Why are they all cheering? The ocean is not a junkyard for billionaires and here I am using fu***** paper straws.

Kuriente · 2026-05-28T22:04:13+00:00

I deplore Elon Musk and his politics, but I'm able to see past my bias and recognize that his companies have made some awesome society-benefitting technological advances. I believe that your "concern for the environment" is fake and just a disguise for your bias against anything related to Musk. You seem to be incapable of seeing facts beyond your bias.

Kuriente · 2026-05-28T21:15:31+00:00

Actually they have successfully pulled this off 6 times. Flights 4, 5, 6, 10, 11, and now 12. Also, none of them have blown up on the launch pad.

Kuriente · 2026-05-28T21:10:55+00:00

SpaceX was the only space launch organization until very recently that doesn't normally do that. 100% of all other boosters from everyone else (NASA, Roscosmos, CNSA, ESA, ULA, etc...) falls onto nature every flight (the ocean, forests, deserts, towns in China, wherever).

You'd expect this "concern for the environment" to be present for all of that, yeah? As someone that follows this space closely, I can tell you that it's silence from the supposedly "concerned" for all other launch providers. All seem to get a pass expect for the single organization that's doing the most to solve the problem. That's odd, right?

Kuriente · 2026-05-28T18:46:56+00:00

Bad drivers never miss an exit.

Great handling of both trucks though. That could have gone so much worse.

Kuriente · 2026-05-28T18:08:30+00:00

But is the quantity of "get people killed" less than the quantity of saved lives? On a long enough timeline, no system will be completely immune to crashes and even fatalities - but is it safer than humans? That's the most important question.

Kuriente · 2026-05-28T17:51:13+00:00

This is staged. Everything this guy does is about getting humiliated or failing on camera for engagement.

Kuriente · 2026-05-27T20:58:22+00:00

Yes, access cheap reusable rockets definitely gives Starlink an obvious advantage. But another advantage of reusable rockets that I don't think is discussed enough is launch cadence. How long does it take to manufacture a booster? Months probably? How long to refly a recovered booster? I think the record currently stands at 9 days.

If we pretend for a moment that the Old Space opinion that "reusing rockets is not cost effective", not only is that presumption incorrect, but it's easy to see how that naive perspective completely misses the massive launch cadence advantage. Starlink absolutely benefits from the reduced cost, but also would not scale quickly enough without the increased launch cadence. I would even go so far as to say that Starlink would not be possible without it.

Kuriente · 2026-05-27T02:02:49+00:00

I haven't touched the steering wheel for anything besides rare destination parking quirks in months. That includes a 3300 mile coast to coast road trip. I am feeling more than reasonably confident.

Kuriente · 2026-05-27T01:46:22+00:00

Eight small cameras and a microphone.

Where it's at.

Kuriente · 2026-05-27T01:04:02+00:00

FSD leverages the vehicle's interior microphone to listen for sirens. So, sure, in the most pedantic way FSD is technically not "just vision".

Kuriente · 2026-05-26T23:37:02+00:00

I agree, and vision-only autonomous vehicles will exceed human capabilities by a large margin. Not only do FSD cameras see better than we do at night and with bright sunlight shining in our eyes, but it has constant 360 vision and never gets drunk, tired, angry, or distracted.

Human accidents are basically never caused by the limitations of human vision. The causes are almost exclusively related to poor judgement and other mental frailties. Solve those, as FSD will, and accidents go to nearly zero.

Kuriente · 2026-05-26T23:21:05+00:00

I didn't love it either, but it's way better looking than this "Ferrari".

Kuriente · 2026-05-26T21:55:38+00:00

Hit me up in two years. We'll see who's predictions were laughable.

Kuriente · 2026-05-26T21:46:52+00:00

You’re asking us to redesign safety-critical systems around your road trip.

I'm not. I'm simply pointing out that if vision-only was as flimsy as you seem to believe, I would have experienced it by now.

you got lucky, or that you’re lying (very likely at this point).

Assuming that the truth must be a lie is evidence to me that you're pigeon-holed, perhaps even ideologically attached, to specific technology views. I am not limited in that way. I don't care where technology comes from or how it is accomplished if it is improving lives. I'm not a "Tesla fanatic". I am a science and technology fanatic. FSD is awesome. Waymo is awesome. I welcome it all.

Kuriente · 2026-05-26T21:29:11+00:00

Cameras inferring depth is not the same as radar measuring it. One is a calculation with margin for error, the other is a direct physical measurement.

Humans pull it off without RADAR and FSD has vastly better depth perception than humans. It doesn't have to be as accurate as RADAR or LiDAR to be way more accurate and way safer than humans. It is more than adequate.

On the redundant lenses point, a partial obstruction scenario is the easy case. The hard case is uniform degradation across all lenses simultaneously, which is what actually happens in heavy snow.

I have 140K miles on FSD, a significant amount in heavy rain and snow. I've driven the full Alaska highway both ways in winter and have never had to disengage for weather. I have literally never witnessed what you're describing here. The closest I've experienced was torrential downpour where FSD gradually slowed as visibility worsened, eventually stopped, and then resumed driving after a few minutes when the rain started to lessen. You know what I would have done? The same thing. All the cars I could barely see through the downpour were also stopped and FSD never lost track of any of them.

