From the rumor mill.

Nearly 36% of tech employees are concerned about being fired, according to a recent Blind report.

"An increasing number of tech employees have anxiety about being laid off, according to a Blind survey released Tuesday. This fear is so prevalent that Blind, an anonymous community app for the working world, created an entire channel where tech workers could discuss the topic.

The survey asked a simple yes or no question: Are you worried about layoffs at your current company? Out of 8,230 respondents, 36% responded that yes, they were worried."

That seems like a lot of percent for a booming economy.

Top 10 companies where people are worried.

Tesla Motors (77.22%) Duh

eBay (71.88%) Has had a small number of layoffs already.

Snapchat (71.25%) Also duh.

SAP (66.28%) Is in the process of thousands of layoffs.

VMware (65.77%) had layoffs in January

Oath/Verizon Media (61.11%) Had layoffs in January

Cisco (50.51%) Rumors but nothing specific yet.

PayPal (49.48%) Just announced layoffs.

Intel Corporation (48.21%) Just announced layoffs.

NVIDIA (36.96%) No news yet but mad rumors. I called this months ago because Nvidia has a super weird management structure. I've heard of 5 managers - managing 1 guy. Crazy.

DUH.

Attention, Plebs: New Cars Are Becoming Prohibitively Expensive.

What do you think happens when they start cramming these cars with all of these cameras? I happen to know that a new bumper costs about 3 grand. And that is in a car that doesn't have ANY technology at all! So cram a few sensors and cameras in there and what do you think is going to happen?

I honestly wonder all the time how much a bumper is going to cost in the future every time I see a new sensor pop up on one of these.

I guess that didn't work out quite the way they planned.

A while back my local news station started a segment called "Building a better Bay Area"  Which seems to basically revolve around bitching about BART and Uber and Lyft. 

Everyday they have segments on this. And all of a sudden everyone is freaked out by how many Uber and Lyfts there are. They don't know how to handle it.  Which makes me laugh like a little school girl. Because you know all these ride sharing companies were "suppose" to take cars off the roads.

I'd go to dozens of these conferences where they tried with all their heart to convince me that was what was going to happen. Which just made me pissed because I knew that was never going to happen. I hold certain beliefs about people and one of them is they don't really like mass transit. Oh, they will put up with it if they have to. But if they can find another way - they will do that.

Even I pointed out six months ago they one day people would realize that those services didn't take ANY cars off the roads.

So, imagine my surprise to see that people will do almost anything not to ride public transportation.  Said in the most sarcastic way. The huge influx of ride renting just reinforces my belief.

It's almost comical in a way. Because their plan completely backfired. But they are just going to devise another way to get you out of your car. Government just never understands the law of unintended consequence.

I think it's funny how all the early internet people have become luddites about it.  Clifford Stoll, Jaron Lanier, and now Linus Torval.

I think the internet is the same as it always was. Just on a grander scale. If they do not believe that, they are fooling themselves. The old Newsgroup days are exactly like the internet is now. The mobs were just not as big. Their perception has just changed.

Go away. Not a garage sale.

Over the weekend we drove by this house and I had to get a shot. I was like - what is this all about? As soon as I pop out of the truck the people in the garage called out - we aren't selling anything. We are just cleaning out the garage. Which made me laugh.

They said they had so many people stopping that they had to keep adding signs! And that is just hilarious.

Because I'm illiterate.

While on our daycation one night, I turned to Mr S and said - can you read this email? I think this person is backhandedly insulting me. But I'm not sure. Then I hand my phone to Mr S. to read.

When he didn't respond right away, I started to laugh because my husband wasn't running to my defense.

Him - I don't think they are intentionally insulting you. But you do have a unique take on grammar. With your random punctuation and non linear narrative.

Me - Yeah, but that is what makes me interesting! I could go back and write properly, but I write the way I talk. You think I'm illiterate!

Him - No.... you are just not bound by the repressive rules of grammar.

Then he goes on to tell me a story about how all the great Jazz musicians didn't follow the rules.

Him - You are to English grammar what Jazz is to music.

