patience_limited's recent activity
-
Comment on What have you been eating, drinking, and cooking? in ~food
-
Comment on Tesla said it didn’t have key data in a fatal crash. Then a hacker found it. in ~transport
patience_limited Link ParentBoeing was in a better position to enact regulatory capture of the FAA - there was little US competition in the product niche that the Boeing 700-series planes occupied. Tesla is an upstart and...Boeing was in a better position to enact regulatory capture of the FAA - there was little US competition in the product niche that the Boeing 700-series planes occupied.
Tesla is an upstart and it's easy to see that other established U.S. automakers might have something to say about Tesla's commanding lead in autonomous driving.
-
Comment on Tesla said it didn’t have key data in a fatal crash. Then a hacker found it. in ~transport
patience_limited Link ParentReally disappointing to hear from /u/greentheonly that Tesla's improved its ability to encrypt and delete crash data remotely. As I said, we need independent black box data storage and management...Really disappointing to hear from /u/greentheonly that Tesla's improved its ability to encrypt and delete crash data remotely. As I said, we need independent black box data storage and management if we're actually concerned about safety.
-
Comment on Tesla said it didn’t have key data in a fatal crash. Then a hacker found it. in ~transport
patience_limited (edited )LinkExcerpt from the article: IANAL, but I have some experience with the plaintiff's side of product liability litigation and forensic engineering. This is an absolutely damning example of corporate...Excerpt from the article:
Immediately after the wreck at 9:14 p.m. on April 25, 2019, the crucial data detailing how it unfolded was automatically uploaded to the company’s servers and stored in a vast central database, according to court documents. Tesla’s headquarters soon sent an automated message back to the car confirming that it had received the collision snapshot.
Moments later, court records show, the data was just as automatically “unlinked” from the 2019 Tesla Model S at the scene, meaning the local copy was marked for deletion, a standard practice for Teslas in such incidents, according to court testimony.
In the time between the crash and the hacker’s intervention, according to testimony from a software engineer and manager on the Autopilot team, someone at Tesla probably took “affirmative action to delete” the copy of the data on the company’s central database, too, leaving investigators and the family without the information they believed they needed to piece together what happened.
About two months after the crash, Cpl. David Riso‚ then the Florida Highway Patrol’s lead traffic homicide investigator, walked into a Tesla service center in South Florida — a meeting arranged by one of Tesla’s lawyers — holding two parts from the mangled Tesla, court records say: the media control unit, a flat center screen used for navigation and other features, and the Autopilot control unit, a metal box that housed the crucial data and had cables hanging off it.
From there, a Tesla service technician worked to retrieve the information he could — plugging the media control unit into a different Tesla and surveying its contents on a computer.
That employee attested that he never powered on the Autopilot control unit, where the snapshot resided, court documents show, and focused on the media control unit instead. But according to documents, Tesla acknowledged that the Autopilot control unit transmitted data at the time of the police inspection. Tesla recanted its employee’s testimony “after discovering evidence inconsistent with his stated recollection of events,” it said.
Powering up that unit posed a major problem, said Alan Moore, an expert witness and forensic engineer who testified for the plaintiffs, launching “a number of automatic processes,” which can include updating software. “The problem is … all of this is happening in the treasure trove,” he said, putting the collision snapshot at risk.
At the service center that day, the service technician downloaded data to a thumb drive Riso had brought to the facility. But the employee immediately set expectations low, Riso told the jury last month.
He “told me it was corrupted even before he handed the thumb drive [back] to me,” Riso said in his testimony.
After years of trying and failing to retrieve this data from Tesla, the plaintiffs’ attorneys said, they finally hit a wall in 2024 and were preparing to go to trial without it. But in a last-ditch effort to find the snapshot that summer, they recovered the control units from the Florida Highway Patrol, which still had them in its possession. Then they needed a technical expert to understand and extract what was on them.
That’s when they turned to hacker greentheonly, who had a robust social media following for his work recovering data from damaged Teslas and posting his findings on X.
The hacker was consulting with the plaintiffs’ team when Tesla proposed to the plaintiffs that they power on the Autopilot control unit to determine what data it held — an idea greentheonly vehemently opposed.
