Unless "call me a driverless taxi with car seats fitted for a newborn, two year old and five year old in rural Kent" becomes part of the offering.
The effort of carrying your own seats and fitting them in a car would far outweigh any benefit of not driving unless you're driving to Scotland.
There's also the problem of parking (much of current space is on private land).
I suspect you end up with a hybrid of private and communal cars. But with almost all driverless in any case.
But we won't be there for another decade or two.
I think we'll move from self driven private cars to autonomous private cars. I don't see very much demand for communal use cars and ondemand hailing, it may work in big cities and maybe even smaller ones but out in the countryside people will own their autonomous vehicle just as they own their car today. Even in the city there will be people who will want to own their vehicle rather than share it with strangers.
Indeed.
@Leon is making the mistake of thinking that he's come up with some novel idea of calling for a vehicle and that's that. That already exists, its called a taxi, and people don't want that for a reason.
The reason people want their own vehicle rather than taxis goes far beyond the fact the taxi needs a driver.
We're already transitioning to semi autonomous private vehicles. That transition will continue towards potentially fully autonomous private vehicles but the idea everyone will dump their own cars for a taxi is fallacious.
One thing about this meeting is that it effectively says that they're not going to prosecute anyone else over Epstein, if the AG, deputy and FBI director are at an administration strategy meeting over the issue.
It would be wildly prejudicial to any prosecution subsequently launched.
White House chief Susie Wiles, JD Vance, AG Pam Bondi, FBI Dir Kash Patel & Deputy AG Todd Blanche are expected to meet Wed evening at Vance’s residence to discuss the Trump admin’s strategy relating to Epstein case https://x.com/alaynatreene/status/1952899871666508042
What we can expect is selective disclosure of anything embarrassing to Democrats, plus a few randoms for good measure.
The whole arrangement, with Trump's lawyer interviewing Maxwell in private, is massively corrupt, on its face.
The obvious deal is Maxwell gets a pardon and spills the beans on mostly Dems, a handful of minor Republicans, gives Orange a pass and exagerrates the f*** out of anything to do with the Clintons. Not sure why it is taking so long, perhaps being timed for the mid terms.
On the other hand, if Bill Clinton goes to jail it will be very funny. And possibly a just and righteous outcome
Possibly, but there is zero chance of that happening if the key evidence against him is the word of convicted criminal, Ghislaine Maxwell, given to secure a pardon from Donald Trump. That's all just too trivially easy to discredit.
"It would be wildly prejudicial to any prosecution subsequently launched."
You think that matters anymore in Trump's America?
Yes, because he hasn't abolished jury trials. I have all sorts of criticisms of Trump's presidency and the damage he's doing to American democracy. But there isn't any evidence he's in a position to secure the political convictions he'd no doubt want in the criminal courts, and I very much doubt we'll get there in these four years.
“Sometimes the value of a 'human touch' is negative. People willing to pay 50% more for Waymo than Lyft, despite longer waiting times.”
People will pay more not to be driven by humans. Why? The cars are a bit nicer, the robot won’t rape you, there’s no chance of a racist rant, the drive will be safe and predictable
This here is the doom of the cab driver. It is also a tolling bell for human interaction
And, if you enjoy a racist rant, I suspect that AI can provide that, too.
It makes total sense if you think about it. A driverless cab drive is a private experience. You can scratch your crotch, have a wank, surf porn, argue about migrants with your stupid woke wife, no one will see or know or care. Who prefers a human driver? Plus the whole safety thing
Humans driving other humans is a concept on its way out. I wonder if humans even talking to other humans will soon feel dated
THE TRIUMPH OF THE SHY
I sense an email to the Gazette editor is in the offing
The real boon of driverless cars is that it lets normal people experience what’s now only available to the very wealthy, their own personal car and ‘driver’.
If my car can drive itself, then it drops me at work in the morning as I read the paper and check emails, goes back and picks up the kids to take them to school, picks up my wife and takes her to her Pilates class then to her coffee morning, picks the kids up from school, picks me up from work and takes me to the pub. Best of all, it then picks me up from the pub at midnight and takes me home.
