Stop That

That Tesla calls it "Autopilot" combined with the tendency of Musk to make rather outlandish (and not) promises about capabilities is... a problem.

California regulators, it turns out, take a dim view of Tesla Motors’ Autopilot — not the self-steering system itself, but the name.

In draft regulations released late Friday, the state Department of Motor Vehicles said car companies should not use the terms “self-driving,” “automated” or “auto-pilot” in advertising unless their cars are capable of driving themselves without human passengers paying attention.

For Palo Alto’s Tesla, that could pose a problem.

Musk likes to suggest regulators are getting in his way instead of acknowledging the reality that his fantasy technology doesn't (yet?) work. A reasonable if not fully educated buyer would conclude that the cars require less driver attention than they do.

Two Futures

Do they forget the caravan of doom the day after the election or do they go ahead and plan to start shooting when they arrive.

Afternoon Thread

enjoy

Give This Man A Ticket

While I am not fully aware of the driving laws in all 50 states, pretty sure "driving in public streets by remote control" is not legal generally.

I was not sure when I would use this feature... till today. @elonmusk @tesla pic.twitter.com/bC6rFt2SuW

— D Shawn Kennedy (@rarelyserious) October 31, 2018

And, yeah, sure Elon.

For those unfamiliar, this uses Tesla Autopark/Summon. Slightly smarter version hopefully ready soon. By next year, a Tesla should be able to drive around a parking lot, find an empty spot, read signs to confirm it’s valid & park.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 31, 2018

Driving around a parking lot (especially a garage) and finding a parking spot is one of the tasks that sounds easy to people but is actually really really hard! I do think people who drive a lot have internalized some of the basic tasks so much that they don't know which ones are straightforward for humans but probably not for machines. I, a rare driver, know that cruising around a parking lot is complicated!!!

The Show As Written

One of the worst perversions of objective "both sides" journalism, whatever its merits, is presenting Both Sides as they ask to be presented. As in, running the press releases. Report what they say they're doing, not what they're doing. Report what they say they "think" or "believe" (sometimes mind reading is possible!) not what they're doing, even when they're obviously contradictory. It's unfair, you see.

America's Worst Fact Checker

Glenn Kessler.

Anthropology And Sociology

The regular appearance of "we" versus "they" reporting is so laughably obvious in lifestyle/trend/real estate/gentrification stories (white people are always "discovering" neighborhoods, like the modern day Chris Columbuses that they are), but it also comes out a lot in basically any coverage of minority/immigration issues. Often it's subtle, but subtle doesn't make it better. I don't know how "objective" reporters can be so unaware of this in how they write.

It's also present in all the "real America" and "Trump voters still like Trump" stories. Or really any time someone from the New York Times gets off the lower half of the island. It's one of the maddening things about those stories. Who are they for? Nobody is interested in them - neither the subjects nor the audience of the newspaper - and nobody is placated by them. They're condescending.

Thursday Morning Thread

Wednesday Night

Tomorrow is not election day!

Vote

If you claim to care about politics, it's the least you can do, assuming you haven't been purged from the voter rolls or that other obscene barriers have not been placed in front of you preventing you from doing that. That annoying guy who will spend 4 hours explaining why the purity of his essence requires that he doesn't vote is a total dick. I agree!

But lots of people don't vote. Most of them don't spend much time thinking about politics. Some of them don't see the point of voting and also don't spend 4 hours explaining this to you. They just have other things to do. Some have dumb ideas! Some think it doesn't really matter who is in charge. Maybe they have a point! For some people a half an hour (or more!) seems like a big bother. I work from home and have no kids and walk 200 feet to my polling place so it really is a zero effort thing. That isn't true for everybody.

Some people, like that dude who is a dick, are unreachable. That's fine. But everybody else... gotta convince them to vote. Go to elections with the electorate you have.

Liberals Are Supposed To Be Nice To Their Conservative Relatives

Especially around Thanksgiving.