“‘Let’s just power it on and update [it] and see what happens,’” he recalled them suggesting. “If I wanted to destroy evidence on the computer, that would be exactly the advice I would give.”
After a lengthy back-and-forth, Tesla and the plaintiffs agreed on terms for the hacker to access the data from the Autopilot unit himself. In October, the plaintiffs’ attorneys flew the hacker down to Miami from his home hundreds of miles away.
Inside a Starbucks near the Miami airport, the plaintiffs’ attorneys watched as greentheonly fired up his ThinkPad computer and plugged in a flash drive containing a forensic copy of the Autopilot unit’s contents. Within minutes, he found key data that was marked for deletion — along with confirmation that Tesla had received the collision snapshot within moments of the crash — proving the critical information should have actually been accessible all along.
IANAL, but I have some experience with the plaintiff's side of product liability litigation and forensic engineering. This is an absolutely damning example of corporate malfeasance in evidence destruction, and it's not surprising that the jury found against Tesla to the tune of a $243 million verdict. That will almost certainly be reduced on appeal.
I remain surprised that the U.S. National Transportation and Highway Safety Administration hasn't insisted on black box rules (e.g. third party escrow for crash data and vehicle memory on all self-driving systems, if not government holding) for software-on-wheels.
If the state police hadn't maintained custody of the vehicle data recorders, no one would have had any idea about the autonomous driving systems' contribution to the crash in the article, thanks to Tesla's efforts in data destruction.
-
Tesla said it didn’t have key data in a fatal crash. Then a hacker found it.
38 votes -
Comment on The day when three NASA astronauts staged a strike in space in ~space
patience_limited LinkIn celebration of the U.S. Labor Day holiday, in these benighted times... — Skylab 4 Commander Jerry Carr to NASA, just before the crew went on strike Key to any effective labor action is...In celebration of the U.S. Labor Day holiday, in these benighted times...
We would never work 16 hours a day for 84 straight days on the ground, and we should not be expected to do it here in space.
— Skylab 4 Commander Jerry Carr to NASA, just before the crew went on strike
Key to any effective labor action is leverage. The Skylab crew had full control of the only source of capable workers who were in place to get the jobs done. Mission Control made the grave mistake of treating them as infinitely exploitable, ignoring the expert opinions of their own professionals.
Capital hasn't (yet) managed to send scab laborers to space quickly. Robotics + AI aren't (yet) smart, flexible, and resilient enough to replace humans in space for this kind of mission.
Footnote: Anyone who's read The Moon is a Harsh Mistress or watched The Expanse might think long and hard about the consequences (spoiler warning) of really pissed-off space labor.
Extra reading: Historian Eric Loomis' commentary from the Lawyers, Guns and Money blog's "This Day in History" section.
-
The day when three NASA astronauts staged a strike in space
9 votes -
Comment on America tips into fascism in ~society
patience_limited LinkIn all truth, the United States was effectively a plutocracy even before the Trump takeover. You could have your pick of the green(-ish)/tech-forward billionaire party or the fossil fuel and...In all truth, the United States was effectively a plutocracy even before the Trump takeover. You could have your pick of the green(-ish)/tech-forward billionaire party or the fossil fuel and mineral extraction billionaire party.
Trump simply consolidated the billionaires, and packaged this up with a back-to-the-imagined Gilded Age revanchism. If there's a philosophy of governance that can be rolled back to 1855 - 1890, it will be. The fact that popular will would be vehemently opposed to this (moreso if anyone really grasped the implications of Project 2025) is what brings us the (tiny) iron fist.
-
Comment on Offbeat Fridays – The thread where offbeat headlines become front page news in ~news
patience_limited Link ParentWe've had too much rain this year to produce great tomatoes. One of the reasons for homegrown is that you can regulate the water supply (weather permitting) to get those rich, intense flavors that...We've had too much rain this year to produce great tomatoes. One of the reasons for homegrown is that you can regulate the water supply (weather permitting) to get those rich, intense flavors that overwatered commercial tomatoes don't develop.
