Jed Rothwell
Wed, 03 Feb 2010 07:52:57 -0800
Terry Blanton wrote:
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20100202n1.html says there is no physical linkage between the throttle and the accelerator petal in the electronic throttle control system. Scary.
Yup. Fly-by-wire. You are not ordering the hardware what to do, but merely suggesting. You issue guidelines. And -- to reiterate the quote from "Pirates of the Caribbean" -- the car may think to itself in pirate-ese:
"Hang the [C++] code, and hang the rules. They're more like guidelines anyway. Arrrggg!"
The latest top-of-the line Toyotas have radar gadgets and things that supposedly follow the white strips on the road dynamic radar cruise control. Thanks but no thanks. I am sure this sort of thing will be standard and will work fine in the future, but ordinary cruise control gives me the willies today. I advocate fully automatic cars in the future but I would prefer that other people -- not me! -- be the guinea pigs who help wring out the cutting-edge early versions of this promising technology.
Hey, I do hypocrisy. - Jed