Saturday was spring forward, or the start of daylight savings time. It is less impact now than it was years ago. Daylight savings time was created to make it easier for people to be out and about during the warmer months of the year. Many years ago, you had to reset the 3every single clock in your house manually. I remember hating the fact that my wife loves clocks . Now however the majority of clocks (in our house) are internet time service connected so they reset to the correct time automatically. Except for the clock above our fireplace, that one is only right during Daylight savings time. Mostly because you have to get on a ladder to set the clock, I would say I do that twice a year but I don’t.
Automation is an interesting technological advancement. Part of the automation is the reality of machine learning. Machine learning allows for complex pattern matching much faster than humans can. The other side of automation is the growing are of artificial intelligence. ML and AI as they are called are often incorrectly labeled. Machine Learning still requires the use of patterns and the application of patterns. AI is the creation of patterns with human intervention. A lot of what automation does is things we don’t even think about. One of them is the updating of phones and computers. I remember many years ago when we used to tell customers that the number one thing that caused computer problems was the things they connected to their computer.
The internet is the “nexus” of the automation that is a clock set to the proper time. It also allows for a lot of other automation. The reality of what can be automated continues to expand. I don’t miss running around the house the day of Spring Forward or the day of Fall Back changing all the clocks in the house. I much prefer the automated system we have now.
I know that more and more devices are smart enough to manage the time change on their own. It does bring up an interesting question about automation. The reality of what else is automated? Self-driving cars is something that a lot of people are interested in, several companies have released cars that can, for the most part, drive themselves “a little.” But the true self-driving car has not yet appeared. Why? Well in part it has to do with network connectivity. In part, it has to do with traffic patterns (Machine Learning) and proper reactions (Artificial Intelligence) of the car. There are self-driving cars being tested all over the world. Eventually, we won’t drive, we will ride with a person in the driver’s seat just in case. Automation is coming, are you ready?
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Question of
Are you ready for self-driving cars?
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Yes
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No
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Question of
Do you still reset your clocks by hand?
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Yes
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No
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Question of
Is your coffee pot connected to the internet?
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Yes
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No
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The clock on the oven is the only one I have to reset by hand. Oh and there’s the one on the microwave that nobody remembers how to reset, so it’s just permanently wrong – not just an hour out, as it restarts whenever we have a power outage. But I’m glad the time updates automatically everywhere else. I remember missing an appointment to see a new apartment back in the 70s one March Sunday…
When I was a kid one spring or autumn (brain’s not awake enough yet to be certain which) our family decided not to adjust the hour, with the result that we got an extra hour in bed every morning. Or so we persuaded ourselves 🙂
I can see you in your wonderful hat (from your profile picture) wandering around the house resetting clocks and doing a jig!
It’s been a long time since we read stories, comics, or films that depict the future with self-driving vehicles, and it seems that the vision described is near.
The time is near for self-driving cars. I wonder when the law of the land will prohibit humans from driving.
That’s what I couldn’t think of. How will the law regulate that?
A simple sensor on the steering wheel. You touch, the car notifies police. If there is an emergency they pat you on the head and say good job. There it was simply you wishing, once again to drive, then off to car jail you go!
lol…
Which age level feels the most benefit from such things during the trip?
That Albert is the reality of the potential! How many accidents are caused by distracted drivers (holding a cell phone texting or talking)? I have heard numbers that range from 30% to 50% of all accidents in the world.
If you include, which the new systems also help with, rear-end collisions and distracted human drivers you could see an 80% reduction in accidents.
Also, people could literally work, or get more done if they didn’t have to focus on the road!
if every car on the road were self driving, I suspect we could have a safe and robust solution right now. self driving cars that have to account for and react to erratic human driving behavior? who can say how long that will take…
So you are saying the min/max machine learning pattern won’t fix this 😉
not saying it isn’t fixable, but erratic human behavior could trigger bugs which cause a software crash, and then a hardware crash
I suspect that would be best served by a smart application that was more a way of what was happening around it.
Plus with low latency and 5g, there is always the potential to do real time.
all the cars would be controlled by a central server or bank/farm. if a human driver did something that uncovered a bug, it could cause a server to lock or crash. even a lag could be fatal
That is why 6g and Intelligent Edge buy so much. It wouldn’t be one server, it would be a geographically distributed set of servers.
No one server would be impacted by a bug.
Machine learning would allow me to allocate resources quickly to solving problems. The system would move into the realm of self-healing.
the same code running on any number of servers might still cause a lot of crashes, and cascading failure is still a real possibility
I would probably design it to be a series of serverless (Lambda) instances as microservers. Where they are aware of the others but operate wholly as independent instances. More the quantum model of multiple parallel compute instances rather than a structurally connected server solution (such as what we often have today).
that would be bad ass. distributed processing is so damn cool
It really is, now, if there are linear tasks you would need to evaluate how you handle those with a distributed system.
I am also impressed with the way they scale
In a previous life, I was part of the team that built some stuff for NASA. They were streaming a specific video feed. We scaled to 2200 servers in less than 35 seconds.
that is pretty damn impressive
AWS thought so, I was sitting in a meeting with the lead for the project (I was an architect for the project) when AWS announced that they had delivered the solution. Then the AWS person looked into the crowd and saw us.
He said, “we delivered the infrastructure for the solution is what I meant to say.”
and where was Diogenes?
I suspect in an open boat in search of the sun.
decided not to waste any more oil wandering the streets of Athens?
ROFL
Now that would be an awesome picture for you to create mon ami!
Diogenes tossing a lamp over his shoulder in disgust?
yes 🙂 walking away from our world in pure disgust!
yeah, I feel like that a lot lately
I struggle with that from time to time. Currently, I am working on reducing the negativity around me.
conversely, I have chosen to focus on areas where I can make a positive difference
I have to focus on that (making a positive impact). It is a more positive approach. Thanks for the gentle guidance Alex!
if you need a win, set yourself up for a win…
That is a really good way to look at it.
when you get tired of waiting for an opportunity, you start making your own
I still alter the clocks by hand. Quite often here in Onehunga we have power block outs which there is no electricity for a while and so clocks have to be manually altered again. They keep on fixing the power station and so lets hope they got it right last time
Black outs usually last 2-3 hours but at one time it lasted from 3-4 days for not just Onehunga but many Auckland suburbs
reliable power is something we don’t often think about, thanks for reminding me Pam! One of the limits of things that are automated is power!
In our country, we will move the clock at the end of this month. I have to hand over a few more hours manually. I think I would not have a good sense of driving with such a car
SPring forward is one of those does it really help events. I wonder….
Amazing, coffee maker connected to internet.
Oh yeah, it is a smart appliance, and doesn’t vampire (continue to suck power) when it is off!
yikes… no coffee if no internet.. argh!!!
It is connected, does not require an internet connection to work.
Well, I kind of had a yes/no answer. One clock sets without needing help, which is a good thing. It reminds me to reset the rest.
However I think daylight savings is silliness. Spending much of my time living and working the land and animals. You work from daylight to last light and it really doesn’t matter what the clock says. ?
It is an old system. You work and you sleep when the time is required.