Yes. It’s basically a chauffeur without all the hassle and expense
As I’ve been saying here for years, to much scorn, driverless cars are the future. The private car will slowly die
Parents with young children may be the last to give up their own cars.
Unless "call me a driverless taxi with car seats fitted for a newborn, two year old and five year old in rural Kent" becomes part of the offering.
The effort of carrying your own seats and fitting them in a car would far outweigh any benefit of not driving unless you're driving to Scotland.
There's also the problem of parking (much of current space is on private land).
I suspect you end up with a hybrid of private and communal cars. But with almost all driverless in any case.
But we won't be there for another decade or two.
I think we'll move from self driven private cars to autonomous private cars. I don't see very much demand for communal use cars and ondemand hailing, it may work in big cities and maybe even smaller ones but out in the countryside people will own their autonomous vehicle just as they own their car today. Even in the city there will be people who will want to own their vehicle rather than share it with strangers.
Why would there be such a clear bifurcation ? Self driving* cars will make car sharing between small groups friends trivially simple, and economically sensible.
*The term "self driving" is reasonably likely to flip in meaning, in due course, as a description for what the few holdouts with their manually operated cars do.
Sure, numbers are going up because people who live in the very restricted areas these cars operate are getting more comfortable using them. But they are not a replacement for manned cabs or private vehicles and won't be until you can get into one and have it take you anywhere.
The day I can step off a train in Glasgow and have a driverless cab take me to my home in the rural wilds is the day they've won. That's still many years away, I believe.
They’ve already “won”. The concept is established and we know it can be done and it turns out these cars are hugely popular - people will wait longer and pay more for a driverless car. That’s how popular they are
So then it’s just a question of how long before this victory is ubiquitous
You present a hard case. A rural drive in Scotland. These will presumably be the last to go
However looking at Genie 3 suggests advances will now come much quicker
I reckon we are now in the final decade of the human driven car. By 2035 they will almost all be gone - but a few will remain for fun and status, the way some people still keep horses or steam engines
Christ knows what 80 million cab drivers will do for a living
But the benefits from those rural drives are much bigger too. I'm pretty sure I have among the biggest mileages on PB (something like 17,000 miles) and it's irritating AF stick behind tourist traffic on the A9, getting stuck behind a lorry on the A1 etc etc. if I could jump in a cab that dropped me off below the Triple Buttress on Being Eighe, a 4.5 hour drive away, I'd pay ££££.
Would it make sense to book the car out for the whole day? Dunno. But I think the market could deliver that too.
Likewise. I have to drive my eldest to St Andrews Uni in early September. It’s a 4 day slog there and back. I have to rent a car and drive 30 trillion miles
I’d pay very good money for a driverless car. Then my daughter and I could chill out and chat. It would be safer. Much more relaxing. And maybe I could let the car go in St Andrews and take the train home to london
Bring it on, I say. The future is bright
I assume the reason to drive is because your daughter has a mountain of luggage, otherwise you could take the train from London to Leuchars, and you could get the sleeper back. Have you considered this for your daughter’s luggage? https://www.mybaggage.com/shipping/universities/student-shipping-to-st-andrews-university/ Then you and your daughter could enjoy the journey, with wine, and you could enjoy the journey back, with wine, g&t or whatever. Your daughter may meet some other students on the train.
“Sometimes the value of a 'human touch' is negative. People willing to pay 50% more for Waymo than Lyft, despite longer waiting times.”
People will pay more not to be driven by humans. Why? The cars are a bit nicer, the robot won’t rape you, there’s no chance of a racist rant, the drive will be safe and predictable
This here is the doom of the cab driver. It is also a tolling bell for human interaction
And, if you enjoy a racist rant, I suspect that AI can provide that, too.
It makes total sense if you think about it. A driverless cab drive is a private experience. You can scratch your crotch, have a wank, surf porn, argue about migrants with your stupid woke wife, no one will see or know or care. Who prefers a human driver? Plus the whole safety thing
Humans driving other humans is a concept on its way out. I wonder if humans even talking to other humans will soon feel dated
THE TRIUMPH OF THE SHY
I sense an email to the Gazette editor is in the offing
The real boon of driverless cars is that it lets normal people experience what’s now only available to the very wealthy, their own personal car and ‘driver’.