-
Comment on Offbeat Fridays – The thread where offbeat headlines become front page news in ~news
patience_limited Link ParentAs a fellow introvert, I can see the appeal of a festival where everyone is there to be mutually embarrassed by consent.As a fellow introvert, I can see the appeal of a festival where everyone is there to be mutually embarrassed by consent.
-
Comment on Survey results on books that people identify as shaping their life/personality after reading them in high school in ~books
patience_limited LinkI was raised by book-hoarding socialists who weren't particular about what the kids read, as long as they were reading. I read almost everything on this list, and it's hard to say what was most...I was raised by book-hoarding socialists who weren't particular about what the kids read, as long as they were reading. I read almost everything on this list, and it's hard to say what was most influential. Books not on the list that I recall having a big impact were:
Howard Zinn, A People's History of the United States
Dee Brown, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee
Daniel Keyes, Flowers For Algernon
Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart
Kamala Markandaya, Nectar In A Sieve (beautiful, but much more brutal and realistic than The Good Earth)
Saul Alinsky, Rules For Radicals
Buckminster Fuller, Operating Manual For Spaceship Earth
Isaac Asimov, The Foundation Trilogy, The Gods Themselves
Jerzy Kosinsky, Being There
John Hersey, Hiroshima
The Whole Earth Catalog
Joanna Russ, The Female ManOops, created another list for the book burners.
-
Comment on Offbeat Fridays – The thread where offbeat headlines become front page news in ~news
patience_limited LinkIt's the time of year when everyone's gardens have overproduced tomatoes.It's the time of year when everyone's gardens have overproduced tomatoes.
-
Comment on A US federal appellate court finds the National Labor Relations Board to be unconstitutional in ~society
patience_limited LinkHere's your remedy. For those in other countries who might be baffled by the lack of U.S. motion towards a general strike, our labor unions (what's left of them) are legally prohibited from...For those in other countries who might be baffled by the lack of U.S. motion towards a general strike, our labor unions (what's left of them) are legally prohibited from organizing for causes outside of their direct contracts. There's little of the solidarity unionism that typifies countries with stronger public labor movements.
It's only been three years since the post-pandemic "Striketober" walkouts, but I haven't seen any serious efforts to organize something similar yet.
-
Comment on US Food and Drug Administration limits approval for new coronavirus vaccines to high-risk people in ~health
patience_limited (edited )LinkOn a personal note, does anyone happen to know if an updated COVID-19 booster is available in Canada yet? Immunosuppressed, one year since the last dose, and it's sure as hell not available here....On a personal note, does anyone happen to know if an updated COVID-19 booster is available in Canada yet? Immunosuppressed, one year since the last dose, and it's sure as hell not available here.
Edit: Just heard at Costco (while getting my 'flu shot) that the new booster has been approved (with the above caveats) and will be available next week. It's not that it won't be available for people who don't fit in the "recommended" categories, it's that insurance may not cover the
$100$225 vaccine for those who aren't in the age brackets or don't have conditions for which the vaccine is recommended. -
Comment on Does anyone have a digg invite code I can get ? in ~tech
patience_limited Link ParentUnfortunately, new signups are locked right now; I'll try again tomorrow. Again, my thanks!Unfortunately, new signups are locked right now; I'll try again tomorrow. Again, my thanks!
-
Comment on Does anyone have a digg invite code I can get ? in ~tech
patience_limited LinkInterested in an invite for curiosity's sake, please. I've seen too many platforms arrive, enshittify, and zombie onward to have much hope, but it's worth a glance.Interested in an invite for curiosity's sake, please. I've seen too many platforms arrive, enshittify, and zombie onward to have much hope, but it's worth a glance.
-
Comment on The food timeline in ~food
patience_limited LinkI encountered this "Old Web" site (established in 1999) for the first time today. It brought me an overwhelming feeling of nostalgia for the passion-project Web 1.0 sites which were treasure...I encountered this "Old Web" site (established in 1999) for the first time today. It brought me an overwhelming feeling of nostalgia for the passion-project Web 1.0 sites which were treasure troves of information. Not always well-presented, often marginally accurate or full of gaps that an academic or expert would itch to fill in. "The Food Timeline" is best-of-class though, originally created by the research librarian Lynne Olver and now maintained as part of Virginia Tech's university collections. It's immensely satisfying and informative for the casual reader.
