OK, dumb question; how do you know where the edges of the road are? Non-military spec GPS can't be accurate for this application to within 6 inches...

So---how do they know?

I want this guy for my GPS...

Take a right turn here me brudda onto Main St. In 500 meters your gonna take a left me brudda to your destination... now GO GO GO.

Nah, we'll just mess with Trump Construction Inc. GPS systems and they'll build it for us, and get Mexico to pay for it. It'll work. Trust me.

The thumbnail image for this video has been updated - thumbnail added by eric3579.

What about tracking with that GPS stuff?

For obvious reasons. People that want something banned, don't want statistics showing that shows it doesn't kill. And people that don't want something banned, don't want statistics showing that it kills people.

Bed manufacturers wouldn't want the CDC studying beds - because 400+ people die each year by falling out of bed. Windows tint manufacturers would have no problem with the CDC studying the effects of window tint.
Combine that with sufficient political influence, and you get either a ban or a mandate.

Pretty much most things you encounter in the day have some lethality rate to them, just most don't have such an effective organization defending their use. Nor do most draw as much attention. Not much noise about the lethality of bad bread, or errors in GPS maps, or whatever else gets people killed each year. But if there was noise, and there was political strength behind it, you'd be seeing bans on CDC studying GPS map errors.

-scheherazade

Woah, woah, you're way overstating it. The tech is nowhere near ready for full hands-off driving in non-ideal driving scenarios. For basic navigation Google relies on maps and GPS, but the crux of autonomous navigation is machine learning algorithms. Through many hours of data logged driving, the algorithm will associate more and more accurately certain sensor inputs to certain hazards via equation selection and coefficients. The assumption is that at some point the algorithm would be able to accurately and reliably identify and react to pedestrians, pot holes, construction areas, temporary traffic lights police stops among an almost endless litany of possible hazards.

They're nowhere near there though and there's simply no guarantee that it will ever be sufficiently reliable to be truly hands-off. As mentioned, the algorithm is just an equation with certain coefficients. Our brains don't work that way when we drive. An algorithm may never have the necessary complexity or flexibility to capture the possibility of novel and unexpected events in all driving scenarios. The numbers Google quotes on reliability from its test driving are on well mapped, simple to navigate roads like highways with few of these types of challenges but real life is not like that. In practice, the algorithm may be safer than humans for something like 99% of scenarios (which I agree could in itself make driving safer) but those exceptional 1% of scenarios that our brains are uniquely able to process will still require us to be ready to take over.

As for Tesla, all it has is basically auto-cruise, auto-steer and lane changing on request. The first two is just the car keeping in lane based on lane marker input from sensors, and slowing down & speeding up based on the car follow length you give it. The most advanced part of it is the changing lanes if you indicate it to, which will effectively avoid other cars and merge. It doesn't navigate, it's basically just for highways, and even on those it won't make your exit for you (and apparently will sometimes dive into exits you didn't want based on lane marker confusion from what I've read). So basically this is either staged or this guy is an idiot.

Couldn't (shouldn't?) somebody make an android / iOS app that has permissions to force turning on GPS tracking, dials 911 and lets the user talk as normal, and uses text to speech to repeat the lat/long coordinates from the GPS at a low volume every 15-30 seconds or something?

That wouldn't require a technological standard -- from the 911 dispatch perspective, it is all just analog / audio information. It would require people to download/install a 3rd party app, which isn't great since most people don't exactly plan ahead for emergencies like that. But, if it worked well enough and was unobtrusive enough, Google/Apple would probably be well served to adopt it as a standard feature of Android/iOS.

It worked for me, random glitch perhaps? The list of regions allowed is fairly extensive, so it's probably not blocked (are there any missing? Canada and the US are both included):

"regionsAllowed" content="AD,AE,AF,AG,AI,AL,AM,AO,AQ,AR,AS,AT,AU,AW,AX,AZ,BA,BB,BD,BE,BF,BG,BH,BI,BJ,BL,BM,BN,BO,BQ,BR,BS,BT,BV,BW,BY,BZ,CA,CC,CD,CF,CG,CH,CI,CK,CL,CM,
CN,CO,CR,CU,CV,CW,CX,CY,CZ,DE,DJ,DK,DM,DO,DZ,EC,EE,EG,EH,ER,ES,ET,FI,FJ,FK,FM,FO,FR,GA,GB,GD,GE,GF,GG,GH,GI,GL,GM,GN,GP,GQ,GR,GS,GT,GU,GW,GY,HK,HM,HN,
HR,HT,HU,ID,IE,IL,IM,IN,IO,IQ,IR,IS,IT,JE,JM,JO,JP,KE,KG,KH,KI,KM,KN,KP,KR,KW,KY,KZ,LA,LB,LC,LI,LK,LR,LS,LT,LU,LV,LY,MA,MC,MD,ME,MF,MG,MH,MK,ML,MM,MN,
MO,MP,MQ,MR,MS,MT,MU,MV,MW,MX,MY,MZ,NA,NC,NE,NF,NG,NI,NL,NO,NP,NR,NU,NZ,OM,PA,PE,PF,PG,PH,PK,PL,PM,PN,PR,PS,PT,PW,PY,QA,RE,RO,RS,RU,RW,SA,SB,SC,SD,SE,
SG,SH,SI,SJ,SK,SL,SM,SN,SO,SR,SS,ST,SV,SX,SY,SZ,TC,TD,TF,TG,TH,TJ,TK,TL,TM,TN,TO,TR,TT,TV,TW,TZ,UA,UG,UM,US,UY,UZ,VA,VC,VE,VG,VI,VN,VU,WF,WS,YE,YT,ZA,
ZM,ZW"

I think he rigged it up with something like this http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00W6UVROK

Probably just took the shocker out of the collar and attached it to a phone case.