If my car can drive itself, then it drops me at work in the morning as I read the paper and check emails, goes back and picks up the kids to take them to school, picks up my wife and takes her to her Pilates class then to her coffee morning, picks the kids up from school, picks me up from work and takes me to the pub. Best of all, it then picks me up from the pub at midnight and takes me home.
Yes. It’s basically a chauffeur without all the hassle and expense
As I’ve been saying here for years, to much scorn, driverless cars are the future. The private car will slowly die
Sorry BartholomewRoberts
I was right again
Parents with young children may be the last to give up their own cars.
Unless "call me a driverless taxi with car seats fitted for a newborn, two year old and five year old in rural Kent" becomes part of the offering.
The effort of carrying your own seats and fitting them in a car would far outweigh any benefit of not driving unless you're driving to Scotland.
There's also the problem of parking (much of current space is on private land).
I suspect you end up with a hybrid of private and communal cars. But with almost all driverless in any case.
But we won't be there for another decade or two.
I think we'll move from self driven private cars to autonomous private cars. I don't see very much demand for communal use cars and ondemand hailing, it may work in big cities and maybe even smaller ones but out in the countryside people will own their autonomous vehicle just as they own their car today. Even in the city there will be people who will want to own their vehicle rather than share it with strangers.
Indeed.
@Leon is making the mistake of thinking that he's come up with some novel idea of calling for a vehicle and that's that. That already exists, its called a taxi, and people don't want that for a reason.
The reason people want their own vehicle rather than taxis goes far beyond the fact the taxi needs a driver.
We're already transitioning to semi autonomous private vehicles. That transition will continue towards potentially fully autonomous private vehicles but the idea everyone will dump their own cars for a taxi is fallacious.
It will be both - private and communal - nearly all autonomous and electric. I am not predicting the end of the private car, I am predicting the end of the private car parked in your drive - for most people. How much better to store it in some vast depot then summon it in the morning. Your ugly Barratt home drive can become a lawn again, your garage another bedroom
That said, it is possible that production of these vehicles becomes so cheap almost anyone can have one, own one (and store it overnight in that vast bunker). If that happens then the private car will probably win
Either way the era of the human driven car, as we've known it, is coming to an end
That's simply racism/nationalism. Tan is probably Intel's last best chance of turning things around, or more likely saving the saveable parts of the business.
Yes, people don't get what Tan was installed to do. Intel is in a terrible state, he's there to save it from bankruptcy, even if all that's left is a pale shadow of the old Intel. They bled $22bn in the last financial year, it's an existential crisis.
Intel's issue is new fab processes have gotten so expensive now it's not feasible for them to only make their own chips. They need outside customers to pay the bills. Gelsinger decided to invest in the new 18A and 14A processes before he had any customers signed up, assuming they''d come later.
But they didn't. Intel's process tech is unstable and a bit odd by industry standards. Customers are also required to use Intel's own non-standard design tools, so outside design teams need to learn new software and the resulting product can't be made anywhere but Intel. Which is why everyone stuck with TSMC and Samsung.
Heck, even Intel doesn't always use their own fabs. Their current 15th Gen chips are made by TSMC because Intel's processes are not good enough right now.
Tan is doing a salvage job, not returning Intel to the glory days.
They seem to have just agreed a manufacturing deal with Musk and Samsung, which will give them a bit of help.
“Sometimes the value of a 'human touch' is negative. People willing to pay 50% more for Waymo than Lyft, despite longer waiting times.”
People will pay more not to be driven by humans. Why? The cars are a bit nicer, the robot won’t rape you, there’s no chance of a racist rant, the drive will be safe and predictable
This here is the doom of the cab driver. It is also a tolling bell for human interaction
And, if you enjoy a racist rant, I suspect that AI can provide that, too.
It makes total sense if you think about it. A driverless cab drive is a private experience. You can scratch your crotch, have a wank, surf porn, argue about migrants with your stupid woke wife, no one will see or know or care. Who prefers a human driver? Plus the whole safety thing
Humans driving other humans is a concept on its way out. I wonder if humans even talking to other humans will soon feel dated
THE TRIUMPH OF THE SHY
I sense an email to the Gazette editor is in the offing
The real boon of driverless cars is that it lets normal people experience what’s now only available to the very wealthy, their own personal car and ‘driver’.
