this post was submitted on 14 Oct 2023
411 points (98.1% liked)

xkcd

8886 readers
53 users here now

A community for a webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

https://xkcd.com/2841

Alt text:

Speed Limit: 45 MPH / Minimum: 65 MPH

top 31 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 90 points 1 year ago (2 children)

How to segfault an autonomous vehicle.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Someone will at some point try this for sure

[–] lazyslacker 14 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Actually I'd think handling unclear situations like this would be one of the major things that makes autonomous driving systems so complicated and challenging to develop.

[–] abigscaryhobo 5 points 1 year ago

You are completely correct. The "happy path" or what to do if everything goes right is fairly straightforward for autonomous cars. It's when it gets into exceptions or unexpected scenarios like this that it becomes a problem. It's a car so you can't just stop it in the middle of the road, but you cant tell it to ignore road signs either

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago

I knew printing your own signs would lead to interesting exploits, but this is just next level.

[–] [email protected] 77 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Putting it into reverse requires you to stop first.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

i think you could theoretically drift to maintain velocity in a different axis while accelerating in reverse to technically not ever "stop"

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

How would that work?

[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 year ago

Welcome to Germany

[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'd just drive off the road to the right. Where I'm going, I don't need rules. I may need new tires, though...

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago

And suspension, shocks, axel, exhaust, undercarriage...

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago (2 children)

You could reverse down the road, or would there be a moment between forwards and backwards when you're stopped?

[–] surewhynotlem 26 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's not a u-turn if you skid into a wicked 540

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

Knight Rider vibes.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You have to cross over 0 at some point

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Stopping isn't the same as driving at 0 speed.

A car is stopped if and only if its acceleration is also 0.

[–] Sigh_Bafanada 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

And velocity is 0. Otherwise Johnny 100kmph is technically stopped

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

That's why I put a sneaky 'also' in my comment

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago

Somewhat more sophisticated version of a one-way cul-de-sac.

[–] randomaccount43543 14 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

signs may only apply to the road after them, so you could validly stop just before it.

My thoughts exactly; problem solved. Just do what the first sign says before the others apply.

[–] zepheriths 11 points 1 year ago

What concerns me the most is the no uturn followed by road that says you can pass and in theory u turn

[–] ElectroNeutrino 8 points 1 year ago

Time to go off-roading.

[–] dasgoat 3 points 1 year ago

Well clearly they want you to drive sideways

[–] abouttocomealive 3 points 1 year ago

Is this an auditor trap?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] Cryophilia 1 points 1 year ago

Sliiiide to the left!

[–] Caboose12000 -1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

alt text is supposed to describe the image for people who are visually impaired, that's just a caption

edit: didn't know what I was talking about, xkcd has a specific thing called alt text that's different from what I was describing, my bad lol

[–] Sigh_Bafanada 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Alt text on XKCD posts is the label that displays when you hover over the post on their website, it's not something that the user has added.

[–] Caboose12000 2 points 1 year ago

oh dang my bad didn't realize it had an xkcd specific meaning, thx for correcting me!