About Tesla Self-Driving (FSD)

Four months ago I bought a Tesla Model 3. Prices have fallen over the years. The base model (already loaded with features) is now $38K with a range > 300 miles. For those who haven't yet experienced self-driving, you are in for a treat. The software (now vers 14.2) is incredibly smooth, intuitive and safe. Stats show it's 7 times less likely to get into a major or minor collision than when you drive a car yourself. This technology has already saved many lives. The self-driving completely handles the car, but at this point you still need to supervise-you sit in the driver's seat and watch this miracle unfold, trip after trip. The plan is that eventually all Teslas (including those currently on the road) will be completely self-driven and won't need any human supervision. If you are not on a public road (e.g., a store parking lot), you can already use your phone app to summon your car from its parking spot to pick you up at the door.

The self-driving relies on 8 cameras and AI, which it shares with hundreds of thousands of Teslas already on the road. It emulates human vision, which requires an immense amount of data compression. As Elon Musk explains: "The single biggest technical challenge of Tesla self-driving AI is context compression of 1.5GB/s of video to ~2kB/s of control outputs using a puny inference computer without making any mistakes. Super hard to avoid overly lossy compression at any given step."

Even if you are not in the market for a car, if you're curious about the technology, go take a self-drive at a dealer. Every time I've introduced a friend to self-driving, it has been a jaw-dropping experience. And that's in additional to all the other safety and performance features on this amazing computer on wheels. And the base price includes an 8-year battery guaranty and 4-year bumper to bumper warranty.

BTW, I'm not getting paid to write this. This is an amazing car and many people aren't aware of this technology because Tesla does very little paid advertising. Its happy customers spread the word for Tesla.

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CDC Quietly Changes its Position on Vaccines and Autism

The CDC has quietly changed its website to read:

A) The claim "vaccines do not cause autism" is not an evidence-based claim because studies have not ruled out the possibility that infant vaccines cause autism.

B) Studies supporting a link have been ignored by health authorities, and

C) HHS has launched a comprehensive assessment of the causes of autism, including investigations on plausible biologic mechanisms and potential causal links.

You will not see any reporting on this at the NYT, Washington Post, MSNBC, CNN or NPR.

You will see reporting by independent journalists, including this article by Maryanne Demasi.

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Not Too Long Ago: Her Body, Not Her Choice

Sheep with sharp claws unfairly attacked Laura Osnes and it wasn't the first time she was unfairly attacked. This is the story about many of us, unfortunately. It's the story about how government-orchestrated fear-mongering turns off our brains Excerpt from excellent article by Zac Bissonnette at The Free Press:

At that point in the pandemic, the theater world was fully aligned with the public health establishment in viewing the unvaccinated as a public danger. Performers, desperate to go back to work, saw universal vaccination as a panacea.

The reaction to the Post story from the Broadway community was immediate: The former princess was suddenly a villain.

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COVID Origins Conspiracy of Silence Included UNC’s Ralph Baric

For several years, I have assumed that this was going on, but now we know and I've reached an even higher level of disgust with U.S. Public Health Establishment.

Linked article from the Washington Free Beacon, "

Prominent Virologist Warned Intelligence Community COVID-19 Could Have Leaked From Wuhan Lab. Then He Met With Fauci and Changed His Tune: The researcher, UNC professor Ralph Baric, also privately downplayed the wet market theory but publicly lent it credit."

A prominent U.S. virologist who collaborated with the Wuhan Institute of Virology before the COVID-19 pandemic privately informed the U.S. intelligence community in January 2020 that the Chinese lab may be responsible for the outbreak. But in his public remarks to congressional staffers one month later—and after meeting with former White House health adviser Anthony Fauci—the researcher stayed mum about the Wuhan lab and lent credence to the discredited wet market theory.

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