If my car can drive itself, then it drops me at work in the morning as I read the paper and check emails, goes back and picks up the kids to take them to school, picks up my wife and takes her to her Pilates class then to her coffee morning, picks the kids up from school, picks me up from work and takes me to the pub. Best of all, it then picks me up from the pub at midnight and takes me home.
Yes. It’s basically a chauffeur without all the hassle and expense
As I’ve been saying here for years, to much scorn, driverless cars are the future. The private car will slowly die
Sorry BartholomewRoberts
I was right again
Parents with young children may be the last to give up their own cars.
Unless "call me a driverless taxi with car seats fitted for a newborn, two year old and five year old in rural Kent" becomes part of the offering.
The effort of carrying your own seats and fitting them in a car would far outweigh any benefit of not driving unless you're driving to Scotland.
There's also the problem of parking (much of current space is on private land).
I suspect you end up with a hybrid of private and communal cars. But with almost all driverless in any case.
But we won't be there for another decade or two.
I think we'll move from self driven private cars to autonomous private cars. I don't see very much demand for communal use cars and ondemand hailing, it may work in big cities and maybe even smaller ones but out in the countryside people will own their autonomous vehicle just as they own their car today. Even in the city there will be people who will want to own their vehicle rather than share it with strangers.
Indeed.
@Leon is making the mistake of thinking that he's come up with some novel idea of calling for a vehicle and that's that. That already exists, its called a taxi, and people don't want that for a reason.
The reason people want their own vehicle rather than taxis goes far beyond the fact the taxi needs a driver.
We're already transitioning to semi autonomous private vehicles. That transition will continue towards potentially fully autonomous private vehicles but the idea everyone will dump their own cars for a taxi is fallacious.
Not if it's cheaper. The cost of the taxi is primarily the driver, and for almost everyone the benefits do not outway that cost.
The costs of robot taxis won't just be cheaper than current taxis - but driving a private vehicle altogether. Reduced maintenance costs, capital costs are shared, parking costs, insurance and so on.
Car clubs are already financially viable for a very large chunk of the population, if you consider annual mileage is only about 8,000 miles. And you still have to drive the damn thing!
“Sometimes the value of a 'human touch' is negative. People willing to pay 50% more for Waymo than Lyft, despite longer waiting times.”
People will pay more not to be driven by humans. Why? The cars are a bit nicer, the robot won’t rape you, there’s no chance of a racist rant, the drive will be safe and predictable
This here is the doom of the cab driver. It is also a tolling bell for human interaction
And, if you enjoy a racist rant, I suspect that AI can provide that, too.
It makes total sense if you think about it. A driverless cab drive is a private experience. You can scratch your crotch, have a wank, surf porn, argue about migrants with your stupid woke wife, no one will see or know or care. Who prefers a human driver? Plus the whole safety thing
Humans driving other humans is a concept on its way out. I wonder if humans even talking to other humans will soon feel dated
THE TRIUMPH OF THE SHY
I sense an email to the Gazette editor is in the offing
The real boon of driverless cars is that it lets normal people experience what’s now only available to the very wealthy, their own personal car and ‘driver’.
If my car can drive itself, then it drops me at work in the morning as I read the paper and check emails, goes back and picks up the kids to take them to school, picks up my wife and takes her to her Pilates class then to her coffee morning, picks the kids up from school, picks me up from work and takes me to the pub. Best of all, it then picks me up from the pub at midnight and takes me home.
Yes. It’s basically a chauffeur without all the hassle and expense
As I’ve been saying here for years, to much scorn, driverless cars are the future. The private car will slowly die
Sorry BartholomewRoberts
I was right again
Parents with young children may be the last to give up their own cars.
Unless "call me a driverless taxi with car seats fitted for a newborn, two year old and five year old in rural Kent" becomes part of the offering.
The effort of carrying your own seats and fitting them in a car would far outweigh any benefit of not driving unless you're driving to Scotland.
There's also the problem of parking (much of current space is on private land).
