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California tech billionaire launches Senate campaign to take on Tesla
- georgewfraser 5y agoGoing to hazard a guess that he’s mad that Tesla isn’t a customer of his embedded-software-testing product https://www.ghs.com/ https://www.ghs.com/
- ParksNet 5y agoThis is just political targeting of Elon Musk for daring to take on Twitter.
- boznz 5y agoIs it possible to be a billionaire and not be an arsehole too ?
- 31098347 5y agoMacKenzie Scott has been giving away a ton of money recently. Don't know if that puts her in a better category.
- psyc 5y agoIt worked for Bill Gates temporarily. Has Warren Buffet been canc^H^H^Honsequenced yet?
- vernie 5y agoNo.
- micromacrofoot 5y agoYou don’t make a billion dollars by being generous to other people.
- hiyer 5y agoChuck Feeney would disagree. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuck_Feeney https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuck_Feeney
- micromacrofoot 5y agoHe didn't get rich by giving it away though? He also gave a bunch of it to already wealthy institutions like Cornell, so even the philanthropy is kind of typical billionaire nonsense.
- spikels 5y agoYou can’t be a billionaire without lots of people calling you an asshole.
- kccqzy 5y agoAh Dan O’Dowd. He was an early customer of Tesla, and I recall him bragging about owning two red Tesla Roadsters and a Model S. In any case, I fail to see someone with only one main agenda item could win the Senate. What are his viewpoints on other issues?
- toast0 5y agoDepends on the agenda item. I don't think highway safety is a big issue for single issue voters. Things like wars, abortion, civil rights, slavery, voting rights, etc could be enough in the right state at the right time.
- hiyer 5y ago> Ah Dan O’Dowd. He was an early customer of Tesla, and I recall him bragging about owning two red Tesla Roadsters and a Model S. Well, he doesn't seem to be opposed to Teslas in general - just the self-driving tech.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- dangrossman 5y agoI heard a rumor that the guy just wanted to run these TV ads about Tesla, and that he became a political candidate first because political ads have certain legal protections other ads don't, so Tesla can't easily get an injunction to stop them from running. Any truth to that?
- sabertoothed 5y agoDan O’Dowd's campaign is dishonest. One can criticise Tesla's Autopilot and even self-driving in general. But then do it honestly.
- bigtones 5y agoI've never heard of Green Hills Software. Looks like they make an RTOS and have a website from the 1990's. Note that this guys company makes a product that is a competitor to Tesla's Autopilot software, so he is not impartial.
- stefan_ 5y agoYou know what the term RTOS is, yet have not heard of Green Hills Software, but are also qualified to say they are a competitor to "Tesla Autopilot" (which they are obviously not)?
- fiddlerwoaroof 5y agoThey didn’t say that the RTOS is the competitor to Autopilot. But this is: https://www.ghs.com/news/20220224_nxp_radar_L2plus_automotive.html https://www.ghs.com/news/20220224_nxp_radar_L2plus_automotiv...
- stefan_ 5y agoAnd AMD scored a design win with the Xbox, but we don't say they are a competitor to Nintendo.
- WheelsAtLarge 5y agoI saw the ads yesterday. But he picked the wrong issue to fight. He has a point. Tesla is being a bit reckless but the issue is not big enough for most people to care. Most people don't own a Tesla and even if they do full self driving is clearly marketed as experimental even if you get a different idea from the CEO as he pushes the technology. He's built himself a bubble where the people around him think it's a big deal but ultimately he's just wasting his money.
- slg 5y agoOn one hand he is voicing valid concerns. On the other hand, with everything wrong in the world I can't fathom why someone would find this so important to center their senate campaign around it or for a billionaire to focus their energy on stopping it. This guy is doing both when the effort could be spent countless other ways that would save/improve more lives.
- Beltiras 5y agoName of the game is traction by any means available. Sounds cynical but I've been following politics closely for some 40 years.
- atonse 5y agoerrr who are the people advising this guy that Tesla self driving technology is in the top 10 list of political issues in anyone’s list, anywhere? I’m a Tesla owner, and I’ve got concerns about their self driving tech being flaky, and I still can’t get myself to care enough that it’s an issue worth wasting a CA senate seat on. is this a case of a completely sheltered billionaire thinking their pet issue is remotely important to the masses?