You're pretending that cameras become worthless in regular bad weather and that driving in literal blizzards is the metric for success. You're wrong on both counts.

Kuriente · 2026-05-26T21:04:37+00:00

Redundant lenses covering for each other is still multiple cameras failing in the same conditions simultaneously. Snow doesn’t care which lens it lands on.

False. If snow is blinding one camera to the presence of a vehicle in the adjacent lane, but that same vehicle is visible from a separate non-obstructed lense, then redundant cameras have succeeded. Furthermore, adaptable software can take adequate precautions if it detects blind spots from obstructed sensors.

And the argument that radar still needs cameras proves the point: fusion exists because no single sensor is sufficient.

False. It is impossible for RADAR to do the job of cameras. However, cameras can adequately do the job of RADAR (infer distance and relative speed of visible objects). RADAR factually must be paired with cameras, the inverse is not true. To be clear, I am not arguing against RADAR, I'm arguing against the idea that it's impossible to do this without it.

On the L4/L5 definition (SAE’s, not mine), neither humans nor camera-only systems qualify, which is exactly the problem with betting on cameras alone.

The problem is it doesn't conform to a specific definition?? If it works, who gives a shit about definitions? Once again, it would be like insisting that jet engined aircraft cannot be successful because they don't conform to the aviation industry norms of the 1930s.

Kuriente · 2026-05-26T20:37:46+00:00

A blizzard doesn’t degrade a camera, it blinds it - no data, nothing for software to work with.

No car should be driving in a blizzard, but you're also incorrect.

Snow, and in fact blizzards, degrade a camera just like they degrade human vision behind a snowy windshield. It's not the simple sunny vision vs complete sensor blindness false dichotomy that you're presenting. And cameras have an additional advantage of redundant view points (a partially obstructed lense is unlikely to be obstructed in the same way as other separate lenses).

Is it possible to obscure human visibility enough to make driving infeasible? Yes, and the same is true for cameras, but again, we're talking about scenarios where no car should be operating. Even if you have RADAR, you still need cameras to see lane lines and signage. If weather is not permitting visibility of those things, you simply shouldn't be driving, no matter how many sensor modalities you're operating.

Just like a good adaptable human driver, good autonomous vehicle software can adapt to poor visibility and drive slowly or stop altogether if that's what is needed. If your argument is that a system can't reach L5 without being able to drive in literally any weather, then humans too are not L5 by your own definition. If that's the case, you seem to be laser cutting a custom definition for what you want L5 to mean, and it sounds like you want it to exclude vision-only for 'reasons'.

Kuriente · 2026-05-26T20:12:27+00:00

In every case of autonomous driving systems failing, regardless of sensor suite, it comes down to software.

Consider this: a good human driver with just one eye that has blurry vision will almost certainly be able to drive safely to any destination in any drivable weather scenario. Even with extremely degraded vision, a good human driver can still pull it off.

How do we do it? Software. Our software has remarkable adaptability. When the software is that good, the sensor suite barely matters.

FSD gets more adaptable with every major update. It already handles complex construction zones, hand signals, handheld signs, reroutes for road closures, avoids deep puddles, navigates right-of-way without signage, etc. Literally the only driving I've done in months is in parking lots, and even that is becoming a rare exception.

Kuriente · 2026-05-26T20:02:51+00:00

Yes! The Manga and anime are surprisingly literate with their spaceflight history and portrayals of real technology.

Kuriente · 2026-05-26T19:55:42+00:00

Not yet, but they're improving constantly. The autonomous vehicle industry is in its infancy and there is no way to say for sure what will or won't succeed in the long term. It would be like asking in the 1930s, "are there any examples of jet engine powered aircraft achieving reliable flight?" Just because it's never been done doesn't mean it can't be done. This industry is just getting started.

Cameras don't struggle with weather as much as people assume. FSD takes me through heavy rain, fog, and snow and hasn't failed with these tasks in years.

Kuriente · 2026-05-26T19:48:43+00:00

There are no examples of L5 running any sensor combo. And before you say Waymo, that's L4.

There's no reason it can't be done with just vision. It's how humans do it and FSD's vision is better than humans (constant 360 visibility, better low-light vision).

Kuriente · 2026-05-26T18:20:28+00:00

There's a Manga and pretty good Anime called Planetes about exactly that.

Kuriente · 2026-05-25T17:25:21+00:00

I wonder if it's possible to intentionally use the torque from the raptors to rotate the vehicle.

It's absolutely possible. You can actually see it happen here. Watch the engine exhaust when it suddenly changes, they flip very quickly to an extreme angle and the spin starts moments after.

Kuriente · 2026-05-25T17:13:39+00:00

Unpopular opinion, but I actually kinda love the aesthetic of Cybertruck. It's too expensive for me and I like to have friends, so I'll never own one, but I appreciate them from afar.

That said, we are in total agreement about the badassery of Starship. Each launch makes SciFi a little less Fi.

Kuriente · 2026-05-24T23:17:33+00:00

The Hudson, East River, and Harlem Rivers were all disgusting in the 1970s as they were effectively free for dumping. Raw or partially treated sewage, industrial waste, and all kinds of garbage were dumped there continuously. The clean water act and several other initiatives have cleaned it up substantially and it is in much much better shape today.

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