Voice of the DBA

Category: Blog

  • How Would Level 5 Self Driving Work?

    We had an incredibly cold front move through Denver last week. It was 46F one early afternoon, which dropped to 0F by the evening and down to around –15F overnight. Crazy cold, with snow.

    Driving the Tesla was interesting.

    This is part of a series that covers my experience with a Tesla Model Y.

    Driving to Town

    I went to the gym the next day, and saw this as I headed out of the neighborhood:

    20221222_164301

    It’s not a great photo, but what I noticed was that the 43mph had the D above it, for Drive, but not steering wheel for Autopilot. I use it on this road at times when traffic is light. You can somewhat see the road is a bit visible, and you can see some of the yellow through the snow in the middle, but no right line.

    The cameras can’t tell where the road is, so they won’t let the car drive. I’m not sure LIDAR or RADAR, or anything would work here.

    Here’s another shot in town:

    20221222_164902

    If you look past the steering wheel, you can see the road looks better. Not great, but better. There are curbs here, so radar/lidar might work. Certainly humans can see them, but the car again doesn’t have the steering wheel showing Autopilot is available.

    Update 1:

    One other interesting note, a few days later, I was driving this same road, but more snow had fallen against the center curb. In essence, the middle lane was narrower because of snow piled up on the left side (in the image above).

    I got repeated “lane departure” warnings, well 2-3 in a 1/2 mile, as the car thought I was crossing the lane boundary on the left. Strange, and disconcerting.

    Update 2:

    The next day as snow was melting, but the roads were very dirty, the car struggled to find the middle dividing line. I could see it as a human, but it was dim and barely visible. The car swerved a few times as it couldn’t always see where there was a turn lane on either side (L or R).

    Can Level 5 Work?

    This is a great example, to me, of why Level 5 is not likely to occur for cars. Maybe Level 4 within certain conditions and in well mapped/known locations. Or perhaps with sensors in roads that cars read. However, a little snow (this was 2-3 inches) has blinded the car.

    Humans drive on these roads all the time in snow. To be fair, many drive poorly, and often they don’t know where the lines are. However, we negotiate. We slide our car slightly left or right when there is other traffic. We aren’t perfectly in the lanes, and depending on the plows, we might end up “losing” a lane and just working with one path that isn’t really in either lane.

    Can computing learn to do this? Maybe, but it’s feels like an even more complex problem, especially when you now are asking the computer to react to how other drivers are moving on the road. Negotiating a route with them. Can a computer see another driver wave them on or ask them to stop?

    Tesla isn’t Level 5 or anywhere close. It’s Level 2, and perhaps Level 3 with the beta self-driving software (which I haven’t seen). I don’t know that I think anyone is closer, though I’ve heard the Google/Waymo taxis in Phoenix are pretty good. I’d like to try one and see, but those aren’t Level 5.

    I’m not sure I would trust Level 5 if someone claimed it, at least not unless every other vehicle was also a L5 controlled car.

    I do enjoy Autopilot and it was worked well for me. The FSD version was OK, but not enough better for me to subscribe to it. I look forward to cars becoming better and safer, but I’m not expecting to be able to go to sleep in the car and have it take me to my destination anywhere, anytime. I just don’t think L5 is anywhere within reach.

  • Goal Progress for Dec 2022

    I set goals at the beginning of the year, and I’m tracking my progress in these updates during 2022.

    December is usually quiet, though this year I spent the first 12 days of the month out of town. That meant that I wasn’t getting much done, either at work, in my life, or on my goals. I did a little reading, but mostly it was work and holiday.

    I’m going to do the grade for the month and then look at how I feel about the year.

    Grades:

    • December – B+
    • 2022 overall –  B

    I made some good progress in December and managed to get a bunch done on my report, finished a book, and started on my demos again. Not amazing, but really good.

    For the year, I think I’ll give myself a B as I managed to read all the books, do some demo work, and get my Power BI skills growing. I also did a bunch of community stuff, though not quite as I saw it happening at the beginning of the year. Still, a good year overall.