I suspect you end up with a hybrid of private and communal cars. But with almost all driverless in any case.
But we won't be there for another decade or two.
I think we'll move from self driven private cars to autonomous private cars. I don't see very much demand for communal use cars and ondemand hailing, it may work in big cities and maybe even smaller ones but out in the countryside people will own their autonomous vehicle just as they own their car today. Even in the city there will be people who will want to own their vehicle rather than share it with strangers.
Indeed.
@Leon is making the mistake of thinking that he's come up with some novel idea of calling for a vehicle and that's that. That already exists, its called a taxi, and people don't want that for a reason.
The reason people want their own vehicle rather than taxis goes far beyond the fact the taxi needs a driver.
We're already transitioning to semi autonomous private vehicles. That transition will continue towards potentially fully autonomous private vehicles but the idea everyone will dump their own cars for a taxi is fallacious.
Yes, the two aren't mutually exclusive. There is going to be a big market for both, I will have my own private autonomous vehicle and I will also use autonomous taxis when the need arises. I don't think I'll use an autonomous taxi to get from my own house to visit my sister though or to go to the shops. The convenience of having my own autonomous vehicle is too great to give up.
What does Starmer actually mean by "£1,000 better off on mortgages" ?
It's certainly not a monthly, or even an annual saving looking at rates now and back last August unless it's for an amazingly high value property.
Could he be referring to the change across the lifetime of this Government? That would be 1.25pp. I think a 0.25pp cut equates to about £350 a year on the UK average mortgage (if it's a tracker). So 1.25pp is comfortably over £1000.
Not saying I give Labour full credit for what has been the trajectory for a while, but people are paying quite a lot less on mortgages than a year and a bit ago.
“Sometimes the value of a 'human touch' is negative. People willing to pay 50% more for Waymo than Lyft, despite longer waiting times.”
People will pay more not to be driven by humans. Why? The cars are a bit nicer, the robot won’t rape you, there’s no chance of a racist rant, the drive will be safe and predictable
This here is the doom of the cab driver. It is also a tolling bell for human interaction
And, if you enjoy a racist rant, I suspect that AI can provide that, too.
It makes total sense if you think about it. A driverless cab drive is a private experience. You can scratch your crotch, have a wank, surf porn, argue about migrants with your stupid woke wife, no one will see or know or care. Who prefers a human driver? Plus the whole safety thing
Humans driving other humans is a concept on its way out. I wonder if humans even talking to other humans will soon feel dated
THE TRIUMPH OF THE SHY
I sense an email to the Gazette editor is in the offing
The real boon of driverless cars is that it lets normal people experience what’s now only available to the very wealthy, their own personal car and ‘driver’.
If my car can drive itself, then it drops me at work in the morning as I read the paper and check emails, goes back and picks up the kids to take them to school, picks up my wife and takes her to her Pilates class then to her coffee morning, picks the kids up from school, picks me up from work and takes me to the pub. Best of all, it then picks me up from the pub at midnight and takes me home.
Yes. It’s basically a chauffeur without all the hassle and expense
As I’ve been saying here for years, to much scorn, driverless cars are the future. The private car will slowly die
Parents with young children may be the last to give up their own cars.
Unless "call me a driverless taxi with car seats fitted for a newborn, two year old and five year old in rural Kent" becomes part of the offering.
The effort of carrying your own seats and fitting them in a car would far outweigh any benefit of not driving unless you're driving to Scotland.
There's also the problem of parking (much of current space is on private land).
I suspect you end up with a hybrid of private and communal cars. But with almost all driverless in any case.
But we won't be there for another decade or two.
I think we'll move from self driven private cars to autonomous private cars. I don't see very much demand for communal use cars and ondemand hailing, it may work in big cities and maybe even smaller ones but out in the countryside people will own their autonomous vehicle just as they own their car today. Even in the city there will be people who will want to own their vehicle rather than share it with strangers.
Why would there be such a clear bifurcation ? Self driving* cars will make car sharing between small groups friends trivially simple, and economically sensible.
*The term "self driving" is reasonably likely to flip in meaning, in due course, as a description for what the few holdouts with their manually operated cars do.
