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Cake day: July 3rd, 2023

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  • Vehicle control systems are overwhelmingly programmed in C, mostly from graphical design tools such as MATLAB Simulink via an automatic process. These are real time control systems which are quite different to an interrupt based operating system such as Linux. The many individual controllers must work in concert according to a strict architecture definition and timing schedule that defines the functionality of the vehicle. It’s not at all like a PC or phone, whose OS become irrelevant over time, with respect to their environment of other systems. The vehicle environment is the same environment that we inhabit i.e. the one with gravity, friction, charge and the other SI units. This is slowly changing with advent of self driving but, yeah.




  • Sadly, you are speaking for a great many places. I’ve cycled in most of the countries I’ve visited and it can be relatively dangerous.

    If people want to see how to integrate a public transport network with a cycle path network, places like Netherlands and Denmark are leading the way.

    Over here in the UK we have one of the most regressive attitudes to sustainable transport in Europe. Our trains don’t work and cycling is barely tolerated.












  • It’s a measurement on an arbitrary scale. Nothing I’ve said is news to anyone who designs safety critical systems. I’m certainly not saying that safety isn’t important or that we can’t assess it. What I’m saying is that placing a number on that assessment will always stray into the realm of politics in a way that physics and mathematics never does. It lulls ignorant people into the belief that something is safe or not safe. They feel safe because they’ve been told it is safe or vice versa. Physics doesn’t care if you feel safe.

    It’s notable that contemporary safety standards such as ISO 26262 generally avoid numerical assessments, for the reasons outlined above.