Tag: Car Brain

Driving in Sofia

~ Veselin ~ 5 Comments

I’m blessed that I don’t need to drive in the city, thanks to Automattic’s remote-work policy. But this morning, I had to drive 17 km through the city during rush hour to pick up my mom. I felt like a racecar driver again, one I used to be when I was younger. Locked in a constnat competition with hundreds of others, trying to catch every green light because those precious 30 seconds somehow feel like a matter of life and death.

It reminded me of a post I wrote 2.5 years ago about Car Brains, and how driving in the city should count as a form of cognitive impairment or even illness. It’s a stupid activity that harms the driver while also harming the environment and all the other participants in the traffic.

Here’s a photo of creatures that are smarter than city drivers. They don’t drive in the city, don’t form traffic jams, and don’t engage in road rage. The darker pigeon in the middle is a a tiny Jackdaw.

The dark side and the darker side

~ Veselin ~ 6 Comments

This is a photo from my neighborhood. This is the dark, northern side of the buildings.

And this is a sidewalk, the legal way to cross the highway. Of course, there are other ways further away. I call this sidewalk “The middle path” because it’s medium inconvenience, and in my opinion, holds the highest risk for the pedestrians. Zoom in and you’ll see the leftovers of a flying car that somehow fell off the bridge without damaging the guard rails. Not an isolated accident. I’ve seen a flying car in the opposite part of the cloverleaf interchange.

If you could un-invent something, what would it be?

~ Veselin ~ 9 Comments

If you could un-invent something, what would it be?

I believe information exists without observers. A human noticed that we can burn fossil fuel to drive ourselves around instead of riding horses at some point. By that time, cars might’ve already existed for billions of years in galaxies far, far away. We just didn’t know about them. Uninventing cars wouldn’t make them go away, it will only postpone their appearance. They will reappear because they can satisfy the demand for fast transportation.

So removing inventions sounds pointless to me. Certain human behaviours or use of the inventions – sure! I’d make people commute by walking or using bicycles, for example, but I wouldn’t uninvent cars. Cars have legitimate use cases.

Same with other things like nuclear weapons or multi cookers. All of that can be described with numbers, and all numbers already exist.

Car Brain’s Dilemma

~ Veselin ~ 14 Comments

Car Brain‘s Dilemma is a (made-up) form of the Prisoner’s Dilemma.

  • In a city like Sofia, if everyone goes to work by public transport, bicycles, or walking, the average commute would be 30 minutes
  • If most people go by bus, the ones who choose a car would reach work in 15 minutes
  • if most people go by car, going by bus will take 1h, and going by car will take 45 minutes

It’s faster to go by car but if all people don’t use cars, the average commute time would improve. How do you resolve that?

I wrote a small essay on the subject of why people associate cars with freedom in 2023