For the same reasons people choose to own their own vehicles rather than taxis today.
Its nice to have your own possessions, set up how you want them.
For people who only care about getting from A to B then a taxi may work.
“Sometimes the value of a 'human touch' is negative. People willing to pay 50% more for Waymo than Lyft, despite longer waiting times.”
People will pay more not to be driven by humans. Why? The cars are a bit nicer, the robot won’t rape you, there’s no chance of a racist rant, the drive will be safe and predictable
This here is the doom of the cab driver. It is also a tolling bell for human interaction
And, if you enjoy a racist rant, I suspect that AI can provide that, too.
It makes total sense if you think about it. A driverless cab drive is a private experience. You can scratch your crotch, have a wank, surf porn, argue about migrants with your stupid woke wife, no one will see or know or care. Who prefers a human driver? Plus the whole safety thing
Humans driving other humans is a concept on its way out. I wonder if humans even talking to other humans will soon feel dated
THE TRIUMPH OF THE SHY
I sense an email to the Gazette editor is in the offing
The real boon of driverless cars is that it lets normal people experience what’s now only available to the very wealthy, their own personal car and ‘driver’.
If my car can drive itself, then it drops me at work in the morning as I read the paper and check emails, goes back and picks up the kids to take them to school, picks up my wife and takes her to her Pilates class then to her coffee morning, picks the kids up from school, picks me up from work and takes me to the pub. Best of all, it then picks me up from the pub at midnight and takes me home.
Yes. It’s basically a chauffeur without all the hassle and expense
As I’ve been saying here for years, to much scorn, driverless cars are the future. The private car will slowly die
Parents with young children may be the last to give up their own cars.
Unless "call me a driverless taxi with car seats fitted for a newborn, two year old and five year old in rural Kent" becomes part of the offering.
The effort of carrying your own seats and fitting them in a car would far outweigh any benefit of not driving unless you're driving to Scotland.
There's also the problem of parking (much of current space is on private land).
I suspect you end up with a hybrid of private and communal cars. But with almost all driverless in any case.
But we won't be there for another decade or two.
I think we'll move from self driven private cars to autonomous private cars. I don't see very much demand for communal use cars and ondemand hailing, it may work in big cities and maybe even smaller ones but out in the countryside people will own their autonomous vehicle just as they own their car today. Even in the city there will be people who will want to own their vehicle rather than share it with strangers.
Why would there be such a clear bifurcation ? Self driving* cars will make car sharing between small groups friends trivially simple, and economically sensible.
*The term "self driving" is reasonably likely to flip in meaning, in due course, as a description for what the few holdouts with their manually operated cars do.
For the same reasons people choose to own their own vehicles rather than taxis today.
Its nice to have your own possessions, set up how you want them.
For people who only care about getting from A to B then a taxi may work.
There will be those folk, sure. But there will also be a lot of people somewhere in the middle.
Comments
We let 100-year olds self-certify their driving skills so I can't see any issue with this.
JFDI
Are you similarly freaked out by driverless trains like the DLR? Or planes on autopilot?
The day I can step off a train in Glasgow and have a driverless cab take me to my home in the rural wilds is the day they've won. That's still many years away, I believe.
Book in advance, your drop off point added to the route.
The interesting bit for self driving is whether low rate usage - mostly parked up, but available - pays. In rural areas you can’t get taxis because there isn’t enough demand to support taxi driver(s).
Probably a bit of chicken and egg in there. But if you could run a self driving taxi on a few jobs…
So then it’s just a question of how long before this victory is ubiquitous
You present a hard case. A rural drive in Scotland. These will presumably be the last to go
However looking at Genie 3 suggests advances will now come much quicker
I reckon we are now in the final decade of the human driven car. By 2035 they will almost all be gone - but a few will remain for fun and status, the way some people still keep horses or steam engines
Christ knows what 80 million cab drivers will do for a living
Have you never taken an Uber??!
https://x.com/mmcassella/status/1953421946969809159
In 2016 boat crossings were about 100 people per year as they had been the previous years. Then we paid the French to wall the roads around Calais, fast tracked the illegal boat trade and here we are.