- tastyfreeze 5y ago<tinfoil hat> Tesla, or Musk, specifically, won't play ball with the agenda so must be made into an example.
- nostromo 5y agoIt's so odd to see Musk become a boogeyman for the political left. I'm hard pressed to name a single individual that's doing more to combat global warming than Musk is via fleet electrification.
- antifa 5y agoAll the good things you are ascribing credit to Musk for is done by workers of companies he bought, he didn't found or invent most of these companies. It's great that he thinks SciFi is cool, but in reality he's more of an Edison than a Tesla.
- micromacrofoot 5y agohe’s a libertarian billionaire with a bunch of worker abuse claims at his companies, and you can’t imagine why the left doesn’t like him? I’m amazed anyone likes him.
- psyc 5y agoIs it odd, though? Anyone who gets loud without signaling unambiguously that they're one of them, gets called out for something. It's the same reason I'm about to get
- moralestapia 5y agoElectricity comes mostly from fossil fuels, so, while I side with your premise, it hasn't happened yet.
- karpierz 5y agoI think it's all the union busting, anti-vax/anti-tax stuff.
- rvz 5y agoFSD (Fools self driving) is the deception created by Tesla, misleading customers to purchase a package (and even hiking prices for upgrades on some unlucky customers) that does not work as advertised, malfunctions and has mountains of safety hazards which also is putting the lives of other drivers at risk. This contraption is long overdue for a formal investigation.
- electrondood 5y agoNothing you just said is true, and your bias is evident.
- rvz 5y ago> Nothing you just said is true. So you're telling me (even despite all the evidence) that it functions as advertised with no serious malfunctions in the software and that it is not showing to be a risk on the public roads such that the regulators are not considering to launch a formal investigated over the dangers of this supposed safety-critical system? I don't think you're ready to even begin to refute the evidence around this. > and your bias is evident. ? What bias exactly?
- tristanb 5y agoWorks just fine for my two cars thanks... I feel like you haven't driven one?
- rvz 5y ago> Works just fine for my two cars thanks.. This just reads 'Works fine on my machine'. > I feel like you haven't driven one? One does not need to be a beta tester or a crash test dummy to see enough reports and tests from others over the years, risking their lives on using this 'safety-critical' beta quality software to know that this contraption needs to be investigated and the reports speak for themselves. [0] [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [0] https://youtu.be/sbSDsbDQjSU?t=206 https://youtu.be/sbSDsbDQjSU?t=206 [1] https://twitter.com/greentheonly/status/1473307236952940548 https://twitter.com/greentheonly/status/1473307236952940548 [2] https://www.theverge.com/2021/11/12/22778135/tesla-full-self-driving-beta-crash-fsd-california https://www.theverge.com/2021/11/12/22778135/tesla-full-self... [3] https://twitter.com/JordanTeslaTech/status/1418413307862585344 https://twitter.com/JordanTeslaTech/status/14184133078625853... [4] https://twitter.com/TaylorOgan/status/1478802681141645322 https://twitter.com/TaylorOgan/status/1478802681141645322
- pat_space 5y ago"Others familiar with the rollout stressed that O’Dowd’s team has privately been adamant he’s not trying to unseat freshman Democratic Sen. Alex Padilla, who was appointed last year when Kamala Harris ascended to the vice president job. Instead, O’Dowd’s play for the Senate is likely being carried out as a cost-saving measure and to significantly enhance the likelihood that networks will air his TV spots. Running for office entitles him to the lowest available ad rate in the run-up to the election — a perk that could save him considerable money depending on the ultimate spend. But a bigger advantage, two people familIar with his plans said, is the higher degree of first amendment protection a political run could give him for his loaded claims against Tesla." This is why. Sweet deal on the airtime. Source: https://www.politico.com/news/2022/04/16/don-odowd-elon-musk-00025688 https://www.politico.com/news/2022/04/16/don-odowd-elon-musk...
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- aurizon 5y agoHow sweet it would be for Musk to run against him - and win, but Musk might not want to wallow in that mudhole...
- olsonjeffery 5y agoGiven his challenges at running companies without massive handouts & subsidization, he might be a great fit for US politics. Shame that he can’t be president, we deserve him even more than Trump.
- aurizon 5y agoYes, the USA sorely needs improved manglement...
- vmception 5y agoThis still works even if everyone knows?
