Monthly Archives: March 2016

General

Yet a little more on those self-driving cars…

A couple of days ago news was made that a Google self-driving car got into an accident with a bus…and the Google car was at fault (you can read an article concerning this crash here).

Rather than note how incredible it is that Google self-driving cars have been in operation (on a limited area basis) for years now and have driven, according to Google’s latest monthly self-driving report (you can read the February 2016 PDF report here), some 1,452,177 miles autonomously and this is appears to be the first actual accident caused by a Google self-driving car.  It was a minor fender bender yet already some are questioning the future of self-driving vehicles.

People such as Samuel Anthony English who offers the following essay for Slate…

The Trollable Self-Driving Car

I can’t argue all his points but I think he makes one critical mistake in his essay: He assumes that in the future there will be a mix of self-driving cars and human driving cars and I believe we will very quickly move into a world where the self-driving vehicles will rule the roads and there will be fewer and fewer and, eventually, no cars being driven exclusively by people.

The fact is the accident caused by the Google car involved the vehicle not anticipating what the other (human) driver was about to do.  While the programmers at Google no doubt will offer fixes to their self-driving software I have little doubt that future driverless cars vs. human driver car crashes are possible…some of which will be the fault of the Google car.

But if all vehicles are automated I equally suspect they’ll also be able to “interact” with each other to some degree so any situation where a car can move -or allow another to go ahead- will be dealt with and no accident can or will occur.

I strongly believe that when given a choice, people will accept the freedom of a self-driving car versus the drudgery of driving oneself to and from your destinations.

If as I suspect will happen, then the amount of cars with actual human drivers in them will diminish and, perhaps, one day even disappear.

In which case a crash like the one above will probably no longer be an issue.

General

Enough with the Politics!

Ok, maybe not quite yet.  On this “Super Tuesday”, I found this fascinating article by William Saletan which, in my opinion, presents probably the clearest description yet of the strange (to my eyes anyway) anti-Obamaism going on in the Republican Party and why it may have helped in the creation of a Donald Trump, “serious” candidate:

Ross Douthat says Obama Created Trump.  That’s Nuts.

A great article and, again, one that I feel goes a long way in explaining the strange (to many pundits) rise of Donald Trump.

One element I believe was lacking from the article was this: Say what you will but Donald Trump -and there are plenty of negatives to say about him- he nonetheless has a fiery energy about him that none of the other Republican candidates are able to match.  Understand, I’m not advocating Donald Trump for President (indeed, should he become president I fear for this country), but let’s face facts here: As childish, bigoted, and churlish as he is, he’s run laps around many of the other candidates in terms of energy and fevered emotion.

He took down Jeb! Bush without breaking a sweat and now Marco Rubio appears to be trying to fight Trump on his own level…a big mistake.

The way it looks from here and now, it appears we’ll have a Trump vs. Hillary Clinton race (barring any unforeseen events).  What’s most curious and coincidental about this whole election is that as “good” as Mr. Trump has been within this Republican nomination process, arguably he’s faced his absolute roughest times against strong women (whether journalists or candidates) and wouldn’t you know it, if he does become the Republican Presidential Candidate, who might he go up against?

A very strong woman.

If that’s the case, then my prediction is that Hillary Clinton will become the first female President of the United States.

But we’ve still got a long way to go…

Movies, TV

George Kennedy, RIP

While growing up, there were plenty of actors out there that had my attention.  Some were “stars” and carried whatever movie/TV show they were in.  Sometimes, like in the case of Humphrey Bogart or James Dean they took over the feature they were in, sometimes to the detriment of others around them, so charismatic were they.

There is one actor, though, that seemed to always appear here and there, both in movies and television, and always seemed to be good in whatever role he was playing.  At first, these roles were predominantly the “heavy”…and he brought a growling menace to whatever bad-guy role he played.

And then something changed, most likely his bad-guy turned good role in Cool Hand Luke (a role that won him an Oscar) and, suddenly, he became equally good -perhaps even better!- in roles in which he played an at times exasperated good-guy.  He would go on to play the same role in all four Airport movies, that of Joe Patroni, mechanic and trouble solver.

And then, when you think you have him pegged, he broke out as Ed Hocken in the hilarious -and supremely silly- Naked Gun movies.

Of course I’m talking about George Kennedy.  Today’s audiences, especially those without much knowledge of movies or tv shows from ten years before, may not recognize him, but here he is in Cool Hand Luke:

And here he is in, I’m guessing, Airport 79, the last -and silliest- of the Airport films:

And of course, here he is in one of may favorite clips from The Naked Gun films, this one from the second feature.  The clip is a little long because it first sets up the George Kennedy joke to come.  Though Mr. Kennedy arrives at the 1:30 mark, its worth seeing the entire clip:

When I told my wife yesterday Mr. Kennedy had died and even though she doesn’t have the same trivia-filled mind like mine, she nonetheless instantly said: “I’m just John Q. Public now,” the line Mr. Kennedy states in the clip above, and we both laughed at the memory.

George Kennedy may not have ever risen to the ranks of a Humphrey Bogart or James Dean or Marlon Brando, but he always seemed to give it his all and, even when the film around him might have been complete shit (I’m looking at you, Airport 79), you could count on his professionalism.

Rest in peace, big fellow.  You’ve given me countless hours of wonderful entertainment.