"The Food Timeline" draws from a huge range of sources, any one of which I'd be interested to sit down and read. As a accessible compilation of the broad range of human discoveries and technologies for food cultivation and preparation (including historical recipes), I don't think there's any better online equivalent.
Note that the timeline of events in "The Food Timeline" probably needs some updating with current genomics and lidar settlement mapping data.
Enjoy!
-
The food timeline
11 votes -
Comment on Thoughts on wallpaper? in ~life.home_improvement
patience_limited LinkAlso, don't discount the power of bright white walls to help manage the dark months of Michigan winter. I'd focus on artwork, adjustable-intensity lighting at all levels of the room, and adding...Also, don't discount the power of bright white walls to help manage the dark months of Michigan winter. I'd focus on artwork, adjustable-intensity lighting at all levels of the room, and adding color through accessories (pillows, throws, rugs) that you can change up as the season and your boredom level demands.
-
Comment on Thoughts on wallpaper? in ~life.home_improvement
patience_limited (edited )LinkWe redid a very utilitarian utility room (all MDF walls) over the course of a week. 1/2" drywall, totally amateur mudding, press-and-lock vinyl flooring over sealed concrete, and peel-and-stick...We redid a very utilitarian utility room (all MDF walls) over the course of a week. 1/2" drywall, totally amateur mudding, press-and-lock vinyl flooring over sealed concrete, and peel-and-stick wallpaper to cover the walls. Results.
The cheap wallpaper hid a multitude of bulges, imperfectly square walls, etc. without the fight to apply and sand multiple coats of primer. It's bright, waterproof, wipeable (we've both got messy hobbies), and the biggest issue we had was its tendency to stretch during application. That actually worked to our advantage in lining up the seams and the subtle pattern. While it's technically removable, it would probably take some drywall paper and mudding with it.
I'm Team Wallpaper 100% for areas where it's a vast improvement over the original wall condition, in a space whose walls you're not staring at all the time.
It's harvest processing time! I've got caprese salad done with the ripest heirloom tomatoes, and two sheet pans of cherry and other tomatoes roasting in the oven with fresh thyme and oregano.
Harvest chowder is simmering.
Shrimp and Corn Chowder with Fennel
Entree, Fall-Winter, Seafood, Soups/Stews
Servings: 8 generous servings
Ingredients:
2 Tablespoons unsalted butter
2 leeks (white and light green parts), chopped
1 large shallot, minced
1 fennel bulb, chopped
1 tablespoon fresh thyme leaves
Kosher salt and black pepper
3 Tablespoons all-purpose flour
14.5 oz can seafood stock
4 cups whole milk
1 cup white wine (I used a South African Chenin Blanc)
2 T. fish sauce
1 pound potatoes, peeled and cut into 1/2 in. pieces ( 1 very large baking potato)
2 pounds of raw or cooked peeled and deveined medium shrimp (31/40 size is fairly economical)
4 ears of sweet corn, sliced from the cob
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
2 T each minced fennel fronds and dill, for serving
Directions:
Heat the butter in a large sauce pan over medium heat.
Add the leeks, fennel, shallot and thyme leaves, season with 1 teaspoon salt and 1/2 teaspoon pepper. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the vegetables are tender about 6 or 7 minutes.
Add 3 tablespoons of all-purpose flour.
Add the seafood stock, milk, wine, fish sauce, and potatoes and bring to a boil.
Reduce heat and simmer, stirring occasionally, for about 12 to 15 minutes.
Stir in the shrimp and corn. Cook for about 5 more minutes until the corn is heated. *I have used raw shrimp that have just been peeled and deveined . It only takes about 3-5 minutes for the shrimp to cook in the chowder. I saw no difference in the taste. Either way it was delicious.
Stir in the lemon juice. Garnish with dill and fennel.
*If you are lucky enough to have leftovers the chowder will thicken. I just thinned to the right consistency with skim milk.
Modified from source: https://theteachercooks.com/2011/03/08/shrimp-and-corn-chowder-with-fennel/