C++ Haiku (from 2013)

In 2013 Microsoft held a "Going Native" event about C++ at their campus in Redmond.  ("Going Native" in contrast to "managed code" which they were pushing at the time [and still do]).

It was a great event - Stroustrup was there which was cool.  But ... major changes to C++ were afoot.  During the event I posted a bunch of Haiku about my reactions to the changes.

One key fact - I couldn't remember if Haiku was 5 7 5 or 7 5 7 and so a number of these have the syllabic rules wrong.  I address that issue toward the end.

C++ has gone insane
Old rules corrupted
New rules incompatible

C++ very subtle
Errors difficult
Please read giant book right now

R-values not nullable
Careful with &&
You must understand details

Never use zero or NULL
Always null_ptr
Except in old lang versions

STL algorithms
Happy with functors
Can you use a lambda here?

Confusing to me
Transparent Operator
Functors - WTF?

C++ language
Compiler does not want help
Unless old version.

Types flow from function
calls to Overloads / Templates, right?
Let compiler work.

Cool new thing voted
into standard for 14
fixes old problem

C++ series
of hacks upon hacks upon
hacks upon hacks up …

(This next one addresses the 5 7 5 vs 7 5 7 issue and even then makes a new one: 5 5 7.)

5 7 5 or
7 5 7
let overloading decide

Too many haikus reverse
direction just like
C++ does again, right?

Well, actually,
I like C++, just, uh,
choose a good subset.

Windows Title Borders

Daniel is now one of my favorite people:

This approach works for Windows 11 as well, except, of course, they moved all the options around, but they aren't too hard to find.

Who thought not having a border around your windows was a good idea?

I've worked with excellent UI and UX people.  They think about things I don't think about.  It's great.

But at some point, I think, at big companies especially, when the UI is already generally good, the UX people have nothing to do, so there is the temptation to make changes, because, well, that's their job.

I'm reminded of a saying I was told when I worked at Virgin Interactive:  Hire 90% of the people you need.  The result is people who are highly engaged and 10% of what businesses do is bullshit anyway.

Security Now!

I always wondered if the Security Now podcast name was inspired by Seinfeld's "Serenity Now!"

But anyway this happened:

The full video episode is here:

https://twit.tv/shows/security-now/episodes/980?autostart=false

and the show notes are here: 

https://www.grc.com/sn/sn-980-notes.pdf

And just so you know, in the meantime the patch has been pushed out, and the answer is "yes", turning off the Wi-Fi adaptor blocks the attack.

They joke a bit about "why not just turn off the entire computer" but it's a real use case where a laptop is used as a remote access machine and connects over ethernet (at a home, say), but the Wi-Fi is left on because why would you ever turn it off?  Well, now you have a reason.

What dis?

What's this?

It's the plumbing for World of Color at Disneyland California Adventure.

They lowered the water level.

And here's some wiring exposed by the lower water level.

They used to have a little wave machine across that would cool the giant electromagnets that launch the cars for California Screamin' (renamed Incredicoaster).  Incredicoaster was working this particular day without any wave machine so I assume someone realized it was better to have a real cooling system than waves that splash up against the magnets.  But I applaud the theming of the original solution.

How come those electromagnets don't erase everyone's credit cards?

Full Self Driving (FSD) - Unsupervised

It's been in the news that Elon Musk announced that he will announce Tesla robotaxis in August, 2024.  Everyone thinks is he is full of shit, basically, because he has been full of shit about Tesla car autonomy for a very long time.

He might still be.

But!  Here's what I think he will announce and why Elon might have less shit in him this time.

He recently announced that Tesla is no longer "hardware constrained" for car training.  But Tesla has been hardware constrained for car execution for a very long time, since they shipped a bunch of hardware without fully understanding how their software stack was going to work.

And the latest Tesla "full self-driving", renamed to "FSD (supervised)", is really good.  The big change was shifting (heh) away from a combination of neural network and logic in code to executing entirely out of the neural network.  The result is pretty human-like driving.  And it's pretty good at unprotected left turns.  I have a buddy Eric R who lets his Tesla drive him all over the place - freeways, side streets, and even across country.  He says you have to watch it like a hawk but even then it is less stressful than actually driving.

