That's Hindi for "Driver, stop (roko) the car (gaadi)". It's a much-mocked line of stereotypical dialogue from Bollywood movies of the 70s and 80s. Google throws up a ton of links for this phrase. A bunch of friends and ex-colleagues used this phrase as a theme for our emails/chats at one time.
My day job/hobby involves consulting for automobile manufactures and other associated companies on aspects related to connected cars (think using your phone app to start your car, set temperature, etc.), advanced driver assistance systems (think automatic lane centering, smart cruise control, etc.), and generally covering the broad areas of the internet of things (IoT) and machine learning (ML). For my hobby use and personal experiments I bought a used car from my mechanic for $3K. At one time I had a Raspberry Pi with cameras set up on the dashboard to roll my own car tracking system (a test run at https://youtu.be/7n08YU_B6fU). I should write a separate blog post on that before you quit reading this one. At this point, if you are a recruiter or have an interesting offer to make me that I cannot refuse, please stop wasting your time here and run, don't walk, to call me!
I digressed a wee bit there, but to get to the point, I got bored of hacking basic stuff. I wanted more fun. Enter "self-driving". You see, self-driving is the snake oil of the day. It's super cool technology and totally drool-worthy. But there's also a lot of hype. Tesla is obviously top of mind for everyone who thinks about self-driving -- but there's others out there too. One of them is Comma.ai that was started by this chap called George Hotz. Worth reading about his past antics and achievements. They make a device called Comma3 that you "connect" to your car and the device mounts on your windshield. It comes with its own cameras and display and essentially can take over your car controls for supported models of cars. How did you guess that I ended up buying one?
What's the next logical step after you buy such a device? Of course, it is to buy a car that is supported by the device. Isn't that how car buying works, no? Oh well! So, after another minor adventure in buying a compatible car, I ended up with a 2021 Kia Seltos. And I connected the device to the car. Here are some videos. These are videos where the car is actually being steered by the Comma3 using cameras and visual image processing alone.
To test out the system I took the car out on a night drive to the Cherohala Skyway. I left home around 7:30pm and got back home around 3:30am. In about 6 hours of driving I am likely to have intervened/drove for about 20-30 minutes. The rest of the time the car was on its own.
Yes, the video is generally boring. When it comes to self-driving cars, boring is good.
What's the ultimate test of self-driving (given that this is a public space that's not age-restricted)? Let's agree that the ability for the driver to eat any kind of food they want to when driving is a good test. No longer do you have to avoid some types of food at drive-throughs or have to stop in the parking lot to gulp down the food. You can pick up any kind of food at any place and you can enjoy it as you are driving the car. The car does the driving, you do the eating.
Yes, the driver can eat even something like this when we stopped for food in Urbana, IL. Now I,
Don't need to plan to stop to eat lunch
Can take calls and video calls on the road and look at shared screens while driving so long as I have connectivity, and
Can check messages and be mildly distracted (just mildly, the system is not without its issues).
All in all, I believe this greatly enhances the overall experience of driving in just the right direction.
One of the minor justifications I had made to myself for buying the Comma3 (and the subsequent Kia) was that it would be useful for when I planned my big trip. You see how it's all coming together now. I expect that with the Comma3 it's going to be far less tiring and stressful for me on my drive.
Post-credit scene: What should beginner/first-time campers carry on their trip?
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