Which I thought was a nice way to placate me. However the next morning in the shower I was thinking about the conversation and I was like ...... wait a second! No one likes Jazz!

If the person who sent me that email is reading this - I wasn't insulted. It just made me laugh.

The deets.

I fell into a ditch of drama this week, so I'm late in getting you details. We did a two night, one day,  daycation to Visit Table Mountain.

Originally I wanted to stay up in Oroville, but ALL of the hotels were full, and the Airbnb's were charging Las Vegas level prices. So we settled in a little town called Colusa which apparently is the most conservative city in California.  You know it was a conservative town because both mornings we got woken up with The Star Spangled Banner chiming out from the churches. They also gave you a chaser of some other religious song. But the first morning I was like..... whaaaaat the hell. It's the star spangled banner. Mr S was like no. But by morning two you could easily make out the chimes.

It was also the sort of town that was nicely walkable from our airbnb. So I could drink as much as I wanted. But when you walked in the bar, literally everyone in there turned around. You could see the "you're not from around here" rolling around in their heads.

After we booked I also found out that Jerry Brown was going to retire there. No Jerry Brown sightings, but wow..... that was a small town. And their water smells funny. What's up with that? We thought it was the airbnb, but when we got up to Table Mountain we were like - all of their water smells funny.

Daycation.

More later.

Is this going to have to be a "thing" now?

BMW i8 Catches Fire, Gets Dunked in Water.

"Last week a BMW i8 that was put up for display inside a showroom in the Netherlands started smoking for unknown reasons, according to the Tilburg fire department. As people started freaking out and phones started calling the emergency services, the car apparently didn’t explode, but the firefighters did proceed to use a rather unusual means of making sure the fire was put out. As you can see from the photos, the car was simply dunked in a container filled with water."

I don't feel like snarfing their photo, so you will just have to go to the link. But it is a wild world when you have to fully submerge a car to get it to stop burning. This has to affect insurance rates eventually right?

I mean, cars catch on fire all the time. But I would say submerging a car definitely totals it if it weren't before.

As a side note - those i8's didn't really seem to sell all that well. So I'm sure some owners are happy if one burns. As an owner of a ghost brand - buy up all the floor mats you can. Those are the things you can't find years later. Oddly.

We are ~totally~ heading for a recession.

‘There’s no way’ we’re headed for recession—five experts on the bond market’s warning sign.

I think we have reached the phase in the cycle when you have to start reading the news opposite way. Every day I wake up and people are trying to convince me we are not heading for a recession. They say we can't import a recession. Not gonna happen.

Honestly, I don't know how things can feel so good when economic numbers are about the same as they were in 2008. Minus all the housing bloodbath. We are frogs indeed.

What the Democrats don't understand is - the reason why we voted for Trump is because he fights back. And the Mueller case is a perfect example. We are exhausted by the Democrats getting to say anything they want and just get away with it.

If this would have been Romney or any of the Never Trumpers - they would have rolled over like a whipped dog and apologized. Most of the Republican Party is just spineless.

It's just that simple.

Went to install our poodle lights and they have the wrong connector. Man my projects are fighting me lately.

Today did not go as advertised.

I'm not sure how to really describe today. We drove a couple hours north to Thunderhill Raceway where there was suppose to be autonomous car racing. Which I don't really think is going to be a thing. But I thought there were going to be some cool cars there and this guy.

He's sort of been radio silent for a while, and I wanted to see if he'd made any progress.  I'd heard through the rumor mill that his stuff has only been tested in a very geofenced environment.

Anyway... we roll up at about 1:30 and there are just a few cars there with sensors and Velodyne of course. The above shot is Velodyne on the track with their latest Lidar. We watch the cars that are there go around the track, but they all have their hands on the steering wheels. We hang out for a couple of hours. Later I find out that this car wasn't even autonomous. He was just helping out and managed to get his car on the track. Great glamor shot though. Right?

If you guys read anything about autonomous racing and Thunderhill send it over to me because allegedly some super legit media was there. I'm not sure if all of these guys pealed off as soon as the media left. But I'm curious how they might talk about it.