A couple of years ago two other buddies told me they had the "maxed out" FSD and both of them said they stopped using it after it tried to kill them three times.  Which, BTW, it's probably worth pointing out that the Tesla statistics that say FSD is safer than human driving are nonsense, because anytime (in the past at least) that anything interesting happened, it was turned off.  So, sure, it was good at the easy stuff.

So, overall, big improvements in FSD, and my view is that the limitation now is the hardware in the car.

I think the robotaxi announcement will basically reflect the technology they have now but with a major upgrade to the in-car computing and maybe better sensors.  And I think it will be pretty good!  And the new thing will be called "FSD - Unsupervised."

As for the sensors - Elon has said that if you don't solve vision, then you haven't solved anything.  I don't agree with that, but even if that is your view - that the car shouldn't need more sensors than a human (wait, humans have two eyes, and Tesla's have, what, eight? [oh well]) - then you should add in sound and vibration.  I get lots of hints from how the road feels when I drive.  And I think the recent horrible accident from the Cruise vehicle where it dragged a person under the car could have been prevented with more tactile sensors.

BTW, Cruise, the GM self-driving company, has offices right near us at work.  We had a picnic out on the lawn and a bunch of them came out and sat with us.  One of the things I learned as we swapped stories about our respective businesses is that the the Cruise car is always computing an escape plan if something goes wrong, like it loses compute power.  And I think that is what happened after that car accident - it flipped into "escape plan" mode to pull over without considering that it was dragging a body.

I have to admit that accident really bummed me out, because at the time (this is years ago) I was very impressed at how they had a built-in safeguard like that.  And sadly, maybe it backfired.

One more thing.  Back in 2005 an autonomous car succeeded in the DARPA Grand Challenge.  I thought, yay, we're almost there!  And I took into account something Bill Gates said (I think it was Gates), that people overestimate what is possible, computing power wise, in five years, but underestimate what is possible in ten years.  So I thought, yay, in ten years, we'll have self-driving cars!

Well, shit.  That didn't work out.  I should doubled those numbers again.

Update 2024-06-17: AS PREDICTED:  https://www.autoevolution.com/news/elon-musk-reveals-the-first-details-about-hardware-5-autopilot-computer-and-sensors-235405.html

Fail!

I had a goal of posting a new blog entry every day (on average) last year.  I got about half way through and then stopped.  I had a chance during time off during the last week of 2023 to post a big pile of pictures to catch up and finish but I thought, "why?", I'm just kidding myself.

However, like any good failure, I learned something.  As I got into it I realized it was the most fun for me when I did a series of related posts, like the improv music series.

Also related were some ideas to speed up posting, most notably not posting labels.  I missed them!  And I realize if I'm going to focus on series of posts then the labels are pretty useful.

And so here it is May 27, 2024.  I've spent the last five months doing a lot of cleaning-up and decluttering both at home and in my rather large amount of electronic files.  I think I'm about ready to jump back into blogging.

I do have one time-specific blog entry to make, which I have now done.

Los Angeles - the city of angels

 

Probably more like Orange County looking north toward LA.

Blue Angels near I-90

 

Really, really big store

 

Bed, Bath, and Beyond!

 

SeaTac airport control tower

 

Near the Seattle Aquarium

 

Those electrical wires won't route themselves

 

Alias PowerAnimator 6.0 - those were the days

 

Spider Web

... via flip phone many years ago - 2003?

Inside the flyover bridge at Washington State Convention Center

Reflections

View from W Hotel in Seattle next to the Seattle Public Library.

Luxo Jr.

I went to my first Siggraph in 1987.  There was a panel on animation and one of the panelists was a young man who had made a CGI short about a lamp that plays ball with his son.

The outside of fog

 

Siblings

Supposedly if you show people a picture of something cute before you give a talk they will like your talk better.  I tried this at GDC one year.  Sadly it's hard to tell if it improved my scores.  These were the siblings from the litter where we got our dog.