All the taxis were being booked for the school run. Limited number of drivers. So the local cab driver/company bought a minibus - van conversion. Seats for a dozen. He told me it was so popular, he was buying a second one…
Someone remind me why we don’t have school buses in this country?
Would it make sense to book the car out for the whole day? Dunno. But I think the market could deliver that too.
The evidence so far seems to say that Waymo cars are safer on the road than equivalent humans.
https://www.facebook.com/reel/1042221478096555
I’d pay very good money for a driverless car. Then my daughter and I could chill out and chat. It would be safer. Much more relaxing. And maybe I could let the car go in St Andrews and take the train home to london
Bring it on, I say. The future is bright
I have been in an uber, twice, when my (to my mind) needlessly extravagant friend called one to get from Euston to Lord's (and then back again), but he paid (on the basis that I'd have very happily taken the tube) so I've no direct experience of how it's done.
It would be wildly prejudicial to any prosecution subsequently launched.
White House chief Susie Wiles, JD Vance, AG Pam Bondi, FBI Dir Kash Patel & Deputy AG Todd Blanche are expected to meet Wed evening at Vance’s residence to discuss the Trump admin’s strategy relating to Epstein case
https://x.com/alaynatreene/status/1952899871666508042
What we can expect is selective disclosure of anything embarrassing to Democrats, plus a few randoms for good measure.
The whole arrangement, with Trump's lawyer interviewing Maxwell in private, is massively corrupt, on its face.
Get with the times, daddio
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2024/nov/28/great-abandonment-what-happens-natural-world-people-disappear-bulgaria
ETA but do not forget Trump has alienated a lot of bases, both MAGA and isolationists. He's already delivered tax cuts and an eye-watering deficit (which many on the right welcome!) so in a transactional world, many will be wondering for how much longer they need The Donald.
No, there is no tip. The payment is all done automatically and smoothly via your phone. You can tip if you want afterwards but no one does, and the drivers probably prefer you give them a five star rating anyway
It’s one huge advantage of Ubers (and one reason black cabs are slowly dying out despite the prices now being similar)
However you still have to endure a human driver. Who might want to chat or be a bit drunk or misunderstand his Google maps
So a driverless car would be preferable. And people are already preferring them
Scottish Greens are a separate party with a different policy platform etc
Not sure on the status of the NI greens?
The economics of busing all pupils is of course very different from busing a few specialist class pupils to few and widely dispersed establishments.
Edit: probably you don't notice them because they are ordinary buses. There's a lot to be said for the purpose-built US style school bus, not least the legal provisions surrounding it (especially the way in which other drivers have to behave around it).
Do you mistrust your pocket calculator and check all the sums with pen and paper?
This is a meeting of the country's top lawyer and law officers to politically fix a potential criminal problem. It will make any subsequent prosecution initiated by them on the matter impossible.
In the US, in some states minimum wage exemptions have been cracked down on and minimum wage is for instance $20/hr, so the guilt trip angle of you have to tip otherwise these people aren't earning anything doesn't hold.
Where as in lots of places in Asia, leaving a "tip", is basically a massive middle finger, saying your service is so shit you are going to need this as you will be going out of business.
https://x.com/joeygarrison/status/1953418894476968419
Japan and Brazil, both fed up with the United States, are looking to begin trading beef with each other for the first time in history.
https://x.com/SpencerHakimian/status/1953251813739663474
Ugh. Wankers
So far Waymo has driven many thousand miles without doing this.
The really cool thing about driverless is that they could warn other cars. "Cyclist in two miles, get ready to slow down". "Drunk guy on South Bridge". "Pavements overloaded near the Balmoral, slow to 10mph".
https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/southkorea/society/20250807/explainer-why-tipping-culture-remains-controversial-in-korea
For Sixth Form I didn't go in on Wednesday, they scheduled my classes so I didn't have to. So got a lot more done WFH as you might say. Oh and if I had to stay for an early evening event such as Further Maths for 1 terms then dad had to drive to school to pick me up after evening milking. Anyway, I go 5 A Levels which is 5 more than a lot of kids who lived within half a mile walking distance from school.
Uber drivers love me.
I'd say we're looking at 20 years before driverless cars are the majority, at minimum.