There was an Embark Semi there, with the driver. Which was super nice. I want to talk to real people about these things. Not marking hype. Since we seem to live in a world of hysteria about these trucks taking peoples jobs - I had a lot of questions. Namely, what is the feedback you get about these trucks - because I see them creating more jobs than destroying them. For every driver you take out of the cabin, many more people will be needed to make cameras and sensors. And I'm not going to do that "just learn to code shit", but seriously - these guys are teaching truckers to code for their field.

I talked to him a lot about going from a blue collar job to a white collar job. Which is essentially what will happen with truckers. Unless you've done that, you don't really understand how different those two worlds are. I have which is why I have certain beliefs about the world. I think truckers love their jobs, but I think it's hard on your body and your family. Especially your family.  The best way to lose a wife is to leave her alone for long periods of time.



Mounting lidar to mirrors seems to be a big trend right now.





We finally bailed around 3. And on the road home ran into a giant hail storm! I'm pretty sure I've seen hail more this month than I almost have in my entire life in California. It's a bit of an exaggeration, but I think this might be the third or fourth time this month. I have never had to pull off the freeway due to hail. At one point the whole freeway came to a stop and I didn't want to get hit from behind. All of these people next to the arrow are pulled off onto the berm. They are not in a lane. I pulled way off into the mud area because I didn't want to get berm punched.



This guy apparently lost control and wound up in the middle. It was a little chaotic for a second. We can barely drive in rain little alone enough hail to start building up.

That sounds like the grossest thing ever.

The world's first VR gym is opening in San Francisco. We tried it.

I hope the guy who used the gear right before you isn't a big sweater.

Does anyone know where my weed taxes are going? Asking for a friend. Not even the pot shops seem to know.

I would love to know what this guys story is.

I first started seeing this guy around a couple of years ago. At the time he seemed to have a clever brute force way of doing holographic images from a phone or tablet. But it's been three years now, technology moves on in a lot of different ways. I'm not sure I think it's as cool now. But that is not the reason for this post.

I've seen him possibly a handful of times now. Outside of the first time I interacted with him, he basically won't engage. Won't answer questions. Seems insulted if you try. Wears headphones to prove his point that he's not interested in talking with you. But I keep seeing him carry this item around, and literally no one seems interested in it.  What is up with that? He usually doesn't even have an image displaying on it, so you aren't even really attracted to the device in any way.

This last shot is blurry because he will literally try to evade you in any way he can. Which really just makes me want to take more pictures of him and I know it's not right. But that is human nature. If he just talked to me for a second, I'm sure I would become disinterested enough to leave him alone. As time goes on, I'm not even sure how he's going to make an actual product out of that. The link above gives you a much better look at the device.

The internet makes them seem more terrifying than they are.

Finally got to see one of these things.  It was leashed - not tethered.

They were showing off how well it was able to balance on this rolling cylinder.  The setup was more like those old timey pendulum swings that you played on as a kid. It was not free roaming. I imagine you wouldn't be as impressed because even robotic arms are still really slow and methodical. The power of the internet though makes them scaaaareeeeey.

Still waiting.

Auto stocks fall after BMW warns of global economic slowdown, trade trouble.

But......... Tesla is still fine........ right? Said in the most sarcastic way. No one seemed to notice this headline from a few weeks ago. But I did.

Moody’s downgrades auto industry outlook from stable to negative on falling demand. Or this one from the middle of Feb.

Cars are driving us toward recession. Which basically confirmed what I had heard in the rumor mill about people in Europe almost have stopped buying cars.

Thank goodness Powel came out with that bullshit about Europe still having growth. I mean, he is technically right. which my husband says is the best kind of right. But at .02% growth... Europe is basically at stall speed. Thank gawd no one in America pays attention to anything outside of the US...... so looks legit. Right?

Red.

I really only became aware of this company about a year ago. This was while they were trying to get the phone together. There was some talk in the rumor mill. Which is why when Mr S. wanted to buy one of those phones I was like ........ that company? That's going to be an orphan phone! Don't do it. But I'm glad he didn't listen to me. The Red Hydrogen phones are fun enough. Not perfect. Hopefully just getting people to use them in real everyday life will help them improve.

