Continuing on the thread from my previous post about the testing of products that fail to find problems that become obvious to (some) users after a very short time, I just read an article (in Swedish) about how the famed Tesla roadster cars behaved when they were confronted with Scandinavian winters.
Tag: cars
Off-Topic: Voxel Graphics at Legoland
Legoland is full of cool and interesting Lego models, built from millions and millions of Lego bricks. The creations don’t have too much in common with the standard Lego kits sold in stores. Rather, they are advanced uses of Lego bricks that look like something from the real world — especially at a distance. Up close, they are very blocky and not as smooth and polished as regular Lego models.
Essentially, they are voxel graphic representations that must be very hard to plan and execute. The standard single-stud 1×1 Lego brick is their smallest unit, or maybe its 1/3 height flat version. Here are some examples that I photographed in Legoland during my visit this Summer.
SAAB no more
It is the end of the road for SAAB. As a Swede, it feels sad (and a bit scary) to see a part of our industrial heritage go down and end. It lasted a bit more than 60 years, but now the manufacturing of cars called SAAB has ended for good. But to be quite honest, it is hard to see how things could have gone differently. The closing of SAAB cars must have been considered inevitable for the past ten years or more. There will be lots of finger-pointing in the coming weeks, with the opposition parties trying to smear this on the government. However, I don’t see what the government could have done other than possibly postpone the inevitable.
Off-Topic: The First Snow is Here
The first real snow reached Uppsala this weekend, lots of nice fluffy slippery cold snow on the ground and on the roads and everywhere else. It really is nice to have snow again, it lessens the effect of our dark winters and kind of puts you in a Christmas-like mood, especially now that the Christmas decorations are going up in town and shopping centers.
I also had to bring out the car for some errands and transports yesterday, and that new snow was probably the slipperiest I have ever driven on. It also provided an unsought opportunity for the electronic systems in our car to show themselves… both the stability and traction control and the anti-lock brakes were activated several times despite my pretty careful driving. For some reason, I never really believe that they would apply to me. I know that ESP and ABS are really good for safety, but for some reason I am a diehard skeptic that never quite believe these things work as they should. I guess this is another example of an embedded system that works as it should. Which really should not be a surprise.