    Here are the goals and updates for the month.

    Work

    Mostly reading this month, as I was traveling. I did reset my environment for a DevOps demo and got projects set up for SQL Server and PostgreSQL in the same repo.

    Personal

    Sent my dashboard to a few others to use. Not the entire team, but I got 4/10 using it to see what they think, which is a good start. With my assistant, we’re at 50%

    • Link Google Sheets to Power BI – 100%
    • Create Report – 75%
    • Create Dashboard – 60% – Added a main page
    • Get people using it – 50%
    • Coaching Certification – 100%

    Community

    • Support the Colorado groups by speaking twice and helping getting two events set up
      – 66%
      • CO Springs event set up and executed
      • Denver SQL Server SQL Saturday executed
    • Speak at 3 other community events (was user groups) outside of Colorado – 100%
      • Spoke at DBA Fundamentals group
      • Spoke at Toronto SSUG
      • Spoke at SQL Saturdays in Jacksonville, New Jersey, LA, Denver
        • Boston, Toronto in Oct
    • Support SQL Saturdays – Help get 10 events run in 2022 – 100%
      • We have had 15 run this year and 3 more scheduled
      • In Nov, we had 5 events complete – Sao Paulo, Oregon, Bangladesh
      • Seven events scheduled for 2023
    • Volunteer 4 days with Habitat – 0 days
      • Not happy about this still. I had hoped to go Sept 15, but they cancelled the build that day. Need to find another day, but it’s hard. They aren’t doing every Wed/Thur/fri, and travel is getting in the way.

  • Daily Coping 30 Dec 2022

    Today’s coping tip is to give thanks. List the kind things others have done for you.

    I know that my life is great, but it’s because of a lot of help I get from others. I do a lot, but I can’t do it alone.

    I thank my wife for supporting me and comforting me.

    I thank my kids for the same, and for helping out around the house, which lets me tackle other things. Not the least of which is helping their Mom so I don’t have to do as much on the ranch.

    I think Andy, my former business partner for the friendship, counsel, and reminders of things that I should think about, but sometimes don’t. He helps keep me balanced and thoughtful about the world.

    I think my bosses at Redate this year, Tom and Annabel, for the support and help at work. Cecilia was wonderful in supporting me at events, and lots of others taught me things and helped me through the year. They helped me cope and thrive during a busy year.

    I thank all the SQL Saturday organizers for their efforts during a tough year of restarting the brand. I think the speakers and helpers for volunteering and the attendees for coming. It was a year that exceeded expectations (blog). These people helped me with inspiration and confidence this was a good idea.

    I thank my friends for the time, conversations, lunches, dinners, drinks, and wonderful times spent together, which fulfilled a lot of social needs.

    I want to thank the kids on my volleyball team, both for the 2022 season and those I’ve started to work with for 2023. They give me hope for the future, they extend my family by being a set of surrogate daughters when my own is away from home most of the time (and not a child anymore), and they inspire me to work harder with their efforts.

    There are plenty of other people to thank, but these are the top of my list.

    I started to add a daily coping tip to the SQL Server Central newsletter and to the Community Circle, which is helping me deal with the issues in the world. I’m adding my responses for each day here. All my coping tips are under this tag.

  • Daily Coping 29 Dec 2022

    Today’s coping tip is to ask for help and let someone else discover the joy of giving.

    I do most of the cooking in the house, but I thought with family around, I’d get some help. I usually don’t mind preparing, but a few times I asked others to help out and handle some tasks or prepare a portion of the meal. Little things, as I like cooking, but I also thought others would enjoy the chance to contribute.

    Hard for me, but it was still fun to let others help. I’ll try to do this more often.

    I started to add a daily coping tip to the SQL Server Central newsletter and to the Community Circle, which is helping me deal with the issues in the world. I’m adding my responses for each day here. All my coping tips are under this tag.