But the phones are apparently based on the above camera. I've been wanting to see one. I guess these run in the ......... 60 thousand dollar range. It even makes me laugh to write that number. I guess these do 8k video, and the thing that stood out to me was these camera have TWO fans on the top. They must run HOT.

They have turned out to be much scrappier than I expected and I like they are trying to create something new. I mean, 3D isn't new - but being able to see it on a phone is.

I'm planting seeds People. Planting seeds.

I was chatting with a guy working an Nvidia boot today.

Me - I'm surprised you don't have Nvidia branded puddle lights.

He looks at me and we both smile.

Me - you are branded everywhere else....It would be cool to see it when the doors open.

Him - that's not a bad idea.

(because you are all just clowns for my amusement. I'm helping YOU entertain ME so I can then entertain you.)

And that's how I wound up with puddle lights.

And a new project. As soon as they get to my door.

The only real reason I stopped to get this R8 was because it was at the Home Depo I was leaving. It's always sort of fun to wonder - what does this guy pick up in an R8! There is zero room in those things. That's pretty baller.

I'm getting shots of the car with the Home Depo in the background when the guy walks up and we start chatting. I always want to know if he's had to have a brake job yet. It's always one of the first questions I ask. And I'm sure it's rude, but I like to think of it as a warning to them. Some day when they hit that landmine they will think of me ever so slightly. Like - oh yeah, that girl said these brakes would be spendy. And she wasn't kidding. But you do sort of expect that with an R8. Not in my car.

My car is not an R8, but I think the brakes run about what it costs on one of these cars.  Which was a shock let me tell you. I think I have almost the most expensive brakes on the planet! It's a very memorable sum.

The second question I always ask is if the doors project anything on the ground. Every since I saw Audi did that - I ask all the R8 owners if they have it. I don't think I've had anyone else say yes. I must have asked at least a dozen guys at this point! But this guy, he's like - oh,  the puddle lights? You can get those for your car. They are really easy to replace. Who even knew they had a name?!

One youtube video later.......and amazon is sending me this shit. Get on my credit card! Some of them you can get really cheaply. Like 15 bucks for four.

Then of course I  have to ask about the ticket thing too. But bla bla bla. Who cares! I can't even believe I love these door projector lights. It's super tardly. And no I'm not stopping saying that word. Pictures later.

Sometimes the hardest part is just starting.

Every once in a while  my ADD gets the better of me and just shuts me down. Nothing seems worth talking about. And it's hard to get the words out of my head anyway. There is just too much information swirling in my head. It sort of overloads the system.

Closer.

It sort of feels like the old timey hummer days.

There is nothing quite so depressing than to roll up to a car show and have it filled with SUV's. I just don't get it. I'm sure the minivan sector is getting caved thank gawd - but still. They all look the same. I just don't get it. I can barely even tell them apart. Even Rolls has an SUV right now. SUV's just feel like the cheaper hummer equivalent.

It sort of feels like the end of the last recession when everyone started buying things that looked exactly the same. Little boxes, little boxes, and they all look the same. But at least I was able to find a couple of things that were not SUV's.



I think the kids are into the distressed look right now.







A guy in the East bay is doing these ceiling runners. He's called Stars on the Ceiling.







Audi broke my heart, and the RS5. I just realized this week that the new models don't have a pop up wing. They have a faux wing. They ruined it. No flappy paddles. No naturally aspirated engines. And this ridiculous wing. If you can call it that. Why bother!

Oh - this is interesting.

Waymo Starts Selling Sensors to Lower Cost of Self-Driving Cars.

"Waymo is set on Wednesday to begin selling the laser-mapping sensors used on its driverless vehicles to other companies—as long as the customers don’t compete with its core robotaxi business. The sensors, known as lidar, shoot lasers off objects to determine what’s nearby. The next generation of warehouse robots, security systems, and even autonomous tractors could all be built with this technology."

So.... Google is going to crush all of the Lidar companies. Awesome.

It just doesn't stop.

US households see biggest decline in net worth since the financial crisis.

This theme is starting to get really pervasive now.