1. The first is from the New York Times about new google cars that can drive themselves. The writing isn't amazing, but I just thought it is a little scary, but at the same time incredible that we are now creating cars that drive themselves. People aren't going to need to use their brains anymore I swear. But maybe these cars are the way to go, there are some horrible drivers out there.
2. Here's an article on the legalization of pot. It's timely considering our center spread on the issue and it's funny. This is a good way to relate a current event to fun pop culture. and there's even a delayed lead too!
5 comments:
Google: Is is just me, or does Google have way too much money? They give away most of their products for free, and they're still able to work on this. That being said, this is an incredibly promising concept. A car that can make the roads safer. Of course that hinges on whether or not the public as a whole decides to buy this.
Legalization of pot: I like the Big Lebowski reference, and really, how bad can legalization be? The same restrictions that are currently placed on tobacco and alcohol will be placed on pot, so it's not like just anybody will be able to get it.
Charlotte said...
Google: I am not so sure about this whole robot car thing. I believe that in the future, these cars will exist, but the idea seems so strange to me. What I found surprising was that Google has crossed over from being a search engine, to creating robots. First they make our lives so much easier on the Internet, and now they are making our job driving... nonexistent? For me to ever trust this robot system, I would never ride in one of these cars unless I know there is a zero percent chance I could get hurt.
Legalization of Pot:
This opinion piece was very short and to the point. I agree with all of Egan's points in favor of the legalization of marajuana. California's economy could be greatly boosted and some lives would definitely be saved. So why not give it a try?
Google: I thought that the concept of this article was a little ridiculous. I mean, do we really need robotic cars? What scares me is that the idea of this catching on, although somewhat far-fetched, is entirely plausible. I worry that rather than preventing accidents, the car’s programming will malfunction, thus creating even more accidents if the “passengers” don’t react quickly enough. If we put that risk aside, other than a possible way to eliminate accidents, what is the purpose of autonomous vehicles? As I myself am learning the rules of the road, sometimes I wish someone (or something) would just drive for me, but I blame this attitude in my nervous newcomer mentality. Other than when you first learn, driving isn’t the most laborious or difficult of tasks, so autonomous vehicles seems a little pointless. Aren’t there better things we can be doing with our time rather than developing machine-run cars? I think Markoff’s point that autonomous vehicles could reduce the cars on the road, thus the land we take up, is a bit of a stretch. Wouldn’t carpooling have the same effect? And what is the correlation between automatic cars and car sharing? Despite all of my criticism, I think that the advancement of such technology is pretty neat.
Legalization of Pot:
Having never seen The Big Lebowski, I was a little lost with all of the references, but, other than that, I really liked Egan’s article. He brought up aspects of Prop 19 that I had not previously thought about. For example, I had not thought about how the legalization of marijuana would discourage the “criminal drug cartels” from abusing our “prohibition of pot.” I completely overlooked that aspect of the proposition, and in my opinion this adds to proposition 19’s appeal.
"Reefer Gladness"-
This article brought a lot of points to the table that I had never really considered. It did a good job of weighing the pros and cons of the debate, and helped me draw my conclusion that prop 19 is a good idea. I thought it was very interesting that the California Beer and Beverage Distributors (association or organization) is the main contributor to the campaign against legalization, and so is the California Cannabis Association. This made it clear to me that this debate is for a large part economical, and not necessarily about the drug itself. Even though the article was pro legalization, they addressed the fact that too many young people abuse marijuana. I think that its significant that even after acknowledging this fact the author still argues that pot should be legalized. Clearly, prop. 19 has a lot to offer California, but there is still a lot of marijuana educating to be done, and a lot of steps that need to be taken to make sure it doesn't negatively effect the younger generations in the state.
At some level I find the concept of robot operated cars very scary. It seems to perfectly fit my view of what "futuristic technology" would be, and it's actually here. I think that the concept of the cars are a good one, but it will never fully work in execution. No matter how much data and programming one puts into a car there will still be errors and things on the road that only a human could detect, such as emotion from other drivers. Right now they have humans in the car ready to take control if the car misfunctions, but if it become an actual consumer product people would rely solely of the robot and not be prepared to take control if need be.
I am slightly anti- technology but I think this idea needs to be really thought through before it enters the market, or it should stay in the realms of high-tech specialized companies.
And on another note... it really does feel like Google just keeps coming up with new ideas and changing the way we see our world.
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