The thumbnail image for this video has been updated - thumbnail added by eric3579.

Two reasons - firstly and most importantly it would take too much fuel to return to the landing site from this mission's trajectory, and secondly using the barge “Of Course I Still Love You” means that they aren't risking the lives of their staff or the buildings around the launch facility. They actually discuss this in the video at one point.

The barge itself is pretty complicated too, using GPS and some nifty thrusters to stay within 3m of the intended landing site - http://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/spacexs-landing-drone-ship-is-just-as-complicated-as-th-1769987148

I have not agreed that my position is wrong on the performance and capability designs of the F-35 and modern air combat. Please read the rest of my post above.... I'm still saying that dogfights have ended with WW1. I've never said we don't need ANY dog fighting capabilities. I'm saying that it's never the primary design idea of a modern fighter jet. You still have a cannon for back up. Just like soldiers have a side arm and a knife. Just in case you do get caught with your pants down or the main weapon fails at a critical moment.

I have agreed on the waste of money aspect of course. I'll also agree that if test goals are being downsized to accommodate flaws, then that's just terrible. If it's not able to perform to it's design then it's useless.

The F-4 != F-35. I can see why people draw parallels. But that only works if you ignore that absolutely everything on the planes is different, the adversaries are different, and stealth is requirement for survivability. You don't use stealth planes in the way you use an non stealth plane. Have you ever heard of a sniper wearing a ghillie suit run across the open battlefield with a sword or pistol? There were so many tactical mistakes in Vietnam as well. The conditions in which that article talks about are also different. Those planes were flying low and slow for a bombing run. Because they didn't have laser, gps guided bombs, infrared fire and forget air to ground missiles or cruise missiles back in those days. You don't get fog at 40,000 feet. They had to fly that low to get a visual identification of their bombing target. That does not happen anymore either. You scream past at mach 1 above the clouds and the bomb hits where it was programmed to hit. Also the phantoms missiles were unrelaiable. That hasn't been the case since the 80s. And their training was poor. None of that is true these days, and has not been true since the 80s either. That's why every single fighter plane apart from the F-16 (which is made mostly as an export product anyway) has been created to fight at long range primarily. The F-15 which is the main air superiority fighter for the US, is heavy and has a worse maneuverability than any Russian plane. But it's still the most feared plane, with no loses in combat. The article you linked even says that. So it's basically contradicting itself. At the start it says, F-4's lost because they couldn't maneuver, and ends with therefore the US made the F-15 which has worse maneuverability than the Russian planes lol.



Edit: Cracked.com doesn't count as a reputable source for anything, including basic sentences, spelling and punctuation.

Edit2: Here is an article from an actual F-35 pilot that says the F-35 dog fights better than a F-16 since they keep tuning the fly-by-wire parameters. http://theaviationist.com/2016/03/01/heres-what-ive-learned-so-far-dogfighting-in-the-f-35-a-jsf-pilot-first-hand-account/

So even if it came to a dogfighting encounter, the F-35 is still the best plane in the US arsenal for dogfighting.

I'm saying that the F-35 doesn't need to do the job of the A-10 in the same style, because helicopters and drones already fill that loitering style of close air support. And they fill it better than the warthog. Drones loiter better and longer, and helicopters are less vulnerable while having just as much fire power, with the ability to keep enemies suppressed without stopping to turn around and run in again. Helicopters don't even fly that much slower than the A-10 and they have the advantage of being able to stay on the friendly side of the battle-line while firing at the enemy, as well as being able to use terrain as cover.
And fast movers do a better job of delivering bombs.

The warthog was created as a soviet tank killer and hasn't been used in the role ever, since the cold war never became a hot war. It was created in a time where high losses were acceptable. You could argue it was made to fight a war that didn't happen either. But it's been upgraded with all sorts of sensors that are already in helicopters and drones to extend it's role into something it wasn't really designed for in the first place.

I'm not beating up the warthog, it's my 2nd most favourite plane. I've logged some 400+ virtual flying hours in the A-10C in DCS World. I know what every single switch does in the cockpit. And I've dropped thousands of simulated laser and GPS guided bombs, launched thousands of mavericks, and strafed thousands of BMPs. I love the thing really
But it's duties are performed better by a range of modern aircraft now.

Your video, If Morgan Freeman was the voice of your GPS, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.