Her dad is Steve West, 64, the Republican candidate for the Missouri General Assembly who made headlines after winning the GOP primary in August when word spread about his radio show and website through which he regularly espoused an array of bigotry including homophobia, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia and outright racism.

“A lot of his views are just very out there,” Emily West said. “He’s made multiple comments that are racist and homophobic and how he doesn’t like the Jews.”

On Tuesday, her brother contacted The Star to say that he, too, was concerned about their father’s candidacy.

“My dad’s a fanatic. He must be stopped,” said Andy West, the middle of Steve West’s three children. “His ideology is pure hatred. It’s totally insane.

The Only Poll That Matters Is The One On...

I skipped the obsessive race- and poll-watching this cycle. Sports is fun to watch, but sometimes it's enough to know who won. Paying attention to the latest polls out of Nevada, or wherever, isn't going to change the outcome unless the universe operates differently than I imagine.

We'll know in a week!

The Neighborhood

So much fun.

The stench of death hung heavy along South 11th Street in 1905. The smell had grown so bad that neighbors had gone to the local police district to complain. They claimed that a crazed man and woman were guarding a dead body inside a row house near Washington Avenue. They had been barring the door for weeks and, judging by the smell, the corpse had entered a state of advanced decay. There were flies covering the shutters of a rear bedroom of the building.

But they also recounted unbelievable details. Strange rituals went on inside and the residents of the home, which they had for years referred to as “House of Mystery,” worshipped a woman who they said could grant eternal life.

A dead body was still a dead body. A patrolman summoned a doctor from the city coroner’s office to investigate. The two men had little way of knowing that they were about to bring an end to a saga that had begun nearly 50 years earlier. A story of a secret society that had once enticed the city’s wealthy and powerful. A story of miraculous visions, grave robbing, con artistry, and court battles. They had no sense of the shock and horror they would soon feel, nor that the same feeling would soon grip the entire city.

The Bubble

I imagine some of these Republicans are a bit shocked by the backlash about their Obamacare votes. I mean, everyone told them Obamacare was worse than Hitler (the bad liberal Hitler not the good conservative Hitler) and that voters hated it and that voting to get rid of it would be the most courageous thing since Churchill did... I dunno, whatever Churchill did.

No worries, though, they just get to lie about it now. Backsies.

Fox Con

The willingness of (especially but certainly not just) Republican state governments to just throw absurd amounts of cash at companies with few strings attached is incredible. Also that these sorts of things aren't always treated as "scandals."

Morning Thread

We had some fun yesterday.

Today, it's back to the grindstone.

Gotta get these bozos out of office.

GOTV.

Late Night

According to several sources Robert Mueller is a big poopyhead and he eats poop and he poops all the time and poop.

Happy Hour Thread

enjoy

Totally Normal

It's the kind of thing people think they can get away with trying to do because they think it's just a normal standard thing that people do in politics.

An alleged scheme to pay off women to fabricate sexual assault allegations against Special Counsel Robert Mueller has been referred to the FBI for further investigation, according to a spokesman for the special counsel’s office, Peter Carr. “When we learned last week of allegations that women were offered money to make false claims about the Special Counsel, we immediately referred the matter to the FBI for investigation,” Carr said in a statement on Tuesday.

Nothing Really Matters

Whatever motivates people to get into journalism, it's certainly easier to succeed with your sanity intact within the supposed norms of "objective journalism" if you just don't give a shit about anything.

America's Worst Humans

Jonathan Swan.

(okay he's actually Australian)

The Easiest Scoop

Trump's an asshole, but he's also an asshole who likes to please (or think he is pleasing - maybe "impressing" is a better word) the person sitting in front of him. The easiest way for a journalist to get a scoop is to feed some bullshit to him and have him repeat it back to them almost verbatim. Then he'll read the headlines, be impressed with his own brilliant idea, and his people will struggle (enthusiastically or not) to make it policy, at least until his brain worm brain forgets about it.