- roughly 5y agoA basic problem for the Democrats is that the Democratic billionaires run vanity campaigns while the Republican billionaires just buy elections.
- ransom1538 5y agoYeah! Last election was stolen by Republican Russians using Facebook ads! Wait...
- lern_too_spel 5y agohttps://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/documents/Report_Volume2.pdf https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/docu... "The Committee found that paid advertisements were not key to the IRA's activity, and moreover, are not alone an accurate measure of the IRA's operational scope, scale, or objectives, despite this aspect of social media being a focus of early press reporting and public awareness."
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- ransom1538 5y agoRight. "paid advertisements were not key to the IRA's activity" That makes sense. Buying ads isn't a massive right wing-Russian conspiracy. But who cares now? lol.
- lern_too_spel 5y agoThe massive Russian troll farms making posts was the conspiracy. You made up a straw man.
- Flankk 5y agoI was initially on Tesla's side of this debacle. Innovation is good and Tesla is definitely innovating. Over time it's becoming more clear that Elon pushes for engineering marvels to happen on an unrealistic timeline. I suppose it's a net positive as the team is driven to fulfil their potential. If they could start doing that without driving over pedestrians it would be even better.
- 1970-01-01 5y agoThe very large boast from https://danodowd.com https://danodowd.com tells me he is either a joke or detached from modern security: I designed and wrote the core security system for our nuclear forces, military and commercial aircraft, Top Secret encryptors, laptops for FBI field agents, and military cellphones and radios. This software has been certified by the NSA to Common Criteria EAL6+, a higher level of security certification than achieved by any other software. Has your security “expert” ever designed and written the security software for a system that never fails and can’t be hacked? Or, do they claim that no one can write software that never fails and can’t be hacked? I do it every day.
- sabertoothed 5y agoHis website makes him look like a narcissist.
- runnerup 5y agoVery few people who run for government are not narcissists.
- Zaheer 5y agoSome gems from his FAQ: > If you have been able to produce software that never fails and can’t be hacked for the last 25 years why aren’t you a billionaire? > I am a billionaire, but my software has been mainly used by the military, and I have kept a low profile until now. https://dawnproject.com/about-our-founder/ https://dawnproject.com/about-our-founder/
- daenz 5y agoTo be fair, CVs, resumes, interviews are where you're supposed to promote yourself without reserve.
- sabertoothed 5y agoYeah, but statements like this one really make me cringe: "I can find every bug in any program I write" (from: https://danodowd.com/ https://danodowd.com/). No, you cannot. Unless you define bug as something syntactical.
- Barrin92 5y ago>"The government continues to allow Tesla to put unregulated, dangerous, and defective software on the street in the hands of 60,000 untrained drivers," That is accurate, one only needs to look at the self driving behavior on display in Youtube videos by what appear to be largely untrained people but it's an odd thing to center an entire campaign around. Would have been better to expand this to a more general debate about algorithmic decision making. From policing software, to surveillance, and self-driving among other things. There are many areas where citizens have become unwilling participants in software beta tests, not just when it comes to driving.
- bob1029 5y agoThe self driving thing is pretty much the only engineering/marketing angle I cannot get behind. That makes this very conflicting for me. I wonder - If Elon had to come out tomorrow and say "Sorry, we are terminating the self-driving program, effective immediately", what the impact would be to the biz and markets.
- AvAn12 5y agoI smell a rat. Could this guy be a stalking horse? Run as a Democrat on a crazy platform so as to discredit Democrats? And/or aim to stir up such outrage against a self-driving prohibition so that congress passes a contrary law to have the feds pay for research into self-driving cars? (Sorry if this sounds like tin-foil hat stuff - it's been a long day...)
- carimura 5y ago"never fails and can't be hacked" must be his campaign slogan. Featured 14 times as that exact phrase on his about us page [1]. [1] https://dawnproject.com/about-our-founder/ https://dawnproject.com/about-our-founder/
- JaggedJax 5y agoThis is a quick way to sully the name Green Hill Software. I honestly thought much more of them before learning about O’Dowd today.
- gr33nq 5y agoJust saw a 60-second prime time commercial from him on CBS News: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6NoQGKOC2s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6NoQGKOC2s
- tsuujin 5y ago> Its goal is to replace software in critical infrastructure to ensure it can neither fail nor be hacked. Tell me you don’t understand technology without telling me you don’t understand technology.