{"id":9445,"date":"2012-07-06T16:15:28","date_gmt":"2012-07-06T16:15:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.diaryofanadi.co.uk\/?p=9445"},"modified":"2012-07-06T16:15:28","modified_gmt":"2012-07-06T16:15:28","slug":"you-have-to-laugh-sometimes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/diaryofanadi.co.uk\/?p=9445","title":{"rendered":"You Have To Laugh Sometimes"},"content":{"rendered":"

A story on the BBC Technology website tells<\/font><\/a> of a new car headlight that can – and I quote – \u201cshine \u2018around\u2019 rain\u201d. True to the BBC\u2019s objective of dumbing things down, there will now be a whole raft of people under the impression that light can go round corners!<\/p>\n

\"Curved<\/p>\n

In actual fact, what this new headlight – which is in extremely early experimental stages – can do is pick up raindrops on a camera, calculate where they are likely to fall, then turn off light shining in that direction. It takes about 13 milliseconds to do this.<\/p>\n

In tests, they managed to block out 79% of raindrops on a thunderstorm at 20mph, but only 20% of them at 60mph. They are dimmer than ordinary lights because they remove some of the radiation. One must assume that the more rain is in the air, the dimmer they are – which seems counterproductive to me.<\/p>\n

On a more practical note, there is already a problem with those so-called adaptive headlights dazzling people and getting broken, and even BMW admits they are hard to keep working for the lifetime of a car. Given that most types contain sensors and motors to move them, the number of things that can go wrong (and the cost of repairing them) is much higher than with the traditional fixed type. Having a camera, beam splitter, and projector in there as well is obviously a huge step towards simplification. Not.<\/p>\n

I also love the way that people gush about the road safety advantages of adaptive lights shining around corners, when the greatest safety benefits would be gained from having to go slower – not being able to do it faster! I mean, it\u2019s Audis and BMWs that usually have these things, and those drivers really do not need any further encouragement or justification to drive like prats.<\/p>\n

Being able to drive faster in the rain is just asking for trouble.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A story on the BBC Technology website tells of a new car headlight that can – and I quote – \u201cshine \u2018around\u2019 rain\u201d. True to the BBC\u2019s objective of dumbing things down, there will now be a whole raft of people under the impression that light can go round corners! In actual fact, what this […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[80,90,87,92],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9445","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adi-related","category-computer-tech-related","category-news","category-transport"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t