The point is that the march of technology almost inevitably involves enormous numbers of people who said they'd never adopt it ending up adopting it. Perhaps reluctantly, perhaps late, but nevertheless.
Tipping is wrong. Super mega wrong in fact
But, seriously, good point. You'll maybe know this - the thought of a U turn on that main road ...
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5ylx5ex4ydo
People made the same arguments about the first cars and trains. That’s why cars had to be preceded by a man with a red flag, walking
We don’t do that any more do we? We got over it because it was a ridiculous overreaction. You are repeating this fallacious response
You could wipe out a group of pedestrians if you threw it at them/out of a window.
Here’s a photo of my father using his mobile in circa 1990.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AN/PRC-77_Portable_Transceiver#/media/File:KY38Manpack.jpg
I think the only politically possible way is to introduce random re-testing after you've had your license for 10 years. Otherwise Age UK will turn on you.
You don’t get that with an Uber Lux.
Lock her up
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Bridget_Driscoll
OTOH the risk of accidents with horses etc declined in general - though did also increase because of motor vehicles.
"If Netanyahu makes the colossal mistake of trying to reoccupy Gaza for the long term, then no thoughtful person can be pro-Israel without also being against him."
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/05/opinion/gaza-war-israel-netanyahu.html
You think that matters anymore in Trump's America?
It's certainly not a monthly, or even an annual saving looking at rates now and back last August unless it's for an amazingly high value property.
Intel's issue is new fab processes have gotten so expensive now it's not feasible for them to only make their own chips. They need outside customers to pay the bills. Gelsinger decided to invest in the new 18A and 14A processes before he had any customers signed up, assuming they''d come later.
But they didn't. Intel's process tech is unstable and a bit odd by industry standards. Customers are also required to use Intel's own non-standard design tools, so outside design teams need to learn new software and the resulting product can't be made anywhere but Intel. Which is why everyone stuck with TSMC and Samsung.
Heck, even Intel doesn't always use their own fabs. Their current 15th Gen chips are made by TSMC because Intel's processes are not good enough right now.
Tan is doing a salvage job, not returning Intel to the glory days.
@Leon is making the mistake of thinking that he's come up with some novel idea of calling for a vehicle and that's that. That already exists, its called a taxi, and people don't want that for a reason.
The reason people want their own vehicle rather than taxis goes far beyond the fact the taxi needs a driver.
We're already transitioning to semi autonomous private vehicles. That transition will continue towards potentially fully autonomous private vehicles but the idea everyone will dump their own cars for a taxi is fallacious.
Self driving* cars will make car sharing between small groups friends trivially simple, and economically sensible.
*The term "self driving" is reasonably likely to flip in meaning, in due course, as a description for what the few holdouts with their manually operated cars do.
Then you and your daughter could enjoy the journey, with wine, and you could enjoy the journey back, with wine, g&t or whatever. Your daughter may meet some other students on the train.
That said, it is possible that production of these vehicles becomes so cheap almost anyone can have one, own one (and store it overnight in that vast bunker). If that happens then the private car will probably win
Either way the era of the human driven car, as we've known it, is coming to an end
The costs of robot taxis won't just be cheaper than current taxis - but driving a private vehicle altogether. Reduced maintenance costs, capital costs are shared, parking costs, insurance and so on.
Car clubs are already financially viable for a very large chunk of the population, if you consider annual mileage is only about 8,000 miles. And you still have to drive the damn thing!
Not saying I give Labour full credit for what has been the trajectory for a while, but people are paying quite a lot less on mortgages than a year and a bit ago.
Its nice to have your own possessions, set up how you want them.
For people who only care about getting from A to B then a taxi may work.
🟦 Reform UK: 32% (+2)
🔴 Labour: 20% (-)
🔵 Conservatives: 16% (-1)
🟠 Lib Dems: 12% (-1)
🟢 Greens: 9% (-1)
SNP 2% (=)
Plaid 1% (=)
Others 7% (including 12% 18 to 29 y.o. and 10% in the London subsample)
Changes from 30th July
[Find Out Now, 6th August, N=2,627]
But there will also be a lot of people somewhere in the middle.